July 2010 Archives

I have had growing concerns about the growing surveillance state in the USSA:  The United Surveillance State of America.  Apparently the Washington Post has them too.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

Source:  A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control

With the ineffectiveness of such unencumbered agency work as well as the unparalleled and unknown true cost of this growing secret "security" dark side, with no oversight, and with the unprecedented deficit, we have a huge problem.  The Republican party is always ranting about reducing the size of government while they are funding the largest top secret buildup of hidden government right in plane sight.  Let's reduce government.  And this is where we need to start.

I do not trust my government at all.

Watch the trailer to the upcoming (Fall, 2010) PBS Frontline Special, Top Secret America at this link. Keep in mind that for a healthy democracy to work, it must function in the public forum. Tyranny lives in the shadows. What is the post USA democracy going to be?

PBS wbesite for Top Secret America.
Follow the story on Twitter @PostTSA
Use the hashtag #topsecretamerica

Related articles:

• Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control (washingtonpost.com)
• WaPo Reveals "Top Secret America": How Post-9/11 System Is Not Working (mediaite.com)
• Wash Post's series on 'A hidden world, growing beyond control' (americablog.com)
• Top Secret America (slog.thestranger.com)
• WaPO Secret America, site up (warintel.blogspot.com)

Today we went walking along the beach and plopped our beach chairs surf side to enjoy a moment of sunshine and the cool ocean breeze. When I sat down, I noticed I had a glob of tar near the heal of my foot. And since I had forgotten to wear my "official beach shoes," I was going to have a very hard time getting the tar glob off.

While seated I frequently rubbed my heal in the sand. No help at all.

So, when I got home, I Googled "remove tar foot" and saw two suggestions:

• use olive oil and a toothbrush
• use regular white (not gel) toothpaste on a wet washcloth

All of the toothpaste here at the house is gel;  so, I got the olive oil out and the tiny new toothbrush my dentist gave me when I had my teeth last cleaned.  The tedious process took about 20 minutes, but it worked.  Below are the pictures documenting the trauma. Consider this my own personal exhibit of "Crude Awakening" that I blogged about before.

The tar (combined with the beach sand) becomes hard and is completely stuck to the skin.  I couldn't even scrape it off with a sea shell.  It has the dank tar smell.

The Tar Glob Proper

The Tools for the Procedure

Twenty Minutes Later

This is quite the week for tar.  The city of Manhattan Beach is in the process of redoing the slurry on the streets (that black tar goo with little tiny pebbles in it).  They just did the two streets by the house.  It's incredibly messy.  The workers also got black tar on the grass by the side of the house.  Not happy as that oil spill will probably kill the grass.

Oil is gushing freely into the Gulf of Mexico today as BP is trying to cap the well again.  And I just read an article online about the potential of a massive methane gas bubble from all of the methane gushing from the well in the Gulf (40% is methane gas and 60% is oil) rising from the Gulf and causing the extinction of all life on earth as methane gas is deadly.  She claims the sea floor around the gushing well is rising for about a 5 mile radius.  I hope the author is a crackpot.  If not, at least BP was kind enough to only kill all life on one planet in the solar system.

Check out the link at the bottom for a more detailed description of the methane gas theory including a link to the original article.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the realization that I have lived here in Manhattan Beach for about 2.5 years now, and today was the first time I've actually sat out on the beach.  That will be rectified this summer!

Related articles:

• Happy Sunday! The BP spill could trigger a methane explosion, mass extinction (crunchgear.com)

No wonder cancer is rampant in our world today.  Unbelievably, by the time I was born, 134 atomic bombs had been detonated on our planet:

• USA:  87
• Soviet Union:  38
• Great Britton:  9

And, horrifying as it may be, 2,053 atomic bombs have been exploded on the planet through 1998 with over half being detonated by the US.

NPR's Robert Krulwich reports that in 1962, shortly after the discovery of the magnetic Van Allen radiation belts were discovered, the US military exploded an atomic bomb in outer space to see if they could disrupt the Van Allen belt to use it as a weapon against the USSR.  The project, named Starfish Prime, produced an astounding light show in the heavens.

