JaBbA's Hut - Musings

Arthur C. Clark dies....

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:53:15 -0400

Arthur C. Clark, Scientist, Author, Visionary, died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

Rendezvous with Rama was the first "real" science fiction book I ever read. My mother had picked it up in an airport and I found it on a table. That was it, I was a science fiction fan from then on.

Later, I discovered Clarke's laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The world lost a great light today.

Schneier on Security vs. Privacy

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:39:19 -0500

Bruce Schneier posted an article today on the false dichotomy between Security vs. Privacy:

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy -- especially if you scare them first. But it's still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

The American people have been bombarded with so much fear and anxiety that they have stopped thinking. And, unfortunately, for many people that's the way they like it. But I take some heart from the freefall of Rudy "9-11" Guiliani in the Polls - given enough time, people finally started looking at something other than his constant fear speech, and didn't like what they saw. He miscalculated, thinking that the security message could last almost 2 years. It's not that people are beginning to wake up - I think it's more that they have become habituated to the constant drumbeat that they are able to look past it.

But Schneier's right - security comes before social issues like privacy on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. We have to get over the fear before we can worry about civil liberties - and that's what the government is counting on. But there is a way - and that is to get people to fear the loss of privacy. Unfortunately, balancing fear of government intrusion against complete paranoia is difficult - and it's much easier to make people fear a violent attack.

This may be why I'm attracted do Obama's message of hope. If we can look forward to a future where we don't see enemies all around us, we can be more cognizant of the importance of personal liberty. I am beginning to believe that Obama sees that future and wants to lead the country there.

JaBbA says check it out.

A Random Soudtrack for My Morning

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:29:59 -0500

I don't know why it struck me, but if I could find a radio station that had a playlist like the random play function on my MP3 player, I'd probably listen to radio more. I just didn't feel like listening to NPR this morning on my ride in, so I set the player to random play, and it came up with this soundtrack for my morning:

(Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads
Now That I Can Dance, Funk Brothers
Hot Fun In The Summertime, Sly And The Family Stone
Little Wing, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Baba O'Reilly, The Who
She's A Rainbow, The Rolling Stones
Manic Depression, Jimi Hendrix
Anybody Seen My Baby, The Rolling Stones
Traveling Riverside Blues, Eric Clapton
Dead Flowers, The Rolling Stones

Risk and Perception

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:19:44 -0400

Bruce Schneier has written another excellent article on the perception of risk:

...when faced with a very available and highly vivid event like 9/11 or the Virginia Tech shootings, we overreact. And when faced with all the salient related events, we assume causality. We pass the Patriot Act. We think if we give guns out to students, or maybe make it harder for students to get guns, we'll have solved the problem. We don't let our children go to playgrounds unsupervised. We stay out of the ocean because we read about a shark attack somewhere.

It's our brains again. We need to "do something," even if that something doesn't make sense; even if it is ineffective. And we need to do something directly related to the details of the actual event. So instead of implementing effective, but more general, security measures to reduce the risk of terrorism, we ban box cutters on airplanes. And we look back on the Virginia Tech massacre with 20-20 hindsight and recriminate ourselves about the things we *should have done.

He's written about risk, perception and "security theater" many times.

JaBbA says check it out.

Antioch College Closing

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:10:27 -0400

(Yes, I know, I've been quiet. Maybe I'll get started again)

I attended Antioch College my freshman year. Why only one year is a long and not pretty story, but my year at Antioch was a good year.

This is the 4th time - it closed during the Civil War, in the 1880's for financial reasons, 1917-1918 and now.

Antioch is a unique place. In the 50s it was a place where professors blackballed for "anti-american" activities could find work. There are no letter grades, unless you request them. (All classes end up with a narrative evaluation).

from WOHIO TV:

Antioch College To Suspend Operations In 2008

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio -- Officials at Antioch College said it will close after the 2007-2008 school year while it searches for enough money to reopen.

The small school in Ohio has a history of social activism and civil disobedience.

It counts Coretta Scott King, "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling and evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould among its graduates.

The college has a small, $30 million endowment and depends heavily on tuition revenue. But a student body that was 2,000 strong in the 1960s has dropped to around 400.

School spokeswoman Linda Sirk said the college hopes to find enough money to reopen in about 2012.

They missed Jorma Koukonen (Jefferson Airplane guitarist) and Leonard Nimoy.

Interview with Antioch's president at NPR

The Definition of 'Balls'

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:51:28 -0500

First, an explanation: Early in 2006, my son and I decided to start following the English Premier League. We each chose a team - he chose Arsenal because they had won a few times and because he really liked Thierry Henry. I chose Liverpool because Liverpool reminds me of Cleveland, and Craig Bellamy had just moved from Newcastle to Liverpool, supposedly because he had always wanted to play for the team he loved as a boy in Wales. Reminded me of how Clevelanders feel about the Browns.

So I've been following Liverpool fairly closely. Liverpool is involved in the Champions League tournament, which is the European Championship for club (as opposed to national) teams that earned their way in based upon the results from 2005-2006. Football (soccer) tournament games are usually determined by random draw, rather than seeding like American sports playoffs are.

So Liverpool gets the (it seemed) unfortunate draw of the defending champions Barcelona in the round of 16. Last week, the team went to Portugal to prepare for yesterday's match, the first of a home-and-away series (called a 'two-legged tie' in football parlance).

While there the team got very drunk at a karaoke bar. Bellamy, who has a history of getting drunk and getting in trouble, decides that his teammate Riise, a much more reserved Norwegian, should come up and sing. Riise thinks not. They get into a fight, and Bellamy eventually grabs a 9-iron and hits Riise's legs with it. Not a good idea.

