Tuesday, November 20, 2007
What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?
What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft? is pretty amusing. Follow along as the progression gets worse and worse. Be sure to read the described changes, the last one is priceless.
Snow
It's snowing. For real. While it's not sticking to the road, my car is white. The forecast was just for rain (still is). I guess it's winter.
Monday, November 19, 2007
iPhone Privacy
Uneasy Silence reports Apple Secretly Tracking iPhone IMEI and Usage. It seems when the Stocks and Weather widgets send a request to Apple to get the info they want to display, they include the unique identifier for the iPhone. This theoretically allows them to track when you use these apps and what info you're interested in (companies, locations). Nefarious or not, it seems a little rude. More so, because if you remove the id from the request, it stops working.
Why Should I Listen to Laraine Newman?
Laraine Newman is one of the original Not Ready For Primetime Players (that's the first cast of SNL for you youngins). She never had the star power (or ability) of Belushi, Aykroyd, Gilda Radner or Chevy Chase. Now she's blogging in the Huffington Post. She begins her Body Snatchers post with "I remember when Al Gore and John Edwards were running their campaign in 2000". I surprised myself that I made it to the end, but it didn't get much better.
RIght-Wing Sleazebag Tactics Again
digby goes off on the latest Robert Novak slime and No More Mister Nice Blog describes how the same right-wing sleazebags are involved.
"Ah, the same old names keep coming back. The rumor that Clinton was behind the Edwards story came from Ben Smith at the Politico and was the gleeful obsession of Slate's Mickey Kaus. And now the people who are trying to give the Obama story legs include ... Ben Smith and Mickey Kaus. I hate these people."
"Ah, the same old names keep coming back. The rumor that Clinton was behind the Edwards story came from Ben Smith at the Politico and was the gleeful obsession of Slate's Mickey Kaus. And now the people who are trying to give the Obama story legs include ... Ben Smith and Mickey Kaus. I hate these people."
Mythbusters
This week was my new favorite Mythbusters scene. They tested whether the exhaust of a 747 jet engine would flip a taxi. Then they tried a bus and a small plane.
And as a bonus I found this hilarious unaired myth:
And as a bonus I found this hilarious unaired myth:
Fun Things in Safari 3
I've upgraded to OS X 10.4.11 and now have Safari 3.0. Looking at Ten New Things in WebKit 3 shows some neat stuff that seems to work.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Buying a New PC
No not me. My future brother-in-law is having even more problems with his (about) 7 year-old Windows ME machine. It's time for a new computer, one without a floppy drive. Here's what I think he should get. He's a minimal computer user; Web surfing, web-based email, MS Office and TurboTax. Digital photos and music are in the future only if I convince him slowly. In particular gaming and home video are not in the cards. Here is how I spec'ed out a Dell machine (with some definitions for novices), comments appreciated.
Hardware:
CPU: The cheapest processor (Intel or AMD) since he's not a gamer. Is it worth avoiding the low end Intel Celeron and getting a Pentium for about $40 more?
Memory: 2GB. 1GB might be ok but with Vista I'm thinking it might be tight. Also, this is the single best place to splurge with a computer. You can probably save money buying your own cheaper, but then you have to install it and sell the original memory on eBay.
Hard Disk: >100GB. He doesn't need much since he's not doing store video or music or much of anything else. In a desktop adding more is usually easy. If a laptop comes with 80GB that's fine.
Optical Drive: DVD +/-RW. He won't use this much since he doesn't listen to music CDs or watch movies on it, so there are two uses. Installing software and doing backups. CDs hold 740MB, DVDs hold 4GB (thats 4000MB). While that sounds like a lot, the difference might be between picking and choosing individual files or just backing up a whole folder which is much easier. Backups to DVD will be easier and more future proof. A CD Burner/DVD Combo drive will read DVDs but not write them, so I think he wants a DVD+/-RW (RW is for read and write) which are also sometimes called "super-drives". The 8x or 16x or 32x that often appears in the choices refers to speed and won't matter much to him for these uses.
Graphics Card: get the cheapest, he doesn't plays games
Sound: get the cheapest
Networking: you want ethernet (which is wired networking) and I'd say wifi (802.11g - it's the "g" that's important) would be convenient. It can be added later, but might as well get it if it's available.
Ports: You want some USB ports, they will all come with at least one or two, four are actually useful (printer, keyboard, mouse, thumb drive, camera). Sometimes keyboards and oftentimes monitors have extra USB ports. USB 2.0 is much faster than USB 1.1. Firewire (aka IEEE 1394) is fine if it has it but unnecessary (easily added later if you every buy something like a camcorder that wants it).
