The BFC Computing Weblog

The geeks are taking over society, re-making it in their own image.

“How’s this then?” you may ask.

Consider that reality is what you perceive. What you perceive is based on what you know.

So then, what is it that we know? It’s either what we’ve derived ourselves or what we’ve been told or read. Most of us learn far more from others than we figure out on our own.

These days, if an average person wants to know something, where do they turn? Some people go to the library, but most go to Google, or someplace more specific, like Wikipedia.

Now, to add to Wikipedia, you need to learn MediaWiki markup. Most people don’t want to learn this. Geeks have no problem diving in, so they do it. They build an encyclopedia based on their perceptions and biases. Consumers of Wikipedia believe it to be true. Not that Wikipedia is usually incorrect, but perceptions are formed based on what is included or not included.

How about Google? Google tells you what’s out there, and it’s ranked primarily by how many links are pointing to a particular article. Who makes links? The geeks do. Google is a ranking of what geeks think is important, to a large degree.

And, again, users of Google generally accept its rankings to be ‘good enough’ for their needs. They don’t usually ask, “but what else is true that Google hasn’t told me?”

From the blogosphere to major media, to presidential campaigns, much of what “true” is based on what is found online. And what is found online is what the geeks feel like putting there.

If the industrialists shaped the last century, the geeks are going to shape this one. Sit back, enjoy, and go have a look at what’s popular on YouTube today.

I attempted to summarize what Gartner’s Research unit does based on their own webpage. I failed. Check it out here.

So, the other day I was thinking about what Gartner actually does. In a former life as an IT drone we had a love/hate relationship with Gartner, which was really just whether we agreed with their assessments or not. IIRC, at the time they were recommending doing new development work in Visual Basic, now a discontinued language. We thought that was crazy, and it was, but I never bother to figure out why they were doing that. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Gartner watches what the beta geeks are doing. The alpha geeks have no need for Gartner, they figure stuff out. Beta geeks watch the alpha geeks, and usually can’t afford to buy Gartner. When the beta geeks start to embrace the stuff the alpha geeks are doing, it’s time for Gartner to write a report predicting that whatever technology is the aim of the report will start to gain in popularity and is a solid bet. (Because they’re predicting the past this is a good strategy for being correct.) The beta geeks have already validated them for this, but the readers of their reports are the gamma geeks (which strains the term ‘geek’) and that audience doesn’t deign to talk to the beta geeks and would have trouble communicating with the alpha geeks, who have already moved on to new technology by time Gartner delivers their report.

This has value to the middle managers of America. They benefit, Gartner benefits, the beta geeks benefit from some validation of what they’re doing. The only people who this hurts are the alpha geeks who work for the companies that buy the Gartner reports, as whatever they want to do is not recommended by Gartner. So, they quit and go work for companies who are not Gartner’s customers.

Overall, this isn’t an awful arrangement, and may even benefit the whole IT ecosystem. It is interesting to study their niche from an anthropology perspective.

Update: Bob Cringely has a perspective on Gartner.

You should probaly forward this to your spouse.

Somebody on the Cartalk forum asked about hidden surprises/costs for the Prius. I wondered where the break-even point was on gas, since everybody is “buying a hybrid because gas is so high”.

Here’s where my research led me: 280,613 miles.

This is using a worst-case difference for the Prius, in this case EPA Highway, and price numbers from Edmunds. My rusty high-school algebra (work below), assumes comparable maintenance costs and $3/gal gasoline. If common battery worries pan out, score down the Prius. If WWIII breaks out, score down the Corolla. If either car makes it to 280K, call Guinness!

I picked the top Corolla to be pretty close in options, but if you want to save more, you can. A really fair comparison would add ABS to the Corolla, so somebody please price that and re-run the numbers. Similarly, an all-in-town (Taxi-service) calculation would be better for the Prius, somebody can run those numbers too.

So, don’t buy the Prius to save money. You’ll definitely save on gas consumption. Whether the Prius has a total carbon load lower than the Corolla is a matter of some debate, given the additional electronics involved, and the high cost of nickel mining.

And, obviously, I’m quite used to high school algebra teachers bleeding all over my work, so have at it, in the name of science.

