Steve's Partial 2007 Travel Schedule

The following dates are subject to change:

Los Angeles, California: June 20th - June 26th

Boca Raton, Florida: June 26th - June 29th

Montreal, Quebec: June 29th - July 3rd

Boca Raton Florida: July 3rd - July 14th

Atlanta, Georgia: July 14 - July 15

Memphis, Tennessee: July 15 - July 16

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: July 16 - July 17

Albuquerque, New Mexico: July 17 - July 18

Flagstaff, Arizona: July 18 - July 20

Las Vegas, Nevada: July 20 - July 21

Los Angeles, California: July 21 - July 24

Boca Raton Florida: July 24 - July 27

Montreal: Quebec: July 27 - August 3

Boca Raton, Florida: Aug 3 - Aug 30

Los Angeles, California: Aug 30 - September 4

More dates to come ...

SMS Half Price at Skype?

Today, I looked in my email box and found a advertisement from Skype that is offering SMS text messaging for 50 percent off. I thought, "is this a joke?"

As I investigated their offer, I realized that they were not joking and I figured that I could offer you another 50 percent off by telling you how to send SMS messages to your friends' cell phones for free.

Not many people know that there is a hidden feature in AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Apple's IChat software that allows you to send text SMS messages to your friends' cell phones. By simply creating a new chat in either of these pieces of software and inviting your friends' cell phone numbers -- preceded by a plus sign -- you can chat with your friends for free.

For example, say a friend's cell phone number is 1-555-555-5555. If I would like to send a SMS message to my friend's cell phone (and initiate a chat session with my friend), I would simply create a "new chat" and invite a user named "+1555555555" -- without the quotation marks. You can use AOL Instant Messenger and iChat to converse with your friends for free. Now why would I want 50 percent off of something that is free?

Virtually,
Steve Pariso

Another Message from Steve Pariso to Steve Jobs

Okay, we now have AppleTV the subject of my past message. AppleTV will prove to be a huge source of revenues and another Apple hook; however, it may be a good idea to create 40+ inch (even 50+ or 60+ inch), High Definition, LED Backlight, LCD TVs/Monitors. This will allow users to connect their AppleTVs, Mac Pros and MacBook Pros to a very large format monitor through a wired (or possible wireless connection).

Virtually,
Steve

Representatives destroying the Internet

Verizon, Bell South, AT&T and the other telecommunications giants including Time Warner are lobbying Congress to block laws that would prevent a two-tiered Internet, with a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.

Specifically, such companies want to charge Web sites for the speedy delivery of streaming video, television, movies and other high-bandwidth data to their customers. If they get their way (Congress may vote on the matter before the year is out), the days of wide-open cyberspace are numbered.

During an April 26 Committee meeting, the following US Representatives voted against Rep. Ed Markey's Amendment containing enforceable Net Neutrality provisions.

Barton, Joe (R-TX)
Bass II, Charles F. (R-NH)
Bilirakis, Michael (R-FL)
Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)
Blunt, Roy (R-MO)
Bono, Mary Whitaker (R-CA)
Burgess, Michael (R-TX)
Buyer, Stephen E. (R-IN)
Cubin, Barbara (R-WY)
Deal, Nathan (R-GA)
Ferguson, Michael A. (R-NJ)
Gillmor, Paul E. (R-OH)
Gonzalez, Charles A. (D-TX)
Green, Gene (D-TX)
Hall, Ralph M. (R-TX)
Murphy, Tim (R-PA)
Myrick, Sue (R-NC)
Norwood, Charlie (R-GA)
Otter, C.L. (Butch) (R-ID)
Pickering, Charles W. (R-MS)
Pitts, Joseph R. (R-PA)
Radanovich, George P. (R-CA)
Rogers, Michael J. (R-MI)
Rush, Bobby L. (D-IL)
Shadegg, John B. (R-AZ)
Shimkus, John (R-IL)
Stearns, Cliff (R-FL)
Sullivan, John (R-OK)
Terry, Lee (R-NE)
Towns, Edolphus (D-NY)
Upton, Fred (R-MI)
Walden, Greg (R-OR)
Whitfield, Edward (R-KY)
Wynn, Albert R. (D-MD)

As Internet users, we should avoid supporting these US Representatives. Please forward this message: it is very important.

Sincerely,
Steve Pariso

A Message to Congressman Ed Markey

Congressman Markey,

I must thank you for your great efforts to protect the Internet. Today, Internet connected children have access to more information than we have seen in our entire lives.

I find the _great need_ for your efforts -- to save the Internet -- somewhat disappointing in a year that will celebrate Benjamin Franklin’s Tercentenary. You see, Benjamin Franklin supported and evangelized the idea of Libraries. Mr. Franklin brought enlightenment to the people. The Internet – many years later – brings information and enlightenment to people that live without access to libraries or books – around the world.

In our great capitalist country, it is easy to understand how power consolidates. The deregulation of our great American mass media industries has created a situation where there are literally thousands of information channels and venues, but a shrinking number of hands that control the content therein. This tremendous need to consolidate drives companies toward oligopoly domination while effectively destroying media diversity. This concentration has ultimately resulted in the birth of conglomerates that exhibit an alarming control over our veracity. Where is our first amendment?

Further indicative of this amalgamation tendency is the fact that, between 1982 and 2003, the number of news stations with news staff dropped from 98 percent to 67 percent, and half of the remaining staff members now work on a part-time basis; indeed, fewer minds and bodies are required to cut-and-paste or regurgitate a single message than to create original, thought-provoking dialogue. The result is that while there may be many “channels” competing for the public’s attention today, the information from many of these “channels” has been cross-pollinated.

It seems to me that the broadcast industries were deregulated because the “industries” argued that the Internet was fostering media diversity.

It is this deregulation that is perhaps the largest identifiable threat to our country, to equality and positive human progress, because media conglomerations have the ability to create versions of truth, and occlude truths necessary for democracy. In the process, they limit the advance of human freedom and knowledge, and threaten the democracy that is necessary for the prosperity and equal distribution of rights and freedoms. So, I must thank you for your good fight.

If I can help you, please feel free to call me anytime.

Thank you again for your great efforts.

Sincerely,
Steve Pariso

Montreal, California and Nevada Travel Scheduled

I will be in Montreal, Quebec between June 8th and 13th. There will be several dinners and meetings in Montreal including a Alumni Association board meeting -- in the process of being scheduled. On June 14th I am in Boca Raton Florida. On June 15th through June 16th I will be in Palo Alto California. On June 17th and June 18th, I will be in Nevada. On June 18th through June 20th I will be in Palo Alto California.

Sincerely,
Steve

Travel Scheduled

Hello everyone,

I will be in the Middle East from April 9th to April 14th, followed by a trip to Rome from the April 14th and April 20th.

People that live in the locations that I am visiting -- that are on my contact list -- have been notified.

Sincerely,
Steve

East Coast U.S. Travel Scheduled

I will be traveling through many of the states on the east coast of the U.S. between October 31st and November 2nd.

Itinerary:

New York – Lake George – on the morning of Sunday, October 30th for a breakfast visit.
New Jersey – Livingston – in the early evening of Sunday, October 30th for a dinner visit.
New York – New York City – on the evening of Sunday, October 30th for a visit.
Washington D.C. in the early afternoon of Monday, October 31st for a lunch visit – and for Rosa Parks’ honor at the Capitol Building.
North Carolina – Raleigh – for the evening of Monday, October 31st.
South Carolina: for a possible lunch visit on Tuesday, November 1st.
Georgia – Savannah – on the evening of Tuesday, November 1st.
Florida – Boca Raton / Palm Beach County: on the evening of Wednesday November 2nd.

If you would like to visit, please contact us through this form

All my best wishes,

steve pariso

A message to Steve Jobs from Steve Pariso.

Okay, we know that the Airport and the Airport Express are not the best selling items in Apple’s product catalog; however, like the iPod, the Airport Express may reveal huge revenues.

You see, with millions of iTunes users on OS X and Windows platforms, cheap bandwidth costs, digital rights management in place, music routing capabilities to Airport Express devices, and great H.264 compression, you can easily enter the video rental and video retail markets.

It would be very easy to update your next Airport Express with video cables that can connect to any television.

NTSC, PAL or sVideo can be delivered from iTunes to any television in a house.

Why limit media routing to music?

It is time to rent and sell movies.

Sincerely,
Steve P

Interview Published

Today, my interview appeared in the Concordia Thursday Report. In this interview, I leaked a few of my plans. I know that some of you are wondering what my plans are. You can read about everything at http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/jul_28/19/.

Sincerely,
Steve

Travel Schedule

Steve Pariso Travel Schedule, July 2005

• July 2nd - July 5th, Lake George, NY

• July 6th, Montreal, QC

• July 7th - July 9th, New York City, NY

• July 10th - July 14th, Montreal, QC

• July 15th - Aug 5th, Los Angeles & Los Gatos, CA

One Person Dies Every Hour From Skin Cancer

In the United States, one person dies every hour from preventable skin cancer.

Skin Cancer Facts
1. More than a million people will be diagnosed with skin cancer this year.
2. More than half of all new cancers are skin cancers.
3. One in 5 Americans will get skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
4. One person dies every hour from skin cancer, primarily melanoma.
5. Nationally, there are more new cases of skin cancer each year than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung, and colon.
6. The incidence of melanoma is increasing rapidly in women under the age of 40. It is now the most common cancer in young women aged 25-29, and second only to breast cancer in women aged 30-34.
7. Melanoma kills more young women than any other cancer.
8. In national skin cancer screenings, the majority of screenees found to have melanoma – 44% -- are white men over age 50.
9. The two groups with the highest skin cancer incidence in national screenings are men over age 50 with a changing mole or fair skin, and men under age 50 with a changing mole or fair skin.
10. The incidence of eye melanomas among white males increased 295 percent between 1973 and 1999.
11. More than 90 percent of all skin cancers are caused by sun exposure, yet fewer than 33 percent of adults, adolescents, and children routinely use sun protection.
12. Melanoma accounts for 3/4 of all deaths from skin cancer, which adds up to over 7900 American lives each year.
13. The risk of developing melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, has more than doubled in the past decade.
14. One in four persons who develop skin cancer is under the age of 40.
15. Almost 37 percent of white female adolescents and over 11 percent of white male adolescents between 13 and 19 years of age in the U.S. have used tanning booths.
16. The effects of photoaging (skin aging caused by the sun) can be seen as early as in one’s 20’s.
17. While melanoma is uncommon in African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians, it is most deadly for these populations.
18. Putting proven cancer prevention and early detection techniques into action could eliminate at least 100,000 cancer cases and 60,000 cancer deaths in the U.S. each year.

Please protect your skin from the sun this summer and go to your doctor for skin cancer screenings. Sometimes the skin cancer does not appear to be cancer unless the doctor looks under a microscope. A young member of my family found out that they had skin cancer after a biopsy. The skin looked like freckles until the doctor took a biopsy. Five skin graft treatments later, they are a walking example of how skin cancer screenings can save lives.

For more information on skin safety please visit: SkinCancer.org .

One of the best sunscreen products on the market is La Roche – Posay’s Anthélios.

Do not go out into the sun without sunscreen and a hat.

Sincerely,
Steve Pariso

Pariso Scholarship Awarded

Congratulations to CJ Lorusso who was awarded the Pariso Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity. We all look forward to watching CJ’s success at UARTS in Philadelphia where he will be studying industrial design.

Again, Wall Township is unleashing another group of brilliant students on the world.

As we look around, we can see that we live in a consumer society. Our consumers and our products support our country. Our consumers and products are a cornerstone to our capitalist economy.

When we look around everything that we see has been touched by a designer. The silverware on the table, the cars that you drove to this event, pacemakers, this microphone, everything that people are wearing – every product has been touched by a person that has the ability to design -- and create.

While so many schools across the country seem to forget how necessary the development of these skills are to the future of our country, especially at a time with intense pressures of globalization on our product development and manufacturing industries, Wall Township sees the light. Now, with that said, I am writing to ask all the teachers in Wall Township to take it easy on the rest of the country. If you continue to unleash students like CJ on us, I do not know what we will do.

Congratulations CJ, your work is exemplary: it is great! It is an honor to give you this award. We all wish you the best of luck and tremendous success at UARTS next year. We all look forward to your great contributions to our lives as an industrial designer.

Congratulations.

Thank you (advisor / panelists) Mychelle Kendrick, Karen Dunn Skinner (Esq.) and Stephanie Oppegaard for your fine work and tremendous help -- making this happen.

- - -

The Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity is awarded to a high school senior that has been accepted in a four year accredited university program and demonstrates ground-breaking or pioneering innovative and creative qualities in areas related to communications, cinematography, industrial design, technology or the fine arts. This individual passes a difficult jury process that was designed to identify individuals that are most likely to have a tremendous impact on the advancement of their selected fields.

Unanamously, we believe that CJ is the perfect recipient of this award.

- Steve Pariso

HBO's Unknown Soldier Premiere

At my friend Lisa's request, we must tune into HBO's Unknown Soldier Premiere on May 30th.

To quote John Hulme's email:

On June 30, 1969, Lieutenant Jack Hulme of the U.S. Marine Corps was killed in Vietman, just days before he was to leave the country and see his newborn son for the first time. Thirty years later, John Hulme - the son Jack never met - decided to uncover the truth about the father he never knew.

Premieres Memorial Day 2005: Monday, May 30 at 6:30pm ET/PT.

For schedule and to watch a preview, go to: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/unknownsoldier/index.html

For Unknown Soldier website, go to: http://www.unknownsoldiermovie.com

We all look forward to the documentary.

-- Steve

My Dusty Pens

As I look at the exquisite pens in the oak box on my desk, the pens seem adorned with a sense of the life their masters once gave them. The dust that covers their shiny surfaces hints of their neglect. Meaning can be drawn from the dust on these exquisite pens. It seems that many years after their owners passed, these pens continue to communicate. The pens’ dust acts to signify their unfortunate relegation to neglect in a box and illustrates the great shift from the pen to the computer. To some extent, this shift is obvious; however, its hidden implications may be very damaging.

Pens and computers are different, and, therefore, the cognitive demands for their use are different. The processes of sculpting with clay and sculpting with marble present similar contrasts. With clay, the process of changing or modifying a sculpture is easy: revising a sculpture's form becomes a liberal part of the sculpting process. For example, with clay, sculptors edit and re-edit their work. A sculptor working with clay may add a nose to his sculpture, pull the nose off, make the nose larger (or smaller), or reposition the nose. On the other hand, sculptors working in marble must form their sculptures in their minds, before they begin the process of chiseling: with marble, sculptors have a very difficult time physically re-editing their work. The entire cognitive requirement for each process is very different. Similarly, many people who are conditioned to computer writing environments—like word processors and email software—write sentences, cut words, move sentences, move paragraphs, rearrange sentences, and edit their words in a very nonlinear way. To some extent, the process of writing on a computer resembles sculpting with clay, and writing with a pen resembles sculpting with marble.

The computer has completely changed the writing process. Writing essays with a pen is rewarding if a person has been conditioned to writing essays with pens; however, when many people who are conditioned to writing with computers are handed pens and asked to write essays, they are faced with frustrations that are similar to the frustrations we could expect from a sculptor who is conditioned to working in clay, who would like to rearrange or enlarge a marble sculpture’s attribute: today, many computer users who are asked to use pens (or pencils) for writing essays experience great difficulty when they negotiate with a process that does not permit cutting words, moving sentences, moving paragraphs, rearranging sentences, and editing their words in a modular, nonlinear way. To paraphrase Levy and Randsall, studies by Siegler (1995) and O'Hara (1996) indicate that changes in a task environment can have a significant impact on the costs of both overt and reflective activities and thereby influence the way in which the tasks are carried out (10).

Depending on how writers are conditioned to writing, they acquire appropriate cognitive skills. “The computer, when it is used as a processor […] becomes an extension of our memory in a more organic sense than this is usually taken to mean. [...] That is, the computer feels to us as if it is an auxiliary hemisphere of our own minds” (Bolter 39). To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, we adopt technologies as extensions of our selves, and, as we adopt technologies, we trade, relegate, or replace some of our existing capabilities (7). For example, in oral cultures that exist without any written language or record, many people have the ability to remember and recite incredible volumes of information because their primary form of recorded information (or history) is memory. When oral cultures adopt a written language (as an extension of themselves and their culture), they no longer need to develop skills to remember and recite volumes of information. In this example, oral cultures that adopt the technology of writing (as a form of recordkeeping) exchange or relegate their highly developed memories. In the same way, writers who adopt computers (as extensions) exchange their ability to write essays or long written compositions with pens: the different cognitive demands of the pen as a medium for writing disappear, and new cognitive demands are born.

The computer is changing the way that people use pens. “A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them” (McLuhan 174). Many computer users relegate the use of pens to short notes, lists, forms, diagrams, and signatures: computer users use pens for writing that does not require iterative editing or formal structural composition (Bolter 40).

When we explore computer use at most universities, we find examples of the universities’ support for initiatives that extend themselves and their students with computer technology. New computer labs, computer workstations, smart classrooms, digital libraries, wireless network antennas, digital projectors, and computer kiosks dot university landscapes. To a very large degree, computers are necessary for true participation in universities. In an attempt to understand the frequency of students’ computer use for writing, I created an online poll1 that asked professors about their policies concerning writing assignments. The results from this poll are revealing: the vast majority of the teachers stated that they require typed writing assignments, and the same professors stated that between 99 and 100% of the writing projects that are produced by students are typed or produced on a computer. Some of the professors’ comments included: “I remember using quills and ink stands in grade school. How the process of thinking was slowed down then because of the medium as compared with what I am using right now.” “I cannot remember the last handwritten paper from a student.” “[…] No one writes with a pen anymore. This question is so 70s.” “I must have done okay in hand-written exams but I doubt if I could now that my process has been changed so dramatically by the word-processor.” Indeed, universities are actively conditioning students to the process of writing on computers. But the university is not the only force that conditions students to writing on computers.

It is not difficult to understand the enormity of this shift when we examine North American computer adoption and usage statistics. According to a report produced by the (US) National Center for Education Statistics, in 2001 more than 90% of high-school-age students used computers, and three-quarters of children use computers by age five (3). A 2003–04 study by the US Census Bureau reveals that 61.8% of US households have computers and over 93% of those households use computers for communication (1). According to Statistics Canada, approximately 96% of urban and rural youth reported using computers in 1999. In 2004, virtually all Canadian elementary and secondary schools had computers, and there was approximately one computer for every five students (1). It is easy to understand how a great (and growing) majority of students who are entering universities have been conditioned to computers as a writing tool.

