Fahrenheit (Encryption Key) 451

Available as "Kindle"-ling

A really perceptive article in today’s CS Monitor: Kindle e-reader: A Trojan horse for free thought.

Until reading, I had not seen the great irony in the unfortunate naming of Amazon’s “Kindle” device and the title and subject matter of Ray Bradbury’s famous book. 

Some really thought provoking and sensible arguments in the article include:

That we are trading ownership for access – access that requires the pre-authorization of a corporation and “thingamajig.”

Well-established principles of Fair Use and First Sale are being marginalized and sweep away.

“…What the Kindle should be igniting is serious debate on the fundamental, inalienable right to property in a digital age – and clarifying what’s yours, mine, and ours.”

The article’s author (also a librarian) also includes a great Ray Bradbury quote on how ”You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture, just get people to stop reading them.”  (or he might have added- just convince them to stop thinking they own them).

The Whatifs and Other Monsters Under the Bed

The other night while I was lying awake worrying about something that I can no longer even remember, I came to notice my daughter lying on the floor beside the bed (a frightening shadowy apparition in itself until you learn to expect such behavior).  Eventually she presumably found the uncarpeted floor less hospitable than her own bed and returned there.

The next day I asked her why she was there and I got the standard kid answer for such nighttime behaviors: because of “Monsters under the Bed.”

I then wondered what I in the heck I was doing up at that time myself and realized it was pretty much the same thing: going to some cold, hard, dark place and worrying about my own “Monsters under the Bed.”  Those both irrational and rational fears we have when the din of the outside world quiets and we are left alone with our own unique thoughts and concerns.

This is a time and mood captured perfectly by the Shel Silverstein poem Whatif:

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song…

…Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Shel and I just need to keep telling ourselves: those nighttime Whatifs and Monsters under the Bed aren’t real, they’re just illusions of our overactive imaginations and worst fears.  Even our most rational fears only very seldom come to pass and as wittily told in Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen):

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday

So go back to your own bed.  Turn on a flashlight or shine some hope and optimism into your worried mind and let those Whatifs and Monsters under the Bed fade away and melt back into the shadows.  4PM on some idle Tuesday will no doubt come soon enough, so for now appreciate and be grateful for the day you just had and look forward to and be hopeful for those yet to come.

Current Generation HK’s on Display at the Air & Space Museum

Hunter-Killer(HK) UAV Aircraft

Looking up from the ground floor of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, it is a bit creepy to see the southwest wing’s display of mostly armed UAV Aircraft (UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).  One cannot help but feel like he or she is suddenly transported to the year 2029 and is accompanying Reese from the movie The Terminator as he tries to evade the autonomous Hunter-Killers (HKs). 

It is interesting that in 1949 George Orwell envisioned a future 35 years in the future (1984) where world-wide totalitarian regimes enslaved their people (using mostly intimidation and propaganda).  Yet, when the year 1984 eventually rolled around, the movie The Terminator envisioned an even grimmer future (this time 45 years in the future) where machines enslave and try to annihilate the entire human race. 

If Darwinism is indeed correct, that may yet come to pass.  But nifty machines like these first crude UAVs may serve an intermediate step and bridge the gap between both of these dystopic visions.  A future in which totalitarian regimes can manufacture an entire robot army to subjugate humans at will (propaganda no longer required). 

Today’s generation still sees these machines as mostly non-threatening and neat.  But who knows? HKs may soon be coming to a neighborhood near you - and this time they may be a little more threatening than a Roomba?

Cindy Sheehan is Lydia Puckett

Pro Patria Mori

Cindy Sheehan is one of those controversial, polarizing, and annoying public figures that you are either “for ‘em or again’ ‘em.” 

I certainly fall into the latter category.  I could forgive her many wacky misstatements, using her son’s death in order to become a media darling, and her false claims to retire from public life and then running for congress after just 1 month of missing the media spotlight. 

But the one act I consider unforgivable is the act of claiming to speak for the dead, war dead in particular.  I just think these dead have already paid the ultimate sacrifice and deserve to be left in peace and no longer used as pawns in someone else’s ideological battles.   

In Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, Lydia Puckett does this for Knowlt Hoheimer.  She falsely claims a spot for herself, no matter how far removed, in history.  When in fact she is nothing, she made no sacrifice, and certainly has absolutely no right to speak for the war dead:

Lydia Puckett

KNOWLT HOHEIMER ran away to the war
The day before Curl Trenary
Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett
For stealing hogs.
But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier.
He caught me running with Lucius Atherton.
We quarreled and I told him never again
To cross my path.
Then he stole the hogs and went to the war-
Back of every soldier is a woman.

