Freedom to Differ

A blog that speaks freely about law, politics and the internet 



March 12, 2010

Daily Twitter Links

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March 12, 2010

Conan O'Brien presents "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour"

Conan O'Brien has announced a 30 city tour:

The fans of Conan O’Brien will not have to wait much longer — though they may have to wait in long lines — to see their favorite late-night comedian perform again: Starting April 12 in Eugene, Ore., Mr. O’Brien’s 30-city tour — with national and international stops — is on.

And if the title is any indication, the tour will also be sending a message about how Mr. O’Brien and his Team Coco feels about his abrupt departure from NBC’s “Tonight Show” in January. The title: “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour.”

The title refers to Mr. O’Brien’s settlement with NBC, which included — besides a healthy payout of an estimated $32.5 million — a provision that he cannot appear on television again until after Sept. 1.

But there is no prohibition against going onstage and doing a live show, which is what “Team Coco” (the name bestowed by rabid fans upset by his leaving NBC) has planned, including some regular members of the old Conan TV cast, like his sidekick Andy Richter and members of his old “Tonight Show” band.

Read more here (from the New York Times).

Interestingly, Conan is embracing his growing online fan base:

The official poster for the tour reuses the image made famous on the Internet of Mr. O’Brien, orange hair aflame, in front of an American flag. The image was produced by Mike Mitchell, an artist in Los Angeles, as a show of support for Mr. O’Brien when NBC tried in January to move “The Tonight Show” with him as host to 12:05 a.m. Within days, the image and its message, “I’m with Coco,” were a viral sensation, inspiring dozens of pro-Conan groups on Facebook. Several of Mr. O’Brien’s employees even made the image their Facebook profile photo.

Now they have formally adopted the image as their own. Days after Mr. O’Brien signed off of “The Tonight Show” on Jan. 22, one of the comedian’s producers contacted Mr. Mitchell and said that Mr. O’Brien’s camp wanted the “Coco” illustration to be the emblem of a nationwide tour it was planning.

Read more here (from the New York Times).

This is all well and good, but why isn't Conan coming Down Under?  I'd love to see him add a few Australian venues ...

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March 12, 2010

Lawrence Lessig's Speech at Italian Parliament: "Internet is Freedom"

via blip.tv

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March 11, 2010

Daily Twitter Links

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March 10, 2010

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

via youtube.com

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March 10, 2010

Daily Twitter Links

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March 10, 2010

Banning laptops in classrooms

On a windy morning in downtown Washington, a hundred Georgetown Law students gathered in a hall for David Cole's lecture on democracy and coercion. The desks were cluttered with books, Thermoses and half-eaten muffins.

Another item was noticeable in its absence: laptop computers. They were packed away under chairs, tucked into backpacks, powered down and forgotten.

Cole has banned laptops from his classes, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper.

A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming -- all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student's attention.

"This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, 'Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,' " Cole said.

Professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia, among many others. Last month, a physics professor at the University of Oklahoma poured liquid nitrogen onto a laptop and then shattered it on the floor, a warning to the digitally distracted. A student -- of course -- managed to capture the staged theatrics on video and drew a million hits on YouTube.

Cole was among the first professors in the Washington region to ban laptops, in the 2006-07 academic year. He found them an "attractive nuisance." It was a bold decree: Georgetown had only recently begun requiring that first-year law students own laptops, after painstakingly upgrading the campus for wireless Internet access.

via washingtonpost.com

I blogged about this back in 2006 (see here and here), and although I feel laptops are a distraction and not conducive to effective learning, I don't think it is the role of the lecturer to dictate to students how they should learn. That is why I would never ban laptops from one of my classrooms.

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March 9, 2010

Daily Twitter Links

These are some of the things I've been tweeting about today:

Follow me on Twitter @PeterBlackQUT. 

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March 8, 2010

Daily Twitter Links

These are some of the things I've been tweeting about today (excluding most of my Oscar tweets):

Follow me on Twitter @PeterBlackQUT. 

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March 8, 2010

ipadio: Weekly Wrap: news and current affairs

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