No Private Life on the Web

A recent story in the Guardian confirms once again that there is no such thing as anonymity on the Internet. This is a shame, because the Web is much richer for the candid commentary that sometimes only exists under a nom de plume. In this case, blogger Abby Lee was a major figure in the blogosphere, and not only because she wrote mostly about sex. The Guardian comments:

The blog tootled along for about six months, and then suddenly went crazy. People were Googling for it at a rate that was measurable by the minute. Girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com has had more than 2 million visitors, gets 100,000 readers a month, won Best British or Irish Blog at the 2006 Bloggies, and was published as a book last week (for which she got "six figures"). The book is already in the bestseller lists. So far, so successful, but so still anonymous; all anybody knew about Abby Lee was that she worked in the film industry, lived in London and got laid a hell of a lot. Oh, and we knew that she had size eight feet - much has been made of this, in the press, as if she were deliberately trying to out herself, whereas, in fact, I can personally vouch for the fact that big feet are not all that rare.

In her candid depiction of an active woman's sex life, Lee counted on anonymity to protect her job and her relationships — with co-workers, friends, family, and lovers. After being "outed" by the Sunday Times, Lee recounts on her blog that she has lost her job and faced the humiliation of having her friends and family know the intimate details of her sex life. The Guardian, meanwhile, recounts that she has been hit with a wave of sexual prudery that would have been unthinkable a couple of decades ago. But it is not necessary to approve of frequent sex with more than one partner to believe that a culture that will not tolerate anonymous writing will be poorer for it. (For example, perhaps the most famous anonymous author was Sir Walter Scott, who did not wish to reveal that he had abandoned poetry for a less reputable art form — the novel.)

While I try not to put anything on the web to which I am not willing to sign my name and which I am not willing to have my mother read, I do not pretend that my writing is necessarily richer for it.

WordPerfect on Linux

By making sure that my "obsolete" glibc libraries were installed. I managed to get Corel WordPerfect 8.1 working on SUSE Linux 10.1. Hoorah!

Ailing Computer

My computer is back on line after a major overhaul. For some reason, I was suddenly flooded with the "blue screen of death," and my machine has been inoperable for over a week. So far, knock on wood, my rebuilt machine is a joy to use, but the process of reinstalling software is always a bit tedious.

Palm to Use Linux

Mobile Open Source | Basic Info

PalmSource has announced that the next generation of the PalmOS will be based on Linux in order to better adapt the operating system to mobile phone technology. The announcement comes at a time when Palm, which makes Palm hardware, has announced that it is going to offer a Windows-based version of its Treo smartphone.

Computer Waste

Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster - New York Times

On a recent Sunday morning when Lew Tucker's Dell desktop computer was overrun by spyware and adware - stealth software that delivers intrusive advertising messages and even gathers data from the user's machine - he did not simply get rid of the offending programs. He threw out the whole computer.

Puh-leeze. The ultimate in waste in the SUV society. And why was a Ph.D. in computer science using a computer without an antivirus program?

Blogging FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)

USA Today points out that employers are desperate to control blogs. They are torn between fear that out-of-control bloggers will alienate customers or spill trade secrets and greed over the prospect that they can manipulate bloggers to promote their products.

Law of Blogging

Blogger David Kennedy has published an article in the American Bar Association's Law Practice Today that outlines the most common mistakes of new legal bloggers.

From a career standpoint, Kennedy does not think that blogging "helps you" if you blog anonymously, but he understands why lawyers might be reluctant to attach their names to their blogs: "On the one hand, I am very disturbed by the current legal culture in which associates in law firms live in such a state of terror that they will not blog unless they are anonymous. On the other hand, I don't understand how blogging anonymously helps you."

Where I think I disagree with Kennedy is over his view of a blog as a tool to enhance one's career or law practice. I write a blog because it offers me a chance for personal expression and in the hope that it may open up new conversations with interesting people. I only hope that it does not become a professional liability.

Love/Hate Linux

Srijith has announced that he has managed to get his Palm Pilot to sync on his Linux box by resetting the permissions on the device with which the Palm syncs (usually /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1).

Srijith's post illustrates both what is right and what is wrong with Linux. On the one hand, Linux supports the Palm and it gives the user full access to the software so that it can be tweaked when there is a problem. On the other, all too often the software requires tweaking, rather than working right out of the box, and the support for the Palm is, at the moment, rather limited. (This is in no way disparagement of the excellent work of David Desrosiers and J.P. Rosevear).

I love to play with Linux, even though I am not fundamentally a very technical person. I love the fact that it is fast and clean: what it does, it does very well. I love the philosophy behind open source software, even if my contribution has been very small (documentation for GNOME System Monitor).

However, for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that Linux will be anything more than a toy for me. Case in point is the fact that I rely on my Palm Pilot for essential tasks in my work and my life; it is far more important to me than my Linux box. My life as a lawyer is structured around calendars, deadlines, and to do lists. My Palm keeps track of my money, my diet, and my weight and syncs all this information with my Windows box. I keep a number of books on my Palm for emergency reading or reference; it includes a portable dictionary. The fact that Palm support on Linux requires painstaking configuration and supports only the most basic Palm applications is a reason why I am unlikely to move exclusively to Linux in the near future.

A second reason is that althought Linux does provide word processing and spreadsheets, it does not at present support the kind of third-party software for chess or languages that I am interested in using. Until it does, it looks as though I will grudgingly put up with Windows' slow, crusty, virus-ridden, unstable interface.

Chess and Chips

The New York Times > Technology> Review> Chess Players Give 'Check' a New Meaning

The New York Times highlights the ways in which computer technology has made chess more competitive, while at the same time limiting the play of some of the top players. The fact that players can obtain more information about their opponents in advance is apparently a great equalizer in opening play, and computers make it easier to play and develop one's skills. At this point, most of my games take place on the computer because I do not have time to play live. The following paragraph pretty well sums up the article:

Jaan Ehlvest, 42, an Estonian grandmaster, said that better players are more able to take advantage of the abundant information provided by computers and databases because they have the expertise to identify the ideas that are worth pursuing. For lesser players, he said, computers can actually slow development because they cannot separate the good ideas from the bad.

Mr. Ehlvest added that in any case he did not believe that computers made people better than they otherwise would be. Instead, they can help them reach their potential sooner.

New Life for Old Computers

Dead Electronics Going to Waste (washingtonpost.com)

RetroBox -- headed by a cheerful Harvard Business School graduate named Stampp Corbin, who sees America's high-tech rejects as a healthy revenue stream -- assures its customers that it will recycle their old electronics and then give them 70 percent of his profits, while simultaneously wiping any confidential business or personal data out of old hard drives.

The moral dimension of the problem of high tech waste is that currently the United States is simply exporting its waste — including heavy metals and other toxic waste — to China and other poorer countries, where it is poisoning their citizens and low wage workers.

Where will it end?

Tech Republic reports that employers are now installing software to monitor employees' keystrokes on their computers, so that the employers can monitor the employees' use of email and instant messaging. What the legal limits under the wiretap laws are on employer monitoring of messages is apparently still not clearly defined.

Blog Ethics

Burningbird — This is Wrong on Oh So Many Levels

Shelley Powers (a.k.a burningbird) has a thoughtful commentary on sincere — and less than sincere — interactions between bloggers:

I value every comment left, and every link given — they are gifts. And I value those who take the time to read me, as time is precious and there are so many good writers who have weblogs.

She adds, however, that she would never change what she had to say simply to keep a reader.

New Under the Hood

I have upgraded the site to Movable Type 3.11. I already like the new user interface, I am looking forward to the performance improvements, and I hope that the new anti-spam features work!