Coincidence... or Intelligent Design?

So if you're following the Kitzmiller decision, and by "following" I mean "reading the PDF with glee at the ass-whupping the fundamentalists received," then you've no doubt come across the name Bertha Spahr. She's the senior biology teacher of the school district where ID was recently instituted. (She was pro-science, which makes her anti-ID, which also makes her anti-stupid.)

Intriguingly, one of the characters of Donnie Darko is a former science teacher who became a nun (after experiencing travel between dimensions, blah blah blah). Her name is Roberta Sparrow.

Bertha Spahr is very, very close to Roberta Sparrow.

Bertha Spahr avoids God in the classroom, Roberta Sparrow found God in the classroom.

This is so obviously proof that Jesus is the Christ, and also our Lord, and that everyone who isn't a white man (heretofore referenced as "Good Person") with a submissive wife who only has sex in the missionary position with four layers of clothing and still doesn't enjoy it and who also doesn't actively deride everyone who is gay or different or black or jewish is going to rot in the Fires That Burn But Do Not Consume.

Also Roberta Sparrow got hit by a car, and Bertha Spahr's opponents got butt-raped in court.

Just saying.

A few quotes from the conversation I had with myself.

"Whoa, that red M&M is totally Billy West." (Billy West was the voice of Fry, Zoidberg, the Professor, and others on Futurama, both Ren and Stimpy on, you guessed it, Ren and Stimpy, and a shitload of others.)

"This is the best band name ever." (Upon finding a band named "I Will Kill You Fucker.")

"No, fuck that--this is the best band name ever." (Upon finding a band named "Well Hungarians.")

"Hee. That joke was funny when I heard it in the Big Lebowski six years ago."

"Fuck you, Cybil Shepherd lookalike baking-soda selling bitch! Fuck you!"

"I should totally write down the crazy shit I say to myself and put it on the blog."

"I know it. My neighbors must think I'm the psycho loner who spends all his time by himself muttering. Shit. None of those fuckers better get murdered anytime soon."

Slashdot and the Internet Fallacy

It never fails to amaze how often a post about something vaguely international is a siren-song for the insane to start coming out of the woodwork in favor of their ideology of choice. Take, for example, this article on Slashdot about Chinese military-sponsored cyberattacks. Now, some of the comments are valid. Some even bring up good points to contradict the article in question. Most of these comments are modded Insightful, and most are easily viewed when scanning said comments.

My particular example of a good comment that got modded as such is the person who writes, "What's the first rule of hacking? It's 'never hack from from home.' I know I'd make sure I was bouncing off three computers all over the world before I even took a look at a .gov or a .mil, and I bet the Chinese would do the same." My other example of a good comment outlines the causal fallacy of the original article--stating that the original author's rationale is inherently false: "The author says that just because these attacks were disciplined, they had to be military? Does this rhyme with 'Space exploration is both demanding and dangerous. No other nations could do this if they did not have a space shuttle'?"

As for the rest of the articles, and dare I say the majority of Slashdot itself, conversation devolves into the similar battle of mantras. There are those who decry the United States, those who decry communism, those who decry liberalism, and those who argue that it is in our interest of self-preservation to ensure the U.S. is the most powerful, even if it does become corrupt.

Is there something about the anonymizing function of the screen name that creates such a dysfunctional distance in humanity? Or is it merely the fallacy of self-selecting samples? There are obviously biases that would encourage posting on Slashdot, namely, that a prospective member who shares the same elitist attitudes and self-righteous technophilia as actual Slashdot posters would find his or herself welcome. The propensity for any discussion of Apple, Microsoft, or Linux to lapse into arguments over which posters are which companies' "fanboys" is a fantastic example of the inability of humans to rationally discuss anything.

Much like our friend Ghani (link only to her blog, can't be bothered to look up the actual Weeblog post) once commented about the IMDB's discussion boards for Kingdom of Heaven creating a festering cesspool of anti-Islamic sentiment, it seems Internet discussion boards are just as legitimate as they were at the turn of the decade--that is, not.

I would surmise that anyone reading this post in conjunction with my earlier post about Wikipedia has evaluated my stance on the Internet as a communication tool. Odds are, that opinion is correct. I wholeheartedly reject the idea that the Internet has revolutionized communication. Don't get me wrong, it has definitively revolutionized the methods of communication, and likely that impact will grow ever farther-reaching the more time progresses. But the things we say to each other, the tropes and structures we engage in as behaviors and as groups of human beings, are exactly the same as they have always been. Even if we use emails, VoIP, instant-messaging, or videoconferencing technologies, we are still the same apes arguing over the same ground.

