Recommended Reading: Empire of the Summer Moon

The most Bad Ass Indian tribe in the old west was not the Lakota that did in the 7th Cavalry, but rather the Comanche.  S. C. Gwynne tells their tale well in The Empire Of The Summer Moon.

Essentially they were ferocious and highly mobile guerillas who thought nothing of raiding a thousand miles (from Kansas into Mexico), often - maybe usually - riding at night by the light of the moon.

To this day a summertime full moon is often referred to (at least in Texas) as a "Comanche Moon).  In fact, that was the title of a miniseries set in the old west not so very long ago. 

The book does a great job describing the rise of the Comanche from obscure beginning to their domination of the central Great Plains.  They were the best horsemen in North America and the masters of the hit-and-run.  They put so much pressure on settled tribes (not to mention Spanish colonists) that they essentially stopped Spanish advancement north of the Rio Grande.  The book makes the case that the Mexican government invited the Americans into Texas to act as a buffer between Mexico and the Comanches.  The Texas border with them was bloody and settlement was slow.

The end of the Civil War and the introduction of repeating firearms (and light horse artillery), combined with the slaughter of the bison herds was a problem that the Comanches could never solve.  Even so, Kit Carson admitted that their chief Quanah Parker (son of a kidnapped Texas girl who went native in the tribe)  almost wiped out his entire command.  The second half of the book is Quanah's story, from the greatest war chief of the Plains to the Reservation, and ultimately to his unlikely friendship with Teddy Roosevelt.

Highly, highly recommended. 

The book left out what I think is perhaps the most unlikely Comanche story, that of David Pendleton Okenhater. Born as O-kun-ha-tuh (Making Medicine) in the 1840s, he was in the thick of the Comanche wars of the 1860s - he was with Quanah at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls.  In prison at Ft. Marion in Florida in the 1870s he ended up as First Sergeant of the prisoners (really!) and was noticed by Capt. Pratt for the art he was creating (really!).  Pratt encouraged his art career and one of his pieces came into the collection of Mrs. Alice Key Pendleton, wife of a Senator from Ohio (really!).  The Pendletons paid for Okenhater to be sent to live at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New York.   He took their name out of respect and gratitude.

He was baptized there in 1878 and ordained a deacon in 1881.  As a Deacon he was sent essentially as a missionary back to the Cheyenne.  He lived out his life as a Deacon and a Cheyenne Chief until his death in 1931.  That was a long way from a taker of scalps.  A long way.

In 1985, the Episcopal Church declared David Pendleton Okenhater a saint.  His feast day is September 1.  That's quite some Medicine for O-Kun-Ha-Tuh to make.

R.I.P. Bob Uecker

I was going to post the great Miller Lite commercial with him, but Dwight beat me to it. 

I can heartily endorse his book about his baseball career, Catcher In The Wry.

Rest in peace, Uke.

What to do about Quantum Computing?

There's a good (if geeky) read from the UK National Cyber Security Centre on how to prepare your organization for Quantum Computing.  From the article:

Quantum computers use properties of quantum mechanics to compute in a fundamentally different way from today's digital, 'classical', computers. They are, theoretically, capable of performing certain computations that would not be feasible for classical computers. Although advances in quantum computing technology continue to be made, quantum computers today are still limited, and suffer from relatively high error rates in each operation they perform.

In the future, it is possible that error rates can be lowered such that a large, general-purpose quantum computer could exist. It is, however, impossible to predict when this may happen as many engineering and physical challenges must be overcome first. If such a computer could exist in the future, most traditional public key cryptography (PKC) algorithms in use today will be vulnerable to attacks from it.

Breaking Public Key Crypto is A Very Bad Thing Indeed, and would basically break the Internet.  If you're in the security field, you really should read this.

 

Obligatory Imperialist Post

This is a Columbus Day post I wrote in 2008, but which seems evergreen.  The words that you will not hear by the Usual Suspects today are the "Great Divergence".  This post talks a lot about that.  It's very strange that people interested in "Social Justice" don't seem to be very interested in getting - and keeping - poor people out of poverty.

Obligatory Imperialist Post

Because it's Columbus Power-Mad Dead White Dude Day.  Insty posted about Admiral of the Ocean Sea (great book) which gives you a great Columbus overview, but entirely misses the Power-Mad Dead White Dude thing.

As a public service, here's something that you should read if you really want to make a liberal's head explode like the fembots in Austin Powers. Or understand why the world's economy is the way it is.  The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes. The title is intentionally taken from Adam Smith, but Landes focuses less on describing economics per se, and more on the constraints that a society puts on their economy.

