http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/28/2013220/New-Wave-of-Antibiotic-Resistant-Bacteria?art_pos=2
"New strains of 'Gram-negative' bacteria have become resistant to all safe antibiotics. Though methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the best-known antibiotic-resistant germ, the new class of resistant bacteria could be more dangerous still. 'The bacteria, classified as Gram-negative because of their reaction to the so-called Gram stain test, can cause severe pneumonia and infections of the urinary tract, bloodstream, and other parts of the body. Their cell structure makes them more difficult to attack with antibiotics than Gram-positive organisms like MRSA.' The only antibiotics — colistin and polymyxin B — that still have efficacy against Gram-negative bacteria produce dangerous side effects: kidney damage and nerve damage. Patients who are infected with Gram-negative bacteria must make the unsavory choice between life with kidney damage or death with intact kidneys. Recently, some new strains of Gram-negative bacteria have shown resistance against even colistin and polymyxin B. Infection with these new strains typically means death for the patient."
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/02/27/163226/The-Awful-Anti-Pirate-System-That-Will-Probably-Work?art_pos=8
"Much virtual ink has been spilled over Ubisoft's new, harsh DRM system for Assassin's Creed 2. You must have a constant internet connection, and, if your connection breaks, the game exits. While this has angered many (and justifiably so), most writers on the topic have made an error. They think that this system, like all DRM systems in the past, will be easily broken. This article explains why, as dreadful as the system is, it does have a chance of holding hackers off long enough for the game to make its money. As such it is, if nothing else, a fascinating experiment. From the article: 'Assassin's Creed 2 is different in a key way. Remember, all of its code for saving and loading games (a significant feature, I'm sure you would agree) is tied into logging into a distant server and sending data back and forth. This vital and complex bit of code has been written from the ground up to require having the saved games live on a machine far away, with said machine being programmed to accept, save, and return the game data. This is a far more difficult problem for a hacker to circumvent.'"
"Much virtual ink has been spilled over Ubisoft's new, harsh DRM system for Assassin's Creed 2. You must have a constant internet connection, and, if your connection breaks, the game exits. While this has angered many (and justifiably so), most writers on the topic have made an error. They think that this system, like all DRM systems in the past, will be easily broken. This article explains why, as dreadful as the system is, it does have a chance of holding hackers off long enough for the game to make its money. As such it is, if nothing else, a fascinating experiment. From the article: 'Assassin's Creed 2 is different in a key way. Remember, all of its code for saving and loading games (a significant feature, I'm sure you would agree) is tied into logging into a distant server and sending data back and forth. This vital and complex bit of code has been written from the ground up to require having the saved games live on a machine far away, with said machine being programmed to accept, save, and return the game data. This is a far more difficult problem for a hacker to circumvent.'"
Spy cameras won't make us safer
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/25/schneier.security.cameras/
Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime. This fact has been demonstrated repeatedly: in San Francisco, California, public housing; in a New York apartment complex; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Washington; in study after study in both the U.S. and the U.K. Nor are they instrumental in solving many crimes after the fact.
Friday, February 26, 2010
California Legislature Declares "Cuss-Free" Week
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1832240/California-Legislature-Declares-Cuss-Free-Week?art_pos=6
"The California legislature, which previously tried to ban incandescent light bulbs, just added to the list of banned things... swear words! Fortunately, the measure only applies for the first week of March, and compliance is voluntary — although, apparently, there will be a 'swear jar' in the Assembly and the Governor's mansion. No word yet on whether the Governator intends to comply."
I wish my state could be more like California. Which long ago solved all problems and has a perfectly balanced budget and so has literally nothing better to do than pass the most inane things possible.
To be fair the Federal government isn't far behind in the race to do nothing.
"The California legislature, which previously tried to ban incandescent light bulbs, just added to the list of banned things... swear words! Fortunately, the measure only applies for the first week of March, and compliance is voluntary — although, apparently, there will be a 'swear jar' in the Assembly and the Governor's mansion. No word yet on whether the Governator intends to comply."
I wish my state could be more like California. Which long ago solved all problems and has a perfectly balanced budget and so has literally nothing better to do than pass the most inane things possible.
