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Apr 13, 2018 ∞

How to pronounce ”Grotenhuis” like an Amsterdamian:

The “g” is a little bit of ”g” and “h”
The “r” is hard and has a single roll
The “huis” is a little bit of “hice” and “haus”
The “s” is a little bit of ”s” and “sh”

It comes out something like “Ghrohtenhaiysh”

note: we heard many different pronounciations. We expect regional differences.

Mar 12, 2018 ∞

Food for Thought: 2018-03-12

I waited too long to publish this last batch, so the list is long. Hope you find some of these interesting! Recommend your own in the comments:

This is a hilarious and informative philosophical response about “puzzles for libertarians". (I’m probably one of the few people who reads both Current Affairs and Slate Star Codex.)

I’ve shared quite a bit about the Attention Economy. Richard Beck, here, brings that conversation out of the realm of advertising, software, etc. and into social interactions.

Startup Bros are buying up other countries because they’re realizing they are accelerating the demise of their own.

From Current Affairs, The Nice Cop, an article by someone who was friends with the killer of Philando Castile.

"It is ridiculous to think that you can arm your police with a military-grade arsenal, tell them that everyone they see is a potential threat, and not have bloodshed in the streets….It may be a necessary evil to have some units of armed police, but they should be few, small, and lightly-armed with pistols, shotguns, and rifles….In the event that unarmed police had to confront armed suspects, they would do what cops already do: call for backup.”

You’ve heard about the various folks repenting for what they’ve done to attention with tech. Some of them are banding together at Humane Tech to make things better. Here is their first resource page. Lots of good advice on there.

I like these “25 Principles of Adult Behavior”

"We’re ultimately after justice, not fairness. And by stopping with fairness, we are shortchanging the people most at risk.” from The Problem with Building a “Fair” System

"It’s not beneficial to us to turn content recommendations over to an algorithm, especially one that’s been optimized for garbage.” From Facebook is Killing Comedy

Related: YouTube: the Great Radicalizer: “It seems as if you are never ‘hard core’ enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes.”

“Get out of jail free” cards. Remember, even “benevolent” discrimination in execution of the law leads to further inequalities.

"Creating a social stigma around people who refused to cede the street to cars was a means for car companies to redirect blame back onto victims and strengthen motorists’ claim to the right-of-way.” On the Creeping Criminalization of Walking

’When you create a Human+AI team, the hard part isn’t the “AI”. It isn’t even the “Human”. It’s the “+”.’ Humans are good at asking questions. AI are good at answering them. This “centaur” pairing is effective.

We all know hiring for security expertise is difficult. Here’s a heatmap including supply/demand ratios by state.

Where countries would be in Pangea.

Cool infographic about the naming of tea in different languages.

Another cool infographic about happiness.

This idea of “Near Enemies” is a very useful concept.

"Smaller crowds outperform larger crowds and individuals in realistic task conditions.” Anybody have a copy of this article?

Jan 23, 2018 ∞

Food for Thought: 2018-01-23

This essay from LeGuin helps explain why her writing is so great: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Update: She has passed

Waging Nonviolence interviews the executive director of Life After Hate and and they discuss how we help people leave violent organizations.

“I’m simply tired and bored by a progressive Christianity that doesn’t believe in anything, at least anything beyond Jesus being a model exemplar of liberal humanism.” From Experimental Theology

A good breakdown of USA immigration issues.

Experimental Theology looks at idolatry in the workplace.

Quality essay on Toxic Tech Culture.

Cory Doctorow says there’s more to the long game in the attention wars.

Related: Here’s how to turn your phone greyscale, with a quick shortcut to restore color when you need it.

“The #Resistance Just Gave Darth Vader’s NSA Broad Spy Powers” Less sarcastic article here.

Solid Last Jedi thinkpiece roundup:

Not the Droid You’re Looking For: Subtler Political Points from The Last Jedi from C4SS

Why so many men hate The Last Jedi but can’t agree on why from Bitter Gertrude

Lure of Myth from Slate

From the makers of Juicero, we now have “raw water”. Yes, people are charging exorbitant amounts for dangerous water.

Shellfish, which generally stay in the same area, are good subjects for observing the effects of our waste entering the ocean.

Jan 8, 2018 ∞

Food for Thought: 2018-01-08

Here are some things I’ve found thought provoking, recently. Recommend your own in the comments.

“The search for a more human understanding of power and consent is not simply stage-dressing for a bigger fight. It is the big fight.” Consent of the Ungoverned is a great read about sex and politics. Immensely quotable.

Security Planner is an excellent resource from Citizen Lab. Answer a handful of super-simple questions and they will make quality, achievable recommendations on how to digitally protect yourself.

There were at least 1129 killings by police in the USA last year, and most of the known ones started with responding to a suspected non-violent offense. Again, it’s not even clear that guns even need to be brought to those situations, as they endanger to the officer, the suspect, and bystanders. Rather, we need prioritization of de-escalation techniques and the ability to follow-up after the event.

Some New Jersey prisons have banned New Jim Crow, which sorta proves the point.

Are Technica reports on research detailing common causes for poor patents being approved. These are fundamental structural problems with the process, though fixable. As you know, I’d prefer to #AbolishIP.

ProPublica reports on scams and malware in political ads on Facebook. But really, this isn’t just about Facebook, but any large-scale ad-driven site. (Here’s they are getting the data. Here are the ads.)

In addition, a reminder that social media sites are becoming “news” for many people, and oppressive governments are able to delete opposition viewpoints.

(Spoilers) This article makes the case that The Last Jedi starts to redeem the prequels.

I’m not fully convinced, but daniel siegel makes the case that to pursue goals in computing, we often bring humans down to machine level, instead of raising machines to human level.

New sushi place in Nora (yay!) but also new Martha Hoover restaurant (boo!)

zing! also zing!

Dec 20, 2017 ∞

📚 2017 Book Recommendations

Goodreads made this list from my reading, but here are my direct recommendations:

Non-fiction:

Changing Lenses: a life-altering introduction to Restorative Justice.
Weapons of Math Destruction: this book about big data misuse was a great resource for my talk on big data security (Security Thinking for Big Data).
Conflict is not Abuse: A nuanced, challenging, imperfect, and incredibly important book about how we respond to conflict, and how trauma- and supremacy-based anxieties affect those responses.
How to Win Friends and Influence People: classic advice, though some of the examples haven’t aged well.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: introduces them well with a story, ends with a good reference to the ideas.
Reviving Old Scratch: Richard Beck of Experimental Theology addresses the tendency towards secular humanism within progressive theology.
The No Asshole Rule: good advice for how to prevent (or deal with) bad workplaces.
Getting to “Yes”: classic negotiation advice.
Utopia of Rules: a philosophical exploration of our relationship with bureaucracy.
Irresistible Revolution: an autohagiography of radical christian experiments. For a heroic everyday method for Christian living, see: Stranger God.

Fiction:

The Dispossessed: This is a wonderful take on sci-fi that explores work, societies, and beliefs. Our means are our ends.
The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear: beautiful bardic fantasy. (These were re-reads)
The Seventh Princess: I’m amazed this fantasy book for children isn’t still in publication.
Fight Club: strange writing style, but better than the movie. Really good, assuming you read both the problems and “solutions" as satire.
Warbreaker: this is my favorite Cosmere/Sanderson book. (This was a re-read)
Slaughterhouse Five: so it goes, but it doesn’t have to.
The Handmaid’s Tale: maybe this time a dystopian work will warn us off?
The Rise and Fall of DODO: almost as good as Anathem.
The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive take a long time to get going, but end up being worth it. If you’re reading Stormlight Archive and missed the novella, get lifted up by this bit of awesome: Edgedancer.
The Butcher of Anderson Station: read this novella after the first Expanse book.
Dragonsong: this was my first Pern experience, and it was really good.

What are your recommendations?

Jan 30, 2017 ∞

The Key Ingredient Is Violent Power

Reminder: the key ingredient is violent power.

People are often jerks. People sometimes have frightening opinions. People do things we dislike. People can be ignorant, sometimes willfully so. People are frequently selfish.

These are problematic, so we seek empathy and enlightenment. And it is good that we do.

But the above are not truly damaging unless they attached to violent power.

Without violent power, these issues are an opportunity for discussion and learning.

But when backed by the ability to call on armed men & women, the ability capture & hold people, the ability to acquire with force, and the ability to strike and kill: they become coercive and potentially deadly.

We cannot and should not stop educating. We cannot and should not stop furthering socialization and empathy.

But we also need to be more focused on limiting violent power and the systems that coordinate it. Too often we excuse the amassing of violent power because it is done by someone with a friendly face or someone agreeable to our causes.

History tells us time and again that such violent power will always be abused eventually.

Immediacy is not an excuse to trust it. Tribalism is not an excuse to trust it with “our side.”

We must fight being distracted by opinions and strike at the root.

Fight the power.

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Feb 16, 2016 ∞

Food for Thought: 2016-02-16

Really good article about Bernie Sanders, and more generally, voting: Don’t Change the Players, Change the Game.

This is why I want you to read Changing Lenses by Zehr:

“The simple fact of the matter is the criminal justice system is meant to punish, not protect. I don’t care about seeing him punished - I would rather he get better. And they’ve done nothing to protect me - it’s only made things worse and become another weapon in his arsenal, and the arsenal of the people out there way scarier than him."

Remember the toy company (VTech) that was hacked? They now have Terms of Service that says they aren’t responsible for hacks. People are rightly outraged that this would fly, but this is nothing new for ToS and EULA, unfortunately. It is commonplace for companies to claim no responsibility. (Whether those terms hold up in court or not is another question, and part of the problem.)

Read these concerns about the future of Consumer Reports. I wonder how much our current content/marketing setup is a driver for this?

French supermarkets are now going to be required to donate (and not spoil) their unsold food. I’m not sure the situation in France, but in the USA, this would be an example of the government “saving” us from problems the government created in the first place. Stores are required to remove still-edible food (example), so naturally hungry and/or frugal people try scavenge it. Furthermore, stores are sometimes held liable if scavengers are harmed while acquiring that food. So, stores increasingly decide to protect themselves from problems that were thrust on them.

twtxt is another decentralized microblogging option.

Richard Beck has started a new series on “The Power of the Powerless”, dealing once again with institutional power.

Micah Redding suggests we consider “Minimum Viable Theology” and makes his case.