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Generation Majordomo

In a slight twist of fate, two weeks ago some fashionable magazine decided to drop caps off ‘Internet’ and just write it internet.
Back then, when drafting this post. About the good times, when people hung out at Woodstock or so, or, well, say, since the 80s, when all sorts of inventions brought one wave of new jargon words and meanings after another.

Also when it struck me that, e.g., ‘majordomo’ seems to be a derelict word. At least, re moderated discussion sites. What Happen — All Your Base Are Belong To Us is almost gone, superseded by Dat Boi (as here). ‘PC compatible’, ‘carriage return’, ‘portals’, ‘surfing’, ‘fax’, ‘PDAs’, ‘modem’ (Hayes compatible, 2800 baud!), ‘Alta Vista’ (the search engine), ‘dynamic HTML’, … all goners.

But apart from the curiosity value, and a few Googled sites with partial information, there’s no real one go-to (sic, or even Goto Considered Dangerous!) site or, in?appropriately, physical location where one can find exhibits of Lost Computer Words.

How sad. We’re losing massive historic reference here, people! Get up and Do Something!

’cause I have no clue how to tackle such a thing… But I do have:
DSCN6309
[A gem oh so easily missed; the Aubette at Place Kléber Strasbourg — sorry old unedited pic, still]

Human / Not

Of course Cerf is right. But also … is the opposite side; human error would be harmless (save the Almost part) when vulnerabilities wouldn’t be attacked. As long as they exist, they will. And human error will exist; that’s just the way our genes, and memes, and all of Nature, play it out. The instability of Nature (here and here!) means evolution happens, works. On the Changing-environment- and on the trial-through-error sides.

Hence, you’re still where you started. Still pursuing max fault-freedom but sure to not achieve it. I.e., in danger — the Condition Humaine since the dawn of Time (on that in a PhD thesis, some other time) and dismissing Hegelian progress fantasies, forever.

Well then, to leave in a positive tone:

[No time ?? for R&R; outside Siena]

Overwhelmed by ‘friendly’ engineers

The rage seems to be with chat bots, lately. Haven’t met any, but that may only be me — not being interesting enough to be overwhelmed by their calls.
Which will happen, in particular to those in society that have less than perfect resistance against the various modes of telesales and other forms of social engineering (for phishing and other nefarious purposes) already. Including all sorts of otherwise-possibly-bright-and-genius-intelligent-but (??)-having-washed-up-in-InfoSec-for-lack-of-genuine-societal-intelligence types like us. But these being the ones of all stripes that ‘we’ need to protect, rather than the ones apparently already so heavily loaded that they can spare the dime for development of such hyper-scaling ultra-travelling foot-in-the-door salesmen. Is this the end stage, where none have a clue as to which precious little interaction is still actually human-to-human, and the rest may be discarded ..?

As for the latter … It raises the question of Why, in communications as a human endeavor… Quite a thought.

But for the time being, you’re hosed, anti-phishing-through-social-engineeringwise.

Just sayin’. Plus:

[Retreat, a.k.a. Run to the hills / Run for your life; but meant positively! Monte Olivieto Maggiore near Siena]

Plusquote: Critique of the Pure Reasonlessness

This episode, by reference to the excellent Future Crimes (Marc Goodman, as here), one originally by G.K. Chersterton (The Blue Cross):

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic

To which we would want to add: And the auditor, only the disgruntled desk-bound traffic cop.
Since, the checker (and penaliser) of the trivial petty little rules, should remain in the third line, right ..?

