While I am glad to see the individuals pulling the online resources together in response to Katrina, I reiterate Rex Brooks' post that getting more professional and informed resources into the specification processes for the public safety and justice systems is a very positive response.
Had CAP and EDXL been online, the response effort could have been better. Among the systems that gather name information, we have location and address, phone numbers, classes of registered vehicles, and named relationships among these. Between your Utility and other public safety agencies, there is sufficient information to warn you and organize the recovery.
It comes down to cost. What doesn't?
Sign up lists for notification are optional and through the receiver of your choice as long as it conforms to the specifications for the system and the standards for the data.
Interoperable asset cataloging and management is needed.
Interoperable dispatch systems integrated with wide area and broadcast communications are now possible and being implemented.
Standards are lacking but emerging.
While large scale sensor systems are vital to homeland security, we are seeing in Katrina the results of overfocusing on one source of hazards to the neglect of more probable ones.
"Fear is the mindkiller." Frank Herbert.
We have to face this squarely. This stops. From 9/11 forward we have been operating in a climate of fear and distraction, somewhat normal given the enormity of that event, but ever since being played as a card in the game of political distraction.
Officials using the destruction of the Gulf Coast by Katrina as the means to push agendas for left or right political causes are not doing their jobs to serve the people. Turn them off for now and remember them later at the ballot box.
The media is not excused either but frankly, they were in fast and providing real time data.
We all failed. Too many people are dead, dieing, homeless or grieving to believe otherwise.
Beware the blame game. It doesn't helo people off roofs.
From my desk, it is clear that the call list systems were inadequate. Call lists are part of the major incident response protocols that enable resources to be brought on line quickly and efficiently.
It is likely that inadequate provisions were made for rapid mandatory evacuations, and just as obvious that some people don't heed warnings even when the evidence is in and time is short. It is obvious that some people even with adequate warning do not have the resources to evacuate. That is a very tough problem to solve logistically. When the danger is coming fast, there are no magic helicopters or fleets of ships. It comes down to school buses, flat beds, tractor-trailers, Wal-Marts and Lowes.
Remember that.
Think hard about what is on their shelves and which parts you want on the street the morning after. Pass laws.
A top-down response is always combined with a bottom-up response. There are plenty of lessons to learn for everyone involved. It is obvious that we must step up the pressure to implement a well-thought through and fearless National Response Plan. It is obvious that State and Local protocols must be improved NOW to cope with the need to interoperate at a national level.
For you XML geeks, it's just the message set, D'oh!
While local and State control of resources remain standard procedure, requests from these officials are not required to mobilize national assets under the NRP.
Old habits can be bad habits. New habits save lives.
Old habits can be good habits. New habits can kill.
What do you know about your location and what is near you?
Do you have a plan to find family members fast if your cellphone callist is unavailable?
Do you know your neighbor's name? Do you know their children's names?
Do you have an evacuation plan that all of these people know?
Are there large chemical plants or nuclear reactors near your home? Do you know about plumes and prevailing winds?
Do you have alternatives?
Act.
If you see a Cat 2 or 3 enter the Gulf in August, you don't need much analysis to know time is wasting. The engine of a hurricane is hot water.
As a member of the public safety industry watching my company stock climb even as I know public safety systems are inadequate in the face of a Cat 4/5 hurricane, I have that same sick feeling I had on 9/11: making money on misery. On the other hand, I know these systems save lives. And more can be saved.
Public safety is an industry where ego-driven competition kills people. It is the industry that in the face of this disaster, must come to the standards table.
The amount of senseless local deviation in your dispatch and records management systems to keep your local response officials nice-to-your-mayor or unions will get you killed. Kick their heads until they implement GJXML, NIMS, CAP, EDXL and other document protocols that work Just-In-Time.
Regionalize. Immediately.
Train your cops and firemen on computers. There is NO excuse for a computer illiterate in a cruiser or any other first responder vehicle.
There is NO excuse for software that is so hard to operate that a college degree is required.
Know what the real problems are and don't let your public safety systems become political footballs. In my experience, it means you cutover slower and often pay the same money multiple times for bad procurements.
Coverage and technology are not the same thing. Choose wisely particularly with respect to scale. LANs rule; WANs fuse.
Networks don't fight floods, fires, or CBRNE but they can place a lot of the right calls to the right people at the right time. At the very least, fix the callLists by event type and support subscription-based notification on any eligible receiver.
Buy wisely. Pay attention. Act.
len (speaking only for myself and not my employer)
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Civil War Thinking
From: Mike Bullard [mailto:mikeb43@charter.net]
Received this from a friend and the father hits the nail on the head. During the 40s she would have been run out of the US and the threat now is greater than then. We won that one because we stood united. When the politicians are through with her she will be left to die on the vine by herself and they won't be mentioned.
"An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan From the Proud Father of a U.S. Marine
By Brantley Smith
Posted On August 17, 2005"
NOTE: Mr Smith's letter is not presented here because of copyrights and permission. Please find his letter and read it.
I wish it did. It doesn't. Like Ms. Sheehan, it hits to one side of the nail. It is two people with very opposite positions about the way of American foreign policy and the cost of not correcting mistakes quickly before losses mount higher. Brother, I do read a lot and not just the Bible or the Constitution, but history, philosophy, religion, analyses from foreign policy experts and so on. They may know more than me or you, or maybe not. So this is just another whack at the American nail.
Our fight is not with the Muslims; it is with sects. These are the people who attack us; not the world of Islam. Unless we wish for this. If we do, it will come true.
Here's the deal with the Muslims: Islam is a religion of peace. The law of Sharia about occupiers on their land is the man who owns it must fight, if he cannot his neighbor must, and if not he, his neighbor to the extent of the whole of the Muslim faith.
That means eventually, we will have to fight them all if we do not leave the lands of the Middle East when asked by the people of those lands. Who we fight about over that will depend on who welcomes us and who does not. Oil doesn't matter; religion does. We invaded and like VietNam, we will face an insurgency that will only grow stronger. When we leave, a Civil War will occur whether we provide cover or not if this is the will of the people of Iraq. Today, they fight us because we are there. Whatever we think we are achieving, we are not stopping the insurgency. We are prolonging it just as we prolonged the Civil War in VietNam by taking a side after the French failed to hold their colonies in SouthEast Asia.
Whether Cindy Sheehan is right to protest the loss of her son in a war we should not have started, or whether this man truly believes the sacrifice of his daughter will somehow make him safer, Iraq did not start a war with the United States. We did.
We violated the one tenet most Americans share: we would not strike first. We say we did this out of fear of Weapons of Mass Destruction when America possesses the
greatest stock of such in history. If it really is our intention to liberate, then we have done that. If it really is our intent to turn Iraq into the war where all terrorists come to learn how to fight us, we have done that too. If it is our intent to leave in peace and enable the people of the region to choose as freely their lives as we do here, then we must leave.
If our intent is other than that, then we must ask ourselves if we do as Americans share such cause. If all that sends us there is fear, then we are a dishonored nation before the world for we of all peoples have learned by history and experience the costs of stocks in the village square, or sending our children into harms way to satisfy the craft of craven leaders.
Bodies. Ours. Theirs.
At the end of this when we do withdraw as we eventually will, those costs are not unnoticed or dishonored. The children and men who go to die as professional soldiers
will have as they always have when called, fight selflessly for each other and for whatever else they value.
It is Their fight. Not mine. Not yours. Not Cindy's. Not Mr. Smith's.
When they come home, they will tell us if it was worth it, but they will come home, to say or be buried. That is war.
Received this from a friend and the father hits the nail on the head. During the 40s she would have been run out of the US and the threat now is greater than then. We won that one because we stood united. When the politicians are through with her she will be left to die on the vine by herself and they won't be mentioned.
