Mark Wahl frivolous blog on zetona.org

Big Ear Twitter (20090507)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Big Ear Twitter (20090507)

What would improve the Twitter UI? How about a "Big Ear" application:

Before:

After:

long lines (20090331)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:50:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

long lines (20090331)

The 2008 National Academies workshop report on societal and economic impacts of severe space weather events, covered earlier this year by New Scientist and NASA, included contributions from John Kappenman of Metatech Corporation, based on a study under the auspices of the Electromagnetic Pulse Commission and FEMA.

A 1989 solar storm shut down the Quebec power grid, with some areas not being brought back online for days. An even larger geomagnetic storm was recorded in 1859, which first demonstrated the connection between auroras, electricity and magnetism when it brought down telegraph networks

During the display I was calling Richmond, and had one hand on the iron plate. Happening to lean towards the sounder, which is against the wall, my forehead grazed a ground-wire which runs down the wall near the sounder. Immediately I received a very severe electric shock, which stunned me for an instant. An old man who was sitting facing me, and but a few feet distant, said that he saw a spark of fire jump from my forehead to the sounder.(New York Times, September 5, 1859)

This was followed by another in 1921

After 10 o'clock last night Washington was cut off telegraphically from the rest of the United States exept over a few wires. (New York Times, May 16, 1921)

A solar storm of the magnitude of the 1859 or 1921 storms, occuring today would bring disruption of GPS and other radio and satellite services, and might also cause significant long-term damage to the power distribution infrastructure, namely transformers.

The least understood aspect of this threat is the permanent damage to power grid assets and how that will impede the restoration process. Transformer damage is the most likely outcome, although other key assets on the grid are also at risk. In particular, transformers experience excessive levels of internal heating brought on by stray flux when [induced currents] cause a transformer's magnetic core to saturate and to spill flux outside the normal core steel magnetic circuit. Kappenman stated that previous well-documented cases have involved heating failures that caused melting and burn-through of large-amperage copper windings and leads in these transformers. These multi-ton apparatus generally cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner, they need to be replaced with new units, which have manufacture lead times of 12 months or more.

A hypothetical storm at 50° geomagnetic latitude could significantly impact the Pacific Northwest, portions of the Midwest and almost all of the Northeast.

(source: J. Kappenman, Metatech Corp)

More midflight departures (20090327)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

More midflight departures (20090327)

Rivière rang up to learn the latest messages from the planes in flight. Night Flight (1931) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Bryan Alexander picked up on my post from yesterday and added ...the long decades of in-flight UFO stories, which form the background for these. Not to mention that terrific Twilight Zone Shatner episode (YouTube). There's something different about these airborne fears, apart from general anxieties concerning air travel (fear of crashing). It's a mix of features: the loss of control in a large vehicle controlled by someone else, the associations with dreaming (since many sleep), being closer to the skies and space. And the general complex of technology anxieties are all in play, too.	(source: `wikipedia.org`)
Commenter Mark of The Analytical Engines adds Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Horror of the Heights" (1913) A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them.	(source: `amazon.com`)
and the Doctor Who serial "Time-Flight" (1982) by Peter Grimwade, in which BA Concordes on approach to Heathrow disappear from the radar, as they are sent back in time 140 million years. Psychic energy keeps the passengers and crew hallucinating that they have in fact landed at Heathrow airport, not in the Jurassic. TEGAN: Ladies and gentleman, we do apologize for the delay. Your flight is now ready for boarding. Would you care to proceed to your aircraft immediately?	(source: `tardis.wikia.com`)
For time-traveling aircraft, Gardner Campbell also adds The Odyssey of Flight 33 (1961) by Rod Serling A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings fearful of what they'll find. But you and I know where she is, you and I know what's happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast, engines that sound searching and lost, engines that sound desperate, shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home from the Twilight Zone.	(source: `magnify.net`)
and then there's Stephen King's The Langoliers (1990), So I was flying with some guys who had a small jet and I said, as, this would be really great if only you didn't, ah, have to be aware through the whole thing. If you could just get on and there'd be a black place in your mind. And the guy says to me, well, we can lower the oxygen back there and you'd go right out.	(source: `video.olympus.ru`)
Or the more recent Flightplan (2005). Ms. Sherin, there are 425 passengers on this flight who are NOT receiving any attention at the moment because everyone of my flight attendants is busy conducting a search for a child that none of them believe was ever on board. I'm sorry if you think we could be doing more to meet your needs, but you'll have to take it up with Customer Service after we land. Fair enough?	(source: `boxofficemojo.com`)

Midflight departures (20090326)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Midflight departures (20090326)

There were unconfirmed reports of incidents high above the planetary surface that no one talked about in any but the most careful euphemisms. The list of passengers who arrived was not always identical to the list of those who'd departed. Something was happening, in between, up there.

Vineland (1990) by Thomas Pynchon

That something is the paramilitary in-flight boardings of the ill-fated Kahuna Airlines, from an vessel of advanced (but plausible) technology:

The captain took what evasive action he could, but the other matched his maneuvers exactly. Finally they stood, side by side above the tropic of Cancer, between them, some twenty meters across, a flow of savage wind, as, slowly, not telescoping out, but assembling itself from small twinkling pieces of truss-work, the other spun across to them a windproof access tunnel, with a cross section like a long teardrop, that locked firmly on to the forward hatch of the Boeing....When the hatch at last sighed open, the intruders entered the flying nightclub with elite-unit grace, automatics ready, faces dim behind high-impact shields, all Business. Everyone was ordered to a seat. The captain came on the PA. "This is for our own good. They don't want all of us, just a few. When they get to your seat number, please cooperate, and try not to believe any rumors you hear. And till we get the rest of you where your tickets say you're going, all drinks are on the Kahuna Airlines Contingency Fund!"

(source: businessweek.com)

A predecessor work with another sufficiently-advanced technology, "Air Raid" by John Varley, published in The Persistence of Vision (1978), in which the "stewardesses", agents from the future, board planes about to crash and push the passengers through a portal to the future, refilling their seats with simulated bodies.

...Is this some new kind of rescue? I mean, are we going to crash--
I switched my gun to prod and brushed it across his cheek. He gasped and fell back.

(source: badmovies.org)

Another retrieval, this time unworldly, in the "Tempus Fugit" (1997) episode of The X-Files written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz.

You're saying that, that Flight 549 was in the grip of... sort of a UFO tractor beam?

(source: mediacircus.net)

Great classic computer technology: PrestoServe (20090314)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Great classic computer technology: PrestoServe (20090314)

In 1989, Legato Systems, founded by former Sun NFS engineers, is developing its backup software, NetWorker. But first, it releases a non-backup product, PrestoServe.

I suggested we run with PrestoServe to gain some experience in marketing and selling a product and to create an early awareness of the company, [said Louis Cole, former CEO of Legato Systems]. Essentially, PrestoServe gave us the chance to establish the Legato name and to put the business processes in place that we would later need for NetWorker.

The Legato PrestoServe was a hardware and software package for UNIX servers, priced at around $8000, and later resold by Sun and bundled by Digital.

The hardware consisted of a card with 1 MB nonvolatile, battery-backed up RAM.

The software leveraged this RAM for disk write caching. This was intended to provide a significant performance boost for NFS deployments, since the NFS server could respond to the client as soon as a write was commited to NVRAM, rather than waiting for the write to reach the disk.

PrestoServe as an SBUS card

PrestoServe as a SIMM

Besides NFS, it would also help with servers where many small, short-lived files were being created:

build servers
mail servers
news servers

physicists vs privacy (20090307)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 8 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

physicists vs privacy (20090307)

In March 1989, five days after Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons held a press conference announcing their findings of cold fusion at the University of Utah, Pons' Internet (NSFNET) email address was posted to sci.physics.

Here's Dr. Pons's e-address: pons@chemistry.utah.edu You can try to finger it first.

Gary Taubes writes in Bad Science: The Short Life and Wierd Times of Cold Fusion that

Two physicists, who requested to remain anonymous, did try to "finger" Pons's mail account.

(I presume the author implies the meaning of the word "finger" as in "to pilfer", and while this is not what the finger command does, it would seem sensible to finger an account prior to breakin to ensure that the target user is not currently logged in.)

To assure that they wouldn't be traced, they used the account of another physicist who rarely used his computer...Pons's account was guarded by a password of his choosing. The two physicists tried "cfusion," which didn't work, then remembered that Pons had said he was a homebody, so they tried the names of several family members and hit eventually and correctly on Sheila, the name of his wife. So they broke into his computer account and spent two hours reading his mail... They justified the breaking and entering by the importance of the controversy and the inability to get a straight story out of Utah [Emphasis added]...[One of the two anonymous physicists] added that he knew of at least two other scientsts who did the same, one from Oak Ridge and one from Caltech. In any case, Pons later changed his password.

In Ur Crossword (20090303)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 4 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

In Ur Crossword (20090303)

I noticed that the March 1, 2009 edition of AmericanWay (the inflight magazine of American Airlines) crossword puzzle assumed a slightly higher degree of familiarity with Internet culture (I am used to their clues being chosen from the "friend of Kukla and Ollie" set).

1 Across was easy,

Comments on a blog (5 letters)

of course is SPAMS; but 78 Across

Prepare to check one's email (5 letters)

was a challenge as CAPA was too short and STARTTLS too long. Fortunately I had no problem with 68 Down,

Nigeria's largest city (5 letters)

Call completion times (20090228)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Call completion times (20090228)

This table, from the Bell System 1969-1970 Switched Telecommunications Network Connection Survey, indicates the time which elapsed between dialing the last digit of the telephone number and the receipt of a test tone supplied by automatic answering equipment at that number. This time includes a 100 msec delay for the equipment to apply the tone. The standard deviation is affected by the ringing cycle - typically 6 seconds with 2 on, 4 silent.

Conn Length (airline miles)	Mean (seconds)	Std Dev (seconds)
All	`11.7 ± 1.8`	`4.3`
0-180	`10.7 ± 1.5`	`3.7`
180-725	`14.7 ± 3.2`	`5.0`
725-2900	`13.9 ± 2.6`	`4.5`

C of the sea (20090226)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:50:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

¹²C of the sea (20090226)

The article Radiocarbon Dating of the Human Eye Lens Crystallines Reveal Proteins without Carbon Turnover throughout Life by Lynnerup et al published last year describes a mathematical model which predicts the year of a person's birth based on Carbon 14 dating of the eye lens, at least for people born after the bomb pulse. (This technique is already applied to analysis of the teeth and bones.)

Source: Radiocarbon Dating of the Human Eye Lens Crystallines Reveal Proteins without Carbon Turnover throughout Life

The model is however affected by the diet, specifically the lack of marine food:

Consumption of fish would have a significant effect on the ¹⁴C content of the lenses, because the ¹⁴C concentration in the sea is smaller that in the atmosphere (marine ¹⁴C reservoir effect).

This effect is summarized on the page Corrections to radiocarbon dates:

The average difference between a radiocarbon date of a terrestrial sample such as a tree, and a shell from the marine environment is about 400 radiocarbon years (see Stuiver and Braziunas, 1993). This apparent age of oceanic water is caused both by the delay in exchange rates between atmospheric CO2 and ocean bicarbonate, and the dilution effect caused by the mixing of surface waters with upwelled deep waters which are very old (Mangerud 1972).

Another component, the Suess Effect, although not discussed in the eye lens paper, is due to industrial production. The "absolute radiocarbon standard" is tied to a piece of wood that would have been growing in 1890, where there was comparatively little fossil fuel consumption.

The activity of 1890 wood is corrected for radioactive decay to 1950. Thus 1950, is year 0 BP by convention in radiocarbon dating and is deemed to be the 'present'. 1950 was chosen for no particular reason other than to honour the publication of the first radiocarbon dates calculated in December 1949 (Taylor, 1987:97).

Plain and Secret Language (20090225)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:49:30 GMT

Mark Wahl

Plain and Secret Language (20090225)

The 1959 Telegraph Regulations of the International Telecommunications Union (as of the Geneva conference) included the provision that for telegrams crossing national boundaries,

The sender of a telegram in secret language must produce the code from which the text or part of the text or the signature of the telegram is compiled if the office of origin or the Administration to which this office belongs asks him for it. This provision should not apply to Government telegrams.

CCITT Recommendation F.4 (1988) later expanded this to be

If requested by the origin Administration, the sender of a telegram in secret language must produce the code or identify the dictionary language used in drafting the telegram. Administrations may also require the sender to produce a translation of the telegram into plain language or a language acceptable to the Administration. This provision shall not apply to government telegrams.

Just an 18-bit Western Sheriff (20090217)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Just an 18-bit Western Sheriff (20090217)

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory TX-0 computer was built in 1956, and was made available to the Research Laboratory of Electronics and Electronic Systems Laboratory in 1958. It was delivered with 4K of memory, later expanded to 8K.

On October 26, 1960, the CBS Television Network broadcast a one hour special called "The Thinking Machine". This broadcast included the first television production from scripts written by computer.

Doug Ross writes, The CBS director said, "Gee, Westerns are so cut and dried couldn't you write a program for one?"

The program SAGA-II, written by Doug Ross and Harrison Morse, output a short script which described the actions in a scenario: a sheriff surprises a robber hiding out in his shack. The 13,000 line macro-generated program took 6 weeks to develop, and each run of the program took approximately 2 minutes to generate a new script.

beginnt1+23| X gun is in right hand money is in left hand nt1+23| tra bwr tra bwh begin t0 gun is in right hand money is in left hand drink is on table robber is in corner right hand is on robber left hand is on robber holster is on robber bottle is on table right hand has gun left hand has money holster has nothing t00 gun is in corner t01...

The program combined a logic flowchart with several random decision points (e.g., how much has the robber had to drink) which affected the outcome (an "inebriation factor" led to the robber being a poorer shot). Out of the 50 runs, 3 were televised.

Doug Ross: The memory was used to keep track of everything down to the actors' hands. The logic choreographed the movement of each object, hands, guns, glasses, doors, etc. A line of English script was written for each direction, even if it went wrong. That's how we got the loop sequence which was an actual error run. If you watch closely, the sheriff puts his gun in the robber's holster, and other strange things.

Dit Morse: I've been asked if the error sequence was rigged. Well, it turns out that the CBS people were in the TX-0 room when the machine got into that loop. They saw what the programmer was doing and they grabbed that sucker so fast-they knew it was theater.

John Pfeiffer later wrote, in the follow-on book to the show, that

The ending of one script was definitely offbeat. The rule is that the winner goes to the corner, picks up the money, leaves the shack, and takes one last look through the window. This time, however, a mix-up occurred. The sheriff thought he had won and went through the scheduled actions. But the robber was not dead. He was supposed to follow the winner's routine, which meant, first of all, getting the money. Since the money was not in the corner, he reached through the window and took it from the sheriff's hand. Then he left the shack and joined the sheriff at the window. The script ended with both men alive and on the outside lokoing into an empty room.

This is the closest the machine came to writing an "original" script. Apparently nothing was wrong with the circuits or the program at the time, and it is still a mystery why the sheriff thought he had won.

The Very Model of a Modern Magnus Envelope (20090216)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Very Model of a Modern Magnus Envelope (20090216)

This photo from the Magenn Power web site illustrates the ~~visitors from the future~~ model Magnus Spherical Airship.

This Magnus Airship was a large spherical envelope filled with helium to achieve static, buoyant lift. As the sphere rotated during forward motion, Magnus lift was generated proportional to the airspeed flowing over the sphere; the faster the vehicle, the higher the Magnus lift.

The approach is described further in US Patent 4,366,936 by Frederick Ferguson, from 1979.

Unfortunately when scaling up, the contribution to lift from helium is proportional to the volume of the balloon, but the contribution to lift from the Magnus Effect is only proportional to the area.

The Wild West Death Game (20090215)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Wild West Death Game (20090215)

The romanticized "wild west" is filtered through the preconception of the storyteller of how the wild west should work. Their environment and assumptions might mix with the reality and myth of the actual US Western frontier times to make a hybrid that appears more familiar, believable or understandable. Karl May's universe seemed to have an inordinate number of German emigres wandering Arizona. Similarly, James Thurber (in "Wild Bird Hickock and his friends") describes a French Far West story, in which, when suspicious strangers come to town

The sheriff listened gravely for a while, got up and buckled on his gun belt, and said, "Alors, je vais demander ses cartes d'identite!" [Then we will demand to see their identity cards!]

A principal expectation of the wild west is the ever-present risk of death. Even in the 1880s a "Wild West" show included spectacles: a simulated attack on the Deadwood mail coach...a faked battle with Indians. The movie The Great Train Robbery (1903) was described as having ...been posed and acted in faithful duplication of the genuine `Hold Ups' made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West, and only recently the East has been shocked by several crimes of the frontier order, which fact will increase the popular interest in this great Headline Attraction. Furthermore, this movie ended with the outlaw taking aim and firing point blank at each individual in the audience, causing those not familiar with the motion picture concept to scream in fear.

The "new" Old West of the mid to late 1960s films, including the so-called spaghetti westerns with settings inspired by the constraints of low budget filming in Spain, was immediately followed by western simulations in science fiction TV episodes. The TV shows were set in present-day or far future times, but would drop into a simulation of the wild west to show the theme of unescapable killing.

One example is the "gunfight at the OK Corral" simulation in the Star Trek episode "Spectre of the Gun" (1968). This simulation, controlled by the Melkotians, is decidely not realistic: clocks float in the air, the Enterprise crewmembers brought into the simulation do not even know initially who they are supposed to be, a force field prevents them leaving, and even if they choose not to participate, they are transported into the Corral at the predetermined time to play out their role as victims in the shootout.

Yet there is an unusual relationship between the simulation and the participants. By refusing to accept what they are experiencing is 'real', Kirk, Spock and McCoy do not believe that the bullets shot at them will affect them, and thus within the simulation they do not: the bullets pass right through them.

Spock: Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality.

However, the simulation keeps running even though the unreality of this situation becomes apparent to the simulation characters as well. Furthermore, the Enterprise crew are able to continue to interact with the simulation characters in other ways: e.g., Kirk then attacks the simulated Wyatt Earp in a fistfight and even considers shooting him, but decides not to. The simulation ends when the Melkotians see this as an interpretation of human behavior which seems worthwhile to them.

Due to the intense drugging, the simulated wild west experience in The Prisoner episode "Living in Harmony" (1968) is accepted by Number 6 as real. The opening credits in this episode re-state the background of the series, with the key elements transplanted to this new environment: Number 6 resigns as a marshal, is subsequently captured and taken to a town (Harmony) he's never heard of. As in the Village, leaving Harmony is not possible, and he's initially questioned by the local authority about his reasons for resigning. Analogous to "Spectre of the Gun", this simulation is also being run with a scripted pattern of interactions:

Number 8: It's always worked and it would have worked this time if you hadn't...

Number 2: But it didn't, did it? "Give him love; take it away, isolate him, make him kill, then face him with death: he'll crack. Break him, even in his mind, and the rest will be easy!" Hmph. I should never have listened to you.

The simulation fails: Number 2, Number 8 and Number 22 have gotten caught up in the action; in the simulation Kathy is killed by the Kid, the Kid is killed by Number 6, the Judge shoots Number 6. After being "killed", Number 6 wakes up, sees himself dressed in his village clothes and the town of Harmony as just false fronts and cutouts, and the episode ends as the simulated murder replays within the world of the Village.

Many places in the US have movie set reconstructions of western towns, where the visiting public can stand by and watch simulated showdowns and shootouts occuring several times daily. There is no risk to visitors, and their interaction with the simulated, presumably highly scripted, events occuring is limited.

Umberto Eco, in Travels in Hyperreality (1975) writes about the western town simulated for the public at Knott's Berry Farm, giving them the ability to observe what they expect the wild west to be like:

For example, the village school, reconstructed with hyperrealistic detail, has behind the desk a schoolmarm wearing a bonnet and an ample checked skirt, but the children on the benches are little passing visitors, and I heard one tourist ask his wife if the children were real or "fake"...

Eco assumes that the visitors would easily fall into the role that would be most appropriate to them:

And if the dry-goods store is fake nineteen-century and the shopgirl is dressed like a John Ford heroine, the candies, the peanuts, the pseudo-Indian handicrafts are real and are sold for real dollars, just as the soft drinks, advertised with antique posters, are real, and the customer finds himself participating in the fantasy because of his own authenticity as a consumer; in other words, he is in the role of the cowboy or the gold-prospector who comes into town to be fleeced of all he has accumulated while out in the wilds.

But that seems a stretch to me, that someone would recognize themselves in a role that would be a negative sterotype to them, instead of just continuing in expected behavior to a tourist location.

Similarly, the movie Westworld (1973), inspired in part by Michael Crichton's visit to Disneyland, takes this to its reasonable conclusion, for a price you can play the role in the Delos' resort simulation WestWorld, with all the benefits and none of the risks, and still be yourself:

Gardner: When you played cowboys and Indians as a kid, you'd point go "bang, bang" and the other kid would lie down and play dead. Well, Westworld is the same thing, only it's for real! I shot 6 people! Well, they weren't real people!

Ed: What Mr. Lewis means is he shot 6 robots scientifically programmed to look, act, talk and even bleed just like humans do. Isn't that right?
Gardner: Well, they may have been robots. I mean, I think they were robots. I mean, I know they were robots!

Without the risk, however, the visitors to Delos have a harder time taking it seriously -

Woman: They're robbin' the bank!

Peter: Robbin' the bank? Hey, maybe we oughta go help out.

Generic Universal Facebook Viru-Quiz (20090205)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Generic Universal Facebook Viru-Quiz (20090205)

1. Delight.

2. Bath.

3. Border.

4. May I see your passport please?

5. Rail.

6. Bobolink.

7. Cassowary.

8. Leaflets.

9. Yes.

10. Yes.

11. Yes.

12. Yes.

13. Size 12.

14. Yes.

15. We are just good friends.

(20090125)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

(20090125)

"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard Inconvenience you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."

(20090115)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

(20090115)

Narrow dessert (20090106)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Narrow dessert (20090106)

1.     A dessert comprising,
(a)    a binder portion comprising
greek honey yogurt, and
(b)    a contents portion comprising
pearl mozzarella cheese,
raisins,
chopped dried apricots, and
chopped pitted dates.

2. The dessert of claim 1, further comprising
frozen corn kernels.

City Burn (20090103)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

City Burn (20090103)

"A Change in Time", part of First Night Austin 2009, was the burning of a wooden clock tower on New Year's Eve (12/31/2008) on Auditorium Shores in downtown Austin, TX.

...

The Dawn of Automatic Business Computers (20080903)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Dawn of Automatic Business Computers (20080903)

Estimated Number of Automatic Computers in Use

From Introduction to Automatic Computers. The IBM-650, while not IBM's first computer offering, appears to be far outselling all other computer models, probably because it was easier to integrate with existing unit record accounting electromechanical systems.

Bluetooth Headset and Mouthpiece (20080903)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Bluetooth Headset and Mouthpiece (20080903)

Bluetooth Headset and Mouthpiece

Work in progress - putting a Bluetooth telephone headset back together amalgamated with vacuum tube radio headphones and a former telephone's mouthpiece. One earpiece works and the Bluetooth mike is on the mouthpiece. Later need to complete the attachment hook for the mouthpiece.

Report on an unidentified social networking site (20080421)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Report on an unidentified social networking site (20080421)

Usually my spam filter would remove messages that have the message dated in the future, assuming them to be from improperly-configured clients. However it seems to have fortuitiously missed a few messages, refiling them in the data sharing folder.

From: Thomas Jefferson Stamford <stamford@nasa.mil> To: address deleted Subject: SURVEY REPORT 1 Date: 12 Apr 2012 10:13:13 0000

SURVEY REPORT 1

By good luck we have been able to transfer all our accounts and relationships into this empty social networking site. There have been no lost contacts from our community. We all count ourselves fortunate to have found this replacement so quickly after our previous site suffered a sudden and inexplictable bankruptcy.

This site we have moved to has no obvious branding and no domain name. We believe it to have been a staging area, a holder of identities in transit from one network to another. Its applications consist of the typical set of chat boards, horoscopes, groups, fan profiles, and search tools. As yet we have not been able to locate any administrative or moderation functions. We assume that this site was temporarily decommissioned due to a decline in use.

A curious feature of this site is in its lists of "friends of friends" and "people you may know", which, when we compared across several users, had few names in common and do not appear to be consistent with the size of our community.

Estimated size of our social network: 500 connections

(with apologies to ballard)

Franchise Tax (20080420)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Franchise Tax (20080420)

This set of "security questions" for a forgotten password is for a web site for filing franchise tax - a tax typically paid by corporations. This form is filled out by a person acting in a role as the corporation's financial provider or senior officer (e.g., a CFO, if a small business). So why does it want personal information about them? The role might be the same next year, but there's no guarantee that it will be the same person - does one CPA have to call up another CPA to ask their favorite toy? And why is there such an emphasis on childhood experiences - this seems to be a psychodynamic therapy session as much as a tax filing session.

PC Load Letter (20080414)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

PC Load Letter (20080414)

Flattening with a pair of sledgehammers.

Androbot scarecrow (20080414)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:40:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Androbot scarecrow (20080414)

A TOPO shell which was a planter for many years. Hopefully it will keep the robot birds at bay.

Six Earth Cities (20080331)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Six Earth Cities (20080331)

The author of "Six Earth Cities That Will Provide Blueprints for Martian Settlers" picked Black Rock City, an Antarctic base, Dubai, Las Vegas, Nunavut and pueblos of the Southwest. The illustrations show the buildings sitting on the surface or on the sloping side of a crater.

Presumably the inhabitants of these cities, when they're not playing with their Perky Pat Layouts, would either be recovering from radiation sickness or cleaning out the everpresent dust.

I'd suggest as my six models,

Coober Pedy

Interesting attractions in Coober Pedy include the mines, the graveyard, and the underground churches. The first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town. The local golf course - mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime temperatures - is completely free of grass and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off.
Siq

The Siq is a natural geological fault produced by tectonic forces and worn smooth by water erosion. The walls that enclose the Siq stand between 91-182 meters (300-600 feet) in height.
an Ice Hotel

The walls are more than 4 feet (1.2 m) thick on average. All of the furniture is made of ice. In addition to using ice glasses as in the Kiruna ice hotel, the bar (and room service) also serves cold cuts on ice plates.
a Combat support hospital

The great operational advantage of the DEPMEDS facility ... is the use of single or double expanding milvans to create hard sided, air conditioned, sterile operating rooms and intensive care facilities, which can produce surgical outcomes similar to that seen in fixed facility hospitals, and do so in an austere environment.
Cousteau's Underwater Habitat

Conshelf III was tested in 1965, six divers lived in the habitat at 100 metres in the Mediterranean near the Ile du Levant for three weeks. In this effort, Cousteau was determined to make the station more self-sufficient, severing most ties with the surface. A mock oil rig was set up underwater, and divers successfully performed several industrial tasks.
The caves of Afghanistan (book)

Some of these huge tunnels reached 1640ft and contained a hotel, a mosque, arms depts and repair shops, a garage, a medical point, a radio center and a kitchen. A gasoline generator provided power to the tunnels and the hotel's video player. This impressive base became a mandatory stop for visiting journalists, dignitaries and other 'war tourists'.

It appears you'll get three chances to be encalmed during behavior evaluation (20080331)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

It appears you'll get three chances to be encalmed during behavior evaluation (20080331)

From TSA Checkpoint Evolution come Ambient Sounds:

Soothing music is played to calm passengers in the checkpoint queue area, allowing behavior detection officers to better identify suspicious passengers.

The placement of the speakers in a light panel is illustrated in a video they posted to YouTube..

Diagram from Wired:

This means, order your steak well-done, Walter. (20080128)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

This means, order your steak well-done, Walter. (20080128)

From ABC News,

Savvy criminals are using some of the country's most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement...The report says criminals have been able to easily obtain the necessary vinyl logo markings and signs for $6,000 or less. Authorities say "cosmetically cloned commercial vehicles are not illegal."

So a Piggly Wiggly truck, in Wyoming, could be due to aliens.

Bouncing to Graceland (20080112)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Bouncing to Graceland (20080112)

Last night saw casiotone for the painfully alone, who was touring with his brother (Concern), at The Vera Project in Seattle Center. The 45-min set included "I Love Creedence", "Streets of Philadelphia", "Toby, take a bow", "Scattered Pearls", "Jeane if you're ever in Portland", "Hobby Bobby", others, and closed with "Graceland".

Difficult Listening Hour (20080105)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Difficult Listening Hour (20080105)

Lightness war

The phrase lightness war (or lightness race) refers to the art industry's tendency to paint, color and print art at progressively increasing levels of lightness to create an image that stands out from others. This phenomenon can be observed in many areas of the art industry, particularly in galleries and in pictures distributed as giclée and as Sofa-sized art. In the case of gallery prints, the war stems from artists' and distributors' desires to create pictures that seem as bright as possible or brighter than pictures from competing artists.^[1]

However, as the maximum brightness of a picture is dependent on its illumination, the overall lightness can only be increased by reducing the dynamic range. This is done by making the darker areas brighter while the brightest peak shades are either destroyed or severely diminished.

Example

Runways and Volcanos-on-a-Plane (20080102)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 05:50:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Runways and Volcanos-on-a-Plane (20080102)

This quite readable report from the FAA describes the US airports which will likely not keep up with their anticipated passenger/cargo demand over the next 20 years, based on their current construction forecasts: An Analysis of Airports and Metropolitan Area Demand and Operational Capacity in the Future 2007-2025. 23 pages + appendicies

On a lighter note, what did Shatner and Nimoy have to say about air travel?

(fwd) i-card hero ROCKS!!!! (20071230)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:59:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

(fwd) i-card hero ROCKS!!!! (20071230)

A thank you note email I received this week:

Dear Mark,

Thank you very much for getting me the icard hero video game for Xmas!! i know a lot of my friends have also got it, but i'm not sure how many are really playing it much

when i started playing i sucked pretty bad and i just kept practicing pressing the password-on-a-postit button on the controller over and over each time a login came up... but then the "disclosed personal identifying information" stuff started appearing and the Phish Meter went way UP!

anyway i'm getting much better now with all the other authenticators...I can even do chords where I have to use two of them at the same time

My fav one is where you're logged into your work with a vpn but then you have to book personal air travel, and then blog about it at an OpenID-enabled site... but i'm still having trouble with that bridge in it where the airline sends ya over to the car rental site...

so thanks - i have to go practice some more - conor is coming over and he says he can play like 237 different identities in a row so we'll see!

Boeing Surplus Sales (20071221)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Boeing Surplus Sales (20071221)

Boeing Surplus Sales in Kent, WA closed on December 21, 2007.

My last loadout - Friday afternoon

changetype:add (20071101)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

changetype:add (20071101)

dn: cn=Marsden Wahl
cn: Marsden Wahl
cn: Marsden Burnside Wahl
sn: Wahl
objectclass: top
objectclass: person
objectclass: newperson
birthTimestamp: 20071030052000Z

Universal Frequencies (20071023)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Universal Frequencies (20071023)

The US Radio Act of 1912 limited amateur ("ham") radio communication to "short waves": wavelengths less than 200 meters, or frequencies of greater than 1.5 MHz.