Expansion Slots: this is expandability. a second drive bay is good because adding a second drive might be a good future backup solution. Other expansion slots are fine, it's good to have 1 or 2. The cheapest Dell desktop didn't have much of this so I choose the next one up for $20 more.
Speakers/Keyboard/Mouse: I choose getting the cheapest new speakers on the Dell for $20 because it seemed worth it rather than worrying about any (unlikely) compatibility issues with his existing old speakers. I did the same thing for a keyboard and mouse.
Modem: He doesn't need one.
Monitor: I'd recommend a new flat screen LCD monitor. They seem to be about $200 for 17" or 19". After memory, this is the next single thing you can do to make the computer experience better. An LCD will use less power than the CRT he has now, have a bigger screen, and take up less space on the desk. Dell got very aggressive with their monitor prices a few years ago and are the standard here. $200 for 19" or $400 for 24" widescreen. These are very nice and will be usable with any future computers.
Software:
Windows Vista Home Basic - I don't think the premium features apply. You could get XP but with a new system Vista should work fine and will be supported longer. it will also probably work better with a Mac in the house.
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 - This doesn't include Outlook, but he uses webmail so it's probably not a problem. Dell will install it for $150 but Amazon lists it for $125 if you want to install it yourself. The Standard edition includes Outlook but Amazon lists that at $324. Amazon will sell you Outlook separately for $90 if needed in the future. The Basic edition includes Outlook but not PowerPoint. Avoid Microsoft Works. And don't anyone tell me about OpenOffice, I know about it and while it's improving I don't think it's worth compatibility issues for a novice user compared to $150 for MS's version.
Norton Internet Security 2007 - I priced the Dells with 15-months of this. I hear that Symantec Norton is better than McAfee or TrendMicro.
So a Dell Inspiron 531 desktop came out to $990. A Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook came out about $20 less. An HP Pavilion a6200t (what kind of a model name is that?) desktop came out to $877.
An iMac with 2GB ram came out to $1350 without MS Office. But it includes a video camera, bluetooth, 802.11n, nice hard disk, gigabit ethernet, and a better graphics card.
If you have additional advice I'd appreciate it.
Hardware:
CPU: The cheapest processor (Intel or AMD) since he's not a gamer. Is it worth avoiding the low end Intel Celeron and getting a Pentium for about $40 more?
Memory: 2GB. 1GB might be ok but with Vista I'm thinking it might be tight. Also, this is the single best place to splurge with a computer. You can probably save money buying your own cheaper, but then you have to install it and sell the original memory on eBay.
Hard Disk: >100GB. He doesn't need much since he's not doing store video or music or much of anything else. In a desktop adding more is usually easy. If a laptop comes with 80GB that's fine.
Optical Drive: DVD +/-RW. He won't use this much since he doesn't listen to music CDs or watch movies on it, so there are two uses. Installing software and doing backups. CDs hold 740MB, DVDs hold 4GB (thats 4000MB). While that sounds like a lot, the difference might be between picking and choosing individual files or just backing up a whole folder which is much easier. Backups to DVD will be easier and more future proof. A CD Burner/DVD Combo drive will read DVDs but not write them, so I think he wants a DVD+/-RW (RW is for read and write) which are also sometimes called "super-drives". The 8x or 16x or 32x that often appears in the choices refers to speed and won't matter much to him for these uses.
Graphics Card: get the cheapest, he doesn't plays games
Sound: get the cheapest
Networking: you want ethernet (which is wired networking) and I'd say wifi (802.11g - it's the "g" that's important) would be convenient. It can be added later, but might as well get it if it's available.
Ports: You want some USB ports, they will all come with at least one or two, four are actually useful (printer, keyboard, mouse, thumb drive, camera). Sometimes keyboards and oftentimes monitors have extra USB ports. USB 2.0 is much faster than USB 1.1. Firewire (aka IEEE 1394) is fine if it has it but unnecessary (easily added later if you every buy something like a camcorder that wants it).
Expansion Slots: this is expandability. a second drive bay is good because adding a second drive might be a good future backup solution. Other expansion slots are fine, it's good to have 1 or 2. The cheapest Dell desktop didn't have much of this so I choose the next one up for $20 more.
