Flutterby™! From 2013-03-01 to 2013-03-31

More reason to control as much of the end-to-end of your communications as possible: Apple's iCloud email is blocking mail containing the phrase "barely legal teen".

[ related topics: Apple Computer Free Speech Law Pop Culture ]

I don't think much of Groupon as a company, but former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason shows how to resign with aplomb and dignity. Via his tweet containing the memo. by way of, among other places, CNET: Former Groupon CEO leaks outgoing memo: 'I was fired today' (which also mirrors the memo)

[ related topics: Current Events Television ]

You Don’t Want Super-High-Speed Internet, Says Time Warner Cable

I just finished reading Tim Wu's The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, which documents very clearly how the communications monopolists have repeatedly actively worked to suppress innovation because it conflicted with how their business model worked. Again and again the "we know how our customers will use this", really "we want to dictate how our customers will use this", was used to suppress innovation.

So, yeah: Dear Time Warner: We can see what you're trying to do. Fuck you.

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Olive oil: 120 kilo-calories/tbsp. 2000 kCal/day to power a human. It takes a sixteenth of a gallon of oil to run you for a day. Efficient.

NPR this morning: Shilling the Catholic Church, Bowie's new album, then: "Next, in business news..." Uh, I thought that was business news.

[ related topics: Religion Invention and Design Current Events ]

Hey, "but bicyclists never stop for stop signs" whining drivers? Bite me: "Portland Oregon Bureau of Transportation looked at vehicle operator behavior at stop signs:

Actually, yes and no. While the study did indeed show that bicyclists come to a complete stop only 7 percent of the time, it also showed that motorists stop completely only 22 percent of the time.

(Obligatory link to my "I was hit because I stopped at a stop sign" tale)

[ related topics: Weblogs Archival ]

How come nobody's done a "take a picture of this QR code to pay for your purchase" system yet? We don't need NFC for that. #freebusinessidea

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

Some people, when they have a problem, say "I'll solve it with a CPAN module". Now they have a whole dependency tree of possible problems.

[ related topics: Perl ]

To be fair to Perl and CPAN, some people when they have a problem say "I know, I'll use Java", now they \nSegmentation fault\n

[ related topics: Perl Open Source Software Engineering hubris ]

has anyone investigated correlations between the obesity epidemic and Girl Scout cookie sales?

I'm shopping around some of my using technology to improve my civic environment ideas, and got a suggestion that I look at The Citizenville Challenge. I'm also apparently the first person talking to some of these groups from an under a hundred thousand population city, so I think there's some re-thinking of how these challenges apply to smaller cities that needs to happen. This is some thinking-in-public on the Citizenville Challenge list:

Adopt a standardized data format.

The two examples given are LIVES (restaurant inspection) and GTFS (transit). Petaluma's transit system is already integrated into 511.org, so presumably there's a way to get that data out as GTFS, and restaurant inspection data is a county function, available on-line, and so far as I can tell the only application for this is Yelp. Do we really want to be helping them?

But deeper than that, getting data out of the city processes to a large extent involves having that data be accessible in a digital format in the first place. The city IT department wants to publish everything they can. So getting new data out involves process changes within the government structure, which means that we both have to understand the existing processes and come up with a more efficient and cost-saving way to implement that process with technology. Can you say "mine field"?

Implement a Gov 2.0 policy.

Petaluma has a social media policy, and various people within the government are interested in open data. Other departments not so much, and then we're back to the problem above.

Launch a citizen engagement app.

Seems like there are a gazillion ways to pass information up to city officials. From http://seeclickfix.com/ to the attempts to use UserVoice to get input from Petalumans. What this requires is a communication channel to elected officials, and what that requires is educated citizens so that requests are intelligent enough that the officials aren't wasting their time by responding to them.

More data out would be awesome, the San Francisco Rec and Park app looks cool, but it shouldn't be an app, it should be a web site, and it should be run by the Chamber of Commerce or the Petaluma Visitor's Program or the Petaluma Downtown Association. You'll also notice that they've received 20 ratings for that app. What's the development cost per download ratio there? Or will anyone say...

Host a community event.

Done that. Will be doing more of that. It's a continual process.

Institutionalize innovation.

Hey, cool, a budget item! And have you seen the Brown Act recently? Part of the reason I resigned the Technology Advisory Committee was so that I could talk with people about building cool things! Less snarkily, we have an economic development advisor, Ingrid Alverde, and she's doing some good work, but this is the sort of thing that requires an institutional shift, and in a small city with a tight budget, we need good models for "this is what this change will bring". We don't have the resources to toss a full-time person at, and part-time, our city employees are already doing the best they know how.

Create civic APIs

Love to. What data would people like to work with? Anyone? And we're back to creating a reason to look at data.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Invention and Design Food Bay Area Software Engineering moron Space & Astronomy Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Mathematics California Culture Community Economics Public Transportation ]

Impudence, The Oz Problem, in which Columbine discusses the new Wizard of Oz movie, and sincerity and angst in movies.

It continues to astonish me that The Mummy actually was allowed to exist, that someone didn’t come along and piss in the soup and add a dose of existential angst or some obligatory hint that they would not, in fact, live happily ever after. It amazes me that the pure fairy tale got told. By 1999 those were already in short supply.

There's more there, and I'm not sure where to go with it because the lack of sincerity in modern media touches a chord with me. It doesn't have to necessarily be positive, but...

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Theater & Plays Journalism and Media ]

Brennen talks about product pictures and Sparkfun:

If some nail polish bothers you enough to call us unprofessional, SparkFun may not be the web-based retailer for you.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Current Events ]

Shadow passed along a reddit transcription of one of those image text block things that's been floating around on a nice concise look at why the Federal government shouldn't be involved in marriage.