It traces the history of economic development over the last 1000 years, and asks some very politically incorrect questions:

• Why did China, the world's richest and most powerful country in 1000 AD not only lose her lead, but lose it so badly that it was dismembered by the European (and later resurgent Japanese) powers?
• Why did India, fabulously wealthy and populous, not conquor the west, rather than vice-versa?
• Why did England, an undeveloped backwater as late as 1500 AD, ultimately lead the Industrial Revolution and become the world's most powerful country?
• What explains the vast differences in economic development between the USA and Canada, and other New World countries? After all, in 1700, Mexico's GDP per capita was $450, not far short of the colonies' $490 (1985 dollars). In 1989, Mexico's GDP per capita was $3,500, vs. $18,300 for the USA.

No, it wasn't "western imperialism" by dead white dudes. Landes' politically incorrect thesis is that society counts, and some societies foster faster economic growth than others. He uses many, many examples.

The quote for this [2008] election season, if we're smart enough to listen, is about the post-Cold War economies:

Among the heaviest losers in this period of record-breaking economic growth and technological advance were the countries of the Communist Socialist bloc: the Soviet Union at the bottom of the barrel, Romania and North Korea almost as bad, and a range of satellite victims and emulators struggling to rise above the mess. Best off were probably Czechoslovkia and Hungary, with East Germany (the DDR) and Poland trailing behind. The striking feature of these command economies was the contradiction between system and pretensions on the one hand, performance on the other. The logic was impeccable: experts would plan, zealots would compete in zeal, technology would tame nature, labor would make free, the benefits would accrue to all. From each according to their ability; to each according to his deserts; and eventually, to each according to his needs.

The dream appealed to the victims and critics of capitalism, admittedly a most imperfect system - but as it turned out, far better than the alternatives. Hence the Marxist economies long enjoyed a willful credulous favor among radicals, liberals, and progressives in the advanced industrial nations;

You'll hate this if you think that economics a la John Kerry and Barack Obama is the shizzle flippity floppity floop.

Contradiction between pretension and performance: nice phrase, that. For an example, see Patrick, Deval. For extra credit, compare and contrast Obama, Barack.

Dang, I think I must have just got my Hate Speech on, right there.

Brigid has a chapter of her book up

She's the best writer I know.  Not sure what more you need for a recommendation.

Go read now.

The legal aftermath of a self defense situation

So you used your heater - and didn't even pull the trigger - in a self defense situation.  Now what?

A lawyer and shooter explains what happens next.  It doesn't sound fun, but there are things you can do (starting now) to make it less unpleasant.  Proper prior planning prevents poor performance, and all that.

In other news from the useful, Zach shows how to comply with state laws when you travel with firearms.

Recommended reading from ten years ago

I posted this ten years ago, and it's still current.  This is probably the best introduction to computer security for non-technical readers.  It's really a spy whodunnit story, with literal KGB operatives and valiant defenders of freedom (really!).  It also has a pretty good brownie recipe.  Along the way, you'll pick up some real computer security knowledge.

And this is a good time to remind folks that I have a Recommended Reading category.

Recommended Reading - The Cuckoo's Egg

Security is always excessive until it's not enough. 

— Robbie Sinclair
Head of Security, Country Energy, NSW Australia

Cliff Stoll has written what is absolutely the best book on computer security, ever. If you're interested in a riveting introduction to the maddening challenges of protecting computers from honest-to-goodness Bad Guys, this should be your first stop.

Stoll would know - as a systems administrator at UC Berkeley in 1986, he caught a German hacker breaking into his computers.

The lecturer on galactic structure droned on about gravitational waves. I was suddenly awake, aware of what was happening in our computer. I waited around for the question period, asked one token question, then grabbed my bike and started up the hill to Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

A super-user hacker. Someone breaks into our system, finds the master keys, grants himself privileges, and becomes a super-user hacker. Who? How? From where?

And, mostly, why?

The hacker was from Germany, and was using Stoll's computers to attack US Military computers. The intruder was looking for information on the Strategic Defense Initiative to sell to the KGB. You couldn't make this up.

That began a long, strange journey for a long haired hippy from Berkeley, who finds to his surprise that it was pretty hard to get The Man to sit up and take notice:

It took only one phone call to find out that the FBI wasn't policing the Internet. "Look, kid, did you lose more than a half million dollars?"
"Uh, no."
"Any classified information?"
"Uh, no."
"Then go away, kid." Another attempt at rousing the feds had failed.

So what elite hacking skills did the Bad Guy use? Ninja moves? Ninth-level black belt exploits? No - guessing bad passwords:

He was a burglar, patiently visiting each house. He'd twist the front doorknob to see if it was unlocked, then walk around and try the back door. Maybe try lifting a window or two.

Most of the time, he found the doors and windows locked. After a minute pushing them, he'd move on to the next place. Nothing sophisticated: he wasn't picking locks or digging under foundations. Just taking advantage of people who left their doors open.

