Picky, Picky, Picky!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m already in August Mode, a frame of mind common among Washingtonians, New Yorkers and other pretentious pseudo-intellectuals of my ilk during which time unless, let's say, Obama is caught in fishnet stockings chasing a sumo wrestler or McCain is discovered to actually have spent the Viet Nam war in Canada making macramé bongs while his twin brother Skippy was the real POW, I simply don’t give a rat’s ass about politics. Save it for after Labor Day.

So I was surfing for non-political news earlier today at my usual haunts and ran across this story in Slate about amateur locksmithing.

This happens to be a topic about which I actually know a little something, albeit second-hand, because amateur locksmithing was the hobby of one of my oldest school friends, a fellow who shall remain unidentified despite the statutes of limitations having long since lapsed for his various youthful indiscretions.

Of which there were many. My friend, whom I’ll call here “Jimmy” after a fairly crude lock opening technique, became intrigued as a child with the inner workings of locks and keys and, more to the point, how to open the former without benefit of the latter. As skilled trades go, locksmithing is far more about brains than brawn and Jimmy has a logical mind and a meticulous temperament exactly suited to figuring out puzzles and therefore to picking locks.

By high school Jimmy had also managed to acquire a key cutting machine – don’t ask! – various tools of the trade including illegal lock picks and tension wrenches (more about which below), shims and so forth. He had also, um, ‘borrowed’ locks from schools, churches and other public and semi-public places, dismantling them and discovering in the process how to make master keys to those entire buildings or building complexes.

I hasten to point out that Jimmy had no larcenous intentions in any of this. He simply viewed a locked door or a lock of any sort as a challenge. The fun was all in figuring out how to thwart the lock owner’s desire to keep him out, not in actually entering where he wasn’t wanted. It was, in short, simply a game.

Okay, so every once in a while there were more, um, practical applications of this skill. In the late 1960s, when the suburban youth of America (1) had just discovered the pleasures of marijuana but (2) were convinced that there were millions of ‘narcs” lurking just about everywhere, having a key that could stop the elevator between floors in a local apartment building (not ours!) long enough to smoke a joint and then wait for the ceiling exhaust fan to remove the tell-tale scent before turning the elevator back on was the perfect solution to our privacy problem. Keys to the padlocked chains barring vehicular entry into public parks where a young couple might go parking at night similarly proved handy.

Of course, that was all many, many years ago and my friend Jimmy is now a respected member of one of the learned professions and a disquietingly conservative pillar of his community. My guess is that he doesn’t even smoke pot anymore, let alone take young girls parking.

Woolgathering about my salad days (“Block that mixed metaphor!”) aside, the thing about this amateur locksmithing business is that its opposition is such a classic case of vested interests trying to protect their once largely unchallenged turf and trotting out all the usual and typically disingenuous “public interest” arguments in the process.

Case in point: I could be charged in many jurisdictions with possession of burglary tool over the fact that I have, courtesy of Jimmy, a small lock picking kit I’ve used on countless occasions when I or a friend lost or misplaced a key. At least the way the law used to be written, unless you were a bonded locksmith, such mere possession was sufficient grounds for conviction of a misdemeanor. After all, if you weren’t a real locksmith, what on earth could you possibly want with such implements except to commit a crime? Right?

[Insert “possession of rape equipment” joke here.]

I wasn’t aware that amateur locksmithing was so popular a hobby as the Slate article suggests, but I’m glad to hear it. Truth be told, I misplaced my old pick set a few years ago. Hey, maybe I can just order one online these days! To be sure, there are legitimate arguments in favor of keeping some sorts of information confidential. But knowing how to open a pin-tumbler lock, even a Medeco lock, without having to use bolt cutters hardly rises to the level of legitimate state secret. And as the enthusiasts correctly point out, the first step in building a better mousetrap lies in finding out the weaknesses in the old model. That’s what we call progress.

What the Hell? This Blog is "Rated R"?

