05
Jan
2018
Jan
2018
Meltdown and Spectre
Meltdown and Spectre
Bugs in modern computers leak passwords and sensitive data.
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more on cybersecurity in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cybersecurity
Searching for "data"
15
Dec
2017
Dec
2017
FCC votes to kill net neutrality
categories: Digital literacy, information technology
FCC Votes to Kill Net Neutrality, Capping a Year of Endless Bullshit
https://gizmodo.com/fcc-votes-to-kill-net-neutrality-capping-a-year-of-end-1821257779
In a 3-2 vote along party lines, the Republican-led commission decided to eliminate the current net neutrality rules and remove the shackles that prevent ISPs from blocking online content, slowing a competitor’s website, or charging you extra just to access YouTube. (You can read the dissenting opinions here.) It paves the way for an ISP free-for-all, baby, and you can bet telecom executives have plenty of lucrative plans in mind that we haven’t even considered.
15
Dec
2017
Dec
2017
corporate monopoly or public control net neutrality
categories: Digital literacy, information technology
Net Neutrality is just the beginning
Interview with Victor Pickard
Victor Pickard, associate professor of communication at the University Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School, whose research focuses on internet policy and the political economy of media.
https://www.academia.edu/35305972/Net_Neutrality_Is_Just_the_Beginning
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/11/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai-monopoly
with each new victory for the American telecommunications oligopoly, that digital optimism fades further from view.
Definition:
Net neutrality protections are essentially safeguards that prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from interfering with the internet. Net neutrality gives the FCC the regulatory authority to prevent ISPs like Comcast and Verizon from slowing down or blocking certain types of content. It also prevents them from offering what’s known as paid prioritization, where an ISP could let particular websites or content creators pay more for faster streaming and download times. With paid prioritization an ISP could shake down a company like Netflix or an individual website owner, coercing them to pay more in order to be in the fast lane.
Net neutrality often gets treated as a sort of technocratic squabble over ownership and control of internet pipes. But in fact it speaks to a core social contract between government, corporations, and the public. What it really comes down to is, how can members of the public obtain information and services, and express ourselves creatively and politically, without interference from massive corporations?
Should we think of the internet as a good, a service, an infrastructure, or something else?
It’s all of the above.
The internet has been radically privatized. It wasn’t inevitable, but through policy decisions over the years, the internet has become increasingly commodified. Meanwhile it’s really difficult to imagine living in modern society without fast internet services — it’s no longer a luxury but a necessity for everything ranging from education to health to livelihood. The “digital divide” is a phrase that sounds like it’s from the 1990s, but it’s still very relevant. Somewhere around one fifth of American households don’t have access to wireline broadband services. It’s a social problem. We should be thinking about the internet as a public service and subsidizing it to make sure that everyone has access.
In your recent book on media democracy, you discuss the rise of what you call “corporate libertarianism.” What is corporate libertarianism and how does it relate to net neutrality?
Corporate libertarianism is an ideological project that has origins at a core moment in the 1940s. It sees corporations as having individual freedoms, like those in the First Amendment, which they can use to shield themselves from public interest oversight and regulation. It’s also often connected to this assumption that the government should never intervene in markets, and media markets in particular. (My note: Milton Friedman)
Of course, this is a libertarian mythology — the government is always involved. The question ought to be how it should be involved. Under corporate libertarianism it’s assumed that the government should only be involved in ways that enhance profit maximization for communication oligopolies.
There are clear dangers associated with vertical integration, where the company that owns the pipes is able to control the dissemination of information, and able to set the terms by which we access that information.
There have been cases like this already. In 2005, the company Telus, which is the second largest telecommunications company in Canada, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website that supported a labor strike against Telus.
Net neutrality is just one part of the story. What other regulations, policies and interventions could resist corporate control of the internet?
Roughly half of Americans live in communities that have access to only one ISP. My note: Ha Ha Ha, “pick me, pick me,” as Dori from “Finding Nemo” will say… Charter, whatever they will rename themselves again, is the crass example in Central MN.
Strategies to contain and confront monopolies:
- break them up, and to prevent monopolies and oligopolies from happening in the first place by blocking mergers and acquisitions.
- if we’re not going to outright nationalize them then we want to heavily regulate them, and enforce some kind of social contract where they’re compelled to provide a public service in exchange for the right to operate.
- create public alternatives, like municipal wireless networks that can circumvent and compete with corporate monopolies. There’s a growing number of these publicly owned and governed internet infrastructures, and building more is crucial.
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more on #netNeutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
11
Dec
2017
Dec
2017
top ten speech recognition APIs
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-top-ten-speech-recognition-APIs
Online short utterance
1) Google Speech API – best speech technology, recently announced to be available for commercial use. Currently in beta status. Google also has separate APIs for Android OS and Javascript API for Chrome.
2) Microsoft Cognitive Services – Bing Speech API same from Microsoft, many different nice addons like voice authentication
3) API.AI – analyses intent, not simply recognizes speech. Useful to build command applications, belongs to Google.
There are also offerings from Amazon, Facebook and many others.
Online large files
4) Speechmatics – large vocabulary transcription in the cloud, US and UK English, high accuracy.
