Monthly Archives: November 2008

Putin redux

Posted on by

From Mark Andersen…

As many will have noticed this weekend, Russia slipped even further from the landfall of democracy, as Putin’s handpicked legislature voted almost unanimously to increase the presidential term from four to six years. Not only does Vlad intend to serve those next two sixers himself, but the smart money is on Medvedev stepping down early so Vlad can get back in sooner. Why change the curtains after all?

The funniest part of this whole charade: only one party had the guts to stand up to Putin’s self-serving antics, and vote No on the extended term. Want to guess who they were?

The Communists.

And that should tell you all you need to know about the State of the Russian Union. The Communists are opposing the KGB (FSB).

LIFE Photo Archive available on Google Image Search

Posted on by

Wow! This is big news.

The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen. These are just some of the things you’ll see in Google Image Search today.

We’re excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We’re digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.

Thanks to Tony Hirst for spotting it first.

Google’s predictive power (contd.)

Posted on by

The story continues. Here’s Bill Thompson’s distinctive take on it.

As we have seen with flu trends, sometimes the “interesting” knowledge that can be extracted is well-concealed until comparisons can be made with other sources, as it was the correlation between some search terms and the real-world data that mattered.

Of course Google has not revealed which search terms it analysed because doing so would undermine the model’s effectiveness.

Unfortunately it is being equally reticent about how it has ensured that the data its uses is properly anonymised so that users cannot be identified on the basis of their queries.

A letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Patient Privacy Rights to Google boss Eric Schmidt has not been answered, leaving those concerned with online privacy uncertain over the broader implications of the project.

But as Cade Metz points out in an insightful article in The Register, we may all be happy to know that a ‘flu outbreak is coming, but what happens when the disease involved is more life-threatening and the government asks Google for the names and IP addresses of anyone whose search terms indicate that they are infected?

It’s not that I don’t trust Google. I don’t trust any company, government department or individual without a good reason to do so.

In the case of search engines that claim to protect my privacy I want to know just how they do it and will not accept vague reassurances.

That’s technology for you — dammit

Posted on by

New research from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life
Project shows that:

* 44% of those with home internet access say their connection
failed to work properly at some time in the previous 12 months.
* 39% of those with desktop or laptop computers have had their
machines not work properly at some time in the previous 12 months.
* 29% of cell phone users say their device failed to work properly
at some time in the previous year.

Full report here.

Go Charlie, Go

Posted on by

The RIAA may finally have met its match…

Professor Charlie Nesson of Harvard Law has launched a legal attempt to have the federal copyright law at the core of the RIAA’s legal strategy declared unconstitutional. He has come to the defence of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry’s lawsuits, arguing that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law.

In an interview with AP Charlie, who founded the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said that his goal is to “turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency.”

Great stuff. Let’s hope it works.

Politics, Obama and the Chicago school

Posted on by

In the UK we are contemplating the possibility that we might eventually be ruled by the Bullingdon (aka Bollinger) Club. But a conversation at lunch in college today made me realise that Obama’s administration is likely to be critically affected by a more cerebral outfit, namely the Chicago law school, where Obama once taught constitutional law. One of his buddies is Cass Sunstein, for example, a legal scholar who has written in recent years about the Internet as an echo chamber, the deficiencies of deliberative democracy and — most recently — about how discreet ‘nudges’ can effect social change. Then there’s Jack Goldsmith, who was from the outset of the Net a sceptic about the extent to which the technology was genuinely transformative (in the sense of being able to slip the surly bounds of territorial jurisdictions) — views which later found expression in the book he co-authored with Timothy Wu: Who Controls the Internet? And of course there’s Richard Posner, a senior judge who is also a polymath, an academic and one of America’s most prolific public intellectuals (and indeed the author of a study of public intellectuals). Posner also co-maintains a highly cerebral blog with another Chicago academic, the Nobel laureate Gary Becker.

Rather puts Dave Cameron, George Osborne and the rest of the Bullingdons into perspective, doesn’t it?

Google, the Collective Unconscious and PEAR

Posted on by

Hmmm… this Google Trends idea gets more intriguing by the minute. Rex Hughes read my comumn and pointed me at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Program, which I guess was funded by You Know Who at the Pentagon. The project has closed, but here’s the blurb:

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which flourished for nearly three decades under the aegis of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, has completed its experimental agenda of studying the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes, and developing complementary theoretical models to enable better understanding of the role of consciousness in the establishment of physical reality. It has now incorporated its present and future operations into the broader venue of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL), a 501(c)(3) organization chartered in the State of New Jersey. In this new locus and era, PEAR plans to expand its archiving, outreach, education, and entrepreneurial activities into broader technical and cultural context, maintaining its heritage of commitment to intellectual rigor and integrity, pragmatic and beneficial relevance of its techniques and insights, and sophistication of its spiritual implications.

It lives on here.

Mists and mellow fruitfulness

Posted on by

Got up this morning, yawned and looked out of the bedroom window. This is what I saw. The light was magical just before 7am. Needless to say, the picture doesn’t capture it properly. Sigh. The story of every snapper’s life.

Job opportunists

Posted on by

Bob Cringely (whom God preserve) wants to apply for the US CTO job.

President-Elect Barack Obama has announced that when he’s in office he’ll appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the whole darned USA. Though Google CEO Eric Schmidt already said he isn’t interested in the job, I am. I accept, Mr. President. And while the idea of Cringely for CTO may seem lame to most everybody I know (including my Mom), I think I can make a strong case for why I am EXACTLY the right guy for the job. For one thing, unlike Eric Schmidt I don’t have a lot of money. Schmidt can’t afford to take the job because Google stock is down and he’d lose a fortune. Not so for me. I come encumbered only with debts, which is to say I am a true American. I’d be perfectly willing to put those debts in a blind trust ASAP. All that remains now is to appoint P.J. O’Rourke as Secretary of State and Chris Hitchens as the president’s spiritual advisor. Cringely’s piece is a hoot, btw. Cheered me up on a Monday morning.

In light of the exciting announcement about the Chief Technology Officer position, it’s clear that recruitment for such a pivotal role will be highly competitive. As candidates vie for this opportunity, it’s essential to have a strategic approach to showcasing their qualifications. Leveraging resources such as Boardsi, which can provide Executive advisory services, can offer valuable insights and connections for effectively navigating the recruitment landscape. This platform offers specialized support for candidates aiming to stand out in high-stakes roles, ensuring that their skills and experiences are highlighted to potential decision-makers.