NSA == Vaccines?

There's been a lot of hoopla around Edward Snowden's leaked slides which suggest that there's a massive NSA data gathering scheme in effect. But, what do we really know? So far we have the following primary data:
1. Edward Snowden's claim that these projects exist. He's an NSA contractor.
2. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about PRISM (there are supposedly 41 slides, and so far I think 8 have been leaked - why only 8??)
3. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about X-Keyscore

We then have independent reporting from The Guardian and The Washington Post based on this information, referencing nothing more than "top secret documents". We then have a bunch of me-too articles that basically rehash the above info and add conjecture based on quote snippets.

Let's start by examining the provided data for a moment. We have one whistleblower's claims and a subset of slides. The only slide that actually indicates the program exists is the one about signup dates of the various key players (interestingly, Skype was on a Sunday ... seems a touch odd, also why are the copies in the The Guardian and The Post different??). All other slides just have high-level descriptions of a system. These could be a report to higher ups about a working system, or a high-level spec used to get buyoff on or evaluate a project. Hell, for all we know the whole thing could be fake (also randomly curious: why are two of the leaked slides shown with a red-bordered logo, while the others are not like this - these things tend to come from a template). Why is there stuff redacted in the slides? Did Snowden do this? Who knows if these slides were produced by a conglomerate of people, but the slides show two different composition styles (granted this is very fuzzy): some are fairly polished looking, others look like a high schooler's first attempt at PowerPoint. Most importantly, if he has all the slides, why not release them all? What is he saving them for? Or what's he not wanting to share with us?

Now let's examine additional data. The biggest quote bundle is coming from Henry Clapper, who has stated that a) the reports contain numerous inaccuracies and b) that it's absolutely awful that data about programs was leaked. This could be taken in several ways:
1. It's awful that people now know about PRISM. The report was inaccurate because we actually call it BANANAS and it actually involves every company on earth.
2. It's awful that we can't trust people to keep secret things secret that they promised to keep secret. By having a lack of trust, how can we continue any clandestine programs safely?  Also, the report is inaccurate because it's not about broad data collection, but rather a streamlined process by which we request targeted data about specific users (for which we have broad, bilateral confirmation). Also, it's called BANANAS.

The knee-jerk reaction to a lack of total denial is "ah, see, they are hiding stuff!" Of course they are, they're the freakin' NSA. Everything they do is secret. Hell, people who work for them aren't even supposed to tell people where they work. Also, definitive statements give information to the outside world. Less specific comments don't. The general policy here is "we don't comment on such matters", right?

There are striking similarities to the anti-vaccine movement that gained steam about 10 years ago. It all started with a "whistleblower" (Andrew Wakefield) who presented "evidence" (a very poor piece of research) that MMR vaccines and/or the thimerosal in some vaccines could be directly linked to the rise in autism. The media, in general, blew this story up. Not being able to find any other scientists to take Wakefield's side, they relied on "debates" and "perspectives" involving angry moms of autistic kids (guess which side they took). They took an immensely complicated scientific topic and tried to boil it down; they boiled too far and too fast, leaving only charred ashes in the bottom of the pot. They neglected to check Wakefield's background (attention seeker), his study's background (funded by a law firm to specifically go prove this link) and the scientific reaction to the study (total rejection - that it was published to begin with is some bizarre miracle). They also seized on the technically correct, but awkwardly worded, statements from the CDC and other scientific bodies who refused to say "there is proof of no causation or correlation", because scientists never say that. They can't, technically, be sure that there never has been, isn't, or never will be a causation in every single case, ever. The story, built on fear, emotion and knee-jerk reactions to bad information, spiraled out of control until the public had no idea what to believe anymore.

My main takeaway is that if the evidence seems sketchy or convoluted, or has gaps, or is in any other way not a definitive piece of data with clear context, we should be extra careful before we believe it and the downstream analysis of it: there's still a very real chance that, as the author of The Panic Virus wrote, "it turned out that it wasn't a house of cards, but that there were no cards at all."

Dynamite Margarita

Delicious, and kicks your butt! Makes 2 servings:

3 oz tequila of choice (I use Sauza Hornitos Reposado, generally)
2 oz orange liquer (I use Patron Citronge, other good choices are Grand Marnier or Cointreau)
3 persian limes
4 squirts** agave syrup
lowball glass(es) with ice cubes
** - a quick pump of the bottle, not really sure how much comes out.

optional
pinch of black, flaky salt (I use Falksalt's black variety, but whatever)
5 sweet mint leaves

In a shaker, combine the tequila and orange liquer. If you want the mint, add all but 1 leaf and muddle. Hand-squeeze the limes into the shaker and add the agave syrup. Shake. If using mint, place one mint leaf decoratively between ice cubes. Pour over ice and crumble salt gently on top.

Please sip responsibly.


For a "Nor-Cal" alternative, use 4oz silver tequila, 3 persian limes, no orange liquer, no agave syrup and a few ounces of seltzer water.

Sailing west to the North Pole

"Shouldn't we take a right turn?"
"... well, we've been going West for a long time, we can't give up now!"

It seems to me that a lot of approaches get stuck going in one direction like that. People don't seem to like to re-evaluate. They don't even seem to like to consider re-evaluating.

I tend to believe that all options should be valid for evaluation, even those that are pretty much guaranteed to be dismissed. I think the win of laying out all options (even the dumb ones), is that a deliberate decision is reached for a reason, as opposed to just left nebulously behind.

Often during re-evaluation, we can realize that circumstances have changed and those reasons to not take a particular approach (or why the current was chosen) are no longer there. If we don't look around on a regular basis, we never get a chance to make better decisions.

Tires

Exciting stuff, this is the rubber that meets the road! But with so many options, how can you choose?