[ related topics: Religion moron Sociology Boats Marriage ]

Dear people with me on the wrong SMS list: If you'll let the URL of that Google Doc slip, I will add some sexyfuntimes to your presentation!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

So this whole "unplugged" movement this weekend... Anyone else think they see a tremendouse rise in online discourse?

Shadow passed along Email from Wash. rep. drawing ire from NW bike community.

Representative Orcutt sounds like a fuckwit of the highest order, but I can't say that I think it's a bad idea: as we start to unwind all of the subsidies that are causing externalities in transportation, catching some bucks to help fund bicycle infrastructure seems like a good thing.

Especially if that money gets earmarked towards either infrastructure proven to support cyclists (ie: don't waste it on paint for "sharrows", be really careful about spending it on MUPs) or research on what sorts of facilities best support cyclists.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events Community Currency Pedal Power Bicycling ]

The fruits of this morning's attempt to get back on top of the back yard

[ related topics: Photography ]

Have I mentioned that I love Petaluma recently?

[ related topics: Photography ]

Finished Jeff Speck's "Walkable City". Enjoyed it, but needs more data and prospect of quantifiable experiment.

Sometimes seems like the "pedestrian enhancements" of the urban environment are deliberately built to inhibit non-car transportation.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Automobiles ]

Two Apple links of the morning:

• Gigaom: Browsing the web on an iPad stinks–and Apple likes it that way. Yep, if they can get you to build an app rather than use their crappy browser (and Safari sucks), they get to capture some of the open web back to their proprietary stuff. Remember when Apple used to gain economic value by enabling users to do things, rather than keeping them from doing things? Anyway, one in a series on why Android tablets are better, and I say that as an iPad owner.
• Kara Swisher: What Could Apple Buy With Its $137 Billion? About 18 Homes Each for Every Yahoo to Not Work At, and More!. As the tweet I got this from pointed out, "Apple has the cash to buy Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pandora, Pinterest, Yahoo & more all at once.". What this means is that Apple boardmembers think you've paid too much for your Facebook, Yahoo and, yes, Apple stock.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Economics Real Estate ]

I've been thinking about a Flutterby redesign, I may have to rip off their CSS: http://everyfuckingwebsite.com/

Via

Top DHS checkpoint refusals (YouTube). These people are heroes.

[ related topics: Movies ]

I've been vaguely aware of these guys for a while, but Outbox - turns your postal mail into email. They gather your mail, digitize it, send it to you in electronic form, and you can request any item from that mail if you need the physical item.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area ]

US Ambassador to the UN politely asks UN colleagues to stop showing up drunk to meetings.

U.S. calls on UN to ban drunken diplomats from budget negotiations.

Via a tweet from Amelie, who noted: "this is the group some believe to be scheming a one-world government."

Fuck. The physical spammers won. Seattle lost their bid to stop the "yellow pages" litter at a cost of $781,503.

Anyone who's tried to use https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ knows that it doesn't really work, you still get this crap thrown into your front yard, and it'd be really nice if we could treat these litterers like every other litterer, but, no, you have to share personal information with the vandals to get them to throw less shit into your yard.

Fuckers.

Via /.: Don't Want a Phonebook? Give Up Your Privacy.

Previously on Flutterby.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Work, productivity and environment Seattle Archival ]

Sigh. Some times the best way to get things over to the iPad is to link to them from here: http://cityofpetaluma.net/cdd/...vised-FEIR-Riverfront-022713.pdf

Family: Woman denied CPR wanted no intervention:

"It was our beloved mother and grandmother's wish to die naturally and without any kind of life prolonging intervention," the family said. "We understand that the 911 tape of this event has caused concern, but our family knows that mom had full knowledge of the limitations of Glenwood Gardens and is at peace."

and

"We regret that this private and most personal time has been escalated by the media," the statement said.

Good for the family in understanding the trade-offs between lifespan and quality of life.

[ related topics: Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media Gardening ]

Bloomberg: Piracy and fraud propelled the U.S. industrial revolution, a good reminder that the equivalent of our modern DRM used to be prohibitions on travel for skilled labor.

Via Techdirt: Yes, The US Industrial Revolution Was Built On Piracy And Fraud.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Electronics vendor or porn purveyor?: "Visit our large array of packages"

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Cold molded acacia wood sink.

Because after our experience playing with resin and fiberglass on the boat building, Charlene and I have some possible ideas for bathroom accessories...

[ related topics: Boats Machinery Woodworking ]

RT @robkroese: Unequivocally declare that the Federal Government will not target or kill US Citizens on US soil without due process. http://wh.gov/GdaE

[ related topics: moron ]

One of those "holy crap the world is changing quickly" moments: Santa Monica Airlines (Vimeo Video), in which someone flying a camera platform around captures angles on the Santa Monica pier that you'd have had to do with horrendously expensive CG just a few years ago.

[ related topics: Photography Aviation Video ]

Stingray Sam is the bested strangest gayest low budget musical cowboy themed retro space cereal serial/movie I've ever seen. Loads of tacky fun.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies Space & Astronomy ]

I don't wanna turn Flutterby into Tumblr, but I snickered when I first saw this floating around, and Shadow just brought it back to my attention and I thought it was worth sharing:

Source: http://imgur.com/XoCURE8

[ related topics: Photography Sexual Culture Sociology Boats Archival Marriage Woodworking ]

Alex Landau responds to feds' decision not to charge Denver cops who brutally beat him:

Once they finally stopped the assault, one officer reportedly put the following question to him: "Where's that warrant now, you fucking nigger?"

Two of these officers were later fired for excessive use of force in other incidents, although one of them was re-instated...

[ related topics: Privacy Law Enforcement ]

Forbes: The Real Reason Wall Street Always Escapes Criminal Charges? The Justice Dept Fears The Aftermath.

