technology meets creativity in a disaster-prone world. confident enough to try; humble enough to learn.
There is now a site that New York City bloggers to place themselves on an online NYC subway map , which can then be browsed by subway stop to find the nearest blogger.
I find this deeply, deliriously cool.
I am, however, damned jealous. Although I can’t claim to be a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, I did spend about five years there, and enjoyed it greatly. My fianc
warns of shoulder-fired missiles threat.
I’ve been saying this was one of my biggest worries since last September. Glad to see it only took the FBI eight months to catch up.
The real problem is, I have no bloody clue how you defend against this kind of an attack on a commercial jet. I’m afraid the answer is, “you don’t.”
Russia wins Miss Universe title
Damn. My money was on that hot little six-armed number from Alpha Centauri.
Bush is Rummy to South Asia to give India and Pakistan a stern talking to. I suspect top on the list of topics will be politely explaining to them that it is positively rude to interrupt somebody else’s war.
SecDef is also going to be giving a press briefing in about 30 minutes (9:30 am PDT), so you’ve got a few minutes to go grab some popcorn. I suspect he’ll be in a grouchy mood — mainly because, well, he’s always in a grouchy mood, and besides, I hear India is miserable this time of year…
VodkaDude a very simple, but very important point regarding the reports that Pakistan is drawing its forces away from the hunt for al Qaeda leaders and focusing on their cross-border shennanigans with India:
It
From the “isn’t he dead yet?” file comes a story from MSNBC indicating that Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who makes even look good) has called for a holy war against the U.S. and Great Britain. According to MSNBC:
Locking the gun cabinet
Has it occurred to anyone else that the fact that the September 11th terrorists were trained at American flight schools actually has a bright side?
Sure, it was a massive intelligence failure; we’ve been through that discussion. But I find some comfort in the fact that to gain the skills and knowledge required to carry out their attacks, the Islamofacists had to come to America to do it.
Why is that good? Two reasons.
First, because it reinforces the point that has been made before: that this is a war between the modern civilization of the West and its allies, and an essentially medieval subculture that does not, within itself, contain anything resembling the scientific knowledge required to thrive in the modern world. And you don’t have to be a serious scholar of history to know how that type of conflict always turns out.
Second, and more significantly, it means that the power to stop the next attack is most likely in our own hands. There are no al Qaeda scientists huddling somewhere coming up with a new weapon that we’ll have to counter. The weapons that they have used — and will continue to use — are ours.
This means that the problem we face isn’t analogous so much to a homeowner attempting to perfect his home security system with an alarm, private security guard, and watchdog — it’s analogous to that same homeowner simply ensuring he puts a padlock on his gun cabinet.
There will be future terrorist attacks; guaranteed. We will never be able to lock up the weapons of retail terror: small arms, light explosives, and the like. But the weapons of wholesale terror — nuclear arms, bioterrorism agents, radioactive material — these things are possible to ‘lock up’. And that’s where our focus needs to be.
I’m very optimistic that this can be done. I’m less optimistic that it will be done. Issues such as keeping Russia’s nuclear materials safe are non-trivial to say the least, as the Report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities and Military Forces (from the office of the Director of Central Intelligence) shows. The report, released in February 2002, includes such reassuring statements as:
“Russian facilities housing weapons-usable nuclear material
Patio Pundit does the numbers and a math lesson on newbie blogger Eric Alterman
In case you had any doubts, the Washington Post lays out the connections between al Qaeda and ongoing violence in Pakistan:
“Local and al Qaeda footprints have been found” in every major strike against so-called soft Western targets in Pakistan this year, said a senior Pakistani security official. Officials have connected al Qaeda to the kidnapping and murder of American newspaper reporter Daniel Pearl in January, a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad on March 17 that left two Americans and three others dead, and a car bombing May 8 outside a hotel in this southern port city that killed 14 people, including 11 French technicians.
In addition, raids by Pakistani and U.S. security agents have uncovered evidence that extensive al Qaeda operations are being planned and carried out from inside this country, a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism.
There’s a shuttle launch today, and unusually, it’s scheduled at a time rather convenient for viewing: 7:44 pm EDT this evening.
The weather looks like it might not cooperate, but assuming it holds out, here’s some links of interest:
Space Shuttle page at NASA
– Basic information on the mission
Shuttle Countdown Status Page at NASA
– Cool page with a java applet showing the realtime countdown, with links to lots of detailed information on the launch procedure. Want to know exactly where the Hazardous Gas System Engineers sit in the control room? This page is for you.
Kennedy Space Center Video Feeds at NASA
– Nice page that has links to the actual RealVideo and Windows media streams from NASA (which presumably will broadcast the launch itself), but doubly neat in that it has a large gallery of still images, updated every minute or so (it’s configurable, too!) taken from various NASA cameras.
Shuttle Mission STS -111 Special Report from Space.com
More info on the mission from Lou Dobbs’ other gig.
Clear skies and the best of luck to the mission team…
Stop them, before they commentate again
To: The Blogosphere
From: N.Z. Bear
Subject: Intervention for Welch
A troubling development has come to our attention here at TTLB, as I’m sure it has to many of our fellow citizens of the Blogosphere. Two previously articulate, intelligent bloggers have developed a most disturbing ailment.
They have begun talking about sports.A lot.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; particularly when it’s wasted in such a clearly self-destructive manner. Observe, if you will, the following from Mr. Welch’s log (quoting Mr. Layne, so we can indict both of them for this particular offense):
“LA came back with some fucking energy and balls. Double-teamed the shit out of Moby, bummed out the Turk, bummed out Webber & the Serb. Defense was mostly terrific. Kobe started doing that thing he does, Shaq made four crucial free throws in a row, Milosevic missed a crucial free throw with a minute left, and you saw the rest…Motherfucking Horry. Motherfucker.”
I will give Mr. Layne the benefit of the doubt and grant him, for the moment, that the words involved in that convoluted mess of invective appeared to derive from what we commonly refer to as the English language. But the semantic content of the statement is an absolute mystery to me. He seems to be talking about a well-known electronica artist doing something nasty to Slobodon Milosovich, while avoiding hostilities with Istanbul, but I’m not entirely sure.
Another example: take this shining bit of prose from the previously articulate Mr. Layne:
“That guy who looks like Moby and that guy who looks like Webber, they were good…. .Memo to Phil: When Rick Fox is having a bad night, just get him out of there. Don’t be shy about using Shaw and Hunter. That third-quarter strategy? It sucked the big ass tonight. Sometimes you gotta drop that Zen Yoda shit and respond, eh?
Phil? Hunter? Zen Yoda? I kinda grok the last part there, but I just can’t comprende the rest of this gobbledygook.
Admittedly, I grant you, this appears to be primarily a problem with Mr. Layne, with Mr. Welch participating in somewhat of an “enabler” role. But I fear for both of them: truly, I do.
So I beg each and every one of you, citizens of the Blogosphere: lend Mr. Welch and Mr. Layne a hand in their time of need. Show them that there is a world inside their computer monitors that does not involve sweaty (heterosexual) men slapping each other on the ass and running swiftly back and forth, back and forth down a well-varnished parquet floor. The life of the mind is in here, in the blogosphere, where such mundane concerns as athletics, exercise, and maintaining a heart rate with a vague possibility of precluding a coronary before the age of 40 are irrelevant. Ideas are the thing!
We must rescue our errant sheep, and bring them back to the geeky flock. I beg of you all, have mercy on these poor lost souls, and show them the way back to true bloggerly happiness!
-NZB
Just dropped here by weird link on Meryl’s site?
Wondering what the hell she meant by “Still grinning. Like a Cheshire Cat” ?
Thinking that you’re going to find the answer here?
Think again, friend, think again…but enjoy your stay anyway …
Professor V has a irksome post about intelligent design where he follows up on an item from Max Power.
The post is irksome not because I disagree with the Prof’s argument, but because as usual, it’s extremely well-reasoned, and damnit, I can’t find away around it. And I really, really want to.
He argues that despite the strong urge to shoot down proposals to teach intelligent design in schools (the heart of the matter at hand), the arguments against doing so are tenuous:
Nor can one argue that intelligent design is unproven, but evolution is proven. Evolution has not been proven in any common sense of the term — true, it’s (to my limited knowledge) more or less consistent with the evidence, but intelligent design is consistent with the evidence, too. Intelligent design, in turn, is neither proven nor disproven; it may not even be disprovable, absent some quite remarkable and uncontrovertible divine revelation.
Professor V is making a rather irritating habit of coming up with intelligent, articulate arguments which logically lead places I don’t want to go. I wonder if I asked him nicely if he would stop…
Update: I may not have the intellectual horsepower (well, at least after a long day of posting) to challenge the great Professor V, but Max Power rises to the occasion and lands a few body blows (in an extremely civilized, intelligent, non-Bennett-like kind of way). Not quite sure I’m convinced, but it’s a fun fight to watch.
Question to the audience: Are we seeing here simply a difference in frame-of-reference? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the differences between Prof V and Max Power stem, in large part, from Prof V taking a viewpoint on the issue from the perspective of a strong legal framework, whereas Max is looking at it from the perspective of the common standards of scientific research. Both are intellectually honest and rigorous, but they can, I think, lead to different conclusions given the same set of facts.
Hmmm. I seem to be doing color commentary on a bloggerly debate. Now that’s kind of odd…
Wanted: New Logo
Ok, I know, it’s not like the existing logo (see top left) is old. It’s more that it’s not really a logo. In fact, it’s just two pictures I inelegantly crammed together and slapped some text over. And one of these days might notice that I swiped the laptop picture from their product catalog, and then everything’s going to go to hell.
So here’s yet another chance to earn both my eternal gratitude and a free Truth Laid Bear coffee mug, should such a wonder ever come into existence . (But see, it won’t come into existence unless I get a cool logo, so it’s all connected).
TTLB Logo Search Frequently Asked Questions
What are you looking for?
Something very similar to the existing logo, but in an original drawing. I’d like to see the following characteristics:
What’s in it for me?
I told you, a free coffee mug.
No, really. What’s in it for me?
Well, I’ll credit your drawing somewhere visible on the front page of the site, and include a permalink to your web page or email, if you like.
No money?
Who do you think I am, Kaus? You see a Boeing parked anywhere around here?
Will you promise to use my submission if I send it to you?
Absolutely not. If I don’t like it, I ain’t using it. So while I appreciate any efforts anyone puts in, if your feelings and/or ego is easily bruised by rejection, please don’t send in a submission.
Does it have to be a polar bear? I’ve got this thing for brown bears…
It has to be a polar bear.
Black bear? Panda? I can really do great things with Koalas….
Polar bear, damnit.
Picky, aren’t you?
Yup. Get over it.
I think your idea for the logo sucks. I have a much better idea. Can I send it to you?
Well, sure. It’s not like I can really stop you. But I suggest running the concept by me first. See above re: picky.
How big should it be?
Definitely no bigger than the current logo; it’s pretty huge. Preferably about 50% to 70% of the current logo’s size. I aim for the site to be vaguely readable at monitor resolutions of 800×600, and to look good at 1024×768 or higher, and the new logo will go in the same spot the old one sits now (I like my site design, for the moment at least).
Does file size matter?
Size always matters, and don’t believe anybody who tells you different. But in this case, small is beautiful. I’m paying for bandwidth (a little) and may pay for all of it eventually. So keep it small — the current logo is like 30K or something and the new one definitely shouldn’t need to be any bigger than that.
I’d love to help, but I have a question you didn’t answer here. What do I do?
Ask me in email, and I shall respond. All will become clear.
I have the perfect logo for you and want to submit it. How do I do it?
Send it to me in e-mail as a GIF or JPEG.
Thanks to anyone who takes a shot, and I look forward to seeing what TTLB readers have to offer!
-NZB
Five Things You Can’t Do at SFSU — And three that you can
In light of the incident at SFSU, I signed up with Joe Katzman’s blog-burst effort today, and asked for a piece to respond to for my blog to support the effort. Joe stuck me with SFSU’s Plan, in which SFSU “Envision(s) (the diversity of) Our Second Century” (at length). Clearly, I offended Joe in a previous life.
But I take the cards I’m dealt, and so, after reviewing SFSU’s vision, I present you with a list of the things you can’t do at SFSU (and the appropriate citations of their vision statement as to why), and three things that you apparently can do.
What You Can’t Do At SFSU
1. Tell your girlfriend that her dress makes her look fat.
Why? “”Behaviors which are intolerant, insensitive, or discriminatory are deemed unacceptable.” Not that I’d recommend trying that line anyway, of course. But I challenge any woman to tell me that such a comment is not “insensitive”.
2. Completely cover your office walls with life-sized portraits of Celine Dion.
Why? “The “Principles of Conduct for a Multicultural University” shall be reaffirmed. Every unit office shall display a permanent poster copy of the principles…” Not sure what a ‘unit office’ is, exactly, but I’m glad I don’t have one. I suppose you could make a small space for one and have Celine all around it though…
3. Start a film club devoted to the Austin Powers films for the sole reason that you think Dr. Evil is a strong role model for today’s youth.
Why? “Faculty, staff, and students who have an opportunity to plan or influence extracurricular activities should do so with a goal of increasing student learning about diversity, since extracurricular activities provide important opportunities for students to learn about individual and group differences. From films and speakers to clubs and student residence halls, extra-curricular activities should be viewed as resources for such learning. ” So if Dr. Evil doesn’t have something to say about multiculturalism, he’ll just have to “zip it!”
4. Tell your new dorm mate that you think she’s an idiot because she’s decided to worship the band Yes as gods, and thinks Jon Anderson speaks to her through a Holy Lava Lamp.
Why?“…religious, and other individual or group differences shall not be regarded as hindrances to success. Rather they shall be treated as positive opportunities for the enrichment of our educational resources and the quality of our campus life.” So don’t you go harshin’ her mellow while she’s communing with the ole’ lava lamp.
5. Form a “Generation Y and Pissed About It” club for 18-25 year olds to protest the fact that your generation didn’t get a cool moniker like “Baby Boomers,” “Flower Children”, or even “the Me Generation”.
Why? “The University shall develop a general harassment policy and procedures that will address all forms of harassment including, but not limited to, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and age. ” So you can forget about telling that damned 35-year-old grad student who keeps showing up at your meetings and suggesting “Children of the Millennium” as the perfect name to shove off — he’s protected by the vision, baby.
But despair not! There’s still a few entertaining things that you can do at SFSU.
What You Can Do at SFSU
1. Band together with a few of your friends and scream at fellow students to “Get out or we will kill you“
2. Put up posters around campus accusing an entire ethnic group of the murder and cannibalism of innocent infants.
3. Trap a group of your fellow students against a wall with a mob and chant for their deaths.
Anyway. My tongue is firmly in cheek, of course. But I think you get the point. If you’re going to have a code like this — and see my post below for my dim view of such codes — you must enforce it consistently and firmly. And as I mentioned earlier, it sure sounds to me like some of actions which occurred went beyond hate speech and straight into good old criminal offenses.
I reserve my final judgment on the administration of SFSU (and the local authorities) — I reserve it for now, but not for very long. Perhaps they will follow through with the positive (if tentative) steps they have taken so far. But they need to do so swiftly, for the damage is already being done. Leaving this kind of behavior go unpunished — selectively enforcing their code of behavior based on political biases — will eat away at the confidence of not just Jewish students at SFSU, but any thinking students at that fine institution that their college home is a place that is genuinely safe for them — not to mention genuinely safe for rational thought and debate.
In particular, I would call on the University to release the videotape taken of the event (surely I can’t be the first person to request this). It was of a public event in a public forum, so I suggest they not even bother with any attempts to claim “privacy of the students involved”. Let their student body, faculty, and the world see the facts as they happened — and then judge for themselves whether the University’s response is adequate and appropriate.
Let us all hope that my optimism is not misplaced.
SFSU
I haven’t posted much on the incident at SFSU, mainly because other folks have done such an excellent job of covering it (notably Yourish and Joe Katzman).
But if you’re not familiar with the story already — or even better, want suggestions on actions you can take to influence the outcome of this incident — you should definitely head over to Winds of Change. There, Joe Katzman has assembled a comprehensive list of bloggers who are focusing on the events at SFSU, and the aftermath.
For the record: I wasn’t there, but I’m quite convinced by the reports of people I trust that the counter-protesters on the Palestinian side of the argument crossed the line from peaceful demonstration into intimidation and threats of violence. (And quite possibly, if I remember my law right, may have committed criminal offenses above and beyond any violation of University codes, given that the threat of physical attack is actually the “assault” part of “assault and battery”.)
I take a fairly dim view of “hate speech” codes — I tend to think that the existing laws barring threats of violence provide an adequate level of protection while not trampling on honest debate. But I agree with those (like Glenn, I believe) who hold that any campus that has them (as I believe SFSU does) has to apply them consistently. Selective enforcement of such codes is guaranteed to result in about the worst possible blend of censorship by authorities and intimidation by individuals that you can come up with.
Anyway, that’s my $0.02. Now go check out Katzman’s site.
Thanks
Okay, this is a little sappy, but the urge just struck me to throw out a note of thanks. To who?
To you. Whoever you are.
TTLB is the work of one person; me. I do it for fun, and in fact I’ve only been doing it for less than two weeks. But in that time, I have been remarkably fortunate to have a great deal of traffic sent my way by the likes of my old friend as well as by blogger heavyweights Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus. And to be as complete as possible: the links from mortal humans such as Prof. Volokh, Electrolite, Amish Tech Support, Eric Olson, Bubba, Patio Pundit, and yes, even Mr. Roboto have been great as well. And to all of these folks (well, almost all…) I am grateful.
I do keep an eye on my traffic logs, which can be a rather obsessive behavior at its worst. And seeing folks come in as referrals from all the places above is terrific. But you know what gives me, as Christopher Hitchens is fond of saying, “a little holiday in my heart” ?
When I see someone surf onto the site with no referral at all. ‘Cause that means, some poor fool actually came here directly and wants to see what I’ve got to show them today.
And that’s a great feeling. So: I thank you, invisible reader, wherever and whoever you are. I hope my work lives up to your expectations, and I hope you continue find it worth your valuable time and attention. For that is a precious coin, and one for which I shall strive to deliver full and fair value.
PS – And to the few people I’ve noticed who have actually bookmarked this site: wow, you people really have questionable taste…
More things I don’t know much about: story in the New York Times describes what is apparently a landmark Supreme Court ruling handed down yesterday regarding the ole’ classic tug of war between states’ rights and the power of the Feds.
Bear Assignment Desk (with apologies to Mickey)
Assigned To: Prof. Volokh, Prof. Reynolds, Ms. Lithwick
Assignment: Describe, in plain English that a simple bear can understand, exactly what the heck this ruling means, ’cause the Times story just isn’t cutting it for me. It sounds important, but I’m not quite sure I get it. Exactly what kinds of cases are we likely to see (or rather, not see) now that this ruling has been handed down?
More wisdom from the fellow who knows more about Pakistan than I do (well, one of many):
Kolkata Libertarian points to an interesting scenario in which Pakistan could score a public relations (if not military) victory over India should true (non-nuclear) war break out.
Go read it. We should be paying more attention to this crisis, and TKL has got a front-row view.
Update: Whoops. I mistakenly implied that TKL currently resides in India; he doesn’t: according to his bio, he’s living “in Chicago making a living as a born-again software designer…[and is] awed by the rites of spring and fall”. My bad.
(reporting from Reuters, reporting from the original study by the Electronic Privacy Information Center) reports on that Carnivore, the controversial system designed to “wiretap” email, might have provided information about Osama bin Laden before September 11 — if it had worked right.
Apparently, a Carnivore “run” looking for al Qaeda e-mails also picked up e-mails from non-targeted people, which is against the law. And the operator of the system got so flustered that he deleted the whole run, including the lawfully collected al Qaeda intercepts.
A ways back, the Justice Department was going to submit Carnivore to a fairly rigorous peer review by a panel of high-powered encryption and security gurus from the private & academic sectors. The conditions that were placed on the review, however, were rather restrictive, and eventually, the review went to a less-qualified group (see EPIC’s site for their report).
I’m serious about this peer review kick folks. There was a time, not so long ago, when everybody who knew anything that mattered about security and encryption either worked at the NSA, or at IBM. But that time is gone, and the Feds need to get over it.
This is just funny. But when you screw up designing systems that matter, people end up dead. And it looks like that’s what may have happened here.
Let me make my views on this general subject clear: I am not a total absolutist when it comes to privacy, electronic or otherwise. I believe now (and believed before September 11th) that there is a legitimate need for law enforcement to be able to intercept communications by individuals suspected of committing or intending to commit crimes.
What I object to is that our government continues to apply 1950s-era approaches to solving technical problems in 21st century. As with my comments on Amnesty yesterday: I agree with the objective; I just wish they’d do a better job.
One proposal that I find very intriguing is the idea of making Carnivore open-source. While this may seem absurd at first, it actually makes a great deal of sense when examined more closely.
Security experts Matt Blaze and Steve Bellovin testified to exactly that before Congress in July of 2000: you can find a summary of their testimony on Blaze’s page . (Full disclosure: I’ve met and socialized with Blaze a few times, although not in several years: he’s a friend-of-a-friend. You have been warned. )
At any rate, I think we’re going to see a great deal more discussion in this area going forward. Because as we’ve learned in many other areas since September, the old approaches just aren’t working any more — if they ever were.
PS – Glenn also has some comments on this matter.