I honestly don’t know which is worse.

(also check out Part 1 and Part 2)

The press and Bush’s supporters make a big deal out of the fact that the NSA’s phone records program does not actually involve wiretaps. I think that’s a red herring.

My argument is that the program is effectively a massive stakeout of every single American citizen. It’s the electronic equivalent of stationing a federal agent outside of every one of our homes, and having them follow us around all day, writing down every person we talk to, every business we interact with, and (in theory) everything we buy, everywhere we travel, and potentially much more.

So even if it’s not a wiretap, it’s still spying. Domestic spying. On you and me. MORE…

• Leave a Note (3)

(also check out Part 1)

Most people who say that they would give up their liberty for temporary safety justify their opinion by saying “innocent people have nothing to hide”.

But I wouldn’t be so sure. There are lots of ways a perfectly law-abiding American can get swept up by this program, both accidently and deliberately.

Think about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Think about your social network on Friendster or MySpace and imagine how many clicks it would take to get from your profile to the profile of, say, a serial killer, a pedophile, or a terrorist sleeper agent. Probably not that many, really. MORE…

• Leave a Note (1)

The NSA phone records program doesn’t seem quite so bad, at least not when it’s described this way.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” - Sir Walter Scott

The NSA’s recently-revealed program to scour through and analyze the phone records of millions of normal and innocent Americans is apparently seen by my many of us to be perfectly okay. A Washington Post/ABC poll conducted on Friday, the day after the revelations, concluded the following:

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.

I was shocked by this report. 63 percent? Do these people have any idea what it is they are approving of?

Maybe not. Let’s look at the actual question asked in the poll: MORE…

• Leave a Note (6)

Yesterday I took my FIT students on a field trip to see the Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibition at the Science, Industry and Business Library of The New York Public Library. It’s a modest little show consisting of several dozen examples of maps, globes, and information graphics — as exemplified by Edward Tufte’s much-beloved “Napoleon’s March to Moscow” by Charles Minard (seen here), which illustrates the utter devastation of Napoleon’s army as he attacked and retreated from Moscow in the deadly winter of 1812.

I was a little surprised at the close attention my students paid to much of the work, examining and discussing some of them pretty intensely. I knew they’d be interested, but I didn’t expect them to really investigate and talk about the works in detail as they did.

But I think I understand why: The maps on display have a puzzle-like quality to them, which is I think part of the aesthetic and experiential appeal of information graphics. People like to try to figure them out. MORE…

• Leave a Note (0)

Long-lost Yes album cover.

I recently saw a documentary about the search for extraterrestrial life, and I was struck by how even hard science is sometimes fueled at least in part by pure imagination and creativity. And I thought about how design itself is, at its best, as much based on raw, unfiltered inspiration as it is on empirical, practical results.

Scientists and research organizations who are looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life need to start somewhere, so they start right here on Earth, looking at “extremophiles“: astonishing life forms that live in the most extreme conditions here on Earth.

There are critters living in boiling hot water miles below the surface of the ocean, in profoundly deep subterranean rock (bacillus infernus lives two miles underground, eating chemicals and minerals to survive), and other harsh terrestrial environments. The harsh conditions on Venus, Mars, and the several life-compatible moons of Jupiter and Saturn don’t look so harsh when compared to where these Earth-bound life forms thrive (and they do thrive — there’s a greater combined mass of creatures living thousands of feet below Earth’s surface than there are on the surface and in the ocean!).

So scientists use what they know about these terrestrial life forms to help them know what to look for in potential alien life forms. Part of this process is visualization, and for this they employ artists. MORE…

• Leave a Note (1)