We live in a world filled with pens and computers. This world is filled with people who enjoy writing with pens and people who enjoy writing with computers. Pens and computers are both useful writing tools, and these two preferences do not always exist in polarity: often, they exist in shades or degrees of preference. In the future, there will always be people who use pens (as today there are people who use quills and inkwells); however, the use of the pen as a writing tool will continue to decrease.

The pressure to use computers in our society can be compared to our pressure to make and use money. Money is a technology. Society rewards people who have (or make) money and imposes pressure and fear of exclusion on individuals who do not have (or lose) money. The amount of money that we have or do not have can determine our degree of enslavement by money. In this example, money, as a technology, has the ability to influence our involvement in its adoption by appealing directly to our instincts for survival (and inclusion). To understand this force more clearly, we can look at other technologies.

Have you ever thought about what life was like before the fax and email? More specifically, what was life like waiting for documents as they traveled through physical postal systems? Today, people are less patient. Expectations have changed: today, many people dread waiting for documents to travel through physical mail systems, because technologies like faxes and email have conditioned everyone to fast document transfers. Today, documents can travel through time; therefore, technology has radically changed the pace of life and our understanding of time. “There is no there, there is only here” (MCI). Today, you are “here” and the only place you can find “there” is in disconnected parts of the world (McLuhan 19). In only the past twenty years—since the launch of the personal computer—computers as writing tools have continued to change the way that we write. Like the fax and email, the computer changes our writing expectations.

Today, computer technologies are required for the great majority of commercial and personal writing because our capitalist economies require the computer’s efficiency: the computer’s text translation capabilities and fast delivery speeds are expected. In the same way that email changed our use of physical postal systems by relegating postal systems to delivery channels for bills, advertisements, personal notes, and physical objects, the computer is relegating our use of the pen to short notes, lists, forms, diagrams, and signatures.

Today, there is no time to spend on processes that require the physical translation of text from one medium to another. As an example, we can explore a simplified illustration of the journalist’s writing and publishing process from thirty years ago: in the past, a writer would write an article on paper (with a pen or a typewriter). This writer would iterate his article on paper (with a pen or typewriter) until it was time to send the article to the editor. When the editor received the article from the writer, she would write comments on the article and pass on the article to the typographer’s office. When the article arrived at the typographer’s office, the typographer physically translated the article from the writer’s paper to a format suitable for printing on a printing press. (For the sake of clarity, I have eliminated several steps from this arduous publishing process.) This process was necessary for each manifestation of the writer’s article: this physical translation process occurred for each publication in which the article appeared. Today, the process has collapsed. The process is condensed into a real-time activity, and documents are quickly translated between Microsoft Word files, email messages, web pages, XML documents, and other text formats and, in many cases, published for the masses with one click of a computer’s button. Text that is produced on a computer can be duplicated infinitely and effortlessly. Many years ago, someone said, “Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” Today we could say, “Never argue with a person who has an Internet connection.”

Many people argue that pens are obsolete and that all educational writing should be conducted with computers. This argument is problematic because a digital divide exists. By limiting writers to the use of computers, we hurt many people who have not been fortunate enough to have access to technology. We also discriminate against people who are conditioned to pens as their preferred writing environment.

Numerous writing tests exist in our educational systems that do not compensate for the vastly different cognitive processes that are required by students who are conditioned to pens or computers for writing. Many of the newer tests in schools require writing with a computer while many of the older tests in schools require writing with a pen. Pen users and computer users are easily disabled and stifled by tests that require the use of writing tools that do not accommodate the students’ cognitive writing process. Therefore, accurate samples of student’s writing cannot be extracted from students without compensating for their preferred writing processes. Basing accuracy on tests that do not compensate for the writers’ preferences is similar to basing the accuracy of hockey players' hockey skills on a tryout that requires hockey players to play hockey with brooms while they wear sneakers. Obviously, the world of writing has changed over the past twenty years, but the many writing tests are stuck. We must ask, “Are students being evaluated on their ability to use a physical tool or their writing skills?”

Many believe that people should have the ability to use pens and computers for everyday writing. This scenario would be ideal; in fact, many people exhibit this dexterity, but asking people to adopt the pen as a test writing tool, after many years of writing on computers requires a very time-consuming reconditioning—if reconditioning and re-education are even possible. Asking people to adopt the computer as a test-writing tool after many years of writing with pens may require technical training. Again, if we wish to accurately access people’s writing skills, people must have their choice of the pen or the computer.

When students are faced with writing environments that they are not conditioned to, they are stifled, marginalized, and discouraged from the wonderful and crucial art of writing. Many believe that they are defective or disabled. Others believe that they have a learning disability. Indeed, there are thousands of scholarly articles about pedagogy with computers and computer writing environments but few that focus on the vastly different writing requirements of pens and computers.

Many factors hinder accurate student testing. Twenty-year-old (pre-personal-computer) testing processes or insufficient technology capabilities often stifle the accuracy and evolution of testing environments. Investments in testing environments that compensate for student’s needs and training faculty to manage dual pen/computer testing environments can be very costly. Ongoing training for faculty also adds to computer testing overhead. Many years ago, I was a member of the team that created web browser and Internet server technology (at Netscape). At Netscape, we had a program called Adopt a School, and everyone on my team would adopt and wire a school for Internet connectivity. This was the first time that I experienced the bizarre discrepancy between the students and teachers’ computing skills. Indeed, the teachers learned a lot about computing from those students, and I know my teammates and I did. However, my teammates and I had endless calls from those schools asking for tutorials. Technology evolves very quickly; therefore, computer literacy requires constant training.

It is easy to see how the pen and computer condition writers to vastly different writing processes, how the pen and the computer co-exist, how we relegate (and repurpose) older technologies as we adopt new ones, and how some of the pressures from schools, universities, our society, and our capitalist economy can influence (or force) writers to adopt computers as writing tools. If we wish to accurately access students’ writing skills, we must develop testing environments that compensate for the different cognitive processes that are required by writers’ conditioning to different writing tools. Finally, the pens in that box continue to fascinate me, but I could never use them for writing anything more than a short note, a list, or my signature. I am completely unable to generate written compositions with a pen. So if you have problems on tests that require writing with pens or problems on tests that require writing on a computer, take comfort in knowing that you are not defective, impaired, or learning disabled. There are many, many of us out here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Works Cited

Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing.
Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1991.

Britton, Bruce K. and Shawn M. Glynn, eds. Computer Writing Environments: Theory,
Research, and Design. Glynn. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989.

Canadian Culture, Tourism, and the Centre for Education Statistics. “Information and
Communications Technologies in Schools Survey.” 10 June 2004. Statistics
Canada. 22 March 2005
.

Levy, C. Michael and Sarah Ransdell, eds. The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods,
Individual Differences, and Applications. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 1996.

Looker, E. Dianne and Victor Thiessen. “Digital Divide in Schools: Student Access to
and Use of Computers.” 23 June 2003. Statistics Canada. 21 March 2005
.

MCI. Advertisement. CNN. 1994.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding the Media: Extension of Man. Toronto:
McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. New York:
Methuen, 1982.

Skinner, David. "McLuhan's World-And Ours." Public Interest Wntr 2000: 52.

US Census Bureau. 2003 Internet and Computer Use Data. Day Month Year
.

US Department of Commerce. A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age. 2004. 20
March 2005
.

Finding the Digital Divide

The term “digital divide” is a very powerful signifier that connotes inequality and social exclusion. However, this potent signifier also conceals the true causes of this social exclusion while misrepresenting minorities and misleading society with simple technology answers for the correction of complex cultural problems.

Let us first attempt to dissect the term “digital divide” to understand its connotations. Today, the term “digital divide” means the inequality created by access (or lack of access) to technology. “Digital” refers directly to technology, and “divide” refers directly to inequality, that is, a gap in society: haves and have-nots. Combined, these two terms create a powerful signifier. In fact, when these words are combined, this signifier is so potent that attempts to counter its legitimacy or accuracy have the potential to evoke a passionate smorgasbord of feelings that include neglect, elitism, prejudice, and discrimination. The marriage of these two terms produces an idea that is nearly impossible to split for critique. In light of the term’s power, resilience, and volatility, it is not difficult to understand how society has adopted and subconsciously acted on a misinterpretation of this term.

The term “digital” illuminates “technology” and offers an incomplete social solution while occluding all human and social factors that must be transformed for technology to become an effective resolution for the complex problem of social exclusion.

What is wrong with technology as the sole solution for the digital divide? Technology is not effective alone; when introduced as a solitary bridge for complex exclusion problems, technology creates resistance, confusion, misuse, isolation, and frustration. To paraphrase Mark Warschauer, human and social factors must transform for technology to become effective: we must address physical resources in the form of computers and telecommunications, digital resources in the form of useful content in appropriate languages, human resources for literacy and education, and social resources for community and institutional support (1). For example, let us picture a section of our society that does not have access to technology or its benefits. Now let us imagine that all of these people without computers receive new computers. Do these people have electricity? Will these people have Internet access? Will these people have any idea how to use a computer? Will these people find any content on the Internet that would be relevant to them? Will the computer or the Internet content work in their language? What is the likelihood that this new technology will bridge the gaps that continue to exist in society? Simply providing technology does not solve problems of social exclusion (Kenny 1). After consideration of these aforementioned questions, technology (or access to technology) becomes a smaller part of any effective solution; it also becomes clear that the scope of the term “digital” with its “access to technology” connotation does not successfully address the most important social exclusion issues such as “historic inequalities and cultural stereotypes” (Gooding-Williams 10).

The digital divide’s limited ability to properly convey sufficient meaning has a tremendous effect on the steering and development of programs that focus on the elimination or reduction of social exclusion. The digital divide provides everyone with an easy solution: more technology for disconnected people (Warschauer 1). However, while many people have no idea how to use technology or why they should use technology, they perceive their lack of technology as a major threat of social exclusion. They perceive themselves as on the losing side of a threatening digital divide with their chances for a comfortable, if not prosperous, life threatened. As Jim Barkesdale says, “In a bacon and egg breakfast, the hen is supportive but the pig is committed” (Barkesdale). People threatened with exclusion are inclined to become the pig in this deal.

The term “divide” illuminates a clear social division; this idea acts to naturalize and legitimatize ridiculous stereotypes of minorities as uneducated and disconnected peoples: framing minorities as low-income, illiterate people without access to or knowledge of technology and, consequently, painting minorities as poster children for the digital divide (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, Montgomery, Fiske 11; Chappell 1). The effect of this picture has a negative influence on an employer’s decision to hire minorities for important positions: most high-income employment requires technology skills. Although many workforce minorities have these technology skills, it may be difficult for the employers to see past the “divide” (Warschauer 1). It is easy to see the impact of this problem when we look at employment statistics for Silicon Valley. According to Henwood, studies show that technology job applications from blacks or Hispanics are three times more likely to be rejected than those from whites (100). Perhaps the most startling observation is that in 1997, Hispanics occupied less than 7% of Silicon Valley’s white-collar jobs while making up nearly 24% of the Valley’s population; similarly, blacks held less than 3% of the Valley’s white-collar jobs but represented only 4% of the total population (Matthews 162–163). Indeed, when we think of computer experts, we are conditioned through the media to think of white males. The discourse that contributes to the “nerd” stereotype actively marginalizes anyone who is not white and male. The many culturally produced minority ideologies also contribute to the marginalization of minorities in jobs that require technology — this seems to give new meaning to the phrase “white-collar jobs.”

The subtle signification of minorities as poster children for the digital divide seems ridiculous when we take a closer look at the technology industry and find brilliant and often overlooked people like John Thompson (CEO of Symantec), Omar Wasow (blackplanet.com), and Darien Dash (dmeinteractive.com) (Chappell 1). In fact, these brilliant technologists are not an exception, they are the norm. There are a tremendous number of black and minority technologists who have changed the way we compute today. But, of course, anything that can be used to legitimatize the ignorance of minorities seems to work well for racist ideologies. As Lisa Nakamura stated in an interview about race and cyberspace, “Certainly the Net is as racist as the societies that it stems from” (Lovink 1).

In reality, the digital divide is not a problem that only affects minorities. This problem transcends all cultural boundaries to include everyone with limited access or command of technology. The list includes (but is not limited to) rich people, poor people, older people, illiterate people, physically challenged people, educated people, and people without access to computers or bandwidth.
According to the United Nations Millennium Indicators Database, 43% of global high-income families have computers, 3.5% of global middle-income families have computers, and 0.6% of global low-income families have computers (UN). Strangely, in the digital divide, if people do not use technology, they are not equal members of society, and they demand pity. Does this mean that 92% of the world’s population deserves to be pitied?

At first glance, it is not easy to identify the digital divide’s subtle suggestion that technology users are the majority. The digital divide has the ability to falsely portray people without access to technology as minorities when, in reality, people with access to technology are the global minority: a very small percentage of the world has access to technology. In 2001, only 32% of the world’s population had telephone access, only 8% of the world’s population had Internet connectivity, and only 8.7% of the world’s population were people with computers in their households (UN). In light of these statistics, it is easy to see how shallow the term “divide” may be in the context of describing people with and without technology.

The term “digital divide” may be responsible for the misdirection of resources, the overshadowing of the true causes of social exclusion, and the misrepresentation of minorities; however, the digital divide has illuminated inequality and the social exclusions produced by the increasing saturation of technology in the world, a world that increasingly requires technology literacy for full participation (Warschauer 1).

To conclude, the term “digital divide” has become a powerful signifier that connotes or illuminates inequality and social exclusion. Unfortunately, this signifier also occludes the true causes of this social exclusion while concurrently misrepresenting minorities and misleading society with simple technology goals for the correction of its complex social problems. The term “digital divide” creates connotations that are so potent that attempts to counter its legitimacy or accuracy have the potential to evoke feelings including neglect, elitism, prejudice, and discrimination. In light of the term’s power and volatility, it is not difficult to understand how our society has adopted and acted on its misinterpretation. It is necessary to recognize the attention the term has brought to the growing problem of social exclusion, but perhaps we should attempt to bridge our social exclusion and divide problems by first questioning our “ … flaws rooted in historic inequalities and longstanding cultural stereotypes… ” (Gooding-Williams 10).

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Works Cited

Barkesdale, Jim. “BizDev,” 12 November 1997.

“Black Pioneers in the High-Tech World.” Ebony (June 2000): 42.
Chappell, Kevin.“ UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND: Crossing the Digital
Divide.” Ebony (Sept. 2001): 174.

Gooding-Williams, Robert. “On Being Stuck.” In Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban
Uprising. Ed. Robert Gooding-Williams. NY: Routeledge, 1993. 1-11.

Gray, Jerry. “Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide.”
Journal of Economic Issues 38.1 (2004): 294+.

Henwood, Doug. After the New Economy. New York: New Press, 2003.

Kenny, Charles. “Development's False Divide: Giving Internet Access to the World's
Poorest Will Cost a Lot and Accomplish Little.” Foreign Policy (Jan.-Feb. 2003): 76+.

Lovink, Geert. “Talking Race and Cyberspace with Lisa Nakamura.” Interview.
25 May 2004. .

Matthews, Glenna. Silicon Valley, Women and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and
Opportunity in the Twentieth Century. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003.

O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, Montgomery, and Fiske. Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge Publications, 1994.

United Nations Development Program. United Nations Human Development Report 2003. 26 June 2003. .

Warschauer, Mark. “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.” First Monday Vol. 7
No. 7. (July 2002).

Williams-Harold, Bevolyn. “Across the Great Divide.” Black Enterprise (Mar. 2000): 30.

Important AOL Warning

It seems that AOL is spending time trying to persuade their users that their terms of use policy is kosher: AOL representatives are trying to tell people that they should not be concerned about the rumors concerning their AOL / AIM terms of use policy. However, I cannot see how the problems with their terms of use policy are rumors. By using AIM it is implied I agree to:
1) I waive my rights to privacy.
2) AOL can make money off of the content.
In this policy, content is defined as: Information, software, games, communications, photos, video, graphics, music, sound and other materials provided by or through the AOL Services.

AOL policy quote:
"By registering with or using AIM Products, you consent to the collection and use of your personal information and the transfer of this information to the United States or other countries for the processing and storage by AOL. Additionally, you agree that AOL may use the Screen Names and wallet services, or other similar technologies, to authenticate you on AIM, help store your registration and transaction-related information, and enable you to take advantage of offerings from AOL and its affiliated providers. ... Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses."

This policy can be found here: http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp

It is easy for AOL public relations people to tell users that there is no problem. However, there will be no problem when they change their terms of use policy. Their representatives statements are not matching their legal policy ...

It is time to switch.

Sincerely,
Steve Pariso

Lessons from a Silicon Valley Café

It was a mild day in March and the Palo Alto Café was swarming with interesting sounds: the unbridled clicks of a programmer’s laptop, abstract techie conversations and people on cell phones offered glimpses into the lives of the natives. As I sipped my venti, non-fat, no-whip mocha, I overheard two female elders discussing an email problem. “I cannot get my email. I am having dial-through problems,” one said. The other replied, “Did you check your modem driver? You are using a Hayes modem.” I remember this conversation well, because I was surprised by the technological aptitude of what looked to be a pair of 70-year-olds. I was surprised these ladies were having this discussion, and I was surprised to find that I was surprised. After all: Ada Lovelace created the first software program, Grace Hopper pioneered computer science, and many other women have played crucial roles in the development of the computers and technologies that are the foundations of much of this Silicon Valley area. However, the older ladies made me curious. I obviously had some deep-seated preconceptions: Perhaps I’d been influenced by reruns of I Love Lucy and the Andy Griffith Show, but these were no Aunt Beas and I was not in Mayberry. Indeed, I found the “nerd mothership” but never anticipated these ladies being in the crew. My reaction made me wonder how much the technology industry marginalizes people like these ladies. How much does Silicon Valley’s technology industry marginalize people that do not fit the techie stereotype? Through which lens could I uncover answers to my questions?