Bellamy is fined $155,000 by the team and the soccer pundits assume that his career at Liverpool is over. Riise is fine, apparently he didn't hit him as hard as was first reported. Surprisingly, both Riise and Bellamy start the game.

So what happens?

Bellamy scores. As all Footballers do, he begins a completely over-the-top celebration. And he begins it by....

Pantomiming a golf swing. A complete stick-in-the-eye of the entire Footballing world.

More irony - Liverpool's winning goal is scored by Bellamy taking a rebound and feeding Riise at the top of the box, who puts the shot in.

When they're bad, they're very, very good

Music, no strings attached

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:26:39 -0500

Check out Magnatune. Basically, Open Source music. Good open source music. Artists get 50%. You get high-quality downloads, with album art, guilt-free. And you are encouraged to give away 3 copies.

WAV for burning to CD. MP3/Ogg/AAC/Whatever for playing on your media player. All of it 100% up front, legal, no DRM.

What a concept. Support them. The more they sell, the more artists will try a new way, and the more great music we'll have available.

Also, I wonder what Courtney Love could have done if she hadn't gotten so into drugs. Because she can write amazingly well when she needs to. Well worth a read about just how screwed up the music industry really is.

Today's Tao

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:17:29 -0500

As part of my spiritual practice each day, I print a chapter of the Tao Te Ching on my webpage for me (and others) to read. The chapters aren't tied to any specific day, but are printed in order, looping endlessly.

Today's was chapter 18, entitled Hypocrisy. Reading it this morning caused one of those rare moments of clarity:

When the Way is forgotten
Duty and justice appear;
Then knowledge and wisdom are born
Along with hypocrisy.

When harmonious relationships dissolve
Then respect and devotion arise;
When a nation falls to chaos
Then loyalty and patriotism are born.

(Emphasis mine)

Think about it. It has a lot to say about where our country is today.

Music and Cleveland have lost a legend

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:39:10 -0500

Cleveland resident and Blues legend Robert Lockwood, Jr. died yesterday at 91.

Lockwood was our last direct connection to the great Robert Johnson. He learned to play from Johnson, who had moved in with Lockwood's mother, and was the only person left who played in Johnson's unique style - everyone else who plays Johnson's music had to learn it after learning guitar another way. Lockwood's guitar playing was Johnson's style.

Lockwood has been playing Wade Oval Wednesdays here in Cleveland the last couple of years. Two years ago, a storm blew in as he was starting. Last year, I was stuck doing something else. Now he's gone.

Blues fans have lost a treasure.

And I thought I took on too much at once

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 15:52:45 -0400

Found on Flickr:

...

Politically Correct? Maybe not, but...

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 10:35:02 -0400

Look, I hate guns. Really. And I know that cops do bad things sometimes, and need to be held accountable.

But I've seen way too much hand-wringing over police excess in this story:

MIAMI - A fugitive gunman accused of killing a Florida sheriffâs deputy was shot 68 times by SWAT team officers who found him hiding in the woods, according to autopsy results.

Police fired 110 shots at Angilo Freeland, 27, the target of a massive manhunt in central Florida following the shooting death of Polk County Sheriffâs Deputy Matt Williams Thursday.

âThatâs all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,â? Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.

The guy killed a cop who pulled him over for a traffic stop, killed a K-9, shot another cop and shot at others. He'd shown that he was willing to kill. He was hiding out, armed and dangerous, and was near a school.

110 bullets isn't too high a price to pay to make sure he's not going to kill anyone else in that situation. And maybe Sheriff Judd should be a little more careful what he says to reporters, but that quote is going to make him famous, because even people like me say "Thanks, Sheriff, for doing your duty. And you're entitled to a moment of release after 24 hours trying to track down the man who killed one of your deputies."

Never, EVER, say a single word...

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 06:30:00 -0400

And now for something completely different:

Male Restroom Etiquette:

Speech is your enemy. Never, ever, under any circumstances say a single word while within a bathroom. Not to a friend, not to a lover, not to Jesus himself. Violation of this precept grates against all good things and the way of nature, corrodes the efficiency of the bathroom and places the very fabric of our civilization in peril.

JaBbA ROTFLMAO.

I find this especially funny because I've had this discussion with women many times, and generally, they just don't understand. This goes way back, and is a central plot point in Asimov's 1954 novel The Caves of Steel - The central character forces himself to look at his robot partner, Daneel Olivaw, in the restroom, even though it greatly pains him to do so.

JaBbA says check it out, when you have 10 minutes to watch a video. Not horribly unsafe for work, but probably against your company's policy to be watching funny videos on YouTube anyway.

Dangerous Liquid

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:05:31 -0400

Perhaps the dangerous liquid being sought by the Department of Homeland Security has been found:

DHMO is a constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful.

Remember, an entire state of matter is now a national security risk.

I Miss Monica

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:33:27 -0400

I miss those innocent days, when a little hanky-panky in the Oval Office was considered a "High Crime".

So does Dean Friedman.

JaBbA says check it out. Only workplace-appropriate if your co-workers aren't easily offended.

Thanks to Emily for the link.

6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 08:57:51 -0400

Yup, it's Antichrist day! I wonder how many people are really worried about today's date...

Regardless, it is an important day on the Internet. Today is the day the 6bone shuts down, because Ipv6 has reached a tipping point in production and a testbed isn't needed any more. Someday, we'll have 10 billion publicly-available Internet-connected devices, and the new IPv6 addressing scheme will make that possible.