Author Archives: Admin

The right to be forgotten and the crumbling protection of free speech around the world

August 8, 2015 7:14 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Just when you think the crazy train ran out of tracks they go and build an extension out to the crazytown suburbs…

I mean it would have been ludicrous back in the 80s to think let alone propose that blatant censorship and the alteration of databases would be something that we would want to do for good reasons, right?  There’s no such thing as a memory hole after all.

The “right to be forgotten”.  Back in the early part of the century some plaintiffs in Europe found to their dismay that their criminal and otherwise infamous past continued to live on digitally in the form of news stories and articles preserved on the internet and that search engines could magically whisk users off to find these less than savory tidbits just by typing a few keywords.

So a few European plaintiffs banded together and sued Google, the biggest search engine in the planet, and won a case against them and forced them to take down the links to the pages where the plaintiffs misdeeds continued to live on.  The suit of course only worked for search engine results in Europe.  In any other part of the planet you could still find this information.

Not satisfied with this a french government agency called the CNIL has now asked Google to make the results disappear globally.  Google of course gave the CNIL the finger and said no, so the whole thing is going back into court.

This of course is only part of the worldwide epidemic of censorship that seems to be in vogue lately.  Try typing in certain key phrases in a certain country about a certain recent historical event and watch nothing appear.

China, Tiananmen square, 1989.

Happy?  I just lost 1.7 billion potential readers.

Think we’re immune in America?  Look up CISA or SOPA or PIPA or COICA.  All laws supposedly intended to protect one thing or another and all of them curtailing freedom of speech in some form.

The internet, what was once the digital equivalent of the open range and the last wild frontier, is rapidly becoming as closely regulated and monitored as any piece of government-owned property.

All the mad and ridiculous musings of the George Orwells of yesteryear are coming to pass.  They’re not coming in openly harsh and repressive packaging but in soft are ill-defined laws meant as “protection” or “privacy” laws.  No matter what you decide to call them however they are coming.

Posted in: censorship, internet, privacy, technology, thought

A Canticle for Leibowitz – Book review

August 6, 2015 6:29 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note – A little embarrassing to admit but I just read this book even though it is a science fiction classic.  “Canticle” is one of the backbones of post apocalyptic dystopian novels.  Looking back I can see the novel’s influence in books, TV shows, movies, and video games.  As always, spoilers from here on out so if you don’t want to know, stop reading.]

 

 

Walter Miller wrote “Canticle” in 1960.  Along with other books such as “Alas Babylon” it represented an attitudinal shift in the American public’s perception of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.  The government and the military had previously sold the American public on the limited dangers of nuclear war and the notion that civilization and the nation could survive an all out nuclear attack.

Miller had served in the Air Force in World War II and knew the effects of conventional bombing on civilian targets and had no illusions about a “winnable” nuclear war.

The story itself is told in three interrelated vignettes spanning about 1600 years after a nuclear war.  Briefly, it follows the gradual re-establishment of civilization over hundreds of years as it relates to a monastic order founded by a religious martyr called Edward Leibowitz.  The order strives to recover and preserve all knowledge and writings found in the wastelands.  They create illuminated manuscripts from innane things such as repair manuals and handwritten notes.  The hope is that this accumulated knowledge may one day help mankind return to what it was before the war.

Over the centuries it becomes clear that civilization beginning to reassert itself but it is also repeating the same pattern that led to its downfall before the war.   Although some members of the order oppose this, the order is powerless to stop it.  In the final story civilization has returned but so has the threat of nuclear war.  The order decides that something must be preserved in case nuclear war breaks out again.  The accumulated monastery artifacts are loaded onto a starship along with some monks and sent away from Earth towards the new colonies in another star system where it is hoped that mankind has finally learned its lesson.

I picked up two themes while reading the book.

Firstly, the way that the rise of civilization seems to travel in an almost predictable course and that even with the best of intentions we will still make the same mistakes over and over again.

Secondly, A polemic against scientists inventing and then releasing new concepts and technologies into the hands of the general public and in particular into the hands of the government.  Do scientists or researchers (in this case the monks) have a moral obligation to consider how their discoveries may be used by those in power?  Are they blameless if someone accidentally or maliciously misuses a technology or do they have an obligation to keep this hidden if there is a possibility of harm being done?

The second point is interesting in that many atomic researchers at the time of the book felt that they had done a grave disservice to mankind by working on the atomic bomb project.  Many wished that they had not done so but now it was too late.

