Municipal Wi-Fi is a bad idea

Every now and then a city will announce plans to provide free Internet access points around the city, and there will often be praise from the hi-tech community.  Or a state will move to ban such initiatives and heaps of scorn will be heaved on top of them and the local cable and DSL provides.  That's a mistake.

While I realize folk love to hate their cable companies (often with good reason) and the woeful state of broadband in this country, having the cities provide the access is worse idea.

Once municipal broadband is wide spread and available at no additionl cost than the taxes people are already paying, then the rational, individual decision is to stop paying Comcast or someone else for Internet access.  With enough people doing that, residential broadband from private companies will eventually go away.

That may be fine, assuming the municipalities allow free and open Internet access, but I'm not convinced they will. There are many great things on the net, but there are many foul ones as well.  We already see debates in favor of blocking undesirable websites at libraries and schools.  Will a vocal minority really allow the city to make such content available in homes?

Obviously the first target will be block already illegal or obscene content. I can't imagine many city councils will oppose a determined group of citizens who want to prohibit the city from "supplying" child pornography.  You can already imagine the campaign ads.

So what's next? Should the city be in the business of sending regular pornography into homes? Can't children see it then? Is that how we want to use tax money?

Porn is an easy target for those who want to restrict access to content. And a city blocking such content from it's own service may not be in the business of censorship.  After all, it's not like their banning the content.  They're simply choosing not carry it on a municipal service.

So what's next?  In many places, it's probably hate speech.  Should the city be facilitating content that is racist or misogynistic?

There are extremes on both the right and left of our political landscape that would like to see certain content go away.

Many would argue that the city should block sites that enable violence -- perhaps content related to building explosives and fighting a government force.  But what about sites that promote non-violent political unrest?

At this point I think it's safe to say that no city would ban a legitimate new site's content from it's service.  But then who is determining  the legitimacy of a new site?  I think CNN and Fox would be safe from calls to ban it from the city's service, but what about Al Jazeera?

In the recent uprisings in the middle east, one of the first things dictators try to do it cut off 'net access for the people. Can we count on local governments there to not do that if pressed?

The Internet is a powerful tool because of both the good stuff and bad stuff that's on it.  And I trust the users of the Internet, and, yes, many of the private party ISPs out there, to deliver a free 'net experience much more than I trust a city council trying to stand up to a vocal group of citizens barking their vocal call to, "Think of the children!"

New Character Class in Next Version of WoW: The Hermit

It has now leaked out that the next character class in WoW will be the long awaited Hermit.

A spokesperson said, "The Hermit really lets us take social gaming into a new realm: the anti-social."

When a player chooses a Hermit, they can play the massively multi player online role playing game on their own. When they log on to their favorite server, their first task is to find a cave in the forest or dessert for their hermit to live in. Then they go there and stay in hiding.

Characters advance in levels by not interacting with others, and when they do, it's through shouted exhortations to go away. Sometimes they throw cats.  The primary defense the hermit possesses is strong body odor which annoys other players who attempt to visit.  Players can also advance by mumbling to themselves incoherently, coming up with conspiracy theories they shout at their walls, pacing uncomfortably, and growing facial hair.

As a character advances they get access to special items, like scratchier clothing, scrawled "Do Not Disturb" signs, and stronger body odor.

Despite these awesome advances, a higher level character will gradually lose their affinity for spoken language while their conspiracy theories become more grandiose.

A Hermit can choose to be a member of the Alliance or the Horde, not that it makes any difference.

The spokesperson continued,"We think this will be the biggest hit in the next expansion pack.  Many users want to play our multi player game but they want to do it completely by themselves. The Hermit let's them do that.  They finally have a place for mumbling and avoiding social contact which is something WoW players never been able to do before.  Plus, it should stave off those ADA lawsuits by those suffering from Social Anxiety disorder."

The expansion pack featuring the Hermit should be in stores and online by Thanksgiving.




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Is it okay to ask if Maru is okay?

Maru is a chubby, adorable Scottish Fold cat who lives in Japan.  He's clumsy and has an affinity for jumping in and out of boxes.  Because of his silliness, he's internet-famous enough to merit his own Wikipedia page.  Individuals videos of him on Youtube have literally millions of views.  You can spend hours watching them here or, if you read Japanese, read more about Maru on his blog.





A week after the quake struck Japan, the GF and I wondered what happened to Maru.  With everything going on, I figured I might find a link to a blog that might have an update buried in the search results someplace.  I typed, "is maru okay" in the Google search box and the results stunned me.

The good news is that Maru is okay and is apparently getting used to a carrier in case he and his human need to evacutate.

The level of concern for this kitty amused, appalled, and made me feel warm and giddy.

With nearly 10,000 dead, hundreds of thousands of people suffering, and a disaster that is still unfolding a week later, what is wrong with so many of us that there is this level of concern for a cat? My first thought was that it was almost offensive.  And then I got over myself.

For some reason, Maru in his silly videos has touched people around the world. For many people these videos maybe their only connection to Japan outside of mass media.  It feels like a personal connections. And it's their only connection to the tragedy of the earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear reactor problems.

The news shows us thousands.  The news shows us towns being wiped away.  The news talks about the impact in billiions of dollars.  But while the particulars are different, in essence, it's just one more disaster story for us to read about and text the Red Cross about.

As people, we can't make a connection with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. It's just not the way we're wired.  And if we could make that connection, would we even be able to climb out of bed after hearing about such a disaster? Or even reading a newspaper?  No.

But we can make a conenction with one, little ball of fur and his human, who make us laugh and touch our hearts.  Asking about Maru isn't about disregarding the fate of thousands of people and putting them in line behind a cat.  It's about making sense of the scale of what is happening. And when someone's first question is about Maru, it's not a question about a cat.  It's the only question many of us can ask as we contemplate what northern Japan faces in the coming months and years.

So it's okay to ask, "Is Maru okay?"  And, at least for now, the answer is yes.

I know it doesn't even need to be said (especially if you read all the way to end of my post about a Japanese cat) but please keep the people of Japan and their cats, dogs, and other pets in your thoughts and prayers as the events continue to unfold.

Spam Fail

I found this in my inbox.  And after I put down my burrito, I thought it was good for a laugh.


Hey there,

I've been searching for personal trainers, and I was excited to find you.


Really, Heather?  You were excited to find me?  As a personal trainer?  Have you seen me?!?!?!?!  The extent of the personal training I could give you would concern instructions on how to curl up in front of the TV and not spill your Ramen or Cocoa Puffs.


Trust me, there is a significant difference between a corporate trainer and a personal trainer.

It's too hard to find trustworthy, quality service providers, and ----------------- is changing that. We're growing really fast, we need more personal trainers, and I think you're a perfect fit!


LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOl

Posting on --------------- is a great way to advertise yourself and it's completely free for service providers like you.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhaha

All you need to do to post your information is visit ----------------

Thanks!

~Heather

Hey, Heather, while I'm busy personally training something (and I'm glad you buy that I'm a personal trainer) perhaps you can help me out with something. See, I have this bank acccount that's frozen in Nigeria...

My fix for problems with Firefox 3.613

I had to prep a new laptop recently, and wanted to put Firefox on it.  I'm not sure why; I've prettey much abandoned it for Chrome, but it still seemed like a good idea.

I downloaded the latest version (3.613) from the Mozilla website, installed it, and tried to launch the application. It wouldn't launch.  Instead it just crashed on startup.  I tried it several times and had no luck.  I did get it to launch in safe mode, but that's no fun.

I tried rebooting, uninstalling, reinstalling, redownloading, and kept getting the same result.

Finally, I uninstalled it one more time, then I sought out Firefox 3.5.  I found it and installed that version. Once I launched it, it prompted me to upgrade to 3.6.  I chose that option, installed the upgrade, and it finally worked.

Short version of the story?  Download the earlier version of Firefox, install it, upgrade to the newer version, and have fun surfing.

Movie Review 15: The Social Network

John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is - Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba?
John Keating: Mr. Perry?
Neil: To communicate.
John Keating: No! To woo women

That classic exchange from Dead Poets Society is the key theme that drives the story of “The Social Network” and likely the creation of Facebook in the real world, as well.
The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin, and based on the book, The Accidental Billionaires purports to be the story behind Facebook.  While the general content may be true, there are plenty of fictionalized accounts in the movie. Sorkin did not approach the subject matter and a journalist, but as a story teller.  And as a story teller, he did a great job.

When I first heard there was going to be a Facebook movie, I was skeptical.  When I saw the previews I thought, “Huh.  This might not suck.”  Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say this a surprisingly good movie.

The movie uses two legal depositions as the framework for telling the story of how Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at Harvard created Facebook. It seems an odd choice to use that framework since “website authoring” and “legal deposition” aren’t typically buzzwords that bring people into the theater. 

The film opens as Erica Albright, Mark Zuckerberg’s (fictional) girlfriend breaks up with him in a restaurant.  He goes back to his Harvard dorm room, blogs nastily about her while drunk (seriously, folks, BWI, or blogging while impaired, is rarely a good idea (come to think of it, BWI, or Baltimore Washington International airport is also rarely a good idea)), and then hacks several Harvard networks to create a website that ranks women based on attractiveness.  He crashes the network, and we are off to the races.


The reason the subject matter works as a movie is because the fact that we’re talking about Facebook is almost incidental.  The story is about friendship, betrayal, naiveté, revenge, pettiness, and honor.  The socially inept and obsessively driven Zuckerberg moves forward with his ideas and get caught up folks who are simultaneously exactly the right people and wrong people to be involved with.

In many respects, the story is about a bunch of kids who don’t have the wisdom or experience to realize they are in over their heads.

Jesse Eisenberg does a fantastic job as Mark Zuckerberg, and is all about the contrast.  He shows a great balance of awkwardness and smarminess. You’re never sure if his Zuckerberg needs a hug or a smack across the face.

Andrew Garfield does a good job playing Eduardo Saverin, though he seems to lack depth or definition at times.  Sorkin doesn’t flesh out the character or the relationship with Zuckerberg well enough. Saverin is supposed to be Zuckerberg’s best friend, but why?  Sorkin doesn’t do enough to establish that relationship, and Zuckerberg and Saverin are different enough, that we can’t just assume the friendship is natural.

