Bruce Schneier, Homeland Insecurity, and Patriot 2

Schneier’s critique of airport false alarms also explains why the Patriot 2 provisions — which let the government gather reams of financial data without probable cause — is likely to backfire.
Schneier writes in Salon Magazine

In the months and years after 9/11, the U.S. government has tried to address the problem by demanding (and largely receiving) more data. Over the New Year’s weekend, for example, federal agents collected the names of 260,000 people staying in Las Vegas hotels. This broad vacuuming of data is expensive, and completely misses the point. The problem isn’t obtaining data, it’s deciding which data is worth analyzing and then interpreting it. So much data is collected that intelligence organizations can’t possibly analyze it all. Deciding what to look at can be an impossible task, so substantial amounts of good intelligence go unread and unanalyzed. Data collection is easy; analysis is difficult.

The Patriot 2 provisions let the government trawl for data. If there’s no need to show probable cause, it’s easier to cast a wide net than to catch the tuna and leave the dolphins alone.

Are Bloggers Privileged?

Danah writes that blogging is a privilege, with preference to straight white males. Maybe at the top of the Technorati popularity charts. But take a look at the participants on Austin Bloggers and Austin Stories, the blog and journal portals. Core community members are women, queer, stay-at-home moms, workers in social work, teaching, non-profit, retail, tech-support, students, and job-hunting. This is a community, not a country club.

The trouble with the review form..

is that it turns the (book, movie, recording) into a commodity and the experience of (reading, watching, listening) into social conformity. The punchline is a thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating. The book is good/bad, and you’d like/hate it too.

This leaves out the subjectivity of the observer. My experience of a work of culture is partly evaluation against definable criteria (the book’s plot is predictable), and partly the interaction between the book’s content and my emotional and intellectual experience. When I read a book, I evaluate these things somewhat separately. Is it a “good book” — well-researched, well-plotted, etc. And did I learn something new, did I have an emotional and esthetic experience.

Because the experience is subjective, a recommendation can’t be general-purpose. There’s a genre of folk ballad that can usually make me cry. Not sure whether it’s “good music” or “bad music” — just that it flips some switches and buttons to trigger a strong emotional experience.

Also, the “book review” format emphasizes the dialog between reviewer and reader, rather than the dialog between writer and reader (this point makes more sense for books than other forms). I experience reading not as an act of consumption but as a conversation, separated in time and space from the writing. (That’s why it’s so darn cool when weblog trackbacks invoke comments from authors; it becomes a live conversation).

So, the essays about books here aren’t really book reviews — they’re essays with esthetic evaluation, and personal emotional/intellectual reaction, and response to the author’s ideas.

p.s. This isn’t as solipsistic as it sounds. The act of recommendation is an intimate act, not a public one. A recommendation is based on empathy; experiencing a work of culture through the filter of another’s intellectual and emotional preferences, and assessing whether the other person might enjoy the work. A generic thumbs-up/thumbs-down public recommendation is a much more pallid thing.

Are Blogs Just?

Joi Ito and Marko Ahtisaari in a conversation about whether blogs are just, given the inequality in traffic and link stats that Clay Shirky pointed out. The premise is wrong. The charge of injustice only applies if blog traffic is like money or power; more is better; the greater can oppress the lesser.
Adam Rice has it right here: “Power laws? I don’t have a problem with them. I write my blog for my own satisfaction and to let my friends know what I’m doing and what I’m thinking about. And to remind me in the future of what I was doing/thinking. While it’s nice knowing that other people are reading it (which, I think, a few other people do), that’s not why I do it.”

