Raymond M. Reskusich

Hackers' posts on epilepsy forum cause migraines, seizures


In one of the first computing hacks seemingly intended to physically harm victims, attackers saturated the web forums of the Epilepsy Foundation with strobing images allegedly calculated to trigger seizures in visitors to the site. In addition to reminding everyone of Snow Crash, this seems like a disturbing escalation in the hacker culture. Obviously this attack is only applicable to those with certain types of epilepsy. Hopefully no more general-purpose attack can be devised. Any brain-meat specialists in the house who can comment on this possibility?

In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges

Apparently, since early 2000, all Patent Court justices have been appointed by an official who lacks the constitutional authority to make such appointments. Now all of the cases that have been ruled on by such justices are, to some degree, up for grabs. Many of these could be retried, with the possibility of rulings coming out differently this time. This could cause some serious chaos in the tech world.

The original article that uncovered this issue is here.

U.S. Shifting Prison Focus to Re-entry Into Society

It is a big relief to see that you can get a bipartisan coalition around one of the U.S.'s "worst in the world" issues.

The current saga of Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace has been reminding me of another politician who found himself is a very similar situation: Jerry Springer. This is one of the more memorable episodes of This American Life that I've heard:

Episode 258 - Leaving the Fold

The first act tells the unlikely story of Jerry Springer's career as a much-beloved politician in Cincinnati, many years before he achieved his current infamy as a talk-show host.

Please read through this if you will be traveling by air in the next few days.

In a nice bit of timing, the federal government is making new rules governing luggage for air travel effective as of tomorrow, specifically addressing the transport of lithium-based batteries. Doing this in the middle of the holiday travel season, when many travelers are mid-trip and not fully able to plan what they take, seems guaranteed to cause some difficulties. Added to this, the news accounts and government website descriptions of the new regulations are often incomplete or just plain wrong.

After some digging, I located the actual policy. The relevant bit is here:

Sec. 175.10 Exceptions.

(a) * * *
(17) Except as provided in Sec. 173.21 of this subchapter,
consumer electronic and medical devices (watches, calculating machines,
cameras, cellular phones, lap-top and notebook computers, camcorders,
etc.) containing lithium cells or batteries and spare lithium batteries
and cells for these devices, when carried by passengers or crew members
for personal use. Each spare battery must be individually protected so
as to prevent short circuits (by placement in original retail packaging
or by otherwise insulating terminals, e.g., by taping over exposed
terminals or placing each battery in a separate plastic bag or
protective pouch) and carried in carry-on baggage only. In addition,
each installed or spare battery must not exceed the following:
(i) For a lithium metal battery, a lithium content of not more than
2 grams per battery; or
(ii) For a lithium-ion battery, an aggregate equivalent lithium
content of not more than 8 grams per battery, except that up to two
batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of more than 8
grams but not more than 25 grams may be carried.

Normally, I rely on the TSA web page for the last word on issues like this, but this time they got it wrong by quite a bit, probably because it is not their policy.
They state:

Under the new DOT rule, lithium batteries are allowed in checked baggage under one of the following conditions:

* The batteries must be in their original containers.
* The battery terminals must not exposed (for example placing tape over the ends of the batteries).
* The batteries are installed in a device.
* The batteries are enclosed by themselves in a plastic bag.

Given this misinformation and the normal chaos associated with a new checking regime, expect additional delays at security checkpoints. Also, given the extra scrutiny of checked bags, I suspect that there will be more late or lost luggage than usual.

Update 1/2/08, 15:35PST -- Fortunately, the security apparatus at the airports I traveled through yesterday seemed to be ignoring this new rule, which is fine by me. Let them get serious about it when it will cripple the system a bit less.

TimesSelect is dead!

If, like me, you get much of your news from the online version of the New York Times, you will be happy to know that they have finally ended their TimesSelect subscription service. Now both the Op-Ed columns and the online archive of news stories (back to 1987) are free for everyone. One consequence of this is that links to NYT articles in my old blog posts will become valid once again.

I'm feeling kind of groggy today. Our voyage back from Champaign was greatly slowed down by a delayed connecting flight in Las Vegas, so we ended up getting home well after 1am. The Vegas airport is a bit of a culinary wasteland, at least on the A and B concourses. As a consolation, they offer free wi-fi, which is depressingly rare in the airports I travel through. There were also iPod vending machines, a horrifying concept all on its own.

We were flying US Airways yesterday, a company that always amuses me with its logo: an American flag rendered in black and white, with an atrophied, starless field and the wrong number of stripes. I think the effect they were going for is "national pride reduced to soul-crushing bar-code." Anyway, their latest strategy to make ends meet in the tough airline business involves finding new ways to advertise to the passenger, right down to making the tray table into a personal billboard. The in-flight movie on the way to Vegas was Lucky You, which is all about poker. I had to wonder if this was maybe an indirect paid advertisement, placed there to soften up the incoming tourists. The film was fairly lame. Drew Barrymore's character was paper-thin, and Eric Bana did a lot of unsubtle emoting through expression and posture, which looked pretty damn silly during the poker scenes.

On the trip home I finished Michael Chabon's most recent book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. It was really excellent. The author manages to be remarkably faithful to the hard-boiled detective genre while twisting each of its conventions into the something unexpected. The language is smart and artful, peppered throughout with the sort of left-field imagery that should by all rights sound forced but somehow doesn't. The story is affecting, the scene well set, and the characters fully developed. The book was a surprisingly quick read; if, like me, you've got a large backlog of books to read, I'd recommend letting this one jump the queue. Now I return to my Harry Potter re-read mission.

The news of Alberto Gonzales' resignation is very welcome to me. It is comforting to see another of Bush's faithful lose power, even if he will not face any sort of real justice. The Senate should take its confirmation power seriously this time around and make sure we get someone who values the Constitution a little more for his replacement.

Zack Snyder Reveals "Watchmen" Details

The article includes some casting details, as well as the director's approach to the material. They really do appear to be making the film this time.

I find these details encouraging. If you've seen 300, you know that Snyder is capable of slavish adherence to the style of his source material. My only worry is that, as with 300, it will be so close to the comic book as to render it uninteresting to me. Even though I have followed the Watchmen film saga for years, it has never been because I thought it needed to be a film, but rather because I did not want to see it butchered.

Also, I will probably never stop wanting to see what Terry Gilliam would have done with it.