Innovation, economics, society at large – Page 10

No confidence voting

Why would it surprise anyone that these here results came out of the Defcon 25 Voting Machine Hacking Village ..?
More importantly, where is the true side-by-side comparison of trraditional paper-only voting against all safeguards thinkable by today’s voting protocol science ..? (As here and here, to name a very few of the tons out there)

And, where can blockchain fundamentals be applied to ‘vote’ more equally and/or provide a graceful degradation or (hacked to breach to skew) error correction mechanism ..? Preferably with two-round- and/or multicameral (2+) systems tweakability; that would be grand.

All else that would need to be arranged, would be … [similar to encryption in general practice…] error-free, tampering-boobytrapped implementations… Good luck with that. And:

[Museum of tamper-free hence ?? abandoned voting system ..? No. But a museum, Lissabon/Belém]

A philosophical one: Polynesian time

When one considers Einstein’s profound maxim Time is that not everything happens at once, is one lost for causation and/or free will ..?
The former excluding the latter, if taken to its utter consequences. The latter, presupposing the former or how else can one’s decisions turn into actions turn into something chosen among alternatives that can only exist when alternatives are potentially there, excluding ultimate-causation theories. With the apparent-free philosophies in the middle.

But that’s not my point. My point is: The thought of Polynesian navigation crossed my mind. Not in a literal sense, but in a cultural sense where (the Original) Polynesians, as lore has it but there’s nothing against believability, would not actually sail to another island but the world would rotate underneath them. The traveller would remain in place, with everything else shifting.
Is this how we all travel through time, individually? We all staying in the (Here and) Now, with the Past slipping by us, behind us, and the Future just rotates to under us?
Is this impacting on causation and/or free will ..? Will have to think this one through; awkwardly hard.
Where would the ‘everything in the universe is not matter or natural laws or Energy but Information’ or ‘All energy is Information’ school(s) fit in ..?

I sense there is a link between the Indivudual Time / Universal Time dichotomy, if that’s not refuted by Einsteinian / -adepts’ time relativity theory. Another one to think through.

Qua individual time nevertheless, it’s comforting. Time-wise, we are where we are. No need to ‘be in the moment’, we already always are. No worries about the past or the future; those are, already, somewhere (in time). [Apart from having to care for one’s mortgage…]

Oh well, the head spins (+1/-1 ;-| ) when thinking too hard… Hence:

[Into the distance… Belém]

Dubbeltestje

Ubent nu onderdeel van een testje. Niet statistisch verantwoord, maar dat is sowieso vrijwel nergens te vinden; dát zijn pas unicorns …
Anyway, without further ado, let’s see how many (huh) hits this post will get when it’s half-Dutch. When you’d interpret that as half-baked, you’re correct…(?)

Terwijl er tegenwoordig héél wat luipaarden zijn, die nu dus voor de foute partijen kiezen contra het vage clubje, “ze”, die de leeuwen zijn in dezen. De welpjes, die hebben nergens benul van noch hebben ze ooit iets fout gedaan (?). Etc.; het is allemaal nog heel relevant vandaag de dag.
And, on a lighter note:

Gödel around the White House

Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F.

How does that not relate to what we’ve been hearing a lot about in ‘Murican politics, lately ..? And, how does this not lead to absolute nihilism all around ..? The seriousness of purpose not reflecting the seriousness of the attack which is at most an amusing re-calibration of sanity, outside the attackers’ circles. But then again, how is that not like about-a-century-old politics, knowing where that lead to ..? If only the damage could be so-very-limited in comparison, to what humanity had back then.

But hey, maybe we will be burnt off the earth before anything that bad happens, right? Always look on the bright side of life [no link to the #1 of your playlist necessary]. And:

[It’s only a model”– also without link needed; ineffective as such but hey, it’s Châteauneuf itself; no “-“, near the church of Flip and Sjaak]

Museum of Software Mainstays of Yore ..?

The ‘terrible’ news (not) that Flash is about to be abandoned by one of its last if not the last pillar of support, reminds me of similar ‘developments’ of the past. Like, where did Dynamic HTML go ..? DEC, Sun (Sparc), Compaq, WordPerfect, Norton Utilities, 9-pin matrix printers, bulletin boards, portals. Etc.etc. Yes, yes, I know, some are still around, like OpenVMS is. And in software in particular, there may be many, many more of the lost ark items – where I’d like to see more focus on. Are they valued enough, for their staying power ..? Isn’t their staying a bit exasperated, in some dark corners of the usage landscape ..?
But more importantly (it is); is there some museum or so out there that preserves them for prosperity? I don’t mean just any ‘computer museum’ as they are (all?) of the scattershot type. I mean some museum that captures most of the essentials of the already many eras past, in IT. Like What the Dormouse Said is on paper, but then in software, running, and presenting systems as end users would experience them, a decade, two decades, -plus, ago. Without smartphones, without fastest Internet let alone actually working WiFi.

Edited to add, before scheduled posting: This, on a farewell to ‘screen savers’.

So, if you’d have some pointers, please..?