I can think of little that could be so irresponsible and nothing that better demonstrates the evil nature of the military industrial complex that runs this nation.  Those military officials and scientists discover something they do not understand and then want to see if they can blow it up.  This is insanity.

What other lunatic experiments have the unknowing people of the earth been victimized by because of this military experimentation?  I have no doubt that thousands have died and probably will continue to die of cancer as a result of these bomb tests and god knows what else (biological experiments, etc.).

View the interactive graphic of when, where, and by whom the atomic bombs were detonated.  Source:  CTBTO

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Rainbow Bombs (greg.org)
• Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space (milkandcookies.com)
• US detonated a nuclear bomb in space in 1962 (slashgear.com)
• Mapping Nuclear Bomb Explosions (neatorama.com)

An excellent photo essay entitled Crude Awakening, by Jane Fulton Alt.  Here are two samples...

I eat out a lot, no r-e-a-l-l-y a lot. And one the things that really frustrates me with today's restaurants is portion size and cost. Frequently a dessert will cost about $7 and be of an obscene size, large enough for two people. This actually disgusts me as it promotes eating too much and is wasteful. I've shared my thoughts about this before as I almost always am boxing up lunch for the next day from a full portion size of leftovers.

Last weekend I ate at the Macaroni Grill. I've eaten here before, but this visit was different. The menu had changed. The food was exceptionally tasty, of reasonable portion size, and reasonable price. Dessert was under $3 and also a reasonable portion size.

I was delighted. I shared my enthusiasm with the manager who was glad to hear it, fearing that the new menu would receive a poor response.

This is something I wish all restaurants would do. Congratulations to Macaroni Grill for being the first to do the right thing!

Today I went to Patty Brown Physical Therapy for physical therapy.  I have never had physical therapy before, but the issues with my shoulder are just impacting my basic living to such an extent that I decided I had to do it.  This morning I almost had my mouth in the bowl of cereal because I can't lift the spoon to my mouth.  Getting dressed and showering have become time consuming and difficult challenges.  I can't pull the seat belt with my right arm or shut the front passenger's door.  ENOUGH!

I dreaded the appointment.  If I move my arm/shoulder in various unknowable ways I have a variety of incredibly intense pains, sometimes lasting for up to 10 minutes.  I just knew this was going to hurt like hell.

Patty happened to be my therapist.  She is amazing!  I won't bore you with the details, but the appointment lasted about two hours.  At no time did she or any of her assistants cause me pain.  They were all knowledgable, professional, and genuinely warm people.

Astoundingly, I had immediate results!  When I reached into my pants pocket to get out my phone to input three additional appointments, I realized I could do so with no bizarre physical contortions and absolutely no pain.  This would not have been possible before the appointment.  I would have had searing pain and barely been able to get my phone out.  Tonight at dinner, I could lift my fork to my mouth like normal!

Already, with just one visit, I highly recommend Patty Brown Physical Therapy.  Her office has a positive, friendly energy about it.  The people are all genuinely pleasant, and I think that flows from her inner nature.  I have always believed that the energy of a space flows from those who lead what goes on in that space.  So if you need physical therapy, I recommend Patty Brown.

I've already ordered one in each color!

Click photo to go to photo source.

Well, as you can see, I was very busy working on photos this weekend.  It all started when I found out that people were not only viewing but also comments on my photos on Flickr.  And I had posted very few photos there.  So, I decided to update those with several thousand new photos and tackle coming up to date with my official photo gallery here at tt.us.

I enjoyed working on the photos from Page, Arizona, and from Ireland.  Doing so always brings back great memories from the trips.

So now I need to work on the photos from my fairly recent trip to Thailand and Vietnam.  Hopefully that will happen soon, though I will be spending a lot more time this month traveling and writing for my book project (before my publisher starts to yell at me).

I've included over 600 pictures from my November, 2009, trip to Ireland, in the Ireland Gallery.  Click the image below to enjoy!

My trip to Page, Arizona, back in January, 2010, was filled with amazing places to photograph.  I've finally published the Page Gallery of albums.  This gallery contains my first HDR gallery.  You will want to be sure to check it out!

Click the image below to visit it, and don't forget to view the pictures in full screen mode!

