Busy hands | Disquiet mind

Stumbled across a nice little trick to add some raw json to your.site/.well-known/webfinger so that someone can search for your mastodon account with your website address. So I can tell people to search for chebe@lostaurora.net and it will resolve to my actual mastodon account on chaos.social.

On first attempt I kept getting a 503 error. I found out that my root cert was expired and incomplete. So I had to update my root cert with the new active Intermediate Cert. But now it's working!

I'd be surprised if this hasn't been done before, but as wearables, or at least the knowledge of them existing, becomes more mainstream I find myself increasingly having to explain why I think this or that device won't be a runaway success. I have come up with a taxonomy of sorts, for personal tech.

1) The fad. These are typically novelties, interesting ideas that may lead somewhere, but after an initial burst of interest the current form just doesn't seem to work well for most people. Things like the Segway.

2) Labour-saving. These are the classical improvement in work processes (computers instead of typewriters and filing systems, robotic arms in manufacturing plants), or that free up time domestically (washing machines, dishwashers). These make peoples lives easier, and succeed if relient, and affordable.

3) Filling emotional needs. This is probably one of the harder ones to guess at. Things that often seem like toys end up meeting a need in people that they often didn't know they had. Prime examples are gaming consoles, personal/portable music systems, and cameras. People can get very attached to these devices.

4) Connecting people. Anything that connects people in a practical, meaningful way seems to do well. Perfect examples are the phone, and the mobile phone. Mobile adoption went a bit like this;
"What do you need that for?"
"Okay, use this for emergencies."
"Now, just let me know where you are and when you'll be home."
"I will call you every five minutes."
Smartphones took this successful model and loaded it with emotionally fulfilling functionality like music players, cameras, and games. Make it affordable and how can it not work?

There have always been limits to our tech usage though. Even if we forget it often, we are social creatures. Deeply ingrained in us is that survival itself depends on being part of the group. We end up with a great many social norms, that don't necessarily welcome tech.

Perhaps an example will explain better. The smartphone. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, telling friends and family (and strangers) all over the world about the lunch you just had. Good. Head buried in phone while the person you are having lunch with is largely ignored. Bad. It says, you're less important/less worth talking to than the people on the other end of this device. When the tech becomes an actual barrier between communication, social norms act against it. This is why headphones, saviours from the noisy creep behind you on public transport systems, are not acceptable headwear at the dinner table. Whereas spectacles are perfectly acceptable, even encouraged.

And it's this gulf I think many of the new wearables are falling down. Everyones favourite kicking horse, Google Glass, is the best example. It literally puts a computer between your eyeline and other people. Quite apart from the privacy aspects, this puts you at the same social disadvantage as always checking your watch, and being head-down in phone. I'm not sure if it's the tech, or the social norms, that need to change, long-term. But I do know which one is easier to change short-term.

One of the interesting features of this whole wearables/IoT/big data world is that I may need to add a fifth category; healthcare. While there have been great advances in medicine, surgery, and hospital care, very little of it was consumerable (perhaps spectacles, hearing aids, walking aids, wheelchairs). But will it continue to be a specialised market, or will everyone have a few devices hanging around?

There are a great many questions right now, but it's still largely predictable. I look forward to the next unforeseen development.

Let's talk about why I'm a keen believer (and participant) in tech outreach. It has nothing to do with pipelines of any kind. I resent accusations to the contrary. I'm a believer in education for educations sake, in not altering college courses based on current employers expectations. I'm not that practical. Tech is all around people nowadays, and it will benefit them to understand how it works.

I'm not trying to induct people into a career where there are lots of empty vacancies. I'm trying to show them that they don't need to be afraid of technology, that computers are tools you can master, and to demystify the process of creating software. I simply want people to feel comfortable using technology.

As a bonus, I particularly want to show young women that tech is an option, if they are at all inclined in that direction. That they're not weird/strange to have such interests, that women do work (and play) in this area, and enjoy it. There's a huge difference between saying "hey, this can be fun!" and saying "you will become a programmer/techie, start now". Just because you learn to read, doesn't mean you'll pursue a career as a novelist.

I don't operate under the banner of any of my employers, and being at events sponsored by companies makes me uncomfortable. It means we can have bigger, and better events. But don't mistake that as being a shill for anyone.

In the end I don't (can't) teach, I just try and share my interests. And hope that that's enough.

"I don't mind, I have nothing to hide."

It's not about you, you narcissist.

Show me a government free of corruption and greed, unburdened from a history of enacting flawed laws, who never passed religious laws to the persecution of minorities, who never treated any of their people unfairly, unjustly, or unequally, who have never reached for ever more power, and I will show you a government I trust to watch our every move.

Forget about future scenarios (important though that aspect is), think about right now. Think about our ridiculous blasphemy law, about our anti-abortion laws (even while there is risk to the mother's life). Think back a little, to when the EU forced Equality Law upon us, to the battle it was to get divorce legallised (it still requires a four year separation and attempts at reconciliation), contraception was illegal until the 1980s (and nearly impossible to obtain until the 90s). Homosexuality was only decriminalised in the 1990s. The last Magdalene Laundry only closed in 1996.

And that's only our own government.

When we cannot completely trust every single person, we will always have something to hide.

(Apologies, written in exasperation. Recommencing normal operation in 5...4...3...)