One after another, he tried military computers: Army Ballistics Research Lab; U.S. Naval Academy; Naval Research Lab; Air Force Information Services Group; and places with bizarre acronyms, like WWMCCS and Cincusnaveur. (Cincus? Or was it Circus? I never found out.)

...

Is it easy to break into computers?
Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary, and tediously dull.

But they were his computers, and he gathered evidence until he was able to get the CIA, NSA, FBI, and German Bundespost interested. And suddenly found himself seemingly on the other side of the counter-culture divide:

This experiment, and a lot of more subtle things about his way of operating, convinced me that he was no idealist. This hacker was a spy.

But I couldn't exactly prove that, and even after I explained my experiment to Laurie, she wasn't convinced. She still thought of anyone working against the military as one of "us," and in her eyes I was persecuting someone on "our own" side.

How do I explain that, having been mixed up in this thing so long, I had stopped seeing clear political boundaries? All of us had common interests: myself, my lab, the FBI, the CIA, NSA, military groups, and yes, even Laurie. Each of us desired security and privacy.

I remember when I was back at Three Letter Intelligence Agency, and he came to talk in Friedman Auditorium. The entire front row was nothing but uniformed Generals, there to see the long-haired anarchist from Berkeley. I remember the room being so quiet you could hear a pin drop when he pointed to the generals and said (paraphrasing from memory after 20 years):

You know why I hated working with you guys? You'd always talk about "the adversary". "The adversary did this," "the adversary is doing that." He's not the adversary - he's breaking into my computers! He's a bastard!

The generals gave him a standing ovation at the end. They didn't care that he didn't own socks. They cheered his passion for protecting security and privacy. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

Stoll set things up so he could monitor every move the hacker made. What he learned was that almost nobody detected the intrusions:

The hacker had tried to chisel into eighty computers. Two system managers had detected him.

...

A few of his targets weren't sleeping. The day after he tried to pry their doors open, two of them called me. Grant Kerr, of the Hill Air Force Base in Utah, phoned. He was annoyed that one of my users, Sventek, had tried to break into his computer over the past weekend. And Chris McDonald of White Sands Missile Range reported the same.

Super! Some of our military bases keep their eyes open. Thirty-nine in forty are asleep. But there are a few system managers who vigilantly analyze their audit trails.

A few, but not many. Audit trails (or logs, as they're more often called) are boring, with nothing interesting to see - until there's something interesting.  Marcus Ranum sums the situation up with his typical wit:


And it wasn't just the military, who you'd think would be interested in security. Other folks were hit - folks you'd think were best positioned to defend themselves:

Wait a second. What other defense contractors had been hit? I scribbled a list on a pad of paper:

Unisys. Makers of secure computers.

TRW. They make military and space computers.

SRI. They've got military contracts to design computer security systems.

Mitre. They design high-security computers for the military. They're the people that test NSA's secure computers.

BBN. The builders of the Milnet.

What's wrong with this picture? These are the very people that are designing, building, and testing secure systems. Yet hackers traipse freely through their computers.

Finally, Stoll's evidence was overwhelming, and his new-found friends in the Defense Department started to close in on the hacker. But he was still in the thick of things:

"I just got a message from Wolfgang Hoffman at the German Bundespost. He says that there'll be a full-time policeman outside the hacker's apartment on Monday through Wednesday of next week. They'll keep watch continually, and they'll rush in to make an arrest as soon as he connects to Berkeley."

"How will the cop know when to bust in?"

"You'll give the signal, Cliff."

The book reads like a spy novel, and in a sense it is - only this really happened. It's an entertaining read, and along the way you'll pick up some solid Unix security tips. Painlessly.

I gave this to mom to read, in the 1990s, to give her a better idea of the sort of work I do. She liked it. I also gave it to #1 Son when he was 13, for the same reason. He liked it, too. If you're remotely interested in computer security, you'll like it, too.

World War II veteran interviews

Listen here.

On Saturday at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum I ran across Aaron Elson, who has spent a bunch of time interviewing World War II veterans.  He has a blog and has made audio books of the interviews which he sells on his web site.  He has a bunch of free downloads there including a 2 hour interview with a veteran from the 82nd Airborne about D-Day.

I know for a fact that a bunch of you will like this stuff.  Thanks to Aaron for doing capturing these memories while the vets were still here.  He had a bunch of CDs on display on his table, one for each vet he'd interviewed.  He pointed to one and said "He's still with us".  There were a lot of other CDs.

Recommended Reading for Columbus Day

This is a Columbus Day post I wrote in 2008, but which seems evergreen.  You can get Dr. Landes' book on Amazon, no doubt at a deep discount (it was published in the 1990s).

Obligatory Imperialist Post

Because it's Columbus Power-Mad Dead White Dude Day.  Insty posted about Admiral of the Ocean Sea (great book) which gives you a great Columbus overview, but entirely misses the Power-Mad Dead White Dude thing.