It seems like everything in Silicon Valley revolves around technology. As I realized with these older female computer users, peoples’ identities can be formed by their socially constructed relationship with technology. Therefore, to find an answer to my question, I knew it was first important to understand how people in Silicon Valley define “technology.” I recruited two respectable Silicon Valley nerds to help. Nerd one optimistically said, “Technology is society made sturdy” – to which my first reaction was, This person obviously never uses Microsoft products. I then realized that, historically, technology has been painted as a mythical, masculine creature that protects, defends, positively supports and advances humanity. From this perspective, technology has the ability to secure the power and domination of its controller: people become products of this powerful techno-domination and control (Haraway 174) – indeed, “society made sturdy,” for some. So, the answer from “nerd number one” was interesting, but it was ambiguous and true only if you lived on the advantageous end of that hegemonic historical paintbrush. I then asked “nerd number two” the same question; and he answered, “Technologies are capabilities that are created by applying knowledge.” I thought about this answer; it was true and it wasn’t as skewed, but it seemed somewhat decaffeinated. Something was missing.

Someone once said, “A camel is a horse designed by committee.” Well, if ever you wish to build a camel, just ask nerds. My “technology” definition was quickly becoming a camel; it became obvious that if I were to ask 10 other Silicon Valley inhabitants this same question, I would get 10 more different contributions to my definition. Even when we examine the way the word “technology” is used in Silicon Valley, we find tremendous discrepancies. For example, “Dude, there is so much technology in here,” may refer to technology as physical objects, and “Dude, it’s a technology hotbed,” may refer to new technical knowledge or ideas. But an interesting pattern was emerging: somehow, using the word “technology” in these ways seems to distract us from addressing or exploring its influence over our lives. Indeed, as “insiders” playing roles in the world of technology, these nerds may see technology in a way that differs greatly from those in the margins of this world. It is the people in the margins who may have a clearer perception that technology influences our behavior, our opinions and our veracity.

It is not easy to explore the marginalization of people by the Silicon Valley technology industry without a clear technology definition in hand. Unfortunately, the ideas of “technology” that I had grown to accept were becoming more ambiguous with each attempt to find a suitable definition. It is not surprising that it was two women that rescued me from this abyss of “technology” ambiguity – a brilliant experimental physicist and technology luminary named Ursula Franklin and a brilliant sociologist named Judy Wajcman. I believe that Ursula Franklin’s “technology” definition, as cited in her book The Real World of Technology, and Judy Wajcman’s ideas concerning the gendering of technology as cited in her book Techno Feminism, work perfectly as guides for my exploration.

Franklin explains technology as practice, and uses the terms “holistic” and “prescriptive” to describe technologies as types of work that have different levels of specialization, and which produce different social and political implications (Franklin, 10-11). Holistic technology involves workers who control their work process from beginning to end, exercise discernment and utilize an overview of the work situation (10-12, 80). Prescriptive technology, on the other hand, divides labor into steps; this fragmentation of work increases worker specialization, limits the worker’s control of the entire work process, limits the demand for worker acuity and eliminates the need for an overview of the work situation (12-14, 172). By viewing these two technological classifications as types of work practice, we can identify their social and political implications. Generally, holistic technologies have a smaller impact on global mass production and little importance in the control or concentration of capital. Prescriptive technologies, on the other hand, displace the autonomy found in holistic technologies with a central organizer who controls the production process, generally in an effort to maximize profits, yield quantifiable results and facilitate mass production (57, 80-81). In ordering both work and the people involved, prescriptive technologies yield political and social compliance (10, 16-17, 25, 49-51).

To paraphrase Wajcman, technology may be viewed as socially shaped, but shaped largely by men to the exclusion of women and this view helps technology reproduce gendered divisions of labor (6). Persistent association of masculinity with technology through culture and mass media creates the impression that technology is masculine (Wajcman 14).

It is interesting to consider the entire Silicon Valley area as an incredibly complex prescriptive technology that creates technologies. After all, it is a place where central organizers – including financiers and investors – control the high-tech production process in an effort to order companies, order work, order people, maximize profits, yield quantifiable results and facilitate mass production. In Silicon Valley, maximized profits and performance are the bottom line; the tremendous need of people in Silicon Valley to make money, to survive or to find autonomy seem like major factors that enslave them and generate varying degrees of social compliance. In this “Silicon Valley machine,” it appears that the persistent association of masculinity with technology through culture and mass media marginalize women and minorities by constructing negative perceptions that these groups cannot contribute to Silicon Valley’s bottom line.

But this would be only a proverbial “10,000-foot view” of the area. To explore marginalization in Silicon Valley, I decided to apply these ideas to the popular cultural and economic literature about Silicon Valley. After a review of the available literature, I chose five books to assist me in this exploration; they include Paulina Boorsook’s CyberSelfish: a Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech; J.A. English-Lueck’s Cultures@SiliconValley; Doug Henwood’s After the New Economy; Annalee Saxenian’s Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley; and Glenna Matthews’ Silicon Valley, Women and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century.

Each of these books provides different views into Silicon Valley’s cultures, and therefore the group provides an apt starting point for finding answers to my questions. In Boorsook’s book Cyberselfish, the former writer from Wired Magazine explores the high-tech world of Silicon Valley and uncovers many of its interesting cultural values, myths, practices and false promises. English-Lueck’s Cultures@SiliconValley is a journey into the lives and cultures of people in Silicon Valley, based on the author’s 10 years of research. This book explores the area’s schools, work places, businesses, employment practices, ethnicity and genders from the author’s own socio-anthropological perspective. Henwood’s After the New Economy is an exploration of life after the widely touted and anticipated (but never realized) techno-utopian “New Economy,” which promised to transform workers into owners, eliminate international borders, democratize information and flatten global economic hierarchies. This book in particular is interesting, because it provides significant insights into the myths promoted by companies in Silicon Valley during its 1990s boom, in a way that illuminates many life, work and family-based issues. Saxenian’s Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley traces the many factors that make Silicon Valley the world technology Mecca it is today, while Matthews’ Silicon Valley, Women and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century analyzes Silicon Valley’s historical development and attempts to understand its social, economic and demographic development over the last century.

Although the contents of these books do not align in a way that makes a point-by-point review suitable or even possible, a careful analysis of this literature consistently reveals concerns about work environments, family, gender and ethnicity. To paraphrase Boorsook – echoing the concerns of many – Silicon Valley’s corporate elite manipulates worker loyalty in a way that enables them to control worker time, family life and identity formation (162-163).

Silicon Valley — a Profile

Originally, Silicon Valley was home to a number of prosperous farming and food production industries. Made possible through the years by the efforts of millions of migrant agricultural workers, these farm industries slowly became casualties of the high-tech industry boom. The world’s demand for technology – and companies’ demand for skilled high-tech talent – created a situation where many high-tech employees were paid incredibly large sums of money to produce “technology.” These exorbitant wages had a domino effect, inflating costs in Silicon Valley’ real estate sector, displacing many of the native residents who could not afford the astronomical prices, and creating a tremendous divide in the valley between the wealthy people and those who were struggling to survive. To paraphrase Henwood, a very well paid workforce was coexisting with one that was barely getting by (105). According to Boorsook, today executives often earn more than 200 times what production workers earn – which can often be $10 per hour or less – and the average programmer earns over $90,000 per annum (192-193).

It is interesting to note that today, while farming and agricultural industries have almost entirely disappeared from the Silicon Valley area, the tradition of migrant work remains. This area is filled with a new breed of migrant workers, tech-nomads that continually travel from company to company. Henwood believes that layoffs and corporate restructurings are the result of the shared belief of financiers, investors and the corporate elite, that such actions will improve corporate stock performance (215) – even though layoffs usually only improve short-term cash flow while destroying long-term productivity and customer satisfaction and increasing the costs of future talent recruitment (Boorsook 204). Saxenian believes that this continual migration of high-tech workers “is not only acceptable, it is the norm” (34). The movement of workers between companies creates tremendous problems for many families, because people who are forced from job to job rarely have pension plans. Over one-third of the high-tech workforce is composed of contractors or temporary workers (Boorsook 164). Matthews says that “When the number of temporary workers is added to those who are part-time, self-employed, or performing business services for more than one employer, the estimates for all types of contingent employment in the Valley range from 27 to 40 percent,” and adds that those numbers “do suggest something about the growth in vulnerability of workers in the area” (247). According to Henwood, there are a great number of workers without job security or healthcare, including women without prenatal care (105).
It is not difficult to imagine that the fastest-growing employment sector consists of temps and workers receiving $10 or less per hour, because these production people offer the advantage to corporations of not qualifying for benefits or stock options; additionally, temps are easier, legally, to downsize or layoff altogether. Indeed, this situation supports Franklin and Wajcman’s ideas well: as financiers and investors organize companies, work and people to maximize profits, yield quantifiable results and make mass production possible, each employee’s perceived contribution to the company’s bottom line is the major factor that determines whether that employee receives viable, life-sustaining compensation and benefits, is relegated to a temp position, or is laid-off altogether.

Surveillance also plays a major role in ordering workers in Silicon Valley’s technology industry. As Saxenian says, “companies are forced to compete intensely for talent” (34), and to protect themselves from losing high-tech skills, trade secrets and to maximize productivity, these companies fill their work environments with surveillance. To paraphrase Henwood, one management study found that over 80 percent of all US firms keep their employees under surveillance – including video surveillance, tracking of computer usage and communication logging – thus allowing them to determine work patterns and efficiency (77-78). Tech workers can expect that every web page they view, the amount of time that they spend in front of their computers, the times that they enter and exit their office, the buildings and workgroups they visit within the company, their email and even their phone calls are under surveillance. With such tremendous pressure to contribute to the company’s bottom line – and with restructurings, layoffs and the hidden eyes of corporate surveillance looming in their work environments – theater suddenly becomes part of work life as “workers demonstrate their dedication to companies by working long hours” (English-Lueck 23). Indeed, this situation also supports Franklin’s ideas: as the high-tech elite use surveillance to measure the quantifiable results of their employees. But who are these mysterious high-tech elites who hide behind this surveillance? It is obvious from the literature that the great majority are males. Indeed, in this intensely stressful prescriptive environment, how much are women and minorities excluded from the benefits of the high-tech elite? How often are women and minorities relegated to those lower income categories and temp work? What are the impacts of biases caused by the masculine gendering of technology?

Women in Silicon Valley

For possibly the same unfortunate reasons I found the older ladies’ conversation in the café surprising, women are disadvantaged, unequal players in Silicon Valley. According to Boorsok, women use computers more than men due to their overrepresentation in lower-paying secretarial and administration roles, including word processing, database management and developing PowerPoint presentations (145). Indeed, 91 percent of Silicon Valley’s receptionists are women (English-Lueck 30-32). To paraphrase Henwood, while it may be true that women have entered executive or professional jobs, most are positioned below elite levels and most jobs remain gendered and women were generally paid 12 percent less than men (95-97). If women have children, they are often “rewarded” with 10-15 percent less pay (Henwood 96-97) – obviously, technology companies must view children as a threat to their mother’s productivity. Furthermore, in a study of 100 Silicon Valley Internet technology companies, only 3 percent had female board members (Henwood 233). The job categories in which women are overrepresented tend to be the first to be downsized (Boorsook 160-161). It has also been noted that “Nationally 19 percent of the science, engineering and technology workforce are women…20 percent in the valley region” (English-Lueck 30-32). It makes one wonder what technology luminaries like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper would say about this state of affairs.

Given the current situation, it would seem that in Silicon Valley, women can build the foundation of the industry and even give birth to babies named “Hewlett” or “Packard,” but don’t deserve equality in the rewards of labor. When I apply these unfortunate facts to Franklin and Wajcman’s ideas, they raise many more questions in my mind: how much has the socially-constructed association of women with holistic technologies (which have little impact on mass production) impacted their equality in Silicon Valley? How much have women been victimized in the same way as (and by association with) male-constructed characters like Aunt Bea, Lucy and Ethel, Gidget, June Cleaver and numerous other women in media? Do these many persuasive biases and historical connotations prevent women from ascending to the role of high-tech elite in Silicon Valley and conflict with the idea of women as controllers or creators of prescriptive technologies? Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to find concise answers to these questions because the Silicon Valley high-tech industry is filled with a plethora of gender biases from many corners of the world.

The complex smorgasbord of culture that Silicon Valley hosts may come from many corners of the world, but the many persuasive biases and historical connotations that live within these numerous cultures most likely also contribute to women’s corporate inequalities. According to English-Lueck, nearly fifty percent of Silicon Valley’s inhabitants are newcomers: more than twenty percent are foreign born (24). According to English-Lueck, on any given day in Silicon Valley, one can interact with people from Bangladesh, Canada, China, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the United States (25-26), among others, and one may encounter more than fifty languages (English-Lueck 159). Much of this cultural diversity includes customs that control the status of females. For example, in Bangladesh (and in many other cultures) it is polite to wait for a woman to extend her hand before extending yours for a handshake. In India, men shake hands with men but often place their hands together and bow to women. In Iran, the mingling of sexes in public is not allowed, and women generally do not drive cars, do not extend their hands for handshakes and do not walk through doors first. In Japan, the male is dominant in public situations. In Korea, women rarely shake hands. Obviously, women are viewed much differently than men in these foreign cultures and workers migrating from these cultures often bring views that impact women’s equality in Silicon Valley’s corporations.

Minorities in Silicon Valley

It is not only women who find themselves cast into marginal positions in Silicon Valley. Many minorities also seem to carry the burden of bias in the great Silicon Valley technology machine. According to Henwood, a study of skin shade revealed that lighter-skinned people were 52 percent more likely to be employed, and other studies show that lighter skin color was highly correlated with higher pay (99). Some studies show that job applications from blacks or Hispanic are three times more likely to be rejected than those from whites (Henwood 100). According to English-Lueck, almost 72 percent of Silicon Valley laborers in 1990 were members of minority groups (26), and a variety of niches have opened for these people: many Cambodians, for example, work in donut or bagel shops, Sikhs run most of the taxi business, and most of the nannies, gardeners and maintenance people are Hispanic (English-Lueck 147-148). Perhaps the most startling observation is that in 1997, Hispanics occupied less than 7 percent of the Valley’s white-collar jobs while making up nearly 24 percent of the Valley’s population; similarly, blacks held less than 3 percent of the Valley’s white-collar jobs while representing 4 percent of the total population of the area (Matthews 162-163).
Again, when we apply these facts to Franklin’s profile of prescriptive technology, for me, they raise yet more questions. For example, how much has the concept of the “digital divide” or the false association of illiteracy with minorities affected their exclusion from higher-paying Silicon Valley jobs? As with women and the “Aunt Beas” of the entertainment industry, how much has the portrayal of minorities in media influenced their inequality in Silicon Valley? Do these persuasive biases and historical connotations impact the role of minorities in Silicon Valley – again, as central organizers of companies, work, and people?

The Family in Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley technology industry impacts or influences families in many ways, including long work hours, translating to fewer hours that parents can spend with their family, a lack of health benefits and lower pay for women with children. To paraphrase Boorsook, companies actively attempt to represent themselves as supporters of families, but place tremendous productivity requirements on employees and provide no job security, which stresses families rather than supporting them (160-161). Nonetheless, the impact of the technology industry on families runs much deeper when we consider such social factors in the Silicon Valley area as the divorce rate, the abortion rate, problems with education and a lack of affordable housing.
While the divorce rate doubled nationally in the decades following the 1960s, it tripled in Silicon Valley during the same period and abortion rates in Silicon Valley are now 1.5 times the national average – a phenomenon called “silicon syndrome” thought to be caused by the intense work conditions that destroy relationships and convince parents that they will not have time for both career and children (Matthews 211). Additionally, it is very difficult to find good schools for kids in the Silicon Valley area, because teachers cannot afford to live in the area. The lack of affordable housing means “it’s common to find three working-class families sharing a single house” (Henwood 105). Considering these facts, I discover yet more questions: Why do technology companies discriminate against families? Do they fear that families can only negatively impact mass production?

Conclusion

What started for me as an exploration into seemingly innocent biases ended as a horrifying glimpse into the lives of women, minorities and families that have been relegated to the margins of Silicon Valley. It is obvious that the persistent association of technology (and technology-based industries) with (moneyed white) masculinity creates tremendous biases that force women, minorities and children into lives marked by tremendous domination, struggle and insecurity. Many of these people live their lives as proverbial “slaves” in Silicon Valley: their lives are filled with struggles to survive or feed their families; they are forced to spend less time with their children, to work long hours; they often have precious choice but to take temp positions, or positions that pay very little, with few healthcare benefits; they are forced into lives without job security, and hence live like second-class citizens who have little hope of any elite-level career opportunities; and they are forced either to cohabitate with several families or commute several hours to work, because housing costs in the immediate vicinity are very high. These tremendous struggles occur while many “nerds” and tech-elite become multi-millionaires, and continue to support the appalling impact of these biases by ignoring them or, worse yet, acting on them. Indeed, when I reflect on my experience in that café, I feel bad that I had allowed the powerful idea of “masculine technology” to blind me initially. However, by understanding at least a little of how these biases are created and how they marginalize people, my cognizance has been raised and I am highly unlikely to continue as a blind advocate of those powers again.

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Works Cited

Benner, Chris. Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley. Madden: Blackwell, 2002.

Borsook, Paulina. CyberSelfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.

English-Lueck, J.A. Cultures@SiliconValley. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.

Franklin, Ursula M. The Real World of Technology. Rev. ed. Toronto: Anansi, 2004.

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York; Routledge, 1991.

Henwood, Doug. After the New Economy. New York: New Press, 2003.

Kennedy, Tracy, Kristine Klement and Barry Wellman. “Gendering the Digital Divide.” IT & Society, Summer 2003: 72-96.

Matthews, Glenna. Silicon Valley, Women and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003.

Ross, Andrew. No-Collar: the Humane Workplace and Its Hidden Costs. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

Saxenian, Annalee. Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1994.

Wajcman, Judy. Techno Feminism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2004.

Welcome to Pleasantville

Pleasantville Screenplay by Gary Ross. Director Gary Ross. Produced by Michael De Luca and Mary Parent. Performances by Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, Don Knotts, William H. Macy, Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. New Line Cinema, 1998.

If we could travel backward—fifty years—through time, would we feel like foreigners in our hometowns? How would we react to the cultural isolationism, segregation and gender roles inspired by idyllic American sitcoms of the 1950s? As members of the 21st century, could we live complacently in a world that is entirely inspired by blissful 1950s’ sitcoms?

Welcome to Pleasantville, a town void of diversity where people cannot know love because hate does not exist and people cannot know creativity because their veracity is constrained by social conformity. Indeed, the astonishing journey back through time that is made possible by this movie acts as an incredibly entertaining reflection on the evolution of American values and a gentle reminder of many problems that exist in our world today.