Justin Timberlake plays a larger than life Sean Parker, the over the top Napster and Plaxo founder, who splits Zuckerberg and Saverin apart.  The Zuckerberg and Parker characters look an awful lot alike, which severs the story in interesting ways.  It shows Zuckerberg the person he can potentially be if things go right.  And it shows Parker the person he would like to be again.

The most interesting thing I learned about Facebook from this movie was that Sean Parker had such a role with the company.

At times, Timberlake’s portrayal is distracting.  His character reminded me less of the young genius who changed the record business for ever, and more of Neal Patrick Harris’s Barney from “How I Met Your Mother.”

Brenda Song, known to many as the Disney Channel’s London Tipton from “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” plays a very different character here.  As fellow Harvard Student Christy Ling, she connects Zuckerberg with Parker.  She appears several more times in the story, but I’m not sure why.  It’s as though Sorkin just wanted to add love interest but her presence doesn't really add much to plot or flesh out the characterizations of Zuckerberg or Saverin much.

Armie Hammer does a great job playing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.  I had not idea it was one actor playing both of them until I read about it on the movie’s website.  The characters felt different.  In the story, they are identical twins. But as I watched the movie, I thought they didn’t look that much alike.  In fact they were more a like than twins because it turns out they were the same actor.

Characterization, though, is not Sorkin’s strong point.  He wrote them and their business partner Divya Narendra (played by Max Minghella) as nothing more than spoiled, entitled rich kids who’ve never had to earn anything.  They were the “dumb jocks” of the movie, and that seems too simple. 

They’re in the story because they founded an early Facebook competitor called ConnectU and claim they hired Zuckerberg to code it for them.  They sue him, claiming he stole their idea and turned it into Facebook.
It’s possible Sorkin’s sketch of them is accurate, but I doubt it.  It was too flat and simple.  Whereas other aspects of the film and story were more nuanced, this thread was too black and white.

Despite those concerns, this is still an excellent movie.  Sorkin’s story telling is compelling. The cinematography is also excellent.  The crew race in England is beautifully shot. The pacing is crisp.
 
I don’t know how much it reflects the reality of the story of Facebook; doubtless there is plenty of fictional content.  It is, after all, a story and not a documentary.

It exceeded all my expectations, though, and is definitely worth seeing.

For more of my movie reviews, click here.

Here is the movie trailer:

Free Music for Bloggers and Fans

I mentioned Jamendo on Twitter a couple weeks back.  It's a pretty neat site.

Jamendo is a site where musicians share their music for free.  You can download thousands of tracks and albums from new artists and explore wide range of genres.

By free, I mean the music is available under a Creative Commons copyright.  Unlike traditional copyright, which reserves all rights to the owner (except, of course, the right to fair use, despite what some holders might claim), a Creative Commons copyright grants explicit rights to reproduce and reuse the content in many ways.

For example, you may recall my w00tstock! videos. At most concerts, you will be kicked out for recording the performances.  At w00tstock! they encourage you to record and post it -- for noncommercial purposes.

Most of the videos I post to YouTube I release under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Most of the content on Jamendo is under a similar license.  That means you can download it for free, copy it for free, and share it with friends for free -- as long as you comply with the rather liberal copyright terms.

You can search by genre, country, license, and more.  When I was looking for some music from Japan for an upcoming blog post, I downloaded dozens of tracks from Jamendo until I found just the right one.  And I can use that in my projects without fear of a take down notice.  The other music I found will just go on my iPod.

If you are a blogger and looking for music for a post or project, check out the libraries on Jamendo.

If you are interested in the new wave of intellectual property and the social experiment of how new artists share their music with audiences around the world -- without a big music label making all the decisions, check out Jamendo.

If you just want to hear what is possible without a big studio, you guessed it, check out Jamendo.

Priorities for private information

I recently worked an event where my company held a drawing.  People filled out cards to enter the drawing, and we asked them for name address, phone number, email address, and age (for legal reasons).

Some people asked about what we plan to do with the information, but most didn't.

What puzzles me is the fields people left blank.  If someone was going to leave a field blank, more than 85% of the time (rough guess), they left the email field blank.

They had no problem giving us their physical address, or their active phone number, but they felt the need to protect that email address at all costs.

Spam annoys me.  A little.  But I would much rather get 500 Spam messages a day than get one telemarketing phone call in a day.  Or 10 pieces of junk mail.  Spam is easy to delete -- it's just one press of the delete key. I don't have to listen to anyone or be jarred out of a contemplative state by a ringing phone.  I don't have to pick up and carry anything.

And yet many people feel compelled to protect their email address as all costs.  Have those of us in the industry been so loud in our warnings about security issues that people are now more wary of sharing their electronic mail address than they are about sharing their meatspace address?

Clients from Hell

I need someone that can take everything in here (client points to head with both hands), and put it on the internet.

-- Client speaking to a freelancer

Lately, this has become one of my daily stops on the Internet when I make my rounds to ensure the 'net is still funcitoning the way it should.

