Interesting Links for 25-01-2012

[andrewducker]

• The Pirate Bay now lets you download physical objects
  Yes, I would totally download a car.
  (tags: copyright 3dprinting )
• McDonalds Twitter campaign goes terribly wrong (for some value of "got them lots of publicity")
  (tags: mcdonalds food twitter marketing )
• Forth Ports sells Ocean Terminal shopping centre - looks like we'll be getting some more development in Leith
  (tags: leith edinburgh scotland )
• Over-sensitive people really piss me off. Mostly because they make it harder to deal with real problems.
  (tags: EpicStupidity bigotry language )
• O2 shares your mobile phone number with every website you visit
  (tags: o2 mobilephones privacy )

Comments

[dalglir]

Reading around the 'over sensitive' article and watching the flame wars.

Best popcorn consumption is here, at the student's 'official statement' made through a law firm:

http://sassywire.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/statement-by-sarah-grunfeld-re-york-university-incident/

[dalglir]

I bank on having friends and family who can take what I say with a pinch of salt - and pick me up on idiotic things I say an point me in the right direction. I know I occasionally say very stupid things without putting the right context around them. Like commenting once, a few months after the birth of my first son and being generally thrilled to be a dad, that 'everyone should have children'. I received an onslaught of flamings about women's rights, and choice, and circumstances - where what I'd really meant that is that I wished everyone could share in similar amounts of the joy - joy that I'd happened to find through fatherhood. Doesn't translate terribly well as 'everyone should have children' but never mind.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, everyone mispeaks occasionally - and I'm definitely glad that people pick me up on it if I say something that doesn't come across as I intended.

[pseudomonas]

Oh, note about your script: there's a blank line after items that have a description (e.g. your piratebay link), but not after items with no description (e.g. the other four).

[andrewducker]

Just started to take a look at this, and feeling baffled because it doesn't do it over on LJ, or if I just dump the contents into a file.

*sigh*

I can see this one not being fun to track down...

[pseudomonas]

Does it help things if you wrap things in a "raw" tag and specify all the linebreaks explicitly?

[andrewducker]

Got it! DW is sending xhtml rather than html, so they're putting in /BR to close the BRs I'm using.

*sigh*

I may have to change over to using P instead, or something similar.

[andrewducker]

And now I've found an answer - if I just make it <BR/> then it works fine in both DW and LJ.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Trying very, very hard to come up with a tweet that could combine the McDonald's thing with the Oklahoma senator who wants to ban the use of human fetuses in food.

[andrewducker]

No more soylent burgers?

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I only eat at McDonald's In Oklahoma because I'm put off by the McEmbryo Meal at my local franchise.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

the Oklahoma senator who wants to ban the use of human fetuses in food.

WHAT? It's like the reductio ad absurdum of political discourse.

Politician: I propose a private members bill that bans [my political opponenet] from kicking puppies.
Everyone else: Uhhh... I'm pretty sure that's not necessary?
Politician: So you think he/she SHOULD be able to kick puppies?
Opponent: I have no plans to kick puppies, now or in future. Honest.
Politican: Aha!

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

There is a link to the story on my blog. The senator is convinced that food companies are using aborted fetuses to create new artificial flavors and colors for processed food.

[andrewducker]

Good Lord. I can't check my friends page from work, but I'll look forward to that one when I get home!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"for some value of 'got them lots of publicity')"

ROFL!

"Over-sensitive people really piss me off. Mostly because they make it harder to deal with real problems."

Oh dear. I mean, the problem is, I agree with the use/mention distinction, but there _are_ subtleties. If he'd gone on for three paragraphs in loving graphic detail about an unacceptable opinion might be, there might be grounds for suspecting he had some hidden preference (for or against) the idea, not just using it as an example. But he didn't.

Conversely, if she'd said "I'm sorry, I know that's a common example, but it really hurts me for personal/theoretical reasons I don't want to go into right now to hear it, even mentioned in passing, could you try to use a different example", it'd be perfectly reasonable request. People might or might not be able to accomodate it, but hopefully they'd not mock it.

But what seems most likely is that she was more prone to taking it personally (and may or may not have good reason for that: eg. if she'd been regularly exposed to people ACTUALLY expressing concealed anti-semitic sentiment, she might have very good reason to be sensitised), rushed out, and the first person she spoke to didn't say "look, maybe he was tactless but he didn't mean he believed that" but "OMFG antisemitism!" and things spiralled from there.

ETA: Although, now I'm suddenly seized with doubt. The professor's version of events sounds more plausible, but OTOH, if he DID say something ACTUALLY catastrophically antisemitic, he WOULD say "oh, it was just a theoretical example", so do I know for sure that didn't happen?

[andrewducker]

Nobody is disputing what he said, are they? She's not saying "He spoke at length about how Jews should be rounded up and gassed and then broken down and made into puppy food sold in cute little cans with Stars of David on them."