Through cinema magic, writer and director Gary Ross tosses us into this small town: a world filled with satire that is built around issues that include racism, speech censorship, sexual revolution and powerful media ideologies. The audience of the film regresses into the life of the small town and experiences the tensions created by the incredible differences between the artificial happiness and innocence of 1950s’ sitcoms and the world we know today. It is within this tension that we find incredible humor as Gary Ross creatively contrasts the vernaculars, customs and lifestyles that have changed over the past fifty years.

The genius art, photography and technical direction in this film complement its brilliant writing — every decision was made significantly. This is an observation that a viewer can only make after watching the film two or three times because the film is extremely successful at turning any viewer into a captive participant that becomes blind to any limitations of the film’s ability to simulate. For example, the film begins in color then switches to black and white. This transition restricts the audiences’ perceptions, supports the idea that time has changed, symbolically illustrates “contrast” and works to support the plot. In this masterpiece, color is used to illustrate diversity, truth, freedom, individuality and sexuality, and color only reappears in the film as the main characters introduce these modern concepts to the suppressed Pleasantville community.

Brilliant acting is no surprise considering the award winning actors and actresses involved in this film including Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, Don Knotts, William H. Macy, Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. This talented cast convincingly delivers an impressive array of different material ranging from dramatic to comedic. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon deliver lines that are worthy of the tremendous laughter they evoke. In fact, you will find yourself reaching for the rewind button to replay many funny scenes in this movie.

Often, when a director attempts to appeal to a very wide range of audiences their film becomes diluted or weak. Somehow, Gary Ross managed to create a timeless film that successfully appeals to a broad range of audiences. With its humor, drama and important lessons, there is something for everyone in this film and no viewer will be disappointed.

In Pleasantville, Gary Ross has created a brilliant masterpiece that leaves you with a smile. The special effects are truly spectacular. The acting is brilliant. The subtle cultural lessons are extremely important. The twenty-five dollar DVD purchase price is a very small price to pay for this wonderful, insightful journey. This film has earned a special place in my personal DVD collection! I look forward to enjoying the laughs in this film, many times, with friends.

On Said’s Representations of the Intellectual

It would be easy to criticize the vast generalizations of Edward W. Said’s book Representations of the Intellectual, because this work is both abstract and incomplete. It would also be easy to become entangled in the many hypocritical, shortsighted and self-justifying messages of this book. However, the act of connecting with, engaging in, and attempting to apply the many constructive ideas within this book to one’s own future life presents a challenge – not because these constructive ideas are sparse, but because the act of writing about our future situations can easily become plagued by tremendous generalizations and assumptions. These are the types of powerful, partisan generalizations and assumptions that this book may attempt to extinguish. Indeed, it is easy to work from within our established homes of reason (Said 17-18): to some degree, we are all the product of our environment (Said 26-27), and every person’s actions, statements or silence have the ability to affect other people in ways that may be difficult or impossible to contemplate.

From a relativistic perspective, what may be good for some is often bad for others, and the act of applying this book’s ideas to our future lives can only be accomplished by having a complete lack of respect for the future and its significant situations. To write about the future from within the confinement of “today” is, in some respects, to work blindly and at a tremendous altitude (Macdonald 522-523) from the future. Furthermore, no person can possibly claim complete exemption from contradictions with their moral veracity, especially in situations that advance the greater good. Therefore, I have nonetheless chosen to apply this book to a consideration of my future, because such an exercise provides a challenging context for reflection and deliberation; it also provides a lens through which I can explore this book’s ideas from the perspectives of ethics, communication and media. This exercise shall be considered a quest for tools and knowledge that will hopefully inspire responsible decisions and will guide me – and others – toward the necessary knowledge and thinking for a brighter future.

This exercise requires a general exploration of at least some of my personally-held principles – principles that are sometimes good for some and bad for others, and which are never without fault or question, because I am not at home in a static world of fixed judgment (Said 57-58): the principles are never without interpretation or context. My principles are closely aligned with the protection of people’s rights or freedoms as they are defined in the American Bill of Rights, and they extend to all people regardless of race, creed, gender, citizenship or religious belief – including the protection of peoples’ rights to a representative democracy, because a bill of rights1 cannot prosper without representative democracy. Said may agree with these goals when he says “the purpose of the intellectual is to advance human freedoms and knowledge” (17-18).

Believing that a person should have a position on every issue is dangerous, because no person has the capacity to do so responsibly. Therefore, people’s battles must be chosen, people must attempt to find a critical distance from the issues at hand, they must listen carefully to other’s arguments, and they must strive for accurate information (Said 20-21) to determine their positions: beyond the critical distance necessary for productive contemplation, people in a democracy cannot completely free themselves from the responsibility of participation when even the choice to remain neutral (or silent) is support for an outcome. It has always been my belief that adopting a passive position on any issue is an act of supporting the most powerful argument. Democracy cannot function properly without rhetoric, debate and participation within the governed.

People must not live in fear of “speaking truth to power” (Said 96-97, 102). If people find themselves in opposition to power – particularly in situations that may advance the equal distribution of rights and freedoms – the great challenge for the communicator should be to determine how to communicate the position in everyone’s best interest. While there may be plenty to fear and lose, this practice is crucial. Nonetheless, any person faced with this situation should find comfort that they are playing a vital role in a constructive process. The “act of speaking truth to power” can only be in everyone’s best interest, because making any exceptions to the lawful freedoms granted to any individual – in any degree – is a slippery slope that can only end in damage to everyone; it also has the power to protect everyone’s rights and freedoms from tyranny. As Said states, “the intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well for, a public” (11-13). This presents a tremendous responsibility to communicators – one that becomes greater when we understand the value of the communicator’s ability to unlock and expose subtle and seemingly innocent prejudice, generalization, ideology (Said xi, xii, 20-21), rhetoric and propaganda in our mass media messages today.

Some people may question my personal, guiding principles, and ask why they do not include the moral mandates or charters of religion. I am, after all, not agnostic, and religion does play a role in the interpretation of my principles. However, religion will hopefully never do so in a way that will restrict others’ ability to live freely within their belief systems, and in ways that do not restrict others’ freedoms – because to participate in the influential art of communication in ways that would result in lawful restriction or discrimination of these freedoms works against my principles, against any hope for equality, and against the foundations of the Bill of Rights. Therefore, the only way to avoid such conflict is to generate tremendous sensitivity and strive to maintain a critical distance.

When communicators have the ability to influence others and to influence the resolution of issues – and thus affect the lives of many – there must be a separation of church and state, because a single church cannot adequately represent the beliefs of diverse peoples. Communication, laws or policy should never be a tool used by the powerful to selectively restrict the rights or freedoms of others. While religion is culturally and socially important, it is the Bill of Rights that should evolve democratically and with active debate and interpretation, to protect everyone equally within its jurisdiction. Therefore, religion shall remain a contributor to the interpretation of my principles, but the protection of the Bill of Rights’ integrity shall play a dominant role, even if doing so means sacrificing my personal beliefs for the greater good.

Some may argue that my principles are based on making a home within blind patriotic nationalism (Said xiii). In this book, Said quotes Adorno as saying that “it is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home” (57-58). This is a very provocative thought, and after careful reflection I can only hope to play my role as an American patriot that has no blindness to truth; I can only strive to use the American Bill of Rights to guide my future actions to the best of my abilities. It would be difficult to “make your home” in a place like the Bill of Rights, because it is interpreted and amended, and it evolves. It is never without its problems, and adopting a passive position on its evolution is dangerous. No political party “owns” the Bill of Rights, and its sole purposes are advancing equality and protecting people’s rights and freedoms from government. Nonetheless, any participants in debates surrounding the Bill of Rights are fraught with challenges, including questions of freedom versus control, the individual versus the community, and local versus universal. However, my belief still stands, and the active process of applying these principles to my decisions and endowing all people with these rights equally will help promote human prosperity without restricting my critical perspective. Active support for such principles will have a positive impact on many future generations.

There are many problems with basing personal veracity on today’s mass media. As I have mentioned many times in the past2, the deregulation of American mass media industries has created a situation where there are literally thousands of information channels and venues, but a shrinking number of powerful hands that control the content therein. Our capitalist market’s natural tendency toward concentration furiously drives companies toward oligopoly domination (Bettig & Hall 16) while effectively destroying media diversity. This concentration has ultimately resulted in the birth of conglomerates that exhibit an alarming control over every idea and message published through all mass media channels today. Further indicative of this amalgamation tendency is the fact that, between 1982 and 2003, the number of news stations with news staff dropped from 98 percent to 67 percent, and half of the remaining staff members now work on a part-time basis (Hickley 26); indeed, fewer minds and bodies are required to cut-and-paste or regurgitate a single message than to create original, thought-provoking dialogue. The result is that while there may be many “channels” competing for the public’s attention today, the information from many of these “channels” has been cross-pollinated. It is this deregulation that is perhaps the largest identifiable threat to my principles and to equality and positive human progress, because media conglomerations have the ability to create versions of truth, and occlude truths necessary for political struggles (Said 20-21). In the process, they limit the advance of “human freedom and knowledge” (Said 17-18), hamper people’s ability to “speak truth to power” (Said 96-97) and threaten the representative democracy that is necessary for the prosperity and equal distribution of rights and freedoms. When my principles are applied to this problem, I can only agree to do everything possible to derail policy and public support aligned with such conglomeration and tyranny. Therefore, I will strive to create technologies to eliminate such hegemony and activate the diversity necessary for positive progress.

Applying the constructive ideas within this book, more specifically, to my future is very difficult. The act of creating technology and leading business is fraught with tremendous ethical dilemmas and responsibilities. As “organic intellectuals” (Said 4), technologists often create situations that are liberating to some while restrictive to others. To understand some of the issues that technologists like me must question, we can explore both the positive and the negative3 aspects of technology development.

New technology can easily displace the autonomy that is otherwise found in holistic pursuits (like artistic expression) with a central “hub” (i.e., a manager) that controls the production processes in an effort to maximize profits, yield quantifiable results and make mass production possible (Franklin 57, 80-81). By working to keep both workflow and people ordered, these technologies can yield political and social compliance (Franklin 10, 16-17, 25, 49-51). Technologies can also contribute to a reduction in social learning and community-building by limiting feedback and social interaction in work processes (Franklin 172). Technology can eliminate the need for human labor – and thus inflict great change on the unwilling – and technology can change the speed of our lives and create stereotypes, literacy problems and situations that foster less critical thinking and more inequality (Said 28-29, Warschauer 1). Furthermore, such practices often encourage hierarchical, authoritarian, competitive and exclusive work situations (Franklin 103). On the other hand, technology can promote positive change. It can free people from redundant chores and thus allow them to pursue more productive, enlightening and holistic activities. Technology can create new opportunities, save lives, battle stereotypes, reduce literacy problems and inspire thinking. It can promote or protect human freedoms and knowledge, and it can be used to protect equal distribution of rights and freedoms. Obviously, if a person wishes to apply the constructive ideas in Said’s book to the situation of technology development – especially in a way that works toward the goals and responsibilities of advancing human freedoms and knowledge – the task will be difficult and complex, but they are tasks I will not approach blindly.

I only partially believe in Said’s statement that “the recognition of rights and democratic freedoms is established as a norm for everyone, not individually for a select few. Admittedly, however, these are idealistic and often unrealized aims; and in a sense they are not as immediately relevant to my subject here as the intellectual’s individual performance…” (99-100). I agree that these ideas are often idealistic, and I also agree that they are often unrealized aims. I believe, however, that the intellectual’s individual performance is necessary for making these aims realized.

Finally, the style of Said’s book is annoying, abrasive, and illustrative of the conflict that lives within its author – it may even be the very conflict necessary for the pursuit of truth. His writing forces us to confront and reconcile our personal beliefs by creating sensitivity to the beliefs of others (Said 94). He demonstrates and evangelizes the necessity of “speaking truth to power” (Said 96-97), the problems that face organic intellectuals, the benefits of finding a “position of exile” as an attempt to maintain a critical distance (Said 63-64), the problems with blind loyalty to our established beliefs (Said 40), the importance of breaking down stereotypes, the value of truth, and how this truth is created. Most importantly, Said lights a path that leads us toward greater human freedom and knowledge, and for that he should ultimately be commended.

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Works Cited:

Bettig, Ronald V., and Jeanne Lynn Hall. Big Media, Big Money. Cultural Text and Political Economics. Lanham: U of Minnesota P. 2003.

Franklin, Ursula M. The Real World of Technology. Rev. ed. Toronto: Anansi, 2004.

Hickey, Neil. “Power Shift: As the FCC Prepares to Alter the Media Map, Battle Lines Are Drawn.” Columbia Journalism Review 41 (2003): 26+.

Macdonald, Anne-Marie. The Way the Crow Flies. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003.

Said, Edward W. Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

Warschauer, Mark. “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.” First Monday Vol. 7 No. 7. July 2002.

Notes:

1. “bill of rights” is lowercase intentionally -- it is used universally as the idea of a bill of rights.

2-3. I have stated these arguments before in other writings.

Reading the Cowboy

According to the national media watch group Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), in the 2004 United States presidential election, President George W. Bush received more votes than any president in history; however, he also received more negative votes than any president in history. Record numbers of voters raced to the polls in an attempt to ensure that Bush was not reelected, and record numbers of people raced to the polls to ensure that Bush was elected. During his two terms in office, the president has received mixed public approval that threatens his effectiveness as a leader. At first glance, mixed audience approval and widespread impressions of Bush as a corrupt, ignorant cowboy could threaten the president’s ability to create the appeals that are necessary for effective leadership. While many people view the president as an ignorant cowboy and argue that Bush’s ethos is flawed, a careful reading of the president and his speeches illuminate highly effective rhetorical patterns that Bush and his administration use to move people to action regardless of the president’s divided audience. A careful rhetorical analysis of President Bush’s 2001–02 speeches exposes the persuasive prowess of this president’s cyclical rhetorical patterns that include the amplification of powerful exigent threats, use of the Hollywood Western movie genre, emotional appeals (pathos) in the forms of powerful artistic proofs and restrictive tropes, and a style that frames Bush as a trustworthy, regular man (of average intelligence) who embodies local character.

Throughout history, we have seen how tragedies and threats can act as catalysts for unity and action against their perpetrating sources. In this way, Bush and his administration eliminate the hurdles caused by their audiences’ disparate beliefs and contrasting levels of “Bush support” by constructing compelling “battle cries” to combat exigent threats. These exigent threats include threats of terrorism, threats to the United States’ economy, threats to “freedom,” threats to employment, threats to the United States’ social security, threats to women, threats to children, and threats to Christianity.

These threatening exigencies contribute to the formation of situations (and exist as situations) that inflict functional demands and constraints. The situations give Bush’s rhetorical discourse its character and act as a foundation for Bush’s rhetorical activity (Bitzer 5). Similarly, the way Bush and his administration address and present these threats constrain the audiences’ decisions, including the way the audience acts and thinks. For example, when Bush argues “children are being left behind,” any attempts by the audience to counter the argument may be seen as neglectful to children. Arguments against the United States Homeland Security Bill or the USA Patriot Act may be seen as morally neglectful or unpatriotic; if the audience argues against these bills and acts, they may appear to be people who do not care about terrorism or the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, or, worse, the audience may be made to feel that they support terrorism. If people argue against troop deployments in other countries, they are not supporting the United States’ troops or “the War on Terror,” and they are unpatriotic. If people argue against restrictions on same-sex marriage, they are not Christian. These widely broadcast exigencies act to restrict Bush’s audiences and their decisions: people are morally restricted into a unified position of support against the threats. By naming or referring to initiatives with restrictive, morally charged phrases like “the War on Terror,” “the USA Patriot Act,” and “No child left behind,” it appears that Bush and his administration anticipate and address the difficulty of leading and persuading their disparate audiences by amplifying threatening moral exigencies.

Much of Bush’s rhetorical activity is subtly guided by the Hollywood Western movie genre; in this genre, exigent threats play the role of the evil savages. This Hollywood Western genre carries tremendous significance for people of the United States because of the genre’s history and the audience’s expectations of the genre’s outcomes (Kohrs Campbell & Jamieson 419-21). For example, in this genre, the tough good guy—the cowboy or sheriff—always wins, and good triumphs over evil. In this genre, there is always a clear distinction between good and evil. This genre accommodates struggles to bring people to justice, to hunt people down or to battle injustice and provides a range of figures and styles that Bush can use for communication (and persuasion).

Images of the tough cowboy, the righteous sheriff, guns, badges, shootouts, standoffs, and dangerous, savage enemies are key elements of the Hollywood Western genre—key elements that Bush and his administration use to construct the character (or form) of their arguments. For example, the following samples of the president’s statements between September 11, 2001, and September 17, 2001, abstractly illustrate the recurring Western theme that the Bush administration adopts: “The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts” (September 11, 2001); “[…] hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act” (September 11, 2001); “[…] this nation's intention to rout out and to whip terrorism” (September 13, 2001); “[…] but there's no question about it, this act will not stand; we will find those who did it; we will smoke them out of their holes; we will get them running and we'll bring them to justice” (September 15, 2001); “They run to the hills; they find holes to get in. And we will do whatever it takes to smoke them out and get them running, and we'll get them” (September 15, 2001); “Our economy will come back. We'll still be the best farmers and ranchers in the world” (September 16, 2001); and “I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’” (September 17, 2001). The positive impact of this Hollywood Western genre on Bush’s ethos becomes clear: Bush’s role as a tough, heroic cowboy supports his ethos by endowing him with the mystical character of the Hollywood cowboy who always wins the battle against evil. Bush’s role as a cowboy (or sheriff) in this genre gives him credibility and certain rights to lead (and speak). In effect, Bush’s role in this genre improves his perceived authority.

Bush’s use of highly charged, Western-themed (structural) language like “hunt,” “rout out,” “whip,” and “smoke them out,” helps to appease his audiences’ desires for justice (or retaliation) and influences the way the audience understands Bush’s character. This highly sensory language affects (and reflects) the audience’s emotions and acts to illustrate complex ideas simply by drawing from historical ideas, images, and ideologies that are embedded in the American public through their experience with the Hollywood Western genre. It appears that Bush and his administration anticipate and address the difficulty of leading and persuading their disparate audiences by applying the Western genre to threatening moral exigencies in a way that justifies Bush’s style and enhances Bush’s ethos.

