Thomas M. Stockwell | IT Incendiary

Internet: Rewiring the Brain? Or Just Evolving?

By Thomas M. Stockwell

A recent article in Wired Magazine by Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains is talking about the impact of the Internet and the World Wide Web on our abilities to focus our brains. The point of the article is that, as we access the Internet to gain information, we’re shattering our abilities to retain that information. The impact of Internet access on our minds is being studied at a number of institutions and the outcome of these studies is still inconclusive and mixed. For instance, one study at UCLA resulted in an article entitled “First-time Internet users find boost in brain function after just one week”

Time for Open Voting

Voting Machine Political historians will tell you that voting by machines has always been a problem. Even back in 1942, the debate about the worthiness of mechanical devices to register the will of the people was severely questioned:

... first tried out in 1915 & the experiment was such a failure that it looked as if the town would never have anything to do with them. 10 years later, Mr. Eugene Eisinger, Chief of the Bureau of Equipment and Repairs for the Board of Elections got permission to buy 75 machines of an improved type. Harold Ross, The Talk of the Town, "Political Machine," The New Yorker, October 24, 1942

Of course, the 2000 Presidential Election brought the issue into high focus, and it's caused me to write a series of articles about the topic in my columns at MC Press Online. These included:

The problem of voting machines goes well beyond the ability of the equipment, but strikes at the heart of our democratic values. For instance, if the technology we use to measure our democracy stands between the will of the people, it is absolutely essential that this technology is transparent, accurate, and is not beholding to any particular individual, group, organization, or party.

Why?

Beyond the Lotus iPhone "Oxymoron"

Time for a Kinder, Gentler Application War?

There are a lot of hard feelings when it comes to the subject of Lotus Notes/Domino in the tech world. This conflict seems to be centered upon the advantages and disadvantages of the Lotus Notes client software, and the personal preferences of tech users, and particularly the interface of the Notes client. The negative energy usually comes from Outlook users who have neither the technical knowledge nor the inclination to look beyond Outlook's pretty PIM face. For them Outlook and Exchange is what collaboration is really about.

The most recent eruption of this prejudice sounded after a Lotus announcement -- originally rumored at LotusSphere -- was delayed. Would IBM Lotus enable an interface between the Apple iPhone and the Lotus Notes email database? According to reports, the announcement was delayed for reasons best understood by IBM's Quality Assurance team.

Meanwhile, one "unwashed" analyst by the name of Kevin McIsaac at IBRS made news about the delay. He said

I can't really imagine someone who's really hip and cool -- like an iPhone user -- wanting to use Lotus Notes.

Kevin McIsaac, IBRS

Come again?

Security Breach Notifications

Somebody Stop Them Please!

Jennifer McAdams at ComputerWorld wrote a story entitled "After a Data Breach: Navigating the tangle of state notification laws can be exasperating -- and costly ."

According to the story, conflicting state notification regulations are causing headaches for companies that have suffered a security breach. These regulations are designed to let consumers know that their vital information -- information that they trusted the company to protect -- has been compromised. Many of the companies that experience such data breaches wish there were a single regulation for notifying their customers.

Alas! No such national regulation currently exists, and Congress doesn't seem inclined to take up the issue.

A new opportunity for a financial service!

To my mind, this is a bit reminiscient of national/international debate over spam and computer virus infections and how our economy and political systems react to technological crime: Congress will ignore the issue until some highly visible security breach creates massive loss for thousands of citizens.

By that time, however, there will be hundreds of Internet companies whose sole business is notifying customers that their security has been compromised. Microsoft will have already created a module within Outlook that will field these email notifications.

Outlook in turn will be interfaced to QuickBooks, which will transparently send a notification to the various credit card companies to stop payment on all items that are not validated in its QuickBooks database.

The credit card companies will offer a service to electronically reissue a new credit card, on the spot, which will be sent immediately by FedEx. Of course, the consumer will be charged $5.00 for this service, and the credit card won't be sent to you immediately. But you will have the choice to expedite the shipment of the new credit card by agreeing to a slightly larger fee fee of about $25.00. Of course, these fees will be added on to the usual credit card statement automatically.

Welcome IT Inmates

Finding your niche' doesn't mean you have to live in a cubicle.

Welcome to IT incendiary! This is a new venture aimed at opening the doors of IT to new realms of creativity, productivity, and a bit of humor. It's been a long time coming, and now that it's here, I'm ready to celebrate.

What am I celebrating?

Looking for an IT Liberation Theology

Every day we sit for hours upon hours in front of a plastic screen, pouring the minutes of our lives into a set of tasks that would drive lesser souls insane.

You IT people are strong!
You're courageous!
You're intelligent!

But let's face it.... If you're reading this blog, your life in IT may be a bit confining.

So I'm up for a new kind of IT Liberation Theology: One that doesn't look to "management" for the answers, but stretches our minds to look to new paradigms for productivity and creativity. I'm hoping IT incendiary will help us all get there.

What do I mean?