In line with Dean Hogge’s observation are Professor Greenberger’s test results. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said that if they explained to a professor that they were trying hard, that should be taken into account in their grade.

Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

Mr. Greenwood, you are correct in one thing: Something is wrong. It’s not what you think it is, but you got at least part of that right. I’d grade that thought a D.

And, it appears, I’m not the only one.  Here’s “To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich,” a transcript of a speech given in 1968 to a volunteer organization.  I came across this by way of, as always, Metafilter, where a discussion on the validity of volunteering was taking place. This was spurred by an interesting article decrying modern celebrity aid programs as development porn and calling out volunteerism as paternalistic behaviour… which is how I have always sort of felt.

Poke about. It’s a good debate.

The fact that this happens at all is nearly enough to make me physically ill. The fact that I’m probably never going to encounter it, simply because I’m not brown-skinned…

(She’s got a website, by the way: Meth Today. Very… irritating web design, leaving aside any other cause for complaint.)

My initial reaction was a resigned disgust so intense that I couldn’t even get disgusted by it. I saw the headline, blinked once, and went on with my day, secure in the fact that at least I am not so pathetically stupid nor incapable of taking responsibility for my actions. Nor, in the main, has that sentiment changed; this sad individual made bad choices that led her to pain. However, I’ve questioned this a bit today, enroute to that final conclusion, and I thought I’d share my thoughts, such as they are.

There’s a lot of questions about addiction and its position as an illness; whether an addict is responsible for their actions, or if they should be treated as being sick and preyed upon. I fall on the former side of the fence, and have for most — if not all — of my adult life. Coming from the other side in this, however, is the argument that there are already criminal responsibilities in this matter, and that this woman was guilty of those crimes, but that the civil responsibility should be shared between her and her procurer.

So, I thought about this for a while… in fact, I was thinking about it as I started this post and even then I was waffling in the other direction — until I started framing it as responsibility in the second paragraph. It’s seductive, though, this idea that the blame for this kind of choice can be ‘shared’ somehow, as though we’re not really in control and so how can anyone really point a finger at us if we do something catastrophically stupid. But that seductive call is a siren, luring one onto some metaphorical rocks… (here I stop with the attempted classical metaphors). The sad truth of the matter is that, irrespective of the criminal acts being perpetrated, Sandra is no less responsible for her actions than any other person that harms themselves in the pursuit of pleasure. If I jump out of a plane and injure myself, I’m not going to blame the pilot of the plane, nor will I blame the instructor who ‘gave me my first hit.’

And that’s what’s happening here. And it shouldn’t.

I’m just going to let these speak for themselves.

Found via MetaFilter.

There are times, however, that merit a vigorous negative response.

I’m taking two project courses in school this semester; Cmput 414, which is a graphics and multimedia course with a heavy algorithmic programming component, and Cmput 401, a software engineering course and the focus of this rant.

Software Engineering is, according to Wikipedia, “is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.” Among other things, it requires the application of good design practices to the development of code, and following beneficial design standards.

So, I have to ask, why is it that people taking this fucking course cannot do something as basic as grok that it is fundamentally bad practice to add public methods to hidden implementing classes instead of using the goddamned design?! I spent three days nailing down, and countless hours tuning up, the data model for our project application, only to have one of my fellow team members simply come along and, instead of reading the goddamned documentation, which I provided as a first step, add new hooks into the mechanism, just to get at the information in a way that is not only wrong, but disables some nice and (I thought) needed functionality.

I have spent the last hour looking over his code, marveling at the glorious unification of layers that, according to good design practices, should ever remain separate — the intermingling of UI code and logic that I’d already written elsewhere, better was a real high point for me.

Gods.

I cannot wait to get back to full time work with people who know more than I do, so that instead of raging at the pathetic efforts of people whose skills are not even up to the level of an academic programmer, I can instead find faults with my own approaches, be told that I’m doing it wrong, and learn how to do it better.

Domain name change

First, as you probably failed to notice when you clicked into the comments on the pages, there’s a new name for this site, in terms of ways to get to it: www.offby1.net. The old offlineblog.com address won’t stop working, so worry not, but offby1.net is now the preferred URL, and all links on the site will point to it, as soon as I figure out how to walk my MySQL database and convert all of the old URLs.

Anti-scientific idiocy

Second is a pointer to some more ludditism: The New Internationalist, a newsmagazine recommended to me by Char is a mostly-interesting alternative view on the world; not one with which I agree on most points, but nonetheless a refreshing perspective, but subject to some of the common flaws of its kind, including this example of total technological paranoia, calling for a small, but scary, symbol for nanotechnology, and demonstrating a complete inability to distinguish means from ends. This mini article is analogous to calling for a warning label on all products made with screwdrivers.

Why can’t people pull their heads from their asses and ensure that they know what they’re protesting? I want to ask if it’s too much to ask for people to inform themselves, but the ‘protest movement’ is an adequate demonstration that I needn’t bother; it is too much to ask.

