Category Archives: Technology

The NSA is listening – quelle surprise!

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Through a top-secret program authorized by federal judges working under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. intelligence community can gain access to the servers of nine Internet companies for a wide range of digital data. Documents describing the previously undisclosed program, obtained by The Washington Post, show the breadth of U.S. electronic surveillance capabilities in the wake of a widely publicized controversy over warrantless wiretapping of U.S. domestic telephone communications in 2005. These slides, annotated by The Washington Post, represent a selection from the overall document, and certain portions are redacted. (Washington Post)

I am trying hard not to laugh. No really, I am. Someone, and I am not sure who, has suddenly decided to release (sorry, a document was leaked) information that via FISA, under the Patriot Act, the National Surveillance Agency is listening to phone calls made by Americans, to Americans, within the United States, as well as filtering ISP pipes, social media sites and reading your email. What I find funny is the absurd level of outrage being vented by Congress (who knew all along about this) and the American public, who, despite having a short memory about things, should know better by now that the United States is one nation under surveillance.  And this is all to protect us from terrorists. Whatever that means.

If you find this offensive, well, the horses are well gone and the barn has burned down, the ashes already scattered to the four winds.  If you find this offensive, it really is too late to do much about it.

But if you want to keep most of your traffic safe, use encryption.  At least that way you are not publishing everything on a postcard and they have to at least work at it.

Feel free to use my PGP key for any correspondence.  The fingerprint is: 2428 CE82 2E0C E6B7 E1E3 8D84 85BD BF93 B6CF CE1B

 

California “bans” Mapping Apps

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A recent ruling in California bans drivers from using mapping apps like Google Maps, after a man was caught while checking his smartphone for directions. (Autoevolution)

Raise your hand if you still have a paper map book in your car? Raise your hand if you have a third party GPS in your car (a Garmin or some on board system). Raise your hand if you update either of them more than once a year? Raise your hand if you live in an urban area?

Chances are you answered yes to the last one but no to the others. Which means that the way you navigate is by some form of on-line, cell based mapping application. One of the questions I keep asking myself and my elected leaders, who thus far have not answered, is how to I get from place to place, when the tools to navigate are not allowed anymore? Am I supposed to print out detailed maps and carry them like me like old fashioned map books? Clearly, according to California, the answer is going to be "yes." But what is worse, is the with the rise of the GPS device, the map book publishers essentially went out of business over night. I have not seen a current paper map of my region in at least three years, which means the maps I still have are grossly out of date, missing new roads, showing roads that no longer exist and a comedy of other errors.

Do not mistake me. I am all for laws that punish distracted driving. But this current spate of new laws for old purposes is little more than political window dressing. Distracted driving was around long before cell phones and will be around long after they are legislated out of vehicles. But not everyone has a car mounted GPS, either because of the cost of the upgrade or the practical reason of "but I have it on my phone and I am already paying for the service."

This is not to say that electronic maps are always accurate. Apple proved that with their poorly thought out mapping app released as part of iOS 5, but the point here is that if you do not have a GPS, or you do not know the area, you are now unable to use one more critical tool to help you navigate your way. And that could be the difference between life and death.

The Networks are waking up.

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Some people have had it with TV. They've had enough of the 100-plus channel universe. They don't like timing their lives around network show schedules. They're tired of $100-plus monthly bills. (WTOP)

According to Nielsen, who has been tracking household viewing habits since time immemorial (or at least as long as it has been a money making effort), there are five million folks who do not even own a television. That seems low to me. I suspect there are a lot of people that own a television, but have long since given up their connection to receive the traditional television signals. And, if you have watched television lately, you probably know why.

As pointed out in the article, people are tired of being tied to their televisions. More so, they are tired of being tied to schedules that have nothing to offer, either intellectually, or visually. For the one or two shows that you find interesting - and I suspect most people find fewer than five shows even worth the time - there are other ways to watch it if you really want to. The rest is a waste of time.

Lately, we have moved from relying on regular television to watching Netflix, Hulu, and any of our many DVDs rather than wasting time looking for something to watch on broadcast networks (and this includes cable).  We get our sports directly from the leagues, without the commercials and with the ability to rewind and watch the game later if we want to or have other things going on when the game is live. The rest is ignored in favor of other, more interesting things, like doing laundry.

And the networks are only just talking about this?  Here is the first light-bulb they should turn on - get rid of the anachronistic blackout rule. Just because I live in the same geography as a marketing area for a sports team does not mean I have any intention of going to see the game, and for a variety of good reasons.  If you think someone should have exclusive rights to show it, you are again ignoring those of us who have paid for the privilege of watching this same game, yet do not have a television, or, access to television. Sometimes I want to watch a game while working at the office.  There is no television at my desk, but the video stream works just fine. And did I mention, I have already paid for it?