Several years ago I discovered Todd Dominey's SlideShow Pro (SSP), which I use to present my photos here at tt.us.  (Check them out at timtyson.us/photos.)  Over the years SSP has evolved into a really slick, powerful, wonderful tool for managing both photo and video distribution.  As my knowledge and understanding of the various SSP products has grown, I would place this product in my list of Tim's All Time Favorite Digital Tools! It rocks!

In fact, since SSP had an export plugin for Lightroom, it was the deciding factor in my ditching Apple's Aperture and switching all of my photo management over to Lightroom--well, that and the horrendous performance issues Aperture 2 had.  (Now, I understand that a third party export plugin is available for Aperture.  But I haven't tried it.)

But SSP is Flash-based.  This now poses problems because Steve Jobs is having a spat with Adobe, and most people don't foresee Apple mobile products ever making use of Flash.  Sad, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Rather than focusing on the technology issues or the dispute, SSP is focusing on their customers' primary need:  finding excellent ways to share their work.  So they have announced a new component to their fabtabulous SlideShowPro Director:  a photo and video player that is built with HTML5, CSS3, and javascript instead of Flash!  This will allow content to display on the iPod Touch, iPhones, and the iPad!

Here is an overview of the new SlideshowPro Mobile.  I so love SSP!!

Related articles:

• SlideShowPro does HTML5, Flash (blogs.adobe.com)

Every image tells a story.  So, I've decided I should share some of the stories around the images that rotate through the banner images at the top of my blog.  [If you're reading this at blog.timtyson.us, you will not see these rotating banner images.  You have to go to the mirror site at timtyson.us/weblog to see the rotating images.]

I shot this particular image at Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona, in January, 2010.  Perhaps in the larger image (click to enlarge) you can see the snow in the distant mountains.  While it was cool enough to wear a jacket, it was not at all cold.

You have to walk about a mile in the desert from the parking area to get to this location.  The view is very, very flat and you simply can't see the Colorado River winding through the desert until you are very close to the edge.  Speaking of the edge...

Taking this shot was terrifying!  I slowly and "intrepidly" inched my way to the edge of the sheer drop off holding my opened tripod out in front of me as if it were a senior citizen's walker.  Though I'm certain I looked ridiculous, I could have cared less!  The air was rather still while we were there which at least reduced my fear of being blown over the edge.

The view is gorgeous.  Photos can't capture this type of grandeur.

This photo was among my first experiments with HDR that has "gone public."  This picture is actually three shots, each at a different exposure.  I then took the three pictures and merged the detail information into one photograph, which gives the photo its distinctive look and level of detail in the brighter as well as darker areas of the scene.

Finally, I have to tell you about the guys, three of them, that were walking up to the edge and shooting--literally within inches.  One guy, twenty-something, just squatted down within 2 - 3 inches of the edge on a slope (downward!) and was shooting away as if there were no way he could possible fall to his death if the sand slid or crumbled.  I simply couldn't stand to watch him!  My knees were about to turn to rubber!

An amazing, beautiful view.  The scale is astounding.

Related articles:

• Beauty of Arizona (slideshare.net)

Mac users:  Do you have the latest versions of iTunes (9.2), iBooks, and the operating systems for your iPhone and iPod Touch (iOS 4) and your iPad (iOS 3)?  If you do, you can do this...

You can easily place a PDF file of anything you can make a PDF file from (web page, documents, images, etc.) on you portable device.

If you make an alias of the iTunes application icon and place it in your ~/Library/PDF Services folder (where ~ = your user account), you can choose to print any document or webpage as a PDF directly to your portable device the next time you sync.

[Simply select the print command and click on the PDF button on the bottom left and then choose iTunes from the drop down list.  When you go to sync your portable device, be certain that, in iTunes, with your device selected, the "Books" tab is selected and you have checked "Sync Books."  Then simply sync your device.  Poof!  The PDF file(s) appear in iBooks on your device.]

I've tried this, and it actually works!  Nifty.

Other little scripts are available to do similar things with various twists.  Check out this link at Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.

I've been in Long Island for several days and returned home late yesterday.