Given the chance to speak for himself, Knowlt Hoheimer makes one of the most powerful statements in all of literature about war:

Knowlt Hoheimer

I WAS the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army.
Rather a thousand times the country jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.”
What do they mean, anyway?

So leave Knowlt Hoheimer and Casey Sheehan alone.  Let their courageous acts and supreme sacrifices speak for themselves - and for goodness sakes, Lydia Puckett and Cindy Sheehan, please shut up!

Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2008

In Honor of William S. Burroughs

For Al Bundy
In hopes he is still on the couch

Thanks for the candy hearts and Hallmark cards, destined to be perfunctorily purchased -

thanks for an Expression to despoil and poison -

thanks for FTD florists to provide an escape from neglectful guilt -

thanks for St. Valentine and the Martyrs, to forget their lives and meaning -

thanks for a mandatory dinner at Applebee’s or Red Lobster -

thanks for the idea of TRUE LOVE to commoditize and sell until it stimulates the economy -

thanks for the MPAA, for judges who forget the First Amendment, for prudish soccer moms incensed about Janet Jackson’s breast -

thanks for “I (Heart) My Dog” bumper stickers -

thanks for dove-patterned bulk tableware -

thanks for “two months salary” and Diamond Eternity Rings -

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to think on their own -

thanks for a nation of consumers – yes,

thanks for all the memories… all right, let’s see your credit cards… you always were a simple tender heart -

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human emotions.
 

The First Anti-Smoking Nazis – Literally

Because Hitler and the Nazis make such great archetypal villains, something like a freaky Bat Man nemesis like the Joker or the Penguin, dropping a “you’re a Nazi” bomb in an argument is now fairly standard practice.  This seems to mainly be a shortcut for the mentally lazy.  And sometimes beyond laziness, it is often a sign of all-out mental confusion – as when someone who actually opposes things like Racial Preferences is called a “Nazi” – when I think the Nazis were actually pretty big into the whole racial preference thing.

The problem with making the Nazis these cartoon characters to be pulled out in failing arguments is that people too easily forget the small incremental steps that actually led a nation to do some pretty horrendous things.  One major contributing factor to the viciousness of the Nazi Regime was the way in which the unopposed government grew to control nearly every aspect of its citizens lives.

I’m thinking about the Nazis this week because on February 1, 2008, my home state of Maryland will impose an all-out indoor smoking ban, including bars and restaurants.  Now, probably like most people, I am personally happy about the ban.  It is going to be great to take my kids out to dinner at bars/restaurants and not have to worry about smoke.  It is also going to be great to leave a bar without having to immediately put my smoke laden clothes in the laundry.  Not to mention that it is just going to be great just to be able to breath in a bar (especially without worrying about obnoxious cigar smokers).

But at the same time, I fear that this is just the sort of incremental government intrusion into personal liberties that can lead to far worse policies.  Once a government can dictate what is healthy for you, they pretty much have free reign to stomp out anything they don’t like.  It seems to be the same concept as censorship but working on the other 3 senses – instead of censoring what you see and hear, it is what you taste, smell, and feel.  Is there any aspect of a person’s life that can not be linked back to some public health aspect?  And how long before we have a regiment of “Physical Jerks” as mandated by the government in 1984.

Oh and another thing, “you’re a Nazi” if you support smoking bans.  You see the Nazis were one of the first governments to attempt to ban smoking – read all about it here.  Call me lazy, but its true.

A Blog Entry on the Sinister Nature of Blog Entries

Or “Why the Future (of Mass-Media) Doesn’t Need Us”

I simply love it when someone presents a really good (meaning reasonably well thought-out) contrarian view to widely held and agreed-upon notions.  Such as Bill Joy did with his anti-technology argument in “Why the Future doesn’t Need Us.”  Another grumpy technology-kill-joy by the name of Andrew Keenhas been making the rounds lately, griping about “these kids today,” what with their modern-day Frisbees (MySpace), Rock-n-Roll (YouTube), and Hula-Hoops (Blogs).  He is pimping his new book “The Cult of the Amateur” and appeared on the PBS Newshour a while back.  