"An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan From the Proud Father of a U.S. Marine
By Brantley Smith
Posted On August 17, 2005"
NOTE: Mr Smith's letter is not presented here because of copyrights and permission. Please find his letter and read it.
I wish it did. It doesn't. Like Ms. Sheehan, it hits to one side of the nail. It is two people with very opposite positions about the way of American foreign policy and the cost of not correcting mistakes quickly before losses mount higher. Brother, I do read a lot and not just the Bible or the Constitution, but history, philosophy, religion, analyses from foreign policy experts and so on. They may know more than me or you, or maybe not. So this is just another whack at the American nail.
Our fight is not with the Muslims; it is with sects. These are the people who attack us; not the world of Islam. Unless we wish for this. If we do, it will come true.
Here's the deal with the Muslims: Islam is a religion of peace. The law of Sharia about occupiers on their land is the man who owns it must fight, if he cannot his neighbor must, and if not he, his neighbor to the extent of the whole of the Muslim faith.
That means eventually, we will have to fight them all if we do not leave the lands of the Middle East when asked by the people of those lands. Who we fight about over that will depend on who welcomes us and who does not. Oil doesn't matter; religion does. We invaded and like VietNam, we will face an insurgency that will only grow stronger. When we leave, a Civil War will occur whether we provide cover or not if this is the will of the people of Iraq. Today, they fight us because we are there. Whatever we think we are achieving, we are not stopping the insurgency. We are prolonging it just as we prolonged the Civil War in VietNam by taking a side after the French failed to hold their colonies in SouthEast Asia.
Whether Cindy Sheehan is right to protest the loss of her son in a war we should not have started, or whether this man truly believes the sacrifice of his daughter will somehow make him safer, Iraq did not start a war with the United States. We did.
We violated the one tenet most Americans share: we would not strike first. We say we did this out of fear of Weapons of Mass Destruction when America possesses the
greatest stock of such in history. If it really is our intention to liberate, then we have done that. If it really is our intent to turn Iraq into the war where all terrorists come to learn how to fight us, we have done that too. If it is our intent to leave in peace and enable the people of the region to choose as freely their lives as we do here, then we must leave.
If our intent is other than that, then we must ask ourselves if we do as Americans share such cause. If all that sends us there is fear, then we are a dishonored nation before the world for we of all peoples have learned by history and experience the costs of stocks in the village square, or sending our children into harms way to satisfy the craft of craven leaders.
Bodies. Ours. Theirs.
At the end of this when we do withdraw as we eventually will, those costs are not unnoticed or dishonored. The children and men who go to die as professional soldiers
will have as they always have when called, fight selflessly for each other and for whatever else they value.
It is Their fight. Not mine. Not yours. Not Cindy's. Not Mr. Smith's.
When they come home, they will tell us if it was worth it, but they will come home, to say or be buried. That is war.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Intelligent Design
After going into full flame mode on XML-Dev about intelligent design, I should apologize.
But I won't.
You see, every time anyone in America apologizes to the evangelicals, their extreme members use it to push their agendas harder. This is the only group I know of this side of the Moonies that have summer camps for preparing children to debate their agendas. I don't want that taught to my children. There are lots of parts of their agenda I oppose, but most of them can be debated without pulling the rest of the world into the debate.
Intelligent design is not science. It is religion. Science does not admit universal first cause. Why? Because this premise is not testable or verifiable. Once introduced, logical investigation stops. Competent well-trained scientists know this. Those who mix their faith into their technique of investigation, and science is technique, know this.
My position on the existence of God can be found all over my writings. My beliefs are as strong as they need to be. My relationship with God is not for anyone else to judge.
But I do not and cannot accept this thesis that attempts to beggar that relationship because some believe they can strengthen their own position with it. It adds nothing to my faith, and it detracts from the body of science.
In the past, when faced with the political agenda to create a unified faith in this country, the result was to build stocks on the village square. From that experience and others, we learned to separate our religion from our State, but this is not why intelligent design cannot be a subject for a science class. The thesis has no tests for proof and no proof offered adds knowledge that strengthens faith.
It isn't science. Teach it in the temple and I will be there with you. Teach it in a science class, and I will remove my children from your class. Make it a State-enforced requirement, and I will remove my family from the State. No negotiation.
The world today is filled with extremism. We are pumping these emotion-stirring positions into a system that amplifies them and gives them power over otherwise reasonable men and women. We do this at our peril. Any fool, whether foolish about religion, science, or their own relationship to God can see that. Fools that we are, if we wish to harm ourselves, this will achieve a fool's end.
Let the worshipper be known by that to which they live assimilate.
But I won't.
You see, every time anyone in America apologizes to the evangelicals, their extreme members use it to push their agendas harder. This is the only group I know of this side of the Moonies that have summer camps for preparing children to debate their agendas. I don't want that taught to my children. There are lots of parts of their agenda I oppose, but most of them can be debated without pulling the rest of the world into the debate.
Intelligent design is not science. It is religion. Science does not admit universal first cause. Why? Because this premise is not testable or verifiable. Once introduced, logical investigation stops. Competent well-trained scientists know this. Those who mix their faith into their technique of investigation, and science is technique, know this.
My position on the existence of God can be found all over my writings. My beliefs are as strong as they need to be. My relationship with God is not for anyone else to judge.
But I do not and cannot accept this thesis that attempts to beggar that relationship because some believe they can strengthen their own position with it. It adds nothing to my faith, and it detracts from the body of science.
In the past, when faced with the political agenda to create a unified faith in this country, the result was to build stocks on the village square. From that experience and others, we learned to separate our religion from our State, but this is not why intelligent design cannot be a subject for a science class. The thesis has no tests for proof and no proof offered adds knowledge that strengthens faith.
It isn't science. Teach it in the temple and I will be there with you. Teach it in a science class, and I will remove my children from your class. Make it a State-enforced requirement, and I will remove my family from the State. No negotiation.
The world today is filled with extremism. We are pumping these emotion-stirring positions into a system that amplifies them and gives them power over otherwise reasonable men and women. We do this at our peril. Any fool, whether foolish about religion, science, or their own relationship to God can see that. Fools that we are, if we wish to harm ourselves, this will achieve a fool's end.
Let the worshipper be known by that to which they live assimilate.
Getting Fed
Tim Bray is right, as usual.
If blogs, vlogs, mlogs, in other words, subscription systems are to grow faster, subscribing should be a one-click operation. On the other hand, the web is full of one-click nasties and if the XML icon is to be used for that operation, it should be safe. It seems to me, getting people to learn and trust the operation because they are fairly certain they can is the challenge.
Otherwise, yes: drive learning through the common interface convention. That is what hypertext has done best for decades.
If blogs, vlogs, mlogs, in other words, subscription systems are to grow faster, subscribing should be a one-click operation. On the other hand, the web is full of one-click nasties and if the XML icon is to be used for that operation, it should be safe. It seems to me, getting people to learn and trust the operation because they are fairly certain they can is the challenge.
Otherwise, yes: drive learning through the common interface convention. That is what hypertext has done best for decades.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Gas and The Suburban Warrior
My son turned 16 and I bought him a six cylinder car. Gas prices rise. My plan to keep him close to home is working.
Next year, you will see very poor people driving very nice previously owned SUVs. You will see very rich people driving very nice restored VW Beetles. There is a rough justice in that.
The men in my neighborhood are organizing group expeditions to Wal Mart and Home Depot on the weekends. Our wives are organizing whose lawn will be mowed on alternative weeks.