As I mentioned above the novel definitely influenced many post-apocalyptic stories.  Twilight Zone definitely has some influences as do movies like the Mad Max series.  Even video games like Wasteland have “Easter eggs” that give a nod to this novel.

The novel is definitely not a simplistic sci-fi story of the future but a meditation on our possible fate and the decisions that led us there.

Highly recommended.

Posted in: books, review, thought

Endings and new beginnings

August 4, 2015 6:43 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve moved about quite a bit since I left college.  I’ve gone from apartments to different houses and I always tended to think of the structure as just a space to hang my hat for a while.  But this was to be the place that I could finally settle into and feel comfortable.

It’s been nearly seven years since I bought my house.

The structure was fine and the roof was new and generally it looked like somewhere that I could call home.  But it has always been slightly “off”.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to get totally comfortable in the house.

A few major “imperfections” existed.  The chief imperfection was the carpeting.  As I’d always rented, I never paid much mind to flooring.  “Not my place”, so it really never mattered that much to me.

But looking at my place, “my place”, I could see that it did indeed make a difference.  Even in its most pristine and new state, carpeting, seems drab and shabby.  A cheap floor covering, a compromise material that makes no one happy.  It had to go.

Before that happened however, the great Houston drought of 2011 took hold of my foundation and wrecked it.  I spent quite a bit of money repairing the foundation and the interior re-decoration had to be put on hold.

Finally in 2013 I began a multi-year project to make this house a home and as of this last week the project is now finished.  I have to say that the results were more than I hoped for.

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I am finally beginning to feel that this is the space that I was meant to inhabit.  The house has a more airy and roomier feel.  It’s almost as if the living space is crying out for me to be more creative and proactive.

Thinking about the old carpeting brings to mind a soul sapping morass that was holding me down.  But this, this cries out for me to be more imaginative, more energetic, and more optimistic.

I know it’s ridiculous to ascribe so much to flooring but I think environment can be important in setting your mental mood for success or failure.

Another thing is that I’ve now finished this long-term project.  That in itself makes me feel good but at the same time it leaves a bit of a hole in my long-term plans.  I have some ideas and no doubt this new living space will inspire me think and plan out new challenges.

This has buoyed my spirits quite a lot.  It has been a bit of a challenging year and getting a success like this under my belt really helps a lot.  I just hope that this is the start of a long series of successes.

Posted in: home, life in general, plans, projects

management

August 2, 2015 8:03 AM , Leave a Comment ,

When I was a kid I was introduced to the father of one of my friends.  He had been a company commander in the Korean war.  Back then I was fascinated by all things military and I quizzed him about his experiences.

I asked if he carried a gun.  He said sometimes but not often.  I then asked him if it was scary not having a weapon on a battlefield.  He replied that he didn’t need a gun.  His company was his weapon.

It was one of those “light bulb turning on” moments.  A simple change in perspective.  An entire unit wielded by one individual as a weapon or a tool.

Years later I started thinking about this with regards to business and how successful managers have to strike a balance between getting overly involved in the daily operations of their subordinates and getting so distant from what’s going on that they lose perspective.

A couple of key points come up in this discussion.

Firstly that you don’t demand success from your subordinates.  Rather you put people into positions and jobs that they can handle and then create situations in which they can succeed.  You don’t put an accountant in charge of office supplies or a salesman in delivery.  You assign these people the jobs that they are best suited for and let them carry out their roles as they know best.

Secondly, when you get into a position of power or responsibility you have to stop thinking entirely in the moment and start thinking more tactically or strategically.  Whether you’re just a manager at a local fast food place or the CEO of a major corporation you have to see more of the “bigger picture”.  You think more about competitors, and clients, and supply chains, and the economy and what that might mean to your sales.  Depending on your position you might think a little about this or spend all day on it.

You could, and there have been, entire libraries written on the subject of management but it boils down to just a simple point.  The science and art (let’s make up a new word, sci-art) of management is learning how to use the human and physical resources at your disposal to achieve your goals.

If you can learn how to do that then you can achieve any aim that you want.

Posted in: business

Abbreviated post

July 31, 2015 8:23 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Life gets hectic, even impossible sometimes.  It just does.

When push comes to shove we sometimes have to shed some activities or habits in order to keep the rest of our lives running.

“Just the essentials”

We all come upon these times in our lives.  Right now my household is turned upside down, my ankle is twisted, my air conditioning is broken, my….  You get the picture.  It’s a mess.  Why am I at a keyboard then?  Even for a short post?

well I suppose I can take comfort in writing, I can keep practicing something that I like doing.  It provides a little bit of focus in a world out of focus.

