Saturday, 20 September 2008
Thursday, 11 September 2008
One of the much hyped Cambridge University start ups may actually succeed!
I saw this on cnn.com today...
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/09/09/plastic-fantastic/
It details the efforts of one of the much talked about Cambridge University start ups this year, Plastic Logic, to get their e-reader to market. While I'm impressed that one of the companies that Tim Minshall mentioned about 10,000 times this year is actually moving forward, I have two questions about it:
1) Do you think that e-readers will succeed in their current dominant design form in the next 5 years in becoming a mass market product, given their lack of success in the last 10 years? Or will they end up in another form not yet envisioned, such as being subsumed into mobile phones, much as PDAs have been? What if Apple were to take their Macbook Air and slap the screen on the front to form a combined reader/laptop?
2) What will it take to give one of these devices mass market appeal? Will it require a device that looks and feels almost exactly like printed paper? Is cost the driving issue? Compatability? Unfamiliarity? Some combination of these?
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/09/09/plastic-fantastic/
It details the efforts of one of the much talked about Cambridge University start ups this year, Plastic Logic, to get their e-reader to market. While I'm impressed that one of the companies that Tim Minshall mentioned about 10,000 times this year is actually moving forward, I have two questions about it:
1) Do you think that e-readers will succeed in their current dominant design form in the next 5 years in becoming a mass market product, given their lack of success in the last 10 years? Or will they end up in another form not yet envisioned, such as being subsumed into mobile phones, much as PDAs have been? What if Apple were to take their Macbook Air and slap the screen on the front to form a combined reader/laptop?
2) What will it take to give one of these devices mass market appeal? Will it require a device that looks and feels almost exactly like printed paper? Is cost the driving issue? Compatability? Unfamiliarity? Some combination of these?
Monday, 1 September 2008
Thursday, 21 August 2008
New Home
Howdy folks, I've settled into my newest home away from home and will be sending out periodic email updates. Let me know if you want in on my crazy adventures.
P.S. Computer privacy update.
P.S. Computer privacy update.
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Can government be imposed?
In last month's Foreign Affairs, Condoleezza Rice summarizes the successes, failures, and motivations behind the Bush administration's foreign policy. Rice is an exceptionally intelligent academic and dedicated public servant, thus I am surprised not by her acknowledgment of the idea that democracy cannot be imposed by a foreign power, but her subsequent dismissal of this point.
The idea that democracy cannot be imposed is not new. Machiavelli, arguably the first political scientist, discussed this issue at length in his Discourses. History has shown that successful democracies are manifested by the people (the most obvious example comes from the US and French Revolutions in which virtuous people seized democracy from tyranny). Rice acknowledges this point, in affect foreshadowing the ultimate failure of her previously outlined policy. However, she immediately dismisses this logical fallacy on the basis that that tyranny is more likely to be imposed. To me, this is an unrelated issue and does not justify her previously outlined strategy.
Considering that most of us come from democracies, I have two questions: Was your current government imposed by a foreign power? And if so, what else helped to facilitate its successful adoption (institutions, etc)?
Read the full text of her article at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701faessay87401-p0/condoleezza-rice/rethinking-the-national-interest.html
Or read the passage in question:
"For the United States, promoting democratic development must remain a top priority. Indeed, there is no realistic alternative that we can -- or should -- offer to influence the peaceful evolution of weak and poorly governed states. The real question is not whether to pursue this course but how.
"We first need to recognize that democratic development is always possible but never fast or easy. This is because democracy is really the complex interplay of democratic practices and culture. In the experience of countless nations, ours especially, we see that culture is not destiny. Nations of every culture, race, religion, and level of development have embraced democracy and adapted it to their own circumstances and traditions. No cultural factor has yet been a stumbling block -- not German or Japanese "militarism," not "Asian values," not African "tribalism," not Latin America's alleged fondness for caudillos, not the once-purported preference of eastern Europeans for despotism.
"The fact is, few nations begin the democratic journey with a democratic culture. The vast majority create one over time -- through the hard, daily struggle to make good laws, build democratic institutions, tolerate differences, resolve them peacefully, and share power justly. Unfortunately, it is difficult to grow the habits of democracy in the controlled environment of authoritarianism, to have them ready and in place when tyranny is lifted. The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that tyranny has to be imposed."
