Author: KB
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University | Time Wasting | Raw Information
I spoke at the SCM national gathering in York last weekend, and drew some thoughts together from my book Other about the apparently universal importance of a period of interruption in the transition from adolescence to full adulthood. This interruption is generally accompanied by a period of removal or withdrawal from the host community. We…
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There Is No Original | 3D Printing | Object Piracy
Occasionally an article catches one’s eye that genuinely opens a raft of interesting new thoughts. That happened to the other day when I read this Guardian piece about a new area of Pirate Bay that offers templates for 3D printers to clone figures for Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Lord of the Rings table-top games. Up…
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Religion for Atheists | Atheism for the Religious…
I’ve not yet read the full book that Alain de Botton has been promoting recently, but I’ve read a number of interviews and heard him speak, and browsed his website: religionforatheists.com and I wanted to post a couple of first-thoughts about his thesis. Firstly, he’s being unashamed to say that he is ‘picking and mixing’…
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SOPA | Internet Piracy
In the most high-profile action against the US Senate’s ‘Protect Intellectual Property’ Bill (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ ‘Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Wikipedia has begun an English language black-out of its main site. As you’ll know if you read here often, I’m in the depths of a book-length piece on piracy. The aim…
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If You’re Reading This, You Have a Duty to Listen to This | Chinese Piracy
If you’re reading this blog post, you are almost certainly doing so on a digital device made in China. And that means you’re almost certainly doing so on a device made in Shenzhen. Don’t know where Shenzhen is? Neither did I. It’s here: View Larger Map It’s a city bigger than New York or London,…
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Non-Excludable, Non-Rival : The Upside-Down Economics of Good Ideas
Some thoughts to share on sharing thoughts… “If you have an apple, and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, then you and I will still have one apple. But if you have an idea, and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” George Bernard…