With a hat tip to Lance over at A Second Hand Conjecture, it turns out that my little blog thingie here is "Rated R" according to a clever marketing ploy by an online dating site. The site explains, in my case:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* hell (6x)
* crack (4x)
* cocaine (3x)
* suicide (2x)
* shoot (1x)

So, what they're doing is crawling or spidering or whatever the hip web term is for it over a site, finding instances of certain words and cranking out a rating.

That is, I am sure, a small part of how the MPAA goes about its film rating business, but knowing the film industry (even now that Jack Valenti is dead), I'm betting the MPAA comes after the site for trademark infringement. Why? Here's a picture of a "widget" they offered me:



Them movie industry boys are serious about intellectual property rights, and this dating service site didn't even have the sense to remove the MPAA logo from the picture?

Two other points. First, if Live Free or Die Hard is any indication at all, these guys have set the bar way too low for an R rating and I deserve no worse than a PG-13.

Second, as porn sites found it useful to "voluntarily" use or cooperate with filter services like Net Nanny and so forth, I sadly predict it's only a matter of time before all internet web sites do have some sort of rating category assigned to them. (I say this, by the way, as a father of primary school children who have access to the internet.) Slowly, perhaps, but surely nonetheless, the wild, wild west days of the internet are coming to a close. God forbid, after all, that some sixteen year old should land at this site and read words like "hell" and "shoot."

Could Hell Really Be Freezing Over?

My embedded Weather Watcher in Hell, Frosty the Snowman, reports a cooling trend. Radley Balko takes a break from his increasingly “Dog Bites Man” reports of police SWAT Team brutality, incompetence and unaccountability to report on Reason’s "Hit & Run" that Ron Paul’s campaign has experienced a surge of contributions amounting to between three and four million dollars and is closing in on $5 million. (The lengthy comments section of Balko’s post includes various snipes from former Paul staffer Eric Dondero, whose “Great Man” views of a future libertarian America strongly suggest that the great man he has in mind to lead us to the Promised Land has a surname ending in a sounded vowel.)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m toying with the idea of sending Paul a few bucks, too. Mark it up to rational irrationality or expressive voting. ("Geez, Ridgely, more Caplan plugs?") I’d still say Paul has the same chances of winning the Republican nomination that Barack Obama has of being the next Imperial Wizard of the KKK. Even so, between the Dean Factor, i.e., the yet unmeasured political power of the internet, and the historical precedent of Barry Goldwater, who knows?

Transparency vs. Anonymity on the Internet

In today's Washington Post, former Post reporter and editor Tom Grubisich makes a bad case for greater "transparency" on the internet. It is a bad case because, among other things, Grubisich begins his argument with a false premise, as follows:

These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massive exception -- the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall.

The first sentence, taken literally, is obviously false. I don't want transparency in private institutions, do you? Of course you don't. Your family is a private institution, after all. How much transparency, whatever that means, am I entitled to about your private affairs, institutional or not. Precious little, and rightly so. Mr. Grubisich may want transparency in private institutions, though I seriously doubt it. Perhaps he's just accustomed to writing in the editorial plural. Regardless, the premise is false.

Furthermore, we're told all sorts of things about the internet. Sure, "town hall" is one such metaphor, but metaphors are not to be taken literally. You can't get arrested for speeding on the Information Superhighway, nor do you even need to buckle-up. The internet is a communications medium, similar in some ways to other media, different in others. That it can be used as a sort of public forum doesn't mean that it is sufficiently like a real town meeting or public gathering of any sort to make it reasonable to apply the same rules.

Anyway, Mr. Grubisich's principal complaint is the anonymity of many "hate-mongering" commenters on such websites as, well, as wasingtonpost.com. Grubisich again:

You would think Web sites would want to keep the hate-mongers from taking over, but many sites are unwitting enablers. At washingtonpost.com, editors and producers say they struggle to balance transparency against privacy. Until recently, many of the site's posters identified themselves with anonymous Internet handles -- which were the site's default ID. Now, people must enter a "user ID" that appears with their comments.

