Category Archives: Technology

My favorite spam of the day

Mostly, my spam filter works pretty well, but some days small groups of them sneak through. I got four of them back-to-back this morning.

I get a kick out of the way these bots try so hard to produce comments that sound real, but still fall so short of their goal. Here’s my favorite today:

I’ve been browsing on-line more than three hours lately, yet I never discovered any fascinating article like yours. It is beautiful price enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you probably did, the internet will probably be a lot more useful than ever before.

I love this part: “…if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you probably did….” It doesn’t want to go too far and commit itself…

It is beautiful price enough for me, too.

Everything that is wrong with our politics, in state & nation

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Haley Palin

OK, so maybe it’s not everything — there’s personal pettiness, and anti-intellectualism, and an appalling willingness on the parts of too many to stoop to the lowest common public impulses for advantage — but it’s something that runs through it all, and ruins everything it touches. And besides, those things are more or less related to this thing.

It was on display in this story today about the campaign “warchest” — oh, let’s not forget that another thing that is wrong with our politics is that we pretend that it is war, with all that attendant “fighting for you” trash — that Nikki Haley has assembled for an as-yet-undeclared re-election campaign.

I’m not talking about Nikki Haley in particular here. I’m talking about something that is all too much a part of modern politics, and she just provides us with a good example, because she’s a particularly avid practitioner of what I’m talking about. The relevant passage:

Haley had six fundraisers last quarter, half of them out of state, in California, New York and Florida.

Donations from S.C.-based businesses and residents accounted for less than 60 percent of the total she raised during the quarter. Florida donations were next at 10 percent, followed by New Yorkers at nearly 6 percent.

Californians’ 51 donations ranked second in number behind the 418 reported from South Carolina, but their combined $21,000 ranked fifth in total amount, at 4 percent.

“It’s a strong showing,” Pearson said. “It shows that people in and outside the state want her to be re-elected gov

Haley had six fundraisers last quarter, half of them out of state, in California, New York and Florida.

Donations from S.C.-based businesses and residents accounted for less than 60 percent of the total she raised during the quarter. Florida donations were next at 10 percent, followed by New Yorkers at nearly 6 percent.

Californians’ 51 donations ranked second in number behind the 418 reported from South Carolina, but their combined $21,000 ranked fifth in total amount, at 4 percent.

“It’s a strong showing,” Pearson said. “It shows that people in and outside the state want her to be re-elected governor if she runs.”

And no, I’m not saying it’s awful that she goes after money where she can get it, or anything like that. The thing that I am saying is a problem is the fact that it is possible for a governor, any governor, to go outside his or her state to raise campaign money. It’s the fact that those outsiders will give, when asked the right way, that is the problem of which I speak.

Reading that story, I tried putting myself in Nikki Haley’s place. I tried imagining that I was running for governor, and I was on a fund-raising trip to New York or Florida or California or wherever, and I was standing in front of a well-heeled group of people with checkbooks in their pockets, and I thought:

What on Earth would I say to those people to get them to give money to me for my campaign for governor of South Carolina?

And I couldn’t think of a thing. I mean, I think about the reasons I would run for governor if I did, and they are many. I refer you to my last column at the paper for just a tiny few of those reasons. But not one of the reasons that could ever conceivably motivate me to run could ever possibly motivate someone who does not live in South Carolina and has no stake in South Carolina to give me money.

I would have nothing to say to them. Nothing that would be relevant to them, in any case.

But Nikki Haley, and other politicians who do what she does, have no problem in that regard. That’s because pretty much everything they say, and think, as political creatures is cookie-cutter stuff, the kind of stuff the national talking heads constantly spew out of the Beltway via 24/7 TV “news.” You can’t tell one from another.

That’s why it’s so easy and comfortable for someone like Sarah Palin to campaign alongside Nikki Haley, which they did with such aplomb and comfort in one another’s company during our governor’s first campaign. That’s because, even though they are from very different states with different issues and different needs, they think the same thoughts and say the same things. Henry Ford’s methods of mass production have been applied to politics, so that parts are interchangeable.

This is made possible by the fact that all these folks talk about is ideology — pure, simple, lowest-common-denominator ideology, unsullied by the specifics of reality, which is understood everywhere because of modern communications.

Their words and their thoughts have nothing to do with the messy, organic, ad hoc, practical, idiosyncratic business of governing — which to an honest person who engages it with an open and critical mind practically never meshes with the neat constructs of ideology.

