ARTS & FARCES internet

Business

In a shocker, the University of Minnesota didn’t even place in the Star Tribune‘s list of 2010’s top 100 workplaces. Even John’s Auto Parts, Inc. was a better place to work. Here’s a sliver of a clue as to why: Faced with lowered funding from the state, a governor’s illegal unallocation, and severe budget cuts the unit in which I’m employed—the College of Design—elected to heap all the cuts on a handful of employees. Instead of an equitable across-the-board cut (like the one instituted at the University of Wisconsin), the College of Design cut the salaries of the external relations staff by 10% for fiscal year 2010. The college’s top leadership—dean, associate deans, assistant dean, and chief of staff—also took 10% cuts and salaries were restored earlier this month, but still.

Internet

Here comes the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opening an inquiry on network neutrality and already the incumbent telcos and cable companies are whining like children in the back seat after 200 miles on the back roads. Their whining was harmonized by the Republican commissioners: Robert McDowell said in his statement (.pdf; 79KB) that by opening the inquiry the FCC had “lost the moral high ground,” and that net governance should be left to the nongovernmental technical groups (populated mostly with, you guessed it, the incumbent telcos and cable companies). “For decades now, the international consensus has been for governments to keep their hands off the internet and to leave internet governance decisions to time-tested nongovernmental technical groups. Once that precedent is broken, it will become harder to make the case against more nefarious states that are meddling with the Internet in even more extensive ways than are contemplated here.” Democrat Michael Copps when right for the BP jugular (.pdf; 82KB) in his statement: “I, for one, am worried about relying only on the goodwill of a few powerful companies to achieve this country’s broadband hopes and dreams. We see what price can be paid when critical industries operate with unfettered control and without reasonable and meaningful oversight. Look no further than the banking industry’s role in precipitating the recent financial meltdown or turn on your TV and watch what is taking place right now in the Gulf of Mexico.” Buckle up; this one’s going to be interesting.

John Naughton, writing in The Observer, delineates everything you need to know about the internet. Nine enormous ideas are packed into this eminently readable article. Naughton observes that the while the internet as deeply infiltrated our lives, we’re oddly unreflective about it. Writing that much of corporate media’s coverage of the internet is negative, Naugton sets out to elucidate how we should be thinking about the net in compliance with George Miller’s magical number seven, plus or minus two. If you don’t read anything else this week, read Naughton’s piece. Highest recommendation.

Politics

US President Obama addressed the nation from the White House Oval Office on Tuesday, almost two months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, caught fire, and and sank into the Gulf of Mexico. The same day his administration radically increased its estimate of the amount of oil spewing from the well into the gulf: 60,000 barrels. (Never mind that on day one of the disaster, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) worst-case estimated 64,000-100,000 barrels a day.) Obama said he will not accept inaction or settle for the challenge being too big and too difficult to meet. Almost two months after the disaster occurred.

Publishing

Steven Johnson deftly rebuts Nick Carr’s most recent argument that “the compulsive skimming, linking and multitasking of our screen reading is undermining the deep, immersive focus that has defined book culture for centuries.” Carr’s concern, notes Johnson, “is what happens to high-level thinking when the culture migrates from the page to the screen.” Using the Amazon Kindle’s new “popular highlights” feature as an example, Johnson asserts that we’re still reading, but now it’s a socially mediated activity. The crowd determines which passages in books are important and that information is shared across the user base. Recent studies showing heavy multitaskers are 10 percent to 20 percent less efficient are, Johnson writes, “meaningless as a cultural indicator without measuring what we gain from multitasking.” Highly recommended. Also see Johnson’s additional comments on his blog.

Sustainability

Business Insider has been publishing some really well done infographics lately. “15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America,” from April, posits “the gap between the top one percent and everyone else hasn’t been this bad since the Roaring Twenties;” “half of America has 2.5% of the wealth;” “real average earnings have not increased in 50 years;” “Republican tax cuts have significantly increased the gap;” “highest-income households have seen sharp drops in tax rates;” and “America’s income spread is nearly twice the OECD average.” A more recent project, “Here’s How Much 1 Million Barrels of Oil Really Is,” is just as disturbing. It’s reckoned that at least 1.33 billion barrels of oil have spewed from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Business Insider created visualizations of Cutler Cleveland’s list of equivalent energy costs: “Supply your house with power until the year 83286;” “power all US auto traffic for 3.9 hours;” “power total world energy use for eight minutes;” “power the country of Ghana for 20 days;” “supply one year of energy for 130,968 Chinese;” or “supply one year of energy for 22,890 Americans.”

As the remains of the Deepwater Horizon well continue to spew up to 110,000 barrels of oil in to the Gulf of Mexico each day, BP chief executive Tony Hayward has gone yachting. Earlier in the week, Hayward had a rough time during his US congressional testimony where he either refused or was unable to provide details about the events leading up to the explosion, sinking, and gushing of the company’s Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig. BP’s latest best guess—after a string of wrong ones—is that it will be able to stop the oil spew in August with two relief wells intersecting with the damaged one.