No private or commercial station not engaged in the transaction of bona fide commercial business by radio communication or in experimentation in connection with the development and manufacture of radio apparatus for commercial purposes shall use a transmitting wave length exceeding two hundred meters...

At the time, these frequencies were thought to be not useful for communication.

Currently in the US, use of frequencies over 300 GHz are unlicensed, but this is likely to change in the next few years.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) August 2006 paper on "Spectrum requirements of the amateur and amateur-satellite services" states that

The following are the bands preferred [above 275 GHz] for the Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Services because they are within the better bands identified above and are free of other radio-frequency lines of the greatest importance to the radio astronomy service. Primary allocations within these bands appears feasible, and the bands from 510 GHz and below are the most ideal for the amateur services, based on atmospheric attenuation, and where the bulk of the allocations within these bands is preferred.

280 - 294

358 - 363

365 - 371

389 - 400

493 - 496

506 - 510

692 - 710

810 - 850

However, David Britz of AT&T wrote in an August 2007 presentation to IEEE 802.11-07 "Proposed ITU/WRC Spectrum and Usage Allocation For Terahertz Frequencies" that

The best Terahertz spectrum is being carved up among science, satellite and amateur radio interests.

Nolan Bushnell (20071023)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Nolan Bushnell (20071023)

From "Nolan Bushnell: Serious Thoughts about Fun and Games" on home console Pong:

I can remember people saying, 'It's neat, but how does the TV station know I turned this knob?' Their whole metric was TV signals came from TV station.

Hyperreality and children's literature (20071018)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Hyperreality and children's literature (20071018)

Fakelore: children's books, mass-produced aboriginal art, that "improves" a traditional theme but takes it out of its original context. At its worst, fakelore can replace folklore.

From "Fakelore, Multiculturalism, and the Ethics of Children's Literature"

Certainly, traditional narrators synthesize the different versions they have heard. Certainly, each traditional storyteller is an artist who adds his or her own flair and interpretation to the tales he or she tells. However, such artistry and synthesis takes place within a culture that sets parameters for and limits to what peculiarities and deviations from previous tellings will be accepted, that frames the content and style of narrative, so even texts learned from other cultures become assimilated into the narrator's own. For children's book authors, the culture for which they write is a safe, homogenized vision for unity and caring in difference, perhaps best exemplified by Reading Rainbow. Ultimately, their "weaving" is an assimilation of all the cultural difference in their sources and supposed sources into their own mono-culture.

Admittedly, real folk narrative can be difficult to follow, mostly because the subtleties of reference in native languages are usually lost in translation, and I have sympathy for those who feel they must provide clarifications for the reader. Children's book authors, however, go far beyond facilitating reading. Many of them start with tales that were never really part of any folk tradition, and virtually all insist on "improving" style, character, plot, and theme, to please themselves and their readers, with little regard to the integrity and meaning of their sources. Rewriting is simply what children's book authors do, and no one seems to care whether or not that is ethical.

Why did they have to ruin a perfectly servicable wagon story with all that fruity singing? (20071004)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Why did they have to ruin a perfectly servicable wagon story with all that fruity singing? (20071004)

Burning Man 1862

In 1847, Larry Harvey and his followers, fleeing persecution on Baker Beach, reached the Black Rock Desert and announced

It is enough, this is the right place, leave no trace.

Greeters

Hard to tell what's going on, lots of dust

The first Temple

Survival Research Labs team test out their creation

Bar car

Some sort of performance art, I guess

Center Camp had the usual ameneties

Though not everyone wanted to leave their wagon

Wearing costumes was encouraged

Everyone is waiting for the parade to pass through

The man burned, but the fire spread a bit further than anticipated

Rain and mud made Exodus difficult

Exodus (20071004)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Exodus (20071004)

World's largest pinhole photograph (20071004)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

World's largest pinhole photograph (20071004)

The Great Picture.

Taken using a 6mm pinhole. Image is 3375 square feet, gelatin sizing, covered by 80 liters Rockland Liquid Light. Exposure was 35 minutes. Developing required 600 gallons developer, 1200 gallons fixer.

I gotta fight the lion! (20071004)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 4 Oct 2007 16:10:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

I gotta fight the lion! (20071004)

From Takkorngartaub Arvertarninga: Pilgrim's Progress translated into Inuktitut, available as a scanned PDF from University of Alberta SunSITE.

Unlike the earlier 1901 translation, which borrowed generic 'European' illustrations from other missionary translations, Flint's version was supplied with original illustrations in which Bunyan's characters appear in furs and sun goggles - all except Christian, who dons medieval armour at the point of his conversion.

Would you buy a satellite dish from this man? (20071003)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Would you buy a satellite dish from this man? (20071003)

The first rule of advertising is, Stalin sells!. Especially when he offers a free trial!.

Balloons against drugs (20071003)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Balloons against drugs (20071003)

An aerostat tethered to a locomotive on a little circle track provides border patrol assistance outside Marfa, Texas. Its radar observes aircraft coming in low over the horizon from Mexico.

No lightning without prior approval? (20071003)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

No lightning without prior approval? (20071003)

Seen on the grounds of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). (April 2007, Laurel, MD).

You are not Facebook's customer (20071003)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

You are not Facebook's customer (20071003)

Doc Searls in his DIDW2007 keynote discussed the relationships between users and vendors of computing services.

For a social networking service like Facebook, you (the individual) are not the customer. Advertisers are Facebook's customers. You are bait.

Consent Decree and Computing (20071003)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 3 Oct 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Consent Decree and Computing (20071003)

Not many people realize that the model of "computing" we have, as well as the computer industry of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that led to the personal computer, the Internet, the free software movement, etc., was due to a Department of Justice consent decree with IBM in 1956.

In 1952, the US government brought a suit against International Business Machines under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The resulting consent decree required that IBM, among other restrictions,

offer computers for sale to the organizations currently leasing them,
offer to sell new computers, not just to lease them,
permit and encourage a secondhand market of used computers,
permit customers to 'experiment' with their IBM computers.

Big Science and Little Kids infant and toddler clothing (20071002)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:30:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Big Science and Little Kids infant and toddler clothing (20071002)

The Zetona Clothing store Big Science and Little Kids has infant and children's clothing.

Mir/Shuttle Kid's T-Shirt 100% Cotton: the Mir space station and the Space Shuttle.
International Space Station Kid's Hooded Sweatshirt Cotton/Polyester Fleece: the ISS under construction.
Mars Sample Return Infant Bodysuit 100% Cotton Infant Creeper: a future Mars rover and sample return mission.
Mars Sample Return + Rover Infant T-Shirt 100% Cotton Infant T-Shirt: a future Mars rover and sample return mission.
Probe Bib 100% Cotton: painting of descending Huygens probe

Last updated October 2007.
Image source: NASA

Working Characters (20070926)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Working Characters (20070926)

I'm reading the new book "Hello, Please! Very Helpful Super Kawaii Characters from Japan".

Working characters can be found in nearly every corner of Japan, every drug store and supermarket, every doctor's office, every police box, every military base, and even, occasionally, alongside the prime minister.

Perceiving colors and the visible spectrum (20070921)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Perceiving colors and the visible spectrum (20070921)

IIRC the color gamuts which are used to "define" RGB and other computer models of color were based on experimental averages of testing lots of people in the 1920s. They were of course then limited in testing for what was easy to see and discern using their equipment (ie., visible light, but not tunable, and no lasers, just mixing). But in tests when there's no 'visible' light going into the eye, the human eye can just barely detect some infrared, although I think people seeing that don't consider it a different color from red. (I need to get the gels so I can try this myself). I've wondered if that is because of limitations in the receptors of the eye (IR and red send exactly the same signal to the brain) or that people grow up in an environment where the IR contribution is so small that the brain never learns to make a color for IR.

Similarly, I've heard stories about aging scientists who have had cataract surgery who get called up every time the physics department needs to calibrate their UV spectrometer, as they can discern colors in the UV which people who hadn't had the surgery could only discern overall intensity.

As there are people doing corneal tattooing, no doubt people are also planning to have their cornea modified to allow more UV.

Ocular implants, designed to repair blindness by allowing patients to see in the normal range, could be boosted to allow anyone to see in the infrared or ultra-violet spectrum, Dr Vint Cerf says....He does not find the idea overwhelming or dangerous. But he is less enthusiastic about technologies that change the way we think or make decisions.
from "Net Creator Says Bionic will Boom"

Hiding BRC (20070920)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Hiding BRC (20070920)

See for example this page. Think of the shade!

The Title Grabs You (20070918)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Title Grabs You (20070918)

Much better than those books on Language and Social Change in VB or Perl...

Anti-utopian social networking #3 - the real world and its online representation (20070917)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Anti-utopian social networking #3 - the real world and its online representation (20070917)

Dan Brickley who blogs at danbri's foaf stories wrote last week in his post "The World is now closed" that one problem with popular social networking service sites such as Facebook is that their software is making the closed world assumption: anything the service didn't already have in their database, was false, rather than "unknown". This assumption causes a service to have a view of the world that an individual didn't exist until that individual became a member of that service. This is of course incorrect:

A description of me and my friends hosted by a big Web site isn't "my social network". Those sites are just a database containing claims made by different people, some verified, some not. And with, inevitably, lots missing.

Suppose Alice and Bob got married in the 1970s. A social networking service Foo starts operation in 2006. Alice joins the Foo service June 2007; Bob joins that same service Foo in July 2007, and in August 2007 Alice and Bob decide to add the 'spouse' links between their accounts in Foo's database. Unfortunately, it is likely that Foo will immediately afterward send out an announcement to all of Alice and Bob's friends who have accounts in Foo that "Alice and Bob are now married. Congratulations!". Mr. Brickley writes

Syndicating descriptions of the changeable properties of the world, on the other hand, is more slippery since you need to have all other relevant facts to be able to say how the world is right now (or implicitly, how it used to be, before).

Through data sharing protocols and mechanisms, it may become possible for services to assemble better pictures of their subscriber's interactions, by exchanging data with the other services through which their subscribers interacts. But this approach is still limited in what it can provide, and social networking services that assume that everything is going to be available on the web will present a fantasy role-playing game view of the real world, since there's no JTAG interface to the minds of individuals, where the social networking 'raw data' resides.

I agree with his recommendation that We need better UI that reflects what's really going on....what we're most missing is a style of end-user UI here that educates users about this world that spans websites, couching things in terms of claims hosted in sites, rather than in absolutist terms.

However, while joining a new service and having it pronounce "you do not have any friends!" is disconcerting, might it also be disconcerting for a too accurate view of real world social networks to be presented? Most individuals are not used to there being a gossip column maintained about their life. Furthermore, might there be an "uncanny valley" for social networking services, in which humans reject software that appears to "know too much" about the activity of humans? The closer the software reaches to actual social skills in its attempts to provide a human-like social ability, the further it might appear to be. Jean Baudrillard in the paper "Holograms" in Simulacra and Simulation writes

The social, the social phantasmagoria, is now nothing but a special effect, obtained by the design of participating networks converging in emptiness under the spectral image of collective happiness. Three-dimensionality of the simulacrum - why would the simulacrum with three dimensions be closer to the real than the one with two dimensions? It claims to be, but paradoxically, it has the opposite effect: to render us sensitive to the fourth dimension as a hidden truth, a secret dimension of everything, which suddenly takes on all the force of evidence. The closer one gets to the perfection of the simulacrum..., the more evident it becomes ... how everything escapes representation, escapes its own double and its resemblance.

Winnetou (20070914)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Winnetou (20070914)

The New York Times has an article on the most famous German Apache of all time.

Webcast Spectators (20070904)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Webcast Spectators (20070904)

Alice: "No Burner would be a spectator."
Bob: "But Carol-the-Burner watched the BM webcast."
Alice: "Aye, but no True Burner would be a spectator."

Driving a Capacitor (20070904)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Driving a Capacitor (20070904)

The authors of a patent for a capacitor power source propose an array of 2736 1000-layer caps totaling 31F (with a charge voltage of 3500V) to keep an EV rolling at 60 mph (14 hp) for 5 hours.

Nobodobodon (20070831)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Nobodobodon (20070831)

Johnny Cash Liner Note Mad Lib (20070831)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Johnny Cash Liner Note Mad Lib (20070831)

 "The initial idea for the ______________ came from a dream I had  .........................(type of media).........................   ________ years ago.  I was in _____________ and had bought a book  (number)......................(distant town).....................   called "Dreaming of _______________________". The book talked  .......................(celebrity)...............................   about the great number of people in that country who dream that  .................................................................   they are with  ________________________.  I dreamed that I  ....................(celebrity)..................................   walked into ___________________, and there ________ sat, ________  ............(famous location)..............(he/she)......(gerund)   or ___________. As I approached, ________ looked up at me and  ...(gerund)......................(he/she)........................   said, "___________! You're like a ___________ in a _____________!"  .......(your name)................(first noun).....(second noun).   Then of course, I awoke.  I realized that "___________ in a  ...........................................(first noun)..........   _____________" sounded familiar to me.  Eventually I decided that  (second noun)....................................................   it was biblical, and I found it in the book of _____________. From  ..............................................(book of bible).....   it grew into a _______________, and I started lifting things from  ...............(type of media)....................................   the book of __________________."  ............(book of bible).......................................

Narrative of community and redemption (20070830)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Narrative of community and redemption (20070830)

It will turn this year's Burning Man into a "narrative of community and redemption" as the attendees get to see or assist in the public rebuilding of the statue, he said.

I wonder which definition of "redemption" is being invoked.

"After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

- B. B.

Pods are coming to town (20070829)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Pods are coming to town (20070829)

Yes, less than a week ago, Austin was like any other town: people with nothing but problems. Then, out of the playa came a solution. Pods, which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life. Your new bodies are growing in there. They're taking you over, cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you're asleep, they'll absorb your minds, your memories, and you're reborn into an untroubled world. Tomorrow, you'll be one of them. There's no need for love, desire, ambition, faith...without them, life is so simple...

Street Skate Song (20070829)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Street Skate Song (20070829)

 "Magic street skate  Mystery street skate  Take a little ride  Let me be your guide  Through the street skate paradise.   Juju street skate  Voodoo street skate  Take a little fall.  Spend a splendid night  Where there's never hills or walls.   It's a natural, natural, natural desire.  Roll on actual, actual, actual plastic tires.  Let the street skate set your soul on fire, fire, fire, fire.   You'll be hypnotized,  And you'll be demonized,  But you'll be paralyzed,  So you can victimize.  You're facinating, captivating, losing your mind  When we cast the street skate light on you.   Holy street skate  Sacred street skate  Take a little chance,  Get into a trance,  And join me in the street skate dance."

Dune Chanting (20070829)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Dune Chanting (20070829)

I had shuffled just a metre further down the slope with a good sand avalanche going, when it began. The burping sound suddenly transformed into a low growl, as if a thousand yogis hidden beneath the dune had started chanting 'Om'. It felt like the ground itself was vibrating with the sound and it grew louder and louder.

From New Scientist

The Burning Man did not take place (20070827)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Burning Man did not take place (20070827)

Watch as five guys driving art cars wander into a theme camp, knock over some electronic equipment and steal a guitar. On Youtube.

EOE M/F/D/V/Vampire-Slayer? (20070824)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 03:30:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

EOE M/F/D/V/Vampire-Slayer? (20070824)

New Scientist is a UK based magazine that also has a US edition. The main difference is in the jobs section at the back of each issue: the US edition are naturally US-based jobs, primarily from pharma/biotech companies needing researchers or lab workers. What caught my eye in last week's issue was a full page job ad from a US government agency (not defense or intelligence community). The ad copy read:

The Watchful Eye.

It's what I live for. Life at its most fundamental level. The knowledge, the study, the responsibility of having the power to stop something before it starts. It's being at the right place at the right time. Identifying a potential threat. Terminating an impending hazard. It's the ability to use my mind, my vision, and my strength to protect, prevent, and preserve.

Art that goes Boom (20070822)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Art that goes Boom (20070822)

Maybe my work sometimes is like the poppy flower. It's very beautiful, but yet because of circumstances it also represents a poison to society as well. So from gunpowder, from its very essence, you can see so much of the power of the universe-how we came to be. You can express these grand ideas about the cosmos. But at the same time, we live in the world where explosions kill people, and then you have this other immediate context for the work.

Cai Guo-Qiang

Scratch Monkey (20070822)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Scratch Monkey (20070822)

Don't forget your scratch monkey

GEB Parody (20070819)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

GEB Parody (20070819)

Tortoise: And so, our little game went on like this for a few more rounds, and eventually our friend tried to become very smart. He got wind of the principle upon which I was basing my own MP3s, and decided to try to outfox me. He wrote to the MP3 player makers, and described to them a device of his own invention, which they built to specification. He called it "MP3 Player Omega"...

Anti-utopian social networking #2 (20070811)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 23:20:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Anti-utopian social networking #2 (20070811)

In an earlier post on anti-utopian social networking, I outlined a scenario in which An anti-utopian social networking site is a social networking site that has developed a flaw that "spoils" it, and one flaw could be the misapplication of undercover/viral marketing strategies.

Another problem which could be a flaw in social networking is hyperreality, a term used by the theorists Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco. One possible definition of hyperreal could be made in contrast to what is "real":

The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction... The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal...which is entirely in simulation. (Jean Baudrillard)

1. Just because you're not a celebrity doesn't mean millions of people couldn't be watching your every move.

One impact is the sense an individual would have from "always being viewed". In part, social networking services give anyone with Internet connectivity the ability to share minutae of their life with others, regardless of boundaries of time or distance. Everyone is encouraged to self-publish: blog their life, update their status on Twitter, write about their feelings in specialized feeling-recording Facebook or MySpace apps, upload their family photos to Flickr and videos to YouTube. Not only do people enjoy uploading, people enjoy watching. Without LiveJournal/Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/MySpace/YouTube, would those same authors write in their diaries, show their snapshots to friends at parties, etc? To some, the magnification available from publishing to these services must offer an appeal, but with it often comes a cost to the participants: both the authors, and the viewers searching for the "real" in self-generated content. Jean Baudrillard wrote in the section "The End of the Panopticon" of Simulations, concerning a TV documentary capturing an "actual typical American family":

"It is again to this ideology of the lived experience, of exhumation, of the real in its fundamental banality, in its radical authenticity, that the American TV-verite experiment on the Loud family in 1971 refers: 7 months of uninterrupted shooting. 300 hours of direct non-stop broadcasting, without script or scenario, the odyssey of a family, its dramas, its joys, ups and downs - in brief, a "raw" historical document, and the "best thing ever on television, comparable, at the level of our daily existence, to the film of the lunar landing." Things are complicated by the fact that this family came apart during the shooting: a crisis flared up, the Louds went their separate ways, etc. Whence that insoluble controversy: was TV responsible? What would have happened if TV hadn't been there.
More interesting is the phantasm of filming the Louds as if TV wasn't there. The producer's trump card was to say: "They lived as if we weren't there". An absurd, paradoxical formula - neither true, nor false: but utopian. The "as if we weren't there" is equivalent to "as if you were there". It is this utopia, this paradox that fascinated 20 million viewers, much more than the "perverse" pleasure of prying. In this "truth" experiment, it is neither a question of secrecy nor of perversion, but of a kind of thrill of the real, or of an aesthetics of the hyperreal, a thrill of vertiginous and phony exactitude, a thrill of alienation and of magnification, of distortion in scale, of excessive transparency all at the same time..."

The popularity of these social networking services gives millions of people around the world the ability to simultaneously 'drop in' on any randomly-chosen individual in a way that never would be physically possible before. The BBC reports that footage of a teenage kid swinging a golf ball retriever, not intended to be shown to anyone, has been viewed 900 million times, making the victim a "worldwide object of ridicule": It was simply unbearable, totally. It was impossible to attend class.

As people are objects in social networking services, these services are designed to make it easy for the users to find other people they know, and learn more about them. Chris Ceppi writes about the people search engine Spock and the New New Transparency that

Spock automates the retrieval of those bits - if your age is published on LinkedIn, MySpace, a random online bio, or any other number of sources that Spock sorts and surfaces - then it will be front and center on Spock.

Also, many social networking sites encourage users to add comments about each other. Gossiping is a natural human activity, that now is magnified through technology to allow the gossip to be available on a vast scale. As a result, individuals find that they are not in control of their story as commentary aggregates and swirls around and about them. Pamela Dingle wrote in her blog post "The Dating Mashup (or my Facebook Adventure)":

Why wouldn't someone from some other part of my life or history cruise through and add his own dating history into that photo thread? Heck, maybe my husband will chime in, he's on Facebook too. If there was enough interest, I do believe that an entire timeline could be constructed, and what could I do? I could scream and freak out and have the photo removed I'm sure. But such anti-social behaviour would become the object of discussion in turn. When you protest, people assume you are afraid of something :). Taken separately, nobody's dating history is secret - but peer-to-peer publishing of cumulative results makes me feel vulnerable to the same phenomena occurring around some other, less innocent set of facts.

Bob Blakley has discussed this in his blog post "On the Absurity of Owning One's Identity", and the fear of computer systems and organizations conspiring behind one's back is based on real concerns, as shown in an article earlier this year by Liz Pulliam Weston in MSN Money entitled "Insurers keep a secret history of your home" discusses the ChoicePoint Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE) database:

Jan and Kevin Garder of Bremerton, Wash., discovered this the hard way. The Garders thought they were doing the right thing when they told their insurance company, State Farm, about some minor water damage caused by a rainstorm last year. The couple, who say they had been with their insurer for 30 years without filing a claim, ultimately decided not to file one this time, either. That didn't stop State Farm from dropping them as customers, they say. Not only that, but they say State Farm also shared the damage information with the CLUE database. When the Garders applied for coverage elsewhere, the other insurers cited State Farm's damage report as the reason they wouldn't write a policy, Jan Garder said.

Here, as the information flow paths in social networking services are based on one's "friends", "coworkers" and other more nebulous relationships, this time, it's personal.

Thus one flaw of social networking might be that it provides anyone with the ability to drill into the details (facts, opinions, speculations, connections real or implied) of another's life, and to the target, the sense that this could occur at any time and come from anywhere.

The former, taken to extremes, can be anti-social behavior. It is not necessary to know everything about a person to be their friend/coworker/neighbor, and conversely knowing everything of a person's biography does not make them one's friend, as I mentioned in the example of the King of Comedy.

2. The Replica replacing the real

The second flaw might be that the unreal world of online interaction might come to affect real-world interaction.

Internet users are conditions to not accept certain people as real. There are not hundreds of rich widows in Nigeria seeking help in moving their fortunes; it is a variant of the Spanish prisoner scam:

Fellow says him and his sister, wealthy refugees, left a fortune in the home country. He got out, girl and the money stuck in Spain. Here is her most beautiful portrait. And he needs money to get her and the fortune out. Man who supplies the money gets the fortune and the girl. Oldest con in the world.

On the face of it, as Pamela Dingle noted in "Breaking the TOS before you even start", the terms of service of various social networking sites require the user to provide 'true' information. Some sites would delete "fake" profiles for non-real persons, as a 2003 article in SF Weekly states

Jonathan Abrams, the 33-year-old software engineer who founded Friendster to improve his own social life ... abhors the phony profiles. He believes they diminish his site's worth as a networking tool and claims that fakesters' pictures -- often images ripped off the Web -- violate trademark law. Abrams' 10-person Sunnyvale company has begun ruthlessly deleting fakesters and plans to eventually eradicate them completely from the site.

Yet if there is commercial value in having certain "non-person" characters present, then those are allowed, as a 2004 article in Wired states

"What Friendster is doing with these movie-character profiles is actually a brand-new paradigm in media promotion," Friendster spokeswoman Lisa Kopp said. "We are working directly with a number of production houses and movie studio partners to create film-character profiles, or 'fan' profiles, that allow our users to share their enthusiasm about the film with their friends."

Social networking services can further be subverted with characters that have no existence outside of the services themselves. An Internet celebrity may not necessarily be a "real" person or even a "real" (pre-existing) character, as in the example of lonelygirl15:

To further the initial illusion that Bree was a real girl, a MySpace page was set up for her and she began meaningfully corresponding with many of her fans. Several fans of lonelygirl15's video posts began to wonder if Bree was, in fact, a real person or if the posts were part of a teaser campaign for a television show or an upcoming movie (similar to the viral marketing used to hype The Blair Witch Project). Others felt that the blog might be part of an alternate reality game.

If all one sees are replicas, does it become harder to recognize the real? For an extreme example, in the movie Galaxy Quest, an alien civilization, the Thermians, has intercepted Earth's TV transmissions from the 1960-1970s. Yet their mental models are different and they do not 'get' that the television shows are sometimes fictional. They believe Gilligan, the Skipper, "and the rest" really were stranded on an island. They also believe that the episodes they receive of the sci-fi show "Galaxy Quest" were "historical documents" describing the adventures in space of the crew of the NSEA Protector, a thinly-veiled Starship Enterprise. Using their advanced technology, the Thermians transport the actor Jason Nesmith, who portrayed the captain of the Protector, to an actual interstellar spaceship they have constructed with the appearance of the Protector from these "historical documents". Jason Nesmith, having of course never seen an actual spaceship, doesn't recognize it as being 'real', believing it to be only a fan's reconstruction:

This is great. Usually it's just cardboard walls in a garage.

The second impact of social networking is that 'unreal' statements made on the Internet about interpersonal relationships might replace the 'real' statements: the vocabulary of the software becomes a "Newspeak" that reframes the participants' expressions. Suppose the term friend is used to mean any connection: people who are interested in me, people who have a pretty picture on their home page, people who I was at the same school at, people whose friends I know, etc. Can changes such as these affect people's behavior?

In an article in last month's New Scientist on "The rise of cyberbullying" several contributing factors are cited, including the typical scapegoat of anonymity, the magnification of attacks from the wide distribution possible online, the 24x7 connected lifecycle of the participants, and

The lack of face-to-face contact might tempt bullies to new levels of cruelty. "On the playground, seeing the stress and pain of the victim face-to-face can act as an inhibitor to some degree," explains Carr. "In cyberspace, where there is no visual contact, you get more extreme behaviour." Kowalski says the effect is unique to computer-mediated communication. "There is a distancing of the self and immediacy in response that we don't have in any other form of communication," she says. "On the computer, it's like it's not really you."

Furthermore, unlike traditional online games (e.g., Nethack) where people play behind personas defined by the game, game-like interactions embedded in social networking services have such no layer of isolation: the players are playing "as themselves".

The article also notes that 2000 abuse reports are filed each day in Second Life, and that

"It's adults hassling other adults," says Thomas Chesney of the University of Nottingham, UK, who has encountered pushing, swearing and shooting there. Chesney and colleagues recently set up an office in Second Life where they interviewed more than 100 inhabitants about bullying. Chesney says that because many people come to Second Life with a background in gaming, they bring preconceived notions of violence and aggression with them. "They're playing games like World of Warcraft - where the aim is to kill everybody - and they take that attitude into Second Life," he says. "It's a bit depressing that we haven't progressed beyond hassling one other, but not surprising given all we know about workplace bullying."

"My" Story: biography in social networking services (20070810)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

"My" Story: biography in social networking services (20070810)

Pamela Dingle (who blogs at Adventures of an Eternal Optimist) writes in "The Dating Mashup (or my Facebook Adventure)"

...I see that a photo has been 'tagged' as being of me....When my friend posted that picture, only those in his network saw it - generally speaking, those that were interested were all a member of one of my circles of acquaintance. No problem - until I join Facebook, and link all of my various circles TOGETHER. Suddenly, a photo & conversation intended for one circle is accessible to another. Yes, I can 'limit' what people see - but would I have the foresight, tools, and memory to figure out all the ways in which I really don’t want past circles to intersect in the future? What about current circles? What about friends who span the circles? I am suddenly the hub, and all my different spheres are the spokes, and those spokes are suddenly connected through me in a tangible, interesting, and researchable way. You may not need to be a direct friend; sharing a friend, a group, or a network may suffice as well (depending on whose account 'houses' what discussion, and who you and your friends open your accounts up to).

Paul Madsen (who blogs at ConnectID) writes in "Eclectic Avenue" on someone whose profile he was reading on LinkedIn:

For instance, if the user's play list showed they listened to Bjork's Greatest Hits, followed by Debussy, I might start to believe that their taste was indeed eclectic. Bad, but eclectic nevertheless.

This seems an unfair characterization, given the portrayal of identity management in at least one of the Greatest Hits:

The Icelandic poet Sjón wrote the lyrics for the song "Bachelorette" for Björk Guðmundsdóttir. An excerpt of the story in the song:

"One day I happened upon a big book buried deep in the ground. I had been walking through the forest, searching for mandrake and the rare mushroom of everlasting love. Few books find their way to my part of the world so I picked it up and dusted the earth of its massive cover. From beneath the dirt appeared a faded photograph of a young woman. The young woman was I.

Despite the alarming fact that my own image was on the cover, I clung to the hope that the book contained a tale of a knight in shining armour and a fair lady waiting to be rescued from a blackhearted ogre. I tried to picture myself on a dark winter's night, sitting in front of the fire, immersed in an ancient adventure. I opened the book, trembling with fear and excitement. The pages were blank.

I was about to cry out in a mixture of disappointment and relief when my gaze touched the paper where one would expect to find the first paragraph. To my surprise the book had started writing itself - as if by magick:

One day when I was walking through the forest, searching for mandrake and the rare mushroom of everlasting love, I happened upon a big book buried deep in the ground.

What it wrote was what I was doing there and then. It seemed to follow my every move. Well, I thought, it's an automatic diary. I guess that means it's up to me to create the story as I go on living. Deep down the thought saddened me. Who would ever want to go through page after page about someone like me? My life was so simple it would never make for a good read. But then a new sentence appeared: I had to leave the forest.

And another one: I realised the book was not merely recounting what I did, it was telling me what I should do. It was time I left my house and started exploring the world. I did exactly what the book told me to and the forest opened up to me like never before. It put on a great show of colours, movement and sounds - as if it wished to make sure it stayed rooted in my memory in all its dazzling beauty. Now, I was ready to leave."

Once in the city, the book "My Story" sends her to a publisher;

the book is published and becomes a bestseller;	it's turned into a performance,

but the media frenzy (captured in the text itself)	causes the story to unravel.

Dramaturge in Space (20070803)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Dramaturge in Space (20070803)

I propose that Samuel Beckett's "Act without Words I" would be a prototypical candidate for inclusion in a set of plays ideally suited for being performed by a theater of astronauts located on the Moon, or perhaps on Mars.

Don't fly to Burning Man (20070801)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Don't fly to Burning Man (20070801)

Gremlin on the wing says: Don't waste oil.

(Parody)

Anti-utopian social networking (20070730)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:15:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Anti-utopian social networking (20070730)

First, some background.

