Jargon That Gatekeeps

Being able to effectively curate information to captivate the audience while maintaining maximum value in the distributed information's fidelity is the most important part of dimensionality reduction for effective communication.  This will be the most important way humans will use AI in order to solve real world problems.

I might add that the ability to simplify information for any audience in order to democratize knowledge without depending on jargon that gatekeeps it is an obvious sign of great intelligence in an individual.

-- Jonathan Murphy, who bills himself as a "Solution Maker", in a jargon- & buzzword-filled response to someone stating on LinkedIn that they plan to train an AI to answer the question, "Am I explaining things at the right level" in this deliverable; this post seems to violate everything he claims to favor

To Know How Much

The most ignorant are the most conceited.  To know how much there is that we do not know, is one of the most valuable parts of our attainments; for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of humility and a stimulus to exertion.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Lectures on Education (1855) Lecture 6

Foolish People

Foolish people -- when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine.  If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

-- Jerome K. Jerome (1859 - 1927), English author, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Memory Lane

Today I had the pleasure and honor of spending a couple of hours over lunch at Papa Del's with some old PLATO folks.  I hope it sparks warm memories when I name drop Josh Paley, Steve Peltz, Susan Wrightson, G. David Frye, Ray Thomsen, Quentin Barnes, and James Quisenberry. 

There was reminiscing, with tales of Dr Bitzer and CERL PLATO.  And there was catching up with past lives, current activities, and future plans.  Many familiar names were mentioned.  A get-together like we had today reminds me of just how many smart people were drawn to PLATO.  It's an amazing community.

RIP Dr Don Bitzer

I just learned an hour ago that yesterday [10 December 2024], Don Bitzer, creator of the PLATO system, and friend to us all, passed away at age 90 in North Carolina.

I'm at a loss for words at the moment and can't think of much to say that I didn't say in my book, which, in hindsight, may kinda sorta be the closest attempt at a biography of Don, but I will say that I never ever met a more generous, supportive, enthusiastic person in the world.  He and his wife Maryann, who passed away in 2022, were incredibly generous.

He was an inspiration to us all, and to the world, which he made a better place.

-- Brian Dear, author of "The Friendly Orange Glow", announcing the passing of Dr Donald L Bitzer

[Meta - I got my start in computing through the good graces of Dr Bitzer in March 1974, and it led to my lifelong career.  And of course "trvth" itself originated on the University of Illinois PLATO system in notesfile =pad in February 1981, and has always been maintained on some PLATO system, somewhere.  Currently these posts are hosted in notesfile =pad on the "cyber1" CYBIS system (more info at cyber1.org).]

Break Things

Move fast and break things.  Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

-- Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, to his developers and team, as quoted in Business Insider, 14 October 2010

America's Finest News Source

Chicago, IL -- November 14, 2024 - The Onion, America's Finest News Source, today announced it has acquired the assets of Infowars, with the support of Sandy Hook families who secured a $1.4 billion defamation verdict in Connecticut against Alex Jones, the founder of Infowars and parent company, Free Speech Systems, LLC.  The Onion also announced its exclusive launch advertiser in this new venture will be Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country.

The Onion's goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars' relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion's relentless barrage of humor for good.  "The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site's users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash," said The Onion's CEO Ben Collins.  "Or Bitcoin.  We will also accept Bitcoin."

The Onion's acquisition comes after the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee overseeing the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy proceedings selected the news outlet's bid.  That process was the direct result of a years-long effort by several Sandy Hook families to hold Alex Jones accountable for the immense pain he caused and from which he profited.

-- Press release from The Onion on their acquisition of the Infowars website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property, to partially settle a judgement against Alex Jones & Co., 14 November 2024

Monopoly

After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.  It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

-- Judge Amit P. Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in his ruling in United States of America v Google LLC (5 August 2024)

Mumpsimus

‘Mumpsimus’, 16th century: one who insists that they are right (or wronged) when all evidence points to the contrary.

-- Susie Dent, who posts a "Word of the Day" on Twitter, posting as @susie_dent (30 May 2024)

Meta Nonsense Warning

As you may know, our Community Guidelines describe the boundaries for what we allow -- and don't allow -- on Blogger.  Your post titled "Deep Throat" was flagged to us for review.  This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content; the post is visible at http://blog.trvth.org/2005/06/deep-throat.html.  Your blog readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read the post/blog.

We apply warning messages to posts that contain sensitive content. If you are interested in having the status reviewed, please update the content to adhere to Blogger's Community Guidelines. Once the content is updated, you may republish it at [redacted]. 