[Edited to add: A chunk of the above, here.]

Thanks in advance through:

[Once (??) was modern; Madrid]

Turning, not their pages

There was a moment of hesitance when I saw this self-post (selpie?) of s/o who had just graduated in this self-proclaimed (sic) glitz bizz Master program as if it were a sign of success achieved instead of a life of toil would be ahead before any ‘success’ (probably empty; your last clothes (at the pealy gate(s)) don’t have pockets) could be claimed if actual success would be claimable or self-defeating, from a university named after someone Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very famous for pointing out the futility of such behaviour.

Which made me think: There are many great universities, with many Great founders or name-givers (posthumus of not) out there … how would those Original Giants of thought, reflect on today’s graduates’ moral and ethical content and virtues ..?

Yes you see where this is heading. No, not towards Goldielocks syndrome. I have two ‘alma maters’ – the second being a true one, the first every now and then desperately (…) presenting itself as such, showing to be desparate for a (the right) reason); failing on the general education side. And on the particular education side, wholesale. And on their uni administration capability, ditto.

No, this is about the general over the particular. Can one(s) somehow force unis to protect and further the moral and ethical heritage of their namesakes ..? Why not ..? Perversion of society, maybe ..?

Now I know I know not where this post is going … Plus:

[Went over the hill, is now anonymus; Toronto]

Quo ivisti Maker Movement …?

There once was this thing called ‘Maker Movement’ as a rebirth of the Arts&Crafts of our youth.
This was some two to three years ago, mostly. Where has the Movement, and its protagonists, and its followers, all gone ..? Flamed-out by the dunce mass takeover of everything-hipster thus destroying the core concept(s) of the latter hence of the former too ..?

Just wanted to know; if you have a clue. About what I’m talking about, and about the whither.
Because there was something beautiful blossoming, on the mainstreamish generic side of steampunkism, say. Because societal benefits were closer off many an initiative in the MM, than off regular ‘innovations’ that had to go through the motions of corporate mush mountains before being turned down because of too-small markets for the razorsharp-targeted less-privileged, mostly.

Yes you see it’s weekend. Cheers! And:

[ArtfulLille]

Indexing the socmed skew

Hi y’all (or variants), would any of you have some form of Hirschman-Herfindahl index for the concentration in users/followers profiles on various socmed platforms ..?
And/or, even better, some index that takes into account every profile its geo- and other spreads which may be much more limited than all living in one global community you know.

Have pointers, will blog. Plus:
[Medium-class IIb for no good reason; Rotterdam]

Too late for GDPR compliance ..? Click here to pay up

It seems like everyone’s finally waking up to the fact that ‘GDPR D-day’ is less than 283 days ahead.
Yes I checked. And I didn’t discount for weekends – minus 80 days, more of less –, holidays – either the normal kind, at some three weeks in this period, or the sanctified ‘bank holidays’ for those that say they don’t believe in holidays, or say they do but still are too awkward sheep to actually go on normal holidays, maybe a week in total – and the year-end curfew on all IT changes because business is doing things they have done for years, decades, and still haven’t mastered apparently.
So, we’re more in the area of 100-150 business days left.

Before what …!?

GDPR has power of law per … 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal, on 4 May 2016 … !!!

It’s just that officially, it’s not enforceable.
And would one be able to challenge organisations already today, e.g., with the letters from hell just not from the duds?
[To the latter: The Dutch DPA was sanctioned in court four times recently for not having acted sufficiently in spirit and to the letter of their tasks. Suggest to estimate what percentage this constitutes to the actual number of cases they didn’t act sufficiently where legally, they were and are forced to; refusal to obey instructions…]

No really: ‘Civil’ law is other than administrative law, right? Enforcement is postponed, but is the requirement to comply as well ..?

Will ask legal advice. And:
[The Classics, may stay even when at an angle; NY-NY]

Socmed spinning into its own abyss

Was considering writing up a post on how socmed (and other sites with ‘recommendations’) in the end undoes themselves. By suggesting, proposing, and timeline-injecting ever more precise in-profile You May Also Likes, people might get more and more annoyed, and will look themselves for content elsewhere [excepting the hoi polloi that are too dumb to see they’re taken for a ride] and leave the platform in the dust. Facebuck as case in point; the more specialised platforms there are out there, persistently though not growing but remaining viable as they are, the more Fb will remain for the unsorted, culturally completely ‘flat’ content and audiences, quod non. The noise. Proven by the focus on numbers, picked up everywhere but in the socmed-sophisticated world where the Others still have the selective-elite strongholds, and will expand. Just wait until the rets of the world raises their education as well.

Even more so when platforms keep their ‘SEO’-like formulas secret, or hard to guess by error seeding / differential cryptanalysis; users will generate ever more bland content, speeding up the narrowing /shallowisation (…) of the users’ minds but driving away all that aren’t so easily pressed into ever narrower filter bubbles/funnels…
But then, why would I care?
Oh well, one can dream, can’t one..? Plus:
[May R come to the rescue against Arrrrhhhh ..? Baltimore harbour drinking club …]