A Peculiar Blog

There’s a piece in the NYTimes about lawyers having to fly all over the place and take all sorts of measures because they’re afraid of their contact with clients being monitored by the US government.

While I’m never going to be sympathetic to terrorists & their supporters, it’s part of how things are *supposed* to be done that lawyers get to communicate securely with clients. What I don’t get about the NYT story is that these people are wearing themselves and their luggage out, living in perpetual jet lag when it seems that all they need to do is make one initial trip to establish arrangements with their clients to communicate securely by email.

It’s simple enough. You get somebody with enough know how to be accurate and enough teaching skill to make it easy for anyone to write up instructions for basic use of GnuPG for encrypting emails. Make one trip to give that to your client, exchange public keys and head back home. After that, email communication is secured by encrypting everything with GnuPG.

Technorati Tags: email, security, encryption, gnupg, private+communication, domestic+spying

Ever get the admonition from your parents that “Money doesn’t grow on trees” or variations of it such as “[mistreated, expensive, and/or hard to find item] doesn’t grow on trees”? I’m reminded of that now as our household finds itself in need of a laptop or three to supplement our desktop systems with the portability of a laptop system. Of course, since it’s sadly true that laptops, especially good Acer laptops with dual core processors, 1gb+ ram, webcams and 160gb hard drive don’t grow on trees ( or even rosebushes) it’s time to start budgeting and planning for them, saving money from whatever corner of the budget that it can be scraped out of.

The part that really smokes my cookies is that just plain saving up for something doesn’t work anymore. Technology is developing fast enough and prices changing fast enough that just saving for something means that by the time you can get it, the thing is liable to be obsolete.

That’s one of the reason’s I tried putting in that ‘Chip in’ widget on my sidebar. Just saving up for a digital camera that does better than 640 x 480 x 256 colors would take too long. Of course, the widget has run quite a bit of it’s course without proving to be worth the screen real estate it takes up.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many people actually get anywhere with those things?

Technorati Tags: fund+rasisng, money, laptops, cameras, chip+in, widget

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the fact that there are government agencies doing a lot of snooping on all manner of Internet traffic. It’s also safe to say that since 9-11 this snooping has escalated massively. Now, the FBI is trying to get access to data that the NSA has been collecting from the Internet backbone (servers through which ALL Internet traffic passes through) so that they can look for criminal activity.

The problem with this is that they’re apparently not just limiting this to justifiable searches and evidence gathering in the course of an ongoing investigation. This is a lot more “Big Brother” in nature, scanning data looking for things that they can then investigate and prosecute as crimes. As if they don’t already have enough active cases to work on.

The problems with this kind of thing are many, most of which have to do with the fact that it blows all sorts of holes in people’s right to privacy. It also means that it becomes more and more necessary to watch what you say online because you never know when “Big Brother” is watching and what he may decide is a sign that you’re on the wrong side of the law.

It means that people need to take active steps to maintain privacy. The first thing to remember is that the online world has always been subject to people being able to snoop. While it’s generally a good practice to never write anything online that you wouldn’t want posted on a billboard where everyone in town can read it, it’s also sometimes necessary to communicate privately.

This is why I think that everybody should take a little bit of time to get and learn how to use some basic privacy tools. Like for example, users of the Thunderbird mail client could get GnuPG and the Enigmail plugin and learn how to send encrypted and / or signed emails. Maintaining safe browsing practices, never entering important passwords on un-trusted computers. (and untrusted means something that you’re not in control of what’s on it)

As for the FBI’s quest for access to still more information about everybody and their habits. This needs to be stopped, the problem is that too many people are either ignorant of or foolishly unconcerned about things like this until it’s too late.

Technorati Tags: encryption, security, fbi, nsa, internet+backbone, domestic+spying, gnupg, enigmail, safe+computing, privacy

The Renuzit TriScents Transform Your Home with Tanya Memme contest entries are in and now they want people to take a look at the semi-finalist gallery and view the 10 entries and vote for the one you think most deserves to win the grand prize: A $20,000 home makeover.

After looking over the entries, a mixture of videos and text entries, I voted for This one from some folks that were forced out of their home and ended up in a run down place that is desperately in need of a home makeover because the place is essentially falling apart. Apparently some of their home isn’t even really usable because of the condition of the house.

Because these people need this home makeover prize so much, I think it would be a great idea if everybody who reads this take a few minutes of time to visit the semi-finalist gallery and vote for these folks entry. Everyone is allowed one vote per day until voting closes on June 7th. After voting closes the entry with the most votes gets a $20,000 home makeover with Tanya Memme, the host of the A&E program “Sell This House”.

Vote soon and vote often. It only takes a minute and I think these folks really deserve to win.

Technorati Tags: home, makeover,, contest,, voting,, semi, finalist,, tanya, memme,, vote

There’s a form of “spring cleaning” that are actually a good idea to do on a monthly basis if you can. Of course, there’s always stuff that gets in the way of doing things like this so it ends up being an annual or semi-annual event.

Cleaning out the computer case. This applies especially to desktop systems but laptops aren’t immune to the need. Simply open the case and look around. Odds are that if you haven’t opened it in a while it’s going to be full of dust.

Take some time to blow that dust out of there. Any electronics with dust in the circuits is a recipe for either a short circuit or a static electricity problem… either of which can kill sensitive electronics like your motherboard, memory chips or hard drive. It’s worth investing in one of those cans of compressed air to get the stuff that builds up in tight spots. Be sure to clean the cooling fans in the case, power supply, cpu fan, graphics card fan if there is one and all of the ventilation slots and holes.

Not only will there be less chance of shorts or static, the system will also run cooler and be less prone to heat related failures. I learned about this one the hard way once when I lost a motherboard and cpu because of overheating caused by loads of dust. Now I make it a point to open computer cases at least once every two or three months and clean out the dust.

Technorati Tags: computer+maintenance, dust, dust+removal, cooling+fans, cooling+vents, ventilation, static+electricity, short+circuit

With weight loss becoming quite literally one of the “biggest” health issues that people are talking about all the time these days, one of the things that’s become just as big is the things that people are willing to consider doing about it. People have gone to all sorts of extremes from spending tens of thousands of dollars on gastric bypass surgeries to all kinds of exercise equipment and diet plans to trying to get by on some kind of cheap Phentermine type pills that are supposed to aid in weight loss.

The problem is that not all products are created equal. Some are better, more effective than others. Some are just plain not very effective and still others are just a bad idea from the start. Fortunately, consumerpricewatch.net has done some comparisons of several different diet pills and lists the ten best pills based on their ranking in a dozen factors.

Technorati Tags: weight+loss, phentermine, cheap+phentermine, diet+pills

There’s a story at the University of Texas that I think needs to get all the attention possible. Scientists there have created a new cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae), by adding cellulose making genes from another cellulose making bacterium. The resulting critter is apparently very good at taking in sunlight for an energy source and producing sugars and cellulose as a byproduct of it’s life cycle.

Those sugars and cellulose can be harvested without killing the organisms, which means that it gets to keep producing. The resulting cellulose is much easier to process into ethanol than the cellulose that’s obtained from corn because it doesn’t have to be broken down first.

“The huge expense in making cellulosic ethanol and biofuels is in using enzymes and mechanical methods to break cellulose down,” says Nobles. “Using the cyanobacteria escapes these expensive processes.”

This needs to be given a lot of attention quickly and the powers that be shown that yes, there is a way to produce ethanol that doesn’t mean burning up part of our food supply. All it’s going to take is getting the greedy ^&$@*^#&’s to get off their collective gold plated hindquarters and get this research accelerated and actual full scale commercial production facilities built and operational.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this needs to be shoved down Big Oil’s throat.

Technorati Tags: fuel+crisis, oil+prices, ethanol, food+prices, food+shortages, fuel+from+food, burning+food, clean+ethanol, cheap+ethanol

Recently I wrote about the feds wanting to collect DNA from everybody arrested. Well, I saw an EFF story that says the public comment period for this proposed rule will end on May 19, 2008. It’s important to get as much input on this topic against allowing this wholesale collection of DNA from innocent people.

You can get more information and a link to a site where you can leave an electronic comment on this EFF Action Alert page

Technorati Tags: EFF, action+alert, dna+samples, dna+database, privacy, genetic+privacy

Remember the FISA bill that the Senate tried to get passed that would have given immunity to telecoms for their participation in the illegal NSA domestic spying scandal? Well, it’s not quite dead yet. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has been talking deals with the “genius” behind that bill, Senator Rockefeller and is apparently getting close to reaching a deal.

Which means that this thing could come up for a vote just about anytime. Now would be a great time to let your CongressCritters and let them know that you want them to vote against anything that gives immunity to telecoms. They need to get the message that taking part in illegal domestic spying is going to carry consequences.

http://stopthespying.org/ has a handy form that you enter your zip code and it returns your Representative and their contact information. Don’t waste any time. Telephone companies and other large corporate entities need to be accountable to the law just as much as you and I do.

Don’t let them get away with this.

Technorati Tags: telecom+immunity, domestic+spying, nsa, illegal+domestic+spying, fisa, fisa+bill, Senator+Rockefeller, Steny+Hoyer

Once again, we’re hearing that the price of gas is expected to rise. It seems like just about every day the report of the national average price is higher than the last. People are being bled dry trying to come up with enough fuel to do the things they need to do. Gone are the Sunday afternoon drives we used to go on when I was a kid. Recreational driving is now a thing of the past unless you’re independently wealthy.

Congress won’t open up Alaskan oil fields for drilling new wells and apparently they’re also standing in the way of getting new refineries built. Meanwhile, The execs in Big Oil companies are living high on the hog. They’re posting all time record profits and their exec’s are pulling down salaries that would make your jaw drop. This is the kind of money that doesn’t just pack the kids into the car and head off on vacation. No, this is more like the “Vacation, charter the jet and reserve an entire floor in one of those ultra expensive las vegas hotels and we’ll just live high.

As if that’s not bad enough, now there’s this ethanol thing. They’re making ethano out of corn and adding it to fuel in the name of cleaner air and better mileage. Well, the air isn’t getting any cleaner and the fuel mileage hasn’t improved noticeably in over 30 years or more.

What is happening is that now a large amount of what would be foodstuffs is being made into fuel. All it’s doing is causing the price of food to rise even faster than the cost of fuel was forcing it to do already.

I think that if something doesn’t change there’s going to start being some serious reactions to the situation. It would not surprise me to see news reports of oil executives being attacked. I also think that if people wake up to the role Congress has played in this mess, there’s going to be a lot of them going into unscheduled retirement when they get voted out of office.

Technorati Tags: gas+prices, big+oil, oil+companies, ethanol, gas+mileage, congress, refineries