There is a Point Here Somewhere

Now, it would be easy to dismiss as a hack and a Luddite someone whose only experience with the Internet was running a dot.com-bubble-era company into the ground (audiocafe.com).  But amid the clutter and shrillness of his argument, there is some useful meaning to be extracted somewhere in the mire of Keen’s digital diatribe.  While Keen’s gripes are so many it is often hard to see his overarching premise or exactly what he is saying the real problems are, the theme seems to be this:

We are losing high quality media content in favor of the lower quality, user-generated content of Web 2.0.  ”The so-called ‘democratization’ of the Internet is actually undermining reliable information and high-quality entertainment”

Just in the first chapter of his book (which you can read here), he bounces freely between topics ranging from

• “Digital Darwinianism, Survival of the Loudest and Most Opinonated” i.e. problems with
  • The pure chaos and noise of the flattened internet information model
  • The inability to find reliable, high quality information
• Dismay that Search Engines are the new Big Bother (“1984 2.0“)
  • True enough, people enter their most private thoughts/questions into these commercial tools
  • These commercial tools then turn this very personal information into a means of selling advertising and products
• (A possibly misguided belief) that free content sites, such as YouTube (in the case of TV) and craigslist (in the case of newspapers), are cannibalizing and destroying legitimate paid content venues
• Justifiable authorship concerns
  • Source, bias, and reliability of information
  • Skill, quality, and experience
  • Copyright, loss of income
• A general lamentation on the pure inanity of it all and ultimate further dumbing down of the culture.

O Tempora! O Mores! – Oh the times! Oh the morals!

Since some of Keen’s primary targets (along with YouTube and Wikipedia) are blogs, I find it a little ironic that when I wanted to find out more about this intriguing character that I was directed where?  You guessed it – to his blog at http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/.  Also, there was a Wikipedia article and some YouTube videos, but I won’t rub that in - I guess blogs and YouTube are OK for him and his “high quality content” but not for the ordinary rabble.

As far as Keen’s observations go, they are much like Joy’s – big on problems, not so good on proposed solutions.  The book is half polemic and half hyperbole.  He cherry picks the best of traditional media, the Bob Dylans and the New York Times-es, while completely ignoring the very same ”corrupt, trivial, and inane” aspects that he is criticizing in Web 2.0. 

For argument effect, Keen sometimes makes statements that surely he can not truly believe.  For instance, he repeats the myth that craigslist ads cannibalize local newspaper revenue.  Does anyone who has ever been to craigslist believe 1) someone would actually pay for most of these ads or 2) these ads would ever appear in a newspaper?  Is there anyone who has ever paid $50 for a 15 word, 1-day newspaper classified ad that didn’t feel a little bit exploited themselves?

The Problems According to Keen

Internet as a “Chaos of Useless Information” and “Libertarian Anarchy”

The Internet has resulted in less culture, less reliability, less organization, and less ability to find high quality information.  Bloggers and other amateurs simply lack the resources to produce quality content in terms of being able to travel, assemble teams, gain internal access to facilities, and hire editors/quality control personnel. 

At some point we need trained experts to filter information for us and tell the masses what are the most important issues of the day.  To extract any value from information, we need hierarchy, organization, and expertise.

“Digital Narcissism”

He remarks that there are “a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.”  True enough, people are showing off, bragging, revealing inane details about themselves, and putting virtually their whole lives on the Internet. 

Internet as an “Echo Chamber” and as a Great Divider

We are staying in places on Internet that just echo/reflect our own ideas.  We aren’t being exposed to different and diverse ideas and cultures but are becoming further isolated and stratified.  We go to the Internet just “to confirm what we already believe.”

We don’t know our own neighbors but we intimately know the videos of YouTubers and the ideas of bloggers (many who just share our own ideas).  “Internet democratization … is not improving community. It’s not increasingly developing rich conversation.  It’s not building collaboration.”  There is a “fragmentation of taste” and a “channel for every one of us in which we are the solitary broadcaster and sole audience.”  

Internet Anonymity

Because of anonymity, we will never truly know the motivation behind those who produce the content and therefore can’t judge the reliability.  And as Keen calls it, “an anonymous culture where people seem to be perpetually insulting one another.”  The Internet manifestation of the anonymous driver “sticking up his middle finger.”

The Internet as a Reflection of Ourselves

The Internet shows the lighter and darker aspects of humanity.  It is “youthfulness, playfulness, energy, and excitement.”  But it is also ”addiction to pornography and  gambling,” as well as all of the other unhealthy aspects of the Internet: compulsive and impulsive shopping (eBay), incessant chattering, and virtually any other unhealthy human habit in digital form.  Keen makes an excellent point here and we very seldom hear about the addictive and unhealthy nature of Internet activities.    