As a public service, here's something that you should read if you really want to make a liberal's head explode like the fembots in Austin Powers. Or understand why the world's economy is the way it is.  The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes. The title is intentionally taken from Adam Smith, but Landes focuses less on describing economics per se, and more on the constraints that a society puts on their economy.

It traces the history of economic development over the last 1000 years, and asks some very politically incorrect questions:

• Why did China, the world's richest and most powerful country in 1000 AD not only lose her lead, but lose it so badly that it was dismembered by the European (and later resurgent Japanese) powers?
• Why did India, fabulously wealthy and populous, not conquor the west, rather than vice-versa?
• Why did England, an undeveloped backwater as late as 1500 AD, ultimately lead the Industrial Revolution and become the world's most powerful country?
• What explains the vast differences in economic development between the USA and Canada, and other New World countries? After all, in 1700, Mexico's GDP per capita was $450, not far short of the colonies' $490 (1985 dollars). In 1989, Mexico's GDP per capita was $3,500, vs. $18,300 for the USA.

No, it wasn't "western imperialism" by dead white dudes. Landes' politically incorrect thesis is that society counts, and some societies foster faster economic growth than others. He uses many, many examples.

The quote for this [2008] election season, if we're smart enough to listen, is about the post-Cold War economies:

Among the heaviest losers in this period of record-breaking economic growth and technological advance were the countries of the Communist Socialist bloc: the Soviet Union at the bottom of the barrel, Romania and North Korea almost as bad, and a range of satellite victims and emulators struggling to rise above the mess. Best off were probably Czechoslovkia and Hungary, with East Germany (the DDR) and Poland trailing behind. The striking feature of these command economies was the contradiction between system and pretensions on the one hand, performance on the other. The logic was impeccable: experts would plan, zealots would compete in zeal, technology would tame nature, labor would make free, the benefits would accrue to all. From each according to their ability; to each according to his deserts; and eventually, to each according to his needs.

The dream appealed to the victims and critics of capitalism, admittedly a most imperfect system - but as it turned out, far better than the alternatives. Hence the Marxist economies long enjoyed a willful credulous favor among radicals, liberals, and progressives in the advanced industrial nations;

You'll hate this if you think that economics a la John Kerry and Barack Obama is the shizzle flippity floppity floop.

Contradiction between pretension and performance: nice phrase, that. For an example, see Patrick, Deval. For extra credit, compare and contrast Obama, Barack.

Dang, I think I must have just got my Hate Speech on, right there.

The failure of the Public Schools

Even NPR is noticing that a lot of kids don't need to go to College, and can do very well by not going to College:

Like most other American high school students, Garret Morgan had it drummed into him constantly: Go to college. Get a bachelor's degree. 

"All through my life it was, 'if you don't go to college you're going to end up on the streets,' " Morgan said. "Everybody's so gung-ho about going to college." 

So he tried it for a while. Then he quit and started training as an ironworker, which is what he is doing on a weekday morning in a nondescript high-ceilinged building with a concrete floor in an industrial park near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. 

... 

Morgan, who is 20, is already working on a job site when he isn't at the Pacific Northwest Ironworkers shop. He gets benefits, including a pension, from employers at the job sites where he is training. And he is earning $28.36 an hour, or more than $50,000 a year, which is almost certain to steadily increase.

 His attitude towards his College bound High School friends?

As for his friends from high school, "they're still in college," he said with a wry grin. "Someday maybe they'll make as much as me."

LULZ.

The Public Education system is selling education to students.  It's terribly expensive - destructively expensive - education, but why not?  After all, that's what they sell to the students' parents.  You need to invest in your kid's education.

It's a scam.  Caveat emptor.

You hear a lot about how much more college graduates make compared to their non-college graduate peers, but it's funny how Colleges don't break that down by major, or compare it to non-College work by industry and job classification.  Gosh, I wonder why they don't do that.  /sarc

If you have a High School age kid, get them a copy of this:

A politically incorrect Columbus Day post

This is a Columbus Day post I wrote in 2008, but which seems evergreen.

Obligatory Imperialist Post

Because it's Columbus Power-Mad Dead White Dude Day.  Insty posted about Admiral of the Ocean Sea (great book) which gives you a great Columbus overview, but entirely misses the Power-Mad Dead White Dude thing.

As a public service, here's something that you should read if you really want to make a liberal's head explode like the fembots in Austin Powers. Or understand why the world's economy is the way it is.  The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes. The title is intentionally taken from Adam Smith, but Landes focuses less on describing economics per se, and more on the constraints that a society puts on their economy.