By the time the networks, and their boards realize what is going on, people will have already flocked to other forms of media.  My daughter already gets more video from YouTube than she does from television and this is not a trend that will change any time soon. But it is good to see that the networks are taking notice. To bad it is five years too late.

My Doctor Is My Dealer*

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Let me start by saying that I am not generally opposed to modern pharmaceuticals.  As a sufferer of kidney stones, I am very happy that morphine and its opiate relations are available to me.  But I have to wonder if we, as a nation, are not using modern pharmaceuticals a bit too much.  For example, at a recent physical, I was told my cholesterol was outside the norm.  So rather than tell me to lose 40 pounds - which would be a good idea and a goal I have - I was put on a commonly prescribed statin drug. One described as clean, meaning few side effects and few interactions. For grins, I will take it for a while and see what happens, but I will work harder at losing the weight.

Further, two reports made me sit up and take notice that this is getting worse, rather than better.  The first was that more than 25% of boys have been diagnosed as ADHD.  The second was that 1 in 50 children are suffering from an Autism spectrum disorder.

1 in 4 boys are suffering from ADHD?  And the solution for this is to medicate them?! ADHD is characterized by either significant difficulties of inattention or hyperactivity and impulsiveness or a combination of the two. Without getting into it too far, this describes most boys between the ages of 2 and 30 (and a number of teenage girls too). I am sure there is a standard by which the rather subjective definition of significant is, but I am also wondering if part of the problem is a simple lack of exercise. I do remember growing up, that we had a lot of running around.  Sports, recess, after school sports, and walking back and forth to school.  Today, not so much.  As I have written numerous time, we are seeing a serious decrease in exercise in schools.  Recess is almost non-existent, sports are more standing than participating, and we all know that walking to school is almost a vanished skill. So I am skeptical that medication is really the answer.  Or even the primary solution.

Autism is a little bit harder though.  The new guidelines lump a whole mess of spectrum disorders under the heading of Autism and do not take into account the level of severity.  Again, autism is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.  We are all familiar with the gross levels of autism, but again I have to wonder if we have not gone too far in the diagnosis.  Under these descriptions, I could be suffering from it, to some extent.  Of course, there are no drugs currently available, although I heard that a study into an Alzheimer's drug might help some of the more severely affected sufferers.

This is not to say that there are individuals who are bona fide sufferers.  Clearly and without question.  But based on the two survey's, these numbers are going up, not down, which begs the question - are we over targeting people that are not really suffering from these (or other) diseases, or has the genetics of humanity finally failed? Only time will tell.

* From Robin Williams's sketch on Drugs, Alcoholism, And More Drugs, on Weapons of Self Destruction

Wal-Mart Shows The Way

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Wal-Mart doesn’t have enough bodies to restock the shelves (Bloomberg)

While the article is about the loss of business by Wal-Mart to other cost conscious retailers, that fragment caught my attention.  Further, Wal-Mart says the problem is not stock:

Our in stock levels are up significantly in the last few years, so the premise of this story, which is based on the comments of a handful of people, is inaccurate and not representative of what is happening in our stores across the country

So, if the stock is there, why is it not on the shelf? Especially with the unemployment rate at 7.7% (est), roughly 4.8 million people are looking for work. But Wal-Mart cannot find enough people to get stock on the shelves? I find this baffling. But only slightly.

Clearly there are a couple of factors at work, but I cannot exactly come to any conclusion which one is having the most impact. It could also be a combination of factors. Here are my thoughts. First, those looking for work are not looking for a minimum wage job.  They are professionals, with mortgages, student loans, and credit cards to pay off, much less be able to feed and clothe their families. Second, I am willing to be that if Wal-Mart is paying minimum wage, it is only just paying it. In those areas of the country without a stated minimum wage, they are paying much less.  Which makes it hard even for those willing to accept those jobs to make ends meet.  Third, they cannot find skilled workers. I have said this before, but there are a large percentage of the population that simply are not able to function in our modern society.  Either because of illiteracy, and in this case I mean being unable to either read, write, do basic math, or use basic tools like scanners and registers, or because of work status. Not all immigrants are illegal, but most human resource departments do not have the proper training for evaluating the documents that are needed to get a job, and thus they are turned down, rather than put the company at risk.

And yet the companies, including Wal-Mart, will not invest.  As stated further down in the article:

Adding five full-time employees to Wal-Mart’s (WMT) U.S. supercenters and discount stores would add about a half- percentage point to selling, general and administrative expenses...about $448 million a year.