More importantly I don’t have anything else to do.  I have to wait for others to make decisions, to come back with answers  or to do some work.

I have nothing else to do, so why not write.  Even just this short blurb.

Just the essentials.  Sometimes, something like this is an essential.

Posted in: activities, habits, life in general, writing

Home not away from home

July 29, 2015 6:31 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Bizarre situations hold no terror for me anymore.  I just accept them as fact and roll merrily along with them.  I mean if you find yourself in a weird or off-putting situation why work yourself up over it?  Just look at it as matter of fact and get on with your day.

I decided to finish the remodeling project on my house.  It has taken 3 years to get the floors done but finally it will be finished.   Don’t even ask how much it cost me but finally it’ll be done.

Part of the problem is that in order to do it I had to abandon my bedroom and my home office to let the men work.  One gets used to having things just so and to have your daily routine suddenly totally wrecked can be disconcerting.  Still we need to soldier on, don’t we?

So after a week of cramming things into plastic storage bins and shuttling up and down the stairs I finally got moved out.  My plan was to work from the dining room and sleep on the rough finished bedroom upstairs but those plans went to hell almost immediately.

The men had to bring in lumber supplies and nearly squeezed me out of my dining room office.  They took apart the bed and stuffed it into a corner and said they might be done in 3 days.

The office dilemma was easy to cope with.  By crawling over my boxes I could get into my office chair and work.

The sleeping arrangement however was unexpected.  So I found myself having to leave the house and sleep at a nearby hotel.  Walking distance from my house.

It’s bizarre to see the neighborhood from a different perspective.  The same area but from a different angle.  The spatial relationships are off for me. The local main street is much closer and the supermarket is farther away.

I wouldn’t call it a cheap motel.  But it’s definitely…. lived in?  It’s one of those places with a kitchenette in the room and the hallway alternates smells of tobacco where someone has surreptitiously smoked or the pungent aroma of someone that’s made up a curry on the little stove.  Mostly inhabited by out of towners that came in for a seminar or training session at the hotel or families traveling the country or just people displaced for one reason or another.

Jogging in the morning takes a different perspective.  The relative distances have to all be recalculated.  And of course I have to go home to work every morning.

Bizarre.

But I can look upstairs each evening and I can see the work progress.  I hope to have some pictures up soon of what I think will be a major improvement in my living condition..

 

Posted in: hotels, Houston, life in general

The unreality of reality tv

July 27, 2015 6:53 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Back in the early 00’s I think it was we had the heyday of the reality TV show.  The premise was simple enough.  Throw out the script, bring in non-actors and put them in a situation and film what they do.  Not an original concept but fresh enough for American and then worldwide audiences to be captivated.

Here at last, or so went the conventional thinking, was unfiltered real drama.  No proscribed happy endings, no cliché lines, no predictable results.  Things would happen as they would and be delivered unapologetically to an audience that could either take it or leave it, and take it they did.

Network execs were overjoyed.  Not only were the shows a huge hit but they didn’t have to pay writers, actors, or directors to film this stuff.  A shoestring budget with a golden return.

The first show of the trend centered around filming people out in the wild but soon there were imitators peeking into the lives of people in a house or traveling around the world or trying to find true love.

This then morphed into reality competitions trying to find singers or actors or models and filming the real lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances (dangerous jobs, unconventional lifestyles, extremely rich). This programming vein seemed to be endless.

However some disturbing incidents took place.  Some episodes seemed to be filming the interpersonal conflicts that arose here and there and while that might happen normally some viewers started noting how the cameras always seemed to be in the right spot at the right time to capture those moments.

What’s more sometimes some of the “stars” of the shows left for various reasons and would decry the show online as “made up” or “staged”

The talent competitions seemed to be running on empty as well.  Some clearly untalented people were winning competitions and really not living up to their potential.

This programming trend is running towards the end of its course.  A few die-hard shows still continue on more than a decade later but less and less new shows are coming in.  The writer, the producer, and the director (specially the writer) are coming to be appreciated again and more conventional shows are claiming the top rating slots.

I’ve pretty much switched off my set in the last couple of years and have missed most of this.  I felt for a long time that the networks have pretty much tried to engage the lowest common denominator and have created low brow entertainment for the masses.

These reality shows are the ultimate expression of that.  They really don’t provide any insight or challenge a thinking person at all.  They are merely amusements for the brain to kill off an hour or two.

I hope that as these shows die off that we can reverse the trend and that with the last decade or so that new writers will be able to create and produce content that will once again turn television into a medium that will challenge as well as entertain.

