Global POV: At the Intersection of Technology and Culture

A murder of emails

by Melody

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday explaining some of the problems that the National Archives are having in storing email. Slashdot has commentary on the story here. The issue has come to the forefront as they prepare to receive the digital archives of the Bush administration in 2008. They expect 100 million emails, three times what they got from the Clinton people.

Expect to see more of this kind of story. Their problem isn't raw storage, it's two-fold. First, what mechanism do they use for long term storage, since they only want to do it once. Right now, they're transferring it to mag tape, clearly not a good forever solution.

The second problem, which is only lightly touched on in the article, is the problem of "format bending" or transformation of obsolete media standards, file formats and application data structures into some universal mechanism. There's a lot of obsolete standards out there and the Archives will eventually have to support all of them.

Some day there will be a profession of data archivists, who only deal with the obsolete and discarded, the midden heaps of the data world. We will need librarians trained in not only long dead spoken languages but also computer ones.

Posted on December 30, 2005

XBox 360-Is enough enough?

by Melody

A tough problem for parents in this holiday season and gadget freaks in any season is when do you upgrade to the latest technology? Is the new XBox, for example, significant enough to merit the expenditure of a couple of hundred bucks, especially if the household already has a game console?

As a technologist for over 25 years, I get calls like this from friends and family pretty much every week. Unlike doctors and lawyers, I can't find an excuse to shift it into a billable event, so I just answer it. Interesting enough, the doctors and lawyers are never shy about asking for technology advice.

So when is enough technology? I believe that there are three reasons to buy new technology:

1. Leapfrog - When the technology that is being replaced is so antiquated that you have to buy something regardless so you buy the newest available.

2. Enhancement - When the features of the product are so much better that the new version solves a problem and need that earlier versions did not.

3. Blackmail - When you are forced to because the manufacturer stops supporting the old product.

There is a fourth reason that only applies to geeks-- because it's there. Some people will buy the latest technology, just because.

The first three reasons are a good basis for a decision for most people. Applying them to the new XBox is an interesting test. Some people may buy it for reason #1 because they don't have a modern game console at all. Very few people will really buy it for reason #2, although many people will argue that they are. The new features aren't that compelling, HD output included. #3 is an excellent reason in the software business (think Microsoft), but not so much for game machine companies. They don't really support the product so much themselves because by then there's a significant 3rd party group that will.

I suspect that the real reaon people are buying the 360 is reason #4--because it's cool and don't let anyone tell you any differently.

Posted on December 28, 2005

The White House's Christmas list

by David Holtzman

I have what is purported to be a secret Bush & Cheney wish list. Rather than commenting, I'll just include it here:

United States constitution toilet paper with extra fluffy Bill of Rights
Iraqi GI Joe with detachable Koran (flushable)
Abu Ghraib weeble legos, pyramid edition
Monopoly, Enron edition
Commemorative Katrina Hurricane glass
Tom Delay mug shot makeover kit
Religous Risk Game, colorcoded by Crusades
Wheel of Torture, home edition

and for dinner:
Michael Moore's liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti

Posted on December 27, 2005

A Rove by any name-the Patriot Act

by David Holtzman

Last night the House cut the Senate's recommended six month extension of the Patriot Act down to one month. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) insisted on the shorter period to force the Senate to not procrastinate and deal with the issue in January.

In the many discussions that I've had with people about the Act, I'm amazed that so few people understand its key provisions and this ignorance includes many staffers. I've come to the conclusion that, as crazy as it sounds, the name alone has convinced people that its a good thing.

The Bush adminstration has been world-class in their use of Madison Avenue-like marketing techniques to sell controversial policies to the public. Not for this group the spirited, issues-oriented debate. With names like "The Patriot Act", "No Child Left Behind", "Up or Down Vote", they have shown their marketing mastery by their use of powerful and polarizing names. This trick has always worked for the far right, most effectively for the RIght to Life movement.

Who would ever vote against a Patriot Act? Wouldn't that make the dissenter a non-patriot? What does that make a person who votes against the education bill--someone who would willingly leave a child behind. Even Mcauley Culkin would have to be against that.

I wonder what would have happened if the Patriot Act had been named the "Really-scary-erosion-of-civil-rights" act?

Posted on December 23, 2005

A-O, A-O,L, Google come and me want to go home

by David Holtzman

What does the Google investment in AOL really mean?

At on level, nothing. Microsoft often took 5% shares in companies and it didn't seem to benefit either company at all. This smells different, though.