A choice quote:

Yet invisible nanomaterials are already being used in our food, cosmetics, pesticides and clothing, even though they are not labelled and we do not know what their health and environmental impacts might be.

Uhm…

You do know that your “invisible nanomaterials” are completely indistinguishable from atoms, right? It’s almost like (gasp!) matter is entirely made up of some “invisible nanomaterials” whose characteristics are not completely understood.

So, being typically a couple of days behind the curve on the Daily Show viewing, I just got around to seeing the episode that aired on 28 Feb, and it had a “Back in Black” segment that dealt with — among other things — Daniel Radcliffe appearing in Equus, which includes a full-frontal nude scene, and is not a play for the kiddies.

So, some dumb bint on a news program referring to this event trotted out the same old crap I hear every time any connection — however tenuous — is made between the world of media for children and things that adults are ostensibly capable of understanding: “her young son saw these pictures televised, and he was really confused. Isn’t there a danger here?”

My response: Stop Breeding.

Seriously, just bloody stop, already. If the mechanics of reproduction are confusing and dangerous, stop using them. We don’t want more of that bloody attitude anyway, and really, you’re probably too insecure to be good in bed anyway. Here’s a tip, though: If the idea of an actor stepping outside of your comfort zone is dangerous, you need to grow the fuck up. I can’t emphasize this enough.

God damn, this angers me. Your confusion, you pathetic excuses for parents and human beings, should not be projected onto your children, whose only confusion comes from wondering why their parents are all flustered whenever they ask about any part of their bodies in between the tops of their thighs and their navels.

Grr.

Okay, I’m just being incoherent here. I’ll stop now.

What I’m actually posting on is an excellent interview with Maynard James Keenan (of Tool) at the Onion AV Club.

The quote that really got me is this one:

All I can do is say I smell a rat. I don’t know where it is or what kind of rat it is, but as an artist, I can express how [I feel about it]. But I couldn’t responsibly stand up and tell people which way to go, because then I’m just as guilty as the people who are telling everybody else what to do and where to go.

He’s quite a guy, one with whom I’ve no doubt that I could argue for days.

The next two weeks, I’ll be posting unadorned links of interest. Enjoy!

Fortuny, looking at Craigslist, observed this, and made a decision that is — at best — unethical, and at worst actively sociopathic. He posted an explicit ad to a casual encounters section of a Craigslist site (a section devoted to hooking up for no-strings-attached sex) and waited for responses. Those, he got in spades. Having accumulated a fair number of responses from all walks of life, containing personal information such as phone numbers, names, e-mail addresses, and photos — many of which consisted of nude or semi-nude shots — he proceeded to post this information to the web.

At waxy.org, there are at the very least two fairly serious potential legal ramifications to Fortuny’s actions (Sex Baiting Prank on Craigslist), having to do with the exposure of private information, and deliberate attempts to cause distress. These pale, however, beside the ethical and moral ramifications. Fortuny’s stated aim with this was to “push buttons”, and at this he’s succeeded. He’s also succeeded in causing at least one separation (no citation, sadly, except a peripheral mention in the Waxy article) and no small amount of distress to parties involved. Moreover, he’s spawned a copycat already.

So, the question that’s worth asking — and is well asked at the Wired blog that pointed me at this — is, for those who are thinking… “well, they got what they deserved, trolling for sex on the internet”, is this thought experiment:

What if it the Craig’s List posting was about:

• A 25 year-old woman looking for a sugar daddy?
• A depressed woman looking for a fellow depressed guy?
• A dom woman looking for submissive men to humiliate?
• A gay man looking for ‘straight’ guys?
• A ‘straight’ woman looking for a butch lesbian?
• A butch lesbian looking for a ‘straight’ woman?
• A lesbian looking for a lesbian?
• A closeted gay man looking for another closeted, discreet man?
• An overweight, not attractive straight guy looking for a date?
• A 21-year-old hipster looking for another hipster into?
• A goth woman looking for a goth guy into leather and trenchcoats?
• A couple looking for a third person to watch them have sex?
• A Christian woman looking for a Christian man?
• A furry looking for another furry?
• A Cos-Player looking for someone to dress up with them?
• A middle aged woman who doesn’t know she has terrible taste in poetry looking for a man who will buy her flowers, take her for walks on beaches and compose saccharine poems that rhyme?

Which of these do you feel superior enough to that you would want to see their private notes and photos displayed illegally on the internet? And what’s your justification for choosing what kind of people are reprehensible enough to you that their private lives should be splayed on the internet for anyone, from family to friends to co-workers to acquaintances to their bosses, to see?

—from Wired 27B Stroke 6

So, tempest in a teapot? Violation on a par with rape? Just short of? Sadistic action of a man-child? Sociopathic cruelty?

What do you think? There’s a fair number of starting points for thought on Metafilter, where this is presently being hotly debated.

