A company now places RFID tags on bottles in bars to to track the tilt angle and length of pour from the bartender. The story is here. The RFID system knows the length of pour and reconciles bottle usage with the Point of Sale (POS) system to see if the correct ingredients were used.
I have always had a balanced view of privacy. Many times I disagree with EFF because the fights seem to be so narrow and lack relevance to the digital masses. But I am NOW starting to get a bit nervous over RFID tags. Their potential to turn routine and normally discrete tasks into an Orwellian nightmare are suddenly becoming tangible.
On the hand, I might just be able to find the perfect gin and tonic. Cool!
Monday, July 17, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Maybe start with a sex wiki or religion wiki...
Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia has begun to launch a campaign wiki for the masses to discuss politics. It's noteworthy, of course, because he believes that people from all political persuasions can discuss, argue, and debate using this wiki. I'd like it to succeed. I joined the mailing list and I'm hopeful. But if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on failure.
Greek classical rhetoric contains a valuable theory called stasis, which uses questions to find the location of agreement among competing arguments (or people). This is the challenge of using a wiki to stimulate debate in politics - can parties find stasis? In other words, can they even agree on the points of disagreement. Rhetoric (the true art, not the pejorative term) seeks to invent the proper argument or language based on the point of stasis. It cannot overcome the emotional attachment people have to their political beliefs.
I'd like to believe I'm open to changing my opinion. But not always. Oddly enough, my experience with academia shows that professors are one of the worst groups for changing opinions related to politics or social sciences (where no absolute evidence exists). Even when evidence is shown towards the contrary, professors deconstruct the research to justify their beliefs.
Jimbo's wiki has many analogs in business technology. The technology exists in business to share knowledge and negotiate situations. Unfortuately, the culture and organizational behavior (or maturity) hasn't caught up. Stories abound of employees that won't put important knowledge into the company system because they feel it's their competitive advantage or they don't see the individal ROI.
Jimbo's campaign wiki is a wonderful technology that will provide a technology platform for people of different political beliefs to debate. The question is, are humans ready or equipped?
Greek classical rhetoric contains a valuable theory called stasis, which uses questions to find the location of agreement among competing arguments (or people). This is the challenge of using a wiki to stimulate debate in politics - can parties find stasis? In other words, can they even agree on the points of disagreement. Rhetoric (the true art, not the pejorative term) seeks to invent the proper argument or language based on the point of stasis. It cannot overcome the emotional attachment people have to their political beliefs.
I'd like to believe I'm open to changing my opinion. But not always. Oddly enough, my experience with academia shows that professors are one of the worst groups for changing opinions related to politics or social sciences (where no absolute evidence exists). Even when evidence is shown towards the contrary, professors deconstruct the research to justify their beliefs.
Jimbo's wiki has many analogs in business technology. The technology exists in business to share knowledge and negotiate situations. Unfortuately, the culture and organizational behavior (or maturity) hasn't caught up. Stories abound of employees that won't put important knowledge into the company system because they feel it's their competitive advantage or they don't see the individal ROI.
Jimbo's campaign wiki is a wonderful technology that will provide a technology platform for people of different political beliefs to debate. The question is, are humans ready or equipped?
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
On Democracy, Balance, and Freedom
I didn't post anything on the 4th, plenty of people have great posts about our country and indepence day. Many of this country's biggest intellectual critics live here, have lived here, or were educated here. This is an interesting, because when you read their commentary, many, like Noam Chomsky, usually reconcile their criticism of US foreign policy (or whatever they criticize) with comments that concede the U.S. is still the most free and most fair country in the world.
In reflection on what makes this country great, here's what I argue: balance. We balance the powers of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. We have the balancing effect of the fourth estate, the media. We have political balance between Republicans, Democrats, and other parties/ideologies. We have balance between the federal government and the states. We even balance things that our founding fathers felt might negatively impact the health of the country, like church and state (technically, it's separation, but balance is really more appropriate).
As radical alternatives to democracy re-appear, like elements of what Hugo Chavez proposes in Venezuela, it's important to understand the link between democracy, balance and freedom. When you achieve some level of balance you achieve freedom. Marxists are all about balance. The marxist line will tell you there is no theory that better balances people than marxism. Unfortunately, the marxist balance treats everyone the same, which isn't really balance. Not to mention that most communists and marxists have not truly achieved treating everyone equally. Marxists (and communists) have failed to achieve balance in every country where it's been used as a political economy. The problem, it seems, is that balance needs to respect the individual. Some individuals want the security of a job, some the challenge of owning a business, and some don't want to work at all. To fulfill all these various needs is a balance only democracy can achieve.