Lemme emphasize one word from that: Forbes. This is the magazine whose motto is "The Capitalist Tool".

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Economics ]

T.Rob visits the urologist:

“What did the X-Rays show? Do I have any new kidney stones?”

“No, but I’m not so sure I’d tell you if you did.”

I LedOL

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Invention and Design ]

Okay, this is a brilliant little monologue from popular culture: Battlestar Galactica (the new version): "I don't want to be human" (YouTube audio):

Brother Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova?

Ellen Tigh: No.

Brother Cavil: No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.

Ellen Tigh: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.

Brother Cavil: I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body!

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Sociology California Culture Aviation - Helicopters Woodworking hubris ]

Havent been back to the Festool Owner's Group web site for a while, but decided to ask a question there. Man that place is sad now.

[ related topics: Woodworking Festool ]

http://theprofoundprogrammer.com/ is http://despair.com/ for programmers.

OH: "pegged the shenanometer"

Summer's almost here! Yet Another Fucking Music Festival poster.

[ related topics: Music ]

John Brennan Sworn in as CIA Director Using Constitution Lacking Bill of Rights, the copy of The Constitution used was a first draft with notes from George Washington, dating to 1787. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.

I really don’t mean to be an asshole about this. But these vows always carry a great deal of symbolism. And whether he meant to invoke this symbolism or not, the moment at which Brennan took over the CIA happened to exclude (in symbolic form, though presumably not legally) the key limits on governmental power that protect American citizens.

[ related topics: Content Management Law Civil Liberties ]

Via Columbine: 12 year old Kaya Stewart rocking the heck out of Missionary Man (YouTube)

No Google Glasses allowed, declares Seattle dive bar.

[ related topics: Seattle ]

Last night Charlene and I went to see "Silver Linings Playbook". Mostly just reinforced my association of football fans and mental illness.

[ related topics: Movies Sports ]

Air National Guard Chaplain wins Bronze Star for PowerPoint presentation.

I don't wanna snark or nothin', but seems to me that anyone who sits through a PowerPoint presentation should get a Purple Heart.

[ related topics: History Space & Astronomy Current Events Aviation - Helicopters ]

Glenn Greenwald: The New York Times and Obama officials collaborate to prosecute Awlaki after he's executed. You may remember that US citizen Anwar Awlaki was killed by a CIA drone strike:

Sunday's lengthy NYT article on the Awlaki killing by Mark Mazzetti, Charlie Savage and Scott Shane is a classic case of this arrangement. It purports to provide "an account of what led to the Awlaki strike" that is "based on interviews with three dozen current and former legal and counterterrorism officials and outside experts". But what it really does is simply summarize the unverified justifications of the very officials involved in the killing, most of whom are permitted to justify themselves while hiding behind anonymity.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law New York ]

There's this general feeling that human technology is on an increasing curve, but we have a long history of civilizations rising and falling, technologies being developed and used, but then lost as the underlying civilization collapsed because it overran its natural resources and population limits.

Today's evidence: Metropolitan Museum of Art has a D20 die from the Ptolemaic Period in Egypt.

Via CNet

[ related topics: Current Events Art & Culture ]

Matt Haughey: LinkedIn is a virus:

With three clicks, I (accidentally) asked 1138 people to connect on LinkedIn using their import feature. Goddammit, I hate you LinkedIn.

Back in the days of MySpace, I thought "this is kind of a way to do virus propagation semi-safely". Now "social media experts" are urging people to cleanse their Twitter and Facebook presences of social updates and turning them into mechanisms for passing around the latest corporate-created instance of someone slapping some text over a stock photo.

I also recently Googled my name and discovered that the number of mentions is way way down, which is probably mostly related to Google becoming smarter about killing off spam blogs.

It seems like the weblog revolution unleashed this bad idea propagation network, and as people got a handle on that (and the barrier to entry was high) LinkedIn and similar started to take up the slack.

[ related topics: Photography Weblogs virus Spam broadband Journalism and Media Monty Python Economics ]

Mitja Narobe made a solid beech wood bathtub. Gonna start with a bathroom sink, and I think we're going to do it cold-molded, but yow that's sexy.

On the web site of Matthias Wandel by way of David Bethune's entry on LumberJocks.

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Woodworking Matthias Wandel ]

Apparently recreational salmon season has begun. In case you needed to use fish for entertainment or other non-professional purposes.

[ related topics: Law ]

Not so sure, but worth a read

Today, we have become so disgusted with the strip-mall horror of Suburban Hell that people in the U.S. are beginning to migrate back to the city again. However, they are again adopting either the failed 19th Century Hypertrophic pattern, or the even more failed 20th Century Hypertropic pattern. We already did this for decades and centuries, so we know it isn't going to work. If it didn't work for a hundred and fifty years, why is it going to work now? It won't work this time either, even if you call it different names like "transit-oriented development" or "New Urbanism" or whatever. These are just new labels for the same old shit that doesn't work.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment Public Transportation Archival ]

Wired: Mike Mika: Why I Hacked Donkey Kong for My Daughter.

[ related topics: Eric's Life ]

Sigh, another "one true way" screed from yet another "web designer". Maybe if we write in crayon in single syllable words they'll be happy?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Realization: "Web 2.0" is "WWW II". Where's the Internet's Normandy? It's time to take back metaphorical France. #tablesruinedeverything

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

A Nation of Sex Workers: An Interview with Tracy Quan starts out strong, with a discussion of under-age prostitution:

Teenagers often recoil from things that are intended to be helpful. Being housed by the state in a location you did not choose sounds demoralizing, and it’s often dangerous. We prefer to live with a companion, however temporary, who has no legal authority over us. The boyfriend or customer of a 16-year-old cannot legally prevent that teenager from finding a better deal. In all the options offered by the state, a teenager is dealing with adults who have far more legal power than a customer or a pimp. For some teenagers, that would be reason enough to run away.