It traces the history of economic development over the last 1000 years, and asks some very politically incorrect questions:

• Why did China, the world's richest and most powerful country in 1000 AD not only lose her lead, but lose it so badly that it was dismembered by the European (and later resurgent Japanese) powers?
• Why did India, fabulously wealthy and populous, not conquor the west, rather than vice-versa?
• Why did England, an undeveloped backwater as late as 1500 AD, ultimately lead the Industrial Revolution and become the world's most powerful country?
• What explains the vast differences in economic development between the USA and Canada, and other New World countries? After all, in 1700, Mexico's GDP per capita was $450, not far short of the colonies' $490 (1985 dollars). In 1989, Mexico's GDP per capita was $3,500, vs. $18,300 for the USA.

No, it wasn't "western imperialism" by dead white dudes. Landes' politically incorrect thesis is that society counts, and some societies foster faster economic growth than others. He uses many, many examples.

The quote for this [2008] election season, if we're smart enough to listen, is about the post-Cold War economies:

Among the heaviest losers in this period of record-breaking economic growth and technological advance were the countries of the Communist Socialist bloc: the Soviet Union at the bottom of the barrel, Romania and North Korea almost as bad, and a range of satellite victims and emulators struggling to rise above the mess. Best off were probably Czechoslovkia and Hungary, with East Germany (the DDR) and Poland trailing behind. The striking feature of these command economies was the contradiction between system and pretensions on the one hand, performance on the other. The logic was impeccable: experts would plan, zealots would compete in zeal, technology would tame nature, labor would make free, the benefits would accrue to all. From each according to their ability; to each according to his deserts; and eventually, to each according to his needs.

The dream appealed to the victims and critics of capitalism, admittedly a most imperfect system - but as it turned out, far better than the alternatives. Hence the Marxist economies long enjoyed a willful credulous favor among radicals, liberals, and progressives in the advanced industrial nations;

You'll hate this if you think that economics a la John Kerry and Barack Obama is the shizzle flippity floppity floop.

Contradiction between pretension and performance: nice phrase, that. For an example, see Patrick, Deval. For extra credit, compare and contrast Obama, Barack.

Dang, I think I must have just got my Hate Speech on, right there.

Be careful using an ATM cash machine

I like to use the ATM machines that are in the Bank's lobby, because they are more secure.  It's riskier for someone to just walk up and modify the machine to add a "skimming" device that records your card information and PIN.  There's quite a lot of this happening, and the devices are increasingly hard to spot.

Here's a video from a security guy who was on vacation and found one of the things.  The video is only a couple minutes, so take a moment to watch it.



Look at how simple the device is, and how easy it must have been for the Bad Guy to install it.  This is why I like to use machines in a Bank's branch office, where you have to use your card to unlock the door - there's much better security, and while it's not impossible for someone to jack around with the machines, the risk he takes while doing so is a lot higher.

The Queen Of The World found this video.  She has good street smarts.

Brigid's new book is out

Brigid is not only my friend and sister-from-another-mister, she's the best writer that I know.  She has a way of crafting sentences that quite frankly makes me quite envious.  There's no doubt that my writing has improved under her influence, but more importantly I've gotten many, many hours of pleasure from reading her blog and her books.

Now she has a new book out.

Head on over there and get you some of that.

Saving baseball from ESPN

The Czar of Muscovy casts his cold, dread eye on the disaster that is ESPN coverage of the Baseball pennant race:

ESPN is the worst; their utter disdain for the game of baseball positively drips. Announcers who never played the game stall for time by reading meaningless statistics about players they don’t know at all.

This is a pet peeve of mine, and underscored by the recent retirement of one of the greatest all time baseball announcers, Vin Scully.  The Czar is correct that the current broadcasters make baseball boring, in a way that it isn't when you are either (a) at the game or (b) have a decent announcer.  Being at the game is best, of course; the Czar describes this:

If you’re a smart enough person, you recognize that what happens between pitches is just as interesting as what happens during and after. Players and coaches read subtle signs from the batters, who adjust their positions carefully; batters spot these set ups and change their swing to counter them, and the whole thing is like 10-to-13-way chess. Secret signals go out from both benches, warning a fielder to expect a fly ball, and warning the batter not to swing at this next pitch.

There is always something happening on the field.  Players adjust their positions with each pitch, as the strike count changes.  Those in the know are nodding their heads - the fielder's positions very often clue you in on where the ball will be hit.

Alas, the new generation of baseball fans will never learn this from the sad sacks on ESPN.  So where can they turn?

If you have a young baseball fan (say, 11 or 12 years old) - or if you are one of my young Gentlemen Readers with a new Lady Friend who is bored with the game, Jerry Remy's Watching Baseball is the place to start.  It is a book on baseball tactics (not strategy, but play-by-play tactical analysis) that he developed as an all star player for the Red Sox and then honed as a long time color commentator for New England Sports Network.  He's broadcast thousands of games, and this comes out in his book.

Unusual for a baseball book, Remy breaks down the pitcher vs. hitter situation for each of the strike-ball scenarios: no balls or strikes, one ball and no strikes, all the way up to a full count.  Each is different - what the pitcher is trying to do and what the batter is looking for varies with each pitch, and Remy lays this process out in an easy to absorb manner.