The idea that democracy cannot be imposed is not new. Machiavelli, arguably the first political scientist, discussed this issue at length in his Discourses. History has shown that successful democracies are manifested by the people (the most obvious example comes from the US and French Revolutions in which virtuous people seized democracy from tyranny). Rice acknowledges this point, in affect foreshadowing the ultimate failure of her previously outlined policy. However, she immediately dismisses this logical fallacy on the basis that that tyranny is more likely to be imposed. To me, this is an unrelated issue and does not justify her previously outlined strategy.
Considering that most of us come from democracies, I have two questions: Was your current government imposed by a foreign power? And if so, what else helped to facilitate its successful adoption (institutions, etc)?
Read the full text of her article at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701faessay87401-p0/condoleezza-rice/rethinking-the-national-interest.html
Or read the passage in question:
"For the United States, promoting democratic development must remain a top priority. Indeed, there is no realistic alternative that we can -- or should -- offer to influence the peaceful evolution of weak and poorly governed states. The real question is not whether to pursue this course but how.
"We first need to recognize that democratic development is always possible but never fast or easy. This is because democracy is really the complex interplay of democratic practices and culture. In the experience of countless nations, ours especially, we see that culture is not destiny. Nations of every culture, race, religion, and level of development have embraced democracy and adapted it to their own circumstances and traditions. No cultural factor has yet been a stumbling block -- not German or Japanese "militarism," not "Asian values," not African "tribalism," not Latin America's alleged fondness for caudillos, not the once-purported preference of eastern Europeans for despotism.
"The fact is, few nations begin the democratic journey with a democratic culture. The vast majority create one over time -- through the hard, daily struggle to make good laws, build democratic institutions, tolerate differences, resolve them peacefully, and share power justly. Unfortunately, it is difficult to grow the habits of democracy in the controlled environment of authoritarianism, to have them ready and in place when tyranny is lifted. The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that tyranny has to be imposed."
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
D'oh! for Doha
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7531099.stm
There are a lot of things going on here. Perhaps most striking is the rising confidence of developing nations, who don't want to be pushed around by the US and EU anymore. With the collapse of the Doha round, who are the biggest winners/losers?
Beyond that, do you think future economic stability and growth depend on global consensus? Or will a plethora of bilateral or regional agreements suffice?
I've got my own ideas, but I would like to hear from you guys first.
-Blake
There are a lot of things going on here. Perhaps most striking is the rising confidence of developing nations, who don't want to be pushed around by the US and EU anymore. With the collapse of the Doha round, who are the biggest winners/losers?
Beyond that, do you think future economic stability and growth depend on global consensus? Or will a plethora of bilateral or regional agreements suffice?
I've got my own ideas, but I would like to hear from you guys first.
-Blake
Monday, 28 July 2008
Freakonomics
From the NY Times Freakonomics blog...
Really wishing I could pick your brain on this--what are the greatest lyrics of the 21st century?
Really wishing I could pick your brain on this--what are the greatest lyrics of the 21st century?
Monday, 30 June 2008
U2, I Mean, YouTube Now Faces Political Speech Regulation in Brazil
Check this out - the story's covered at 463 blog - old post, but only just came across it. Preview:
I've said it before: The Internet has created the greatest generational divide since Rock 'n' Roll. This borderless divide has also proven that cultures of all stripes have the ability to enact profoundly counterproductive (and technically impossible) rules that increase the chasm between both sides.
http://463.blogs.com/the_463/2008/06/u2-i-mean-youtu.html
I've said it before: The Internet has created the greatest generational divide since Rock 'n' Roll. This borderless divide has also proven that cultures of all stripes have the ability to enact profoundly counterproductive (and technically impossible) rules that increase the chasm between both sides.
http://463.blogs.com/the_463/2008/06/u2-i-mean-youtu.html
Patrick's point - keeping critical thinking alive
Hey -
Had a great conversation with Patrick today, who said something I know I agree with. He said that one of the best things he'd gotten out of Cambridge was the ability to think critically; and that leaving Cambridge could sometimes lead to a weakening (perhaps an atrophying?) of that ability. I know I sometimes wonder about the same thing.
Which is why this blog is such a great idea.
I think there are two reasons why we've been able to think critically (or more critically) this last year. First, our continuous engagement with the essays, assignments, term papers, theses - a whole bunch of tasks that force us to stretch out and think - helps keep the machinery degreased, so to speak. Second - and most important - this luxury we have of being able to bounce ideas off a lot of smart, clear-headed people, and in turn have ideas bounced off of us, has been really helpful. It's a huge bonus, something we may not always get when we leave Cambridge; and I think this is what I've really gotten from the discussions and conversations we've had in and out of class.
