The rumors of America’s death may have been greatly exaggerated and other stuff 4/9/2013

The Telegraph - China may not overtake America this century after all

Ooops, awkward. 

Seriously though I think if you thought this thru you kind of had to see it coming.  China is aging itself out of competition with it’s one child policy, and there have been rumors about them cooking the books on their economic growth for a long time.  This reminds me of the “Rising Sun” era in the 80’s and early 90’s when the fear was Japan was going to dominate the world and buy out the US.  Look how well that worked out. 

If I was betting on a country that might (might mind you) eventually supplant America as the dominant world power I would bet on India, except they are so damn resource poor, but the have the population and it is a growing young population and they have the educational infra structure and are making market reforms that have already substantially expanded their economy.  If they play it right they could really explode over the next few years.

Endgadget – So about those Indian reforms (subtitle “Chad you F’in idiot”)

A new system for monitoring almost everything that's going on inside India's telecoms network has been quietly launched. The Central Monitoring System will offer tax collectors, law enforcement and and other agencies the ability to scrutinize phone calls, text messages, emails, social networking and general web activity.

So possibly a little hiccup in the general reform policy, but I think in general my theory still holds since I offered the massive qualifiers about them playing their cards right. 

Gizmodo – Be a superspy like the NSA

Following a Freedom of Information Act request by MuckRock, the National Security Agency has been forced to make public a book it produced called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research. Understandably, it's full of gems

Whoo-hoo let the games begin.

New York Times – Stephen Hawking joins anti-Israel boycott.

Personally I am not a fan of Israel, purely on the basis of some of their past actions not because I think the state is illegitimate of some simmering anti-Semitism, but when comparing the two sides to decide that the Palestinians are the good guys is just retarded.

TechCrunch – Watch the Earth change on Google maps.

a series of interactive time lapse images that progress year-by-year, showing exactly how things have changed in key areas like the Brazilian Amazon Rain Forest, booming metropolitan areas like Las Vegas and Dubai, and the progress of large bodies of water like the Aral Sea.

Interesting.

The Hacker News – #OpUSA has begun

Basically groups of Middle – Eastern and North African hackers have decided that America is evil and so they are going to launch DDoS attacks against banks and government websites.  How that will make us less evil isn’t exactly clear but that’s their plan.

Slashdot asks, “What if we never run out of oil?” and other stuff 4/1/2013

Slashdot – Following up on the Atlantic’s article, “What If We Never Run Out of Oil?”

Slashdot poses that question to it’s readers.  Neckbearded Tree-huggery fun follows.

Ars Technica – Apple proves once again that taxes like rules are for the little people.

Which brings us directly to the third point: Much of Apple's $145 billion in cash and investments come from sales outside the US and it's locked down in bank accounts on foreign shores. Simply closing those bulging Swiss, Irish, and Cayman bank accounts would make Apple's cash subject to so-called repatriation taxes. As much as one-third of that cache would go to Uncle Sam. The company only has about $45 billion in dollar-denominated All-American cash on hand to power that generous dividend and buyback program.

So to recap Apple’s position as a company which overwhelmingly supported President Obama and the Democrats – Taxes on upper middle class and lower upper class families and small to medium businesses – good.  Taxes on mega-wealthy corporations and their overseas earnings – bad. 

That’s really all I have today, sorry.

Books, Books, Books

Hmmm, I haven't written a book post in quite awhile, mainly because I colored in all the pictures and the sticker books are just boring, but here we go:

What have I been reading lately

Military SciFi

Terms of Enlistment - An Amazon Kindle single.  Generally well written.  The story overall is fairly satisfying but the ending just leaves you hanging.  A little more thought should have been put into rolling that up.  It's obvious that the writer has some military experience and there is a scene in the middle of the book that seems like it was taken directly from the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) .  2.5 stars because the ending was really unsatisfying otherwise probably 3.25 to 3.5.

