Flutterby™! From 2013-09-03 to 2013-09-30

Apparently, MSFT acquired NOK (Microsoft absorbed Nokia). I liked this quote:

http://stratechery.com/2013/the-deal-that-makes-no-sense/

"adding on a mobile phone business that Microsoft probably should abandon is like attaching an anchor to said straitjacket and tossing the patient into the ocean."

for the visual..

I'll also play devils advocate in that: if they could pull it off, it could put them back in the market as a contender. Part of what makes the iPhone ore appealing to the masses is the consistent way it works with consistent high quality hardware. Unfortunately, I don't see MSFT as getting that much act together quick enough. I haven't met anyone with a MSFT powered phone yet... not even the corporate types.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft moron Economics iPhone ]

U.S. spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011:

By the end of this year, GENIE is projected to control at least 85,000 implants in strategically chosen machines around the world. That is quadruple the number — 21,252 — available in 2008, according to the U.S. intelligence budget.

So we know who's running those botnets now.

Meanwhile, the DEA can go back through phone records to 1987 in some cases:

According to reports from The New York Times and ABC News, the DEA has been paying AT&T since 2007 to work directly with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program to offer access to every call that goes through the communications company's switchboard.

Although a careful reading suggests that AT&T is maintaining the database to respond to DEA subpoenas, rather than simply offering up all data for analysis. Which is still eye opening, but far less worrying.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Software Engineering Political Correctness moron Current Events Work, productivity and environment Sports New York Databases Gambling ]

New York Times: Russia issues travel warning about its citizens travelling to countries with extradition agreements with the United States:

Citing examples in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Lithuania and Spain, the Foreign Ministry said, “Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.”

[ related topics: Invention and Design Television New York ]

I kinda think the architect hate is played out here on Flutterby, but everyone else is mentioning this...

Rafael Vinoly, the same starchitect who designed the Las Vegas hotel that reflected light into its pool area, melting cups and shopping bags and scorching hair, didn't learn from his mistake, and the "Walkie-Talkie" building in London is now melting cars. (hat tip to Larry).

Seriously, check out the Jaguar side-pillar damage in the picture on this article. (Via MeFi)

[ related topics: Weblogs Current Events Monty Python Travel Automobiles Architecture Gambling ]

I assume I got this from Shadow, but it was open in my work browser... Reddit thread: "So my city started putting these in parks where bicyclists tend to ride" has a picture of a Dero Fixit installation. This looks like a bike stand, basic set of tools on cables and pump, all in one place. Not cheap, but looks like a decent on-stop relatively hardened installation.

This one definitely came from Shadow: A new kind of parking like an asshole. I'm not going to defend that, but will point out that the "M" style bike rack at work is put in the sidewalk in such a way that using it as it is meant to be used would block the sidewalk. Luckily I'm the only asshole who parks my bike outside, everyone else wheels theirs into their cube...

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

That threshold where the reaction to bug reports goes from "oh shit", to "okay, let me explain how we've implemented the policy given to us"

I went to high school in Connecticut, and remember at some point going to an exhibit on Igor Sikorsky where I ran across his famous admonition to engineering students:

In the course of your work you will from time to time encounter the situation where the facts and theory do not coincide. In such circumstances, young gentlemen, it is my earnest advice to respect the facts.

(memory refreshed from here). So when Violet Impudence tumblr had this picture of the man himself behind the stick, I had a moment of: Yeah. This is from when test pilots didn't hide behind Nomex fire suits and helmets.

Bonus "they just don't do aviation like they used to": The Martin Mars flying boat fire tanker.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Work, productivity and environment Pyrotechnics Archival Aviation - Helicopters ]

A little history of the firebomb, from the era when incendiary devices designed to kill and maim as many civilians as possible were deployed by the good guys.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

15 years of Google. Remember when their motto was "don't be evil"? #nostalgia

Saved for future reference, 'cause I know I'll want to do back to find the snark: /. talks about DSRC and cell phone apps to use short range radio communications from transponder equipped cars to alert pedestrians that they are about to be run over.

[ related topics: Wireless Invention and Design Automobiles ]

Homonyms are a bitch. Woodworking thread asks "why do soles get cupped?" and I started thinking about theological implications...

[ related topics: Shoes Woodworking ]

Crain's Cleveland Business: Wrong Road:

It is ironic that many of the people who use the private property defense to justify their contributions to urban sprawl also are vocal opponents of big government. They are among the first to complain about rising taxes and out-of-control government spending, yet they don't stop to consider how their actions add to the burden government must carry.

Yay! People waking up to the economic disaster that our infrastructure build-out has created!

[ related topics: Politics moron Economics Government ]

People! How many times do we have to say "Don't do PayPal! It will bite you!"?

Paypal freezes $45,000 of Mailpile’s crowdfunded dollars: Demands "itemized budget" from Iceland-based team before releasing funds.

NY Times: NSA foils much internet encryption.

According to an intelligence budget document leaked by Mr. Snowden, the N.S.A. spends more than $250 million a year on its Sigint Enabling Project, which “actively engages the U.S. and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products’ designs” to make them “exploitable.” Sigint is the abbreviation for signals intelligence, the technical term for electronic eavesdropping.