Speakers/Keyboard/Mouse: I choose getting the cheapest new speakers on the Dell for $20 because it seemed worth it rather than worrying about any (unlikely) compatibility issues with his existing old speakers. I did the same thing for a keyboard and mouse.
Modem: He doesn't need one.
Monitor: I'd recommend a new flat screen LCD monitor. They seem to be about $200 for 17" or 19". After memory, this is the next single thing you can do to make the computer experience better. An LCD will use less power than the CRT he has now, have a bigger screen, and take up less space on the desk. Dell got very aggressive with their monitor prices a few years ago and are the standard here. $200 for 19" or $400 for 24" widescreen. These are very nice and will be usable with any future computers.
Software:
Windows Vista Home Basic - I don't think the premium features apply. You could get XP but with a new system Vista should work fine and will be supported longer. it will also probably work better with a Mac in the house.
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 - This doesn't include Outlook, but he uses webmail so it's probably not a problem. Dell will install it for $150 but Amazon lists it for $125 if you want to install it yourself. The Standard edition includes Outlook but Amazon lists that at $324. Amazon will sell you Outlook separately for $90 if needed in the future. The Basic edition includes Outlook but not PowerPoint. Avoid Microsoft Works. And don't anyone tell me about OpenOffice, I know about it and while it's improving I don't think it's worth compatibility issues for a novice user compared to $150 for MS's version.
Norton Internet Security 2007 - I priced the Dells with 15-months of this. I hear that Symantec Norton is better than McAfee or TrendMicro.
So a Dell Inspiron 531 desktop came out to $990. A Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook came out about $20 less. An HP Pavilion a6200t (what kind of a model name is that?) desktop came out to $877.
An iMac with 2GB ram came out to $1350 without MS Office. But it includes a video camera, bluetooth, 802.11n, nice hard disk, gigabit ethernet, and a better graphics card.
If you have additional advice I'd appreciate it.
The CIA Lied about Torture Evidence, Shocker
McClatchy reported last week, CIA admits to recording interrogations of top al Qaida captives.
"The CIA has three video and audio recordings of interrogations of senior al Qaida captives but misled federal judges about the evidence during the case against terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, federal prosecutors revealed in a Nov. 9 court filing that was made public Tuesday."
"'The fact that audio/video recording of enemy combatant interrogations occurred, and that the United States was in possession of three of those recordings is, as noted, inconsistent with factual assertions in CIA declarations dated May 9, 2003 . . . and November 14, 2005, the prosecutors wrote."
"The CIA has three video and audio recordings of interrogations of senior al Qaida captives but misled federal judges about the evidence during the case against terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, federal prosecutors revealed in a Nov. 9 court filing that was made public Tuesday."
"'The fact that audio/video recording of enemy combatant interrogations occurred, and that the United States was in possession of three of those recordings is, as noted, inconsistent with factual assertions in CIA declarations dated May 9, 2003 . . . and November 14, 2005, the prosecutors wrote."
More on Facebook Ads
Facebook’s Brilliant but Evil design: "As Ethan and David mention, the defaults for this system are wrong. Though Facebook can talk a pretty game, what they’re doing feels like a step down the slippery slope of evil."
I really haven't thought about this enough to know where I come down on this. My early initial thought is that it would be better if on first use of each 3rd party, facebook sends you a notification (they are already very good at that) asking what your preferences are for this 3rd party. Yeah that will have few participants, but then again, it will just eliminate those that don't want to participate.
I really haven't thought about this enough to know where I come down on this. My early initial thought is that it would be better if on first use of each 3rd party, facebook sends you a notification (they are already very good at that) asking what your preferences are for this 3rd party. Yeah that will have few participants, but then again, it will just eliminate those that don't want to participate.
McKay Says Gonzales Could Be Prosecuted
The former U.S. attorney for Western Washington John McKay said "The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month."
"Gonzales 'lied about' reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said."
“When [the report] lands … it is going to be an extremely negative report on President Bush’s Justice Department,...There was a conspiracy to politicize the Justice Department, and they did not get away with it."
"Gonzales 'lied about' reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said."
“When [the report] lands … it is going to be an extremely negative report on President Bush’s Justice Department,...There was a conspiracy to politicize the Justice Department, and they did not get away with it."
Social Security Isn't the Problem
Paul Krugman in Long-run budget math describes how Social Security really isn't a big budget problem. He says some of the often stated issues like an aging population aren't really a problem. The biggest issue is rising medical costs which affects Medicare and Medicaid which are the real problems.
NBC Fires SNL Staff Due to Strike
Writers' Strike's First Casualty: "Saturday Night Live"
"As of late last week, NBC has fired nearly the entire production staff of 'Saturday Night Live.' This is a result of the Writers Guild of America's on-going strike which is entering its third week. To make matters worse, the laid off staff received no severence checks." NBC is considering doing the same for the staffs of their weekday late night line up (the Leno, O'Brien, and Carson Daly shows).
It seems Letterman is a really nice guy. "Over at CBS, David Letterman is paying out of his pocket the salaries for both staffs of 'The Late Show with David Letterman' and 'The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.' He will continue paying them until the end of the year."
Last night, NBC showed a rerun of the much praised Brian Williams SNL episode from two weeks ago. I watched and it was quite good. Meanwhile, the staff of SNL did a live new performance at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
"As of late last week, NBC has fired nearly the entire production staff of 'Saturday Night Live.' This is a result of the Writers Guild of America's on-going strike which is entering its third week. To make matters worse, the laid off staff received no severence checks." NBC is considering doing the same for the staffs of their weekday late night line up (the Leno, O'Brien, and Carson Daly shows).
It seems Letterman is a really nice guy. "Over at CBS, David Letterman is paying out of his pocket the salaries for both staffs of 'The Late Show with David Letterman' and 'The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.' He will continue paying them until the end of the year."
Last night, NBC showed a rerun of the much praised Brian Williams SNL episode from two weeks ago. I watched and it was quite good. Meanwhile, the staff of SNL did a live new performance at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
Senate Stays In Session to Block Recess Appointments
The Washington Post reports Senate Stays In Session to Block Recess Appointments. I'm pretty happy at the tactic. Reid did something good. But we'll see about over Christmas and New Years.
"Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV), in a showdown with the White House over executive branch nominations, refused yesterday to formally adjourn the chamber for a planned two-week Thanksgiving break in order to thwart President Bush's ability to make recess appointments."
"I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way," Reid said in a statement inserted in the Congressional Record. "But that progress can't be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions."
"Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV), in a showdown with the White House over executive branch nominations, refused yesterday to formally adjourn the chamber for a planned two-week Thanksgiving break in order to thwart President Bush's ability to make recess appointments."
"I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way," Reid said in a statement inserted in the Congressional Record. "But that progress can't be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions."
Saturday, November 17, 2007
CNN Pre-Planned Audience Debate Questions
I missed the last debate, but Diamonds v. Pearls" Student Blasts CNN. Sigh.
Why You Shouldn't Go To Law School
Why you shouldn't go to law school explains why I'll keep my interest as just a hobby and not a profession.
Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard?
Bruce Schneier asks Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard? regarding a new random number generator standard.
Law Blogs Discuss Facebook
Sometimes I think this blog covers too many different topics and I should separate out things to different blogs. Here's a case where two different areas converge. I would not have expected Concurring Opinions, a law blog I read, to have a story about facebook which refers to this story from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.
"Last Sunday the Law Blog purchased three tickets to Bee Movie on Fandango, the movie site. After we did this, Facebook automatically updated our profile to say, 'Peter bought Bee Movie on Fandango.'"
Fandango and Facebook now have a business relationship. if you ever glanced at those privacy polices (I know you've never read one) they mention "partners" or "third parties" and that's what they've become. The blogs looked into the privacy policies and yeah they allow this, but they're buried in 2474 and 3514 word legalese documents. And they change without notice. Concurring Opinions ends with:
"There's another way to protect people's privacy -- opt-in. If Fandango wants to share your information with Facebook, it should ask for your consent first before doing so. Simply providing a privacy policy, a verbose and lengthy document that nobody reads and that is subject to change at any moment isn't sufficient. You don't consent just because they assume you do. If Facebook wants to disclose what you're doing and buying on other websites, or use your name or image in an ad, then it should ask you. Instead, these companies hide behind thousands of words of legalese, claiming that by merely providing a little link to these policies at the bottom of their websites, you've consented to them the second you start using the site. This isn't meaningful consent. And it isn't a meaningful way to protect consumer privacy."
I checked my facebook privacy settings and there's a (new?) category for "External Websites" which says "You can edit your privacy settings for external websites sending stories to your profile." If I go to edit it, no external sites are listed and it says "No sites have tried sending stories to your profile." So you can't restrict privacy before stuff has actually leaked out. Stupid. Stupid enough that facebook will have to fix this soon.
Only a week prior, Concurring Opinions posted about facebook's new ad policy. They post an ad and include pictures and names of facebook profiles mentioning something about it. E.g., "Meagan Marks gave a 4-star rating to the movie Top Gun". However, Meagan might have given that rating but not expected her name and likeness to be used in an ad.
"What is deemed to be valid consent to appear in the ads? It seems as though Facebook might be assuming that if a person talks about a product, then he or she consents to being used in an advertisement for it. But such an assumption might be wrong, and the use of a person's name or image in an advertisement without that person's consent might constitute a violation of the appropriation of name or likeness tort. According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652C: 'One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy.'"
Facebook has some work to do. Maybe they need someone older than 23 years old in a prominent position.
"Last Sunday the Law Blog purchased three tickets to Bee Movie on Fandango, the movie site. After we did this, Facebook automatically updated our profile to say, 'Peter bought Bee Movie on Fandango.'"
Fandango and Facebook now have a business relationship. if you ever glanced at those privacy polices (I know you've never read one) they mention "partners" or "third parties" and that's what they've become. The blogs looked into the privacy policies and yeah they allow this, but they're buried in 2474 and 3514 word legalese documents. And they change without notice. Concurring Opinions ends with:
"There's another way to protect people's privacy -- opt-in. If Fandango wants to share your information with Facebook, it should ask for your consent first before doing so. Simply providing a privacy policy, a verbose and lengthy document that nobody reads and that is subject to change at any moment isn't sufficient. You don't consent just because they assume you do. If Facebook wants to disclose what you're doing and buying on other websites, or use your name or image in an ad, then it should ask you. Instead, these companies hide behind thousands of words of legalese, claiming that by merely providing a little link to these policies at the bottom of their websites, you've consented to them the second you start using the site. This isn't meaningful consent. And it isn't a meaningful way to protect consumer privacy."
I checked my facebook privacy settings and there's a (new?) category for "External Websites" which says "You can edit your privacy settings for external websites sending stories to your profile." If I go to edit it, no external sites are listed and it says "No sites have tried sending stories to your profile." So you can't restrict privacy before stuff has actually leaked out. Stupid. Stupid enough that facebook will have to fix this soon.
Only a week prior, Concurring Opinions posted about facebook's new ad policy. They post an ad and include pictures and names of facebook profiles mentioning something about it. E.g., "Meagan Marks gave a 4-star rating to the movie Top Gun". However, Meagan might have given that rating but not expected her name and likeness to be used in an ad.
"What is deemed to be valid consent to appear in the ads? It seems as though Facebook might be assuming that if a person talks about a product, then he or she consents to being used in an advertisement for it. But such an assumption might be wrong, and the use of a person's name or image in an advertisement without that person's consent might constitute a violation of the appropriation of name or likeness tort. According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652C: 'One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy.'"
Facebook has some work to do. Maybe they need someone older than 23 years old in a prominent position.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Oil Prices (vs Red Bull Prices)
Shai Agassi on Oil Prices: "The cost of the average used car in Europe is now cheaper than the cost of gasoline to drive it for a year– talk about razor and blades businesses. Big oil still can’t supply the global demand for this concentrated energy liquid, yet the US prices gasoline less than its other concentrated energy liquid – Red Bull – when we compare on a gallon-to-gallon basis. [If you are like me you now wandered into the 'how much is a gallon of Red-Bull' part of your brain...at $2 for a can of 8.3 ounces it costs $30 for a gallon...if you buy it at a club for $6 a can you are looking roughly at $100 a gallon - or 30x more than Gasoline...but then again, where do you find a gasoline that would give you the buzz-worth 15 cans of Red Bull?]"
Colossus vs PC, Fight
Boing Boing reports Bletchley Park's Colossus codebreaker to race modern PC in cracking Nazi codes: "Tony Sale and a group of British vintage computer enthusiasts is rebuilding Colossus, the gigantic proto-computer that Alan Turing and the Bletchley Park scientists built to crack German codes during WWII. The original Colossus machines were all broken up (into pieces 'no bigger than a man's hand'!) after the war for security reasons, but Sale has tracked down the surviving Colossus engineers and is making great strides in completing the machine. The finished Colossus is to be pitted against a contemporary general-purpose PC in a code-breaking race."
The two source BBC articles are very good:
The past is the future at Bletchley Park
Colossus cracks codes once more
Update: Colossus lost
The two source BBC articles are very good:
The past is the future at Bletchley Park
Colossus cracks codes once more
Update: Colossus lost
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