"Surveillance" vs. "open mike"

By now most people who follow current affairs have heard of this incident that occurred after the conclusion of a Congressional hearing, when two of the participants did not realize that their conversation was being picked up and broadcast by an open microphone:

The director of the National Security Agency was overheard offering a round of beer to the FBI's second-in-command following Tuesday's congressional hearing on the NSA's controversial surveillance programs.

The three-hour hearing had just wrapped up around 1 p.m. when NSA Director Keith Alexander turned to FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce and praised him for his testimony.

'Thank you, Sean,' Alexander said, according to a clip of the exchange that was first reported by Ben Doernberg. 'Tell your boss I owe him another friggin' beer,' he added. 

Video of the exchange at the link.

The best commentary I've encountered is this one from the Reddit thread:

"It must be terrible for him to have a conversation he thought was private heard by other people who might now use it against him."

Lost in translation

Muslims in Germany try to promote their religion by handing out Korans in a campaign named "Read!"

Unfortunately for those whose first language is English, the German word for "read" is "lies" (pronounced "leese").

Via Reddit.

Motorcyclist dies while protesting helmet law

ONONDAGA, N.Y. -- Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement...

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

I do understand that because of the physics involved, the rationale for helmets for motorcycle riders is different (and perhaps weaker) than for bicycle riders, but the outcome here is neverless rather ironic.

Addendum:  A hat tip to Jerry for providing a link to his blog post at Tread Life.  An excerpt -

“The speed on your speedometer is very seldom any indication of how hard you’re going to hit your head,” Thom said. “The only situation where it is an indication is if you hit a vertical object, like a bridge abutment. Then your speedometer speed is very important.” But in most motorcycle accidents, the rider’s head falls straight down and hits the ground at 13.4 mph or less. “We found way back in the Hurt studies that the typical impact on a head at the 90th percentile was less than the DOT impact speed of 13.4 mph.”

If you need further proof that the bike’s forward, or horizontal, velocity is far less important than the vertical velocity of the rider’s head, said Thom, go to a motorcycle race. “If you’ve ever seen a guy fall off at 120, they almost always get up even though their forward speed was huge. They fall off, and they very likely hit their head at least once, but they have that six-foot fall, which is what we test helmets at.”

Once you understand the bike’s forward velocity is nowhere near as important as the speed at which the rider’s head hits the ground, the argument that helmets don’t work because they aren’t designed to protect you at speeds higher than 13 mph loses virtually all of its weight.

More at the link.

Obama receives "transparency award," but...

As noted at Lowering the Bar:

According to Politico and the Washington Post, a couple of weeks ago President Obama was scheduled to receive an award from the organizers of the Freedom of Information Day Conference, to be presented at the White House by "five transparency advocates.".. That meeting did take place - behind closed doors...

The press was not invited to the private transparency meeting, and no photos from or transcript of the meeting have been made available. The event was not listed on the president's calendar, which tells us only that he was in an education town-hall meeting at 10:30 on Monday, and then apparently just lounged around until he went on TV at 7:30 (to tell us why he had transparently and unilaterally decided to start bombing another country a couple of weeks before without telling Congress). Nor is the award mentioned anywhere on the White House website, including on the page devoted to transparency and good government. Were it not for the testimony of the transparency advocates who met secretly with the president, there wouldn't seem to be any evidence that the meeting actually took place.

They say they didn't know the White House had failed to tell anybody about the transparency meeting.

Protest and free speech

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at George Washington University; her speech condemned governments that arrest protesters and don’t allow free speech.  During her presentation, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern stood in the aisle and turned his back on her in silent protest; he was dragged from the room by her security staff.

(There may be a more detailed backstory with some justification; I haven't found it yet.)

Found at Metafilter, where there is a long discussion thread.

Re Assange and Wikileaks

The image comes from BoingBoing, which cites a U.S. Department of State Press Statement addressing UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day, which the U.S. will host...

The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21^st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

Also of interest is a lot of material in a lengthy Guardian column, which has essentially been live-blogging events in the case, including the following:

The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts: the US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties.

The law Mr Assange continues to violate is the Espionage Act of 1917. That law makes it a felony for an unauthorised person to possess or transmit "information relating to the national defence which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation".

