The Unreasonable Man

As of January 1st, all new US passports (and presumably, under US pressure, soon, all of our passports) are “biometric” and in addition, will contain an RFID chip. This chip allows the government to track you as you move, without you even removing your passport from your bag. This will save about 8 seconds at the passport counter - so presumably, that is not the reason.

Unfortunately, it also allows third parties to read your passport. The system is not hard to hack (UK hackers have shown it done in minutes), and from now on, your name, digital picture, date and place of birth, passport number - all the passports contents - are basically public property. If you think it would be crazy to print all your passport details and wave them openly around you at the airport, then think again: it looks likely that, under American pressure, we will all be thus exposed soon. In which case you can expect a huge increase in holiday burglaries, identity theft, and fraud, and thank America.

Oh, and in the mean time, if you are American, do not even think about disabling the chip. Unless you like the thought of up to 25 years in prison.

What you can do is keep your passport in a metal case. I predict a market in such cases (or in Aluminum foil sales).

A New Zealand-based IT industry expert writes, in a paper here [link], that Vista is “the world’s longest suicide note”.

You may find this an exaggerated claim: I certainly did. But I urge you to read the entire paper: you may change your mind.

You should familiarize yourself with the deliberate crippling of Vista. I knew about this one:

• You will not be allowed to watch Hi-Def DVD content using the VGA. Component of SP/DIF interfaces. Only the content-protected HDMI cable will be useable.

But many others are new to me. These include restrictions like:

• Any interface that provides high-quality output must degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present.
• And that applies to audio as well.
• No more open-source hardware support, since the Vista hardware detection/handshake process has to be secret.
• Vista will stop working if hardware does not behave according to MS spec (e.g. an audio or video card that cannot prove it is not leaking high-def signal will be disabled)
• Drivers need to include “tilt detection”, that warn the OS if something might be amiss (e.g. a line voltage fluctuation, meaning the user could be tapping the signal).

The list goes on. I urge you to read the linked article (it will take half an hour) and if you disbelieve any of it, follow the sources link (I did follow a few).

And then, heave a deep sigh at the depths we will sink to if Vista is a success. Its cost to me and you, the consumer, as well as to the entire IT industry, really does look like it will be very high.

An interesting spotted-and-almost-filled technology gap: remotes.

The picture shows the four remotes I now need to operate my TV system. Because essential controls are missing on each remote (even when programmed for multiple boxes), I need to use all four. As a result, in my family, only Jason and I can switch on the TV and switch between TV and a movie. Switching to TV from DVD, for instance, goes roughly like this:

1. Remote 4: Turn on TV
2. Remote 3: Turn on cable box (or remote 4, but after first pressing “TV”, and do NOT forget to then press “STB” again!)
3. Remote 2: Turn on audio amp (or remote 4, but after pressing “AUD”, and do NOT forget to then press “STB” again!)
4. Remote 2: select input to “VCR” (away from “Video”)
5. Remote 4: press SOURCE and enter source menu. Using the arrows, move the selection from “AV” to “YpPbPr” and hit “Enter” to confirm selection.
6. Remote 3: Select the channel you want to watch.
7. Remote 4: press WIDE and select appropriate widescreen mode for the channel you wish to watch(16:9, 4:3, wide1, wide2, wide3, NOSCALE).
8. Optionally - Remote3: Press GUIDE and select other programs or press INFO and see details about your program.

You can see that this is not something for the meek. It is a schoolbook example, no, concatenation of examples, of the “bad design” I mentioned a few days ago.
But in an idea whose time is long overdue, one company seems to now have done remotes properly: Logitech. The Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote, for instance, does exactly what a remote should do. It has one button selections for “Watch TV:”, “watch a DVD” and “listen to a CD”. One button to do it all! Hallelujah! Someone has apprently used their brain!

Unfortunately, while everyone advertises these remotes, no-one in Ontario has them in stock. These seem to be fictitious remotes. Maybe I am imgaining they exist because I need one so bad. I am changing channels, remotes, modes, aspect rations and sources many times daily for everyone, this holiday week.

Saddam Hussein is to hang within 30 days, an Iraqi court has ruled. After a trial that most observers say was seriously flawed by any standards (even former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a note in which he called the trial a “travesty”, and the EU has asked the Iraqie government to intervene), this is regrettable.

Even more regrettable is that the US government immediately praised this announcement. When will those guys get it? When you try a tyrant you should be extra careful to observe due process, or you lower yourself to his level. And that is exactly what the US government has apparently done, yet again. Sadly, the “F” word (the 7-letter version) comes to mind again in connection with the United States. And that is sad for the entire world, which relies on the US to set the example.