To be fair the Federal government isn't far behind in the race to do nothing.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
History of Iron Production
If you are interested in the process of turning iron ore to various forms of usable iron and steel (and I know you are), then this is a good overview.
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/h-carnegie-steel.htm
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/h-carnegie-steel.htm
To sum up so far: wrought iron has a little carbon (.02 to .08 percent), just enough to make it hard without losing its malleability. Cast iron, in contrast, has a lot of carbon (3 to 4.5 percent), which makes it hard but brittle and nonmalleable. In between these is steel, with .2 to 1.5 percent carbon, making it harder than wrought iron, yet malleable and flexible, unlike cast iron. These properties make steel more useful than either wrought or cast iron, yet prior to 1856, there was no easy way to control the carbon level in iron so as to manufacture steel cheaply and efficiently. Yet the growth of railroads in the 1800s created a huge market for steel. The first railroads ran on wrought iron rails which were too soft to be durable. On some busy stretches, and on the outer edges of curves, the wrought iron rails had to be replaced every six to eight weeks. Steel rails would be far more durable, yet the labor- and energy-intensive process of cementation made steel prohibitively expensive for such large-scale uses.
Ongoing PA Webcam Spying Case
While I was searching for a pic of Mike and Ikes my doppelganger blog was conducting a highly detailed analysis of the PA school webcam spying case. It's pretty damming; this should put to rest any claim that the school wasn't in the wrong.
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html
This investigation into the remote spying allegedly being conducted against students at Lower MerionLMSD Staff List, Mike Perbix is listed as a Network Tech at LMSD. Mr. Perbix has a large online web forum footprint as well as a personal blog, and a lot of his posts, attributed to his role at Lower Merion, provide insight into the tools, methods, and capabilities deployed against students at LMSD. Of the three network techs employed at LMSD, Mr. Perbix appears to have been the mastermind behind a massive, highly effective digital panopticon.
The primary piece of evidence, already being reported on by a Fox affiliate, is this amazing promotional webcast for a remote monitoring product named LANRev. In it, Mike Perbix identifies himself as a high school network tech, and then speaks at length about using the track-and-monitor features of LanRev to take surreptitious remote pictures through a high school laptop webcam. A note of particular pride is evident in his voice when he talks about finding a way outside of LANRev to enable "curtain mode", a special remote administration mode that makes remote control of a laptop invisible to the victim. Listen at 35:47, when he says:
"you're controlling someone's machine, you don't want them to know what you're doing"
-Mike Perbix
It isn't until 37 minutes into the video till Perbix begins talking about the Theft Tracking feature, which causes the laptop to go into a mode where it beacons its location and silent webcam screenshots out to an Internet server controlled by the school.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Proposed List Of Amendments To The Constitution
So here are a list of amendments that I think should be made.
First my sunset law idea. To review, every law (federal, state, and local) would automatically "sunset", or become null and void, if they weren't renewed occasionally. The renewal vote would be the same as the vote need to initially pass the law (so normal 50% in two houses, in most cases). The time period needed would be 5 years for any first renewal, that would allow almost all of government to go through an election, and would prevent panic laws from having a huge first time limit. After that the periods would be based on the majority the law passed with. Something like (P - 50) / 2 = T (rounded up to nearest integer), where P is the percentage of whichever house was lower, and T is the time in years before the next renewal. If the House passed a law with 55%, and the Senate with 60% the time would be (55 - 50) / 2 = 2.5, rounded to 3 years. With 100% in both houses the maximum would be 25 years. All existing laws would start with 10 years from the date of ratification. I'd be willing to change the details of the time limits, however I feel 5 years for all first time renewal periods and a maximum of 25 years are key. Also laws could only be renewed in the year they came up for renewal (except the existing laws could be renewed anytime during the 10 year period).
Next I would repeal the 17th Amendment, which changes the method of electing the Senate. It changed from being elected by the states to by the people. This wouldn't be popular, because people like the idea of direct democracy, despite not actually caring enough to use the form of democracy they have. However, I am a supporter of state's rights and feel that the Senate represents the states, while the House of Representatives represents the people.
A major problem is unconstitutional laws. I think this stems from the fact that there is no penalty for passing unconstitutional laws, and that the only way for the laws to be removed is for someone to be arrested under them and appeal it up to the Supreme Court. Thus two amendments should address this.
