Tom Emmer is the republican candidate for Governor for the State of MN. I have not met him in person so the only way I can make my mind about his qualifications for office are based on what I read on the web and watch on TV. I guess most Naïve Americans have to follow suit. Going to the State of MN Fair and getting in like to get a button (or some other trinket) and the chance to shake hands does not (and most important should not) provide an individual with enough reason to vote for him in the upcoming elections. This statement might sound reasonable for most intelligent human beings, but in practice emotions and peer pressure tend to overrule facts and logic.
Mr. Emmer has been in politics for a while. This means he is a career politician. Our society should not allow for career politicians but for the past few decades it appears that becoming a politician is very profitable. If you do not believe me just look around. Most politicians have made their money in politics at the expense of voters. This is why American in general and MN in particular are experiencing the serious problems. Read the rest of this entry »
A chill is in the air early mornings in the Twin Cities indicating that the MN State Fair is in progress; school is about to start and this year candidates for the office of Governor of the State of Minnesota are campaigning for the public office position being left vacant by Tim Pawlenty (R). Apparently Mr. Pawlenty has presidential ambitions.
At this point in time both Democrats and Republicans have elected their respective representatives for the Governor’s race. This blog entry deals with Mark Dayton (D).
During the past few weeks leading to the primaries and after Mark Dayton was elected, starting early campaigning against the Republican candidate, interesting ideas, to say the least, crossed my mind while watching Dayton’s ads on TV. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week I finished reading “Secrets & Lies” by Bruce Schneier. Bruce is a renowned security expert. This particular book has sold over 150,000 copies.
The book is quite different than “Applied Cryptography” also by Bruce Schneier. “Secrets & Lies” is easy to read and there is little (if any) technical information that can be used by software designers or developers. The book is easy to read and provides an overall picture of security as it relates to networks and probably most important the Internet.
In “Applied Cryptography” there were several comments and statements that the software industry is a disaster. Someone said that everyone knows that no one can write good software. Being a computer scientist and software developer for over 30 years I did not take very well such comments. While reading chapter 24 “Security Process” in “Secrets & Lies” I believe to finally have understood what Bruce refers as poor software. Read the rest of this entry »
Dear President Obama,
Hope this blog finds you and your family doing well.
Most Naïve Americans and in general the United States of America as a country continues to collapse.
Yesterday evening my wife and I watched Dateline on NBC. The first (hour) segment dealt with the absurd war your predecessor, president Bush thanks to the vice president at the time, Mr. Cheney (a.k.a. defense contractor), promoted an impossible to win war in Afghanistan. I believe you have been in office for about year and a half and have not lived up to any of your presidential campaign promises. Naïve Americans should understand that the promises came from a politician and should not expect them to be fulfilled. Most Naïve Americans do not appear to be too smart when it comes to politics. Perhaps they are and voted for the democratic candidate based on promises made behind the scenes by the Democratic Party to special interests groups (i.e., unions). As usual the common Naïve American was left out in the rain. So far you have not delivered a single CHANGE but the USA needs to put up with another two and a half years of your administration. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was growing up, at around age seven, my parents gave me as a present a copy of the “The Golden Encyclopedia”. It took me a couple years to read the sixteen volumes. I spent about an hour every night reading the encyclopedia. For a kid reading from Aardvark to Zurich was quite educational and interesting.
Earlier this year I purchased a copy of “Applied Cryptography” by Bruce Schneier. The cover claims over 100,000 copies sold. After reading the book and spending some time experimenting with some of the source code I could relate to my experience as a child reading an encyclopedia, this time about the single topic of cryptography. The author definitely has a vast experience in the subject and has spent time researching the different topics. The book includes a vast list of references for those who wish to expand on the different topics. The book deals with protocols and algorithms. What a great book on the subject!
I read the second edition of “Applied Cryptography”. The copyright on the book is from 1996. It is a shame that the book does not cover current topics like the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Encyclopedias used to add volumes every so often. Perhaps that would be something the author and publisher (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) might consider.
Towards the end of the book there is a section that contains source code listings. That is OK if you are good at copying and not making mistakes. I am from the “hunt-and-peck” school. For those like me, Bruce Schneier provides source code on a disc. If you are interested (like I am), for a nominal fee listed in the book you can request a disc with the source code and additional goodies. I sent the check to the wrong address. It was returned by the postal service. A couple weeks ago I sent it to the proper address, which happens to be in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I am currently waiting for the disc. Read the rest of this entry »
You might be wondering what Sam’s Club, the labor department and unions in general have to do with each other (specially in this blog)?