Similar story at ProPublica and at The Guardian and round-up from The Atlantic. Among other sources, via MeFi.

Of course anywhere there's a back door, there's probably more than one person looking to exploit it. Might wanna make sure you've got a BSD or Linux firewall in front of that TR069 router, definitely don't depend on HTTPS using the stock CAs, and likely avoid any commercial OS options on any devices you want to trust for secure communications.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Net Culture Cryptography Economics Woodworking ]

For your Rembrandt Fix: http://www.youtube.com/v/uswltlxoRJU&hl=en_US&fs=1&

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

Under penalty of extending a potential 105 year sentence, US government imposes a gag order on jailed journalist Barrett Brown :

According to Dell Cameron of Vice magazine, who attended the hearing, the government argued that the gag order was needed in order to protect Brown from prejudicing his right to a fair trial by making comments to reporters.

Which, indeed, is what the PDF of the order says.

Rolling Stone points out that nobody's exactly sure what he's facing 105 years in jail for:

"What is most concerning about Barrett's case is the disconnect between his conduct and the charged crime," says Ghappour. "He copy-pasted a publicly available link containing publicly available data that he was researching in his capacity as a journalist. The charges require twisting the relevant statutes beyond recognition and have serious implications for journalists as well as academics. Who's allowed to look at document dumps?"

(To be fair, he has also described himself as an "Anonymous" ringleader, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.)

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett moron Sociology Law Current Events Journalism and Media California Culture ]

We've now lived through 20 years of September. #AOL! #timeflies

[ related topics: moron ]

Tom Vanderbilt (author of the excellent Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)) writes about the difficulty of scheduling and routing: Unhappy Truckers and Other Algorithmic Problems.

... For example, one major trucking company that declined to be named does “predictive analysis” on when drivers are at greater risk of being involved in a crash. Not only does the company have information on how the truck is being driven—speeding, hard-braking events, rapid lane changes—but on the life of the driver. “We actually have built into the model a number of indicators that could be surrogates for dissatisfaction,” said one employee familiar with the program.

[ related topics: Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Machinery Public Transportation Archival ]

RT matt sarnoff ‏@autorelease:

Philip K. Dick invented the rickroll in 1954. http://pic.twitter.com/HFBxSe1XxD

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Embedded Devices ]

Schneier on Security: Conspiracy Theories and the NSA:

It's time to start cleaning up this mess. We need a special prosecutor, one not tied to the military, the corporations complicit in these programs, or the current political leadership, whether Democrat or Republican. This prosecutor needs free rein to go through the NSA's files and discover the full extent of what the agency is doing, as well as enough technical staff who have the capability to understand it. He needs the power to subpoena government officials and take their sworn testimony. He needs the ability to bring criminal indictments where appropriate. And, of course, he needs the requisite security clearance to see it all.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs moron Cryptography Conspiracy Archival Government ]

Ex-FBI lawyer linked to surveillance abuses poised for federal judge post:

"The FBI broke the law on telephone records privacy and the general counsel's office, headed by Valerie Caproni, sanctioned it and must face consequences," said John Conyers, then the chairman of the House judiciary committee, in April 2010, who called for then-FBI director Robert Mueller to fire her.

[ related topics: Privacy Law Law Enforcement Pyrotechnics Phreaking Real Estate ]

BMJ Research: “Hardly worth the effort”? Medical journals’ policies and their editors’ and publishers’ views on trial registration and publication bias: quantitative and qualitative study.

Results Only 55/200 journals (28%) required trial registration according to their instructions and a further three (2%) encouraged it. The editors and publishers interviewed explained their journals’ reluctance to require registration in terms of not wanting to lose out to rival journals, not wanting to reject otherwise sound articles or submissions from developing countries, and perceptions that such policies were not relevant to all journals. Some interviewees considered that registration was unnecessary for small or exploratory studies.

Or: ¾ of medical journals are encouraging a system where you can pick and choose whether or not to publish a study based on whether you want to promote its results or not.

Caroline Criado-Perez's speech on cyber-harassment at the Women's Aid conference. Some powerful words on harassment and gender.

[ related topics: Net Culture Conferences ]

John Gilmore speculates on NSA involvement in IPSec.

[ related topics: Privacy Cryptography ]

And MegaCynics wins the "analogies for social media 'Like's" competition: http://www.megacynics.com/2013/09/06/wizzbook-2/

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

people in charge of drone strikes don't think that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is necessary for capital punishment http://www.sfgate.com/news/pol...o-gas-attack-lacking-4796462.php

[ related topics: Politics Current Events ]

Oh meuon? World's Largest Cave, Son Doong, Prepping For First Public Tours.

(Hat tip to crasch)

In case you need a SIGGRAPH fix: 3-Sweep: Extracting Editable Objects from a Single Photo, SIGGRAPH ASIA 2013 (YouTube)

Kind of a one-trick pony, but damn that's a cool trick...

[ related topics: Photography Movies Robotics Law Embedded Devices Conferences ]

Some photographs taken by Arthur Drooker of attendees at the recent Fetish Con.