First make it easier for unconstitutional laws to be repealed. I think there should be a number of different ways to do this. First allow states to declare a law unconstitutional. Next would be the creation of some body whose job it was to verify that laws were in fact constitutional before they came into force. Some European countries have bodies like this. The first choice may be the Supreme Court, however I think it is best to create a new body whose sole purpose is to review laws for constitutionality. It would probably be quite similar to the Supreme Court in make up and specifics.
Next there should be some penalty for representatives that pass unconstitutional laws. This one is tricky though; it would be easy to abuse for political reasons. The problem I want to avoid would be the above body declaring laws they don't like unconstitutional just to hurt whoever passed them. There's a few ways to avoid this. First you could specify that the punishment would be proportional to how unconstitutional the law was. You could gauge this by the majority with which whatever body ruled the law unconstitutional did so. So if 26 states ruled a law unconstitutional then there would be little to no penalty. On the other hand if 40 of them found it unconstitutional there could be a big penalty. The other method would be basing the penalty on how many times that person had passed something unconstitutional. If someone passed laws that were often found unconstitutional there would be a more severe penalty than if it had been one of the first times it happened.
As for the actual penalty that would probably depend on the factors I just mentioned. Anything from a small fine, to barring them from public office, to jail time could be justified depending on the the severity.
The next one shouldn't even have to be put into the constitution, but I guess it does have to be. Representatives should have to actually read laws before they can vote on them. It boggles my mind that they openly admit to not reading laws they've passed, insane. Include a mandatory waiting period between a bill being introduced, and it being voted on. Perhaps 5 days + 1 day for every 50 pages. I guess you'd have to define a page as a number of characters or words. Perhaps this would help keep bills less than 1000 pages, but realistically it would just lead to them using short words, or combing words or something else.
Also as soon as the bill is introduced it should have to be published online and some other offline ways. Going along with this every single vote should have to be published. As it stands votes are only recorded if 1/5 request it. With technology and the money Congress has there is no reason not to just record every single vote. Even totally trivial things, there is really no downside to just putting them all on some public searchable website.
Another problem is that bills are often bundled together with totally unrelated bills in order to get them passed. For example a bill would be introduced which outlawed eating babies, bundled onto this bill would be some unrelated nonsense like creating a new Federal agency whose job it is to regulate waffles. If a representative voted against this people would accurately claim he voted against a bill that outlawed baby eating. Honestly though I'm not sure of how to prevent this. You can simply say that bills must have one subject and bar unrelated bills from being combined. However, it would be too easy to say anything is somehow related.
Another thing should be that Federal laws should have to specify what specific part of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to do whatever the law is doing. Many people don't realize the Constitution isn't a list of rights citizens have. Rather it is a list of powers the US government has. If the Constitution doesn't grant the US a power then it doesn't have it.
Going hand in hand with that is clarifying the "general welfare" and "commerce clause". Article I Section 8 of the Constitution conveniently lists the only powers Congress has. The list is quite limited in powers, as was the point. However, two loopholes have been exploited to give Congress practically unlimited power. The first line reads "The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;" Congress has argued that many things it does falls under the umbrella of "general welfare". They are right that "general welfare" can justify almost anything. That is exactly why it isn't actually granting any power. Why would they even bother listing the rest of the powers if "general welfare" meant Congress could basically do anything it wanted? Note also that right before welfare, it mentions defense. However in the actual list of powers Congress has the power:
"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;"
See how the Constitution still specifically gave Congress the power to provide a military, despite having previously mentioned defense? Here is the entire first clause:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
Note that it is actually saying that Congress can collect taxes to provide defense and general welfare. That is the reason they are allowed to collect taxes. It isn't saying Congress can do anything as long as it is for the "general welfare"
The second loophole though, is the one most often abused:
"The Congress shall have Power To ... regulate Commerce ... among the several States"
Congress can regulate commerce between the states, seems simple enough. However almost everything Congress does it claims it has the power to do so because of this clause. Here is a good review of this I wrote. To sum it up, even if something is produced entirely within a state, never crosses a state line, and is used for personal use Congress still claims to have authority over it.
