MOVED

If any of you are looking at the Blog, and there may be a few of you though empirical evidence does little to support that claim, you will find that the Difficult and Obscure blog has been moved. It is now at dando.dagrier.net.

DAG

New Podcast on Crowd Sourcing

I have just discovered, much to my surprise, that I am an expert on Crowd Sourcing. Who Knew? I have been asked to speak twice this fall on the subject. The first time is next week at a conference in London. It looks as if it is going to have a broad audience and hence, I am looking forward to it.

I've just completed a podcast of my talk. It is illustrated, as I have acquired new software. We will see how well it is received.

DAG

Wiki leaks and Mid-summer Podcast

A month had passed since the fourth. We seem to be on the downward slide of the BP leak, for which we can only be grateful. I've had a big pice of writing to complete since the night of the fireworks. It is a long essay on technology in the media. It proved to be harder than I anticipated. It took an extra three or four days beyond the time that I had budgeted. When I do a big piece, I have to struggle to keep all the ideas in consciousness as I work, which is not easy and makes me a slightly disagreeable person. However, at this point, I have a decent first draft completed. I will let it set and then return to it.

The big news of technology and media at the moment is the WIkileaks issue. At the moment, the material that they have been posting seems to be relatively minor but the protagonists are starting to raise the issues to a conflict over high principles. None of them has made a particularly good case for their point but first arguments are rarely the best. It is unfolding against the recent series in the Washington Post about the rise of the security state and the expansion of security clearances. It may be an important point in this discussion. We will see how event unfold.

I have posted a mid summer Podcast for you. Drop me a note when you have the chance.

DAG

4th of July

I am not that familiar with the songs from the band the Killers, which put me at a disadvantage last night. We were at a 4th of July Party where they were the principle entertainment. Their music clearly derives from the long seam of heavy metal with more than a few connections to the founding band of the MC5. At the same time, their lyrics, as best as I could hear, dealt with the more gentle forms of the male frustration that forms the principal themes of that genre.

A young mother was dancing near us. She clearly knew the music well and was enjoying herself. She her son, who was roughly 2 and a half, in her arms and swung him as she danced. He thought all the attention was a hoot and screamed with delight. Dad, who was probably a vet, appeared from time to time, to give his wife a hug and a reassuring smile.

The mother danced on and on. It appeared that this was her courting music, the sounds that reminded her of the time four or five years ago, when she and the young man in the crowd were developing their relationship and asking if there if they had the ability and interest to make a long term commitment. The sound was not the least intimate and the lyrics, as they occasionally burst out of the noise, dealt with ideas that shake the adolescent male: finding a place, trusting women, controlling the urges that permeate consciousness. But the music represented the time that they had met. They both had survived that time. Now that song spoke to them of accomplishment and progress.

I'm not sure that she would have better appreciated the evening if she had a fuller understanding of the song lyrics. We communicate some fundamental ideas by very simple means. By rhythm. By touch. By common experience. She danced and danced. Happy to be at the event. Pleased to share it with her son.

Bomb Scare

"No one seemed very much concerned about this world or the future, unless it might be the anarchists, and they only because they disliked the present." (education of Henry Adams, Chapter 23)

As you might expect, I would quote Henry Adams in a moment of trial. We had a bomb scare this morning. A suspicious package at 20th & F. The DC police cordoned a 9 block area and prevented us from entering 1957 E. Traffic in Foggy Bottom stopped. I spent much of the morning sitting in the quad exhausting the battery on my phone and answering email in that order. They ultimately blew up the package but they have yet to confirm that it was a bomb.

It is far to easy to say that the police over reacted, that they restricted activity when they needn't have done so. However, that is a first reaction and first reactions are more often too quick to achieve a full assessment. At best, I can judge that the weather was quite decent, that it was rather fun to answer email in the quad while all the students in the last CI paraded through the campus, that it was a good way to end the month of June.

The news has reported that the package was a suitcase that resembled a pipebomb. As today was the last CI, it might have been a suit case from some hapless freshman. It might also have been a suit case that was supposed to appear to be a pipebomb. In either case, it was pleasant day, one that was difficult to dislike. Even if you were an anarchist.

DAG

New on The Known World

Why do I teach if I can't use my students in my blog. I have two new postings on The Known World that may be of interest to you. One is about the long standing collision of the two David Alan Griers. The other is about a game that Mr. Chaeng taught me. You can find both at www.computer.org/theknownworld

Request for Assistance

Could I ask your assistance with a small project?

As many of you know, I am currently running for the office of First Vice President of the Computer Society. (I am currently Vice President of Publications which is an appointed position.)

I have created a webpage for my campaign. (SInce you have gone through many examples of politic rhetoric with me, you will see some familiar examples in it.)

Could I ask you all to look at it and tell me if there are any of the usual problems: broken links, missing words, podcasts that won't download and sentences that don't make sense. I would appreciate your assistance.

The site is: http://sites.google.com/site/dagrierieee/.

Thanks for your help.

DAG