Alkahest

A few years ago, I was accused of using the word “interesting” in subtle ways.  Sometimes it means a truly novel idea that I would like to learn more about, other times, it’s a novel idea of which I’m more than a little skeptical.  In both cases, I stand by the description, to me, both [...]

Gee, nobody could have predicted this I suppose:
The FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Admittedly, Mueller goes on to say that the reports were prior to new policies being put into place, but somehow that doesn’t make me [...]

<thump> <thump> Is this thing still on?
Okay, it’s been about three weeks since I’ve blogged anything.  As I’ve stated before, this tends to happen when I’m too involved in living life to actually write about it.  Fortunately (unfortunately?) it’s nothing terribly exciting.  Let’s see:

Guitar: my guitar playing has been scientifically shown to have 10% less [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Hunter and I were talking about passwords. More to the point, the inadequacy of passwords and why we haven’t moved beyond them yet. This touches on several points that I made last year. Specifically, that a password that is secure enough starts to restrict its usability.
In a [...]

Created by “the Robot Economist,” and for hsarik, it’s Bob Ross and the Joy of Painting Missiles.  Click the picture for the full sized image with rotating scenery.

Sometime in late September or early October of 2001, I received a call from an individual identifying himself as an agent of the FBI and asking for information about the owner of an email account from the place I worked.  He stated that he believed the account was relevant to a terrorist investigation. Of [...]

In 2005, congress mandated a change to daylight savings time, essentially, starting it three weeks earlier (March 11th, this year) and ending it three weeks later. Our local paper is requesting suggestions for what people will do with their 22 extra hours of daylight.  Here’s my suggestion:  spend the time fixing all of the [...]

It’s taken me a bit to write about Admiral Poindexter’s visit and the small group talk we had with him. Let me start by reminding folks that here’s a guy who was convicted of lying to congress. The conviction was later overturned on a technicality. He’s also very politically savvy. I [...]

In case you are looking for something interesting to do next week, go to Love Auditorium at Duke University on November 15th at 5pm. Admiral John Poindexter will be giving a talk: “A Vision for Countering Terrorism Through Information and Privacy Protection Technologies for the 21st Century.”  It should be an interesting and thought [...]

Well, it seems that we finally know what happened with the North Korean nuclear test that fizzled.  They apparently mistranslated the Arabic documents the U.S. posted online.
Okay, so neither of those is really very funny.  On the one hand, the U.S. posted a whole host of Arabic documents from Iraq that had never been examined [...]