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Sweden Formally Recognizes File-Sharing as a Religion
via Sweden Formally Recognizes File-Sharing as a Religion | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
I have been working on my new website which is why I have not updated my wordpress blog in a while. But, sadly, I have not finished the website and happily, I just came across this article, which is hilarious. So, I need to share.
The interesting things about this article is that the Church of Kopimism was started by a philosophy student. This makes me jealous as I tried to start a cult-ish fashion trend when I was an 18 year old Arts student and it never took off. Secondly, is the use of the words “holy” and “sacrament” in relation to information and copying. Now, I assume Kopimism is about digital information and they do not go around photocopying files for fun.
Holy really means sacred and sacred is something that is declared by the religious institution as sacred. Sacred means to be connected to some kind of higher spiritual being and deserving of veneration. Well I wonder if information is not the actual holy thing, but rather the data that makes up the information. In fact, if we are talking digital, it really means the practice and process of creating 1s and 0s, in various ways – including documents, databases, applications, programs and so on.
Sacrament means ceremony of the religious kind. I guess the copying is a religious act, although in digital terms, what really is copying? Although I guess degradation is seen to occur over multiple copies of digital data.
I think this is more of a set up so to avoid prosecution for illegal activities. The line in the article about being able to live out their faith without persecution really plays up to the whole minority religion/culture thing, which feels horribly contrived.
Some interesting thoughts to ponder on a Friday at least.
What Happened To Downtime? The Extinction Of Deep Thinking And Sacred Space | Fast Company.
I was intrigued by this article because I had just been talking about the lack of deep thinking time is allowed in PhD research for those undertaking qualitative research methods. Links and understandings about complex social phenomenon (what social phenomenon is not complex?) takes time. And if your research is also about how you understand and perform research, then that extra reflection can drive you mad, particularly if you do not give yourself any space to think about it.
Even the work I do as a records consultant requires deep thinking. Particularly as each project faced brings new ideas and new possibilities, despite how it may seem incredibly similar to the last project. I do a lot of my deep thinking at night, while sleeping. Last week I woke up thinking about the title and structure of my yet to be proposed ICA Congress 2012 paper.
It is deep thinking that helps develop the creativity to address situations that may not be ‘out of the box’. Community organisations do not always fit the Government framework for recordkeeping, but also need to be a part of it. There is complexity in many processes and the needs of many stakeholders are required to be addressed. This is where my research at Monash has provided tools and ideas to help address the complexity of recordkeeping and records managment frameworks and systems.
Forgotten Japanese War Diary Returns Home
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3322981.htm
This record has many amazing lives and continues to influence people. It is amazing the power of the archive – this diary is an archive. The archive can effect humans and change people.
Your Background Check Is Now with Facebook | LinkedIn.
Some companies are mining photo- and video-gathering sites using facial-recognition software. If you were among those rioting in the streets…
Your social records are everywhere. Technology used on Facebook recognises peoples faces and now companies are employing the same tools to find out about you. Never before have you been so public. What does this mean for your creation of records? And how does this impact on their disposal and/or retention? Scary thoughts.
SEC still destroying records illegally, whistleblower’s lawyer says – The Washington Post.
Where should the power to follow up this kind of issue?
What is this kind of issue?
I gave the title of this blog post with a bit of tongue in cheek. The other day I attended a seminar presentation by the fabulous Barbara Reed about wikileaks – which I tweeted – and she said the often very (obvious yet) controversial statement:
“Records and archives are always political.”
The thing that interests me about these Brumby records is that it was argued that…
“the plans, written by media advisers for their ministers, were of a political nature and did not relate to affairs of an agency or department. It also argued the plans were not official documents of ministers…”
One of the things about FOI legislation, which also applies to granting access to records under Privacy legislation, is that the records ‘creator’ can provide an argument as to why the records cannot be accessed. If you do not like the argument, then the option is to take the organisation or records creators to court. Not ideal for most people. Anyway, in this case, they did (well VCAT) and the result was that…
“Judge Felicity Hampel rejected this argument. She found the documents were official ministerial documents, did relate to the affairs of public agencies and ”there was a considerable overlap between the business of government and the promotion of the political image of the government in the community”.”
This is indeed an interesting outcome as lawyer Peter Timmins said it “showed there was not necessarily a distinction between the public relations side of government and the business of governing”.
As Monash University I am helping teach this semester the course on Managing Business records – as I have blogged about already. The part I presented was on functional analysis, organisational analysis and risk management. These types of analysis help understand the mandate or core business function of an organisation. Under this core function a map of activities are grouped together at different levels to help figure out what it is that the organisation does – by looking at the work it performs. It is not an organsational chart, but rather a grouping together of the different types of actions.
Where I am going with this is that this kind of hierarchical modelling shows that there is a relationship with the core business of an organisation and the activities that it does. Marketing, as an activity, is part of achieving that core business. It does not matter what the marketing is for really, as it is part of the activities undertaken by the organisation. It does not matter if that activity is done by employees of the organisation or external contractors or consultants. The activity may even be called different things like promotion, public relations, media relations, community relations, external relations, public affairs and so on.
In many of the functional analyses I have been conducting recently at the Brotherhood of St Laurence, it has become clear that many departments manage themselves, as well as provide service to other departments or to external clients. All these activities are related to the core business goal of this organisation, or even each business goal of each division of the organisation. The activity of marketing is in fact found in all of the departments and divisions, not just the one division dedicated to it. Advocacy is also a type of marketing for the organisation and being a lobby group, it is important to have image, core business and the position on public policy linked together. It is the same for the Government.
I think these types of analysis reveal the nature of an organisation and can help with identifying areas that are not as transparent. A functional analysis is about identifying the outcome of actions – the records – and whether or not the actions are supporting the outcomes as well as they should. A functional analysis also helps identify what records are vital and the implications of records over time – who might want to access certain types of records in the future and why. I have done many many functional analysis now and would say that I am becoming somewhat of an expert in the area. It helps that I enjoy the analytical process -a lot.
So, back to the Brumby & Ballieu Governments. As a Victorian, it is important to me that there is transparency in Government. I hope that this records-withholding issue is resolved soon. I am also interested, as a records professional, in how the document crimes and public records acts might be used in court in this case.
We believe that record have multiple uses and multiple ways to be used. It's rhizomic.
