What did YOU invent?

So, let's see, Al Gore invented the Internet, John McCain invented the Blackberry. What have you invented today? If you were going to claim that you'd invented something, what would it be? Would it be technology related, or would it be something else with lasting effect on the world?

I think that perhaps I'll claim that I invented the aglet, the plastic sleeve that encloses the end of the shoelace, making it easy to thread through the eyes of the shoe.

The political process has become such a ridiculous show. I'm so disappointed in the process, the candidates, the campaign methods, the dirty tricks, the stupidity and absurdity of the press coverage....

Meanwhile, the United States economy is falling apart, ignoring sound foreign policy doctrine, pissing off peoples and governments (Pakistan, Russia, several South American countries) all over the world. Are the sound bites on the news about how the candidates will change foreign policy? Are the sound bites about how the government plans to get us out of this enormous financial hole which they have dug with their pyramid scheme of a fiat currency?

I wonder if I can run for President if I invent something cool, like an automatic apple corer.....

New Post Type: Frustration

Frustration - a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs

I find myself irritated by a variety of frustrations that plague my working environment. I work as a contractor for the Department of Defense. My work helps me to understand that there is no evil master plan being cooked up by a vast governmental conspiracy. How do I know? Conspiracy requires a minimal level of competence that does not appear to exist in this environment.

Little things seem to be more and more irritating to me these days. Perhaps it is my advancing age (whose age isn't advancing? [Merlin - ok, you got me, name a non-fictional character]). For example: Web applications. Is it so hard for web developers to add a timeout script to their interfaces that will warn me, the user, that my session has expired and that the screen I'm looking at is no longer usable?

It REALLY SUCKS to sit and use a beautiful Flash, Java or DHTML interface for 3 minutes designing my input into the system, only to be given a 'Your session expired and your input has been thrown away' message when hitting submit.

Has computer technology devolved so much that we can't add a clock to the friggin' interface with a countdown timer to when the page is no longer going to be valid?

Actuarial Analysis of a McCain Presidency

News outlets have been throwing around a number - 16% - That's what they say the odds of VP Palin becoming the first woman President of the US should McCain win the election in 2008. I brought up this number in a conversation, and was asked to back it up - so I went and looked at an actuarial table. Actuarial table gives odds on someone dying within the year, depending on age. John McCain will be 73 at time of swearing in. A 2004 actuarial table gives these odds for males of that age:
73-0.036086, 74-0.039506, 75-0.043415, 76-0.047789. Now, you can't just add these together, because if the person doesn't die when he's 73, he doesn't have a combined odds of dying at 73 and 74, he just has the remaining odds. To compute this, you take the odds of dying in year 1, and the odds of NOT dying at 73 multiplying by the next year, and so on.

Computing this way, you get a combined odds of dying between the ages of 73 and 76 (if you've already lived to 73) of 16.15%.

These odds are computed with an actuarial table on the Social Security Admin's web site.

Why not prepaid utilities?

Just thinking out loud again...why don't utility companies (or grocery stores for that matter) offer pre-paid cards? It'd be nice to give someone a gift of $$ off of their electric bill or next weeks food supplies. In fact, considering that many companies have debts in business, they could offset the interest they pay on these business loans with pre-paid customers. Let's say Dominion Electric Co. has a loan out for $10M at 8% interest, and instead, offer their customers 5% off on pre-paid electricity? Among those people who are capable, who wouldn't invest in next month's electricity if they could get 5% on their money?

Just a Thought: Do you really need it NOW?

The computing environment has enabled us to do business faster than ever before possible in human history. However, keeping pace with the business process speed improvements is the speed at which crooks can steal our identities, our information and our money.

I was reading a news article and I had a brief thought that perhaps the answer to some types of cyber-crime might be to slow down, rather than speed up. Like most thoughts I have, this one requires a good deal of fleshing out, but the seed of the idea is that crooks are looking to break in to an enclosure, remove a resource, and leave as quickly as possible. If a crook has to hang around and expose himself to discovery, he's likely to move on to a quicker target with less risk.

What if we slow down our processing at high-risk processing centers, exposing money movement to larger time windows, requiring customers to hang around (and be subject to random audit) before their transactions are processed? What are some good ways to implement delays and exposure to scrutiny into our data systems? What kind of cost benefit analysis can be done for lost productivity vs. increased security? Just a thought.

Of Found Lotto Tickets and Roadside Motels

On our recent vacation to Fort Lauderdale, I did some swimming and scanning of the ocean floor for interesting objects. Besides the seaweed, coral rocks, palm-tree leaves and broken shells, I found another object lying on top of the sand and beneath the surf. It was a Florida Lotto ticket, sitting open and displaying its message of hope. Gently, I scooped my hand under the ticket so as not to rip it and lifted it out of the ocean. I walked it back to the beach and laid it out to dry on my skimboard (which I didn't get to use...there's not much surf at Ft. Lauderdale). The drawing date on the ticket was the 16th of Aug, and it was only the 15th. Whoever had lost the ticket was probably looking for it now. Unfortunately for them, they hadn't signed the ticket when they bough it. As Daffy Duck would say: "Mine! Mine! It's all MINE!"

So, here I sit on the 17th of Aug, in a Ramada Motel in South Carolina, heading back up the eastern seaboard. With a single matching number on the lotto ticket, it's much less of a story now. The free breakfast was no big shakes, either, though better than a punch in the nose. The lobby of this particular Ramada was, like that Lotto ticket, so full of promise yesterday. I walked into their beautiful lobby with two descending curved staircases and gorgeously appointed furnishings. There is a huge chandelier dropped between them, leading to a marble counter and large reception area. A promise of a free hot breakfast made the deal complete. However, just like the Lotto ticket, that promise collapsed when we finally saw where we'd be staying. The lobby building is built to hide the motel from the road, perhaps purposefully so. The room door had remnants of spray paint. The door lock, while operational, wasn't trustworthy. It's a good thing there was a second one ;) Also like the Lotto ticket, it wasn't the worst I'd ever had. The room was clean and everything apparently works.

Dissapointment isn't necessarily something you can complain about.

Dunkin' WTH Donuts

Since when is a dozen 12? A baker's dozen has been 13 since ye olden times when bakers could be beheaded for providing less than 12 baked products when ordering a dozen. (They included an extra just to make sure!) This safety gap has become an expected part of ordering a dozen donuts, cruellers, rolls, or what have you. Today I went to Dunkin' Donuts because I forgot my CAC card at home, and it is office culture to bring in the donuts when you make a boneheaded move such as this. Imagine my surprise when they pulled out the box and it fit 12 donuts, not 13!

Just as an added commentary on this whole fiasco, the box had a banner on it: 0g Trans Fats! Wowee! Perhaps donuts can be healthy treats?

Body of Secrets

I've finished my non-fiction book for the year, Body of Secrets. That makes two of my New Years Resolutions complete. One fiction book, one non-fiction book. I've bought a third book for the year, John Adams: Party of One, which I'll be starting today. When I have time I need to get started on my short story.

10-4 Good Buddy

Well, I splurged on myself today and bought my first scanner, a hand-held RadioShack PRO-97. It's an analog scanner (triple trunking) and picks up plenty of signals (but not standard FM 86-108 - my only complaint - this would have been a simple inclusion).

The battery life is pretty good (it takes 4 AA's, but I've been using it about 12 hours almost non-stop), the signal strength is good, the squelch is analog/by-feel.

In just a day, I've learned how to search for signals and save the channels I find. A little harder was comprehending how to program the trunking system here (there's two Motorola systems, one digital, one analog...I kept trying to program in the digital system and didn't understand why all I got was squeals). Now that I know I need a digital trunking scanner, I know what I want for Christmas, a BearCat BCD396T, RadioShack Pro-96 or GRE PSR-500 (digital trunking scanners).

I got the cable and downloaded successfully with some software I found on the NET (Win97) -

Can anyone recommend a FREE software that does this? I went ahead and bought Win97 already, but it'd be nice to have a backup.

Any suggestions, etc, from you hams on the list? So far, this has been better than watching TV ;)

People I Know

The world sometimes surprises us by the people we know. Sometimes we're simply surprised at what the people we know are up to. I recently found out that someone I work alongside has a blog. And not only that, he's also into languages, just like someone else I know with a blog. Granted, he's into ancient languages for biblical research, but all the same....

I'm about a third of the way through my non-fiction book for the year, Body of Secrets by James Bamford. Perhaps when I finish the book I'll decrypt the lead-in text for the chapters as an exercise.