First my sunset law idea. To review, every law (federal, state, and local) would automatically "sunset", or become null and void, if they weren't renewed occasionally. The renewal vote would be the same as the vote need to initially pass the law (so normal 50% in two houses, in most cases). The time period needed would be 5 years for any first renewal, that would allow almost all of government to go through an election, and would prevent panic laws from having a huge first time limit. After that the periods would be based on the majority the law passed with. Something like (P - 50) / 2 = T (rounded up to nearest integer), where P is the percentage of whichever house was lower, and T is the time in years before the next renewal. If the House passed a law with 55%, and the Senate with 60% the time would be (55 - 50) / 2 = 2.5, rounded to 3 years. With 100% in both houses the maximum would be 25 years. All existing laws would start with 10 years from the date of ratification. I'd be willing to change the details of the time limits, however I feel 5 years for all first time renewal periods and a maximum of 25 years are key. Also laws could only be renewed in the year they came up for renewal (except the existing laws could be renewed anytime during the 10 year period).
Next I would repeal the 17th Amendment, which changes the method of electing the Senate. It changed from being elected by the states to by the people. This wouldn't be popular, because people like the idea of direct democracy, despite not actually caring enough to use the form of democracy they have. However, I am a supporter of state's rights and feel that the Senate represents the states, while the House of Representatives represents the people.
A major problem is unconstitutional laws. I think this stems from the fact that there is no penalty for passing unconstitutional laws, and that the only way for the laws to be removed is for someone to be arrested under them and appeal it up to the Supreme Court. Thus two amendments should address this.
First make it easier for unconstitutional laws to be repealed. I think there should be a number of different ways to do this. First allow states to declare a law unconstitutional. Next would be the creation of some body whose job it was to verify that laws were in fact constitutional before they came into force. Some European countries have bodies like this. The first choice may be the Supreme Court, however I think it is best to create a new body whose sole purpose is to review laws for constitutionality. It would probably be quite similar to the Supreme Court in make up and specifics.
Next there should be some penalty for representatives that pass unconstitutional laws. This one is tricky though; it would be easy to abuse for political reasons. The problem I want to avoid would be the above body declaring laws they don't like unconstitutional just to hurt whoever passed them. There's a few ways to avoid this. First you could specify that the punishment would be proportional to how unconstitutional the law was. You could gauge this by the majority with which whatever body ruled the law unconstitutional did so. So if 26 states ruled a law unconstitutional then there would be little to no penalty. On the other hand if 40 of them found it unconstitutional there could be a big penalty. The other method would be basing the penalty on how many times that person had passed something unconstitutional. If someone passed laws that were often found unconstitutional there would be a more severe penalty than if it had been one of the first times it happened.
As for the actual penalty that would probably depend on the factors I just mentioned. Anything from a small fine, to barring them from public office, to jail time could be justified depending on the the severity.
The next one shouldn't even have to be put into the constitution, but I guess it does have to be. Representatives should have to actually read laws before they can vote on them. It boggles my mind that they openly admit to not reading laws they've passed, insane. Include a mandatory waiting period between a bill being introduced, and it being voted on. Perhaps 5 days + 1 day for every 50 pages. I guess you'd have to define a page as a number of characters or words. Perhaps this would help keep bills less than 1000 pages, but realistically it would just lead to them using short words, or combing words or something else.
Also as soon as the bill is introduced it should have to be published online and some other offline ways. Going along with this every single vote should have to be published. As it stands votes are only recorded if 1/5 request it. With technology and the money Congress has there is no reason not to just record every single vote. Even totally trivial things, there is really no downside to just putting them all on some public searchable website.
Another problem is that bills are often bundled together with totally unrelated bills in order to get them passed. For example a bill would be introduced which outlawed eating babies, bundled onto this bill would be some unrelated nonsense like creating a new Federal agency whose job it is to regulate waffles. If a representative voted against this people would accurately claim he voted against a bill that outlawed baby eating. Honestly though I'm not sure of how to prevent this. You can simply say that bills must have one subject and bar unrelated bills from being combined. However, it would be too easy to say anything is somehow related.
Another thing should be that Federal laws should have to specify what specific part of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to do whatever the law is doing. Many people don't realize the Constitution isn't a list of rights citizens have. Rather it is a list of powers the US government has. If the Constitution doesn't grant the US a power then it doesn't have it.