The beneficiaries of the gas prices are local TV stations. We can't afford to drive to the movie store, and we gave up on the movie industry last year anyway. Come to think of it, Hollywood is the one place in the nation that is truly low on gas.
I could take this seriously, but first I have to help repair my neighbor's push golf cart. In return, he is sharpening my wooden handle hedge clippers and swingblade. That's ok. The fellow across the street is blowing his leaves off his driveway.
The knee pads help.
Next year, you will see very poor people driving very nice previously owned SUVs. You will see very rich people driving very nice restored VW Beetles. There is a rough justice in that.
The men in my neighborhood are organizing group expeditions to Wal Mart and Home Depot on the weekends. Our wives are organizing whose lawn will be mowed on alternative weeks.
The beneficiaries of the gas prices are local TV stations. We can't afford to drive to the movie store, and we gave up on the movie industry last year anyway. Come to think of it, Hollywood is the one place in the nation that is truly low on gas.
I could take this seriously, but first I have to help repair my neighbor's push golf cart. In return, he is sharpening my wooden handle hedge clippers and swingblade. That's ok. The fellow across the street is blowing his leaves off his driveway.
The knee pads help.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
To The Canadians
When my country needed its friends, Peter Jenning's friendship was a great gift. For boys my age, he was a truthteller, the greatest gift that friendship gives. I grieve with you. We will remember our friend, for his goodness, his charm, and his wit but most importantly, his truth.
God, give Peter a job.
len
God, give Peter a job.
len
Doing Business in The Jungle
The fastest gazelle rises early to outrun the slowest gazelle.
The fastest lion rises early to chase the slowest gazelle.
The lazy hunter rises at noon, loads a gun, and shoots the fastest lion before shooting the slowest gazelle.
The slowest lion waits in the bush for the hunter to reload.
The crafty vulture patiently waits to feed on the slowest gazelle, the fastest lion, or the lazy hunter.
Be the middle gazelle.
The fastest lion rises early to chase the slowest gazelle.
The lazy hunter rises at noon, loads a gun, and shoots the fastest lion before shooting the slowest gazelle.
The slowest lion waits in the bush for the hunter to reload.
The crafty vulture patiently waits to feed on the slowest gazelle, the fastest lion, or the lazy hunter.
Be the middle gazelle.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Call Ray
Ray Brand
"master bluesman, saint, husband, father, friend, legend"
1946 - 2005
Look around this room at all these beautiful people
Holding on to what they've got and memories
All the times they came to play
All the loves they took away
All the fights they had when the night was bad
And the room was dead and the Man was short
Weren't we lucky?
And the Man that's laying there, He was a friend of ours
He could play the sweetest song you ever heard
He could make you cry or laugh
Set you on a better path
Teach you to play, show you his way
If you needed a friend you could talk to, you'd
Call Ray
Call Ray
He played your song and talked to you at the table
Never forgot the band or the till or the take
No matter who came his way
He had a cheerful thing to say
Not a word for dues just a powerful blues
And believe in the thing that you're doing,
Aren't you lucky?
So all of you saints and sinners and friends and lovers
Do one last gig for the man who cleared the way
As long as you play, you will always hear Ray
In your hands, in your hearts,
In the notes of the songs that you're bending
Call Ray
Call Ray
When the storm above your head's
Too warm to let it rain
When the face you see's too sad
To keep away the pain
There's a sound you want to hear
There's a hunger in your ear
There's an aching in your heart
That just won't go away
Call Ray
Len Bullard - Aug 03, 2005
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Ibn Abu Archie
As the British government works to create alliances with the British Muslim community, they take the path that the law is law for all citizens and not a minority. This approach that favors legal remedies was proposed in the United States post 9/11 but rejected loudly and derisively by the religious right and the neocons of the Republican Party. As recently as a month ago, their acknowledged spokesman, Karl Rove dismissed this strategy as weak just prior to being plunged into a scandal based in his own disregard for the law. At least he is consistent.
The danger in this thinking is summarized in the remark made in the run up to the 'war on terrorism', that it is 'our right wing religious nuts against their right wing religious nuts'. There are tempting parallels but I don't think that exactly catches the image I see and hear in the hallways of American business and private enterprise. It seems that since the return of the Republican Party to power and the September 11 tragedy, an old and comic figure has come to dominate the speech of the right wing: Archie Bunker is back. Archie was a comic figure as he emerged at the end of the period of social revolution of the 1960s, but coming at the beginning of one, he is a terrible omen.
I find him sitting at his desk with his door closed listening to the hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, who eerily resembles the religious instructor at a madrassa repeating the edicts of the illegitimate fatwa. His lack of deliberation has that same empty eyed 'challenge me not' purpose, accepting his fate and the fate of his enemies as he works his purpose: to unify believers, destroy non-believers, and make his office environment pure. He knows without purity of intent and action, we can never defeat our implacable adversaries because to understand them is to justify them, so any attempt to open our minds is to be resisted first with derision, and needs be finally, with force. He lives for that moment when his force can be felt because then he will be triumphant and pure before his God.
His law is the law of the presumption of might. He believes that we can have both peace and cheaper gas if we will just unleash our nuclear arsenal on the countries that oppose us. Unknowingly, he embraces the dark vision of his opposite number: the gates to paradise are under swords.
He is our worst enemy and he is us. He is Archie Bunker not simply telling Edith to 'stifle', but his fellow worker, his mates, his neighbor, his children's teachers, and if needs be, the opposition party. His way is right. His way is rule. All others are his enemies.
While Archie sits stewing listening to the fat man with the radio show, others are beginning to realize that rule of law is the best means to defeat terrorism. Terrorists are murderers. They are not freedom fighters and are not even devout Muslims because Muslims live under religious laws, the sharia and understand the hadith. Mohammed The Prophet was only a warrior for eight years of his life and he taught that even in war there are limits that cannot be trespassed without invoking the wrath of Allah. The members of al-Qaeda have trespassed and have no place in paradise. They have raised their sword against the innocent and in so doing, have violated both divine and human law. Their punishment is to die and their self-chosen destiny to suffer the agonies of eternal separation from the divine.
Here on Earth, we have the law of man and it is the best solution if it can be applied equally, transparently, and where just, mercifully. When the Bani Quraiza were judged by Sa'd bin Mu'adh, he judged them in accordance with their own law, the Torah. This is of importance: we have both international law and the law of the local countries.
Systems of justice are now supported by information systems. This is a business I know well because that is what my company provides. I do not speak for my company, but I do see the immediate potential of such systems as they are provided internationally. Where law can be made transparent, it can be applied equally and where just,mercifully. Where such systems are integrated with the ever growing surveillance systems as they are being, evidence becomes more difficult to obscure and available to all sides in a case. Where integrated with the open source intelligence systems now coming into being, they are incorporated into the deliberative systems that can make it possible for both religious lives and secular lives to be lived if not in perfect harmony, at least in constant reexamination and growth.
The danger is that all sides of the war on terror are enabling the fundamentalists, the Archie Bunkers to drive our deliberations. This is a terrible mistake because whether he sports a cigar and an old hat, or wears a khaftan and a scowel, he is always the same bigoted loudmouth terrorizing his family and his neighbor. We must see him for what he is and understand that in this circumstance, he is not a comic figure but the agent of Shaytan. He leads away from peace, paradise, and the righteous life lived under the law of God and Man, away from dar al Islam to dar al Karb.
The danger in this thinking is summarized in the remark made in the run up to the 'war on terrorism', that it is 'our right wing religious nuts against their right wing religious nuts'. There are tempting parallels but I don't think that exactly catches the image I see and hear in the hallways of American business and private enterprise. It seems that since the return of the Republican Party to power and the September 11 tragedy, an old and comic figure has come to dominate the speech of the right wing: Archie Bunker is back. Archie was a comic figure as he emerged at the end of the period of social revolution of the 1960s, but coming at the beginning of one, he is a terrible omen.