Clients from Hell  is a collection of short, funny anecdotes from graphic designers, web designers, application developers, and other freelancers where they tell their favorite stories of dealing with challenging customers.  There's usually only two or three new stories a day so it's easy to keep up on.

It's interesting in ways beyond a customers-sometimes-do-stupid-things way.  I'm often on the other side of the conversation, playing the role of the client.  What I find fascinating in the whole thing is that it demonstrates a few key facts.

1. Designers are under appreciated.  While software has made it possible for anyone to throw up a quick website or toss together a logo, it still requires a professional to use that software to create something that's actually good.
2. Customers don't speak the same language as designers.  On some of the stories, it struck me that the freelancer was at fault.  Customers are likely outsourcing this stuff because it is out of their realm of expertise, and the customers, in all likely hood don't know how to communicate what they want or need from the freelancer.  And some freelancers don't ask the right questions or have the patience for the answers the customers might give.
3. A good contract is essential.  Given the way customers try to get out of paying, having clear terms is a critical issue that can prevent issues down the road.
4. Some people are just plain wacky.

Check it out.  It's worth a visit. If you deal with the public, you'll recognize many of the people in the stories.  If instead, you are a client of these service providers, it may give you some ideas on how you can work more effectively with your service providers.

Unfortunate Popular Searches

The Bing.Com home page lists popular searches/topics.  They are at the bottom of the picture, on the right side. These are apparently auto generated which resulted in this unfortunate series of headlines today.

New IRS Scam Email

I got this email today. I imagine others have too. It allegedly comes from "refunds@irs.gov."But beware. THIS IS A SCAM!

Tax Refund Notification

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 1527.29 USD. Please submit the tax refund request and allow 6-9 days in order to process it.

Click Here to submit you tax refund request

Note : A refund can be delayed a variety of reasons, for example submitting invalid records or applying after deadline.

Yours Sincerely
Internal Revenue Service.

The was a hyperlink that would go to at eecu.net.

Again, if you get one of these, it is a scam.

How can I tell it's a scam?

First of all, the IRS will never contact you by email to offer you a refund. They will use regular mail.

Second, while the mail is mostly grammatically correct, The lack of a dollar sign on the amount is suspicious.

Third, the link goes someplace other than Irs.Gov

If you would like more information about phishing attempts and scam emails pretending to be from the IRS, please visit this page on the IRS web site.

Or if I've scared you away from clicking links, go directly to the IRS websites at IRS.gov. You'll see a link called "Report Phishing" in the upper right hand corner. There's some great information there.

If you receive a scam email purporting to be from the IRS, forward it to phishing@irs.gov

Dusting off the wishes

I'm itching for Spring, and it's not the itch that comes from too much nature. While I still want my cold weather at night, I also want the sunny days so I get out on the deck and use it for something other than playing host to some possibly dead bamboo.



I'm shopping for a grill. Because it's an apartment in Seattle, "they" are rather particular about what I do when I play with fire. There are 4 requirements I have to meet when I grill.

• It has to be a gas grill
• It has to use the 16 ounce or smaller gas containers
• I have to have a fire extinguisher nearby
• I have to have a fire resistant mat under the grill (not required, but strongly recommended by the building manager as she looked at me with those scary you-must-comply eyes)

When I think out door activities and out door equipment, I think on one solution -- The Internet.

That brought me to Amazon, as most surfing ultimately does (damn them and their convenient ordering and adequate customer service).

On Amazon, I have two wish lists. My default is the "Please buy this for me list" which (no surprise) is filled mainly with books. The second list is one that's full of things I want to "Keep and eye on." Naturally, it is called, "Keep and eye on." When I see something I think I want, but I'm not sure, it goes on this list. When I'm shopping around and looking at different products, they go on this list.

Tonight, I dropped the Weber Q200 on that list. I'm still looking at grills, so that's where it goes.

That turns out to be a pretty dusty list. As I went though it, the contents broke down roughly like this:

• 10% Things I might want
• 15% Things I forgot I might want
• 25% Things I'm comparing to one another
• 40% Things I have
• 10% What the heck is that doing on there?

It turns out I'm as good at de-cluttering my ad-hoc book mark system as I am at de-cluttering my apartment.

Need proof? I scrolled down this list and saw this:


It includes three cameras I was considering back in December of 2005. I eventually bought one (the Nikon) but they all sat there -- waiting. And hoping one day that I would come back to evaluate them again.

*DELETE*

Now if only I were that ruthless with the delete key in my apartment...

Get your Geek on

As the melody of still alive wafted from the speakers, and comforting and eerie blue light warmed the theater. Just as their parents and grandparents had done with fire years ago, the masses pulled out the cellphones, iPods, and DSs, flipped them opened and swayed almost rhythmically in in front of the modern story teller.


On Friday, I went down to the Moore Theater in Seattle to see Jonathan Coulton perform, with his opening act Paul and Storm.

I first heard about Jonathan Coulton when he appeard on Leo Laporte's TWIT. His background is as a software developer, but he got tired of that and decided to make a go of it with geeky music. Coulton is like a cross between Tom Leher and Weird Al. He toured with John Hodgman on Hodgman's recent book tour and wrote the closing song to the blockbuster game Portal.

