LaptopGate--Privacy v. Intrusion in Lower Merion, PA

Somewhere, in the basement of a top secret Homeland Security NSA computer lab, a former hacker is beta-testing a super-sniffer, call it WebSnoop 1.0, that can be deployed over the public net to track cookies, view histories, download files and activate webcams, microphones and keyboards. The new release of "Snoopy" will have modules to scrape passwords and change private files and directories into networked and viewable ones. It can create and send incriminating email from your account. It can track your every move via your cellphone and log all your ATM and credit transactions. It won't only know each stick of gum you buy, but how long you take to chew it and where you throw it away. Paranoid fantasy? Hollywood science fiction? You wish cats and kitties.

You wish.

Today, Tuesday, a rainy day with no prospect of sunlight in sight, I head over to my Facebook wall in search of inspiration. I clip a lot of links and stick them on Facebook sometimes to get the pulse of my online friends; but usually just because something interests me and I plan to get back to it later.  Since it broke yesterday, I’ve been following the very interesting scandal that rocked the sleepy borough of Lower Merion, PA. It may be coming soon to a laptop near you. Perhaps nearer and sooner than you think.

Lower Merion is a well-heeled, progressive community whose teens are issued Macbooks for schoolwork. Laudable, but one young lad decided to engage in some unscholarly activity in his bedroom, with only his  laptop for company. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure the sort of activity a troubled teen male might be engaged in. The real trouble began when the school’s vice principal remotely turned on his webcam, snapped a picture of him in his bedroom and sent it, with warning to him and his parents.

Now there’s a lawsuit brewing and Lower Merion finds itself in a Scheißesturm of unwanted, daily press coverage. As I said, I’ve been tracking this in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Here are the links, in sequence:

• The story breaks
• Next day follow-up
• The following day's coverage (today)

The notoriety has gotten so great that the lawsuit already has its own Wikipedia page.

Also check out this gizmodo link, this blog from the NY Times and the FBI investigation that has ensued.

That’s the kind of publicity that nobody wants, but we need, now more than ever.

"Heirlooming" and the Family Network

Looking into the Future

A friend of mine in the biz sent the above link to a very interesting article by David Pogue, tech maven of The Times on the perils of "data rot" as they pertain, here to family videos.

Pogue writes:

As you may be aware, we're about to enter a whole new era of data rot, one of the biggest and most personal of all: consumer videotape is going away. At the Consumer Electronics Show last month, I was astounded to see that Canon, for example, has only one MiniDV (tape) camcorder model left—which hasn't been updated for several years. The other companies are following suit. It's all about built-in hard drives or memory cards now. That development hit me especially hard, because I've always loved documenting my family.

It got me thinking about the work I've done to establish our own clan's Family Media Network but as you can see, I take a different tack than Pogue. I've read his column and don’t always know what to make of him. If he’s such a tech maven, why should he be stymied by, or even surprised with the phasing out of tape as a storage medium? Tape? Take it from somebody who used to thread portapaks and 1” Ampex machines by hand with it. I won’t miss it!!!! No siree.

Wanna talk about classical media formats? Okay. I collected all my Dad’s super 8 films and Mom’s Bell and Howell projector to transfer my family’s heirlooms to Digital 8 and then from there, straight to the family network drive. Probably the same cheap 2Tb one that Pogue picked up. Last year, I picked up a BVU-800 for a $125 (on Ebay) last year to transfer the handful of ¾” projects I want to keep. I have a handful of portapak tapes, but most of those I’m sure I transferred to ¾” back in the 80’s. Mom just gave me 4 milkcrates with of 78’s from the 20's-40’s. Big Band and lots of RCA Victor classical pressings. Most of them pristine. Haven’t quite figured what I’m going to do with them yet, but my turntable is up and operating again after a 10 year hiatus. I've never had it on the '78 setting before, but it might be fun to rip some of that old wax to mp3.

Bennett interviewed my Dad about his mother over the phone for a school project. I have about 15 minutes of Dad reminiscing about his mother's anti-child labor marching days. This gem will be easy to deal with. I don't have to do anything. It's already an MP3 file.

Lists, Advice and the joys of reading aloud.

A writer on one of the writers' groups I follow posted this link to the 100 Greatest Opening Lines for a novel. In some respect such lists are meaningless, but I am reading Huckleberry Finn to my 10 year old for his bedtime reading and this line appears as #12 of the "Greatest Opening Lines":

"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter." —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

This is the second child I've read aloud to from this, perhaps the most important American work of fiction by arguably the greatest American author. I tell him its for his erudition, but it's really for me. I maintain a "selfish selflessness" when it comes to reading to the boys. I only read works I love, so as best to communicate my enthusiasm for the work and for reading in general. Huckleberry Finn is perhaps my favorite novel of all time. Such a ripping adventure yarn, so simply written, in such a compelling voice on so many complex subjects. Racism, slavery, morality, identity, personal loyalty, the relationships of fathers and sons ... layers and layers, on and on.

That said, imho, the line is only memorable because the book is so damned good. But does that make it great? I always thought the line was a bit of a "throw-away," an understated device Twain used to quickly move readers from A to B. He gives permission to read Huck (his masterpiece) without having first read TS (his great work). Huck Finn is chockfull of amazing lines, all far more memorable than its first line.

How about this passage from Chapter 16, where we stopped last night:
Setup--Huck is bedeviled by his conscience, having had an opportunity to do the "right thing" and give Jim up. But for reasons he doesn't fully understand yet, he doesn't.

"I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get started right when he's little ain't got no show -- when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time. "

What makes a great opening line? Is it the great poetic resonance that presages the story like a bolt of lightning? Is it how in a single brushstroke, it intros a memorable protagonist or sets the stage for the work's central conflict?

What virtue is inherent in a novel's first line that we as writers should study, know and emulate?

I always thought that the first lines of short stories were more "important" because of the economy of short stories v novels. Novels are about slow-cooking, delicate, complex nuanced flavors, while short stories offer sharper, faster brighter flavors but by necessity, less complexity. The short story format only allows you to hint at complexity, i.e., negative space, rather than develop it. In cooking, a good reduction, water is all that boils off. In a good short work or a good long work, there is no excess water. So, I'd argue that it's not possible to retain ALL the flavors of a long work in a short work, no matter how skilled or brutal an editor you are.

To wit, this link from Writer's Digest for those of us considering, editing or pulling our hairs out over a novel in progress. Some solid advice within, which I'm taking to heart:

Writer’s Digest - Take Your Novel to the Finish Line

 

Here's again is the link to an essay I did on Twain while reading Tom Sawyer with Son 1. 

My how I roam and ramble. Twain would have me set on a raft without a paddle.