WebWriting.com

Reading the evening headlines about the turmoil that a few people have caused I started thinking about how the threat of terrorism alone has caused our society to self-impose onerous surveillance and invasion of privacy to our own economic detriment.  Hundreds of millions of us are choosing (through our elected officials) to suffer untold inconveniences due to the mere possibility that a dozen people might kill a few thousand.  Terrorists no longer have to carry out their plots in order to terrorize.  So long as they are discovered and we react disproportionately they have succeeded.

Out of the three major streets that run through town the middle street seems to be the new arena for this year’s Darwin awards competition.  On our way home tonight, three kids - two on bicycles and one pedestrian - deliberately wandered through the street, toying around with oncoming traffic.  There is a dangerous thrill and a kind of rebellion in trying to ride your bike quickly across the street as the cars whiz by or quickly crossing an intersection when the light just turned green.  While foolish, even the “tough” kids who are out to prove something move quickly and carefully.  They are smart enough to realize that the person driving the two ton hunk of metal with which they are playing chicken may not be able to stop in time.  I pity the parents of the third thug who thought it adventurous to cut in front of our vehicle and ride briefly between us and oncoming traffic before returning to the side of the road.  For their own wellbeing and that of their parents I will try to make the city’s bicycle patrol unit aware of these incidents.  As for the pedestrian, good luck in the Darwin games.

Tips on Bicycle Saftey

Ned Batchelder quotes columnists from the Boston Globe and New York Times (both owned by the NYT) performing reductio ad absurdum using the judges’ arguments in two recent rulings upholding the states right to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples.  Ned makes a very good point, the counter arguments are flimsy at best and the sensible among us will come around.

I wrote my one-click comparison for downloading Meet the Press while making coffee and thought it would be fun to contrast what I do in order to download the latest episode of a podcast (a relatively new concept) with the steps I go through in order to make fresh coffee:

1. Fill the kettle with water and get it boiling
2. Retreive the grinder and grind bin from the drying rack
3. Replace the grinder and bin and set it to coarse grind
4. Put about 15g of coffee beans into the grinder and press the button
5. Retrieve the french press from the drying rack
6. Remove the grinder and brush the inside
7. Remove the grind bin and dump the grind into the french press
8. Rinse and dry the grinder and grind bin
9. Wait about 10 seconds after the water boils and pour the water
10. Microwave a bit of milk in my coffee mug for 30 seconds
11. Plunge the press after 3-4 minutes and pour into my mug with milk
12. Enjoy fresh coffee

Just as dave says that his 22 step download only takes a minute, I don’t fret about the time it takes to make fresh coffee (except when I’m running late).

Paul Graham writes wonderful essays on technology an sociology including his recent The Power of the Marginal.  A choice quotation to whet your appetite:

“The big media companies shouldn’t worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.”

I told a friend today that 5 years from now I bet we’d be watching more YouTube than regular televsion.  Then I though about the past few days and realized that today I watch more YouTube than regular televsion.  The Marginal is going mainstream.

CNN reports that almost 10% of drivers would fail a sample state licensing exam created by GMAC Insurance.  While my wife claims that I’m bitter about getter a lower score than she did I am mostly disappointed at the poor excuse for “reporting” on the part of CNN.  Instead of doing some critical analysis of the test, CNN regurgitates the statistical manipulation as provided by whoever fed them the story.  Taking the test immediately reveals a number of fallacies.

The article claims that, based on a 70% passing score, 1 in 11 drivers would fail the simulated driving test.  While many states use similar ratios, written tests are primarily used for permits.  Such tests are also designed for people who have just studied a state specific driver’s manual.  CNN also fails to mention questions that may have state specific answers and is not critical of questions that are poorly worded.  Here are a few that may be easier to answer if one were to study an accompanying manual (spoilers):

“1. Where should you park when you need help after your tire suddenly deflates while driving on a highway?”

Great question, but the “correct” answer (”b. Off the pavement”) doesn’t apply to many interstate highways that don’t have an “off the pavement” because there is a guardrail.  A better “all-purpose” answer might be “c. Where your car will be visible for 200 feet from the front.”  If I one were really being critical one might point out that the answer does not qualify whether he disable vehicle should be visible 200 feet from the front of the car or from the front of a car approaching from behind.  In addition to not specifying whether the highway has a shoulder (which is on the pavement and the correct place to park a disable vehicle), the question also does not specify whether the highway is divided, in which case the correct place to park is on the left shoulder if the car is in the leftmost lane when the tire suddenly deflates.

“8. Turn your front wheels toward the curb when you are parked _____.”

If you take this test in San Francisco, you would (correctly) be torn between “a. Facing uphill” and “c. Facing downhill,” since this is required in both cases.

“10. If you have trouble seeing other vehicles because of dust, precipitation, or smoke blowing across the roadway, you should drive slower and turn on your_______:”

My wife and I disputed our answers to this question (she agreed with the test writers).  During the day it is safer to use fog lights or parking lights during obstructed visibility.  The reason is that water particles and sand in the air reflect your headlights, in effect reducing visibility.  There is nothing wrong with using headlights during precipitation.  At night you have your headlights on in any case.  My wife chose headlights because she said that running lights and parking lights may not be the same thing.  Right or wrong, it is a poorly worded question that depends on the specifics of the situation and the features available on the vehicle that you are driving.

“11. If your vehicle starts to hydroplane, you should:”

This is another question that depends on the vehicle.  The “correct” answer is “c. Slow down gradually by easing the gas, and not applying the brakes” but this is not true if you can effectively pump the breaks or have anti-lock breaks which can provide some increased friction.

“12. When a car with bright headlights comes toward you at night, you should:”

The answers to this question again had my wife and me in confused consensus (and again she guessed right).

“a. Move toward the right edge of your lane
b. Look above the oncoming headlights
c. Look below the oncoming headlights
d. Look toward the right edge of your lane”

We both ruled out b and c as ineffective but while my wife decided that choice a. could lead to you driving off the road, I reasoned that in choice d. it would be dangerous to take your eyes off of the road.

The simulated test might be a wonderful bit of trivia but relatively useless for anything else.  With a spread of 3 questions (15% of 20 questions) between “smartest” and “dumbest”  it is meaningless to try and draw any practical conclusions.  The questions were not validated (there is no proven correlation between a slightly lower score on this test and worse driving).  Answers to some of the questions are ambiguous, depending on unspecified conditions.  Finally, these types of tests are designed for beginner drivers who have studied an accompanying manual from which the questions (in particular the wordings) are derived.

What might be a practical method of checking driving skills across the country?  The way every state actually does its licensing (not permitting): an actual driving test administered by trained instructors.

Daniel J. Solove over at Concurrent Opinions ponders a response to the “Nothing to Hide” argument posited by supporters of unmitigated surveillance. He gets very close while considering the value of “not having to explain or justify oneself,” grasping at the same instinct the framers may have had when they wrote the Fifth Amendment. While often cited as the right to keep one’s mouths shut, the Fifth Amendment also guarantees due process when a person’s liberty is at stake (life, liberty and property).

There are numerous definitions of “liberty” but most sources define it as freedom from control, especially arbitrary or government control. If the reason liberty was included in the due process clause is to ensure freedom from arbitrary government control, we may find some context in examining the purpose and procedures of due process. As merely a conscientious citizen I don’t have the means to examine this issue to scholarly standards but it is not to big a stretch to suggest that the issue of what role warrants play in due process is a key question.

Under what criteria and to what extent can the executive branch engage in developing a criminal case without a check from the judiciary?  Another way to state this (and one that has been causing strife in our country for the past half century) is what level of privacy may not be violated by the executive (with or without judicial approval)?

Where Solove cuts short is where I suspect the legal argument may begin: what threat of invasion of privacy constitutes deprivation of liberty?  If the executive can, without judicial oversight, infringe on the privacy of its citizens in the course of developing a criminal case, at what point do we stop feeling free and by extensions stop being free?

Susan Pace Hamill is a professor of Law at the University Of Alabama School Of Law.  She has written copiously about tax policies in Alabama and given interviews with titles such as What Would Jesus Tax.  While I am not Christian nor particularly religious in the traditional sense, I whole heartedly agree with her claim that tax policies are rarely grounded in our moral beliefs.  Though she writes primarily about the tax policies of Alabama State, her message applies to all states and to the country as a whole.

