I’ve been following the current hearing about Mayor Ford and his alleged run-in with the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act (MCIA). Over lunch, I explained to Daniel Levy, one of Steve’s new students, the gist of what is happening. Daniel, hailing most recently from Winnipeg ((Daniel had his bike stolen the week after he arrived and now he gets to hear about our mayor. Welcome to Toronto!)), rightly wondered if the Mayor’s oafishness is due to cherry-picked quotes from the media. Continue reading “The War on Toronto”
MrRoboto: Part 1— Automatic tunnelling on a Mac
After a hard disk failure that finally rendered MacBook Air #2 unable to boot (or even formatted so as to boot), I’ve set up its replacement MacBook Air, MrRoboto, to be as “automatic” as possible. Things should “just work”. This particular blog post is about automatic tunnelling. If you don’t know what ssh or a local/remote tunnel is, this post is not for you. It’s also aimed at Mac users.
Continue reading “MrRoboto: Part 1— Automatic tunnelling on a Mac”
Which airline do clumsy people go work for?
Bad pun alert!
Q. Which airline do clumsy people go work for?
A. Two Lufthansa.
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part V (Legal)
This is the fifth post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part V (Legal)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 2)
This is the fourth post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 2)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 1)
This is the third post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 1)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part II (Comparisons to Tom Sawyer)
This is the second post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part II (Comparisons to Tom Sawyer)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part I (Abstract and Introduction)
This is the first post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part I (Abstract and Introduction)”
Improving by leaps and bionic bounds
One of the most interesting pieces I’ve read all week is about how people that would have been considered “disabled” a century ago are receiving prosthetics of all sorts that are closing or have closed the gap with “normal” individuals. The thing that struck me most was Wilson’s comment that it was not the rich that will benefit at first from physical and mental enhancements but those perceived to be at a disadvantage. This provided some reassurance that the world of Harrison Bergeron will probably not come to be — at least not in terms of handicapping. In that future, all individuals are equal by bringing those that are (more) gifted in some way to the level of the least through a system of handicaps. In a world full of prosthetics such as those mentioned in Wilson’s article, maybe there can be equality for all not by diminishing our abilities but by amplifying them.
Putting a price on friending
When Giovanna was offered a job at Facebook several months ago, we attempted to figure out what her compensation looked like relative to her other job offerings, just out of curiosity. Since unvested stocks were in the offering, I started looking at Facebook’s proposed IPO pricing. I discovered they had pegged the offering at an estimated market capitalization of around $80B (I avoid to use the word “value” here as I do the word “friends” in reference to said company) and was surprised that a company could reach that kind of valuation so quickly. This meant number crunching time.
Continue reading “Putting a price on friending”