And that’s what’s wrong. That’s what that story made me think about.

Joe Wilson release satirizes itself

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joe release

This happened a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t figured out why it happened either time.

The first time, Joe Wilson sent me a release via email with a headline and an introduction to a statement from Joe, but no statement.

This time, there was the headline — “Wilson to Unveil Legislative Agenda for 2013” — followed by nothing but this:

Normal 0

Which sort of read like a joke at Joe’s expense: The usual. Nothing.

Just as last time, way down on the email, there was a link where I could go read the actual release, which basically said Joe is having press conferences tomorrow in West Columbia, Aiken and North Augusta. Where he’ll talk about his agenda.

Do y’all like this design better?

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Some of y’all were complaining about the formatting on comments on the new blog design — that the comments were so narrow, and got narrower as you replied.

Being the sensitive guy that I am, I gently urged y’all to suck it up and get used to it for now, because there were many things about the new design that I liked — and which some of y’all liked, too — and I was not inclined to start over from scratch without giving this more of a chance.

But Chip Oglesby, who hosts my site now, saw the complaints and offered to address them. So he came up with a new theme. It’s in place now. I’m still tinkering with it, and there are some small things I liked about the old theme better, but… you’ll find that the comments aren’t so narrow.

So let us know what y’all think…

Welcome to the new blog!

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Yeah, it kinda looks different, doesn’t it?

But it should function much the same. Which I know some of y’all will see as a good thing, others not so good.

This was sort of a quick, semi-emergency move, meant to deal with three factors:

I needed to move to a new host, because my old host — Period Three, which had generously supported me for close to three years — was getting out of doing that sort of thing.
Google had for months been giving an ominous-sounding warning, along the lines of “This site may be compromised” on the search result for this blog. When I looked it up, Google said it was something only my host could solve, and I eventually determined that it was essential to get on a newer version of WordPress, which should clean up the problem. That made the need to move more urgent.
I had not had any working stats for several months (Webalizer had collapsed on me, for reasons I don’t fully understand), so I had no idea what my current traffic was — which is one reason I hadn’t sold more than one or two ads during that period. Which was not good.

Chip Oglesby of Creative Spark Columbia is my new host, and he’s been extremely helpful and responsive, basically getting all of the above and more besides done in a short time span. Chip is a former colleague at the newspaper, who among many other things shot this picture of me (or my shoulder, anyway) with Barack Obama.

Beyond the immediate challenge of dealing with the above three factors, Chip has also solved some knotty problems associated with my old blog, from when I was with the paper. I continue to link regularly to posts and comments from 2005-2009 (to me, one of the best things about the Web is that everything said in the past on a topic can be instantly available), but when you got there, you probably found that the links from that period were broken. Chip has fixed those thousands of links, something I had thought impossible. Now, through this blog, you experience a seamless continuity from May 2005 to today.

Now that the main move has been made, let me know if you identify any problems in your interactions with bradwarthen.com. And yes, I know there are things that readers have long wanted, such as the ability to edit their comments. I intend to try to address those in the near future. But I needed to make this big move first. Thanks for your patience.

Look out! China only about a century behind now

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The hulk of the Varyag before it was turned into the Liaoning.

Mike Fitts, whom I can rely on to keep me apprised as to foreign military intel, particularly of a naval variety, calls my attention to this report about China beginning flight operations on its first aircraft carrier:

While we here at Killer Apps were enjoying the last day of our Thanksgiving holiday, the Chinese navy was busy conducting its first ever takeoffs and landings from its brand new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, with brand-new J-15 fighter jets.

Some observers have hailed this as the start of a new era in naval history while others aren’t so impressed. So far, the U.S. Defense Department seems unconcerned.

“We are aware of media reports that the Chinese successfully landed an aircraft on the deck of a carrier,” said Pentagon press secretary George Little during a briefing with reporters this morning. “This would come as no surprise. We’ve been monitoring Chinese military developments for some time…

Which is impressive, until you read this:

The Liaoning was built with the hull of an incomplete Soviet carrier that China bought from Ukraine in 1998, claiming that it would be turned into a casino or something. Instead, China completely refurbished the ship, installing new engines, modern electronics, and sensor systems, turning the old hulk into a “starter carrier.”…

Really? China is this gigantic economic powerhouse with superpower ambitions, and yet they had to buy their first carrier third-hand, and spend 14 years tinkering with it before the first plane lands on its deck?