Tupperware parties, undercover marketing and viral marketing

The party plan is a marketing technique developed by Brownie Wise in the early 1950s, initially for selling Tupperware (tm) plastic storage containers.

The 1995 documentary Tupperware!, on the history and impact on Tupperware in American culture, provides a basic description of how the parties start. The documentary includes excerpts from a party plan short training film; quoting from the transcript,

Woman 1: I've heard a little about this kind of party, but I've often wondered how it works.

Woman 2: Well here's the idea. All you have to do is invite about twelve or fifteen of your friends to drop over some afternoon or evening for a party. And I'll help you put it on. Tell them we'll have lots of fun.

Woman 1: And then I suppose you take orders from the guests?

Woman 2: Yes, but no high-pressure selling. None of your friends will be embarrassed into buying.

A goal of the plan was that anyone (but typically women) could become a participant in this business as a party host or hostess. The background FAQ for the film discusses some of the advantages of the model: low barrier to entry, and leverages existing and emerging interpersonal connections:

Through all these changes [brought on by WWII], women retained important social networks, keeping up with other women through their churches, neighborhoods, and families. Female relatives still provided most child-care for absent mothers. These were the same sort of female networks that had shaped the 19th century anti-slavery and suffrage movements, contributed to the union movement of the early 20th century, and enabled women to move from country to city during the war. These connections would, in turn, be critical to Brownie Wise's marketing strategies, as she built the Tupperware home party business on top of relationships created at church socials and back-fence friendships. (emphasis added)

(from PBS)

A sales brochure illustrated how the scope of selling can grow beyond immediate friends:

Betty: Everyone needs and wants Tupperware. And don't forget your beauty operator, your milk man, your grocer, butcher, service station attendant, your doctor... in other words, everybody you see every day.

Ann: What about the P.T.A.? I know some people there.

Betty: Exactly! You're getting the idea. In other words, wherever you go, you will meet people who are prospects for Tupperware parties.

Participating in a Tupperware party is a 'voluntary' experience, driven by the participant's interest and sense of social obligation. And the product demonstration and order-taking is an evident and 'fun' part of such a party. Everyone there knows that selling is occurring.

By contrast, in undercover marketing, the goal of the marketer is to inform the potential customer without the potential customer being aware they are being targeted. The 1998 movie The Truman Show takes this to extremes, as an analysis from Transparency at transparencynow.com by Ken Sanes suggests

Since the television program that is [Truman Burbank's] life plays nonstop, without commercial interruption, it has to makes money through product placement. Advertisements are not-so-seamlessly woven into dialogue and scenes, turning Truman's life into a continuous commercial, as well as a form of entertainment...

Taking the point one or two steps further, we can say that the media would have us live inside a world of fiction that is the most glorious commercial ever devised, for a system in which life, sales, and entertainment are interfused. "Product placement" and testimonials for this emerging system of entertainment-marketing capitalism are being seamlessly woven into our lives.

Look what I got for you at the checkout. It's a Chef's Pal. It's a dicer, grater, peeler all in one. Never needs sharpening. Dishwasher safe.

In viral marketing, the potential customer and the current customer are enlisted to pass on the marketing message they've received. The prospect caught up in viral marketing may be aware and actively want to "spread the word", might be a carrier who is unaware of how they are being used, or might be aware of their participation in the activity and not be able to do something about it.

An example of the third category of viral marketing is a public emailing service that automatically attaches ads to outgoing messages. Hotmail, one of the earliest uses of viral marketing on the Internet, is discussed in the 2001 paper "Applying Quantitative Marketing Techniques to the Internet" by Alan Montgomery of CMU:

An alternative promotional campaign was suggested by one of Hotmail's venture capitalists, who advocated placing an advertising message, "Get your free e-mail at Hotmail," with a hyperlink back to Hotmail at the bottom of every outgoing e-mail. The recipient would know that the e-mail message came via Hotmail and its use would be an implicit endorsement of the service. The more e-mail messages a Hotmail subscriber sent, the more advertising would be distributed. Every recipient would become a potential new subscriber. Initially the founders were against this type of promotion, thinking that their users would be repelled by any advertising, but they had few other advertising options.

One reason for the success marketing campaign is that it was the only one of its kind, as Ellen Neuborne wrote in her 2001 BusinessWeek article " Viral Marketing Alert!":

My inbox occupies an ever-bigger slice of my hard drive. If viral marketers have their way, in addition to my daily dose of e-mails from companies pitching junk, I'll get another pile passed on by friends. It'll be cute once, maybe twice. But there's a viral traffic jam lurking just a few clicks down the Information Highway. Even good friends can be as annoying as marketers if they bombard me too much. Companies think viral marketing will cut through the clutter, but if they come en masse, they'll be the clutter.

Utopia as a goal for social networking

There is a long tradition of attempts to create utopia social experiements, particularly in the United States. Typically these involve communal living of unrelated individuals and some form of central governance and control over societal behaviors, and many of these attempts have failed. Robert C. Ellickson wrote in 2001 in the draft "The law and economics of the household" that

The enduring appeal of utopian alternatives to the conventional household hints that humans have an evolved psychological yearning for a return to the conditions of the hunter-gatherer band. Like a sweet tooth, this yearning can prompt maladaptive decision-making under contemporary conditions. (p. 32)

One persistent example alternative household structure "design pattern" he cites is the "group quarters":

Examples are dormitories, fraternities and sororities, and abodes for members of religious orders. Group quarters exploit efficiencies of scale in the production of food, shelter, and social activities, but at the price of major sacrifices in autonomy and privacy. A consensual group quarters thus disproportionately attracts those who are young and impecunious. (p. 33)

It is possible to consider social networking web sites as being "utopian", for example in that many

encourages individuals to join in and invite their friends,
share commonalities with the "group quarters" design pattern,
encourages participants to make connections with ever-larger sets of individuals, adding them to the participants "friends",
promise an environment where all the participant's needs are met, and
have as a focus entertainment or pleasure.

Marketing in social networking

Marketing techniques used in social networking sites seem to follow party plan, undercover and viral marketing strategies.

For one example of marketing in social networking, Google Gmail includes advertisements in the display of a page alongside emails being read, and targets these advertisements based on the content of the email. Google says that By offering Gmail users relevant ads and information related to the content of their messages, we aim to offer users a better webmail experience. For example, if you and your friends are planning a vacation, you may want to see news items or travel ads about the destination you're considering.

Furthermore Google goes out of their way to stress, in a apology page for Gmail ads, that people actually want these advertisements:

Many people have found that the search-related ads on Google.com can be valuable--not merely a necessary evil, but a welcome feature. We believe that users will also find Gmail's ads and related pages to be helpful, because the information reflects their interests. In fact, we have already received positive feedback from Gmail users about the quality and usefulness of our ads and related pages.

For another example, in Facebook there is an ad region consistently on the left side of every page, below the link to the home page and links to applications:

And Facebook also interpolates ads in the middle of a 'news story' about a subject's friends:

It is interesting to note that the icon for this "news item" is a megaphone (to suggest that amplification to reach a wide audience is necessary), and unlike every other interesting news story about friends, the item has a "Share" button to permit the subject to send it to their friends or add it to their profile. There's no obvious indication of why a participant might want to include an ad for a credit score in their profile when they are not permitted to include in their profile non-advertising news items about their friends, such as a notice of a birthday or a party, or significant life events such as marriages or job changes.

Anti-utopian social networking

The Wikipedia article on dystopias mentions a distinction between an anti-utopia and a dystopia, that is derived from a 1998 Random House article on the word "dystopia":

...for example, dystopia is used to mean 'a horrible place', while anti-utopia is used to mean 'a place or society intended to be utopian but that has been perverted and is now horrible'.

An anti-utopian social networking site would have some flaw that "spoils" it, and one flaw could be the misapplication of these marketing strategies.

This flaw might arise from a mismatch of expectations between the operators and participants of the social networking service, in particular where the operators see it as vehicle for selling advertisements, and the participants have goals unrelated to being marketed to.

For example, a cognitive disconnect in the real world would occur when a group of friends engaged in a ordinary discussion in one of their houses realize that they have been brought into a Tupperware party without realizing it, when the hostess starts bringing up topics of conversation concering food storage options and demonstrating various plastic containers.

In an anti-utopian social networking site, participants might feel "trapped" by incessant, annoying, or unnerving marketing, without a vehicle for escape or subversion. While the site operators might argue that no one is forced to be part of the social networking site, this is not always in practice true, due to factors discussed in the earlier post "Modelling the effects of interoperability", or scenarios such as: a corporation holding a training course in a virtual reality environment, or a university relying upon a social networking site to disseminate news to its students.

Botnets (20070723)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Botnets (20070723)

Someone posted:

The two images below show graphical depictions of what has and IS trying to connect to my computer even in an idle state

Things trying to connect to a computer?

They are called "BotNets". They've infected hundreds of thousands of machines and are trying random network addresses to find more victims, typically looking for Windows 95/98/2000 unpatched installs.

Apparently the poster doesn't have a firewall router between their hub and their ISP. Even a basic "twenty dollar" firewall router from Fry's or CompUSA would have filtered out 99% of these garbage packets.

It's not surprising that attacks are coming from government agencies, particularly those that work in the developing world or are amalgams.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0205/021605p1.htm

Overall, the federal government received a D+ for cybersecurity, up from a D in 2003, according to the 2004 Federal Computer Security Scorecard released Wednesday. While some agencies and departments showed dramatic improvements in computer security over previous years, more than half of those graded saw their scores drop.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid19_gci1174673,00.html

According to the annual report card on government computer security efforts ... all of those organizations received Ds or Fs for 2005.

A highly critical and in-depth analysis of the issues at DHS in particular can be found at http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_06-62_Sep06.pdf

Hello World: 90 years of user-centric graphics design in a global virtual community (20070721)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Hello World: 90 years of user-centric graphics design in a global virtual community (20070721)

Those who work in user-centric identity management and are not ham radio operators should have read Hello World: a life in ham radio, by Danny Gregory and Paul Sahre, published by Princeton Architectural Press.

This is a QSL card.

Whenever hams connect on the air for the first time, they exchange specially designed postcards in the mail.

These QSL cards are physical proof that the radio contact actually took place.

Each ham's card is different, featuring the call sign for his station, details about the call and the gear used, and words and pictures that tell more about himself and his home.

In a basic sense, a call sign of a ham radio operator is a public identifier, that (until recently) was administratively assigned and arbitrary.

"When he's on the air in his own ham shack, a ham's call sign is his identity, far more so than his legal name. He must announce the sign at least once every time minutes during a contact and again when he signs off. It's not unusual for a ham to emblazon his call sign on his license plates and clothing."

The convention of a subsequent exchange of QSL cards between two hams after they have participated in an interaction by radio is a 85-year old protocol that still is useful in portions of the world with no Internet and infrequent postal handling (QSL bureaus provide store-and-forward and bulk delivery).

QSL cards were tied to the ham's contact log: in the US until the 1960s (and longer in other countries), radio operators were required to keep a log of each contact they made, as this log could be audited by the government.

More interesting, however, to the user-centric case, is the design and contents of the QSL card. Like business cards, de-facto standards govern a QSL card's overall shape (rectangular), maximium dimensions (QSL cards shouldn't be larger than an index card), and some of the text fields on the cards (QSL cards must have sender and receipient's call sign, frequency, and date and time). Unlike business cards, QSL cards are designed by the individuals identified on them (and often handwritten, self-printed or printed by their local stationer), and within the overall constraints of QSL cards, hams have full flexibility to express themselves in colors, images, additional information about themselves, which in a short exchange of morse code or highly filtered voice it might not be possible to convey...

Transport help needed for BM Art Project (20070718)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Transport help needed for BM Art Project (20070718)

At the time when North America was hardly explored, one of those early French trappers went westward from Montreal, and he was the first white man to set eyes on Niagara Falls.
When he returned, he told of waterfalls that were more vast and immense than people had ever dreamed of.
But no one believed him. They thought he was a madman or a liar. They asked him, "What's your proof?"
And he answered "My proof is... ...that I have seen them."

Eno iPod (20070713)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Eno iPod (20070713)

The Brian Eno iPod - plays a single song for 1000 years (assuming regular maintenance).

(Parody)

Keep busy with cheerful things (20070711)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:30:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

Keep busy with cheerful things (20070711)

...Accounts suggest that the initial impact of the missile immediately crippled the [HMS Sheffield's] onboard electricity generating systems and fractured the water main, preventing the anti-fire mechanisms from operating effectively, and thereby dooming the ship to be consumed by the raging fire. After the ship was struck, her crew, waiting to be rescued, sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian."

From the (UK Ministry of Defence list of Royal Naval Surface/Submarine flotilla units represented in the Falklands war) description of the missile attack upon the destroyer HMS Sheffield

It's tough to be a famous writer (20070706)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Mark Wahl

It's tough to be a famous writer (20070706)

...as illustrated by this QuickTime video clip.

Phishing Attack (20060501)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Phishing Attack (20060501)

BM Products Pavilion (20070629)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

BM Products Pavilion (20070629)

This reminds me of a story I read someplace.

He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables. So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold the doves he said, "Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father's house a marketplace!"

Then he began to teach them and said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have turned it into a den of robbers!"

X.501 Matching Rules OK (20070615)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

X.501 Matching Rules OK (20070615)

Worst. Captcha. Ever (20070615)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Worst. Captcha. Ever (20070615)

Repositories responding to a breach with an offer of free credit monitoring (20070613)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Repositories responding to a breach with an offer of free credit monitoring (20070613)

An article on the MSNBC web site posted last year, "Few takers for free credit monitoring", discusses the scenario in which a company has suffered a potential loss of customer identity information, provides their customers with a free year of credit monitoring, but those customers don't take them up on their offer.

Some reasons seem obvious, e.g.:

"Some victims were probably scared off by the sign-up process, which could require divulging a Social Security number. After all, who wants to fork over personal information to a company that's just lost it?"

Also, consumers have developed a healthy scepticism to "free" offers:

"More than half of the respondent group who were offered credit-monitoring services was suspicious about the 'free' offer," [Larry] Ponemon said. "Many respondents told us that they thought this was likely to be a gimmick that would ultimately cost them in the future. Others refused out of principle, and didn't want their goodwill to be purchased. "(They) were simply angry with the organization that reported the breach and did not want to accept any tokens or gifts."
Victims demonstrated a greater willingness to accept a cash payout, Ponemon said. In one instance, consumers more readily accepted a $10 credit to their phone service than an offer of free credit monitoring, he said."

Choosing an identity provider by altitude (20070612)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Choosing an identity provider by altitude (20070612)

On a less serious note, Dave Kearns mentioned in "IdP marketing 101" that

"I've no idea where he thinks this might arise, except perhaps thru stray gamma rays flipping bits in the database. "

In a 2004 article "Soft errors' impact on system reliability" in EDN, Ritesh Mastipuram and Edwin C Wee of Cypress Semiconductor write

"Neutrons are particularly troublesome, because they can penetrate most manmade construction; for example, a neutron can pass through five feet of concrete. The flux rate is geoposition-dependent and increases at higher altitudes due to a lower shielding effect of the atmosphere. In London, the effect is 1.2 times worse than at the equator. In Denver, with its high altitude, the effect is three times worse than at sea level in San Francisco. In an airplane, the effect can be 100 to 800 times worse than on the ground."

and

"A high-end router with 10 Gbits of SRAM and an SER of 600 FITs per megabit can experience an error every 170 hours. For a router farm that uses 100 Gbits of memory, a potential networking error interrupting its proper operation could occur every 17 hours. Finally, consider a person on an airplane over the Atlantic at 35,000 ft working on a laptop with 256 Mbytes (2 Gbits) of memory. At this altitude, the SER of 600 FITs per megabit becomes 100,000 FITs per megabit, resulting in a potential error every five hours."

