As a followup to the post about data, ReadWriteWeb had an article on Thursday by Jon Mitchell entitled “Here Are 20 Companies Who Sell Your Data (& How To Stop Them)”. Good overview information and some solid suggestions for those who want to avoid being a tool.
All posts tagged business
On the Meaning of Magic
People who like to slag on Apple regularly complain about their use of the term “magical” to describe the iPad. For instance:
I’ll tell you what is magical. Harry Potter, unicorns and sawing women in half are magical. Making a computer or a bloody Mac takes no magic at all, it takes silicon and factories, and workers, and sweat, and designers, and marketing people.
Seems to me that Apple doesn’t mean that kind of magic. Rather, Apple is referencing Arthur C. Clarke’s widely known third law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
So, Apple is really making a claim about how advanced their tech is, not about its supernatural powers. Actually, they probably meant it the way Gregory Benford restated it in Foundations End:
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
FWIW, it’s not such a jump to substitute “religion” for “magic”. . .
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/27/on-the-meaning-of-magic/
News, Commerce, and the Common Good
Another great piece by Mathew Ingram over at GigaOm, this time on the New York Times’ proposal to start offering early access to some of its news to businesses. By saving some content exclusively for businesses to access, they certainly could make money. In that, they would be like Bloomberg or Reuters, which is a concerning idea. Ingram states it perfectly:
One of the things that bothers me about this idea is that I think there is still some kind of public-service or public-policy value in journalism, and especially the news — I don’t think it is just another commodity that should be designed to make as much money as possible. And if the New York Times were to take stories that are arguably of social significance and provide them to hedge funds in advance, I think that would make it a very different type of entity than it is now. What if it was a story about a dangerous drug or national security?
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/27/news-commerce-and-the-common-good/
Wherefore Art Thou, Professional Ethics?
Mathew Ingram had a nice piece over at GigaOm discussing some of this year’s winners of the Pulitzer Prize focused primarily on the fact that prizes are now going to writers who publish online. There is no real difference, he suggests, between bloggers and journalists. Given the success of many software developers at writing and selling software on their own, the same argument could easily be made about the distinction between hobbyist and professional programmer.
Which leaves us in a bit of a situation, professional ethics wise.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/26/wherefore-art-thou-professional-ethics/
“Don’t Be a Tool” and Other Friendly Reminders
When I was a kid, I remember people having diaries. They chronicled their lives writing their innermost thoughts as a way of processing and remembering. These diaries were hidden away so no one saw them, and sometimes had little locks on them to symbolize the privacy of their contents. I presume that some people still keep diaries. I know people who carry journals around and write in them. But I also know people who chronicle their lives in public via Twitter, blogs, or Facebook. Many people chose to share their more than they used to, and draw the lines between public and private in new ways.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 26, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/26/dont-be-a-tool-and-other-friendly-reminders/
Rewiring Virtue 