This got me to thinking — how many built-from-scratch carriers did little old Japan next door have in during WWII — seven decades ago? Looks like about 25 that were actually commissioned, from various sources I’ve glanced at. (Burl, help me out.)

And when was the first time a pilot landed on a carrier? An American did it in 1911. Of course, the ship wasn’t moving. The first to land on a moving warship was Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning of the Royal Navy, in 1917. The first purpose-built aircraft carrier (as opposed to a repurposed hull) was Japan’s Hōshō in 1922.

It is believed that China will commission its first homemade carrier in 2015 or 2016 — as much as 94 years after the first Japanese flattop. It will be sometime after that before the Chinese navy has worked itself up into having an effective naval air operations force.

Yeah, I know — these new ships will do things that would look like magic from the perspective of 1922. But still. As fast as China is running to catch up, it’s rather stunning to consider how very far that nation is behind in the simple fact of naval aviation.

I’ve GOT an ‘iPad Mini’ — it’s called an ‘iPhone’

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Got to say I was seriously underwhelmed by Apple’s news yesterday:

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Steve Jobs once mocked tablets with small screens, saying they would need to come with sandpaper so people could sand down their fingertips to use them. But that didn’t stop his company from shrinking the iPad.

Apple’s iPad Mini, which it unveiled at a press event here on Tuesday, weighs about two-thirds of a pound and has a screen that measures 7.9 inches diagonally, making its surface area significantly smaller than that of the 9.7-inch iPad. Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s vice president for marketing, said the smaller, lighter tablet would be a good fit for people who want something more portable than the 1.44-pound iPad.

The company is selling the lowest price Mini for $330, about $130 more than similar-size tablets from competitors…

So what burst of innovation will they come out with next — an iPad that’s between the iPhone and the mini in size, or one between the mini and the full-size? Or maybe a 60 inch, for that home-theater effect while you’re sitting in the coffee shop?

And in the WSJ in the same news cycle, Walter Mossberg was highly praising the new Microsoft tablet set to come out at the end of the week. Ouch, Apple.

All of this Apple angst brings to mind this hilarious sendup of the iPhone 5 complaints, from SNL a couple of weeks back…

‘The power of Zeus,’ in the president’s hands

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The teaser headline at the bottom of a Slatest email said, “New Drones in Libya Will Give Obama the Power of Zeus.”

The item it links to says, in part:

After the attack on American diplomats in Benghazi last month, President Obama vowed to hunt down the killers and bring them to justice. There is a good chance that this means that they will be incinerated by missiles fired from drones. If so, the United States will have used drones to kill members of al-Qaida and affiliated groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya—six countries in just a few years. Mali may take its turn as the seventh. This startlingly fast spread of drone warfare signifies a revolution in foreign affairs. And, for good or for ill, in an unprecedented way it has transformed the U.S. presidency into the most powerful national office in at least half a century.

A MQ-9 Reaper flies above Creech AFB during a local training mission. (from Wikipedia)

In the past, presidents faced two major obstacles when trying to use force abroad. The first was technological. The available options—troops, naval vessels, or air power—posed significant risks to American military personnel, cost a lot of money, proved effective only under limited conditions, or all of the above. Dead and maimed soldiers, hostages, the massive expense of a large-scale military operation, and backlash from civilian casualties can destroy a presidency, as Vietnam and Iraq showed.

The second obstacle was constitutional. The Constitution includes a clause that gives Congress the power to declare war. Presidents have been able to evade this clause for small wars—those involving only naval or air power, or a small number of troops for a limited period of time. They have mostly felt compelled to seek congressional authorization for large wars, no doubt in part so that they could spread the blame if something went awry.

But drones have changed the calculus. Because they are cheap and do not risk the lives of American soldiers, these weapons remove the technological obstacle to the use of force. And because drone strikes resemble limited air attacks, they seem to fall into the de facto “small wars” exception to the Constitution’s declare-war requirement. Unlike large wars, drone actions do not provoke congressional attention or even much political debate…

The thing is, this isn’t theoretical. This is power that this president is regularly using (in keeping with my thesis that Bush was Sonny Corleone, Obama is Michael).

When was the last time we killed people in six or seven different countries in one year? WWII? Then, even?

