Ramblings & ephemera
From James Bennett’s “Let’s talk about Python 3.0” (The B-List: 5 December 2008):
There’s an old joke, so old that I don’t even know for certain where it originated, that’s often used to explain why big corporations do things the way they do. It involves some monkeys, a cage, a banana and a fire hose.
You build [...]
Posted on December 7th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Paul Ingrassia’s “How Detroit Drove Into a Ditch” (The Wall Street Journal: 25 October 2008):
This situation doesn’t stem from the recent meltdown in banking and the markets. GM, Ford and Chrysler have been losing billions since 2005, when the U.S. economy was still healthy. The financial crisis does, however, greatly exacerbate Detroit’s woes. As [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Tim Wu’s “On Copyright’s Authorship Policy” (Internet Archive: 2007):
On May 4, 2001, a one-man corporation named Bridgeport Music, Inc. launched over 500 counts of copyright infringement against more than 800 different artists and labels.1 Bridgeport Music has no employees, and other than copyrights, no reported assets.2 Technically, Bridgeport is a “catalogue [...]
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Jillian Cohen’s “The Show Must Go On” (The American: March/April 2008):
You can’t steal a concert. You can’t download the band—or the sweaty fans in the front row, or the merch guy, or the sound tech—to your laptop to take with you. Concerts are not like albums—easy to burn, copy, and give to your friends. [...]
Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Robert McMillan’s “A misconfigured laptop, a wrecked life” (NetworkWorld: 18 June 2008):
When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued Michael Fiola a Dell Latitude in November 2006, it set off a chain of events that would cost him his job, his friends and about a year of his life, as he fought criminal charges that he [...]
Posted on October 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Webster U: infosec management, law, security, technology | No Comments »
In Clay Shirky’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007), he takes on the persona of someone talking about what new changes are coming with the Gutenberg movable type press. At one point, he says, “Such a change would also create enormous economic hardship for anyone [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, business, on writing | No Comments »
From Douglas Rushkoff’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
But I think many writers - even good ones - will have to accept the fact that books can be loss-leaders or break-even propositions in a highly mediated world where showing up in person generates the most [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Adam Parfrey’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
I like the internet and computers for their ability to make writers of nearly everyone. I don’t like the internet and computers for their ability to make sloppy and thoughtless writers of nearly everyone.
Related posts
The shift from [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, on writing, technology | No Comments »
From Mark Dery’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
But we live in times of chaos and complexity, and the future of writing and reading is deeply uncertain. Reading and writing are solitary activities. The web enables us to write in public and, maybe one day, [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, on writing, technology | No Comments »
From Adam Goodheart’s “10 Days That Changed History” (The New York Times: 2 July 2006):
SEPT. 18, 1957: Revolt of the Nerds
Fed up with their boss, eight lab workers walked off the job on this day in Mountain View, Calif. Their employer, William Shockley, had decided not to continue research into silicon-based semiconductors; frustrated, they decided [...]
Posted on July 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Paul Graham’s “Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas” (April 2005):
This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups. It’s an experiment because we’re prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would. That’s why we’re doing it during the summer– so even college students [...]
Posted on July 13th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Melissa Meagher’s “State Worker Spies on Boss, Loses His Job“:
For 22 years, [Vernon] Blake was a System Administrator for the Alabama Department of Transportation. It was a job he loved, with the exception of his supervisor. …
The running joke around the office? The boss blew off meetings and projects to play games on his [...]
Posted on July 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, business, security, technology | Comments Off
From Paul Graham’s “Hiring is Obsolete” (May 2005):
I think most undergrads don’t realize yet that the economic cage is open. A lot have been told by their parents that the route to success is to get a good job. This was true when their parents were in college, but it’s less true now. The route [...]
Posted on July 7th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Paul Graham’s “Hiring is Obsolete” (May 2005):
It’s hard to judge the young because (a) they change rapidly, (b) there is great variation between them, and (c) they’re individually inconsistent. That last one is a big problem. When you’re young, you occasionally say and do stupid things even when you’re smart. So if the algorithm [...]
Posted on July 7th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Paul Graham’s “How to Start a Startup” (March 2005):
People who don’t want to get dragged into some kind of work often develop a protective incompetence at it.
Related posts
Why infosec is so hard
The shift from interior to exterior lives
The most volatile compound known to man
The Internet makes (sloppy) writers of nearly everyone
The incompetent don’t know [...]
Posted on July 7th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, commonplace book | Comments Off
From Will Sturgeon’s “Proof: Employees don’t care about security” (silicon.com: 16 February 2006):
CDs were handed out to commuters as they entered the City by employees of IT skills specialist The Training Camp and recipients were told the disks contained a special Valentine’s Day promotion.
However, the CDs contained nothing more than code which informed The Training [...]
Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, security, technology | Comments Off
From Lee Gomes’s Phisher Tales: How Webs of Scammers Pull Off Internet Fraud (The Wall Street Journal: 20 June 2005):
The typical phisher, he discovered, isn’t a movie-style villain but a Romanian teenager, albeit one who belongs to a social and economic infrastructure that is both remarkably sophisticated and utterly ragtag.
If, in the early days, phishing [...]
Posted on June 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, business, law, security, technology | Comments Off
From Indian call centre ‘fraud’ probe (BBC News: 23 June 2005):
Police are investigating reports that the bank account details of 1,000 UK customers, held by Indian call centres, were sold to an undercover reporter.
The Sun claims one of its journalists bought personal details including passwords, addresses and passport data from a Delhi IT worker for [...]
Posted on June 14th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, business, law, security, technology | Comments Off
From Michael Alter’s States fiddle while defrauders steal (CNET News.com: 21 June 2005):
More than 9 million American consumers fall victim to identity theft each year. But the most underpublicized identity theft crime is one in which thieves defraud state governments of payroll taxes by filing fraudulent unemployment claims.
It can be a fairly lucrative scheme, too. [...]
Posted on June 14th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, business, law, security, technology | Comments Off
From Sam Dillon’s “Graduates Get an Earful, From Left, Right and Center” (The New York Times: 11 June 2006):
Wynton Marsalis
Musician
[Delivering commencement to] The Juilliard School
Realize that integrity is real, and so is starvation. Never let pay and the talk of pay occupy more time and space than the talk of your art. If you find [...]
Posted on June 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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