Thursday, December 09, 2004

What Price Privacy?. Tucked away in this week's $388 billion spending bill is a rule that could put a privacy officer in every federal agency, no matter what its function. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News] 8:25:00 PM    comment []

David Lewis. I was looking at Peter King’s website, especially his book One Hundred Philosophers and I thought this passage on David Lewis was delightful. Lewis’ philosophical interests were broad, as evidenced by the contents of the five volumes of his collected papers published so far: ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical logic, language - he wrote on a vast range of subjects, from holes to worlds, from Anselm to Mill, from the mind to time travel. In everything he wrote he was rigorous, committed, and clear, but perhaps the most distinctive thing about him was his attitude to other philosophers, and especially to criticism: one can scarcely find a book or paper attacking Lewis’ views that doesn’t contain an acknowledgement to him for his help. What mattered to him - what he loved - were the ideas, the arguments, the philosophy, not winning or being right. He was the ideal, the model philosopher; he’s also (and this is a very different matter) widely regarded as being the best philosopher of his generation - perhaps of the twentieth century. (Emphasis added.) The model philosopher indeed. [Crooked Timber] 8:24:55 PM    comment []

The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt. This past summer, I was building some new website interfaces (it's part of my day job) and thinking about TiVo's combination of power and simplicity in their interface and I got to thinking about all the things I wished I could ask someone about the TiVo UI but was afraid to ask. Then I realized I could track down someone at TiVo HQ and corner them for an interview. Thanks to a few designer friends in the Bay Area, I ended up speaking directly to the top, the head honcho of all that is TiVo User Experience, Margret Schmidt. Margret was kind enough to answer ten questions about how TiVo's UI was originally developed, how new features are added, and how the sound UI came to be, among others. I'm grateful for TiVo and Margret taking the time to do this, so without further adieu, here's the interview: (Continued at PVRBlog) [unmediated] 6:12:01 PM    comment []

When Santas Attack! Santas Gone Wild Imagine a flashmob. Now imagine a flashmob that is nothing but Santas. Once a year, for 10 years now, a bunch of crazies dress up like Santa Claus, frolic around major cities (like NYC, good text summary of what SantaCon is all about to be found here) and cause merry mischief. [metafilter.com] 11:38:42 AM    comment []

SHARMAN LAWYER SAYS WITNESS SWITCHED SIDES According to a Sharman Networks lawyer, Leon Sterling -- one of the witnesses against Sharman Networks -- had at one time offered to be an expert witness for the company in the civil trial now taking place in Australia. (from BNA News) 11:38:37 AM    comment []