Cool Tech and the Privacy Trap: Tile Edition

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Tile is a really cool new device that has been getting some massive early funding and advertising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pqDm3gZNZPM

Awesome, right? Attach one of these to your keys, to your remote, to your bike, to your laptop, to your child, to anything you’re worried about  misplacing, losing, or having stolen.

In fact, one of the very coolest features is that when you can’t find something (they use the example of  a stolen bike in the video) you can register the Tile corresponding to that item as lost and every other user of the application will immediately ping your phone with GPS coordinates of your lost Tile should they happen to venture within range. That’s really pretty amazingly awesome, if you’ve got an ecosystem of users dense enough for it to be practically useful, and the crucial network effects clearly demonstrate why they are pushing so hard with the advertising campaign.

But then there’s that funny bit about attaching one of these to a person, like your child. Or, you know, like your ex-girlfriend. Stick one on the bottom of her car, register the Tile as lost and Presto! you’ve turned the entire Tile ecosystem into your stalker allies. Thus we see, once more, the double-edged sword that is information technology. It lets you know a lot of stuff and the meaning of that phrase, it turns out, is highly ambiguous and context-dependent.

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Martin and Zimmerman: Complications to the Racial Narrative

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2013-07-16 Zimmerman

From TheGatewayPundit:

The media has tried to serve up an image of Zimmerman as a racist and wannabe cop who had some sort of close relationship with the police department. Now flashback to 2010, the video posted below shows an incident in which a drunk adolescent son of a Sanford police official attacked a homeless black man named Sherman Ware without provocation.

The Sanford police were sweeping the crime under the rug and very little was done about the incident. Ironically, the NAACP did nothing as well, but it was Zimmerman and his wife who started a “Justice for Sherman Ware” campaign. It was Zimmerman who succeeded in organizing the black community to get results and justice for Sherman Ware. 

You can watch the video of the incident below. It’s 5 minutes long, but the assault on the homeless man takes place in the first few seconds. 

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My Thoughts on Martin, Zimmerman, and Racism

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I wasn’t going to post this because I’m so fed up with the persistence of the narrative that all conservatives are racist that it seems pointless. What had me so frustrated? This article, which a friend I tend to highly respect despite our different political views, posted on Facebook with the admonition “read all the links”.  I don’t want to spend too much time going through all the things that article got wrong, but there are a lot. Starting with the image it uses at the top:

2013-07-15 Martin Zimmerman Reversed

The point is to reverse the races and ask: would people have reacted the same way? But here’s the problem, they never questioned that the image they are parodying is itself highly biased.

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Monday Morning Mormon Madness: Faith in a Secular Age

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2013-07-15 Secular AgeI really enjoyed David Brooks’ “book report” on Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age”. So, this morning in Times And Seasons, I blogged about it.

Might you find it interesting? You may, but you won’t know unless you read it.

Compassion vs. Codependency

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2013-07-08 Faith on the Couch

The adversarial tone religion vs. atheism comparison is a detriment in this Patheos blog post, and I’m not convinced that “co-dependency” is the right term, but there’s still an insight here worth sharing:

Compassion is intentional and, sometimes, it is hard.  Co-dependency is simply an unsophisticated, primal urge that employs pity as a means of self-preservation.

At a minimum, it’s another perspective on an argument that often separates heartless conservatives from bleeding-heart liberals.

Letting Sikhs Serve Their Country

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2013-07-08 Sikhs in Military

That’s Maj. Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, who had to convince the US military to create an individual exception to be allowed to serve while maintaining his Sikh religious practices, which include never cutting or shaving his hair or beard. Something I didn’t realize is the US military’s rules that ban observant Sikhs are only a few decades old.

I’m biased, I suppose, because I find Sikhism absolutely fascinating. I love their proud heritage, egalitarian views, and military history. I think the US would be a better place if Sikhs were allowed to serve openly in our armed forces, and I also agree with Kalsi’s observation in the New York Times:

The more Sikhs wear military, police or firefighter uniforms, Major Kalsi reasoned, the less often Americans will see them as threatening outsiders. “When you see a Sikh firefighter save your daughter, you’ll think, ‘That’s a member of my community,’ ” said Major Kalsi, a 36-year-old father of two.

So it’s good for everyone. I hope the military creates a blanket exception for all observant Sikhs, so that they don’t have to fight the lonely, uphill battle for individual exceptions–exceptions that are often not granted.

Zimmerman Likely Guilty, Likely to Go Free

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George Zimmerman pre-trial hearing

I don’t think there’s really any way that a jury can find George Zimmerman guilty of murder or even of manslaughter. This analysis for ABC by Dan Abrams explains why, but the short version is that Zimmerman’s story (that he only got out of the car to get an address and was attacked by Martin) is bolstered by enough of the evidence (e.g. physical injuries and eye-witness testimony that he was on the ground and Martin was on top) that I just don’t think a jury can dismiss his tale beyond a reasonable doubt.

Monday Morning Mormon Madness: Cosmology and Free Will

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2013-07-08 George MacDonald Quote

This week’s post for Times And Seasons does double-duty. First of all, I’m trying to put into practice the idea I’ve discussed in the past that theology can be a form of worship. Second, I’m delving into one of my favorite topics, which is the connection between free will and existence as it pertains to the nature of God and the existential roots of objective morality. Sound interesting? Give it a read. If not, the quote above is probably the best part anyway, so your day has already been enlightened (by George MacDonald, if not by me).

These Drudge Headlines Annoy Me

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2013-07-05 Drudge Kerry

Here’s the thing: what could Kerry be doing during the Egypt crisis that would actually help? Doesn’t Drudge spend a lot of time talking about how pointless and fruitless our sporadic interventions into the Middle East tend to be? We lent a hand in Libya and that got rather ugly (first Al Qaeda took credit for a lot of the victory, then there was the whole Benghazi thing when we tried to get our weapons back) and we haven’t lent a hand in Syria and that’s even worse. Seems that we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t, so if Kerry wants to go yachting on the Fourth of July: good for him. I wish I had a yacht. That sounds fun.

I’m sure there are these things called cell phones if anything requires his attention and, to be quite honest, the thing that’s most interesting to me here is that he’s still apparently windsurfing at age 69. Not bad!

This kind of dumb “red meat” writing is why I end up finding more in common with the despised moderates and RINOs. It’s pointless, excessive, and probably hypocritical to boot.

I know you need to fill space, Drudge, but go find a real story. I’m sure someone was horribly murdered in an unusual way somewhere or something.

Nirvana, Soundgarden, and then US Special Forces

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2013-07-03 Jason Everman

The New York Times has a long and fascinating article about Jason Everman, who played for and was then kicked out of first Nirvana and then Soundgarden, each time just before the bands really hit stardom. How do you recover from that fortune-whiplash? You join the army, become a ranger, and then join the special forces, apparently. Article doesn’t strike me as particularly insightful or impressive, but the story alone makes it worth the read.