5) Vocapia Speech to Text API – not very user friendly, but a good technology
Offline Proprietary
6) Speech Engine_IFLYTEK CO.,LTD. not very well known Chinese company, but it continuously excels in competitions.
7) UWP Speech recognition from Microsoft for Universal Windows Platform
Open Source
8) CMU Sphinx – Speech Recognition Toolkit – offline speech recognition, due to low resource requirements can be used on mobile. OpenEars – Pocketsphinx on iOS, there are also APIs for Node.js, Ruby, Java, Android bindings.
9) Kaldi – speech recognition toolkit for research. UFAL-DSG/cloud-asr – Kaldi-based cloud platform, alumae/kaldi-gstreamer-server – another kaldi-based cloud platform. iOS Speech Recognition – kaldi adopted for offline recognition on iOS from Keen Research.
30
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
weaponizing the web RT hybrid war
categories: Digital literacy, information technology
Fake news and botnets: how Russia weaponised the web
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/02/fake-news-botnets-how-russia-weaponised-the-web-cyber-attack-estonia
The digital attack that brought Estonia to a standstill 10 years ago was the first shot in a cyberwar that has been raging between Moscow and the west ever since
It began at exactly 10pm on 26 April, 2007, when a Russian-speaking mob began rioting in the streets of Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, killing one person and wounding dozens of others. That incident resonates powerfully in some of the recent conflicts in the US. In 2007, the Estonian government had announced that a bronze statue of a heroic second world war Soviet soldier was to be removed from a central city square. For ethnic Estonians, the statue had less to do with the war than with the Soviet occupation that followed it, which lasted until independence in 1991. For the country’s Russian-speaking minority – 25% of Estonia’s 1.3 million people – the removal of the memorial was another sign of ethnic discrimination.
That evening, Jaan Priisalu – a former risk manager for Estonia’s largest bank, Hansabank, who was working closely with the government on its cybersecurity infrastructure – was at home in Tallinn with his girlfriend when his phone rang. On the line was Hillar Aarelaid, the chief of Estonia’s cybercrime police.
“It’s going down,” Aarelaid declared. Alongside the street fighting, reports of digital attacks were beginning to filter in. The websites of the parliament, major universities, and national newspapers were crashing. Priisalu and Aarelaid had suspected something like this could happen one day. A digital attack on Estoniahad begun.
“The Russian theory of war allows you to defeat the enemy without ever having to touch him,” says Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible. “Estonia was an early experiment in that theory.”
Since then, Russia has only developed, and codified, these strategies. The techniques pioneered in Estonia are known as the “Gerasimov doctrine,” named after Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian military. In 2013, Gerasimov published an article in the Russian journal Military-Industrial Courier, articulating the strategy of what is now called “hybrid” or “nonlinear” warfare. “The lines between war and peace are blurred,” he wrote. New forms of antagonism, as seen in 2010’s Arab spring and the “colour revolutions” of the early 2000s, could transform a “perfectly thriving state, in a matter of months, and even days, into an arena of fierce armed conflict”.
Russia has deployed these strategies around the globe. Its 2008 war with Georgia, another former Soviet republic, relied on a mix of both conventional and cyber-attacks, as did the 2014 invasion of Crimea. Both began with civil unrest sparked via digital and social media – followed by tanks. Finland and Sweden have experienced near-constant Russian information operations. Russian hacks and social media operations have also occurred during recent elections in Holland, Germany, and France. Most recently, Spain’s leading daily, El País, reported on Russian meddling in the Catalonian independence referendum. Russian-supported hackers had allegedly worked with separatist groups, presumably with a mind to further undermining the EU in the wake of the Brexit vote.
The Kremlin has used the same strategies against its own people. Domestically, history books, school lessons, and media are manipulated, while laws are passed blocking foreign access to the Russian population’s online data from foreign companies – an essential resource in today’s global information-sharing culture. According to British military researcher Keir Giles, author of Nato’s Handbook of Russian Information Warfare, the Russian government, or actors that it supports, has even captured the social media accounts of celebrities in order to spread provocative messages under their names but without their knowledge. The goal, both at home and abroad, is to sever outside lines of communication so that people get their information only through controlled channels.
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24-hour Putin people: my week watching Kremlin ‘propaganda channel’ RT
Tim Dowling Wednesday 29 November 2017 12.39 EST
According to its detractors, RT is Vladimir Putin’s global disinformation service, countering one version of the truth with another in a bid to undermine the whole notion of empirical truth. And yet influential people from all walks of public life appear on it, or take its money. You can’t criticise RT’s standards, they say, if you don’t watch it. So I watched it. For a week.
Suchet, the son of former ITV newsreader John Suchet and the nephew of actor David Suchet, has been working for RT since 2009. The offspring of well-known people feature often on RT. Sophie Shevardnadze, who presents Sophie & Co, is the granddaughter of former Georgian president and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze. Tyrel Ventura, who presents Watching the Hawks on RT America, is the son of wrestler-turned-politician Jesse Ventura. His co-host is Oliver Stone’s son Sean.
My note; so this is why Oliver Stone in his “documentary” went gentle on Putin, so his son can have a job. #Nepotism #FakeNews
RT’s stated mission is to offer an “alternative perspective on major global events”, but the world according to RT is often downright surreal.
Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, about Putin’s Russia, and now a senior visiting fellow in global affairs at the London School of Economics, was in Moscow working in television when Russia Today first started hiring graduates from Britain and the US. “The people were really bright, they were being paid well,” he says. But they soon found they were being ordered to change their copy, or instructed how to cover certain stories to reflect well on the Kremlin. “Everyone had their own moment when they first twigged that this wasn’t like the BBC,” he says. “That, actually, this is being dictated from above.” The coverage of Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008 was a lightbulb moment for many, he says. They quit.
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more on Russian bots, trolls:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/11/22/bots-trolls-and-fake-news/
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more on state propaganda in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/11/21/china-of-xi/
28
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
PALS at CATT
Campus Academic Technology Teams Webinar:
Online Education Report:
PALS: Enhancing Library System Solutions
PALS is housed in Mankato, 40+ years, shared by all MnSCU institutions. smaller libraries with smaller staff benefit.
Funding: Centrally from the Chancellor Office and privately.
Ex Libris. Alma (management software) discovery software is Primo. Implementation from Sept 2017 to 2019
value-added services? A value–added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-coreservices, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business.
Value-added service – Wikipedia
The new library system: backroom processing: – acquisitions – resources management (phys + electr) – analytics / reports /APIs
fulfillment : circulation and ILL
Discovery (Primo)
– phys + electr
– institution, consortium, remote resources
advantanges:
Hosted apps
web-based staff interface (until now on Windows)
all in one vs four separate apps – staff efficiency, common services, student success?
electronic resource management
Electronic resource management (ERM) is the practices and techniques used by librarians and library staff to track the selection, acquisition, licensing, access, maintenance, usage, evaluation, retention, and de-selection of a library’s electronic information resources. These resources include, but are not limited to, electronic journals, electronic books, streaming media, databases, datasets, CD-ROMs, and computer software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_resource_management
Primo – comprehensive discovery
one search point; phys + electr; integrated into central system; academic resources available in central index; analytics and reporting; library consortia
EZ Proxy – provides access to library resources off campus
Islandora – open source digital asset management solution tha preserves, manages, and provide access to docs, unique history (photos, publications); research, other resources
Islandora – open source digital asset management solution tha preserves, manages, and provide access to docs, unique history (photos, publications); research, other resources
Islandora is considered for OER, link to course materials through D2L
Leganto – expensive ExLibris for D2L integration
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Thurs, Nov 30 – continuation from Tues, Nov 28
Islandora. open source digital assessment tool. STCC is using Islandora
Primo is the discovery tool for campus only w subscription. PALS does not fund Primo. PALS does it through state-wide dbases.
Primo is the discovery tool for campus only w subscription. PALS does not fund Primo. PALS does it through state-wide dbases.
ILL of electronic resources among campuses; the new system is making it easier.
your comments about the new system making electronic resources more available : does it mean that I will not have to go through my campus ILL persona can “borrow” directly? or it is too optimistic to expect that?
your comments about the new system making electronic resources more available : does it mean that I will not have to go through my campus ILL persona can “borrow” directly? or it is too optimistic to expect that?
Stephen Kelly: Tim Anderson has shared with me some thoughts on how Islandora can assist with archiving Open Educational Resources (OERs), but could you comment further on that for the benefit of everyone on the call? Answer: safe place to save OER. Drupal-based front end. Customizable. What is the connection to Primo
Stephen Kelly: Could it facilitate easier sharing of resources between institutions? For instance, if an OER was created at one institution and uploaded to Islandora, could it easily be populated for every other institution to access the materials as well?
Piggybacking on Stephen Kelly: are the account permissions similar to the average social media tool, where faculty can decide how “wide” the permission of h/er OER product is? E.g. a blog or YouTube / Kaltura can have: private / unlisted / public levels. Does Islandora function the same?
ownership of the OER.
copyright can be placed on each screen.
23
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
Charles Taylor
categories: academic library
Taylor, C. (2017). Our evolving agenda. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 43(3), 274-275. doi:10.1177/0191453716680433
Neo-Kantian ethics, for its part, tends to separate issues of the good life from what it considers the central questions of justice.
The reigning neo-liberal ideology, and the order it lauds, is meant to produce a maximization of wealth, and hence of means to fulfil our goals, without asking in what ways our frenetic attempts to increase GNP run counter to some of our most important goals: solidarity, the ability to discern and pursue a truly meaningful and fulfilling life, in keeping with our endowment and inclinations. We are either induced to neglect these in favour of playing our part in increasing GNP and/or we never pause to consider questions about what kind of life is best for us and, above all, what we owe to each other in this department
One of the central issues that arises in this context is that of democracy. After 1945, and then 1989, and then again in 2011 with the Arab Spring, we had the sense that democracy was on the march in history. But not only have many of the new departures been disappointing – Russia, Turkey, Egypt – but democracy is beginning to decay in its historic heartlands, where it has been operative for more than a century.
Inequalities are growing; in fact, democracy has been sacrificed to the supposed path of more rapid growth, as defined by neo-liberalism. This has led to a sense of impotence among non-elites, which has meant a drop in electoral participation, which in turn increases the power of money in politics, which leads to an intensified sense of impotence, and so on.
Taylor, C. (1998, October). The Dynamics of Democratic Exclusion. Journal of Democracy. p. 143.