The Solutions

In Keen’s own words (on the NewsHour), he says

“[Internet self-expressers should] should ask themselves, “Is this really valuable?  Do I need to tell the world what I’m eating for breakfast?  Do I need to tell the world what I think of the latest TV show?”  Much of the self-expression on the Internet is wasteful. …” 

He also suggests that, in free societies (one can argue whether this ever truly exists), there is no need for anonymity on the Internet.  He believes removing anonymity would quickly self-correct problems with unreliable and uncouth information. 

An Inane Blogger’s Take on Keen

Who knew icanhascheezburger, Chris Crocker, the Numa-Numa kid, or the Chocolate Rain guy could wreak such havoc?  Is time spent watching inanity on the Internet any less wasteful than time spent watching inanity on TV?  If this original “high quality media” was so great, why would people even be seeking out other alternatives?  And isn’t actively producing content such as blogs or other media, no matter how inane, more beneficial than merely passively absorbing content. 

Exactly which of these Web 2.o sites is the villain? 

• Blogs and Social Networking sites: MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc.
• Photos and Videos: Flickr and YouTube
• Encyclopedias: Wikipedia, Math World
• Media Discussion and Aggregation: Forums, Digg, Slashdot

And do any of these sites not have an analogue in the non-Internet world (even if the barrier of entry is now considerably less)?

I find that I read much more news than I ever did before when I received newspapers.  And I find the quality of the content, even the novice-generated content, much higher.

It just seems like the old Cathedral versus Bazaar argument.  That there is only one traditional way to produce content and it must be handed out by those content elites.  More recently this argument was made with Proprietary versus Open Source Software. 

But Keen’s elitist argument has been repeated again and again down through the ages.  That is that there should be centralized gatekeepers who tell the population what they should think, how they should behave, or what they should consume.  Be these gatekeepers high priests, politicians, or modern-day media moguls.

In the final analysis, as Keen points out, the Internet, and now Web 2.0, for good or ill, is like all media, be it cuneiform or stone slabs: a Mirror of Ourselves.  Hopefully this time not just a lazier, darker, and more inane reflection and manifestation of ourselves.

A Perfect Country for Bananafish

Not to sound like a Mark Chapman-style nutter, but whether I am walking the streets of America, the aisles of Walmart, or the halls of corporations, I am constantly reminded of J.D. Salinger’s literary device: the Bananafish.

What is a Bananafish those who have not been forced to endure Salinger’s Nine Stories in a literature class may ask? 

 ”Well, they swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. They’re very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I’ve known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas…Naturally, after that they’re so fat they can’t get out of the hole again. Can’t fit through the door…They die.”

Sounds like your average American to me.  Each bananahole might have a different label, perhaps “alcohol,” “drugs,” “success,” or “attention,” but there is a banana and a corresponding bananahole for each of us.

So each of us is a bananafish in our own way.  Let’s just hope we realize it while we can still “fit through the door.”

Best Poems for the Dilettante and Philistine Masses

I like poetry.  Even though I cannot tell the difference between iambic pentameter and a centimeter or a Sonnet and Sonogram, I still think there is poetry that can be appreciated by even those of us who do not possess Literature degrees.

The fact that I ever read a line of poetry at all in High School English classes is certainly a argument in favor or diverse and well-rounded school curriculae because it is certainly not something I would have sought on my own.

My favorite poems are ones in which remembering a single line can make you recall the tone, texture, and richness of the entire poem.  Here are a few examples and some of my favorites along with their most memorable lines:

“When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” – The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, R. J. Randall

“And miles to go before I sleep.” -  Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

“nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands” – somewhere i have never travelled, e.e.cummings

“how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death” – Buffalo Bill’s defunct, e.e.cummings

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Elliot

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson 

And of course no list of memorable poems and poetry lines would be complete without…

“Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickenson

…Which I can never remember without also remembering Woody Allens comedic retort in the book Getting Even: “How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not the ‘thing with feathers.’ The thing with feathers has turned out be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”

Seussologic Dendrology

I was corrected by someone with more knowledge of Seussology than myself that in my Joshua Tree post I appeared to have mixed up the Truffle and Tuttle -Tuttle Trees from Seusslore. 

The tree should have been identified as matching the shape of a Tuttle-Tuttle tree (as in “Ten Tired Turtles in a Tuttle-Tuttle Tree,” from Dr. Seuss’s ABC Book) instead of the Lorax Truffle tree.  Seen here thanks to the wonder of public domain images.  But wait, it gets worse, because in the Lorax, it is actually called a Truffula Tree.

Big T..Little t…What begins with T?  Tripping Tensile Tonsils on Tricky Tuttle-Tuttle, Truffle, and Truffula Trees.