I find him sitting at his desk with his door closed listening to the hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, who eerily resembles the religious instructor at a madrassa repeating the edicts of the illegitimate fatwa. His lack of deliberation has that same empty eyed 'challenge me not' purpose, accepting his fate and the fate of his enemies as he works his purpose: to unify believers, destroy non-believers, and make his office environment pure. He knows without purity of intent and action, we can never defeat our implacable adversaries because to understand them is to justify them, so any attempt to open our minds is to be resisted first with derision, and needs be finally, with force. He lives for that moment when his force can be felt because then he will be triumphant and pure before his God.
His law is the law of the presumption of might. He believes that we can have both peace and cheaper gas if we will just unleash our nuclear arsenal on the countries that oppose us. Unknowingly, he embraces the dark vision of his opposite number: the gates to paradise are under swords.
He is our worst enemy and he is us. He is Archie Bunker not simply telling Edith to 'stifle', but his fellow worker, his mates, his neighbor, his children's teachers, and if needs be, the opposition party. His way is right. His way is rule. All others are his enemies.
While Archie sits stewing listening to the fat man with the radio show, others are beginning to realize that rule of law is the best means to defeat terrorism. Terrorists are murderers. They are not freedom fighters and are not even devout Muslims because Muslims live under religious laws, the sharia and understand the hadith. Mohammed The Prophet was only a warrior for eight years of his life and he taught that even in war there are limits that cannot be trespassed without invoking the wrath of Allah. The members of al-Qaeda have trespassed and have no place in paradise. They have raised their sword against the innocent and in so doing, have violated both divine and human law. Their punishment is to die and their self-chosen destiny to suffer the agonies of eternal separation from the divine.
Here on Earth, we have the law of man and it is the best solution if it can be applied equally, transparently, and where just, mercifully. When the Bani Quraiza were judged by Sa'd bin Mu'adh, he judged them in accordance with their own law, the Torah. This is of importance: we have both international law and the law of the local countries.
Systems of justice are now supported by information systems. This is a business I know well because that is what my company provides. I do not speak for my company, but I do see the immediate potential of such systems as they are provided internationally. Where law can be made transparent, it can be applied equally and where just,mercifully. Where such systems are integrated with the ever growing surveillance systems as they are being, evidence becomes more difficult to obscure and available to all sides in a case. Where integrated with the open source intelligence systems now coming into being, they are incorporated into the deliberative systems that can make it possible for both religious lives and secular lives to be lived if not in perfect harmony, at least in constant reexamination and growth.
The danger is that all sides of the war on terror are enabling the fundamentalists, the Archie Bunkers to drive our deliberations. This is a terrible mistake because whether he sports a cigar and an old hat, or wears a khaftan and a scowel, he is always the same bigoted loudmouth terrorizing his family and his neighbor. We must see him for what he is and understand that in this circumstance, he is not a comic figure but the agent of Shaytan. He leads away from peace, paradise, and the righteous life lived under the law of God and Man, away from dar al Islam to dar al Karb.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Deliberate Means
Today, President Bush changed his story. Now, he says if anyone in his administration has committed a crime, he will fire them. So one can be pretty certain that his lawyers have assured him that his buds, Karl and Libby, can't be convicted because by some technicality, they haven't committed crimes. But...
Rove & Co. outed a NOC: someone who volunteers to serve in deep cover overseas without diplomatic credentials, meaning if caught, disavowed by their own government and executed. Further, he and his destroyed a CIA front for deep cover operations during a time of war.
If you or I did that, we'd be in prison awaiting execution.
So the President's statements don't express a deeply moral position but I'm under no illusion about President George W. Bush and moral convictions. Yet this story hasn't played out. I was asked, what I thought and I replied,
"I think of 1973 and what happens when one starts pulling a thread on a carefully knitted sweater." The ghost of Tricky Dick visits George W. in the wee hours of the morning.
"So when will McCain dive into the fray. He has felt the lash of Rove's tongue?"
I wrote back, "If he is smart, when it formally becomes his obligation and not before. The lawyers are still parsing. Wait until the result tree is there to be deliberated, then strike like a black mamba."
A smart man is deliberate in his actions and his words. McCain was a naval officer and combat veteran. He is no fool about timing given a known enemy. He learned patience in many life experiences, not least of all, the Hanoi Hilton. He can wait.
The problem is we are at war and can't afford another zedGate. So this is a game that has to end without overtime or a Hail Mary pass. If Rove Inc has one ounce of patriotism, they will resign before the investigation is completed. Because they don't, we have to pray for their survival instincts to take over. All administrations end; thriving is a matter of what one does AFTER the next guy's innaugural. Traitors don't have careers on the salad circuit or sweet consultancies, so if the results of the investigation lead toward prosecution, their survival instincts may kick in.
How this plays out could make or break the next slate of presidential candidates on both sides. So they will be quite deliberate in their deliberations.
That word... hmm?
The press smells blood. If it bleeds, it leads. No moral required; just business. Rove can be hung by the very dynamic he has created, and that may not be justice, but it is bloody well karma.
What works for Rove also works for Jon Stewart. It is a matter of presentation.
Yep, that is Rove's problem. He is the master of the mirror image response. That is a proven tactic on the playground, but it works for anybody. Rove managed the evangelicals because they are conditioned to accept nonsense and the more fantastic the assertion, the more readily they accept it. The rest of the mammals like a good belly laugh. That works for Jon Stewart.
Presentation to the tastes of the audience matters. Is that deliberate? Sure. Is it democratic? Maybe it is just entertainment on both parts.
A good and dear friend writes to me and says
"Regarding Rove, et.al., the subject of a paper I am writing is the need for increased civic engagement and deliberative democracy. If the average person had any idea what goes on up there..."
Well, we engage often. We present, we communicate, but that word again... deliberation. Hmm?
Most people don't know who Rove is. They view politics as corrupt from jump, so a master at corruption looks like someone who is a master at cooking or knitting. They have to see something very graphic repeated before it rises to the forebrain to be considered pertinent to themselves. They sleep through their lives lulled by a 4/4 beat of consumption of mediocrity. Who can blame them? The truth is ugly. We can't be bothered to deliberate about what we don't believe we can change.
That word again...
She made an excellent point: a democratic process is deliberate. That is a precise term. It has meaning. It creates conviction. It exercises reason.
Let's deliberate...
I keep reading that it is important to understand what blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. have offered, that the citizen journalist can change the nature of modern democracies. I wonder if these technologies have offered any new fundamentals or merely changed the character of the existing processes of deliberation. For example, the fact that we can send email speeds up deliberations at a distance, but letter writing is an old and established means. Only the character changed, not the means.
Whereas it has been possible to control most media easily, these new media are not easy to control and they can be used by any participant with access to the Internet. So what? Niche positions emerge quickly.
Is that a fundamental change of means?
Some say that people get More Of What They Want To Know instead of diversity (think Fox News), thus fracturing the electorate, enabling them to be driven by sensationalized issues. In a sense, this is Yellow Journalism come back with a vengence. Success comes down to the strategy for establishing the belief in a system of distraction.
That is manipulation. It is NOT deliberation.
Rove builds a mirror image of any position his opponent takes and uses it to demean the issue into banality. He is able to smear without penalty because even if verified or denied, the damage is already done. Facts don't matter; he is using a non-linear model of recursive self-interests to create emotional perceptions of superiority. That is why the evangelicals are useful; they are conditioned to accept faith-based proclamations without argument and from there, it is easy to get them to accept nonsense of any kind. Goebbels 101: prepare the ground and plant The Big Lie.