Liberal democracy is a great philosophy of inclusion. It is rule of the people, by the people, and for the people, and today the “people” is taken to mean everybody, without the unspoken restrictions that formerly excluded peasants, women, or slaves. Contemporary liberal democracy offers the spectacle of the most inclusive politics in human history. Yet there is also something in the dynamic of democracy that pushes toward exclusion. This was allowed full rein in earlier democracies, as among the ancient republics, but today is a cause of great malaise.
The basic mode of legitimation of democratic states implies that they are founded on popular sovereignty. Now, for the people to be sovereign, it needs to form an entity and have a personality. This need can be expressed in the following way: The people is supposed to rule; this means that its members make up a decision-making unit, a body that takes joint decisions through a consensus, or at least a majority vote, of agents who are deemed equal and autonomous. It is not “democratic” for some citizens to be under the control of others. This might facilitate decision making, but it is not democratically legitimate.
In other words, a modern democratic state demands a “people” with a strong collective identity. Democracy obliges us to show much more solidarity and much more commitment to one another in our joint political project than was demanded by the hierarchical and authoritarian societies of yesteryear.
Thinkers in the civic humanist tradition, from Aristotle through Hannah Arendt, have noted that free societies require a higher level of commitment and participation than despotic or authoritarian ones. Citizens have to do for themselves, as it were, what the rulers would otherwise do for them. But this will happen only if these citizens feel a strong bond of identification with their political community, and hence with their fellow citizens.
successive waves of immigrants were perceived by many U.S. citizens of longer standing as a threat to democracy and the American way of life. This was the fate of the Irish beginning in the 1840s, and later in the century of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. And of course, the long-established black population, when it was given citizen rights for the first time after the Civil War, was effectively excluded from voting through much of the Old South up until the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.
Multiculturalism and Postmodernism
For although conservatives often lump “postmodernists” and “multiculturalists” together with “liberals,” nothing could be less fair. In fact, the “postmodernists” themselves attack the unfortunate liberals with much greater gusto than they direct against the conser-vatives.
the two do have something in common, and so the targets partly converge. The discourse of the victim-accuser is ultimately rooted in certain philosophical sources that the postmodernists share with procedural liberalism—in particular, a commitment to negative liberty and/or a hostility to the Herder-Humboldt model of the associative bond. That is why policies framed in the language of “postmodernism” usually share certain properties with the policies of their procedural liberal enemies.
The struggle to redefine our political life in order to counteract the dangers and temptations of democratic exclusion will only intensify in the next century (My note: 21st century). There are no easy solutions, no universal formulas for success in this struggle. But at least we can try to avoid falling into the shadow or illusory ways of thinking. This means, first, that we must understand the drive to exclusion (as well as the vocation of inclusion) that democratic politics contains; and second, that we must fight free of some of the powerful philosophical illusions of our age. This essay is an attempt to push our thought a little ahead in both these directions.
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Taylor, C., & And, O. (1994). Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition.
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Taylor, C. A. (1996). Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory: Toward a Constructive Analysis of Scientific Rhetorics. Communication Theory (10503293), 6(4), 374-387.
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Taylor, C., & Jennings, I. (2005). The Immanent Counter-Enlightenment: Christianity and Morality. South African Journal Of Philosophy, 24(3), 224-239.
a passage from Paul Bénichou’s fa mous work Mo rales du grand siècle: ‘Hu man kind re presses its mis ery when ever it can; and at the same time for gets that hu mil i at ing mo ral ity by which it had con demned life, and in do ing so had made a vir tue of ne ces sity.2 ’ In this ver sion, the la tent hu man ist mo ral ity suc ceeds in es tab – lish ing it self, and in so do ing helps to throw the theo log i cal-as cetic code onto the scrap heap. On this view, it is as if the hu man ist mo ral ity had al ways been there, wait ing for the chance to over throw its op pres sive pre de ces sor.
The re la tion ship was something like the fol low ing: As long as one lived in the en – chanted world, where the weather-bells chimed, one felt one self to be in a world full of threats, vul ner a ble to black magic in all its forms. In this world God was for most be liev ers the source of a pos i tive power, which was able to de feat the pow ers of evil. God was the chief source of coun ter-, or white, magic. He was the fi nal guar an tor that good would tri umph in this world of man i fold spir its and pow ers. For those com pletely ab sorbed in this world, it was prac ti cally im pos si ble not to be – lieve in God. Not to be lieve would mean de vot ing one self to the devil. A small mi nor – ity of truly re mark able – or per haps truly des per ate – peo ple did in deed do this. But for the vast ma jor ity there was no ques tion whether one be lieved in God or not – the pos i – tive force was as real a fact as the threats it coun ter acted. The ques tion of be lief was a ques tion of trust and mem ber ship rather than one of the ac cep tance of par tic u lar doc – trines. In this sense they were closer to the con text of the gos pels.
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more on philosophy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=philosophy
22
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
FCC and netneutrality
Jeff Kao Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Language Nerd, Biglaw Refugee. jeffykao.com
More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments were Likely Faked
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/fcc-net-neutrality.html
The Federal Communications Commission released a plan on Tuesday to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet, clearing the way for internet service companies to charge users more to see certain content and to curb access to some websites.