This will trigger a review of the post.

Sincerely, 
The Blogger Team

-- Email I received this week from Blogger regarding my 1 June 2005 Trvth post which refers to Bob Woodward's inside source for his book "All the President's Men"; perhaps this post will receive the same (clearly automated) restriction?

Not Experts

We're a court.  We really don't know about these things.  You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet.

-- Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, during oral arguments on Gonzalez v. Google, which challenges Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, 21 February 2023

Small Again

Make russia small again.

-- Ministry of Defense of Ukraine posting as @DefenceU on Twitter, 24 January 2023

Structure Is Everything

In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else.  We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of other words.  I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it's related to, and how it's related.  There really is little else to meaning.  The structure is everything.  There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons?  Just cells.  The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons.  All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.

-- Tim Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955) is the inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium, which oversees its continued development, Weaving The Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web (1999)

Environment Of Urgency

Implications of wartime operations for global cybersecurity

The dynamic nature of the armed conflict will introduce a level of uncertainty not seen since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.  As the war progresses, actors with a vested interest in the conflict will operate under increasingly urgent requirements to fill critical intelligence gaps and achieve specific tactical objectives.  How cyber operators choose to meet these requirements may pose significant risk to the global cybersecurity landscape.

We assess that such an environment of urgency may incentivize the use of sensitive capabilities that will allow threat actors to gain assured access to networks or manipulate aspects of information systems to achieve strategic objectives.  Highly reserved capabilities such as zero-days, critical infrastructure attacks, supply-chain attacks, and other novel techniques will almost-certainly be showcased in the medium-term. 

-- Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security & Trust at Microsoft, The hybrid war in Ukraine, 27 April, 2022 

Good And Bad Things

I think Facebook is the next Microsoft in both the bad and the good senses.  That's an amazing company that is going to do a lot of good and bad things.

-- Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (1966 -), American-British Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer who is most famous as one of the founders of Wikipedia, "Jimmy Wales on tech's future", Orlando Sentinel, 3 November 2007

Meta 40

Meta.  It occurred to me the other day that the 40th anniversary of the first Trvth note (on the CERL PLATO system, while I was working as a GS-9 Programmer for the Department of Defense at Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul, IL (3330th Tech Training Wing)) was at hand.  I recollected it being May 1981, but a check of the archives shows a February 1981 entry as the first.

Anyway, 40 years.  In July 2019 I counted 5450 ish published, and it's been about 500 more since then, so now 6000 ish published.  The most recent 3500 ish (with titles that aren't "trvth", and images for each) are at trvth.org

***** appearances ~appleman / chanute ~2/24/1981 ~13:50
While nothing may seem to be as it first appears, there
are in fact some things which appear to be as they are,
amidst the other things which only appear to be as they
aren't.

It's For Them

The primary issue is how seriously we take our chosen obligations to people in the developing world who do not have Internet connections. ...  Frankly, and let me be blunt, Wikipedia as a readable product is not for us.  It's for them.  It's for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so.

-- Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (7 August 1966 -), British-American Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer who is most famous as one of the founders of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation, Foundation-l mailing list (23 October 2005)

Fair Use

We reach the conclusion that in this case, where Google reimplemented a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, Google's copying of the Sun Java API was a fair use of that material as a matter of law.  The Federal Circuit's contrary judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

-- Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the 6-2 majority of the Supreme Court of the United States in Google LLC, Petitioner, v. Oracle America, Inc, ruling that software APIs are not protected by copyright, and specifically that Google's Android OS does not violate Oracle's Java copyright, 5 April 2021

Accountability Culture

Cancel culture is not a threat to free speech -- it is a manifestation of it.  Cancel culture is an evolving form of democratic discourse where individuals use their free speech rights to form masses.  These masses exert pressure on people and institutions.  A better term for it would be "accountability culture."

Americans have long used their rights to free expression to hold public officials, institutions and corporations accountable.  Groups, including conservatives, have organized boycotts.  They have called for people to resign.  They have protested.

[T]hose who decry the free speech dangers of cancel culture really just don't like how other people are using their free speech rights.

-- Jared Schroeder and Jessica Maddox, 'Cancel Culture' is just free speech holding others accountable, The Hill, 11 March 2021

Attention

Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.  

-- Howard Rheingold (1947 -), American critic, writer, and teacher known for his specialties on the cultural, social, and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony, and virtual communities (a term he is credited with inventing), "The Virtual Community" (1993)