Let me start with what prompted this entry. Dan (rather not divulge his last name) started work at Sam’s Club in Eagan, Minnesota about eight years ago. He is a male in his late fifties, married with two children. Early in life he was struck with Polio, a crippling decease. Due to this unfortunate event, he wears special shoes to take into account the difference in length of one of his legs. About ten years ago Dan suffered a heart attack. Apparently he recovered from it. He also had a double bypass.
Up to a month or so ago, Dan used to work in the bakery at Sam’s Club in the Eagan store. He started work early mornings, most of the time no later than 05:00 AM. Dan is a very responsible and by all accounts a good employee. He was proud of his job and what he did. A few months ago, during a review, he was cited as an exemplary worker. Life for Dan was good with the exception that the intense work, plus the changes in temperature from the ovens to the coolers started taking toll on him. Given the number of years of service he was making about $16.00 per hour. Most of the weeks he would be given forty hours. During slow months he would be scheduled a few less hours.
About two months ago he decided to move to a different position. He just could not take the amount of work he had to do. A break, at least that was what he thought, occurred. A full-time opening for a “greeter” opened. If you have been to Sam’s Club, greeters are people that welcome customers and check their membership cards and when customer leave, they check the number of items printed on the receipt against the actual items in the cart. Quite less strenuous that lifting heavy loads, changes in temperature, etc. Dan moved to his new position with his seniority and about $16.00 per hour wage.
Read the rest of this entry »
You might first ask what British Petroleum (BP), the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and politicians have in common. Lets take a look at each of them and see if there is a common thread that most Naïve Americans do not see or understand.
British Petroleum (BP)
BP is a very large energy company based on oil. They start with exploration to locate oil deposits. Make the necessary assessments to drill or not, transport the crude oil to refineries which make lubricants, gasoline, jet and diesel fuel among other products. BP takes their products directly to consumers by selling through gas stations and service departments.
The company employs people from different countries including the USA. They drill for oil in different areas in and outside the USA. One would expect that BP employ a large number of well-educated and trained scientists and engineers to keep the business going and to seek future energy sources. Read the rest of this entry »
DICOM is an acronym for: Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. It is a standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting information in medical imaging. The current version of the standard is 3.0. I have been dealing with DICOM for the past twenty-five years. The key to DICOM (or any other standard) is to make products from different vendors to be able to interconnect. Before DICOM larger companies had a monopoly on systems. Once a company got a foothold at a healthcare facility it was almost impossible to switch or get better equipment for specific captures. For example, some companies specialize in ultrasound while others in MRI. Before DICOM, healthcare facilities had to choose a vendor and run with it or have redundancies to accommodate the different vendors, which was and still is quite expensive.
The problems with DICOM are quite obvious and there are reasons why. DICOM is cumbersome, inefficient and poorly specified. The reason is that is was designed by committee whose members were not computer scientists and electrical engineers. Representatives came from different vendors that wanted to impose their ideas and protocols in order to get faster and deeper market penetration. One way or another the benefits that DICOM brought to the industry are obvious and welcomed by healthcare providers, not so much by vendors who still try to eliminate competition by stating that if other DICOM products are not certified with their implementations they will not be able to provide service or might even void warranties. It is interesting that in all the years I have been dealing with DICOM I have run into a situation where a vendor would put such opposition in writing. Read the rest of this entry »
It has been rather cold in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota during the past week or so. Rumors have it that summer might already be over before it started. A few evenings ago my wife and I (with our min pin) had the urge to enjoy a Dairy Queen soft cone dipped in chocolate. We live in the city of Apple Valley. We have two relatively close choices, one in Eagan and the other in Rosemount, MN. We decided to go to the one in Rosemount. Read the rest of this entry »
A few weeks ago my wife and I watched on PBS Nova. We missed the first few minutes of the show and were not able to get the name of the show.
Over the weekend I was on Skype talking with my sister that lives on the East Coast. We talked about the Nova program, which she was also able to view. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg, winner of the 1979 Nobel Price for Physics, came up during our conversation so I ordered a copy on Amazon.
The book is quite interesting and relevant to the Nova show we watched. Weinberg did a good job by separating concepts and explaining them as simply as possible and separating it from mathematics. The mathematics is incorporated into a single section at the end of the book. Read the rest of this entry »