Posted in: life in general, television

making do with what you have and making what you have do

July 25, 2015 6:21 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s not about having what you want it’s wanting what you have.

This is a popular old saying and long ago I used to think this was made up by people who had it all and didn’t want you to have anything.  Then I changed my mind and decided that there was wisdom here.

Now though, I’m wondering.  Wondering whether it’s not having what you want, that’s right out but neither is it wanting what you have.

I mean if you just wanted what you have you’d never get anywhere now would you?  A little bit of ambition is a good thing as long as it doesn’t go overboard and morph into avarice or greed.

It’s more to do with wanting what you have and then taking it and fiddling with it till it’s more like what you wanted or taking what you have and fiddling with it so you can get what you want.

We are the thinking animal after all.  We live not just on this physical plane but in an abstract world of ideas and concepts.  We look at trees and rocks and don’t just see trees and rocks but houses, and wheels, and roads and fire and whatnot.

Very possibly this is a unique gift among animals, maybe not but very possibly.

The thing is though that sometimes we become so frustrated with the process that we begin to despise what we have and focus on what we want and really warp our perspective.

Sometimes those plans just aren’t going to pan out and that thing that we want is out of reach.  Then we have to take a deep look at what we have and decide to ourselves that we can accept this as what we want or that we can use this to get something else we might want.

It’s never clear-cut is it?

Posted in: life in general, speculation, thought

Why do sighs feel so good?

July 23, 2015 6:55 AM , Leave a Comment ,

You’ve just come out of a frustrating meeting or you’re in the middle of a difficult work out session or concentrating on a complicated project and you?

Sigh

No, it doesn’t make everything better and you don’t feel 100% again but somehow you feel a little more refreshed, a little more relaxed and you’re able to continue on.  Why is that?  It’s nothing more than an exaggerated breath after all.

Maybe it’s just the act of pausing to refresh yourself.  A brief nod to the body to acknowledge that it’s tired.

Maybe it’s just a break in the routine that let’s you mentally reset yourself so you can go on.

Or maybe it’s the extra intake of air that comes in to replenish the oxygen supply.

Whatever the reason it seems to be a time proven technique for allowing you to continue working.  The physical sigh works great but I think the mental sigh should not be disregarded.  At times your mind needs that mental sigh to clear away your thought process and let you go on working.

It doesn’t have to be something involved like meditation or time-consuming like reading a book or an article.  Just a brief thought about something banal, something whimsical.  Just a tiny pause to untangle the knots that we all tie ourselves up in.

It’s not just alright to do these things, sometimes it’s necessary.

Posted in: advice, attitude, life in general

fine line

July 21, 2015 6:31 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was watching what was supposed to be a travel show about Chicago the other day.  The premise was two friends from out-of-town visiting another friend and he would show them some of the best parts of the city.

The drove around some of the landmarks and some of the hidden gems of the city and they did it in a shiny new SUV.  After the second “subtle” view of the SUV it became painfully obvious this was nothing more than a car ad disguised as a travel log.

I showed it to some Chicagoans and they said they had never heard of some of these landmarks and restaurants and that Chicago had better places to offer.

So not only was this a badly disguised advertisement for a car but it didn’t even live up to its premise of being a travel log.

Of course this is not a new form of advertising.  People have been trying to slip in product placements into such shows for ages and it’s not even a new phenomena on the internet.  I ran across this type of advertising about 9 years ago when an American car company ran a series of soap opera type vignettes about some twentysomethings featuring their car.

I have nothing against this sort of advertising as long as it’s done right.  This ad however broke a few cardinal rules.

1. Do what you promise to do.  If you’re going to pose as a travel show then do some travel show research.  If you pretend to be a soap opera then hire some decent writers to write a compelling storyline.  Deliver the value that you promise.

2. Don’t go overboard on the product placement.  Sure the client might want to make every shot feature the product but that’s not how things work.  No one wants to see that.  Work the product into the storyline.  Find a way.  Don’t just shove it in people’s faces.

3. Whatever your method, make it entertaining.  Whether you’re going for funny, suspenseful, sexy, whatever.  You need to treat this as anything but an advertisement.

We are making a transition as a culture away from the old forms of entertainment like TV, radio, and movies onto the internet.  While advertising has made great strides in adapting itself to this new media it still has a way to go to fit the sharper, more mobile, and less attentive audience.

The company that comes up with a working formula that addresses the needs of the internet audience will have a great advantage in the years to come.

Posted in: advertising, business, internet