Lockbox

Engadget has a series of interesting articles by a guy named Marc Weber Tobias on the security of locks. The upshot? You are probably not as secure as you would hope. Me - I'm terribly insecure, but that's no secret.

Because it's there?

Sun Storm: A Coronal Mass Ejection

Space Exploration: Real Reasons and Acceptable Reasons
Comments by Michael Griffin at the Quasar Award Dinner, Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership on 19 Jan 2007

We have a very interesting conundrum at NASA, and we have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about it. In national polling, NASA as an American institution enjoys a hugely positive approval rating, broadly in the range of 65-75%, an amazing result for a government agency. But when you ask people why, they are not really sure, or at least cannot express it clearly. When you ask people what we do, beyond the broad category of "space", again they aren't quite sure. And if you ask them what we're planning to do, they're even less sure. But they know that they love NASA. So NASA has what in the marketing discipline would be called very strong brand loyalty, even though people are not familiar in detail with what we do or why they like it.

I have been trying to understand why this is so, because it is important to our agency's future. If we don't have public support that is both strong and specific, the things we want to do, and believe to be important, will not survive. There are many competing priorities for public funding, and always will be. So it really is important for us to communicate to the public how we're spending the fifteen cents per day that the average American contributes to NASA, because there are other places where that money can go.

I've reached the point where I am completely convinced that if NASA were to disappear tomorrow, if the American space program were to disappear tomorrow, if we never put up another Hubble, never put another human being in space, people would be profoundly distraught. Americans would feel less than themselves. They would feel that our best days are behind us. They would feel that we have lost something, something that matters. And yet they would not know why.

This is an interesting conclusion, and so I've thought about it a good bit, and I've come believe that the reason is, we in the space business don't talk about it in the right way.

If you ask why we're going back to the moon and, later, beyond, you can get a variety of answers. The President, quite correctly said that we do it for purposes of scientific discovery, economic benefit and national security. I've given speeches on each of those topics, and I think these reasons can be clearly shown to be true. And Presidential Science Advisor Jack Marburger has said that questions about space exploration come down to whether or not we want to bring the solar system within mankind's sphere of economic influence. I think that is extraordinarily well put.

These reasons have in common the fact that they can be discussed within the circles of public policy making. They can be debated on their merits, on logical principles. They can be justified. They are what I am going to call tonight "Acceptable Reasons." You can attach whatever importance you want to any of those factors, and some citizens will weight some factors more and some will weight them less, but most of us would agree that they are, indeed, relevant factors.

But who talks like that? Who talks about doing something for purposes of scientific or economic gain or national security other than in policy circles? If anybody asked Lindberg why he crossed the Atlantic – and many did –he never indicated that he personally flew the Atlantic to win the Orteig prize. His backers might have done it in part for that, but Lindberg did it for other reasons.

If you ask Burt Rutan why he designed and built Voyager, and why Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager flew it around the world, it wasn't for any money involved, it was because it was one of the last unconquered feats in aviation. If you ask Burt and his backer Paul Allen why they developed a vehicle to win the X-Prize, it wasn't for the money. They spent twice as much as they made.

I think we all know why people do some of these things. They are well-captured in many famous phrases. When Sir George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he said "Because it is there." He didn't say that it was for economic gain.

We know these reasons, and tonight I will call them "Real Reasons". Real Reasons are intuitive and compelling to all of us, but they're not immediately logical. They're exactly the opposite of Acceptable Reasons, which are eminently logical but neither intuitive nor emotionally compelling. The Real Reasons we do things like exploring space involve competitiveness, curiosity and monument building. So let's talk about them.

This is totally a taboo thought, but I often feel many people working around me don't have any reason for their research other than "I get paid." I am not so naive to say this (too often) but I think if you are doing government research - that you should be able to explain in short order why your work is worthwhile. And without exaggerating your work's benefits, i.e., lying.

Yet, if you are honest, I think you should get some wiggle room on the explanation too. Not everything has to cure cancer or shoot down missiles. Not unless you demand the same cost/benefit out of everything else in life. "It's cool" is a good reason if enough people agree with you, just because that's why most everything gets done.

Would you want Hemingway's life?

The Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life [NY Times]

Mr. Harrison, who is 69 with a lot of miles on his tires, is not much kinder to his own chassis. He is half-blind in his left eye, which gives him a wild, cockeyed look, and a pack or two of American Spirits every day have left him with a voice like gravel. Mr. Harrison was once a legendary eater and drinker, the sort of iron-livered, barrel-chested trencherman who could hold his own at the table with Orson Welles and John Huston and who thought nothing of a 10- or 12-course lunch at Ma Maison followed by Champagne and a gross of oysters for supper.

[...]

Since coming down with Type 2 diabetes a couple of years ago, Mr. Harrison has had to modify his behavior a bit, but that doesn’t preclude daily infusions of vodka and red wine or carefully prepared meals of game. Mr. Harrison is still a passionate, two-dimensional diner — one who appreciates quality and quantity both. His self-coined motto is “Eat or die,” a phrase he sometimes loftily attributes to Pushkin or Lermontov.

I admire the verve, but it's hard for me to see how aesthetes can end up any other way than jaded and cynical.

Smart is Just Less Dumb

Malcolm Gladwell: The Talent Myth [The New Yorker]. Spend time at research labs, universities, think tanks, etc, and it won't take long to realize that IQ tends to be a necessary condition but is not sufficient one. Smart people focus on the former and ignore the latter.

