So Andrea Seabrook is unhappy with her experience in DC. Tired of being bald-faced lied-to by politicians. So she's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Except the whole time she was there at NPR, putting their lies on the air, she could have stood up and called them on it. Could have used her time to expose the lies, and hold their feet to the fire. Except she didn't. Was that because her corporate masters at NPR wouldn't let her? Or because access would be cut off if she did? Probably both. But she didn't say why in this interview. And in a classic example of my biggest problem with NPR, Bob Garfield didn't ask the next question, the hard question – why? Why didn't she point this out when she had a chance, before a large audience?
So why does she think starting a blog where she tells the truth is going to change things? She had a chance to change things, for more than a decade, and didn't. Maybe she tried. Maybe she rammed her head against the walls and quit when it got bloody – but she didn't say that in this interview. Rather the opposite.
The example that she gave in her interview was damning though. As an example of the equivalence of both sides, she compared a blatant out and out factual numerical lie by one politician, to a statement of opinion (and a reasonable one, to me) by another. Let's guess which party lied, and which had the opinion.
Ha. That's not fair. The R lied, of course. But just the fact that she somehow thinks that these two things are equivalent says a lot about why I won't be reading her blog.
Politics is the conflict of human nature. It's unreasonable to expect that it won't get mean and ugly, and your opponents won't impugn your motives. Fine. But there's a difference between impugning motives, and just making up numbers which are false. One can be fact-checked. And exposed in the media. But rarely is.
So I won't be reading her new gig, as even now, she still seems to think that reporting opinions-on-the-shape-of-the-earth-differ, both sides are equally bad, is okay.
The place where I work has an increasingly restrictive network policy. It went from almost anything goes – personal devices OK, and the honor system [1], to no personal devices on the network, monitoring software on every machine, full disk encryption [2], and now a net nanny which restricts innocuous web sites (climbing sites, art galleries – not that I surf the web a lot at work, but sometimes I want to check the weather or see how late something is open). They delete, without notification, emails with a zip file or other suspicious things attached, incoming or outgoing. Random security scans. It’s a pain. But…
I have this other device sitting on my desk. A small screen with several antennae. I bike to work with it on my back every day. For a modest monthly fee, I connect to a completely independent high speed network, no work resources used, and no restrictions at all. It’s what I’m typing this on now, in fact. On my lunch break, if anyone at work is reading.
So if the site I just googled shows the ‘restricted – you are being monitored’ notice, I just turn my chair 45 degrees and do it on this Star Trek communicator. Unmonitored.
So what exactly is the purpose of these policies? Is the policy not to access these sites over the work network, or not to access them at all when at work? Because the latter is a major fail. Unless they search me at the gate every day and confiscate my personal mobile and tablet. Because I see no way to enforce these policies short of a camera in every cubicle, or a GSM interception/decryption effort, or policies something like those of TS secure sites. No phones, no cameras, no personal electronic devices, glue up the USB ports, and walk through a metal detector in and out.
Actually the last thing might actually happen.
I’m not getting viruses from these sites on my personal equipment, so I don’t think network security is a valid concern.
I’d like to think that common sense would prevail and the workplace would say, just get your work done. Don’t screw things up. We realize we can’t stop you from doing whatever you want, so be an adult and use your best judgement.
Because short of what used to be called Tempest site security, they can’t stop it. 4G cellular networks and tablets are just making it pointless to have these sorts of restrictions.
One could make an analogy to 3D printing and BATF regulations. It was never difficult to make a weapon in your garage [3], but 3D printing is going to make it easy. That’s going to change things. Similarly, I could have always gotten around work network restrictions, but a tablet and a $10/month 4G subscription makes it dead simple. Plus ethically incontrovertible. It’s my tablet. It’s my network. It’s my time. I just happen to be sitting at work. And if that’s the only factor that makes a difference…
Yes, I know it does. But work can’t be a ratchet. Where I answer the phone on my days off, and take care of business at the beach, but I don’t get to look at the web on my lunch break, or make a blog post on my tablet.
So is the policy that I can’t look at pr0n at work? Not that I particularly want to, but that’s what it always comes down to. Pr0n. How about if I think about it? Or is it that I can’t use work resources to do so? And if I can use a tablet and 4G network that doesn’t belong to them to do so, what’s the distinction?
The distinction is increasingly meaningless, and the question is how will our corporate masters re-write the rules to maintain control of our minds.
How about this policy: Get your work done. Don’t disturb the neighbors, and don’t frighten the horses.
But no organization ever created by man is happy to let things go that way. So it will be the other.
But how?
___________________________
[1] My first few years here, I used my personal laptop and cell phone because I didn’t want two. My next few years, I was happy to use theirs (and was requested to), and pocket the cash, because I trusted them not to monitor my email or phone calls – I didn’t think they had either the capability or interest. I’m back to using my own phone, tablet, and laptop, and keeping my personal communications completely off company devices and networks. Which is going to be interesting next time I travel. But then I won’t be on their networks…
[2] Which only works if you turn the computer off, and who does that any more? I shut my computer down about once a month. Probably less.
[3] I learned how to make zip guns in SE Hinton-like novels written in the 50s-60s.
The new copier requires three button presses and four steps to make a copy. Start, (scan), finish, start. Yay?
Something denizens of the Center of the Universe have known for decades.
He’s a lousy businessman.
Any investor who listened to Vanguard’s John Bogle would have done about the same during 1984-1998 – just buy the S&P500 index, and hold it, reinvesting the dividends. The net returns would be ~20% per year — without giant fees or excessive risks necessary.
So despite all the middle-class-disrupting, race-to-the-bottom, Swiss-bank-account, pay-no-taxes, outsourcing pain that Bain Capital was responsible for, you’d have been better off just investing in an index fund.
Some businessman.
Unless you’re Mitt Romney. Apparently he made out like a bandit.
h/t BdL
Tagged OWSNo one cares if you’re two years late and 2x overbudget if you succeed.
Congratulations, Curiosity team.
“The error bars are smaller than the line.”
Two things:
Also, random internet commenters: It’s California, dudes. Not JSC in Houston. Hairstyles and attitudes. If they weren’t on TV, it would be shorts and flip-flops.
Nothing like eating sun-warmed blackberries straight off the vine, complete with spiderwebs. Luscious, sweet, so ripe they fall off in your hand. The blackberry stain doesn’t wash off.
No, I’m not saying where.
Photorec. Worked a charm.
Pro-tip: run it twice. I tried it on two different cards, and it didn't work the first time on either, but the second time, it found everything, and I mean everything, even though I'm pretty sure that one of the cards had been formatted in camera.
Bonus – it's free, and terminal based. $ sudo ./photorec
I dropped an application for a new passport in the mail last Thursday, after checking the State Department page for timing, and seeing “3-4 weeks” for expedited processing ($100 more, with overnight shipping both ways), and “6-12 weeks” for vanilla processing. I ponied up for the expedited, on the theory of you-never-know.
The processing center got the application on Monday (so much for $28 overnight shipping USPS), and I had a new passport in my hands the following Thursday. So that means it took them not 3-4 weeks, but more like 24-36 hours.
Extrapolating, I guess I should have saved the $100, and I'd have still gotten the passport in at worst another week. Or maybe linear extrapolation is not the right metric, but still pretty impressive. At least for $100, I got my money's worth.
Los Angeles doesn’t care
So I don't have to search for this link again. Los Angeles doesn't care:
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