The crowd was filled with nerds and geeks. These are my people.

They enjoyed every geeky moment in the show, like it was a night of D&D, Monty Python reruns, unlimited Doritos and Mountain Dew.

They loved everything from LOL Cat speak, to the thoughts of an evil mad scientist, to the thrill of junk food, the the ecstatic joy that filled the hall during a Rick Roll.

The crowd Arrrrghed like pirates when called upon and then quickly responed with a dozen or more variations on it. When Paul and Storm asked for two Arrrrghs, they crowd gave two. When they asked for three Arrrrghs, the crowd gave them three. When they asked for pi Arrrrghs they crowd gave them 3.14.

It's been hours and my cheeks still hurt from laughing. My throat is still raw from cheering. I haven't had this much fun at a concert in years.

The dynamic was interesting too. Paul & Storm and Coutlon all seemed a little overwhelmed by the crowd. It was definitely a huge crowd. It appeared to fill 80-90% of the theater. And it was an enthusiastic crowd. Pirate shouts echoed in unexpected places. And everyone sang along with their favorite songs.

Coulton did appear in a few songs during the opening act's set. And Paul & Storm (and Molly ) joined Coulton several times during his set.

The interesting thing is that Paul & Storm did such a great job, that it was hard for Coulton to follow them. They riled up the crowd so well, the pirate Arrrrghs almost meant a mutiny during Coulton's set.

But in the end everyone got along and had a great time.

If you consider yourself a geek, go see these guys perform. Or buy their CDs. Or both.

Whitehouse.gov

Just after noon today, the new Whitehouse.Gov website went online. The Obama administration wasted no time in getting the site up. There were no days of that silly picture of a construction dude doing road work on a yellow diamond with a caption reading, "Site under construction. Please check back in few days."

Of course, I should expect nothing less from a President who placed so much emphasis on using technology to promote his election during the campaign.

The site is clean and well organized. There's a mix of historic information and next generation communication tools. It's easy to navigate and seems like the kind of tool I'm likely to use more than once every four years.

There's even a blog on Whitehouse.Gov. I wonder when they're adding the Entrecard widget...

Book Review 34: Cryptonomicon

Waterhouse has not even been given the full tour of BP yet, but he knows the gist of it. He knows that these demure girls, obediently shuffling reams of gibberish through their machines, shift after shift, day after day, have killed more men than Napoleon.

Page 174

Ranging from Manila to Shanghai to England to California to the South Pacific Islands, Neil Stepenson's Cryptonomicon is 1,130 pages of modern-day high tech business, World War II epic, monetary policy, geek culture exploration, treasure hunting, legal skulduggery about a dozen other topics. It tells several great stories that come together at the end, with a solid plot, and plenty of surprises. It has moments where the tone is inconsistent, and they characters aren't quite as real as they could be, but the depth and detail of the story is reason enough to read it.

The sheer thickness of the book gave me pause before opening it, but I'm glad I did.

In Cryptonomicon, Stephenson tells the stories of 4 characters, in varying chapters. One chapter will focus on Bobby Shaftoe, then next on Randy Waterhouse, the next on Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, then maybe we go back to Bobby Shaftoe, or to a chapter on Goto Dengo. It that respect, Cryptonomicon is essentially four books shuffled together like a deck of cards. Stephenson tells each story in third person and through the imperfect and limited eyes of his characters, in an effort to put the reader in the characters' place.

This structure works surprisingly well. The different stories complement one another, but Stephenson tells each story in discrete sections. This means that even though Stephenson jumps around to different continents and and decades, the story does not get confusing. It also means he can just move a character's story forward by 6 months or more and doesn't need to bother with how to get the character there.

Stephenson writes with a dry wit that kept me chuckling through the book.

It's not all new ground. In the tradition of M*A*S*H he takes shots at the military bureaucracy.

Like any other military unit, Detachment 2702 is rich in some supplies and poor in others, but they do appear to control about 50% of last years total U.S. tarpage production.

Page 198

The United States Military (Waterhouse has decided) is first and foremost an unfathomable network of typists and fileclerks, secondarily a stupendous mechanism for moving stuff from one part ot the world to another, and last and least a fighting organization.

Page 548

The tone is also evident is passages such as:

Let's set the Existence-Of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored.

Page 6

The cynical humor throughout the book, is embodied in a stand alone lines and in the antics of the characters. It makes reading it even more enjoyable.

Stephenson also follows few German characters, though he doesn't spend as much time on them. One of them is taken by the SS to meet with someone on a train. The holocaust was ostensibly a secret from the German people at the time, though such secrets can't really be contained:

A short train waits here. It does not contain any boxcars, a relief to Rudy, since he thinks that during the last few years he may have glimpsed boxcars that appear to be filled with human beings. These glimpses were brief and surreal, and he cannot really sort out whether they really happened, or were merely fragments of nightmares that got filed in the wrong cranial drawer.

Page 619

Stephenson excels with moving the plot along. He illustrates his key themes in a compelling manner. I found it hard to put the book down -- I wanted to see what was going to happen next.

