Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 268 entries, all of them here in full.
April 7, 2010 · 230 words
Shadow Network
Another enormous online spy network, dubbed Shadow Network, has been revealed by those wonky Canadian online cowboys of the Munk School of Global Affairs. Shadow Network’s targets included the Dalai Lama (who was targeted last year by another spy network, the Ghost Net), but they were interested primarily in India.Acco
Read entry →April 7, 2010 · 301 words
Premium Channels
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 3-0 that the FCC has no legal authority to enforce net neutrality on broadband providers. Providers could, for example, charge extra for larger files, or restrict access to sites that provide content they don’t approve of, or— as Comcast has already done&
Read entry →April 4, 2010 · 510 words
One Lonely Star
I am rarely delighted by my one-star Amazon reviews. Especially when I’m taken to task for making up dumb stuff, when in fact I did scrupulous research and the reviewer didn’t bother to simply google the topic and find that out. (Okay, that one still rankles.)But at least I’m in good company. Jeanette Demain over [&hel
Read entry →April 2, 2010 · 611 words
Russia Breaks IKEA
So Swedish blond furniture giant IKEA decided to open outlets in Russia. Turns out it was a bad idea.From the start the company announced that even in Russia it would be adhering to its clearly-formulated Swedish rules, based on the Protestant work ethic and unanswerable logic. As a result, Khimki officials turned off
Read entry →April 1, 2010 · 570 words
The Leaf, Trembling
I put aside my Nebula reading for some stories by W. Somerset Maugham, his collection The Trembling of a Leaf. These are stories set in Samoa or Honolulu or on the long passage somewhere between, and include “Rain,” the story that introduced the world to Miss Sadie Thompson, the hooker with a heart of sulfuric [&hellip
Read entry →March 30, 2010 · 171 words
Back Taxes
So . . . as I was discussing my 2009 taxes with the Accountant, the Accountant asked: “What about property taxes for 2009?”Hmm. Interesting. I didn’t remember paying property taxes for 2009. Or for that matter receiving a bill.So I’ve been on the phone with the County Clerk and the County Assessor and the County [&hell
Read entry →March 29, 2010 · 222 words
Uh-Oh
From Bruce Schneier, we find that all that anonymous networking data isn’t so anonymous after all . . . Computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Dr Vitaly Shmatikov, from the University of Texas at Austin, developed the algorithm which turned the anonymous data back into names and addresses.The data sets are usually st
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