You can afford to do this because you have a job. No need to be defiant just because you can. Live Linux USBs and Live optical disks can sometimes (very rarely) interact badly with the host system. I once made a DVD drive invisible to the installed system after using the drive to run a live CD. I got it back, after a bit of work, but there was no sweat because it was my computer. These days there are netbooks, tablets, smartphones, media players etc etc. All have a small form factor, which makes them easy enough take along with you in addition to the work-supplied computer. And most can be had for a couple of hundred bucks.
Dude, I can hear the HR officer explaining your pink slip. "It's not about the equipment. Really. It's about the position of trust you so defiantly cast aside. You broke your commitment to abide by company policy. Remember the form you signed when you were issued the machine? If we can't trust you here at Assadyne then we can't work with you."
What is... is. Any decent tourbook that includes this campsite will of course mention the disaster. It is feckless to ask any supposedly objective information source to skip over a significant element of a place's history.
Or a person's history. "Here are my transcripts... Oh wait! We have a right to forget that C- in calculus."
"Really? Somehow I think not Mr. Woolman."
As I said, What is simply...is. So the place in infamous. So what? Why not capitalize? Build a shrine. Pay some monks to consecrate it. Build a museum filled with grisly photos. Put up a flower wall. These Europeans simply need to take a page from the How To Be An American Handbook. Seems to me these people are sitting on a goldmine. Picture this: Next to the grisly search results a Google text ad that reads. "See the Alfaques Museum and Shrine." Some people just don't realize when they have it good. Sheesh!
Oh, Come on! Trepanning can still be needed and very much to the point.
Modern medical practices
Trepanationis a treatment used for epidural and subdural hematomas, and for surgical access for certain other neurosurgical procedures, such as intracranial pressure monitoring. Modern surgeons generally use the term craniotomy for this procedure. The removed piece of skull is typically replaced as soon as possible. If the bone is not replaced, then the procedure is considered a craniectomy. Trepanation instruments are now available with diamond coated rims (Diamond Bone Cutting System), which are less traumatic than the classical trephines with sharp teeth. They are smooth to soft tissues and cut only bone.
The other day I pulled the cover off my venerable HP 5MP laser printer -- which still works nicely after 15 years, thank you -- to install some additional memory. The PCB hosting the memory modules was labeled "Made in USA." Whoa! That'll take you back. Surprisingly, there are quite a number of these quality heavy-duty machines around. So many that that there is a cottage industry in providing consumable parts like paper rollers and fusers for these dinosaurs. Granted my American-made machine cost a thousand dollars, but then it has returned a lot of value in over a decade and a half of reliable service. And I hope it will stay out of a landfill for at least another five years.
We're in a throw away world now, however. Throw-away products made by throw away people. It seems tragic that our government allowed our corporations to do an end run around our American workers' hard-won wage, benefit and working condition prerogatives by letting U.S. companies export manufacturing to places that put no value on human rights whatsoever. Did U.S. unions sometimes abuse their advantages in days gone by? Sure. But there is a reason that unions evolved in the first place. Ask the workers at Foxconn. (Independent unions are illegal in the workers' paradise.)
Sadly, we could have used our economic might as a carrot to teach the world, China included, something valuable. We could have done this by tying globalization to humanization. Instead we traded our good jobs for cheap goods that don't last. Not that they have to last, however. We can just buy new ones. Everything, including human life, is cheap. Now we have a "service economy". But somehow I doubt we can go far by selling each other coffee and massages. I am for free trade. But I am for free trade between free peoples. And the poor Chinese are anything but free. Maybe it is time to use our buying power to buy them some freedom, while buying back some of our lost jobs.
His deep insight is simply that true chaos devolves from ordered deterministic processes (e.g. cellular automatia) across all of nature. He demonstrates this systematically in his book, A New Kind of Science. The book elucidates the results of hundreds of computer experiments that use cellular automatia to echo various aspects of the natural world from physics to biology, often in clearly visible ways with wonderful fractal graphics. IMHO he shows incontrovertibly that natural chaos is sometimes the output of rather simple rule-based systems. He posits quite plausibly, but has yet to prove, that the chaotic (in the mathematical sense) universe that we experience is better understood as the output of a simple rule-based system or, if you prefer, program. Current models all use differential equations, of course.
The book is very approachable. Since the book reflects ideas that he maintains are completely novel (Not everyone agrees on this, by the way.) he strove to make it readable by any reasonably educated person. This made sense for him to do since, he maintains, there are no prerequisites needed to understand his new kind of science. If he proves right ANKOS will rank with Newton's Principia Mathematica. It is a fascinating and provocative read, especialy for those of us who are computer minded. Time will tell if it is a work of sublime genius.
