Between Carbon and Silicon

I get "facepalmy" when I see tape or a sticky note covering one's webcam. Even former FBI director James Comey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have subscribed to this silly "act of caution." Why would anybody want a fish-eyed distortion of your mug? This paranoia owes to that widely publicized  isolated incident which, though potent with drama, detracts from the real risk posed by a hacker. If your device has been compromised, you should be much more concerned that they're logging keystrokes, stealing passwords and credit card information--all much easier for a hacker to do and easier to profit from than hijacking your webcam. Put it this way: supposing someone were to break into your house--is your primary concern that they'll see you in your bunny slippers? The horror! The burglar will think this is hilarious, even accommodating, as they head unperturbed for your safe, humming as they go! Realistically, sticky-noting your webcam only betrays your ...

Not all things age well, and it seems that culture, ideology and even temporal pragmatism age more like a glass of milk than like wine. Blame the early influencers of computing for the bad parts, their legacies for the perpetuation of those bad parts. "Nerd culture" in the computing industry was, in its prime, the vindication of repressed young people whose capabilities were eclipsed by their lowly social status. That framing of the industry persists, independent of its appropriateness, in much the same way as modern keyboards retain their awkward, staggered key alignment--a condition which owes to a mechanical constraint for typewriters  whose physical levers demanded that compromise, but which serves no utility  to contemporary typists aside from some familiarity of the convention. "Nerd culture" incurred a large social debt, which has served to deter women systemically from being represented in Computer Science, and more broadly has undermined efforts to better...

       Twenty percent . If you had no other point of reference but classrooms and offices of Computer Scientists, you might wonder if women are a minority group . The sex disparity in Computer Science  is a given --it is the rationalization for this disparity which remains debated, its justification holding that such disparity owes to some biological inclination of men or women, rather than social circumstance . If narratives such as this are representative at all of male sentiments in Computer Science, then sexism  occurs in its insidious form : the instigators themselves are ignorant of their contributing role. The unfortunate implication here is that the rationalizing sentiment  (that the disparity stems from biology) itself fuels the social  disparity. The problem is such that complacency  will perpetuate it. The candidness and casualness by which this is done is easily illustrated: consider the tragic number of such exacerba...

I am so tired of the cheesy version of the rise of computing in the U.S during the late 20th century. The tale of Jobs, Wozniak, Gates, etc. changing the world with their "nerdiness" will be familiar to many of us. But like so many others famously depicted as the good guys in Western culture, these "computer geniuses" are only heroes in a very contrived and self-serving context. The classic depiction is of some unassuming young people, coming from nothing, destined change the world forever--the perfect reflection of the American Dream . It is so corny, such a tale ought to immediately raise eyebrows at what turns out to be just the braggy version of an inevitable progression for personal computing. During the short period of time which was pivotal to the industry, the question wasn't about if it would happen  or when , but who would be recognized for it  when the dust settled. There was enough involvement around this change that its players consisted not of t...

 Facebook has just announced the Quest 2 which, despite being an upgrade in almost every respect over the original Quest, is launching  cheaper  than its predecessor at $299 (compared to the original's launch price of $399). It is not so unusual for companies to subsidize their hardware (particularly for gaming consoles) to draw people onto their platform--Facebook can justify it with that whopping 30% cut they win on every software purchase made on their VR platform. On top of that, a change in their privacy policy for the VR platform suggests Facebook is taking particular interest in its users --not in the way that has the user's best interests as the ends, but rather the means to an end, in the way that users' interests can be sold . For each user, their behaviors and interests can be observed, collected and analyzed to best subvert their frugality, this information sold indirectly to the seller trying to push any arbitrary product, by facing users with those ads to w...

Bad software can masquerade as good software by inflating its marketing department, downplaying its flaws and establishing its brand to be associated with high-profile success stories. It is the job of the marketing team to boost the appeal of software independent of whether such appeal is warranted. This makes it very challenging to discern good software from bad, as it is not necessarily in the interests of the company to be honest about their product's shortcomings. Consider that the free and open-source  git  software was made in response to a need which was not met by existing solutions, and which has become the most widely adopted solution  in place of its competitors. Its capitalist competitors, being parasitically obligated to the marketability of their existing product, are only secondarily (at best) compelled by utility had from their solutions--if there is room to innovate for a solution, but that innovation does not afford better market advantage, there is inc...

I can order a calculator online that, for just ten dollars, accomplishes more than what the greatest inventors and scientists of two-hundred years ago could have imagined possible. The fortunes spent by these predecessors, and the years spent frustrated over building devices to accomplish mere arithmetic--all this human struggle--has culminated into what anymore amounts to a cheap device to be taken for granted. It occurs to me that the motivation to discover derives not from interest in the knowledge for its own sake, but in the reward meted out for its initial discovery, as the second to do so finds no recognition or compensation. There is an distinction then between the intrinsic value of knowledge and the social advantages afforded in being credited for it (by being attributed when others come into that same knowledge). As is historically the case, for two possessors of any given knowledge, one is attributed as infinitely deserving , the other as not--the difference arbitrari...

One would think that there existed a topic out there in the world which was so inconsequential that people would not even bother expending energy to come to a resolution over it--some disagreement whose subject just plain does not matter . If this were the case, then we could prioritize issues whose resolution makes real improvements to society. Unfortunately even the silliest distinctions seem to provoke heated discussion around them to justify one side and fault the other. The significance of the smallest sentiments is regularly inflated, even to the suggestion that normative ethics could be derived from the smallest issue. For example, elaborate sketches can be designed to denigrate entire generations  over a distinction in just vernacular, as if during this  two minutes, fifty-seven seconds  one imagines that the only thing that mattered in the world was the inflection one used during conversation; and countless programming convention standards will tirelessly war ov...

Considering the psychological abuse posed by cyber bullying, it will be a horrible prospect to witness its Virtual Reality incarnation in social spaces as in the upcoming Facebook Horizons . Despite many people's immediate discomfort at the prospect of being watched by an invisible moderator, the discomfort implies abuse to be reported. In other words, the discomfort of being watched  is pitted against the discomfort of being abused , which context makes me an advocate for this kind of system. I wish that the victims of the #metoo movement had such a luxury that, upon being sexually assaulted or discriminated against, they had such a godsend as an always-on recording of the incident to corroborate their plea. Good job Facebook, it is no sacrifice for innocent people to be held accountable for being innocent, and for their privacy to be exposed in those critical situations where the victim absolutely would have wished it to be!