interviewed by gregbo

[cellio]

When did you first discover the net?

In college, and in stages. I first encountered the idea of email in 1979; I knew there was a bigger world out there, but as a student I was limited to campus email addresses. In, I think, 1982 I got a job with the CS department, which as a side effect got me my first account on a machine with ARPAnet access. I discovered the SF-Lovers digest, but little else, and I didn't know anyone outside the university who had email. In 1984, after I graduated but while I still had a legacy account, CMU got Usenet and I got sucked in for a while. (There was no reader on the box on which I had an account; I read articles directly out of the spool directory over the network for long enough to decide that this was interesting, and then wrote a reader.)

What inspired you to pursue a career in technical writing?

I blundered into it by accident, really. I headed off to college in pursuit of CS. CMU didn't have an undergrad program at the time; what you did was to major in applied math and load up on CS courses. Well, the CS stuff was cool but the math was frustrating; for a program with "applied" in its name it seemed awfully uselessly-theoretical to me. While angsting about this I talked with someone who said "you have an aptitude for writing; why don't you do that?". I said "what, journalism? you can't make a living doing stuff like that". Then this person told me what technical writing was, and that sounded nifty and I ended up changing majors. I took almost all of the CS courses that I would have taken as a math major, by the way.

My first position out of school was at a startup as half tech writer, half programmer. Eventually the company got larger and the management structure got weird and I had to choose one, and because of things that were going on at the time I chose the programming route. I remained a programmer through one more job change, and come the one after that I realized that I was an adequate programmer but could be a good tech writer in the right kind of position. I found a company that was looking for a tech writer to document programming interfaces and software design and such, which was perfect. Now that's the kind of position I seek out, and so far I've been decent at crafting a position to fit what I can offer.

If I ever find myself irrevocably writing "application software 101" -- you know, "from the file menu choose 'save', type a file name into the dialogue box, and click on the 'ok' button" etc -- I think I'll have to take it as a sign that something has gone very, very wrong, and maybe it's time to bail.

Who has been your greatest influence?

My father. Both of my parents are great -- they were always there and supportive when I was growing up, very nurturing, and so on. But my father, in particular, is the one who was always challenging me to think harder and to do things I didn't think I could do (ranging from riding a bike to solving polynomial equations). My father is very smart, and he realized that I could be smart too but that's not just about schoolwork. He taught me to be analytical, inquisitive, and persistent, and I think two of those stuck pretty well.

If you could live at any time and place in recorded history, when and where would you live?

There are lots of places I'd love to visit, but for actually living, I don't really want to give up the benefits of modern medicine, instant communication with a large number of people I'd never know otherwise, the (pretty-much) guarantee of a comfortable home and ample food, and the ability to pursue whatever interests me regardless of class, gender, family background, etc.

What do you think is the best way for the US to balance the need for national security and individual privacy?

Preamble:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Ben Franklin

Of course, it's all in how you define terms like "essential", isn't it?

I think that in general, people are better guardians of their own safety than governments are. I fear the casual destruction of civil liberties that is taking place right now -- both the direct damage and the false sense of security it grants.

At the micro level, for example, we should be teaching everyone from an early age both self-defense and gun safety, rather than building bigger and bigger police forces. The police can't be everywhere; if you're about to be a victim, you're much better off if you can take action immediately while waiting for the police to respond. Now broaden this idea: we've already seen that passengers on airliners will overpower would-be hijackers who aren't carrying "real" weapons, so do we really need to screen for the nail clippers? And yes, for pity's sake, arm the pilots, the bus drivers, and the guards at the nuclear power plants.

Can, and should, we post guards and metal detectors in all major public places? No. Ok, maybe going to the mall is riskier than staying at home and doing all your purchases via the mail, but at some point, you just have to accept some risk. Potential targets that are especially risky on a large-scale basis should be guarded (by people actually trained appropriately), but a determined killer will always be able to find some target. You just have to live with that, or become a hermit. We might be able to prevent planes flying into the White House, but realistically speaking, if someone wants to release poison gas into the Boston subway, there's probably nothing we can do to stop it that isn't worse. Note that I would re-evaluate this position if we were dealing with the number and severity of attacks that they're seeing in Israel -- but we're not.

Of course, the people who are attacking civil liberties know all that, so they are trying to catch the people (in advance), not just guard the targets, kind of like Minority Report but with less accuracy. I don't think collecting vast amounts of data on everyone solves that problem, though; not only is it none of anyone else's business if I just bought $10,000 worth of diamonds, but it does you no good to have that information. At least, not until data-mining tools get a lot better at sifting out the irrelevant. (It's not just the tools; no one has a good-enough understanding of what's wheat and what's chaff.) If I were a terrorist-accomplice who'd just received payment for my part in the next attack, do you really think I'd go out and spend it on things that would draw the attention of the government? No I wouldn't; I'd just quietly sit on it while the government is distracted by investigations of innocent people.

So yes, take all reasonable precautions. Actually enforce the immigration laws we already have, and maybe it makes sense to do the background checks that would come with a citizenship application for visa applications as well. Track people who have been convicted of violent crimes. Publish the list of officially-designated enemy organizations and investigate influxes of money to them. That sort of thing. But invading everyone's privacy in a misguided attempt to predict criminal behavior is not the answer.

You know the drill: if you want a set of questions, ask. You'll update your journal, including the offer to propegate.