Jackie Danicki

WARNING: This post wanders a bit (more than usual).

One of the best things about last night’s party was that I saw so many people I like and respect having what seemed to be interesting conversations with one another. I can’t tell you how much I love that. Can you imagine being a newbie to the blogosphere, doing your Master’s dissertation on the use of blogging in corporate IT buying, and ending up at a party with JP Rangaswami, the blogosphere’s superstar CIO? No drug could get me as high as I felt observing a few moments of that exchange. Or what about being the chairman of a firm that provides e-government information to the public sector, eating dessert and talking electronic voting machines with an IT security guru and a worldwide elections expert?

It was a good night for conversation.

This morning was no different. I was going to try to get a walk-in appointment at Blink Eyebrow Bar on my way home from Perry de Havilland’s house (where we’d had the party), but ended up sitting around and talking to Perry until it was time to scoot off to my afternoon appointment elsewhere. He is one of those people who almost always brings a new perspective to any subject we discuss, and I miss the days when we used to have long conversations face-to-face on an almost daily basis. I value his knowledge and take on things so much.

Same goes for Adriana, my co-hostess last night. She and I also used to have hour upon hour of conversation on a daily basis, which I am certain will prove to be some of the most informative and head-stretching exchanges I will have in my entire life. One thing Adriana re-iterated very late last night, when she and Alec Muffett and I were the only ones still awake and talking, was that whenever she is analysing a technology, she considers first whether it will give the individual greater control over his or her environment, data, and actions, or if the control belongs to the system. Obviously the greater value and preference is for the former. The individual doesn’t have a choice in matters large and small? Let’s sort that out and then we’ll be in business. Who but a tyrant would disagree?

Yet when it comes to the matter of the government and its role in an individual’s life, I seem to be living in a country where the system is revered and the individual is diminished as a matter of principle. (The rest of the world’s countries, including the US, are not that much better in my estimation.)

On this topic, I am unsurprised to see that Perry de Havilland has managed to succinctly sum up my attitude to public ’services’ in describing his own, in the comments to this post:

[T]he provision of mandatory state ’services’ tends to prevent the development of private alternatives, which is why far from wanting public services to be more efficient, if I am going to be taxed anyway I would rather most of that tax money be simply flushed down the toilet unspent so that alternative ways of doing things, particularly social ways rather than politically imposed ones where possible, can develop in a less distorted environment. Moreover the consequences of corporate mismanagement are usually easier to mitigate than those of public sector mismanagement. Try suing the state for malfeasance!

I also had a very valuable conversation with Alec last night, which seemed to last hours and touched on everything from friendship to young fogeyism and how to be happy. While this was going on, Antoine was in deep conversation with Adriana only feet away from us. At one point, Antoine said the word ‘firewall’ and Alec - an IT security guru - snapped his head around so quickly I thought he’d do himself an injury. Several minutes later, Antoine uttered the phrase ‘lesbian fetishists’ and my neck suffered a similar fate.

And on that note…I can’t wait till the next party!

Filed under: Colleagues, Friends, Fun, Happiness, Individuality vs Collectivism, Law, Life, Politics, Technology, The State Is Not Your Friend