First Blog

One thing you may have noticed is that once you look online for something, almost anything, the story does not end with the search.  In fact the story does not end at all. Search for anything on eBay or perhaps Amazon, and they know and remember.  Whether though cookies or login data, they know you are interested.  Their big data enterprise keeps a careful track of every click you make.  While you sleep, their servers stay awake making calculations and correlations of what could titillate your interests. A few months ago, I looked on one of these sites for tiny cameras.  I even bought one for about eight bucks.  Didn't work well. Since that time I've received dozens of promotions from that same site for other such devices.  There seems no end of it.  The other day I searched online for the Harvard Classics, a set of 51 volumes of world literature.  Two days later, I found an add for the same on my Facebook page.   This is one big ...

All too often we hear from Republicans the resonance of past, Ronald Reagan.   There has become a purity test, not unlike a litmus test, for all contenders. Who can most resemble Reagan?   Who can take us back to Camelot?    This seems to be one fundamental critique of the candidacy of Donald Trump.   He is definitely not a reborn Reagan and doesn’t even so pretend, though the last two standing try to outbid each other for this mantle.    Like it or not, Reagan is gone, not to be reborn anytime soon.   What the “Donald” has done is energize a new base of folks, not unlike Reagan, to a new banner.   It has incensed the old guard who is trying hard to displace him.   The replacement for the displaced is someone they also don’t like, but as luck would have it, dislike less than the evil incarnate Donald.  Like him or not, Trump has brought forth new ideas mixed with a blend of the old. He has involved and energized man...

Both Sanders and Clinton have promoted several new programs from free college tuition to health care for all illegal immigrants.  Some sound good.  Some believe the time has come for such government benefits, services, or beneficence, or whatever you want to call them.   Yet both agree there must be a pathway to funding such really expensive programs. Both believe we should tax the filthy rich, and who's not for them paying more.  After all, their proportional wealth has increased dramatically in the last decade or two. So, with their programs and tax plans in hand they push their give-aways hoping for your vote. NOTE.  Before going on, let's ask.  Where are you?  If you're reading this, your probably neither filthy rich nor filthy poor.  You're in the middle.  You pay taxes, and likely a lot of them.  But you surely would enjoy those multimillionaires and billionaires paying more. Suppose either is elected.  Suppose they...

Can you articulate?  If not, your ideas rest in the flotsam of words. If so, you can retain and create believers. If you can articulate your idea well, you are half-way toward convincing your listeners.  Particularly if your language is rhythmic, evangelical, and with a poetic song, you can touch both the innocent and the ignorant. Intellectuals of note have these qualities.  They can articulate well whatever they believe.  Their language intoxicates and incites.  It convinces without depth. It convinces without operational reality. It pursues justice only in your mind.  This is different from the demagogue, where fear is the principle currency of their debate. So, is intellectualism the same as articulation-ism? The intellectual appeals often to morality, to equivocation (meaning things they don't understand is reduced to things we all can understand.  They really do what we do. We may not know the technicals but we know their method.) Intellectuals...

Many of you read that the FBI had an edge up on decrypting messages from the San Bernardino shooters.  It was reported that certain graphics could be decrypted.  Well and good.  See, http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2016/03/messages-from-san-bernardino-shooters.html We were skeptical.  Now we see that the FBI did crack the Apple phone encryption without the help of Apple. Whew! An independent firm helped the FBI, we are told.  This is ridiculous.  Why?  Because if such decryption were possible within just a couple of months, it would have been done many more months sooner.  One could guess that Apple leaked information to Party A who in turn notified Party B, who then helped the FBI.  Apple's reputation is preserved.  Whew! What's next?  We may see is an announcement from Apple is that they have beefed up their iPhone security - maybe in the next upgrade.  They need to do this!  If Apple was using anything close to, say...