For many people, tires are an afterthought. When they need to be replaced they either get what the dealer recommends for them, or whatever has the highest mileage warranty, or whatever is cheaper. For a few of us, tires are an agonizing decision between performance, versatility and value. I clearly fall in the latter bucket.

So, what do I care about in a tire? In addition to being round and the right size, it should 1. have excellent dry grip for braking and acceleration, 2. have excellent stability for cornering, 3. have at least good wet grip for the same reasons (and since Seattle is wet a good portion of the year, this represents a relatively large percentage of driving days). Additional considerations include road noise (though that's more of a bonus) and some ability to drive in light snow (since we get the occasional dusting).

Great, now to pick one ... this is a perfect place where brand loyalty comes in. Aside from reading reviews, there's really no way to try a tire out other than forking over a bunch of money, putting it on, and driving around a bunch. I had been happily using Pirelli P Zero Nero summer tires on my Prelude in Arizona, but after the factory tires on my Acura wore down, I decided maybe I should get something more all-season-esque. The guy at Discount Tire recommended the Bridgestone RE960, which sits in the "ultra high performance all season" category (highest performance for an all season tire). I figured Bridgestone makes pretty good stuff (their S-03 max performance tires seem to rate on par with Michelin's well-known Pilot line, for example), and their Uni-T technology uses magical hand-holding elves to help the tire stay closer to round despite uneven wear or slightly bent rims (an issue I was particularly sensitive to after a bad encounter with a pothole in Tucson). The price was ok, so I took the plunge. I didn't really like them. They seemed somewhat noisy, and most importantly they never seemed all the grippy. I didn't have the same confidence in turns, and definitely didn't have the same confidence on wet surfaces. I limped along on them until now. As of today, I'm back on Pirelli P Zero Nero summer rubber and already loving them more. They might not last more than 30,000 miles, but I'll enjoy every last one of them.


An aside about choices:
The sheer number of choices is overwhelming. I really like tirerack.com for their selection, prices and reviews/tests of tires. However, when I plug in my car and look for 215/45/17, I get almost 80 results. I know I'm only interested in the higher performance options and don't need runflats (I have a spare). Filtering only "ultra high performance" or better still leaves about 50 results. Reducing my choices down to the best-known brands who are consistently used by performance carmakers as OEM providers (Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli) still leaves 19 results. I'll remove Bridgestone because I've now had a sub-par experience with them. This leaves me 11 options ... and now I've concluded that maybe I should have tried the Michelin Pilot Super Sport instead. But I know I'm happy with the P Zero Nero. And here we are. Choice made, questions unanswered.

UPS vs FedEx (vs USPS)

I recently posted on Facebook asking if people had a preference between UPS and FedEx. No one prefers FedEx, but several people threw in that they prefer USPS. I hadn't even considered them as a serious option. Perhaps I should look.

FedEx is curious though. They invented the notion of tracking, yet are being beaten at that game by UPS. UPS's tracking info is more up-to-date and if you miss your package you can immediately call it in and have them hold it at the station the same day (which, btw, stay open til 8pm or later as needed). FedEx seems to run two networks: FedEx "real" and FedEx Home. The home service is their regular parcel service and doesn't offer any of the above. The only effective way to communicate with them is through the tags they leave on the door. So, if you are regularly not at home because you, say, work, you have to:

Delivery day 1: miss package, sign tag to authorize drop or have them hold at the station.
Delivery day 2: get package. Unless a signature is required, in which case they will take above tag and act on it.
Delivery day 3: package is at the station. Go pick it up [during working hours].

UPS has managed to condense this to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, call UPS with tag number and have them unload package from truck when it returns to the station that day. That night you go pick up your package. Done.

The company from the northwest wins in customer service! What a surprise.

Does PowerPoint suck?

This is not a technical review. For full disclosure, I find designing a presentation in PPT to be a continuously annoying experience. However, others seem to be able to crank stuff out a lot faster and nicer-looking than I do, so maybe it's just fine on that front. My presentations, however, look like the art-analogs of stick figures and doodled speech bubbles.

Sometime in the late 90s, PowerPoint became the thing to use for presentations. It was to make presentations amazing, dynamic and infinitely informative....assuming the presenter had the vision to know what they wanted to put together and show. In reality, most presentations look[ed] like what I produce. And, PowerPoint ended up not being the answer and plenty of people say "PowerPoint kinda really sucks"

Most of its users never learned how to use it, or ever even figured out what they wanted to make with it. The users' shortcomings infected the impression of the product. Does anyone blame a drill and saw when Uncle Fred's homemade chair is ugly and doesn't work?

Gun proponents should be familiar with this: guns are getting the bad rap because enough of their users are stupid with them.

About those tax "loopholes"

Getting mad at companies for taking advantage of tax "loopholes" is like getting mad at extreme couponers.

There's a common sentiment that companies are doing something wrong, unethical or even illegal by doing tax planning that involves multiple states or countries. Most large companies aren't going to do anything illegal in these scenarios. Beyond that, it's just a matter of finding the best deal. If that deal happens to lead to great savings, so be it.

When an extreme couponer manages to pay $3 for 4 grocery carts of food, who do we blame? No one, really, we just marvel that they were able to combine their coupons and store deals and everything. If anyone is at fault, it's the store for having double coupon days or whatever. Practically giving away hundreds of dollars of groceries would be the exploitatoin of a "loophole", and if anyone should shut that down, it's the store.

It's not a company's job to lobby for a state or country to change how they operate. Any preferential tax deals were created because there was a mutual benefit at the time: maybe a state got a company to set up shop there, etc. States and countries need to decide if they're getting a bad deal and change their tax laws if they are. Just keep in mind that changing the terms of the deal may turn off your big client... and then they take their money elsewhere.