A Chip On Her Shoulder

Section Notes

Notes on Section 1: Living Data

Chapter 1.1 Beautiful Data

  1. (Fiction) The WWW changed in 2017 to (1) protect private living data and (2) improve the mood of the country. The Whisperer is new CumuLinker technology under evaluation in 2019. C-A-L-M (for “Conversation As Language Modulation” is a set of practices that introduce and accelerate productive interactions. The Whisperer is a wearable (like a vest) that can be artfully designed to communicate through the CumuLinker Cloud to express the wearer’s personality and interests, e.g. through life patches. Whisperers communicate to the wearer through synthetic speech and ear devices. The Whisperer can be programmed for animation or personal information, such as easily forgotten names. The theory that explains the history and ill effects that led to the CumuLinker Revolution is known as surveillance capitalism.
  2. Ada Byron Lovelace inspires modern women in computing with her Victorian era deed thinking. She lived a short life interacting with famous industrialist Charles Babbage. Often hyped as “the first programmer”, her thinking employs “representation” that foreshadows modern computing and mathematical knowledge that stimulated Babbage’s experiments. Her detailed analysis of Babbage’s Analytic Engine was written at age 26 while maintaining a growing family and without any acknowledged professional status.–:: Casey is influenced by the representation of data about living people as the currency of surveillance capitalism. She is awed by how well they worked together as portrayed by biographies.
  3. The IBM 1620 computer was simple enough to trust to an undergraduate for mathematical exploration and IT administration.
    • IBM 1620 description …
    • Autobiographical note) Hours and hours and hours at the 1620 console at Ohio Wesleyan University in the 1960s launched this author into the computing field. Learning Fortran and assembly code was one capability gained, but the lingering lesson was how to get through the period of muddled code while re-engineering a compiler. Every computing student should experience this practical growth and learn from failure and exhaustion as a foundation for team programming, software process, verification/validation, documentation, and other skills taught as “Software Engineering”. Coding is an athletic activity that reveals strengths and weaknesses and preferences and affinity with machines. In memory of Robert L. Wilson, Mathematics Department Chair, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware Ohio.
    .
  4. “Spaghetti code” describes programs troubled by languages that forced control flow into and out of statements, making it hard to understand programs.
  5. The Trickster mythological figure describes the US elected leader in the period of this novel in 2019.Disrespectful references to the Trickster are intended and a meaningful way to explain the fragile society before and during the 2017 CumuLinker Reformation, with after-effects to be seen.
  6. ‘Risk’ Is a theme of the novel and a central force in computing, as well as life in general.
    • Terminology this novel tries to follow (from New Media Dictionary:
    • “Threat-caster” is a professional and personal characteristic often associated with the mythological “Cassandra” which is protagonist Casey’s root name. ‘Wikipedia on book ‘Warnings’ by Richard Clarke describes incidents of threat-casting.

Chapter 1.2Casual Algorithms

  1. (Fiction) CumuLinker does Life Replay” using purloined private data plus public available information to produce a chronology that reads as if written by a journalist. Events might focus on geography, profession, family, health, or other stories that fit the occasion. Life Replay can also be used for personal introspection, e.g. professional review or interactions with another specific person.
  2. Algorithmic cruelty” occurred in reality in 2014 when Facebook surprised a parent with his recently deceased child’s picture. Inc Facebook incident of algorithmic cruelty Facebook apologized for algorithmic cruelty.

Chapter 1.3 Colorful times

  1. Text contrast is an important aspect of accessibility for people with low vision. It applies to all visual readers controlled by settings usually embedded in schemes operating as CSS for (Cascading Style Sheets) in Browsers. The readability factors for text contrast are specified and can be validated according to Web standards. This vulnerability is an example of a messy Web and a culture of complexity that supports an industry of developers, now expanded by penetration testers and bug bounty handlers.
  2. Read more on accessibility and low vision in Chapter 6.3 and Threads (protected).

Chapter 1.4 Seeing Things Differently

  1. Sally and Casey became acquainted at a (Wikipedia) Fifth Generation conference in Japan.
  2. Read more on Consequential Reasoning in Threads (protected).
  3. Sally’s loss of vision leads to standard practices learned as “vision rehabilitation”. She has written a manifesto for accessibility and maintains a blog remarkably like this author’s early experience. “As Your World Changes blog (Autobiographical)
  4. The Apple iPhone is the primary communication, reading, gaming, and translating instrument for many people with low vision and enough $$$. AppleVis.com tutorials and tips on using iPhones with VoiceOver speech and magnification
  5. (Fiction) Casey has been invited for a special role under the Science Frontiers funding program. This is modeled after the National Science Foundation where a dozen researchers discuss, rate, and summarize submitted proposals and budgets. “Scientific Merit” and “Social contribution” and “Diversity” are traditional criteria. It is assumed that killer problems will be solved eventually or cast into a different scientific program. Negativity, as in “should never be used” or “cannot be verified” or “will introduce hazards” or “was done 20 years ago” are not included in recommendations that might reduce overall funding among competitive programs. Risks and threats could be assimilated into the review process. (autobiographical) Or, so, it seemed to this reviewer until 2010. Funding for social, possibly negative, consequences had separate sources including nonprofit’s and other foundations.
  6. (Fiction) The Pink Pages Rampage actions is discussed further in Section 6through podcast-style interviews. CumuLinker Reformation riled up beneficiaries of surveillance capitalism, especially Silicon Valley employees. A protest is organized through the dark side of software and a specific vulnerability in web page design.

Chapter 1.5 Lessons Learning

  1. Here is a summary of preceding Chapters and the protagonist’s planning for the following journey.

Notes on Section 2 “Threats Get Real”

Chapter 2.1 Risky Speaking

  1. “Vocal terrorism” was predicted openly in 2007. Incidents have yet to be reported in 2022.
  2. Speech technology is a mature industry with millions of users.

Chapter 2.2 Internet Down!

  1. Internet outages are common but not cohesively described.

Chapter 2.3 Consequential Reasoning

  1. “Consequential Reasoning” is a coined term for using logic as the basis for computation within a process of documentation and analysis that drives the logic into programs then actions that make sense to humans.

Notes for Section 3 Another Chance

Chapter 3.1 Whisperers Meetup

  1. The CumuLinker vault of private data accumulated over history is rich in connectivity that amplifies human memory. Casey has tracked Gavin by his books and institutional affiliations. Gavin may have tracked Casey by location or hearsay about her interactions in their peer learning community.
  2. A body reader can sense attention vectors that amplify the personal historical connection with some type of haptic motion. CumuLinker can strengthen that attention-getting signal with settings for memory and feelings.
  3. The “Personal Quantification” aka “quantified self” Movementillustrates measurement motives that are now realized in mobile devices.

Chapter 3.2 Lives Unfold

  1. Casey has a Masters Degree from a unique institution.
  2. The location and institution are modeled after the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies, 1982-1987, Tyngsboro, Massachusetts . Benefactor benefactor Doctor An Wang.funded a Software Engineering Master Degree curriculum that migrated to Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute.
  3. The “Massachusetts Miracle” period produced the mini-computer generation from companies: Wang, Digital, Apollo, Data General, …

Chapter 3.3 Mature Branching

  1. A premiere Osher Lifelong Learning (OLLI) peer learning networkhas many models for peer learning.
  2. “Saging and Aging” directs attention to opportunities that build on life experience and courses on any topic someone knows about.
  3. Carolyn Heilbrun, Columbia University professor and author of Kate Fansler mysteries sums up aging in Last Gift of Time.
  4. Bumper Sticker Computer Science — I forgot why this is here but its a classicd.

Notes for Section 4 “Nuclear Shadows”

Chapter 4.1 Getting Acquainted

  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory was site for visit and fictional tour.
  2. Wildfires 2011 threaten LANL.
  3. Example of a Wildfire app

Chapter 4.2 Dining On History

  1. Marilyn aspires to a role like security journalists Julia Angwin, now the Markup” laboratory..
  2. IBM Watson Success on Jeopardy used logic programming.
  3. “Mathematics Written on Sand” by W Kahan motivated floating point standards after exhibiting errors in scientific calculators.
  4. Parnas analysis of Reagan missile defense started discussion of software responsibility.
  5. Scott Rosenberg commentary explains the context of Parnas arguments.
  6. Risks digest of failures in computing starting in 1981 continues documentation and discussion.
  7. Usenet was the primary discussion support network before Web Time and later migrated into Google groups.
  8. Computer Professionals for Software Responsibility (CPSR) had advocated for social and military causes starting in the 1980s as described in Browsers give warnings and privacy errors here… Babbage Institute CPSR oral history by Severo Ornstein.
  9. Lynn Conway engineering research, and academic careers followed a transsexual path and contributed to VLSI Revolution (Wikipedia).
  10. Grace Hopper on Letterman explaining her nanosecond and Navy tours of duty working on COBOL.
  11. women educator oral histories .
  12. Women and the Future of Computing, video by Anita Borghelped originate goals and institutes for women in computing, including the annual Grace Hopper event.
  13. Sputnik and the Eisenhower Administration and Sputnik beeps from JPL
  14. Televised software safety case, Therac 25, radiation deaths initiated the “software safety” field from Google Scholar.
  15. “Total information awareness” reaction to 9-11
  16. Bug bounty programs, such as Fire Fox offered new career opportunities.
  17. Computer History Museum