Marxism and communism espouse balance. Unfortunately, these ideologies don't balance government power or authority, freedom of the press, individual rights, dissent, or economic reform.
Hugo Chavez will fail in Venezuela. But not because the U.S. doesn't agree with him. Chavez will fail because he has no respect for balance. He can buy his populace off with cheap gas and socialistic reforms at the start. But he can't keep it going, because it's not balanced...and never will be.
The U.S. is not perfect. We deserve criticism and we make mistakes. But we are a democracy. We have many freedoms and we have achieved some balance in our country. Keeping vigilance over this balance is what will continue to make this country one of the greatest countries in the history of the world.
In reflection on what makes this country great, here's what I argue: balance. We balance the powers of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. We have the balancing effect of the fourth estate, the media. We have political balance between Republicans, Democrats, and other parties/ideologies. We have balance between the federal government and the states. We even balance things that our founding fathers felt might negatively impact the health of the country, like church and state (technically, it's separation, but balance is really more appropriate).
As radical alternatives to democracy re-appear, like elements of what Hugo Chavez proposes in Venezuela, it's important to understand the link between democracy, balance and freedom. When you achieve some level of balance you achieve freedom. Marxists are all about balance. The marxist line will tell you there is no theory that better balances people than marxism. Unfortunately, the marxist balance treats everyone the same, which isn't really balance. Not to mention that most communists and marxists have not truly achieved treating everyone equally. Marxists (and communists) have failed to achieve balance in every country where it's been used as a political economy. The problem, it seems, is that balance needs to respect the individual. Some individuals want the security of a job, some the challenge of owning a business, and some don't want to work at all. To fulfill all these various needs is a balance only democracy can achieve.
Marxism and communism espouse balance. Unfortunately, these ideologies don't balance government power or authority, freedom of the press, individual rights, dissent, or economic reform.
Hugo Chavez will fail in Venezuela. But not because the U.S. doesn't agree with him. Chavez will fail because he has no respect for balance. He can buy his populace off with cheap gas and socialistic reforms at the start. But he can't keep it going, because it's not balanced...and never will be.
The U.S. is not perfect. We deserve criticism and we make mistakes. But we are a democracy. We have many freedoms and we have achieved some balance in our country. Keeping vigilance over this balance is what will continue to make this country one of the greatest countries in the history of the world.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Net Neutrality
I think there are few examples of neutrality...maybe only Switzerland! This net neutrality issue is like most complex telco/techno issues - you can't be certain who's on what side, why, or who might benefit.
Certainly this is a bill about corporations vs. corporations. This is really not about "consumers". On one side is the delivery (i.e. Comcast) and the other side is the content (i.e. Yahoo). Classic confrontation between the dichotomy of Internet functions.
Both sides have arguments. The deliverers say they cannot reach every man, woman, and child with bandwidth unless they have some exclusivity (monopoly) and legislation that deters competition. So, for example, it would be difficult to take some of the huge pile of cash they make from providing bandwidth to Philadelphia and build basic infrastructure to middle-nowhere-PA.
The content providers, on the other hand, make themselves out as "for the consumer". This isn't really the case. It just means that content providers would be free from deliverers in terms of how they reach the end user. There certainly is a real fear that Verizon or Comcast might discriminate against Google or Amazon. But over-regulation is not the answer, either.
We'll see where it goes from here.
Certainly this is a bill about corporations vs. corporations. This is really not about "consumers". On one side is the delivery (i.e. Comcast) and the other side is the content (i.e. Yahoo). Classic confrontation between the dichotomy of Internet functions.
Both sides have arguments. The deliverers say they cannot reach every man, woman, and child with bandwidth unless they have some exclusivity (monopoly) and legislation that deters competition. So, for example, it would be difficult to take some of the huge pile of cash they make from providing bandwidth to Philadelphia and build basic infrastructure to middle-nowhere-PA.
The content providers, on the other hand, make themselves out as "for the consumer". This isn't really the case. It just means that content providers would be free from deliverers in terms of how they reach the end user. There certainly is a real fear that Verizon or Comcast might discriminate against Google or Amazon. But over-regulation is not the answer, either.
We'll see where it goes from here.
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