progressive involvement

Wonders of the inter-tubes

I've been wanting to read a political history concerning Napoleon Bonaparte.  A five minute search turned up a promising book by Steven Englund, Napoleon:  A Political History.  Some three or four clicks later I bought it.  It cost under $10.  

About three days later, it arrived in the mail from the Jacksonville Public Library, which had sold it in order to raise money to purchase new books.  Turns out, it was exactly what I was looking for, and exquisitely written besides.

Contrast that with an intentional book search I did about 15 years ago.  I had not been able to find Spiritus Creator by the Danish theologian, Regin Prenter, published around 1950.  A local used-book store managed to find a copy which would (and did) cost me $55.  I had it in about three weeks.  

It also turned out that, within two weeks of receiving Spiritus Creator, I happened to mention to a colleague that I'd finally found one for $55.  He said, "You should have said something.  I'd have given you my copy.  In fact, here it is.  Take it."  So then I had two copies of Spiritus Creator, one for $55 and one for free.

Not very long ago, it took considerable effort to find the books you were after, and then another considerable effort to get them.  Now, it's five clicks and three days.

Glimpse of the (near) future?

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and he knows what's going on.  He spoke on the subject of surveillence in a speech yesterday at the Center for American Progress--full speech here.  Excerpt:

"The piece of technology we consider vital to the conduct of our everyday personal and professional life … happens to be a combination phone bug, listening device, location tracker and hidden camera... 

"Without adequate protections built into the law there’s no way that Americans can ever be sure that the government isn’t going to interpret its authorities more and more broadly, year after year, until the idea of a tele-screen monitoring your every move turns from dystopia to reality." 

Why Wiki is down

This piece by Andrew Leonard at salon.com explains why SOPA is a bad deal.  The measure is about combatting internet piracy, which is fine, but also says that an entire website can be shut down for a single violation.

Heavens, people, YouTube and Facebook have copyright violations every second.  Do we really want to shut down the world's favorite websites, further crippling commerce in a time of recession, while at the same time undermining freedom of speech?  

Which is why SOPA is a bad bill.  Call your Member of Congress.

Requiscat in pacem, Steve Jobs

The word most often associated with Steve Jobs appears to be "visionary."  Almost every article about the man includes the word in the first paragraph.  It's not just hyperbole in Jobs' case.  He holds 317 patents--and most of them are for cool products.

What I most appreciate about the man is the sense of style and taste he brought to technology.  I'm a Mac convert, not so much because the product is stable, although it is, and not so much because it does more than a PC, which it does not.

I like my MacBook Pro because it feels good in my hands when I carry it.  Its' one-piece aluminum construction is strong and sleek, its' design simple and elegant.  Steve Jobs did that.  Says the New York Times:

He put much stock in the notion of “taste,” a word he used frequently. It was a sensibility that shone in products that looked like works of art and delighted users. Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.”

That quality may very well be irreplaceable.  Apple's released its new iPhone two days ago, mostly to yawns from the technology press.  It's too soon to say, of course, but Apple has some huge shoes to fill if it's to continue at its current level of excellence, which includes not only performance but appearance.

Visionary, creative genius, inventor and innovator, redefiner and titan of his industry--the Berkeley hippie did well!  Said Bill Gates, "The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come."

 

Unfortunately, it only has two USB ports

This building that looks like a particle accelerator, or a spaceship, is actually Apple Corporation's new headquarters in Cupertino, CA.  Initial reviews are somewhat negative but that's not unusual.  

The main test will come with the first rain.  Funky-looking buildings quite often leak.  For all their genius, many architects seem to have never heard of the concept of drainage.

 

San Jose architecture critic Alan Hess also questioned the function of "this huge circle."

"How are people inside going to communicate?" he asked. "Are they going to be walking around miles and miles of corridors to get to a conference room or use an internal tram system? Maybe they will rely on computer connections."

They might make use of electronic communications, would be my guess.

 

Second thoughts on the iPhone

Why did they do this?  Because they could?  If you have an iPhone or iPad, your location has been logged, and time-stamped, up to 1000 times a day.  Might that data be of interest to any number of persons, some of them bent toward ill will?

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking why they did it, how they do it, and why didn't they tell us they did it.

This could open an interesting can of worms.  For starters, my guess is that all, or nearly all, of the other smartphones do the same thing.  Did the request for this feature possibly come from the government?

In any case, the information can be hacked, with consequences that range from unpleasant to life-threatening.  Hack the details of a person's daily routine and kidnapping, for example, is oh-so-much easier.

UPDATE:  Androids do it too.

Exodus 2.0

 

How to play like a Christian and still win at Civilization 4

I've been playing the Sid Meier Civilization series ever since it first came out in the early 90's.  In all versions of the game, you take a civilization beginning with one city in 4000 BC and go to victory or defeat.  

It's a game where you say to yourself "just a few more turns" and, the next time you look at the clock, it's four in the morning.

You can win a variety of ways.  Conquering the world, the choice of barbarians, is one possibility.  Another way to win is diplomatically, defined as getting elected Secretary General of the United Nations, or scientifically and technologically, defined as leaving earth to colonize another planet, or culturally, defined by superior performance in art/engineering/great achievements.

It was a big jump from Civilization 3 to Civilization 4.  For the first time in the series, the new version of the game was a significantly different game than its predecessor.  Among many differences, Civilization 3 is more epic in scope, but Civ 4 goes quicker.  The jury is still out as to which one I prefer.

It seems to me that a Christian should want to "rule the world" by setting an example of being a good neighbor, in which case one might pursue a diplomatic strategy.  Or perhaps the Christian would want to "win" by making the world a better place--hence, a cultural strategy--or performing an heroic public service, in which case a science and technology strategy would be best.  

Grandiose, you say?  Uncharacteristically pious?  Fuzzy-headed liberal protestantism run amok?  Nay, nay, and nay.  I view the contest very much as the Qumran community viewed the world in the first century.  This is a battle between "the sons of light and the sons of darkness," baby.  Hey, the AI cheats.  Need I say more?

The other day, I happened across an internet article on how to win militarily.  Basically, all you do is discover iron, build all the swordsmen you can, and send them out to conquer.  Yes, you have to do it right, but, as sheer strategy, it takes no genius to do it.  You could probably train a monkey to win that way.

In dozens of games of Civ 4, I have won, playing as a Christian, exactly twice--once by bringing peace to the world diplomatically, ushering in a permanent Golden Age, and once by leading a brave band of colonists to a Bright New Day on a new planet.  This proves that, just like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, it can be done.  

 

 

French kids do pretty well at identifying old technology