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Titulaer was ahead of most of us …

As @Schellevis tweeted, this old find in a (pre-)junior high magazine of, mind you, 1982, the then often ridiculed Dutch version of Carl Sagan / Neil deGrasse Tyson with the original below, and I quotranslate: <
* What will our life look like within ten years ..?
I think it will hardly take ten years before every household has a computer. Remember that in most households, there already is one. Those little computers are of course very small, built in into all sorts of devices. There’s a lot of washing machines with built-in miniature computers. There’s intelligent TVs with which you can do allsorts. There will probably be some form of computer that will take over many tasks. That will control the central heating, that will check whether all doors are locked at night; that sort of thing. That’s one aspect of the future. A second aspect that is very clear, is that screens will turn up everywhere.
* Oh really?
In much more places than today. They’ll not be TVs only anymore. But you’ll see who’s at your door. You’ll be able to see at what time the bus will be at the stop, and what discounts your grocer will have. Also, the screens will be both much larger and much smaller. There will be wall-to-wall screens. On such screens, one could play video discs, etcetera. I also think a third thing that will clearly change in the future is that gadgets will be much more user-friendly. I think you’ll be able to talk to chips, and the chips will listen and talk back.
* How’s that going to work?
Like this: The TV remote will disappear. If you want to switch to the second TV channel, you’ll just say “channel two”, the device listens and you’ll have channel two. If you say “brightness” it will turn up brightness. You’ll have this in your car, too. At some point there will come a device that tells you when you have to pull over for gas. If you don’t, it’ll tell you “doofus, you’ll run dry soon”. There are watches today that wake you up in the morning. I have a clock at home that tells me to get out of bed.
* If we all have Cable, much more is possible isn’t it?
One could build a cable network over which gas and electricity utilization is reported. But also you can order groceries over it. I think there will be somewhat more home delivery. Linked to this is of course payments, because banking runs over the same system.
* Oh but our money will disappear then, won’t it?
Yes, money will almost completely disappear. And with that disappearance, there’s a fun thing to mention. Being these electronic payment cards. I have a mock-up of one at home. In those cards, a mini-computer is built in. With such a card, you could e.g., pay for the payphone, or for the bus ride, or for parking. You might even plug the card into your TV to check your bank balance.
* Droves of satellites are sent into space. What will they be used for?
Already, they enable us to watch live TV. But they can go way beyond that. With a satellite one could develop a system by which you can track where everyone is at all times. You can see where they are in their car, but also at home. One could make phones that can be built into wrist watches, and then you can be in contact with anyone around the globe via satellite connections. From the satellites you could see whether there would be an oil spill anywhere, and track and arrest the perpetrator within five minutes.
* That sounds rather threatening, devices that can talk to you, everyone can see you …?
Yes, but you’ll have to learn to live with these things. I’m not overly happy with all developments myself. But I do keep an eye on them.
> unquote.

Yes, prof(?) Titulaer PhD was scoffed at. Tiny-partly because a number of his predictions didn’t pan out in the [shorter of the] time frames he set, but mostly because of his looks. When reading the above, the word ‘vindication’ is the least we can apply.

Now then,

[Uncanny dystopia already back then / now …; Zuid-As Amsterdam]

Oh and the original:

Software – Museum Stuff OR Events

In a time long forgotten (i.e., two years ago), on a ‘net far far away (i.e., hopcount > 2), I had this post about how, besides the hardware museums that exist here and there [rather sparsely, given the prominence of the stuff], there should be software museums as well, of some sort [on the ‘net itself? may not stand the test of time; also think of mere power failures and insufficient back-ups, or political history re-writing – the ‘klout’ is only someone else’s computer…].
Plus of course some museum for algorithms, due to this – algos can be well thought out true pure art, or constructed messily. The art ones stand out, but still isn’t it an art to make them; including possible sub-extreme-efficiency-brushing that compiler optimisers do, being dull and not quite the perfect off-perfection [perfection is Boring, remember?] that real Art is.

Now, I stumblebrowsed [pleonasm alert] upon this Slate article, on straight lines of code not even the emerging property of ‘algorithm’ that in a strange twist existed before the medium… I mean; one implements a nous of the function into lines of code that, when run, demonstrate the function i.e., are the algorithm but the algorithm and the function and the nous are different things aren’t they? … hard to explain this mix-up, seems to be outside the possibly transcendental phenomenological apparatus or is it?

Yes. We should see such a thing. Also, the above. Plus:

[Yes my wife [that’s actually her] knows Art; The Hague – what’s with the ridiculous museum name change ..!? Phone pic so don’t bother commenting on the quality]

Some balance in wine appreciation (Dutch)

Even de balans zoeken, in wijn proeven.
Eerder had ik al deze met een incompleet overzichtje van proef’methoden’/scores. Waarbij de basic chemistry, en het vastgestelde feit dat de tong hoewel per individu sterk variërend in ‘specialiteit’- en gevoeligheidsprofiel (4D) best wel even of veel meer gevoelig is dan ballpark lab-meetapparatuur, dus absoluut waarde heeft om aan te tonen dat iets met graniet ook daadwerkelijk die sensatie (sic) geeft en een hint van blauwe bessen dus betekent dat er een ietsje blauwe-bessenchemicalieën in zitten!

