Evil KM - the dark side of knowledge management

Sex and PowerPoXXX

2007-06-25T13:53:00.000+02:00

This blurb was commented by Dave Snowden, Euan Semple and Chris Collison, among others.

But the reverse would be much more interesting: how many executives think about business during sex?

how to die when you're corrupt

2007-05-30T15:46:00.000+02:00

in Japan:
Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide suicide after a series of scandals.CNN story.

in China:
Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of SFDA (the agency responsible for drug approvals) from 1998 to 2005, has been sentenced to death for accepting over $800,000 in bribes (CNN story).

well ... just different.

Or, as we say in German: Wer will, der darf. Wer nicht will, der muss.

(did I already say that I consider capital punishment unethical? but who listens to me?)

variants of the knowledge-based society

2007-05-30T14:41:00.000+02:00

in Dubai: (via Chris Collison)
http://www.mbrfoundation.ae/
The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, says he is giving $10bn (£5bn) to set up an educational foundation in the Middle East.
The money is meant to improve the standard of education and research in the region, and aims to stimulate job creation, Sheikh Mohammed said.

in Europe: Lisbon 2010:
"...to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion." (strategic goal for 2010 set for Europe at the Lisbon European Council - March 2000)

well, things are just .... different.

55 53 60 37 F2 12 75 01 83 F9 27 9C 64 01 23 99

2007-05-08T20:53:00.000+02:00

Great: I own the intellectual property to a number:
55 53 60 37 F2 12 75 01 83 F9 27 9C 64 01 23 99
got it from here http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1155

Don't you ever use it to decryp this:

We own integers,
Says AACS LA.
You can own one too

The haiku is copyright 2007 by Edward W. Felten

Blogs that make me think

2007-03-05T22:08:00.000+01:00

No, Dave Snowden did not tag me. I would not have liked that. He invited people, and I was hooked.
So Q.E.D. - one of these blogs that make me think - and act(?) is http://www.cognitive-edge.com , but I'm not sure if passing the meme back is appropriate.
Thus, five others:
- We make money not art ; Regine's worldview is very different from mine: art, not business ; esthetics, not pragmatism. It's a life I'd like to live if I had a second one.
- Bruno Giussani's http://www.lunchoverip.com/ : People, places, technologies and ideas from a very Swiss European Worldwide perspective.
- Dana Blankenhorn helps me to understand the world of the critical, moderately conservative US , the approach to politics, business, the idea of always-on and how the individual relates to society - a society which is quite different from the one that I experience.
- Athanasium Kircher Society is just weird and fun and extreme and inspiring - yesteryear's future. Before steampunk (memedropping just for the fun of doing it).
- Peter Rost's Question Authority - Ego the size of a planet, ex-Pharmacia, ex-Pfizer executive whistleblower, with challenging ideas about (my) industry. He just stopped blogging because he want to focus on his movie - about his book - no, latest news, he's on again: claims to be addicted. That's what he says now. Let's see tomorrow.

Patent and IP rights or wrongs

2007-03-01T10:31:00.000+01:00

Intellectual property and patents rights may indeed encourage creativity and innovation : rather than keeping your wisdom secret (hermeneutic alchemy like Coca-Cola), you publish what you know, and a bigger force (the state, the legal system...) grants you exclusivity in return for a certain period - not too long, not too short. And then it belongs to the commons.
It gets tricky in the details. See Novartis' case for Glivec in India. (disclaimer: I work for Novartis)
However, it's reported that the head of the World Intellectual Property Organisation WIPO , the responsible UN agency behaves in an irresponsible way by lying about his age . Looks like this was the way to get a job which he would otherwise not have qualified for.
More blows to the credibility of the IP and patents system - as exemplified by their leaders - and we might want to go back to the old days of the alchemists, the guilds and the Mafia.

Oops - I should not have said that ... ?

Vista speech recognition hack

2007-02-05T10:18:00.000+01:00

it's not importaqnt if this is true or not - I just happen to like a cool idea when I see it: hacking a computer (runnig Microsoft's Hasta La Vista) by sending an mp3 file containing spoken commands ('command delete all') that would control the computer through voice recognition.

The truth

2007-01-31T09:33:00.000+01:00

is here: http://scq.ubc.ca/?p=677
truth by googlebombing? The truth is what google shows to those who are feeling lucky.

evil spammers don't reply

2006-12-30T15:05:00.000+01:00

I get too much spam. Conventional wisdom says "don't reply, because then they know that it's a valid mail address".

Recently, I replied. The first one was "borderline". I did not know (or did not remember) her, but at least it was a "real" person. And she replied, explaining how I got onto her list. Would I prefer to be removed? No, fine.
And I replied to another mail, with several fake addresses in the body pof the mail and as alleged sender. Trying to sell me his spamming service, so I could annoy others. No reply.
But it just felt good to write "U bastard".