The proposal, made by the F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai, is a sweeping repeal of rules put in place by the Obama administration. The rules prohibit high-speed internet service providers, or I.S.P.s, from stopping or slowing down the delivery of websites. They also prevent the companies from charging customers extra fees for high-quality streaming and other services.
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FCC chairman defends net neutrality repeal plan
An analysis of the millions of comments conducted by the data company Gravwell in October found that just 17.4 percent of the comments to the FCC on the net neutrality rules came from real people.
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Finley, K. (2017, November 22). Here’s How the End of Net Neutrality Will Change the Internet. WIRED. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/heres-how-the-end-of-net-neutrality-will-change-the-internet/
Because many internet services for mobile devices include limits on data use, the changes will be visible there first. In one dramatic scenario, internet services would begin to resemble cable-TV packages, where subscriptions could be limited to a few dozen sites and services. Or, for big spenders, a few hundred. Fortunately, that’s not a likely scenario. Instead, expect a gradual shift towards subscriptions that provide unlimited access to certain preferred providers while charging extra for everything else.
Even Verizon’s “unlimited” plans impose limits. The company’s cheapest unlimited mobile plan limits video streaming quality to 480p resolution, which is DVD quality, on phones and 720p resolution, the lower tier of HD quality, on tablets. Customers can upgrade to a more expensive plan that enables 720p resolution on phones and 1080p on tablets, but the higher quality 4K video standard is effectively forbidden.
Meanwhile, Comcast customers in 28 states face 1 terabyte data caps. Going over that limit costs subscribers as much as an additional $50 a month. As 4K televisions become more common, more households may hit the limit. That could prompt some to stick with a traditional pay-TV package from Comcast.
Republican FCC Chair Ajit Pai argues that Federal Trade Commission will be able to protect consumers and small business from abuses by internet providers once the agency’s current rules are off the books. But that’s not clear.
The good news is the internet won’t change overnight, if it all. Blake Reid, a clinical professor at Colorado Law, says the big broadband providers will wait to see how the inevitable legal challenges to the new FCC order shakeout. They’ll probably keep an eye on 2018 and even 2020 elections as well.
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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
18
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
manufacturing consent
categories: social media
https://www.byline.com/column/3/article/7
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0267323102017002691
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0267323114564758
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/matt-taibbi-on-the-death-of-edward-herman-w511766
17
Nov
2017
Nov
2017
SCSU library digitizing VHS
SCSU library digitizing VHS tapes
- plan
- hardware and software
- digitizing process
- archiving process
- issues
- correspondence among Greg J, Tom H and Plamen
- correspondence on the LITA listserv regarding “best practices for in house digital conversion”
- Plan
- collecting (Identifying VHS to digitize)
- clearing (Digitize or not digitize?):
- duplicates (Checking collection for content in other formats)
- establishing if DVD can be purchased (Availability for sale new)
- clearing copyrights etc. (Copyright / fair use review )
- Digitizing the tapes
- VCR http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/vcrhed_1.jpg
- Audio / Video cable
- Digital Camera Sony DCR TRV 120 and DCR TRV 350
- Cable FireWire to HiSpeed
- Adobe Premiere CC
- Capture
- metadata
- this why metadata was entered in the post-processed MP4 file using the VLC player
- export
H.264 . / iPAD 480p 29.9 fps
Shortcuts:
If you are using Premiere CC: 1. File/New/Sequence. 2. Ctrl M is the shortcut to export (M is for media)
Issues
the two Apple/Macs will deliver error messages with both the export to the MP4 format and for burning the CDs and DVDs.
e.g.
- other issues
regular restart required for new capture
error messages e.g.
other issues:
audio. Audio synchronization during the digitization is off. Solution: possible solution is the last of this thread : https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2217377
open in in QT Pro copy an segment then past it into a new QT file and save. It then plays normally in Adobe products.
old Apple desktops. needed to be rebuild and reformatted.
Apple burner issues. issues with Premiere license (bigger organization, bigger bureaucracy – keep the licenses within the library, not with IT or the business department)
old VCRs – one of the VCRs was recording bad audio signal
old VHS tapes: the signal jump makes the digital recording stop, thus requiring a constant attendance of the digitization, instead of letting it be digitized and working on something else
- MediaSpace (AKA Kaltura)
- https://scsu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/
Username: pls ask
psw: pls ask TOm Hergert, Rachek Wexelbaum or Plamen Miltenoff - copyright distribution
- https://scsu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/
Upon upload to MediaSpace,
the person who is uploading the digitized VHS movies can “Add Collaborator”
The collaborator can be “co-editor” and / or “co-publisher”
Thus, at the moment, Tom Hegert has been designated to a digitized VHS video as Co-:Publisher and Rhonda Huisman as “Co-Editor.”
Please DO log in into MediaSpace with your STAR ID and confirm that you can locate the video and you can, respectively edit its metadata.
If you can edit the video, this means that the proposed system will work, since the Library can follow the same pattern to “distribute” the videos to the instructors, who these videos are used by; and, respectively these instructors can further control the distribution of the videos in their classes.
- issues:
sharing the videos from the generic Library account for MediaSpace to the MediaSPace account of the faculty who had requested the digitization either through sending the link to the video or publish in channel (we called our channel “digitized VHS”)
- issue: ripping off content from DVD.