[ related topics: Photography Sociology California Culture ]

Bruce Schneier looks at whether the NSA put a backdoor in the NIST Special Publication 800-90 Dual_EC_DRBG (Deterministic Random Bit Generator).

And I could swear I linked to an article quoting one of the Brit spooks on "economic issues" being a reason to spy, but can't find it. The NSA has been using "economics" as a justification to break into the networks and computer systems of private companies.

[ related topics: Politics Technology and Culture moron Current Events Television Cryptography Economics ]

Washington Post on how tax lien sales have turned into predatory taking.

(Via an @nowthis tweet)

[ related topics: Politics Bay Area ]

Christian Fiebig: Impulsive Furnishing Unit – Frame Moooi Award winner. CNC router that you put on top of a stack of plywood. After it mills that layer, it cuts handles in the sheet so you can pull out the sheet and the router assembly drops down to the next layer.

Yet another hat tip to crasch.

[ related topics: Religion Woodworking ]

I try not to spam Flutterby with all of the house project updates that get spewed to my social media feeds, so here's the past month or so of kitchen in one tiny easy-to-digest link: http://www.flutterby.net/2013-09-09_Kitchen_Progress

[ related topics: Spam History Journalism and Media Monty Python Real Estate ]

Holy cow: The Wall Street Journal has an article about false confessions coerced out of teenagers:

Juveniles are more likely than adults to confess to crimes they didn't commit, a growing body of evidence suggests. Thirty-eight percent of exonerations for crimes allegedly committed by youth under 18 in the last quarter century involved false confessions, compared with 11% for adults, according to a new database of 1,155 individuals who were wrongly convicted and later cleared of all charges.

When a Rupert freakin' Murdoch paper is interested in creating a fairer justice system, you know things are bad.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Enforcement Currency Databases Economics ]

Turkeys in the landscaping at work

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment Birds ]

Wow: Anthony Cerniello: Danielle (Vimeo video). 5 minutes of mortality. The "how" says it was shot from several generations of the same family. Via MeFi, which uses the Pink Floyd "... and then one day you find, ten years have got behind you..." line.

[ related topics: Video ]

Making soap with bacon and drain cleaner (YouTube).

[ related topics: Movies Food - Bacon ]

ACLU: Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches:

Today we are releasing new government documents that provide rare insight into how the government uses its powers at the border to search and seize Americans’ electronic devices. The documents, obtained by our client David House as a result of his lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, demonstrate how the government is abusing its border search authority to evade constitutional restrictions on its surveillance powers. (You can see the documents here.)

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design moron Civil Liberties Real Estate ]

Making friends with a paedophile: 'We can't kill him, so we help him not to do it again'.

Circles of Support and Accountability started out as a Mennonite church project in a town in Ontario, Canada, in 1994. Realising that a low‑IQ sex offender called Charlie was about to be released into the community, church volunteers formed a group to support him. The method soon expanded across Canada, where studies demonstrated a 70 per cent reduction in reoffending rates.

[ related topics: Religion Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Current Events Community ]

Help Kickstart World War III (YouTube).

[ related topics: Movies History ]

Whoah! The NSA is running straight man-in-the-middle attacks on Google servers. I've seen my Google email POP keys change once or twice, I wonder...

[ related topics: Aviation Sports ]

There are some scientific studies that become watchwords far beyond their original field, and after a while nobody questions them. However, eventually somebody looks at the data again and begins to wonder. The notorious Popcorn Subliminal manipulation study is one such, and the controversies over Margaret Mead's fieldwork in Samoa continue to this day. Now maybe another idol is falling: Stanley Milgram, author of the notorious experiment where an imperious researcher could easily bully the subject into allegedly torturing another human with electric shocks. It is a famous proof for the theory that humans are really shits.

Now a new book revisits the original data and discovers that the tests were not as controlled as claimed, and that Milgram fudged his data. Maybe we aren't so bad after all?

[ related topics: Books Health Invention and Design fraud ]

This story of an armed robbery attempt from E. Main Street in Chattanooga just down from our old offices reminds me: An unloaded gun is a rock, and some things haven't changed in the old neighborhood, despite all the Gig City/Colab/etc.. hype. Best parts of story: They identified the perps by their underwear.. because his shorts/pants fell down during the robbery. None got hurt from all the chaos and shots fired.

[ related topics: Chattanooga Guns Clothing ]

Whoah: National Geographic: Not Exactly Rocket Science: This Insect Has Gears In Its Legs.

“This is to our knowledge the first time that proper, engaging, counter-rotating gears have been seen in the animal kingdom,” says Sutton.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy ]

If you haven't had that feeling like your testicles are going to crawl up into your chest (or whatever the biologically female equivalent is) yet today, may I strongly recommend the Mirror's Edge Parkour POV (YouTube). As JWZ said:

... I couldn't decide if it was real -- in which case, it's amazing -- or if it was a motion-captured render and/or composite -- in which case it's amazing.

Edit: MeFi thread.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Weblogs Movies Law Graphics Parkour ]

This is the most disturbing set of pull-quotes from a judge I've read in a while: Indiana Man gets 8 months for lie-detector fraud.

Given that "lie-detector"/polygraph machines start out as pretty fraudulent, this sort of thing bugs me.

[ related topics: Quotes Law ]

Fascinating to see how the Catholic Church is adapting to the changing culture: Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven.

You can take all your biz speak "pivoting" and "minimum viable product" and what-not, Pope Francis is definitely using agile techniques to aggressively pursue new markets.

[ related topics: Religion Invention and Design Sociology Current Events California Culture Economics ]

Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans Becker, Regazzoni, Paar and Burleson (PDF):

Contrary to the majority of past works, in this paper, we investigate a new family of Trojans that do not need any extra logic resources but merely require a change in the dopant polarity of a few transistors. Hence, these Trojans add zero overhead in terms of additional transistors and metal wires. We show that such a change will not be detected by several of the common Trojan testing methods, including optical inspection.

Or: How deeply do you trust your supply chain?

[ related topics: virus Invention and Design History Sociology ]

FBI admits that it was behind the TOR malware attack:

“The attackers spent a reasonable amount of time writing a reliable exploit, and a fairly customized payload, and it doesn’t allow them to download a backdoor or conduct any secondary activity,” said Vlad Tsyrklevich, who reverse-engineered the Magneto code, at the time.

The attack was used to map IP addresses, nominally for a crackdown on child pornography downloaders.

[ related topics: Erotic Privacy Sexual Culture Writing Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Maps and Mapping Government ]

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel apologizes for two decades of police torture.

“Every single one of those people who confessed in front of a [Cook County] prosecutor who had them sign a prepared statement came into those prosecutor’s offices bleeding, lumpy, and injured, and not one of those prosecutors said, ‘Hey, they are beating the hell out of these guys, and they should stop,' " Mr. Cavise says.

[ related topics: Food Law Enforcement Video ]

Petition: Get the NFL to Choose Gwar to Perform at the 2015 Super Bowl!

[ related topics: Sports ]

Feynman Lectures on Physics are now free-to-read online.

Tax Foundation: Road Spending by State Funded by User Taxes and Fees, Including Federal Gas Tax Revenues.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs Government ]

Time: When Homework is a Waste of Time. As it's currently appled, "when" is "usually".

Pulse Jet Bicycle - because sometimes impractical is fun

[ related topics: Movies Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Great read on the legal background of what happens when a police officer kills a suspect: https://medium.com/p/74a4da37a0ae

[ related topics: Law Law Enforcement ]

May be a little late to pile on the backlash against Miley Cyrus's attempt to appeal to a now post-tween fan base with sexual imagery in her performances, but... back in my day we didn't have these disgusting pop performers and their oversexualized imagery. For instance, let's go three decades back and look at Grace Jones and her 1981 song "Back Up To My Bumper": The early ྌs were the highlight of automobile culture in America (this was, after all, the era of the Chrysler "K" car) and this song was clearly about introducing teenagers to the challenges of driving. Lyrics like "Back up to my bumper, baby, and slip it in between" are the sort of instruction welcomed by any adolescent learning to park, and "Lubricate, lubricate, lubricate" is certainly good advice for anyone responsible for regular maintenance of a Volvo.

Next time we'll look at the exercise benefits of Elvis's pelvic thrusts, how Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is about Frank Baum's series of classic children's stories, and the Village People's "In The Navy" as a recruiting tool.

[ related topics: Ziffle Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology California Culture Automobiles Education ]

If you haven't seen the supervillain lair Star Trek bridge inspired 'Information Dominance Center' of NSA chief Keith Alexander, it's well worth a gander at how your taxpayer dollars are being allocated.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Star Trek Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters ]

RT Bored Elon Musk ‏@BoredElonMusk:

200 meter tall tether ball transportation system for moving employees around large office parks. http://pic.twitter.com/h65RxsjV5A

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Work, productivity and environment Embedded Devices ]

Tim Pietrusky has re-made the Star Wars opening crawl using CSS to style HTML.

1. Holy crap. At the time this was an amazing accomplishment because it involved a camera on rails and and a motion control rig and ...
2. Wow, is this a fantastic visualization of pixel crawl and how we really need sub-pixel accuracy and anti-aliasing, or way finer displays, when doing imaging.
3. Fuck you CSS and JavaScript. HTML version 1 (well, okay, maybe 3) forever.

[ related topics: Star Wars Photography Space & Astronomy Graphics Aviation - Helicopters ]

Falcon UAV disaster mapping efforts in Colorado grounded by FEMA. They were coordinating with the Boulder County Emergency Operations Center:

Falcon UAV would like to thank the Boulder County EOC and specifically Allen Bishop and Michael Chard (while they were running operations) for their common sense approach to drone operations, working to coordinate the airspace, as well as embracing this technology to help support the recovery effort. In contrast we are very disappointed in FEMAs response to actively prevent the use of UAVs and drone technology when these services were offered for free and at a time when manned helicopters could be used for more critical missions such as evacuations and high mountain search and rescues in inaccessible communities.

Via TechDirt.

