February 27, 2003
reading this week
interesting articles from the last week:
Resolved to Ruin about Argentina by Greg Palast, in the March Harper's
Wild On Washington: Free Food, Exotic Locales, Topless Lobbyists Arianna Huffington column.
Deborah Cook Is the Typical Bush Judicial Nominee — So Watch Out NYTimes editorial.
Pony Adds to Its Maverick Image more signs our culture is going to shit.
Operation Pipe Dreams Is a Nightmare it's now easier to buy a silencer than a bong.
The Bottom Line On Iraq: It's The Bottom Line another Arianna Huffington column.
Hacking Democracy good overview of voting machine stuff i've been so angry about lately
Just finished reading:
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, an amazing (and balanced) look at how fast food has shaped America. Next book on my list will probably by The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by American reporter Greg Palast, which has a lot of good stuff about the fixed vote in Florida, corporate power, etc. The book, featuring a collection of investigative reports published in the UK, was only released in the USA on Tuesday.
voting machines redux
I wrote a story for Kuro5hin. It's called "Do we really want black box voting machines?" Here's the intro:
New computerized voting machines are quietly being rolled in across the country, promising to put an end to voting irregularities and "dimpled chads" forever. These machines, however, are doing just the opposite -- rarely providing a verifiable paper trail, with all inner workings undisclosed and classified as "trade secrets." Many concerned citizens and notable computer scientists (Leiserson, Rivest, Schneier, for example) are attempting to lead a charge against these new machines, but their voices aren't being heard.
Since the 2000 election debacle, new computerized, "error-proof" voting machines have already been installed in many parts of the country, and more are on their way -- all of them commercial black box machines with no verifiable paper trail. Many districts used machines from ES&S and Diebold in the 2002 election, resulting in reports from election workers and even voting machine engineers themselves of inconsistencies and security flaws. Then The Hill published recently that Sen. Charles Hagel of Nebraska, winner of one of Georgia's biggest upsets in history, served as chairman of ES&S for several years in the early '90s until 1995, and continues to be a large investor. Conspiracy theory or not, the idea of a politician running his state's largest voting machine supplier prompted interest from the Senate Ethics Committee.
As districts have attempted to modernize, computerized voting machines have become big business, but also a dirty business. Vendors aggressively lobby local county election officials, using overwhelming political connections (and, too often, bribes 1, 2) to get contracts. Vendors have not disclosed many technical details on their machines, and even in one case fired an engineer who brought up security concerns. A Diebold FTP site containing software patches for counties was, until last month, still accessible to the world and insecure.
All this news has given David Dill of Stanford, along with famous CS luminaries including Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest, and Bruce Schneier, reason for concern. They've signed an online petition urging caution on implementing new computerized voting machine technologies, and are looking for additional endorsements from CS and EE "technologists" (i.e., YOU) nationwide. Dill is doing his part by working with officials at Santa Clara County (home to Stanford) to keep unverifiable machines out of his county.
On his site, Dill argues that a voter-verified paper audit trail is necessary to insure that votes are being correctly recorded. He notes that vendors are currently counting on "security through obscurity," and that Federal and State certification processes are much less secure than DoD or other standards.
What can you do? Because these decisions are made at the local level, you should call your county election officials and find out what kind of voting machines they're using, or planning on buying. Make sure your county doesn't use a DRE (direct recording electronic) system. Finally, sign the Stanford petition and see your name listed alongside the "L" and "R" in CLR!
February 26, 2003
pork nuggets
okay, i know i shouldn't, but sometimes i miss western food and i end up at mcdonald's eating a bacon double cheeseburger. the cool thing about mcdonald's hong kong is its new tastes menu, which last much featured a shrimp burger and this month is featuring my favorite, pork nuggets.
i wish i could describe for you exactly what these pork nuggets taste like -- oh wait, i can. they're chicken nuggets made out of PORK! in little chunks with your choice of dipping sauce. get yours while supplies last. mctasty.
February 25, 2003
monks
today on the train back from school i sat next to three monks. they were wearing grey robes and had bald heads and everything. they must've been visiting hong kong from the mainland because they looked a little out of place and were speaking mandarin. it was crazy.