Poor Man's Fight  - Another Amazon Kindle single.  Also generally well written, although the basic premise of why the main character joined the navy is a little too contrived.  Yes I could see the societal developments that have occurred in this fictional universe developing, what I don't see is the idea that the main character is the only one to figure out how he was screwed over.  There are some other issues too (like how do you simultaneously vent every single compartment on a spaceship that is designed to maintain vacuum integrity) but they don't detract much.  Again the guy who wrote it obviously has military experience.  Also again the ending is weak but not as weak as Terms of Enlistment.  3 stars.

Ender's Game – ReRead. I still think it sucks.  1 star no link.

Military Fiction

Empire and Honor - Just another installment in the Honor Bound series by WEB Griffin.  Take it or leave it, like all the books co-written with his son huge continuity holes.  1.25 stars  read it for series completeness nothing else.

Tech

Learn Windows Powershell 3.0 in a Month of Lunches -
Informative, easy to read, worthwhile if you need to do much scripting.  I have to do a moderate amount and it would help me tremendously to improve my skills in it which is why I bought the book.  I have been picking thru it on an as needed basis but I do intend to go thru the day 1 thru 24 and do the exercises.  4 stars.

In the Plex - An in-depth look at the history and culture of Google.  Jumps around a bit, but very informative.  Also very depressing, remember the scene in "The Big Bang Theory" where Penny says to Sheldon, "I'm just a blonde monkey to you"? Well reading this books makes me realize I haven't even achieved Google monkey status. 3.5 stars woul be 4 to 4.5 but the author made me cry myself to sleep so I am penalizing him.

General

Class Warfare -  An excellent book looking at the fight for educational reform starting with "A Nation at Risk" and culminating with "Race to the Top"  Surprisingly positive towards the efforts of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama and very critical of the teachers unions.  I think it may overstate the case for even high performing charters a bit, but it does point out in a number of places that these are very high performing schools and their successes can't just be duplicated using some sort of cookie cutter approach.  4.5 stars

All the Devils are Here - Probably the best recounting of the systemic events that led up to the 2007 - 2008 housing bubble burst.  Greed and Stupidity battle it out for top place and stupidity wins.  4.5 stars

Jeez, all that work on a post no one will read so I can post a picture of Jordan Carver in a sailor suit. 

A pre-post-post-peak oil post and other stuff

The Atlantic – What if we never run out of oil?

Basically a look at the history of “peak oil” and how it has driven new methods of energy production / extraction wrapped up in climate alarmism.  Come for the tasty hydrocarbons stay for the preaching, but it does make the point that the constant drum beat about diminishing oil supplies is overdone.

Gizmodo – Anonymous takes down NAMBLA’s homepage to protest “Pedophilia Pride Day”

Two points in that headline make my teeth hurt:

1.  NAMBLA has a homepage

2.  There is a “Pedophilia Pride Day” (God please don’t let there be Pedophilia Pride Parades it’s only 6am and I already feel like my head might explode)

Yuck.

today is Alice Day, a day inspired by Lewis Carroll's debated sexual attraction to Alice In Wonderland's very underage and very real counterpart, when proud pedophiles come together in celebration of their disorder. So it's a beautiful day for a NAMBLA takedown, and Anonymous was happy to answer the call.

I have another potential name for it – Target Practice, but then that would send us all to jail and who would be left to write inane blogposts like this one.

The New Yorker – What if the Tsarnaevs had been the “Boston Shooters”

Well then among other things John Cassidy wouldn’t have been able to write such a douchebag article.  More handwringing over guns, don’t read it.

The Verge – Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer join FWD.us

I’m telling you guys this group means bad, bad things.  Not because I am anti-immigrant, but because, frankly, I don’t trust Zuckerberg.  Immigration reform is step one on a long liberal slope.

Komputer Kindergarten and other stuff 4/25/2013

Gizmodo – Kim Komando explains what a computer is to the unwashed masses of the 90’s.

"What happens when you press the wrong button? Does it blow up?"

Oh if only; my life would be so much simpler.

Kim Komando still hosts a weekly radio show that is pretty entertaining and last I saw she was still pretty cute, plus she is a huge supporter of our troops.