Too much tong (20070513)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 13 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Too much tong (20070513)

Event Boundary (20070512)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 12 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Event Boundary (20070512)

Europe's largest non-commercial rocket launch (20070504)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Europe's largest non-commercial rocket launch (20070504)

Using the scientific principle that "it's a bit pointy at the front", a Reliant Robin was selected as the shuttle.

From BBC TopGear and Youtube

Get ready (20070424)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Get ready (20070424)

On Memorial day weekend, a community will come together for their annual gathering.

They come from all over the US, though predominately from the Central time zone.

Many have been planning this for months; this is what they expect to do every year. There are fanatics who talk about this event year-round. They order their tickets as soon as they become available. (Tickets are available to anyone, for a reasonable price, sold online.) Even if you're not a fanatic, generally if you're going to this event, you'll need to be blocking out time for it and won't be able to do anything else that weekend.

Some will be camping, some bring RVs, some sleep in their cars, some just come for the day.

This event gives them an opportunity to hang out with their friends, meet other people with similar interests, drink beer, grill meats, listen to music, look at stuff, and just generally hang out and have a good time. Some people will be working really hard, of course, because they're volunteers or event staff. There's a WhoWhatWhereWhen guide with official times, but most of what the people will be doing is not on any formal schedule.

There's a lot of similarity year-after-year and many traditions have been built up. You can predict what kind of music will be played, what kind of food people will eat, and what kind of clothes they'll be wearing. There's even a stereotype of how they're viewed by people outside the community.

A small part of this community have been spending a lot of their time the last few months getting a 'spectacle' together that they hope everyone will enjoy watching. A large part of the community discusses what they'd like to see. They discuss this in person with their friends or online message boards. Some discussion are concerned about the evolution of the event and changes in the rules or demographics (e.g., are there more women participating?).

Is this event

A. Indy 500 (200,000+ participants onsite)
B. Kerrville Folk Festival (20,000+ participants)
C. Burning Flipside (2,000+ participants)

Information Assurance in science fiction: outrunning the Bounty Bear (2007/3/26)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Information Assurance in science fiction: outrunning the Bounty Bear (2007/3/26)

In an earlier post today I mentioned the fictional bounty hunter's Bounty Bear skiptrace locating device from the movie Until the End of the World. The Bounty Bear aggregates credit card and identity transactions occuring anywhere in the world.

How might someone in this fictional future avoid detection from someone searching for them with such a device? Some ideas include:

Don't perform transactions that would be monitored.

This future world has an underground economy that isn't monitored, although many legitimate transactions are no longer possible (as merchants don't accept cash), and the identity might still be detected during police stops or random police sweeps.
Get new, 'disposable' identities or credit numbers.
Use a proxy, that performs transactions on their behalf.

The proxy might have an identity or credit with abilities beyond that of the subject, as in the movie Gattaca:

"No, there is truly nothing remarkable about the progress of Jerome Morrow... except that I am not Jerome Morrow."
Spread identity chaff.

The target would give their credit or identity details to some third party, and that third party would perform some operation as the target at different locations.
An identity laundering network layer.

Suppose a group of n individuals entered into a contract, and each member of the group distributed one of their credit card numbers to all of the other individuals in the group. Whenever one of the group members needed to perform a transaction, they would randomly select one of the card numbers in their deck to use. At the end of each month, the group would settle up amongst themselves.

The last case represents a somewhat extreme extension of the concept of delegation.

Information Assurance: audit trail aggregation in science fiction: the Bounty Bear (2007/3/26)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Information Assurance: audit trail aggregation in science fiction: the Bounty Bear (2007/3/26)

One of the areas of difficulty in applying information assurance in enterprise networks is a proliferation of cheap, plentiful, unmanaged network-attaching devices: in the 90's it was modems, today it is wireless access points. These devices add benefit to the end user (who can now work without being tethered to the office), but have as one of their downsides the end user who buys and installs one is often unaware of their capabilities: beyond providing access to them, the devices may provide access to unknown others, and may contain web servers, firewalls, proxies, configuration and audit trails of which the end user is unaware: it 'just works'.

In television, the forensic investigators in the Saturn-award-winning CSI are frequently reliant upon their Magic Databases of fingerprints, DNAs, cell phone call records, trademarks, tattoo schemas, chemical compounds, etc. Some of these databases actually exist, and as the CSI characters using these databases are the employees of a large crime lab, they would presumably be able to obtain legitimate access to such databases as needed.

One of the family of gadgets in Wim Wender's 1991 near-future science fiction/road movie Until the End of the World is the integrated skiptrace package, such as Bounty Bear.

"I'm the Bounty Bear. I search them here, I search them there."

Software running on these devices would search for the credit card transactions and identity checks involving the bounty hunter's target across multiple databases, using its "Eastern Bloc technology" and "superior Vietnamese chips". When a new record is added to one of these databases, the Bounty Bear displays the time and geolocation of the target's interactions, accompanied with the product's jingle and dancing video game characters showing the target's route. In this future world tracking an ordinary person in the US is fairly straightforward, as merchants, even used car dealers, only accept credit cards: only criminals would possess or be interested in paper currency.

Assuming that support for the Bounty Bear and friends wouldn't be built in to the databases of card processors and government agencies, nor would the notifications it seeks be freely available, it seems likely that Bounty Bear embeds hacks that enable it to gain illegitimate access into these databases. One interesting aspect of this scenario is that in this future, the exploits to break into commercial and government databases have become a commodity: the bounty hunter running them probably doesn't care how they work or what databases are accessed.

Corporate Takeover (20070307)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Corporate Takeover (20070307)

I am also a intrigued by the strategy employed in forming RCID. While it requires a larger initial capital outlay, and works best in sparsely rural or unpopulated areas, one ends up with complete control afterward, e.g., eminent domain, ability to issue tax-free bonds.

Bagpipes explained (20070216)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Bagpipes explained (20070216)

Ten movies streaming across that, that bagpipe, and what happens to your own personal bagpipe? I just the other day got... a bagpipe was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the bagpipes commercially. They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the bagpipes. And again, a bagpipe is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Hoax Devices (20070201)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Hoax Devices (20070201)

It was trickly to find Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 266, Section 102 and-a-half, as for whatever reason it doesn't show up in the online table of contents for chapter 266. However it _is_ on the legislature page.

Wikipedia self-promotion (20070201)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Wikipedia self-promotion (20070201)

(Parody of the famous New Yorker cartoon)

Dune-bashing (20070101)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Dune-bashing (20070101)

(Parody)

1000lb hamster (20061231)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

1000lb hamster (20061231)

(Parody)

Three Laws of Santa (20061225)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Three Laws of Santa (20061225)

(Parody)

Yes VIRGINIA, there is a heavily-armed Santa Claus (20061222)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Yes VIRGINIA, there is a heavily-armed Santa Claus (20061222)

It's surprising to see someone so twinkly-eyed so heavily armed, but this is normal for North Pole. It solves the mystery of where the plotters would have got the guns. There are guns everywhere. This is mainly because of the bears. There are bears everywhere, and moose. I suspect this is why the town is so Republican. There are virtually no liberals. When you've got that many bears, you're not going to be liberal. You know what liberals are like with bears. We just scream. We let out a high-pitched scream and run away, our arms in the air.

From The Guardian

Ⓐ Cafe in Miami (2006/12/12)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Ⓐ Cafe in Miami (2006/12/12)

From the Ⓐ Cafe in Miami myspace page:

Hi, we're Marc and Blue and we have a small boutique restaurant that serves tasty organic foods filled with flavor and smiles!

We serve dinner Tuesday through Saturday nights from 8 p.m. until... (the kitchen usually closes by 11, except on Friday and Saturday when we cook until midnight). We love feeding you great, creative food (some of our regular customers' favorites are the grilled Haas avocado with vegetable souffle and shitake mushroom sauce [$8] or a roasted leg of duck with mango sauce [$14]).

You may bring your own wine or order wine from one of the local wine shops that deliver to our area. As always with us, there is no corkage fee!

We're located on the north end of the Design District in Miami:
 A 4582 NE 2nd Avenue Miami, Florida 33137 
305.972.3358

p.s. When you're in NYC, don't forget to check out our Manhattan location at 106th and Columbus!

West Texas Spaceport (20061208)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

West Texas Spaceport (20061208)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06314/737330-84.stm
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA073006.01A.spaceport.1b3dd0a.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4629743

Buyer Beware (20061128)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Buyer Beware (20061128)

(Parody)

Mask Laws (20061122)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Mask Laws (20061122)

IIRC some states, particularly in the south US, have laws which prohibit public mask wearing, due to one kind of organization in which the members thus disguised would levy (and carry out) threats. Thus some communities have identified that anonymity in public is a threat to public safety.

What is the legal status of mask wearing in private? In previous centuries, there once existed groups, organized for legitimate purposes, in which, due to the risk of embarrassment, the members did not wish to be have their identity known to each other.

Scriabin (20061113)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Scriabin (20061113)

The Russian composer Scriabin, at the time of his death had not completed his intended ultimate work, in which

There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the piece. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours.

It's like all your themes are wood (20061110)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

It's like all your themes are wood (20061110)

...and they're headed for the chipper!

Can't make the town hall? Play along at home with Magnetic Poetry, Flipside Theme edition (tm)!

How it works:

1. Print out http://www.plasmator.net/fs/themes.php on some magnetic paper, e.g., http://www.staples.com/sbd/img/cat/enl/s0136981_enl.jpg

2. Cut out the left column (themes made from the right column are not going to be as interesting)

3. Cut out each word or phrase into its own little magnet square.

4. Mix!

5. Start putting up words onto a suitably metal surface, such as a fridge or whiteboard.

6. After a few minutes, you'll have a Flipside Theme Mashup (tm) of your very own.

Here's some you can make:

Beers, Steers and Listen Land
Burning Man never was on Mars
Jabberwocky Jungle Love Boat
Magic Mayan Mystical Madness Menagerie
Narrsistic Nanobod's Nerf Burning Man
Once upon a Time Warp
Leave a Laaaaser in all your Esoteric Holes
Something Nasty in the Sky
Spirited Away from your Illusion
The Garden of Enchiladas
Underworld Bacon Disco Rave Party (in Cold Blood)
Wet the Spectator

The Black Mailbox is White (20061101)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The Black Mailbox is White (20061101)

Mass Migrations (20061002)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Mass Migrations (20061002)

What could trigger a mass migration? Natural disaster, economic or political instability, typically if occuring in a central american country, but potentially any populated area of the world. Even climate change could trigger one.

Several mass migrations to the US have occured, one leading to a US "immigration emergency" in 1980s was the Mariel migration, when Castro said that the Cuban port of Mariel was open for people to leave if they wished. Boats immediately headed there from South Florida, loaded up with people, and came back.

Mariel Boatlift

What happened next was shown in the start of the Al Pacino movie Scarface. 124,000 Cubans arrived in 6 months, of which ~23,000 said they had some kind of criminal convictions, and they were held in temporary detention centers to figure out which ones (about ~2,000) were to be denied citizenship. And if their country of orgin refuses to accept then back, then there's no place to deport them to.

Regime change in Cuba could trigger further migrations. For example, there was also a mass migration from Haiti in 1994 when Aristide was overthown.

It is also possible that mass migrations overland into the US could occur due to situations in other parts of the world, particularly Asia.

For example, in the 1990's, ~15,000 Chinese citizens attempted to illegally enter western hemisphere countries, mostly over water routes. But the ships were too easy for the USCG to track, intercept and turn around as they entered US coastal waters. Thus, illegal entry from China to the US is changing to land routes, particularly thru Mexico, as the ships instead go to Mexico and the migrants make their way over the US border in smaller groups.

See for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1851712,00.html what would happen if 550 megacities (each with populations in the 10s of millions) in Asia start to run low of fresh water?

Watch from Home (20060830)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Watch from Home (20060830)

Postal alternatives (20060829)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Postal alternatives (20060829)

While it is permitted by the Postal Service recommendations for delivery by private hands without compensation 39 CFR 310.3(c) or by private carriage in limited instances 39 CFR 310.2(b)(1), however in practice these methods might not necessarily provide access to the recipient's PO Box. (IIRC Airborne and other carriers also had a commercial long-distance express mail option by which they would transport the letter as far as the recipient's local post office, at which point it would enter the post office's own distribution stream).

If you don't want to rely upon the Postal Service at all, by far the best known alternative system is Trystero. Their boxes can be found all over (I've seen a few in Austin), the only difficulty is figuring out the appropriate postage. I have heard that some of the rarer stamps are going to be available later this year, but only at auction.

toothpaste (20060825)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

toothpaste (20060825)

You will be allowed your screwdrivers, brother.
You will be allowed to bring a corkscrew or toy uzi.
You will be allowed to bring scissors with pointed tips and blades
shorter than four inches in length.
But the TSA won't let you bring toothpaste.

The TSA won't let you bring toothpaste.
The TSA won't let you bring suntan lotion or cream.
The TSA won't let you bring mouthwash, shampoo, lip gel, deodorant,
cheese, yoghurt, jello pudding snacks, or whipped cream.
The TSA won't allow foods that slosh.

You will not be able to bring your favorite juice box.
You will not be able to buy the plane a Coke.
You will have to empty your camelbacks, hip flasks, water bottles,
and cry out all your tears before going through security.
Because the TSA won't let you bring liquids.

Dunicode (20060801)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Dunicode (20060801)

Could someone confirm this is a reasonable Unicode enoding for the Fremen word Muad'dib:

 0645U 0624U 062fU 0628U

(MEEM, WAW WITH HAMZA ABOVE, DAL, BEH)

(There are also rumors of an unpublished Gnostic Dune, in which Alia is the major figure, and Rakis is revealed to be merely an illusion created by Paul and Leto II layered atop the reality of Arrakis.)

Answer to a boycott question (20060801)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Answer to a boycott question (20060801)

Can someone please explain to me why _asking a question_ gets you reported to a national security department?

Because the question was actually a requirement to participate in a boycott in order to complete an export transaction. Many of the reporting requirements to export from the US are to ensure that said exports do not contradict with US foreign policy, for example the export of military and dual-use technology (items with both a military/defense and civilian application such as night vision scopes) are restricted to support nonproliferation policies and thus such exports are reported to national security organizations.

According to the article you provided, a Bahrain customer sent a letter of credit to a US company that asked it "to confirm that the goods being shipped are not of Israeli origin nor do they contain any Israeli material."

According to the DoC, the Tax Reform Act (TRA) denies tax benefits for, among other transactions, implementing letters of credit containing prohibited boycott terms or conditions. The TRA and EAR 760 requires taxpayers to report operations in, with, or related to a boycotting country or its nationals and requests received to participate in or cooperate with an international boycott.

See http://www.bis.doc.gov/antiboycottcompliance/oacantiboycottrequestexamples.html for examples of boycott requests exporting companies have received.

Business Plan Sketch (20060726)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Business Plan Sketch (20060726)

Moriarty: Three days we've stood waist-deep in this ice-bound Loch Lomond. What's the idea, eh?

Grytpype-Thynne: Don't you like fishing, Moriarty?

Moriarty: Fishing?! Oh-type-oh! We haven't any rods! How do you catch fish like this?

Grytpype-Thynne: Well, they've got to die some time. We just wait until then.

