Interesting observation from Ran Prieur this week

 http://www.ranprieur.com/

"July 1. So I've been watching the women's World Cup, and this year they're using VAR for the first time. It stands for video assistant referee, and almost everyone hates it. In theory it makes sure the calls on the field are right, but in practice, it breaks the flow the game, and it allows results to be influenced by things so insignificant that only the machine can see them.

Now goals can be won by drawing the slightest brush of a cleat in the box, or lost by being half an inch offside. The most dramatic defensive play in the game, the saved penalty kick, is now even more rare because the VAR can see the goalkeeper taking her foot off the line a tenth of a second early.

My position is, the rules must serve the game, not the other way around; and the purpose of the game is to be fun for players and audiences. That fun is being lost, because rules that were designed for soft human enforcement are being interpreted by hard machines.

Of course this goes way beyond sports, into our high-tech surveillance society. With machines always watching us, we have to spend a lot of mental energy conforming to rules that were not intended for such strict enforcement, everything from red light cameras to speech codes. 

Another rule change in world football, is what the refs look at when there's a handball in the box. They used to consider the player's intention, but now they've been instructed to ignore intention, and only rule on whether one physical object has impacted another. It's like we worship machines so much that we are turning ourselves into machines, devaluing any skill that humans have and machines don't. 

Imagine trying to manage a business, or get along with your friends, without ever considering intention. But that seems to be where we're headed. The Supreme Court used to consider the intentions of the authors of laws, but at some point they started to look only at the text. At about the same time, the same thing happened in literary criticism.

I think these trends are part of a larger social trend of disconnection, atomization, stripping away of context. I'm not sure what's behind that trend, but it has to be cyclical, and I'm looking forward to the counter-trend, adding context back."

Good reasons for retaining meter readers

As a former meter reader I find it regretful to see that numerous utility companies are phasing out these important jobs. Traditionally an entry level avocation, many career Gas, Power and Water personnel began initially as meter readers; learning the ropes of their trades by inspecting every corner of the system, and getting to know their grids as well as the back of their hands.

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Meter readers often walk 8-12 miles a day. While on foot they usually see much more than car-bound employees do; sometimes noticing crucial infrastructure issues, such as a service box or sewer top caving in, dead tree branches leaning against power lines, or a strong scent of gas emanating from the street.

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By elimating these key jobs, our utility companies will no longer have these warriors watching out for us in such close ways. Not only that, but with the sudden push to “smart grid” metering, our Idaho Public Utility Commissioners would be wise to ensure that these new systems are highly hacker-resistant, before full implementation. For instance; imagine an enemy breaking into the grid, to shut down the full configuration, causing long-term damage to power lines, substations and even home electrical systems. This is not far fetched, as nefarious hackers have already infected various financial institutions, global security systems and millions of personal computers. Unlike old style meters, smart grid meters are susceptible to online attacks.

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Recently, precocious and prolific blogger Ran Prieur made a related observation, “Did pirates have to protect their wooden legs from cyber attack? Do slide rules get viruses? No! But medical implants are now on the same path as Microsoft Windows and the tech system as a whole: adding more complexity, and creating more openings for failure, which can be patched only with more complexity at greater expense.”

Another great quote today from Ran Prieur's blog:



"November 17. Thoughtful essay on intellectual property, If you believe in IP, how do you teach others? My position is that property is theft, and intellectual property is theft on stilts. Now Harvard and the University of Texas are actually prohibiting students from sharing what they learn in class. If you take this to its logical conclusion, you can pay for an education, go on to use what you've learned in a job, and if you didn't get the professor's explicit permission to use it, you can go to prison.

The article doesn't stop there, but goes on to explore Ayn Rand's obsession with intellectual property. It never occurred to me that Rand had two distinct ideologies which totally contradict each other. One is basically Nietzsche, or Harrison Bergeron: the exceptional individual, wild and free, weighted down by the mediocrity of the average. The other is Ebenezer Scrooge. Rand's genius was to use the former as a front for the latter: because we are strong and independent and creative, we should never have to give anything to the lazy idiots. She was personally so miserly that she sent Nathaniel Branden to prevent her followers "from using the word Objectivist, to prevent them from using quotes from John Galt, to prevent them even from advertising lectures on the topic by students of her ideas." And "she ended up feeling robbed and looted by everyone who was influenced by her."

When you think about it, the most exceptional people should be the most generous. If you're truly confident in your ability to create things of value, you don't mind losing everything, because you can just make more."