Internal Mono(b)log

Dave forwarded me this today. It’s a brief write-up from a techie who allegedly disassembled his new Dell laptop to find a keylogger *built into the machine* and the ensuing interesting responses from both Dell support and the US Dept. of Homeland Security.

Now normally, I’d disregard this as an urban myth in the making… but with the constant “heightened state of alert” in the US of late, I’m not so sure.

Please someone tell me its untrue.

Justice moves slowly in the province of Ontario. As I write this I’m sitting in a hallway of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, waiting for my session to start. It’s 11:30. Our appointment was for 10:30.

This is the same pattern that we experienced over a month ago when we had the 1st meeting. We waited for over an hour to have 15 minutes before the Justice. In that meeting it was very clear that the Justice felt there was no case, but deffered the hearing because the other lawyer hadn’t seen all the relevant documentation.

We’ll see how today goes. I expect that we’ll be done quickly again, but the wait is mind-numbing!

It makes me wonder why “the system” is so broken. Clearly cases are taking longer and longer to try as the courts seem very backlogged. Is this because there is more volume? Is it because “life today is more complex”? Or is there something else?

I think that it may be the latter. I think that perhaps the legal system needs to be “reset”. I think that the “just” in “justice” is lost in all the books, precidents, laws and loopholes. Let’s face it, the point behind the courts is to assign appropriate punishment for infractions against societal norms.

This sounds simple, but our laws are stale and out of touch with society. Further they are (necessarily) written in complex legalese to (one hopes) properly convey the intent of the law without ambiguity. The unfortunate side affect of using detailed language is that very simple concepts become tombs of words trying to address every concievable misinterpretation. One hopes that all loopholes are addressed, but frequently they aren’t.

Our legal system is ailing. It is faultering under the weight of its own creations. The proof is all around you everyday: the young adult in the ‘states who is jailed for 10+ years for personal marajauana possession compared to the chilld abuser and child pornographer that gets 6 months “house arrest”. Any court system that sees no contradiction with the sentences above is sick and needs help.

Right and wrong haven’t changed. They are pretty simple concepts that everyone understands. Children “get it”. Why do adults need such overhead to realize that childhood understanding?

I call for the return of schoolyard justice! Trail by peers and judgement assigned by peers. Force the peers to use their common sense. Allow society to change as it changes and have that reflected in the courts of the land.

I don’t blog about work. I feel that if I really start to use this venue to rant about work, I’ll never stop, and while Dilbert is funny to read, hearing about one tormented soul’s existence over and over gets to be oppressive.

Suffice it to say that *if* I did blog about work here, I could be quite prolific.

Regarding that last post and balance…

Kim and Dave sat patiently across the restaurant table for 10 minutes while I finished that last entry.

The irony of this is not lost on me, nor is the lack of balance. 🙂

We live in an increasingly connected world, or so it seems anyhow. Internet acceptance is growing as more and more people who have grown up with the ‘net move out on their own.

Arriving with the increased acceptance are tools and utilities that make the ‘net more friendly, useful, and efficient. Internet messengers, VoIP, better browsers, search engines, etc. have all increased the popularity of the information sharing tool that has existed since the late 60’s (yes, that is the Internet I’m talking about).

But how much of a good thing is too much? How far should the ‘net be allowed to invade our lives.

For example, I chat via email or instant messenger with my wife all day long, pretty much everyday. At the end of the day, I know how her day has gone, usually in a fair bit of detail. When we both get home at the end of the day, one of the typical things people talk about doesn’t exist for us.

The same is true for friends. It is unusual to go more than a day without a friend touching base and us updating each other with our life’s events. Again to the point that when we get together conversations in the past sense almost don’t exist.

Blogs, of course, just make this worse. Now I have a view into the writer’s life that once could have been a topic of discussion over coffee and desert. Hours of entertainment and interaction reduced to a quick read during a break at work and possibly a quick comment response.

So I’m torn… I love the ‘net. It pays my paycheque, simplifies my life, and makes vast amounts of information instantly available. But I miss the *human* element, the dynamics of a good debate, the fun of interpersonal silliness.

Have *you* found the balance?

Ok enough doom and gloom and instead a solution, or at least the thought behind a solution.

Many people in North America have seen images of fields of wind turbines spinning silently and generating power to heat and light our homes, power our computers, etc.. Unfortunately there are very few of us who have actually, in person, seen such a “field of green (power)”. Realestate prices being what they are, this isn’t really too much of a surprise. Here, in Southern Ontario, to find a site that would be appropriate for wind generation that isn’t already over built and heavily populated would be challenging at best.

Everyone agrees that Green Power^TM is going to be a necessity going forward, so here’s a solution:

Put arrays of wind turbines on platforms in the middle of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

You could build them onto similar structures as oil drilling platforms that sit off the coasts in oceanic waters and probably put 4-9 turbines per platform. There are no buildings, trees, hills, or other obstacles to interfere with the wind out there. You won’t have to deal with people complaining about the noise, lost realestate or threats to birds. These stations could run, mostly unattended and be serviced by helicopter when required.

Ok, sure, I don’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars required to do this, but there must be corporations out there who do. As prices for nuke, coal, natural gas, hydro based electricity get higher and higher, this *has* to start looking attractive.

We live, day to day, in a very fragile ecosystem of rules and agreements. For the most part, we agree to believe that a solid white line on the road means “Do not change lanes”. We agree to pay for items from stores with locally accepted currency. We agree to respect the sanctity of each others homes and space. For the most part this is all true.

