“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”
—Hector Berlioz, French composer, born December 11, 1803
What should InCommN do about Don’t Eat Lunch Alone? We schedule it twice a month in Easthampton, Greenfield, and Northampton. We get pretty thin turnouts. Maybe the DELA idea has gotten stale and we need to try something else. Any suggestions for what you would like to see (if anything) would be welcome. All of us are pretty busy and it’s often not possible for any of us to show up to host the various lunches. We don’t like doing that.
A couple of possible variations:
- Meet once a month
- Fewer venues
- Consolidate Easthampton and Northampton DELAs
- Cancel if we get fewer than 5 RSVPs
Please tell us what you’d like to see. Email daniell@incommn.com or call 413 489 1818 (my Google Voice number).
Somebody (don’t remember where I saw it) remarked sensibly that the companies admonishing the U.S. government for its outrageous, unlawful invasions of privacy might want to meditate on their own “bulk collection of Internet communications.” But I guess that’s okay because it’s lawful (you accepted the terms of use, didn’t you?) and they only do it to sell us things. Oh, wait…Still, good to see these powerful companies calling the Federal Government on its overreach.
By the way, this is the common birthday of my father, my dear friend Michael Forman, and my dog, Boojum.
I often find myself quoting my dad, who left us in 1995. He had a strong systems sense, a robust preference for empiricism over theory, a keen eye for bullshit, and a lifelong desire to keep learning.
My friend Michael was one of the funniest men I ever knew. We met in college, fell out of touch around 1980, and reconnected through Facebook, of all things. Michael fell victim to scleroderma a few years ago. He was a gallant man, not least in how he went out of the world.
Boojum was a beautiful male cocker spaniel with a handsome black and white coat. Not terribly long on brains, and too self-willed to be a really “good” dog, he was a funny and loving companion for fifteen years. I miss his enthusiastic romping and devoted affection.
Today and Tomorrow in #westernma
| WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER | 11 |
| 7:30–9:00AM | Holyoke | Holyoke Chamber Holiday Business Breakfast |
| 11:30AM–1:00PM | Springfield | Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield Lunch and Learn |
| 12:00–1:30PM | Northampton | Click Workspace Brown Bag Luncheon |
| 3:00–4:30PM | North Adams | Free Information for Small Businesses to Start and Grow |
| 5:15–7:30PM | Springfield | Valley Venture Mentors |
| THURSDAY | DECEMBER | 12 |
| 5:00PM | Northampton | Northampton Area Young Professionals Networking Social |
| 6:00PM | Southwick | Expand Your Network Western Mass |
Reading
“While the undersigned companies understand that governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety and security, we strongly believe that current laws and practices need to be reformed.
“Consistent with established global norms of free expression and privacy and with the goals of ensuring that government law enforcement and intelligence efforts are rule-bound, narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight, we hereby call on governments to endorse the following principles and enact reforms that would put these principles into action.
“AOL. Google. Facebook. LinkedIn. Microsoft. Yahoo.
“1. Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information
Governments should codify sensible limitations on their ability to compel service providers to disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users’ reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.”
Reform Government Surveillance
The Last Word
“With a kiss let us set out for an unknown world.”
—Alfred de Musset, French writer, born December 11, 1810