And now it’s with no muss, no fuss. Seriously, how many of you could even have named, without prompting, all those countries where we’ve engaged in this kind of warfare? Sort of makes our continuing arguments over the Iraq invasion and Vietnam seem quaint, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s good I look like someone out of the Regency Period while I address such subjects…

Scott thinks F-35 pretty cool after ‘flying’ it

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Remember that previous post about the dog-and-pony show up in North Carolina, the one that was to allow reporters to check out an F-35 simulator?

Well, Lockheed had another one on USS Yorktown in Charleston, and they managed to wow Rep. Tim Scott:

U.S. REP. TIM SCOTT FLIES F-35 COCKPIT DEMONSTRATOR DURING USS YORKTOWN VISIT

F-35 will serve as a cornerstone of global security and create South Carolina jobs

CHARLESTON, S.C., October 18 – U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, (R-S.C.), today joined local elected officials and community leaders on the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum to receive an update on the Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-35 Lightning II program and hear about its contribution to South Carolina, national security, and the U.S. economy.

During his visit, Scott “flew” the F-35 cockpit demonstrator to experience firsthand how advanced stealth, fighter agility and integrated information systems make the F-35 the most capable multi-role fighter in the world. The cockpit is visually and audibly interactive and provides a realistic look at the F- 35’s performance, air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities, sophisticated sensor fusion and advanced computational capabilities.

“Coming from a military family, I understand and appreciate that American men and women serving in uniform deserve the best technology that this nation can provide. Those that threaten our country are evolving everyday, and it is essential we stay ahead of them.” Scott said. “There is no doubt the fifth generation, multi-role F-35 Lightning II’s ability to defeat sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and enemy fighters in the air and on the ground will allow us to do just that.

“Our military leadership associated with Beaufort Air Station, McEntire Joint National Guard Base, and Shaw Air Force Base has told me clearly and convincingly that these capabilities are critical to defending our freedoms,” Scott added.

Lockheed officials noted that even at its current low rate of production, the F-35 program supports a broad industrial base of more than 1,300 suppliers in 45 states, contributing to more than 133,000 direct and indirect U.S. jobs and over $17.7 billion in direct and indirect annual economic impact. Those numbers are expected to grow as the program ramps up to full rate production over the next few years.

In South Carolina, the F-35 program generates nearly 123 jobs and more than $5 million annually in direct and indirect economic impact. Currently, there are four South Carolina companies supporting the program.

The F-35 is a supersonic multi-role fighter designed to replace a wide range of aging fighter and strike aircraft. Three variants derived from a common design will ensure the F-35 achieves its security mission while staying within strict affordability targets.

Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 in conjunction with its principal partners, Northrop Grumman [NYSE: NOC] and BAE Systems, and Pratt & Whitney. Among the aircraft F-35 will replace are the A- 10, AV-8B Harrier, F-16, F/A-18, and the United Kingdom’s Harrier GR-7 and Sea Harrier.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 123,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation’s net sales for 2011 were $46.5 billion.

The USS Yorktown was commissioned on April 15, 1943, and was one of the preeminent aircraft carriers to serve in the Pacific theater of operations during World War II. In the 1950’s, Yorktown was modified with the addition of an angled deck to better operate jet aircraft. In 1958, the ship was designated an anti-submarine aircraft carrier, and served admirably during the Vietnam conflict. Yorktown was decommissioned in 1970 and placed in reserve. In 1975, the ship was towed from Bayonne, N.J. to Charleston to become the centerpiece of Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.

###

Hey, if I’d had a chance to go try it out, I’d probably think it was pretty cool, too. At a projected $323 billion, this is “the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program.” In a budget like that, they ought to be able to come up with something better than my old Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator.

From 1902: World’s earliest movie in color

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Lately, I’ve been marveling at some of the silent films TCM has been showing from before 1910. But none of them impressed me as much as this:

The world’s first colour moving pictures dating from 1902 have been found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in an old tin for 110 years.

The discovery is a breakthrough in cinema history.

Michael Harvey from the National Media Museum and Bryony Dixon from the British Film Institute talk about the importance of the discovery.

The previous earliest colour film, using the Kinemacolour process, was thought to date from 1909 and was actually an inferior method.

The newly-discovered films were made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner from London who patented his colour process on 22 March 1899.

The story of Edwardian colour cinema then moved to Brighton. Turner shot the test films in 1902 but his pioneering work ended abruptly when he died suddenly of a heart attack.