Chapter 4.3 “Team 3G Forms”

  1. Total Information Awareness project
  2. FOIA Effects of TIA

Notes Section 5 ‘Consequential Reasoning’

Chapter 5.1 ‘Chips Fall’

  1. Imposter syndrome is often discussed as a problem for women in computing even afflicted presidents of prominent universities. National Library Medicine analysis of the condition with recommendations.
  2. Casey’s “chip on her shoulder” is explained by the poem, included: poem ‘A Chip On Your Shoulder’ by Albert a Guest.
  3. the ‘geocaching’ recreational activity uses logic puzzles for cache directions. One tool is “consequential reasoning” and ParaLog.
  4. Another use of logic puzzles is/was on the Law School Aptitude test logic questions.

Chapter 5.2 ‘Bad Models’

Sally explains contrasting models of disability:

  1. The social Model of Disability compares with (Wikipedia) The medical model of disability, that is “fix the environment” versus “fix the person”, a complex topic for Disability Studies. person losing vision does better by starting early to adjust to one’s environment rather than expecting a medical cure, while government and social organizations work on environmental deficiencies like transportation, documents, sidewalk clutter, etc.
  2. Podcast, such as ‘Eyes on Success’, provide a modern educational medium for people with vision loss and for assistive technology.
  3. A notable model of accessibility recognition is Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
  4. Hadley Institute offers networked educational programs on disability, technology, and adaptation.

Chapter 5.3 ‘Getting Grounded’

Casey reviews the characteristic of Team 3G as its team leader in preparation for their short summer period of activism against the Pink Page Rampage. As team leader, she wants to use everybody’s strengths, talents, expand their knowledge, and have fun together.

Chapter 5.4 ‘Social Messes’

Marilyn needs advice from her Aunt Sally and recent acquaintance Casey about her perception by others as she tries to launch a journalism career. They reminisce about her youth.

  1. The Global Network Navigator project assembled early sites on the world wide web as distributed on a CD.
  2. Computer History timeline 1995.
  3. How Usenet worked as the early social network and historical facts about Usenet originating at Duke University show There was Social media before the Dawn of Web Time.

Chapter 5.5 ‘A Social Media Makeover’

Casey and Sally dispense advice to Marilyn about her public image. A dispute about vaccines and autism had embroiled Marilyn in social media opinions. She could be subjected to interactions with terrorist groups through facial identification. Public records plagued Sally and also Marilyn in unwanted attention. Privacy explanations and experiments are suggested:

  1. 2014 book ‘Dragnet Nation by Julia Anguin grew into a quest for experimentation then and 2019 launch of privacy experimentation laboratory.
  2. A name like “Marilyn Maxxon” leads to alternatives in Google, possibly confusing her identity. Try the search yourself.
  3. The vaccination-autism controversy entangled people who had social media arguments, complicated by required disentanglement of scientific claims. and CDC Gov assurance.
  4. Sally’s “Controversy Discovery Engine” is attached to this novel
  5. (Wikipedia) The Little Bro movement traces to a book by Corey Doctorow but the Little Bro movement is fictional.

Notes for Section 6 ‘Punk Page Podcast’

Chapter 6.1 ‘Welcome Netizens’

  1. The “Pink Page Rampage” is a fictional event originating in the time of transformation after the CumuLinker Reformation, See CumuLinker threat.
  2. Marilyn is defining and welcoming the listeners for this podcast.
  3. The (Wikipedia) term “netizen” is short for “Net citizen”.
  4. Names like “Maxxson” are comically mangled by Google to connect to familiar names popular with advertisers.

Chapter 6.2 ‘Road to WWW’

Casey and Marilyn are describing some earlier facets of the Internet.

  1. Books
  2. Internet Hall of Fame and Internet research leader Jon Postel
  3. Memex, the browser that could have been
  4. National Infrastructure, “Internet superhighway”, Senator Al Gore
  5. History of Hypertext and Issue-based analysis
  6. Shane Harris “The Watchers”

n

Chapter 6.3 ‘Plain Reading’

Sally explains her view of web page development for people with low vision using screen readers.

  1. Principles:
  2. Writing Tools:
  3. Reading Tools:
  4. Principles:

Chapter 6.4 ‘Growing Minds’

Marilyn is interviewing Millennial Matt and her son Wildfire Bob

  1. Internet Archive Wayback Machine
  2. SOLID project led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee
  3. RSS
  4. CumuLinker Trustee Nominees

Chapter 6.5 ‘Punk Sage Roger’

Marilyn is interviewing a senior member of the Punk Page Rampage team.

  1. Book “Dark side of Software: Evil on software Projects” by Robert L. Glass and Hjohann Ross is a source of Pink Page insiders.