Snow

It snowed here in DC last night, which as always, is hilarious. Anyway, it now seems that on top of these twenty scientific myths, you can now include the possibility that two snowflakes can indeed be alike. Much like people.

The Surreal Life of Carlos Barrios Orta

Meet Carlos Barrios Orta, Mexico City Sewer Diver.

Deep-Slime Divers Keep Vast and Smelly Sewers Flowing
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service

[...]

It was 11 a.m. in a massive drain underneath Mexico City, where the smell of human waste and rotting trash was so strong it was hard for a visitor not to vomit. But it didn't seem to bother Barrios, one of four divers who maintain the 600 miles of sewers and pipes beneath the biggest city in North America. He was just doing his job: keeping pumps and sewers clear.

[...]

In the darkness of the sewer, Barrios could see nothing. He doesn't bother to carry a light, because it would be of no use in the thick waters. He inched forward in his bright red suit, an airtight model that sealed away the disease all around him, feeling his way with his rubber gloves, listening in the darkness. He could hear the powerful, whirring pump that pushed the flow through a six-foot-wide pipe. His mission was to clear away the debris around it so it wouldn't back up into city streets. Thousands of homes have been flooded in the past by dammed-up wastewater.

[...]

Now Barrios was singing. "I live in the water, lah-deh-dah-dum." It was a popular children's song, "The Pretty Little Fish," and Barrios sang it like he couldn't possibly have been happier. He loves his job. Two years ago, he gave up a career in accounting for this -- which, he noted, says something about accounting

Barrios, a happy-go-lucky father of three, said none of it bothers him -- not the smell, not the dangerous spinning pump blades, not even the two cadavers. He never found out who they were, because they were carried off in the flowing waters. The police were not called. The divers, who periodically encounter bodies because sewers are popular spots for dumping murder victims, only call police when they bring a body to the surface.

Hmm, I wonder why the WaPo would report on sewer divers? And while I can understand wanting to leave an accounting job, they really don't say why he picked sewer diving as his dream-job alternative. Weird. Via Pruned.

How to buy a Mattress

You know, in case you were just wondering and happened to read this blog: Going to the mattress - by Seth Stevenson. Turns out, it's snake-oil wrapped up in best-buy placed in the middle of a used car lot. Here's an excerpt:

How Firm Should My Mattress Be?

Herein lies the central mattress paradox. You sleep on coils because they're softer than the floor, but you still want good, firm coils, but then you put foam padding on top to soften the coils, but you still want the foam to be dense, and then finally you put a strong box spring underneath for just a tiny bit of give. All this shuttling back and forth on the scale of firmness—why not just start with the firmness you like, and then stop? My favorite mattress name encapsulates the paradox: Simmons Beautyrest World Class Granite Plush. Granite Plush???

I had an office mate who couldn't understand why anyone would spend anything on a mattress. He slept on a futon. I thought that something you spend ~1/3 of your life on was worth a little more.

I went looking for something that felt well-built and "not sproingy". On a 1-10 sproingy scale, I would give my current mattress a 7. Also, something that didn't squeak. So far so good. I did however, let the salesman talk me into a box-matress, as this apparently was critical to the long-term durability of the mattress. I have no idea why this is better compared to a platform bed, unless you like the Princess and the Pea three foot tall sleeping on a counter top feel. So, no new box mattresses for me. Take that, Mr. Took Advantage of My Naievity Sales Guy.

Strategery

You sank my battleship! Perhaps it's time for a change in strategy...

If you are tired of hammering your head against the wall, if it feels like you never are good enough, or that you're working way too hard, it doesn't mean you're a loser. It means you've got the wrong strategy.

Of course, it could just be that you are a loser.

The Sushi FAQ

Truth in Blog-Post-Titling: The Sushi-FAQ. Much like mix-tape construction (and soundtrack assemblage), there are a lot of rules. Some make sense, some are go-with-the-flow, and some I found a little mysterious:

• “Kampai!” (“empty your cup”) is the traditional Japanese toast you may hear. Do not say “chin chin” as to the Japanese, this is a reference to a certain male body part best left out of proper conversation.

"chin chin" as to the Japanese? I think my FAQ needs a FAQ. [via]

20 tips for saving energy (=money)

Consumer Reports - 20 tips for saving energy.

The money I save goes into my monocle and top-hat budget.

What's in a name?

Who worries about names more than expectant parents? How about authors?

Episode 2 of why I Chose the Names I Did:

Tally Youngblood

This was obviously an important one. Midnighters bounces between five POV characters, but we’re stuck inside Tally’s head for 240,000 words! So obviously, her name can’t be too annoying or unwieldy. “Plaztercrappitastica” is way out.

But Uglies takes place 300 years in the future. Names probably won’t be the same as now. So I needed something that’s not a current name, but that doesn’t make your brain fritz when you read it. So I chose a regular word in English.

That’s right: “tally” as in “count.” As in “Hey, Mr. Tally-man, tally me bananas.”

Thus, the little spell-checker in your brain doesn’t ping every time your eyes scan across those letters. (And the real-world MS Word spell-checker doesn’t draw a squiggly line under it.) “Tally” is capitalized, of course, so you know it’s a name, but otherwise “tally” reads as a perfectly normal word.

Maybe authors could take inspiration from spammers? I kinda like Eduardo Watches, but I didn't see Max Power anywhere.