Waterboarding: read the comments

Recreational Waterboarding? - The Opinionator - (Suellentrop) has a quick reference to a great example of banal evil, a WSJ OpEd by Bret Stephens. Remember that name so you can stay far away from him.

It's a worthwhile quick post, but the comments hold greater value. I didn't know the US had used waterboarding torture during the Vietnam war, for example. I did know, however, than post WW II the US military considered waterboarding to be grounds for execution.

That's ok though, nobody cares.

Generation Q: Outrage is dead. Please help us ...

I "caught" Emily reading David Br__k's "Odyssey" OpEd this morning. She was lured by the intriguing title, but I didn't bite. I know exposure to Brooks causes brain damage; I ought to block his URL to protect our children.

On the other hand, Friedman, once every seven months, by purest chance, writes something non-toxic. This time he wrote about his daughter's generation (emphases mine):

Generation Q - New York Times

... Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.

There is a good chance that members of Generation Q will spend their entire adult lives digging out from the deficits that we — the “Greediest Generation,” epitomized by George W. Bush — are leaving them.

When I was visiting my daughter at her college, she asked me about a terrifying story that ran in this newspaper on Oct. 2, reporting that the Arctic ice cap was melting “to an extent unparalleled in a century or more” — and that the entire Arctic system appears to be “heading toward a new, more watery state” likely triggered by “human-caused global warming.”

“What happened to that Arctic story, Dad?” my daughter asked me. How could the news media just report one day that the Arctic ice was melting far faster than any models predicted “and then the story just disappeared?” Why weren’t any of the candidates talking about it? Didn’t they understand: this has become the big issue on campuses?

No, they don’t seem to understand. They seem to be too busy raising money or buying votes with subsidies for ethanol farmers in Iowa. The candidates could actually use a good kick in the pants on this point. But where is it going to come from?

Generation Q would be doing itself a favor, and America a favor, if it demanded from every candidate who comes on campus answers to three questions: What is your plan for mitigating climate change? What is your plan for reforming Social Security? What is your plan for dealing with the deficit — so we all won’t be working for China in 20 years?

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual...

I've already written that we boomers have failed our generational test. We bear the same relationship to "Generation Q" as America does to the world; the appropriate response to our moral criticism is bitter laughter.

Still.

Someone needs to act. We know true leadership is suicidal for a 21st century American politician, leadership has to come from someone on the brighter side of 30.

Please? The world needs you. Try to shake off your Future Shock, your justifiable nihilism, and your despair. I'm on my knees now. Pretty Please?

Update: for another opinion on Mr. F's column.

Why would computerworld send me spam?

I know Conde Nast has a spam addiction, but why is Computerworld sending me marketing emails? It's a bit weird. My guess is that they use a very old fashioned email address for opt-in email, and that spam using one of my email addresses hit their opt-in list.

The reason I suspect this is that their opt-out process requires an email address to be submitted, which is also archaic.

I'm filtering all their email to the trash now, so if they want to send me a note they'll have to use the comments to this post. If they'd had a one-click embedded link opt-out I'd have given them another chance, but if they're not guilty of spam they're certainly guilty of technical incompetence. Firing offense either way.

Data mining and you: giving a damn might be wise

I do get bored returning to the same old story but I think it's a social obligation. More on how the FBI does data mining and why you should care ...(emphases mine)

Civil liberties: surveillance and privacy | Learning to live with Big Brother | Economist.com

... Two days after the attacks on New York and Washington, Frank Asher, a drug dealer turned technology entrepreneur, decided to examine the data amassed on 450m people by his private data-service company, Seisint, to see if he could identify possible terrorists. After giving each person a risk score based on name, religion, travel history, reading preferences and so on, Mr Asher came up with a list of 1,200 “suspicious” individuals, which he handed to the FBI. Unknown to him, five of the terrorist hijackers were on his list.

The FBI was impressed. Rebranded the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, Mr Asher's programme, now taken over by the FBI, could soon access 20 billion pieces of information, all of them churned and sorted and analysed to predict who might one day turn into a terrorist. A new version, called the System to Assess Risk, or STAR, has just been launched using information drawn from both private and public databases. As most of the data have already been disclosed to third parties—airline tickets, job records, car rentals and the like—they are not covered by the American constitution's Fourth Amendment, so no court warrant is required.

In an age of global terror, when governments are desperately trying to pre-empt future attacks, such profiling has become a favourite tool. But although it can predict the behaviour of large groups, this technique is “incredibly inaccurate” when it comes to individuals, says Simon Wessely, a professor of psychiatry at King's College London. Bruce Schneier, an American security guru, agrees. Mining vast amounts of data for well-established behaviour patterns, such as credit-card fraud, works very well, he says. But it is “extraordinarily unreliable” when sniffing out terrorist plots, which are uncommon and rarely have a well-defined profile.

By way of example, Mr Schneier points to the Automated Targeting System, operated by the American Customs and Border Protection, which assigns a terrorist risk-assessment score to anyone entering or leaving the United States. In 2005 some 431m people were processed. Assuming an unrealistically accurate model able to identify terrorists (and innocent people) with 99.9% accuracy, that means some 431,000 false alarms annually, all of which presumably need checking. Given the unreliability of passenger data, the real number is likely to be far higher, he says.

Those caught up in terrorist-profiling systems are not allowed to know their scores or challenge the data. Yet their profiles, which may be shared with federal, state and even foreign governments, could damage their chances of getting a state job, a student grant, a public contract or a visa. It could even prevent them from ever being able to fly again....

Ok, you can go back to sleep now.

Your "do not call" registration is expiring!

Follow Me Here reminds us we need to renew our "do not call" registration. It's hard to remember, but once upon a time telemarketers called us night and day. Then Congress passed a law that, astonishingly, worked!

I registered the first day the opt-out program became available, so I had to re-register today. You can do 3 phone calls at once, you'll get 3 confirmation emails and you need to click on each one.

Politicians and non-profits can still call, we do get those. I tell the non-profits that if they call again they'll never get a penny from me, but my wife is more forgiving. They always ask for her ...

Medical Algorithms: a web site devoted to "depression scales" and the like

I've long thought it would be interesting to have a single source for all the scales, instruments, algorithms and the like one finds in medical journals. Someone has built this source:

Medical Algorithms

...More than 11,000 Scales, Tools, Assessments, Scoring Systems, and other Algorithms useful in Medicine and Biomedical Research...

I wonder if they have any copyright issues, but they may be covered by fair use as long as they don't try to make money form the content. Most of these scales are, unfortunately, owned by the journal publishers.

Losing the roots: the Dems may have to chance a spine

I'm not yet as disgusted with the Dems as Greenwald is. Judging by the past ten years it's dangerous to assume we, the People, are thinking rationally about anything. Politicians need to, every day, calculate how rational the voter is likely to be.

On the other hand, at some point a too craven Congress risks alienating their core supporters:

Glenn Greenwald - Political Blogs and Opinions - Salon

... If the Democratic Congress capitulates yet again, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for all sorts of recriminations. I think it is quite encouraging that much of the 'netroots' is now devoting its energies and resources not to supporting Democrats, but to opposing Congressional Democrats who merit defeat.

...Matt Stoller and Open Left, for instance, are devoting most of their energies to figuring out how to surmount the obstacles to waging effective primary challenges against Bush-supporting Democrats. The fund-raising entity run by FDL, C&L and others has begun targeting worthless Democrats, funding and running robocalls against Bush-enabling Democratic incumbents in their districts (those inclined can help fund those efforts here). MoveOn is actively considering spending large sums of money to support primary challenges against war-enabling Democrats. Obviously, there is no point in working to empower Democrats who enable and support virtually all of the worst aspects of the Bush agenda...

It's a tough balancing act. I believe that the American brain is still in intensive care; the patient should be moved too quickly. Still, the loss of the core, and the inevitable return of Nader [1], requires some calculated risks. Congress may have to start resisting -- even though the American people aren't quite ready.

I wish we were a healthier People, but we're not.

[1] I think George Bush and Ralph Nader have a great deal in common. Neither has much of a learning curve, both are convinced of their righteousness. A just world would condemn them to share a house for the rest of their natural lives.

Netflix: are broken DVDs a sign of stress?

Netflix is not cheap, but it worked well for our family -- for a year or so.

Since the kids don't watch TV (much less cable), each child gets to pick one DVD a week. Some of the DVDs are of children's TV shows, I'm fond of Jimmy Neutron myself. Fred Flintstone is still funny, and now has added sociologic interest.

We receive about 10 DVDs a month on average. Recently, at least one of the 10 will be unplayable.

Ten percent is not an acceptable failure rate, though I'm sure it's significantly lower for adult DVDs. It used to be under 5% for the children's DVDs, so something is going wrong.

NFLX share price is pretty steady, and that's bad news for a growth company. I bet the CEO is feeling some options pain. I suspect they're cutting costs, probably by extending the lifespan of the circulating DVDs.

I'm not impressed with their no-Mac "free" electronic distribution, but I can live with that - for now. I can't be bothered phoning Netflix about a broken DVD once a month. The next time we call, we're going to make them an offer: we get a free month, or we see what Blockbusters failure rate is.

Bill Clinton as Hillary's attack dog

Every candidate needs someone who can rip the throat out of the opposition. Hillary has Bill, who recently demonstrated a throatectomy on CNN/YouTube. The target was the GOP's feigned MoveOn "shock and horror".

He's good, he's very good. I suspect he can turn the outrage on at will, so there's an odd sincerity to his performance.

The Economist this month proclaimed Hilary president-in-waiting. I don't think they're really conspiring against her with the ridiculously premature proclamation, I suspect they're trying to prepare their increasingly conservative readers for a future Hilary endorsement.

I don't share The Economist's supposed certainty, but watching Bill at work it's possible to imagine the GOP's snakes deciding to save their venom for softer prey. They've fanged Hilary so often that she's probably immune by now, and their incessant attacks may be boring their partisans. It will be nicely ironic if the GOP has stoked Hillary outrage so long and hard that, at the time they most need their rabid partisans, they've all become bored with the meme.

No bad bridge maps: Bridge ratings are now top secret

After our local bridge fell, I wondered if Google could add a "bridge rating" icon to their map layers:

Gordon's Notes: Bridges: 77,000 deficient, 750 have I-35W design

... I thought a bit more about how Google could accelerate the infrastructure review. A 'route around risky bridge' option for Google Map directions would concentrate minds wonderfully. One can readily imagine icons for bridges with the I-35W design and risk designation...

Recently, our Republican governor managed to have all MN bridge ratings declared "top secret". The ratings could help the terrorists, you see.

I have to hand it to Pawlenty. He waited a few weeks to give the public time to completely forget about the bridge, then he made it impossible for anyone to track the state of MN bridges.

That should help block a gasoline tax. Our local media have been playing dead of course, they know almost no-one is paying attention.

Smooth.

We've identified the problem with the US media

A research breakthrough reveals the true cause of the dysfunctional US media and, indirectly, the reelection of George W. Bush:

Britney Spears sucks Blackwater / Showdown! White-trash diva versus mercenary war thugs. Who rapes your spirit more?

... the Blackwater story is indeed fascinating and brutal and bespeaks of a particularly nasty, largely unreported aspect of Bush's bleak war machine, despite how only a handful of (very serious) readers bothered to click on that story to read beyond the headline as it sat atop the SFGate home page for much of the day, craving attention.

But then there's this: The moment the "Britney loses custody of her kids" story went up on our site, the mad swarm of clicks it instantly received made the Blackwater story seem like, well, like a Home&Garden feature on do-it-yourself mulch. Which is to say, the damnable thing was so insanely popular, so flooded with clicks, it nearly crashed our servers...

Once upon a time the media was an elitist enterprise. Now the media is customer-driven.

The customer is us.

Problem.

Fair Use defined

Coding Horror has been one of my favorite blogs for many months, but lately he's hitting new heights. Almost every post is worth a comment, I've a bunch stacked up now.

His post on Copyright, Fair Use and YouTube is a classic. On the one hand he says aloud what everyone knows but speaks not: YouTube's entire value proposition comes from breaking copyright law.

One take away is that either the law should be changed, YouTube should reform (come up with a revenue sharing model), or YouTube should go away.

My other take away is to try to memorize the following:

... It's completely glossed over on the YouTube copyright page in favor of 100% original content, but the loophole in copyright is fair use. Under the banner of fair use, you could legally upload a video without the copyright holder's permission. Anyone who contributes anything to the web should have the four factors of fair use committed to memory by now:

1. the purpose of the use [commentary, research, parody vs... theft]
2. the nature of the copyrighted work [esp. whether it's a public good]
3. the relative amount of the portion used
4. the market effect of the use on the copyrighted work

Why does Apple have a better quality reputation than Porsche?

I created a trivial Automator script today. It's supposed to add any images added to a folder to iPhoto, it's part of setting up a scanning work environment for my 8 yo. He wants more another Lego model, so he needs the money.

I opened the script to edit it, while noting that OS X doesn't provide an intuitive way to edit or remove Automator scripts -- one must read the manual.

Automator crashed.

Sigh.

I wasn't surprised. Whenever I touch parts of OS X that aren't routinely used by millions I find big chunks of dysfunction. OS X Services are another large example, though they tend to simply be unsupported.

XP and Office are no different of course, but Microsoft doesn't have a reputation for quality. Strangely, Apple does.

So, given Apple's Quality Problems how do they keep their rep? It's long puzzled me. Apple is inventive and elegant, but not reliable. Sort of like Porsche, but Porsche doesn't have a reputation for reliability -- quite the opposite.

Perhaps it's just a matter of time before reality settles in. Personally, I'd trade a significant chunk of elegance for more reliability, but no Product Manager is going to build anything for my "N of One" market.

Really, most people would be better off if I ran the world ...

Update 10/8/07: More on Automator abandonware. I like the term "abandonware" to describe OS X services, AppleScript and Automator.

Star Wars: A weird and dark story

I have seen too much Star Wars. I'd seen every movie once, before our children became fans. I've now seen episodes I, IV through VI, and the two "Clone Wars" animations many times. The children are not allowed to see episodes II and III, so my eldest is obsessed with them. He studies related picture books intensely.

I am, then, an expert in the story the movies tell. I can thus confidently declare that the story is deeply weird, dark, and disturbing. Do not be deceived by the words, observe the actions.

The Jedi enslave clones and droids alike, tear apart families, abandon their failures, never show remorse or admit error, treat non-Jedi as pawns, and deny the bonds of love. They are deeply flawed. The Sith aren't much better, thought they at least know themselves.

R2D2 knows far too much, he's involved in every intrigue. C3PO has his memory wiped (another crime), but nobody remembers the harmless little tin can that chirps and beeps. R2D2 must have learned everything C3PO knew, and everything the cunning droid has been personally involved in. He can penetrate and control any AI system, even that of the Death Star. He's hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.

The case for R2D2's power is irrefutable. Taking the movies at face value, any neutral observer would have to wonder if the real manipulator is R2D2, not Palpatine and Yoda.

Luke forgets the family that raised him with barely a second thought, is tempted by the Sith, and joins the morally bankrupt Jedi. Chewbacca never tells Han what he knows about Yoda, and pretends to know nothing about the Jedi. Leia's world is destroyed, but she shrugs it off as an acceptable sacrifice. She's perhaps not quite as flawed as her brother, but, really, it's only a matter of time.

Anakin is a child who becomes a sociopathic killer (episode II) -- long before he joins the Sith. It's a horrid story; it's another indicator of the immorality of the Jedi that he "redeems himself" by merely offing the emperor.

Han Solo is the only remotely moral character, a decent, albeit simple, man surrounded by amoral plotters and schemers.

I wonder how subversive, or even diabolical, Lucas really is ....

Give me Spielberg any day.

Microsoft's HealthVault: Only one question worth asking

There's only one question worth asking about Microsoft's HealthVault.

Microsoft, what are you doing to ensure I can move all of my HealthVault data seamlessly, with no loss of any meaning or value, to Google's "HealthVault", or that of US Bank, or Dr. Frankenstein's [1] HealthVault or ... ?

Well, you get the idea.

That's it. Every other question is a meaningless distraction.

[1] I met a Dr. Frankenstein many years ago. She was a charming family physician with a good sense of humor. I have also met Microsoft - often. I have no doubt who I'd prefer to operate my family's "HealthVault".