Hacker News – From Bank Fraud to Hacking Iceland Has It All

All right I admit to a little poetic license with the title, but the point is basically the same – Iceland is suddenly becoming some sort of data haven.  Yesterday the Icelandic Supreme Court ruled that the local Visa subsidiary had to process payments to Wikileaks and then today the Icelandic domain registrar announced it will protect The Pirate Bay.  How they square that with outlawing internet porn I don’t quite know.

Krebs on Security – SWATting related to exposure of ID Theft sites used by XBox gamers to harass Microsoft employees that enforce XBox Live rules. 

Specifically, two different sources placed blame for the attacks on a young hacker named “Phobia,” who they said was part of a group of Xbox gaming enthusiasts who used ssndob.ru to look up Social Security numbers belonging to high-value Xbox account holders — particularly those belonging to Microsoft Xbox Live employees. Armed with that information, and some social engineering skills, the hackers could apparently trick Microsoft’s tech support folks into transferring control over the accounts to the hackers. “I heard he got pissed that you released the site he uses,” one of the sources told me, explaining why he thought Phobia was involved.

There is just something wrong with the world when the police are being used to dish out vigilante justice to settle video game disputes.  (I should note this is all speculation.  While it may be true that what Mr. Krebs has written here is 100% accurate it hasn’t actually been proved yet.  Things can change)

Slashdot – Fifth Amendment Applies to Encryption Keys

As I understand it – There were multiple encrypted drives in the house. The FBI knew that there was child porn on one of the drives but not which one.  The FBI wanted the defendant to be compelled to decrypt all the drives.  The Judge said no because to do so would be to admit that he (the defendant) had control of the drive and therefore of the child porn and that would amount to a compelled confession and would violate the fifth amendment.  

This differs from other cases in that the government couldn’t actually demonstrate that the drive and data  in question belonged to the defendant.  In those cases the fifth amendment didn’t apply because the decryption didn’t tell the government anything it wasn’t already able to prove.

The Hacker News – Chinese Hackers Targetting American Drones

Prelude to drone hijacking? 

Someone explain...

Why does installing Visual Studio Express (required so no OMG why would you ever use that comments) require two restarts of my computer?

What madness is this?

LulzSec "leader" arrested

Australian police said the unnamed Australian man, who used the online moniker "Aush0k", was known to international law authorities.

His arrest comes a week after an American member of LulzSec, Cody Kretsinger, was sentenced in a Los Angeles court to a year in prison followed by home detention. Kretsinger, who used the online handle "Recursion", pleaded guilty in a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Court documents in that case revealed that Anonymous leader "Sabu", whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, had provided the FBI with information on fellow hackers after pleading guilty to hacking offences.

Just goes to prove two things: 1) no one is truly anonymous, and 2) The idea(s) of Omerta or Honor among Thieves really are myths.

Called it and other stuff 4/19/2013

 Bombing Suspects Chechnyans in US legally

Boston Herald –

The suspects were identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars. A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old who had been living in Cambridge, just outside Boston, and said he “may be armed and dangerous.”

PJ Media -

Tamerlan Tzarnaev, the suspect killed, was reportedly 26 and born in Russia and has been a legal permanent resident since 2007. The younger brother was born in Kyrgyzstan, according to NBC, or Chechnya, according to Russian media. A Russian journalist reported both attended school in Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya and also has an Islamist extremist insurgency, before coming to the U.S. CNN reported that the brothers stopped in Kazakhstan, not Turkey, before coming to the U.S.

Gizmodo – Condom Company Makes Vibrating Underwear Controlled By Your iPhone

The undergarments are loaded with touch technology, and are controlled by a smartphone app—an iPhone in the demo videos—that knows what gender your partner is. The app has diagrams of your partner's crotch, which you drag your finger across to stimulate their actual crotch from wherever you are in the world. Or the bra, since that apparently vibrates too.

So we all know how these will be used and I expect that for the next few years we will be seeing news stories about car crashes, disrupted meeting , and miscellaneous hilarity resulting from orgasms at inappropriate times.   Good times

Thus once again leading to the age old question – Just because we can does that mean we should? 

The Hacker News – Many of the attacks involved in OpIsrael  originated from criminal botnets

Surprised?