[ related topics: Current Events Work, productivity and environment Sports Community Maps and Mapping Aviation - Helicopters ]

NY Times: The Banality of Systemic Evil:

For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord. Systems are optimized for their own survival and preventing the system from doing evil may well require breaking with organizational niceties, protocols or laws. It requires stepping outside of one’s assigned organizational role. The chief executive is not in a better position to recognize systemic evil than is a middle level manager or, for that matter, an IT contractor. Recognizing systemic evil does not require rank or intelligence, just honesty of vision.

A system which does not, from the top down, actively reward rooting out corruption and doing the right thing will inevitably reward conformity over ethical behavior, and with conformity comes not speaking up, and the inevitable slide to evil. That whistleblowers prior to Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who worked through the "proper" channels, were drummed out of those organizations, rather than being rewarded, demonstrates how necessary the actions of Manning and Snowden were.

That they are being hounded and punished illustrates that those organizations are, if not already evil, on the path that direction.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Ethics Government ]

I would feel way better about home automation stuff if I could buy a basic timer that lasts more than two years.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Today I found the group_concat() function for MySQL, and solved a major reporting conundrum with it. It saved me from writing a lot of code. While maybe not the optimal all cases solution, it worked more than good enough for what I needed to do.

I need to read about a function or feature every day about the tools I already think I know. In some of that spare time I keep hearing people have.

[ related topics: Open Source Writing Mathematics Databases ]

So before I go spend $30 on another Intermatic timer that'll die in about 2 years, is there a dependable computer-drivable switched socket?

Psychology Today: When less is more: The case for teaching less math in school.

... She concluded that nobody could be learning much math in school and, "It appears that the higher scores of the affluent districts are not due to superior teaching but to the supplementary informal ‘home schooling' of children."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Privacy Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs Law Civil Liberties Mathematics Education Government ]

Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ): A novel method for the removal of ear cerumen, Keegan and Bannister (2005):

D.K. (a family and emergency physician) assessed the utility of the Super Soaker Max-D 5000. He was surprised to note that it was able to deliver a superbly pressured narrow stream of water equivalent to, or perhaps exceeding, the quality of that achieved with standard ear-syringing instruments. The owner of the Super Soaker Max-D 5000 was sought out; after hearing an explanation of its intended application, he granted permission for its use.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

"Fusion is about eight minutes away and will remain so for another billion years." MeFi user jeffburdges

Ah that fresh from the dentist like my teeth are a carcass picked over by a flock of particularly fastidious vultures feeling.

[ related topics: Birds ]

Put a light in above the sink

[ related topics: Photography ]

Hot water recirculator button installed

[ related topics: Photography ]

Watching pointy hair types blowing up bad .jpg's by stretching them inside of word docs for printed artwork, drawing arrows to things to change, is about the most painful thing I've seen in months. Luckily, the graphic artist at the scratch card printer is used to this stuff and his proofs are beautiful SVG's.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

Brown Moses Blog: Statement On Russia Today's Use Of My Blog's Credibility To Give Credence To Dubious Videos.

To be absolutely clear, I do not consider these videos to be reliable evidence of anything. They came from irregular sources, and are filmed in a way not consistent with videos posted previously by Liwa al-Islam, among other issues. I do not support Russia Today's use of the credibility of my work to prop up videos I consider to be highly dubious.

Interesting to see how we're having to rebuild credibility chains in the new media environment.

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Invention and Design Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment ]

@SeriousPony and @jjg on gamification:

@seriouspony: If we *really* cared about our users we'd take all the persuasive/manipulation tricks (intermittent var rewards, etc.) and do the OPPOSITE

@jjg: @seriouspony If you have to trick someone into loving you, that's not really love at all.

@seriouspony: @jjg amazing that this has to be said, but then... there's an entire industry devoted to "Loyalty". Not to mention a LOT of gamification...

I have been deliberately avoiding vendors which have "loyalty" programs, and I am now more aware than ever that "coupons" are another mechanism for bargaining, for finding out how much my time is worth and trying to make me jump through hoops in order to purchase product at its actual value.

Hopefully we can turn this into a movement.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Consumerism and advertising ]

Would love a way to tell web advertisers (Amazon, RadioShack) that I bought that product, for half the price, from a brick & mortar store.

[ related topics: Books Consumerism and advertising ]

NY Times: The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts:

When methamphetamine replaced crack as the great drug scourge in the United States, Dr. Hart brought meth addicts into his laboratory for similar experiments — and the results showed similarly rational decisions. He also found that when he raised the alternative reward to $20, every single addict, of meth and crack alike, chose the cash. They knew they wouldn’t receive it until the experiment ended weeks later, but they were still willing to pass up an immediate high.

Yep. There are those few who are truly addicts, but largely addiction is a rational response to negative socioeconomic prospects. Change that, offer hope and prospects and support, and we can actually change society.

Of course then we do away with the whole addiction industry, and that's a huge economic shift.

[ related topics: Drugs Health Economics ]

Home brewer ends up with enough yeast in his digestive system that carbohydrate consumption made him drunk.

International Journal of Clinical Medicine: A Case Study of Gut Fermentation Syndrome (Auto-Brewery) with Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the Causative Organism Cordell & McCarthy (2013).