Half a percentage point, which would be passed onto consumers who are barely able to pay the prices of these goods in the first place. Which really is the bottom line. If they raise their prices, people will not shop there, further increasing the flight. Or so the business logic goes. I do not buy it though.  I believe that most people would rather pay a little more for good quality goods, and good service, rather than the lowest price. I would argue that the chickens are coming home to roost.

Wal-Mart is discovering that lowest price is not the be all and end all of retail success. Sadly, this comes at a point when they have almost entirely crushed out of existence all of the potential alternatives. Leaving the shopping public with few, if any, alternatives.

Offering A Tour? Help Me Out.

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I am in the process of planning an outing for our management team and we have decided to do a road tour.  There are several company web sites out there that have both package and ad-hoc tours with accompanying maps.  Very nice, but in numerous cases, the maps are barely visible, showing only a rough outline of where the tour might go, if you squint hard enough that is.

If you want me to choose your company for my tour, then help me out by including more than a thumbnail of the tour map so I can more accurately gauge whether your tour is right for me or not.  Otherwise, I am going to move on to the next company that does.

Field Day 2012

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Field Day 2012Every year, Amateur Radio operators (also know as hams - a term, personally, that I despise), take to the field

To work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands (excluding the 60, 30, 17, and 12-meter bands) and to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions. Field Day is open to all amateurs in the areas covered by the ARRL/RAC Field Organizations and countries within IARU Region 2. DX stations residing in other regions may be contacted for credit, but are not eligible to submit entries. (ARRL)

Field Day 2012 is Saturday and Sunday, June 23-24 and plans are well underway.  Clubs and individuals alike are busy pouring over the rules, trying to determine how many stations they can put on the air, how they will power them, how close they can put their antennas without causing interference and how they will dragoon, cajole and otherwise convince friends, family, and elected officials to visit, operate, and participate.

I have not participated in Field Day since 2008 for a number of reasons, least of which is lack of time.  Field Day takes a lot of energy out of those that participate, even more out of those that organize, and organizing Field Day, if you do it as a show piece, takes a great deal of energy over and above the energy needed to operate.  But I would encourage you to find your local club and check out the goings on.  You will find a number of interesting technologies and techniques that you probably do not associate with Amateur Radio.  In fact, I would suspect you will be amazed by what these hobbyists can do.  And Amateur Radio operators are purely hobbyists - we receive no money for our public support activities, and we generally own all of the gear that we use.  At any Field Day site, you will encounter hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in gear, antennas, and parts, whether commercial off the shelf or lovingly handmade.  Each one treated with respect and care.  And each operator willing to talk to you about what they are doing, and why they love the experience.

Amateur Radio is not, despite several lists to the contrary, an obsolete technology.  In fact, Amateur Radio, and her experimenters are on the cutting edge of communications technology, responsible for wireless communications, satellites, and other forms of telecommunication that are the backbone of today's interconnected world.  And without any form of government funding, Amateurs have come to the aid of their communities in the event of disaster, and lent their support, providing a life line out from the disaster sites until regular communications can be restored.

So while you are out and about over the weekend of the 23rd and you see antenna towers on an empty field, take a moment and drop in.  You will be amazed what you will learn.

Because

...when all else fails...

When was the last time you wrote something?

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The question is not rhetorical.  When was the last time you actually sat down to write something.  On paper, with a pen?  Sure, in this hustle and bustle most of us live in, we all spend our days "writing," but that writing is almost always with a keyboard and the ink is electrons on a screen that are as tenuous as the power needed to make them appear.  But when did you write something?  Do you even remember how to write?  Not just fill in a form for a new job or for tax reporting, but a letter, written longhand.

Back in January, unknown to most, was National Handwriting Day was celebrated by Fahrney's Pens here in Washington, DC with a little contest.  Write, longhand, on paper, a letter about one of three topics.  The winner would get a new Parker pen.  Well, I did not win, but I did enter and was a runner up on the topic of Cursive Handwriting Being Eliminated from Public Schools.

So, here is the essay I wrote, and Fahrney’s Entry is the actual submission:

Your opinion on cursive handwriting being eliminated from public schools curricula throughout the country

A report I read, not so very long ago, indicated that in the very near future, the average American would not be able to fill in a simple government form. And it was not that they could not understand the language of the form, but that their handwriting would be so bad, that even if they could fill it in, it would not be legible. And that is only the tip of a very large iceberg. For generations, people have made fun of the medical community for their handwriting, or rather their bad handwriting. And there have been as many studies done indicating that it was this poor writing that has lead to numerous medical errors.

