After reading “The Code Book” by Simon Singh I had to read more about Philip Zimmermann and Pretty Good Privacy. Once again opened my trusty Goggle search and located among others “The Official PGP User’s Guide” by Philip R. Zimmermann. Apparently the book is no longer being published. I was lucky enough to get a used copy from a bookseller that I found through www.amazon.com in Florida.
The book is quite thin (only 120+ pages) and it is a User’s Guide. Not sure when was the last time that I purchased a hard copy of a manual.
The book brought back memories from the 80’s when I wrote a few preliminary users’ guides for different products that I developed. Reading the book one gets the flavor of the Unix man pages. Not sure if too many readers would share with me that feeling ;o) Read the rest of this entry »
Dear Mr. President Obama,
As the news have been reporting in the past few days, you and the Democratic Party are back attempting to resuscitate your pathetic plan to reform healthcare. I believe that most Naïve Americans believe that there is a need for healthcare reform, but how and when it is going to be implemented are the key issues.
Allow me to give you an example of the urgency to act immediately. This past week my wife and I spent the day at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. My wife needed a surgical procedure, which was performed brilliantly by a consultant surgeon. Mayo Clinic uses relatively unique (at least for me) titles for their exceptionally well-qualified medical staff.
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Towards the end of last year I started to work on a task / project to add encryption for data transfers between storage servers. As usual I like to understand as much as possible what the subject is all about before starting the software design and implementation. For that purpose I opened my trusty Goggle browser and did several searches for books and papers in the subject.
The one I chose to read first was “The Code Book” by Simon Singh. The book is not technical but provides a good review of some of the salient topics in cryptography developments through history, a great starting point. Read the rest of this entry »
I turned on the TV this morning and watched for a few minutes while my wife was getting up. Channel nine (Fox) in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul was broadcasting the daily news. I did not watch for more than a few minutes, but they were talking about spending cuts that Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) wants to (or already has) enact.
There were some points that called my attention and want to bring them up on this blog.
Apparently Mr. Pawlenty wants to cut some budgets, which will force to layoff some government workers. The logic behind this is that if there are not enough funds to go around, individuals, companies and the government need to do the same. People would stop buying some items and companies would layoff workers. There are politicians (mostly Democrats) and affected government workers (as expected) that do not want this to happen. What is so special about government workers and elected officials? The answer is nothing. If regular Naive Americans are being laid off then any individual with some basic common sense should understand that government worker and politicians should also follow suit if the economy requires it. My strong support for the Governor of Minnesota!
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Today Sunday February 14, 2010 Mr. Cheney (former vice president during the Bush Administration and defense contractor) had the guts to attach the Obama administration of not being prepared for the next terrorist attack. On the same breath he congratulates Mr. Obama for increasing the US efforts in Afghanistan.
The Naive American would like to comment on the remarks made by Mr. Cheney.
One has to be living in La La Land to believe that terrorists will never attack the US again. The simple reason is that the foreign policies for the past sixty years or so have alienated every single country we have ever consider our allies. Today very few countries label themselves as friends of the USA. Most nations are indifferent and many are completely our enemies. Yet we continue to bring nationals from countries that do not like the US and label them as refugees. We need to think on the consequences and not in the instant gratification, which is just a consequence of politicians being paid by the American Royalty through lobbyists. If you want a different version on my opinion please watch the 2005 documentary “Why We Fight” directed by Eugene Jarecki and be enlightened. Read the rest of this entry »
Last night on national networks president Barack Obama read his State of the Union speech. I am so fed up with politicians, including Mr. Obama that my wife and I decided to watch the Food Network channel on cable. At least one is able to polish cooking skill instead of getting irritated with a bunch of empty promises and lies delivered by career politicians that somehow believe that their statements and actions are good for the USA and most important sustainable. This is definitely not the case. We need to have accountability enforced to refrain these individuals.
Early this morning I checked the news and read a few articles regarding last night’s presidential speech. I kind of liked the structure of an article by USA Today (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/01/obamas-promises-verbatim/1). I am taking the bullet points from the speech and commenting on them.
Bank Fees. The only thing that will happen with this approach is that banks will pass them on to their Naive American consumers. This is just a cost of doing business. Bank fees, not a good idea. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday evening my wife and I were driving on our way to get some groceries when a billboard called my attention. The sign was for the local 950 AM radio station in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. The inscription “Obama Generation” made me think on two simple ideas. What would define the “Obama Generation” and who would like to identify themselves or belong to such group?
When our illustrious president Obama was in the campaign trail he promised CHANGE in different fronts. Mr. Obama has been in office for over a year and the only CHANGE that has occurred is with the trend of things in the USA; as a whole, things are just getting worse by the minute.
Career politicians CONTINUE to celebrate being in office for life, politicians CONTINUE getting “legal bribes”, the USA CONTINUES being at war and Mr. Obama is sending more troops to fight a war that cannot be won, healthcare insurance companies CONTINUE to raise prices and reduce Read the rest of this entry »
Who is running the USA?
A very loaded and interesting question. If you ask children they will tell you that the president, Mr. Barack Obama at this point in time, runs our country. The president is elected through somewhat twisted method, but that is how we elect our president.
For most Naive Americans the president is just a figure (puppet) that follows the suggestions of his political party. So far so good because a Democratic president, like Barack Obama should follow the principles and ideology of the Democratic Party. The same could have been said of the previous Bush administration. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I saw a Lowes Home Improvement commercial on TV. The ad shows a father bragging to his son how he got a deal at Lowes. The dad demanded on his major appliance purchase free next day delivery, free hook up and free haul away. As the short conversation comes to an end it shows the son reading on the back of the Lowes truck as it drives away the standard free offers. It does not include free hook up. That is something the dad mentions during the conversation.
If you go to the Lowes web site (www.lowes.com) next day delivery has a caveat. It is only available for in-stock major appliances. So what are the chances that the appliance you decide to purchase is in stock? Do not know that answer but in the past six months my wife and I had to replace the washer and dryer (the motor in the washer burned) at home. Purchase them at Lowes. Lowes did not have the appliances in stock (what a surprise) so it took several (not next day) days between the purchase and delivery. Lowes does not hook up gas appliances. They are able to plug in a cord to a standard electrical outlet. That appears to be the extent of free hookup. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was growing up I always thought that the ways of the USA were the proper ones and the rest of the world needed to learn from us. Our politicians were ethical and the policies that they would come up with and attempt to enforce in other countries was good for the rest of the world. I was living with a Crusader / Inquisition mentality. Boy was I wrong.
As I grew older (not sure about the wiser part) I came to the realization that the political system in the USA is no better and perhaps worse than in most countries. We have managed to legalize unmoral and unethical practices. Not only that but corruption is very well entrenched in business activities (more on this on a future blog).
Lets take a look at how we do a few things in America. Read the rest of this entry »