I think this blog helps with both. We're sharing brain fodder here, with the links and comments we post. If we can get (and keep) our discussions going on in here, we'll keep our brains exercised - and our edge sharp.
I'm glad this thing has been set up!
Just a thought.
Had a great conversation with Patrick today, who said something I know I agree with. He said that one of the best things he'd gotten out of Cambridge was the ability to think critically; and that leaving Cambridge could sometimes lead to a weakening (perhaps an atrophying?) of that ability. I know I sometimes wonder about the same thing.
Which is why this blog is such a great idea.
I think there are two reasons why we've been able to think critically (or more critically) this last year. First, our continuous engagement with the essays, assignments, term papers, theses - a whole bunch of tasks that force us to stretch out and think - helps keep the machinery degreased, so to speak. Second - and most important - this luxury we have of being able to bounce ideas off a lot of smart, clear-headed people, and in turn have ideas bounced off of us, has been really helpful. It's a huge bonus, something we may not always get when we leave Cambridge; and I think this is what I've really gotten from the discussions and conversations we've had in and out of class.
I think this blog helps with both. We're sharing brain fodder here, with the links and comments we post. If we can get (and keep) our discussions going on in here, we'll keep our brains exercised - and our edge sharp.
I'm glad this thing has been set up!
Just a thought.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Monday, 9 June 2008
ID cards are the ultimate identity theft
From
March 7, 2008
Computer systems always fail - and the national database will do so big time
The ID card project is still on track - more or less. Jacqui Smith is just the latest in a long line of Home Office ministers to sell us the benefits of ID cards, while casually informing us of the latest rise in costs or slippage in its implementation schedule. Ms Smith is also yet another Home Secretary who subscribes to the “pixie dust” school of technology: computation is a magic substance to be sprinkled over problems, that, hey presto, then vanish. Little wonder that Britain has an appalling record in government IT projects.
The ID project is one of the biggest computer systems envisaged - far more complex than the failing NHS system. And it's another disaster waiting to happen. Still the politicians naively claim there will be no problems: it will be totally secure because of biometrics. Apparently iris scans, fingerprints, face-recognition software will all work perfectly, be amazingly cheap to implement - and all foolproof. It must be true, as they've been told this by those selling the technology. Baroness Anelay of St Johns, with a group of parliamentarians, was once given a demonstration of a facial recognition system. It failed; indeed the system subsequently crashed, twice. The reason? The baroness was told her face was “too bland”.
The only property that all systems have in common is that they fail. And the bigger the system - 60 million entries on a compulsory ID card database - the greater the opportunity of failure. Systems are much like any life form: they degrade over time, they entropy. In the case of databases, the pick up errors and then build data error upon error. The DVLA in Swansea in 2006, for instance, admitted that a third of entries contained at least one error, and that the proportion was getting worse.
We've all had encounters with computer systems that get it wrong. Barclays once refused one of my transactions because they said I was accessing an account owned by a teenage girl named Ian Angell, who lived at my address and was a professor at LSE. I still had to take a morning off work to explain that a 14-year-old couldn't own an account that, according to their own records, had been open for 35 years.
And however scrupulous the managers might be, errors leak and take on a life of their own. They are sampled by other databases, known as “farming”: errors, even when corrected in the original database, live on elsewhere.
But the ID project will be different, we are told. According to the rhetoric, an ID card, one central point of reference, will be so much more efficient and beneficial than you having to prove your identity daily, by producing driving licences, gas bills and so on. Its proponents fail to see that if any of these documents is erroneous, then we don't use the one with, say, a mistake in the address to prove our identity. With the ID card, we won't have the choice. Even if the card is not compulsory, all financial systems will converge on it, and anyone without a card faces great cost and inconvenience. Just like Oyster cards on the London Underground, you're not forced, but it's so much more expensive and tiresome without one.
However, the ID card itself isn't the real problem: it's the ID register. There, each entry will eventually take on a legal status. In time, all other proofs of identity will refer back to the one entry. If the register is wrong - and remember fallible human hands will at some stage have to handle your personal information - then all other databases will be wrong too. Given the propensity of officialdom to trust the details on their computer screen, rather than the person in front of them, you will have to conform to your entry in the register - or become a non-person.
In effect, your identity won't reside in the living flesh and blood of you, but in the database. You will be separated from your identity; you will no longer own it. All your property and money will de facto belong to the database entry. You only have access to your property with the permission of the database. Paradoxically, you only agreed to register to protect yourself from “identity theft”, and instead you find yourself victim of the ultimate identity theft - the total loss of control over your identity.
