Global climate destabilization: how it ends

Greg Craven, from Corvallis, Oregon, has created a wonderfully well-done video on global climate destabilization. The neat thing is, he doesn't try to convince; he tries to get you to think. It's a risk management issue, he says.

This is a must-watch for everyone, especially for those who remain on the fence. Inform yourself and your neighbors; the stakes are too big.

Oh, and he's a Ze Frank fan too.

The Story of Stuff

Ever notice that things don't last as long as they used to? It's a concept called "Planned Obsolescence" which was promoted in the 1950's by Brooks Stevens. Where does our stuff come from? Where does it go?

Check out this awesome video; it's only 20 minutes long. There is some great info included on planned obsolescence and sustainability.

It's really thought provoking when you think about the ever bigger and badder computers that are marketed to us. They try to sell us the latest and "greatest" versions of Windows and Office 200x, which of course require a new computer to run them. It makes me truly realize the benefits of Open Source software and computer reuse.

O'Reilly reads its blogs to you

OMG this is cool. Looks like most of O'Reilly's blogs have a reader built in (through the ReadSpeaker service). The voice is understandable, and if you don't like the embedded player, you can download MP3s for portability. Apparently this has been online since at least April 2007, and it's still being perfected; O'Reilly has a clearly linked feedback form every time you listen. Here are a few bugs I noticed:

• It reads some graphic alt-text to me. Accessibility maybe, but irritating to me.
  
• There seems to be a word or time limit on the length. I could only get it to read me short articles.
• It resizes my Firefox browser window every time I click the "listen" link.

O'Reilly is a great source of blogs, and I have a terrible time keeping up with them. Sounds like a playlist in the making. Check out this entry on .htaccess, or for you bohemian types, here's a article on Dave Byrne. Click on "listen" in the upper right.

Google Maps doesn't know Israel?

I was surprised when I tried locating some Israeli cities for a history course and noticed that Google Maps is noticeably lacking any info on Israel. Both Google Maps and Microsoft Live Maps know that Jaffa (formerly an ancient city and battle site of the Crusades) is now a neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

What Google Maps fails to display are the many roads and other towns in Israel. I kept zooming out, looking for any detail, until I eventually saw the national border. Funny that surrounding countries have highways and cities marked, but Israel has absolutely nothing.

I did another search and found various theories regarding Google and the Israeli government. In fact, there is a 1997 US law specifically forbidding US operators from make hi-res aerial images of Israel (and only Israel) available. Apparently there have been issues with hi-res (>2m resolution) images of Israel for 2 years or so, but this is the first time I've noticed regular map features missing. Curious that Google chose to block information that is freely available at other online locations and any map store or atlas.

I guess my biggest concern is the transparency or rather lack of it. It makes me wonder about the motives and reliability of other Google resources. Bottom line: check multiple sources to verify your data.

Online references for written sources

Here's the dilemma: you've got a paper due, and you waited longer than you should have to gather sources. You need some additional resources but don't have time to wait for library holds to come in. Sometimes having a source to cite is all you need. This works really well if you have a quote from somewhere else, i.e. a web page or Wikipedia (which instructors are beginning to hate as references).

Here are two options: Google Books and Amazon.com.

Google Books and Amazon allow you a limited preview of some titles. Both sites allow you to search inside these previews. Do a search for the text string you're looking for. You can note the page number of your quote, pull up the publication info from the copyright page and voila, you have your source.

For example, I found a web page with an excerpt from The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. I checked the local library, and they have the book, but it's in their maintenance facility. Argh. So I search for the title on Google Books and Amazon. Both services allow you to search inside. Both sites give you limited access to the text (Amazon more generously so) and page number.

By the way, I did pick up this book from a local college library, and it looks very promising. Anyone who feels like a slave to technology - a maintainer of tools rather than a user of them - will immediately see the implications of this work. It was written years ago and then translated from French, but Ellul's prescience is amazing.

GreyHat Cyber Defense Workshop

I attended a recent network mapping workshop hosted by the University of Washington Grey Hat Group at the Tacoma campus. Although the nmap exercise was review for me, I found out about a couple new tools and an upcoming event that are worth sharing.

BackTrack is a sweet Linux distro that bundles some great security tools. Although Nessus is notably missing, apparently because of their new proprietary license for version 3, the distro appears much more up-to-date than Knoppix STD and Nubuntu.

DVL (Damn Vulnerable Linux), a play on Damn Small Linux, is neat little distro that you can use as a test target of your scanning and pen testing skills.

Finally, there is a cyber-security competition coming up in April 2008, to be hosted at a large Redmond software company. This is not a vendor specific event; it was held last year at a military base near Tacoma. Here's the rub: this appears to be the same weekend as LinuxFest NW, so I'm undecided on how I'll spend my weekend. LinuxFest is a lot of fun, and makes for a good family outing. My son enjoys it too; we both like the presentations, salmon bake, and world-famous raffle.