I see 2 advantages for Google:

- Google gets access to a lot of deep content that it couldn't scan before, including AOL's video and possible part of TIme Warner's library
- Google gets a channel for its ads

There's one huge advantage for AOL:
- It sets a valuation for what I suspect will soon be a sale. The transaction values AOL at 20 billion dollars, giving Time Warner an initial bargaining position for future business deals.

Who loses? MIcrosoft. It continues to emphasize the gradual denutting of Redmond by the computer industry.

But don't bet against the Microserfs, it isn't over yet.

Posted on December 22, 2005

The shame game

by David Holtzman

President Bush described the New York Times leaking of the administration's domestic espionage policy as "shameful." Yet he described the policy itself as "legal", based on the Constitution. I've noticed this dichotomy before, the accusationas against critics often use words such as "shameful", "cowardice" and the never said, but often implied--"traitorous". Yet the Administration defends its actions using pseudolegal words, even archaic, obsolete ones like "constitutional."

Why the contrast? Morality out, legality in.

How can an entire newspaper be "shameful" anyway? The American Heritage Dictionary defines shame as

A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.

Does the New York Times feel guilty? Embarassed? Disgraced? Well, not now that Judith Miller is gone. They must feel unworthy.

It's hard not to think of Wayne's World with Wayne and Garth on their knees chanting "We're not worthy!" Perhaps all of the Time's staff could, on their way walking to work today, genuflect and expiate themselves from their shame?

Then it's Bush's turn.

Posted on December 21, 2005

Safe sects?

by David Holtzman

I got into another one of "those" political arguments today; this time with my accountant. He alleged that America was safer since 9/11 because of measures like the Patriot Act and that the hit to civil liberties was a small price to pay for freedom and security from terrorism.

I don't know how to answer these arguments. I've heard them from several intelligent people over the last year. I've noticed that most of them are not really well-read on current events and tend to believe what authority figures tell them and hey, what's wrong with that? Maybe it's a different upbringing or something cultural that causes some of us to question authority and others to embrace it.

Are we safer? Has the Iraqi war and the controversial domestic espionage and the way we treated prisoners of war helped avert another disaster?

After all, Bush and Cheney say so. They have clearances and would know. They are the mythical "they" that we always talk about. If "they" don't know, then who would?

I know deep in my heart that we are not safer. I feel that we've fomented trouble that will rain down on our heads for at least a generation to come. i believe that the reason that there hasn't been a major terrorist attack in the last 4 years since 9/11 is the same reason that there wasn't one for the four years preceding it--the terrorists didn't want to or were unable to.

I don't believe that curtailing the rights of Americans is the solution and it chills me to the core to think that the definition of what is terrorism may change. Yesterday's communist is todays Islamic terrorist is tomorrow's environmentalist.

What opinions will be safe? Which groups can I join that won't put me on a list? Now we find out that PETA was being investigated by the FBI for being a terrorist organization. We already know that reading material can cause suspicion and although it's never been publicly admitted, I suspect that being a Muslim is pretty much guaranteed to merit the subject an FBI file.

Are we really safer now? Safer from what? Sometimes I think that better the terrorist with a sword than a bureaucrat with a pen. At least the terrorist kills with only one cut.

Posted on December 20, 2005

The little unread book

by David Holtzman

A senior at Dartmouth was visited by two Homeland Security agents in October to assess his threat potential to the United States. The reason? He had requested a copy of Mao's Little Red Book via an interlibrary transfer for a class that he was taking on Communishm. He and his parents were told that the book is on a "watch list", whatever that means.

** It turns out that this was a hoax..it fooled Senator Kennedy, too. **

Posted on December 19, 2005

Ultimate protection for Americans

by David Holtzman

It's a scary world out there today. Terrorists, wars, anthrax. It seems as if Americans have a lot to be afraid of. Once you get out on the fringes of society, defined for these purposes as at least 200 miles from a Fridays, Bennigans or Ruby Tuesdays, it gets weird. And in the words of Hunter Thompson, "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Everyone wants to kill us. They attack us on ships, on planes, in nightclubs.

I have figured out a solution though.

Maybe we shouldn't piss everybody off so much.

Imagine a kinder gentler America where Delays aren't fatal, Bush is a happy word and torture is listening to Celine Dion.

