EOTO Feedback, Part 5

Beck Tench’s Each One Teach One Project on bike advocacy is a timely topic with both gas prices and obesity rates in a race to see which one can rise the fastest (my money’s on gas). I’ve always thought of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area as a very pedestrian and bike friendly place, what with all the bike lanes everywhere, but I had no idea that there was a debate as to the safety advantages of not having bike lanes. Speaking only from my experience hauling a 20 foot boat back and forth to Jordan Lake on roads with a high number of cyclists and no bike lanes, I think we need them.

I went to college in Iowa, and they have built an incredible off-road trail system that spans most of the state. In the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area where many people commute the 15 miles back and forth between their homes and work, it is possible to ride from city to city without ever riding on a road. Of course, Iowa winters don’t permit much cycling past October, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls can hardly be called metropolitan, but it’s better than nothing. I’d like to see something similar between Chapel Hill and Durham. I know that there is the Tobacco Trial system and Duke Forest trials, but I believe an actual cement commuter route for bikes only would see good deal of traffic in this area.

EOTO Feedback, Part 4

Sarah’s Each One Teach One Project about Nike’s lack of corporate responsibility concerning unfair labor practices in their overseas suppliers’ warehouses is an interesting read. Although I am familiar with the protests against Nike’s labor and human rights standards, I hadn’t heard of the specific incident that Sarah cites about the guy trying to get “Sweatshop” stiched into his Nikes. I actually had an iD request denied by Nike when I bought a pair of Nike Shox had wanted “McGregor” (my last name) sewed in as the iD. Apparently it got denied because Nike views the McGregor clothing company as a competitor and will not allow any moniker deemed to be in competition with them to be sewn on their shoes. It’s was funny to me at the time because McGregor clothing is a bottom-of-the-barrel brand, and I can’t remember the last time I saw it stocked in a store. In fact, a quick search turned up no homepage for the company at all. It seems to me that like many large corporations, Nike is concerned about their image when it comes in the form of their competition. They take every precaution to prevent someone from thinking their precious shoes are in any way related to a discount brand, but when it comes to topic of actual harm the company is causing people (through their actions or inactions) they weren’t doing much.

I was not familiar with the Nike Reponsibility Campaign (I’ve since switched to New Balances), but I am glad to learn that the company is taking a more active approach to disclosing their suppliers and only working with those that don’t practice human rights violations. If Nike did more promotion of this campaign, I think they would have a better image among the socially-conscious consumers. A quick visit to their website taught me that Nike was voted one of the top 100 “Best Corporate Citizens of 2005” by Business Ethics Magazine.

EOTO Feedback, Part 3

Allison Rosenstein’s Each One Teach One project was also on the topic of the digital divide. It was affirming to see that someone else in class was coming to similar conclusions as me concerning the divide, and also read some new ideas that I had not considered before. Once of these ideas is Allison’s concern that the gender gap will widen with the digital divide because of attitudes towards educating women in some developing countries. This absolutely applies to Afghanistan, but for some reason I hadn’t considered it before. Not only are there divides between Afghanistan and developed nations and urban and rural Afghanis, but also between women and men due to the moratorium on allowing women to go to school during the Taliban’s control of the country. Since I am also writing my research paper on this topic, Allison gave me a good angle to research and I plan on including it in the paper.

EOTO Feedback, Part 2

Carrie Leonard’s Each One Teach One project on identity theft is good topic for everyone to become educated on, especially with figures like this staring us in the face: “Within the last twelve months, 9.3 million Americans were victims of identity theft.”

I was very surprised to learn that online identity theft was not the most common form of identity theft, and that the Better Business Bureau actually recommends using an online bill pay service to prevent identity theft. I think it is the common misconception about the internet being a lawless, anonymous place that perpetuates the thought that “as long as I’m not entering my credit card information online, I’m safe.” As it turns out, you’re more likely to be victimized through your snail mail than your email, but online identity theft is still a big problem.

I agree with Carrie’s recommendation that the FBI (or some federal policing agency) better patrol the internet to decrease the schemers and thieves that do lurk in the digital world. While stiff penalties do not always deter crimes, I agree that the penalties for identity theft need to we swift and harsh.

EOTO Feedback, Part 1

I am very interested in the topic discussed on Bart Wojdynski’s blog about Google’s fledgling print database program. The program, which is moving forward despite pending decisions on its legality, is one that will give the internet a comprehensive search tool that allows for print only media to be included.

Amazon.com uses a similar search function to sell books. When you search for a topic or phrase on Amazon, it will take you to a passage of the relevant books with the phrase highlighted. It is not as comprehensive as what Google is proposing, but it is extremely useful nonetheless. It is so useful in fact; that I have taken to searching Amazon’s database for useful sources before switching over to the UNC library database to see if the book is available for within the UNC library system.

I whole heartedly agree with Bart’s hope that “publishers and authors alike should recognize that any vehicle that could potentially help them sell books is worth a try. By allowing searching of internal content, users may find books they would never find using a title search alone.” With media moving towards being packaged digitally, I would think this would be a good stepping stone for books and other print-based materials to take baby step into the digital world until they can figure out security measures for electronic delivery of books to become more mainstream.