Errors won't just happen by accident. It's possible to imagine that workers on the ID database will be corrupted, threatened or blackmailed into creating perfectly legal ID cards for international terrorists and criminals. Then the ID card, far from eliminating problems, will be a one-stop shop for identity fraud; foreign terrorists, illegal immigrants will be waived past all immigration checks.
At a recent Ditchley Park conference on combating organised crime, a persistent warning from the law enforcement authorities was that criminal gangs had placed “sleepers” in financial sector companies, and they were just waiting for the one big hit. The perpetrators of 80 per cent of all computer security lapses are not hackers, but employees. Cryptographic systems don't help if the criminal has been given the keys to the kingdom. Why should the ID centre be immune, especially when there will be nearly 300 government departments logging in. Furthermore, the register will be the No 1 target for every hacker on the planet: the Olympic Games of hacking.
So why is the Goverment so keen to force ID cards on us? Is it because ministers are control freaks who, having read 1984, only saw it as a wishlist. John Lennon may have been right: “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs.” More likely, ministers have been dazzled by the myth of the perfectibility of computers.
Ian Angell is Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
What Does It Mean to Be Human?
And this _is_ a technology policy question - check this out:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/what-does-it-me.html
Superb article at Wired - basically, they got a whole bunch of scientists/anthropologists/other smart people together, and had them comment on it. What's cool - are the people they've got on the panel:
Marvin Minsky, artificial intelligence pioneer
Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist
Renee Reijo Pera, embryologist
Patricia Churchland, neuroethicist (see why I said it's a policy topic?)
Nikolas Rose, sociologist
Ian Tattersall, anthropologist
etc etc.
Don't be lazy - just click on the link.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/what-does-it-me.html
Superb article at Wired - basically, they got a whole bunch of scientists/anthropologists/other smart people together, and had them comment on it. What's cool - are the people they've got on the panel:
Marvin Minsky, artificial intelligence pioneer
Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist
Renee Reijo Pera, embryologist
Patricia Churchland, neuroethicist (see why I said it's a policy topic?)
Nikolas Rose, sociologist
Ian Tattersall, anthropologist
etc etc.
Don't be lazy - just click on the link.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Sensible Units
This is very useful - something that allows you to find your measurements in sensible units, like height in elephants or length in football fields: http://www.sensibleunits.com/
Shout out from Morocco
Who's excited about this blog!?!? I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS BLOG! :)
I'm reporting live from Morocco's Hollywood, Ouarzazate, where of recent fame Gladiator and Babel were filmed. We took a tour of the Atlas Studios here and it was a fun behind the scenes look at how movies are made. Tomorrow we're off to camp out in the Sahara for a night. Transport=camel.
I was gutted I couldn't make it out to the noon celebration on Monday, but I enjoyed looking through the pictorial highlights from Facebook. Miss you all and in case you are missing West Virginia mentions...check out what Dick Cheney recently had to say about the Mountain State that is causing a stir.
Oh and here's a snippet of a fun bus conversation between my lovely travel companions and me that I now pass on to you: If you had 5 days at 5 star accomodation anywhere in the world where would you go?
I'm reporting live from Morocco's Hollywood, Ouarzazate, where of recent fame Gladiator and Babel were filmed. We took a tour of the Atlas Studios here and it was a fun behind the scenes look at how movies are made. Tomorrow we're off to camp out in the Sahara for a night. Transport=camel.
I was gutted I couldn't make it out to the noon celebration on Monday, but I enjoyed looking through the pictorial highlights from Facebook. Miss you all and in case you are missing West Virginia mentions...check out what Dick Cheney recently had to say about the Mountain State that is causing a stir.
Oh and here's a snippet of a fun bus conversation between my lovely travel companions and me that I now pass on to you: If you had 5 days at 5 star accomodation anywhere in the world where would you go?
Ceremonial First Post
Welcome to the Technology Policy 2007/2008 Alumni Blog. We’re all heading off to employment (or unemployment, as the case may be), but this will be a way to keep in touch and keep all those random corridor conversations going. The name of the blog, “I have Two Questions” was, of course, inspired by Rahul. I think I learned more from his questions than I did from the lectures themselves.
The name of the blog says it all. Feel free to post or reply to any topic that interests you, and try to end each post with a couple questions that other people can think or write about. If you read an interesting article, share it. If you want to get opinions on a concept or idea, throw it up on the blog for everyone to read. No word limits or grading or any other TP1 garbage, but short and light posts are welcome. We also reserve the right to laugh at you if you post something really stupid…such as mentioning
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