links for 2009-06-29

The serious point is that it's easy to treat data as if it falls into our laps and that only then can people do underhand things with it. As the writer Joel Best points out, it's people who count, and what they mostly count is other people. If you want to know some of the most curious problems with data, start not with the technicalities but by asking: "what am I like?"

Holden Caulfield does not like a lot of what he encounters. Much is dopey, corny, lousy, crumby, vomity but most of all, phoney. Holden is surrounded by phoneys, almost wherever he goes. It's almost enough to make him puke.