Posted on December 16, 2005

Wikipedophilia

by David Holtzman

Wikipedia continues to impress me. Slashdot notes a BBC story citing a Nature article examining the collaborative encyclopedia's accuracy. Their conclusion? it's as accurate as the Encyclopedia Brittanica. There were slightly more errors per article in the free reference then in the venerable British instititution, but the articles were slightly longer, so net-net, it was mostly a wash.

In four years, Wikipedia has grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. It's free. The Britannica costs $1400 for the 32 volume set.

I look at the two and put my Darwinian thinking hat on and speculate on which one will be around ten years from now. The Britannica brand is strong, but I predict that in the future the company will focus on niche products, leaving the mainstream online encyclopedia market to the socialist librarians. Encarta drew first blood, but that clicking noise is the wikis biting through the jugular.

The Internet is the universal solvent of information. The post-atomic age aqua regia has barely begun its dissolution of the nice tidy intellectual property dividers painstakingly erected by two centuries of intellectual property lawyers.

I love the young information collectives that are the wikis and if that makes me a communist, than Zdravstvujte tovarishch!

Posted on December 15, 2005

Mission Impossible

by David Holtzman

A British company, Staellium has come up with a much-needed privacy innovation--self-destructing text messages.

Once a user is notified that the he has a message, he can use a special bit of code on the mobile device to view the missive. It erases itself after 40 seconds.

There have been a number of well-publicized embarassing cases where celebrities such as David Beckham have been caught with incriminating evidence on their cell phones. Presumably this technology will be pitched to that kind of high-profile, frequent screwing around, money-to-lose kind of market.

The problem is that for legal reasons, the messages will still be cached on the server. So organized crime will have to develop its own technology, which by the way, won't be difficult.

There is one thing about this that I don't understand...

Beckham is married to Victoria "Posh", right?

So what's up with that?

Posted on December 13, 2005

Democracy from a Distance

by David Holtzman

The ACLU is objecting to a new, little-discussed provision in the Patriot Act. The bill now contains a provision restricting people from willfully and knowingly entering a restricted area where the President or anyone else under Secret Service protection will be at.

The Secret Service clearly has a function to protect the President and other dignitaries from attacks and in one light, all this provision would do is put teeth into their existing mission. Senator Spector, one of the authors of the current Patriot Act compromise says that's all it's supposed to do.

Unfortunately a reasonable sounding provision like this can be twisted in the hands of those with malignant intent. The Bush administration has made good use out of every draconian law that they've been given by a well-meaning, but sometimes misguided Congress. There's no reason to believe that this one wouldn't be abused, too.

President Bush has been remarkably shy about being in the same room with detractors, or in fact anyone who isn't a complete rah-rah cheerleader for the administration and all of its policies. There's been several grumbling stories about Bushies keeping non-zealots out of private and even public meetings where the President will be speaking.

Might the Patriot Act be used to jail protesters at a Bush-Cheney event? Would they dare? Is the Pope Catholic? Is the President an Evangelical? Is Cheney the Prince of Darkness?

Posted on December 13, 2005

The 'I' in Italy

by David Holtzman

CNN describes a new law in Italy that requires Internet cafes to ID and log their clients papers. They are also required to keep a photocopy of the ID. Each cafe must also be registered with the local police station. Government spokespeople say that this will help fight terrorism.

I hate to accept statements like this on face value. How exactly will this help fight terrorism? There's two problematic assumptions here, the first is that terrorists can't afford a computer in a private residence and the second, slightly more disturbing, is the assumption that knowing who a person is will somehow stop them from committing a terrorist act.

Looking at the first assumption, I have to assume that a well-funded terrorist group can afford to make a "Dude, you've got Dell" purchase. We're talking what, like $2500 or something? i'm sure that they can sell blood or get holiday work as a mall Santa to make that amount of cash. So if the people who are likely to be a threat aren't going to be deterred by this policy, then why would a government, especially a notoriously unstable one, want to to regulate the lower and middle class access to the Internet?

The second unstated assumption is pervasive throughout the new "security-conscious" western world. The belief is that these crimes are committed by the anonymous against the named. Shedding light on those who keep their identity hidden is similar to the effects of the sun on a vampire--they scream once and go up in smoke.

I have never understood this argument and I know of no historical precedent where knowing someone's identity would have stopped a big political attack, explosion or assassination. No amount of identity snooping would have stopped a John Wilkes Booth, an Oswald, a MacVeigh or most importantly the 9/11 murderers.