And gets better from there. Via MeFi, which also links to Former Call Girl Tracy Quan Explains the 'Half-Hooker' Economy.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture Invention and Design Theater & Plays Law Community Economics ]

There's a lot of hate out there for Billy Joel, and I understand it. Hating on '70s popular music is a full-time sport, there's no question that he deliberately pandered to popularity in his musical and artistic styles, he did not leave at the top of his game, and ditching the long-time wife to run off with Christie Brinkley shortly after putting out "Just The Way You Are"... no matter what the underlying reasons, seems kinda tacky.

And then there's the Vegas show.

But if you're gonna spend your aging rockstar years doing stuff like this, there's a lot of slack I'll cut:

Billy Joel was doing a Q&A at Vanderbilt University, and student Michael Pollack asked if they could play "New York State of Mind" (YouTube). Note particularly how both of their styles evolve as they get comfortable with each other over the course of the song.

Via MeFi.

Previously and more previously

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Games Invention and Design Art & Culture Education New York Archival Marriage ]

Cloud-To-Butt is a browser extension that changes "the cloud" to "my butt". eg: https://twitter.com/stevenf/status/311351889100955648/photo/1

(Via MeFi)

[ related topics: Photography ]

LinkedIn endorsements: Google-bombing for the new millenium.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Now this is one sexy-ass glasses form-factor heads-up display: Telepathy. Screw Google Glasses, this looks like something I'd wear! I don't see if it has a camera, but you could also easily do a lapel pocket mounted camera that talked with your devices via some low-power radio.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography ]

For the record, this was not me. Roller-blader tries to steal chainsaw. I'm also hoping that the Rollerblade^tm trademark police hit the editors that allowed this article to go to print while misusing a trade-name for "inline skates".

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Weblogs Law Enforcement Skating Copyright/Trademark ]

Yes, it's very cute that all you Twitter users have discovered newlines. #likeinfantsdiscoveringtheycanspreadpooponwalls

So I take it from all of this wailing over the death of Google Reader that y'all will be wanting to pay for an RSS aggregator now?

[ related topics: Content Management ]

Thanks Santa Rosa for blocking major thoroughfares during commute hours. Grumble.

[ related topics: Photography ]

SUV beside me at the light, playing some rapper rhyming about his "hose". Look, dude, if you wanna wear L'Eggs I'm cool with it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor ]

So it seems like we need two things to replace Google: Distributed search, and crypto-email. How do we do these things?

[ related topics: Cryptography ]

Oh, man, this sucks: Digital Domain freelancers are being asked for money they've been paid during the last 90 days back for redistribution during bankruptcy proceedings.

Reason to up your freelancing fees to cover the potential that any 90 days might get clawed back...

[ related topics: Current Events Currency ]

Interesting look at why the political press has turned against Paul Ryan based on his 2013 budget.

[ related topics: Politics moron ]

Sneakernet on flash drives used in Cuba to route around internet censorship.

[ related topics: Free Speech Net Culture ]

Mitt Romney's damning '47 Percent' video and the new politics of privacy.

Trust is going to become very very important.

[ related topics: Politics Privacy Invention and Design Video ]

Wow: If ever there were an indication that temporal taxes can impact driver behavior: Drivers on the approach to the SF Bay Bridge are pulling over and driving slower so that they can cross just after 10:00 AM, when the price drops from $6 to $4.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Weblogs Bay Area California Culture Government ]

For my bandwidth bet with TC, further "huh": Wall Street Journal - The Surprising Numbers Behind Apps.

We're still spending 3 hours a day with TV vs a flat just over an hour with the Web, but we're spending almost 2 hours a day with apps.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture broadband Television Economics ]

As out-of-shape as I am, I didn't think biking home from work would be that dramatically faster than the bus. Wow.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Bicycling Public Transportation ]

Wondering if the death of Google reader and impacts of migrating elsewhere will negatively impact the entire notion of Software As A Service

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering ]

Krebs on Security - The World Has No Room For Cowards

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to be the target of a cyber and kinetic attack at the same time. But that is exactly what’s happened to me and my Web site over the past 24 hours. On Thursday afternoon, my site was the target of a fairly massive denial of service attack. That attack was punctuated by a visit from a heavily armed local police unit that was tricked into responding to a 911 call spoofed to look like it came from my home.

In which the practice of "SWATting", getting a SWAT team to respond to false alarms, is discussed. In this time of "no-knock" warrants, seems like the militarization of the police is eventually going to result in them being used as unwitting weapons to kill people...

[ related topics: Privacy History Law Enforcement Guns ]

Hell yes: EFF publishes the ruling which makes National Security Letters unconstitutional.

Pursuant to the National Security Letter Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2709, the FBI issued a National Security Letter ("NSL") to Petitioner, an electronic communciations service provider ("ECSP"), seeking "subscriber information." By certifying, under section 2709(c)(1), that disclosure of the existence of the NSL may result in "a danger to the national security of the United States, interference with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person," the FBI was able to prohibit Petituioner from disclosing the existence of the NSL. Petitioner filed a Petition to Set Aside the National Security Letter and Nondisclosure Requirement, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 3511(a) and (b).

But judgement is stayed for appeal to the Ninth Circuit. We generally like the Ninth Circuit.

[ related topics: Free Speech Law Enforcement ]

Two promoted to the front page from Jack William Bell's comment:

The Computer User Interface of the Future is here! - the bandwagon I should have gotten on way way back when, just becoming really good at building browser interfaces and not worrying so much about this native code stuff.