Watch the video. It’s pretty cool. Some guy just invented it on his own, and shot home movies of his kids — but he couldn’t figure how to make it work with a projector. So they were never seen, until now (with computer help).

This Turner, I assume, is not to be confused with colorization pioneer Ted…

Kids are savvy: They find their music on YouTube

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The video is often secondary (here, a still photo displays throughout the song). YouTube's just the easiest place to hear what you want for free.

Remember when I wondered where kids were hearing current music enough to get to like it? Actually, to explain: I initially wrote a post that rated recent music at the low end of a zero-to-five scale, but after listening to the same music over and over for awhile, came back and upgraded some of the tracks. Then I realized that I loved the older music because I heard it everywhere I went back in the day. And I was wondering where kids were hearing music so much today that it was becoming an acquired taste, because it was generally out of my hearing.

Yes, I know, they’re listening on earbuds, but from what sources? MP3 players? Stuff passed to them by friends via social media? Where?

Part of an answer comes from this piece the other day in the WSJ:

Among the issues dividing teenagers and their parents, add whether to listen to music on YouTube or on CD.

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. teenagers under the age of 18 say they use Google Inc.’sGOOG +0.65% video-sharing site to listen to music, more than any other medium, according to a new consumer survey from Nielsen Co., one of many challenges facing record companies as they transition into the digital world.

In addition to treating YouTube as a de facto free music service, young people said they are less inclined than those 18 years old and up to listen to CDs or the radio.

Neither age group reported making much use of Spotify AB, Rhapsody International Inc. or other on-demand streaming music services, though Pandora Media Inc.’s P -3.60%custom online radio service was among the five most-popular methods for both groups.

My first reaction was, who’s listening to CDs at all — aside from those burned to listen to in the car? And I see it’s clueless old people. In fact, older generations — from whom I’m disassociating myself as much as possible in my wording here — are more out of it than that:

In fact, among adults, cassette tapes remain more popular than many online music services, or even vinyl records, despite the latter medium’s purported comeback in recent years.

Just to make an excuse for adults here: I think that might be because so many of us these days are driving older cars. For instance, my wife drives a Volvo that she inherited from her father, and it has a cassette player but no CD player or MP3 jack. If our cars had turntables for vinyl, I suppose we’d sound cooler, but it would be rough on our record collections.

But back to the kids: Turns out they’re pretty smart. I discovered sometime back that YouTube is the quickest, easiest way to listen to almost any song, from any genre, for free. It’s not as easy as turning on one of your Pandora stations and letting it run, but at least you get to listen to exactly what you want to hear.

... but the video can add something.

Good thinking, kids.

People are hiding from me! On purpose! In 2012, when all info is supposed to be easily accessible!

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Yes, we live in amazing times, even though we still don’t have flying cars.

Michael Rodgers is NOT hiding.

Just one example, from today, of the sort of miracle we take for granted, but which would have sounded like the wildest sort of science fiction back in, say, 1987 — the year I came to Columbia to become governmental affairs editor.

We were kicking around an idea for a TV commercial for a potential client, and suddenly I had a sort of half-memory of having seen an ad, long ago, that did something familiar. I whipped my iPhone from its holster (and if I wanted so see Cleavon Little say, “Just let me whip dis out” in “Blazing Saddles” within a few seconds, I’d do the same), and found a reference to the ad I was thinking of within 30 seconds. Within another 30 — still using my phone (my own personal phone that goes everywhere I go, which was conceivable in 1987 but still fantastic) — I was watching that ad on YouTube. An ad that last ran in — get ready for it — 1987.

If, in 1987, I had wanted to find out about an ad from 1962, I would have had to spend half the day or more at the library, and whether I even found a reference to it would depend on some pretty tedious guesswork with a periodicals index, and I would have to cross my fingers for a miracle hoping that the library stocked that particular publication, and kept them going back 25 years.

Kathryn Fenner is NOT hiding.

As for actually seeing the ad, without a trip to New York or L.A. and a pretty tedious search once I got there — well, I would have been s__t out of luck, to use the technical term. Oh, maybe if I reached the right person on the phone in one of those places, and they were willing to make me a VHS tape and mail it to me, I might get to see it within a week. But it would have been iffy at best.

Anyway, I say all this to express my appreciation for all the things we can so easily find and experience now, right at our fingertips.

But this post is about the things we can’t, and how frustrating that is.

