Victor Rozek
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As I See It: To Ad Or Not To Ad
May 20, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreI never found Leonardo DiCaprio believable as an actor. No matter the costuming or how much makeup they trowel on his face, he always comes across as being a 12-year-old playing dress up. (He’s not unlike Tobey McGuire in that regard, but at least Tobey knows enough to make movies that appeal to 12-year-olds.) So when a moving flash ad for DiCaprio’s new opus, Gatsby, darkened my computer screen, it was both annoying and amusing. It did interrupt my browsing, but it also conjured up images of a child in a tuxedo throwing fits.
Not everyone finds advertising amusing,
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As I See It: Abiding Solitude
May 13, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreArguably the most memorable part of the movie Cast Away is watching Tom Hanks slowly going mad from an excess of solitude, eventually befriending a Wilson volleyball. Conversations and arguments ensue, and even though they’re one-sided, so deep is Tom’s character’s longing for a connection that an inanimate object is preferable to the terror of prolonged aloneness. If only Tom had texting.
Since the advent of the Internet, the business of assuaging loneliness has reached a feverish pitch. Self-help books and bars have been displaced by social media and pornography. And if connection is the new frontier, there are few
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As I See It: Yet Another Modest Proposal
April 22, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreNo more pencils. No more books. No more teachers’ dirty looks. Why so modest? Why not just get rid of teachers altogether? It is seldom presented so bluntly, but that’s the general thinking of a fledgling movement called Minimally Invasive Education, which prefers technology to teachers. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Given what educators are grappling with these days, the prospect of escaping the classroom may seem like a blessing.
We have been tossing educators into the fray for several thousand years with tolerable results. But the world is changing faster than the president’s commitment
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As I See It: Rigging Reputation
April 8, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn Atlanta, the teachers cheated so the students didn’t have to. It was an imperfect solution to be sure, designed to relieve the pressures of standardized testing, an unintended consequence of No Child Left Behind, otherwise known as “Are our children learning?” Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of educators were involved over the span of a decade. As of 10 days ago, 35 have been indicted, including former superintendent Beverly Hall, charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy, and making false statements. Can you spell “prison time?”
As test scores miraculously soared even in the poorest, most challenged districts, it became evident
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As I See It: All Things Big
March 25, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMany years ago, 60 Minutes did a segment on the Israeli Air Force. At the time, the United States had just sold the Israelis a handful of our latest jet fighters and 60 Minutes wanted to see how Israeli pilots were using their new toys. Turns out they had made a number of low-tech modifications (some classified), which the Israelis believed would make the planes more user friendly. For one thing, they installed an inexpensive rear-view mirror so that the pilot could track enemy aircraft without turning his head. The reporter also asked about the vast array of gauges, flashing
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As I See It: Darwin vs. Zuckerberg
March 11, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMost of what I know about Mark Zuckerberg I learned from Aaron Sorkin. Which is to say I’ve seen a dramatized version of his life where selected events have been massaged, embellished, or possibly invented for theatrical effect. But I don’t much care. Social Network was entertaining, and not being a Facebook user or stockholder, I have nothing invested in Zuckerberg. I don’t care if he’s awkward with women. I don’t care if he stabs friends in the back or screws business associates. And I don’t much care that he’s rich or lonely or the most inventive geek since Mr.
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As I See It: The Man Who Would Be Kim
February 25, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreHe was born in West Germany, the product of a German-Finish union, and for most of his life he bore the surname of Schmitz. From an early age he proved to be a poor model of German conformity, contemptuous of rules and indifferent to authority. But by the time he entered his teenage years, he had found a profession and a place of refuge from the pangs of conventionality: his refuge was the Internet; his profession, hacking.
Although he never got beyond junior high school, Kim managed to engineer a thriving career breaking and entering into other people’s phone systems.
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As I See It: The Next Big (Destructive) Thing
February 11, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIf you’re an unemployed software engineer, I have good news and bad news for you. There are people hiring, but they go by the name of Al Qaeda. Welcome to the worm-eat-worm world of Cyber Warfare. It is the Next Big Military Thing, and everybody is gearing up to smite their godless foes without firing a shot. According to Jeffrey Carr, head of the digital security firm Taia Global, and author of Inside Cyber Warfare, Al Qaeda released a video last year in which they recruited hackers to better attack critical infrastructure. You have to wonder what inducements they
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As I See It: Gadfly
January 28, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreA young man died recently, by his own hand. He had the tussled good looks that women like and men envy, and an exceptional mind capable of contributing to the general welfare. He was, in the estimation of admirers, a digital Robin Hood, robbing the establishment of its data and sharing it without condition or hope of profit; dispensing the King’s venison to hungry men. The King, however, was not pleased, and although the young man did not pose an actual danger to anyone, he was, by all accounts, becoming a royal nuisance. In the end, though, what may have
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As I See It: Success, The Career Killer
January 14, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read more“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.” Better yet to be a success at something you love and to remain lucid and funny past your hundredth birthday. But Naftaly Birnbaum was an anomaly. He knew what he wanted to do by age seven. Talent and singular focus propelled a career that spanned vaudeville, radio, television, and film. By the time of his death, he was a national icon best known by his adopted stage name, George Burns.
Characterizing career success can be as elusive