DancingSamurai.ca

Well, I’m taking a bit of a break from catching up on the mounds of paperwork from my practice. My son is busily banging his toys on the floor beside me… for the moment managing to forget his erupting teeth (thankfully!!).

I’m going to have to lower the mattress in his crib – he’s making attempts to pull himself upright even as I speak, and although not yet successful, it’s only a matter of time… bless his adventurous little heart!!

Anyway, here are a couple of updates from the web:

• Via BoingBoing: A hilarious chart illustrating one of the problems with the movie industry – the product you pay for is far inferior to the product you can get for free. Obviously, people want the better product, even if it is illegal:
• School in the states gives their students laptops, but doesn’t tell them that they can turn the webcams on at any time. Even when said laptop is at home. In their bedroom. 1984, anyone? (But they only use this feature if the laptop has been stolen. Honest!)
• BoingBoing has a page for ‘Games to Get‘ – a list of their recommended games. Most are small, indie titles that are quite interesting, that you would otherwise never hear about. Check it out!
• CHIP and PIN – used in Europe for a while and being pushed in North America – is totally flawed (at least, the European implementation). What good is relying on the PIN & chip on the card for verification when you can trick the device into thinking it’s checked everything without actually checking? (via Schneier and BoingBoing)

And that’s about all for now… OK, back to work!!

Steve Novella highlights a recently published prospective (sortof) study on how early Autism develops. Read the article, but basically the findings show that the first signs develop around 6-12 months of age. So those claiming the MMR vaccine (given after 12 months of age) has any influence have quite a distorted view of causality…

via Science-Based Medicine » The Early Course of Autism.

So I haven’t been blogging much. Even when I ‘blog’ it tends to be links to other cool stuff on the internet… but y’know, I’m busy with work… my wife… my son… etc. So… c’est la vie!!

Had a very laid back birthday. Some yummy dinner, and cheesecake. Mmm….

Otherwise, what caught my eye? Well:

• Liquid Glass. Comes as a spray-on can. Apparently, it’s very very awesome.
• Very, very interesting documentary: “digital nation” on PBS. See it online here. (via BoingBoing) (Anyone have a downloadable link?)
• Kids’ Lingerie? Boy, Disney’s expanding their market to child porn, I guess…

And finally, an interesting article on how computing is moving away from being open-ended and tinkerable. This hit home – I have fond memories of playing around with BASIC on our old PC XT computer, and making all kinds of programs. If you can’t do this sort of thing on newer computers, a lot of the mystery & allure that gets kids to really explore and learn computers will be gone – and we’ll be breeding a generation of nothing but lusers.

When DVD Jon was arrested after breaking the CSS encryption algorithm, he was charged with “unauthorized computer trespassing.” That led his lawyers to ask the obvious question, “On whose computer did he trespass?” The prosecutor’s answer: “his own.”

[...]

Once upon a time, Apple made the machines that made me who I am. I became who I am by tinkering. Now it seems they’re doing everything in their power to stop my kids from finding that sense of wonder. Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of “jailbreaks” stop working, and people have to find new ways to break into their own computers.

The cost of health care around the world Boing Boing.

Apparently people aren’t very happy with Obama. They elected some Rebuplican nut in a typically very Democrat state, or so I’ve heard. I think Dr. Dawg summed it up pretty well:

We have minority governments in Canada that govern like majorities. Obama had–and still has–a legislature with a rock-solid majority of Democrats in both houses, but he’s governed as though his party were in the minority.

…

Obama was sent an ultimatum by the electors in one of the most liberal states in the union. It wasn’t: please compromise more. It wasn’t: don’t forget to track down all the nuances before you make the slightest move.

We wanted accessible healthcare, they said. You handed the legislative process over to a gaggle of conservatives, and ended up with two patchwork bills that promise a windfall for insurance companies.

We wanted an end to ceaseless war that drains our resources and kills our young men and women, they said. It’s not stopping terrorism. But you sent a whack more troops off to Afghanistan instead–clutching the Nobel Peace Prize as you did so.

We wanted no more torture and extra-Constitutional measures and atrocities, if only because our country is getting a black eye over them. But Guantanamo is still there, a year after you took office. Prisoners may have been murdered there, and the cover-up is happening on your watch. The Blackwater killers in Iraq got off after your Justice Department threw the case. And you have embraced the same notion of Executive privilege that shielded your predecessor from Constitutional restraints.

We wanted a recovering economy and appropriate punishment for the Wall Street malefactors who did our country infinitely more harm than the terrorists. Instead, 2009 was the Year of the Bonus for the very people that got us into the recession in the first place. Bonuses that we effectively paid for ourselves with bailout money.

We wanted change. We got the same old, same old, same old, same old.

Yes, we’re pissed off enough to put a homophobic Cosmo nudie with a taste for waterboarding into the Senate. Did that get your attention?

I think Obama lost his lustre quite a while back. Will he actually do something after this warning shot? Knowing politicians – hell no.

Well, here’s a great demonstration video (very cool!) via Respectful Insolence:

So here’s a bit of an interesting rant by Clay Shirky on gender differences in assertiveness:

And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.

Now this is asking women to behave more like men, but so what? We ask people to cross gender lines all the time. We’re in the middle of a generations-long project to encourage men to be better listeners and more sensitive partners, to take more account of others’ feelings and to let out our own feelings more. Similarly, I see colleges spending time and effort teaching women strategies for self-defense, including direct physical aggression. I sometimes wonder what would happen, though, if my college spent as much effort teaching women self-advancement as self-defense.

The comments are very interesting (at least the first few I have read – I’ll have to go back when I am not so pressed for time). danah boyd posts some on her own blog:

Growing up, I loved to debate. With anyone. My debating tone used to drive my mother batty because she thought I was yelling at her. Exasperated, I would often bark back that I was simply debating. Over the years, I realized that my debating tone is one of such confidence that people believe me to be stating facts, not opinions. My mother interpreted it as yelling; my classmates interpreted it as arrogance. I also began to realize that it was the same tone as that of my male peers. I never apologized for my opinions, never deflated them with “I may be wrong but I think…” I asserted. Confidently. And loudly.

Why am I telling you this? Clay Shirky’s “A Rant About Women” has provoked all sorts of conversations in the blogosphere and on Twitter. And Tom Coates rightfully pointed out that one interpretation of Shirky is the problematic encouragement of self-promotion and lies. While a lot has been said on this topic, I feel the need to speak up and say more. Because, as I said, I’m loud.

This is a great list of events & articles showing the Conservative’s anti-democratic moves. A very small excerpt:

CONTEMPT FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
Ottawa moves to block detainee-transfer hearings [2008]
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article722656.ece

Redactions hamper Afghan detainee probe [2009]
Unreadable documents make meaningful inquiry ‘almost impossible’ and reflect government efforts to keep record a secret
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/redactions-hamper-afghan-detainee-probe/article1383375/

Ottawa won’t release Afghan documents
Harper government says it will not comply with Opposition motion passed by Parliament, setting stage for legal battle
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/737634–ottawa-won-t-release-afghan-documents

Tories to ignore vote on releasing prisoner reports
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091211/afghanistan_motion_091211/20091211?hub=TopStoriesV2

Parliament in showdown with Harper government over Afghan documents
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/091211/n1211113A.html

Tories refuse to release uncensored documents on Afghan detainees
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Tories+refuse+release+uncensored+documents+Afghan+detainees/2330193/story.html

Tories force shutdown of hearing on torture [2009]
Opposition blasts boycott as whistleblower readies rebuttal to Ottawa today
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/739427

(via Dawg’s Blog)