I guess that at this point I should modify by earlier advice.  If you have an 11 or 12 year old boy who's mildly interested in the game, this will be something that he will read cover to cover.  If you are one of my young Gentlemen Readers, perhaps you should read and learn this.  Rather than giving it to your Lady Friend, you can take her to a game and whisper sweet baseball nothings in her ear when the count sone ball and two strikes.  But you know what a hopeless romantic I am.

Remy also covers what the fielders do which is as interesting (if not more so) than the pitcher vs. hitter mano a mano passa double.

It is an entirely different class of analysis that you'll get from ESPN.  Those of you in New England who occasionally tune into a Red Sox game will be nodding in agreement right about now.

So don't give up on our National Pastime just because the networks are so wretched.  Yes, ESPN fired Curt Schilling (what the heck did he ever know about pitching, anyway?).  But there's nothing that says that you can't turn the volume down to zero and give some real play-by-play analysis of your own.

URGENT: Yeah, you really need to update your iPhone

The good news is that I haven't heard of mass attacks (yet) using these attacks.  The bad news is that it typically doesn't take long for those to start once the Bad Guys know that something is possible.

The attack sends a web link to a page that contains malware.  This malware is unpleasant - it's the first remote jailbreak exploit, so it basically takes total control of you iDevice.

In your iPhone (and iPad), click the "Settings" app, then "General" then "Updates" and select "Check for updates".  You want iOS 9.3.5.  I'm not sure if this applies to iPads as well but recommend that you check.

Like I said, I expect there's a Bad Moon rising.  We'll likely see mass exploitation of this in a few days.

This is a big, big deal

Brigid's Book Of Barkley appears in the print version of Kirkus Reviews.  Congratulations on the home run, Brigid!

Brigid hits the big time

Kirkus Review is, along with the (London) Times Literary Supplement the gold standard for serious authors, and readers who care about serious books.  Dad subscribed to both, but as a University professor he came by his love of books honestly.  This is the Big League for authors.

Brigid's Book Of Barkley just got a fantastic review in Kirkus.  This is an astonishing accomplishment for a new author, equivalent to a Spring Training walk-on pitcher pitching in the World Series.  Congratulations, Brigid!

And any of you who haven't read her book need to get the lead out and order it.

The Mirror of Barkley

I was going to do some deep thinking last night, but got side tracked.  My sister-from-another-mister Brigid emailed me a copy of her book, The Book Of Barkley.  As you can imagine, I got distracted.  It's about Barkley, but much more it's about the mirror that we hold up that's called "memory", and what that mirror shows to us.  With her permission, he's a taste:

I spent much of my early adulthood as a jet pilot, learning very quickly that, not only can't you always save the world, sometimes you cannot even save yourself.  But the effort is often worth it. If you're lucky, your brushes with life will only leave a few small physical scars. If I raise up my bangs, right at the hairline, there’s a tiny, faint scar from a tumble off my bike down a hill as a kid. There's a small ding in my forehead where the bungee cord of the J60-P-3 turbojet engine cover whacked me on the ramp at warp speed when I lost the wrestling contest with it.  But for most people, like me, the bigger scars are internal, and you only touch them softly, with trepidation, not remorse, in the late night hours of "what if’s."

Pilots get that.  Adventurers get that.  So, usually, does anyone who has challenged their fears. There are times when it seems as if the world is going to pieces around you, a sense of this enormous elemental power beyond your reason or control.  You think "what am I doing; this is nuts!"  As you squeak past the reaper one more time, you say “well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought” already planning on when you will chase the experience again.  For you are called to the altar of the infinite, the bread of life on the tongue, tasting faintly of salt, the sweetness, just underneath.  It's reaching your hand out to receive glory even as your world cranks up to red line with the knowledge that if mistakes are made, there will be no saving grace; you may be lost.  But if are not, then the world will, for that instant, have one moment of equilibrium, of order, of peace.

Actually, this captures motorcycling precisely, and may explain the overlap between the pilot population and the biker crowd.  That moment of equilibrium - to me at least - often comes when you roll that power on.



Pilots get that.  Adventurers get that.  So, usually, does anyone who has challenged their fears.

But challenging your fears doesn't mean forgetting your memories, or putting down that mirror that shows us who we are - scars and worry lines and all:

A quiet morning walk doesn't just carry you across the local landscape, it takes you across the landscape of memory, to places long past which we can only visit in our dreams.  Jack has been gone these twenty years now, but I still hear his deep throated bark, outraged at the swimming otter's insolence.  #1 Son hasn't been eight years old for ever and ever, but I still hear his child's voice rising with outrage that the bird is back at the pond.  I hear the frustration in the voice of young #2 Son, asking where the beaver is, knowing he is about to be delighted when he finally catches a glimpse of it.

