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September 29, 2011

A Kashmir Hill gem in Forbes: "Hello, Stranger".

The Blowback of our new Face Culture? A gem we missed at first. Kashmir Hill writes full-time about privacy issues and the Internet. See her "Hello, Stranger", on the conveniences, unintended consequences and unsettling future realities of facial recognition software. Based on a recent Carnegie Mellon experiment, it appears in the Technology section of September's issue of Forbes, where Hill serves as a staff writer. Excerpt:

It seems that Aldous Huxley was right and George Orwell was wrong. Ubiquitous surveillance isn't being orchestrated by the governmental Big Brother of 1984 but by advances in technology designed for convenience's sake adopted eagerly by private citizens. [CMU professor] Acquisti calls it the "democratization of surveillance." And it's coming fast. Soon after the riots broke out in London at the beginning of August, a technophile band of vigilantes formed a Google Group to discuss applying the methods pioneered by Acquisti's research team to online photos and videos of rioters, in order to help identify looters for prosecution by law enforcement.

Facial recognition tools identify a person by analyzing dozens of features, such as the length of a forehead and the distance between the eyes and the nose. Google, Facebook and Apple have already made them freely available for people to tag their friends and family in photo albums. But at what point will you have the option to snap a photo of a stranger and then pull up his or her name and whatever information the Internet offers up about them?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2011

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai (1940-2011)

Wangari Muta Maathai was a Kenyan environmentalist and political activist educated in the United States and Kenya. In the 1970s, she founded the Green Belt Movement, which focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation and women's rights. She was also an elected member of Parliament and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of current Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. In 2004, Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." See Andrew Revkin's remembrance today at his Dot Earth blog in the New York Times, "A Passing: Wangari Maathai."

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

The Economist: "The Palestinians deserve a state--just as the Israelis do."

See in Saturday's The Economist "Yes to Palestinian Statehood". It begins:

The Palestinians are edging closer to getting a recognised state, at least on paper. Their application to the UN’s Security Council, pencilled in for September 23rd, will be rebuffed by an American veto. But if they then go to the UN General Assembly, which seems likely sooner or later, the Palestinians will win an overwhelming majority.

The “observer” status that would be given to them would be similar to that of the Vatican—a position short of full membership, which can be conferred only by the Security Council. It would not make an immediate difference on the ground but would help the Palestinians on their way to the real thing by giving them a diplomatic fillip. It should be encouraged, for reasons of both principle and practice.

The principle is simple: the Palestinians deserve a state, just as the Israelis do.

The United States, the European Union and the Israeli government have all endorsed a two-state solution. There is broad agreement that the boundary should be based on the pre-1967 one, with land swaps allowing Israel to keep its biggest settlements close to the line, in return for the Palestinians gaining land elsewhere; Jerusalem should be shared; and the Palestinians should give up their claimed right of return to Israel proper.

Posted by JD Hull at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2011

Reason To Live.

Go over there, turn on the light.
Hey, all the lights.

Come over here, stand on that chair.
Yeah, that's right.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Heaven.

Cream: Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:57 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2011

The Economist: Anti-Israeli Sentiment Surges in Egypt.

See The Economist's piece Saturday on Egypt and Israel, "Feeling the Heat of Isolation". Excerpts:

Israel has diplomatic relations with only three nearby countries. In the space of ten days its ambassadors have been humiliatingly forced out of two of them: Turkey and Egypt. The king of the third, Jordan’s Abdullah, commented without apparent displeasure that Israel was “scared”.

A week after the Turkish démarche, and linked to it in the eyes of many Israeli commentators, a Cairo mob attacked the Israeli embassy, housed on three floors of a high-rise building in the suburb of Giza. Policemen did little as demonstrators with hammers battered down a wall of concrete slabs put in place to protect the building.

Yet Egyptian attitudes to Israel are rarely simple. A bit of anti-Israeli theatre goes down well. But when incidents such as the embassy break-in become an international affair and foreign governments question Egypt’s ability to protect diplomats, whoever they may be, people become edgier.

All the same, anti-Israeli feeling is growing. Some political parties want to close the Suez Canal to the Israeli navy and to block the sale of natural gas to Israel. The new Freedom and Justice Party, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, says the 1979 treaty should be “revised”.

