A couple of weeks ago, I read a funny article in the Economist, “Yammering away at the office.” (The Economist is often funny, really) It was part of their special report on social networking. (I love their Special Reports, particularly Technology Quarterly.)
Anyway, this article mentioned something called A-Space:
The recent unsuccessful attempt by a terrorist to blow up an American aircraft in flight has highlighted the need for better information-sharing among security agencies. To improve matters, the intelligence community is developing a system called A-Space, a sort of Facebook for spies that holds profiles of analysts from various agencies and allows them to contact one another and to share large amounts of text, graphics, images and videos.
I thought, Oooh, what a cool idea, then, ten seconds later, Hang on, you mean they haven’t been sharing?!
Which led to me going on a rant (while K put on a fond smile and drifted off to some internal landscape) about how stupid people can be and how the world hangs by a thread, a thread! But then, eh, we drank wine and pretty soon I, too, had a fond smile on my face.
Which is just my long-way-round of getting to this: I feel extraordinarily fond of Kelley, and, hey, it’s Valentine’s Day, and no, I don’t care that it’s an artificial holiday designed to make card companies and florists rich. In our house we take every single opportunity to delight in life and each other. I hope you have a delicious day. We will.
Nicola — my impression has always been that the actual solving (or preventing) of a crime comes second to who gets credit for solving the crime. Sharing info would mean diluting credit.
More importantly, I hope you and Kelley have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Enjoy!
They're all artificial holidays! Happy Valentine's.
Delighting in life….ah, yes. :]
They're real when you make them real! Have fun :)
DianneorDi, ah, yes, the eternal credit grab. Sigh.
mordicai, Christmas is real, Santa is real!
hampshireflyer, thank you. You too.
I believe.
Happy Valentine's Day! Many delights.
I think in the spirit of absolute and disabling paranoia, I would posit that that A-Space is only a plant; a honey-pot, if you will. I can't believe James Bond would blog openly about his exploits (well, not concerning national “intelligence” anyways).
Valentine's Day…that's when I display my self-love….openly.
Phoenixism, I believe it's an agency-only club. Get your licence to kill, get your user name and password…
Ha and heh! I go on about how the world hangs by a thread too, and Caty just smiles and nods, and waits for me to finish.
Surely there's some quantifiable dynamic at work here with ranters and smilers making good pairs ;)