Hal Straus, washingtonpost.com's interactivity and communities editor, says the changes "move us in the direction of transparency." But the distinction is not quite a difference, because washingtonpost.com user IDs can be real names or fictional Internet handles. While the site prohibits comments that are libelous, abusive, obscene or otherwise inappropriate, Mr. anticrat424 could still find a well-amplified podium at washingtonpost.com.

The news and opinion site Huffingtonpost.com requires posters to register with their real names but maddeningly assures them that it will "never" use those names.

Well, now. Amused though I am to see the Washington and Huffington Posts thusly compared, a bit of perspective about those nasty anonymous commenters seems in order here.

In the first place, not that many people spend that much time reading that many comments on these or any other websites. Oh, sure, if a reader finds a particular article interesting he might well peruse the reader comments, agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, finding some amusing or insightful and others insulting or disgusting. There are a few popular websites where the readers' comments are at least as interesting and fun to read as the primary article (Reason's Hit & Run strikes me as one example, probably because I frequently comment there), but they are the exception to the rule, at least when it comes to MSM websites like the Post.

Knowing the writer's name would be of little additional value to the average reader at such websites and of no value to the website's owner and operator who can, in any case, delete offensive comments and ban commenters fairly easily. Yes, some internet trolls can get around such bans up to a point, but very few are willing or able to go to the trouble.

In the second place, while there are all sorts of reasons someone may wish to be anonymous on the internet (though some are better, in my opinion, than others), anonymity automatically carries with it a certain penalty in terms of credibility, the only exception being where anonymous commenters build up a reputation, for better or worse, at a particular website over time. In a sense, therefore, market forces are already at play in assigning value to reader comments.

Moreover, Mr. Grubisich's comparison to an actual public meeting is entirely inapt. Internet trolls or, for that matter, "hate-mongers," can't "take over" a website. They can't shout over other commenters and drown them out. Yes, they can collectively flood a site with spam; but that, in fact, rarely happens. In reality, Mr. Grubisich would apparently really rather that the anonymous "haters" have no voice at all on the internet or at least that they be marginalized beyond the extent to which both their anonymity and the substance of their comments already marginalizes them. After all, he already acknowledges that sites can prohibit comments that are "libelous, abusive, obscene or otherwise inappropriate," so what we are pretty much left with is that he would prefer those with whom he disagrees either identify themselves (why?) or, more likely, simply not comment at all.

Websites are free, and should remain free, to treat commenters as they see fit. As I have written previously, the notion that there is something special about an MSM website beyond the fact that it provides straight news reportage is a dubious proposition, though apparently a common one among professional journalists.

On a personal note, odd as it might seem, I am inclined to agree with Grubisich in that I, too, would prefer that commenters used their real names. Again, I understand why many believe they cannot or should not do so; but then I am, after all, merely stating a preference. In fact, my reasons are similar. Using one's real name tends to have a moderating effect on what one posts on the internet. At least it does for me, which is one of the primary reasons I use my real name here and elsewhere.

Now, I've written enough over the past five years or so on the internet that there are already any number of really dumb comments of mine encased in virtual amber for all times. Some of them I now recognize as dumb. Others I may eventually and probably already would have recognized as dumb were it not for the fact that I remain a bear of very little brain. Patience, dear reader, patience!

But the internet is a "big enough place" that there's room for dumb guys like me and for everyone else, too. Of course, neither the Washington Post nor any other website is obligated to give me or you or anyone a forum. But as is unfortunately more often said than believed in some journalistic quarters, the remedy for bad speech is more speech. Even including anonymous speech and even if the likes of Mr. Grubisich disapproves.

Why I'm Not Blogging About Ron Paul (Yet)

I'm probably missing the web opportunity of a lifetime by not blogging more about Ron Paul, as Technorati still amazingly lists him at the top of its Top Ten "Where's The Fire?" list.

The fact is, though, I have nothing of interest to say about Paul. He's a decent guy, I like his politics, and he has a Texas snowball's chance in August of making it very far in the Republican presidential nomination race.