I previously wrote some thoughts on the Trustees Decision of 2007, which for those who haven’t read them, it basically boils down to “it sucks, but it won’t last.” But I didn’t specify any mechanisms by which change would be effected.

Since I wrote last I’ve done some more reading on the roles of the Trustees, the Charter, the Alumni Constitution, and who has power and authority over what. I doubt any lawsuits are going to change the current situation - I think the AoA has been mortally wounded. “I’m not Dead Yet!” is only worth something until the undertaker’s club meets its target, but go ahead and prove me wrong on these points, I want to be wrong.

The debate is certainly rancorous and many of the discussion boards have descended into acrimonious anonymous postings, debasing the reputation of all Alumni. I suspect this is a bit of ridicule on the part of those defeated in recent elections and a feeling of helplessness, betrayal even, by those on the other side. Emotions run high and it serves none well.

So, this is here to declare the situation not helpless. Now I do believe it is futile for anonymous posters to whine, “fine, I’m not sending my yearly contribution” online, but the power of the Alumni *is* in those contributions, both large and small. When the question is asked, “what right do Alumni think they have to have a say in how the College is run?” the answer is, “the College couldn’t run without their support.” I can’t exactly say to what degree that’s true - if somebody can tease apart the annual report and find that number, please post a comment.

We can also figure out what percentage of the alumni voted for the ‘insurgent’ candidates but I’m not sure anybody on the outside can tell what percentage of giving that group represents. This would be very handy to know.

So, what choice do they have? Stop giving to the College they love and thus weaken it? Give anyway, and just accept that the Alumni shall have no real control over the College’s destiny? No, as I wrote earlier, the Alumni derive power not just through their contributions (which isn’t remarkably different today than in the past), but through their ability to organize (that’s what’s new and deeply troubling to the status quo). So, this needs to be applied to the cynical version of the Golden Rule.

Alumni Investment Corporation. As of this writing the term has no hits on Google. Maybe it exists by another name - somebody educate me, I am not expert in the ways of educational fundraising, though I’ve never heard of this idea before. But here’s the basic idea: form an investment vehicle for like-minded Alumni to donate funds into in lieu of making donations directly to the College. The corporation would have to have a clear set of principles, by-laws, etc. so contributors know where their money is going. Being an investment vehicle, the investors would be issued shares and thus be able to pull their money out should the governance of the fund go astray. Changes to the fund’s policies would be done though a shareholder vote (stop me if you’ve heard this before) and there’d be nothing to stop competing funds, should they become necessary (though a proliferation of funds would incur weakness to each). The fund would need to be well-managed, so that it grows safely over time, and it would probably have to do the same kinds of fundraising (or smarter) that the College does. It would disperse funds to the College on its own terms, with strings attached. If the College were uncooperative, the fund would instead grow, until such time as the College were willing to accept the money.

There isn’t much here that’s new - there are mutual funds that organize to effect social change - the twist here is a select set of potential contributors and a very specific set of potential beneficiaries. The fund would have to be properly organized to garner a charity status so it would be as attractive a donation target under our Federal Income Tax regime. Obviously, profits from shareholder withdrawals would be taxable.

This arrangement leverages the two powers the Alumni really have and largely ignores the one that has been or can be abrogated from it. It allows the disaffected Alumni to continue to donate to the College, but in a manner they find morally acceptable and fiscally prudent.

Now, I have no idea how to organize this nor the time or expertise to manage it (I’m busy trying to get a startup funded), so somebody take the ball and run with it. I might even donate.

Things change.

Sometimes there’s something you can do do stop it. And sometimes there’s not, but you try anyway.

On Saturday, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees enacted changes to the Dartmouth Constitution, last modified over a century ago, to change the balance of power from 50/50 alumni-voted/administration-appointed to a 33/66 split, in favor of the administration. They fancy to implement a model closer to Harvard’s, which isn’t all that well regarded by folks who aren’t in the habit of appointing trustees. Much more info on what happened and why can be found at Dartblog.