Ivan the Terrier loves these walks.  The chance to sniff around, to catch new smells and sights from a place that's not his yard keeps him mentally sharp.  The walk through old but cherished memories is good for me, too.  Even if the path is crowded with Jack and some small children.

This mirror of Barkley isn't about him, at least if we read it for what it says to us.  About us.  Brigid sure has a rare talent to write a book about me and Jack, and a young #1 Son, and a younger #2 Son, and Ivan the Terrier.

And you.  Yes, and Barkley too.

Her's is an astonishing gift, and those of you who have yet to read this are lucky indeed.

Recommended Reading - Worthless by Aaron Clarey

It's not often that you find a book on an important subject that is written with a light-hearted, breezy, funny prose that keeps you turning the pages and laughing, while your hind brain is continually saying hmmmmm.

Worthless is just such a book.

I got a copy because #2 Son is looking at College, and I want him to pick a field where he can make a living. Because I'm his Dad, it's not clear how much he'll want to listen. A second opinion seemed called for, and the book's opening sentence set the tone:

You are lucky. And the reason you are lucky is because somebody cares enough about you and your future to have given you this book.

The title is somewhat a misnomer, as the book covers both the worthless pursuits and the worthwhile ones. Both the ones where you will end up working for tips and the ones where you make twice the median national salary.

More importantly, it uses simple, dispassionate logic to show why. Clarey's examples are all accessible and unarguable; for example, his chapter on supply and demand and the mismatch between what you want to buy tomorrow (gas, iPads, flat screen TVs) and most College majors (Education, Sociology, Finance) is pretty much the last word on why we import so much from China while PhDs work as baristas.

Clarey is quick to point out that he is not being judgmental about these majors. Rather, he is just pointing out what your Admissions Officer and your Advisor won't: how much money you can expect to make when you get out with your degree.  He points out that a University is a business, with typical business goals:

Plus, as you'll find out, there are a lot of professors, teachers assistants, administrators, college deans and other people whose paychecks depend on getting students to spend tuition dollars on their particular programs or departments.  In other words, nobody is going to be forthright and honest with you and say,

"Oh god no! Don't spend your tuition dollars here! You'll never make any money.  Go next door to the engineering department. They'll be able to help."

But I will be, and we'll start with liberal arts programs.

That's the opening to the chapter on what NOT to study.  Now as a recipient of a B.A. in History from Ole State U, I can testify that he is entirely correct here.  That's why I also have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, which opened doors precisely in the way that he said it would, and in precisely the ways that he said that the History degree wouldn't.  And I was in School in the early '80s - it's much more expensive now, so this book is more important that it would have been then.

But the recommendations in this book continually delight the intellect.  Rather than major in Chinese at a cost of $4500 a semester, why not go to China?  You can live cheap ("go native") for quite a while on $4500.  There are a lot of ways to get an education.



It's nice (but not required) to read this at your local pub. I spend a most enjoyable evening here with Clarey - better known around these parts as Captain Capitalism - who is every much as clear minded and witty in real life as in this book. Funny, too. The humor will keep people turning pages as his point continually gets hammered home:

This is an important decision for you. This will effect your whole life. Don't screw it up.

Quite frankly, that's a message that anyone you care about needs to hear. The one gentle criticism I might add is that Clarey doesn't go far enough sometimes.  Some degrees are not worthless, they're actually less than worthless - they make it harder for degree holders to get a job than if they had no degree at all.  In other words, after the time and expense of getting the degree, it adds negative value to the career trajectory.  The "grievance" studies (Women's Studies, Minority Studies, etc) are a red flag to many potential employers that this person is a professionally trained troublemaker, with a well honed skill for searching out problems where they likely don't exist and creating a disruptive work environment.  Other than government agencies and groups like the SPLC, it's hard to see who would want to hire this skill set.

If you have a friend or relative thinking about going to College (or who are thinking of going themselves), run do not walk to get them a copy of this book.  They may or may not take its advice, but it's a sure bet that nobody is giving them this advice at all right now.

A holiday gift for your anti-gun friends: Emily Gets Her Gun

Image via Amazon

This book has two purposes.  The first is to show the thicket of nonsensical gun laws currently on the books, that get in the way of ordinary people who want to buy a gun to protect themselves and their families.  Emily Miller - a Senior Editor at the Washington Times - is one of these people.  She had never shot a gun, and found herself trying to navigate the legal labyrinth of Washington D.C.'s crazy firearms restrictions.  She came to this as a newbie, who had never been involved with this sort of thing and indeed had no idea what she was getting into.

The second purpose is to describe the political landscape of 2013 regarding firearms laws, and in particular the Congressional battles over proposed new gun control statutes in the wake of the Sandy Hook, CT shootings.  In this, she is a seasoned veteran of the political give-and-take, having made her career on Capitol Hill.

