Carl's spam

Welcome to New York City

2009-09-06T05:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I posted to this blog.

Judy and I were married in March. We celebrated with a reception at SAFECO field in August. And now we're in New York.

I had worried about the dogs. Teddy grew up in the burbs. Goober grew up on a ranch in Tenn. Both dogs have taken to NYC like natives! Goober was leery of the elevator at first. He didn't want to go into it. Then when it started to move, he got really worried. That was 3 days ago. Now he's a natural. When the door opens he rushes inside and he's still not totally at ease wen the elevator moves, but he doesn't look panicked.

We walk over to Central Park and before 9a.m. the whole park is off-leash for the dogs, so we let Teddy off immediately. She just follows us as we walk, unless she needs to go off to pee. Goober is too excited to let off the leash all the time. He has pigeons to chase, litter to sniff, people to investigate. He's learning not to bother all people - to distinguish between those who want to pet him from those who don't want to be bothered. When we run into large congregations of dogs, we do take him off leash because he stays with the group to play - run, play-fight, jump around. He loves it.

Today on the way home we walked with one of Goober's new friends - Penny, a 12 month old sheepdog puppy easily twice Goober's weight and height - and they were play fighting for a whole long block. When we got home and I asked Goober if he enjoyed the walk, he got all excited, jumped up on me and clearly wanted to go back out and play some more - RIGHT NOW. I had to disappoint him - but we'll take him back out tomorrrow.

Science Debate

2008-01-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

There's an effort to get the presidential candidates to engage in a debate strictly on science and science policy issues. I've signed their petition and added my favorite question to their pool of questions. See their web page.

My other blog

2007-09-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

Although I have neglected this blog, that's nothing to the neglect my other blog has suffered. I started that as a gathering place for the old Ad Hoc Singers - from SLC, UT about 20 years ago. We had a reunion, mostly to get together with Vicki before she was too weak to enjoy it.

No End in Sight

2007-09-18T21:07:00.001-07:00

I've been neglecting the blog for a while - but Judy and I saw this movie a month ago or so - and it was wonderful! I was expecting a Michael Moore style slam of the war. The occupation does deserve to be slammed - but this movie was a balanced documentary along the lines of a Frontline report.

If you can see it, I strongly recommend it!

Robert Heinlein born 100 years ago

2007-07-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

Robert A. Heinlein was born 7/7/07 - 1907 that is - in Butler Missouri. Amazing that someone of that vintage could see what was coming so clearly.

More DST Woes

2007-03-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

I came home to find my older Panasonic recording a program - when it shouldn't have been.

Turns out, its clock had been set back to standard time.

I went to the setup menu and told it to do an automatic clock set - and it did - and came up with standard time.

All I can figure is that one of the PBS stations has a problem with its clock and is sending incorrect times out. This auto-set worked just fine on Sunday. The clock was right this morning, but sometime between 10:30 and 17:00, it got changed.

I tried calling the PBS stations, but it's too late to raise anyone. I'll have to call back tomorrow.

Das Leben der Anderen

2007-03-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

We saw that movie Friday night and I was bowled over. It was fantastic.

I have a slight misgiving about one plot detail (the speed with which HGW converted), but that's nothing compared to most movies. I've ordered the book and will see if it makes that point any clearer.

It's a good thing that we'll never see a regime like that again, where the government feels it has unbridled power to root out enemies from within the citizenry - the ability to arrest and hold people without charge and without habeas corpus - the ability to use "stressful" interrogation techniques on prisoners that intelligence agents suspect are enemies of the state - the ability to spy on citizens - the ability to have citizens inform on other citizens - .... That would be a horrible country to live in.

DST change: more than 2 different results

2007-03-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

So, this morning, I went around the house looking for how my various clocks handled the new Daylight Saving Time rules.

My XP and Vista systems handled it just fine. My Pocket PC on my iPAQ did not - still thinks I'm on standard time - but when I synced my calendar with Exchange, it shows appointments 1 hour earlier. So, the appts are at the right time, if I leave the clock on the Pocket PC alone. I'll do that and see what happens when the 1st Sunday in April comes along.

My Casio watch (setting itself by time broadcast) was correct. My Oregon Scientific wall clock, also setting itself by that broadcast, was wrong - but it rarely picks up the broadcast from inside the house. (You'd think with more space for antenna, it would receive better - but no.)

My oven clocks were all wrong, of course - because they're manual. So was my little wall clock.

The fascinating things were my video recorder clocks and my cell phone.

The cell phone didn't change times! You'd think it would be in touch with the base station. I had to turn it off and on again before it would learn the new time.

The 3 video recorders gave THREE different results, even though all three set themselves from PBS time signals.

My new Panasonic was correct when I woke up. I don't know when it made the switch, but it was between 2 and 8 a.m.

My old Panasonic was still showing standard time, so I had to goose it via the setup menu. Once I forced an auto-sync with PBS, it was correct.

My old JVC VCR was still showing standard time, so I goosed it also to sync with PBS. It did - and at 8:44 in the morning, PDT, it showed 9:44. I'm going to leave it alone, showing one hour ahead of current time, until April to see how it behaves. But, I'm puzzled. What kind of programming in the VCR's controller would lead to that result?

Great new GPS product

2006-10-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

As advertized on Prarie Home Companion, on 10/28/2006, it's the latest in GPS devices.

The ad at this link starts at 21:48 into the show.

"Why They Hate Us..."

2006-09-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

I was re-reading Howard K. Smith's book, "Last Train from Berlin" - just finished it - and came across a passage that struck me with its pathos. He's recounting an experience in 1940 or 1941, before he escaped from Berlin.

===========

``It is true to say that England has never been more popular on the European continent than she is today. Nor has Germany ever been more hated by her European neighbours than right now. And the Germans know it. Once, in Berlin, I ran into an aged German housewife I know; she was holding her almost empty market-bag in one hand and looking wistfully at a faded, ancient propaganda poster headed "Why They Hate Us...", referring to the plutocracies, which was pasted on the side of a house. I asked her what she found so interesting, and she said: "I was only thinking. That used to be a propaganda slogan--`They Hate Us'--but now the Fuehrer has fixed it. They do hate us. The Fuehrer achieves everything." ''

Debit card and ATM card theft

2006-03-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

This article, at the end, finally supports a claim I've made for years now, but according to them, it's worse than I have been saying.

My rules of thumb are:
1. it's OK to use credit cards online, because the credit card companies (and regulations) limit your loss.
2. it's not wise to use debit cards (e.g., branded like a credit card) because even if you can get your money back, you're out that money while you're trying to get it back. That article suggests that you're not always able to get your money back. I refuse to carry a branded debit card for this reason.
3. I had assumed it was OK to use ATM cards at a merchant because I assumed the box encrypted the PIN with a key known only to that one hardware box and the bank. I guess I assumed too much. The article suggests that folks are sloppy with their key management - using one key for many boxes and even letting network components know the PIN encryption key. I guess I will have to stop using ATM cards except at the bank's own ATM. That's too bad. I liked paying for things at the supermarket with my ATM card.
4. I refuse to use EFT, except for direct paycheck deposit. Once anyone is able to move money in or out of my bank account, they can drain it and I get no recourse at all.

I did use EFT once, getting money from Europe, but for that purpose I opened a special bank account with almost no money in it - received my EFT payment - moved it manually to my real account - and then closed the fake account.

No Superdome in my back yard

2005-09-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

This American Life, today, has stories from people who were left in New Orleans. This will be available on the web next week, they say.

One group was trying to walk to safety, over a bridge out of the city, and they were met by armed police from the town of Gretna who threatened to shoot them if they tried crossing the bridge. "You're not going to turn the West Bank into another Superdome." This was described as a racist/classist motivation. The policeman was keeping out the undesirables. After the group found a sheltered spot on a bridge on the highway and cleaned up the area to give themselves and their children a place of safety, another policeman from Gretna showed up, looking totally crazy, and started shouting at them to get off the bridge - and when they picked up what they could carry, a helicopter from Gretna came down to their spot to blow away all the rest of their possessions - cleaning off the bridge. Listen to that show - from 9/10/05 - "After the Flood".

We had a small town in the vicinity of Seattle that was preparing to accept evacuees from New Orleans - but a town politician was quoted on local radio saying that only well employed people were allowed to use that emergency shelter. No one who was on chronic welfare and who might be dangerous would be allowed into the shelter. This policy was necessary to keep the local community safe, she said. I was deeply ashamed of Washington State, when I heard that.

I'm reminded of talk I used to hear in Utah in the 1970s - of survivalists who were setting up their own enclaves for when the cities fall apart and the ravening hoards boil out of the city and might threaten the hard-built safe enclaves. These survivalists had guns - not small guns - assault weapons.

What is this other than the suburban::city split, taken to extremes? When the situation gets bad and people get desperate, weapons come out and people are threatened with death.

Is it too late to address the underlying problem? Can we find no way to convert American culture into one that loves one's neighbor - even the least of these? That's a Christian maxim, but I don't hear the Christians who are such vociferous Republicans adopting this attitude and modeling it for others. I see them modeling the suburban circling of wagons against the great unwashed in the city ghettos.

If they're not going to lead this effort to restore American culture to civility, who is going to?

When you see people in need - people who are desperate - people who have no supplies and who see a store with supplies on its shelves - people who break into that store to take what they need (diapers, baby food, water, ...) - do you take that as a sign of how desperate people are and therefore as a sign of how the governmental relief effort failed - or do you assemble troops to send into the area to shoot looters?

Randy Adams for President

2005-09-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not, but check out this interview from Weekend Edition Saturday. Here's a guy who actually is the kind of character that Robert Heinlein wrote about so frequently (especially in Farnham's Freehold).

David Brooks on PBS - Bush failing too obviously even for Republicans

2005-09-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Did y'all see David Brooks on Newshour, Friday night? He was pissed with Bush for failing to show leadership.

It was so clear to me, watching Bush after he broke off his vacation and decided (or took direction) to show that he was doing something and Being Presidential, that I didn't see leadership. I saw a middle manager. He praised his direct reports (e.g., the head of FEMA). He admitted no fault. He spoke disconnected sound bites, as usual, and one of them was that the results weren't acceptable. There was no acceptance of responsibility - but the people demand that someone be blamed, so he blamed -- no one in particular.

This is what happens when you have a middle manager - and an inept one, at that. He covers his ass and he plays puppet, speaking lines that don't require him to take a deep breath to get through them or to spend any time thinking to remember them.

Will this be the end of the nonsense in Washington - or will the marginal majority that supported Bush start making excuses for him? We'll have to wait and see.

We finally see some people pointing this out, but the ones I heard were on NPR, and my Republican friends tell me that NPR is totally left wing. I think they're talking about Pacifica Radio, but I guess we have different definitions of left and right. To me, NPR is right of center, as is PBS.

Here's Linda Wertheimer giving a commentary on leadership this morning.

FEMA's list

2005-09-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

I heard about this on NPR this morning and thought I should post a blog entry about it, but first I searched the net and found that many others have done that better than I would. Try this one, for example, or this one.

The story: FEMA had a list of organizations you could donate to, and except for the Red Cross and maybe Second Harvest, they were all religious - and Pat Robertson's organization was high on the list.

Religious dictator?

2005-07-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

There's a non-fiction note by Heinlein in his Revolt in 2100, speculating on what it would take for the US to get a religious dictator. [Revolt in 2100 was about the overthrow of such a dictator.]

I've been reading it to friends more and more lately, so it's more efficient just to post it here.

Al's Lock and Safe

2005-07-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

WWDTM this weekend had a story about Al's Lock and Safe and the truck key they made from an X-ray. Side channel cryptanalysis, anyone?

Here's one news story explaining what happened.

Cardinal Sin

2005-06-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the BBC news tonight at 19:00 and they had a story about the death of Cardinal Sin. The anchor was interviewing a reporter from the Philippines and he asked her "will we see the likes of him again?" She answered, "no, Sin was original."

I swear there wasn't even the hint of a snigger in either voice throughout the entire segment.

Tom Tomorrow Archive

2005-05-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I read Tom Tomorrow, and I didn't realize how much I missed his cartoons until David forwarded me the latest. Here's his archive (or one of them, another being here.)

Star Wars III

2005-05-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

So, I finally saw it last night - loved it (mostly). The acting was still wooden in places. There was only one plot point that seemed too convenient (but I don't remember now which).

I got a real kick out of the political message, once I figured out that there might be one. Of course, it was so subtle that it was hard to be sure if one had been intended, but I'm really good at putting pieces together, so I am convinced that there were 1 or 2 places where some reference to current US politics might have been worked into the script. I wonder if anyone else caught them.

Waterpik site not found by Google?

2005-05-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

I searched for "waterpik hose repair" or "waterpik hose repair kit" (I don't remember which) and was sent to a reseller, not to Waterpik itself. In fact, their site didn't show up on the list of matches at all, at least on the first several pages.

The reseller was selling Waterpik kits - at about 2ce Waterpik's price.

When I received it and tried to use it, it failed (because the end of my broken hose near the handpiece was too short) - so I called the customer service number on the instruction sheet - 1-800-525-2774 - and the nice lady on the phone was very helpful - sold me a new handpiece for less than the original hose repair kit.

Why wasn't all this information on their web site? I went looking through their web site for repair kits and found NOTHING. No wonder Google found nothing. So, I wrote them a nasty-gram.

For my friends who might need something like this, write down the phone number. They're really very helpful.

Activist Press

2005-05-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

When they're done reforming activist judges - putting only the proper judges in place - will the next stop be the activist Press, using Newsweek's story about the Q'ran as the excuse?

...a story from one anonymous, high ranking source...

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

What if that story had been planted - to lay the groundwork for the coming attack on the Press?

We won; we get to dictate!

2005-05-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

Friday's Newshour was riddled with references to the idea that "we (the Republicans or the religious right) won the election; now we get to dictate the results. Stop acting like a diplomat. Act like a winner."

Such lack of diplomacy sounds like Bush and is exemplified by Bolton - but that's why we need the filibuster. Someone has to put a criminally irresponsible Executive Branch on a short leash and in our system, that needs to be the Congress.

A better solution, of course, would be to:
1. stop filibuster for all judicial nominations
2. require 75 votes in the Senate for any judicial nominee, except for the Supreme Court
3. require 90 votes in the Senate for Supreme Court nominees.

and, while we're at it, require 70 votes in the Senate for all other Executive Branch nominees.

After all, if a country is more evenly divided than 75:25 on an issue, the government's job is to find a common ground and prevent alienating a large percentage of the population. Bullying is not just obnoxious - raw power is dangerous and attempts to exercise it must be punished.

Shrubbish?

2005-05-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

This web site Kippi sent me must be made up. After all, any person that brain dead would never be elected to public office - even a small one. He would be too much of an embarrassment.

Cute Quote

2005-04-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

From Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me; Apr 9, 2005; 07:37 into the first segment, Roxanne Roberts quoted Sir Jimmy Goldsmith as saying "When you marry your mistress, you create a vacancy."

Overheard at the Pope's Funeral

2005-04-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

From some TV reporter, to my mother, to me (just now), quoting someone in the crowd at the funeral on Friday:

"Boy, could that guy pope!"

Sounds like a Chicagoan, to me :-)

Cool artwork

2005-03-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Liz for this cool link. It just zooms in and out - but take a look.

2 minutes of fame

2005-02-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

Vic and I were interviewed by Bill Radke of Weekend America - and the segment aired in the second hour of today's show. Many kudos to Krissy Clark, the audio editor who cleaned up 45 minutes of raw conversation with much rambling to make something that lasts a few minutes and carries all the important meaning. The actual segment is called Finding Common Ground. [BTW, it's the mail from listeners segment and starts with something else. Our part starts about 1 minute into that segment.]

Loyalty vs. Truth

2005-02-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks to JRB for sending me this link, discussing the predominance of loyalty over the truth in the Bush Administration.

Security Feature

2005-02-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

This picture from Peter G. Neumann (through a few forwards) is a great sample of a security feature. I bet the guy who designed that gate put a lot of effort into making it strong, easy to operate, ....

Inauguration Balls

2005-01-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

So, who had the inaugural balls in this clip?

Wonderful stuff I got pointed to by Frank Rich of the NYT.

Very funny, from Lissa

2005-01-25T21:58:00.000-08:00

She forwarded me, today, the "NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE" allegedly by John Cleese. It's great...

So I did a Google search, with that in quotes, to see if it was on the web. I got 5230 hits. It seems that this has gone around by e-mail since November and many people have copied it to their blogs. I'll let you do the Google search yourself, if you want to read it. With 5230 copies, I don't think there's much danger of its getting lost, so I won't make it 5231. Computers themselves will go out of existence first, I would guess. :-)

3 Republican Laws

2005-01-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

I can't resist forwarding this link from David. Thanks, David!

(I know - it's geeky - but that's part of what makes it fun.)

Another rant on IDs

2005-01-24T03:21:00.000-08:00

See my comment to this post that claimed that it would be good to have a single ID rather than this turmoil of given names.

I close with the contention that all attempts to get people to use IDs for people, the way computers use IDs for people, are going to fail.

Today's Fortune

2005-01-22T07:33:00.000-08:00

..with all this talk about Bush actually believing that Iraq has been a success and that maybe it's time to have many more Iraqs other places in the world, I got the following fortune on logging in at theworld.com:

---------------------

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

-- H. L. Mencken

---------------------

Capitol Steps on-line

2005-01-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

The Capitol Steps News Years 2004-5 show is available on the web for download!

I was especially grabbed by the music of Red State Woman (about 45 minutes into the show). I'm trying to learn it - but really wish I were a better piano player...

Security Priorities

2005-01-15T22:52:00.000-08:00

In an article on TiVoToGo:

"in what universe should an episode of 'Desperate Housewives' get more protection than my Quicken financial data?"

Good question.

My Letter to the Editor on the WA Vote

2005-01-15T04:46:00.000-08:00

This wasn't published, AFAIK, but I still like it, so here goes. [Written 12/31/04]

(thread link)

=======================

Dino Rossi's claim that the election was a total mess is false. The election was a statistical tie, not because of any flaws in the system but because the voters happened to split nearly evenly. So, an overlooked ballot here and a machine mis-read there yields enough of a difference to change the winner.

Our system doesn't understand what to do with a statistical tie. If it were an exact tie, some states allow for drawing cards or flipping a coin, but if it's a statistical tie, we have no procedure other than the one we just went through.

We might want to rethink those procedures for the future. The answer isn't to keep voting until the candidate with the most strident voice finally wins or until people get tired of voting.

The answer is to learn to detect a statistical tie and devise methods for breaking that tie. We might start by asking a statistician to: 1) measure the probability of error in each counting process and 2) use that measurement to compute the probability that the one with the largest count actually had the most votes. We might then set some threshold for that probability - say 75% - below which we call it a tie and draw cards (for example).

Feminist hoax?

2005-01-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

Maureen Dowd, who has earned my respect many times over, as lost a little with her recent column on the dating and mating preferences of men.

I felt compelled to write back to her.

---------------

"This may be true for even a majority of men - certainly is true for some - but for those of us men for whom it is not true, describing that side as if it were true for all men just gets in our way.

"As I date and look for a woman who is at least my peer intellectually and occupationally and hope to marry that woman, if she projects your characterization onto me because I'm a man, I'm at an added disadvantage.

"On the bright side, a woman as intelligent as I want for a partner would reject such overgeneralizations."

Nature of Identity - shown through crisis

2005-01-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

A NYT story points out that identity is a matter of relationships or records of relationships - and the tsunami wiped both away, leaving some people without identities.

(thread link)

Custom Comics Page for a fee

2005-01-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my friend Gerry for handing me this URL. For about $12 a year, you can get a custom comics page. Since I can't afford any more paper coming into the house but I really do miss the comics page from the newspaper, this looks tailor made for me.

Great photo in local Seattle's Best

2005-01-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'll see if I can get a photo of it and post it.

It's of a store - maybe 40 years ago - with a sign hanging from 2 hooks over the front door, reading:

Today's special

and hooked to the bottom of that sign is another one, the same size, reading:

So is tomorrow

:-)

Another Maureen Dowd column

2005-01-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

Maureen Dowd has yet another great column, IMHO, on the mess in Iraq and the Administration that got us into this mess.

..and again, her last line is priceless.

WA Gov Race marches on

2005-01-09T04:09:00.000-08:00

The current loser of the WA Gov race has filed suit to declare the election flawed.

We'll have to wait to see how this all ends.... There's no reason it should, since we have no mechanisms for handling a statistical tie.

WA Sec of State in trouble

2005-01-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

WA Sec. of State Reed is apparently in trouble because he was unbiased.

Are we doomed to a combat-to-the-death style of politics in this country? I thought we were done with that sort of thing after we saw what it did in Germany in 1933.

At least one Op Ed writer thinks elections have changed irreversibly.

..and then there's Oregon.

Song to represent 2004

2004-12-31T08:07:00.000-08:00

On KUOW's Weekday, yesterday, (at 51:20 into the 9:00 show) Knute Berger of Seattle Weekly was asked what song he would choose to stand for the year 2004.

His choice was the Imperial March from Star Wars. Perfect!

"Let's keep voting until I win"

2004-12-30T01:02:00.000-08:00

In the WA Governor's race, Rossi is calling for a new election - perhaps hoping to win this one.

A 50-year-old lesson for us today

2004-12-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Edward R. Murrow's commentary wrapping up his March 9, 1954 See It Now report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy ends with a statement that impressed me as being perhaps as pertinent today as it was then.

You have to do some substitutions, of course. Instead of Communists, it's terrorists, for example. Instead of McCarthy, I have in mind some other, current politician who has been reelected based on ramping up fear in the voting population and on getting them to look to him to be the strong man who will face down the foreign devils.

Here's the quote that hit me so hard:

"No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

"This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

"The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'"

Tonight's Newshour on WA Gov Race

2004-12-24T19:57:00.000-08:00

As Joel Connelly from the Seattle PI said near the end of the segment - "The political right in this country has never managed to win with grace. Based on what I was listening to on talk radio coming down here to be on this program, they certainly aren't losing with grace." Look for lots of fun to come in this race....

The Fun Continues

2004-12-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

With the WA Governor's election decided, nothing is yet decided. There is much fight ahead, apparently.

WA Gov Race is Over

2004-12-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

Simple. 1 count, 2 recounts, and everybody is satisfied. So, we can all go back to normal lives while the new governor prepares her transition.

Right? Ha!

"[Conceding] isn't even on our radar screen right now," said Suzanne Tomlin, a spokeswoman for the [Republican] party. "Dino won the first two counts. If we stick with it, we can work it out."

Someplace between my civics lessons in grade school and today, elections stopped being a dry process interesting only to accountants and started being a fist fight, where the biggest bully might even win.

Maureen Dowd again

2004-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

This column needs to be experienced from start to finish. I won't say more.

...except that I wish more people would start with Imperial Hubris and go on from there - but that assumes everyone would read it. Of course, I believe everyone should.

Coverage of the WA gov recount process

2004-12-23T06:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some commentaries on the WA governor race by:

the WA Secretary of State, a Republican

a Seattle Times columnist

another Seattle Times colunmist who actually participated in the recount

NPR's Morning Edition

Dream Come True

2004-12-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

The latest recount result in the WA governor race is almost perfect. It's what I was hoping for in my earlier post.

So, Rossi went from a lead in the hundreds, to a lead of 42 to losing by 8 - out of about 3 million votes cast. Note: this count (not official) does not include votes in the contested 700+ ballots that King County wants to count and the Republican party doesn't.

Back when I balanced my checkbook by hand, I used to do it twice - and if the counts disagreed, I would do it a third time - and keep doing it until I knew I was right. How about we keep recounting this election and fighting in court about the recount procedures (since it's obviously not standardized with everyone agreeing to it) until we get twice as many recount results all exactly the same as we got recount results that differ from that correct value? That might be a way to make sure we know what the count was. :-)

======================= late breaking news ========== 13:45 PST ============

I just heard on the radio that the WA supreme court has allowed King County to include the 700+ ballots that it had found uncounted in this recount. That will change the result yet again - and anger the Republican party (because King Co. is predominantly Democratic), so they might start some new legal action. It just keeps getting better! It might be years before this one is resolved.... LOL!

============= 12-23-04 06:15 ===============

Yes, it gets better. NPR's Morning Edition did a segment on the governor vote.

RSS feeds from NYT and Washington Post

2004-12-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

I suppose everyone else knew this long ago, but I just found RSS feeds for those papers this morning.

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/index.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/rss/front.htm

and while I'm at it, here's the RSS feed page for the Seattle Times

A Not So Wonderful Life

2004-12-20T15:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Peg for e-mailing me a copy of this column by Maureen Dowd from the New York Times.

NOW this week

2004-12-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

NOW, this week (12/17/04), started with a discussion of the right-wing takeover of mass media and the abuses it engaged in. The segment was opened with a reference to Hitler, as is only appropriate, IMHO.

No more Dr. Who???

2004-12-19T01:05:00.000-08:00

KBTC, the Seattle area station carrying Dr. Who, just announced that the distributor has decided to suspend broadcast rights of Dr. Who. So, they're showing the last episodes of the current story tonight in an extra-long broadcast - and hoping they will get the rights back, but no promises.

Does anyone know what goes on there?

1933?

2004-12-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

A relative of a relative wrote, in an e-mail from England where he lives, that he "just returned from a dinner party with half of the partners being Japanese.

"Anyway, I could sense that politics would be coming up shortly in the group discussion, and sure enough, somebody asked, 'What did you think of the election result?'

"I just looked at them and responded, 'This is Munich, 1933. We have seen it all before. Keep in mind that Hitler was elected!'

"Never seen anything like it. Some were cheering, others applauding and smiles everywhere!"

PDX rocks!

2004-12-18T13:47:00.000-08:00

Preston reports that there's free 802.11 at PDX.

That's yet another reason I think it's my favorite airport.

The others are from food.

PDX has Coffee People. It's my favorite espresso stand.

PDX also has the best restaurant I've ever been to in an airport. It's the Rose City Cafe. Their sushi bar is extremely good, even by non-airport standards. Their breakfast service is wonderful - good food, good wait staff - good experience.

As Preston says, if you ever find a choice of routing - and have a chance to stop over at PDX - do it, if only to eat and surf.

Look on the bright side

2004-12-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Peg for sending me this one:

==============================

----- Original Message -----
From: Lynn
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 12:57 PM
Subject: Look on the bright side

With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, over 90% of our pineapple and lettuce, 92% of all fresh fruit production, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America's export quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the US low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech and MIT. We can live simply but well.

The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care cost spike), 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of all tornadoes, 90% of all hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, 100% of all Televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. A high price to pay for controlling the presidency.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually eaten by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% believe that evolution is just a theory, 53% that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 and most hard to grasp, 61% believe that Bush is a person of moral conviction.

FW: Letter from California

2004-12-17T19:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mark for this.

=========================

Dear President Bush:

Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually, we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving you. California will now be its own country. And we're taking all the Blue States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.

We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift the whole country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday. Therefore, please let everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we're getting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.) But God is letting you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks).

Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-war. Speaking of war, we're going to need all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in Falujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets coming home.

So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the south, right?)

Since we get New York, you'll have to come up with your own late night TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show, and Conan O'Brien. You get... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox News to come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch Crossfire. That's a really funny show.)

We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.** Soon.

Sincerely,

California

Bill Hicks jokes & quotes

2004-12-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

Tom sent me this link to quotes from Bill Hicks - some funny jokes among them.

Newshour - author of Imperial Hubris

2004-12-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

PBS Newshour last night had the author of Imperial Hubris, Michael Scheuer, and Daniel Benjamin, a director for transnational threats at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, discuss bin Laden and our war against him. It was especially interesting to me to see Scheuer and listen to him talk, after reading and being so impressed by his book.

The PBS Newshour page offers streaming video. It's actually good quality, too, at least at broadband speed!

New STD - FW: from Chris

2004-12-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Scriabine
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 10:12 PM
Subject: CDC Warning

The Centers for Disease Control has issued a warning about a virulent strain of sexually transmitted disease.

This disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim. Second generation patterns of the disease have produced an even more virulent strain called Diddreah Lectim.

Many victims have contracted it after having been screwed for 4 years, in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease.

Cognitive sequelae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim and Diddreah Lectim include, but are not limited to:

Antisocial personality disorder traits;
delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor;
chronic mangling of the English language;
extreme cognitive dissonance;
inability to incorporate new information;
pronounced xenophobia;
inability to accept responsibility for actions;
exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado;
uncontrolled facial smirking;
ignorance of geography and history;
tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies;
a strong propensity for categorical, all-or nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington. Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago in a Texas Bush.

Interactive Christmas lights

2004-12-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

Slashdot has posted an article that is bound to be driving some neighborhood crazy. Back in UPnP days, we speculated about how even something as innocuous as a lighting controller would need strong access control.

Well, here's a real live lighting controller on the net - with no access control - on purpose. LOL!

Establishing identity in order to punish, threaten or intimidate

2004-12-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

If some third party identity-establishment service were instead to guarantee that they would track down and prosecute the identified party in case that party committed fraud, then that kind of identity establishment would have meaning. The NRC report on authentication, "Who Goes There?", calls this Authenticating to Hold Accountable in Chapter 2.

If we lived in the old days when people stayed within a few miles of where they were born, just knowing who the fraudster was would have been good enough because he wouldn't get away without giving up his entire life. Today those conditions don't apply, so knowing precisely who the fraudster is has no meaning unless we have the ability (and money) to capture and prosecute the perpetrator.

And, of course, this all has no value if what is lost through that fraud can not be made whole. If lives or secrets are lost, no amount of prosecution after the fact would make up for the security breach.

Axioms of Identity

2004-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

I'm inclined to state slightly different identity axioms but along the same lines.

I suspect that each individual has an inherent identity, but that it is irrelevant. Rather, I define the identity of person P as being a function not I(P) but rather I(P,O,t) - the identity of P from the point of view of observer O at time t.

This relies on one of the definitions of identity: "The quality or condition of being the same as something else."

In particular, in this case, the two things that are to be established as the same are:

1. characteristics C about P that O observes at time t

and

2. O's memories M at time t of P (built over a period of time)

These two sets of information are not matched exactly. O may remember P at an earlier time before P's hair turned white and that characteristic is not to be observed again.

Rather, those two sets of information are compared to find matches and non-matches. As long as the matches constitute enough entropy to rule out all other P' in the world, then O can conclude that s/he knows the identity of P -- assuming the non-matches do not rule out P.

So, if set-intersect(C,M) has enough entropy to specify P uniquely over the entire universe and set-intersect(C,anti(M)) is empty (or can be discounted), then identity has been established. [I'm not completely comfortable with the handling of anti(M) and welcome refinements, while I keep thinking about how to fix this formulation.]

So, I would replace the second axiom with one that says identity is a function of two entities - the oberver and the observed - rather than being defined only in a community. I would also claim that I(P,P,t) is an entity's intrinsic identity, but that's of no real use in the world, so I don't really fight the first axiom.

Note that because memories can fade over time and people's characteristics can change over time, the matching algorithm needs to take the passage of time into account and at the least require more elements in the set intersection.

Author of Imperial Hubris

2004-12-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

According to amazon.com, the author of Imperial Hubris has been identified as Michael Scheuer.

I guess I can remove the gender neutral pronouns in my previous post.

I wonder if he is still at the CIA or has quit in the recent purge...

====================

From the lead amazon.com review, at the end:

"11/12/04 UPDATE -- Scheuer has resigned so he can freely pursue his mission of critiquing and holding accountable the failed and failing U.S. policy. He is specifically calling for the leadership of the CIA and FBI to be held accountable for their failures. Otherwise, nothing new -- Cheney & Bush are still in charge, and U.S. policy is still well designed to promote the growth of Al Qaeda's global insurgency."

Another take on the Iraq war

2004-12-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

On my flight, Sunday night, from Baltimore to Chicago, I was talking with my seat neighbors about Imperial Hubris - the book I was reading and about to finish.

When we landed in Chicago and were disembarking, the man in the seat directly behind me handed me a short note he had written for me - recommending a book he thought I might be interested in, available from his local Islamic web site.

We had a pleasant enough but short discussion as I collected my bags and we left the plane. I've bookmarked the web site for future reference and have started reading the book online - with nothing to report so far.

Identity Theft

2004-12-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Following the thoughts of the previous post, it's obvious to me that identity theft isn't a problem of theft of identifying information.

We live in a world where information about me is not valid as an authenticator. If someone can buy my credit report, then all information contained in it is of ZERO value as an authenticator.

The problem with identity theft, IMHO, is that there are some companies who use information like that found in my credit report - information that a stranger can find out about me someplace on the Internet (or via private detectives, in the extreme) - and make the false assumption that if someone knows that information, that person must be me.

So far, that's just stupidity on that other entity's part. It becomes a problem for me if that other entity attempts to claim that I am financially responsible for their mistake.

IMHO, we can fix the identity theft problem by declaring that no entity (e.g., merchant) can expect to fix responsiblity on me unless that entity can prove that there is no way any imposter could have faked the authentication process. We must put the onus of proof where it belongs - on the merchant performing the stupid process - not on the victim. That done, there would be two effects, I predict:

1. identity theft would disappear

2. it would be nearly impossible to establish easy credit - with the result that the economy would slow down

Beyond Identity

2004-12-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

This is a very big topic on which I've written a lot, but I felt the need to follow up the previous post with a positive message.

1. We should set "identity" aside as a non-issue.

2. The real issue is that we need to do one of two things:
a) make a security decision
b) track someone down to punish, after the fact

Most "identity" establishment is in support of 2)b) - and is of little interest to me. Making sure that people online are identified is an attempt to get good behavior by threatening to do 2)b).

I'm interested in 2)a) - making security decisions - like whether or not to offer personal information to a web site, whether to reply to some e-mail that could be real or could be phishing, whether to open some e-mail attachment, whether to install some code on my computer, whether to share intimate secrets with some e-mail correspondent. These are all security decisions. The ability to punish someone after the fact, if that person misrepresented him-/her-self so that I made a bad security decision is nonsense. Will I be able to find that person? Will I be able to extradite that person from the former Soviet Union (or wherever they're hiding)? Will I have the money to punish the person? Will any monetary damage award compensate me for loss of some secret?

When I make a security decision, I do two things:
i) authenticate the other party
ii) make an authorization decision based on that authenticated ID

An ID mechanism that doesn't include an authenticator that I can verify or one that can be spoofed is very lame.

As I alluded to in that previous post, an ID mechanism that doesn't give me information that I need to make my security decision is completely pointless. This is where X.509 falls apart.

To use X.509 terminology, there are three parties:

CA: the certificate authority - who does the name creation and presumably identification and authentication process prior to certification

EE: the end entity - the person being named and certified

RP: the relying party - me - the person who has to make a security decision

If there's an ID mechanism that binds a person to an ID only the CA considers really meaningful, that might be used for 2)b) but it's useless for 2)a) - and therefore useless to me. As I said above, 2)b) is nonsense in today's world - especially given the Internet.

We have many mechanisms that allow us to authenticate (step (i) above), such as public key authentication. That's good. What we completely fail at is establishing identity in a way that makes sense to the RP (supporting step (ii) above).

My belief is that if we stick to the two steps of a security decision and determine how securely (accurately) we can do each of the two steps - assuming we are surrounded by active attackers looking for any way to defeat our system - then maybe we have a chance.

Identity vs. Identity Records

2004-12-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

Identity (and Identity Theft) is a huge topic and seems to be getting even hotter.

I'm worried, however, that so many people focus in on identity records (digital bundles of bits that are supposed to represent a person) or ID cards, rather than identity. Sure, we can have lots of fun moving ID records around and we can design all sorts of competing protocols to do that - but it's all a pointless game unless we tie this to real identity. All ID mechanisms I've seen are based on false assumptions to tie them to real identity.

X.509 is based on the false assumptions not only that a Disgintuished Name (DN) identifies a person uniquely (false) but that any Relying Party (RP) encountering that DN will know to whom it refers (laughably false). Until those false assumptions are corrected, this is a totally pointless activity.

Government-issued, photo ID cards have a photograph to tie an identity to a person - an authenticator that the person examining the ID card can verify. Given that, we can ask about the probability of false positive (or false negative) from that biometric match - and ask about the difficulty of forgery.

But, let's not bury ourselves in discussions of ID cards or ID records or protocols for moving ID records around, as if the hard problems had been solved. Let's solve the hard problems first and then re-examine what we need in the way of cards or records or protocols. My guess is that once we solve the real identity problem, we will have discovered things that may improve on current ID record and ID card thinking enough to make current plans obsolete.

Finished Imperial Hubris

2004-12-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

I finally finished Imperial Hubris and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, although not our prospects.

There were no simple answers, but there was a path to answers. I didn't like some of his logical conclusions, but they all made sense. In general, it was a well argued case written in a style that one doesn't see any more. If that's the kind of thinking and presentation that our intelligence community expects and nurtures, then I am very pleased with it - while still lamenting our own educational system. The clarity and organization of this text is remarkable. Of course, he also argues that such thinking as he exhibited in this book doesn't get communicated to the policy makers - which is probably why he wrote the book in the first place.

I won't spoil the conclusion for those who want to read the book - but, in summary, his point is that we are shooting ourselves in the foot as a nation with our policies toward the Islamic world and toward al Qaeda. We suffer from lack of doing our homework - from wishful thinking - and from hubris. We are destined to pay a price for that hubris, in many more US deaths, much more US debt, and much more hatred of the US from the rest of the world - especially the Muslim world.

Not only did we fail to capture and kill bin Laden - we have followed policies that were designed to keep him alive, safe and prospering. We have done much of his work for him - with our biggest blunder being the invasion of Iraq. This was the very best thing we could have done for bin Laden. It's all wins for al Qaeda and all losses for the US - now and in the future. Prisoner torture is only icing on the cake after the invasion itself and the toppling of Saddam - a force al Qaeda hated and opposed.

His biggest point, perhaps, is that we have mislabeled al Qaeda as terrorist. It isn't. He claims it is an insurgent army, not a band of terrorists. There is a huge difference. We tend to think of terrorists as insane loners, driven by frenzy to do stupid, suicidal things. Terrorists tend to be few in number - because they have to be fanatic. Insurgents, called upon only to defend their own lands and families, are normal folks - many in number. It is hundreds of thousands of insurgents we face, not a few thousand terrorists. They hate us not because of what we are but because of what we have done against them. Our policies continue to do these things against them, and more, so we continue to build hatred of us. The ranks of the insurgents continue to grow.

As the bumper sticker says, "We're making enemies faster than we can kill them." What that said in one terse sentence, with no supporting evidence, Imperial Hubris says in a whole book with a huge amount of supporting evidence.

He gives us two choices in the end: be prepared to kill Islamists on a scale that will make us sick (because there will be much collateral damage) or change our policies so that we stop making so many enemies. Actually, he offers only the one choice. He makes the case that we have already made enough enemies that we are going to have to do a huge amount of killing - at much cost to ourselves in US lives, US dollars and additional recruitment for al Qaeda. That much is set in motion and we can't stop. What we can do with a change in policy is reduce the eventual total cost in money and lives.

He doesn't spell out the policy that will get us to the minimum total cost. He offers his own suggestions but cautions that he's not a policy maker and these are things that need to be debated in open society among those far more capable. The first step, however, is to educate ourselves - and this book is a good start.

Need a compliment?

2004-11-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

Try these :-)

Risks of research

2004-11-30T19:12:00.000-08:00

Declan has posted an interesting analysis of the benefits of doing leading edge research.

Lying vs. Laziness

2004-11-30T07:56:00.000-08:00

Slashdot has a reference today to a story in Wired showing a possible better lie detector technique. It also shows that lying appears to take more brain effort.

I could have told them that.

American Democracy

2004-11-29T20:45:00.000-08:00

This is from David. Thanks, David.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/benson/articles/112804benson.html

Thinking (from the fortune program)

2004-11-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

---------------------
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you.
---------------------

Editorial on the Left Behind series

2004-11-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a story Graham pointed me to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/opinion/24kristof.html

reminding me of my bumper sticker:

I'm for the separation of
Church and Hate

It's also a strange coincidence because this morning's sermon was on the End Times (since all the readings today were on that topic). You can find St. Mark's sermons here: St. Mark's sermon page, with a delay of up to a month.

Kim Cameron's Identity Blog

2004-11-26T15:30:00.000-08:00

BTW, my buddy Kim, at work, runs an identity blog

http://www.identityblog.com/

with RSS feed

http://www.identityblog.com/rss.xml

where I'll probably send my musings on identity (e.g., the John Wilson problem).

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

2004-11-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

ISBN 1-57488-849-8

I'm nowhere near done with this book yet, but am so hooked on the refreshing blast of facts that I have already sent two copies out as presents to family/friends. This is in spite of the fact that he severely criticizes the Clinton administration's approach to the war on terror.

The author, an intelligence analyst working for the US Gov't and remaining anonymous in print (although I would be surprised if he's anonymous to the intelligence community (hmmm: could he be one of those who has recently quit?)) , gives an account that can be derived from open sources. He assures us there is no classified information in this account, but says that the classified information just makes the case stronger.

To me it's a page-turner. I'm hoping that by the end I will see what we actually need to do to win this war - or at least bring it to an end.

So, has anyone else here read it and want to comment on it?

Musings on the election process - WA's next governor

2004-11-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

After the initial count, Rossi won by 261 out of 2.8 million.

After the machine recount, finished Wednesday, 11/24/2004, that lead was cut to 42. In one precinct, there was a box of ballots that had been left uncounted on election night, but counted during the recount. [That was in a precinct that went for Rossi, I
believe.]

There is going to be a hand recount, which is good, otherwise I would complain that I'm deprived of the fun of watching the turmoil.
:-)

One thing we're missing is the statistical view - that the counting process is not a counting process but rather a sampling process with an inherent error rate. From that perspective, the result needs to be stated in statistical terms. E.g., "after today's recount result, there is a probability of 0.5000103 (or whatever the real number is, as a function of error rates) that Rossi got the most votes."

If we could bring that change of concept to voting, how could the population handle the concept? What does probability of victory rather than victory do to the social contract?

I keep thinking of the state (Nevada?) where in case of tie, the candidates draw cards and the high card wins. What should we do in case of a statistical tie? Can successful politicians talk about a mandate that came from the card drawing? (perhaps a mandate from God, who must have rigged the deck)

==================

I posted that to a small list and got the reply: "Great questions, Carl. For a population that seems to recoil in the face of statistics, I would fear the worst if we moved in that direction."

==================

To which I replied:

Even though I studied probability at MIT as a math major, it still took me quite a while to internalize that there is a reality (that is, someone really did get the most votes), but our knowledge of that reality is faulty and always will be. This took me perhaps a day of reading (of a statistics reference, several years ago) to get firmly ingrained.

So, how could we describe this to the man in the street?

As I was thinking about that, a Disney-like cartoon flashed in front of me: There's a secret ballot - people going into a curtained booth, bringing out a ballot and dropping it in a box. The eye point follows the ballot. [This is looking more like Schoolhouse Rock, as I watch it now in my head. :-) ]

The ballots get mixed up in the box. They're taken out and counted - maybe by optical scanner - but the scanner rejects some of the ballots as unreadable. It counts some of them incorrectly, because of misalignment. It might adjust the count, just a little bit, because the programmer of the counting machine wanted to affect the election if it was close enough. The machine gives us a count - totally up to something less than the total number of ballots - and with some error rate.

This is a secret ballot with a secret result. We get to ask questions about it, but the answers come back with error. There is a correct answer - only we don't know what it is - and if the election is large enough, we may never know. In a hand recount, if there are enough counters, there will be errors. [Of course, this is a computer system designer's dream case. We know how to design systems in which the error rate approaches 0. Throw enough redundancy at the problem and we can drive down the error rate - at a cost. In the old days, there were punch card operators who would send their decks to a neighboring operator who punched info from the same sheets onto the same cards - not punching, but verifying the punch. It cost money, but it reduced error rates.]

The process is different in each case, but vote counting is a statistical sampling process just like polls, exit polls, the US census, .... They have different error rates but they have error rates. Repeat the measurement and it comes out differently, especially when you do things a different way - e.g., a machine count, a machine recount, a hand recount. This error rate usually has nothing to do with fraud in counting - but that can happen too. It can happen when there are people doing the counting, but it's hard there because there are people of both parties watching. It's a whole lot easier if the fraudster can operate without being observed - e.g., when s/he is the programmer of the tabulating system. Remember the programmer who funneled fractions of a cent from each interest calculation off to his own account? It was ages before he was caught. The nice thing about fraud here is that if it's in the counting process, the measures we take to combat error should also combat fraud.

I think we can get better processes but I'll be surprised if we ever get flawless ones. So, if there's always error, there can always be an election that is undecidable - in which each recount produces a different result. There will always be a probability rather than a certainty that some candidate actually got the most votes.

How will we as a society handle that? Draw cards?

SharpReader RSS Aggregator

2004-11-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.sharpreader.net/ was recommended by Preston for reading RSS feeds (blogs) on a Windows platform, if you don't want to use FireFox. I'm trying both out. SharpReader is DonationWare.

I am also using FireFox to read blogs. I haven't decided which is better.

I have FireFox open all the time, but subsctribing is a little clunky (unless the icon shows up in the lower right corner of the frame) and I haven't figured out how to update all blog contents in one command (yet).

SharpReader does auto-update, once an hour by default, and when it finds a new posting, it pops up a little reminder in the lower right corner of my screen, not unlike Outlook's reminders when a new message arrives. Subscribing to a new blog requires learning the URL of the blog itself, unless there's a shortcut I haven't found yet, and pasting it into the address bar.

Blog on!

2004-11-26T03:54:00.000-08:00

Hey there, cutie. Hope this blog turns out to be satisfying for you. I know you have a lot to say and share!

Leanna

First blog entry

2004-11-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

I've created this blog to hold what I was e-mailing as my spam lists. This will save bandwidth on e-mail and allow people to respond for everyone else to read.

Washington Post - yearly contest - alternate meanings

2004-09-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

Once again, The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. And the winners are . . .

1. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

13. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

14. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die your Soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.