[ related topics: Law Beer ]

Theories about how 419 spams are scammy to filter out smart people? I feel that way whenever I'm asked if I'm a member of a loyalty program.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering ]

This Amazing Physics Bohemian Rhapsody Cover is extremely well done, they guy has talent, and the lyrical mix is awesome!

Volvo debuts world's first cyclist detection system with full auto-brake

[ related topics: Current Events Automobiles ]

RIP Wayne Green, founder of BYTE magazine.

If crime reporting were like crash reporting:

A gun shot a man in Washington, D.C early this morning. The victim suffered serious injuries, but is expected to survive. Police found the man injured at the scene, but there were no witnesses. The man was not wearing a bullet-proof vest. It is also unclear if the man was drunk or distractedly walking. ...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law Enforcement Guns ]

Worm, a web serial story about super heroes, super villains, and high school politics, but dark enough that calling it "YA" doesn't do it justice.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics virus Law Enforcement ]

Further anecdote for Dan & TC's bandwidth bet: That the iOS 7 release has brought the Internet to its knees suggests that we're not in a place where the net can really support many-to-many on-demand content delivery...

[ related topics: broadband Net Culture ]

Y'all know who you are: YouTube video of a Toledo Ohio cop going taser happy, allegedly on family that asked him to not block their driveway. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, saved for later.

[ related topics: Movies Sociology Video ]

That relief when something that could have been a bug deep in the interactions between human processes and code turns out to be simple.

OH: "if this game was guns, beer cans and biceps instead of candy shapes you would totally play it."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Beer Guns ]

An interesting piece from The Daily Beast: How the fire-breathing Islamic fundamentalist who led Denmark's opposition to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons has changed his mind and is asking forgiveness. What caused him to rethink his position? Reading the works of Soren Kierkegaard!

PS; Talk is that with Tina Brown abandoning ship, the Beast may not survive past Halloween. Better read the story now.

[ related topics: Free Speech History Pyrotechnics Islam ]

Really? You believe in placebos?

Given that in the 1st decade or 2 of operation what SMART train gives us is the MUP, it's amazing how their fences have screwed cyclists

[ related topics: Machinery Trains ]

Wait, how come I didn't notice that they put cyclist killers on Mountain View Ave, too?

[ related topics: Photography ]

ACLU releases "Suspicious Activity Reports" from the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, and they're just as bad as you'd expect from your worst stereotypes of petty and narrow-minded law enforcement.

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design moron Law Enforcement ]

School chooses a chain link fence rather than better pedestrian accomodations after children are hit by school bus.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Public Transportation ]

Long range (40 miles or so) radio communications with the Raspberry Pi: http://rpi900.com/

In case you need a remote sensing Unix device somewhere...

[ related topics: Law Aerial Photography ]

http://what-if.xkcd.com - Am I the last person on the planet to know about this? I read these this morning until my head hurt, and I'll be going back for more.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Space & Astronomy ]

I have been thinking about making up some of these for my travel kit for a while, but Mars found 'em first: USB Condoms. Cut the signal lines on a USB connector so that you can charge without risk of someone exploiting your phone. The problem is that so many manufacturers these days are using resistors on the signal lines of their chargers to tell the charging device things that this isn't the panacea one might hope for.

[ related topics: Astronomy ]

Dear Google: WTF is up with your POP encryption certificate shuffling recently?

[ related topics: Cryptography ]

So Mars had a call for building decentralized services that I think is a good idea, and I think Johannes Ernst already has a good portion of the infrastructure to do such a thing going on from his Cloud Store project.

He's working on the Indie Box Project, looking at ways to provide open admin services for hardware you own.

[ related topics: Astronomy Work, productivity and environment LID (Lightweight IDentity) ]

The FBI "vexsome FOIA filer list". I hope those on it (for filing too many Freedom of Information Act requests) wear it with pride.

Via http://blog.historyofphonephreaking.org/2013/09/vexsome.html

[ related topics: Privacy Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Government ]

Larry pointed out this article: Cop claims he’s issued nearly 800 tickets for texting and driving:

Myer said he sees most people typing away on their phones while waiting at red lights.

"Most people think they're safe there," Myers said.

However, he said it’s still illegal.

"At a red light, you're still driving. according to the law. You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive," Myers said.

So this isn't about safety, it's about control. Big surprise there.

And this weekend I had an epiphany about such things. I have, more than once, heard a phrase to the effect of "and the cops found their planted weed and left, while the brownies were still baking in the oven." And various other variations. The law and order folks might say "well, the perpetrators were guilty of what they were accused of", but the problem is that those involved quickly learn that what they were guilty of wasn't the act for which they were arrested or cited, it's for being who they are. Whether or not those brownies were in the oven, when the evidence is planted like that they would have been busted for something.

So why bother trying? This is the problem with policies like "stop and frisk", and with police exercising their power because they can, control over specific cultural goal. It sets up police not only as the enemy, but as the arbitrary enemy. And as we've seen with studies of the long-term impacts of "stop and frisk", what we see is that the social fabric tears and tatters.

[ related topics: Weblogs Bay Area Sociology Current Events Law Enforcement Automobiles ]

Good morning!

[ related topics: Photography ]

Warning of potential side effects of a product can increase its sales is the press release about Warnings of Adverse Side Effects Can Backfire Over Time, Yael Steinhart, Ziv Carmon, Yaacov Trope, in Psychological Science:

Carmon and colleagues tested their hypothesis in four experiments. In one experiment, for example, smokers saw an ad for a brand of cigarettes: one version of the ad included a warning that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema, while another version did not include the warning.

Predictably, participants who had the opportunity to purchase the cigarettes soon after seeing the ad bought less if the ad they saw included the warning.

In contrast, participants who were given the opportunity to purchase the cigarettes a few days later bought more if the ad included the warning. The same outcome emerged when the researchers ran a similar experiment with ads for artificial sweeteners.

So warnings make things memorable, and fade to an abstraction after a few days...

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Consumerism and advertising Woodworking ]

ACLU: The DEA Thinks You Have “No Constitutionally Protected Privacy Interest” in Your Confidential Prescription Records. This is the same factor that's impacting cloud computing right now, that a third party holds your data means, to many courts, that you have no expectation of privacy with that data:

In its latest brief, the DEA ignores these points and instead argues that the mere fact that our clients’ prescription records are held in a database maintained by a third party—the State of Oregon—means that they have somehow given up their privacy interest in the records. Courts have found that no warrant is required for information contained in some kinds of business records like electricity consumption records held by a power company or room registration information held by a motel. This is because, in theory, people have voluntarily given up their privacy interest in information when they turn it over to a third party. ...

Current employer is pretty aggressive about scrubbing data. This makes things difficult, for instance we recently talked about looking at historical email sending data to try to detect exploited accounts sending spam, but maintaining the log information that might allow us to do that is a potential security risk for customers.

This also, of course, means that the DEA and USDOJ are likely to exploit any attempts by the states legalizing marijuana to license and regulate as evidence to be used in going after growers and users.

[ related topics: Drugs Privacy Cool Science Weblogs Spam Work, productivity and environment Monty Python Travel Databases ]

A whole bunch queued up from Shadow:

• Flutterbye Fairies From Spin Master Review. A Fairy That Floats Over Your Hand??? (YouTube). Three things that make it relevant: the name, that it's a helicopter-ish thing, and that it's some really cool little technology.
• Original Bike Tricks from Tim Knoll (YouTube).
• Infinity Coffee Table. Whoah. Really cool trick with some LED lighting and a coffee table.
• A USB charging light. When the home automation folks finally get their acts together and build the right combination of switches and actuators, we're gonna be able to do some cool stuff. But so far as I can tell they're not there yet. More on that in another entry.

[ related topics: Movies Bicycling Aviation - Helicopters Furniture ]

I was on a "webcast" conference yesterday that included some interesting data from San Diego electric that hurt my head: Most (not all) of the electric vehicle owners with smart meters are apparently plugging in and starting a recharge cycle on their cars when they get home, even though the cars can be set to actually start charging later. The problem is this turns enough 5kW peak loads into a 9-12kW peak loads that extra generation and infrastructure is required. Ala natural gas generators (turbines), instead of the fixed load generation that would be running with some extra capacity after midnight.

These "green" minded individuals behavior is actually much less eco friendly than they think.

Got an electric vehicle? Charge it some random time after midnight, please.

[ related topics: Sports Pedal Power Conferences Bicycling ]

Foreign Policy: Secret Cold War Documents Reveal NSA Spied on Senators. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel has responded to an appeal by the George Washington University National Security ARchive, forcing the NSA to reveal names from the Vietnam War era:

... Civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. But perhaps the most startling fact in the declassified document is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.). ...

But there's no evidence that the assorted lies we've been told to excuse the modern overreaching surveillance is covering up explicitly abusing presidential power to harass political opponents yet. So we're good, let's let bygones be bygones.

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Politics Humor Movies Invention and Design History moron Journalism and Media Art & Culture Civil Liberties Education New York Phreaking Archival ]

A timeline of net neutrality: http://whatisnetneutrality.org/timeline

http://boingboing.net/2013/09/...eism-vs-theism-vs-agnostics.html While over-simplified, I loved the graphic on this attempt of categorizing agnostic/gnostic atheism/theism. I currently categorize myself as a "gnostic theist" but without the Jesus/Christianity flavor depicted on the button on that guys shirt. I think you can be a gnostic theist, reaching gnosticism from experience and still be rational. How you define "God" is the issue.

[ related topics: Religion Humor Clothing ]

Okay, I think it's time to dig through my parents' basement for slides: http://dontpkethebear.com/unca...ting-ridiculous-family-pictures/

[ related topics: Photography Sociology ]

It's been a long time. If I wanted the simplest possible Perl code to run my own (single-user) OpenID server, what would I copy and paste?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Perl Open Source hubris ]

Detroit Mower Gang = Socially responsible anarchy at work in Detroit. I'd like to donate some gas.... great quote: "Like a biker gang with lawnmowers"

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Yay for guerrilla urban improvement: NYC cyclists paint DIY bike lanes where taxi severed woman's leg.