The strategy isn’t even all that creative - Roosevelt tried this in 1939 when the Supreme Court wasn’t voting the way he expected it should, and it’s seen as the most egregious political blunder of his Presidency (quite the curious model to emulate). Just as that move enraged the other three branches of government, this has sparked talk about getting big name law firms involved in the process. It’s even brought ridicule from the non-academic intellectuals - the Wall Street Journal gave the idea a good dressing down. A shame, but this will passs.

What won’t pass is the surge in Alumni participation in governance in the College, and that’s why this article appears on my blog. It’s about the Internet.

10 years ago, Dartmouth offered its alumni (n.b.: this blog is in English, not Latin) a lifetime e-mail account. Then it added some alumni services websites, access to the Library, online voting, social networking, etc. The idea was to keep the Alumni closer to the College. And guess what? It worked.

But rather than just fondly fire up BlitzMail and think, “boy, I think I’ll send those guys $100 today,” they also thought, “where’s that money going … what are these guys up to?” And so they checked in and the majority didn’t like what they saw.

So, they organized websites, campaigns, analysis sites, and decided to set out to change things, in the liberal democratic fashion set out for them in the Constitution.

Now, these alumni didn’t share the same values and plans that the incumbents shared, and they were batting a thousand. The Trustees weren’t used to the Alumni exercising their rights as laid forth in the Constitution. So “something had to be done”. And it was. But it won’t last.

You see, the Internet isn’t going away. The power of Alumni to communicate and collaborate is only going to get stronger over time. They can look in whenever they want, even if they can’t get up to Hanover, or to the U.S., even.

Just as Linux (the poster-boy for all of Open Source Software) appeared just as soon as there was an Internet to support its development, Alumni Governance will come to be seen as an emergent property of Alumni linked together with the ability to easily cooperate. It’s no mystery that all of this happened just as soon as it was feasible - what’s mysterious is that some think they can hold back the sea.

Poka-Yoke (poe-ka yo-ka) is the Japanese concept of “mistake proofing”. Originialy, Baka-yoke (“idiot-proofing”), the name was changed to be more, um, descriptive.

The classic example is the shift-interlock in a car that prevents the operator from removing they key when the car isn’t in Park.

John Grout has a wiki with all kinds of examples of Poka-Yoke design, including the shape of manhole covers. In fact, Nashua’s manhole covers are the subject of an article that goes into more detail on the geometry of manhole covers than you thought you were going to read today when you woke up this morning.

Certainly in computers we could do with some more Poka-Yoke in our design. Let me posit the notion that for every time the developer blames the user, he didn’t build in enough Poka-Yoke into the system.

NPR is doing something neat: NPR’s Most E-Mail’ed Podcast.

Here’s the idea - people can e-mail other people links to stories from the NPR website. My guess is they mostly hear the story on the radio, then go online to let their friends know about an important or interesting story.

This is the same as Yahoo!’s Most Popular E-mail feed in the way it works (I also find that to be the best source of news stories that matter). But here’s where it diverges - in the News, Yahoo! just passes that data on to me, as an RSS feed. But with NPR’s strategy, they assemble an audio podcast (probably automated) and each day they load the compilation into their RSS feed. It’s like listening to the best of NPR every day without leaving the radio on all day (and without the DoS Attacks, errr…. pledge drives). I have to admit, some of the stories on NPR annoy me, and I haven’t heard any like that yet on the Podcast.

That part is evolutionary - it’s just one meta layer removed from from the RSS feed Yahoo! offers.

But here’s where it’s different, and perhaps revolutionary: NPR is the content producer, not just an agregator like Yahoo! is with news wire stories. NPR is in the position of offering value by assembling shows, being their own editor, their own producer. But in this model, the listeners are the editors and producers, and they don’t even know it. And so far, from what I’ve heard, they’re doing a better job.

I expect this is a story we’ll hear repeated over and over with slightly different details as Media becomes redefined on the Internet.

The wise man admits he is powerless to know the location of all of his important files, especially if they’re package managed, and backups up everything. The wise man knows a new 500GB drive is $130 at NewEgg.

Dan sent me a link to a great essay by Bruce Schneier about privacy being a human right, not a government allowance. The money quote:

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

Something to consider the next time somebody tells you you only need privacy if you have something to hide.