Fake Zombies (20060725)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Fake Zombies (20060725)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Six friends spruced up in fake blood and tattered clothing were arrested in downtown Minneapolis on suspicion of toting "simulated weapons of mass destruction."

Police said the group were allegedly carrying bags with wires sticking out, making it look like a bomb, while meandering and dancing to music as part of a "zombie dance party" Saturday night.

Critical Buoyancy (20060725)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Critical Buoyancy (20060725)

In addition to or in place of a city or commercial sponsored event, I'd like there to be Critical Buoyancy on Town Lake. (Critical as in Critical Mass, substituting human-powered boat for human-powered cycle). See for example http://www.gcbr.com/tips.html on low-cost boats.

BF3K (20060720)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

BF3K (20060720)

(Parody)

Identity Selector Album Cover (20060718)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Identity Selector Album Cover (20060718)

(Parody of an Identity Gang photo by Kaylia Hamlin)

Clippy (20060713)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Clippy (20060713)

(Parody)

Privacy (20060712)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Privacy (20060712)

One of the difficulties facing individuals managing risk in interactions with "social networking" services, especially those in the US, is the mismatch of expectations around such concepts as "private" or "personal" labels of identity-related or interpersonal communication. An image hosting site is under no obligation to implement a button that says "show pictures only to friends and family" in a way that actually restricts some third party with an interest from gaining access to those pictures, if making the pictures available to that third party benefits the hosting site.

An individual must assume a certain amount of risk in divulging information to these web sites. While the potential negative outcomes might be the same, this is a considerably different risk process from analyzing the risks divulging personal information to another individual person directly/face-to-face. Human societies have ways of determining whether someone is 'trustworthy' to reveal a secret to, most of which do not apply to companies. A web site might have a JPEG of a trustworthy-looking face on it, but that's just a stock photo for marketing purposes. To the company managing the site, your personal information is just yet another asset, that could be hoarded, sold, discarded, etc depending on how the business decides to operate - this is very different from how people generally behave.

Given the lack of regulatory controls on personal information in US social networking sites, businesses can pretty much do what they want with this data, and any statements they might make in their privacy policy are typically "best effort" and could change without notice.

And just as a person has few recourses if one of their friends decides to reveal embarrassing but true information about them, there are few recourses when a company decides to reveal this information.

Historically, the courts have not maintained any expectation of privacy from goverment viewing of information voluntarily given to service providers, as in SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979):

...Second, even if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation that the phone numbers he dialed would remain private, this expectation is not "one that society is prepared to recognize as `reasonable.'" Katz v. United States, 389 U.S., at 361 . This Court consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he ... voluntarily turns over to third parties. E. g., United States v. Miller, 425 U.S., at 442 -444; Couch v. United States, 409 U.S., at 335 -336; United States v. White, 401 U.S., at 752 (plurality opinion); Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 302 (1966); Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427 (1963). In Miller, for example, the Court held that a bank depositor has no "legitimate `expectation of privacy'" in financial information "voluntarily conveyed to . . . banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business. 425 U.S., at 442 . The Court explained:

The depositor takes the risk, in revealing his affairs to another, that the information will be conveyed by that person to the Government. . . . This Court has held repeatedly that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed. Id., at 443.

Because the depositor "assumed the risk" of disclosure, the Court held that it would be unreasonable for him to expect his financial records to remain private."

Important Reminder (20060708)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Important Reminder (20060708)

If it is necessary to issue a press release for a cover story, choose a mundane cover story.

July 8, 1947: RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region

Who first invented the Steam Piston? (20060707)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Who first invented the Steam Piston? (20060707)

Not invented by Watt, Watt was just tweaking an existing design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Newcomen By 1711 his first commercial engine was completed, replacing a team of 500 horses. which was based on 17th century steam piston inventions, e.g. http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/dircks/His111chap1.html#427 The weight is in this case to be move with a most inconsiderable strength. Ten pounds, or less, are to be capable of moving 22,400 pounds. and

However to have invented one earlier you'd need to be able to believe there could be a partial vacuum on earth, which would break with Greek tradition (although one could have demonstrated this based on anatomical studies of how the diaphragm and lungs operate), or be this guy: http://www.documentary-video.com/displayitem.cfm?vid=854

Birdstrike (20060706)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Birdstrike (20060706)

Or a helicopter...March 8 2001 Aircraft was transporting a heart patient to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, when a duck crashed through the windshield. The pilot was slightly injured and was partially incapacitated. The duck ended up in the patient's lap. (http://www.birdstrike.org/events/signif.htm), RegionalJet (http://wildlife.pr.erau.edu/Pictures3.htm) or Cessna 172 [which crashed, killing an instructor and student pilot] (http://wildlife.pr.erau.edu/Pictures5.htm) caution: pictures of dead birds.

Don't look down (20060613)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Don't look down (20060613)

BRC personnel will discourage travel, including travel by aircraft, to other historical, cultural, recreational or geographical resources in the Black Rock Desert area during the event.

Official business (20060605)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Official business (20060605)

"It's, uh, fascinating," said one first-time participant, Scott Bensing, chief of staff for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Bensing, who was attending from Washington with his wife and children on what he called "semiofficial, semipersonal business," looked a bit out of place in his neat khaki shorts and sport shirt.
But after receiving Burning Man's equivalent of a VIP tour, in which festival organizers exhaustively explained their medical and emergency services, their cooperation with local and federal law enforcement, the festival's low crime rate and its contribution to the local economy, he smiled cautiously as his family gawked at a troupe of body-painted clowns.

All bugs are shallow (20060515)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 15 May 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

All bugs are shallow (20060515)

Sanborn said the error went unnoticed for years because he's avoided looking carefully at the text for fear that he would somehow leak clues about it.

Disabling an RFID (20060508)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 08 May 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Disabling an RFID (20060508)

You might be able to bend the chip off the substrate (unless its well potted) or try to burn it out with a burst of strong RF, but it'd probably be easier to cut the antenna (typically the largest part anyway), so that the range it can respond from becomes drastically reduced.

Speeding has killed the Dodo bird (20060501)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 01 May 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Speeding has killed the Dodo bird (20060501)

If we go by the book, like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days (20060425)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

If we go by the book, like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days (20060425)

Windows desktop users can tweak their local cache settings via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters

Hilltops no longer burst into flame (20060414)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Hilltops no longer burst into flame (20060414)

On the Saturday evening preceding Easter, bonfires [were] lit atop as many as twenty-two specified hills flanking the Texas German town of Fredericksburg. At the appointed hour the church bells of the town toll, lights are extinguished, and the hilltops burst into flame.

from UT

but

The pageant was held until 2005 and has been suspended due to its many costs.

from Texas Tripprer

Crackpot drivers directed to cliffs of death (20060405)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Crackpot drivers directed to cliffs of death (20060405)

Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100ft cliff... "The tests showed that if you keyed in Crackpot as a destination then you would be sent along this route so we have changed it today," a spokeswoman said.

from BBC

A4 (20060404)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

A4 (20060404)

Sneaking into SXSW from 900 miles away? (20060324)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Sneaking into SXSW from 900 miles away? (20060324)

Chow had been on the standby list for the flight, booked through American Airlines, but when she learned it was full, Chow sneaked past gate agents at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and boarded, court documents show.

With no seats available, Chow went to the bathroom, where she remained for about an hour before a man knocked, the documents said. Chow left the lavatory and took the man's seat, but his wife made her move. She then found another vacant seat but was forced to move again.

From KXAN

Have your own van? (20060317)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Have your own van? (20060317)

The San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority is a tiny, privately run organization that provides bus rides to disabled people and senior citizens. It operates out of an auto repair shop. Maiwandi is the owner of Homer's Auto Service in Monrovia and is also one of three San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority commissioners....He said he formed the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority Police Department shortly afterward in part because he has long been interested in police work. He also found that having a police department allowed him to do background checks on potential volunteers more quickly and seek federal money for security on the buses....State public utility regulations allow transit agencies to create police departments - even if they are not certified by the state's central training body for peace officers.

from LA Times.

Terra Antarctica (20060308)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Terra Antarctica (20060308)

Terra Antarctica is a slide lecture about the history of artistic, cartographic, and scientific images of the Antarctic, the world's most isolated continent. Fox will show how human cognition reacts to deserts, and then, when our neurophysiology fails to cope with such large and apparently empty spaces, how we deploy cultural means such as maps and pictures to compensate.

From Fox lecture. Mr. Fox is the author of "The Black Rock Desert" and "Playa Works: The Myth of the Empty".

Haunted Possessed Gift Card Dangerous? (20060226)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Haunted Possessed Gift Card Dangerous? (20060226)

I tried cutting it apart with scissors and threw it in the trash, the next day I found it in my wallet - completely whole and untouched. I checked the serial number and it was EXACTLY the SAME CARD!

Flipside Reloaded (20060220)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Flipside Reloaded (20060220)

Safety Last (20060211)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Safety Last (20060211)

(Parody)

Disney/Pixar (20060124)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Disney/Pixar (20060124)

Mounting bullet cameras (20060112)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Mounting bullet cameras (20060112)

It could be much cheaper if the only thing in the bullet/rocket is a lens and perhaps an image amplifier - send the image back down a fiber bundle (similar to the wire-guided missile like the TOW) like a very long borescope, where it's fed into a 10000fps rotating-prism 16mm camera. A movie of a quarter-mile flight at 600 fps muzzle velocity captured at 6000+ fps could be projected at 24fps to appear to be a leisurely walking pace.

IKEA TARDIS (20051224)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

IKEA TARDIS (20051224)

Survival Guide (20051206)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Survival Guide (20051206)

If Happy Flat Creek begins to rise, get away immediately.
Caution: falling off a cliff at Happy Flat Creek may suddenly accelerate you straight down to dangerous speeds.
Cacti at Happy Flat Creek may stick to certain types of skin.
Do not taunt Happy Flat Creek.

Sock Puppet (20051206)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Sock Puppet (20051206)

(Parody)

Mail order selective disclosure of organizational role (2005/11/30)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Mail order selective disclosure of organizational role (2005/11/30)

One reason social engineering attacks continue to occur is the ease by which victims can misinterpret the attacker's role/intentions, which can lead to fraud based on the victim's trust of that role.

When meeting someone in person, the determination of whether that person fills a particular role is often based on that person's appearance, particularly on their clothing, should the role require or be associated with particular clothing. Historically, some societies have enacted sumptuary laws which had, among their other goals, the intention of reducing the risk of someone appearing 'above their station'.

There are many contemporary examples of the importance of clothing indicating organizational affiliation in a social engineering attack, including:

Frank Abagnale Jr, subject of the movie Catch Me If You Can, improved the effectiveness of his check fraud scam by wearing an airline pilot's uniform, pilots being regarded as "generally credible and respected professionals" and so be less likely to be cashing bad checks.
US Dept. of Homeland Security warning of Potential Terrorist Use of Official IDs and uniforms although reports that terrorists were buying up surplus delivery company uniforms was a rumor.
the stereotypical social engineering hacker infiltrates an office in the costume of a telephone company field technician, dressed in work boots and carrying a tone and probe kit and/or handset:

On the other hand, some individuals may need to conceal their organizational affiliation.

During this holiday shopping season, one of the mail-order clothing catalogs I received was a distributor of clothing for first responders. Along with the typical boots and windbreakers, this catalog included a line of specially-designed plainclothes (undercover) clothing.

Examples of the 5.11 Tactical Undercover Jackets include the Undercover Casual Jacket, the Undercover Jean Jacket and the Undercover VIP Blazer:

Another retailer describes this line as

Jackets that actually look REAL, not like an 'undercover' jacket!

In science fiction author Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly, the character Fred, an undercover narcotics agent, would wear a "scramble suit" all the time that he was not undercover. This suit protect's the wearers identity by preventing visual identification: it would encase the wearer and project onto itself random images derived from 1.5 million possible elements of human representations:

As the computer looped through its banks, it projected every conceivable eye color, hair color, shape and type of nose, formation of teeth, configuration of facial bone structure--the entire shroudlike membrane took on whatever physical characteristics were projected at any nanosecond, and then switched to the next.... the wearer of a scramble suit was Everyman and in every combination (up to combinations of a million and a half sub-bits) during the course of each hour. Hence, any description of him--or her--was meaningless.

This suit appears in the trailer for Richard Linklater's film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, in Quicktime from Yahoo or other formats from Ifilm, following commerical.

changetype:add (2005/11/11)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

changetype:add (2005/11/11)

dn: cn=Tegan Wahl
cn: Tegan Wahl
cn: Tegan Moira Wahl
sn: Wahl
objectclass: top
objectclass: person
objectclass: newperson
birthTimestamp: 20051111183400Z

Burning Man New Zealand regional (20051013)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Burning Man New Zealand regional (20051013)

Intern (20051206)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Intern (20051206)

This espionage activity is an essential way for France to keep abreast of international commerce and technology. Of course, it was directed against the United States as well as others. You must remember that while we are allies in defense matters, we are also economic competitors in the world.

Retired Director of the DGSE, Pierre Marion

Borg Apprentice (20050930)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Borg Apprentice (20050930)

Joe, your coffee team sold half as much as the ice team. You're fired!

Air Force's picture of Flying Saucer on Mars (20050920)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Air Force's picture of Flying Saucer on Mars (20050920)

(The Viking aeroshell)

PKD-A (20050916)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

PKD-A (20050916)

There are some other pictures of PKD-A at http://hansonrobotics.com/project_pkd.php and http://www.pkdandroid.org/ and in most it seems to be lacking the back of the scalp, presumably to simplify debugging access. May I suggest a small addition.

Paul's drinking the water of life ... from a Brita filter (20050909)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Paul's drinking the water of life ... from a Brita filter (20050909)

In the quarterly junkmail pile I sometimes find the Smarthome (audio/video/home automation) mail-order catalog. One of their products is a Sony kitchen TV. The caption is

"Now you can cook along with your favorite cooking show with this multi-function TV/radio/CD player that easily mounts under a cabinet."

Zombie Spokesman (20050826)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Zombie Spokesman (20050826)

Intriguingly, the phrase "a zombie spokesman" is quite rare on the Web, according to Google and other search engines, and the phrases "the zombie spokesman" and "zombie spokesunperson" do not appear at all. Or maybe they're just waiting for this one to come back: Loading...

Revival and Alcohol don't mix (20050810)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Revival and Alcohol don't mix (20050810)

NRS 201.280 Every person who shall erect or keep a booth, tent, stall or other contrivance for the purpose of selling or otherwise disposing of any wine, or spirituous or fermented liquors, ..., within 1 mile of any camp or field meeting for religious worship, during the time of holding such meeting, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

 NRS 207.030  1.  It is unlawful to: ... (d) Seek admission to a house upon frivolous pretexts for no other apparent     motive than to see who may be therein, or to gain an insight of the premises. ...  2. A person who violates a provision of subsection 1 shall be punished:     For a violation of any provision of paragraphs (d) to (g), inclusive,     of subsection 1, for a misdemeanor.

Flipside Trail (20050728)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Flipside Trail (20050728)

Recap (20050624)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Recap (20050624)

David Lynch's It's a Wonderful Life (20050728)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

David Lynch's It's a Wonderful Life (20050728)

Pottersville is not a hypothetical alternative to Bedford Falls, it's a part of the same town, that George Bailey hadn't noticed until that night.

returning after parking (2005/6/3)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

returning after parking (2005/6/3)

Returning to the conversation, following a break last week to set up the volunteer system for Parking management for the Texas regional festival Burning Flipside. There were approximately 700 vehicles handled for 1520 participants.