Blogging seeds niche issues. Blogs and niche issues don't always have much effect because of a limited readership, but blogs are a testing ground for the talking points.
What succeeds best is a blog-inspired information chase picked up by a central medium. This is amplification. By co-opting blogs AND talk radio and stifling NPR, public radio and E-TV, they are creating a perception of solidarity. Is it real? Perhaps not, but it is effective because it distracts OR informs and it is hard to tell which on any given issue. Even if blogs catalyse and dissolve false positions, they also create support for them. The shared metric is acceleration. Once the talking points are vetted in a blog, it is simply a matter of presenting them in a mainstream media such as TV, then they take off.
Presentation is NOT deliberation.
Democracy is participative. The problem is an abundance of signal and few good reliable filters. I predict the near term result is fatigue. Information overload leads to the desire to opt-out but that isn't easy to do. People want to turn off the cellphones but discover they are addicted to the feed. They organized their lives and schedules around being always connected and now they can't easily disconnect. By participating, they become easy targets for information.
Infoglut is only suffered by gluttons.
In the long run, there is more information, some better information, and those who have a will to know can know... something and they can participate.... across borders. That is better. The influence of the global observers is felt. That is, British, Canadian, etc. citizens become part of the American political conversation, and given the role we play in their economies, they participate to help themselves. It isn't unselfish, but it is the wildcard limiting centralized attempts to steer the conversation with propaganda. The outsider by nationality can participate.
But it isn't entirely global.
In countries and cultures such as China, a different dynamic is emerging. They are using their economic clout to persuade technology vendors such as Microsoft to become partners in filtering the conversation to enable more centralized control. The question is, as the western powers observe this, will central planners attempt to do the same here? The average wirehead believes it is impossible to control the internet, but that is false. It is not only possible, it is reasonable to do so given that unfiltered communications also makes the invasion of privacy, stalking, identity theft, rise of hate groups, and so on more probable. Participation is dangerous.
Participation is NOT deliberation.
The politics of the 90s until now have been about the suppression of deliberation.
Communication is not deliberation. Presentation is not deliberation. Participation is not deliberation. Yet deliberation is the critical skill for participative democracy reliant on communication and presentation. What must be mastered is discriminating among these qualitatively as means to suppress deliberation and these as means to enable deliberation.
Democracy is not only communication, participation, or simply the global conversation. Emphasize the meaning of deliberation: a process of coming to a reasonable position BEFORE voting based on verification, critically noting the results, and continuing a deliberation with new facts. For that to work, one must be able to verify facts. The Internet has made it possible to both get facts and to work in community to verify facts, but it has also made it possible to create false and reasonable domains of interest that distract us just as television did and continues to do. In the end, the Internet is simply an amplifier; it is still the will of the listener to deliberate that settles issues shouted from a merely louder podium.
The short version of this long rant is this: democracy can only survive by mastering the critical ability to discriminate between the means of real deliberation and means that even while disguised as communication, are really means to suppress deliberation.
What about the web enhances deliberation?
An overlooked power of the web is the wikipedia and Answers.com, not the blogs, the podcasts, and the online newspages.
This is not Googling. This is the power to type in a word and instantly get back a definition and all of its available references. Awesome. The ability to 'look at all sides of a question' is the definition of deliberation. That I can find the definition faster may not change the nature of deliberation, but it sure as hell improves the speed and accuracy when the terms are there for everyone's immediate access so we can look at all sides of a question with the same shared meanings.
Those wise in the ways of power will become very aware of these online dictionaries and ontologies. Because these are edited by communities instead of authorities, they make a persuasive case for both the vox populi and the intelligensia.
When ANYONE can post and EVERYONE can edit, a new dynamic emerges and that is a qualitative change. That is participative, that communicates, and that convergence on a sharable, verifiable meaning, is deliberate.
Rove & Co. outed a NOC: someone who volunteers to serve in deep cover overseas without diplomatic credentials, meaning if caught, disavowed by their own government and executed. Further, he and his destroyed a CIA front for deep cover operations during a time of war.
If you or I did that, we'd be in prison awaiting execution.
So the President's statements don't express a deeply moral position but I'm under no illusion about President George W. Bush and moral convictions. Yet this story hasn't played out. I was asked, what I thought and I replied,
"I think of 1973 and what happens when one starts pulling a thread on a carefully knitted sweater." The ghost of Tricky Dick visits George W. in the wee hours of the morning.
"So when will McCain dive into the fray. He has felt the lash of Rove's tongue?"
I wrote back, "If he is smart, when it formally becomes his obligation and not before. The lawyers are still parsing. Wait until the result tree is there to be deliberated, then strike like a black mamba."
A smart man is deliberate in his actions and his words. McCain was a naval officer and combat veteran. He is no fool about timing given a known enemy. He learned patience in many life experiences, not least of all, the Hanoi Hilton. He can wait.
The problem is we are at war and can't afford another zedGate. So this is a game that has to end without overtime or a Hail Mary pass. If Rove Inc has one ounce of patriotism, they will resign before the investigation is completed. Because they don't, we have to pray for their survival instincts to take over. All administrations end; thriving is a matter of what one does AFTER the next guy's innaugural. Traitors don't have careers on the salad circuit or sweet consultancies, so if the results of the investigation lead toward prosecution, their survival instincts may kick in.
How this plays out could make or break the next slate of presidential candidates on both sides. So they will be quite deliberate in their deliberations.
That word... hmm?
The press smells blood. If it bleeds, it leads. No moral required; just business. Rove can be hung by the very dynamic he has created, and that may not be justice, but it is bloody well karma.
What works for Rove also works for Jon Stewart. It is a matter of presentation.
Yep, that is Rove's problem. He is the master of the mirror image response. That is a proven tactic on the playground, but it works for anybody. Rove managed the evangelicals because they are conditioned to accept nonsense and the more fantastic the assertion, the more readily they accept it. The rest of the mammals like a good belly laugh. That works for Jon Stewart.
Presentation to the tastes of the audience matters. Is that deliberate? Sure. Is it democratic? Maybe it is just entertainment on both parts.
A good and dear friend writes to me and says
"Regarding Rove, et.al., the subject of a paper I am writing is the need for increased civic engagement and deliberative democracy. If the average person had any idea what goes on up there..."
Well, we engage often. We present, we communicate, but that word again... deliberation. Hmm?
Most people don't know who Rove is. They view politics as corrupt from jump, so a master at corruption looks like someone who is a master at cooking or knitting. They have to see something very graphic repeated before it rises to the forebrain to be considered pertinent to themselves. They sleep through their lives lulled by a 4/4 beat of consumption of mediocrity. Who can blame them? The truth is ugly. We can't be bothered to deliberate about what we don't believe we can change.
That word again...
She made an excellent point: a democratic process is deliberate. That is a precise term. It has meaning. It creates conviction. It exercises reason.
Let's deliberate...
I keep reading that it is important to understand what blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. have offered, that the citizen journalist can change the nature of modern democracies. I wonder if these technologies have offered any new fundamentals or merely changed the character of the existing processes of deliberation. For example, the fact that we can send email speeds up deliberations at a distance, but letter writing is an old and established means. Only the character changed, not the means.
Whereas it has been possible to control most media easily, these new media are not easy to control and they can be used by any participant with access to the Internet. So what? Niche positions emerge quickly.
Is that a fundamental change of means?
Some say that people get More Of What They Want To Know instead of diversity (think Fox News), thus fracturing the electorate, enabling them to be driven by sensationalized issues. In a sense, this is Yellow Journalism come back with a vengence. Success comes down to the strategy for establishing the belief in a system of distraction.
