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This is some exciting stuff (well, if you are a geek like me, anyway):

http://www.microsoft.com/netmf/about/default.mspx

This is Microsoft’s new .NET Micro framework.  This is designed for small devices such as phones, remote controls, toasters, or whatever, which have a processor and can benefit from communications infrastructure (to talk to other appliances or whatever).  Home automation and energy control are big applications for this.

The cool part is, you can write in C# or VB, using Visual Studio, and there really isn’t much to learn to start developing small device applications!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/02/17/tsr.cafferty.tsa.cnn

This is yet another example of idiotic security screening processes brought to us by our friends at the TSA.  If you haven’t clicked on the video yet, the TSA agents made a disabled 4 year old boy remove his leg braces and walk through the checkpoint by himself.

Now most people hearing of this seem to have the same response “Those guys are idiots” and disgust runs rampant.  I’d like to turn the tables a little.  Who are the real idiots? I say: US!  We are allowing the TSA to exist, we are allowing ridiculous security screening systems, we are allowing backscatter x-ray devices, and we are griping merrily as we move like sheep through the processes they institute.  Like the war on drugs says, we need to “Just say NO”.

The only reason this kind of thing exists is because people allow it.  If every passenger said “No thank you” and walked on through the checkpoint, it would be impossible for the TSA people to do anything about it.  Because we’re sheep and nobody will do that, they are able to herd the masses and impose their ridiculous procedures.

Let’s take a page from Israel’s book.  They are probably the largest terrorism target in the world, and yet they don’t have ridiculous security and inspection procedures in their airports.  Why is this?  Because they are not waving flags and trying to look like they are preventing terrorism, they are DOING it.  They racially profile (oh no!), they know what they are looking for and they effectively prevent any issues.  They don’t waste their time being stupid.

I was going to blather on about my personal opinions on wikileaks and the US Goverment documents which have been (and are being) leaked.  I ran across this response to an MSN.COM article which I think is most excellent, and hopefully the author (Remberasha) won’t mind me re-posting it here:

Wow — so many people here willing to give up their freedoms?

Julian has done the USA citizens a great service, yet the herd has fallen victim to the "Oppression" wolves.

It is the RIGHT of the people to know what their government is doing in their name. Secrets are the tools of Tyrants.!

-=-=-

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
(Patrick Henry)

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." –Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

"We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." (Abraham Lincoln)

That if all Printers were determin’d not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed. (Benjamin Franklin)

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Press:
The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed. Abraham Lincoln

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform them." (Thomas Jefferson)

One of the responders to the article actually said “You can not run a country and tell all the people everything. Some things need to be kept secret even if you don’t like it”.  Wow! So there must be an Elite who will guide and direct the rest of us, as we are clearly incapable of directing ourselves? This is quite offensive to me.  I’m not ready to hand the reins of my life over to anybody, for any reason.

Honesty and straightforward dealings seem to be left behind these days.  Everybody always has a “really good reason” for secrecy (and of course it has nothing to do with getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, right?), spins, and dishonesty.  Here’s an interesting experiment: Go ahead and tell the people what is really happening, and then perhaps our Votes would be more informed and useful, rather than relying mainly on campaign glitz.

Here’s a neat project, but unfortunately we have to wait until 2020 for service to be available.  This will start with Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 2 hours 40 minutes.  They are talking about very frequent trains (every 5 minutes during peak times), and they ought to be useful for shorter hops too.  Barbara Boxer sent around an email about how she’s working on getting California additional federal funding as other states apparently aren’t ready to start such a project.

I ran across this today – it's Flowtown's modified version of XKCD's original social networking map.

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

Contrast this with the original from XKCD back in Spring 2007:

I attended the rollout webinar today.  Microsoft was going on about how wonderful the “experience” is, and how it’s HIGH DEF don’t you know, and the quality and ease of this new communication system is unmatched.

Nice job, guys.  I enjoyed the experience of audio dropouts, video dropouts, and a generally disappointing experience.  Hey, next time maybe ditch Silverlight and go with a technology that works!  How about picking something with with a PAUSE button?  That'd be clever.

Now that the elections are over, I’m left scratching my head.  This is California, right?  The “Granola state”?  How could prop 19 not pass? Hellooooooo?  Here's a link to an opinion on CNN.

For those who weren’t paying attention to the elections, prop 19 was a proposal to legalize Marijuana.

Just for perspective, I’d like to state that I don’t personally use Marijuana.  However, I don’t care one whit whether or not other people do.

Once you strip off all the crazy and inaccurate propaganda (the most infamous example, “Reefer Madness” is actually hilarious), you are left with basically an equivalent to alcohol, but with a couple of advantages: People who are stoned, KNOW they are stoned and would rather sleep or eat than drive.  People who are intoxicated with alcohol frequently misjudge their impairment, and that’s what leads to accidents.  People who are stoned tend to get very passive and laid-back.  People intoxicated with alcohol either want to tell you “I love you, man” or pick a fight.

So now that prop 19 has not passed, we’re going to continue to spend a bunch of tax money on enforcing, incarcerating, trying, and applying people and efforts to enforce something that not even the law enforcement types really want to bother with.

The criminal types will still continue to thrive in the black market for the “wacky tobaccy”.  Is this really an industry we want to encourage?

Then, there are the medical aspects.  My father died from a type of brain cancer that has responded well to cannabis treatment in other patients.  I take that rather personally.  Because of all the propaganda and silliness, it’s taking an inordinately long time for the medical uses to become accepted.  It is great for pain management, treatments for certain types of cancer, and a whole host of other things (search the net – it’s amazing).  Why isn’t proper research being done on all this, like it would be for any other drug?  Well, mainly because there is no profit in it for the drug companies.  They want to make something they can patent, and charge a lot of money for.  They can’t patent a natural product, so they’d have to settle for packaging and processing, which has a much lower profit margin.