When we explore Bush’s attempts to describe, demonize, and influence the way his audiences think about enemies (or threats), we find that he uses highly charged, emotional appeals that are filled with moral judgments and act as insights into Bush’s thinking. For example, the following examples of the president’s (broadcast) enemy descriptions between November 6, 2001, and November 9, 2001, reveal who Bush is attempting to persuade, who Bush is attempting to target, and how Bush wants his audience to think: “Like the fascists and totalitarians before them, these terrorists—al Qaeda try to impose their radical views through threats and violence they kill thousands of innocent people and then rejoice. […] They kill fellow Muslims […] and then they gloat. […] They imprisoned women in their homes, and are denied access to basic health care and education” (November 6, 2001); “Food sent to help starving people is stolen by their leaders” (November 6, 2001); “Children are forbidden to fly kites, or sing songs, or build snowmen” (November 6, 2001); “Our enemies have brought only misery and terror they are trying to export that terror throughout the world” (November 6, 2001); “These terrorist groups seek to destabilize entire nations and regions” (November 6, 2001); “They are seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons” (November 6, 2001); “We fight an enemy who hides in caves in Afghanistan, and in the shadows within in our own society” (November 7, 2001); “It's an enemy who can only survive in darkness” (November 7, 2001); “We […] recognize that we wage a fight to save civilization” (November 7, 2001); “We are the target of enemies who boast they want to kill—kill all Americans, kill all Jews, and kill all Christians” (November 8, 2001); “This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views” (November 8, 2001); “America faces an evil and a determined enemy” (November 9, 2001); “They execute people who convert to other religions” (November 9, 2001); “The terrorists call their cause holy, yet, they fund it with drug dealing” (November 9, 2001).

The audience that Bush seeks to move or persuade changes depending on whom (or what) Bush identifies as a strong ally or possible threat. For example, when Bush describes the terrorists as “killers of Muslims,” he addresses the concerns of those who fear that the “War on Terror” will be countered with a jihad. The president appears to be very concerned about the idea of jihad and that Muslim countries will fight against the United States; therefore, Bush uses language to restrict Muslims’ impressions of the terrorists to “killers of fellow Muslims,” enemies of Muslim people and the Muslim faith. On the other hand, when Bush describes the terrorists as people who seek to kill all Americans, Jews, and Christians, he seeks to turn the “War on Terror” into a holy war against terrorists. When Bush describes the terrorists as evil people who are seeking weapons of mass destruction, he is attempting to appeal to every country that has experienced terrorist attacks to rally support for his initiatives. When Bush describes the terrorists as “fascists and totalitarians,” it appears that he is attempting to appeal to the people of Afghanistan with subtle references to the Soviet Union and reminders of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. This fascist and totalitarian appeal resonates further with other countries that have been threatened by enemies they perceived as fascist and totalitarian; this appeal also reflects and protects the values of the United States audience.

Bush illustrates the terrorists as fascists, totalitarians, radicals, mass murderers, Muslim killers, Jew killers, Christian killers, woman abusers, child abusers, food stealers, threats to “free” countries, cowards who hide in caves, monsters that survive in the darkness, threats to civilization, and drug dealers. The battleground for these evil savages is within the Hollywood Western genre and, as a tough cowboy (with an audience united against these threatening savages), Bush has the ethos to deliver powerful pathetic, ethical, and logical appeals.

The following statement, which President Bush delivered on September 26, 2001, (at the United States Central Intelligence Agency) is representative of the powerful appeals that frequently recur in his speeches:

- quote
We must never forget that this is a long struggle, that there are evil people in the world who hate America. And we won't relent. The folks who conducted to act on our country on September 11th made a big mistake. They underestimated America. They underestimated our resolve, our determination, our love for freedom. They misunderestimated the fact that we love a neighbor in need. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the Commander-in-Chief, too. So, anyway, I was sitting around having coffee with George and Michael—(laughter)—I said, I think I'd like to come out to thank people once again; I'd like to come out to the CIA, the center of great Americans, to thank you for your work. I know how hard you're working. And I hope all the Americans who are listening to this TV broadcast understand how hard you're working, too. You're giving your best shot, long hours, all your brain power, to win a war that we're going to win. And I can't thank you enough on behalf of the American people. Keep doing it. America relies upon your intelligence and your judgment. America relies upon our capacity to work together as a nation to do what the American people expect. They expect a 100 percent effort, a full-time, no-stop effort on not only securing our homeland, but to bringing to justice terrorists, no matter where they live, no matter where they hide. And that's exactly what we're going to do.

-end quote

At a time when the American people were looking for someone to hold accountable for the tragic (and threatening) terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bush (the tough cowboy) united his disparate audiences with the idea that the terrorists made a mistake by underestimating America, and uses this enthymeme to empower the audience to act to prove the terrorists wrong, to show terrorists that “freedom” is powerful, to show the enemy that the United States is not weak.

With this speech, the president uses his command over the most powerful intelligence agency in the world to emphasize his power. In this setting, the president’s casual tone, humor, and the act of thanking people for working hard emphasizes his power and minimizes the enemy: in this setting, the president becomes the authority figure with his casual tone. Bush’s casual style enhances the appeal that “they made a mistake.” In effect, these statements act to reinforce Bush’s ethos and enhance Bush’s role as the tough cowboy.

Bush’s authority and thorough understanding of his audience’s values in this situation give him the power to deliver powerful pathetic, ethical, and logical appeals that move his audience to action. For example, Bush’s statements, “there are evil people in this world that hate America,” “[t]hey underestimated our love for freedom,” and “[t]hey misunderrepresented the compassion of our country,” contain powerful pathetic appeals that elicit the audience’s emotional support for Bush’s arguments. The audience is emotionally invested in the tragedy of September 11th, they are emotionally invested in the “freedom,” and they are emotionally invested in “America.” The audience is emotionally invested in the goals of bringing the terrorists to justice, retaliation, and redemption. Bush leverages the audience’s emotional investments by reflecting the character of the audience in his appeals. The political ideas in Bush’s speech are products of the social economy that account for popular attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, hopes, fears, and goals (Wrage 29–35). “All men are persuaded by considerations of their interests” (Bizzell & Herzberg 175, 196) and “people always think well of speeches adapted to, and reflecting, their own character” (Bizzell & Herzberg 219). In many situations, these appeals are so powerful that they have the ability to restrict the audience’s ability (or necessity) to explore the logic of Bush’s statements or actions.

Bush’s statements that “[t]hey misunderestimated the fact that we love a neighbor in need” and “[t]hey misunderestimated the compassion of our country” are powerful ethical appeals that elicit the audience’s emotional support for Bush’s arguments. These statements elicit support for Bush’s moral character. This display of benevolence combined with Bush’s authority as president, as commander-in-chief, and as a cowboy fighting evil supports Bush’s ethos. Again, in many situations, these appeals are so powerful that they have the ability to restrict the audience’s ability (or necessity) to explore the logic of Bush’s statements or actions.

Bush frequently uses logical appeals like “[t]he folks that acted on our country on September 11th made a big mistake. They underestimated America.” In this statement “they” made a big mistake because they are small and weak; the United States has resources and the power to bring “them” to justice, and the United States is not weak. Enthymemes like this are extremely powerful and demonstrate Bush’s rhetorical prowess.

Bush mixes an array of oratory styles in his broadcast speeches to attack the enemy in past, present, and future tenses: Bush mixes judicial, deliberative, and epideictic oratory in his speeches to concurrently accuse, defend, dissuade, praise, blame, and present his arguments. For example, in many speeches, Bush accuses the enemy by referring to the unjust mass murder that the enemy committed on September 11th and the horrible crimes against humanity that the enemy committed in the past. Bush exhorts people to combat the enemy by participating in the “War on Terror” or by bringing the “fight to them,” and Bush refers to freedom, the people who died, America, and the people fighting against terror as virtuous. It seems that Bush addresses the demands of his broad audience and attempts to anticipate their reactions.

Anticipating the broad audience with disparate levels of “Bush support” seems to be a major concern in Bush’s speeches. His speeches constantly shift between formal and casual language, canned and spontaneous statements. His figurative language is unadorned: a great majority of his figurative language is clear and simple. The simplicity of Bush’s speeches and statements build a sense of sincerity and trustworthiness. Bush constantly shifts between forceful, benevolent, and humorous tones in his speeches and these shifts appear to build a sense of amiability. Bush’s shifts between formal and casual language appear to illuminate tensions between the president’s desire to appear knowledgeable (or intelligent) and the president’s desire to remain a trustworthy, regular man (of average intelligence) who embodies local character—highly intellectual people appear threatening and untrustworthy if they do not embody the local character, morality, and character of the people they lead.

Bush’s strong Texas accent and unorthodox grammar present a tremendous problem for Bush’s ethos. While many other factors, including Christianity and Republicanism, play roles in people’s support for Bush, support for Bush appears to correlate with states that are conditioned to Southern accents. It is obvious that Bush’s accent and unorthodox grammar influence Bush’s lower levels of support from Northerners who may associate Bush’s accent, slightly slower speech pattern, and unorthodox grammar with ignorance. Again, Bush may embody the local character of people in these Southern states and reflect many of their stylistic traits, but he does not embody the local character of Northerners; this may create a sense of distrust for many Northerners, and it may cause them to question Bush’s ethos. Again, it appears that the Hollywood Western genre may be used as a strategy to justify Bush’s accent and unorthodox grammar.

Bush’s accent and unorthodox grammar are not the only problems that threaten Bush’s ethos. Bush’s speeches are plagued by language errors and unusual new words like “misunderestimated” that easily lead to misinterpretation. To understand the severity of this impact on the president’s ethos, we can view a random sample of the errors found during this analysis: “We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease, and it suffers from poverty, as well […] ” (14 June 2001); “The public education system in America is one of the most important foundations of our democracy. After all, it is where children from all over America learn to be responsible citizens, and learn to have the skills necessary to take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society” (May 1 2002); “And so in my State of the Union or in my speech to the nation—whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation—(laughter and applause)—I asked Americans to give 4,000 years— 4,000 hours over the next—over the rest of your life of service to America. That's what I asked. I said, 4,000 hours. Now, many of you already do that. So this is—there you go—this is a drop in the bucket for you. I understand that. But many Americans don't” (9 April 2002); “Ever since our twins, our twin daughters were toddlers, we would read to them at every possible opportunity. Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of “Hop on Pop.” (Laughter.) We found it to be fun. And it's important for parents to understand that it's a part of the responsibility for being a good mom or a dad to read to your children” (2 April 2002); “I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah, or the joy of Christmas, or celebrating peace and hope. This man wants to destroy any semblance of civilization for his own power and his own good. He's so evil that he's willing to send young men to commit suicide while he hides in caves” (10 December 2001); “My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen—and so long as terrorist activities continue it will be impossible to get into Mitchell or any other discussion about peace under the threat of terrorism. Secretary Powell was in touch with Mr. Arafat and Mr. Sharon; we delivered that message consistently” (13 Aug. 2001). Bush’s language problems present very clear problems for Bush’s ethos; however, the simplicity of Bush’s language, unorthodox grammar, Texan accent, and humor may restrict the audience from rhetorically reading Bush’s speeches. Again, Bush’s language problems may enhance the audience’s perception that Bush is honest and human: the problems with Bush’s language may enhance Bush’s ethos by casting him as a trustworthy, regular man (of average intelligence) who embodies local character, and reflects the people that he leads.

To conclude, President Bush may suffer from accent and language problems that weaken his ethos (by making him appear less knowledgeable with many audiences), but he leverages his accent, language problems, and unorthodox style to embody the local characters of many disparate audiences. Bush adopts a simple linguistic style that appears to contribute to his ethos by generating a sense of honesty and sincerity. Bush and his administration thoroughly anticipate, understand, and attempt to address his linguistic problems and their impact on his ethos by adopting the language of the Hollywood Western genre, which addresses threatening situations and supports the cowboy stereotype: use of this genre appears to support Bush’s ethos by endowing him with the mystical character of the stereotypical tough cowboy who historically wins battles against evil enemies. Bush actively amplifies threatening exigencies and then unites the American people and the world by constructing compelling “battle cries” to combat these exigent threats. In these threatening situations, Bush consistently finds ways to create persuasive appeals to the audience’s reason, emotion, and character; he finds rhetorical strategies to restrict his audience’s decisions and thinking. Hidden on the seemingly simple surface of this cowboy’s speeches are highly effective and highly sophisticated rhetorical patterns that anticipate and reflect popular attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, hopes, fears, and goals—as well as persuade people to take action.

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Works Cited

Bitzer, Lloyd. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1–14.

Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2nd ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 169–236.

Bush, George W. “Remarks by the President upon Arrival at Barksdale Air Force Base.” Barksdale Air Force Base, LA. 11 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Remarks by the President After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade Center.” Sarasota, FL. 11 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005

Bush, George W., Mayor Giuliani, and Governor Pataki. “President Pledges Assistance for New York in Phone Call with Pataki, Giuliani.” Washington, DC. 13 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W., Colin Powell, and John Ashcroft. “President Urges Readiness and Patience.” Thurmont, MD. 15 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Remarks by the President Upon Arrival.” Washington, DC. 16 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Guard and Reserves ‘Define Spirit of America.’” Pentagon, VA. 17 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Bush: ‘No Nation Can Be Neutral in This Conflict.’” Washington, DC. 6 Nov. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Announces Crackdown on Terrorist Financial Network” Vienna, VA. 7 Nov. 2001. 05 April 2005

Bush, George W., and Prime Minister Tony Blair. “Prime Minister Blair Says Coalition is Stronger.” Washington, DC. 7 Nov. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Discusses War on Terrorism.” Atlanta, GA. 8 Nov. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Bush Acts to Make Holiday Travel Safer.” Washington, DC. 9 Nov. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Thanks CIA.” Langley, VA. 26 Sept. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Remarks by the President at Simon for Governor Luncheon.” Santa Clara, CA. 1 May 2002. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Outlines Principles for Public Service.” Bridgeport, CT. 9 April 2002. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President Announces Early Childhood Initiative.” Media, PA. 2 Apr. 2002. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “President's Remarks at White House Lighting of Menorah.” Washington, DC. 10 Dec. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Remarks by the President to the Traveling Press Pool.” Meridian, TX. 13 Aug. 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Bush, George W. “Press Conference by President Bush, Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden.” Goteborg, Sweden. 14 June 2001. 05 April 2005 .

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. “Media Advisory: Defining Bush's Mandate.” 5 Nov. 2004 .

Kohrs Campbell, Karlyn, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “Form and Genre in Rhetorical Criticism: An Introduction.” Readings in Rhetorical Criticism. Ed. Carl R. Burgchardt. 2nd ed. State College, PA: Strata Publishing, 2000: 408–425.

Wrage, Ernest J. “Public address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History.” QJS 33 (1947): 451–57.

The Significance of English-language Processing Technology

Since the very beginning of recorded history, we have found evidence of human attempts to develop technologies that can mimic humans, from fake soldiers used in battle to sculptures. Yet, technology that enables machines to mimic human language has remained allusive, right until the late 20th century. Today, scientists and programmers have developed computer software that has the ability to converse with humans, in English, through typed text. However, this English-language processing software is seriously flawed; if scientists and programmers wish to advance the capabilities of English-language processing software and succeed in creating technology that mimics human communication, they must first embrace the question of “What is the context?”

Many people view the development of English-language processing software as an extremely important initiative that has the ability to profoundly affect our lives. Indeed, English-language processing software will directly affect the development of many useful technologies including (but not limited to) personal digital servants, artificial intelligence technologies, automated telephone systems, real-time verbal language translation devices, technologies to help people with disabilities and technologies that will radically simplify everyday human-computer interactions. It is easy to imagine how the ability to speak to our computers – in the same way that we speak to a friend – would change the way we use computers. It is also easy to imagine how such technological developments can make the fairly complex process of computer usage more natural; nonetheless, some major problems impede the development of software that can mimic human communication. To understand these problems, it is necessary first to understand how these technologies work, and from where technology developers get their inspiration.

English-language processing software evolved from a test developed by Alan Turing1 who, in 1950, predicted that advancements in computing machines between 1950 and 2000 would provide computing machines with the ability to mimic human communication. In 1950, in an attempt to gauge the evolution of computing machines, Turing published tests that, collectively, have become known as the Standard Turing Test (Goldstein 135) (Turing 433-460). Even today, this test serves as a guiding benchmark for English-language processing software developers.

The Turing Test is relatively simple: a series of interrogators participate in typed text discussions with both humans and computers, in an attempt to identify which discussions are with humans and which are with computers. The test’s typed text discussions take place through software that strongly resembles popular Internet chat software (e.g., AOL Instant Messenger or MSN Instant Messenger). This test is used to facilitate and judge competitions between various English-language processing software developers. Because no two interrogation groups are created equal – and because differences in the skills and the demands of various human interrogator teams make standardizing quantitative measures for the Standard Turing Test impossible – this Test cannot accurately judge the success of technology outside the controlled context of competition (Goldstein 135). In the controlled, comparison-based context of competition, the winning English-language processing software is the best among competitors at “tricking” human interrogators into believing that typed text responses to the human interrogators’ input are actually from humans.

The English-language processing software that consistently tricks Standard Turing Test interrogators is based on Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML). This computer programming language allows programmers to group anticipated human statements with possible computer responses in a way that allows computers to deduce the most likely and fitting answers through a process of reductive matching.

The method used to program possible human statements and their relative responses into English-language processing software through AIML is called “supervised learning,” because many programmers monitor the computer software’s conversations and supervise the development of the software’s responses. The English-language processing software automates the process of identifying human statements that do not have responses, by analyzing a constantly-generated record of all human input and resultant software responses. The software presents these statistics to programmers, who in turn use the data to refine the software’s ability to respond to human input by programming more computer responses. Currently, most software that participates in the Standard Turing Test competitions contain over 40,000 instances of programmed human text input and computer response possibilities.

In the process of developing this software, analyses of English-language processing software’s performance statistics, the prioritization of the programmers’ supervised teaching efforts, and efforts by the software to match human-generated text input with appropriate computer responses are undertaken; all are made possible by applying a Zipf Curve and Pinker’s ideas of English language predictability to the software’s statistical records.

In his book Human Behavior and the Principle of Last Effort, George Kingsley Zipf presents the idea that the English language is both redundant and predictable. Zipf used this idea to explore patterns of English language, and found that if we chart the number of times that words occur in a book and rank each word by the number of times it occurs, we can then create a “Zipf Curve”; this mathematical curve can be used to determine the predictability of language patterns. For example, if we plotted all of the words and word combinations in the New York Times “Literary Review” over a period of time, we could create a Zipf Curve map of the word usage in the New York Times’ “Literary Review” (Gabaix 129-132) (Zipf 90-97). This highly effective method can be used to prioritize the supervised learning tasks of programmers, because it provides programmers of English-language processing software with a way to anticipate and prioritize the likelihood of certain human input. This technique is also used to match possible software answers to human questions during the software’s deduction or matching process.