Posted by JD Hull at 02:57 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2011

Where Do You Practice Law? In ClientTown? Or LawyerTown?

"The Lawyers", circa 1855, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879)

Are the three gentlemen in Daumier's famous sketch "client-centric" or merely "lawyer-oriented"?

We will never know. WLCs, maybe? A WLC is a Weak or Wimpy Local Counsel engaged by your firm and/or your client for litigation or other contentious matters who, after being hired, instinctively, routinely, and most often inadvertantly place their relationships with local lawyers and other players in their jurisdiction ahead of the interests of your shared client, which is almost always "an outsider".

Signature noise: "I have to practice in this town." They are akin to rocks, plants, and household appliances. They are legion. They don't get it. Avoid them and hire someone else (or shop for a different forum). See our world-famous October 2008 piece "Weak/Wimpy Local Counsel: The Next Epidemic?".

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Marrakesh in Egypt: Did You Ever Love a Gifted Woman?

He told me that the secret to marrying a successful woman was to realize that you had married not just the woman but the talent, too.

My Marrakesh, an elegant mix of photography, writing and charm by an American girl living in Morocco, deserves several of your real-world minutes every day. See this December 2010 post: "Cairo, Egypt: A Tale of Love and Egyptian Journalist Louis Greiss". Learn, too, something about the regal actress Sanaa Gamil, who died in 2002.

Photo by M. Montague

Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2011

Well, here's our 9-11 Ten Years After Post: American Life, Fear and Squeak-Squeak.

Once they let you get away with running around for ten years like a king hoodlum, you tend to forget now and then that about half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they doubt their own sanity. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare.

--HST, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972)

Americans learned nothing--i.e., zilch--from the Tragedy of 9-11-01. We still prefer to live in our own remote, insulated caves. Hey, we like it in here.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)

September 11, 2011

Egypt. Ireland. America. Iraq. Ancient Greece. Watts. South Boston. Tribal Warfare is What Humans Do.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2011

Man, Reach and Wonder. "...him we can save."

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen.
--Goethe

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than Man.
--Sophocles in Antigone

"Whosoever increasingly strives upward...him we can save."

Goethe in the Compagna, 1787, JHW Tischbein (1751-1829), Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2011

Writing Well: The Editors.

I have performed the necessary butchery. Here is the bleeding corpse.

--Henry James (1843-1916), after a request by the Times Literary Supplement to cut 3 lines from a 5,000 word article.

James with Edith Wharton, 1904

Posted by JD Hull at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

Writing for Clients, Judges, and other Humans.

Insane Lawyer Posse? Lawyers, including some judges, have a certain way of talking to each other on paper which (1) really isn't needed and just alienates the rest of the thinking and semi-lucid world, and (b) even makes it think we are talking to ourselves dementedly and self-absorbedly like mental patients on third-rate time-released crank. For example, from the first line of an actual federal district court complaint (with changes made only to protect the lame):

COMPLAINT

COMES NOW, the plaintiff, Upstart Corporation, by and through its attorneys, Adams, Bones & Carson, LLC, brings this cause of action against GiantMart, Inc. for violations of the Lanham Act, and for its reasons, files with this Honorable Court the herein Complaint, the following of which is a statement of its averments and allegations:

Why not instead just:

COMPLAINT

Plaintiff, Upstart Corporation, states:

Is it just me?

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2011

The Million Dollar Handwritten Thank-You Note: It Happens.

Don't be White Collar Trash. Don't mess this one up. Just do it. If you are interviewing, prospecting for clients or have great clients giving you new work, write handwritten notes on non-wanker non-prole stationery every time you can. Do it early and often. Crane's or Tiffany's--and the simpler the design, the better. No e-mails. Handwritten thank-you notes work.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2011

Big Sur: So Perfect It Seems Painted On.

This stretch of road just south of Monterey has "unnatural" grandeur: it's so perfect it seems painted on. My fourth time here. Henry Miller and Hunter Thompson both lived and worked here. I keep seeing their faces up in the dark clumps of branches of trees that line the creeks running down from the hills to the ocean.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)