cat >/dev/null

My friend Simone points me to an insightful article about a matter which interests me a great deal: can machines be conscious? By chance, this comes just a couple of days after Rough Type pointed me to an interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter, a very important and well-known cognitive scientist and, dare I say it, one of my personal heroes.

Being a cognitive science, mind philosophy, AI, whatever mind stuff junkie, I’ve read a lot of interesting things about this subject and its whereabouts. I tend to disagree with the general statement that nobody really knows exactly what consciousness is; I think I’m a little more in line with Hofstadter’s view you can find at the start of the interview. But I believe this may not interest you as much as the fact that, among all the things I’ve heard about the subject, the one that I found the most suggestive is the dialogue between Neo and Rama-Kandra in the movie Matrix: Revolutions:

R: I am Rama-Kandra. This is my wife, Kamala. My daughter, Sati. We are most honored to meet you.
N: You are programs.
R: Oh, yes. I am the power-plant systems manager for recycling operations. My wife is an interactive software programmer. She is highly creative.
K: What are you doing here? You do not belong here.
R: Kamala! Goodness, I apologize. My wife can be very direct.
N: It’s okay. I don’t have an answer. I don’t even know where “here” is.
R: This place is nowhere. It is between your world and our world.

[...]

N: Is that what you’re doing here?
K: Rama, please.
R: I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. He may never see another face for the rest of his life.
R: I’m sorry.
N: You don’t have to answer that question.
R: No, I don’t mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose. If it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter.
R: You do not understand.
N: I just have never…
R: Heard a program speak of love.
N: It is a human emotion.
R: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.
R: I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
N: Anything.
R: Then perhaps the reason you are here is not so different than the reason I am here.

A few days ago, Schneier wrote:

Security requires a particular mindset. Security professionals — at least the good ones — see the world differently. They can’t walk into a store without noticing how they might shoplift. They can’t use a computer without wondering about the security vulnerabilities. They can’t vote without trying to figure out how to vote twice. They just can’t help it.

Me, I don’t know if I’m a good one. Sure thing I just can’t help it.

Works from Nicoletta Ceccoli are showing at Roq La Rue Gallery, Seattle.

I’m so happy for Nicoletta, who happens to be a good friend of mine.

This is a major event for her, I know how much she cares about this and I whole-heartedly wish her all the best.

Links:

• nicolettaceccoli.com
• Nicoletta Ceccoli’s Works at Roq La Rue Gallery
• Article at Boing Boing
• Roq La Rue Gallery – July 2007
• Roq La Rue Gallery

From Bruce Schneier:

There are two reasons why you might want to conduct a penetration test. One, you want to know whether a certain vulnerability is present because you’re going to fix it if it is. And two, you need a big, scary report to persuade your boss to spend more money. If neither is true, I’m going to save you a lot of money by giving you this free penetration test: You’re vulnerable.

Now, go do something useful about it.

Though I don’t completely subscribe to the point of view expressed by both this essay and Ranum’s rebuttal (I believe their brevity is not doing justice to a complex subject), I liked this particular paragraph. I find it so true… and, why not, funny!

Fellow Europeans, go sign your umpteenth petition! Do it now! Let the healing begin!

It will cost you nothing. By the way, exactly what it’s worth.

Like it or not, everybody will be a Copy Criminal before long.

If you want to do something, do the only thing that makes sense: opt out. But I guess that if you’re smart enough to do that, you already figured that out for yourself… and if you haven’t…

By the way, Boing Boing says it’s urgent, so it must be.

“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Timequake, 1997

Well, I’m sure you did too. Thank you!

UPDATE: here is Boing Boing bringing up an interesting and very appropriate quote:

We had a memorial services for Isaac [Asimov] a few years back, and at one point I said, “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in Heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.

Mine too!!!

I always thought I am single because I am as beautiful as hell, as fit as a whale and as funny as a train wreck.

Boy was I wrong! It’s because I’m hairy!

Link: the relevant paper

Geez. As soon as I resolve to work on my Boing Boing habit… I’m back to square one.

There is one thing that has been annoying me for some time now. Then something happened, and the last straw broke the camel’s back.