Security and the Cloud (and why you should be worried), a little stroll down memory lane to that time before rampant viruses and security exploits, and the cloud ecosystem and what eats whom.

Just be damned sure you disable Cloud-To-Butt before you read 'em, otherwise...

[ related topics: User Interface Archival ]

Just read "...when Gandhi did satyagraha in the Transvaal" and thought "is that like Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?" #overshare

Doctoral student Tobias Jeske claims hackers can manipulate real-time traffic data to cause traffic jams

[ related topics: Current Events ]

So this Cypriot bank levy thing is essentially a way to simulate local inflation, devaluing only Cypress Euros?

[ related topics: Economics ]

The Atlantic suggests resources for learning more about Gideon v Wainwright:

[ related topics: Law Education ]

Fine Homebuilding: Letter to the editor: Financial burdens of complying with future building codes.

Apparently the ICC is proposing motion sensors for some interior lights now? I have enough of a problem with the silliness that is motion and light sensors on the exterior lights, this is getting ridiculous.

And, of course, I've told the tale of how my workshop has air conditioning because of California's "Energy Conservation" Title 24 code.

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer sentenced to 41 months for exploiting AT&T iPad security flaw.

Note that the "security flaw" in question was incrementing a counter on the end of a URL. Why hasn't there been a massive class-action lawsuit against AT&T for incompetence here?

Catch all the Petaluma backgrounds in this Toyota Avalon and RAV4 ad

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Television ]

The best article on those Steubenville, Ohio high school football players who were just sentenced for rape that I've seen

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Sports ]

"The economy today is heart surgeons and KFC franchises" - listening to @Strongtowns podcast. #hahaonlyserious

[ related topics: Pop Culture Economics ]

Maggie McNeill on a man imprisoned for 22 years for a crime that he not only didn't commit, but which never happened.

Donald Rumsfeld tweeted:

10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis. All who played a role in history deserve our respect & appreciation.

Be nice if we had a timeline for success in that, from the guy who once claimed the operation would take six weeks. And we're looking at six trillion bucks for that, or a quarter of a million dollars per Iraqi citizen, I wonder what else we could have done with that money?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama History Work, productivity and environment Currency ]

Doing some lunchtime reading about BACnet/IP. Apparently BBMD does not mean "Big Beautiful Medical Doctor".

[ related topics: Health ]

It is sobering to realize how much of our modern life depends on various types of invisible systems that keep everything working. Popular Mechanics has a bit on how teams around the earth came together to repair the submarine cables damaged after the recent Japanese Tsunami, a potentially more disruptive outcome than the reactor meltdown. For a bit of background on the topic, you might take a look at Neal Stephanson's epic tale of the building of FLAG, the Fiber Link Around the Globe, which stretches from England to Japan via Alexandria and Thailand. It's a story like the building of the Transcontinental Railroad or the Panama Canal. A warning, tho: the story is 56 screens long, but worth every byte!

[ related topics: broadband Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment Machinery ]

Transferring to my iPad: ASHRAE Journal: New Tools for Specifying BACnet.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

The awesome that is Wil Wheaton has apparently infected other members of the ST:TNG crew: The Mary Sue: Star Trek‘s Gates McFadden Has a Tumblr Full of Pictures of Her Action Figure Doing Stuff:

http://ensemblestudiotheatrela.tumblr.com/

(And they pulled a few pix in the article, but frankly the Tumblr is cooler!)

(And Wil links to that tumblr in his "Photos from Megacon Day Three" blog entry)

[ related topics: Photography Star Trek moron Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters ]

Iraq war is projected to cost the U.S. $6T, $240k/Iraqi. GDP/person of Iraq is around $2,600.

[Edit: First pass at this I typoed to "$6B".]

[ related topics: History Economics ]

How quaint: a document on the security of a system that mentions DES. But it also talks about physical access to controllers...

Wired: Want to Build a Carbon Fiber Guitar? This Workshop Teaches You How.

Thanks, Shadow!

[ related topics: Music Graphic Design ]

The Atlantic Cities: How Park-And-Ride encourages car use.

What if, instead of building park-n-ride parking lots, we built offices and living spaces and retail and...?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Automobiles ]

http://census2012.sourceforge.net/paper.html on mapping IPv4 space, a wide array of wide-open routers, other unauthorized software on exploited machines competing for space, the geographic shape of the Internet, and more.

[ related topics: Software Engineering Space & Astronomy Net Culture Maps and Mapping ]

Ninja programmer sneaks in undetected, lurks in shadows, kills project, escapes without culpability.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

I'm not sure whether I hit "Post Comment" and it got deleted, or whether I wavered back and forth for a while and never posted, but in either case I'm kinda glad that I didn't end up entombed for eternity in the shitstorm that is this MeFi thread on the recent PyCon incident.

"Technology Evangelist" Adria Richards (website currently responding slowly, presumably because it's being DDOSed) took offense at the conversation between two guys at PyCon who were sitting behind her, and snapped a photo, commenting:

Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and "big" dongles. Right behind me #pycon http://pic.twitter.com/Hv1bkeOsYP

According to her blog entry about the incident, she then asked, on Twitter, "Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct?", and the PyCon organizers did.

A commenter on news.ycombinator.com claims to be one of the men in the photo, and claims that he got fired because of the resulting uproar (Edit: PlayHaven has confirmed that a developer was fired), and of course this has turned into a tremendous shitstorm on all the social medias.

There's disagreement over exactly what was said, the context in which it was said, and we only have Adria Richards' report to understand how it was heard. SendGrid has now publicly announced that they've fired Adria Richards.