En met een uitstapje naar kaas. Zowat te vanzelfsprekend om nog te hoeven noemen.
Waarop bovendien een sausje van Beilagen in het algemeen in dit stuk. Oftewel; een diner moet [voor mij maar hé ik schrijf dit dus ik mag schrijven wat ik wil] 50-50 eten-wijn zijn, qua kwaliteit van de gang op bord en in het glas. Niet qua volume; kleine glaasjes want proeven boven drinken! en dat betekent dus ook dat de kwaliteit per volume in de wijn veel hoger moet liggen dan op het bord.

Nu is er dan eindelijk weer eens pertinente nieuwe info, wetenschappelijk gevalideerd dus: de op het oog belachelijke beschrijvingen van sommige kenners [als zodanig breed erkend…], worden door andere kenners juist geïnterpreteerd. Het is dus een kwestie van non-, semi- en vol-verbale signalling voor de in-crowd. Waarschijnlijk niet bewust, wellicht zelfs als jargongebruik-drempelverlagende inzet. Want als het volslagen verzonnen klinkt, kan iedereen er dus een eigen draai aan geven en niks is fout. Hetgeen allemaal heel juist is. Als er maar niet wordt geroepen ‘dat mag je niet proeven want dat staat niet in mijn WSET3-lijstje dat ik uit het hoofd heb geleerd ook al proef ik er niks van’.

Nou ja. Laten we het dus breed houden!
Tevens:

[Komt er inmiddels ook wijn uit de omgeving van Lake Geneva ..? Possibly.]

Too duncy to read

Lately, there seems to have been an distinguishable uptick in the number of misinterpretations of the GDPR. Erring on both sides:
1. “Uhhh we weren’t aware of anything near the sort of detail about our apparently total non-compliance in a vast array of things we should have arranged for the most basic decent business conduct qua management control and information security (whereof, by what we say of it, we testify to have less than 8-grader understanding); but now are found out to not be sufficiently competent to run our organisation by a most cursory of DPA inspection, journalist pinch or data leak.” [No can’t be boffered to use <ol> in this post]
2. “We were so panicked by conniving deceptive consultants [oh and legalistic legal staff] pushing their tools (that showed they had no clue either about actual GDPR requirements and hunted for eager beaver tool’let use as the minimal but sufficient thing to gain compliance; almost as wrong as one can get it) that we decided to over-do it in a laughable way.”

1. of course is a shame, and how much proof does one need of outright incompetence to throw the culprits out?
2. is the same, in particular since it undermines the very achievement of organisation objectives through not delivering services where required (by law or by market). Fines have been slung around to counter this.
Both are shameful also since the GDPR was ratified already in 2016, with enforcement only per 25 May 2018 – to give all time to get in line with it, capice? So, did you waste that time ..? Did you think compliance was or is or will be something that only legally trained staff will understand whereas it’s almost exclusively the opposite with legally trained staff legalistically only being able to regurgitate legal texts with zero understanding of what you’d need to do and still a question mark should follow here ah there it is: ?

The solution is so simple, even the above-mentioned can use it: RTFM. Read the GDPR for once! It’s perfectly doable! Anyone who just opened the PDF, could see that the very articles of it are so clear and concise as one would dream any law would be. Possibly, when tested, this would be one of those few laws where the readability rating would sit somewhere at 7th grade.
So yes, even if I’m not sure ‘duncy’ is a word [don’t care to check since I’m not forced into ‘compliance’ or so with language rules that are longitudinal and latitudinal fluid anyway], it applies to you if you haven’t read the GDPR and still deal with it, in any fashion.
Go read. Be relieved. Appreciate:

[Only then may you rest, e.g., at the Porto Museu Romântico da Quinta da Macieirinha overlooking Villanova de Gaia from the gardens; yes Taylor’s is there for lunch (as is Ar de Rio ..!), and Vasconcelos and Vascos de Carvalho]
[It’s not ‘O’porto by the way, only those like airline pilots who say “New York also called ‘the big apple'” will say ‘the port of Porto’ …]

Walk the data then Talk

In a slight pre-view of an upcoming post about how to do ‘AI’ right in any organisation [hint: not bottom up per se but rather top-down with b-u as a sauce…], there is this little gem about “Efforts fall short in the last mile, when it comes time to explain the stuff to decision makers“. After having fallen short in the first near-complete marathon [ultra ..?] of ‘ETL’ (as here and here, with moderator here).
Well that’s it for this post now.

Sort-a; but quite different from bubblesort or binary sort. Since the above seems to be about the ‘exit’side of ML, where the PoC suddenly finds itself center stage in the spotlight, whereas the mere programmer just wanted to create Art for art’s sake. Which hints at more than the conclusion to the above, i.e., the upcoming post’s storyline which is: the PoC and even the eventual [waaay-down-the-road] production engine will need to be the outcome, final stages, of implementation of a full-on system that fits a slight part of business process transformation. Not the other way around.