New Years Resolutions

Out of all of the goals on the list for 2004, I know how to do all of the items but one.
Made fabulous progress last year in professional and nonprofit activities. I know how to stay fit and eat well, though it’s hard to do when working a zillion hours at a start-up. I kept the resolution to stay in touch with friends and keep social commitments, even when really busy. I completed some small but useful programming projects; learned how to build things small steps at a time and debug.
Gosh, I’m even procrastinating getting to the point. I’d love to meet the right guy, and don’t know how to do it. So I’d love your advice, dear readers.
There are two methods that people recommend:
Method 1) Have an active life, do things you enjoy, and meet interesting people. Eventually, you’ll meet someone who’s right for you. Or someone you meet will introduce you.
This method is fun and relatively easy. But sloooow. I met and briefly dated someone through a non-profit connection, who’s super-smart, fun and capable; not right for an LTR for me, and we’re friends now. That was one guy in a year.
Method 2) Market yourself. First, ask everyone you know to fix you up. This hasn’t had any results so far. I guess I can try again…
Next, fill out profiles on the online dating services. Browse profiles and send form letters to plausible-sounding guys. Meet for coffee. The results of this approach have been amusingly disastrous. Outside of “dates”, I meet people I like and make new friends all the time. On “dates” with guys selected by profiles, I meet people who are wildly unsuitable — a guy whose favorite activity is gambling; a guy who wears a concealed handgun at all times; a guy who doesn’t wash. Ask me for more amusing stories, if you like.
This isn’t fun, and hasn’t had any good results so far. So I procrastinate. I put it on my to-do list every single weekend, and lo and behold, do everything else.
Gentle readers:
* Shall I continue to pursue method 1, and trust that the universe will make a connection?
* Or shall I smile sweetly, take a photograph with a tighter sweater, and write more form letters?
Advice welcome.
p.s. If you’re a single guy who reads my blog, feel free to drop me a note. Ditto if you know someone I should meet.
p.p.s. So, you ask… why is such a nice girl still single? Dated the same guy for a long time, during my mid-20s/early 30s when most people hook up, and didn’t marry him.

What matters about Social Software

David Weinberger says: if you want to get at the real social networks, you’re going to have to figure them out from the paths that actual feet have worn into the actual social carpet.’
So right. The best examples we have today are things likeTechnorati and the Blogstreet neighborhood and All Consuming that

  • reveal interesting people and ideas in the social neighborhood
  • in a way that is valuable to the participants, not just data miners
  • without asking participants to give anything away or do extra work.
    Here’s another way of looking at things. The Social Network tools are about saying hello. Unless you’re 18 months old, hello is only .1% of the conversation. Weblogs, wikis, and other public conversations are about the other 99.9% of the conversation. And the Technorati/Blogstreet/AllConsuming applications help you find relevant conversations to join.

Learning from friends

Halley talks about learning about air traffic control from a friend.

To rely on personal contact to spur your learning or curiosity seems a haphazard way to increase your knowledge, but it happens all the time in our lives once we are out of school. These days however, blogs are doing just that — making a wide range of subjects interesting, engaging, accessible and fascinating simply by the fact that you sense an intimate connection and a personal voice at the other end of the information.

This only seems unusual because we’ve been introctrinated with the weird idea that learning is something kids acquire in a school building from professional teachers. Humans have learned from peers and mentors, throughout the human lifespan, for as long as primates have been able to transmit ideas about tools, culture, history, and behavior.
In addition to Halley’s good point about blogs, I have a weird theory that wikis will help this renaissance in grownup learning. I know several book club wikis already. Wikis are gaining interest among “communities of practice” — groups of grownups who want to share learning outside academia. Wikis are great for individuals building a vocabulary in a subject, and wonderful for groups building shared understanding.
Blogs help to discover and browse new ideas, through the lens of another passionate human. Wikis help to build personal and shared memory as people learn.

How much does online community count?

Good scientific evidence shows that people are happier and live longer when they have a strong social network, and even when they have a pet to take care of.
In this context, how much do online social networks count? When someone spends time blogging; participating in mailing list discussions; chatting on IRC; does this strengthen the immune system? Or weaken it? Does it make a difference if the participants meet each other in person every once in a while, or never?
Has anyone done research on this yet?

Esthetics of social software

Jon Lebkowsky and Honoria have an interesting insight about evaluating social software according to esthetic, leading to some reflection about the criteria for an esthetic of social software.
Thinking out loud, here are some criteria to consider…
* ease of groupforming
* intimacy gradient — ability to create spaces on a continuum from public to private
* expressiveness — ability for individuals and groups to express mood and style
* shared memory — the social software equivalent of bookshelves and mantelpiece photos
* attractive front porches — social public areas preceding private spaces
* helpful navigation — clear signage, or meditative exploration
I’m on vacation, so I don’t have Christopher Alexander near to hand; that would bring some good insight.