In his book The Ingredients of Language, Steven Pinker outlines his theories concerning English-language predictability. To paraphrase Pinker, only a small number of words can be considered possible as the first word in a correct and meaningful English sentence, and as a sentence gets longer, the possible combinations of words that can follow also diminish (Pinker 6-8). This phenomenon is important because it is the method that English-language processing software uses to improve the software’s response matching accuracy, and it also affects that software’s matching speed performance. Assume, for example, that a Standard Turing Test interrogator typed a question into a conversation with English-language processing software, and asked, “What is the biggest American state?”; the software would perform the search for the most relevant response (i.e., that which starts with the word “What”) and work toward the end of the interrogator’s input, until only a few possible matches exist. This technique also increases the performance of English-language processing software by allowing the software to identify word patterns that can be substituted. These substituted patterns can include common spelling mistakes, acronyms, and long phrases that can be reduced with a synonym. For example, the text “youre” would be replaced by the system with “you’re,” the text “US” would be replaced with “United States” and the text “Where is” would be replaced with “Where” (Fernquest).

As we can see, the matching techniques used by English-language processing software developers to “trick” Standard Turing Test interrogators are based on a form of reductionism. More specifically, the ideas are inspired by the idea that thought processes are biological, and can therefore be reduced to chemistry – and that because chemistry can be reduced to physics, and physics can, in turn, be reduced to math, most developers believe that it is possible to create computers that can process information in a manner similar to that of humans: the biological process of thinking can be reduced to processes of mathematical computer programs (Scerri).

We can also see how programmers create English-language processing software that can match canned computerized responses to human-generated statements, and how this process relies on human programmers’ abilities to produce meaningful responses to anticipated human-generated statements. It is at this point that the software “breaks,” because software developers work in isolation and have no way of accurately assessing the context of humans when their statements are made. Without understanding human context, programmers cannot accurately predict appropriate responses to human statements.

In his book Is There a Text in This Class? Stanley Fish states that “in order to grasp the meaning of an individual term, you must already have grasped the general activity…in relation to which it could be thought to be meaningful; a system of intelligibility cannot be reduced to a list of things it renders intelligible” (304). From this perspective, we can see a major weakness in English-language processing software: it has no comprehensive ability to grasp the general activities running current with the conversation, and therefore cannot accurately match software-generated answers to human input. Furthermore, programmers attempt to create a list of human input and software-response matches that they assume will render the human input and software response matches intelligible.

It is time for English-language processing software developers to start asking the question, “What is the context?”: What is the context of humans who attempt to engage in conversations with English-language processing software? What is the physical context in which software interacts with humans? What are the cultural contexts of humans who attempt to engage in conversations with software? What are the contexts of programmers who attempt to construct meaning, without any ability to assess context? Indeed, it seems that programmers are living the isolated life of a blindfolded Oz, hidden behind a proverbial green velvet curtain, without any ability to truly address these questions. It is only after programmers consider answers to these questions that English-language processing software can become more accurate and useful.

It would be deceptive to say that communication is not possible between computers and humans through current English-language processing software, even with the software’s limited ability to address context; as Fish states, “communication occurs within situations and…to be in a situation is already to be in possession of (or to be possessed by) a structure of assumptions, of practices to be understood to be relevant in relation to the purposes and goals that are already in place …” (318). Humans who attempt to engage in conversations with English-language processing software will successfully communicate with the software, regardless of the software’s inability to determine human context. Indeed, the human will actively produce meaning from any computerized responses, based on the many factors that form the human’s context.

The problem becomes clearer when we explore a question posed by Stanley Fish, to illustrate language appropriation and instability: “Is there a text in this class?” (305). Indeed, how would English-language processing software answer the question “Is there a text in this class?” What is, after all, a “text”? Is text a written or printed work, like a book? Is text a printed musical composition? Is text the words of something? Is text a synonym for theme or topic? Is text an object that should be studied and deconstructed? Indeed, if we eliminate the element of luck from the English-language processing software’s answer-matching process, an effective answer – or at least the correct answer – can occur only with an understanding of the question’s context. Therefore, the only way for software to answer this question accurately is to understand the context that surrounds the word or statement; this context is absolutely instrumental in the production of meaning.

Fish states that “an infinite plurality of meanings would be a fear only if sentences existed in a state in which they are not already imbedded in, and had come into view as a function of, some other situation” (307). The programmers of English-language processing software must have a fear of meaning plurality, because the human statements that their software responds to come into view as a function of an unspecified situation.

Terry Eagleton, in his book The Significance Theory, states, “What distinguishes the human animal from its fellow creatures is that it moves within a world of meaning – or, more simply, that it inhabits a world, rather than a physical space. Human life is sign-making – ‘significant’ – existence” (Eagleton 25). English-language processing software cannot respond to human statements comprehensively – nor pretend to be human – without addressing the plurality of the values of signs.

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, signs are produced as a product of the relationship between signifieds (concepts) and signifiers (material evidence from our senses) in a process called signification (Chandler 19). One signifier can stand for different signifieds, and produce different signs. The earlier example of the word “text” is a good illustration of this problem: a signifier, like the word “text,” can stand for a number of different signifieds: a printed work, a printed musical composition, or a theory. The only way to determine the value of the sign is by understanding its context in relation to other signs (Eagleton 25) (Dilley 21).

Indeed, when we focus on context, some of the major hurdles faced by today’s English-language processing software become obvious: throughout the supervised learning process, programmers ignore human context, and the importance of context in deriving meaning. The Standard Turing Test focus programmers’ efforts on trickery in a controlled environment while ignoring the significance of contexts outside the test environment. The statistical analysis techniques that are used to prioritize programmers’ supervised teaching efforts – and the ability of the software to match human-generated text input with appropriate computer responses – ignore the fact that most meaning is determined by context. Beyond the limited participation of programmers, the software has no ability to sense, understand or share context with humans.

Certainly, today’s English-language processing software may be successful at “tricking” Standard Turing Test interrogators and winning competitions, but technology developers must somehow improve this software’s ability to “sense” before this technology can mimic human communication. It is only through this sense that computers can address context and intertextualité, and it is only with great sensitivity that computers will be able to mimic humans and their tremendous significance.

Notes

1. Interestingly, Alan Turing was a friend and collaborator of Claude E. Shannon -- the creator of the influential but outdated Mathematical Theory of Communication. Turing is also considered the father of artificial intelligence.

Works Cited

Chandler, Daniel. “Models of the Sign.” Semiotics: the Basics. New York: Routledge, 2002. 17-54.

Dilley, Roy. The Problem of Context. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999.

Eagleton, Terry. “The Significance of Theory.” The Significance Theory. London: Basil Blackwell, 1990. 24-38.

Elliott, Raymond W., and Karl G. King. “In Plain English, Please; Communicating with Computers Using Natural Language Processing.” Journal of Accountancy 169 (1990): 43-56.

Fernquest, Jon. “Standard Set of AIML files.” 16 November 2004. .

Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. 1-34.

Gabaix, Xavier. “Zipf’s Law and the Growth of Cities.” American Economic Review Vol 89. Issue 2 (1999): 129-132.

Goldstein, Daniel G. “Mind as Computer: Birth of a Metaphor.” Creativity Research Journal Vol 9, Issue 3 (1996): 135.

Pinker, Steven. The Ingredients of Language. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Scerri, Eric. “Has Chemistry Been at Least Approximately Reduced to Quantum Mechanics?” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1 (1994): 160-170.

Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. London: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Turing, Alan. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind LIX, 236 (1950): 433-60.

Zipf, George Kingsley. Human Behavior and the Principle of Last Effort. Cambridge, MA: Addison Wesley, 1949.

On Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto

Donna Haraway’s cyborg narrative attempts to unlock feminist discourse and recode technology that has fused with nature, yielding tools of domination and control. The cyborg concept acts as a catalyst that challenges feminism, socialism and materialism; in the process, it introduces new politics en route to understanding, deconstructing and overcoming manufactured, hegemonic relationships.

At first glance, one may consider a cyborg the simple physical marriage of biology and machine. However, Haraway introduces the cyborg as a physical and psychological construct, or part of our own social and bodily veracity (150). Haraway’s cyborgs are political creatures (150) with the ability to “determine” race, gender and class (161). They are the “illegitimate offspring of militarism, patriarchal capitalism, and state socialism,” and they “are unfaithful to their origins” (151). Cyborgs are persuasive biases, born of social construction and historical connotations (174).

Haraway’s definition of the cyborg supports the position that females are not “naturally” female – nor or they ever easily categorized, because gender generalizations cannot exist after technology’s marriage with (or pollution of) the natural state of femininity. Therefore, there is no clear or natural state of femininity. It could be said that today, all people are cyborgs (regardless of gender). We are all the products of “imagination and reality” (150) and cannot think about ourselves in strict, terms of male/female, black/white or rich/poor, because we are the products of biology and technology.

The concept of the cyborg provides us with the political means to challenge the proliferation and domination of gender, race, and class generalizations (175); it also attempts to redefine “world-wide social relations tied to science and technology” (161). The understanding of the metaphors used by science and technology and their impact on our “being” will help us understand, mitigate and eventually eliminate their complex systems of oppression. Therefore, cyborg myths can be useful tools in shifting metaphors and reclaiming control of our imaginations. These metaphors, according to Haraway (161), include:

Representation ... Simulation
Bourgeois novel, realism ... Science fiction, postmodernism
Organism ... Biotic Component
Depth, integrity ... Surface, boundary
Heat ... Noise
Biology as clinical practice ... Biology as inscription
Physiology ... Communications engineering
Small group ... Subsystem
Perfection ... Optimization
Eugenics ... Population Control
Decadence, Magic Mountain ... Obsolescence, Future Shock
Hygiene ... Stress Management
Microbiology, tuberculosis ... Immunology
Organic division of labour ... Ergonomics/cybernetics of labour
Functional specialization ... Modular construction
Reproduction ... Replication
Organic sex role specialization ... Optimal genetic strategies
Biological determinism ... Evolutionary inertia, constraints
Community ecology ... Ecosystem
Racial chain of being ... Neo-imperialism, United Nations humanism
Scientific management in home/factory ... Global factory/Electronid cottage
Family/Market/Factory ... Women in the Integrated Circuit
Family wage ... Comparable worth
Public/Private ... Cyborg citizenship
Nature/Culture ... fields of difference
Co-operation ... Communications enhancement
Freud ... Lacan
Sex ... Genetic engineering
Labour ... Robotics
Mind ... Artificial Intelligence
Second World War ... Star Wars

Throughout history, we have seen how tragedies and threats can act as catalysts for unity and action against their perpetrating source. In this way, the Cyborg Manifesto eliminates the hurdles caused by disparate theoretical beliefs – hurdles that may stifle progress toward the elimination of oppression – by constructing compelling “battle cries” against manufactured assumptions of homogeny and essentialism. It is in this sense that the Cyborg Manifesto is faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism.

Works Cited:

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149

Pariso Scholarship Awarded

Congratulations to Glen Skola who was awarded the Pariso Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity. We all look forward to watching Geln’s success at New York University (NYU) film school.

Thank you (advisor / panelists) Mychelle Kendrick, Joseph Eichinger, Karen Dunn Skinner (Esq.) and Stephanie Oppegaard for your fine work and tremendous help -- making this happen.

The Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity is awarded to a high school senior that has been accepted in a four year accredited university program and demonstrates ground-breaking or pioneering innovative and creative qualities in areas related to communications, cinematography, technology or the fine arts. This individual passes a difficult jury process that was designed to identify individuals that are most likely to have a tremendous impact on the advancement of their selected fields. Unanamously, we believe that Glen is the perfect recipient of this award.

Sincerely,

Steve

Propaganda

Thoughts about Randal Marlin's book _Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion_:

All Americans have the liberty to make choices and the freedom to pursue happiness. But the very “happiness” and “freedom” that we seek to protect is often used to package and fuel propaganda. Ideas, like “the Patriot Act” may have an inherently enormous emotional appeal. They promise security, support our personal desires and even make us feel more like a member of a vast majority; ideas like this, however, have the ability to limit our freedom and our pursuit of happiness by harboring or promoting false agendas. In many ways, small influential groups have the ability to use propaganda to affect the beliefs or actions of majorities. Therefore, an understanding of propaganda is crucial if Americans wish to avoid tyrannous control of their government and restriction of their personal freedom.

Randal Marlin defines “propaganda” as “the organized attempt through communication to affect belief or action or inculcate attitudes in a large audience in ways that circumvent or suppress an individual’s adequately informed, rational, reflective judgment” (22). It is critical to recognize that Marlin’s definition supports the idea that the individual or group generating the propaganda creates a situation wherein its recipients are receptive to falsehoods. It is also important to recognize that within this definition, propaganda happens within information. I personally tend to believe that the reception of propaganda involves negotiation, and that the recipients of propaganda are not passive. From this perspective, it is the impairment of people’s ability to negotiate that I find easier to examine than the propaganda itself. By understanding some of the techniques used in propaganda that inhibit this negotiation process, we can increase our ability to identify, dissect, and disarm them. I believe that Marlin’s book educates its readers, thereby making them informed participants in this negotiation process.

Propaganda requires the attention of its target audience; without this attention, seduction opportunities cannot occur (Marlin 97). Furthermore, there exists an overwhelmingly vast array of possible contexts and complementary channels that give rise and support to such seduction opportunities. Marlin says that “in a free society, the right of a person to choose what messages to see and hear will place limits on the right of others to communicate with him or her” (97). I agree with Marlin’s statement generally, and recognize the tremendous skill that propagandists must use to choose complementary channels that support their efforts, all while holding the attention of their target audiences and supporting those audiences’ interests. I also recognize the concentration of capital in American mass media industries (Marlin 253-255, 262, 283) as a frightening advancement in the efficiency of these processes.

The deregulation of American mass media industries have created a situation where there are literally thousands of information channels and venues, but a shrinking number of powerful hands that control the content therein. Our capitalist market’s natural tendency toward concentration furiously drives companies toward oligopoly domination (Bettig, Hall 16) while effectively destroying media diversity. This concentration has ultimately resulted in the birth of conglomerates that exhibit an alarming control over every idea and message published through all mass media channels today.

Further indicative of this amalgamation tendency is the fact that, between 1982 and 2003, the number of news stations with news staff dropped from 98 percent to 67 percent, and half of the remaining staff members now work part time (Hickley 26); indeed, fewer minds and bodies are required to cut-and-paste or regurgitate a single message than to create original, thought-provoking dialogue. The result is that while there may be many “channels” competing for the public’s attention today, the information of many of these “channels” are cross-pollinated. It seems that if a propagandist wishes to capture the attention of his or her audience – and restrict the audiences’ ability to verify information – he or she can do so easily, because the process is quickly becoming a matter of “one-stop propagation.”

Marlin also explains that propaganda relies on emotional appeal, and that emotion can distract people from carefully examining the truthfulness of evidence (98). For example, the constant replaying of horrifying images following the 9-11 attacks in New York City created fear in the American population. This strong emotion was leveraged to sell falsehoods. In response to 9-11, “the Patriot Act” was born, and without examining the evidence, much of the American population accepted this idea.

Credibility, much like branding, works to create an emotional shortcut and simplify the process of developing trust in a product. In the case of propaganda, that product is ideas and information, as well the personal beliefs that we develop as the result of our impaired judgment. To paraphrase Marlin, people often do not have the ability to follow complex arguments, so they often place trust in an expert or experts who deliver messages (98). I use the example of branding with careful consideration because, brand credibility (or the ethos of brand relationships) presents a problem in relation to Robert McChesney’s idea that “newly developed computer and digital communication technologies can undermine the ability to control communication in a traditionally hierarchical manner” (Marlin 294) – and for the promise that the Internet can have a positive impact on the diversity or democracy of information1, hence making propaganda less effective. Indeed, Marlin seems to hit a bull’s eye of sorts when he asks, “What is the source? Who is the real author of any given message? Unless we know who the source is, we cannot make an adequate appraisal of the likelihood of authority against possible bias” (302).

On the Internet, people look for “branded” information (e.g., CNN.com), because this information is deemed to have greater credibility. Unfortunately, the major American media conglomerates play a major role in controlling all of the top news Web sites and also control a great majority of all Web traffic. The control of branded Internet information by US media industries can be considered a major ethos monopoly. Again, the Internet continues to become a powerful medium with the ability to impair our ability to negotiate and produce informed, rational, reflective judgment – all because of peoples’ natural demand for credibility verification in this free and diverse Internet environment. This demand pushes individuals toward trusted brand relationships that successfully eliminate peoples’ inclination for any further verification of credibility.

Perhaps the most important items to take away from Marlin’s book are a series of propaganda analysis questions including “What is the source?”, “What is the message?”, “Who stands to gain?”, “What are the techniques used to impart the message?”, “What are the contexts and truth-reliability?” (Marlin 302-304). Used religiously, the public may be able to free itself, to some degree, from propaganda. I only wish an abridged version of this book existed because the depth3 and complexity of this book may hamper its mass consumption and ultimately limit its impact.

Marlin’s discussion of the vast linguistic and nonverbal techniques used for propaganda leaves me with tremendous feelings of apprehension. I have great concern for my fellow Americans, our Bill of Rights, and the growing consolidation of our mass media industries. The more I grow to understand and identify each method employed by propagandists, the more I begin to realize the extent of the power of propaganda, and the damage that it causes. If America wishes to maintain a representative democracy, the information in this book is essential.

Chicago Children Choir’s

It was an honor to attend the Chicago Children Choir’s Quebec premier and party / tree dedication in Saint-Seauveur, Quebec -- Canada. Special thanks to the Renaud family for an amazing evening and the entire cast -- and families -- of the Children Choir for a fun time on Lac-Loranger.

Sincerely,

Steve

A Review of the Movie A.I.

A.I. Screenplay by Brian Aldiss, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Ian Watson. Director Steven Spielberg. Produced by Bonnie Curtis, Jan Harlan, Kathleen Kennedy, Walter F. Parkes, Steven Spielberg. Performances by Haley Joel Osment, Francis O’Connor, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas, Jude Law, and William Hurt. Warner Brothers, 2001.