While Stephenson does a great job with the plot and the comedic asides, he doesn't write his characters as well. They are interesting, but inconsistent, especially early on. The Waterhouses are the geek characters. He tries to write Goto as the Japanese soldier who knows Japan screwed up, and Shaftoe is the cool, tough guy who writes poetry.

Stephenson shows that the Geek is strong in Randy Waterhouse. He spends 3 pages on how Randy eats Captain Crunch. Randy also describes people in the industry using Lord of the Rings terminology. He is a Dwarf. Others are Elves, Men, or Wizards.

Of course he's a Unix guru that has trouble relating to women. But he goes through most of the novel as an observer. The geek in him comes out when Stephenson chooses to emphasize it, but most of the time, there's nothing in the book to make him stand out from any other character. Much of the time he seems fairly normal and unremarkable.

But this techie business traveler does have his moments.

Living in the States, you never see anything older than about 2 and a half centuries, and you have to visit the eastern fringe of the country to see that. The business traveler's world of airports and taxicabs looks the same everywhere. Randy never really believes he's in a different country until he sees something like the Intramuros, and then he has to stand there like an idiot for a long time, ruminating.

Page 61

If nine-year-old Randy Waterhouse had been able to look into the future and see himself in this career, he would have been delighted beyond measure: the primary tool of the Interlibrary Loan Department was the Staple Remover. Young Randy had seen one of these devices in the hands of his fourth grade teacher and been enthralled by its cunning and dangerous appearance, so like the jaws of some futuristic robot dragon. He had, in fact, gone out of his way to staple things incorrectly just so he could prevail on his teacher to unstaple them, giving him another glimpse of the blood-chilling mandibles in action. He had gone so far as to steal a staple remover from an untended desk at church and then incorporate it into an Erector-set robot hunter-killer device with which he terrorized much of the neighborhood; its pit-viper yawn separated many a cheap plastic toy from its parts and accessories before the theft was discovered and Randy made and example of before God and man.

Page 69

His grandfather, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse is a more alien character. He is a mathematician. The military appreciates his skill.

The message states that after thoroughly destroying this message, he -- Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse -- is to proceed to London, England, by the fastest available means. All ships, trains, and airplanes, even submarines, will be made available to him. Though a member of the U. S. Navy, he is even to be provided with an extra uniform -- an Army uniform -- in case it simplifies matters for him.

The only thing he must never, ever do is place himself in a situation where he could be captured by the enemy. In this sense, the war is suddenly over for Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse.

Page 92

His superiors were well aware of his skills and his limitations. While it was important to keep Waterhouse safe and keep him working on encryption issues, they were well knew he might not be the best person to present things to others. It might take him a while to get started while speaking to a group, but once he gets started on a thought he would be away and rapidly get so deep into a topic the others would have no idea what he was talking about, but would know he was brilliant.

"...Colonel Chatten always shows up, and before the meeting starts, always find some frightfully cheerful and oblique way to tell Waterhouse to keep his trap shut unless someone asks a math question. Waterhouse is not offended. He prefers it, actually, because it leaves his mind free to work on important things. During their last meeting at the Broadway Buildings, Waterhouse proved a theorem.

Page 427

Math genius and organist Waterhouse struck others as odd. When other characters refer to him, they describe him as some kind of freak. Waterhouse's brilliance does come out in the text, and Stephenson more strongly defines Lawrence's character than Randy Waterhouse's, but it's not as crisp as it could be. When we see Lawrence through his own eyes, he clearly has trouble relating to women, and he forms his strongest bonds with other mathematicians.

Turing figured out something entirely different, something unspeakably strange and radical.

He figured out that mathematicians, unlike carpenters, only needed to have one tool in their tool box, if it were the right sort of tool. Turing realized that is should be possible to build a meta-machine that could be reconfigured in such a way that it would so any task you could conceivably do with information. It would be a protean device that could that could turn into any tool you would ever need. Like a pipe organ changing into a different instrument every time you hit a preset button.

Page 242

But there is little sense of the personal isolation Waterhouse feels. And that disconnect in the characterization loses something.

Some might argue that because we see Waterhouse's world through his own eyes, everything is idealized. He doesn't see himself that way. Therefore, the reader shouldn't notice that either. And there may be some truth to that, but in my experience an alienated geek still knows they are socially "different." They may not care; they may not seek a different lifestyle. And the may truly be comfortable with who they are, but they are still aware of it. And I don't see that self awareness come through in Waterhouse's character.

Bobby Shaftoe has most of the big adventures in the book. He is the tough guy. He may not get all the math, but he his street smart. He is a tactical whiz and can adapt to anything that happens on the battlefield. Especially if it gets him closer to his next morphine hit. He even gets to meet the future 40th President of the US during a morphine addled hospital bed interview after a brutal experience on Guadalcanal where he claims giant lizards were eating his comrades.

"You did great," Lieutenant Reagan says without looking him in the eye. "A real morale booster. He light a cigarette. "You can go back to sleep now."