I wonder how long it will take people to recognize that it is not the means that needs improvement.

The Inherent Flaw of Wikipedia

Let me give a little background about Wikipedia before I launch into, essentially, an extended metaphor comparing the website to a system following the rules of chemistry and thermodynamics.

A few weeks ago, John Seigenthaler, Sr., a respected journalist (and partial founder of The Tennessean newspaper, which I used to read as I’m originally from Tennessee), found a biographical page on Wikipedia dedicated to him. One of the points argued was that Mr. Seigenthaler might have been responsible for the assassination of Robert Kennedy (whom Sirhan Sirhan assassinated in ’69). This made Mr. Seigenthaler upset, not just for the implication that he was a primary mover in a tinfoil-hat conspiracy, but also because he had been a very close friend of Mr. Kennedy, and, in fact, one of his pallbearers. He challenged the open-source “encyclopedia” publicly, denouncing its self-positioning as a reference tool, and argued for contributors’ accountability.

Depending on your particular information resource on the Internet, this was met with a number of responses. From staunch Wikipedia contributors or supporters, there was a blame the victim approach—“If Mr. Seigenthaler wanted his entry to be accurate, he should have maintained the page himself.” From the mainstream public, there was one of confusion—“What’s a ‘Wikipedia’?” From the Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, there was one of grudging but essentially unhelpful response—“We no longer allow anonymous individuals to create new pages. They can still edit them anonymously, though.” And from the mass of glib nerd-elitists at Slashdot, there was mostly one of smug superiority—“Well, of course Wikipedia’s inaccurate. Why wasn’t Seigenthaler using a real reference?”

Then, in the week of 12 December 2005, we learn that the man who changed Mr. Seiganthaler’s entry did so as a joke. He claimed ignorance of Wikipedia’s solemnity, and denied that he knew anyone would ever use the site as a serious reference tool. Wikipedia is now changing their user policy to mitigate the PR damage done by this debacle.

I started doing some thinking.

Why is it that Wikipedia’s current content model is inadequate? Can the hacks who rely on aphorisms and stupid sayings be correct? I declare that the nature of Wikipedia is dynamic equilibrium, and it is in this mode that the open-source “encyclopedia” presents a startling opportunity as well as a staggering miscalculation.

Dynamic equilibrium is a term used in the physical sciences to describe a system in motion, so long as that motion produces no net change in the contents of the system. For example, aqueous ammonia. If you place ammonia in water, there is a constant reaction occurring (powered simply by the energy of the molecules themselves) that converts ammonia (NH4) to (H30 + NH3). As just mentioned, the reaction is not particularly energetic, and so the energy of collision is enough to create the H30 + NH3, and the unstable nature of H30 allows for decay into H20 and H+ (and because of the nature of negatively-charged NH3, the positively-charged free hydrogen ion is immediately snapped up). We are then left with NH4 and H20 again. So the cycle repeats.

This is useful for us because we are using the entirety of the aqueous ammonia solution to perform our purposes—that is, we are utilizing the ammonia on the macro level instead of on the molecular level. Thus, a dynamic equilibrium of solution is perfectly capable of meeting our needs.

With Wikipedia, there is a similar regard toward dynamic equilibrium, given an article’s popularity and an invested user base. If there are enough people who care about an article, and who have it tracked in the software, then when someone vandalizes or makes an article unintentionally inaccurate, then it will be corrected. Given a long enough timeframe, the article will be a finely-honed resource of accurate information protected from further defacement.

The only problem is that no single human being on the face of the earth interacts with anything on the Internet at the macro level. It’s simply not useful. Instead, all our interactions with Wikipedia are granular, molecular, transactional. Thus we reap no benefit from the dynamic equilibrium model of content protection, because we are not involved in the process over a long timeframe. Instead, we need reliable results at any random moment for any given transaction. Dynamic equilibrium simply cannot do this, because the particles involved still behave randomly (and to remove random behavior is to kill the dynamism). When you access a page, you are essentially taking a shot in the dark as to whether or not those materials are accurate. You cannot guarantee, and neither can Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, what state that page will be in. To return to chemistry, it is like attempting to track any single NH4 molecule through solution and expecting it to remain NH4 at every point along the way.

This is the problem with Wikipedia. Its accuracy can only be guaranteed in the eventuality of several transaction cycles. And since any single page view is the product of only one transaction, this means that unless the open-source website makes radical revisions to its content model, it should simply stop calling itself an “encyclopedia.”