--

If the Babylonians knew what they had started when they created the automatically recycling water clock—the clepsydra—in 1400 B.C., they might have stopped. Did they know that they had created the very first robot? Did they understand that they had planted a seed that would evolve into technology capable of human replacement that could outlive humans, conquer time or space and influence the extinction of the human race? Imagine if we could travel through time, and introduce the Babylonians to the technologies we know today; the computers and robotic toys that are a part of our life would startle these early innovators. In the same way, the time travel that Steven Spielberg makes possible with his astounding movie A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is incredibly startling to us in 2004.

Through cinema magic, Steven Spielberg invites us to the late twenty-first century: a world filled with problems that have been caused by people’s use of technology, problems including global warming, floods, and starvation. We enter this era at a turning point in the evolution of artificial intelligence and witness the development of robots that can feel emotion. Spielberg involves us in this turning point by brilliantly illustrating the imprinting of a robotic child by a human mother. This is a human relationship between a mother and robotic child where the child loves his mother unconditionally, but feels that he will only win the full love of his mother if he becomes human. This robotic child’s resilient quest to become human frames our entire journey through the film and eventually makes us question the ways that we view technology.

Eventually, will people of the future regard robots with strong prejudice and animosity? The almost Luddite human animosity and prejudice toward robots in this film leave us to contemplate whether robots or artificially intelligent beings can become worthy of emotional investment by human beings. As viewers, we do not find ourselves emotionally attached to any of the robots until they themselves display emotion. The question then posed is: as humans, is it possible for us to develop the same love that we have for our children, with robots, once they gain the ability to feel emotion?

The answer to these questions may lie in developing technology. Technological evolution happens thousands of times faster than human evolution. In the 1930s and 1940s, Alan Turing pioneered the exploration of computer science and artificial intelligence. During only the past eighty years, we have seen such tremendous advancement in these areas that all the ideas in this movie seem completely feasible. If we create robots that live like humans and feel emotion like humans, are we sentencing these creatures to an eternity of painful emotional loss? Will these beings live on after we die? Will they actually rewrite history after our extinction?

In A.I., Steven Spielberg has created a brilliant masterpiece that leaves you asking questions about how we define humanity. While the length of this work of genius makes it daunting, viewers find themselves captivated by the voyeuristic journey through time. The special effects are truly spectacular. The twenty-five dollar DVD purchase price is a very small fee to pay for this startling journey.

How Does It Work?

We live in a world filled with technological mysteries. While some people accept everyday technologies without considering the astonishing genius hidden behind their seemingly simple functionality, others continue their quest for technical enlightenment by asking the question, “How does it work?” If you ever wondered how things work, the web site “howstuffworks.com” by the brilliant folks at How Stuff Works Incorporated will provide you with an incredible journey through the unseen magic of many important technologies that add to our lives.

Everyday, most of us overlook the exquisite science behind hundreds of technologies. Some technologies we use in our home, and others we use to simplify complex daily tasks. Howstuffworks.com uses straightforward language, illustrations and animations to demystify a dizzying array of over 300 technologies, including everything from zippers to atom smashers. Computer stuff, auto stuff, electronics stuff, home, entertainment, health, money, travel and people stuff – this site is overflowing with explanations that will satisfy the appetite of any curious person aged 10 to 110.

How does your computer work? How does your car work? How do telephones work? How do nuclear bombs work? How do espresso machines work? How Stuff Works Inc.’s incredible team of writers, illustrators and animators skillfully choreograph the user’s introduction to highly advanced and complex technology concepts in an inviting manner, presenting it in simple “layperson’s” terms. One could say that the site’s thoughtful explanations act as an elevator, delivering even the most technically-challenged visitor to a higher level of understanding, even while concurrently appeasing the most demanding technophiles.

If your time is at a premium, I suggest that you stay away from this web site: one visit will incur an addiction where you yearn for more — like consuming potato chips or good chocolate, learning about how only one gadget works is not enough. Adding to this “problem” is the fact that one technology explanation links to others, creating an intriguing web of illumination that draws you helplessly into this web site’s depths.

To keep curious people everywhere up to date, howstuffworks.com allows people to subscribe to a well-designed web site newsletter and a syndicated news feed. The news feed uses (XML/RSS) formatting technology that allows tech-savvy visitors to integrate the web site’s news headlines into their own web sites.

This free-of-charge web site generates revenues through advertising. The integration of this advertising into this site is thoughtfully restricted so as to not interfere with its usability, producing a very pleasant browsing experience that many would gladly pay for.

This site successfully fine-tunes the lens through which we view the technology in our lives, and rewards its users with a heightened appreciation for the brilliant technological advances that have played an increasingly important role in our society. The deeper we journey into the mysteries discussed on this web site, the more our valuation of everyday technology changes, transforming frequently-overlooked technologies that adorn our lives into brilliant examples of humanity’s extraordinary ability to invent.

Enjoy this site by visiting howstuffworks.com.

Where is Washington?

Strange statistics interest me, so, when one of my scripts for GNAAT ( http://gnaat.org ) returned a list of state name anomalies I was very excited.

Did you know that the name ' Washington ' appears in county names of 29 states and city or town names in 29 states?

I hope that you enjoy this interesting data.

State Name Anomalies:

'Washington' Counties in Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Idaho, Arkansas, Nebraska, Loisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island

'Washington' Cities or Towns in Michigan, Iowa, District of Columbia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Lousiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Utah, California, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

'Oregon' Counties in Missouri

'Oregon' Cities or Towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri

'Nevada' Counties in California, Arkansas

'Nevada' Cities or Towns in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas

'Wyoming' Counties in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York

'Wyoming' Cities or Towns in Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska

'Colorado' Counties in in Texas

'Texas' Counties in Missouri, Oklahoma

'Iowa' Counties in Wisconsin

'Iowa' Cities or Towns in Louisiana

'Indiana' Counties in Pennsylvania

'Indiana' Cities or Towns in Pennsylvania

'Ohio' Counties in Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia

'Ohio' Cities or Towns in New York, Illinois

'Florida' Counties in Puerto Rico

'Florida' Cities or Towns in Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, New York, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico

'Delaware' Counties in Iowa, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York

'Delaware' Cities or Towns in New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma

'California' Cities or Towns in Washington, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania

'Arizona' Cities or Towns in Louisiana

'Idaho' Cities or Towns in Alabama, Ohio

'Nebraska' Cities or Towns in Indiana

'Louisiana' Cities or Towns in Missouri

'Kansas' Cities or Towns in Vermont, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma

'Michigan' Cities or Towns in North Dakota, Nebraska

'Tennessee' Cities or Towns in Illinois, Arkansas

'Georgia' Cities or Towns in Vermont, New Jersey, Indiana

'Virginia' Cities or Towns in Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Idaho, Washington

'Vermont' Cities or Towns in Illinois, California

'Maine' Cities or Towns in New York, Minnesota

'New Hampshire' Cities or Towns in Ohio

'Puerto Rico' Cities or Towns in Texas

'New York' Cities or Towns in New York

END DATA

Now, some of you are asking where I am.

I am quietly programming the GNAAT system. This system will geographically target folks through a variety of media with lifesaving alert information.

It seems that regular expressions are the messy solution to all of life's messy problems -- programmers around the world will relate to that last statement.

Sincerely,

Steve

Ursula Franklin

I had a very good time thinking about Ursula Franklin's lectures -- in her book The Real World Of Technology.

From the perspective of technology as practice, Ursula Franklin uses the terms “holistic” and “prescriptive” to classify technologies as types of work that have dissimilar levels of specialization, and which yield different social and political implications (Franklin, 10-11).

Holistic technology involves workers who control their work process from beginning to end, exercise discernment and utilize an overview of the work situation (10-12, 80). Prescriptive technology, on the other hand, divides labor into steps; this fragmentation of work increases worker specialization, limits the worker’s control of the entire work process, limits the demand for workers’ acuity and eliminates the necessity for an overview of the work situation (12-14, 172).

By viewing these two technological classifications through the lens of work practice, we can identify their social and political implications. Generally, holistic technologies have a smaller impact on global mass production and little importance in the control or concentration of capital. Prescriptive technologies displace the autonomy that is otherwise found in holistic technologies with a central organizer who controls the production process in an effort to maximize profits, yield quantifiable results and make mass production possible (57, 80-81). By working to order work and people, prescriptive technologies yield political and social compliance (10, 16-17, 25, 49-51). Prescriptive technologies also contribute to a reduction in social learning and community-building by limiting feedback and social interaction in the work process (172). Furthermore, holistic technologies (which tend to have a small impact on mass production) are gendered female-dominant, whereas prescriptive technologies follow male patterns by being hierarchical, authoritarian, competitive and exclusive (103). The gendering and compliance found in the male patterns of prescriptive technology lead to social and political biases toward women in technological practices.

A good example of holistic technology is sculpting. A sculptor controls the work process from beginning to end, and has an overview of the entire work process. This overview and discernment is necessary to accomplishing the diverse tasks inherent to the sculpting process: the sculptor chooses sculpting material, the subject of a sculpture and the methods used for carving. The product of sculpting is one-of-a-kind, and not intended for mass production.

As a point of comparison, a good example of prescriptive technology is automobile manufacturing. The automobile manufacturing process consists of many small work processes where each worker has one specialized task. One person may be responsible for attaching car seats, and another for checking the quality of the automobile’s paint. Different people or groups are responsible for manufacturing different automobile parts, these different people or groups are often found in completely different locations, and so the process of manufacturing automobiles requires a centralized control of the work. In this scenario, each worker does not require an overview of the entire automobile manufacturing process, and so discernment requiring knowledge outside the scope of a worker’s specific tasks is not required. This specialization (or fragmentation) in the automobile manufacturing process maximizes profits, increases productivity and makes mass production possible; such fragmentation, however, also limits social learning and interaction.

The overall design and reiteration of the automobile – as a manifestation of prescriptive technology – becomes an indubitable facet of the automobile manufacturing technology, which has little concern for the humans who play a role in the technology. It appears that any creativity and humanity inherent in holistic technology (like sculpting) disappears as the world and its central controllers race for the profit and control inherent in prescriptive technology. It is however, important to recognize the idea that prescriptive technologies have made our lives better by eliminating tautological tasks from our everyday lives and freed us from the fields to explore medical technology which will hopefully extend our lives long enough to see more positive (or redemptive1) change in technology.

Works Cited
Franklin, Ursula M. The Real World of Technology. Rev. ed.
Toronto: Anansi, 2004.

Notes
1. On pages 130–132 of her book, The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin discusses prescriptive technologies that are used for inappropriate tasks and unacceptable practices. Ursula believes that redemptive technologies can come from the analysis of inappropriate or unacceptable technology practices. Ursula also argues that this redemptive technology should help to overcome the disenfranchisement of the people.

NY, NJ, CA and TX Travel

I will be traveling to New York and New Jersey between June 1 and June 3 followed by a trip to California between June 9 and 21 and finally Texas on June 22. These travel dates are subject to change.

A Journey Into Great Minds

Journey into Great Minds: A Quick Review of William Safire's Lend Me Your Ears, Great Speeches In History

Published 1997, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1055 pages

William Safire, the Pulitzer-prize-winning author, columnist, former Whitehouse advisor, speechwriter and father of my (cool, talented) friend Marc, has filled Lend me Your Ears, Great Speeches in History with over two hundred well-selected speeches. This book leaves readers with more than a glimpse into the minds of some of the world’s most talented individuals, from Socrates to Mark Twain. Indeed, it captures the essence of those individuals, in a way that changes its readers forever.

If you faced the gallows, what would your final words be? If you had the daunting task of rallying troops, what would you say? How would you defend yourself against charges of treason? This fascinating book manages to place the reader in the shoes of the speakers in these contexts, demonstrating the power of eloquence to inspire.

In making his selection of speeches, William Safire uses his discernment as a seasoned speechwriter. He sets the scene for his readers with fascinating histories and introductions. At the same time, he provides a format that allows for easy reference, making this book an essential addition to every personal library.

Each speech provides a snapshot of its author and audience, making this book a non-linear journey through some of the moments in history that have altered the way we live and think today. Looking between the lines of each speech, we gain a deeper understanding of the speaker’s thoughts and priorities. The names we read in history texts become human beings whose priorities are undistorted by years of interpretation.

Lend Me Your Ears, Great Speeches in History does not serve as a “how to” guide for speakers; nor does it attempt to. Rather, it offers useful insights into the elements that contribute to successful speeches, including contrapuntal turnaround (“Right makes might”— Abraham Lincoln), seeds (“Give me liberty, or give me death!”— Patrick Henry), shapeliness, structure, good organization (begin and end with what you are saying), parallel structures (“I came, I saw, I conquered”— Julius Caesar), pulse, anaphora (“Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are the meek… Blessed are the peacemakers.” — Jesus), occasion, focus, purpose, metaphor (the iron curtain), alliteration, visualization, theme and delivery.

William Safire has created a timeless compilation that I shall read many times. While the size of this book makes it appear daunting, readers find themselves captivated by the voyeuristic journey its pages offer, from which they return very different people. If I were stuck on a desert island with only this book, I would lose track of time, wandering from speech to speech. This book has earned a place on my bed-stand among my all-time top-ten books. I look forward to future additions and strongly recommend buying this book.

Sincerely,

Steve

A brand is not a logo!

Hi folks,

I remember having many disagreements about peoples' dismissal of software usability as a major brand attribute at Netscape. For some reason folks had a problem understanding that a brand is not a logo: it is a relationship. Recently, (the wonderful) Dr. Leslie Regan Shade gave me the opportunity to (briefly) define branding from a media context.

In this definition, I did not explore the fact that brands happen regardless of efforts by commodity producers: if commodity producers do not participate in the branding of their products, consumers will subconsciously do the job for them.

I hope you enjoy this short and somewhat abstract definition. If I have time, in the future, I will create a comprehensive version.

Sincerely,

Steve

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Branding:

Branding originated as the act of using a heated tool to mark livestock as property, and to mark criminals, either as a public warning or a sign of disgrace. The practice of branding humans began before recorded history and ended in western culture as a form of punishment in the late 1800s; this practice continues today, however, in some Islamic cultures. The act of branding has since evolved from its early uses, so that it now connotes the science of “burning” qualities and attributes into the minds of consumers, in order to yield emotional relationships and loyalties.

Historically, a brand was any visible mark created for identification. Today, a brand includes any identifiable or subconscious characteristic, including the many qualities and emotions contained in a consumer’s relationship with an entity, be it a company, product, service or individual. Therefore, the term “branding” is now synonymous with relationship-building.

Contrary to popular belief, a brand is not a mark, logo, or trademark. Marks, logos and trademarks may be the most easily identifiable attributes of brands, but these signifiers act as simple visual links that embody the complex emotional attributes contained in any relationship between entities and their consumers: the brand is the relationship, and the visual cue — be it a mark, logo, or trademark — works to represent, evoke and enhance the relationship.

Brands have become the most valuable and protected assets of corporations, because they enable the introduction of new commodities while concurrently maintaining or strengthening relationships with consumers.

Popular branding practices include, but are not limited to, advertising, public relations, product placement, and event sponsorship through all media. Media develops relationships with consumers and contexts to support and sell brand seduction opportunities. Commodity producers use consumers’ relationships with media to influence and initiate their relationships with consumers.

Emerging branding practices include the use of MRI — magnetic resonant imaging, or brain scan — technology, and digital surveillance. MRI technology informs and prioritizes brand development and accurately predicts consumer behavior, and digital surveillance technology targets consumers based on interest profiles.

Major ethical challenges facing branding practices include relationship-building contexts, methods and truthfulness. Many companies have been widely criticized for using unfair contexts, including schoolbooks, school television, school contests, school restrooms, school cafeterias, children’s entertainment and product placement, or environmental branding as persuasive tools for the development of brand relationships with the unwary. Methods used to identify and target people for brand relationships (including digital surveillance by Internet companies, television devices, credit card companies, and customer relationship management technologies) are often invasions of privacy. The number of brands built around misrepresentations, including unethical (and abusive) labor practices continue to increase with globalization and as branded commodity-producers subcontract manufacturing.

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Additional Information:

Aaker, David. Building Strong Brands. New York: Free Press, 1996.

Ahmad, Sameena. “The Case for Brands.” The Economist. 6 Sept. 2001: 11+.

Klein, Naomi. No Logo. Toronto:Vintage Canada, 2000.

Quart, Alissa. Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. Cambridge:
Perseus Publishing, 2003.

Von Hoffman, Constantine. "BRANDING Baby's Brain." Sierra Nov. 2000: 56.

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FL, NY, NJ Travel

MONTECITO, CA – 04 December 2003

Travel update: Steve will be traveling to Boca Raton and Palm Beach Florida on the December 7th. He will be traveling to New York and New Jersey sometime after December 24th: dates will be posted soon. People in Steve's address book will receive details according to their postal address entries.

The Meaning of Privacy and Security On the Internet.

Imagine a world where technology tracks every dollar we spend, every word we read is recorded and every intimate opinion we express can be referenced by someone, somewhere, or anyone, anywhere: that world is here. With the proliferation of Internet technology, and its ability to track personal information, it is surprising that only a small percentage of Internet users concern themselves with Internet privacy and security. This qualitative research attempts to understand how typical Internet users create their meanings of Internet privacy and security with hopes of uncovering the reasons why these users lack concern.

Before we discuss this harrowing study, it is important to understand a few of its limitations. The study had a limited budget and timeframe. These factors affected its scope. It is also difficult to define “typical” Internet users. It is even more difficult to sample a cross-section of this group. Individuals’ creation of meaning depends on many factors including personal context and attempting to identify a representative sample of individuals can be nearly impossible. In this study, the typical user is defined vaguely. It is anyone between the ages of 21 and 65 who uses the Internet for between five and 30 hours per week. These users are not novices. Nor are they programmers. Finally, given the unanimous responses to questions in this study, it is not difficult to identify patterns that may apply to the majority of typical Internet users.

This journey began with optimism. I was excited. I was enthusiastic. I was in big trouble. Someday, someone might ask you to conduct a focus group. If you find yourself in this situation, run. Hide. Change your name. Move to another hemisphere. If you decide to ignore my warning, approach the project with tremendous caution and learn from my story.

The first focus group took place in a comfortable downtown Montreal office. The participants were great. The coffee was great. If ever I had a chance to knock this Internet security and privacy study on the head, it was then. The questions included: Do you shop online? What do you like or dislike about the Internet? What are your thoughts about Internet privacy? What are your thoughts about Internet security? How do you define Internet privacy? How do you define Internet security? Can you think of anything that has compromised your Internet privacy or security? How often do you use the Internet? What do you do on the Internet? What suggestions do you have for other people who wish to protect their privacy or security? The discussion flowed seamlessly and the resulting information was fantastic!