Where by the way, the creativity of the artist is required to make the art work that sells — and hence all make their living off straightforward crime or would perish. The more you bureaucratise into totalitarianism, the more you see life wither, till death. Even if the crime keeps on being perpetrated — by laxity of the second and particularly third lines, in cahoots with the profiteers. … Maybe that’s a bit deep-but-overly-lapidary …
Hence, just:

[Panopticon Central, Strassbourg]

Big Data as a sin

Not just any sin, the Original one. Eating from the ultimate source of Knowledge that Big, Totalitarian, All-Thinkable Data is, in the ideal (quod non).
We WEIRDS (White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich Democratic people), a.k.a. Westeners, know what that leads to. Forever we will toil on spurious correlations…

Short Cross posting

… Not from anyone, not from anywhere. But crossing some book tips, and asking for comments.
Was reading the Good Book, when realizing that it, in conjunction with Bruce, could lead to some form of progress beyond the latter when absolutist totalitarian panopticon control frameworks might seem the only way out. In particular, when including this on the Pikettyan / Elyseym escape or not that serves only some but not the serfs. And then add some Mark Goodman (nomen est omen, qua author, and content?) and you can see where Bruce may have missed exponential crumbling of structures, and said escape might be by others than the current(ly known) 1% … Not all Boy Cried Wolfs will be wrong; on the contrary — Not Yet is very, very different from Never, but rather Soon Baby, Soon.

Not rejoicing, and:

[Nope, not safe here (Haut Koenigsbourg) either.]

Still, 3LD is the 4th leg

This, not as much a monster under the bed as it is a monster elsewhere; Three Lines of Defense (quod non).

I’ve discussed the utterly nonsensical, totalitarian bureaucratic, lie of its utility already over and over again, but the thought — through encounter in daily practice so often still — returns every now and then. And then, one realizes: Three Lines of ‘Defense’ (quod non) are not the third, but the fourth leg of a flipover stand. Yes, indeed, you hardly see that ever — for a reason: Where the third leg is flimsy already and certainly so compared to the stability provided by the first, essential, two legs, any fourth might impress but destroys stability of the whole!
Yes, as three ground point define a surface hence stable stance on any irregular surface (and, hence again, are completely sufficient), four such touch points are very hard to get stable, onto a plane surface. Therefore, the fourth leg destabilizes the whole shazam, undoes the effectiveness of the third. Now, two are bungling.

And no, not because a flipover has three legs does that reflect TLD; the first two legs are equally required and face us, thus giving the thing its purpose which is completely, fundamentally, different from TLD where there’s three lines behind each other that only ‘protect’ (quod non) against regulatory oversight by massaging all embarrassment away through ever more dubious language. When you don’t see the fundamental of that difference, you may or may not be hopeless. Stop dragging the IQ average of whatever group you consider yourself part of, down so low.

I now rest my case.

[‘Transparency’ and building material? We see right through that both, Chanel!
(PC Hooftstraat)]

You must, you mustn’t

Strange. The last couple of weeks, months, have seen a resurgence of “Anything that is not explicitly forbidden, is allowed.”
Which was, well, true in only the most devolved, twisted (pejorative sense) means/ends ethics and morals discussions. And still is. But suddenly, there’s a new angle: All that aren’t involved in the spoils of such tactics (not being rich enough to have used Panama Paper style constructions, even when not aware as such vulgar ‘money’ things had been handled by sycophant minions (of mind, certainly)), want the overthrow of the said sad sentence, by including that all that is permitted, should not be done when (not if) the moral higher ground would forbid it, still.

I can agree. Being in the category of … well mostly having first-world problems and not (much) more. But then again, it strikes me as odd that somehow, we don’t have good handles to straighten out the wicked ones — bar revolution. Because our legal system doesn’t seem to be as strict as it once was; forbidding all that was not allowed for a proper functioning of society. There have been changes to society… Where theft is still impermissible if of physical stuff, but in many ways is perfectly good to go when by failure to act, like many 1%ers. Though Aristoteles (Ethica Nicomachea; read the damn thing!) rightly would frown upon such dimwittedness but there.
So, actually, law would have to change but hasn’t. The very ones to be controlled by it, of course, are the first through the escape vents. And, Pikettyan or Elysium style, might prevent catching up categorically.

We could discuss on and on. But prevalent is: Now what ..? So, for the time being:

[‘Coloured in, otherwise too bleak your future is’; The Hague]

Plusquote: Short length

Today’s episode of Plusquotes, the sayings that are both inspirational and True, if only because they’re my invention (if there is such a thing), is about length and since I’m very confident by support of fact of my self, my own in this (not even bluffing like the other 80% does), without much ado let alone proof already of the more mundane meaning of the very thing I’d like to discuss, herewith:

Short sentences, little minds.

… Hey were you (M) so generically insecure by actual, or shortfall on your bluff on, some body part length ..?
What I mean is that only little minds will ask for short sentences. When reproached that according to (any) good language, a sentence should convey a logically coherent set of concepts and their relations. Hence, when the set (~ and of relations) is large or complex, so will the sentence be period

Those of little minds, have trouble with that, mostly content-wise. But then, when one writes large or complex sets of concepts, one hardly ever does so for the pleasure (or main target) of the hoi polloi of mind [to note, to be found in all ‘money classes’, in varying degrees of aggressiveness in the overshouting denial of their dimness]. When then, the little minds feel left out and want you to write for the ‘other ones’ as if they’re not part of that very simpleton set, they reveal themselves as belonging to it by their ill understanding of both your intentions and their comparative wit. And do not believe that only once you truly have a right to write as you have truly understood a subject only if you can make your large and complex set and relations simple by writing them up in short sentences. You should make things as simple as possible, yes, but as the Wise included for very good reason: but not simpler; some things defy simple explanation. What you’d get is something like this .. not very helpful eh?
Little minds don’t ‘get’ Joyce or Nietzsche but do those two care ..?

So, when you write, write like you want and can. If then, some might want you to change your lines to fit their perception of readership’s comprehension, do not do that but consider that your audience seemingly is not them. And certainly, they will not be representative of your true audience, that is. Maybe not all of the global humanity, a bit less possibly, but still, there is an audience for your texts — that will not show itself (to not be) by complaints about your sentence length.

Hm, that seemed to be not so motivational, as a plusquote, did it? Well, still it is; if you seize the freedom. And:

[Boaty McBoatface at the Rijksmuseum]

Rien vous ne pouvez plus …?

When business is about betting, hopefully educated guessing, the near and bit further future developments of <somethings>. Educated, of course with a pinch of theory — but then, only the parts that are actually true, and still valid, for the future, too so throw away all (seriously) but a few nuggets of the most absolute que sera, sera of economics / business administration (sic) — and a healthy dose of experience — but not too much as it would lead to a lachrymose same as the (true) theory and we still need Action, don’t we ..?

Then totalitarian bureaucracies, like the banking world (in a suffocatingly tight grip, including the regulatory-captured but also holier-than-thou regulators), will try to squeeze all involved so thoroughly that no business is feasible anymore. But will fail, as the spirit has been out of the bottle since the Apple; Original Sin is about being human, above animalistic sustenance-supporting instinctive compliance with the laws of nature. Again and again, the stupidity of belief that Apollo wins out over Dionysos ..! They’re equal in all respects, certainly in the spirit of Man, and remember that even Zeus was forced to break marital laws (what a player he was, by necessity …:) because at the End of Times, the titans, the powers of Chaos, will almost win out. A trope so powerful that all belief systems have it (but a few exceptions) so to be held for certain; until proven wrong…?

Even more: The higher the pressure (that the straightjackets on subjects can take), the more fluid everything becomes. The more zealous, zealotic, crazy (outright that word, yes) compliance efforts micromanage (lest the ‘manage’ part which is utterly ridiculous if used in this sense), the more devious and deceptional will the business be, caused by this very reason of compliance efforts. LIBORgate, anyone ..?

‘Trust, but verify’ is a lie. Since only the slightest hint of the latter, immediately completely destroys the former ..! As the former is a two-way street! Seek out those that support this lie, and you’ll find the true culprits of the above.

So far, so good for a Monday morning’s rant, right ..? I’ll stop now, with:
20151008_123437
[Rigid, but colourful, the max you can achieve; Nieuwegein]