So I'm trying to sort out my own feelings on this. On the one hand, I've been at tech conferences where I was deliberately avoiding approaching the one or two women at the mixer because I didn't want to be perceived as the creepy guy hitting on the coder chicks, but I also realize that that is not productive. Women are working on cool projects, there's room for synergy there, we can have technical discussions, and being stand-offish has as many negatives as being stalkerly (albeit in different ways).

I have also been in entirely male large groups of developers, in which the flamboyantly gay guys are saying "that's what she said" far too often, where there's been tremendous eye-rolling over the incredibly sexist behavior of members of the (mixed gender) sales team.

And, a little over-share and self-exposure here: my first reaction to The PyCon code of conduct is "that sounds like a lot of work, I'm gonna go hang with the neckbeards instead".

It should also be noted that Adria Richards had previously Tweeted a dick size joke from an account in which she named SendGrid as her employer.

So I don't know where to move forward from this. I want to create a welcoming environment for everyone who wants to contribute to a community. I want to participate in communities where everyone is welcome. I totally understand that in a room filled with guys with poor social skills that she felt like she had to ask the organizers to step in rather than taking solo action. I hate that we have DDOS attacks and rape and death threats and firings.

I don't understand how we can move forward if we have this tremendously polarized environment in which people seem to be deliberately talking past each other, and in which we seem to be elevating the right to be aggrieved over the pragmatic notion that dwelling in that doesn't move us.

Any help?

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Interactive Drama Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Nature and environment Robotics Software Engineering History Law Current Events Work, productivity and environment Embedded Devices Community Conferences ]

Appreciate that http://first5california.com/ pays for my background entertainment, but if their ads are reaching me, that's wasted ad $s.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Wise words from a five year old:

"It's okay to be a little afraid, it just means you're about to learn something."

Broadband consultant's report a secret Memo's criticism called 'embarrassing'. You may remember that I linked to a report that West Virginia had spent $22,600 each for 1,064 Cisco 3945 routers for assorted schools and libraries, applications for which most of us thought a $60 Linksys would probably be better.

Apparently someone commissioned a $118,000 report to look at West Virginia's spending of $126.3 million in federal stimulus funds on expanding high-speed Internet, but the administration of Governor Earl Ray Tomblin won't release it:

The reason: At least one of the consultant's documents might be "embarrassing to some people," according to Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette.

"The documents may be embarrassing to some people ... . Embarrassing because it was someone's opinion," Burdette said. "It was a specific document, citing specific companies, and making very specific suggestions to me."

I have been sympathetic to people who've suggested that the stimulus spending was largely on projects that had gotten far enough along in the planning stages that people had figured out that they made no sense, but then along came the dumptrucks full of money, and...

Yeah.

[ related topics: Children and growing up broadband Current Events Net Culture Currency Archival ]

GoPro massively over-reaches with DMCA takedown notice on a negative review, claiming the authority to take down any web page which mentions their trademarks in context.

I seriously hope they get a really good hard solid legal smackdown for this. Via /.

[ related topics: Law Current Events Gambling ]

DNA Lounge update 2013-03-20: Wherein SFPD is still going surveillance-nutty.

Officer Chan, the permitting officer for SFPD, called to remind us that we're required to have video surveillance that records everything our customers do, and to give that footage to SFPD any time they ask, without a warrant or explanation. "Actually, that's not the case, I'm not required to do that," says Barry. "It's a part of the Good Neighbor Policy," says the cop. "No, actually, it's not. And it's also not a condition of our permits."

"Well! I guess I'll have to speak to the Entertainment Commission about that, then!"

Makes me nervous about the San Francisco police.

[ related topics: Privacy Bay Area Law Law Enforcement California Culture Video ]

Obama’s “No Fly” List for FedEx and UPS.

I am loathe to link to things that ascribe US DOJ actions to "Obama", but I think this is a good round-up of all of the various links about the DOJ pressuring FedEx and UPS to do search and invasion of privacy where law enforcement may not:

When FedEx attempted to get a list of pharmacies suspected of illegal activities in order to refuse their packages, the DOJ’s response was telling. The DOJ refused because providing a list could violate the due-process rights of businesses named and thus open the DOJ to lawsuits. An interesting message is implicit in this refusal. ...

[ related topics: Privacy Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Government ]

Lego paper plane folding machine v2.0 (YouTube)

[ related topics: Lego Mindstorms Woodworking ]

A reminder next time I'm tempted to go into the shop and do a half-assed attempt at something like Mathias Wandel's Modular Marble Machine but not get anywhere 'cause I've got stuff queued up and the kid who's goading me into this doesn't have the patience to set up jigs...

We could build marble machines out of paper (YouTube video of the paper roller coaster).

Via Elizabeth O. Dulemba.

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Embedded Devices Video ]

http://boingboing.net/2013/03/...ernet-of-things-answering-m.html

While cell phones and the digital world have brought us much, this simple, elegant and intuitive design and it's paradigms deserves a look.

[ related topics: Net Culture Graphic Design Gambling ]

Video from a helmet cam mounted inside a model F-16.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Video ]

Tactical Beer Mug. Be sure to watch the OPMOD Battle Mug video.

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Beer Embedded Devices Video ]

Reminder: As recently as 1972, you could go to jail in the United States for giving contraception to a single person.

Remember, when they're going after "the right to privacy" in Roe v. Wade, they're really going after the legal concept that was the underpinning of Grisold v. Connecticut(1965), and that decision just made contraception for married couples legal.

Baird is as fiery and eager to talk about the struggle as ever. He continues to be dismayed by individuals who would infringe on the right of women to make their own decisions. When I spoke to him yesterday, he recited a section of Eisenstadt v. Baird from memory: “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” That right is young—and still under attack.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Sociology Law Marriage ]

Neil Fraser goes to Vietnam, and sees the grade school computer curriculum:

Due to a lack of funds, the school could not afford two CS teachers, so half the school was unable to take CS. I asked what a teacher's salary was. $100 per month. So I went to an ATM and bought them a second teacher for the next year.