When individuals step outside the agreed upon “norms” the police step in and “restore order”. If larger groups step outside the norm, there’s the military. I propose, however, that, especially in larger centres like Toronto, that any major challenge to the status quo would quickly result in chaos as large quantities of people abandoned our shared agreements to provide for themselves.

For example, lets look at the big power outage that whiped out the Eastern Seaboard. Sure there were individual hardships, but in general people helped each other out. There were many stories of grocers giving away icecream rather than have it spoil in the (now defunct) freezers. There were even humourous stories of people seeing the Northern Lights for the 1st time and thinking it was some kind of strange gas leak. But let’s imagine that this poweroutage was days or weeks long, rather than hours.

After about 24 hours the produce in grocery stores would be getting pretty nasty, as would most of the dairy and meat products. Water pressure would be pretty much gone and so people would be dependent on bottled water from wherever it can be found. People would start to realize that food and water are going to become a scarce commodity. More and more cars would be abandonded where they ran out of fuel. Bank machines and banks would be closed so money is also scarce. We’re only 24 hours into “the crisis” and people will already be starting to get nervous.

I expect that by the end of 48 hours, chaos will start to assert itself. People’s good spirits and neighbourly approach to the problem will be replaced with a “fend for yourself” attitude. People who live in apartment buildings will be looking for alternate accomodations. Water, sewage, food, fuel, etc. are all things that people are very worried about and are now figuring out how to cope with much less than they’re used to having. I expect that by the end of 48 hours rioting and looting have escalated beyond the ability of the police or military to keep control of it.

Outside of the big centres people maybe a little more fortunate. People in the country frequently have more food on hand, more fuel in their gas tanks, and are typically able to handle power outages (as they happen more frequently). People in the country also typically know each other more than urbanites and so barter or promisary notes may be more readily accepted.

_They_ say that another big power outage is coming. That the grid isn’t able to keep up with the demands that are being placed upon it. That power isn’t being generated in the quantities sufficient to keep up with demand. Have you thought about how you’ll cope if the next outage is a week long rather than a 1/2 day? Should you?

From RollingStone magazine, March 2005:

These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going
to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this
is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees
by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a
religion of hope — that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity
is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming
our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to
really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an
enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social
enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from
now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ours! elves, and we will sing
with our whole hearts.

The story on The Long Emergency

Have you ever thought what it would mean if the energy/petroleum crisis actually happens? It’s not so much about the lack of fuel for the cars, planes, trains. It’s more pervasive than that. Think about it.

Plastic comes from petroleum. Computers are made from plastics, circuit boards are made from plastics, food is stored and shipped and packaged in plastics, the wires in your house, your toys, your electronics are all insulated with plastics. Cars, planes, trains, toys, sheds, tools, are made from plastics.

Many lubricants come from petroleum. Lubricants are needed in all internal combustion engines. Lubricants are needed in most manufacturing processes. Lubricants are required to keep printing presses moving.

Petroleum and its byproducts are fully integrated in the world’s products. What happens when it’s gone, or perhaps not gone, but just not available because of cost?

Now go to the next step.

Now it costs too much to move food around in trucks. It costs too much money to keep fridges cold and freezers frozen. It costs too much to commute to work assuming you can afford the plastics in the vehicle or the fuel for the tank.

Society is going to need to change. It won’t be a change “overnight”. Fuel prices will soar, alternatives to petroleum fuels will start to get more expensive as the demand for them increases. Then the byproducts from petroleum will start to become more scarse and manditory recycling of plastics and other byproducts will be put in place. It’ll look like inflation, but there will be no respite in sight. Eventually people may clue in that dramatic and long-lasting changes are coming. Unfortunately, by the time it’s obvious to most, it’ll also be too late for most.

The disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots” will grow. The _haves_ may have full-time electricity and the ability to use vehicles that use fuels. The _have nots_ will be lucky to have rotating electricity and will most likely be back to horses and carriages.

I’m not usually a Dooms-Day-type guy, but this one I think has teeth. I know society isn’t ready. Society is in denial.

Are you in denial or are you thinking about how to get ready?

Yesterday in the car on the way into The City, we were talking about the concept of “The Chip” – a human-computer interface consisting of a chip installed in the brain that is always connected to the ‘net and has at its disposal all the computational and search power that exists there.

At first, it sounds like an interesting idea. Hook into all that information, the ultimate “always on” experience. Then we started looking at the downsides. Can you imagine how bad it’d be if some hacker breeched the firewall on the chip. People’s brains would start getting spammed, or used by hackers that need space to store files, or worst be the subject of denial of service attacks…

Maybe “the chip” isn’t such a good idea afterall 🙂

Today we had 4 prospective buyers through our home. One couple who are back for the 2nd time, and 3 couples who were here for the 1st time. Last Sunday, we had one repeat viewer back for the *4th* viewing. Everyone *loves* the house, but people aren’t putting there money where their love is.

It makes me wonder: What motivates the buying decision?

When Kim and I bought this place 5 years ago we fell in love on the first viewing and placed an offer right then and there. 6 weeks later, we were living here and enjoying all that nature has to offer. Our decision to buy was as much emotional reaction to the house and land as it was financial and logical.

When it comes to realestate, I tend to believe that people aren’t shopping for their Soul Mate properties, but rather something they like and can afford. I assume that because they’re here they can afford it, and their comments and return visits imply that they like it. So what’s up?!

Come on folks… I’m tired of living in flux. Put it up and stop wasting my time!