Why does knowing how a magic trick is done ruin the trick but knowing how a movie’s special effects are done doesn’t ruin the movie?

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Lots of good stuff in these 2919 theses. Some are even inspirational. Now all we need is the positive vision, the words to put it in, the leaders who can lead us towards that vision, a functioning organization on the ground, and 15,000 red. white and blue balloons attached to the ceiling of a large facility.

(Thanks to Seth Gordon for the link.)

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Steve Kruba has discovered an online version of John Austin’s classic essay, “A Plea for Excuses,” which I mentioned a few days ago. In it, Austin shows that our casual, ordinary use of excuse terms is actually quite precise and subtle…but when experts use those terms, they get all bollixed up.

This is where Austin asks us to consider the differences between:

a1 He clumsily trod on the snail.
a2 Clumsily he trod on the snail.
b1 He trod clumsily on the snail.
b2 He trod on the snail clumsily.

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Joi blogs some science about global warming. Scary stuff. I’m coming to think that that the guy we elected president may not be the one with the best platform on this particular issue.

Don’t miss the discussion in the comments after Joi’s post.

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Robert McHenry, Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopædia Britannica, does not much care for the Wikipedia. It isn’t reliable enough for him. His example: The uncertainty of Alexander Hamilton’s birthdate got edited out by someone at some point, and the user won’t even know it. Good point. But I notice that the Hamilton article now has been amended with both dates, and has details about the controversy.

Ok, I admit that’s a cheap shot because it distracts from the general problem McHenry points to. But the way to resolve whether it’s truly a problem is to see how the Wikipedia develops. If it turns into a swamp of misinformation, then McHenry is right. If not, he’s wrong. And, so far, my casual use of the Wikipedia shows that he’s much more wrong than right.

(Thanks to Tim Bray for the link, whose comments on the topic are, as always, well worth reading.)

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If for some bizarre reasons you want to see my slides for the Jupiter Inside ID conference, they’re here.

Username: insideid
password: nov04

Unfortunately, they’re mainly graphics and won’t make much sense. Also, the file is 7MB. Also, unless you have Powerpoint XP or greater, they won’t animate.

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Photos don’t tell the whole story. They tell stories in inevitably weighted ways. But they do speak. Here are some from Fallujah that I haven’t seen in any of the mainstream media. Of course, I haven’t done a lot of looking for them.

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Jeez, what an interesting day.

I spent the morning at the the Jupiter Inside ID conference. Then I had lunch with six folks from the Library of Congress who have a variety of interests and deep, passionate expertise. We talked about if, when and how the Library’s 150M objects will be digitized and how that will change the institution, research, knowledge, authority… It was completely fascinating. Then I got a tour of the Library’s 100-person conservation/preservation division. May I use the “fascinating” word twice in one paragraph? I’ve been mightily impressed by the people I’ve met there.

Now, after a spicy Indian dinner with my nephew and a friend of his, I’m in a hotel in Providence that promised free wifi. Instead I get messages about out of date certificates and about reaching the redirection limit as it tries to connect with the wifi service provider’s home page. I’m using dialup for the first time in a looong time and feeling just a tad cranky about it.

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Salon has a point/counterpoint on election fraud in Ohio featuring the name-callin’, contempt-drippin’ Greg Palast saying Ohio belongs to Kerry and Farhad Manjoo defending his article saying that Kerry really did lose. If it’s not obvious, I think Farhad comes out ahead on this one.

On Thursday Night, I heard Farhad lay out the issues at the beginning of an NPR talk show. He was excellent. then Heather Gerken and Steve Ansolabehere, from Harvard and MIT respectively, were interviewed. They were good, too, but I was quite surprised to here Ansolabehere say that he was “100%” confident that Bush won Ohio. Gerken responded similarly. When do researchers and academics ever say they are 100% certain? Is it literally beyond all imaginings that the e-voting machines were hacked? I mean, I’m 98% certain they weren’t, but how could I ever get to 100% on such a topic? Maybe I’m over-reacting — and I was listening in the car and not taking notes, so I may not have gotten the exchange right — but I feel like the media are on a mission to reassure the public. And that is not the media’s role. That’s why we have politicians and soma.

Tom Hartmann was also on the show also, and while I am not as alarmed as he is, it was good to hear a skeptic.

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In a few hours I’m keynoting Jupiter’s Inside ID Conference. Since I know less about digital ID than anyone in the audience, I’m going to say something like the following:

When it comes to digital ID and anonymity, let’s take our cue from the real world where we’ve worked out these issues with great subtlety and precision.

In the real world, anonymity is the default.

Let’s look at what ordinary language philosophy might say about the term “identity.” It turns out that an identity isn’t something we have. Rather, it’s used primarily when someone has a reason to go from doubt to knowledge about how to connect us to some other piece of information, in order to accomplish something (e.g., arrest us or return our wallet).

So, we should only have to identify ourselves to the level of distinction that justifies a difference in treatment.

But why is anonymity good? Because we need leeway to live together.

Then I argue against “accountabalism,” the magical belief in accountability. Accountabalism is eating us alive.

Then it’s on to how accountability tramples the value of the implicit.

Thanks, God bless, and drive safely…

(Or something like that.)

This is a more ruminative (= incoherent) talk than usual, and the first one that includes a photograph of J.L. Austin.

After that, I get to go back to the Library of Congress for some discussions, which I believe center on the spellling of verkochte. Heck, if the Library of Congress doesn’t know, then no one does!

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