What’s the big deal? you may ask. Why should we be concerned about its content model or its name? Isn’t it just a website? Besides, they put up disclaimers about accuracy and reliability.

That is exactly my point. The problem is, you can’t have it both ways. Either Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, with all the requirements and strictures about accuracy and liability, or it’s simply a community-driven series of webpages. Of course, the latter sounds much less impressive than claiming one is “an open-source encyclopedia.” But Jimmy Wales and the rest of them cannot trade on the semiotics of encyclopedias and reference materials while obsequiously and self-righteously denying the very attributes that make encyclopedias and references worthwhile.

It is a situation very similar to that of licensing medical professionals. There is a certain cachet associated with a medical degree, with being a doctor. There are also matters of responsibility that attach to those positions. So society licenses doctors to prevent abuse of the term by those who would redirect our goodwill and the social necessity of doctors for personal gain. Can you be medically knowledgeable without having a medical license? Yes. Are you allowed to call yourself a doctor? No.

Wikipedia should either drastically reformulate its content model to ensure transactional integrity and accuracy, or it should stop calling itself an encyclopedia. The buzzword is “Web 2.0,” not “Have Your Cake and Eat It 2.0.”

Slashdot vs. Creationism

Mind you, I'm on Slashdot's side here. I was reading through the comments in the article about the University of Kansas religion professor and stumbled upon a commentor that was pulling the old "it's just a theory" trick. He asked all other posters to post "what science was so you idiots could see what a theory is supposed to be, like I(ntelligent) D(esign)."

Also, I'm paraphrasing, stuff it.

In response to which I saw this rather brilliant post:

"Evolution is a theory.
Gravity is a theory.

God isn't even a theory."

Oh, inverted world.

I'm actually not referring to the album of the same name by the Shins, since I don't listen to the Shins, but found their phrasing apropos, regardless. Instead, I want to talk about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

(As a sidenote, I've just watched the End of Evangelion for the fourth time, and also I've just written something rather... exhausting... in my latest fiction project. So bear with me if I'm not the pinnacle of lucidity.)

Shirow Masamune is the creator of Ghost in the Shell. It's cyberpunk, almost, that's the closest word to what I want. Cybernetics and computer technologies are realistically advanced, and this brings to bear questions of the human soul--namely, what is it, can machines have it, and can you ever lose it? One of the primary taglines of the show is that the difference between man and machine is now academic.

Anyhow, Mamoru Oshii turned Ghost in the Shell into a full-blown theatrical feature. It's one of the major factors in the anime explosion in the U.S., Akira notwithstanding. (The feature dates to a U.S. release in 1995, a year before Neon Genesis Evangelion, what I consider to be the greatest visual work I've ever seen.)

So to a particular episode of the series, Stand Alone Complex. Many people misinterpret this as suggesting that the series "stands alone" from the movie, and while this is true, it's not the referent. Instead, the characters discuss a theoretical sociopsychological construct, the "stand alone complex," wherein any object or creation might spawn copies--and whether there is any way to tell if there ever was an original. Copies without originals is the thrust of what I'm getting at, the "main bullet" in my PowerPoint, if you get what I'm saying...

...anyhow, the episode "Eraser" was on the other night. It begins with the soldiers of Public Security Section 9 (Our Heroes) collectively viewing the recorded memories of their comrade Togusa, who at the end of the prior episode had been shot. The "raging id" of the group is a soldier named Batou. Upon viewing these memories, his first inclination is to utterly annihilate the perpetrators. (That the perpetrators are the DEA, and that they shot a police officer in furtherance of a government coverup, no matter to Batou.) He gets left behind to cool off because of his somewhat less than objective take on the issue.

The protagonist of all things Ghost in the Shell is Major Motoko Kusanagi. She is the polished height of confident control; everything about her is a reflection of her capability to handle any scenario effectively. She has a full prosthetic body because of a debilitating neurological disease that left her crippled at the age of nine (when she was cyberized). Now, to compensate for that lack of control and its fundamental impact on her existence, she resonates Control. She wears outfits that some might consider little more than blatant sexism, but without going too far into defending the choices of animators grabbing for the hormone vote, it does fit her character. That she knows she's more than capable of defending herself, and that she feels no need to portray her body as anything other than a highly-tuned machine, is in line with what we know about her as viewers. To her, the body is more a tool than is a source of self-definition. After all, just pop the braincase and she can be in a new body in half an hour, at most.