That is manipulation. It is NOT deliberation.
Rove builds a mirror image of any position his opponent takes and uses it to demean the issue into banality. He is able to smear without penalty because even if verified or denied, the damage is already done. Facts don't matter; he is using a non-linear model of recursive self-interests to create emotional perceptions of superiority. That is why the evangelicals are useful; they are conditioned to accept faith-based proclamations without argument and from there, it is easy to get them to accept nonsense of any kind. Goebbels 101: prepare the ground and plant The Big Lie.
Blogging seeds niche issues. Blogs and niche issues don't always have much effect because of a limited readership, but blogs are a testing ground for the talking points.
What succeeds best is a blog-inspired information chase picked up by a central medium. This is amplification. By co-opting blogs AND talk radio and stifling NPR, public radio and E-TV, they are creating a perception of solidarity. Is it real? Perhaps not, but it is effective because it distracts OR informs and it is hard to tell which on any given issue. Even if blogs catalyse and dissolve false positions, they also create support for them. The shared metric is acceleration. Once the talking points are vetted in a blog, it is simply a matter of presenting them in a mainstream media such as TV, then they take off.
Presentation is NOT deliberation.
Democracy is participative. The problem is an abundance of signal and few good reliable filters. I predict the near term result is fatigue. Information overload leads to the desire to opt-out but that isn't easy to do. People want to turn off the cellphones but discover they are addicted to the feed. They organized their lives and schedules around being always connected and now they can't easily disconnect. By participating, they become easy targets for information.
Infoglut is only suffered by gluttons.
In the long run, there is more information, some better information, and those who have a will to know can know... something and they can participate.... across borders. That is better. The influence of the global observers is felt. That is, British, Canadian, etc. citizens become part of the American political conversation, and given the role we play in their economies, they participate to help themselves. It isn't unselfish, but it is the wildcard limiting centralized attempts to steer the conversation with propaganda. The outsider by nationality can participate.
But it isn't entirely global.
In countries and cultures such as China, a different dynamic is emerging. They are using their economic clout to persuade technology vendors such as Microsoft to become partners in filtering the conversation to enable more centralized control. The question is, as the western powers observe this, will central planners attempt to do the same here? The average wirehead believes it is impossible to control the internet, but that is false. It is not only possible, it is reasonable to do so given that unfiltered communications also makes the invasion of privacy, stalking, identity theft, rise of hate groups, and so on more probable. Participation is dangerous.
Participation is NOT deliberation.
The politics of the 90s until now have been about the suppression of deliberation.
Communication is not deliberation. Presentation is not deliberation. Participation is not deliberation. Yet deliberation is the critical skill for participative democracy reliant on communication and presentation. What must be mastered is discriminating among these qualitatively as means to suppress deliberation and these as means to enable deliberation.
Democracy is not only communication, participation, or simply the global conversation. Emphasize the meaning of deliberation: a process of coming to a reasonable position BEFORE voting based on verification, critically noting the results, and continuing a deliberation with new facts. For that to work, one must be able to verify facts. The Internet has made it possible to both get facts and to work in community to verify facts, but it has also made it possible to create false and reasonable domains of interest that distract us just as television did and continues to do. In the end, the Internet is simply an amplifier; it is still the will of the listener to deliberate that settles issues shouted from a merely louder podium.
The short version of this long rant is this: democracy can only survive by mastering the critical ability to discriminate between the means of real deliberation and means that even while disguised as communication, are really means to suppress deliberation.
What about the web enhances deliberation?
An overlooked power of the web is the wikipedia and Answers.com, not the blogs, the podcasts, and the online newspages.
This is not Googling. This is the power to type in a word and instantly get back a definition and all of its available references. Awesome. The ability to 'look at all sides of a question' is the definition of deliberation. That I can find the definition faster may not change the nature of deliberation, but it sure as hell improves the speed and accuracy when the terms are there for everyone's immediate access so we can look at all sides of a question with the same shared meanings.
Those wise in the ways of power will become very aware of these online dictionaries and ontologies. Because these are edited by communities instead of authorities, they make a persuasive case for both the vox populi and the intelligensia.
When ANYONE can post and EVERYONE can edit, a new dynamic emerges and that is a qualitative change. That is participative, that communicates, and that convergence on a sharable, verifiable meaning, is deliberate.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Reason Is Not Treason
With the recent London bombings, Tim Bray quotes from CNN,
“Authorities across the United States worked to increase security on subways, trains, and other potential targets...”.
then goes on to comment, "That’s really, really stupid. If someone wants to kill you so badly that he doesn’t mind dying in the process, chances are he’s probably going to get you, and a few more cops on the subway aren’t going to help."
Here we disagree. Cops help. Surveillance helps. There is a considerable amount of technology and human resources one can apply to secure mass transit systems. XML, for one. We of the markup community created the core technology for the systems to be applied to global terrorism. Will our technology stop all of the terrorist acts? Never has, but it reduces their severity, intensity and frequency. A sad fact of war, and this is a war, is that it isn't about saving everyone; it is about denying an enemy their chosen target.
My friend goes on:
"My other radical suggestion—which some will denounce as treason—is to work harder at figuring out the “Why?” of it."
Reasoned inquiry and learning is never treason. If one believes the published writings, reasons range from reestablishing a worldwide Caliphate under Muslim law to driving the US out of the Middle East. To the first, that won't happen so we are beyond reason here. To the second, that will happen anyway.
"...when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue."
This is the nut of it: I don't think it is one thing. I believe on the evidence one will find it is many reasons, some fantasy, some an expression of deep discomfort with life as they lead it now. Which is to say, it is not that people adopt insane belief systems that mystifies me. That is common enough. It is that sane people give them support, and for our leaders in the West to change this, they must find and work with these people and change their attitudes about the worthyness of supporting the insane actions of the few.
When the reality of the Palestinian living conditions are brought to the screen, they are compared to the Israeli lifestyle. The Israelis built their country of their own effort. Whose effort improves the conditions of the Palestinians? One thing I've observed in my half century on this rock, when living conditions are made better by the effort of those who live in a place, they seek to keep that place safe. Golda Meir said it best: "When we love our children more than we hate each other."
Some think the Middle East is a culture committed to its own destruction. That's baloney. That is the mote in the eye of the West, and by our own experience, we know that this can change. Thirty years ago, the Russians and the Chinese were a Red Peril. Today they are cagey economic allies working to get a bigger slice of the global economy. The streets of Beijing are not filled with soldiers. It is filled with businessmen. One doesn't read about Great Leaps Forward. One reads about pressuring the US Congress to allow the sail of UNOCAL to Beijing. One reads about the reforms in the banking systems.
Where the West and George W. Bush are blowing it is in creating extra-Middle Eastern terrorists. The next wave will be Caucasians, Western European, the dissatisfied of the well-off seeking a purpose and finding it in the call to worship and the slums of the inner cities. Terrorism is cheap, and as warfare goes, not that challenging. Slaughter of innocents is the easy means to stay in the game. But that game builds no dams, improves no banks, feeds no hungry, frees no prisoner. It is only death come to speak for the disgrace of hunger and powerlessness through the acts of the demented.
This can change for the better. It always has. Through the long slog from global threats of anilhilation to this taste of terror as we board a bus, the one constant has been when someone has more to lose, they work harder to keep what they have. It is a simplistic analysis, but I believe by experience, it is the surest path to a day when we will be able to turn off the cameras.
But until that day comes, be prepared for a world where every act on every public stage is real time hyperdistributed, cataloged, indexed, and analyszed. May we, if we learn nothing else from this experience which is new in human history, the truth about ourselves.
