I missed on Sunday, but under the theory of better late than never… Donald Kerr is the principal deputy director of national intelligence, so presumably he speaks with some authority regarding the government’s view of privacy. In a recent Associated Press article he made several remarks which I find exceedingly scary, misleading or both. First up: Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information. ...

Maybe random Monopuff songs aren’t the best blog post titles, but what the heck. K asked me what I wanted for my birthday (fwiw, I’m either very easy or very hard to shop for depending on whether or not you want to get me a gift certificate to a bookstore – thanks Mom!). From what I’m sure was out of the blue for her, I asked for a guitar – hey, I’ve always wanted to learn. ...

I started thinking through why I didn’t care for management at my last job and as is often the case, I wrote it down to help me think it through. It’s probably not worth posting the reasoning, but I did decide that most of the things I disliked about my most recent management job were due to the environment and not management itself. Don’t get me wrong, management’s not something I enjoy, mostly because it’s a lot of hard work – at least if you are conscientious about it. ...

I’m not Michael Corleone and the places I’ve worked at could hardly be compared to the mob; but I did have an interesting, brief discussion this afternoon with the president of the company for which I’m working. For the record, I don’t think that any discussion which begins, “you used to be management, right? can be characterized as anything but interesting. It seems that the company (like the family, only smaller, legal and less profitable) might have a need for some management and there is some interest in me filling the role. Unfortunately, in taking this job, one of the big pluses for me was that it was not a management position. On the other hand, there are some good things about management and the company is much smaller than the university. I would still be expected to do technical work and the management is anticipated to be about 5-10% of my time (if I did it). ...

A couple of weeks ago, Hunter and I were talking about passwords. More to the point, the inadequacy of passwords and why we haven’t moved beyond them yet. This touches on several points that I made last year. Specifically, that a password that is secure enough starts to restrict its usability. In a nutshell, authentication is proving that you are who you claim to be. The standard ways of authenticating yourself are through: something you know (e.g., a password), something you have (e.g., a token) or something you are (e.g., biometrics, facial recognition, etc.). So the claim here is that the human brain is not good enough at remembering things to make “something you know secure. Unfortunately, it’s cheap and easy to implement. Two things which are always important. ...

Ok, maybe not as exciting as bicycle repair man, but we did spend some quality time this evening with light fixtures. For reasons that neither K nor I can fathom, the breakfast room had a fan attached to a nondescript light fixture. K found a new fixture in the pottery barn catalog and it fits pretty well with the house. Since I didn’t have much else to do this evening, I installed it. Pictures below. The first two are the original fixture: when we first moved in (3 years ago) and the fixture on the floor after removal. The next two are the new fixture. ...

I’m up at the university yesterday, tying up some loose ends from my job there when I ran into the executive vice president. Essentially, this is the guy under the president who runs everything administrative for the campus. I used to see him every month or so as a part of my job responsibilities and we always got along reasonably well. So, I’m talking to him and he tells me that whenever he sees someone who has left the university, he always tells them that he hopes they made the right decision… because they aren’t coming back (implying that he will prevent them from returning). He then goes on to say, but you are welcome back if you ever want to return and that this puts me in a very small group – three in twelve years. ...

(odd: i thought i had submitted this last night. i guess i just saved it in draft) It’s been raining today which is good. The forecasters are predicting rain tomorrow and Friday which is even better. However, I’m still worried. It’s been over a month since the last real rain and close to six months since we’ve had normal rainfall. Raleigh i s down to about 3 months worth of water supply in the reservoirs – Atlanta’s not any better. What happens when cities actually run out of water? Do they evacuate? ...

About a year ago, I mentioned installing Tracks a “Getting Things Done application written in RubyOnRails. That was great when I had my always online desktop at the office. I could run a RoR app without a problem. Unfortunately, since I’ve left the university, I don’t have a computer I leave on all the time and my ISP doesn’t offer Rails. I started feeling the need for some sort of online task tracker, so I looked around for things that run on my ISP. Last night I found and installed gtd-php. ...

etselec, suggested I take the Brainworks Left/Right Brain Test. Results below: Auditory : 23% Visual : 76% Left : 52% Right : 47% Full details: you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz. You are a well-rounded person, distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity. You are organized and goal-directed. Although a “thinking individual, you “take in entire situations readily and can act on intuition. You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. You will alternate between logic and impulse. This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on. With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning. Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself — and of others — while maintaining an “openness which tempers that tendency. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity may not be in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, obvious and the more functional. ...