Notices by Deb Chachra (debcha@mastodon.social)

I've been thinking about 'negativity bias' (that you can appear smart by being critical) and I just learned about the "Cynical Genius Illusion': https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-games/202111/the-myth-the-cynical-genius

"Research suggests that trust, rather than cynicism, is a sign of intelligence. Most people inaccurately believe that cynics are smarter than those who trust in others. This means that perhaps you should trust in people, but not let them know how much you trust them."

Yeah no -- I'm going to be LOUD about trusting in people.

@mrtazz thank you for reading and for sharing — I’m glad to hear this resonates with you!

@mrtazz @luis_in_brief Thank you both! — and yes, this is simultaneously a familiar phenomenon across fields and one that bears giving voice to when we can, not least because it is nearly always *humans* who provide the necessary slack and resilience to systems, and the cost they pay to do so is often disregarded because it doesn’t show up on a balance sheet.

Today is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I only learned *this year* that the Great Bengali Famine of 1770 was a precipitating factor in the protest, and so I collaborated with my historian colleague, Dr. Robert Martello, to share the globe-spanning story of colonialism and corporate power that we think should be much more widely known.

https://tinyletter.com/metafoundry/letters/metafoundry-80-tea-and-famine

Kissinger.

I'm so excited to share that my book, HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS: INSIDE THE SYSTEMS THAT SHAPE THE WORLD, will be out on October 17th of this year, on Riverhead Books. It's about the globe-spanning systems we've built to meet our needs: what systems like electricity, water, transportations and telecommunications have in common, how they work, and what needs to change to make them resilient, functional and equitable.

You can preorder it now at:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612711/how-infrastructure-works-by-deb-chachra/

TIL: lace cards

It’s a computer punch card with every possible spot punched out, so what remains is a flimsy filamentous net of paper that instantly tears and jams up the card reader.

Old-school denial of service attack.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lace_card

@fugueish @dymaxion Is there a phrase for the opposite of 'security by obscurity' --not 'security by design', but by making things public and obvious? Like, my car (and anything left inside it) is much safer on a busy street than a quiet parking garage. [So am _I_, for that matter.]

@PaulGrahamRaven @fugueish @dymaxion I’ve actually called a related idea ‘soeurveillance’ (from ‘sister’)—not that we are looking from above or below, but we are looking *around* at each other. [Like when I eg get in a subway carriage and take glance at other passengers to clock if there is someone who might be *specifically* vulnerable eg genderqueer, in a hijab etc.]