Also, let’s not forget that … Oh well see the upcoming posts. All of them. Then read back through history. All approaching-1500 of them.
Or, this:

[Yes that’s the Justice ‘palace’ at the IJ, Amsterdam; don’t blame my mobile from a ferry for the blur… that you’d get from ML, too anyway]

OT Number Two

Yes, dear readers, it’s time again to discuss the ramifications of linking up your fridge to the Internet. Because you Need to, or so. Eat-eat-eat, right, never miss a superfluous beat?

But actually, this time it’s about your other business end [among various, more than two I hope for your integral well-being], not as much input-oriented qua foodstuffs but output-oriented. Where the question arises, even much more so, about the Why of hooking up to the ‘net. Since not only the potential privacy loss qua ‘regular’ operation of the data feed already seems much bigger than the benefits, but also the less-regular [hope-fully less frequent I mean] privacy loss diminishes the ROI below the zero line ..? As in this article, pointing at concerns of professionals – not of the ‘business’ concerned but of the support function – regarding their own private [pun intended, though very lame] ‘business’.

What a time to be alive indeed. Aren’t we happy that maybe through this, security and privacy might finally end up in nationwide / global politics discussions … Or would, meta-semantically, not much change when the subject in those circles, would move onto the above?

I’m done. Also:

[Nope! They’re to change clothes, and don’t have [cameras or] any connection, wireless or otherwise; Noordwijk I believe it as]

Premium for nothing, damage not for free

Nice. Not only was Cyberrrr!insurance a scam because it could so easily be considered warfare (as previously posted here), but now the whole reason to insure is pulled from under the insurance’s feet by declaring that you’ll have no cover period. As here.

So you take out an insurance against burglary. A burglar breaks in; seemingly an illegal act. You get nothing. You paid your premiums for what, exactly ..? Happy insuring! [on the premium receiving end..]

[No, acts of nature were covered already under the operational risk blanket cover…]

Well then:

[If you need me, I’ll be where the spoils are spent …; Alcázar Sevilla – it’s all a bit lopsided]

Bookish.com

Just a note on Reading. The place, not so much.
Wouldn’t it be great to have all that matter, be more well-read in the world’s literature. Not only the one of old canon, or even with these added appropriately or just these or these. Since Heloooow! Western-dandyish-veryselectsocietalstratum bias! Hence this might be added, or this.

One might start with this. But not finish with it! Also delve into the Truth of many other works, in particular but far from only, from the world’s wide literature base [the starter series of only 80 already has some but I suspect a better balance may still be found]; and from the great many great list of great works that didn’t fit the short-story format. Since, the idea being that one is bored by seeing too many [being …!?] pages ahead and don’t even start …? How’about showing some stamina? Ploughing through as-yet-apparently uninteresting stuff, one may as well consider that to be meta-learning about … [was temped to fill in: my greatness here but that would be tautological] in general, and Life and the Universe as mere details of that.
After which studies, if done well, one understands a. a huge lot more about the condition humaine, b. brevity of citation or should I say sparsity [but hey I wanted the b to follow b.] of that. Since – who was it – said “Don’t bother me with quotations tell me what you know yourself”, proving the point. And preventing you from ending up a doofus. Is that an appropriate translation of ‘lavendelsnuiver‘..?

I’ll leave you some time now to consider. And react. With:

[What great classical territory / culture … to get a grip on past greatness, towards your future; the Generalife of the Alhambra, Granada]

Deepfaiks; spreading their worth

Some time ago (2017), I posted various thingies about how deep fakes would undo any claim of ‘truth’ [if there ever was such a thing] about court-admissible evidence. And how not much is left, on the defence side.
Now, it seems the same is used in more direct ways as well, on the offence. Like, deep fakes in identity theft.

Which is funny, in a way. ‘Stealing’ someone’s most precious thing, her identity ‘as a human soul’, through deep faking. The deeper parts of the identity, the deeper the fake; philosophically interesting.

And practically … Some, like banks, still want to see a wet signature for access to some bank accounts. Even when just a jpg dropped onto a pdf … Yes that’s still where we are today. The offence, racing in F1 cars, the defence; dapperly paddling with training side wheels.

Never mind. It’s just me. Right?

Also, on a related note; this came in; apparently you are involved in this’all… [?]


[It’s just an illusion …; DC]

Better drone downing, and protests

OK … now that this has arrived, enhancing this, i.e., even non-GPS’ing drones may be downed by EM(‘P’) blast,

Can one expect that such technology is not used against GPS/GSM/4/5G coordination of protests against those in power, around the world ..?

No. One can’t, and shouldn’t because will as of future-and already-fact, be proven wrong. Anything that is invented, will be used against some humans, irrespective of History’s later opinion of either side(s) that so often is much different, often opposite, of today’s common [4th Estate] opinions.

[Edited to add: When I drafted the above, Oct 7, the Beeb wasn’t yet on it but now is; corroboration it’s called I believe.]

We learn from history … that all hope is lost.
Cheers! with:

[Some stuff is still good after ages, but will eventually also not be good anymore …; at … was it Manitowoc? Waukesha ..? 1999]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord