tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32810495855485084742024-02-07T00:04:30.057-06:00Genius/Idiot—Current Thoughts<b>“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.” —Isaac Asimov</b>
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<br>This is where you will find my current thoughts on whatever topic happens to be rattling around in my head.
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Posts from all Genius/Idiot blogs are aggregated in the <a href="http://blog.syleria.net/">compendium</a>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-28550817238952809442020-01-07T05:46:00.007-06:002020-01-07T12:57:33.695-06:00We've been poisoned by free<p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://tidbits.com/2019/12/19/the-new-york-times-reveals-how-completely-our-every-move-is-tracked/">Reading</a></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">a bunch of </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/privacy/2019/10/privacy-collective-concern">articles</a></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">about how </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5zap3/delete-all-your-apps">apps</a></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">, including supposedly-reputable </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://blog.darksky.net/location-privacy/">weather</a></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">apps, like </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/accuweather-caught-sending-geo-location-data-even-when-denied-access/">Accuweather</a></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">and </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy77wy/stop-using-third-party-weather-apps">Weather Channel</a></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">, harvest location data and sell it to data aggregators, who then sell it to advertisers, it occurs to me that the trajectory of the Internet itself led us to this. I mean, normally we’d be very suspicious of free things, right?</span> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);"><em>Somebody’s</em></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">making money off of these things, and if you don’t know how, you might not like the means. And that is, indeed, how things are working. But the thing is, it didn’t start out this way. In the beginning, there was a</span> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);"><em>lot</em></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">of free stuff on the Internet, because people were hoping that the free services they were creating would lead to real jobs some day. After that, companies made neat free services for promotional purposes, to draw people to their sites, and then as loss leaders, to persuade people to buy other products if they released something useful for free. Plus, even before the Internet, there was freeware and shareware, with developers making things either genuinely out of the goodness of their hearts, for experience and exposure, or in the hope that enough people would pay to make it worthwhile. And then there was a lot of free stuff powered by ads. And don’t even get me started on Web browsers, which have never (with occasional exceptions) had any visible means of monetization, and yet have high development and marketing costs.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">The point is that for a very long time, free things online were both ubiquitous and innocuous, so we all became conditioned to accept free stuff without questioning it. That tendency is now being exploited to, well, exploit us, to use our information in ways that could possibly damage us someday, without us ever knowing about it.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">I don’t necessarily object to my information being used to provide me free stuff; I participate in store rewards plans, after all. And if I can get free services on the Internet by allowing my location data to be used in aggregate so that retailers can better cater to their customers, why do I care?</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">Well, the answer, as the articles linked above describe, is that it’s fairly trivial to use that “aggregate” data to determine exactly who is doing exactly what, and that’s a major problem. Anything that could be used to blackmail you, or as evidence in a criminal investigation against you, should <em>at</em></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);"><em>least</em> be something you’re aware other people have.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">I don’t have an easy answer to this, except that, as Adam Grossman </span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://blog.darksky.net/location-privacy/">notes</a></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">, Apple should set clear policies for data collection, instead of relying on privacy policies that no one reads or understands, to force app developers to make clear to users just exactly what their data is being used for. I don’t agree with Adam that such collection should be banned, just that it should be put explicitly in the user’s control. If that means that the app doesn’t work if permissions aren’t granted, fine! That’s my choice.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times; color: rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman; color: rgb(0,0,0);">I just thought it was interesting to note that this state of affairs wasn’t necessarily inevitable, but followed from how the culture of the Internet developed. Institutions, history, and expectations matter.</span></p>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-77037756554906969472018-03-21T09:43:00.009-05:002019-07-18T15:45:10.886-05:00Create Your Own Personal VPN with Algo<p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><strong>(updated—Fixed links, updated instructions for macOS Mojave, and added instructions for Google Compute Engine)</strong></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><strong> </strong></span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">I have known for some time that browsing on public Wi-Fi nets without using a VPN (<a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network">Virtual Private Network</a>) was a <a href="https://www.techradar.com/news/public-wi-fi-and-why-you-need-a-vpn">bad idea</a>, because a hacker can easily sniff all unencrypted traffic, possibly compromising all manner of personal data. For this reason, I have had a free <a href="https://www.tunnelbear.com">TunnelBear</a> account for years. It was great, because it offered 500MB of free data per month (+1GB if you tweeted about them, which I often did), and I essentially never needed more. On those rare occasions I did, I switched to cellular, or just gave up and turned off the VPN.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">The problem with this approach is that I had to manually connect to TunnelBear every time, which I often forgot to do, or even didn’t know was necessary, as the iPhone automatically connects to known Wi-Fi networks every time unless you <a href="https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/iphone-forget-this-network/">specifically tell it not to</a>. And even when I <em>did</em> remember, connecting manually <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/even-with-a-vpn-open-wi-fi-exposes-users/">leaves you open to security leaks</a>. So I have for some time wanted a free or cheap way to make my iPhone auto-connect to a VPN whenever it connected to an untrusted (i.e. other than home or work) Wi-Fi network. Cloak VPN (now known as <a href="http://encrypt.me">encrypt.me</a>) would do it, but it was expensive, at $10/month (although I now see that they have a <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/3b35c5a8-baac-4137-b152-e366a7f1e0d1/9db7f1a8a6b08df1620bb70cdec956b6">limited plan</a> for $3/mo; not bad), for something I needed only occasionally. I used their free trial, then uninstalled it. Then I tried using <a href="http://cydia.saurik.com/package/libactivator/">Activator</a> when my iPhone was jailbroken. This worked, but drained my battery life like crazy, so I gave up on it and went back to TunnelBear, which, though it was either always-on or manual-connect, had the advantages of being free, user-friendly, and gentle on my battery.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Still, I would occasionally get frustrated and Google around looking for a better solution. I did run across something, but it looked too technical to try using my iPhone alone, and of course I never thought of it when I was at my computer: <a href="https://thomas-witt.com/auto-connect-your-ios-device-to-a-vpn-when-joining-an-unknown-wifi-d1df8100c4ba?gi=23ebfd2a76a3">custom profiles</a>. Well, today I finally got fed up enough that I remembered to do it once I got home (well, alright, I ran across an iPhone browser tab that I had left open), and decided to give it a shot. In the process, though, I found an even better way than that article described: <a href="https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/12/12/meet-algo-the-vpn-that-works/">Algo</a> (<a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/docs/faq.md#where-did-the-name-algo-come-from">named after Al Gore</a>). It’s not (nearly) as user-friendly to set up as TunnelBear, but it will automatically connect on untrusted networks, it’s free(ish), and it lets you set up your own VPN, so you don’t have to trust some faceless VPN company.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Edit: In the process of setting up Algo, I discovered that TunnelBear had added the ability to add trusted networks, which is what I had wanted all the time. So if you don’t plan to regularly use more than 1.5GB of data per month while connected to public Wi-Fi networks (or are willing to pay $10/mo for unlimited VPN data), and you <a href="https://help.tunnelbear.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007003971-Why-should-I-trust-TunnelBear-">trust TunnelBear</a> not to misuse/sell/accidentally compromise your data, just use that. It’s free, easy, and works great (though be warned that, like any commercial VPN, TunnelBear is <a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AHgGSOCizO1M64loALEFWHQRHiwGwKolrj4">not without flaws</a>).</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">However, if you’re interested in setting up your own, personal VPN for cheap, and aren’t averse to getting your hands a little dirty in <a href="http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-to-the-mac-os-x-command-line">Terminal</a>, read on!</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">First, a warning: VPNs are not a panacea. They don’t make you completely anonymous (use <a href="https://www.torproject.org">Tor</a> for that…though it comes with <a href="https://georgianpartners.com/the-problem-with-the-tor-network-and-commercial-vpns/">its own problems</a>). They don’t protect agains the fact that just <a href="https://blog.erratasec.com/2010/11/is-iphone-identifiable-on-wifi-network.html#.WrPA6GaZOnc">connecting</a> <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/3315197/free-wi-fi-hotspots-can-track-your-location-even-when-you-arent-connected.html">to a Wi-Fi network</a> can identify you. Heck, even having Wi-Fi <em>on</em> means that <a href="https://www.crc.id.au/tracking-people-via-wifi-even-when-not-connected/">you can be tracked</a>, and VPNs can’t do anything about that (although iPhones, at least, have been <a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AHjCmvh2LDtI4IjUm6ONu5NhUsxEcHgzgQQ">immune from this particular problem</a> since iOS 8). What it <em>can</em> do is ensure that your data cannot be sniffed out by local hackers, and it can also prevent unscrupulous ISPs from seeing/modifying/selling your data. Note, however, that your VPN service <em>can</em> do <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/29/8685251/hola-vpn-botnet-selling-users-bandwidth">all</a> of <a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AHjGdXOJO4BBBJ2PLi9t8f4eVT-aepF_B8Q">those</a> <a href="https://research.csiro.au/ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/106/2016/08/paper-1.pdf">things</a>, whether or not they choose to. That’s true to a degree even with Algo; whatever hosting service you’re using theoretically has access to all of the data you transfer over the VPN. However, Amazon (or whoever you use) probably doesn’t know (unless someone goes and checks) that you’re using a VPN on their service, so they have little incentive to snoop. Don’t expect any of this to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/aiming-for-anonymity-ars-assesses-the-state-of-vpns-in-2016/">protect you</a> from a warrant from the FBI, however; that’s a whole ’nother level of security, that we won’t be dealing with here. Maybe if you set up Algo your own Ubuntu server on an encrypted disk on a computer you own, the FBI couldn’t easily find out what you had been doing with a warrant. Maybe. Just recognize that <a href="https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/12/12/meet-algo-the-vpn-that-works/#comment-40112">everything has tradeoffs</a>, and there’s <a href="http://www.itrsearch.com/wolverton-no-perfect-way-to-protect-privacy/">no perfect solution</a>.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Following is a step-by-step list of instructions to get Algo installed on Mac and iOS devices. These instructions can be easily adapted for other systems, but I’m focusing on Apple boxes. None of this is my own invention; I drew from various instruction sets around the Internet, particularly <a href="https://www.macobserver.com/tips/deep-dive/set-vpn-server-cloud-free-cheap/">MacObserver’s</a> and, of course, <a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/README.md">Algo’s</a>. For simplicity, these instructions assume you’re doing this on a Mac running macOS Mojave (though the instructions will likely apply to any proximate version of macOS) and using <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/?ft=n">Amazon EC2</a> as a host. Amazon EC2 is free for a year (if you stay within Amazon’s rather expansive <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/free/#AWS_Free_Tier_(12_Month_Introductory_Period):">limits</a>). I’ll try revisit this with more info after that year expires; I don’t mind paying a small amount for on-demand VPN, but I’d really rather not pay $10/month for something I use only occasionally. </span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><strong>Update</strong><em>:</em> My Free Tier has expired; for the first month since, my bill was $9.10. This stacks up well with other services like Tunnelbear. If it’s that much <em>every</em> month, signing up for a Tunnelbear <a href="https://www.tunnelbear.com/pricing">annual plan</a> would be cheaper; we’ll have to see if that’s the case. || Eep! Looking more closely at my bill, I see that most ($8.20) of that bill is for 720 hours of computing time—in other words, continuously, whether I’m actively using the VPN or not. So no, this isn’t cheaper than an annual plan from Tunnelbear. <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/">DigitalOcean</a>, another Algo-compatible host, is only $5/mo, so that could be a better option than Amazon EC2. However, <a href="https://twitter.com/mackwage/status/1112080637295362050">I’ve heard</a> that Google’s cloud platform, GCP, doesn’t charge for computing hours for VPNs the way that Amazon and DigitalOcean do, so that could be a nearly free option (and Google Cloud also has a 1-year free trial, so at least I can get another free year). I’ll include instructions for GCP below.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">The reason I’m doing this is that the instructions I’ve seen are not clear or detailed enough; I had trouble figuring out what I should do at several points and had to research it, so I’m transmitting the benefit of that to you. The settings I chose are for securing public Wi-Fi connections, not your home network, though making a different choice is a matter of not setting one option. As noted above, these instructions are for Amazon EC2 or Google GCE; if you want to use another host, instructions can be found elsewhere, including in the previously-mentioned MacObserver article.</span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 16pt Times New Roman;"><strong>How to set up Algo using macOS</strong></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><em>Note: Any text in </em></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>fixed-width font</strong></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><em>is intended to be entered into Terminal.app. You should be able to triple-click on the listed command, choose Copy, switch to Terminal, and choose Paste. Done right, that will even press Return for you! Or, you can just type them as displayed.</em></span></p><p></p><ol style="list-style-type: decimal"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Set up a Cloud Services account.</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Amazon EC2: </span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><a href="https://portal.aws.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/registration/index.html">Create a free account</a> at Amazon Web Services. They’ll ask you for a credit or debit card number (that has at least $1 on it) to verify your identity and charge you if you actually spend any money; that’s fine. If you stay within Amazon’s limits, this account is free for a year, and likely cheap thereafter. (I had trouble logging in after I created my account using Safari, so I used Google Chrome.)</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">From your <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/free/">Amazon Web Services</a> <a href="https://console.aws.amazon.com/">Console page</a>, choose <a href="https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home">IAM</a> from the Services menu. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Select the <a href="https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home">Users</a> tab.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Click “Add User.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Enter your desired user name, then choose “Programmatic Access” below. Click “Next.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Select “Attach existing policies directly.” </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Choose “AdministratorAccess” in the list below. Click “Next.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Review your choices, then click “Create User.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Click “Download .csv.”</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">In Safari, this brought up a tab with the information in it, instead of downloading a .csv file. If this happens, Select All, Copy, Paste it into your text editor of choice, then Save it (as plain text) as </span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;">credentials.csv</span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Click “Close.”