Remember that he wrote A New Kind of Science at night, while he continued to run a successful multi-million dollar software enterprise during the day. The peer review jury is still partly out on ANKOS, but his highly original ideas continue to thrive and spur further research. His deep insight that true chaos devolves from ordered deterministic processes (e.g. cellular automatia) across all of nature is nothing short of astounding. Focused he is. Obbsessive and a bit eccentric, certainly. But a nut? Not by a long shot. Same goes for Ray K.
Just legally possible, although not morally defensible. The law, we all know well, does not always equate to justice. And that is especially true of IP law, of course.
By referencing this case I was pointing out that the NZ library has every reason to be worried. Since this rather creepy little company going after the Maori trademark has plenty of creepy company. I had no intention of defending them.
Personally I am outraged by Daddy Pepperbucks century of non-stop litigious bullying. They even went after a punk rocker who used a "Tabasco" moniker. Was it Annie Tabasco..? or Suzy Tabasco...? or... Someone help me here. The early 80s are a bit.... fuzzy.
IANAL But the Tabasco story is a famous and an interesting trademark case.
Since Tabasco is a state in Mexico and a name for a pepper, McIllhenny understandably had a hard time cementing its claim.
Right or wrong, McIllhenny vigorously defends this hard-won mark to this day.
Thanks so much for the physics lesson. Really. I was wondering how much damage that asteroid would really do. And it would have been more seemly to close my comment with a question to that effect.
However, as you no doubt have by now already perhaps gleaned, my original comment was meant to be a sort of joke. Therefore, in my own defense, let me explain the comic processes involved.
A) Irony. There is intrinsic irony in mining an asteroid in order to spare the environment, but, in the process, actually destroying the environment; and, of course, along with it, the environmentalists. Ha ha ha. (As I am a conservationist and a practically-minded environmentalist I find this prospect darkly amusing.)
The irony was meant to be advanced by another process; that is,
B) Hyperbole.
From Wikipedia "Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry [and humor]*, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."[2] Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy, although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
So, no, I did not actually think that this relatively small NEO would lead to Armageddon. But that inaccuracy was a useful hyperbole to promote my ironic joke.
But I still maintain that even with a small delta-V an aircraft-carrier-sized rock would frag a lot of environmentalists; that is, if its man-made orbit deteriorated unpredictably and it landed on, say, Portland Oregon. (Doing so in defiance of all statistical laws, of course.)
Of course if we miscalculated the capture orbit and accidentally dropped the freaking thing on ourselves that would also solve the environmentalist problem. They would be annihilated along with the rest of us. Better still. There would be no environment left for anyone to fret over and fight about.
I have rarely used a help desk. I spent much of my career in Asia and the former Soviet Union in the pre-Skype days. If I had a problem there was no one I could sensibly call and speak to in English. Mainly I have used help forums for the last 15 years. There is an etiquette to this, but the results are usually very satisfactory. Rarely do I even have to pose the question myself. A thoughtful search of a well-chosen forum often discloses a thread started by somebody with the same problem I had. In recent years a Google search often kicks off the investigation, but not always.
But once in a great while circumstances force me to call in. Usually it goes okay. But...My last experience with a help desk was an hour-long comic nightmare. My problem was that I had to call Verizon to get the passcode for their ISP as I had a non-Verizon router (Verizon branded routers have the ISP pass code built in, but I wanted to run Tomato firmware so I bought the Linksys. My instructions were to call in to Verizon to get my code. Easy peasy.)
My interlocutor was a patient and charming Phillipina working from a script in Manila. Somehow the convoluted script she used turned the original strong passcode into my permanent user name (she actually had my account open). Which, of course, becomes my Verizon email address. (Not that I would use it as I have my own anyway.) So find me now at something like aM1Xncg@verizon.com (Not the actual one since it is impossible to remember.) When I log on to their website (which is rarely) I have to use the ridiculous Mister Mxyzptlk username. It is immutable of course. Mine until I cancel my account or, perhaps, until I endure another phone call to Manila. Not. Worth. It. I would think that at JPL, or any other place that has a high proportion of scientists and engineers, you will find the in-house help desk used... reluctantly.
Consider long-term parking lots, used car lots, occasional-use cars etc. etc. Distributed computing has proven its value. So, Why not distributed power storage? Currently, this proposal does seem silly. But, given a much wider use of plug-in cars as well as improvements in battery technology -- combined, perhaps, with some interactive mobile apps -- it is not hard to envision scenarios wherein, by participating in the power co's storage program, one could amortize one's energy costs.