Daniel at the mall having a hot chocolate. We had a good time though I would never admit it: I am delighted that the compulsory queueing is over for another year.

(I used my standard “Canon outdoors portraits” settings, picked up from a pro portrait guy - try these: 400 ISO; Manual exposure (in this case at 1/60th and F/5); 580EX Flash; FEC set to - 1 1/3 stop; and white balance set to flash. Yes, that works).

A few words today about dumb design.

Dumb design is all over. It is the “START” button in Windows that you need to press to STOP Windows. It is a 22-conductor HDMI cable when a 3-conductor cable would do just fine. It is my Treo phone that sorts emails by the time zone they were sent in, so that a new mail arrives anywhere down the chronological list. It is my Motorola Razr phone and the fact that to turn it to Silent, i.e. to turn OFF the ringer and any other noises, it gives a loud ring. I could go on. And on.

Who designs this nonsense? Has no-one even tested these devices? I suspect that in fact the engineers had some idea what they were doing, but a committee of suits then overturned the sensible designs. At least, I have to assume that. No-one could be this stupid.

Also stupid: I just hooked up to the new digital TV Santa brought. Silly me, I was expecting it all to work. Yeah. Right.

• I paid $70 for an HDMI cable. So I called Cogeco (the cable company’s) support after struggling for half an hour with this. Why struggling? Well, the hi-def channels were fine (the signal is too compressed, but “ok”), but low-def channels were completely unwatcheable. Support: “Oh yes, we know this: HDMI is not supported. Use component”. So Why The Hell Sell Me An HDMI box, Cogeco??
• Also: for HDMI, you must always turn the TV on before the cable box. Like everyone in this household is going to remember that. Again, asinine design. Designers: TV’s ar enot supposed to be a Boeing 767. They are supposed to be simple, so grannies can turn them on.
• To top it all, my new 37″ 1366×768 Viewsonic LCD TV cannot stretch 4:3 signals. It has three “stretch modes”, but they do not work! Again: idiotic, asinine, punishable-by-Guantanamo type stupidity.

Can you see that I am annoyed? I am hereby calling for commonsense design in 2007. That is all we need: common sense. And Guantanao for Bad Designers.

Having finished my Christmas shopping, and having survived the mall madness, I am now spending my Christmas eve reading (and re-reading) all of Ruben Bolling’s 2006 Tom The Dancing Bug cartoons. Follow the link if you have never heard of Ruben Bolling, and prepare to spend time laughing.

Merry Christmas!

The US administration has today once again refused to remove Maher Arar from the terrorist list. Story here [link]. This is very disappointing, considering that the Canadian government exonerated him completely of any terrorist involvement. But the US can and does always make its own rules, however unfair they might be.

Even the right-wing, US-loving Canadian government is not at all pleased. Again, the US has apparently firmly placed itself outside the realm of reasonable, law-abiding countries and sided itself with countries like North Korea, Iran, China, and the like. The Axis of Bully Behaviour.

Read that link (or any other link on the same story: google news) and see if you, like me, are disappointed that once again, the US has missed a chance to avoid alienating its friends. Then ask yourself whether the fact that the US, more than other countries, considers itself under threat could have anything to do with this. If your behaviour is so arrogant that you cannot even avoid alienating your friends, what hope is there that you will not have hundreds of enemies?

I am spending the evening downloading some Christmas songs - from www.allofmp3.com, of course.

In doing so, I am an example of how the music industry could be benefiting from millions of people like me. I am searching, listening to previews, and buying everything from The Carpenters (Karen: she was so cute until she stopped eating) to the kitchy “101 strings orchestra”: all music I would never buy if I had to buy CDs, let alone if I had to buy DRM-handicapped music.

This is not rocket science. Even if the music industry had earned a penny per downloaded song tonight, it would have earned maybe four or five bucks - money I would never have spent otherwise, Incremental revenue, in other words. And there are many people like me.

Instead of sending money to Hollywood, I am now sending money to Russia - KGB or Mob: not sure (Is there even a difference, apart from the fact that the Mob does not use Polonium-210?). In any case: more money lost forever to Hollywood. Why is this so hard to understand?

The world does not always get better.

I write with a fountain pen. Until a few years ago I could do that using Parker Sapphire Blue ink. But Parker stopped making that. My last bottle having been used up, I am now back to using Quink permanent Blue-Black. Which is a boring colour; and even that is getting hard to find. Obviously by the time I die, fountain pens will be as rare as, say, sextants or heliotropes. Which will be a big loss to humanity.