Blog Articles 151–155
Published on Friday, November 2, 2012 and tagged with
minimalism.
I’ll never understand this obsession with accumulating material
wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more
and more possessions until your living areas are bursting with useless
junk. Then you die, your relatives sell everything and start the cycle
all over again.
— Odo, in DS9: Q-Less.
Published on Tuesday, October 16, 2012.
mansplained:
A scholar at my rank but in a different field asked me about my
research. I told him I had recently published an article on a political
controversy. He explained to me that the really crucial aspect of that
controversy was issue X which, yes, was the topic of the article I had
just described.
One example of many collected on a new tumblog of the recently (to my
knowledge) named phenomenon of “mansplaining”. The core nature and
problem of mansplaining is best articulated by Rebecca Solnit in Men Explain Things to
Me.
Go read it. I’ll still be here.
Published on Friday, October 12, 2012 and tagged with
social web.
A
link to share!
Interesting piece at The Atlantic on web analytics that attempt to
account for sharing of links in what the author dubs “dark social”, the
various technologies like e-mail, IM, etc. that we still use to share
links to each other. Analytics suggest that it dominates even Facebook
as a traffic driver.
The article uses Chartbeat metrics, which attribute direct deep page
visits to social. Now, there are things unaccounted for that decrease
the numbers somewhat. Browsers with referrers off will look like direct
social, though that can be mitigated with cookies. Links from SSL
search, Twitter, etc. will also look direct by default; I don’t know if
they have some way to compensate for that.
But it’s still interesting.
Published on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 and tagged with
terrorism and war.
If I am walking in the market, I have this fear that maybe the person
walking next to me is going to be a target of the drone. If I’m
shopping, I’m really careful and scared. If I’m standing on the road and
there is a car parked next to me, I never know if that is going to be
the target. Maybe they will target the car in front of me or behind me.
Even in mosques, if we’re praying, we’re worried that maybe one person
who is standing with us praying is wanted. So, wherever we are, we have
this fear of drones.
From Living under
Drones, an account of the impact US drone strikes are having on
civilian life in the Pakistani Federally Administered Tribal Area. Read
it. All of it.
One of the things that struck me most is the severe impact on civic
life and education. The report describes three attacks in particular;
the first, on March 17, 2011, was a strike on a jirga, a
meeting of elders and community members to resolve disputes and make
decisions regarding community affairs. This meeting was to settle a
dispute regarding a nearby mine. The community was doing what it does —
gathering together to settle the matter peacefully and avoid greater
unrest and difficulties in the area — and the US bombed them, killing 42
and wounding 14 more. Among the dead were all the elders gathered for
the meeting.
Theoretically, the US is wanting to promote peace and democracy in
Pakistan (and Afghanistan). How does bombing peaceful civic meetings and
judicial processes do anything but directly undermine such goals?
Published on Sunday, October 7, 2012.
If you as the end-user lack those four freedoms, your
ability to respond to change is tied to the vendor’s whims.
— From Open
source equals software freedom, not free software by Simon Phipps. This, not mainly price, is
why I think
F/LOSS is
important. The ability to use technology in a manner that best meets
your needs, not just those needs or methods of use foreseen and
accommodated by the vendor.