But this is 2011 people will argue and with computer technology all around us, who needs to be able to write? I find this argument to be, well, short sighted. For example, if you have ever travelled by air to another country, you will discover that you need to fill in a form in order to enter that country, or return to the United States. And those forms are not electronic, they are paper, and you need to use ink to fill them in and they need to be legible. Many a delay is caused because the agent at the counter cannot read the document. Similarly, when applying for a job, or completing initial paperwork, most of those forms are still hard copy, requiring you to fill them out and sign them on the spot. Sloppy handwriting will only delay the implementation of your benefits

But is that enough justification to spend valuable class time learning how to properly form our letters? Education experts argue that it is not. These are the same experts that argue that recess is not required and more time needs to be spent on the basics. And I would agree, time needs to be spent on the basics, and handwriting is one of the basics. The experts focus on the formation of letters, but handwriting is so much more than just the letter. It is the flow, from letter, to word, to thought, to completed sentence. The experts do not argue, for example, that we no longer teach children how to add, or their times tables. After all there is no reason they cannot use a calculator for this simple arithmetic. But it is more than learning the number, just as writing is more than just learning the letters. Handwriting is the basis for good and proper word usage. It forces you to pay attention to what you are doing, and ensures that your thoughts are focused on the task at hand. It is much harder to be interrupted by the trivial when you are concentrating on your writing. And, at the end of the day, when it comes to communicating with our fellow human, there is nothing more powerful than the written word.

SOPA, does anyone care?

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Today, founder of the non-profit behind information archive Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, announced that the site will go dark for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  (TNW Insider).

First, for most, SOPA is short for Stop On-line Piracy Act, a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Congress that proposes to extend the power of law enforcement and copyright holders in the US to combat online piracy, and it would essentially allow the US Department of Justice – and copyright-holders – to seek court orders against websites accused of facilitating copyright infringement.

Ironically, this is the second such bill.  The first one, part of the Patriot Act, already grants broad powers to the United States Government to go after and shut down data sites, but this is the first one that allows the copyright holders to bring the action, and numerous luminaries believe this will cripple the Internet more than anything that has come before. And they are probably right.  But a bigger question is this: Is anyone paying attention?

Like most bills, this one is an attempt to resolve what is perceived as a problem, without fully addressing the scope of the issue and using a howitzer to remove a tumour.  People that do not understand the issues are rushing to impose their political view (is it a surprise this is being introduced by the small government unless it is related to stripping away your rights Republicans) on people that not only know better but could probably solve the problem in a couple of minutes without the need for pages of legal documents.  Worse, the sources of the violations are not in hosted in the United States and the law will have no impact on these sites.  In fact, all it will do is hasten the brain drain from the close-minded United States to those countries that are more open minded about change and resolution.

Since September 11, the citizens of the United States have, in the name of security, seen more of their rights chipped away than at any time in the country's history.  And SOPA is only one more example of this.  So what are you going to do about it?  The Presidential election is only 10 months away.

U P D A T E: Maybe someone is paying attention: "SOPA is not dead; it has been shelved and won’t return “until a consensus is reached,” according to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)." (Imgur)  The Senate is still scheduled to vote.

When Health and Politics Collide

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Overruling scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius decided that young girls shouldn't be able to buy the pill on their own, saying she was worried about confusing 11-year-olds. (Yahoo News)

It should come as no surprise that anything that smacks of being beneficial to women and related to reproductive health would be slapped down hard, but Secretary Sebelius did not even try to come up with a convincing smoke screen for saying no.

The New York Times reported her words slightly differently.  They said that the manufacturer had not proven that there was no risk to 11-year-olds who might take the pill.  As AAP member Dr. Cora Breuner says, "I don't think 11-year-olds go into Rite Aid and buy anything," much less a single pill that costs about $50, which makes the whole argument moot in my opinion.

But even if we step back, it was not all that long ago, that girls as young as 13 were being married and if you were 20, you were considered a spinster.  To ignore the fact that girls as young as 13 are having sex is to ignore the entire body of reproductive science.  Whether or not they should be having sex, with or without the knowledge of their parents is a completely different issue, and one that the American society, with its head in the sand prudishness needs to address sooner, rather than later.

Unwanted pregnancies are going to happen.  Period.  If you think something other than medical science will prevent this, there are studies galore that prove you are ignorant, and incorrect.  Since the male of the species is currently not doing his part, it is up to all of us to ensure that the female of the species has all the tools available to her, without unnecessary obstacles being put in her way.