Comments on: Living in the Global Glass House: An Open Letter to Sir Arthur C Clarke

By: yichaelle from Canada

yichaelle from Canada — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:37:58 +0000

“the overwhelming cyber-babble of billions of humans and trillions of computers, all chattering simultaneously” Amazing article! Sir Arthur C Clarke was a prophet indeed. Thanks so much for this Nalaka.

By: Nalaka Gunawardene

Nalaka Gunawardene — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:18:14 +0000

Little Miss Curious is both perceptive and right: we don’t
hear/know about women pioneers and innovators in the history of
computers and telecommunications. That’s partly because there have
been more men than women in this field where women were not
encouraged to pursue careers until a generation or two ago. But
there have been, and continue to be, women pioneers and innovators
in information technology. Indeed, the world’s first computer
programmer was a woman: Ada Byron King (Countess of Lovelace, 1815
– 1852) worked on the early forerunner of today’s computer, and she
blazed the trail for other women in computing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace She was followed by
others such as Edith Clarke, Grace Murray Hopper, Margaret Fox,
Alice Burks and Joan Margaret Winters. Here are two links were more
info is available: Women in the world of computing
http://www.34sp.com/hosting-library/women-in-the-world-of-computing
Women In Computer History
http://www.pcbargainhunter.com/articles/women-in-computer-history.html
Pioneering women in computer science
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-16350791/pioneering-women-computer-science.html
An interesting aside: After the United States joined the second
World War in 1942, there were many women who were employed as
“computers” themselves. They were put in charge of making
calculations, solving complex equations, and producing tables which
played a major role in guiding soldiers during the war. These
calculations are done using micro-computers today. Read more at:
http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/HiddenHerstoryTheTopSecretRosi/168089
Despite all this, the world of computer geeks is predominantly male
— it’s hard for many people to imagine a female geek, although
there are some very bright ones. Feminists have been urging the
industry regulators, equipment manufacturers and education planners
to address this gender disparity.

By: Davidson

Davidson — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:40:20 +0000

Dear eureka The oppressors are helped by technology to
degrade the oppressed more and more easily. That outrages
me.

By: Little Miss Curious

Little Miss Curious — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:36:37 +0000

“Julian Assange, Mark Zuckerberg or the Google duo — they are merely the ‘midwives’ of the Information Society…”
How and why is it that all these so-called midwives are MEN? Where are the women who must also have played some part?

By: eureka

eureka — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:07:45 +0000

Some people in this world have been progressing by using
the advancing technology. But the oppressed people in the world
have been denied the most basic of their needs and have been
regressing – they are unaware of, or inaccessible to, the advancing
technology.

By: Nalaka Gunawardene

Nalaka Gunawardene — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:48:25 +0000

From some comments posted so far, it looks like WikiLeaks has provided some comic relief to certain readers. There is nothing wrong in that, and in fact, professional cartoonists, comedians and satirists have been doing the same thing since WikiLeaks Cablegate started on November 28.

One website I found especially funny is The Juice Media, which presents short, punchy ‘news reports’ in rap music! Their Rap News is written and created by Hugo Farrant and Giordano Nanni in a home-studio/suburban backyard in Melbourne, Australia. For links to three of their hilarious spoofs on WikiLeaks, see my blog post at: http://movingimages.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/rap-news-on-wikileaks-the-truth-is-out-there-huh/

By: Nalaka Gunawardene

Nalaka Gunawardene — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 01:53:23 +0000

In reply to David damario.

@David Damario,

Many thanks for your kind remarks, but I have no illusions about who I am and what I do. Years ago, I adapted this line to describe my work: “Those who can, do; those who cannot, write!”. All I do is to sit back and watch the creative and courageous men and women do good things and then write about them. I hope my writing encourages them and occasionally helps them sharpen focus. But I’m just a critical cheer-leader to cyber activists, environmentalists, scientists and others whose work I watch and comment on. I’m just a thoughtful mirror which will be lost in the darkness if there was no ‘light’ coming from the people I write about.

By: The Mervyn Silva

The Mervyn Silva — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:34:02 +0000

Ha ha Longus, I am not even reading the unplugged story
unles you are mentioning it. I am thinking these peoples should be
doing to us what we are doing to them – ignoring!

By: longus

longus — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:08:38 +0000

The Mervin Silva You too to be better to be taking that
unplugged advice and unplug your computer because you and I will
have more air in our already empty pint size heads and most of all
the enraged publis or rather public will be coming after to shut
down our computers. But I must tell those peoples that my computer
cannot be shut down so easily! Sometimes I remove the battery, but
still he refuse to be shutting down! Then I am used to be giving
him a nice thud to shut him. I think that is because he understand
the value of my ideas distributing to the world public.But as a
minister who is waking peoples you don’t have to listen to them and
shut your computer! Because yours is a service to the country wide
people. I am happy that even the unplugged guy read the scriptures
though he don’t like to show it! Otherwise he can well be skipping
these names like ‘longus’ and ‘Mervyn’, no? No they can’t do
it!They are scolding to it after reading it, no? This is what the
Clarke dream when he pioneered the telecommunication age. He wrote
that famous article to the ‘Wireless World’ in the fifties as it
came to his head as a fancy idea.When he says that you can station
three satellites 22,000 miles from the earth and you can connect
the whole world, the peoples like unplugged thought he is wasting
the papers of the magazine. The peoples like unplugged would be to
tell that his head was empty if he was reading that article. Now we
need more and more clarks to do our works, because in gourmet
offices the files are building aky high, and we need more and more
ideas like yours to bring that pile down! I am sure that you can be
the next clark when you retire servicing the peoples to bring
prosperity to our motherland!And I know that you will be doing the
Clark job free of charge too! Long live Sir!

By: Unplugged

Unplugged — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:52:19 +0000

Some comments to this essay illustrate what happens when people who have nothing to say get in front of an internet connected computer and decide to unleash their emptiness on everybody else. This is part of the problem of information pollution. Spammers and airheads will suffocate us all.