Faculty (mostly teaching online / hybrid courses) want to place teaching material from DVD to MediaSpace. Most DVDs are DRM protected.
Handbreak (https://handbrake.fr/) does not allow ripping DRM-ed DVDs.
to bypass this Handbreak issue, we use DVD Decrypter before we run the file through Handbreak
Solutions:
From: “Lanska, Jeremiah K” <Jeremiah.Lanska@ridgewater.edu>
Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 at 10:03 AM
I use a software on a MAC called MacX DVD Video Converter Pro.
https://www.macxdvd.com/
I convert videos to MP4 with this and it just works for just about any DVD. Then upload them to MediaSpace.
Jer Lanska Media Services Ridgewater College Jeremiah.lanska@ridgewater.edu 320-234-8575
From: “Docken, Marti L” <Marti.Docken@saintpaul.edu>
Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 at 8:17 AM
Good morning Plamen. Here at Saint Paul College, we are asked to get permission from owner when we are looking at making any alterations to a video, tape, etc. This is true of adding closed captioning as well. The attached are forms given by Minnesota State which they may have an updated form.
Thank you and have a wonderful day.
Marti Docken Instructional Technology Specialist 651.846.1339 marti.docken@saintpaul.edu
Permission Request Form to Add Closed Caption-288flgx
Memo Closed Captioning Copyright FINAL 10 03 2011-1065jox
From: Geri Wilson
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2018 3:23 PM
What I do with DVDs is give a warning to the faculty that the MediaSpace link with the captions I’ve created should not be widely shared and should be treated as if it were still a DVD that can be shown in the classroom, but not posted on D2L. Because even if we use those forms, I don’t believe it gives us the right to use the video in a broader way. However, a safer approach might be to burn a new DVD with captions, so that it’s still in the same format that can’t be misused as easily.
Just my 2 cents. Geri
From: “Hunter, Gary B” <Gary.Hunter@minnstate.edu>
Date: Friday, September 14, 2018 at 2:55 PM
To: Plamen Miltenoff_old <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Process of ripping DVD video to mount it on MediaSpace
I’ll assume the contents of the DVDs are movies/films unless I hear otherwise from you. There’s a lot we need to consider from a copyright perspective. Let me know a day and time that we can touch base via a phone call. Next week my schedule is flexible, so let me know what day and time work for you. Until we speak, here’s some of the information related to making copies of copyrighted works for nonprofit teaching purposes.
There are two sections of the Copyright Act that authorize “copying” of copyrighted works for nonprofit educational purposes. It doesn’t matter if the copyrighted works are being copied from DVDs, CDs, flash drives, a computer’s hard drive, etc., the same sections of the Copyright Act apply.
- Section 110(2), also known as the TEACH Act, allows nonprofit educational institutions to make a digital copy of a nondramatic copyrighted work and save it to a server for online and hybrid teaching. I have a TEACH Act checklist on the IP Tools & Forms webpage at http://www.minnstate.edu/system/asa/academicaffairs/policy/copyright/forms.html. The checklist identifies the few things that may not be copied under this section of the Copyright Act. If an instructor meets the various requirements on the checklist, than you can make a digital copy of the entire nondramatic copyrighted work and save it to MediaSpace. For nondramatic works, all MinnState instructors should be able to complete the TEACH Act checklist successfully, so I wouldn’t request a completed checklist from them.
Under the TEACH Act, nonprofit educational institutions are only permitted to make a digital copy of reasonable and limited portions of dramatic copyrighted works. Movies and films are usually dramatic works. Most people in higher education interpret “reasonable and limited portions” to mean something less than the whole and not the entire movie/film. There are several guidance documents on the TEACH Act on the IP Tools & Forms webpage that go into greater detail as to what is reasonable and limited portions. Unfortunately, this section only authorizes the copying of part of the movie/film and not the entire thing.
- Section 107 Fair Use of the Copyright Act is the second section that permits copying of copyrighted works for nonprofit educational purposes. Fair Use is used more than any other section to make copies of copyrighted works for nonprofit educational purposes. An instructor needs to complete a fair Use Checklist showing the proposed copying is authorized by fair use. An instructor who completes a Fair Use Checklist that ends up being 50/50 or more in support of fair use for their proposed copying of a copyrighted work, should be able to make the digital copy. Fair Use has some nuances in it for unique situations. Let’s set up a phone call to further discuss them. There is also a flow chart that may helpful at http://www.minnstate.edu/system/asa/academicaffairs/policy/copyright/docs/Flow%20Chart-Using%20video%20in%20Online%20-%20D2L%20Courses.pdf.
We also have to consider whether or not the movies/films were purchased with “personal use” rights or “public performance” rights. Or if an educational license or some similar type of license gives us permission to make copies or publicly perform the movie/film. More layers of the onion that need peeled back to address the copyright concerns.
++++++++++++++
- Issue: confidentiality
All digitized material is backedup on DVDs, whether faculty wants a DVD or not.
Some video content is confidential (e.g. interviews with patients) and faculty does not want any extra copies, but the DVD submitted to them. How do we archive / do we archive the content then?
Burning (Archiving)
- where to store the burned DVDs? their shelf life is 12 years.