Rumor has it all this blogosphere traffic about Paul is the result of some small coterie of diehard libertarian supporters spamming web polls and such. I suppose the possibility can't be ruled out, but if there was ever a political category for which "herding cats" was the apt metaphor, it's libertarians. Just try to get a concerted effort out of three or more libertarians at a time, I dare you!

Maybe Paul is just the internet flavor of the month. If so, it can't be for his less than sterling performance during the first Republican candidates' "debate." He gets national air time and wastes it confusing people about the "inflation tax" or original intent regarding presidential citizenship requirements? Oh puleeze!

Still, I'll happily jump on the Ron Paul bandwagon just as soon as I have reason to believe its current momentum isn't from already having plummeted over the edge.

To the Editor: Dear Sir, Who Cares?

In Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's latest column, Online Venom or Vibrant Speech?, Howell writes, “Two important journalism values -- free, unfettered comment and civil, intelligent discourse -- are colliding.”

Oh dear. One might ask, only rhetorically mind you, just whose free, unfettered comments journalism has ever really valued?

I grew up with the Post, and I’ve read a number of Howell’s columns and she strikes me as no better and no worse than her WaPo predecessors. Putatively appointed to serve as mediators between the newspaper and its often critical and frustrated readership, ombudsmen such as Howell tend to rise from the ranks of working journalists and thus bring with them both the common prejudices of the trade and the typical obliviousness to those prejudices that especially infuriate their customers.

I don’t mean ideological bias. Yes, the Mainstream Media is biased toward the left, but journalism’s more fundamental problems would remain were the press right-leaning or dead center, whatever that would mean. Too heavy reliance on certain sorts of sources and too much skepticism regarding other sources, sloppy fact-checking and the tendency to ignore for as long as possible and then downplay as much as possible whenever reportage is shown to be erroneous or worse are all endemic problems with the profession. Thus, ombudsmen like Howell tend to see their role, wittingly or not, as one of explaining to critical readers why the newspaper is right and the readers are wrong. Actual criticism of their newspaper’s behavior tends to be both rare and timid, sometimes to the point of being almost apologetic to their colleagues.

On the topic of reader feedback, especially comments posted on the Post’s website, Howell writes:

Complaints first came from the newsroom. Reporters don't appreciate the often rude feedback, which I get, too. (A sample reader comment on my column last week: "I think we can all agree after reading Howell's lame comments week after week that the Post should save money by eliminating her position entirely. She is worse than a dupe.")

But the reader is wrong; Howell is no worse than a dupe. Okay, I admit that’s pretty snarky, but the real issue isn’t Howell. The real issue is that the very concept of a news ombudsman is a rear-guard tactic and a failed attempt at providing the appearance of objectivity and accountability. It doesn't matter. Thanks to the internet, the public no longer needs a media-provided conduit to its editorial desks. Whether the Post continues to publish reader comments at the end of its articles on its website is as irrelevant as whether it continues to publish Letters to the Editor in its print edition. (Which, by the way, newspapers do not print out of any sense of professional responsibility but because they increase circulation.)

Working journalists are absolutely essential to the real business of journalism, which is basic news reportage. But the media no longer needs to pretend to be self-correcting, nor can it withstand or control the forces that monitor and continually criticize and correct its work product any longer. Free, unfettered comment will continue apace, whether or not Howell or her superiors at the Post find it sufficiently civil or intelligent. I might even agree with them more often than not that much of such comment is neither. Fortunately, my opinion on the subject doesn’t matter any more than theirs does.

“... because the stakes are so small.”

The beginning of that quip is, of course, “The reason academic politics are so vicious” But the observation is probably just as true of any number of realms of discourse, including (Ohmygawd!) the Blogosphere. From Scott Lemieux over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, via Memeorandum, I finally got around to reading up a bit on the internecine crisis of blogroll purging. Seems that, especially in the Leftosphere, so-called A-list blogs have been purging their blogrolls of many of the so-called B-list blogs, much to the consternation, gnashing of teeth and general whining of the latter. Or something like that.