February 24, 2003
palindrome rapping
... so i just downloaded the new MC Paul Barman album Paullelujah. this one is even better than his past stuff, and is also a lot more political, which i didn't expect. but the most amazing thing is on the song "Bleeding Brain Grow" where he has a palindrome rhyme:
"Eve,
Mika, RZA, Evil JD, Nasir is Osiris, and J-live, AZ, Rakim
Cormega, Cage, Mr. OC:
I'm anomie. I, mon ami."
look at each line backwards! jesus!
February 22, 2003
greenpeace
greenpeace HK rabble-rousing again. very cute.
Greenpeace illiuminates peace sign on US warship anchored in Hong Kong harbor
February 19, 2003
the weird words you learn from the news
in chinese class, we take most of our class materials from recent newspapers. i've done this before, but the chaotic state of current events is starting to permeate through to my chinese vocabulary. i now know more words describing disasters, accidents, explosions, fires, war, diplomacy, nuclear weapons, and terrorism than i ever thought i'd learn. i know the word for "arson," "melancholia" (the mental ailment the korean train arsonist suffered from), three different words for fleeing danger, and different words indicating the subtle difference between the terms for "looting" and "rioting", to simply "incite" or to "incite violence", and several modifiers on "attack" (surprise attack, counterattack, overwhelming attack). what a crazy world.
February 17, 2003
herbie hancock
yesterday i went to see the hong kong arts festival "directions in music" concert, a tribute to miles and coltrane by herbie hancock, michael brecker, roy hargrove, jon patitucci, and willie jones. it was just an amazing experience. i've been to a lot of shows, and there are good concerts and bad concerts, but then there are some that are simply life-changing.
watching virtuosity is always fun, but last night was the kind of night that makes you want to not just be a better musician, but better at EVERYTHING you do, you know what i mean? to just PRACTICE, and practice a lot, and get good at SOMETHING. the thinking being, "well, these guys are so amazing ... i've obviously wasted my life, i should really practice more."
awe-struckness aside, the show was great. they didn't just cover miles and coltrane songs, they gave new interpretations of them, mixing freer styles with regular small-group styles and never just conceding and "replaying the old standards." i wasn't really familiar with roy hargrove or michael brecker but they were both very, very, good. michael brecker did a fluid solo version of "naima" that left the whole audience stunned at the end. willie jones kept an ever-changing, very responsive beat throughout and played probably the best drum solo i'd ever seen live. go see them if they come to your city!
February 11, 2003
voting machines
Here's a failed story I posted to slashdot:
Dan Dillane of Stanford, along with famous CS luminaries Leiserson, Rivest, Schneier, and many others, have signed a petition urging caution on implementing new computerized voting machine technologies. They are currently seeking YOUR help in maximizing the number of "technologists" (CS, EE) on this petition.
These new machines are currently being phased in across the country, all of them commercial black box machines with no verifiable paper trail. Many of these machines were used in the last election, resulting in reports from election workers and even voting machine engineers themselves of inconsistencies and security flaws. Sen. Charles Hagel of Nebraska, winner of one of his state's biggest upsets, was recently revealed as being a former CEO of a voting machine company.
A good resource for more information is BlackBoxVoting.com. Of course open source would be the best model for development for these machines, but these things at least need to be fully disclosed and issue a paper receipt! Sign the petition now!
February 08, 2003
the hygenics stole my song!
... so today i was researching the hong kong punk scene and came across the website for a random expat high school band called the hygenics. the website mentioned the lead singer used to play in pop punk bands in new jersey, so i figured i might know the guy from the old NJPP ("new jersey pop-punk") scene or something.
i clicked on a song called "morristown" and, to my surprise, i saw the EXACT words for the taxicab samurai song "decepticon." imagine my confusion! either these fellows chose to express their teen angst with the exact same words as my old band, or they'd completely ripped off our song!
this google search demonstrates the similarity pretty well.
i'm not really pissed off as much as flattered -- i mean, they played old taxicab songs on stages all over hong kong, can you imagine? the year after we'd broken up, these guys in hong kong took up the mantle and played "decepticon" at shows for a couple of years in HK before graduating high school and heading off to college in the states/UK. rock. someone's got to "keep the spirit alive," as they say.
stay tuned for mp3's of the offending song soon...