The deep, critical importance of Library.nu

As I am sure has been heard around academic water coolers across the globe, the über pirate ebook site Library.nu shut down recently. The importance of this resource has been strongly stated by Christopher Kelty of UCLA; his argument is so cogent that I will not synthesize or summarize. Go read it, seriously.

I’ll add only two additional points to Kelty’s argument. 

1. The academic publishing industry seems so retrograde and criminally capitalist that they are now worse than the music and movie industries (who have finally given up on suing grandmothers, war vets, and the like). Not only are most music releases, and many movies and TV shows, available for download (for free, or ad-supported), it is increasingly common to receive a digital download voucher when you purchase the shrink-wrapped version. So, e.g., if you really love some band enough that you will shell out cash for a audiophile-quality 180g vinyl edition, they often let you download an MP3 copy for free. Likewise for HD Blu-ray movie disks. Having dual paper and digital copies of books is enormously valuable for a researcher. Until Library.nu shut down I was in the habit of locating the (pirated) PDF version of any book I purchased on paper (a non-insignificant number). In addition to carrying around most of my home library on my laptop, electronic copies permit non-destructive annotations, bibliometric and textual analysis, and full text search.
2. Having an entire library of full-text searchable PDFs opens up a new kind of scholarship, especially valuable for interdisciplinary research. On my Mac I can enter a search term of interest, say, “representation” and I will be presented with a plethora of books and articles that I might not have ever thought to consult. Taking this to its logical conclusion, Library.nu performed full-text search indexing on all of their materials (where possible, given OCR limitations). When starting into a new field my first place of research would be Library.nu, where I would search for relevant keywords, and search returns come across the gamut of scholarship. This is powerful stuff, and opens up an entirely new type of research.

Switching to Teksavvy DSL

(At the risk of seeming like a corporate shill, here’s another, perhaps my last, technical suggestion for safe, effective P2P)

I recently switched away from Rogers (for the second time). I am now a Teksavvy customer and two weeks in, I’m pretty impressed. The service so far is as advertised: 25mb/s down and 7mb/s up. In real world usage, P2P connections go through my BlackVPN VPN, since while Teksavvy does not traffic shape or otherwise cause me any difficulties, they will surely respond to all legal requirements. I can easily get 2mb/s down on Bittorrent, and (here’s the exciting part), the same 2mb/s up. Additionally, Teksavvy has been a pleasure to do business with.

Check out my previous BlackVPN review for more information about VPNs.

Update on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 1:42PM by Quinn

A recent Torrentfreak article collected self-reported data about IP logging from many VPN services, including my current one, BlackVPN. BlackVPN certainly doesn’t come out in the lead in terms of privacy (I would have liked to hear a “no logs, never” response), but doesn’t seem to hold a troubling position either. As a reminder, don’t use the US & UK VPN servers for anything requiring privacy, since these are logged (NL & LT have no logs).

Using Privacy Enhancing Technologies in the real world

I’ve been consistently pleased with my BlackVPN service (see my previous reviews), which allows me to use a variety of VPNs geolocated around the globe and configured with a no logging policy. When connected (through the excellent Viscosity OpenVPN client) I can maintain an encrypted tunnel from my location to a high traffic, high bandwidth server that effectively obfuscates my Internet use, as well as tunnels past any malicious or privacy-impacting middlemen. As I discussed several years ago, Privacy Enhancing Technologies—like VPNs—may be an effective tool in the fight against bad laws (#sopa) and bad corporate policies (#rogers). If you sign up with BlackVPN use my promo code for a free month of service: ENGGCVY

Foucault's analysis of Cartesian "progress"

In a particularly difficult passage (pages 58 ff) in Order of Things, Foucault argues that Descartes engages in a critique of resemblance (in his Regulae). Instead of the orthodox argument, in which “sixteenth century thought becom[es] troubled as it contemplates itself”, Descartes excludes resemblance as a fundamental experience and primary form of knowledge. Descartes accomplishes this by universalizing the act of comparison in rational thought, thereby giving it its purest form. The challenge is, however, that according to Descartes true knowledge can only arise from intuition (as an act of “pure and attentive intelligence”) linked through deduction, but this excludes comparison almost by definition. Comparison exists in only two forms, but must be reconfigured: the comparison of measurement and of order. Measurement analyzes the world into units that establish relations of equality and inequality. Order analyses elements, the simplest possible that can be found, and arranges differences according to the smallest possible degrees. With Descartes, classical resemblance ceased to be the fundamental category of knowledge, and instead became an analysis of identity and difference.

The “progress” of the method is such that measurement is reduced to serial arrangement (as an act of order), which shows up in differences of degrees of complexity. This analysis progresses from the unit and relations of equality and inequality to an analysis of identity and differences (“differences that can be thought in the order of inferences”). This analysis of identity and difference no longer fulfilled its role in revealing how the world is ordered, since it now progresses according to the “order laid down by thought”. In the 16th century, kinships, resemblances and affinities, which are interwoven with thought, take on a new configuration, which can be summed up as “rationalism” (“if one’s mind is filled with ready-made concepts”). In the classical episteme knowledge was never complete and always open to fresh possibilities, based on similitude. The new system of comparison permits a “complete enumeration” with certain knowledge of identity and differences,  as each point can be necessarily connected to the next. In this new system the action of the mind will no longer draw things together (establishing kinship, affinity, etc.), instead it will act by discriminating (establishing identities and making successive series of connections). Finally, history and science will become separated, because there is no common unit of measurement. Language, thus, is no longer one of the “figurations of the world”, and while it can translate truth if it can, it can no longer be considered the “mark of it”.

Foucault as Heideggerian

From Professor Hubert Dreyfus:

Foucault’s comment on Heidegger in his last interview: For me Heidegger has always been the essential philosopher … My entire philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger.