(In)Security. Here's another of the TED talks I accumulate from various places; unfortunately I no longer remember who to credit for the tip. Security expert Bruce Schneier speaks on our models of security, our feelings of security, and why these often differ from the reality of our security. I wish he had given more concrete examples, but it's still a good talk, especially at the beginning when he makes the point that all security decisions are tradeoffs, and the proper question to ask is not so much, "Does this make us safer?" as "Is it worth the cost?" He's probably thinking about national and computer security, but the application that immediately jumps to my mind is parenthood. Whether it's airport body scanners, tamper-proof bottles, or removing tall slides from playgrounds, it's important to realize that security—or even the illusion of security—comes at a cost.
Bruce who? The Occasional CEO calls it his diaper theory ("once your wife tells you she’s going to have a baby, all you see is diaper ads"). We've all experienced it. Today I finally listened to Bruce Schneier's talk, and only a few minutes later read thduggie's 7 Quick Takes, which featured this Wired article on Trevor Eckhart and CarrierIQ, which quotes Bruce Schneier on rootkits. I'd never heard of Schneier before the TED talk; now he'll be hard to forget.
The Corpse Walker. You can expect a review soon of Liao Yiwu's stories of modern China "from the bottom up". (In the meantime, you can read this one from the New York Times.) As usual, the library finally came through with a book I requested ages ago—but at a time when I have little time to read, much less write. (I know, I know: I'm taking time to write this. It's a mental health issue. Don't write = Go crazy.) But I can't put the book down. I tell myself that if someone collected interviews of the down-and-out and dregs of our society, the stories would be similarly frightening. Still, even a bleared and smeared window can she some light on a culture that is dark to us.
Down-and-out on a bus. Orlando is not like Basel, or even Boston and New York City, where nearly everyone uses public transit. Here, cars rule, and buses, like bikes, are used used primarly by those whose impoverishment or mental health issues preclude other means of transportation. Still, the bus is sometimes the best means for us to get home from the airport, and it's always a good reminder of the subcultures in our society. This time there was nothing truly scary, except to a claustrophobe—we travelled at rush hour—but I'll bet some of our fellow passengers could have told Liao Yiwu some interesting stories.
Thanksgiving. We were at the airport because we'd been visiting folks up north. For many years my sister has hosted the whole family and many friends for Thanksgiving, which for us is not a day, but a four-day-plus feast with lots of games. Which, as I understand it, is closer to the First Thanksgiving celebration. They had more people, but we had more women (53 Pilgrims survived the terrible first winter; only four were adult women)—and much more variety in our food. As fabulous as the meals were, it's the people who really made it a Festival. Our celebrants ranged in age from nine months to older-than-me (though I have to claim second place), and our family is extraordinarily close in spirit if not geographically. Sadly, the Swiss contingent could not join us this year, but at least two of us remembered them on our traditional signature tablecloth.
The War on Women. Nature may have been hard on the Pilgrim women, but it's humans doing the dirty work in the 21st century. Afghanistan is considered the most dangerous country in the world if you're female, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia. China doesn't even make the list, which is based on factors such as discrimination, poor health care, sexual violence, and human trafficking. Nor do Armenia. Yet according to Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection, in China 121 boys are born for every 100 girls (in some towns it is over 150), and in Armenia the count is 120. Without human interference, the ratio is 105 : 100; this female holocaust is the result of sex-selective abortions. Ardently pro-choice, Hvistendahl would rather criminalize the revelation of a baby's sex to its parents than restrict abortions, but she realizes that choice has its limits, being justifiably frightened by the consequences of such a radical male/female imbalance.
On a completely different, but happier, note. A friend of ours works for Logos Bible Software in Bellingham, Washington. I don't know anything about their products, but it sure seems to be a cool place to work. The video doesn't even mention their experiment with unlimited vacation. I wonder how that's going....
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!
I've been following Bruce Schneier's blog for a while.
As for the (awesome) Logos vacation policy, I'm in the middle of a week-long vacation right now. :) But so far I'm not taking any more or less vacation than I did before the change. It's nice not to have to report it to accounting, though.
Thanks for the update, Peter. May such enlightened attitudes about vacation spread quickly from the West Coast to the East! Is it, in a away, like being self-employed? You can take vacation whenever you want, but don't abuse it because there is work to be done?
And what do you think of Schneier's theories?
Yes, we don't abuse it because there's work to be done. And also to avoid being seen as a slacker; maybe the self-employed don't have to worry about that. :)
I usually tend to agree with Schneier.