Each vehicle heading beyond the checkpoint was given a time access token, which required the vehicle to return after unloading to the checkpoint to be directed toward a parking area for the remainder of the event:

Taser Town (20050422)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Taser Town (20050422)

"Hi. Ed Ramsey from Delos. If there's anyone who doesn't know what Delos is, well, as we've always said: Delos is the vacation of the future, today. At Delos, you get your choice of the vacation you want. There's Medieval World, Roman World and, of course, Taser Town. Let's talk to some of the people who've been there...Pardon me, sir. What is your name?"

"Gardner Lewis. Just got back from Taser Town."

"Tell us how you liked it, Mr. Lewis."

"When you played policeman and protester as a kid, you'd point, go 'zap, zap' and the other kid would just writhe around. Well, Taser Town is the same thing, only it's for real! I tasered 6 people! Well, they weren't real people!"

"What Mr. Lewis means is he tasered 6 robots scientifically programmed to look, act, talk and even bleed just like humans do. Isn't that right?

"Well, they may have been robots. I mean, I think they were robots. I mean, I know they were robots!"

"Yes, the robots of Taser Town are there to serve you and to give you the most unique vacation experience of your life."

i13b (20050409)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

i13b (20050409)

There were giants living in those lands (20050422)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

There were giants living in those lands (20050422)

IIRC, it started its existence as a giant Santa.

Cirque de Harvey (20050312)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Cirque de Harvey (20050312)

SunRay (20050208)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

SunRay (20050208)

But I'd rather have a sunray in front of me, than have to have a frontal lobotomy.

Tower of Pallets (20050208)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Tower of Pallets (20050208)

When more than 2,000 pallets arrived at his house, he set about stacking them in concentric circles until he had built a cone 22 feet high with a staircase winding around the outside.

He did not create art, Wheatley said. "Instead, he used his eccentric creation to justify a deeply selfish motive - avoidance of societal regulation."

From LA times

What is Burning Flipline? (20050126)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

What is Burning Flipline? (20050126)

What is Burning Flipline?

Let's start with the easy answer: Burning Flipline is an art and music festival held on Red River Street in Austin over one week in January. It is inspired by Hands on a Hard Body.

Yeah, but what is it, really?

"Flipline is like an annual family reunion... Of family with a lot of time on their hands."

Burning Flipline is an experiment in temporary community, with an emphasis on self-expression, inclusiveness, self-reliance, and butt-numbing. Burning Flipline is where hundreds of artists, musicians and dancers, geeks and freaks, poets and pyromaniacs will gather to build a city - Lineupolis - and live in it for five days. Our city is a place to create, experience, give, receive, work, and play. And when the doors to Elysium open, it vanishes without a trace.

So, what kind of person might be interested in this?

As a citizen of Lineupolis, all that is asked of you is that you wait - that means no getting out of line. So anyone with nothing better to do and an no pressing commitments is the kind of person who should attend. Do you play Gameboys, mumble to yourself, collect dust, or just like to go without showering? Come on down! Always been the only person whose 'going nowhere fast'? Not any more. Any of this beginning to sound like fun? Then you're the kind of person we're looking for.

"I spoke to at least a dozen people at Flipline that said that their eyes had been opened a little wider and that they suddenly realized just how little time that they had on this beautiful green ball of ooze. Fortunately, after realizing this, they left to go do something else, and I got to take their place in line!"
T.S. Elliot

If you're worried that this is an event for some peculiar subculture you haven't heard of, and that you won't fit in if you don't have the right beliefs/clothes/hobbies/haircut/whatever, let's get one thing straight: we are a peculiar subculture, but all that unites us are a few basic convictions about sitting, standing, and scooting forward a few inches each day. Everything else is up for grabs. Our event is attended by street urchins, Y2K specialists, Arthur Andersen accountants. You are welcome here; you belong.

OK, I'm in. What should I expect?

When you walk down Red River and are accosted by our rabid pack of 'waiters' (and be sure to have snacks or beer for them - they're not afraid to resort to cannibalism), several things will have already happened. You've read the survival guide, so you're prepared to survive for five days on your own resources. You've worked out something you want to do while standing in line. The waiters are going to give you some more information about the lack of toilets, the Austin 'camping ban', and a few other details. After that, you'll spend a few hours settling in. Then, you'll spend a few hours settled in. Then, you'll spend a few more hours wishing you brought a book.

Beyond that, it gets a little difficult to tell you what to expect. Right now, several hundred people are thinking of strange and wonderful things to entertain themselves. Expect to hear a wide array of chanting. Expect to meet a lot of friendly people who want to hear your story, whatever it may be, over and over again. And at the center of it all, you'll see Elysium. Elysium will watch over all five days of art, music, lunacy, heat, nudity, public intoxication arrests, and on Saturday morning, Elysium goes up in flames. No not really. It just opens its doors. During your time in Lineupolis you'll likely see and do things you hadn't even imagined before you arrived, like count how many posters are stapled to the wall outside Beerland. When you leave, you'll be exhausted and energized, understimulated and hungry for Taco Bell. In the weeks to come, your experiences at Burning Flipline will inhabit your conversation and your dreams. You might never be able to hold down a steady job again, and will probably become 'just a drifter'.

You mentioned a few shared basic convictions earlier. Could you expand on that?

Next up, Burning Flipline is committed to being a zero-impact event. We believe disappearing is a creative act. When the last person leaves the event site, our goal is to leave no sign of our passing. Not a beer can, scrap of paper, pistachio hull, or cigarette butt. Nothing. YOU WILL HAVE EATEN EVERYTHING. YOU WILL BE THAT HUNGRY.

Lastly, Burning Flipline is a non-commercial event. Our prohibitions are few, but vending is one of them. We emphasize experience over commodity, creation over consumption. So there is nothing to buy or sell in our community. In particular, you won't be able to buy a ticket to 'that event' in the Hill Country. It already sold out.

We interrupt this program (20050124)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

We interrupt this program (20050124)

(FADE IN PIANO PLAYING)

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, here, nearer home, comes a special bulletin from the Hill Country. It is reported that at 8:50 P. M. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a ranch in the neighborhood of Dripping Springs, twenty-two miles from Austin.

The flash in the sky was visible within a radius of several hundred miles and the noise of the impact was heard as far north as Georgetown.

We have dispatched a special mobile unit to the scene, and will have our commentator, Carl Phillips, give you a word picture of the scene as soon as he can reach there from Austin.

...

ANNOUNCER: We take you now to Recreation Plantation, Dripping Springs.

CARL PHILLIPS: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Carl Phillips, out at the Recreation Plantation, in the Texas Hill Country. Professor Pierson and myself made the thirty miles from Austin in twenty minutes.

Well, I... hardly know where to begin, to paint for you a word picture of the strange scene before my eyes, like something out of a modern "Arabian Nights."

Well, I just got here. I haven't had a chance to look around yet. I guess that's it. Yes, I guess that's the thing, directly in front of me, sitting on in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force. The ground is covered with splinters of two by fours and plywood it must have it on the way down.

What I can see of the object itself doesn't look very much like a meteor, at least not the meteors I've seen. It looks more like a huge rocket. It has a diameter of... what would you say, Professor Pierson?

PROF. PIERSON: What's that?

CARL PHILLIPS: What would you say... what is the diameter of this?

PROF. PIERSON: About ten yards.

CARL PHILLIPS: About ten yards... The wood on the sheath is... well, I've never seen anything like it. The color is sort of yellowish-white. Curious spectators now are pressing close to the object in spite of the efforts of the rangers to keep them back. They're getting in front of my line of vision. Would you mind standing to one side, please?

RANGER: One side, there, one side.

CARL PHILLIPS: While the rangers are pushing the crowd back, here's Stacy, owner of the ranch here. She may have some interesting facts to add. Would you please tell the radio audience as much as you remember of this rather unusual visitor that dropped in your backyard? Step closer, please.

STACY: Well, I was listenin' to the radio.

CARL PHILLIPS: Yes, and then you saw something?

STACY: Not first off. I heard something.

CARL PHILLIPS: And what did you hear?

STACY: It went like... doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom, And then this other part came in, and it was like... doodle-a-doom doodle-a-doom doodle-a-doom doodle-a-doom, And then there's always some kinda high pitched noise, y'know? Or like a siren that's like... DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE ... And of course they have to put in the obligatory old movie quote from some sci-fi movie. It's like... The system is down! The system is down! The system is down! The system is down!

Searching for Aliens (20050102)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sun, 02 Jan 2005 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Searching for Aliens (20050102)

NORAD Threat Monitoring (20041218)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

NORAD Threat Monitoring (20041218)

The moment our radar tells us that Santa has lifted off, we begin to use the same satellites that we use in providing warning of possible missile launches aimed at North America. Rudolph's nose gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch. The satellites can detect Rudolph's bright red nose with practically no problem.

(NORAD Santa)

...If Santa's good, see, I mean, if he's really sharp, he can barrel that sleigh in so low --- you oughta see it sometime, it's a sight. A big sleigh, full of toys, VROOM!

Trailer park spacecraft? (20041215)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Trailer park spacecraft? (20041215)

The New Threat (20041208)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

The New Threat (20041208)

The 21st-century technologies - glitter, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) - are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.

I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is far easier to create destructive uses for glitter than constructive ones. Glitter has clear military and terrorist uses, and you need not be suicidal to release a massively destructive glittery device - such devices can be built to be selectively destructive, affecting, for example, only a certain geographical area such as a disco or school auditorium.

Among the cognoscenti of glittertechnology, this threat has become known as the "shiny happy problem."

Review of Polar Express Club (20041124)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Review of Polar Express Club (20041124)

It's a classic 1950's CE3 case. The main character, in a state of half-sleep, hears a noise from outside the house and investigates. He is taken along with other abductees to the secret Arctic base operated by an army of small, apparently cloned, creatures, in a craft that operates outside of known physical laws, and returns with a message of goodwill to all mankind.

Later he might appear to lead an apparently normal life, working for a major automobile manufacturer, but at some point will suddenly realize that actually he _is_ Father Christmas, and that his dual personality has been organizing a network of underground gift-giving societies that are conspiring to deliver simple, homespun preesnts to every girl and boy on Christmas Eve night.

If this is your first time at Santa's Workshop, you gotta make a toy.

UN Weapons Inspector and Race Car Driver (20041119)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

UN Weapons Inspector and Race Car Driver (20041119)

Space Folding Veterans for Truth (20041110)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Space Folding Veterans for Truth (20041110)

If you have any question about what Paul Maud'Dib is made of, just spend 3 minutes with the men who served with him.

Manual of Muad'Dib by Princess Irulan

Gurney Halleck: "I served with Paul Maud'Dib."

Duncan Idaho: "I served with Paul Maud'Dib."

Gurney Halleck: "Paul Maud'Dib has not been honest about what happened on Arrakis."

Stilgar: "He is lying about his record."

Feyd: "His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day."

Giaus Mohamin: "Paul Maud'Dib has not been honest."

Emperor: "And he lacks the capacity to lead."

Duncan Idaho: "When the chips were down, you could not count on Paul Maud'Dib."

Stilgar: "Paul Maud'Dib is no war hero."

Gurney Halleck: "He betrayed all his shipmates ... he lied before the Imperial Council."

Fedaykin: "Paul Maud'Dib betrayed the men and women he served with on Arrakis."

Stilgar: "He dishonored his planet ... he most certainly did."

Duncan Idaho: "I served with Paul Maud'Dib ..."

Duncan Idaho (off-camera): "Paul Maud'Dib cannot be trusted."

Algae - it's what's for dinner (20041103)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Algae - it's what's for dinner (20041103)

Do you realize that in addition to algae in water, why, there are companies out there which put algae in smoothies, energy bars, puddings, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream!...

Debugging Scripted HTML (20041022)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Debugging Scripted HTML (20041022)

Oh, hey. We're rehearsing a - a scene for the upcoming company play called uh, "An error occurred while processing this directive". It's a musical.

[singing] An error occurred while processing this directive,
An error occurred while processing this directive,
An error occurred while processing this dir-ec-tive!

and cut. We're still working on it, it's a work in progress but, hey, we need ushers.

Sanctity of the pitch (20041021)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 07:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl

Sanctity of the pitch (20041021)

There is one thing that -- even if it were considered essential -- no student movement or urban revolt or global protest ... would ever be able to do. That is to occupy the football field on a Sunday

Umberto Eco in "Sports Chatter"

Drag-and-Drop Cruise Ship (1999/1/1)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 08:00:00 +0000

Sea Patrol (1947/1/1)

mark.wahl@informed-control.com — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Wahl frivolous blog on zetona.org

Big Ear Twitter (20090507)

Big Ear Twitter (20090507)

long lines (20090331)

long lines (20090331)

More midflight departures (20090327)

More midflight departures (20090327)

Midflight departures (20090326)

Midflight departures (20090326)

Great classic computer technology: PrestoServe (20090314)

Great classic computer technology: PrestoServe (20090314)

physicists vs privacy (20090307)

physicists vs privacy (20090307)

In Ur Crossword (20090303)

In Ur Crossword (20090303)

Call completion times (20090228)

Call completion times (20090228)

C of the sea (20090226)

12C of the sea (20090226)

Plain and Secret Language (20090225)

Plain and Secret Language (20090225)

Just an 18-bit Western Sheriff (20090217)

Just an 18-bit Western Sheriff (20090217)

The Very Model of a Modern Magnus Envelope (20090216)

The Very Model of a Modern Magnus Envelope (20090216)

The Wild West Death Game (20090215)

The Wild West Death Game (20090215)

Generic Universal Facebook Viru-Quiz (20090205)

Generic Universal Facebook Viru-Quiz (20090205)

(20090125)

(20090125)

(20090115)

(20090115)

Narrow dessert (20090106)

Narrow dessert (20090106)

City Burn (20090103)

City Burn (20090103)

The Dawn of Automatic Business Computers (20080903)

The Dawn of Automatic Business Computers (20080903)

Bluetooth Headset and Mouthpiece (20080903)

Bluetooth Headset and Mouthpiece (20080903)

Report on an unidentified social networking site (20080421)

Report on an unidentified social networking site (20080421)

Franchise Tax (20080420)

Franchise Tax (20080420)

PC Load Letter (20080414)

PC Load Letter (20080414)

Androbot scarecrow (20080414)

Androbot scarecrow (20080414)

Six Earth Cities (20080331)

Six Earth Cities (20080331)

It appears you'll get three chances to be encalmed during behavior evaluation (20080331)

It appears you'll get three chances to be encalmed during behavior evaluation (20080331)

This means, order your steak well-done, Walter. (20080128)

This means, order your steak well-done, Walter. (20080128)

Bouncing to Graceland (20080112)

Bouncing to Graceland (20080112)

Difficult Listening Hour (20080105)

Difficult Listening Hour (20080105)

Lightness war

Example

Runways and Volcanos-on-a-Plane (20080102)

Runways and Volcanos-on-a-Plane (20080102)

(fwd) i-card hero ROCKS!!!! (20071230)

(fwd) i-card hero ROCKS!!!! (20071230)

Boeing Surplus Sales (20071221)

Boeing Surplus Sales (20071221)

changetype:add (20071101)

changetype:add (20071101)

Universal Frequencies (20071023)

Universal Frequencies (20071023)

Nolan Bushnell (20071023)

Nolan Bushnell (20071023)

Hyperreality and children's literature (20071018)

Hyperreality and children's literature (20071018)

Why did they have to ruin a perfectly servicable wagon story with all that fruity singing? (20071004)

Why did they have to ruin a perfectly servicable wagon story with all that fruity singing? (20071004)

Exodus (20071004)

Exodus (20071004)

World's largest pinhole photograph (20071004)

¹²C of the sea (20090226)