Mini ‘how-to’ Bluetooth/Wifi combo for Raspberry PI
I recently purchased the Cirago USB Bluetooth/Wifi combo to use with my raspberry pi. All things considered, I am quite pleased. Being reasonably versed in google-fu, helped, of course. Since…
Stick’em with the pointy end
Since I have been spending a great deal of my time playing in the field of 3D design and printing, I have only recently stumbled upon, and had time to read, “Privacy for Me and Not for Thee,” penned by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, a human rights activist whom I first encountered in the virtual world of Second Life.
Virtual and not so Virtual Space
Not long ago, someone asked if I liked 3D printing better than virtual worlds. The short answer is, equally but differently.
Be Still my Bleeding Heart …
“Secure web servers are the equivalent of heavy armored cars. The problem is, they are being used to transfer rolls of coins and checks written in crayon by people on park benches to merchants doing business in cardboard boxes from beneath highway bridges. Further, the roads are subject to random detours, anyone with a screwdriver can control the traffic lights, and there are no police.” — Dr. Eugene Spafford, (Web Security & Commerce, p9, O’Reilly, 1997, S. Garfinkel & G. Spafford)
The Never-ending Privacy Battle
This brings me back to the Hundredpercent American. To some extent he is a pet of mine. I have always rather liked him, because he has some promising qualities. For instance, he has enormous hospitality. I used to feel personally complimented by the amazing warm-hearted hospitality showered on me by Americans.
[…]
When I realized it, I began to say to myself, “This is not a recognition of my own particular merits. Nor is it quite a mania. There is something bigger behind it. An enormous social instinct must be seeking satisfaction through it.”
Then I considered your rage for publicity. An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country.
George Bernard Shaw
The future of political science in America
Metropolitan Opera House, NYC
11 April 1933
The Many Sides of Bitcoin
Pariah, darling, or somewhere in between. Bitcoin has continued to linger in the daily media spotlight since the shuttering of darknet’s black-market drug bazaar, Silk Road, and the subsequent announcement of the arrest of its alleged owner, Ross William Ulbricht (aka DPR), on October 2, 2013. Media mavens have long cast bitcoin as a sort of “geek fantasy” or in this case, a means to launder dirty money, primarily used by criminals engaging in drug trafficking, credit card fraud, or even murder for hire. Just prior to this news, bitcoin market prices had stabilized, hovering around the mid $100s.
