Accounting for SaaS and swords

One classic misunderstanding by engineers is that data can be compared reliably by computers. On the one hand, this is a foundation on which our civilization now rests. On the other hand, human society doesn’t evaluate data—bits—like computers do. Bits have history to them, provenance, moral character, intent, and other epiphenomena which are not directly inspectable. Matthew Skala called this the colour of bits, in a seminal essay that remains one of the Internet’s best meditations on the topic.