And lacking any dispute or detail that indicates that he was revelling in it, I'm going to go with the facts as they're stated. If further ones come to light later then I'll change my mind, of course :->

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. But her statement (full text: http://sassywire.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/statement-by-sarah-grunfeld-re-york-university-incident/) says:

he failed to qualify the statement clearly as an unacceptable opinion held by others

and

I have since been grossly misquoted and ridiculed by the media, and attempts have been made to assign blame to me with the false claim that I simply “misheard” or “half heard” what was said

and

I understand that there may have been a miscommunication, but any miscommunication was on the part of the professor, not me. The media has been complicit in allowing a false interpretation of my actions to be circulated widely, which can only have a chilling effect on the ability of students to have any kind of a voice on campus.

That to me looks like it probably means "he didn't mean and most people would have guessed that but I didn't and now I want to get out with the minimum level of embarrassment possible". But it might mean "He really did endorse, or sound like he was endorsing, that point of view, but in a way I can't clearly explain for some reason, please stop assuming I'm an idiot". It may be clear if you read more articles, I was just reflecting to myself that sometimes the apparently stupid side wasn't really wrong, and even if I think they were in this case, I should continue to be careful not to perpetrate the "get carried away being outraged at something I heard thirdhand" mistake myself :)

[andrewducker]

It's possible. I'd expect her classmates to come forward in that case and support her case.

And blaming all miscommunication on the part of the professor, rather than accepting that she might have misheard, and clear it up, indicates to me that she's the kind of person who goes from nowhere to nuclear option, and thus I just don't trust her opinion.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"I'd expect her classmates to come forward in that case and support her case."

Yeah, likewise. I had a quick google, and found lots of second hand sources saying "why haven't her classmates come forward and supported [her/the professor]", but look further to see if there was anything definitive. I agree, I hope if the current story is insufficient, more will come out.

"And blaming all miscommunication on the part of the professor, rather than accepting that she might have misheard, and clear it up, indicates to me that she's the kind of person who goes from nowhere to nuclear option"

And yeah, I agree -- I'm not certain, but I agree.

FWIW, when I googled, I found some really depressing discussions on other aspects of the issue. For instance, in a terminal fit of irony and logic failure, some people were saying that "some opinions are unacceptable to have" was an opinion unacceptable to have. I think they assumed that when the professor said "unnacceptable", he meant "should be arrested" not "shouldn't be accepted with equal validity into academic discourse". (I mean, I don't know for sure what the professor meant, but the interpretation that makes sense, rather than the ridiculous one, seems more likely :))

[andrewducker]

She certainly seemed to think that it was a phrase that he shouldn't have spoken, but there's a difference between phrases that are unsuitable for a working/education environment (where I would object to bigotry of any kind) and the idea that some phrases should never be spoken, which I object to on a basic level.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

According to a statement she put out on the 14th of September she didn't believe he made it clear that it was an unacceptable opinion:

"I stand by my initial concern brought to the University’s attention immediately after the incident that when Professor Cameron Johnston made the abhorrent statement in his class that all Jews should be sterilized, he failed to qualify the statement clearly as an unacceptable opinion held by others. "

A statement by him included the line "I pointed out that everyone is not entitled to their opinion by giving the example of someone having an anti-semitic opinion which is clearly not acceptable."

The question is how exactly he phrased it in the class. I can only assume that in giving an example of something unacceptable, he stated it was unacceptable. I can't seem to find the exact words he used though. The internet is too littered with anger to sift through.

[andrewducker]

Unless someone was taping the class I suspect his exact words are lost for all time.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

he failed to qualify the statement clearly as an unacceptable opinion held by others. "

The key word here seems to be 'clearly'. That it's included means he must have qualified his statement. It simply means that he didn't qualify it to a degree she was happy with.

Which means he could've simply said something along the lines of "Here is an example of an unacceptable opinion", trusting that would be enough for the audience. Whereas possibly the student who complained would've liked full chapter and verse on why saying bad things about the Jews is wrong, and how Jews really are good people who shouldn't be so maligned, etc. etc. Which, you know, would've been "clearer", but also would've belaboured the point (and not even the main one) while risked treating the audience like idiots.

So I'm inclined to believe the reports that the student who complained suffered a massive over-reaction, and is now being overly defensive and unwilling to admit she may have made a mistake.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with you, but with enough of an open mind that if it turns out he really didn't clarify it very clearly at all I can say "but ah!" and still be right.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I will admit to some bias on this, but in addition to the facts as presented my experience with York University students in the past inclines me to believe the professor over the student; York has a reputation for student radicalism that is, shall we say, not entirely unearned. (As is my alma mater's (UWO) reputation as a party school, alas.)

-- Steve's had obnoxious profs*, too, but in this case thinks that the bulk of the fault rests with the student.

* Including a fawning Rush Limbaugh fan. Couldn't drop that course fast enough.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Seconded. York is a silly place wrt Israel/Palestine, with active student groups advocating for every possible side.

I went to UofT Scarborough instead, a commuter campus with a relatively apolitical student body.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, student politics at York were amazingly toxic back when I was playing closer attention and the press coverage hasn't done much to suggest things have improved in the past decade or so.

-- Steve's trying to dredge up some facts to back up a vague memory of different campus groups flinging human rights complaints at each other, but either his Google-fu is too weak or the memory is wrong.