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[New Times] As the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence approach, it is a good time to reflect on milestones in fighting against the vice, but to also examine why it is nowhere near elimination despite countless efforts.

[IMF] The Government of Côte d'Ivoire, announced today at COP29 in Baku a wide range of initiatives to catalyze climate financing in Côte d'Ivoire.

January 16, 2006 - In 2004, Congress passed the American Jobs Creation Act. As innocuous as the title sounds, it contained a provision allowing the IRS to outsource collection efforts to private contractors. But both the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) are questioning the wisdom of this; saying that the move may jeopardize personal privacy and lead to cases of fraud and identity theft.

We were fortunate to host the Mid Kent College Student Group from England during October 2013.

In Nirmal district, Telangana, a man was captured on video crossing a collapsed bridge by sliding down a pipe from one end to the other. The footage shows the individual making his way across the gap, using the pipe as a makeshift bridge to reach the other side, with water flowing beneath the structure.

The collapse has left local residents and commuters stranded.

Shemalatha Sundar, a school teacher in the city, sources the plants from across the country

The Mirzapur-based brand explores the potential of carpets as vehicles for storytelling by collaborating with Tarun Tahiliani, Anju Modi, Anita Dalmia and Ashdeen Lilaowala

The Bombay Canteen, as part of its their annual Independence Day Daawat, has collaborated with Nature:re [Nature Rebalance], an RPG Foundation initiative to transforming Mahalaxmi’s Captain Namdev Lotankar Park into an ecologically-driven urban oasis.

1. Big Ten dominates latest College Football Playoff rankings  CNN
2. Oregon, Ohio St., Texas, Penn St. CFP top four  ESPN
3. College Football Playoff rankings: Georgia bumped out of bracket while Oregon, Ohio State hold steady at top  The Athletic
4. Georgia’s Omission From 12-Team CFP Projection Shows Strength of Schedule Is a Myth  Sports Illustrated
5. 12-team playoff is already BROKEN + Heisman contenders & pretenders | College Football Power Hour  Yahoo Sports

Summary: The overhead of performing even simple tasks online is getting larger and larger. I question the security of almost all these supposedly "secure" messaging systems. And I'm tired of the 'Utopia of Rules' mindset pervasive in every organization. It's exhausting how they expect customers to constantly adapt to their needs.

I don't know if you recall the game Kerplunk. It's a classic children's game that has been around for decades. I remember playing it with my sister. The basic setup involves a transparent plastic tube, a number of sticks, and marbles. The sticks are threaded through the tube to form a web or nest at the bottom on which the marbles rest. We'd take turns removing a stick at a time, trying not to let any marbles fall through the web and out of the tube. At some point, the remaining sticks can't hold the marbles and everything falls down.

The modern web reminds me more and more of a big Kerplunk game and I think the marbles are about to fall. What started out as an easier way to do things like shop, bank, and get health care information has become increasingly complex over time. More and more of the email I receive seems to be simply directing me to log into some bespoke system to retrieve a message or engage in some workflow. And even with a password manager, the act of logging in is often a chore with different user interfaces, custom MFA requirements, and weird rules for passwords. Once you're on the system, session time-outs induce their own form of anxiety since stepping away for a few minutes to attend to something else might require going through the whole Kafkaesque process all over again. The modern web has turned into a dystopian theater of the absurd where even reading a simple appointment reminder from your doctor requires several minutes of stress-inducing interaction with baroque systems and processes.

And it's not just doctors, of course, banks, government agencies, hospitals, ecommerce sites, and customer service systems all adopt these special purpose messaging systems. If you ask these organizations why they use bespoke messaging systems, they'll list things like "timely and improved communication," "convenience," and "privacy and security." But the real reason is that it's more convenient for them because these systems are integrated with their backends and make their processes more manageable. There's certainly nothing about them that's more convenient, timely, or better than email for their customers¹.

I also question the privacy and security premise. Email can be insecure. And your email provider can see the contents of your emails. But the messaging system run by your doctor or bank is likely less secure than the email systems run by Apple, Google, and the others. And achieving privacy by making everything incompatible so that you have to use a different system for each correspondent is like chopping off your finger to prevent hangnails.

How did we get here? Bureaucracy. Not just government bureaucracy, but bureaucracy of all kinds. In Utopia of Rules², David Graeber talks about how power imbalances force the less powerful group to perform what he calls interpretive labor, the work of understanding and implementing what's better or more convenient for the more powerful partner. People are not equal participants in online interactions. We don't have the tools to be fully embodied online³. Because of this we are forced to play by the rules organizations online who are digitally embodied with servers, identity systems, customer management systems, and so on. And part of that is being forced to use their inconvenient and anemic messaging systems.

What's the answer? People need tools. I think digital wallets (a bad name for an important tool), autonomic (peer) identifiers with strong cryptography, and verifiable credentials are a huge step forward. These tools provide the means for people to be peers online rather that mere ghosts in someone else's machine. That's why I insist on using the term self-sovereign rather than decentralized to describe these systems. Cogito Ergo Sum.