Going hand in hand with that is clarifying the "general welfare" and "commerce clause". Article I Section 8 of the Constitution conveniently lists the only powers Congress has. The list is quite limited in powers, as was the point. However, two loopholes have been exploited to give Congress practically unlimited power. The first line reads "The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;" Congress has argued that many things it does falls under the umbrella of "general welfare". They are right that "general welfare" can justify almost anything. That is exactly why it isn't actually granting any power. Why would they even bother listing the rest of the powers if "general welfare" meant Congress could basically do anything it wanted? Note also that right before welfare, it mentions defense. However in the actual list of powers Congress has the power:
"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;"
See how the Constitution still specifically gave Congress the power to provide a military, despite having previously mentioned defense? Here is the entire first clause:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
Note that it is actually saying that Congress can collect taxes to provide defense and general welfare. That is the reason they are allowed to collect taxes. It isn't saying Congress can do anything as long as it is for the "general welfare"
The second loophole though, is the one most often abused:
"The Congress shall have Power To ... regulate Commerce ... among the several States"
Congress can regulate commerce between the states, seems simple enough. However almost everything Congress does it claims it has the power to do so because of this clause. Here is a good review of this I wrote. To sum it up, even if something is produced entirely within a state, never crosses a state line, and is used for personal use Congress still claims to have authority over it.
Google Italy Execs Convicted Over YouTube Bullying Video
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/24/1323218/Google-Italy-Execs-Convicted-Over-YouTube-Bullying-Video?art_pos=18
"Three Italian Google executives have been convicted of privacy violations in Italy over the contents of a YouTube video showing a boy with Downs syndrome being bullied — despite the fact that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to their attention, and that Google assisted the authorities in locating those who posted it. Prosecutors argued that Google should have sought the consent of all parties involved with the video before allowing it to go online. Quite how they were meant to achieve this is another matter."
"Three Italian Google executives have been convicted of privacy violations in Italy over the contents of a YouTube video showing a boy with Downs syndrome being bullied — despite the fact that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to their attention, and that Google assisted the authorities in locating those who posted it. Prosecutors argued that Google should have sought the consent of all parties involved with the video before allowing it to go online. Quite how they were meant to achieve this is another matter."
Utah Considers Warrantless Internet Subpoenas
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/24/025225/Utah-Considers-Warrantless-Internet-Subpoenas?art_pos=19
"The Utah State Legislature is considering a bill granting the Attorney General's Office the ability to demand customer information from Internet or cell phone companies via an administrative subpoena, with no judicial review (text of the HB150). This represents an expansion of a law passed last year, which granted that ability when 'it is suspected that a child-sex crime has been committed.' Since becoming law, last year's bill has led to more than one non-judicial request per day for subscriber information. Pete Ashdown, owner of a local ISP and 2006 candidate for the US Senate, has discussed his position and the effects of this bill."
Why is it that when something is done via computers suddenly the system we already have won't work? What is wrong with warrants with judicial oversight for ISP data? Child porn and terrorism are the ways they get these unconstitutional powers, then they can expand them.
"The Utah State Legislature is considering a bill granting the Attorney General's Office the ability to demand customer information from Internet or cell phone companies via an administrative subpoena, with no judicial review (text of the HB150). This represents an expansion of a law passed last year, which granted that ability when 'it is suspected that a child-sex crime has been committed.' Since becoming law, last year's bill has led to more than one non-judicial request per day for subscriber information. Pete Ashdown, owner of a local ISP and 2006 candidate for the US Senate, has discussed his position and the effects of this bill."
Why is it that when something is done via computers suddenly the system we already have won't work? What is wrong with warrants with judicial oversight for ISP data? Child porn and terrorism are the ways they get these unconstitutional powers, then they can expand them.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Judge: Student's online rants are protected speech
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/16/1482481/judge-students-online-rants-are.html
A federal judge has ruled that Katie Evans, who had been suspended from high school for creating a Facebook group calling one of her teachers "the worst teacher I've ever met", can proceed with her suit seeking attorney's fees from her principal for violating her First Amendment rights. Evans, now a journalism student at the University of Florida, is represented in her suit by the ACLU of Florida.
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