But go read the rest of it, because he then discovers what the 11th graders are up to.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Work, productivity and environment ]

http://www.mymodernmet.com/pro...gs/diet-wiegman-light-sculptures

I think I have a new favorite (of the moment) art format and artist. I can imagine having something like this in a home or public space that looks very abstract, until the spot light(s) are turned on for the reveil and everyone goes "Aha!".

[ related topics: Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Art & Culture ]

At some point Charlene picked up the old "507 Mechanical Movements" for me, and I've been thumbing through it and saying"that's really cool!". http://507movements.com/ is an online version, and they're doing animatimations of some of 'em.

NPR Planet Money: Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America.

On how "disability" has become the new welfare, and more.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Currency ]

I abandoned writing my photo manager back in '06 or so, but I still haven't found one I actually like to better organize all these pictures.

[ related topics: Photography Writing ]

Another reason we should think long and hard about going to war: The U.S. is still paying benefits for the Civil War and Spanish American war, $20 million a year for WWI, $5 billion a year for WWII.

[ related topics: History ]

Time: Study: Women abused as kids are more likely to have children with autism.

The authors of the JAMA Psychiatry paper studied more than 50,000 women enrolled in the Nurse’s Health Study II, who were asked about any history of abuse before they were 12. The questions delved into both physical and emotional abuse, as the women evaluated whether they had been hit hard enough to leave bruises, as well as whether adults or caregivers had insulted, screamed or yelled at them. They also filled out questionnaires about whether their own children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. ...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health Gambling ]

My next book: "Agile Continuous Deployment Waterfall Design Patterns for the Internet of Things in The Cloud". gonna be huge.

2nd edition will be subtitled "Test Driven with Map Reduce for Big Data".

[ related topics: Books Net Culture Graphic Design ]

That thing where someone on Twitter RTs someone you knew in elementary school on the other side of the country decades ago. #smallworld

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Former head of the South Carolina Republican Party Todd Kincannon had some things to say about Iraq war veteran Michael Prysner:

"I wish the Iraqis had better aim with his ass," he later added. "Yes, I hope if that guy is ever in combat again, the enemy splatters his brains JFK-style. He deserves it."

I'm not a particular fan of Hugo Chavez, a difference of opinion over whom this exchange apparently started, but I've been in a number of conversations recently about civility and respect, especially in the context of the aforementioned Adria Richards and PyCon situation, and thinking about how we can better call out the assholes who make death threats and escalate quickly.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Todd Gemmell History Archival ]

The first thing that bothered me about "Rent": it's 525,948.766 minutes, that's how you measure, measure a year.

50 precision mini-coptors createding the Trek logo in mid-air are awesome, and I find myself wondering how many UFO sightings you could create with these.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Conspiracy Aviation - Helicopters ]

The Difference between Bluegrass, Old Time and Celtic bands, now finally
 explained!

The Bluegrass fiddler paid $10,000 for his fiddle at the Violin Shop in 
Nashville. The Celtic fiddler inherited his fiddle from his mothers 2nd
 cousin in County Clare. The Old Time fiddler got theirs for $15 at a yard
sale.

 Celtic and Bluegrass fiddles are tuned GDAE. An Old Time fiddle can be in a
hundred different tunings. ...

[ related topics: Music Education ]

At 7th and F in Petaluma 'til 1974: We used to have mixed-use residential and walkability! (H/T PetaFuckinLuma)

[ related topics: Photography ]

Apparently my face is immune to detection, but this JavaScript webcam facial recognition webtracking library looks kinda cool, assuming you don't have whatever facial characteristics (goatee, shaved head, etc) that are making it not work for me.

And also: Video4Linux and upside down webcams: The suck.

[ related topics: Language Books Work, productivity and environment ]

Intuit fights making income taxes simpler in order to increase TurboTax sales.

[ related topics: Politics Government ]

New word: Dvoricaped. What you call the really bright uber geek that taught himself Dvorak on a keyboard with no printed letters, when they are forced to use a qwerty keyboard on someone else's computer, or the server in a colo.. or.. or.. It'll also make them appear like slow peck typer when they fill out your job application. Qwerty sucks.. I agree, but it's everywhere.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Heinlein ]

Berlin based Atheist Shoes was seeing a large number of packages shipped to the U.S. lost or delayed, so they ran a study, shipping some packages without the brand on the tape, and some packages with.

Having run a series of control tests in Germany and Europe, which demonstrate no such bias, the problem appears to lie in the USA and is likely explained by the differential handling of packages by the employees of the US Postal Service. Interestingly, this seems to be a national problem - traditionally less religious and more liberal states also saw high levels of delay and disappearance. Sadly, many of our customers who took part in this experiment were not surprised by our findings, even though tampering with post is a Federal Offence.

So they've dropped the "ATHEIST" packing-tape on shipments to the US.

[ related topics: Religion Work, productivity and environment Shoes Woodworking ]

Dave Winer has done a little HTML5 outliner, with OPML import and export: http://littleoutliner.com/#

[ related topics: Dave Winer ]

The Onion: Robert Mapplethorpe Children's Museum Celebrates Grand Opening.

I would be there in a heartbeat...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Food Art & Culture ]

Santa Clara offers free outdoor WiFi on electric smart meter backbone http://gigaom.com/2013/03/27/s...-wi-fi-on-backs-of-smart-meters/

You know what I love? Google+ has such a broken model of identity that I now have two accounts. Accidentally. And people follow me on both.