Speaking to the media scrum Jemima Khan said she did not know Julian Assange. She said she was offering support for him because of her backing for freedom on speech.

The Ku Klux Klan website directs users to a site called Christian Concepts. It takes Visa and MasterCard donations for users willing to state that they are "white and not of racially mixed descent. I am not married to a non-white. I do not date non-whites nor do I have non-white dependents. I believe in the ideals of western Christian civilisation and profess my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God."

Julian Assange is currently leading Time's online readers poll [for Man of the Year].

The two Swedish women who accuse WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were at first not seeking to bring charges against him. They just wanted to track him down and persuade him to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, according to several people in contact with his entourage at the time.

More information here.

Bicyclist killed in a collision

But there's a twist to the story...

The bicyclist who was killed in a collision with a truck in downtown Minneapolis this week had stolen the bike a couple of hours earlier, police said Wednesday...

At the time he was hit, Berry had with him a backpack that contained bolt cutters, Garcia said.

Berry and a Quicksilver Express Courier delivery truck were southbound on 1st Avenue when the truck turned right, striking the cyclist while he was in a designated bike lane on the right side of the road, police said.

Berry's criminal history in Minnesota includes convictions stretching back to 1996 for burglary, domestic abuse, drunken driving, disorderly conduct and assault.

I was going to add a wry comment re karma, but have read that the term should not be used too lightly.

Iron-y ??

Via Reddit.

"Read Ayn Rand" written using GPS

Nick Newcomen did a road trip over 30 days that covered stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. First, he identified on a map the route he would need to drive to spell out the message. He put a GPS device in his car to trace the route he would follow...

Newcomen, unlike previous GPS artists, actually traveled the lines he traced on the map. He used a GPS logger (Qstarz BT-Q1000X) to “ink” the message. Starting his trip in Marshall, Texas, he turned on the device when he wanted to write a letter and turned off the device between letters. The recorded GPS data was loaded into Google Earth to produce the image above.

A big hat tip to Chris at Cynical-C for pointing out that "he used Interstates, GPS and the internet which were all government funded projects..."

"You are responsible for spills"

Via Dead Dog.

Exhibit at the New Orleans Aquarium

Via.

Environmental safety exemptions were granted for the BP rig

NPR is reporting tonight that methane ice crystals are obstructing the hole in the top of the concrete dome.  Further down in the report is this bit of irony...

A group of BP executives were on board the Deepwater Horizon rig celebrating the project's safety record, according to the transcripts. Meanwhile, far below, the rig was being converted from an exploration well to a production well...

Up on the rig, the first thing workers noticed was the sea water in the drill column suddenly shooting back at them, rocketing 240 feet in the air, he said. Then, gas surfaced. Then oil...

According to one interview transcript, a gas cloud covered the rig, causing giant engines on the drill floor to run too fast and explode. The engines blew off the rig and set "everything on fire," the account said...

The BP executives were injured but survived, according to one account. Nine rig crew on the rig floor and two engineers died.

Re the exemptions granted for this project, see this press release.

“14.3 Impacts on Proposed Activities - The site-specific environmental conditions have been taken into account for the proposed activities and no impacts are expected as a result of these conditions.”

“14.2.3.2 Wetlands - An accidental oil spill from the proposed activities could cause impacts to wetlands. However, due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.” (p. 45)

“14.2.2.1 Essential Fish Habitat - …In the event of an unanticipated blowout resulting in an oil spill, it is unlikely to have an impact based on the industry wide standards for using proven equipment and technology for such responses, implementation of BP's Regional Oil Spill Response Plan which address available equipment and removal of the oil spill.”

Photo credit.

Distinguishing sarcasm from irony

Two researchers have examined at what age children are able to distinguish sarcasm from irony:

Glenwright and Pexman presented five- to six-year-olds and nine- to ten-year-olds with puppet show scenarios that ended with one of the characters making a critical remark. This remark could be literal, aimed at a person or situation, or it could non-literal, again aimed either at a person (i.e. sarcastic) or situation (i.e. ironic). To illustrate: two puppets are playing on a trampoline, one falls on his face. 'Great trampoline tricks,' the other character says, sarcastically. Contrast this with two puppets playing on a saggy trampoline with little bounce. One of them says 'great trampoline', an ironic remark.

Their finding is that nine- to ten-year-olds can tell the difference, although they can't yet explicitly explain it. Four- to five-year-olds, by contrast, understand that sarcasm and irony are non-literal forms of language, but they can't tell the difference between the two.

TYWKIWDBI has an "irony" category which now has 33 entries.  It wouldn't surprise me if I've miscategorized an incident or two over the years.

Addendum:  This might also be helpful:

Few words cause as much confusion or are used incorrectly as often as "ironic." Not that it's hard to understand why - the definition is not simple: "a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning ... the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning."

"In 1969, Susie moved from Ithaca to California, where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York." Seventy-eight percent of the panel's members agreed that this was an incorrect use of the word.

How "ironic" came to be defined as "coincidence" is anybody's guess, but for our purposes, we like to refer to the following quote from the 1994 film Reality Bites. When Ethan Hawke's character is asked to define "ironic," he says, "It's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite of the literal meaning."

More at the link.  I consider this a better set of defining characteristics than the person/thing dichotomy.

"...in honor of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of animals"

Here's the full caption, from Boston.com's The Big Picture:

A man rides a horse through embers and flames of a bonfire in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, in honor of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of animals. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

My irony meter just went through the roof.

Via Reddit.  Click to enlarge the photo.

Charlie Brown's Christmas tree is for sale...

This is the tree that he picked in order to reject the commercialization of Christmas. Sold by Shopko.

Headline Fail

I wondered it this was 'shopped or otherwise faked, so I tracked down the original article at the Denver Daily News. The headline has been corrected, but of even greater interest is one of the comments mocking the newspaper...

Maybe it's time to put some of your reporters back to school, nothing worse than poor spelling, the article looses all it's credibility.

"How to Stop Leaks" document... is leaked

A Ministry of Defence document giving advice on how to stop documents leaking onto the internet has been leaked onto the internet.

The Defence Manual of Security is intended to help MoD, armed forces and intelligence personnel maintain information security in the face of hackers, journalists, foreign spies and others.

But the 2,400-page restricted document has found its way on to Wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive information from organisations including governments, corporations and religions...

"The threat [of leakage] is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness."

The document is particularly keen to avoid the attentions of journalists, noting them as "threats" alongside foreign intelligence services, criminals, terrorist groups and disaffected staff.

Fingertip bitten off at Townhall healthcare protest

“It all started with their difference in philosophy over healthcare reform,” said Senior Deputy Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department...

During the rally at Lynn Road and Hillcrest Drive, near the Oaks Mall, the suspect and William James Rice got into a heated argument and began fighting, Buschow said. Rice, of Newbury Park, punched the suspect after the man called him an "idiot," Buschow said.

At that point, one man bit off the the tip of Rice's left pinkie finger, Buschow said.

Rice then drove himself to Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center, about a mile away, Buschow said. A witness picked up the detached fingertip after the suspect spit it out and drove it to the hospital. Buschow said doctors told the victim that they could not reattach the fingertip because of the high risk of infection..."

If true, there's a certain irony here...

A hospital spokeswoman said the man had Medicare, the US government-run insurance programme for older citizens.

Do you hear a clock striking thirteen?

Today, Amazon Kindle owners who thought they owned George Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm have discovered that those books are no longer on their Kindles.

...apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

…we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

These reminder from the Reddit discussion thread:

They're not people's Kindles, they're Amazon's Kindles. Amazon grant you an indefinite length license to use the Kindle, but the contents remain theirs. It's like software, you seldom ever actually own it, you just get a license to use it for a lifetime.

However, it is possible to stop them from having this ability. If you turn off your Kindle wireless connection and instead install all books using the USB cable, they can't do anything.

Upside-down American flag

WAUSAU, Wis. - An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it - an Iraq war veteran - claims the officers trespassed and stole his property...

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down - an accepted way to signal distress - outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.

He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club...

Congine's upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine's property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey...

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

"It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said...

"If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it..."

Offered without comment, though one can't help but note the irony that this incident occurred on a day commemorating America's various freedoms.

Photo credit Susan Willems.