Page 136

As a soldier, he knows how to talk to officers -- when to feign ignorance and exactly when to belt out a, "Sir! Yes, Sir!" But he is mostly a two dimensional character. In the very beginning of the book, we learn he writes poetry.

The modern world's hell on Haiku writers.

Page 1

And this gets mentioned again towards the end of the book. But throughout the middle of the book Stephenson doesn't mention it. It's almost an after thought. It seems as though Stephenson was trying to write his perfect marine, rather than a marine with a particular character.

Goto Dengo is a Japanese soldier who meets Shaftoe in the months preceding Pearl Harbor. We pick up his adventures following the bombing of a transport ship he is on. Of all the main characters, he has the roughest WWII experience, being marooned, captured, and dealing with the tough environment in the South Pacific.

He has a different world view than most of the other Japanese soldiers we encounter. He understands that the Emperor is not infallible and that the war is not going well for Japan.

Like the Waterhouses, he is an engineer. His engineering is not about data, however. It's about tunneling and mining. He grew up in a mining community and learned how to construct tunnels and mines. He also displays and adaptability that sets him apart from his Japanese colleagues. I'll come back to that in a moment.

Stephenson has also been criticized for the way he draws his female characters in this book. They can come across as canned and not as real people. I'm willing to give him a pass on this, however. I'm not sure if it's intended this way, but we are not seeing the women in this book through their own eyes, like we do with Shaftoe, Goto, and the Waterhouses. We are seeing them through the eyes of imperfect, immature narrators. Since Shaftoe and the Waterhouses don't necessarily understand women the way they understand their jobs, then their perceptions would naturally be skewed.

In this book, there are two reason the Allies won the war -- Adaptability and Encryption.

Shaftoe often calls on the Marine credo of "Adapt and Overcome." When something isn't working, he has no problem changing it. He is always looking at alternative ways to get the mission done when he hits a wall. Goto makes also makes this observation about the Americans.

The Americans have invented a totally new bombing tactic in the middle of a war and implemented it flawlessly. His mind staggers like a drunk in aisle of a careening train. They saw that they were wrong, they admitted their mistake, they came up with a new idea. The new idea was accepted and embraced all the way up the chain of command. Now they are using it to kill their enemies.

...

The American Marines in Shanghai weren't proper warriors either. Constantly changing their ways. Like Shaftoe. Shaftoe tried to fight Nipponese soldiers in the street and failed. Having failed, he decided to learn new tactics -- from Goto Dengo. "The Americans are not warriors," everyone kept saying. "Businessmen perhaps. Not Warriors."

Page 399

The fact that the Americans were not afraid to admit a mistake and take corrective action boggles the mind of the Goto and the other Japanese soldiers he works with. The way Goto explains it, a Japanese soldier would be too ashamed to do something like that. It would admit a fallibility that was simply not acceptable.

But the Allies continued to adapt. That adaptability extends to cosmetics.

Wartime lipstick is necessarily cobbled together from whatever tailings and gristle were left over once all of the good stuff was used to coat propeller shafts. A florid and cloying scent is needed to conceal its unspeakable mineral and animal origins.

It is the smell of war.

Page 173

It's not just the soldiers who adapt. In the 90s story Randy Waterhouse and Epiphyte Corporation continue to evolve their business model. The initial reason Randy goes to the Philippines changes. The company goes through about 30 different versions of its business plan in a year and a half. The business environment keeps changing around them as the face new opportunities and legal challenges. The directions Epiphyte goes in demonstrate the importance of being nimble to a small company. It gives them an advantage.

Encryption, though, is the main theme in the book. In WWWII, Waterhouse had two jobs -- breaking enemy code systems and hiding the fact that they were broken from the enemy. The latter is an aspect of encryption I never gave much though to. But it is critical. Breaking a code system is only useful if the enemy does not know its codes have been compromised. If they are aware of it, they can take appropriate countermeasures and having broken the code becomes useless.

That also means the Allies can't act on every bit of intelligence they gleam from the now compromised communiques. Doing so would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the communiques have been compromised. Waterhouse's job becomes, in part, to come up with "alternative" ways the Allies uncovered the information they acted. It's also part of his job to try to anticipate what former mathematician colleagues are doing in Germany and to try to think like they think.

While Waterhouse represents the intellectual arm of this effort, Shaftoe is they physical. He participates in missions to help ensure the secrecy of Waterhouse's efforts. But generally he doesn't know that. Keeping all these secrets is imperative to the war effort.

Date encryption is also critical to Epiphyte Corporation in the 90s. Their efforts surrounding secure data transmission and storage are critical to their view of the world. One of the interesting aspects of the books is the way Stephenson expounds on the importance of encryption for the Internet and modern monetary systems.

Encryption in WWII was mainly used to hide information. In the modern story, encryption is used not just to hide data, but also to prove identity. Those who follow encryption on the Internet are likely familiar with Public Key Encryption (PGP is one of the best know examples). In an environement where communications can be accessed illicitly and spoofed, and where people who do business with one another may not have even been in the same room, proving identity is important. Users can accomplish this using encryption.

So while adaptability is a main theme in the books, Stephenson uses it primarily as a platform to explore the issues of data security.