Two good reasons why I might reply more often in the future.

virtual chef

2006-12-22T15:57:00.000+01:00

I like Dave Snowden's recipe book user vs. Chef metaphor so much that I just copy and paste from one of his recent blog entries :
"A recipe book user will want your kitchen to be properly equipped with everything in the right place and proportions and all the ingredients neatly arranged in small bowls on the work surface before they even start to cook a meal. The Chef, who knows, will take what ever you have available and make it into a wonderful meal."

Yet: modern technology can help stupid non-Chefs to act AS IF they were experienced: http://www.cookingbynumbers.com lets you enter what you have available, and then gives a recipe that takes into account these current constraints.

Which leads to the question: Does the (a, any) tool make you MORE intelligent - allowing you to achieve more; or LESS intelligent - because the success is achieved by the prosthetic device, not by the naked youman being.

un-tagged spoilsport

2006-12-22T15:20:00.000+01:00

The one thing that you did not know about me: I don't participate in pyramid schemes, chain letters, etc.

personality transplants

2006-12-15T09:45:00.000+01:00

Euan Semple commented on Jevon MacDonald's predictions for 2007: The year of Enterprise 2.0 ..... "The big consulting firms are circling this stuff at the moment but as I said to someone on IM recently they would need personality transplants. I don't mean that rudely but most of them just don't get this stuff."
But even if you could do do the transplant, there is still the issue of immune reactions. And I'd love to see them.
I might even see them during my normal job in a big pharma company. The company that was involved, decades ago, with means to overcome immune reactions to transplantation?.

Looking forward to 2007. May you live in interesting times.

to twitter ot not to twitter

2006-12-11T14:21:00.000+01:00

So Matt cancelled his Twitter account. Too much noise, too much distraction, not enough "flow". With me, it's the opposite: I (almost) always want things happening around me. And twitter is unobtrusive enough - and meaningless enough - not to take it too serios. It just happens, and fades into the background.
What makes "musique d'ameublement" different from "muzak" is the fact that it's being played by real people - I would not want to read twitter timeline updates from A.L.I.C.E. or similar.

evilKM 2.0 - just re-activated this blog

2006-12-04T12:03:00.000+01:00

thanks to Euan - I'm envious, I also want a spam comment. purlease.

spam comments

2006-12-04T11:59:00.001+01:00

... I want more ... they don't even ignore me ... crying ...

artificial stupidity accepted for a scientific conference

2005-04-18T16:47:00.000+02:00

According to BBC news, a collection of computer-generated gibberish in the form of an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference, to the delight of hoaxers.
Are compuers getting smarter (think Cheap Complex Devices), or are people getting stupid?

borgification into the overmind

2005-03-15T09:38:00.000+01:00

when (if?) we're all connected, is this good or bad? Wetmachine's John (Sundman) and Stearns debate about Inventing the Future: connectivity and freedom.
My 2cents, of course: who is we?

We're all sinners

2005-03-02T14:12:00.000+01:00

... if we sing the song "happy birthday" in public without making sure that the royalties go to the legal owner of the song (check poor Time Warner's share price). Thanks to http://www.unhappybirthday.com for that important information. And now that you know it, please make sure that all your friends know it, too. Spread the meme. Do it. Now. Go! Don't waste any time here at EvilKM.

Go away!

Do you want to continue infringing Intellectual (??) Property Rights? Welcome at EvilKM. Continue to do so, sabotage innovation (remember what Intellectual Property Rights were invented for), and make the world an evil place.

Let someone else do the linking

2005-03-02T09:16:00.000+01:00

like, for instance, Google Toolbar. It's autolink feature claims that ISBN numbers refer to Amazon, and even BoingBoing applauds: "...like a beloved butler...". Reminds me of the weird 1986 cult movie "Link", where an OrangUtan serving as butler gets evil. Very Good. Let THEM do the linking, let others do the thinking. And let ME do your eating.
More explicitely: it helps THEM establishing the ASIN. The one for Link (the movie, not the hyperlink), is B00005KHJN . And the link (the hyperlink, not the movie) is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005KHJN/ . Guess what the "A" in ASIN stands for? Right (check the AMZN current share price to find out why this is a good idea). And guess what the "I" in ISBN stands for? "International". Public property. A stupid idea from old Europe.

Evil sharing

2005-02-27T18:56:00.000+01:00

Just started this blog, and it's already worse: thanks to some bad guy (leave a comment if you want to out yourself) who sent me a really evil gif-file for the header. Much better - much more evil - than the original text.

ChoicePoint shares ...

2005-02-21T16:20:00.000+01:00

ChoicePoint is said to help sharing precious information (via slashdot). Great! Let's share and have some fun! Knowledge shared is power squared!

Evil KM

2005-02-21T15:16:00.000+01:00

The dark side of knowledge management. There's nothing that you can't abuse.