Justice Roberts says that people who don't agree with laws should ignore them rather than asking the courts to clarify. Well, okay, specifically he says it about the Obama administration and the DOMA, but: Really? We had Scalia to destroy our faith in the Supreme Court, Mr. Roberts, you didn't have to pile on there.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Government ]

Mystery of Prince Rupert's Drop at 130,000 fps - Smarter Every Day 86 (YouTube).

For your daily does of exploding glass.

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Embedded Devices ]

The Walking Dead and Toy Story are the same story

[ related topics: Pixar Animation ]

Fellatio and cunnilingus in bats.

My most anticipated movie in a while opens May 24th (see the 1st 2 first!): http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/.../midnight-trailer-153023558.html

[ related topics: Movies ]

The Telegraph: Hollywood has kissed goodbye to the steamy sex scene:

According to Vincent Bruzzese of Ipsos, a market research company, sex has been all but eradicated from Hollywood scripts over the past 18 months. “Sex scenes used to be written, no matter the plot, to spice up a film trailer,” he said in an interview at the weekend. “But all that does today is get the film an adult-only rating and lose a younger audience.”

Or: Now that the occasional flash of boob doesn't really titillate 'cause every 12 year old has found more porn on the net, it's all about the CG effects.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture History Sociology California Culture Economics ]

Uh oh: PostgreSQL mailing list - Extra security measures for next week's releases. Git repo frozen so that the committers can get fixes in to the repository without people seeing what the security flaw is.

I use PostgreSQL extensively, but I've always used it locked to localhost on trusted machines, and if I had to get to it from elswhere, via ssh tunnels. It'll be interesting to see what this is.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Cryptography Databases ]

Mozilla cross-compiles the Unreal engine to JavaScript using Emscripten. The browser as the gaming platform of the future.

[ related topics: Games Weblogs Open Source Machinery ]

If you squint hard at the data, US broadband doesn’t suck so hard after all (insists cable lobby group)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama broadband ]

EFF: When a Secretive Stingray Cell Phone Tracking "Warrant" Isn't a Warrant.

"Stingray" is the brand name of an International Mobile Subscriber Identity locator, or “IMSI catcher.” A Stingray acts as a fake cell-phone tower, small enough to fit in a van, allowing the government to route all network traffic to the fake tower.

The court warrant asked for location information from Verizon, "law enforcement" parked one of these vans near the apartment complex where the suspect was living, Man-In-The-Middle monitored everyone, allegedly threw away the other data, and snooped on the suspect.

ACLU: U.S. v. Rigmaiden - DOJ Emails on Stingray Applications

So far it's just your average law enforcement overreach, right? The "Stingray" is made by Harris Corp. Harris Corp. leader William M. Brown appointed to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

So, yeah, it's institutionalized "your rights are irrelevant in the pursuit of social order".

Via /.: DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants.

[ related topics: Wireless Privacy broadband Free Speech moron Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Real Estate ]

BruCON's Anti-Harassment Policy.

Slate: The Boston police go undercover on the Internet to stop the city’s most dreaded scourge: DIY indie-rock shows.

You don’t have to be a local-music Agent Smith, though, to tell that some of these emails smell pretty fishy. “Hey there, local P native here,” wrote one probable imposter to a local band, (who probably meant to type JP, slang for Jamaica Plain).  “What is the Address for the local music show tonight?"

Via MeFi, which goes both in the "let's mock the cops trying to be kewl" direction and in the "hey, house concert attendees tend to actually care about the music" space.

[ related topics: Politics Music Space & Astronomy Current Events Law Enforcement Television California Culture Net Culture Skating Real Estate ]

The First Honest Cable Company: http://youtu.be/0ilMx7k7mso

30 years ago, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) stopped the FDA from taking down Herbalife.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Michigan judge: ‘Gap tooth skank hoes’ was a compliment:

In a response to a formal complaint, Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree admitted that to the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission that he may have sent a text message to his mistress, saying, “C’mon, U’r talking about the ‘docket from hell,’ filled w/tatted up, overweight, half-ass English speaking, gap tooth skank hoes … and then you walk in.”

The "you" in this case was a woman appearing as a witness in a child support case filed against the father of her child.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law ]

Areas zoned for large single-family homes have higher risk of foreclosure. Yep. Buy in diverse neighborhoods.

[ related topics: Sociology Current Events ]

And I may have found a bug in libxml2. Will write C code to test, but for now we'll change the XSD to '.*' and see if anyone notices...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

The plan is to eventually build new doors, but in the mean-time, since we no longer have the cat...

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design ]

Interesting: Assemblyman David Bobzien pushes an amendment to Nevada AB 374 that prohibits local authorities from interfering with federally-licensed events on federal land, ie: Keeps the local authorities from continuing to extort money from the Burning Man event.

[ related topics: Burning Man Currency Real Estate ]

The nice thing about computer programming is that you get to work in a safe environment, away from nasty chemi... wait, what?

Google workers at Superfund site exposed to hazardous levels of trichloroethylene (TCE):

When Netscape occupied the Google site, a controversial "air stripper" operated there for more than a decade, emitting toxic chemicals into the air without monitoring, according to Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, an activist group based in Mountain View. In 1999, Netscape was acquired by AOL, which declined to comment.

I've seen a number of developments, both commercial and residential, which depended on active ventilation or environmental control systems to maintain safe indoor environments because they were built on polluted sites. One of the things we have building codes for is to protect the future inhabitants of a development, but I wonder about some of these special case situations where there's lore associated with the running of the building, and how that'll hold up over half a century or more...

Via JWZ: Netscape Cancer: far worse than Brand Necrophilia.

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Bay Area Software Engineering moron Law Work, productivity and environment Sports ]

A New Map Of The U.S., Created By How Our Dollar Bills Move. Guy takes Where's George data and looks at currency circulation, finds some interesting borders.

[ related topics: Books Invention and Design Currency Maps and Mapping ]