“Authorities across the United States worked to increase security on subways, trains, and other potential targets...”.
then goes on to comment, "That’s really, really stupid. If someone wants to kill you so badly that he doesn’t mind dying in the process, chances are he’s probably going to get you, and a few more cops on the subway aren’t going to help."
Here we disagree. Cops help. Surveillance helps. There is a considerable amount of technology and human resources one can apply to secure mass transit systems. XML, for one. We of the markup community created the core technology for the systems to be applied to global terrorism. Will our technology stop all of the terrorist acts? Never has, but it reduces their severity, intensity and frequency. A sad fact of war, and this is a war, is that it isn't about saving everyone; it is about denying an enemy their chosen target.
My friend goes on:
"My other radical suggestion—which some will denounce as treason—is to work harder at figuring out the “Why?” of it."
Reasoned inquiry and learning is never treason. If one believes the published writings, reasons range from reestablishing a worldwide Caliphate under Muslim law to driving the US out of the Middle East. To the first, that won't happen so we are beyond reason here. To the second, that will happen anyway.
"...when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue."
This is the nut of it: I don't think it is one thing. I believe on the evidence one will find it is many reasons, some fantasy, some an expression of deep discomfort with life as they lead it now. Which is to say, it is not that people adopt insane belief systems that mystifies me. That is common enough. It is that sane people give them support, and for our leaders in the West to change this, they must find and work with these people and change their attitudes about the worthyness of supporting the insane actions of the few.
When the reality of the Palestinian living conditions are brought to the screen, they are compared to the Israeli lifestyle. The Israelis built their country of their own effort. Whose effort improves the conditions of the Palestinians? One thing I've observed in my half century on this rock, when living conditions are made better by the effort of those who live in a place, they seek to keep that place safe. Golda Meir said it best: "When we love our children more than we hate each other."
Some think the Middle East is a culture committed to its own destruction. That's baloney. That is the mote in the eye of the West, and by our own experience, we know that this can change. Thirty years ago, the Russians and the Chinese were a Red Peril. Today they are cagey economic allies working to get a bigger slice of the global economy. The streets of Beijing are not filled with soldiers. It is filled with businessmen. One doesn't read about Great Leaps Forward. One reads about pressuring the US Congress to allow the sail of UNOCAL to Beijing. One reads about the reforms in the banking systems.
Where the West and George W. Bush are blowing it is in creating extra-Middle Eastern terrorists. The next wave will be Caucasians, Western European, the dissatisfied of the well-off seeking a purpose and finding it in the call to worship and the slums of the inner cities. Terrorism is cheap, and as warfare goes, not that challenging. Slaughter of innocents is the easy means to stay in the game. But that game builds no dams, improves no banks, feeds no hungry, frees no prisoner. It is only death come to speak for the disgrace of hunger and powerlessness through the acts of the demented.
This can change for the better. It always has. Through the long slog from global threats of anilhilation to this taste of terror as we board a bus, the one constant has been when someone has more to lose, they work harder to keep what they have. It is a simplistic analysis, but I believe by experience, it is the surest path to a day when we will be able to turn off the cameras.
But until that day comes, be prepared for a world where every act on every public stage is real time hyperdistributed, cataloged, indexed, and analyszed. May we, if we learn nothing else from this experience which is new in human history, the truth about ourselves.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Five Days of Independence
Five days of independence... no gig, no job, a lawn, a picnic, two days of old friends, old movies, one more song in the can.
My son tells me he is becoming disillusioned. At sixteen, I say, that's normal. You are comparing your values with the values of the world, thus, discovering your own values.
That's a good thing.
Will it get better, Dad, and how long?
It will and I don't know. Our culture phases, and so do our relationships. They will swing about as far as they swung. The important bit is what you are doing now: learning about your own values.
Five days of independence. My country is divided. Some say our religious values and our politics are too far apart. Some say they are too mixed. I don't think that is the problem. I think our values are too far from our hearts, our own values too far from our own desires. We've let symbols, wealth, and politics become too centralized and forgotten that it is the single human heart that chooses good, evil, truth, falsity, fidelity, cause and compassion. We believe stories that make us comfortable or resigned and forget that we should be about changing ourselves because that is ALWAYS within our power.
My independence is that I may choose for heartfelt reasons, or for mindfulness, but that in this land, these can be the same for not man nor government may force that choice from me. The beliefs that divide us may divide us from each other, but the heart that chooses against itself chooses a broken heart.
Those who seek power through our hearts seek wisely because that is where power is to be found in politics, but the mind of the broken hearted turns away from the politics of power yielded to power wielded. When democracies cry, change comes.
My son tells me he is becoming disillusioned. At sixteen, I say, that's normal. You are comparing your values with the values of the world, thus, discovering your own values.
That's a good thing.
Will it get better, Dad, and how long?
It will and I don't know. Our culture phases, and so do our relationships. They will swing about as far as they swung. The important bit is what you are doing now: learning about your own values.
Five days of independence. My country is divided. Some say our religious values and our politics are too far apart. Some say they are too mixed. I don't think that is the problem. I think our values are too far from our hearts, our own values too far from our own desires. We've let symbols, wealth, and politics become too centralized and forgotten that it is the single human heart that chooses good, evil, truth, falsity, fidelity, cause and compassion. We believe stories that make us comfortable or resigned and forget that we should be about changing ourselves because that is ALWAYS within our power.
My independence is that I may choose for heartfelt reasons, or for mindfulness, but that in this land, these can be the same for not man nor government may force that choice from me. The beliefs that divide us may divide us from each other, but the heart that chooses against itself chooses a broken heart.
Those who seek power through our hearts seek wisely because that is where power is to be found in politics, but the mind of the broken hearted turns away from the politics of power yielded to power wielded. When democracies cry, change comes.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Bewitched: The Movie
We saw the movie tonight. It sucks.
Hollywood threw all of the talent, wit and ideas at the movie they could devise, and it still sucks.
Some things can only be made of a time and a place and one true love. Liz Montgomery loved Bill Asher and he her. Between them, they could make Bewitched in the light of that love. Some of the best episodes are when Liz is pregnant with her children, and certainly the first two seasons. It doesn't translate to today and it can't be made again because it isn't honest, and it isn't Liz and Bill.
Somehow that makes me glad.
Magic is real. Maybe that is the point of the movie and that is the best they can do is make that point: magic only happens to people in love.
Hollywood threw all of the talent, wit and ideas at the movie they could devise, and it still sucks.
Some things can only be made of a time and a place and one true love. Liz Montgomery loved Bill Asher and he her. Between them, they could make Bewitched in the light of that love. Some of the best episodes are when Liz is pregnant with her children, and certainly the first two seasons. It doesn't translate to today and it can't be made again because it isn't honest, and it isn't Liz and Bill.
Somehow that makes me glad.
Magic is real. Maybe that is the point of the movie and that is the best they can do is make that point: magic only happens to people in love.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Ingrid Bergman
In the roles they choose, their screen time, and the spaces within which they perform, actresses use light to accomplish their goals. Some would be "Sister Mary Benedict" or "Golda", a passionate saint or a leader of nations, while others, are merely "Ilse" dutifully flying beyond the fog
"... not today or even tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life..."
only to become "Maria" for whom
"... it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest."
yet for herself, Ingrid Bergman chose to live a passionate life because she knew that a passionate light illuminates a life even as it wanes. A dutiful light illuminates the moment of discharging that duty otherwise casting no shadow nor making clear the way for any other act.
Time and space pilfer light. The bitterness of the dutiful choice is to finally understand that all we get is old.
"... not today or even tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life..."
only to become "Maria" for whom
"... it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest."
yet for herself, Ingrid Bergman chose to live a passionate life because she knew that a passionate light illuminates a life even as it wanes. A dutiful light illuminates the moment of discharging that duty otherwise casting no shadow nor making clear the way for any other act.