The problem with this theory is that it only works when the authorities are already looking for the person, presumably because they've already commited a violent act. Then it's simply a matter of picking them up. But wait, most countries already have a system in place for that by requiring ID at transportation hubs. So, why ID those seeking Internet access?

The conclusion that I've come to is that it's because the true desire is to slowly build up a behavioral profile of everyone--citizens and non-residents alike. I'm sure that initially this knowledge would be used to keep us all safe. But for how long? Like the U.S. Patriot Act, this seems to be part of a larger effort to use the ill-defined blanket of "security" to encroach on the privacy of all, all except the terrorists, because similar to how criminals always seem to find guns regardless of local laws, those with intent to harm will easily find a way around repressive information access laws.

Not so their innocent neighbors.

Posted on December 12, 2005

Turrorists

by David Holtzman

As a young boy growing up in Pennsylvania in the 60s, I was scared to death of Communists. They were everywhere. They were putting flouride in our water, stealing our rocket science and waiting to "bury" us as Nikita Krushchev infamously said.

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, dreaming about a nuclear holocaust caused by the missiles sitting just 70 miles off our coast. This point was reinforced on the many occasions that I would be hunched over at my school desk, staring at my own crotch waiting for the all-clear signal and hoping that this was another drill and not the real thing.

Communists.

Ugh. And just in case we didn't know what would happen after the bombs dropped, hollywood was happy to tell us. The aftermath of radiation was...GIANT INSECTS and LIZARDS with firebreath. They would emerge from their volcano and head for their natural food source--skyscrapers.

Communists were everywhere in the 60s.

Terrorists are everywhere now.

They're under every bed, riding on every plane, working at every 7-11. They are after our power plants, our water supplies and most importantly our oil.

9/11 was a tragedy of Olympian proportions and the perpetrators should be caught and hung. There seems to be a surprising lack of effort to do so, however.

The bogey man of the new millenia is the terrorist. Simply saying the words "National Security" is enough to justify almost anything, from rolling back a hundred years of civil liberties to torturing suspects because they might be "turrorists". The means justify the ends when the enemy looms sufficently large in one's own mind.

Perhaps some of us miss the good old days when we had a common enemy to rally the people around. It's not much of a stretch to replace one ethnic group with another. "Communist" and "Terrorist" even rhyme.

As a parent, I know that children mature when they can look and assure themselves that there's no bogeyman hiding under the bed. It's high time for America to wake up and shed some light on our fears. Daylit villains are never as bad as shadowy nightmares.

Posted on December 09, 2005

The Nude or the Rude

by David Holtzman

Privacy awareness is like Zen. You empty your mind and let the connectedness of everything come rushing in to fill the void. Zen masters see how the fish and leaves, wind and rain are all similar manifestations. Privacy enlightened people see the supermarket courtesy card, the passport, the cell phone and the secret database as different turns of the same great wheel.

Once you start, you can find a conspiracy anywhere. It reminds of me of reading a couple of books written in the 70s that alleged that advertisers were airbrushing secret messages in ads--death heads, naked women and obscenities. I opened up a magazine and lo and behold--I saw the secret messages. i found them everywhere; skulls in cigarette ads, intertwined bodies in car commericals and rude messages painted in background foliage.

The only problem is that they weren't really there. The power of suggestion is more addictive than cheap cocaine.

Once enlightened, a privacy crusader gleefully refuses their personal information everywhere. It's easy once you start and sometimes it's fun to hold up a line at the supermarket while you explain to the cashier and everyone else within earshot why these "courtesy cards" are one kiss away from the devil's buttocks.

It's harder to draw the line somewhere. Once you get the big picture, you see the hungry digital beast stalking your movements, noting your quirks and you want to deny him his next meal. Maybe by being obstinate, perhaps by lying. Maybe you wait until you're home and write an angry letter.

But we all have lives to live and people close to us that are easily embarrassed when we rail about the soulless machine sucking dry our spark of individuality and we stop, look around and realize that the world has moved to the right without telling us, marginalizing us on the fringe.

And we have a decision to make, do we let them strip us raw or fight for what we believe, one checkout clerk at a time.

Nude or rude?

Posted on December 08, 2005

The End of the Americanization of Everything

by David Holtzman

The most significant fallout from the Iraqi war and the extremely unpopular Bush administration may be the halt of the cult of the U.S.. It's less popular today to be American, act American or buy American than it has ever been in my lifetime. For those of us who travel overseas frequently it's become difficult, at times embarassing to be a stranger in a strange land.