- DVD’s must be labeled with soft tip perm marker, not labels. labels glue ages quickly.
- all our desktops are outdated (5+ years and older). We used two Apple/Macs. OS El Captain, Version 10.11.6, 2.5 Gxz Intel Core i5. 8GB memory, 1333 MHz DDR3, Graphic Card AMD Radeon HD 6750 MD 512 MB
Question about the process of archiving the CDs and DVDs after burning. What is the best way to archive the digitized material? Store the CD and DVDs? Keep them in the “cloud?”
Question about the management of working files: 1. Premiere digitizes the original hi-quality file in .mov format and it is in GB. The export is in .mp4 format and it is in MB. Is it worth to store the GB-size .mov format and for how long, considering that the working station has a limited HDD of 200GB
we decided to export two types of files using Adobe Premiere: a) a low end .MP4 file about several hundred megabites, which respectively is uploaded in SCSU Media Space (AKA Kaltura) and b) one high-end (better quality) one the realm of several GBs, which was the archived copy
We placed a request for two 2TB HDD with the library dean and 10TB file space with the SCSU IT department. Idea being to have the files for MediaSpace readily available on the hardrives, if we have to make them available to faculty and the high-end files being stored on the SCSU file server.
++++++++++++++++++
Nov. 2019: transfer of accounts. The generic SCSULibraryVideo account is discontinued because of the August 2019 transition to the minnstate.edu. Agreed to host the accumulated digitized videos under the private account of one of the team members, who will be assigning the other members and the requesting faculty as co-editors.
++++++++++++++++++
2. correspondence among Greg J, Tom H and Plamen
email correspondence Greg, Tom, Plamen regarding Kaltura account:
From: Greg <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:32 AM
To: Plamen Miltenoff <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Question Kaltura
Plamen,
Channels are not required using this workflow. Just the collaboration change.
–g–
From: Miltenoff, Plamen
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 11:31 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Hergert, Thomas R. <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Question Kaltura
Greg,
About the channel:
Do I create one channel (videos)?
It seems to be a better idea to create separate channels for each of faculty, who’s videotapes are digitized.
Your take?
p
From: Greg <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:28 AM
To: Plamen Miltenoff <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>, Thomas Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Supplemental Account Request Status
Plamen,
You can now sign in here: https://scsu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/ with SCSULibraryVideo as the user and whatever password you selected.
Upload a video.
Click the edit button:
Choose the collaboration ‘tab’:
Add a collaborator:
Just type in part of their name:
Add them as co-editor and co-publisher.
******* any user you wish to collaborate with, will need to first sign in to mediaspace in order to provision their account.**** After they have signed in, you will be able to add them as collaborator.
Once they’ve been added, they will have access to the video in their MedisSpace account.
Like so:
From the My Media area:
Click ‘Filters’:
Then choose either media I can publish, or media I can edit:
If you want to simply change ownership to the requestor (for video available only to a single person), just choose change media owner on the collaboration tab.
The process above will allow for any number of collaborators, in a fashion similar to ‘on reserve’.
–g–
From: Miltenoff, Plamen
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 11:19 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Hergert, Thomas R. <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: FW: Supplemental Account Request Status
Tom,
I submitted the request to Greg with the “SCSULibraryVideo” name
Greg, I submitted, Tom, Rachel W and Rhonda H (and you) as “owners.”
Pls, if possible, do not assigned to Tom ownership rights yet and add him later on.
I also received your approval, so I am starting to work on it
Txs
p
—————-
From: Husky Tech <huskytech@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:16 AM
To: Plamen Miltenoff <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Supplemental Account Request Status
Plamen,
This message confirms your request for a new Supplemental Account with the requested username of SCSULibraryVideo. Please allow 2-3 business days for processing. You will be notified by email when your request is approved or denied. You may also check the status of your request by returning to the Supplemental Accounts Maintenance site.
Thank you for your request and please contact us with questions or concerns.
HuskyTech
720 4th Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN 56301
(320) 308-7000
HuskyTech@stcloudstate.edu
From: “Jorgensen, Greg S.” <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:11 AM
To: “Miltenoff, Plamen” <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>, Tom Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Kaltura’s account for the library
Plamen, (or Tom)
Go here and request one: https://huskynet.stcloudstate.edu/myHuskyNet/supplemental-acct.asp
Once you’ve done that, just let me know the name of the account. (LibraryVideoDrop, SCSULibraryVideo, etc….)
I’ll then add it to the Mediaspace access list.
If there’s already an account to which you have access, we can use that, too. Remember, though, credentials will be shared at least between the two of you.
–g–
From: Miltenoff, Plamen
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 11:08 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Hergert, Thomas R. <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Kaltura’s account for the library
Well, that is a good question. Do we need a “STAR ID” type of account for the library?
If so, who will be the person to talk to. After Diane Schmitt, I do not know who to ask
Tom, can you ask the library dean’s office for any “generic” account?
Greg, for the time being, is it possible to have me as the “owner” of that account? Would that conflict with my current Kaltura account/content?
Can I participate for this project with my student account (as you helpled me several weeks ago restore it for D2L usage)?
p
—————-
Plamen Miltenoff, Ph.D., MLIS
Professor
320-308-3072
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/faculty/
Knowledge is built from active engagement with conflicting and confounding ideas that challenge older, pre-existing knowledge (Piaget, 1952).