Time and space pilfer light. The bitterness of the dutiful choice is to finally understand that all we get is old.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Revenge of The Sith
Revenge of the Sith is a GREAT movie. Of it's genre, it's one of the very best. No polemic required; the packed movie house and the cheering says it all. Vox populi. Buy a bag of popcorn and a giant belly buster of a cola and sit with your kids for a few hours of pure thrills.
Of course, the ultra right will see that differently and applaud its critics. That is expected. Their inability to relax and enjoy the ride is totally in character. That's why they wear ties: it keeps their heads attached when their hearts are trying to gnaw their red necks off.
"So that is how liberty dies: to the sound of thunderous applause."
Well said, Lucas.
len
Of course, the ultra right will see that differently and applaud its critics. That is expected. Their inability to relax and enjoy the ride is totally in character. That's why they wear ties: it keeps their heads attached when their hearts are trying to gnaw their red necks off.
"So that is how liberty dies: to the sound of thunderous applause."
Well said, Lucas.
len
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Advice for College Graduates
It's not who dies with the most toys that wins, but who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive.
Swing for the fences, but don't be ashamed to be walked to first base.
Wealth without fame is slightly boring, but fame without wealth is surprisingly dangerous.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; so, sell the bird and buy the bush.
Good looks vs good cook: cooking can improve with practice.
A map of popular trends looks like a map of soil erosion for exactly the same reasons.
The surest way to get more of the same is to keep getting it from the same source.
Better is the enemy of More.
Swing for the fences, but don't be ashamed to be walked to first base.
Wealth without fame is slightly boring, but fame without wealth is surprisingly dangerous.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; so, sell the bird and buy the bush.
Good looks vs good cook: cooking can improve with practice.
A map of popular trends looks like a map of soil erosion for exactly the same reasons.
The surest way to get more of the same is to keep getting it from the same source.
Better is the enemy of More.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
A Get Out Of Hell for Free Ticket
A good day at work is when the CEO calls all of the developers and staff in and says, "I'm putting you all back together as one team. Let the code flow."
Today was such a day. Praise the Lord Almighty; change at last.
Verticals in small companies make for good bookkeeping but bad development. Too many product lines emerge and given platforms, versions, customer domains and the local politics of sales and development, it doesn't make for a merged set of services, and more importantly, a sharable codebase. As Jack Welch taught GE, the goal of enterprise engineering is to take OUT work.
The first and last bit of business is product. No idea no plan no product no customer no pay. Services are in the long tail, but they don't have a network effect. Timely innovation is where the risks are and all the fun.
The essential challenge is the codebase. No d'oh. Even if a software company is not publishing open source, within it's own IP and contractural boundaries, it must practice open source to reduce the semantic load from the applications. Uncertainty is proportional to semantic load, thus the high cost of reliable customer-specific adaptations. Where cost == features, features lose unless the business model is features. Customizations cost, implementations cost, conversions, new forms, new interfaces to old systems, help desks, technical documentation, all are features with costs. You Mr. Customer, get to choose what you want.
"Speed is money, how fast can you afford to go?" (Ron Harlow)
Some dumb costs:
1. Rich formatted printed forms designed to reduce the size of a file cabinet but obsolete in the digital age. Yeah, I know about the law and printed forms, but really, get over it. You are out in the range of 10k to 20k to get one from a vendor given a complex report. Simplify.
2. Interfaces to legacy systems. This is unavoidable for ecologically active software environments. Do work with the IT staff to work out with the vendor how to phase this better. Beat the everloving tarnation out of the vendors who refuse to work with you on this. Remember, you pay for it.
3. Multiple languages and platforms are the maximum contributor to dumb costs in software development. Specialty languages seldom are. On the other hand, in an active web environment, failing to master the skill of XML application language development and implementation and not just the standard implementation of a standard vocabulary is failing to master survival. Tags are local even if they are not.
If you are an IT wonk, do the software hood a favor: read the RFPs the contracts wonks are publishing. Show some nuts and insist on taking out the excess. Simpler is more reliable. Cheaper too in most cases.
If shooting consultants is necessary to achieve this, party on. Consultants are just salesmen in lawyer's clothes; bounties vary. I'm not saying consultants aren't useful, but use them wisely, then feed them to a tank of piranha. Fast replacement rates strengthen species.
If there is a lesson to the last of the big ticket big iron vendors from the lowly but doing ok web developers, it is this: less. Use the basic web languages to do as much of the work as you can. The tradeoff of rich vs reach is not just a tradeoff with your customer but within your codebase. You trade on opportunity and cost when you deal in complexity as a barrier to competition.
Today was such a day. Praise the Lord Almighty; change at last.
Verticals in small companies make for good bookkeeping but bad development. Too many product lines emerge and given platforms, versions, customer domains and the local politics of sales and development, it doesn't make for a merged set of services, and more importantly, a sharable codebase. As Jack Welch taught GE, the goal of enterprise engineering is to take OUT work.
The first and last bit of business is product. No idea no plan no product no customer no pay. Services are in the long tail, but they don't have a network effect. Timely innovation is where the risks are and all the fun.
The essential challenge is the codebase. No d'oh. Even if a software company is not publishing open source, within it's own IP and contractural boundaries, it must practice open source to reduce the semantic load from the applications. Uncertainty is proportional to semantic load, thus the high cost of reliable customer-specific adaptations. Where cost == features, features lose unless the business model is features. Customizations cost, implementations cost, conversions, new forms, new interfaces to old systems, help desks, technical documentation, all are features with costs. You Mr. Customer, get to choose what you want.
"Speed is money, how fast can you afford to go?" (Ron Harlow)
Some dumb costs:
1. Rich formatted printed forms designed to reduce the size of a file cabinet but obsolete in the digital age. Yeah, I know about the law and printed forms, but really, get over it. You are out in the range of 10k to 20k to get one from a vendor given a complex report. Simplify.
2. Interfaces to legacy systems. This is unavoidable for ecologically active software environments. Do work with the IT staff to work out with the vendor how to phase this better. Beat the everloving tarnation out of the vendors who refuse to work with you on this. Remember, you pay for it.
3. Multiple languages and platforms are the maximum contributor to dumb costs in software development. Specialty languages seldom are. On the other hand, in an active web environment, failing to master the skill of XML application language development and implementation and not just the standard implementation of a standard vocabulary is failing to master survival. Tags are local even if they are not.
If you are an IT wonk, do the software hood a favor: read the RFPs the contracts wonks are publishing. Show some nuts and insist on taking out the excess. Simpler is more reliable. Cheaper too in most cases.
If shooting consultants is necessary to achieve this, party on. Consultants are just salesmen in lawyer's clothes; bounties vary. I'm not saying consultants aren't useful, but use them wisely, then feed them to a tank of piranha. Fast replacement rates strengthen species.
If there is a lesson to the last of the big ticket big iron vendors from the lowly but doing ok web developers, it is this: less. Use the basic web languages to do as much of the work as you can. The tradeoff of rich vs reach is not just a tradeoff with your customer but within your codebase. You trade on opportunity and cost when you deal in complexity as a barrier to competition.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Remixing History
This is proof that the remixing of history is alive and well on the web, and that there are very talented funny people with far too much time on their hands or on their shirts. So there it is; the mockumentary that Ken Burns was too wussy to make: the faux history of
the Old Negro Space Program.
Some things the Internet made possible should be impossible possibly.
the Old Negro Space Program.
Some things the Internet made possible should be impossible possibly.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
A Quantum Riff On God
Light is in superposition to the observable universe.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
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