Category: Other Topics
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A Good Day at the Googleplex
Judge Chin has issued his decision in the Google Book Search case, and it’s a win for Google. For those of you who have been following the litigation, it’s been a long trip through the arcana of class certification. Today’s decision, however, finally gets to the merits of Google’s fair use defense under the…
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Wall Street software failure and a relationship to voting
An article in The Register explains what happened in the Aug 1 2012 Wall Street glitch that cost Knight Capital $440M, resulted in a $12M fine, nearly bankrupted Knight Capital (and forced them to merge with someone else). In short, there were 8 servers that handled trades; 7 of them were correctly upgraded with new…
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Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A roundup of responses
Two weeks ago I asked for real-life examples of ethical dilemmas in software engineering. Many of you sent responses by email, twitter, and comments. Thank you for taking the time! Here is a quick summary (in no particular order). Aaron Massey has written a very thoughtful post in response. I encourage you to give it…
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Ethical dilemmas faced by software engineers: A request for real-world examples
Software developers create the architectures that govern our online and often our offline lives — from software-controlled cars and medical systems to digital content consumption and behavioral advertising. In fact, software shapes our societal values. Are the creators of code aware of the power that they wield, and the responsibilities that go with it? As…
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Educating Leaders who Tackle the Challenges of their Time; Lessons from the Past: Book Review: First Class, The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School
One of last year’s CITP lectures that is still fresh in my mind is Brad Smith’s talk on “Immigration, Education, and the Future of Computer Science in America.” In his presentation on developing a process for educating the next generation of computer scientists in U.S. high schools and colleges, Mr. Smith noted that in the…
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Internet Voting Snafu at USRowing
USRowing, the governing body for the sport of rowing in the U.S., recently announced the discovery of likely fraud in one of its leadership elections. Further investigation into this region’s voting resulted in the determination that fraudulent ballots were cast in the Mid-Atlantic election that directly affected the outcome of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of…
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Open-Source 3D Printing and Copyright Reform: It’s Time to Revisit Personal Use Copying
Last week, I attended MSU’s Fifth Annual Conference on Innovation and Communications Law, where I saw a wonderful presentation by Joshua Pearce, an engineering and material sciences professor from Michigan Tech, on “distributed open-source digital manufacturing” (a.k.a. open-source 3D printing). The hardware Joshua presented is called RepRap: RepRap takes the form of a free desktop…
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A Response to Jerry: Craig Should Still Dismiss
[Cross-posted on my blog, Managing Miracles] Jerry Brito, a sometimes contributor to this blog, has a new post on the Reason blog arguing that I and others have been too harsh on Craigslist for their recent lawsuit. As I wrote in my earlier post, Craigslist should give up the lawsuit not just because it’s unlikely…
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Dear Craig: Voluntarily Dismiss with Prejudice
[Cross-posted on my blog, Managing Miracles] Last summer, Craigslist filed a federal lawsuit against the company Padmapper (and some related entities). Padmapper.com is a site that, among other things, allows users to view Craigslist postings on a geographical map. It is a business premised on providing value added services to Craigslist postings — with some…