Painting DIY bike lanes is technically illegal, but this form of guerrilla activism has actually been successful in pressuring city officials to install permanent bike lanes. It's too soon to say whether that will happen with this stretch of 6th Avenue, but as Pix11 reports so far it seems like a case of "no harm, no foul."

Thanks, Shadow!

[ related topics: Law Bicycling ]

Nina Hartley on porn, HIV, condoms in porn, and job safety. Well worth a read.

... The great advantage porn in California enjoys over other forms of sex work in other places is its legality. We can call 911 if we have an accident or an altercation on set (not that these are common occurrences by any means) and not get arrested for doing so. If we are named as contacts in a potential contagion pool, we can be asked to confirm that we were or were not contacts without admitting to violating the law because we didn’t use condoms, and in admitting this, subject our employers to potential legal consequences that would put them out of business.

Alt link.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Law Work, productivity and environment Heinlein California Culture ]

ACLU: The No-Fly List: Where the FBI Goes Fishing for Informants:

... Each of these Americans spoke to FBI agents to learn why they were suddenly banned from flying and to clear up the errors that led to that decision. Instead of providing that explanation or opportunity, FBI agents offered to help them get off the No-Fly List—but only in exchange for serving as informants in their communities. ...

But, no, it's not like it's extrajudicial punishment or anything. And the people who are on it are bad people who can't be allowed near airplanes. Unless...

Dianne Feinstein Accidentally Confirms That NSA Tapped The Internet Backbone, talking about this video (which I haven't watched) in which she confuses "backbone" and "background", but basically confirms that if it's in the clear, the NSA can read it.

Have I mentioned that I'd love to share my public key with y'all? And confirm it over a second channel?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs Movies Aviation Law Enforcement Net Culture Community Video ]

Hey, this'd be an awesome start: James Goodale: To reform the NSA, fire officials who lie. Yes. This. You can't have effective oversight if the NSA is lying to both our elected and appointed representatives who are supposed to be providing that oversight.

NSA lawyers lied to secret Fisa court Judges John D Bates and Reggie B Walton. In recently released opinions, Bates said he had been lied to on three separate occasions and Walton said he had been lied to several times also.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Pyrotechnics ]

Wait, so New Zealand is apparently just like that going to concede the courtroom portion of the America's Cup? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/sailing/24315701

[ related topics: Invention and Design Monty Python Boats ]

A plaintive cry from Lileks.com (scroll down a bit). He somehow got on the mailing list for a crazy man, who is spinning out an increasingly bizarre conspiracy theory involving his ex-wife, the UN, and the Justice department. This fits into the category of personal craziness, as opposed to political craziness like Trutherisms of various flavors. But in view of characters like the Navy Yard shooter, who was being brainwashed by government microwaves, his question "What do I do with this? Who do you tell?" becomes very apropos. Even then Lileks wonders how crazy you can be if you can still imbed MP3 files in your postings.

One interesting side issue is that Lileks is very cagy about not giving any identifying information about his correspondent. Not to preserve the man's privacy, but to avoid giving any Googleable traces back to Lileks, lest he end up on the enemy list.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy moron Conspiracy ]

Had some little visitors to the shop, so we made cars out off hole saw cut outs and scrap

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

"Investigators now believe one of the machines used to build the dancing robots ignited the cooking gas." http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com...e_guy_who_invented_the_whac-.php

[ related topics: Robotics Food ]

NY Times: N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens.

A 2009 PowerPoint presentation provided more examples of data sources available in the “enrichment” process, including location-based services like GPS and TomTom, online social networks, billing records and bank codes for transactions in the United States and overseas.

Boy, it's a good thing that covert U.S. government surveillance data has never been used for political harassm.... Oh wait, never mind.

[ related topics: Politics moron Maps and Mapping ]

So how do I stop the Gnome keyring from asking for a password, and track down those responsible for it and threaten bodiy harm?

Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans. I thought we'd really already covered this, but it talks about the DEA Special Operations Division (SOD), that gathers data in ways that can't necessarily be used in evidence ("illegal" is such a charged word, let's use other words), and then back-creates evidence to support convictions:

"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 ...

The nice thing about ludicrously long sentences is that prosecutors really don't have to worry too much any more about whether or not evidence is actually admissable, because so few cases get to trial...

[ related topics: Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Currency ]

Charlene "Wait, how did we get Rocky Horror here?" Dan: "Everything leads to Rocky Horror."

[ related topics: Rocky Horror Picture Show ]

Spurred by yesterday's visitors, spent a few hours today organizing the shop, including more space up high so maybe I can store a CNC router.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Woodworking ]

Upon 2020: Global war in your pocket:

So, go out today and buy that shiny new device, designed in America, and manufactured in China. It will have Western-backdoored software running on Chinese-backdoored hardware, and they will slug it out. In your pocket.

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Software Engineering History Sports ]

Freakin' brilliant: "My friend’s (awesome) 6 yr old son is autistic and takes instructions literally."

I thought all you had to do was drink plenty of liquids.

[ related topics: Photography ]