Notes from the Electronic Cottage 3/8/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Two topics today, both very important in our daily lives in different ways. March 11-17 is Sunshine Week, a time devoted to thinking about how much access we taxpayers and citizens have to the information that our governments generate. The name comes from the famous line by Justice Louis Brandeis that “Sunshine is said to be the best disinfectant.” We also take a look at what money is in today’s world, and why a new digital currency called bitcoin, and the technology it is based on called blockchain, have a very good chance of changing the way we shop, pay bills, make contracts, and more. Here’s why.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 3/1/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Copyright is supposed to strike a balance between the rights of copyright holders and the rights of users. One tool to help do that is Fair Use. Fair Use Week offers a great opportunity to become more familiar with the Fair Use provisions of our copyright law.
Here are some resources, discussed in today’s program, that might be useful in expanding our understanding of Fair Use.

fairuseweek.org
gutenberg.org
librivox.org
fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/
www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/25/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are wonders of digital technology. They are becoming more and more important in our everyday lives from deciding who will get a mortgage to deciding who will get bail if someone is arrested. But there is a sort of dirty little secret here: we don’t actually know how AI systems reach the decisions they make, or even if those decisions are right or wrong. Let’s think about this for a moment…

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/18/18

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

As we enter 2018, let’s take a moment to look at some recent research in Artificial Intelligence that may be becoming part of everyday life before too long: a poker bot that can win big at Texas Hold-em; another big step in making it possible for computers to read minds; and a bot that can tell if someone is lying better than humans. Tomorrow is becoming today…

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