(Assume a haughty posture and say condescendingly) “Back when I went to school…“  the only piece of paper I remember ever getting sent back home to a parent was a report card. 

My, how times have changed.  The modern parent is subjected to a daily deluge of school papers that seems to imply a misguided belief that education can be achieved by mere dead tree sacrifice alone.  No Child Left Behind seemed to bring this educational fad to a fever pitch, but only exacerbated the existing problem.  My unscientific signal to noise ratio estimate of these papers would be about 1 marginally meaningful paper to 10 unuseful ones. 

But occasionally one does find a rare gem in the mineshaft.  As happened recently when I saw an assignment to make an “Acrostic (a related phrase for each letter)” out of the word “Thanksgiving.”  I should explain that ”Thanksgiving” is a rather long word to a 2nd grader so some themes may get repeated.  For instance:  ”I (heart) turkeys,” ” No vechtables,” and the rather authoritarian: “Say you like turkeys!”  But see for yourself:

Say You Like Turkeys

Facebook released new content sharing/filtering rules today and it got me to wondering why these social network sites make such a fundamental thing as modeling roles and relationships so difficult.

It seems in real life you have a version of (or role for) yourself that you expose to these general groups:

• You
• Family
• Close friends (usually less than 10)
• Coworkers
• Schoolmates
• Acquaintances (usually less than 100)
• Special Interest/Group/Club/Hobby Members
• General Public

So I have always been baffled why social content sites don’t use a similar model and let you simply check off which of these groups/roles you wish to publish/expose your content to. 

The Ben Franklin adage that you should “not do anything you don’t want to read about in tomorrow’s paper” is particularly apt in the social media world.  Especially given the number of stories about folks who were fired because coworkers or others saw inappropriate content intended only for close friends (advice on avoiding this here).  So for me personally, I have little interest in most social media until they can get the roles and relationships aspect right. 

To me, Flickr always seemed like the best/easiest site for doing this, but is nonetheless still somewhat restrictive because it only provides 4 role categories: private (you), friend, family, public (I think if they added a coworker category it would be a fairly complete and simple to use model).

Can I be Your Friend?

One of the problems with translating this simple model into the social-media world is that 2 people don’t always have the same view of a relationship.  Unlike your own private consciousness where you can define someone’s role and meaning to you without them knowing, in the social media world, people often know the role that you have assigned them.  You might be afraid that calling someone an “Acquaintance” rather than a “Friend” might hurt their feelings.  Or over time as relationships change, a “Friend” might become an “Acquaintance” and then eventually someone you hardly know at all.  “Demoting” these people from “Friend” to “Acquaintance” might also cause hurt feelings. 

The simple solution to this problem is to simply not let people know what you think their role is; this setting should be kept private and known only to you.  One again, the real world provides a compelling solution to even this dilemma.  The real world – now there is a concept for the Facebook generation.

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).

As if the Obama campaign have not received enough free advertising from the quarterly mailing of 401K and 529 statements (credit to George F. Will for this point), the Obama campaign is getting yet more free publicity from the folks who are showing up to Palin (whose name fittingly enough in Ancient Greek means “backward,” ”repeating,” and “again”) rallies.  

Just a few samples from a single rally in Johnstown, PA:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4515218n http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHrExRHZnm0

Which made it to one of the top stories this week in Digg:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/The_Obama_monkey_video_that_CBS_didn_t_show(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKUovpF9LWU)

As I’m sure George McGovern can attest, statistically speaking you are going to have at least a few idiots show up to any public gathering and one has no control over this.  What is controllable however, is whether the campaigns encourage and mimic their tone.  But so far, Palin hasn’t acted much better than the drunken Joe-Sixpack idiot fringe she champions.

I always wondered how the daughter was able to successfully put hats, glasses, and you-name-it on our pet dog, when the second I tried to touch or place any object on our dog’s head, she would thrash violently until the foreign object was dislodged and summarily disposed of. 

The secret, as it turns out, as in all endeavors, is persistence.  Just keep doing it again and again (say for fifteen very gleeful and entertaining minutes to a child) and resistence apparently gives way.  At that point, the dog resigns to her fate as a dress-up model and will submit to almost anything (well, OK, even at that point, the dresses apparently are still a challenge).

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.

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?

Almost as if it was longing to be found and remembered on its tenth anniversary, I came across this receipt today for the first computer I ever purchased – 10 years ago today*. 

As I ponder this anniversary of sorts, it might be useful to reflect on what has changed in the 10 years since I first brought such an object (and many subsequent ones) into my house.

Firstly, computers have proliferated in my house like Tribbles, I have a basement full of relics (including this first one) and 3 of them within 10 feet of where I now sit (not even counting things like MP3 Players, GPS’s, etc.).

The wife’s irritation at their presence and the time I spend in front of them has oscillated back and forth between mild and serious annoyance.

I gained the freedom to do some work from home as well as the expectation from employers that I do work from home.  Home and work life have morphed into a single entity – but at least I now leave work on time and always make it home for supper.  Even if right after supper I am back to checking email.  

I have only read a handful of books and never again subscribed to a newspaper.  I haven’t been to a library or opened an encyclopedia in years.

I have spent probably no more than a single hour of continuous concentration on any one single thing.  A constant stream of emails, IMs, and many other digital distractions have all contributed to this attention deficit. 

More positively, as my treasured family photos have migrated to sites like Flickr, I no longer live in fear that a house fire would permanently destroy these precious items. 

Reflecting on all of this, it is useful to remember a time not so long ago when computers and the Internet were not an integral part of our daily lives.  And also perhaps worry just a bit, that the negative trends listed (the constant communications, interruptions, intrusions) will only multiply at an ever-increasing rate until we become little more than computer processors ourselves. 

Overall, looking at the past ten years, one can see that this new media age, like the TV-age that preceded it, holds the promise of even greater convenience and access to information, while taking away things like solitude and concentration.  How you feel about that I guess depends on which of those things you value more.  But enough concentration for one hour (and one decade) - time to get back to WWILF’ing** and another 10 years of digital distraction.

* It is also interesting to recall the fact that by 1998 I had worked as a computer programmer for over 2 years before I could even get enough money together to afford one.  The first year of work, I didn’t even have a computer on my desk.

** WWILF = What Was I Looking For?

The movie Office Space certainly is a biting and hilarious indictment of the soullessness, absurdity, and mind-numbing nature of modern office life. 

One of the movie’s best and lifelike characters is Tom Smykowski.  Smykowski is a middle-age, middle manager (“I take the specifications from the customers and bring them down to the software engineers! I’m a people person! What the hell’s wrong with you!“) who is edging closer to retirement, lives in constant fear of losing his job, and as a result is perpetually stressed.

Smykowski, generally a negative person, is ecstatically happy only after having just been in a horrible, crippling car accident – because it means he doesn’t have to go back to his office job.  Bandaged and incapacitated, he tells his coworkers that “if you hang in long enough, good things can happen in this life!”