Also future cars might have some active recharging technology such as a solar-power-generating coating. Or perhaps small retractable wind turbines, like the one I designed to wear on my beanie, will add to the available capacity.
Someone gifted me with a Shuffle. I was familiar with some earlier MP3 players I had purchased -- Creative Nomad (parallel port) . Samsung Yepp.-- that simply acted as removable drives. When I tried to load my non-DRM mp3s on the Shuffle I nearly went looneytoons over Itunes, which you so perfectly characterized as a "bloated chunk of software that may erase all the music on your iDevice as it automatically syncs to an empty library."
Since I actually know where my files live, and where I want them to go, I just wanted to see the Shuffle player as a drive, like I do with my other players, and load the freaking thing with my music and audio books. But, no, I had to work within the confines of Itunes' peculiar grammar and create "playlists" and "sync" them. *shivers in horror* Nothing was transparent about the process. And I felt like I was in the grips of a nightmare virus. It was not hard to suss out. But it seemed so...pointless. What's hard about drag and drop? At least provide it as an option. And if it is an option it is not an easy-to-find option.
My wife used the Shuffle for a couple of months, but Itunes kept wanting to update itself every two days as an excuse to try to sell me DRM music. No thanks. I buy Redbook CDs and rip them with EAC into high quality MP3s. Finally, I deleted Itunes, which IMHO is practically malware. I bought my wife a Sansa.
Sorry about Steve, however. It is a terribly early frost for him if he is truly sick unto death this time around. A lot of Apple products have been great. And he is an authentic pioneer.
For quick and dirty encryption with my attorney and accountant Acrobat suffices. (IMHO the protection is marginally better that MS Word doc password protection.) I can distill a password protected PDF and attach it. Sure it is breakable, but it shows due diligence on my part. Hacking the encryption to read the content is itself a crime. And makes it a harder target. I give the password to the recipient over the phone. And I make it a good one. I would prefer to use GnuPG, but that requires a learning curve for the recipients.
I get that you were being sardonic, WSG. But... as for a gold-standard CA I would trust a USPS verification. Or even a CA that was USPS certified. Or, perhaps, in the case of a foreign CA, maybe Customs-Service certified.
But wait. There's more. Let 's put this into a broader context. I have long thought that the USPS missed the boat when they did not offer protected email services back in the day. What about a two-cent encrypted email with a usps.gov address? Nowadays it would be possible to have a lifetime USPS email account. Bill Gates has maintained forever that a paid email option would solve a lot of problems. He's not ALWAYS wrong. (FIlter. Read USPS Encrypted Only.) Sweet.
Why pay you ask? The pitch would be that such a USPS communication would garner the same constitutional protection as paper mail -- requiring a court order to open it. Even if in some cases it was a pro-forma FISA warrant. Currently, the government can troll email content because legally such communications are in a grey area -- 'broadcast' as they are across the network and (mostly) in plain text. Sure examination of the content on your PC requires a warrant, but plain text on the wire -- not so much. Your stuff in the cloud? Meh! The security community might not like this USPS idea so much, but the Post Office could sure use some extra revenue. Whatever the details of the scheme the US Postal Service clearly has the gravitas to put order into many dodgy areas of electronic communication. This really is a no-brainer for Congress. They'll see the wisdom of these suggestions instantly and pass the requisite laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Brushed up on her provenience thanks to your post. The history of this ship is amazing. Great shout, Malc.
You can afford to do this because you have a job. No need to be defiant just because you can. Live Linux USBs and Live optical disks can sometimes (very rarely) interact badly with the host system. I once made a DVD drive invisible to the installed system after using the drive to run a live CD. I got it back, after a bit of work, but there was no sweat because it was my computer. These days there are netbooks, tablets, smartphones, media players etc etc. All have a small form factor, which makes them easy enough take along with you in addition to the work-supplied computer. And most can be had for a couple of hundred bucks.
Dude, I can hear the HR officer explaining your pink slip. "It's not about the equipment. Really. It's about the position of trust you so defiantly cast aside. You broke your commitment to abide by company policy. Remember the form you signed when you were issued the machine? If we can't trust you here at Assadyne then we can't work with you."
What is... is. Any decent tourbook that includes this campsite will of course mention the disaster. It is feckless to ask any supposedly objective information source to skip over a significant element of a place's history.
Or a person's history. "Here are my transcripts... Oh wait! We have a right to forget that C- in calculus."
"Really? Somehow I think not Mr. Woolman."
