Cheerful Curmudgeon

This just in from the Alliance for Aviation Across America:

The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security recently released a report that dispels many of the myths about the security of general aviation.

In the report, DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner stated that “Although [TSA's Office of Intelligence] has identified potential threats, it has concluded that most [general aviation] aircraft are too light to inflict significant damage, and has not identified specific imminent threats from [general aviation] aircraft.”

Recognizing the great steps the aviation industry has already taken to keep our airports and airways safe, the Inspector General continued that “The current status of [general aviation] operations does not present a serious homeland security vulnerability requiring TSA to increase regulatory oversight of the industry.”

Click here to read the full story in GovExec.

Perhaps now DHS will stop treating small plane owners and pilots like we are inherently more dangerous than the people who own and drive trucks, minivans, and cars.

I am not surprised, but I am still dismayed, by the continued erosion of our personal privacy in the shadow of George W. Bush’s administration. The New York Times reports in E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress that the National Security Agency (NSA), as recently as early this year, is illegally collecting email from Americans:

Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.

A decade ago, I was a strong proponent of OpenPGP-encrypted email. I gave up when I got tired of trying to push that rope uphill. Maybe it’s time to try again.

Did you know that, unless you encrypt your email, it is as easy to read as a note written on a postcard? Now before you say, “So what? I don’t care,” consider how you would feel if NSA wanted to listen to all of your phone calls or wanted to read all of your regular mail. I suspect that, even though you are a law-abiding citizen and have nothing to hide, you might object a tad to that invasion of your privacy.

I have published my PGP key on this web site (and it is in the popular key servers). Using this key, you can send encrypted messages to me and you can confirm that messages which I sign electronically actually were signed by me.

I sign and encrypt my email messages using EnigMail and GnuPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) with Thunderbird, all highly reliable and free software. If you use something other than Thunderbird for your email (like Outlook or Eudora), here is a list of other mail user agent frontends. And if you use Gmail or any of the other email systems though a web browser, FireGPG is just the ticket.

Setting up the software is a little bit of work, but you will probably be done in less time than it would take you to drive to Office Depot and buy a box of envelopes. Once you have the software installed, you can encrypt an email message faster than you can lick and seal an envelope.

My good friend Bert just purchased a farm in Enville, TN and opened his blog, Farmer Bert. I have always been a bit concerned about Bert’s, er, stability (he is my friend, after all) and his first blog posting, Twisted Reason I want to be a Farmer has certainly done nothing to alay my fears. I’m not sure if the video is live sculpture or sheep dance but whatever else it is, it is undoubtedly the most original use of sheep that I have ever seen… and never imagined. Head on over to Farmer Bert’s site and watch the video. It is safe for work unless your cube-mates object to loud laughter!

Cindy and Geoff did a great job and produced Caedmon Geoffrey, a wonderful, healthy baby boy at 7:12pm on May 20. He’s 9 lbs 1 oz, 21 inches tall. His plumbing works so well that he peed on the doctor during delivery. I take that as a great omen!

On a gorgeous spring afternoon, Becky and Derek and Cindy and Geoff came over for dinner and entertainment. Unbeknownst to them, the entertainment was a new copy of BUZZ! Quiz TV for our PS3. The preview video looks hokey but the game is amazingly fun and goofy. Sony hit a wonderful balance between insulting and funny that had us all practically rolling on the floor the whole evening.

Up to four people (or teams) can play at the same time. The game comes with four special wireless controllers, each with a large, red buzz button and four smaller, color coded buttons for answering multiple choice questions. Just add batteries.

You can pick your character (that’s me, on the left) and the sound of your buzzer (I’m partial to the train whistle). Then gameshow host Buzz orchestrates the whole thing in purely delightful manner. You don’t want to be low man on the point totem pole unless you relish Buzz’s attention. With 5,000 questions, and tens of thousands of user-contributed on-line quizzes, there is plenty of bafflement for all ages and plenty of chances for everybody to show off. Derek, though, was the big winner, going home undefeated (just barely); I’ll get him next time, I’m sure!

I have even created a few quizes of my own. You can try them online, even if you do not have a PS3. Trust me, though, it’s much more fun with all of the nuttiness of the game than just answering the questions in your web browser.

Some videos just should not be made. But once they are, you just cannot get that darned theme music out of your head. Do you remember the MacGyver TV show? Watch this if you dare:

I have been writing a new program, having a ball doing it, and it has brought to consciousness something which I have not thought about for years: There is a bit of Dr. Henry Frankenstein in me. I love to create things which do stuff autonomously and, when I create these things, bigger is definitely better.

My current creation has lots of parts, including:

1. A daemon (I love that word, all the more since daemon’s are useful and not evil at all) which runs all the time and wakes up once a minute to see if anything interesting has happened and decide whether it should do something.
2. A script which watches for people to click special links in email messages. It leaves a “note” for the daemon, telling it that a human being received the email and did something. Cool; my program is making humans do things!
3. A script which watches for secret messages sent from another program on another computer. This script also leaves notes for the daemon, telling it that the other computer is set up and running and ready to do a human being’s bidding.

The daemon gets to do all sorts of fun things, including summoning new (virtual) computers into existance and turning them loose on the world. In the end, the daemon even gets to kill off the computers. The daemon spends real money (hopefully, this part does not get out of control!) with a real multi-national company.  And as the daemon works, it attracts the attention of people at four different companies, all of which are very interested in what this little beastie is doing.

Not bad for a creation which only exists in the virtual world inside a computer. If you see me walking around with a smug smile on my face, now you know why.

My friend, Dan Suffian, wrote Swimming with Cripples and it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s just a long paragraph, too short for me to paraphrase it here, and anyway, if I were to try all I’d do is rob you of the joy of discovering Dan’s story through his own words. Go read it and share it with your children and your friends.

Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 21)

You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to subscribe, and you’re just dumb enough to think you’ve got a chance to win. You’re a really slow learner.

July 12, 1974

I am at a grocery store in Israel, picking up a few things. At the cash register, no one bags my stuff. No one even offers me a bag. I am outraged to learn that, were I to want a bag, I would have to pay for it. Paying for bags, I am told, encourages people to reuse the bags instead of throwing them away.

July 13, 1974

Reuse grocery bags to save a few cents? I guess it makes a little sense. But I’m glad that we don’t have to do that in the United States.

August 24, 1974

I’m back in the US and have completely forgotten about the bags.

February 12, 1983

My local Safeway grocery store asks me whether I want paper or plastic bags. I choose plastic, feel virtuous, and think (briefly) about the Israeli grocery store, nine years earlier.

November 16, 2004

Our landfills are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The trees in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The ponds in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The news is full of stories about plastic grocery bags. The Israeli grocery bag concept creeps back into my consciousness (temporarily).

April 23, 2009

US House of Representatives Democrats introduce a bill “aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing toxic pollution by… imposing a 5-cent tax on single-use plastic bags….” (New York Times, New bottle deposit, bag tax bills touted for combating pollution). The Israeli grocery store, from 35 years ago, comes back to mind. I am a really slow learner.

We need fewer plastic bags and fewer paper bags. We need another tax like we need holes in our heads. Here’s a better idea:

Next time you go to the store and you have your groceries put into your reusable canvas bags, ask to speak to the manager. Tell him that you want to pay less for your groceries because the store didn’t have to give any bags to you.

Why should you pay for bags which you don’t use?

My stepfather is clearing out things he does not want any longer so about 25 of my old friends moved in last week, including these vintage Peanuts books: