Robert Winter @rw@qoto.org

Bruce Schneier, fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, on COVID tracing apps.

Even if you have no privacy concerns at all, his logic as to their efficacy raises some important questions.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html

Day 006 of #100DaysToOffload: The Pied Piper of Zoom

https://write.as/robertwinter/pied-piper-of-zoom

Day 005 of #100DaysToOffload and I explore the notion of beauty in 'The perfect moment'

https://robert.winter.ink/the-perfect-moment

Day 004 of #100DaysToOffload and I explore the notion of the sublime in 'Oh, the humanity!'

https://robert.winter.ink/oh-the-humanity

Day 003 of #100DaysToOffload and I explore the notion of catharsis.

https://robert.winter.ink/catharsis

Day 002 of #100DaysToOffload: May the Third be with you

https://robert.winter.ink/may-the-third-be-with-you

@comment 100 days up and running and hopefully the comments are working too!

@mmin Many congratulations! A critical area of research for the community and a fabulous personal achievement... Dr Minkkinen. 🙂

Site etiquette indicates my first toot should be by way of an introduction. Seldom comfortable tooting my own horn (pun intended)* I'll keep this brief(ish).

I am a philosopher and historian based in Sydney and currently a doctoral candidate at the #Macquarie Business School; researching Edmund #Burke and his implications for executive leadership.

I chose to undertake my study in a business school, grubby though commercial ends may seem to elevated minds, because Burke was an intensely practical thinker. As he noted:

'‘The End of learning is not knowledge but virtue; as the End of all speculation should be practice of one sort or another… [for] Knowledge is the Culture** of the mind; and he who rested there, would be just as wise as he who should plough his field without any intention of sowing or reaping.'***

In this context, it seems fitting to attempt to apply Burkean research to practical ends.

I am also a passionate advocate for technology reform, which drew me to Mastodon, as I do not think unrestricted access to an individual's data is necessary for the provision of services. #ProtonMail, #Signal, #Threema, #NextCloud, #Mastodon and co. are all demonstrating that FAANG methods are not the only viable way of providing digital connections.

N.B.:
*Thinking intended puns, I am always reminded of the joke about a man who entered a local newspaper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

**Culture in the original sense of ploughing for sowing later.

***Burke, A Note-Book of Edmund Burke, 82-83.

#introductions

@yatil an interesting paper and certainly it has long been clear that the data collection and scientific merits of the original 'study' are questionable. But to dismiss it as a hoax or lie I think undermines the truth which ongoing citing of the study seeks to highlight: man's capacity for inhumanity to man.

For even if the original study falls at the first hurdle, history is, I am sad to say, repleat with testimony of the underlying cardinal rule.