Doing the Business: a novel about the office

Back in November, during the UK's second lockdown, I put online my novel about travel and tourism – "Egyptian Romance" – since it was the closest I or most people would get to visiting these or any other places.  As we enter the third UK lockdown, I thought I'd post the novel I wrote afterwards, about another activity that is now similarly rare and exotic: working in an office.

"Doing the Business" is about the particular social dynamics of the office, specifically within a magazine publishing company.  It is even more archaeological, because it describes how magazines were produced before computers.  But its main themes are gloire and amour, which I hope will provide a little distraction, just as they have down the centuries...

Another Reason We Need Open Government Data: To Avoid Information Asymmetries

Can the future aggregate actions of people be predicted from relevant sets of data that describe them? That, of course, is what Isaac Asimov's invented mathematical discipline of psychohistory was supposed to do. Some Japanese researchers claim to have made some progress towards that goal: 

On Techdirt.

Plutocrats and the New Soviet Union

One of the joys of reading blogs is that you get to follow writers who are focussed on one particular area, and who, as a result of that almost monastic concentration, are able to produce insights of sudden insight unavailable to otherwise skilled wordsmiths who write more generalist pieces.

Here's one such gem that caught me by surprise as I finally came across it in my overburdened RSS reader:

an extreme concentration of wealth at the center of our market economy has led to a form of central planning. The concentration of wealth is now in so few hands and is so extreme in degree, that the combined liquid financial power of all of those not in this small group is inconsequential to determining the direction of the economy. As a result, we now have the equivalent of centralized planning in global marketplaces. A few thousand extremely wealthy people making decisions on the allocation of our collective wealth. The result was inevitable: gross misallocation across all facets of the private economy.

...

The result of central planning in the US has finally hit the wall. The list of problems is endless. The misallocations range from the dangerous $600 trillion derivatives market to the destruction of the US middle class (by exporting jobs and the substitution of income with debt).

Oh, yes; of course.

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Open Source War - and Open Source

Another characteristically clear-sighted post from Jamais Cascio on the subject of open source war and the changing nature of power in a networked world:

Despite the end of the utility of conventional force, the lack of certainty as to what the next wave of global compellence power will look like will inevitably lead to strategic mistakes. As we look ahead, it's clear that if another state -- say, China -- decides to take America's place as the leading hegemonic power on the planet by emulating the current American model of extreme emphasis on conventional force projection, that state has already become another Lost Hegemon. The system has changed, and the meaning of power has changed.

Conversely, the first group that cracks this problem has the potential to leapfrog the others in assuming the role of global powerhouse. Given the speed with which technology and organizational models are evolving, we can't assume it will be a state. Corporations seemed poised to take on that role in the 1990s; non-governmental groups are the lead candidates today. It's entirely possible that the kind of social organization that will become the next hegemonic force has yet to be invented. One thing is clear: the next superpower, whoever or whatever it is, will be the actor that finally figures out the new meaning of power.

Well, the first people to understand this new kind of distributed, networked, evolving power were, of course, the coders: how about letting them run things for a change?

Google Earth = Open Earth

Here's an interesting point from Google's Chris Dibona:

Widely Available, Constantly Renewing, High Resolution Images of the Earth Will End Conflict and Ecological Devastation As We Know It

because, as he explains:

With sufficient resolution, many things will be as clear to all: Troop movements, power plant placement, ill-conceived dumping, or just your neighbor building a pool. I am optimistic enough to think that the long term reaction to this kind of knowledge will be the recognition of the necessity, or the proper management and monitored phase out of the unwanted. I am not as optimistic about the short term, with those in power opting to suppress this kind of information access, or worse, acting on the new knowledge by launching into a boil the conflicts that have been simmering for uncountable years.

Openness is the antidote to power's attempt to lock down knowledge and with it the means to contest that power. Google Earth and its ilk are a new weapon in opening up not just the earth but the world too. (Via Ogle Earth.)

Meta-Knowledge is Mega-Power

Surprisingly subversive little piece in the FT:

Since Bahrain’s government blocked the Google Earth website earlier this year for its intrusion into private homes and royal palaces, Googling their island kingdom has become a national pastime for many Bahrainis.

The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom.

Best bit:

A senior government official told the Financial Times that Google Earth had allowed the public to pry into private homes and ogle people’s motor yachts and swimming pools. But he acknowledged that the government’s three-day attempt to block the site had proved counterproductive.

It gave instant publicity to Google Earth and contributed to growing sophistication among Bahrainis in circumventing web censorship.

Not just knowledge, but meta-knowledge. (Via Ogle Earth.)