By A-list and B-list it is presumably meant how popular the blog in question is and that, in turn, is measured by how many hits the blog gets, how many other sites link to it, list it on their blogrolls, etc. The metaphor that springs immediately to my mind, especially this time of year, is the various rankings of NCAA teams, and not only how the “majors” have unexcitingly dominated this year’s basketball tournament but especially, also, the Division I-A football schools versus, well, everyone else.

Them that’s got tries to keep it, of course. I’ll strive valiantly (if unsuccessfully) to avoid noting that redistribution of wealth of any sort is one of the more annoying perennial obsessions of the Left, but the notion that there is any merit to the practice of endlessly listing the blogs one has visited once or twice, or of one’s friends, or especially of sites one is angling to have list you back strikes me as both self-defeating and childish. I can speak, of course, only for myself (hence the title of this blog), but I almost never click on a blog from a blogroll in the first place, and the already slim chances of my doing so are inversely proportional to the length of the blogroll in question. If everyone is interesting, no one is. “All are winners and all must have prizes” is a philosophy best left to nursery schools, failed socialist states and, of course, Wonderland.

My own minor efforts to bring order out of chaos being in operation all of three days now, I’d guess that makes this blog a strong contender for Z-list status. (Unless, that is, the pecking order descends below the alphabet, in which case I’m sure I’d descend right along with it.) The fact is, though, life is too short to fret over such matters just as it is far too short to read blog after blog after blog, ignoring in the process what still passes for real news and, oh yes, the real world, as well. Yeah, I’ve got a few sites listed on my blogroll, and the list will probably grow (and occasionally be trimmed). But they’re sites I actually visit frequently in my own net cruising. Indeed, a few may not even qualify as blogs. So what?

My policy (and, hence, my advice) is to link to a site in a blog entry when doing so assists the reader in understand what I’m writing about or I believe the reader will enjoy or profit from reading that site or site entry. Beyond that, I link only to acknowledge - the proverbial “hat tip” - how and where I came to start thinking about the topic in the first place, as in the first paragraph above.

In blogistry, as in life itself, if you’re doing something simply for recognition or influence (let alone for money), chances are you won’t enjoy it, won’t do it all that well and won’t get either. If you do what you like and therefore do it as well as you can, chances are those other things will take care of themselves. Some of them that’s got, got it ‘cause they got there first; but none of them kept it for that reason alone, let alone because they joined the Million Man Mutual Admiration Society.

Google Buys All Internet Porn Sites, Launches You-bOOb (BETA)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: gOOg) today announced the acquisition of the last remaining internet porn site and launched its newest and most ambitious Google product to date, You-bOOb. "Let’s face it, 99.999% of both internet sites and internet traffic is for porn, so obviously that’s where the real money is," said Google co-founder and President Larry Page. “And we ought to know. If you took away the approximately one trillion porn searches using Google every day, hell, we could run the rest of the whole operation from a couple of old Apple II’s we’ve got sitting around up in the attic.”

Page’s Google co-founder, Sergey Brin elaborated further. “Basically, by buying up every single internet porn site – which, by the way, was effected largely by transfer of shares of our already absurdly over-priced common stock to the prior porn site owners – we have not only provided the internet porn seeker with a simplified, one-stop search process for all his pornographic needs at You-bOOb, we have also significantly enhanced the access speed for the remaining 0.0001% of internet traffic. Plus, of course, it makes it that much easier for us to data-mine the amazing amount of, let’s just say, ‘valuable’ information we’ve been collecting about the perverse and disgusting habits of the millions of internet users we’ve been keeping track of since we first launched Google.” “Oh, and also it’s lucrative as hell and we thought of it before Bill Gates did!” Page chuckled.

Industry financial analysts have already reacted favorably to the announcement, noting that pornography is practically the only thing that makes a profit on the internet, anyway, and raised Google's average one year target price estimate from $567 to $12,348,931 per share.