Phillip Bush is NOT hiding.

Today, the very day of the 1987 ad miracle, I was looking for a mug shot for my contacts list. You know how Google Contacts and iPhones and even Blackberries and Palms allow you to attach a picture of a person to their contact info? Well, I try to take advantage of that whenever I create a new contact. It usually only takes a few seconds. (It took me maybe a minute total to find the four mugs you see here, using Google Images.) I do this because I’m terrible at keeping names and faces straight — I know, or sorta know, too many people for that. By having this feature in widely used software, we are encouraged to do this. It’s normal. (If you had tried it in 1962 — the way the dwarf character did to Mel Gibson’s character in “The Year of Living Dangerously,” keeping a dossier on him and other friends — it would have creeped people out.)

For instance, if you Google me, you get a lot of pictures that are not me, but just people associated with me, but in the first couple of pages of results, there are about 17 images of yours truly. That’s high, on account of my blog and my long association with the newspaper, but not all that high. I get similar results with a lot of people on my contacts list.

But then… every once in a while… there’s someone I can’t find. Sometimes it’s understandable. They are quiet people who work in some private business that doesn’t require a lot of public interaction. But sometimes… it’s like Winston Smith and the gang in 1984 have expunged the person from existence.

Today, it was someone who actually leads a very public organization that advocates on behalf of a very hot local political issue. I had that person’s contact info, from an email, and while I could sort of picture the person in my mind from past interactions, I wanted the crutch of having the mug shot there in case memory failed me at a critical moment.

Doug Ross is NOT hiding.

And I could not find this person anywhere. Eventually, I set my pride aside and tried her Facebook page, which for me is really last-ditch (and feels, even in 2012, even for an unreconstructed journalist, a bit like prying sometimes). And discovered that this was one of those people who not only doesn’t have her own face as her profile picture, but doesn’t have a single image in which she appears among any of her Facebook photos.

At which point I started hearing that little dee-dee-DEE-dee music from “The Twilight Zone.”

Yeah, I realize, some people are just private, as anachronistic as that is in 2012. But I don’t see how a person who is heavily involved in the community manages to disappear so completely.

Thoughts about this? Does this happen to you? Does it drive you nuts? It does me. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. Information is normally so extremely accessible, that when it isn’t, it just seems wrong…

Could (should) Big Brother have stopped Holmes?

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Fascinating piece in the WSJ today, posing the following question:

Would Total Information Awareness have stopped James Eagan Holmes?

You perhaps remember the fuss. That program by the Defense Department was curtailed when the Senate voted to revoke funding amid a privacy furor in 2003. The project had been aimed partly at automatically collecting vast amounts of data and looking for patterns detectable only by computers.

It was originated by Adm. John Poindexter—yes, the same one prosecuted in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal—who said the key to stopping terrorism was “transaction” data. For terrorists to carry out attacks, he explained in a 2002 speech, “their people must engage in transactions and they will leave signatures in this information space.”

The Colorado shooter Mr. Holmes dropped out of school via email. He tried to join a shooting range with phone calls and emails going back and forth. He bought weapons and bomb-making equipment. He placed orders at various websites for a large quantity of ammunition. Aside from privacy considerations, is there anything in principle to stop government computers, assuming they have access to the data, from algorithmically detecting the patterns of a mass shooting in the planning stages?…

This not only evokes 1984, but the department of “pre-crime” envisioned in “Minority Report.” Which should send all sorts of shivers down the sensitive spines of libertarians.

But a legitimate question is being posed here. Since such data is being mined, should not someone be on the lookout for transactional patterns such as those Holmes engaged in? Guy suddenly isolates himself from society (a step leading to what I call the Raskolnikov syndrome), buys several rapid-fire weapons and lots and lots of ammunition? If it’s possible for such patterns to raise red flags, then shouldn’t it, if it can prevent the deaths of innocents?

In passing on this question, I’m not thinking in terms of having the cops bust down doors and file charges against people for having raised red flags. But I do think it might be worthwhile to have a chat with someone displaying such signs, to ascertain what is going on — or perhaps making the people in that person’s life aware of what’s happening, to empower them to intervene if they see fit. That could go a long way toward snapping some potential killers out of their trip down the rabbit hole.

As the columnist asks of the NSA: “Did it, or could it have, picked up on Mr. Holmes’s activities?” And if not, why not? And if it did, what should it have done?