</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Google GCE: </span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Install gcloud:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Make sure that Python 2.7 is installed on your system. Launch Terminal.app and type:<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>python -V<br></strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Download the 64-bit installer from the <a href="https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/quickstart-macos">gcloud Quickstart page</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Expand the archive by double-clicking on it. You may need to install an expander such as <a href="https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22774/the-unarchiver">The Unarchiver</a> first.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Move the resulting “google-cloud-sdk”folder into your <a href="https://support.apple.com/kb/ph25270?locale=en_US">Home folder</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">In Terminal, type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh<br></strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">and press Return. It will ask you a few questions.</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Whether you want to send data back to Google is up to you.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">When it asks if you want to continue, hit Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">When it asks you to enter a path, hit Return.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Close that Terminal window.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Open another Terminal window.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>gcloud init</strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><br>and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Accept the option to log in using your Google user account. This will open Chrome and allow you to log into your Google account and authorize Google Cloud.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Choose No when it asks you if you would like to create a project.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><a href="https://console.cloud.google.com/compute">Log into Google Cloud</a> and accept the license agreement.</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/archive/master.zip">Download</a> <a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo">Algo</a>. Unzip the resulting archive if Safari hasn’t done that for you already. You should have a folder in your Downloads folder called “algo-master.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Open the Terminal app.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Type </span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>cd</strong></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">and then drag the “algo-master” folder into the Terminal. Its directory path should show up after “</span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;">cd</span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">.” Hit Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now we enter a few commands in Terminal. If you receive any errors in this process, I’ve found that closing the Terminal window, making a new one, and starting from Step 4 usually works.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Type <br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>python -m ensurepip --user</strong></span> <span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><br>and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>python -m pip install --user --upgrade virtualenv</strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><br>and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>python -m virtualenv --python=`which python2` env &&<br>source env/bin/activate &&<br>python -m pip install -U pip virtualenv &&<br>python -m pip install -r requirements.txt<br></strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If you’ve never installed the cc command line tools, you’ll be prompted to do that. Go ahead and agree, it’s perfectly safe and required to move forward.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">After everything completes, type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>sudo nano config.cfg</strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><br>and press Return. You’ll be asked for your administrative password, and then a text editor will open. Under the section called Users in the file, replace the existing user names with whatever usernames you wish to use (you’ll have to use the arrow keys instead of the mouse to navigate around the screen). These are the people who will have access to your VPN. Once you’ve added your users, press Control-X to save your changes and exit the text editor.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now we install Algo itself. </span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If you’re using Amazon EC2:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Stay in Terminal, and type<br></span><span style="font: 12pt Courier;"><strong>./algo</strong></span><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><br>and press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Algo will ask you what provider you’re going to use. We’re using Amazon EC2, so choose “3” (and press Return of course; I’m not going to mention that for every option).</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now it asks for the aws_access_key. Go back to your Downloads folder and open the “credentials.csv” file you downloaded earlier. Copy the Access Key ID and paste it into the Terminal. Press Return.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Do the same for the Secret access key.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If you’re using Google GCE:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Follow the <a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/docs/cloud-gce.md#creating-a-project">instructions for Creating a project</a>.</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Name your server. You can name it whatever you like, though I presume there are some limits on what characters you can use and how long it can be. I just hit Return to accept the default option in brackets (“algo”).</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Choose a Region. It’s likely better to choose the one nearest where you’ll usually be, for speed reasons (this question may come after the others if you’re using GCE).</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">It asks “Do you want macOS/iOS clients to enable "VPN On Demand" when connected to cellular networks?” For our purposes, choose No. Choose Yes if you want your VPN to protect your cellular connection as well.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">It asks “Do you want macOS/iOS clients to enable "VPN On Demand" when connected to Wi-Fi?” Choose Yes.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Look up the exact name of any trusted Wi-Fi networks (all of your remembered Wi-Fi networks will be in System Preferences→Network→Advanced… Sadly, you can’t Copy from there, but you can carefully type them into Terminal, separated by commas <em>but not spaces</em> (there can be spaces in the network names, though). Only select those networks you personally trust; i.e. not Starbucks! These are usually your home and work Wi-Fi networks. If you want always-on VPN, don’t add any networks here.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Whether you want your personal VPN to block ads is up to you; I prefer the more fine-grained control of an <a href="https://1blocker.com">ad-blocker</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_protocol#Secure_Shell_tunneling">SSH tunneling</a> is for tricking firewalls and such, and so isn’t useful for our purposes. Choose No.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">I only intend to use this VPN for macOS and iOS clients, so I chose No to Windows 10 and Linux Desktop compatibility.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">It says that doing so would create an insecurity, so I said no to retaining the CA key. Note that this means that you can’t create more users later without starting all over from Step 3 (which isn’t that hard).</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now go grab a sandwich or something, while Algo installs itself to your Amazon EC2 or Google GCE instance. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">The confirmation screen gives some valuable info. I would recommend copying and pasting the final screen into a text file for future reference. At the very minimum, you absolutely need the password it shows after “The p12 and SSH keys password for new users is”. Save that in a safe place, like a <a href="https://1password.com">password manager</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now we get to configure the your Macs and iOS devices to use your brand-new VPN service. First off, uninstall any existing VPNs. We don’t want any conflicts. This involves deleting VPN apps from Mac and iOS devices, and checking System Preferences→Profiles on the Mac, and Settings→General→Profiles in iOS for VPN profiles (including old Algo profiles) and deleting them.</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Note: I am <em>not</em> including instructions for using Wireguard, because I’m using older Macs, and because I want to pre-configure the Wi-Fi exceptions, and because frankly it’s simpler not to use Wireguard on all-Apple installations. If you want to use Wireguard, see the <a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/README.md">"Apple devices" section of the official instructions</a>.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Go back to your downloads folder in the Finder, and open the “algo-master” folder. Inside it is a “configs” folder (~/Downloads/algo-master/configs), and inside that is a folder named for your server’s IP address, and inside <em>that</em> is a folder named “Apple.” Open the “Apple” folder, and you’ll see files named <username>.mobileconfig. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Open the .mobileconfig file that corresponds with the correct user on any Mac you want to use your newly created VPN on (just double-click it).</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Choose “Continue.”</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If using Amazon EC2:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Choose “Continue” again.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Enter the password you hopefully saved from the Algo confirmation screen in Terminal. If not, it should still be there in the Terminal window.</span></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Click Install, and enter an administrator username and password for this Mac.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If you included your current Wi-Fi network in the list of trusted Wi-Fi networks in Step 28 above, you won’t have any way immediately to test your install. Connect to an untrusted network (perhaps go to Starbucks; you deserve a coffee after all this work. Or just enable the Guest network on your router), and go to <a href="https://whoer.net/">https://whoer.net/</a> to see if you did everything right. If you did, Mr. Whoer should report your ISP as “<a href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</a>" or “Google Cloud,” depending on which cloud service you’re using. If it doesn’t, try going to System Preferences→Profiles, deleting the profile you installed earlier, and starting again from Step 24.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If it worked, congrats! Send the file via secure means (<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203106">Airdrop</a> for instance, or iMessage) to any other Macs you wish to secure, and go through Steps 23–28 again. Then Airdrop (or use some other secure means) that file to every iOS device you want to VPN with. If you specified different users in step 10, make sure to send the right files to the right devices.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Open the file on your iOS device (whether by tapping it in Messages, receiving the Airdrop file, or whatever)</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Tap Install, then enter your device password. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If using Amazon EC2:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Tap Install again, then a third time.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Enter the password you saved in Step 22. Tap Next.</span></li></ul></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Tap Done. That’s it! It should be working. Again, connect to an untrusted network and visit <a href="https://whoer.net">https://whoer.net</a>. The IP address should be the one in your profile.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now you can delete the “algo-master” file from your Downloads folder. You may wish to keep the “configs” folder, or at least the .mobileconfig files, along with the “credentials.csv” file, the “config.cfg” file, and the Algo confirmation details, somewhere safe. You may be tempted to hold on to the entire algo-master folder, and that’s not a terrible idea, but remember that they will probably make improvements in the future, so remember to download a new copy if you want to start over sometime.</span></li></ol><p></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Now, you may want to change things in the future, such as the list of users, or the trusted networks (perhaps you decide you like this VPN thing so much you want to use it all the time). </span></p><ul style="list-style-type: square"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">If you chose to save the CA key in Step 20 above (and you held on to the “algo-master" folder), changing the user list is <a href="https://github.com/trailofbits/algo#adding-or-removing-users">fairly simple</a>. If not, you’ll have to destroy your instance (see below) and start over (from Step 2), which is not really that much work. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">To change the list of trusted networks, open the .mobileconfig file in a text editor (<a href="https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14363/plistedit-pro.app">PlistEdit Pro</a> is an excellent tool for this task), navigate to your current list of trusted networks (under SSIDMatch), and add or remove networks as you please. Make sure you keep the exact formatting as shown for any new or changed lines. Then redistribute the file according to Steps 26–37.</span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">To destroy the instance you created,:</span><ul style="list-style-type: hyphen"><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">For Amazon EC2: Log into Amazon Web Services, select <a href="https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/">EC2</a> (under “Compute”) from the Services menu, choose Instances, and click on Actions→Instance State→Terminate. That will allow you to start over from Step 2. </span></li><li><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">For Google GCE: Log into the GCE console, select Compute Engine in the sidebar, then select <a href="https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/instances">VM instances</a> (it’s probably already selected). Click the three dots to the right of your “algo” VM instance, then select “Delete.” That will allow you to start over from Step 2.</span></li></ul></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font: 12pt Times New Roman;">Enjoy your new, personal VPN! Let me know how it goes, or any difficulties you have with these instructions, in the comments below!</span></p>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-62578137264774415192016-01-21T16:32:00.001-06:002016-01-21T16:32:55.883-06:00Review: Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img src="http://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/111x148-bcc042a9c91a29c1d680899eff700a03.png" border="0" alt="Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2" /></a>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567">Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667">Isaac Asimov</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1519798613">3 of 5 stars</a>
<br /><br />
I didn’t actually read this book; I read it as part of a combined volume: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85469.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_the_Golden_Years_of_Science_Fiction_36_Stories_and_Novellas" title="Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction 36 Stories and Novellas by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas</a>. But there wasn’t enough space in my review there for all my comments on the individual stories, so I’m posting them here (there wasn't enough space <em>here</em> either, even just for Volume 2. I had to cut significant portions. Sigh). Refer to my <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1278629315">review</a> of that book for my thoughts on the book as a whole.<br /><br />Below is a short description and review/discussion of every included story, as well as some random thoughts I had while reading. This is as much for my reference as it is for the benefit of prospective readers of this book (I wish there was a Goodreads for short stories!). Spoilers are included, but are marked off with Spoiler tags. I did not include star ratings for the stories. I can, if anyone would find that helpful. <br /><br />“Requiem”: Does anything need to be said? It’s a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A__Heinlein" title="Robert A. Heinlein">Heinlein</a> classic, if a little sloppily written (for him). Actually it was interesting to learn that this was written before “The Man Who Sold the Moon.” In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1597271.The_Past_Through_Tomorrow" title="The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein">The Past Through Tomorrow</a>, it appears afterwards, of course, so I never realized it was a ‘prequel.’ So this story of D.D. Harriman’s trip to the Moon is more poignant in some ways than before.<br /><br />“The Dwindling Sphere,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6051513.Willard_E__Hawkins" title="Willard E. Hawkins">Willard Hawkins</a>, is a good story about the invention of a device that will convert any mass to any useful substance (at the cost of some of the mass), and the consequences of this development. I love stories that take a single concept to its logical conclusion (Asimov’s “The Last Question” is the archetype of this genre), and this one does it well. Of course, the conclusions are all crap. <br /> Asimov expresses his surprise that he had never seen this story before; it amuses me that I had, which is not true of any other story thus far except the Heinleins and the Asimov. I must have read it before I studied Economics, though, because I recall thinking that the conclusion presented was plausible and interesting. Interesting yes; plausible no.<br /> <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[First off, no invention will result in permanent, mass, involuntary unemployment. At least he saw that there would be plenty for everyone (though that is kind of implied by the invention). But in a market economy, people will find useful work to do, even if only writing books or painting—though of course there will be much more than that to do, such as inventing, crafting (people like hand-crafted things), etc. Also, of course, property rights fixes the problems of disputed borders given depleting material—though war over this is not implausible given our current nation-state structure. Indeed, property rights would just about fix the whole problem; as land and water diminished, it would become more valuable, so that a proper balance would be reached, and other solutions and activities pursued.<br /> But I’m surprised at the last two plot holes, as the average science-fiction writer should have been able to foresee them. First, what about the Earth’s magma and liquid core? Wouldn’t reducing the Earth to the size of the Moon have stripped off all the rocky layer? Or are they, at the end, living on an artificial crust underneath which the liquid core is being siphoned off? That didn’t seem to be the case. Maybe geology was not that advanced in 1940. <br /> Lastly, it would seem obvious, especially to a science-fiction writer, that the dimimishment of the Earth would prompt great effort to bring in material from outer space, beginning perhaps with the Moon, but continuing with the asteroids and other planets. That would at least stave off the crisis for a very long time. But perhaps this was deliberately ignored in order to be able to make his point. Understandable I guess. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span><br /> Don’t think that my extensive criticism means that I don’t like the story. I do, a lot. It’s quite enjoyable, and even though I disagree with many of the particulars, the general moral—that we should be careful to mind the long-term consequences of our actions—is one I agree with wholeheartedly.<br /><br />“The Automatic Pistol,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23001.Fritz_Leiber" title="Fritz Leiber">Fritz Leiber</a>, is good enough as fantasy horror, I guess, but, again, I don’t expect to see fantasy in a science fiction anthology. <br /> <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[So the pistol is possessed or something; it’s his familiar, sent from the devil. So? That’s not interesting by itself, unless I believed that this sort of thing was possible, which I don’t. So while the story is engaging and well-written, I don’t see the point. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span><br /><br />I don’t care for time-travel stories, so <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7610.Jack_Williamson" title="Jack Williamson">Jack Williamson</a>’s “Hindsight” didn’t appeal to me very much. Technically it’s a time-manipulation story instead of a time-travel story, but my annoyance is similar. Why do ‘history,’ or ‘time,’ or “world lines” care about big events but not small ones?<br /> Also, though Greenberg (the editor) claims that this story shows rare (for the Golden Age) character development, I don’t think a time-manipulated drastic change in personality counts. The story was well-written and somewhat exciting, though, so if you don’t mind time-travel stories, you’ll probably like it.<br /><br />“Postpaid to Paradise” is a fascinating and well-done fantasy by Robert Arthur involving some magical stamps. The story and background are involved enough that I don’t especially mind that it’s fantasy; indeed it only qualifies as fantasy because no explanation for the fantastic effects was given or attempted.<br /> Two things struck me about the story: One, that a story involving grown men obsessing over a painting of a naked sixteen-year-old girl would likely not pass muster nowadays; and Two, that this story and its sequels must certainly have inspired Asimov’s Azazel stories; they’re similar in many ways, most especially in tone (a tone that Asimov’s other stories do not have).<br /> It’s interesting (and encouraging, knowing that they didn’t just pop out of his head full-formed) to see that Asimov got many of his ideas from these old stories. For instance, Murchison Morks, the main character in this story, is clearly an inspiration for George from the Azazel stories, who instantly has to one-up anything anyone says.<br /><br />“Coventry,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A__Heinlein" title="Robert A. Heinlein">Robert A. Heinlein</a>, is excellent. It’s head and shoulders above any of the previous stories in this volume, including the other two by Heinlein. At that, it’s not Heinlein’s best from this period; that honor goes to “If This Goes On…”, not included in this collection. This story of a man sent to Coventry (think Australia in the 18th century) is superb, and contains an actual character arc, unlike the faux character development Greenberg praised in “Hindsight.”<br /> (Reading Asimov’s preface:) Wow. I’ve long presumed that Asimov felt this way, but I’ve never seen him say so openly. It just goes to show how incredibly wrong geniuses can be. He equates small government with <em>no</em> government, and presumes that a government that does not meddle with every aspect of our lives will not prevent others from doing so. It’s a strange view, but an oddly common one. “I’m also suspicious of those who equate liberty with ‘small government,’” he says, “meaning less interference from Washington over the details of our life. I don’t believe there can be less interference; just a change of interference. If Washington bows out, then it is the local bully on the block who will take over, and I’d rather have Washington. Every once in a while through history, places have tried ‘small government’ and replaced a tyrannical central power with local ‘self-help.’ It’s called ‘feudalism’ and it’s also called ‘dark ages’ and I don’t want it. —But I must say Bob preaches his point of view charmingly.” It’s so odd. It’s like the first hundred or so years of the United States never happened for him.<br /> I mean, I really don’t get it. “Covenant” begins with: <br /> “‘Have you anything to say before sentence is pronounced on you?’ The mild eyes of the Senior Judge studied the face of the accused. His question was answered by a sullen silence.<br /> ‘Very well—the jury has determined that you have violated a basic custom agreed to under the Covenant, and that through this act did damage another free citizen. It is the opinion of the jury and of the court that you did so knowingly, and aware of the probability of damage to a free citizen. Therefore, you are sentenced to choose between the Two Alternatives.’”<br /> It is later revealed that this guy’s crime is punching someone in the face that probably deserved it. Is this the kind of small government that Asimov thinks will allow feudalism and dark ages? Seriously?<br /> <br />“Into the Darkness” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/719945.Ross_Rocklynne" title="Ross Rocklynne">Ross Rocklynne</a> is an amazing story. This is what science fiction does at its best: Fills you with wonder and speculation and imaginings. Note that I didn’t say that this is what science fiction <em>is</em>; it doesn’t have to be a story about giant amorphous space beings, or anything like it. But great SF expands your mind and makes you think things and ask things you never imagined before.<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19739.Lester_del_Rey" title="Lester del Rey">Lester del Rey</a> doesn’t disappoint; “Dark Mission” is a gripping story. It’s a mystery of sorts, about a crashed rocketship pilot with amnesia. Who is he? How did he get there? What is the purpose of these strange urges he feels? The story drags you along to the end, to a mostly-satisfying conclusion. “Mostly” because it left me wanting more; the story is very detailed, and yet unfinished in a way. I would have preferred a novel-length version.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12531.Theodore_Sturgeon" title="Theodore Sturgeon">Theodore Sturgeon</a>’s “IT” is a horror about a plant muck-creature that inspired Man-Thing and Swamp Thing. It’s interesting, and readable, but not remotely as horrifying as the introduction implies. Perhaps it was when first published, but the influence it had has dulled its effect on me through unconscious familiarity. It reminds me somewhat of “The Rag Thing” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/450056.Donald_A__Wollheim" title="Donald A. Wollheim">Donald A. Wollheim</a> which had the sort of impact on me that this story had on others. I think part of the reason that this story didn’t affect me is that there’s really no origin story for the monster. I don’t need it to be a scientifically-plausible, hard-SF explanation, but not having one at all leaves the story hanging without context, which is less involving and scary. It’s a pretty cool story regardless, just not as scary or horrifying to me as others apparently found it. <br /><br />“Vault of the Beast” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1293688.A_E__van_Vogt" title="A.E. van Vogt">A. E. van Vogt</a> is…odd. It’s in essence a mathematical story, involving prime numbers and different types of mathematics (negative, infinitesimal, imaginary). It’s frustrating because van Vogt repeats the common error of believing that infinitesimal mathematics—the math we learned in school, with an infinite number of numbers between any two whole numbers—is fundamentally correct, and “natural number” mathematics is wrong. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. These are simply different models, different ways of looking at problems. Some problems can be more easily solved with one system, others with another. There’s no inherently “correct” mathematics, any more than there’s a “correct” hammer or chainsaw. And actually, I’m not even sure that the math in this story passes muster in our modern schema. Also, there’s supposedly a “robot” in this story, but calling it a robot doesn’t explain it, and it doesn’t act more robot-like than living-thing-like. Perhaps van Vogt meant “construct” instead of “robot.” In all, there are enough new and interesting ideas presented in this story that it would take a long novel to explore them. This short story doesn’t do them justice.<br /> Still, it’s a fascinating tale, involving a construct that has moral sentiments and can morph into anything, mathematical theory, extradimensional brings, and ancient civilizations on Mars. Even when van Vogt doesn’t hit it out of the park, his work is still brilliant.<br /><br />Amusingly, this is the second story in this collection that Asimov says he had not read or does not recall from the era, and the second story (besides those by Asimov and Heinlein) that I <em>had</em> read before. “The Impossible Highway” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1299393.Oscar_J__Friend" title="Oscar J. Friend">Oscar J. Friend</a> is just the sort of story that fascinates me. It could be called a “concept” story, I suppose. It introduces a new, perplexing idea, and then leaves the reader to figure out what to do with it. It involves two scientists, lost in the jungle, who happen upon a highway that has no business being there, with strange biological displays on its route. <br /><br />“Quietus” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/719945.Ross_Rocklynne" title="Ross Rocklynne">Ross Rocklynne</a> is kind of a typical science fiction story. Not stereotypical—it doesn’t involve humans in rocketships firing ray-guns at bug-eyed green aliens (though it does, in its way, involve spaceships, ray-guns and aliens)—but typical, in that it tries to surprise or disturb us by turning standard expectations on their heads. In this case it interestingly explores what it means to seem intelligent. It’s about two members of a spacefaring bird-species who tries to save the last survivors of a planetwide cataclysm.<br /><br />“Blowups Happen”: Perhaps it’s that I’ve read this story several times, but reading it now, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A__Heinlein" title="Robert A. Heinlein">Heinlein</a>’s utter genius as a science fiction writer is apparent. The story combines psychology, the process of experimentation and innovation, business, mathematics, engineering, philosophy, quite plausible (though ultimately inaccurate) extrapolation from very recent scientific discovery, and brilliant alternate explanations of known facts (a trope I’m deeply fond of) into a meaningful, suspenseful, and engrossing whole. Is there any wonder at his popularity, or why he’s one of my favorite authors? This story, for copyright reasons, is not included in the book. The book suggests reading it in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1597271.The_Past_Through_Tomorrow" title="The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein">The Past Through Tomorrow</a>, but it’s better, for this purpose, to use the original version, published in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3221023.Expanded_Universe" title="Expanded Universe by Robert A. Heinlein">Expanded Universe</a>.<br /><br />“Strange Playfellow,” by Isaac Asimov: I wasn’t looking forward to reading this story (about a little girl and her pet robot) again; I’ve read it (under the title “Robbie”) many times. But this is the original, unpolished version, and it’s interesting to see the changes he made when he republished it, and how those minor changes vastly improve the quality and tone of the story.<br /><br />“The Warrior Race,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3305.Lyon_Sprague_de_Camp" title="Lyon Sprague de Camp">L. Sprague de Camp</a>: I feel like I’ve read another story with the exact same premise: A warrior race, oppressing a conquered population, <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[becomes corrupt and decadent, and is eventually defeated <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span>, on the model of Sparta. Perhaps it was by Asimov, emulating this one. Regardless, the story is a little sparse, and says “Read your history” a bit too often. It feels more like a proof-of-concept than an actual story. A novelette or better would have been more appropriate.<br /> However, I was struck by the Aristotle quote at the end of the story: ‘Militaristic states are apt to survive only so long as they remain at war, while they go to ruin as soon as they have finished making their conquests. Peace causes their metal to decay; and the fault lies with a social system which does not teach its soldiers what to make of their lives when they off duty.’”<br /> The bit that struck me was the last clause. Do we do that even today? It seems that we don’t have a very good conception, as a society, as to what off-duty soldiers are supposed to do with themselves. Reservists do not have this problem.<br /><br />“Farewell to the Master” (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2726029.Harry_Bates" title="Harry Bates">Harry Bates</a>) is a pretty good story, about a benevolent space traveler, or time traveler, or dimensional traveler (it was never quite explained) and robot who visit Earth. I can’t talk about it without spoiling it, so read it before reading further. <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[So this is a punchline story. But I don’t get it. Why is that such an enormous surprise, and why does it matter so much? Sure, it’s surprising, but it doesn’t seem to fulfill the promise of what is otherwise a good story. Nothing’s explained. Good punchline stories make the rest of the story suddenly make sense, or make you understand it in a different light. But I don’t understand this story at all. Why were they here? Okay, Klaatu was killed, but why was it so crucial to revive him if Gnut was the master all along? The “reveal” makes the story make <em>less</em> sense, not more. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span> Oh well. It’s still a great, classic story, on which the movies <em>The Day the Earth Stood Still</em> were based.<br /><br />“Butyl and the Breather” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12531.Theodore_Sturgeon" title="Theodore Sturgeon">Theodore Sturgeon</a> is not, as the editor’s preface indicates, as good as the previous story, “Ether Breather.” But heck, that one wasn’t that good either. Like that one, this story is entertaining and has some interesting and original ideas, and that’s good enough, I guess.<br /><br />I’m not quite sure why “The Exalted,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3305.Lyon_Sprague_de_Camp" title="Lyon Sprague de Camp">L. Sprague de Camp</a> is called that, unless “exalted” is used in an unusual way. I guess it’s referring to the elevated state of the professor who takes his own smart pills, with amusing results. Nominally this story is about a bear who had been given these smart pills, but it’s really about what happens <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[when a smart person becomes super smart. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span> I find it interesting that what de Camp thinks would happen is that the person would <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[realize the futility and ridiculousness of life and focus on amusing themselves. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span> I’ve come to much the same sort of conclusion, though I’m having a devil of a time trying to actually live by it.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/952333.P__Schuyler_Miller" title="P. Schuyler Miller">P. Schuyler Miller</a>’s “Old Man Mulligan” is the final story in this collection, and a good one, about the adventures (well, one adventure) involving the titular character, who is either a thousands-of-years-old Neanderthal, or a very capable liar. It’s science fiction more by virtue of it being set on Venus than this fact, because Mulligan is not really explained, just presented. A well-done story though.
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Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-14437164923995240212016-01-21T16:28:00.001-06:002016-01-21T16:28:38.638-06:00Review: Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img src="http://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/111x148-bcc042a9c91a29c1d680899eff700a03.png" border="0" alt="Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2" /></a>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567">Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667">Isaac Asimov</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1519798613">3 of 5 stars</a>
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Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-79537054251046975802016-01-21T16:05:00.001-06:002016-01-21T16:05:52.991-06:00Review: Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1: 1939
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2178415" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1205866493m/2178415.jpg" border="0" alt="Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1: 1939" /></a>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2178415">Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1: 1939</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667">Isaac Asimov</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1519782715">3 of 5 stars</a>
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I didn’t actually read this book; I read it as part of a combined volume:<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85469.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_the_Golden_Years_of_Science_Fiction_36_Stories_and_Novellas" title="Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction 36 Stories and Novellas by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas</a>. But there wasn’t enough space in my review there for all my comments on the individual stories, so I’m posting them here. Refer to my <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1278629315">review</a> of that book for my thoughts on the book as a whole.<br /><br />Below is a short description and review/discussion of every included story, as well as some random thoughts I had while reading. This is as much for my reference as it is for the benefit of prospective readers of this book (I wish there was a Goodreads for short stories!). Spoilers are included, but are marked off with Spoiler tags. I did not include star ratings for the stories. I can, if anyone would find that helpful. <br /><br /><br />“I, Robot,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/952475.Eando_Binder" title="Eando Binder">Eando Binder</a>: Holy crap, that’s a wonderful story. No wonder Asimov was inspired by it to write “Robbie.” I can’t believe I’ve never read it before. I’m not saying it’s among the best ever, but it’s quite good: thoughtful, insightful, surprising, and with a minimum of scientific error. No, computers will not develop drives and emotions without being programmed to do so, but the story specifically claims otherwise, so fine. It’s told from the point of view of Adam Link, an intelligent, feeling robot who is considered a monster by the public. <br /><br />“The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12540.Robert_Bloch" title="Robert Bloch">Robert Bloch</a>, is about a man trapped in a spaceship traveling to Mars with a broken instrument panel and no way to communicate. It’s cute, maybe, but completely implausible, and I found it ridiculous. Asimov says that it was better than “Marooned Off Vesta.” I deeply disagree. Apparently people in the 1930’s didn’t believe in testing machines before trusting their lives to them. At least that’s what you’d glean from much science fiction from the era.<br /><br />“Trouble with Water,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/750447.H_L__Gold" title="H.L. Gold">H. L. Gold</a>: I’m not sure how this story made it into this collection. It’s pure fantasy, not science fiction, and not very good at that, especially in the actual writing. <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[It’s about a man who angers a water gnome and receives a curse that water will not touch him. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span> Even within the conceit of the story, I thought that the way it was handled was silly. <br /><br />“Cloak of Aesir” by Don A. Stewart (a.k.a. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5410853.John_W__Campbell_Jr_" title="John W. Campbell Jr.">John Campbell</a>) is surprisingly good. Surprisingly because it starts out very oddly and obtusely, with a strange and obscure writing style. And yet, if you stick with it, it begins to clarify; the obscure is made clear, the obtuse is explained, and the seemingly irrelevant becomes worthwhile. I don’t know if I would say that Campbell is a truly brilliant writer, but perhaps he could have been. “Cloak of Aesir” is at root a novella of resistance to occupation and oppression involving a Cloak with wondrous powers, but there is much more to the story than that. Asimov is right to say of Campbell, “There was no way in which we could have given up the Editor and yet now and then we mourn the Writer and what we might have had.” <br /><br />“The Day is Done,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19739.Lester_del_Rey" title="Lester del Rey">Lester del Rey</a>: What a wonderful story, about an aging Neanderthal <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[who is perhaps the last of his breed <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span>. As Greenberg’s preface says, is very hard to do good prehistoric science fiction, and del Rey does it masterfully. A wonderful illustration of the fact that science fiction doesn’t have to be space ships or laser guns; Anthropology is a science too.<br /><br />“The Ultimate Catalyst,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/233720.John_Taine" title="John Taine">John Taine</a>: This is a silly story about a biologist and his daughter who are “guests” of a trapped/exiled dictator. It’s sad that it’s silly, because the actual writing—the scripting—is pretty good. I was liking the story until I figured out what was going on. It’s like he plugged a bunch of unnecessary science into the plot, when much simpler methods would have done. I would really have much preferred a sociological story exploring why and how the world came to reject dictatorship.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3305.Lyon_Sprague_de_Camp" title="Lyon Sprague de Camp">Sprague de Camp</a>, unsurprisingly, lives up to his reputation. “The Gnarly Man,” about a Neanderthal who lived to modern times, is an excellent story. Not superb, but interesting and well worth reading.<br /><br />“Black Destroyer,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1293688.A_E__van_Vogt" title="A.E. van Vogt">A. E. van Vogt</a>: Wow what a good story, about an alien predator on a dying world. Excellent. The idea of a predator that cunning, that able…chilling. The ending isn’t top-notch, but the rest of the story is. And this was his first published story! I should read some more van Vogt. <br /><br />“Trends” is quite an insightful story from a 19-year-old Asimov. The writing quality isn’t quite up to his later work, of course, but the ideas are. A story of a spaceship launch attempt in a world consumed by religionism and anti-science fervor (which apparently was a new thing in science fiction, though Asimov eschews credit for the novelty because he got the idea from elsewhere), the phrase in the story that the title is drawn from is poignant: “Trends are things of centuries and millenniums, not years or decades. For five hundred years we have been moving toward science. You can’t reverse that in thirty years.”<br /><br />“The Blue Giraffe”: Fascinating. Surprisingly good, for a story with what seems to be a silly premise, namely the discovery of blue giraffes and other impossible creatures in an African preserve. Or perhaps not so surprisingly, given that the author is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3305.Lyon_Sprague_de_Camp" title="Lyon Sprague de Camp">L. Sprague de Camp</a>. This story is not only scientifically plausible and gripping, but has an excellent and unexpected ending. (Mind you, I foresaw the problem, but the way it was resolved surprised me.) <br />Favorite quote: “He made a resolve never to speak harshly to anybody he couldn’t see.”<br /><br />“The Misguided Halo,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/70167.Henry_Kuttner" title="Henry Kuttner">Henry Kuttner</a>: A silly and pointless fantasy about a man who is mistakenly made a saint. I don’t mind fantasy, but I don’t like pointless fantasy, and anyway this is supposed to be a science fiction collection.<br /><br />“Heavy Planet,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/776777.Milton_A__Rothman" title="Milton A. Rothman">Milton A. Rothman</a>: I don’t understand. Is this an excerpt? It’s not bad, but it feels like a chapter of a larger work. It’s a pretty good hard SF story about life on a very large planet with intense gravity, but it ends too abruptly and leaves far too many questions unanswered.<br /><br />“Life-Line,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A__Heinlein" title="Robert A. Heinlein">Robert A. Heinlein</a>: I’ve read this story several times before, although in a slightly different edit. It is, of course, pretty good. Not as good as some of Heinlein’s later stuff, but a fine first story, about a man who can predict when you’ll die through scientific means. All I’ve got to say is, in answer to the implied question at the end of the story: Hell yes I’d want to know when I’m going to die. I’m not sure that was always my answer, but it certainly is now. I’ve got plans to make.<br /> I have another comment, though, regarding this quote from Greenberg’s preface to the story: “Although [Heinlein’s] political and social views have generated much controversy in the last twenty years, his emphasis on order, individualism, and discipline aroused little comment early in his career, with America in a struggle against an illegal, disorderly, and undisciplined fascism.” I’m sorry, what? Am I missing something? How was fascism/Nazism any of those things?<br /><br />“Ether Breather” is an interesting story by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12531.Theodore_Sturgeon" title="Theodore Sturgeon">Theodore Sturgeon</a> <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[about incomprehensible beings who mess up a new kind of television broadcast <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span>. It’s a bit dissatisfying—nothing’s really explained—but a fascinating concept.<br /><br />“Pilgrimage,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/500076.Nelson_Bond" title="Nelson Bond">Nelson Bond</a>: Wonderful! An engrossing story about a matriarchal culture and a girl who wants to be a priestess, but has some surprising things to learn. Very enjoyable and well done. The only problem is the implausible breeding arrangements, but that’s a pet peeve of mine.<br /><br />“Rust,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/286314.Joseph_E__Kelleam" title="Joseph E. Kelleam">Joseph E. Kelleam</a> is a somewhat oversimplistic story. It’s a pathetic (in the literal sense) tale about killer robots who have destroyed humanity and are now dying out themselves.<br /><br />“The Four-Sided Triangle,” by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5847833.William_F__Temple" title="William F. Temple">William F. Temple</a> has promise, but that promise is not fulfilled. Three people—two men and a woman—invent a perfect duplicator. Great! But the author does not then go on to show us the possible consequences of such a device, as it is put to relatively mundane purposes. Then <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[they decide to duplicate the woman, as both of the men are in love with her. She consents to this, but as it turns out, she only loved one of them. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span> Heartbreak and tragedy ensue. But the story only skims over the interesting issues, and instead focuses on contrived dilemmas that really shouldn’t be dilemmas. It’s sad. Apparently there was a book and film based on the story, but although the premise is interesting enough, unless the ideas are greatly expanded, I don’t think I’d like to see them.<br /> However, “The Four-Sided Triangle” does semi-accurately portray the trials and frustrations involved in the scientific process, which is a surprisingly rare thing in science fiction.<br /><br />“Star Bright” starts with a fascinating premise—what if wishing on a star actually worked, at least once?—and turned it into something rather silly and disappointing, especially from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7610.Jack_Williamson" title="Jack Williamson">Jack Williamson</a>. There’s no real moral here, no upshot, no point. It’s not even really science fiction, because although the mechanism for his abilities is (somewhat) explained, how he got them is not.<br /><br />“Misfit,” about a young man who joins the “Cosmic Construction Corps” and is discovered to have extraordinary abilities, is great. Of course it is; it’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A__Heinlein" title="Robert A. Heinlein">Heinlein</a>. That doesn’t mean that Heinlein stories are axiomatically good, but he seems to grasp the concept of story, of narrative, far better than most of his compatriots. His stories have dramatic tension, they make sense, they are entertaining, and they have moral lessons buried in them. These moral lessons aren’t blatant, or preachy (the few stories where he attempts this fall flat); they’re just implied statements of value, which, whether you agree or disagree with them, enhance the enjoyability of the story as you subconsciously evaluate those moral lessons. Perhaps most importantly, the science-fictional elements of the story, while certainly present, are not the point. The point is the people, and the story. “Life-Line” was largely about the “gimmick,” the science-fictional element, and therefore was not as good as most of his later stories. Don’t get me wrong—I love stories that explore the consequences of a given development or idea. But even when Heinlein does that, he focuses on the people and the story, and drags us along in fascination.
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Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-72468055907898906672016-01-21T15:50:00.001-06:002016-01-21T15:50:41.300-06:00Review: Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85469" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1318626011m/85469.jpg" border="0" alt="Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas" /></a>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85469">Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667">Isaac Asimov</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1278629315">3 of 5 stars</a>
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This book is just what it says: an anthology of the outstanding science fiction short stories from 1939 and 1940, chosen by Martin Greenberg and Isaac Asimov. Actually that’s not quite right; it includes some fantasy stories as well, which I think is a mistake; not only is it in contradiction with the title, the fantasy stories conflict with the tone of the book. <br /><br />Regardless, there are some great stories in here. Not all are excellent, but they are still worth reading if you’re interested in the history of science fiction (in English, anyway). <br /><br />I read this as a kind of sequel to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1697266.Before_the_Golden_Age_A_Science_Fiction_Anthology_of_the_1930s" title="Before the Golden Age A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930s by Isaac Asimov">Before the Golden Age</a>, and I miss the autobiographical aspect Asimov brought to that book, with little personal vignettes before and after each story. But that stuff is covered in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/414833.The_Early_Asimov_or_Eleven_Years_of_Trying" title="The Early Asimov or Eleven Years of Trying by Isaac Asimov">The Early Asimov</a> for this period anyway, so I shouldn’t complain. Both Greenberg and Asimov preface every story (except those by Asimov, which are prefaced by Asimov alone) with interesting tidbits, and each volume (of the two included in this book) is preceded by a little historical background regarding what was going on both in and outside of the world of science fiction at the time. It’s nice to get a little of the feel of what it might have been like to read these when they were published, but I would have liked more of the same. In particular, since John Campbell was such an instrumental figure in the Golden Age—indeed <em>the</em> instrumental figure by all accounts—I would have liked more discussion of his practices and how these stories differed from those published previously. <br /><br />So if you’re interested in getting a feel for the kinds of stories that were being published in the early days of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, this is an essential read. If you only want to read the true “classics” of the era, perhaps another anthology would serve you better—there are timeless classics here, but they are interspersed among more forgettable stories. And if you’re looking for information on why the Golden Age was the Golden Age, I’d advise you look elsewhere (and if you find such a book, let me know); information on that topic is sparse in this work. <br /><br />A couple of administrative notes:<br /> First, this volume is a combination of two previous works: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2178415.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_The_Great_SF_Stories_1_1939" title="Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 1939 by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1, 1939</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_the_Great_Science_Fiction_2" title="Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2 by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2, 1940</a>. It is the first volume in its own series, <em>Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction</em>. The second book in the series is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1895588.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_the_Golden_Years_of_Science_Fiction_Second_Series" title="Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction Second Series by Isaac Asimov"> Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction, Second Series</a>, covering 1941 and 1942. I mention this because I was confused, and thought others might be as well. This book contains Volume 1 and Volume 2, and further books are labeled with “Series.” I wasn’t sure if the next book was Series Three, or what, especially when I couldn’t seem to find Series Two. But no, the next book is Series Two, and this is Series One, even though not labeled as such.<br /> Second, the Forward to the combined volume is signed “JHR.” Does anyone have an idea of who that might be? <br /><br />I was going to include a short description and review/discussion of every included story, as well as some random thoughts I had while reading, as much for my reference as it is for the benefit of prospective readers of this book (I wish there was a Goodreads for short stories!). But I ran out of space, so I posted them under the individual volumes: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2178415.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_The_Great_SF_Stories_1_1939" title="Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 1939 by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1, 1939</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120567.Isaac_Asimov_Presents_the_Great_Science_Fiction_2" title="Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction 2 by Isaac Asimov">Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2, 1940</a>.<br />
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Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-20132374044999956832013-10-21T12:47:00.000-05:002013-10-21T13:18:12.735-05:00Bathtub analogyA good way to understand inflation is through the bathtub analogy. Think of a bathtub as the economy. The size <em></em>of the bathtub is the size of the economy. The water is money. The current water level is the price level. This analogy is fairly precise, as long as you imagine that the bathtub can grow or shrink. If the bathtub gets bigger, i.e. the economy enlarges, the water level (prices) obviously will decrease. If you add more water (money), the water level will increase. If you add more water at the same rate as the bathtub gets bigger, the water level won’t change. And it doesn’t matter <em>where</em> you add the water; the overall water level will rise. However, it won’t necessarily rise all at once. If you turn on the shower and distribute the new water more-or-less evenly, the water level will rise all at once. But if you turn on the tap and put all the new water into one end of the tub, that end of the tub will rise first, and the other end of the tub will rise last. In that time, where one end of the tub has more water than the other, those at that end have an advantage: They have the new money, and can buy goods at the old prices. Near the end of the process, when everywhere but the far end of the tub has evened out, those at the far end are facing the new prices, but don’t have the new money yet, so they are at a disadvantage.<br /><br />It’s important to note that inflation will occur regardless of where or how money (water) is added. Regardless of whether the Fed prints money and hands it to the banks, or whether Congress prints money and spends it, or whether everyone owns their own printing press and prints money for themselves, the water level will rise based on <em>how much</em> water is added to the tub, not how it got there.<br /><br />Under our current system, the Fed is the faucet, and the wealthy, in particular the banks, are at the front of the tub. They receive the new money first, before the economy is able to adjust, and can buy things at artificially low prices. The poor and those living on fixed incomes or solely on interest (such as retirees) are at the back of the tub. They get the new money last, so they are facing artificially high prices.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-23678750221121331042013-09-26T13:00:00.000-05:002013-10-16T17:49:46.817-05:00OpenPGP key transition statement<span style="background-color: rgb(255,243,217);">-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br />Hash: SHA512<br /><br />- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br />Hash: RIPEMD160<br /><br />Date: October 16, 2013<br /><br />For a number of reasons[0], I’ve recently set up a new OpenPGP key, and will be transitioning away from my old one.<br /><br />The old key will continue to be valid for some time, but I prefer all future correspondence to come to the new one. I would also like this new key to be re-integrated into the web of trust. This message is signed by both keys to certify the transition.<br /><br />The old key was:<br /><br />pub 1024D/BB9EC476E934D755 1998-09-22<br />Key fingerprint = CD29 354E 5C51 E528 0E0E 19DF BB9E C476 E934 D755<br /><br />And the new key is:<br /><br />pub 4096R/BEB8C013FCC700F3 2013-10-16<br />Key fingerprint = 0AA7 230B 8C3C 2C2E 12E9 525D BEB8 C013 FCC7 00F3<br /><br />To fetch the full key from a public key server, you can simply do:<br /><br />gpg --keyserver hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-key BEB8C013FCC700F3<br /><br />or if you’re using GPGTools for Mac[1], choose “Retrieve from Keyserver…” from the Key menu in GPG Keychain Access and paste BEB8C013FCC700F3 into the “Key ID” field.<br /><br />If you already know my old key, you can now verify that the new key is signed by the old one:<br /><br />gpg --check-sigs BEB8C013FCC700F3<br /><br />or with GPGTools, choose “Show Info” from the Key menu in GPG Keychain Access when the key is selected, choose the “User IDs” tab, and review the Signatures field.<br /><br />If you don't already know my old key, or you just want to be double extra paranoid, you can check the fingerprint against the one above:<br /><br />gpg --fingerprint BEB8C013FCC700F3<br /><br />or view the fingerprint in the Key tab of the Key Inspector in GPG Keychain Access.<br /><br />If you are satisfied that you've got the right key, and the UIDs match what you expect, I'd appreciate it if you would sign my key. You can do that by issuing the following command:<br /><br />**<br />NOTE: if you have previously signed my key but did a local-only signature (lsign), you will not want to issue the following, instead you will want to use --lsign-key, and not send the signatures to the keyserver<br />**<br /><br />gpg --sign-key BEB8C013FCC700F3<br /><br />or choose “Sign…” from the Key menu in GPG Keychain Access while my new key is selected.<br /><br />I'd like to receive your signatures on my key. Once you’ve signed it, please upload the signed key to a public key server:<br /><br />gpg --keyserver hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net --send-key <my email address> [sorry, I don’t post my email online to avoid spam]<br /><br />or choose “send public key to Keyserver” in the Key menu of GPG Keychain Access when my key is selected after you’ve signed it.<br /><br /><br />Additionally, I highly recommend that you implement a mechanism to keep your key material up-to-date so that you obtain the latest revocations and other updates in a timely manner. You can do regular key updates by using parcimonie[2] to refresh your keyring. Parcimonie is a daemon that slowly refreshes your keyring from a keyserver over Tor. It uses a randomized sleep, and fresh tor circuits for each key. The purpose is to make it hard for an attacker to correlate the key updates with your keyring.<br /><br /><br />I also highly recommend checking out the excellent Riseup GPG best practices doc, from which I stole most of the text for this transition message ;-)<br /><br />https://we.riseup.net/riseuplabs+paow/openpgp-best-practices<br /><br />Please let me know if you have any questions, or problems, and sorry for any inconvenience.<br /><br />Jim Syler<br /><br />0. https://www.debian-administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/48<br />1. https://gpgtools.org/<br />2. https://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/intrigeri/code/parcimonie/<br />- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----<br />Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org<br /><br />iEYEAREDAAYFAlJfF5AACgkQu57Eduk011W5GwCbBKey8PSFuuNf0IkfZ+J+cPFH<br />8iUAoOOXH6aPtqoxkwXpDipA88n0C9Ck<br />=7aSL<br />- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----<br />-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----<br />Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org<br /><br />iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJSXxfSAAoJEGETEFCb6rLz5aIP/inydzeTZSaTnHpx1v8489QY<br />yxVDxg6DdPZ33HqFsGR5GScV5oop3b/bUCEsTbK81CS0HnJshli7WUD+p2xC22a7<br />YkM9LBqsHua0xSb0YSTFrye/saqAOySXw3Ww48O73Xoc0/S+CHQLNrzaZ2F+T6bi<br />sW787OelaPjag1jKClEQIlEIuntQtNTPjiznfPt/z599uzE1oAo7BrpV7CAKdpJW<br />vMhAv7bQXWN8U45iV9nD2JgCha4x6aOZtcsvztgum5zhYdzKDxW0y585j02YPOaq<br />aaFU4vNM50zibo2svvVksguQ/lXAe9GAy4RCb1/RQkWDpQo/+vyJ1CnrBwVqnAr0<br />oyeNhow5NGdgBDhIp6nQc+vm0YrBxHlAbvgc0HCrXJatO94eSNQeCnGcu12ca+kT<br />P3hneNMr9Gc1jilo5GdM3znA86SVJchW3OB+4bOa8+0DAUQ+s35cn4CcwVX5Wqqv<br />LcviLrzzgDVfg3Ixrr9+Z3ZiPwBZo+CpQVfgwgLR/Hx+7aF6ITiZXnYi/85LibIH<br />TxpG0XQXJ+gVfDm6G0TeuNrNBwv6x9m7x2ed1HOLNej0nLDjVdo765/fLjnzB5sm<br />DoXjVuqWNciWAI73ZPL69E8vzsH8xJIkGHHD4/U1pJ8vNennJ5xjLU2ODby7gVZx<br />vEQNld5Td1InA6Lne+7A<br />=FOPC<br />-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----<br /></span>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-64520947094000950532008-07-24T12:17:00.001-05:002013-08-02T17:23:32.570-05:00TSA<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080724093013/http://cbs2chicago.com/investigations/xrated.security.screenings.2.777423.html">And people wonder why I won't fly anymore.</a>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-20069648415677875782008-01-17T01:52:00.000-06:002013-06-18T15:07:05.911-05:00Updates<ul style="list-style-type: disc"><br /><li>I’ve revamped how Labels work on <a href="http://journal.blog.syleria.net">Journal Entries</a>; they were getting out of hand. Now there are just a few Categories; every post will have one (and, hopefully, only one) of these. Beneath the Categories in the sidebar of Journal Entries (not Current Thoughts, where this is posted; Categories have yet to get out of hand here) are various Labels; a post may have none, one, or more than one of these. Note that as I’m using Blogger’s Labels for both my Categories and Labels, they will be mixed up together at the bottom of individual posts, in alphabetical order. But the Categories links are useful for making sure you see all the posts in Journal Entries, anyway, without having to navigate through the somewhat cumbersome Archives links, as <em>all</em> posts with a given Category, regardless of date, will show up when you click on that Category’s link either in the sidebar or at the bottom of a post, and all posts have a Category.</li><br /><li>Book Notes with multiple entries for one book also are Labeled with the book title to make it easier to see all the posts on that book at once; these book-title Labels do not appear in the sidebar, so they are only found on the relevant posts. I will also include an author label when I post about multiple books from one author.</li><br /><li>I’ve also changed the links for all the little book graphics (and most other book links) to <a href="http://books.google.com">Google Books</a> rather than <a href="http://amazon.com/books/">Amazon.com</a>. Google Books has lots of neat features, including internal previews of many books, and a link to reserve a copy at your local library. If you’re having trouble understanding a Book Note and want to see if you can find the context, Google Books might help. If not, there’s an Amazon link on every page; they often have previews too.</li><br /><li>On another note, because of the way I’ve structured this blog, it’s quite likely that entries in the <a href="http://blog.syleria.net">compendium</a> are outdated and have been updated and improved in their Department blog. Click on the link at the bottom of each post in the compendium to see the latest and greatest version of that post.</li><br /><li>Although I’m not entirely sure why I’m going to all this work; I seem to currently have a grand total of <em>one</em> verified <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=743659&loc=en_US">email subscription</a> (the widget in the sidebar in the compendium says two, but one of them is me) to this blog. Is no one reading this? Or are they just not using the email subscription feature? I do hope <em>somebody’s</em> reading this, or else I’m doing a whole lot of work for nothing; I looked yesterday and noticed that, even with all of the journal entries I’ve posted, I’ve only gotten through something like a fifth of my first journal so far, so there’s lots more coming…</li><br /><li>That reminds me: since entries in Journal Entries are posted by their original creation date (years ago in most cases), it is likely that newly posted entries will not appear at the top of the blog. This means that if you’re watching <a href="http://journal.blog.syleria.net">Journal Entries</a> to see if there are new posts, you’re going to miss them. Either <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=calion/journal&loc=en_US">subscribe to Journal Entries via email</a> or subscribe to or watch the <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/calion/main">compendium</a>, or you’re going to miss the new journal entries. Yeah, it sucks, but I can’t think of a better way; I’ll be posting stuff from several journals written at different times, and I think it’s worthwhile to keep the entries in chronological order.</li></ul>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-52083774805860544282008-01-11T10:51:00.000-06:002013-06-19T10:34:37.548-05:00Third Thing3. I remember! The third thing is that along with how the blog is now separated into two departments instead of five, I changed the method that the blog entries are reposted onto the <a href="http://blog.syleria.net/">compendium</a>. Instead of having an email client always running that re-sends the posts to Blogger (as described in <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net/2005/01/me-blogging.html">Me? Blogging?</a>), I’ve had to change things around a bit. With the transition to New Blogger that allowed me to consolidate the blogs, something broke with how Blogger parses special characters. My department blogs have an em dash in their names<strong>—</strong>that thing. The problem is, you can’t find an em dash on a keyboard; it’s a special, high-<a href="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/ASCII.html">ASCII</a> character like • or æ or . Unlike the lower-128 characters (everything you actually see on a keyboard: letters, numbers, normal special characters like $%&@), there’s no standard ASCII code for the upper-128 characters, which, on the Mac, includes the em dash (option-shift-hyphen), but on other systems may not. So <a href="http://www.w3.org/">HTML</a> threw its hands up and instituted what’s called HTML Entities instead, where special characters are represented by codes like &mdash; and &bull; (which result in — and •, respectively). The problem in this case was that Blogger started escaping these codes, so the department links at the bottom of the posts on the main page started looking funky. Instead of sending "Genius/Idiot&mash;Current Thoughts" (embedded in a link, of course), it sent "Genius/Idiot&amp;&mash;Current Thoughts" which resulted, instead of <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net/">Genius/Idiot—Current Thoughts</a>, in <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net/">Genius/Idiot&mdash;Current Thoughts</a>. <strong>Not</strong> what I wanted. <br />
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Of course, the easy thing to do here would just be to give up and change the department blog names, to something like Current Thoughts or Genius/Idiot--Current Thoughts. But I’m not well known for doing the easy thing; I wanted it pretty. Instead, I spent many long days over a period of several months—most of last year, really—learning enough UNIX to do this by hand on my own computer (the Mac is now based on a <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html">UNIX operating system</a>, in case you didn’t know). In the end, I had to go to an incredible rigamarole in order to save my silly em dash. Here’s the new setup (this replaces step 6 in <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net/2005/01/me-blogging.html">Me? Blogging?</a>):<br />
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6. Blogger emails the post to an email account I have set up on my own computer (I have a static domain name provided by <a href="http://staticcling.org/">staticcling.org</a>). It comes in, is handed off to <a href="http://www.procmail.org/">Procmail</a> for processing, which hands it off to formail to modify the header so that Blogger would take it back (took forever to figure that bit out), then hands it off again to sed for lots of reasonably complicated text processing, to make it look like it <em>used</em> to look before Blogger broke it (Blogger had changed some style stuff as well). Procmail then sends it to <a href="http://www.postfix.org/">Postfix</a>, a UNIX mail server, which shoots it back off to Blogger. <br />
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This was at least as hard as it sounds to figure out how to do. I could never have done it without the <a href="http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/procmail/qs/">Procmail Quick Start</a> and a nifty program called <a href="http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/PostfixEnabler/">Postfix Enabler</a>. I’m cheap; I fought with .conf files and a bunch of stuff I don’t even remember anymore (God help me when I need to change computers; I have no idea how I did all this) for days before I finally gave up and paid the $10 for Postfix Enabler (a Mac front-end for Postfix). I was a fool. What I failed to do in two or three days, Postfix Enabler did in two or three clicks. I love the Mac <span style="font-size: 20pt;">☺</span>. Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-75538738898623821152008-01-10T18:55:00.000-06:002013-06-18T13:41:33.351-05:00Three things<ol style="list-style-type: decimal"><br /><li>I’ve redated all the posts on the <a href="http://blog.syleria.net">main page</a> to match when they were originally posted. Some were out of order because I had posted some new items before I reposted old items.</li><br /><li>The email subscribe link on <a href="http://journal.blog.syleria.net">Journal Entries</a> was broken; it wrongly subscribed to <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net">Current Thoughts</a> instead. Fixed.</li><br /><li>Er…I forget what the third thing was. Except…don’t forget to <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=743659&loc=en_US">subscribe</a>! Oh, and if you’re a close friend, don’t forget to log into and friend me at <a href="http://calion.livejournal.com/">LiveJournal</a>; stuff too personal to go here is likely to go there.</li></ol>Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-87423522372416060882008-01-04T23:21:00.000-06:002013-06-18T13:38:06.643-05:00Blog is back<strong>(updated below)</strong><br /><br />The refurbishing of Genius/Idiot is complete, and I hope to resume posting on a semi-regular basis. As mentioned previously, there are two Department pages, <a href="http://thoughts.syleria.net">Current Thoughts</a> and <a href="http://journal.syleria.net">Journal Entries</a>. All posts from these two pages are amalgamated onto the main Genius/Idiot page. Each of the three blog pages has a Subscription link on it that works for that blog only, so if you only wish to be updated about current writings, only subscribe to Current Thoughts, if you only wish to see updates on my old journal entries, subscribe to Journal Entries, and if you want both, just subscribe to the main Genius/Idiot page.<br /><br />I’ve re-enabled Anonymous commenting, but please don’t comment without at least leaving a nickname and URL or email address, or something to indicate who you are; I hate guessing. Plus, if you log in, you can subscribe to further comments on that post, which is pretty cool.<br /><br />The main Genius/Idiot page has some older entries that people who have followed in this blog in the past may have seen before on top; I’ll move them down to their proper place before long, but people who have only looked at my blog in the last few months and not before haven’t seen these posts before. Some posts that should be new to everybody are at the top of <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net">Current Thoughts</a>.<br /><br />If you’ve never visited my blog before, I’d appreciate if you took a look and see what you think. Please leave comments on any posts you find interesting.<br /><br />Thanks!<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update: June 18, 2013<br /><br /></strong>I’ve disabled Anonymous commenting due to some spam comments, but OpenID commenting is still available.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-80136900766318141492008-01-03T18:58:00.000-06:002013-06-18T11:51:13.903-05:00Changing Blogs<strong>(updated below)</strong><br /><br />If you have been paying attention to Genius/Idiot for the last few months, you know I’ve been rearranging my blogs. Instead of the old separate-blogs-as-categories scheme that I was using (<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/philosophy">Philosophy</a>, <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/booknotes">Book Notes</a>, <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/random">Random Thoughts</a>, <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/liberty">Liberty</a>, and <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/technology">Technology</a> [<em>dead links</em>]), thanks to Blogger’s new Labeling feature, I have consolidated these five blogs into two, <a href="http://journal.blog.syleria.net">Journal Entries</a> and <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net">Current Thoughts</a>, with Labels (listed in the sidebar) serving as categories within each blog. Of course, all posts from these two new blogs are still aggregated at the main <a href="http://blog.syleria.net">Genius/Idiot</a> page.<br /><br />I’m in the process of migrating posts from the old blogs to the new, and then the comments. I’ll probably leave the old blogs up indefinitely, in order to be a good <a href="http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI">netizen</a>, but they’re dead and will stay dead (except that I suppose I’ll repost this on each of them, but at some point commenting will be disabled).<br /><br />One other thing: The header says “<span style="color: rgb(41,48,59);"><em>Posts from all my blogs are aggregated in the </em></span><a href="http://blog.syleria.net">compendium</a><span style="color: rgb(41,48,59);"><em>.”</em></span> But that’s not quite true; only posts from Genius/Idiot blogs are actually aggregated, as well as my posts from <a href="http://www.landolinkin.us/carbondale/bytelife/labels/Calion.html">Carbondale Bytelife</a> [<em>dead link</em>]. There is a passel of other blogs listed under “Other blogs” in the sidebar to the left that are <em>not</em> aggregated here. My question is, should they be? Should the main Genius/Idiot page show posts from <em>all</em> my blogs, instead of just the two Genius/Idiot blogs? I’ve had one “no” vote; what does everyone else think? And don’t shy away from answering just because you find this some time after it’s posted; I’m still interested in your opinion.<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update: June 18, 2013<br /><br /></strong>Well, though I left the old blogs up as long as possible, time still killed them with the <a href="http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_posts_mobileme_to_icloud_transition_faq">demise of MobileMe</a>. <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/journal/">Journal Entries</a> [<em>dead link</em>] and <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/thoughts/">Current Thoughts</a> [<em>dead link</em>] still exist, though moved to the URLs linked to above. The old “category” blogs exist on <a href="http://archive.org">The Internet Archive</a>, but they’re kind of broken there, so I’ve just left the old (dead) links intact above. Since the entire <a href="http://blog.syleria.net">blog</a> has been moved to my own <a href="http://syleria.net">custom domain</a>, it should in principle never break again, as long as I’m alive, anyway.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-74975628166640089812008-01-03T14:12:00.010-06:002013-06-19T12:35:03.751-05:00Iowa CaucusWell, tonight is the big night. Tonight we find out whether Ron Paul’s support is as wide as it is deep, or if we’ve been fooling ourselves.<br />
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Don’t get me wrong—this isn’t ‘win or die’ here. But if Paul does no better than his polls would indicate (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080827182728/http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/polls/pdfs/desmoinesregister-iowa-caucus-polls-dec3107.pdf">9%</a>), then we, the members of the Ron Paul R3VOLution, have been kidding ourselves with our belief that Paul’s support is better measured by the number of straw polls he’s won (<a href="http://usastrawpolls.com/">25</a>, more than any other Republican candidate this cycle) or the amount of money he’s raised (nearly <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080102204018/http://www.ronpaul2008.com/press-releases/101/ron-paul-supporters-donate-nearly-20-million-in-fourth-quarter/">$20 Million</a> last quarter, likely more than any other Republican), or the number of online polls he’s won (countless, but the current <a href="http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/21/straw-poll-dec-21-jan-4/">AOL Straw Poll</a> [<em>dead link</em>] is probably the most interesting), or the number of MeetUp groups he has (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080108133110/http://www.meetup.com/topics/polact/cand/pres/">1,442</a>, with a stunning <em>90,000</em> members, more than <em>any</em> other candidate, Republican or Democrat) than by the actual polling data, which, many contend, are biased against Paul because a) many Paul supporters are more technically savvy than most and are therefore more likely to use cell phones, which often aren’t called in traditional polls, and b) pollsters contact “likely Republican voters,” which excludes many Paul supporters who haven’t voted, or haven’t voted Republican, in the past.<br />
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It’s hard to know how accurate these charges are, and therefore how likely traditional polls are to be inaccurate. I have had very little luck in discovering the actual methodology used by these polls. Only once or twice have I seen a poll say what its criteria for “likely Republican voters” is, but at least once the method was to ask the respondent if they intended to vote in the primary/caucus, and if so, for which party. I have also seen polls that specifically <em>said</em> that they included cell phones in their calls. Given all this, it’s really hard to know whether these criticisms of traditional polls hold water. It seems likely that they hold to some degree, but given that professional polling organizations stake their reputations on getting it right, one would think that at least <em>some</em> polls would indicate Paul’s true level of support, and he’s yet to get more than 10% in any traditional national or state poll that I’ve seen. And there <em>is</em> one online poll that he’s losing: the <a href="http://usabuttonpoll.com/">USA Button Poll</a>. This one is interesting in that you actually have to spend some money and buy a button in order to be counted. It’s easy to vote in an online poll. It can also be fairly simple to vote multiple times from multiple email addresses, or whatever. But when you actually charge money in order to vote, it infuses a level of honesty that might not be there otherwise, especially when it’s something stupid like a button poll that no one in their right mind would waste enough money to rig.<br />
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On the other hand, there are some indications that Paul will do better than expected tonight. First there are the aforementioned flaws in the traditional polls, which even <a href="http://www.zogbyanalytics.com/john-zogby">Zogby himself</a> seems to <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080216204043/http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Zogby:_Ron_Paul_Will_Surp/2007/12/21/59011.html">admit</a> might cause Paul to do noticeably better than expected. Second, there can be no denying that Paul’s supporters are passionate and dedicated. This means that any given Paul supporter is probably more likely to take the time and effort to caucus than supporters of other candidates. Third, Dr. Paul really does have a lot have a lot of money in the bank, and he’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080323171305/http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/01/ron_paul_and_mike_huckabee_on.html">spending</a> <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/02/opinion/main3666726.shtml">it</a> in Iowa to establish an organization that will get out the vote. Fourth, there is still a significant chunk of undecided and unsure voters in Iowa, and caucuses give little speeches before voting. Given that the rhetoric of the Paul campaign is appealing to many people and that Paul supporters are generally going to be less likely to change their votes at the last minute, if Paul supporters comport themselves in a calm, respectful, non-wacko manner, Paul seems likely to pick up last minute votes that polls could not detect.<br />
<br />
So we’ll see tonight. If Dr. Paul does badly, does that mean I’m going to give up on him? No. Regardless of what happens, Ron Paul has made a difference that will last for years in the future, and I intend to be a part of that, even after this Presidential race is over. In fact, I’ve already been named a Precinct Captain, so I’ll be helping out until the Illinois Primary, at least.<br />
<br />
So: My predictions. It looks likely that Huckabee will place first, followed fairly closely by Romney, but it could easily go the other way. Paul has a strong chance of placing third; that’s what I’m fervently hoping for. If not third, then a strong fourth after McCain. If Paul doesn’t finish ahead of both Thompson and Giuliani, neither of whom have actively campaigned in Iowa, it bodes ill for Paul’s eventual nomination. On the other hand, if Paul finishes a solid third in Iowa, then goes on to place first or second in New Hampshire, he will have shown himself to be a serious contender with a real shot at the nomination.<br />
<hr />
<br />
<strong>Update: June 18, 2013</strong>So how did it turn out? Were my predictions correct? Here are the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Iowa,_2008#Results_2">results</a>:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; empty-cells: show;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>Candidate</strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>Votes</strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>Percentage</strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>Delegates</strong></span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Huckabee_presidential_campaign,_2008">Mike Huckabee</a></strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>40,954</strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>34.36%</strong></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><strong>17</strong></span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2008">Mitt Romney</a></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">30,021</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">25.19%</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">12</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Thompson_presidential_campaign,_2008">Fred Thompson</a></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">15,960</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">13.39%</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">0</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain_presidential_campaign,_2008">John McCain</a></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">15,536</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">13.03%</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">3</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul_presidential_campaign,_2008">Ron Paul</a></span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">11,841</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">9.93%</span></td><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">2</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Paul’s fifth-place showing, with no higher vote percentage than predicted by the polls, was disappointing. It’s interesting, though, to see how little you could have told about the final outcome from this: Thompson, as Zogby predicted, didn’t last long after this (though that was certainly not <em>my</em> prediction), and McCain was, of course, the ultimate winner of the Republican primary process.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-90743905123068061772007-12-16T15:25:00.000-06:002008-01-04T00:24:13.870-06:00Tea Party '07<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>On December 16, 1773, American colonists, disguised as Indians, snuck aboard a British merchant ship and dumped tons of tea into Boston Harbor, and act of protest against British tyranny that rallied the colonists and helped spark the American Revolution.<br /><br />Today, the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, believers in liberty nationwide are rallying behind Presidential candidate Ron Paul, the only candidate who supports the Founders' view of a nation conceived in liberty, bound by its Constitution, and free from government oppression. Today, December 16th, donations are pouring into the coffers of this freedom fighter, as supporters hope to ignite a second, peaceful Revolution, to restore this country to its proper track.<br /><br />As of this writing (4 p.m. Eastern time), more than $3.5 Million has been donated at <<a href='http://ronpaul2008.com/donate'>http://ronpaul2008.com/donate</a>> today. We are hoping to exceed the one-day record of $4.3 Million. Please donate as much as you can possibly afford, and forward this message to every person and mailing list you know.<br /><br />WHO IS RON PAUL?<br /><br />Ron Paul is a 10-term Republican Congressman from Texas.<br /><span style='font-size: 14pt;'>He has never voted to raise taxes.<br />He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.<br />He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.<br />He has never voted to raise congressional pay.<br />He has never taken a government-paid junket.<br />He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.<br /><br />He voted against the Patriot Act.<br />He voted against regulating the Internet.<br />He voted against the Iraq war.<br /><br />He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.<br />He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.<br /><br />Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.</span><br /><br />A medical doctor who has delivered over 4,000 babies, he is known as "Dr. No" on Capitol Hill because he votes against any legislation that violates the Constitution.<br /><br />Dr. Paul is that rarest of all rarities: an honest politician.<br /><br />Congressman Paul is the only major-party Presidential candidate who believes in the Founders' ideal of peace, free trade, and limited government. He deserves your support, and now is the time to give it. <<a href='http://ronpaul08.com/donate'>http://ronpaul08.com/donate</a>> (purchases from <<a href='http://www.ronpaul2008store.com/'>http://www.ronpaul2008store.com/</a>> also count)<br /><br />View the current fundraising totals at <<a href='http://ronpaul08.com'>http://ronpaul08.com</a>> and <<a href='http://www.ronpaulgraphs.com/dec_16_extended_total.html'>http://www.ronpaulgraphs.com/dec_16_extended_total.html</a>>.<br /><br />Also, once you've donated all you can, there is one more thing you can do: Visit two houses of people you don't know and hand out literature. See <<a href='http://www.infiniteronpaul.com/?page=Tea'>http://www.infiniteronpaul.com/?page=Tea</a>> for details. And don't forget to visit <<a href='http://www.ronpaul2008.com/states/'>http://www.ronpaul2008.com/states/</a>> to do what you can for Congressman Paul in your state.<br /><br />Please do all you can to restore liberty and the rule of law to America! Support Ron Paul for President!<br /><br />-- <br />“I am for preserving to the states the powers not yielded by them to the union; and for preventing the further encroachment of the executive branch on the rightful powers of congress. I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, and for retiring the national debt, eliminating the standing army, and relying on the militia to safeguard internal security, and keeping the navy small, lest it drag the nation into eternal wars. I am for free commerce with all nations, political connections with none…. I am for freedom of religion, and for freedom of the press. And against all violations to the Constitution to silence our citizens” - Thomas Jefferson on his positions for the 1800 election.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-30730381962017975412007-12-03T16:53:00.000-06:002013-06-17T23:48:40.125-05:00Security for Prosperity and Peace<strong>(updated below)<br /><br /></strong>In his <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d90_1196674498">interview with Wolf Blitzer</a> on December 2nd, <a href="http://ronpaul2008.com">Ron Paul</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080204233912/http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/12/ron_paul_isolationism_isnt_wha.html">mentioned</a> a website he called “Security for Prosperity and Peace” in connection with his contention, stated in the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGd7ehFpCz0">November 28th CNN/YouTube Republican Debate</a>, that we were moving toward a NAFTA highway. A cursory Google search on the phrase yielded no relevant results. A little creative searching yielded the government website he was actually referring to: the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071130022349/http://www.spp.gov/">Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America</a>. Paul claims that the highway is mentioned on that site. Well, it is: in the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071113211248/http://www.spp.gov/myths_vs_facts.asp">Myths vs. Facts</a> section comes this interestingly vague disclaimer: <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(68,68,68);"><strong>Myth: </strong>The U.S. Government, working though the SPP, has a secret plan to build a "NAFTA Super Highway."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(68,68,68);"><strong>Fact: </strong>The U.S. government is not planning a NAFTA Super Highway. The U.S. government does not have the authority to designate any highway as a NAFTA Super Highway, nor has it sought such authority, nor is it planning to seek such authority. There are private and state level interests planning highway projects which they themselves describe as "NAFTA Corridors," but these are not Federally-driven initiatives, and they are not a part of the SPP.</span><br /></blockquote><br />Note that what they actually deny is that any highway is actually (or will be) <em>designated</em> a “NAFTA Super Highway.” Does that mean that the rumors are false? Well, let’s dig a little deeper into the site, and we find the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070704125443/http://www.spp.gov/report_to_leaders/prosperity_annex.pdf?dName=report_to_leaders">Report to Leaders</a>. On page 24 of this PDF document we find a slide labeled “<strong>Signature Initiative: Safer, Faster and More Efficient Border Crossings</strong>,” which is what I presume Paul was referring to. On this slide, under “Key Milestones,” is listed<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Initiate new studies on the main NAFTA corridors between Mexico and the U.S. and develop a methodology to relieve bottlenecks within the highway network and at ports of entry by mid-2006 (9 months).”</span><br /></blockquote><br />Now I’ll be honest: This isn’t an issue that I care deeply about. I believe Paul is taking the wrong tack on immigration; instead of being paranoid about securing our borders against peaceful immigrants (emphasis on <em>peaceful</em>), I believe we should focus on eliminating the government benefits that induce them to come here and drain our tax dollars away. Frankly I believe we should eliminate most of these government-aid type benefits for everybody, but particularly for non-citizens. Then peaceful immigrants would only come here looking for work, which only benefits our economy.<br /><br /><em>But</em>:<br />Looking at this site, can we really say that, while obviously not one single mammoth government project, the spectre of a “NAFTA highway” speeding people and cargo from Mexico to Canada and points in between is “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-highway30nov30,1,4646522.story?coll=la-news-politics-national">illusory</a>”?<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update</strong><br /><br />Of course it’s a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/73372">myth</a>. The <a href="http://transportation.alberta.ca/2760.htm">Canadian government</a> says so. Oh, wait…<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLdfIWb6rqLFJurl4NIR1h6hmWNibOFdXbaKDowNugK1T98XuBwuMai9O-mdcSruTt5rCDe-7uBwr6DR99FftMsxHgkAlQdoa-PYF2TUlU3UpFuuih3EvOEuzEK6F-mn03HNwcFTINjg/" alt="PastedGraphic1-2007-12-3-16-53.png" width="300" height="320"><br />Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-1340769507837007882007-06-04T10:57:00.001-05:002013-08-02T15:39:03.872-05:00xkcdOkay, <a href="http://xkcd.com">xkcd</a> is an awesome webcomic about, as it says, “romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” Actually, science should be thrown in there somewhere too. But the “<a href="http://xkcd.com/c271.html">Powers of One</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/40bb4ecc-6178-4e61-8a64-fe02190d9007/9636ee6ad827871ae59dd30cf7417296"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xhyW-yF0e7osoG_tlMSyoCC0R0JYHKTy4k_GvyA5hntv0Zyp-j7vM5t4WHGOToIizlzBx1Drkd0hW-u9ZsZeXdv2I1qXck2JnVssgLkCNWNaEqimmuoP9wpOG76xeUz_f5HSEtqgiA/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-06-4-10-57.png" width="12" height="12"></a>” strip is particularly awesome. As with several webcomics, there’s a little additional joke in the tooltip (mouseover) text, and in this case, it’s cooler than the actual strip. See the strip to understand what’s going on, but I’m adopting the tooltip joke as a new quote: “It’s kinda Zen when you think about it, if you don’t think too hard.”<br /><br />That <em>so</em> sums up much of Zen-type stuff for me. That’s how I believe a lot of Zenlike stuff (I’m not really dissing Zen itself here; Zen philosophy is too complex for the kind of light treatment I’m giving here. So let’s say this applies to <em>some</em> actual Zen stuff and a lot of pop Zen, or Zen-like, stuff) is. It sounds all cool and spooky and paradoxical until you actually examine it closely enough to understand it. For instance, I got an email from a friend today that said, “My father's mother once said ‘I'm not a feminist. I'm not particularly feminine’ and she was both right and wrong.” Now, I’m not poking fun at the author of this email; she knew exactly what she meant, and so did I. But this is the <em>sort</em> of quote that could be interpreted all Zen-ly: oooh, something’s both right and wrong at the same time, there’s no absolute truth, we’ve just got to go with the flow and take a lot of drugs (or meditation, or whatever) so we can try to grasp, non-intellectually, the ultimate, seemingly contradictory Truths of the Universe.<br /><br />Poppycock. For someone with an intellectual, scientific mindset, this is a simple problem (and I realize I didn’t choose a particularly difficult example; if someone has a better one on tap, I’d gladly use it). Either this was intended to mean “she was both right and wrong at the same time and in the same way,” in which case it’s utterly contradictory, therefore it was nonsensical, therefore there was no meaning in the statement whatsoever; or it meant “she was right in at least one way and wrong in at least one other way,” in which case it makes perfect sense, but isn’t creepy or mystical or contradictory in any way, it’s just couched in a shorter, more-interesting-sounding way (this is precisely how it was intended to be understood in this case, by the way).<br /><br />Again, I realize I used a simple, almost straw-man example, but I really view a <em>lot</em> (if not all) of the seemingly-contradictory, mystical statements of the Zen-loving crowd this way: either they’re actual contradictions, in which case they’re both meaningless and utterly useless, or they’re not, and a little analysis will uncover what’s actually going on, thus removing the spooky mysticism from the situation. Yes, sure, this removes a little of the mystery from the Universe, but isn’t the point of mysteries that it’s fun to try to solve them? There’s plenty more mysteries in the Universe to uncover, and meanwhile, you’ve increased your understanding of the world, which in my mind is more important than maintaining unnecessary mysteries.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-42687233229514659822007-05-15T21:26:00.002-05:002013-08-02T15:30:07.350-05:00South Carolina Republican Debate<strong>(updated below – Update II – Update III – Update IV)</strong><br /><br />Did I hear this correctly? Mayor Giuliani has proposed not just a national ID card, but a mandatory nationwide database of <em>everyone</em> in the country at all times? Do we have <strong>any idea</strong> what this means? <em>Universal person registration?????? </em><br /><br />And Mitt Romney came straight out and said that we should “double Guantanamo.” Well, Mitt, that’s a little difficult unless we go to war with Cuba. Why don’t we do the easy thing and just establish concentration camps around the U.S.?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ronpaul2008.com">Ron Paul</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070510164707/http://www.ronpaul2008.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaR969h2n5EOjDy98cKM4ZoNZLVKAZIdzHiAdVvHeGVZNHhrqNlXL4r0PYcecVsE-EbLsbGUoF53C8Vk97BKJFS28nZZsRV-l0j9CjmLBrrIviWGuUpX11IbjgleDPQcY-UWi44LWzw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="10" height="10"></a> did splendidly. He mildly stumbled once or twice; when he was asked if he would actually get rid of the Department of Homeland Security in a time of war, I think he should have said, “Absolutely. We already <em>had</em> a Department of Homeland Security: it’s called the Department of Defense.” He actually had a better quote on his <a href="http://paul.house.gov">website</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/5fa86636-14ad-41c9-8d6f-511b6892048e/ab5decd39403ac604e187460824a9169"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> than the one he used: “Only in Washington would anyone call the creation of an additional layer of bureaucracy on top of already bloated bureaucracies ‘streamlining.’” He also seemed a bit nervous at first, stumbling over words and fiddling with his pen.<br /><br />But at moments he was brilliant. The fight between him and Guliani was awesome. I loved Guliani’s quip, that he’d never heard that theory (that Al Quaeda attacked us because of our wars and intervention in the Middle East) before. That’s wonderful, since, as Paul said, <em><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html">that’s the reason that Bin Laden himself gave</a> </em><a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/eb95ca7a-4203-4e90-89ac-13cac6bd6da5/08cd2d30faab5573860d42441e3faf46"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a>. The pundits are saying that it was a boost for Guliani and that Paul is done. I think quite the opposite. <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120219.html">Guliani</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/1f7d84d1-3ee6-4037-8c9d-31e4048b5555/ceb50852e34cca4a1c635125a228199e"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> and McCain are spouting the standard Bush line that they hate us because we’re rich and free. That plays well for the hardcore, Fox News-watching base of the Republican Party, but for anyone with any brains, they’ve been asking <em>that exact question</em> for six years now: <em>Why did they attack us</em>? The Bush answer doesn’t compute. Paul gave them the answer tonight. Expect this to work in Paul’s favor far more than the pundits have any idea.<br /><br />There was one more great Paul moment, but I don’t remember what it was right now. I’ll repost when I figure it out.<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update</strong><br /><br /><strong>Ron Paul </strong>is #1, with <em><strong>30%</strong></em>, in the Fox News debate poll! The guy who announced that said that perhaps Paul has a better organization to coordinate his supporters texting. I don’t think so. It’s not so much a matter of coordination or organization. I mean, the email we got today was an appeal for money; it didn’t even mention the debate. His <a href="http://ronpaul2008.typepad.com/ron_paul_2008/2007/05/your_help_reque.html">blog post</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/fd464516-e4f8-4aa9-b115-1b6ad406859a/c11978d47af50340a221c9a54ca126dd"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> for today gave the number and message to text, but that’s about it. The rest of it is just grassroots. There are <a href="http://ronpaulrevolution.com">several</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070812110927/http://www.rescue-us.org/new/RPR"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaR969h2n5EOjDy98cKM4ZoNZLVKAZIdzHiAdVvHeGVZNHhrqNlXL4r0PYcecVsE-EbLsbGUoF53C8Vk97BKJFS28nZZsRV-l0j9CjmLBrrIviWGuUpX11IbjgleDPQcY-UWi44LWzw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="10" height="10"></a> <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/">websites</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070509040017/http://dailypaul.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaR969h2n5EOjDy98cKM4ZoNZLVKAZIdzHiAdVvHeGVZNHhrqNlXL4r0PYcecVsE-EbLsbGUoF53C8Vk97BKJFS28nZZsRV-l0j9CjmLBrrIviWGuUpX11IbjgleDPQcY-UWi44LWzw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="10" height="10"></a> not formally associated with the Paul campaign that have sprung up to support him. He had a <em>lot </em>of people who believed in him (myself included) <em>long</em> before he declared his candidacy.<br /><br />But none of that explains the results. Surely, with as many Paul supporters as there may be, they’re a small fraction of the number of people watching the debates. This has got to be a genuine popular upswell of support. There have been accusations that Paul supporters were somehow fudging the online <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18661344/">MSNBC</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080418015604/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18661344/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaR969h2n5EOjDy98cKM4ZoNZLVKAZIdzHiAdVvHeGVZNHhrqNlXL4r0PYcecVsE-EbLsbGUoF53C8Vk97BKJFS28nZZsRV-l0j9CjmLBrrIviWGuUpX11IbjgleDPQcY-UWi44LWzw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="10" height="10"></a> and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/BeSeenBeHeard/popup?id=3135373">ABC</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070520042254/http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/BeSeenBeHeard/popup?id=3135373"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGaR969h2n5EOjDy98cKM4ZoNZLVKAZIdzHiAdVvHeGVZNHhrqNlXL4r0PYcecVsE-EbLsbGUoF53C8Vk97BKJFS28nZZsRV-l0j9CjmLBrrIviWGuUpX11IbjgleDPQcY-UWi44LWzw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="10" height="10"></a> poll results. Honestly, they were so distorted that even I thought it was possible. But the results from <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/news-desk/2007/05/09/ron-pauls-online-rise">Technorati</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/6d7038cf-3fe1-44ee-a63d-eacc43fd0ac2/44f30383de9c920858fabe5f55134636"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> and, in particular, <a href="http://ronpaul2008.typepad.com/ron_paul_2008/2007/05/ron_paul_web_tr.html">Alexa</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/a34be768-6c23-424a-9d8a-fee2a5c4bc7e/1493926da91c07583aac933aed27fc0b"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTdXQ20Xgm0KmpQdLSxv8S4Z0gq243L6lNAIyKndhi084-Q_k3OCDNMflXHdMAqQY4LojZMXeeOSHlasus6j2a2CDUz80dxTxp7F4YnCpbp9NG9GpK9AArI5zJyHvR1mooF_03g5TbQ/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> (you can’t distort the <em>drop</em> in visitations to <em>other</em> candidates’ websites that happened after the first debate) seem legit. And I just don’t see how you can distort text message polls; presumably (hey, let me try…) you can only vote once from any one phone (hm. I got a response when I voted the first time, but this time my message dropped into a hole. But maybe I missed the end of the voting. <strong>Update:</strong> I did get a response, hours later. It was the same response as I got to my first message. So perhaps it went through after all. Hard to say). To fudge these results, you’d have to have tons of cell phone accounts. That’s money that Paul supporters don’t have.<br /><br />Part of this can be explained by the fact that libertarians have a much higher proportion of techie types than any other political persuasion. Online polls and text message polls are only accessible to those with the technical knowhow to access them, and libertarians lead the pack on that count.<br /><br /><strong>More:</strong><br />One of the candidates (Duncan Hunter, I believe), in the post-debate interviews, just said, in response to Ron Paul’s comments, that “we didn’t attack a middle eastern country, we saved a middle eastern country—Kuwait—and our reward was being attacked on 9/11.” But that’s <em>precisely</em> Paul’s point! That <em>was</em> our reward for intervening in the Middle East!<br /><br />Paul didn’t say anything about immigration that I heard tonight, so this wasn’t directed at him, but this same guy said, in support of stricter immigration controls, “we caught 1100 [illegal immigrants] from Communist China [crossing the border from Mexico],” I presume within the last year. This is a point <em>against</em> allowing immigration? 1100 of the most industrious, intelligent people in the world want to come here to escape Communist oppression, and that’s a <em>bad</em> thing??<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update II</strong><br /><br />This is priceless. Immediately after the post-debate show on Fox, there is a show on Discovery Times on Osama bin Laden where they clearly say that bin Laden was severely upset by the U.S. liberation of Kuwait, believing that it was the duty of the Muslim world to do so. This (along with, I’m sure, what the show will say later) utterly validates Paul’s point. It has nothing to do with us being rich. How could it? Saudi Arabia is crazy rich. Bin Laden himself is incredibly rich. It has nothing to do with being free. As bin Laden himself said, why then did he not attack Sweden? It has everything to do with blowback from our intervention in the Middle East.<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update III</strong><br /><br />I remember now, after seeing the <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3f7_1179520840">video</a> <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46737319/Genius:Idiot/Ron Paul in the 2nd GOP FoxNews Debate May 15, 2007.flv"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5q3SC2TR-V5t7VRS8w0gUdY6n0ibbGk2kUIZgu6mpcqa-0mmzzQpquoNAm55Qxon6oryH2S0-d71AdlKhR2Htwp6gs5K5STCedKDsAvE3tqWu9FJabXTWlaBJY1JvjvVb4Yf9D6hYg/" alt="Movie-5%252528dragged%252529-2007-05-15-21-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a> of Paul’s performance in the debate, what his last great moment was: His gripe that they were dealing with hypothetical situations when the real Osama bin Laden was still free and we were basically ignoring him. Awesome.<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update IV: June 18, 2013<br /><br /></strong>Updated some formatting and a few links, in particular the “websites” link that previously linked to the official campaign blog, not a grassroots website. I think I (embarrassingly) did not realize that was the “official” blog.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-78202650109481849902007-03-30T14:12:00.000-05:002013-06-17T21:33:30.950-05:00You have no right to a speedy trialI’m speechless.<br /><br />Marcia Cooke, Federal judge trying the case of Jose Padilla, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070510100513/http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/23/state/n114542D88.DTL">has held</a> that our Constitutionally-protected right to a speedy trial only comes into play when a suspect is actually charged with a crime. <em>Before</em> that time, Government officials can hold you in a cell indefinitely. So, if the government never wants to see someone come to trial, all they have to do is not charge them with any crime. I see. Well, that’s alright then. No possibility of injustice there.<br /><br />Someone tell me…<em>when</em> is it time to revolt, again?<br /><br />I’m waiting.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-77719628825081927802006-12-11T12:26:00.000-06:002013-08-02T14:31:19.525-05:00Public Schooling<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Reposted from <a href="http://ikilled007.livejournal.com/786960.html">The Perfunctory Hero</a> [<em>dead link</em>]:<br /><br /></span><em><strong>Public "Schools": Destroying Lives<br /></strong></em> Get.<br />Your kids.<br />The fuck out of.<br />Public "school".<br />This instant...<br /><br /><br />... if you really do love them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kxxv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5785699">Evidence</a> <span style="color: rgb(128,0,128);"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/4fef9583-4fc7-4f5f-afbf-cf20d9edbf7e/36c0063f2b43cb1cbb4bc337e00bade2"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNq-f0K_Vd7RwL_3HYCT6QckU-B53QY2pb5lUWsrIiBHK0Xt2kGEbYklq1MzXf7PvXwlDONy0224b4nu7BERB3jprjhUjt5UBSRt3Y1fY12lNYkgqIq7Abi6Gg34FrvR7CcVJ0s_N4w/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-12-11-12-26.png" width="12" height="12"></a></span>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-13214637461930728552006-12-10T15:45:00.000-06:002013-08-02T14:00:00.985-05:00It was pretty good while it lasted<a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Migration/article177044.ece">The American experiment is over</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070217013349/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article666134.ece"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0aEL8QBaJriArGSfSsJCpdtl6Rfee-4nulzXXuHoPPCpqHwSxm_wqK82YP5P7R_hFoNiLE-0qCPekySXtwq7oy9m8PcdZkBdwiPq2YDVBz29mrhjz02yuwPu98F4pwErm0H3uK3plpw/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-12-10-15-45.png" width="10" height="10"></a>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-91407357251591385262006-12-09T20:11:00.000-06:002013-08-02T14:21:06.023-05:00GingrichThis is possibly the <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/67217:keith-olbermann--we-fight-for-liberty-by-having-more-liberty-not-less">best speech I’ve ever heard</a> <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46737319/Genius:Idiot/Countdown_ Special Comment_ Free Speech.flv"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFjGVDi47k68SUbNnCc56ZYWoo8v5FuDK7975VIfe2DsBe8u8rKYTdd5boJiD3e12M8AAfLU4FNAnepuVffJms3Yfs4VLy_cLxIDf2iRpSXCtCPaw8cRZnG36SuNE0eLehdl5ypziuQ/" alt="Movie-5%252528dragged%252529-2006-12-9-20-11.png" width="12" height="12"></a>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-91991136400961368672006-06-24T19:18:00.000-05:002013-08-02T01:07:59.506-05:00Leopard=Windows?<strong>(updated below)<br /><br />Screenshots</strong><br /><br />There are some very interesting “<a href="http://trinityrubicon.blogspot.com/2006/06/mac-os-x-105-leopard-screenshots.html">screenshots</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/cebf5708-62d9-4fd6-aa27-bed7a5df1e0b/77a077c486b23aeb0fe94db551ab8be2"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a>” that have recently been released purporting to be of the next version of Mac OS X, 10.5 “Leopard.” The most tantalizing thing about these supposed screenshots is that apparently, Windows applications (in this case, Internet Explorer 7) can run natively on a Mac <em>under OS X</em> in Leopard.<br /><br />If true, this is revolutionary. Windows and OS X applications running <em>concurrently</em> on a Mac? This is the Holy Grail of computing. Now, I don’t know if these screenshots are real or not. If they’re fake, they’re superbly done. But here, it doesn’t matter; I just want to talk about the idea, not whether or not Apple is actually doing it.<br /><br /><strong>Explanation<br /></strong><br />Now, there are positives and negatives to this idea. Before we go into them, let’s examine exactly what we’re talking about here. The new Macintoshes (as of 2006) are now based on Intel processors instead of the old IBM/Motorola/Freescale PowerPC processors. Since Intel (or Intel-compatible) processors power all Windows (and Linux, for that matter) PC’s, that introduces a potential level of compatibility between Macs and PCs impossible previously. Already, Apple has released software called <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html">Boot Camp</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071017064342/http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a> that allows the new Intel Macs to boot into Windows XP. Now, this is a separate boot situation: You can turn on your computer and have it be a Windows PC, or turn it on and have it be a Mac. While this is useful (for more details see my <a href="http://thoughts.blog.syleria.net/2005/06/macintel.html">previous post</a> on the subject) for occasionally running Windows-only software like games, it’s anything but seamless, and there’s almost no real benefit besides saving desk space over just buying an actual PC. The recently released <a href="http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/">Parallels</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060615202924/http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a> software is another option for running Windows on your Mac: It provides an environment similar to the old <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc">Virtual PC</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060616210508/http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a>, where Windows, and Windows applications, run in a window on your Mac. This is better than a dual-boot situation; you may lose a tiny bit of speed, but not much, because Parallels on an Intel Mac is not an emulator like Virtual PC on a PowerPC Mac; it’s a “virtualization machine” and therefore runs at near-native speed. The problem with it is that it’s still not seamless. Parallels is <em>one</em> application on your Mac; all your Windows applications run within that application, in a window with the Windows desktop in it. Functional, but ugly, and a bit of a pain to work with.<br /><br />The ideal solution is something called a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_layer">compatibility layer</a>.” This will allow Windows applications to exist side-by-side with Mac applications—completely seamlessly. Done right, the only way you’ll know which kind of application you’re running is by how it (the application itself) looks and behaves. Instead of being like having a Windows machine on your Mac, it would be like simply running Windows applications in the same way you run Mac applications. In a perfect world, Windows apps would exist on your hard drive right next to your Mac apps and documents and files, with the only distinguishable difference being in the icon. Mac OS 9 (Classic) applications work exactly like this on PowerPC-based OS X machines now. There is currently no way to do this, but the <a href="http://darwine.sourceforge.net/faq.php">Darwine</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/a748fa00-1839-4159-82b9-3b52c30bcf6b/e3de6e7837f61f6fd4e4f051bad01a4e"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a> project is working on it, and this is what is promised by the Leopard screenshots mentioned above. <br /><br /><strong>Consequences<br /></strong><br />What are the ups and downs of this last method? Well, the ups are obvious. Being able to run any Windows application natively on my Mac without having to deal with the horrid Windows operating system is, as mentioned above, the Holy Grail of computing. There have been <em>many</em> times where some service or game or function that I wanted to access or use was only available for Windows, and I didn’t have a Windows machine or emulator, so I and my beloved Mac were left out in the cold.<br /><br />The downs are a little more interesting. Viruses are obviously the biggest threat. I don’t need to describe here how horrible the virus situation is in the Windows world. Running Windows on your Mac obviously exposes you to virus risks that are currently nonexistent for OS X. Dual booting is no more or less risky than simply using a Windows box. Your Mac <em>is</em> a Windows box then. The situation is similar running virtualization software; whatever partition of your hard drive is dedicated to Windows is vulnerable to Windows viruses. The virus risk for compatibility layers is an unknown; we’ve never seen one in the wild, so it’s hard to tell. There’s reason to hope, for solutions like Darwine, that the virus risk would be somewhat lessened, as you’re running Windows applications, but not Windows itself. With the hypothetical Leopard version, however, it doesn’t look like that would apply, as the screenshots imply that Windows is running in the background (just like Mac OS 9 does for Classic now). It could even <em>increase</em> your Mac’s exposure to viruses if, as I suggest above, Windows applications reside on the same logical drive that your Mac applications do…which is why it won’t be done that way.<br /><br />But there’s a much more important potential “down,” that I mentioned in detail in my previous post on the subject: That the ability to run Windows software on your Mac will serve as a serious disincentive for developers to write new software on the Mac. This was my biggest fear before, and is echoed by others, for instance this comment on <a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=211375">MacRumors</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/fdafc125-6665-4835-b0ae-22d9c90d3156/9ce97c734a088eb206db95ff61cf9a2a"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a>: “[Running Windows apps natively]= the end of native Mac development as we know it.”<br /><br />I certainly understand why people might think so, but I no longer do. See, my <a href="http://economics.siu.edu/">Economics</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060612224918/http://www.siu.edu/~econ/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a> classes have finally started to have some effect in my brain, and I think the process will work itself out quite differently from the “Those Macies can just fire up Windows if they need to use our software. Ha ha ha (evil laugh)” scenario. In fact, given the insights from my Economics classes, I suspect it might be just the opposite: The ability to seamlessly run Windows apps on the Mac will attract millions (yes, <a href="http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6083708.html">millions</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060703232601/http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6083708.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a>) of new Mac users. This will increase the Mac’s market-, user-, and mind-share dramatically. These new converts from Windows will run their old Windows software, sure, but as time goes on, they will gradually migrate to Mac OS X applications (exactly as happened during the transition from OS 9 to OS X via Classic), because of the greater esthetic value, interoperability, compatibility and functionality of Mac software on the Mac platform vs. Windows software on the Mac platform. Besides (and this is really the killer point), it doesn’t matter if they migrate or not. Maybe they will all keep using the old software they’ve got until it’s so old that it’s useless. Still, when they go to buy <em>new</em> software, <em>they will look for Mac software first</em>. If they can’t find any at wherever they’re looking, sure, they’ll buy Windows software and use that. No big loss. The point is, though, that a developer that offers a Mac version of their software has an opportunity to make a sale that the developer of Windows-only software will miss out on. This will provide a powerful incentive for software developers to program for the Mac. No, this won’t cause every single Windows publisher to put out a Mac version. Not by a long shot. But, if Leopard <em>does</em> include native Windows support, and if that in fact causes a boom of Mac switcher sales, expect the amount of Mac software (and, possibly, even Mac-only software) to <em>increase</em>, not decrease.<br /><br />Gavin Shearer of Microsoft has an <a href="http://www.gavinshearer.com/weblog/archives/2006/01/prediction_xp_i.html">interesting article</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060409224138/http://www.gavinshearer.com/weblog/archives/2006/01/prediction_xp_i.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXappsF63lMQLnL3TASCrGpn9sD_mekBUQTGsRrmiRmCTtHukAk_Nywp4axKlruK7qd6v2m7uSc6Wh2B2WTGi7_q0pMAXYnlmI9QPPuxkOJeYAl-6_C6SWjszVVF1JQyRVmDOMiUaOA/" alt="PastedGraphic14-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="10" height="10"></a> with a similar perspective on this issue.<br /><hr><br /><strong>Update: June 17, 2013<br /><br /></strong>The screenshots turned out to be fake, and Darwine never quite materialized, but <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">Wine</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/9ddb5dbf-ce42-40e4-9cf9-15b20f8d6d65/044f1f8e09771bdf7e9a52ef1b98bc8b"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a> came to the Mac, and, more importantly, has been polished and published as <a href="http://www.codeweavers.com/">Crossover</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/f50c2342-7aef-4ef2-b448-75c352d82519/f2e31ec92508eb036b414b01b4b3d92e"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a>. However, sadly, the seamless experience I envisioned has not yet come to pass. Crossover is an application that runs (many) Windows programs. While those programs run in their own windows and not in some Windows environment, compatibility is spotty, and Windows programs don’t even have their own Dock icons (though that is changing). As it turned out, the virtual machines—Parallels and <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html">Fusion</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/a515e0a3-a5f4-43ea-a996-27adf0b3af14/840a369ad4c1740fbd7b3a8e15698089"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxrR26XDW_MV4-LJpNrhTrVEXv_-UELTRTZ5KT5uUu_12L-YmvsJFlE1ZyevQ2aK2bjyu_9T2xtilzryJ6lsyEtiVEPKndioCULSFO2f_4QU2tfcNoIMuCkFrTehs6aVN8xQ6LuEiDw/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-24-19-18.png" width="12" height="12"></a>—came to be the most seamless methods. While they are running a full copy of Windows in the background—and Crossover/Wine doesn’t—they can launch Windows apps in what Parallels calls “coherence mode” which works essentially the way Classic did: You don’t see Windows, only whatever program you’re running, with its own Dock icon and everything. The benefits of using Crossover (which is all I use to run Windows programs on my Mac) are twofold: It’s a lot cheaper ($40, with no need to buy a Windows license), and you’re not running Windows on your Mac, which greatly reduces the threat of viruses and is probably faster (I haven’t done any testing). But the price you pay is a lot of tweaking and troubleshooting to get the programs you want working properly—and sometimes they won’t work at all.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3281049585548508474.post-16022688606833718622006-06-09T08:30:00.000-05:002013-06-25T22:25:23.682-05:00Insanity<strong>(updated)</strong><br /><br />Alright, I haven’t posted here in a looong time, and frankly hadn’t intended to, but <a href="http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001065.html">an item I ran across</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/50231017-1b59-466c-828a-ff49ec3e7bfb/e5bd2b6595e23bdbb30787c548af61f4"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a> has incensed me so much that I just couldn’t stop myself.<br /><br />The essence of the story is this: A passenger asks too many questions during the airline screening process, and is subsequently held, interrogated, bullied and threatened with arrest by government officials. The story is actually a bit scarier than that, but I’m wanting to focus on something else: the fact that simply asking questions makes you a suspect in our War on Terror.<br /><br />Let’s think about this for a minute. What sort of person is likely to be asking awkward questions during a security screening? A terrorist? Good God, no. Asking questions is the <em>last</em> thing a criminal or terrorist is likely to do. “What if the terrorists are investigating the security system?” one might ask. What if they are? Again, the last thing a competent terrorist (and al Qaeda has shown that, if nothing else, it is competent) would do is to actually <em>ask</em> about the security; it might draw attention, and therefore suspicion, to themselves. No, what actual terrorists will do is send someone through the targeted checkpoint several times. Heck, make him a regular flyer; a familiar face. In fact, if he <em>is</em> going to ask any questions, it will be of the names of the screeners, so he can say, “Hi, Bob, how’s it going today?” He will become familiar; ingratiated; a no-threat. Someone that gets the most cursory pat-down, or gets to bypass the more intrusive measures, because he’s “safe.”<br /><br />That’s the high-investment scenario. It’s risky, because you still might get caught when you actually have the weapon or explosive on you. Another is the shotgun approach: send a bunch of people through a bunch of checkpoints a bunch of times, so that you get a notion of what behaviors are safe, of what <em>always</em> gets checked, what <em>usually</em> gets checked, and what only <em>rarely</em> or <em>exceptionally</em> gets checked. Then, on <em>der Tag</em>, send twenty different people (carrying weapons, or explosives, or whatever) though twenty different checkpoints at twenty different airlines at as close to the same time as possible. Sure, some of them will get caught, and your terrorist ring is busted; but there is a strong likelihood, if you’ve done your homework, that several will get through to do the mission.<br /><br />There are other possibilities, which I’m not going to go into here; this isn’t a terrorist training manual. Heck, for all I know, the two ideas above are horrible ones that would never work for some reason. The point is that no intelligent terrorist is <em>ever</em> going to ask awkward questions. They’re not interested in civil liberties. They’re not afraid of humiliation. Their only interest is to get through the process without calling attention and suspicion to themselves.<br /><br />So if detaining and interrogating question-askers and rights-asserters doesn’t do <em>anything</em> to harm or deter terrorists, who <em>does</em> it harm?<br /><br />Why, you and me, of course.<br /><br />Even if we never fly on an airplane, it harms us. Intimidating, bullying and threatening someone who simply <em>asks what his rights are </em>has only one effect: to condition us never to question authority. It doesn’t stop terrorists. It doesn’t <em>hurt</em> terrorists. In fact, if, as <a href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html">President Bush claims</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/05747582-0deb-4765-82fb-9de059815b0b/0f38e1caf59d209ae1fb4f8d77e764ea"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a>, what the terrorists hate is our freedom, it <em>helps</em> the terrorists. By treating anyone outside of the norm as a suspect (note that I’m not talking about strange-but-quiet behaviors like what the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1195330,00.html">SPOT program</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/8c7daa11-b6e9-4535-8270-d8640856c5ca/9e2d2a404e97bd032427a82f6de82c76"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a> is targeting; SPOT is a <em>good</em> idea (<strong>update</strong>: er…or, well, <a href="http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001135.html">maybe</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/5b7f29bd-e7b5-4d42-a137-2e3446ec9298/ee13c01eeb6bbf5b4abdd3872aff66dd"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a> <a href="http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/000432.html">not</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/1af5fb56-febc-4a68-9488-a594304bd953/bc5a9b6c3915e862c94a8db37b982362"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a>)), we inculcate the idea that being in any way out-of-the-ordinary is criminal. By detaining those who question the system, we ensure that the system is never questioned. By <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007745.php">refusing to publish the rules</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/ee7a4fc8-bcae-48bb-9a96-315154fb38bd/a85009a51eabb4d64881731fc3dbbf65"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a>, we condition the people to accept whatever they are told.<br /><br />How is this anti-terror?<br /><br />It’s not.<br /><br />It’s anti-freedom.<br /><br />It’s anti-<em>American</em>.<br /><br />Don’t for a moment think that this is going to end at the airline check-in counter. This is a precedent that will spread, and spread, until it ultimately dominates the American landscape, unless something is done.<br /><br />Make no mistake: <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10223.htm">the American police state is here</a> <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s120/sh/1e5b1ba7-33d7-4e8e-bdb3-aac326f424a3/802abc7a22acab13afde5fd8477ec54a"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS1uQEwOEeE1BuICGjjI6T8tmnkZXGX2LLPykpnWLqjQvsDzsB-C0VG39ZRggLjA7sNCxtYHFjI1xxahHHeSQwQ2dqOJSyv3KjniZM56fWwXnZHrRDK51Ihcp83uqY3duNF4pMpvcQg/" alt="PastedGraphic3-2006-06-9-08-30.png" width="12" height="12"></a>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0