thoughtsignals

Arthur C. Clarke, prolific writer, scuba diver, space enthusiast and inventor of the communications satellite, has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

Link.

Well, big news to me, at least. I’ve changed jobs. I left The Business Journal a couple of weeks ago and joined RLF Communications as a senior account executive. I just finished up my first week on the job.

In the newspaper world a shift like this, going from journalism to public relations, is usually called “moving to the dark side.” In fact, as a going-away gift, my Business Journal colleagues got me a little Darth Vader figure.

If you’re wondering, though, I left what was a pretty good job as a newspaper reporter because RLF, and this position, will provide me with new challenges. I’ll have more opportunities to put what I’m learning in business school to use and more opportunities to more deeply explore online media.

Speaking of online media, I’ll be at ConvergeSouth today. Come over and say ‘Hi’ if you see me.

Where’s the boundary between you and machine, between the gray matter in your skull and the digital technology that governs the Internet and so much else in modern life? It may be harder to find than you think.

What is spreading through the Web is not exactly artificial intelligence. For all the research that has gone into cognitive and computer science, the brain’s most formidable algorithms — those used to recognize images or sounds or understand language — have eluded simulation. The alternative has been to incorporate people, with their special skills, as components of the Net.

Link.

This is like something straight out of a William Gibson novel:

Yes, I blog from a sailboat and cruise the azure waters of the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Mexico. “Call me Slogger,” to borrow from the opening line of that saga of the sea, Moby Dick.

But whales are not my game. I chase lesser creatures. Specifically the men, women and issues involved in the $3 billion California state stem-cell agency — the world’s largest single source of funding for human embryonic-stem-cell research.

David Jensen, a former newspaper reporter and editor and political PR guy blogs from his sailboat off the coast of Mexico. This Wired first-person piece is mostly about the struggle to find Internet access while living on a sailboat. But the fact that he writes mostly about stem cell research and policy makes it all the more remarkable. Ten years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible.

How the world is changing.

Two fascinating newspaper articles in recent days shed light on why people believe what they believe, even when those things aren’t true.

The Washington Post reports that people, even when told that certain things weren’t true, later recalled that they were in fact true.

The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious “rules of thumb” that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

And California researchers have done a study suggesting that the minds of liberals and conservatives actually operate in different ways, with liberals’ brains being more open to new ideas:

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments, whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

I leave it up to you, gentle reader, to decide which political phenomena these studies help explain.

Related:  7 Stupid Thinking Errors You Probably Make (Lifehack.org)

A Swedish computer security researcher has discovered that users of the TOR Internet service (which makes your Internet traffic more or less anonymous) apparently thought it also encrypted their computer traffic and made it secure — which it doesn’t.

Wired News reports:

A little over a week ago, Swedish computer security consultant Dan Egerstad posted the user names and passwords for 100 e-mail accounts used by the victims, but didn’t say how he obtained them. He revealed Friday that he intercepted the information by hosting five Tor exit nodes placed in different locations on the internet as a research project.

Egerstad was able to get email accounts and passwords and read emails sent by the worthies at the Iranian embassy, among other groups. Even though Egerstad is in Sweden and there were no U.S. government agencies whose Internet traffic he intercepted, the Web host that hosts his blog apparently got a take-down notice from some unnamed U.S. law enforcement agency. I wonder if Egerstad has revealed a U.S. intelligence gathering mechanism.

There’s another lesson in this, of course: This computer security stuff shouldn’t be taken lightly, and there’s a big dangerous world out there. Use good passwords. And use ‘https’ when you’re doing anything online that involves passwords or email you want to keep confidential.

It seems that people in Second Life behave, at least in economic terms, very much like they do in the real world. They buy goods for the status those things confer and work to earn money.

The New York Times reports:

When people are given the opportunity to create a fantasy world, they can and do defy the laws of gravity (you can fly in Second Life), but not of economics or human nature. Players in this digital, global game don’t have to work, but many do. They don’t need to change clothes, fix their hair, or buy and furnish a home, but many do. They don’t need to have drinks in their hands at the virtual bar, but they buy cocktails anyway, just to look right, to feel comfortable.

Second Life residents find ways to make money so they can spend it to do things, look impressive, and get more stuff, even if it’s made only of pixels. In a place where people should never have to clean out their closets, some end up devoting hours to organizing their things, purging, even holding yard sales.

So virtual human nature seems to be very similar to real human nature. The economic life of Second Life and the real world intersect in other ways, as well.

Italian employees of IBM are planning a strike in the virtual world, and a SL bank has experienced a run on its deposits that forced the firm to shut down.

Madeleine L’Engle is dead. Another great one passes.

Link.

Here’s another thing worth celebrating on July 4th: The Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. government documents used to be considered secret unless individual agencies decided to release them.

But on July 4, 1966, that presumption was inverted when the Freedom of Information Act was signed into law, declaring that in a government of, by and for the people, government records must be released to the public upon request, unless those records meet a handful of defined exemptions.

Over the last four decades, FOIA (pronounced “foy-ya”) has become one of the most important laws creating openness and transparency in government. It’s a key tool for journalists and nonprofit groups investigating the workings of the federal government.

Happy Independence Day!

Link.

Author Ray Bradbury says his landmark novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” is not about censorship.

Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship.

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

Link.

(via SF Signal)