Psybertron Asks

Brilliant spoof from John Cleese. Which was in this NY-Times Opinionator blog by Tyler Burge, which is also an excellent read. [Thanks to Marsha on MD for the link.]

Just watched the Feb2010 update to Jonathan Zittrain’s “Minds for Sale” Harvard law school presentation. (Thanks to David Gurteen for Tweeting the link to LinkedIn).

Excellent presentation – for me – on the downsides of inter-mediated trust and motives in internet organizational models – whether business, general governance or simply epistemic. The lack of any gap between “too soon to know” and “too late to do anything about it”. I’m not specifically interested in the pyramid of internet service outsourcing business here, though I do have an area of interest there too, but the general subject fitting my agenda. Particularly telling is his reversal on whether in fact web intermediaries should be responsible, and unable to disclaim content (and motives of content providers).

(See my comment of the morality of technological detachment on the Assange / Wikileaks story – also relevant.)

[PS – Also note in the lecture the discussion of human spam, something I’ve noticed in blog comment spam too. Akismet Spam Filter usually catches it, but I often read them, just to be amazed at (a) their ingenuity, and (b) their misguided morality in thinking it is of any value.]

That’s the word. I’ve been refusing to join the baying mob in seeing Assange as any kind of hero, and still do, despite raising my opinion marginally above “Yawn” recently.

Jeff Hall used the word Martyr, commenting on the recent “Something Worth Worrying About” post from Euan Semple, on which I had already commented and referred to Euan’s previous “Parents, Children & Wikileaks” post.

The real danger is the authorities turning Assange into some kind of Martyr, and turning the metaphorical riot police onto an angry mob of millions of newly converted internet hacktivists. Sadly, the internet “kill switch” may come in handy after all. And, we’ll all be sorry. No surprise the children of the revolution are going analogue.

Children, children. Stand up any benevolent dictator capable of banging a few heads together.

Hat tip to David Gurteen for tweeting the link to Euan’s post.

Blogged a few weeks ago my memories of working on Harrier. Great collection of pictures here from Nigel Blake at the final take-offs and flypasts. Hat tip to Smiffy on FB for the link.

My favourite recollections are of this tail-stand transition from hover to climb.

Strangely when I was in Brisbane last month, their F111’s had their final burn too.

Wikileaks is still a big yawn. Freedom of speech / press is one thing worth fighting for, but governments have power because we give it to them on our behalf to protect our interests.

The ability to hack into and publish anything morally interesting or dubious is not itself a reason to do so, though the threat (ability) to do so is being used  to force institutional change. Well, OK, but watch out for the collateral damage. With responsible press investigation, sure, publish what is relevant to the public interest – like the US military shooting of Iraqi Reuters journalists. Specific story with specific case (in the documentary).

Archive publishing – after the event – of war reports classified / secret in real time – is normal historical precedent. The bulk publishing of hacked material because it would otherwise be secret has nothing to do with freedoms. War is not new. War is hell. War fought with weapons of detached technology is even more inhuman. War is to be avoided. This is not news.

As Assange says himself – quoting Solzhenitsyn – one selected word of truth has most value. Mass hacking is still criminal. Wielding the power to hack anywhere anytime has unsurprisingly brought out the worst in the authorities charged with maintaining stable government. Wikileaks has chosen its own misguided ideological battleground. Governments should know better, but they are we. Perhaps Openleaks will understand that total disclosure is an impractical ideology for any organization that values human trust. We can only hope it will be over by Christmas.

Anyway, once the idiots have stopped posturing, the principal outcome will simply be tighter secrecy and less trust all round. Brilliant shot in the foot Julian. What next, the War on Wikis ?

Thanks to Johnnie Moore for the tweeted documentary link.
(BTW – can’t understand why he doesn’t just get on a plane and go to Sweden ?)

This kind of quote reminds me why I’m a big fan of Mary Parker-Follett. [Specifically this.]

‘The most important thing to remember about unity is — that there is no such thing.  There is only unifying.  You cannot get unity and expect it to last a day–or five minutes.’

Quoted by Rosa Zubizarreta quoting Albie Davis, quoting Follett on the MPF-Ning Network.

Scary piece by Lisa Jardine about a hero of mine (and hers) where it seems she may have lost her admiration for her father Jacob Bronowski. I have long had the “I beseech you …” Auschwitz scene burned into my psyche, that it was always the punctuation to the grand sweep of science he had presented; That whatever his secret WWII military career, the positive progress of science has always come with that joined-up-moral caveat. And of course he was a man of knowledge well beyond science too. Good to see the Parkinson interview, with Lisa’s commentary on his health at the time. He died so soon afterwards. And good to see any doubts restored in Lisa’s mind too. Phew.

Just testing out some RSS and Wiki-Watch-Page integration.

Saw this Sundance Grand Jury winner on the flight back from Brisbane / Singapore.

Really excellent study in evil. Slow, depressing, grim, grey-brown mood builds inexorably towards unavoidable family conflicts of loyalty, with many a predictably unexpected twist. Some good out-of-sequence events arriving at & leaving the courtroom climax add to the temporary confusion. How bad can this get ? Even when the fat lady sings, somehow it doesn’t quite seem over …

(Be interesting to see on a big screen. The claustrophobic tight shots seemed so reminiscent of gritty TV drama.)

Yawn.