Canada, for instance, is waking up from it's little sister status and will, I suspect, continue to move in its own direction, regardless of how this war turns out. Their ant-Iraqi war stance may define them going forward just as much as Blair's pro-war position has Britain.

American products are moving lower down and further back on store shelves around the world. Competition is springing up everywhere to fill the niches. Clothing, electronics, furniture and other finished pieces of consumer goods are becoming truly global. Don't be fooled by brands like Coke, Ford or Mickey-Ds. These are not companies, these are countries. Hell, McDonalds even has their own flag, university and an army of clowns.

When this craziness is over, I hope that we Americans can get back to doing what we do well, marketing dreams, building archetypes like Marilyn and Elvis and cowboy-like innovation second-to-none.

Posted on December 06, 2005

Katrina's eye

by David Holtzman

In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the storm stripped away more than the roof of the Superdome. It peeled away some of the nicer social layers that we Americans often use for shelter from the uglier realities of the classful society in this country.

We saw the best and worst behavior from the citizens of New Orleans, a city that I dearly love. We saw institutions stripped to their essence. The television screens were full of both kinds of policemen, the brave and noble ones risking their lives and ignoring their own problems to rescue survivors, as well as the arrogant baiting and beating kind that unfortunately leaves a more lasting impression.

The normal political bantering that's ear fluff most of the year appears exquisitetly strident as an audible backdrop to video of flooded neighborhoods; the mayor, governor and White House pointing fingers at each other. At least Brownie is doing a heck of a job.

Now Bell South reminds us why we don't want monopolies. Bill Oliver, a Bell South executive, angrily withdrew his offer to the city of a damaged building to be used as the new police station. Why? Because the city had announced plans to create a free, municipal wi-fi network to help revitalize the local business economy.

Bravo for Bell South. That's like giving a housekeeper cast off clothes and then demanding them back when she didn't do the dishes well enough.

This institutional nakedness left bare from the storm is unsettling. Let's go back to ignorance where all police officers are helpful, the phone company is a service organization and the President of the US has the job because he's smarter than you are.

Posted on December 05, 2005

The Whipped Cream Girl

by David Holtzman

Dolores Erickson is not a household word, but for men in their 40s or 50s, she's the "whipped cream" girl from the Herb Alpert album, "Whipped Cream and Other Delights".

Back in the 70s, everyone owned this album. It's memorable because of the cover art. Ms. Erickson was featured wearing only a sultry look, covered head to toe with whipped cream, There was something about that picture that was memorable and it became a cultural graphic icon.

Napoleon said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures like album covers and commercials can burn their way into the cultural psyche so deep that our society is tattoed for life with the image.

I'll never forget the whipped cream girl or Marilyn's dress flying up from the grate or John Lennon in bed with Yoko in the hotel room. These pictures are to our culture what Homeric odes and oral mythology were to the ancients. They are our cultural legacy.

Posted on December 01, 2005

This Bell tolls for fee

by David Holtzman

I woke up this morning feeling sad. Not for the displaced Gulf coasters or the millions of homeless in America, no, not even for anorexic, cocaine-addicted supermodels. I feel sorry for the poor rich bastards in the telecommunications industry. Like their cousin industry, organized crime, they are experiencing a rag-to-riches-to-jail industry lifecycle.

They had it made back in the 90s, They were the "it" boys of their generation; rich and snide, full of pride. How quickly things can change. The boom in telco was the Fort Sumter firing of the Dot Com Bubble. Millionaires, even billionaires split from the mass, rose like a lava lamp, only to pop at the top and sink into obscurity.

The industry is humbled now. Bernie Ebbers going to jail for the rest of his life. Schroeder's fall from PSINet just in time for the unnaming of a sports stadium disassociating themselves from the failed and delisted company.

Yet they're up to their old tricks again. Today's Washington Post features a story quoting William Smith, the CTO OF Bell South as suggesting that they might start charging more for some Internet companies to make their sites load faster. He denies that they would deliberately slow or block any nonpaying web site, but hey, the protection racket is an ancient and honorable one.

This proposal is socially irresponsible. By creating a multi-tiered track of speeds for web access, they've proposing taking away one of the two greatest egalatarian features of the Internet (the RIAA is working on the other one).

It's easy to guess where this could end up. The biggest bucks buy the best bandwidth. The chilling effect that this strategy would have on startup ecommerce companies is as yet, unimaginable. It's hard to believe that it could be good for the economy.

Tony Soprano, though would be proud.

Posted on December 01, 2005