I was inspired in particular by a recent article she wrote criticizing Alabamans for being lazy about their pro-life beliefs.  Having read the article it is not a far stretch to conclude that when Alabamans say they are pro-life, what they really mean is that they are anti-abortion.  If you listened to this past Easter Sunday’s Meet the Press you heard Sister Joan Chittister criticizing those who claim to be pro-life as being pro-birth.  If you consider the entirely of life, the left wing vegan nuts who break into alpaca farms, sit around in trees, marry their best friends and protest war and poverty are the real pro-lifers.  A truly pro-life country would have no death penalty, never launch a pre-emptive war, safe-guard the nation’s wild-life, and spend its riches on ensuring that every life had a fair chance at liberty and happiness.

It quickly becomes apparent that those who so often claim to be pro-life are really just anti-abortion and are using the word ‘life’ to frame the debate.  The opposite of pro-life is not pro-choice, but rather pro-death and pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion.  Very few believe in abortions but unlike idealistic anti-abortionists who claim themselves pro-life, pro-choice groups live in the real world.  The way to reduce abortions (something we can all agree on) is to treat the causes of unwanted pregnancies and to realize that sometimes the most inhumane thing to do is force an unwanted pregnancy to completion.  The abortion debate needs to be split and reframed: there are those who believe in creating even the cruelest of lives at any cost and those who believe we should make the most of the lives we have.

To Susan Hamill’s point, we should be talking about how our policies (both taxes and otherwise) help us as a nation make the most of our 295 million lives and the world’s 6.5 billion lives.

It should come as no surprise that Americans are split. We are split when it comes to our political party of choice and all the policies that they support. We are split on whether people who are attracted to members of the same sex have the right to live out their lives the same way as those who are attracted to member of the opposite sex. We are split on what kinds of choices a pregnant woman should be able make. We are split on whether we should be fighting someone else’s war of independence. We are split on whether access to education and health care should be a privilege or a right. We are split on how it is that we welcome immigrants into our country.

I am proud to live in a city and a state that believes we should enjoy living here. I am proud to live in a place where sexual preference does not make you a second class citizen; where woman have the freedom to choose what they do with their body if they so require; where the majority of our citizens, though they serve their country with honor, believe we should not be invading someone else’s; where education is need blind and health care is available to everyone. I am proud that, despite how ludicrous it seems given the cost of living, I live in a city where everyone is welcome.

Hobbes: What’s the point of attaching a number to everything you do?
Calvin: If your numbers go up, it means you’re having fun.

I can think of a number of people who are be better off not subscribing to Calvin’s philosophy.

There’s a quotation from a NY Times article that highlights how the GOP has infused the American conscious with fear.

For one factor, Sept. 11 put the entire nation on edge about the threat of terrorism. By contrast, the hurricane catastrophe was confined to one region. As a symbol, it may be powerful, but perhaps not as enduringly powerful as what occurred in New York and at the Pentagon.

In reality, the hurricanes were no less confined nor the the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 more widespread. The effects of each rippled throughout the country just as powerfully and the recovery will take just as long. So is Spearfish, South Dakota more in danger of a a hurricane or a dozen suicidal plane hijackers? They are probably more likely to be invaded by Wyoming. Politicians can only play the blame game for so long. Eventually the electorate stops living on edge and gets back to the issues: health care, education and jobs.

The first two panels of Shoe this morning are funny:

Pollster: “Would you care to join the war on global warming?”
Shoe: “I don’t know…we haven’t even tried diplomacy yet.”

I had been thinking recently about trying to come up with a collection of so called “move-plot threats” - at phrase seemingly coined by security guru Bruce Schneier. Well, Bruce beat me to the punch by announcing his Move-Plot Threat Contest. Come up with the wildest possible movie-plot threat and he will send the winner an autographed copy of Beyond Fear. What better way to raise awareness of false security?

Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution empowers congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” - the beginning of a tumultuous history for copyright and patent legislation in the U.S.

There is a growing community of people who believe that sharing is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with something that they create. Furthermore they are more excited by the unrestricted possibilities that their creativity inspires in others than by the potential for direct financial gain. These movements are powerful, grassroots efforts to promote the the progress of science and useful arts without explicitly securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings an discoveries.

The only major risk to sharing, as far as I can tell, is that authors and inventors might not have full control of their writings and discoveries. Since the Constitution only grants Congress the power to secure these writings and discoveries for a limited time, authors and inventors are going to lose control of their writings and discoveries at some point in time anyways (Congress assumes after they are dead).

The largest risk to securing exclusive rights is that we fail to promote the progress of science and useful arts or even, dare I suggest it, hinder their progress. How can giving someone the right to their own writing or discovery hinder progress? Witness this insightful op-ed written by Michael Crichton for the New York Times:

For example, the human genome exists in every one of us, and is therefore our shared heritage and an undoubted fact of nature. Nevertheless 20 percent of the genome is now privately owned. The gene for diabetes is owned, and its owner has something to say about any research you do, and what it will cost you. The entire genome of the hepatitis C virus is owned by a biotech company. Royalty costs now influence the direction of research in basic diseases, and often even the testing for diseases. Such barriers to medical testing and research are not in the public interest. Do you want to be told by your doctor, “Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?”

Why do we enact legislation that has the potential to criminalize an original essay?

Here’s my standard trailer: write your Congressmen, call your Senator, “wake up and do something or I’m voting you out!”

Our President wants to protect workers pensions so he tells Congress to work with industry and come up with sensible legislation. Big surprise, Congress comes up with a law that reduces corporate contributions. What happens when pensions are underfunded and people are expecting to have something to fill the social security gap? Instead of the most competitive companies attracting good workers, offering better products and helping their workers retire, we will have government supported companies deceiving workers and then the government is going to have to take care of the workers one way or another. The argument that this helps companies remain competitive is joke. Of course companies “remain competitive” when they start cutting benefits that they can’t afford. If I could promise benefits and then have a get out of jail free card from the government I’d be much more competitive!

Where in “by the people, for the people” do companies get to self regulate? Here’s a big fat wake-up call to those who would call themselves the proponents of free markets: they’re not really free. All markets have rules and either we set them or companies will set them. If the companies set them then the rules will benefit the major shareholders (note, that this doesn’t include Joe Family and his 401k because he was banking on his pension). If we want a free and just society (that second part is key), then we need to set the rules. If an American citizen takes a job and part of the contract they sign includes a pension as part of their benefits, how can we possibly justify allowing shareholders a get out of jail free card? Either don’t offer a pension (that or a 401k and guess what, your employees are going to work for someone else) or pay for it if you do. I’m sure that if the company goes bust the worker will lose their job, but without a pension we’re going to have to work at that job until we die anyways (so who needs a pension?).

The problem isn’t big government; it’s big corporate government.

This is going to take a while to internalize: Who Can Name the Bigger Number?

Listening to Meet the Press from this past Sunday with Senators George Allen and Joe Biden. Allen sound a lot like Kerry. He rattles of facts and figures to support focus group positions on policy, caught between a middle of the road populace and a far right base (far left for Kerry). He raises an interesting issue when asked about South Dakota’s recent legislation banning abortion except to save the life of the mother (on a side note - if the mother is going to spend the rest of her life raising a child she doesn’t want or can’t raise, does aborting that embryo count as saving her life?).

Does the decision to abort a pregnancy (or even to prevent one) belong to the mother, her family, doctor, community, state government or the federal government? Allen says it’s a state issue. Pro-choice groups say it’s the mother’s call. Pro-life supporters seem to think that they get to say what any other mother may do with regards to abortion. That last one is a particularly strange position because their religion (unless the mother is part of their community) isn’t on the list. Quinn posted on Ambiguous on February 15th:

Back to the candidates, I’m looking more into Joe Biden. He’s not afraid to call the administration out as not competent to do their job. That’s something more and more people on all sides of the political spectrum are finally coming to realize.

An article out of MIT (and due to be published in Nature) describes a discovery by Dr. Wilson that rats, after running a maze for 30 seconds subsequently replay their brain activity backwards at a significantly faster rate. The article talks about how this mechanism may play a role in reinforcing learning and lead to explanations of how rats and maybe humans learn from experience. While there could be many different reasons behind this type of instant replay, one has to wonder what exactly it is that the rat is learning? I’ll have to read the article to get the details.

Speaking of stories we’ll be telling our kids; remember how we used to have to brush our teeth?

Ah the stories we’ll tell our kids…maybe.