Good thing the Fenners keep their home tidy

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Kathryn Fenner shares this ABCColumbia clip, in which her husband was quoted as an expert on what to do about the computer virus that caused yesterday’s stir.

I was particularly struck by the dramatic, under-the-coffee table shot of Dr. Stephen sitting on the sofa with his laptop.

Good thing the Fenners keep the underside of that table as neat and tidy as the rest of their home. I didn’t see any chewed gum stuck under there, or anything like that…

Yes, “trackers” HAVE gone wild, and then some

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A shot from video footage taken outside the home of a candidate.

Earlier today, Politico posed the question on Twitter, “Democratic trackers gone wild?”

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see.

That ratcheting up of the video surveillance game is unnerving Republicans who insist that even by political standards, it’s a gross invasion of privacy. Worse, they say, it creates a safety risk for members of Congress and their families at a time when they are already on edge after a deranged gunman shot former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords 18 months ago.

Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line.

“I feel it’s totally inappropriate,” said Ribble, a freshman facing a competitive race for reelection. “It was disturbing to me that they would put that online. I don’t understand any political benefit that can be achieved with that.”…

Yes, indeed, say I. They’ve gone too far. But then, I think the whole phenomenon went overboard, across the spectrum, years ago. I have a low threshold with this kind of stuff.

There’s nothing illegal, certainly, about following one’s opponent around with a video camera. And everyone does it, right? One can even argue that a conscientious candidate should be fully aware of what his opponent has to say.

But in this era of saturation communication, stalking one’s opponent with a camera hoping for a slipup, a gotcha! moment, is not only unnecessary, there’s something low about it. And I confess that when I’m at a political event, and I spot the opposition’s tracker, I can’t help looking upon that person with something akin to disdain.

I don’t expect many people to agree with me on this. Certainly not many journalists today, since so much of their material comes from this sort of thing.

But I was always a different sort of journalist. I always wanted to know what a candidate has to say after he thinks for a minute, not what he says when he misspeaks. Some pop-Freudians believe the slip is the truth. Sometimes it is, sadly. But I’ve always valued more what the candidate says when you give him or her a chance to think a little harder about it. When a candidate says, “That’s not what I meant,” the gotcha folks snicker. Me, I start paying closer attention to find out what he or she did mean. And I flatter myself that I can tell, usually, if the further explanation is just blowing smoke.

Maybe I look for the second thought because that’s how I hope (idealist that I am) that they will govern — in a deliberative manner, with their ideas morphing and growing and getting better in a ferment with other ideas. I want to be governed by what people think upon further reflection, not the first thing that pops into their heads.

And even if they never achieve that, I want to give them every opportunity to do so. I want to hear the “yes, but…,” the second and third and fourth thoughts. I want depth of consideration. Deliberation, the thing upon which republican government relies.

But the “tracker” is a manifestation of a political culture that does not value further reflection. And therefore is a sign of a political culture in decline.

Will you lose access to the Internet today?

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Let’s hope not, because that could put a serious crimp in your enjoyment of bradwarthen.com. Which would be awful.

Fortunately, The Washington Post has provided a handy guide to the threatening virus, and what to do about it if it you have it.

You should probably go check now, since it’s harder to cure after it strikes than before:

To see if you have the virus, you can head to any number of checker Web sites such as the DNS Changer Working Group or theFBI itself to either enter your IP address or simply click a button to run a check against addresses known to have problems. With any luck, you’ll be free and clear and won’t have to worry about the problem any further.

If you are infected with the virus, then you’ve got a longer — but not impossible — process ahead of you. According to the DCWG, those infected with the virus should first back up any important files. You can do that fairly easily with an external hard drive or even a thumb drive.

From there, you can run one of several trusted tools to get rid of the virus. Again, the DCWG has a list of them on its site, which includes programs such as Microsoft Windows Defender Off line, Norton Power Eraser and MacScan, all of which have updated their definitions to include this particular virus.

Here’s hoping you, and I, enjoy a virtual disease-free Monday.

Apple, leave my Google Maps alone

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I’m really getting sick of this Total War between the big technology communities, based upon the absurd assumptions that each provider of products and services become the provider of all products and services.

It’s like all of these companies — Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and to some extent AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon, etc. — think that to survive, they must succeed in becoming Ma Bell on steroids. The old Bell monopoly only dominated telephony. Now, the quest is to dominate it all, providing all of the services once provided by separate telephone, cable, and internet providers as well as manufacturers of all of the devices used as the platforms for such services.

