Events

I'm at the Peet's Coffee in Half Moon Bay, Calif., while the rest of the family slowly starts their days. In the past hour I've heard the following: "All meditation techniques are awesome."—60-something woman "What I really need is someone who's good at syndicating real-estate investments."—the same woman three minutes later "If you eat something that only eats vegetarians, that's still vegetarian."—man of unknown vintage wearing dark sunglasses and a pony tail, trying to work out why the Jewish clerk...

The Air Force has released a report about a F-22 crash that killed the pilot: Capt. Jeffey Haney had his mobility and vision restricted while flying an F-22 at 11,580 m feet and 1,925 km/h [true airspeed], at night, and then the jet cut off his oxygen supply. According to the accident report released last week, Captain Jeffrey Haney became distracted when his oxygen system stopped delivering oxygen. After initiating a descent, he allowed his F-22 to roll past inverted, unchecked. The fighter's attitude...

Codey might want to play tug, but Roger couldn't care less:

Codey waits for me to put down the black flashy thing and start playing tug again: Canon 7D at ISO-6400, 50mm, f/1.8 at 1/250, just a few minutes ago.

Every time I visit San Francisco, I stop here: Today I only left with 400 g, which unfortunately I'll have to leave with my family. Well, unfortunately for me; knowing them, it won't last two weeks in the house. That's an acceptable outcome.

Via Sullivan, a constitutional analysis of the Stop Online Piracy Act: To begin with, the bills represent an unprecedented, legally sanctioned assault on the Internet’s critical technical infrastructure. Based upon nothing more than an application by a federal prosecutor alleging that a foreign website is “dedicated to infringing activities,” Protect IP authorizes courts to order all U.S. Internet service providers, domain name registries, domain name registrars, and operators of domain name servers—a...

Given my activities yesterday (i.e., going through airport security), I found the latest interview with Bruce Schneier timely and once again correct: As we came by the checkpoint line, Schneier described one of these aspects: the ease with which people can pass through airport security with fake boarding passes. First, scan an old boarding pass, he said—more loudly than necessary, it seemed to me. Alter it with Photoshop, then print the result with a laser printer. In his hand was an example, complete...

You'll never guess where I am: It's not so bad, really. Despite warnings of the busiest travel day of the year at O'Hare, it's quiet and relaxed at the moment. From curb to the other side of security took 14 minutes, which isn't a record for me but obviously didn't bother me either. After a short flight, I'll have curry at Kennedy's tonight with some classmates, then Christmas with the family.

Via Sullivan, a chart showing it costs more work to have a life these days:

Remember the three-year-old parking meter privatization that will be former mayor Richard Daley's best-remembered legacy? In another example of how not to negotiate a deal, it turns out the city agreed to pay the parking meter company for lost revenues under what should have been eminently predictable circumstances: Financial statements for the company show that CPM has billed the city an additional $2,191,326 in “True-up Revenue” through the end of 2010. Under the contract, the city is given an 8%...