Privacy

Two amazing articles jumped out at me the other day: Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents If you have a color printer, you may notice tiny yellow type--the serial number of your printer. This strikes me as nothing short of amazing, considering that anonymous speech has been a cherished American ideal since the time of the early colonial press (anonymous letters and columns were commonly printed and carried some weight with the public). From corporate scandals, to underground newspapers, to private mailings...the ability to use the modern press absent the fear of retribution (from the government or any other body) should be an essential feature of our modern communication landscape. Homeland Security To Launch RFID Systems At Border Crossings Non-citizen visitors (even those with visas) who cross American borders will be required to post a card on their dashboard containing a chip which allows the vehicle to be tracked when entering/leaving the country. Yet this may allow the chips to be tracked anywhere within the country (perhaps by a highway patrol person). The safety of our country is indeed a concern (especially at the borders), but it should not come at the cost of infringing on individual liberty to freely move about our lands as long as they do so within the law. To me, this sort of rule falls under the "do unto others..." principle. General Comment Modern technology gives us the potential to manage a vast amount of the data in our lives. Yet when this data is created in an individually-identifyable way, convienence may turn into danger. When data is collected covertly, under federal requirement, or in an opt-out manner, it removes one's right live and express his or herself in an environment without fear of criticism or punishment.

A favorite (favourite?) thing to do

Try this out: start iTunes and go to the music store... scroll to the bottom and select another country. Take a look at the top 10 (or 100) from other lands. For the most part, the songs are popular for a reason. This truly is globalization in a good way... ...well, there is the whole Apple and record labels thing.

Stand against popups

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/technology/17spy.html People are throwing away their computers, rather than spend the time to disinfect them (a chore I'm all too familiar with). One person remarked that "she no longer clicks on pop-ups." What?!? I didn't know that anyone was still clicking on popups! The time has come for browsers to eliminate the pop up as a browsing option; kill spyware through the technology which enables it. Web applications which rely on this "feature" should all be reprogrammed. Popups are costing the world too much money and time--we sunk a bunch of cash into the Y2K change, this one should be easy.

Curious?

Were you ever curious why I didn't use johnthomson.blogspot.com? Trust me, there's no relation.

"The things you Google for define you"

This CNet article talks about the potential personal tracking ability of Google corporation. An interesting contrast is found when the depth of their info gathering abilities (from e-mail to everything you search) is compared to the public trust in the company. This isn't the first comparison between Google and Microsoft, but it is perhaps more clearly laid out than most. There's something about surfing the net that seems so personal and innocuous that my guess is many do not think twice about the types of searches they do. Google does not (to my knowledge) explicitly state their log-retention policy--meaning that Google (or someone who was able to get their data) might be able to match personal to web data, perhaps with questionable results. Perhaps this post is just being paranoid, but the article's point that the public's trust in Google may possibly be misplace is well taken. PS: thanks Google for the free e-mail space, blog, picture software, search software, ...

Confessions of an info-maniac?

It turns out that using e-mail, IM and other communication tools too much might lower your IQ. Research sponsored by Hewlett-Packard found that our addiction to checking our e-mail may cause a significant reduction in IQ. "Me fail English, that's unpossible!" Well Ralph, it looks like the distractions of multi-tasking and communication technologies may harm one's ability to focus--a feeling I expressed to some degree in blog posting number one. If these findings find more support (especially across generations), one must begin to wonder what technology is doing to us. Imagine an inverse relationship between productivity and IQ, or perhaps a world where a cut-paste-reply culture replaces hard-earned creativity. ...How many times have I been distracted while composing this post; how many good ideas were lost? Could there be a technological answer for a technologically-created problem? [I've often thought that a "lock" application (meaning: only let me use MS Word for the next hour) wouldn't be such a bad idea.] Perhaps better focus on my part could make for a less-rambling post...

I'm still thinking about the role of editors in the world...

As anyone who has an iPod, or any other large library of material, knows: sometimes valuable material can get buried. In the iPod example, chances are that unless a playlist is created, a song you like may get played only rarely. The methods of getting a favorite song to play more often include creative uses of metadata, some kind of search, playing a file directly, as well as using a playlist. In other words, short of somehow knowing what file (or kind/attribute of a file in a search) you're looking for, there needs to be some kind of active step taken to make the item more prominent. So what does it mean? There needs to be some person or technology which plays a role of helping us know what we may potentially be interested in. Not only does the model save us time, but it also helps create personal connections of interest. From iPods to social cohesion; who'd have guessed.