This, of course, is happening at the same time that the potential services to be provided are expanding at explosive rates — which you would think would make for enough business for everybody, wouldn’t you?

Now, it seems Facebook wants to put out its own phone — which to me is the height of absurdity. Why would I want one of those? It would be like, I don’t know, having an AOL phone. (I have this pet theory that Facebook is the AOL of this decade — trying to be everyone’s gateway to everything, when no one needs it to be that.)

The latest is that Apple wants to boot Google Maps from its iPhones. Which, frankly, would make me like my iPhone less:

Later this year, Apple is planning to oust Google Maps as the preloaded, default maps app from the iPhone and iPad and release a new mapping app that runs Apple’s own technology, according to current and former Apple employees. Apple could preview the new software, which will be part of its next mobile-operating system, as soon as next week at its annual developer conference in San Francisco, one person familiar with the plans says. Apple plans to encourage app developers to embed its maps inside their applications like social-networking and search services. Technology blog 9to5Mac earlier reported that Apple will launch its own maps app in its next mobile-operating system.

Apple has been hatching the plan to evict Google Maps from the iPhone for years, according to current and former Apple employees. The plan accelerated as smartphones powered by Google’s Android software overtook the iPhone in shipments…

I want to know how far Apple plans to go with it. Will it duplicate Google Maps entirely, with a fleet of street-level cameras photographing every foot of every street in the developed world? Or will it merely use mapping technology to serve its other apps, and never mind providing the full range of service provided by Google? (Actually, my preloaded Google Maps app doesn’t do street level — which strikes me as odd, because it worked on my old Blackberry.)

The WSJ indicates that Apple will add functionality that Google lacks. And since Apple is Apple, there is bound to be some gee-whiz factor built in. And beauty. If the spirit of Steve Jobs still lives in the company at all, there will be beauty.

But I have to wonder, whatever happened to stressing one’s core competency, and just letting others do what they do well? I guess it’s out of style.

Malkovich learns meaning of life from Siri

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This blog over at the WashPost liked this ad. So do I. (Although, truth be told, I liked him better in “In the Line of Fire.”)

Just 10 more months until my iPhone is due for an upgrade; then I can do stuff like this.

GM says ads on Facebook don’t work (Oh, and why is it going public anyway?)

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At the worst possible time — on the eve of the social site’s IPO — The Wall Street Journal reports that General Motors plans to quit advertising on Facebook because ads there don’t get the job done:

General Motors Co. plans to stop advertising with Facebook Inc. after deciding that paid ads on the site have little impact on consumers’ car purchases, according to a GM official.

The move by GM, one of the largest advertisers in the U.S., puts a spotlight on an issue that many marketers have been raising: whether ads on Facebook help them sell more products. On Friday, Facebook is expected to sell shares in an initial public offering that could put a market value on the company of as much as $104 billion…

That aside… personally, I have trouble understanding why Facebook wants to go public anyway. Of course, I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to — hence his childish, obnoxious gesture of showing up for business meetings on Wall Street in a sweatshirt.

But while I blame him for not dressing like a grownup, I find any reluctance he feels to go public totally understandable. I say this as someone who suffered for decades working for publicly-traded newspaper companies — and who would still be a newspaperman if his paper had not been owned by an overleveraged public company. To me, anyone who is making plenty of money from his private company would be totally insane to go public.

No one, but no one, would accuse me of being any sort of financial whiz. But I fail to see the presence of any of the usual reasons for going public. What does Facebook really need an infusion of cash for? It’s not capital-intensive like, say, a steel mill. It’s always been able to rake in the money for relative little investment.

Yes, I’ve gone out there and read explanations of why. But I’m unconvinced. So what if, for instance, going public would be a huge windfall for Facebook employees? Why would I, as an investor (if I were an investor), want to spend my money to give them that windfall? Where’s the competitive advantage in encouraging a company’s founding talent — the people responsible for making the property valuable — to cash out?

The one rational excuse seems to be that in this converging online world, the only way to compete with the other titans out there, such as Google, is to have mountains of cash on hand, so you can beat the others to the punch when it comes time to buy a YouTube or an Instagram.

In other words, it’s a necessary step in the bid to become all things to all people online. Which seems, in and of itself, a debatable goal. But hey, nobody’s asking me.