Today the doorbell rang.  Once again (This is the fourth time!) two Mormon missionaries, young guys in their twenties, were at the door.  I was surprised at what they said as their "come on" line.

"We've stopped by to talk with you about family."

So talking about God just isn't bringing in the sheaves any more, isn't filling the church coffers.  God has been replaced with "family."  What a hoax.

I was very nice.  I told them their church was really working the hood.  I did mention something about peddling hate and not family.

Needless to say, our conversation was brief.

I actually feel sorry for these kids being forced by their religious culture to have to do this.  This isn't evangelism.  It's funding.

Everyone was excited about getting the new Apple iPhone 4.  But seriously, did these people test this device much at all?

First, the issue with the antenna signal decreasing surfaced right away.  My first call on the iPhone 4 fell victim to this problem when it went from a full strength signal to dropping the call with no signal at all.  Steve Jobs tells the world to stop hold the phone incorrectly —basically, don't hold it in your hand, and spend an extra $30 for Apple's new bumpers.

But I am finding other quirky issues with my new phone.

During calls, my phone appears to become confused as to whether I'm holding it to my ear and talking on the phone or whether I'm just holding it in my hand.  (Oops!  I forgot.  I'm not supposed to hold it in my hand.)  When I'm talking on a call with the phone to my ear, the handset appears on the screen, and my cheek presses the keys making the audible key tones we're all familiar with when dialing.  Then the screen blanks out when I remove the phone from my ear and the screen remains invisible and completely non-responsive no matter what I do from that point on.  I have to do several repeated hard reboots (Home button and Power simultaneously) to kill the phone and get it to work again.

During my first call about this issue to Apple technical support, the lady told me to do a complete backup and restore of the phone to correct the problem. Regrettably I got a phone call in the middle of the resyncing process and the resync didn't complete.  I called Apple back to make sure I wasn't going to lose all of my folders, etc.  This technical support lady asked me two questions about my issue:

1. "Are you using a screen protector?"  No, I'm not.
2. "Is your iPhone in a case?"  Yes, it's in a leather case I used for the iPhone 3Gs.

Oops!  Well, there we have it.  Not only must you hold the iPhone 4 "correctly" when placing a call so the signal strength doesn't drop to zero, you can not place your phone in a case or use a scratch resistant film to protect the front of the phone.  Doing the later apparently upsets the proximity sensor.  Oh, and if you want to hold the phone in your hand when placing a call and avoid having to hold it parallel to the orbit of Pluto the former planet, you have to spend an additional $30 for Apple's new bumper.

I've read in the blogosphere that despite Steve Jobs' claims that the new glass surface on the front and back of the phone is stronger than Iron Man's suit, it scratches rather easily.  I've always worn my previous iPhones (I've had them all.) on my belt in a leather case both to protect them and provide easy and continuous access.  I guess I could tie a string around my belt and around the bumper of my iPhone 4 and hope that doesn't disturb the proximity sensor.

I planned to purchase an iPhone 4 for my mother whose purse abuses every object it contains.  Without the phone being in some full-bodied protective case, it will be destroyed in her purse.  I'm sure she's not the only one that runs a roller derby inside her purse.

Another problem I have experienced was corrected by restoring the phone:  people can once again hear me when I use my Bluetooth Jawbone headset.  I could always hear them just fine.

Years ago Steve Jobs was credited with saying that customers don't know what they want until Apple shows it to them.  For the most part, that may have been true at the dawn of the digital era.  But today's tech-savvy customers do have a rather clearly defined sense of what they want and expect from their high tech devices:  continuous advancement without any regression from formerly attained benchmarks in design, function, and reliability.

I've always been a die-hard Apple fan boy, but Apple needs to start doing a better job of "getting it right" before they have to tell their customers they are "using it wrong."

[Update:  Others appear to have this issue too:  Macworld Article ]

Related articles:

• Updates on iPhone 4 Antenna Problem Articles [Apple] (gizmodo.com)
• Updates On iPhone 4 Antenna Problem Posts (gizmodo.com.au)
• Apple iPhone 4 Hit With Class Action Suit (abcnews.go.com)
• Apple Sued Over iPhone 4 Antenna & Reception Problems (macstories.net)