You go to meetings; so do I. If the meeting is small with just a few attending, and if the meeting about a specific topic, much can be accomplished.   Attendees are not only on the same page but often on the same sentence or even same word.   Focus, sift, winnow, achieve, do.   Move on.   Love it. Such is not the norm.   Let's talk about big meetings with lots of folks, with vague directives, with no clear focus, and without any central core other than generalized commands.   For example, "We need to get a grant," or “We need more profits for the third quarter,” or some such thing. I've been to lots of these meetings and you too .    Much time is brainstorming; that is, with conversants storming all with a blizzard of ideas, most of which are little more than chaff or specks on the wall .    Some do this just to participate.   A new idea is thrown out, not because it is relevant, but because it hasn't been me...

The FBI has now announced, and announced, and announced they may have a way to access the encrypted iPhone messages of the San Bernardino shooters, without the help of Apple.  Who cares? Mostly Apple customers.  Apple has a totally vested interest in maintaining security for their would-be customers. Help the FBI, and you help yourself out of business.  But then come some cryptic announcement from Johns Hopkins that they can penetrate encrypted graphics.  According to the Washington Post, a team of researchers led by Johns Hopkins University computer scientist Matthew Green has poked a hole in Apple's iMessage encryption software.  The FBI now claims it may no longer needs the help of Apple. Fantastic.  Decrypting images is somewhat different, but entirely similar, to decrypting messages, but the cat is out of the bag.  This tacitly makes it OK to for Apple to help the government.  And maybe they have done just that with a clever cover provid...

It is said the signature of a true optimist is one who hopes for a different outcome in watching the same movie twice.  We laugh and laugh.  How can anyone, yes anyone continue with such beliefs?  Yet we do, particularly when the promise seems so real, or when the circumstances are ever so slightly different, or when we really think this time is the charm. Most of us are not such optimists as to movies.  But we are so, if the plot, characters, or situation are ever so slightly different.  This is the time... or so we hope. Case in point:  local or national elections.  We see the one party offering salvation, jobs, prosperity, retribution, redistribution, reconciliation, and otherwise personal betterment, the other offering much the same.  If you liked the first movie and the promises, and have learned to hate the alternative, you are an easy sale. You vote predictably.  Your vote is counted in the bank months before even the candidate is ...

According to an article in the LA Times, Apple will oppose a judicial order to help FBI unlock the phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter.  This brings up an interesting conundrum.  First, the encryption programs currently in use are all but unbreakable with current technology.  The method, perhaps RSA, depends on extremely secure mathematical methods for which the amount of time to crack exceeds the capacity all current technology.  It can be assumed the terrorists used such technology.   (Heck, you can download it.  PGP is an example.) We have heard of current terrorists "going dark," which means they are using such technology.  All this is well known.  The FBI knows it, the NSA knows it, and all security agencies world-wide know it. So why is the Fed going after Apple?  Second, why are the Feds coming after Apple?  There are only a couple of reasons, one of which they are simply grandstanding a play to reveal they are still l...

What we see in the current political races, both Democratic and Republican, is a race to the extreme.  The Democrats are not only drifting left but racing that away.   There is no limit to social programs they propose; cost seems not to be an option. The Republicans are constantly invoking the Reagan litmus test of conservatism.   Realism is lost.  The Republican candidates, such as Cruz, argue against the non-conservative purity of Trump.  They view this as key.  Each of them scrap against the over who is the most pure.  Ronald Reagan has achieved political sainthood.   Programs are irreverent; purity is. For the Democrats, both contenders are vying to inherit the Obama legacy, and both are traveling even further than Obama even dared toward the progressive agenda.  Both are trying to capture their base.  For the one, the rich are an infinitely taxable asset.  For the other, the rich comprise an achievement goal.  ...

Most of us have debt.   We may owe money to the bank or favors to our friends.   We may owe allegiance to our country, company, or commitments.   We may owe a debt to ourselves for things we have or have not done.   We live in a sea of debt, most of it simply the cost of living.   Those of us without debt are either lucky or just not living.    Another form of debt, technical debt , has emerged only in last 25 years.   Originally, it was created as an aspect of computer code.   When a large code is created, many decisions must be made.   Often budget or time issues take a commanding position.   Sometimes, the quality of the software engineers is not up to the tasks of the complex demands.   Similarly, the knowledge base can be insufficient to proceed correctly.    The orders may be, “Get the code online and quickly, and reduce the costs wherever possible.”   The debt is with the readjustments, fixes, ...