These two stories are well told, and interleaved throughout the book.  The two stories are both useful for your anti-gun friends, but probably not at the same time.  However, giving them this book will open their eyes, and maybe open them a second time.

Most people don't have strong feelings one way or another, either pro-gun or anti-gun.  This is preyed upon by the gun control lobby, using terms like "common sense gun control" because it sounds so, well, reasonable.  Ms. Miller's book is an excellent counter to this.  For example, she points out that there are no gun stores in the District because the government will not grant any a license, and that Federal law criminalizes buying a gun in a different State.

Cool "common sense", huh?

And so into the Never Neverland that is the legal way for a citizen to purchase a firearm in Washington D.C.   She recounts how the system is set up, and brings a useful perspective to those who would like to convince others that the current laws are anything but common sense.  For example, the District gives out a (outdated) list of people who can offer the required firearms training.  Most do this from their homes, and this made her nervous:

The [D.C.] police officer said claimed that it didn't matter that the instructors' addresses weren't on the list because they would be teaching the class at a shooting range.  Then why did they all say I had to meet at their houses?  He didn't know.

...

While I was glad to learn that these men had been given a criminal background check at some point as of 2009, I still didn't feel safe going to any of their houses.

In the whole four months that I went through the gun registration process, this was the only time that I wanted to give up on the idea.  I couldn't find any way to take this mandatory class in a way that didn't scare me.

A "common sense" law that makes it so that a woman have to meet strange men in strange places, or not be allowed to get a gun to protect herself.  The book is filled with examples like this, for example when she filled out the application for a gun permit:

You're also deemed ineligible if you've been convicted of "vagrancy."  I'm not sure why hanging around the 7-Eleven parking lot too long makes you unqualified to have a gun.

For the next question, I had to go back to Google again, this time to figure out what "abrogating strikes" meant.  I went through three pages of search results, and I still don't know.

But you have to sign your name that the information you provide is accurate, under penalty of perjury.   Remember that perjury is a felony, which results in you losing your right to own a gun.

This laying out of the hurdles that must be jumped will be eye opening for people new to this topic.  In fact, this story is entirely toxic to the very claim of "common sense" gun control: none of this is common sense, and it's obvious to all readers that the legal system is quite frankly insanity.

However, it seems that the second story told in the book - of 2013's gun control battles on Capitol Hill - will get in the way of this first message.  I would suggest telling your friend to just skip over the parts about the gun control politics and the NRA, and read through Ms. Miller's epic journey through the bureaucracy.  Once your reader finishes that, the notion of "reasonable gun control" will very likely be a smoking ruin.

Then have them go back and read the politics, because then they'll know how to see the sausage being made.  Rather than injecting some badly needed common sense into the law code, the story of 2013 was more of the same stupid, useless restrictions cloaked in high minded blatherings to fool people not in the know.  Of course by this point your friend will be very much in the know indeed, and will be able to see this for what it was.

Of course, it might not convince them, but it will educate them.  The most compelling parts of the book are when she describes honest people caught in the web of unknowable gun control laws.  And while she now can have a gun in her house, it is illegal to carry a gun to protect yourself when you leave.  She describes her feelings in an incident after she already had her gun but had to leave it home:

A strange man at my apartment building, who turned out to be a non-uniformed mover who was working for a neighbor, took violent offense when I closed the propped-open security door of the apartment building.  I stood in the lobby of my building, where I was not allowed to carry my gun, and was terrified as he violently banged on the glass door, screaming, "What the f--- you doing?  You f---ing bitch open the door.  I'm going to get you, you f---ing bitch."

No one else was around, and I was scared that if I left the lobby, someone would let him in and he'd carry out his threats.  I called 911.  I waited exactly fifteen minutes, but he had not stopped screaming and trying to get into the building.  I called 911 again.  The police finally showed up twenty minutes after the incident started.

It's "common sense" that a man who moves furniture for a living will be much larger and stronger than a woman who works at a white collar job.  "Common sense" says that it evens the odds, allowing her have a gun to defend herself against a man like that making threats against her.  "Common sense" says that putting a myriad obstacles in her way (the Washington D. C. licensing procedure involves seventeen steps and took her four months to complete) will keep her from being able to do that.  You might even call it a "War On Women".

Meanwhile, the city is swimming in illegal guns.  Remember, according to the police department's own data, assaults with a firearm increased 12 percent from 2011 to 2012.

So get this for your anti-gun friends.  Not to convert them and convince them to become gun owners, but to shatter the mirage of "common sense" marketing of ideas that are anything but.  The stories of Emily Gets Her Gun are intertwined with the efforts to keep her from getting her gun.  These twinned stories will change their view of the honesty - or dishonesty - of the political debate.  That's something very much to be thankful for.