Reading Cryptonomicon takes some time. And if you primarily want vividly drawn characters, this book is not for you. If you want a geeky WWII adventure story, or find the topic of Encryption interesting this is a great read. The plot and the story kept me entertained for hours. The way Stephenson jumps from one character to the next in alternating chapters and decades works. It helps establish a broader framework and context for what is going on. Cryptonomicon is also a good primer if you plan to read Stephenson's 3000+ page Baroque Cycle.

Stephenson writes fascinating books about the impact of data on people's lives. If you would like a shorter Stephenson book to start with, I can recommend Snow Crash. My review of that one is here. It's not short, by most standards, but is definitely briefer than Cryptonomicon. Regardless of which one you read first, they are both great ways to pass the hours.

For more of my book reviews, click here.

Sprint's Now Website

Do you like random data, trivia and number? You may like this site then.

My GF sent me the link a couple week's back. I can't decide if this is just appalling, or if it's one of the awesomest things I've seen on the web. Maybe it's both.


What's your favorite widget on there? I'm partial to "Habitable Planets" counter. I'm keeping an eye on that one.

Wired's profile on Ray Ozzie

This month (issue 16.12), Wired's cover story is a profile on Ray Ozzie. Ozzie is the creator of Lotus Notes and Groove. Currently, he is Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. The last person to have that title? Bill Gates. While Steve Balmer may run the business of Microsoft, it's Ozzie who is developing the vision. Recently, Ozzie introduced Microsoft's new cloud computing initiatives and related products.

It's an interesting profile, and it offers some insight as to where Microsoft plans to go from here.

A short list of what the Internet is about today would inlcude video sharing, eCommerce, file trading, social networking, telecommuting, news dissemination, and blog based commentary. A longer list could go on for pages and encompass a range of activities legal and illegal or wholesome and seemy.

But at its core, it's about bringing people together -- about letting people be who they can and want to be without the limitations of geography, appearnce, age, or physical ability. Sometimes that gets lost in the noise coming from the latest buzz word.

This story from the article was particularly telling. The core of what network communication was about in the 70s is what it's still about today. Here is my favorite passage from the article.

One incident in particular introduced Ozzie to the magic that comes when people connect via computer. He had taken a part-time assignment helping a professor finish writing some courseware. The prof lived on the other side of town, so Ozzie collaborated with him remotely. Ozzie came to know and like his boss, save for one annoyance. "He was the worst typist ever," Ozzie says. "He was very eloquent on email, but on Term Talk [early form of instant messaging]it was just dit-dit-dit, sometimes an error, but agonizingly slow." At the end of the project, the man threw a party at his house, and Ozzie discovered the reason for the typing problem: The professor was a quadriplegic and had been entering text by holding a stick in his teeth and poking it at the keyboard. Ozzie was floored.
Plato terminals at the University of Illinois gave users interactivity.

"I remember really questioning my own attitudes," Ozzie says. "I had been communicating with him mind to mind. Technology lets you do that, unprejudiced by what anyone looks like. From that era forward, I just knew I wanted to work on something related to communications and interactive systems."

...More

Create your own error message

This is a neat site I stumbled across while using Stumble Upon. It lets you create your own Windows error message. You can create your own here. Or, you can see a gallery of others here.

Besides the novelty factor here, I'm pretty sure some one could use this tool for some nasty practical jokes.

Virtual Pet Hamster

This little guy is pretty cute.

And kind of mesmerizing...

Email aggravation with Comcast and Bigfoot

My email volume suddenly declined a couple weeks ago. I didn't think much about it; I just figured these things run in cycles. I'd probably see a ton of email come through on my Comcast account any day. But I didn't.

Then I got a voicemail from my Mother jokingly chastising me for rejecting her email. Something was wrong with Comcast.

I use Bigfoot as one of my primary public-ish email addresses. Bigfoot is an email forwarding service. I give out my Bigfoot address, then people email me using that address. Bigfoot then forwards my email to whatever address I supply.

The great things about this is if I change email addresses or ISPs, I only have to tell Bigfoot about it. I don't have to get everyone else I know to start using a new address to reach me.

But then the email stopped and I got that call. After a little experimentation, I confirmed that Comcast was bouncing any email sent through my Bigfoot.com address. Comcast kicked back this error:

The original message was received at Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:01:55 -0500 EST from mail.bigfoot.com [66.114.252.252]



----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <[myusername]@comcast.net>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> RCPT TO:
<<< style="font-weight: bold;">[myusername]@comcast.net

I contacted Comcast tech support online chat and explained the problem to them. Previously I had turned off Spam filtering at the Comcast level to prevent bounces like this.

According to the tech, though, Comcast decided that anything from Bigfoot is Spam, so they decided to block the entire domain. He sent me a link to form so I can get the block removed (http://www.comcastsupport.com/Forms/Net/blockedprovider.asp). I should know in 24-48 hours if this works.

I understand the need to block Spam, but I find it hard to believe that everyone using Bigfoot is a spammer. Arbitrary blocks like this are one of the reasons there is so much Comcast hate out there on the web.

In the mean time, I redirected my Bigfoot forwarding elsewhere. So at least I'll know get my mail again.