thesaurus or go ahead, NARC yourselves out

Joel Johnson of Animal New York reports on America's security jabberwocky and its recently disclosed and clarified policy of trawling social media networks (via subcontracted proxy) for possible emergent activity and warnings. Certain, recursive key words invite further scrutiny, as illustrated exhaustively in this word cloud generated by Wordle, but such augury is after wider social trends and sentiment and does not target the individual, unless he or she has been identified as a person-of-interest. I wonder how that works, with the author's anonymity burdened with being uninteresting in the first place.

face the book

Much of the computing press (DE/EN) has looked to this day, when the coordination and communication among the ancillary services of a major internet search engine is allowed free congress and is no longer compart-mentalized among the respective services, with great trepidation, as if, untimely, like a baby at the ball, the internet would vomit out, inopportune and indiscrete, every single embarrassing thing that one has done on the internet and inexorably link it to everything one does henceforth. I think those fears are magnified, latent insecurities over the Pandora's Box of convenience and connectivity that can't be put back in the bottle. Vigilance and education about privacy issues and abuse is very important if we are to prevent the drift of nosiness and full, involuntary disclosure, but, given that a rival social network was discovered to have slandered the major search engine by promoting exaggerated and false stories in the press about its competitors' policies, mostly to deflect from its own unsavoury and prying practices. I wonder if the bigger prize is not merely the users' data but rather sewing distrust.

intercalary or lieblings

I understand the method and the modulo behind leap years, although it seems a rather inelegant solution just to tack on an extra day to poor, over-burdened February.

Devising a calendar that preserves all the human cogs--work-a-day stuff and holidays, and matches to the procession of the seasons is almost without maintenance and human-intervention is pretty impressive in itself. I never noticed before, however, that some major (depending on one’s point-of-view, of course, and I am sure others as well) anniversaries are synchronized with the uncommon year. I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the modern spectacles of the American presidential election, the Summer Olympics or the European soccer championships fall on leap years: was there some administrative impetus with this make-up day? A single day by most estimates does not compensate for all the exposure to campaigning, nor it is enough time maybe for procrastinators to complete projects. I am not sure. That the 29th of February might be a cue associated with such sport makes me think about a story that I can’t fully recall, but it featured an isolated man, who was completely mathematically illiterate, and invented his own counting system. It was not binary or base-ten in a way that anyone else could understand, but he associated items in his environment, specific and ranging in the hundreds, with the cardinal numbers he was ignorant of. Instead of “1,2,3” he used “shellfish, clam, lawnmower, potato, tin-can-buried-on-the-beach.” I guess some societies name every day of the year, with a specificity greater than just a coordinate in time. I wonder what canting history might apply to today.

meet and seat or strangers on a train

A European airline has a new pilot program for its passengers, which invites solitary fliers to pick their seatmates based on their social- and business-networking profiles for long-haul flights.

Apparently there have been certain cliques of frequent-fliers that have tried something similar in the past, and I suppose the idea behind it is to deflect an unwelcome chatty companion or colicky baby without having to be rude, or perhaps pair people with similar interests and backgrounds, but I really don't know what to make of this voluntary screening and choice. There is certainly more to learn about a stranger that is not part of his on-line presence, and maybe some back-story would make transoceanic conversation quicker to come about, but it takes down some of the better and more developed social barriers when it seems one could interact with their profile on the video screen of the seatback in front, rather than get to know, politely ignore, or help the person right next to him or her. Fate and chance can bring one books, movies and bargains, as well, but the skills that it takes to meet people make the seemingly random more meaningful. It's as if the more traditional ways of human-interface (without some digital overlay, a gel for spotlight) are becoming too novel in their straightforwardness, but I am sure that communication and the adventure of widening one's social-circle will outlast gimmicks and layered shyness.