I should have known. A day later, when my focus group recording dissappeared, along with my car, my iPod, and my Blackberry (wireless e-mail device) — which ironically did not have password protection enabled — that I was in big trouble.

The second focus group took place in my living room. It was important to create the perception that I was not a technological specialist. If people found out, it could destroy the objectivity of their comments. It took three hours to free the living room of Internet routers, flat-screen monitors, and random things that blink twelve. The finished product was an environment that would make the most vehement Luddite jealous. The fire was warm. The lights were dim. Again, the coffee was great. If ever there was an opportunity to knock this Internet security and privacy study on the head, it had to be then. This time the focus group recording would not leave my apartment — I took no chances. I thought of everything. Three of the five participants arrived together — they were friends. We sat down next to the warm fire and began our introductions. Now, this is my favorite part: one of the participants said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, I always loved Netscape.” I replied, “It is very nice to meet you. How did you know that I worked on Netscape?” They replied, “We searched for you online and found your website.” Oh, well, my cover was blown, but there was hope of salvaging this focus group.

The participants’ answers were amazing. Their understanding of technical privacy and security issues was impressive. These 20 minutes might have been the best 20 minutes of my short research career. Unfortunately, the focus group lasted 50 minutes and soon it was clear that my Internet security and privacy literature review had influenced the participants’ answers — they had read the review on my website. The study was tainted.

The clock was ticking. There was one more focus group scheduled. My dreadful batting average called for a contingency plan – an e-mail questionnaire. A successful e-mail study would require a major rethinking of the questions. One person could help with this – a best friend of mine, Vance Johnson. Several attempts to contact Vance resulted in wrong numbers. I had to find him. He had to give me advice. The search for his new contact information ended in horror. Vance had passed away. OK, up to this point I had wondered if I was defeating my own purpose, but now it seamed there was a greater force trying to keep me from completing this study. This was depressing. Being resilient, I pushed on. Despite these traumas, data from the e-mail questionnaire continue to trickle into my e-mail box – in fact, they will continue to trickle, because the first draft of the e-mail questionnaire is missing an expiry date. So, if you receive a questionnaire someday — possibly 10 years from now — that contains familiar Internet privacy and security questions and has my name on it, please disregard it.

The day of the third focus group arrived. People called with apologies: they were not attending. I was not surprised. At this point, my Canadian resources were exhausted. I had third-hand connections with these participants anyway. Maybe it was better for their health to stay away — far away.

Now, this small battle turned into a full-scale war. Something radical had to happen. Out of desperation came a plan: the focus group would take place through America Online’s instant messenger program (AIM). It was the weekend before thanksgiving and everyone was traveling. Somehow, the group converged. This unorthodox idea made participant observation difficult. I could not observe participants’ subtle physical gestures or hear their intonations.

The results were interesting, especially when compared with the results of the first study. Most of the participants’ answers were consistent with everything I remembered from the first focus group. In the end, some greater force was helping me. It was only after comparing these online studies with the offline studies that I made a profound observation.

If you ever knew a sweet, reserved person who would never hurt a fly, but who changes into a monster after sliding behind the wheel of a car, you can understand what these online participants were like. Now, it is important to point out that the online participants did not fight or use foul language. Like many car drivers, they expressed themselves freely within their secure environment. Car drivers derive physical security from the confines of their cars’ glass and steel. In the same way, computer users derive security from the physical confines of their personal space. Both feel they are in control of their physical safety. Throughout this study, I certainly learnt to appreciate my sense of safety.

Surprisingly, the web browser has become just another window on the typical user’s computer. For typical web users, this window exists for one purpose – access to their lives. Participants said that they would feel disconnected from their lives if the Internet disappeared. Participants also felt that they were perfectly secure and that they had no concerns about the privacy or security of their web browsers. Additionally, participants had never played with their web browser cookies or history files. These participants felt in complete control of their Internet experience. It was only when they lost control of their Internet environment — because of pop-up windows, unsolicited e-mail, viruses or unfamiliarity with Internet content — that they felt any concern. In this sample, typical Internet users’ control of their environment influenced their definition of privacy and security.

When participants defined personal information, it became apparent that their biggest concern was about information used in purchasing. This information included financial information, credit card numbers, name and address. This information appeared to be of the greatest concern because Internet users felt vulnerable and perceived a loss of control when they disclosed it. Only one participant considered personal information to mean every possible piece of information there is about anyone.

When participants defined Internet security, it was apparent that their biggest concern was anything that threatened their control over their computing environment. Their computer and their computer’s desktop are extensions of their (safe) physical environment. Threats included junk e-mail, browser pop-up windows and viruses.

Most of the participants shopped online frequently. All the participants’ choices of places to shop or use services are based on the participants’ relationships and familiarity with brands. The habit of dealing with trustworthy brands allayed participants’ feelings of insecurity and the loss of control perceived when providing personal information.

The participants gave mixed responses to requests for useful suggestions for other Internet users who wish to improve their security on the Internet. Answers included avoiding pornography, using secure websites and dealing only with familiar brands. The users’ pornography concern baffled me but it became apparent that pornography sites were breaking two of the users’ conditions for feeling in control: they were sending unsolicited e-mail and spawning web browser pop-up windows.

In conclusion, the typical Internet user's computer and their computer’s desktop are extensions of their (safe) physical environment. Typical Internet users pay closer attention to the security and control of their relationships with Internet content — websites and e-mail — than they do to Internet tools like browsers and email software. These items have the ability to threaten their control of their physical environment. Furthermore, it is easy to see that control is a factor that has tremendous influence on the typical Internet users’ understanding of privacy and security. In fact, many Internet users consider privacy and security synonymous with control. In light of these discoveries, it is not difficult to understand discrepancies between advanced Internet users’ deep concerns with Internet profiling and the typical Internet users’ concern with basic control of their physical environment. It is possible that advanced Internet users create their meaning of privacy and security based on a different concept of personal space. These users may have expanded their personal space beyond their computer and onto the Internet itself. Further research is necessary to test these theories.

Finally, if you ever receive an Internet security and privacy questionnaire with familiar questions and my name on it, please remember to ignore it.

Important Privacy and Security Information

I hope you enjoyed the results of this qualitative study.

Sincerely,

Steve

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Vance Jonson Dedication

This is a small dedication to one of the greatest men I have ever known — Vance Jonson, one of my dearest friends, a genius, a thinker and teacher. It is difficult when you learn that you have lost a dear friend. It is more difficult when you could not be there to comfort them in their time of need. The world would not be what it is today without his influence. He managed to change all of us; in this way, he will live with us forever. I can still hear the last words he spoke to me: "I miss you buddy." If you can read this from up there: Vance my friend, I miss you and all the great adventures we had. There are experiences that shape us, my time with you certainly made me the person I am today. You were the best friend a person could ever have.

All my love and condolence to Susan Landise and Deyon Jonson.

The following note was copied to me from Vance several years ago:

Desiderata

By, Max Ehrmann, 1927

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Yours,

Steve

On Web Browser Privacy Literature For Average Computer Users

Since Netscape, my email box and my peer's email boxes have been filled with requests for web browser security information. I finally had the opportunity to review the (most popular) literature for average web users and see why everyone has questions.

I hope you enjoy this short review.

Sincerely,

Steve (formerly known as billgates@netscape)

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Today companies, fueled by fierce competition, know that the only way they will survive is by creating a one-on-one relationship with you, and that the only way to accomplish this is to know as much as they can about you. As you read this, companies and technologies are gathering and connecting little pieces of information about you. Some of the information is correct, and some is not. With the proliferation of Internet technologies and their ability (or necessity) to track your personal information, it is no surprise that Internet privacy has become a tremendous issue. It is also no surprise to find hundreds of books and journal articles discussing Internet privacy. After a careful review of the abundant literature, I have found that a small percentage targets the average web user. This review explores the literature produced for average web users, literature that focuses on the privacy threats of web browsers. These threats include Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cookie files, auto-complete features, history files and cache files.

Our first stop on the journey to privacy enlightenment (or neurosis) is the literature’s definition of personal information. It is, after all, important to understand what everyone is attempting to protect, and it is also important to understand the scope of personal information outlined in this literature. Preston Gralla defines personal information as your name, address, telephone number, any information you give to a web service, every web site you ever visit, the full contents of email that you send (or receive), every chat session that you participate in, the files you download, what you purchase over the Internet, and everything you ever do online (16). Glee Harrah-Cady and Pat McGregor expand this list with the addition of social security numbers, credit card numbers, age, gender, marital status, employment status, occupation, job function, income, children and children’s ages (345). In this review, these personal information lists demonstrate the scope of our vulnerabilities.

Browser privacy problems begin with Internet Service Providers. Your ISP acts as your connection to the Internet and knows everything you do through this connection. How do we limit the damage in this potentially harmful situation? There are two suggestion patterns in the literature: the first involves carefully reviewing your ISP’s privacy policies, and the second involves anonymous browsing tools.

Ray Everett-Church, John Levine and Gregg Stebben suggest that ISPs need basic information when you open your account — your name, address, phone and credit card number — and if they ask for more information, you should refuse to provide it (77). Gralla suggests a review of your ISP’s privacy policies to determine if the ISP may threaten your privacy. For example, do they keep logs of your Internet usage, share or sell your information, or keep copies of your email after you delete it? If you do not like their policies, find another ISP (17). Church, Levine and Stebben warn us that ISP records are frequently subject to subpoenas so, if you do not want anyone to know what you are doing, do not do it (77). In this example, the literature’s suggestions are exceptional; however, it would be difficult for the average web user to capture the depth of this important topic without a review of several sources.

A majority of the literature suggests the use of anonymous browsing tools to keep your browsing habits private. These tools work by encrypting all of the information that flows between your browser and the Internet. Encryption — through these tools — makes your information untraceable by ISPs. Church, Levine and Stebben suggest Anonymizer, Idzap, the Cloak, Rewebber and Ponoi (146). Gralla adds SafeWeb to the list of suggested anonymous browsing tools (343-344), and Simson Garfinkel adds ZKS Freedom (273). Church, Levine and Stebben warn us that these technologies are not foolproof, especially if you make purchases through them. When you make a purchase through anonymous browsing software, the company that you are purchasing from may be able to connect your real name to other sites that you visit through the anonymous browsing system (146). Again, in this example, the suggestions are diverse and it would be difficult for the average web user to capture the depth of this topic without a review of several sources.

Patterns in the literature suggest several things we can do to minimize browser privacy breaches. These suggestions include turning off the browser’s auto-complete features, and managing the browser’s cookie, history and cache files.

Most browsers contain a feature called ‘auto-complete’. Auto-complete stores all of your usernames and passwords and makes your life easier by automatically providing this information for web pages. Auto-complete is dangerous for people who use public computers to access private web site accounts. With auto-complete enabled on a public computer, strangers can gain access to private web services such as banking or email (Church, Levine, Stebben 158). Several authors suggest simply turning auto-complete off (Church, Levine, Stebben 159; Garfinkel 251). In this example, the literature’s suggestions are consistent; however, it would be difficult for the average web user to understand the scope of the problem without a review of several sources.

As you visit web sites, your browser collects small text files called cookies. Church, Levine and Stebben compare cookies to movie tickets: if you use the bathroom during a movie, you can show your ticket stub when you return and the clerks remember you (128). In a similar way, cookies make it possible for web sites to remember you, your preferences or any personal information that may be important for making your web experience usable or convenient.

Browser developers built security into your browser that limits the access of your cookies to the web sites that are responsible for their creation. This security was successful until marketing companies — like DoubleClick — created advertising networks that share everyone’s cookie information (Gralla 121). Garfinkel argues that cookies sometimes increase a user’s security by keeping the user’s information out of web site databases (220). Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert say, “The Federal Trade Commission considers advertisers' creation of profiles using cookies a serious problem” (7). Cookies present us with a dilemma; they are essential for our convenience and sometimes essential for viewing web sites, but they create tremendous privacy holes. Cady and McGregor suggest that the technology to manage cookies is not here (315). In direct contrast, Church, Levine and Stebben suggest cookie management software downloads including iDecide, CookiePal, Cookie Cruncher, Historykill and Cookie Crusher (133). Gralla endorses CookiePal but suggests that everyone should attempt to review their cookies and the site’s cookie policies (which are usually found in the web site’s privacy policies) (126). Michael Froomkin warns us that the process of reviewing cookies is difficult because few cookies are user-readable (10). Again, in this example, the suggestions are diverse and it would be difficult for the average web user to capture the depth of this topic without a review of several sources.

History files present another browser security problem. Your browser creates history files, which are necessary for forward and backward web navigation (Cady, McGregor 131). History files contain a list of every site you visit. The more history information stored on your computer, the easier it is for anyone to trace your browsing habits (Cady, McGregor, p.131). According to Gralla, history files can invade your privacy because your browser can share your history information with web sites; therefore, you should clean your history file frequently (147). A majority of the literature suggests (and outlines) methods for reviewing and clearing browser history files (Cady, McGregor 119; Garfinkel 247-248; Gralla 123-125). In this example, the literature’s suggestions are consistent; however, it would be difficult for the average web user to understand the scope of the problem without a review of several sources.

Your browser creates a third type of dangerous file called a cache file. According to Gralla, your browser creates cache files that contain full copies of the pages you visit. These pages are stored to improve the performance of your browser: when you hit your browser’s back button, your machine does not fetch the web page information from the web; instead, it fetches a copy from your local hard drive’s cache file (145). Garfinkel tells us that we can turn caching off in our browser’s preferences but warns us that this will slow our browser’s performance considerably (244). Cache files are helpful unless someone else accesses your computer. Consider a situation that Church, Levine and Stebben point out: if you view your email on a computer in a local Internet café, the next user can view your email if it is stored in the web browser’s cache file (158). A majority of the literature suggests regularly reviewing and deleting history files (Cady and McGregor 261; Church, Levine, Stebben, 159-160; Garfinkel 244; Gralla 146). In this example, the literature’s suggestions are consistent; however, it would be difficult for the average web user to understand the scope of the problem without a review of several sources.

To conclude, popular literature discussing web browser privacy for average web users is exceptional and highly recommended; however, it would be difficult for the average computer user to capture the depth of this important topic without a review of several sources. It is also surprising that none of the popular Internet privacy and security books — intended for average web users — focus exclusively on this topic.

NOTE:
This review does not explore all browser security holes. JavaScript, Java, ActiveX, web bugs and other security risks may be published here soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Steve Pariso

FEEDBACK:
Please address feedback to steve@hackersforhumanity.org . Email to this address is shared by several individuals, the address should not be used for private communication.

WORKS CITED:

Cady, Glee Harrah, and Pat McGregor. Protect Your Digital Privacy: Survival Skills for the Information Age. Que, 2002.

Church, Ray Everett, John Levine, and Gregg Stebben. Internet Privacy for Dummies. New York: Wiley P, 2002.

Froomkin, A. Michael. "The death of privacy?" Stanford Law Review 52.5 (2000): 1461.

Garfinkel, Simson. Web Security, Privacy and Commerce. Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2002.

Gralla, Preston. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Internet Privacy and Security. Indianapolis: Pearson, 2002.

Gumpert, Gary, and Susan J. Drucker. "Public boundaries: privacy and surveillance in a technological world." Communication Quarterly 49.2 (2001): 115+.

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GNAAT: Geographic North American Alert Targeting

A plethora of technologies including Internet, email, mobile telecom and voice systems can be used to improve the reach, integration, flexibility, speed and targeting capacity of national and local emergency alert communication systems. These technologies are especially effective during peak business hours and evening hours when people do not have access to mass media. By developing GNAAT (Geographic North America Alert Targeting), we will enable the free integration of lifesaving alerts with current and emerging communication technologies. Through GNAAT, users of technologies capable of connecting to the Internet, telephone, or cell phone networks can receive potentially life saving weather, geological, chemical, biological, abduction (missing person), traffic and security alert information specific to their geographic area.

If you are interested in helping with this project please contact us.

New Principles for International use of Personal Information Drafted

The initial personal information principles proposal has been published. These principles are awaiting ratification. The following principles were created as a living personal information principles document which will be governed by member-elected representatives of weOwnit.coop . The initial document will be ratified this month. weOwnit is the first technology company (co-operative) owned and governed by its' members. It was created to help everyone control their personal information.

Authors: John Clark, Flynn Nogueira, Steve Pariso, Karen Dunn Skinner, Scott Vineberg, ...

We, the members of weOwnit, in order to ensure the security of our personal information and to exercise individual control over its use, together establish these Principles for weOwnit. These Principles form the basis upon which weOwnit's policies and decisions are made in the course of its operations...

Phoebe Espiritu and Pete Clark join the Hackers for Humanity founders

It is my great pleasure to introduce the addition of two more founders to the growing hackersforhumanity team.

The first addition is Phoebe Espiritu. After Netscape's aquisition by AOL I had the opportunity to work with many AOLers. Phoebe was my absolute favorite! We are very excited that she is joining us. Her wisdom and amazing leadership skills will contribute to our DNA while greatly influencing the development of this organization.

Phoebe was first introduced to programming through the Commodore 64, she is once again getting her hands dirty in code after over ten years in various management roles. Currently completing her master's degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Phoebe most recently served as Design Director for AOL Time Warner where she had provided creative vision and design oversight for many e-commerce, transactional and educational products. She also served as an ambassador to facilitate collaboration among cross-cultural teams during the various AOL acquisitions.

Prior to AOL Time Warner, she served as principal for a NY-based creative agency developing branding, interactive systems, retail packaging and collateral and has also served in marketing management for a number of companies that include Ziff Davis and McGraw-Hill.

The second addition is Pete Clark. Pete is a visionary. His work with speech recognition technologies is ground breaking. We all look forward to his guidance.

Pete is fluent in over 30 Programming languages. With over 11 years of hacking experience. Pete has a wealth of enterprise web application development knowledge. He has pioneered cutting edge speech recognition (VoiceXML) applications for telecommunications and commerce.

Please join us in welcoming these two brilliant hackers.

Background: Hackers for Humanity will soon place technology and media students in paid internships within North America's socially responsible not-for-profit organizations. For more information please visit http://hackersforhumanity.org

Sincerely,

Steve Pariso

NY, NJ, and Montreal Travel Scheduled

I will be arriving in New York City on July 29th.

I will be spending two days in New York City followed by four days in New Jersey.

On August 5th I will be traveling to Montreal, Quebec - Canada.

Old news archives are being migrated

Please stay tuned ... News from the past is _slowly_ being migrated.

-steve