Notes

1. For a deeper dive into why one-off messaging systems are never as good as email, see Rich Sharing and Personal Channels. Email and other useful messaging systems exhibit a property called rich sharing that makes them much more robust that the simple idea of "sharing a message" would bring to mind.
2. If you're interested in power imbalances and how they come about, I can't recommend Graeber's book highly enough. He had such a keen understanding of this problem and wrote about it in a way that's both informative and entertaining.
3. I talk about this in more detail in Chapter 17 of Learning Digital Identity when I discuss authentic digital relationships.

Photo Credit: Playing Kerplunk from DALL-E (public domain) Prompt: Draw a picture of a boy and girl playing kerplunk that's 1200x500 pixels

Tags: web identity authentication authorization verifiable+credentials

Vinay K. Chaudhri, The Hechinger Report, Nov 13, 2024

This is an idea straight from the 50s but expect to see more of the same as companies wrestle with how to make their publications relevant in the age of AI. Vinay K. Chaudhri beghins with a reaffirmation of the importance of textbooks (as "a carefully curated body of knowledge... nearly 100 percent accurate... (and) the view of an expert educator"). Needed now, though, is "authoring textbooks so that their concepts can be read as computer code." How? Back to the 50s - a controlled vocabulary. "Textbooks, using the discipline of knowledge engineering, can support the curation, preservation and learning of all forms of human knowledge." Next up? I guess it would have to be the unification of the sciences.

March Madness is a big deal, and not just for student-athletes. 

Frederica speaks to students of OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship) at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.

Frederica speaks on Orthodox worship at Southern Methodist College in Spartanburg, SC.

In this podcast, Frederica is interviewed at Bryan College about cultural issues, liturgical worship, and her faith.

Frederica speaks on many college campuses, both secular and Christian. You may be surprised by her observations related to the Christian colleges!

On this Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee, Fr. Andrew explores the role of humility in learning to pray to God.

Fr. Tom Hopko speaks at the first main session of the 2009 OCF College Conference held in December.

Metropolitan Jonah speaks at the second main session of the 2009 OCF College Conference held in December.

Metropolitan Jonah with part 2 of his talk at the third main session of the 2009 OCF College Conference held in December.

Metropolitan Jonah with part 3 of his talk at the fourth main session of the 2009 OCF College Conference held in December 2009.

In this show we speak with the keynote speakers from three of the four college conference locations. The interviews are with Dr. Gayle Woloschak (College Conference East), Fr. John Parker (College Conference South), and Abbot Meletios Webber (College Conference West).

While our show on Community is delayed for technical reasons, we have an important message to share about the fate of this year's southern College Conference. Please listen and help OCF out if you can.

Speakers from College Conference 2011 at Antiochian Village offer their reflections.

Timothy talks with College Conference coordinators from the Student Advisory Board.

Timothy interviews Jonny Braun, the OCF Southwest Representative, about College Student Sunday, which will take place this coming September 16th.

This is the keynote address given by His Grace, Bishop Gregory of Nyssa, Primate of the American Carpatho-Russion Orthodox Diocese of the USA and the episcopal overseer of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, at the 2013 OCF College Conference East at Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Penn. He addressed this year's theme for OCF: "Behold now, what is so good or so pleasant as for brothers to dwell together in unity?" (Psalm 132:1)

The first keynote address from Dn. Nicholas Belcher.

The second keynote address by Dn. Belcher.

A lively discussion worth downloading. For details on the panel, download this PDF which has all of the information.

Keynote address 3 by Dn. Belcher.

The interviewer is Jonathan Bush, OCF Regional Representative for the South along with his friend Bekah. The subject of the interview is "What is a vocation?"

What does it mean to love God and why is it so hard to love my neighbor? Listen to the audio and download the notes.

In today's kick-off episode, we listen to part one of a talk by Fr. Kevin Scherer. We also peek into OCF's future and go over our dreams for the podcast and how you can dream with us. Theme music: "Burn Out Bright" by Switchfoot from their 2006 album "Oh! Gravity." Used by permission of the band.

In today's episode, we listen to part two of a talk by Fr. Kevin Scherer. Theme music: "Burn Out Bright" by Switchfoot, used by permission.

Fr John Parker interviews Fr. John Strickland, newly-appointed Professor of History at the newly-founded Orthodox Christian college, St. Katherine. Listen and learn about this vital missionary “college” plant in Encinitas, CA.

In this episode, Fr. John Parker interviews Fr. Robert Miclean, pastor of Holy Archangels Mission in Annapolis, MD. Fr Robert is the founding pastor of this new mission, and the founder of Annapolis College Ministry, which is an intentional, discipleship-driven, missionary outreach to three Maryland colleges: the US Naval Academy, St John’s College, and Anne Arundel Community College.

With recent tragedies on college and university campuses, Kevin discusses college life today with Fr. Kevin Scherer, the Executive Director of Orthodox Christian Fellowship on this weekend's Illumined Heart.

As many as 30%+ of Iraqi's 4.2 million displaced refugees are Christian. They are being persecuted from all sides of the conflict. Amal Morcos of IOCC recently returned from Syria and Lebanon and reports first hand on what the U.N. calls "the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world."

Kevin interviews Dr. Frank Papatheofanis, President of the new St. Katherine College, about what it takes to start an Orthodox liberal arts and sciences college.

On this special edition of Orthodoxy Live, we take you to the 2012 College Conference of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship where Fr. Evan takes questions from the students in attendance.

On this special edition of Orthodoxy Live, Fr. Evan chats with OCF students from College Conference East and West.