Only slightly bent

This has been around for a while, but I only got to it now: OMA – Open Mobile Alliance – earlier this month announced what the requirements for the DRM levy will be. That is, $1 per device *and* 1% of the transaction costs. That ought to upset one or two operators. Especially those who have scrapped their own DRM-development plans saying they are committed to OMA. I wonder how it feels to be hitched to them now?

While the percentage may not sound much, the concept of yet another player squeezing revenue out of digital content sales is not very nice. Who do we have there now? Operators, naturally. Looking to keep the ridiculous cuts of their current premium-SMS-driven content business, they are likely to end up getting a pretty big chunk of each transaction. If you have a payment systems supplier, they’re going to get a cut. Happen to pay with a credit card or direct bank transfer one way or another? There goes another small slice. More likely than not you have some kind of a content aggregator sharing the revenue also. Oh yeah, and someone would probably need to give the actual content creators something as well. And now we add the DRM patent owners to the mess? Great.

Of course, one would be tempted to say that DRM-schemes are born dead anyway… Let’s see where the negotiations take this story, though.

It’s been a while since I last read a fictitious novel so I thought it’d be about time to read one for a change. Based on a co-workers recommendation, I picked up a copy of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown; supposedly a kind of a predecessor to Da Vinci Code. I have not read the Da Vinci Code (yet), so I thought it’d be good to start with Angels & Demons.

Despite the name, the book isn’t really about angels or demons as such. The theme is somewhat religious, though, but not disturbingly so (IMO anyway, YMMV). And scientific at the same time. Throw in quite a pile of reasonably well-researched facts and a conspiracy and you have ingredients for a plot that no doubt some people are uneasy with. But it’s this semi-believable style of writing that makes this novel a real page-turner.

It’s difficult to describe the plot without revealing too much, but the entire book tells of events taking place within 24 hours. Starting out in Boston, all the real action takes place in Europe, Rome in particular. It helps to be somewhat familiar with Rome and the Vatican, but the provided map helps the reader to place events in the correct places.

I have heard that Brown’s books tend to have a repetitive formula for the plot. Myself having not read Dan Brown’s books before, I must say I couldn’t guess all or even most of the plot twists and turns in advance. Overall, a very enjoyable and exciting reading experience. Certainly one of the better novels I’ve read.

Up next, the Da Vinci Code. We’ll see how that compares.

Graded 4 / 5

I’m currently reading the second doctoral dissertation within a couple months. Both are plagued by the kind of language errors and typos that you really would not expect to see in these kinds of literary products. How long does one work on a typical doctoral dissertation anyway? Years, in any case. So is it too much to ask to proofread your work, huh?! Not only is badly written text highly annoying to read, it very easily destroys the credibility of what might otherwise be a fine dissertation.

As a part of my ongoing studies, I recently finished reading a book called Gender-Responsible Leadership: Detecting Bias, Implementing Interventions“.

While I don’t consider myself gender-biased in any way (well, how many of us would admit or even recognize that?), the book was extremely interesting. It was quite eye-opening to see how small things can and do influence to create a gender-biased environment and how small things actually work to reinforce the status quo, despite people trying hard to be neutral. Consider an example from the book: why does a textbook on communication have a chapter on “Women in groups” — and no such chapter on men? Does it not imply that women are somehow a special case, men being the norm(al)? Authentic, real-life examples of both difficult to notice and more obvious kinds of bias and discrimination abound in this book, which I believe is a Very Good Thing.

It’s the small, barely perceptible, things that can in my opinion be the most dangerous. While the more blatantly open sexism also unfortunately is alive and well, I believe the small things are everywhere. And you don’t really notice them until you are aware that they exist. One thing I in particular like about this book is that it doesn’t stop at pointing out the injustices, but it offers a wide selection of intervention tactics that can be used to correct the situation.

Definately one of the more interesting and useful books I’ve read lately.

Overall 4.5 out of 5

Having no consensus on what my blog should contain, I’m going to use it as a forum for general thoughts and stuff. One natural area are movie and book reviews as I tend to read quite a bit and occasionally watch movies. So why not write short reviews of those subjects?

Anyhow, to get on with the topic of this post. I watched the movie United States of Leland recently. The story is about this young guy committing an act of violence, seemingly without a motive. His prison teacher is trying to analyze the man to find out a motive and possible get a good story for his book. Instead – or in addition to – of the teacher managing to get a good story, the highly analytical main character forces the teacher himself to look at his own life from a somewhat different angle. Turns out he’s not as “good” a person as he himself might’ve thought..

While the God/Devil and good/bad rhetoric sometimes goes a little too far, I found the movie quite interesting. It handles some difficult issues without attempting to give straight-cut answers to the posed questions. I also liked the fact that while the story is about a murder, there is little actual violence in the movie.

Overall, I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.