Over at Global Nerdy, a little piece on computer security guru Bruce Schneier’s essay, Casual Conversation, R.I.P..
Categories
Category: In the News
We’re less than a month away from November 13th, the day Accordion City votes for its mayor. I’d be slacking on my civic duty if I didn’t point you to what I feel is the best damned blog on the election: Spacing Votes, a part of Spacing magazine’s web site.
Spacing Votes does an excellent job rounding up the news stories from the media as well as providing their own commentary — commentary so good that candidate Jane Pitfield’s team plagiarized it in one instance.
Go check it out, and tell ’em I sent you.
(Sorry about the title. When a good pun makes itself, I cannot resist!)
As I mentioned in a post yesterday, a couple of folks from CityNews dropped by the office to interview me for a segment on Googlebombing based on my article about my deadbeat ex-housemate. The segment airs on CityNews tonight at six.
I’ll write more about the interview later tonight, after I’ve seen it myself.
The Nork Dork makes such a great subject for Photoshoppery, and his back-door entrance into the nuclear club only eggs the Photoshoppers on:
Photo courtesy of the Sanctuary Blog.
Photo Op!
Here’s a photo that’s getting some attention right now:
It’s from a blog called Mai Me Arai and written by two people named Ben and Oui.
In this entry, Ben writes that although the TV stations have been shut down, people still have internet access:
Oui told me earlier that a Thai site had a story saying that while the coup was occuring, internet usage in Thailand increased more than 400%. Let it never be said that Thai’s don’t know where to find information when they really want to. Cutting off one source of information (ie television) only moves people to find another.
Here’s Ben on the Thai and world response to the coup:
[From this entry] It’s been interesting to me to read the different reactions coming from other countries. Those who outright condemn the move obviously have no idea of what the situation in Thailand has been up until yesterdays coup and come off sounding panicked that their own military might get the same idea.
[From this entry] Am I the only one who doesn’t give a shit if the US withdraw aid from Thailand? So what? Are Thai’s meant to be quaking in their boots because big powerful America threatens to withdraw aid as a result of the coup that, according to a Dusit poll*, more than 80% of Thai’s support?
Explaining the Coup in the Nerdiest Way Possible
Over at the blog Interesting Things, Ko Saipetch explains the coup in the nerdiest way possible: he likens Thailand to a computer, the ousted government to operating system that installed malware, spyware and a rootkit on his computer and the Thai Council for Democratic Reform as a friendly computer tech who reformatted the hard drive.
Like Ben, he’s amused at the notion of the US condemning the coup.
Other Perspectives
There’a group blog called 19Sep (named for the date on which the coup took place), whose authors are attempting to chronicle the events.
Blogger “Cowboy Caleb” is an editor for Tomorrow.sg (“Singapore’s answer to Boing Boing“), and just happened to be in Bangkok when the coup took place.
Keep an eye on Global Voices’ “Thailand” category, which collects a number of blog entries from Thailand.
In case you’re flying to the British Isles, please note that the security level at their airports is still at “Severe” (the second-highest level, one just below “Critical”). By now, you’re probably aware of the current restriction that prohibits you from bringing liquids, gels and aerosols onto a plane, but you might not be aware of a couple of other security measures, some of which aren’t published anywhere. I encountered these on my return trip from Belfast.
One Small Carry-Item Only
This restriction is published in an announcement on Belfast International Airport’s site. I also wrote about it in this post: you’re allowed only one carry-on item when boarding a plane at a British airport, and it may not exceed these dimensions:
- 45 cm (about 17 3/4″) long
- 35 cm (about 13 3/4″) wide
- 16 cm (about 6 1/4″) deep
They are incredibly strict about this size restriction. At Belfast, the security people had wooden sizing boxes into which you were asked to place your carry-on item. Their internal dimensions were the same as the maxima listed above; if your carry-on item didn’t fit, they would ask you to remove some items from it (if it was a pliable bag) or check it (if it was something rigid, such as a box).
There were no restrictions on electronics; they had no problem with my having a laptop, spare battery, digital camera and iPod.
Everyone Gets Searched at the Gate
Here’s one thing they don’t tell you: boarding will take much longer than usual because in addition to showing your ID and boarding pass, you have to consent to a search. Remember, this is after you’ve passed through the metal detector and X-ray and gone to the departure lounge.
As rows were called to board the plane, everybody had to go to one of three security stations set in front of the jetway. A security person would ask you to empty your pockets and place the items on a table. If you had a carry-on bag, it would be very thoroughly searched by hand.
Next comes the personal search. I haven’t been frisked so throughly since my check-up at the doctor’s last month. The security guy did a full police-style pat-down search, including checking under the collar and the waistband of my jeans. You’ll also be asked to take off your shoes for inspection.
Continental’s international 757-200s (unfortunately, they use narrow-body jets for second-tier international flight) seat 156 in cattle class and 16 in Hermes tie class. With this many people being searched three at a time, the boarding call started a little over an hour before the scheduled departure. I strongly recommend that you make an allowance for the delay involved with this search.
Pens Will Be Confiscated
Another thing they don’t tell you — in fact, they don’t tell you until the search at the gate: they won’t let you bring a pen onto the plane. I only lost a ball-point pen which I’m pretty sure came from Tucows’ office supply closet. Others were less fortunate; in the bin where confiscated pens were being collected, I saw a at least a dozen “executive” pens, including Crosses and Mont Blancs. If you’re accustomed to carrying an expensive pen, do not take it with you!
Without pens, we had nothing with which to fill out the immigrations and customs forms required for international flights arriving at their first port of entry to the United States. We ended up — all 172 of us — sharing the chief flight attendant’s pen, passing it from row to row.
Over at The Toronto Star, they’re running a collection of reader-submitted stories about little kind acts that local have done for their fellow human beings.