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2011

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Internet in a suitcase

The U.S. government is helping create parallel internets and cell phone networks in countries where the government is suppressing free communications between their citizens. The idea makes sense and is, "pretty cool":

"The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.” (from The New York Times)

Read more about it in the New York Times: US Underwrites Detour Around Sensors.

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“The Real Housewives of Wall Street”

Mike Taibi writes in Rolling Stone about some fairly outrageous doings between Washington D.C. and Wall Street during the various 'bailouts':

"Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low- interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk- free income." (from The Real Housewives of Wall Street)

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Really good advice

Robert Krulwich gave this graduation speech. While it is aimed at Journalism students, it has some good stories:

"As I say, he was a news writer, writing copy off in a corner, sometimes for Murrow, but he’s pretty much an indoors guy, and he’s dreaming of course, of getting outdoors where things are happening and one night – in the middle of the night, on the graveyard shift, two a.m.—the bell on the wire ticker goes off and says an airplane has just fallen short of the runway at LaGuardia Airport and is sinking in the East River, right now." (from Robert Krulwich Graduation Speech)

That story is about Charles Kuralt. You will have to read the speech to see how it ends.

The speech also has lots of good advice, for anyone:

Suppose, instead of waiting for a job offer from the New Yorker, suppose next month, you go to your living room, sit down, and just do what you love to do. If you write, you write. You write a blog. If you shoot, find a friend, someone you know and like, and the two of you write a script. You make something. No one will pay you. No one will care, No one will notice, except of course you and the people you’re doing it with. But then you publish, you put it on line, which these days is totally doable, and then… you do it again." (from Robert Krulwich graduation speech)

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Urban Outfitters Rip Off Independent Artists?

This article, "Anatomy of a Trending Topic: How Twitter & the crafting community put the smackdown on Urban Outfitters" is interesting for two reasons:

  1. Photographs that show graphically that Urban Outfitters, in at least one case, seems to have totally ripped off an independent jewelry designer.

  2. A case history of how that accusation spread through a relatively small set of twitter users and tweets and seems to have forced Urban Outfitters to pay attention.

There is lots of stuff on the web about ripoffs in general - "You thought we wouldn't notice". Also an interesting comment thread on this page: "Did Urban Outfitters rip off an indie designer, yet again?" where you can see a bit of a debate of whether in fact the original design was truly original.

Things are never as simple as they appear…

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Sudafed and Voting

A theme that I have followed in this blog is the question of whether it's a good idea to require a picture ID of some kind before permitting a citizen to vote. In another article in the New York Times called "Republican Legislators Push to TIghten Voting Rules", Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina had this quote:

“If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on an airplane, you should show a picture ID when you vote,”

Which is pretty convincing comment, on the face of it, isn't it? Except:

  1. Voting is far more important than buying a Sudafed. It's far more serious injustice to be prevented from voting than from buying a Sudafed.

  2. Not all flavors of Sudafed require Picture ID

  3. It's legal to have someone buy a Sudafed for me, it's illegal to have someone vote for me.

  4. Voting is restricted to happening on one specific day. You can always come back tomorrow to buy your Sudafed if you need it

  5. Coincidentally there's a good correlation between people (poor people, elderly people) who don't have a picture ID. These people also happen to skew strongly Democratic.

  6. Coincidentally there's no such correlation between people who want or need to fly

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[GEEKY] Great set of excellent Rails 3 Gems

Just a quick read of this post showed me several great gems that I want to try right away! If you're a Rails programmer this is going to be of great interest: Rails 3: Fully Loaded

ActiveAdmin is particular looks like an excellent new way to generate a whole suite of reasonable views and controllers to create, read, update and delete information in Rails3 applications. ActiveAdmin is customized with a DSL so that you have a prayer of getting what you want without hacking the hell out of the logic that is built in. I will definitely try it.

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Hilarious blog post teaching Israelis how to adapt to living in the USA

This is too funny. Here's a taste, but you should read the whole article saying how an Israeli should adapt to living in the United States. For example, this is about the express line in the super market:

"The express line operates differently in American grocery stores, and might take some getting used to. The 10 item limit is strictly enforced. It would not be considered normal for you to haggle and argue with the sales clerk and to raise your voice because you only have 11 items. It is even less likely that as you stood your ground, the people in line behind you would start to call you names and to yell at the clerk for not moving on. And do not expect six people to simultaneously yell at each other at the top of their lungs as a result of this unlikely confrontation. As you can see, the express line requires an adjustment period for any Israeli, and is perhaps the place where you will first start to feel homesick." (from Advice for Israelis coming to the United States)