I have not been so enamoured of it, I have to regretfully confess, and I have — reluctantly, since I paid for it — returned to the arms of Camino.

OmniWeb is pretty decent, with more than a few nice features built in: It’s tabbed browser model includes a thumbnail-sized preview of the page in the tab, so that you can see where you’re going. It uses a modified version of the Apple WebKit, which means that it behaves in ways very similar to Safari, including using true Cocoa widgets for web page input. This is a selling point because much of OSX’s user experience stems from the system-wide integration of applications and services, all of which depend on the builtin behaviour of the UI widgets.

OmniWeb’s flaws, however, made themselves known to me throughout the beta. I was more than willing to wait for them to resolve themselves during the beta process, but at this point, they have released the final version of 5.5, and still they’re not fixed.

One problem was stability. With a great many tabs open, containing images or pages, OmniWeb slows to a crawl. This isn’t too surprising, because RAM ain’t cheap, but it could be smarter about keeping tabs in memory or allowing them to be paged. Add into this mix a high likelihood of crashing when under load, and you have a very irritating situation.

The worst problem, however, seems to be the fault of WebKit, not OmniWeb itself, although their claim that they use a modified version suggests improvements, when I have a sneaking suspicion it means “older version”. If you use Gmail, and who doesn’t these days, then you’ve noticed that when you create a mail message and press ‘tab, enter’ from the edit box it sends the message. Kind of a reflex by now.

That doesn’t work in OmniWeb, not at all.

Now, there’s a tradeoff to be made, here, of course — OmniWeb and Safari have native widgets, which means that — for example — the keystrokes I use in editing text elsewhere on the system work consistently, a bit of polish that does not apply to Camino or Firefox. It’s features are many and fabulous, but it shouldn’t be final with that set of issues.

The first one is cell phones. As discussed on the waiter rant a few days ago, and spotted via MetaFilter (where else?) people have a bizarre love-hate relationship with cell phones, and more generally with their users. On the one hand, it’s leading to a change in social norms, as people start having conversations that could, at best, be viewed as debatably appropriate for public consumption in subways, busses, restaurants, and other places.

The rant linked above, however, is interesting because in a lot of respects the person writing it is, from his other postings, a liberal-leaning individual who is having the classical conservative reaction to the new and different — he’s decrying it as destroying social institutions as though they have inherent value, as opposed to simply existing as a consequence of previous upheavals due to changing technologies and mores. I, on the other hand, tend to take things like the cell phone in stride. Sure, the definition of what is polite changes, but that’s been happening throughout the course of human history, from the vomitoriums at Roman binges to the straitlaced, repressive Victorian ear (in public, at least) to today, with our cell phones and our email.

So, in this respect, I fail the test of conservatism.

The second issue, the one that’s been ticking about my head for the longest, is the issue of the automatic transmission. I freely admit, I’m a stick in the mud on this one. It’s weird, because on one hand I’m in favour of letting machines do the work that machines are good enough at. I support automation, and the obsolescence of the manual labourer. I come down in favour of machine intelligences being developed to remove the likelihood, and reduce the probability of human error in complex tasks.

But, despite all of that, I cannot get over my strong preference for manual transmissions, and a subtle, but definitely present, sense of elitism when I realize that I am in a shrinking segment of the population that is comfortable with controlling more aspects of their vehicles. This is classical reactionary conservatism, decrying a change that is, at least by objective measures, beneficial to society on the basis that it is… different.

At this point, I imagine that readers are thinking: “Is he going anywhere with this?”

No.

He argues (and argues well, I might add) that a world where our expectations of privacy have eroded to the point of total worldwide information transparency, to a degree where secrecy is one of the few true crimes left in the world, would be a good thing. “Earth” is founded, vaguely, on this idea, and although its protagonist seeks secrecy for just reasons, Brin himself gives every indication that he believes privacy to be an anachronism, a legacy of humanity’s brutal rise into civilization, and one best left behind.

I do not agree.

Bruce Schneier wrote an article for Wired magazine a short time ago on the value of privacy that I think bears reading. He contends, and I agree, that even the off-the-cuff responses we have to that old saw (“If you’re not doing anything wrong, why do you care if someone is watching”) are misdirected. Saying “The definition of wrong is in the hands of the government, and it keeps changing,” or “If I’m not doing anything wrong, you have no cause to watch me” is an implicit admission that privacy is intended to protect wrong actions.

This is not, and should not, be the case. The right to privacy protects our ability to grow, learn, and change. It protects the essential dignity of a loner who would otherwise fear constant examination by a society he rejects. It forms a fundamental component of interpersonal relations, or should we all feel that we must have sex in full view of the world, lest we be violating someone else’s right to examine our every behaviour?

This claim upon the details of my life is specious, and unethical, and must stop.

This claim upon the details of your life is no more right than the claim made by a peeping tom that nobody is hurt if he only looks in through the window.

As Schneier quotes Cardinal Richelieu: “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.”

This must not become the way of our free society, lest our society cease to be free.