What happens in this episode is a primary example of a dramatic inversion. When Batou and the Major are attacked at the end of the episode, it is Batou--the military-trained fighter--who is sent out of battle to protect a hostage. The less-well-armored Major stays behind to fight an armored battle suit (whose sole purpose is to destroy prostethic soldiers). Batou's "raging id" and uncontrollable anger are forced to divest themselves as a protective role.

The Major draws the mobile suit's fire, and in so doing, her entire left arm is shredded to pulp by machine gun fire. The mobile suit grasps her by her skull and slams her into the ground--mouth and eyes frozen open--as the DEA agent in the mobile suit attempts to crush her metal braincase. For a moment we hear creaking, expecting to see the Major's face explode into gore, but the pavement around her head craters into dust. (Another inversion of expectation.)

There is the loud blast of gunfire and the mobile suit reels; the Major has been saved by her subordinates. Raising herself from the ground, face no longer frozen, we wonder if she was playing dead or truly incapable of defending herself a moment ago. She rears up, her left arm dripping ichor (not real blood; prosthetics have white vitae), and screams, "Fork over that weapon now!" There are cracks in her iron self-control. Armed with a sniper rifle, she points its barrel at the mobile suit's entry panel. The soldier inside screams to be let out, please God, just let me out.

The major fires. The panel caves in. She brings the weapon up and shoots the bolt with one hand (her other in tatters). Lowers the weapon and blasts another dent in the entry panel. Over and over again, her mouth a rictus of anger. All the shattered self-control comes boiling to the surface. A woman, her steel inside, temporarily defeated by a man wearing a steel skeleton on the outside; where before she was all capability and icy confidence, now she blasts dents into this entry panel until the soldier inside wheezes, "Oh God, please, I can't--can't breathe."

And she lets him suffocate in his exoskeleton.

Heady stuff. I suggest the next time you're able, watch Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's rather unlike anything you'll find on the air of American origin.

A thought about design metaphors

While cruising through a very thorough discussion of 180solutions' spyware and ripoff tactics by Ben Edelman, I realized something that's not necessarily unusual nor necessarily original.

It's about the design metaphor of Microsoft Windows, and how extraordinarily apropos that metaphor is with regard to new paradigms of computer security. The metaphor is, obviously, that of a window--panels open on your computer screen that let you examine data, interact, et cetera. However, upon reading Edelman's examination of 180solutions' popup tactics, I recognized that we need to extend the "window" metaphor further than just what we see onscreen. That is, the extension needs to necessarily involve the screen itself as a window.

(N.B. I thought about calling this post "Semiotics of Software Security," but the alliteration and pretensiousness convinced me otherwise.)

Part of how 180solutions' popup spyware application, Zango, gets you is by "cookie-stuffing," overwriting tracking cookies from other sites with 180solutions' cookies. This gives the appearance that you've always been referred by 180solutions to the merchant websites, when this is often not the case. It does this by opening a browser window from the 180 server offscreen.

This is what made me think of the screen-itself-as-window. No longer can you consider your screen the portal to the workings of your computer; it does not represent the entirety of the interaction. Instead, the screen is simply another window, a hole in an otherwise impermeable surface, that allows you to glimpse at only what the builder of the window (and necessarily the builder of the wall, as well) wants you to see. Think about that next time you're surfing the Internet. What's happening in your window, and what might be happening just out of sight?

Glowsoul

On Sigur Ros's most recent album, Takk, the second track (but first real "song") is "Glosoli," which in English roughly translates to "glowsoul." It is a shattering work, of potential and explosive power and transcendent crescendo and the brilliance of noise.

I have never watched a music video from the band, because the music is so evocative as to be fragile--anything learned outside the music itself will, I'm afraid, destroy its crystalline hold on me. You have to hold still so the hummingbird won't fly away, startled, because the moment will never return and all you will have to carry with you is the knowledge that you scared it away.

Having said that, I fully recommend you watch the video for Glosoli, and that link is high-quality Quicktime.

The best music video I've seen since the beautiful and haunting video for modest mouse's "Ocean Breathes Salty."

Just a note.

If you aren't reading Questionable Content, the webcomic by Jeph Jacques, then you should. Start at the archives and work your way forward. What's been happening this week is the kind of Major Event you don't often get in any kind of continuous work.

As Faye (one of the main characters) herself said, "I know this is like interrupting an intricate waltz with a sledgehammer to the knee."

Seriously. Go read it.