From: Greg <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:04 AM
To: Thomas Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>, Plamen Miltenoff <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Kaltura’s account for the library
Tom – I think we can accommodate that, too….
I like Plamen’s idea of a test.
Plamen – is there a library dept supplemental account we should also use as part of the test?
–g–
From: Hergert, Thomas R.
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 10:50 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Miltenoff, Plamen <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Kaltura’s account for the library
Yes, except that there may be needs for multiple faculty to access the files. Think of it as analogous to DVDs on reserve or even in the general collection.
Tom
From: “Jorgensen, Greg S.” <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 10:29 AM
To: Tom Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>, “Miltenoff, Plamen” <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Kaltura’s account for the library
Hmmm…..
Would this be the process:
- VHS digitized
- File placed in Mediaspace (SCSULibrary supplemental acct, for example, would be the ‘owner’/uploader)
- Link sent to original faculty requestor for review of file (if it was edited/correct edits made, CC burned in for open captions, etc…)
- Ownership transfer to requesting faculty so they can share link/embed, etc… as they need.
–g–
From: Hergert, Thomas R.
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 10:24 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Miltenoff, Plamen <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Kaltura’s account for the library
Send someone the link, probably allow downloads by faculty, absolutely stream via MediaSpace
Tom
From: “Jorgensen, Greg S.” <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017 at 10:22 AM
To: Tom Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>, “Miltenoff, Plamen” <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Kaltura’s account for the library
Share, as in send someone the link? Or share, as in, let others upload/download from the location?
Do these things need to stream from the location (as in Mediaspace), or is this more of a file drop?
–g–
From: Hergert, Thomas R.
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2017 9:19 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>; Miltenoff, Plamen <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Kaltura’s account for the library
I think we’re hoping for an account from which we can share Library resources such as the digitized versions of VHS tapes that Plamen and I are creating. As I understand it, a closed channel is probably not the best answer. We need a common repository that can have open access to SCSU Kaltura users.
Tom
From: “Jorgensen, Greg S.” <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2017 at 2:03 PM
To: “Miltenoff, Plamen” <pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu>
Cc: Tom Hergert <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: RE: Kaltura’s account for the library
A single account can’t really be shared in the way you’re asking, but we can easily add a dept. supplemental account to Mediaspace. I just need the name of the account.
Depending on what you intend, maybe a closed channel? Create a closed channel and add individuals as needed?
–g–
From: Miltenoff, Plamen
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 11:41 AM
To: Jorgensen, Greg S. <gsjorgensen@stcloudstate.edu>
Cc: Hergert, Thomas R. <trhergert@stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: Kaltura’s account for the library
Greg,
Can you help me create a MediaSpace account for the library use.
How can it be tight up to the STAR ID login specifications?
Is it possible, let’s say Tom and I to use our STAR ID to login into such account?
Any info is welcome…
Plamen
++++++++++++
3. correspondence on the LITA listserv regarding “best practices for in house digital conversion”
From: <lita-l-request@lists.ala.org> on behalf of Sharona Ginsberg <lita-l@lists.ala.org>
Reply-To: “lita-l@lists.ala.org” <lita-l@lists.ala.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 10:07 AM
To: “lita-l@lists.ala.org” <lita-l@lists.ala.org>
Subject: Re: [lita-l] best practices for in house digital conversion
I’m at an academic rather than public library, but you can see what we offer for digital conversion here: https://www.oswego.edu/library/digital-conversion. We’ve been generally happy with our equipment, and I especially think the Elgato Video Capture device (VHS to digital) is a good tool.
– Sharona
From: <lita-l-request@lists.ala.org> on behalf of Molly Schwartz <mschwartz@metro.org>
Reply-To: “lita-l@lists.ala.org” <lita-l@lists.ala.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 10:03 AM
To: “lita-l@lists.ala.org” <lita-l@lists.ala.org>
Subject: Re: [lita-l] best practices for in house digital conversion
Hi Stew,
We are not a public library, but we did recently set up an AV media transfer rack here in METRO’s studio in partnership with the XFR Collective. There is a full list of the media formats we can transfer here on our website, as well as a lot more great information in the documentation.
I would also definitely recommend DCPL’s Memory Lab and the project to build a Memory Lab Network, which is more applicable to public libraries.
best,
Molly
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Stewart Wilson <SWilson@onlib.org> wrote:
Hi all,
I know there is a lot of information already out here, but is anyone up for a conversation about media conversion technologies for public library patrons?
I’m interested in best practices and recommended technologies or guides that you use in your system.
Anything that converts projector slides, 35mm, VHS, photographs, cassette, etc.
We are building a new PC for this and 3D rendering, so any recommendations for things like soundcards or video capture cards are also useful.
Thanks for your help; this group is the best.
Stew Wilson
Paralibrarian for Network Administration and Technology
Community Library of Dewitt & Jamesville
315 446 3578
To maximize your use of LITA-L or to unsubscribe, see http://www.ala.org/lita/involve/email
—
Molly C. Schwartz
Studio Manager
http://metro.org/services/599studio
212-228-7132
+++++++++
esummit 2018 prsentation
++++++++
more on digitizing in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digitizing