As I said before, my shot at trying to keep some sort of web log goes back to times when the word blog was still well into the realm of typos. I always liked the idea of bragging about various topics, often without a specific purpose other than helping myself focus my thoughts on the matter, and maybe share some fun. I’m glad that I have a following, albeit very small, but never in my mind has been the thought of imposing what I write to the public. Even without mentioning the metaphor lying behind the name of this site, the fact that I keep writing most of my posts in English, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of my readers are Italians, that Italian is my mother tongue, and that I’m a lousy English writer, is a testament to that.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in what I think and write, mind you. It’s just that information is what my job is about, and I think I know something about it, about how it should be done. This blog is not how. Sadly, I don’t get paid for writing, and there’s a serious chance (not to say clear evidence) that I never will, so I usually don’t have the time to check things and write them down properly. Many would even question that I’d have the skills anyway. So, as the Dude would say, this is just… my opinion, man. Take it easy.

Anyway, this blogging frenzy came over, and suddenly everyone and their sister has to write about whatever comes to their mind. Obviously I have nothing against it, actually I’m all for it. If I get to thinking that your opinion is of some value to me, your feed is mine; otherwise, thank you. You do the same with me, and we’re fine and dandy. I’d very much like that aggregators let me set some kind of rating, but I can live without that.

What I can’t stand is the phenomenon I started to call copycat blogging; that is bloggers copying the same piece of news, over and over, from popular sources and main aggregators, with the optional smart-assed short comment sentence added, as to make it their version. Just link the original source, and your conscience is as clean as a whistle. But why on earth should you think that I don’t know how to use Google or read Boing Boing? Because I regularly do, you see. Now show me that you’re smarter than Cory or at least as cute as Xeni.

It’s like the modern, socially-networked, RSS-powered version of the infamous habit of full-quote replying to a lengthy post on a mailing list or forum, just to add your “I agree” below. You agree? So fucking what!

Some would say, not completely without a point, that it’s the nature of the blogosphere and how it is supposed to be in the end. Anyway, I don’t subscribe. There are excellent blogs around, all with their fair share of news digesting and wit injecting. To which I subscribe.

May I add, it’s often blatant that blogging about popular topics is done on the purpose of getting more traffic to the web site, all the way down to the usage of very specific, clearly SEO-friendly words and sentences. Like the modern, socially-networked, RSS-powered version of mine is longer than yours.

Some other would say that the web came to free us from the old paradigm, just to enslave us to another one, equally flawed; that we traded editorial control for information overloading. I don’t buy into this either, because I think there are ways around it, but I have to admit that this is pretty much how at the moment. Very democracy.

Well, sorry, don’t take offense, but my time and patience are not endless. Enough is enough. I will not stand for this any longer.

I’ve dramatically cut the number of feeds in my aggregator, and I already feel a lot better, just like taking out a pair of shoes two sizes too small.

Next up, I’ll practise what I preach. In the past, I have always tried to add value to my copycat blogging posts. Of course this is not to say that I always tried hard or necessarily succeeded, but at least I think I tried. Now I promise that I will try harder and raise the bar, and when I’m not able to resist the temptation, at least I’ll tag the post with the relevant category, as I’ve been doing right from the start, waiting for some smart aggregator to enable my readers to take advantage of this and eventually block the whole category out. Maybe some already do, I don’t know.

I will also take other actions to try and raise the value of my posts, starting from taking more time to write them down. Since my time is limited, that will surely mean I will post less. Amen to that!

Funny corollary to all this is that it’s been days since I last heard news on the TV that I hadn’t already read about on a blog.

Or ten, haha.

Image courtesy of goenglish.com

Collecting rain water for toilets seems like a very clever idea.

FTA:

While it doesn’t come close to making up for our gas-guzzling, high-consuming lifestyles, rain harvesting does have a positive impact on our environment. Domestic potable water collection requires effort, energy, and chemicals for purification and transport. Toilets use 20 to 25% of water consumed in a residential house. Why are we flushing drinkable water down the toilet? In some other countries of the world, rainwater harvesting on a residential level is a mandatory part of building codes.

Previous posts: Royal Flush

Sometimes I wonder if the people who rule the world have been to kindergarten.

How about fighting terrorism with anti–terrorism?

Yes, it really is that simple.

Well, maybe simple is not the word, but it would be such an improvement over movie plot security practices.

Of course Bruce Schneier makes it look simpler still, the man who can break AES just past his afternoon nap; after all it’s not his fault if Rijndael was chosen over Twofish.

Check out other Bruce Schneier facts.