As I said, What is simply...is. So the place in infamous. So what? Why not capitalize? Build a shrine. Pay some monks to consecrate it. Build a museum filled with grisly photos. Put up a flower wall. These Europeans simply need to take a page from the How To Be An American Handbook. Seems to me these people are sitting on a goldmine. Picture this: Next to the grisly search results a Google text ad that reads. "See the Alfaques Museum and Shrine." Some people just don't realize when they have it good. Sheesh!
Dude. Can we talk?
make it Löwenbräu.
the dangers posed by Kuru
Oh, Come on! Trepanning can still be needed and very much to the point.
Modern medical practices
Trepanationis a treatment used for epidural and subdural hematomas, and for surgical access for certain other neurosurgical procedures, such as intracranial pressure monitoring. Modern surgeons generally use the term craniotomy for this procedure. The removed piece of skull is typically replaced as soon as possible. If the bone is not replaced, then the procedure is considered a craniectomy. Trepanation instruments are now available with diamond coated rims (Diamond Bone Cutting System), which are less traumatic than the classical trephines with sharp teeth. They are smooth to soft tissues and cut only bone.
w00t.
The other day I pulled the cover off my venerable HP 5MP laser printer -- which still works nicely after 15 years, thank you -- to install some additional memory. The PCB hosting the memory modules was labeled "Made in USA." Whoa! That'll take you back. Surprisingly, there are quite a number of these quality heavy-duty machines around. So many that that there is a cottage industry in providing consumable parts like paper rollers and fusers for these dinosaurs. Granted my American-made machine cost a thousand dollars, but then it has returned a lot of value in over a decade and a half of reliable service. And I hope it will stay out of a landfill for at least another five years.
We're in a throw away world now, however. Throw-away products made by throw away people. It seems tragic that our government allowed our corporations to do an end run around our American workers' hard-won wage, benefit and working condition prerogatives by letting U.S. companies export manufacturing to places that put no value on human rights whatsoever. Did U.S. unions sometimes abuse their advantages in days gone by? Sure. But there is a reason that unions evolved in the first place. Ask the workers at Foxconn. (Independent unions are illegal in the workers' paradise.)
Sadly, we could have used our economic might as a carrot to teach the world, China included, something valuable. We could have done this by tying globalization to humanization. Instead we traded our good jobs for cheap goods that don't last. Not that they have to last, however. We can just buy new ones. Everything, including human life, is cheap. Now we have a "service economy". But somehow I doubt we can go far by selling each other coffee and massages. I am for free trade. But I am for free trade between free peoples. And the poor Chinese are anything but free. Maybe it is time to use our buying power to buy them some freedom, while buying back some of our lost jobs.
Rick Astley?
His deep insight is simply that true chaos devolves from ordered deterministic processes (e.g. cellular automatia) across all of nature. He demonstrates this systematically in his book, A New Kind of Science. The book elucidates the results of hundreds of computer experiments that use cellular automatia to echo various aspects of the natural world from physics to biology, often in clearly visible ways with wonderful fractal graphics. IMHO he shows incontrovertibly that natural chaos is sometimes the output of rather simple rule-based systems. He posits quite plausibly, but has yet to prove, that the chaotic (in the mathematical sense) universe that we experience is better understood as the output of a simple rule-based system or, if you prefer, program. Current models all use differential equations, of course.
The book is very approachable. Since the book reflects ideas that he maintains are completely novel (Not everyone agrees on this, by the way.) he strove to make it readable by any reasonably educated person. This made sense for him to do since, he maintains, there are no prerequisites needed to understand his new kind of science. If he proves right ANKOS will rank with Newton's Principia Mathematica. It is a fascinating and provocative read, especialy for those of us who are computer minded. Time will tell if it is a work of sublime genius.
Remember that he wrote A New Kind of Science at night, while he continued to run a successful multi-million dollar software enterprise during the day. The peer review jury is still partly out on ANKOS, but his highly original ideas continue to thrive and spur further research. His deep insight that true chaos devolves from ordered deterministic processes (e.g. cellular automatia) across all of nature is nothing short of astounding. Focused he is. Obbsessive and a bit eccentric, certainly. But a nut? Not by a long shot. Same goes for Ray K.
Just legally possible, although not morally defensible. The law, we all know well, does not always equate to justice. And that is especially true of IP law, of course.
By referencing this case I was pointing out that the NZ library has every reason to be worried. Since this rather creepy little company going after the Maori trademark has plenty of creepy company. I had no intention of defending them.
Personally I am outraged by Daddy Pepperbucks century of non-stop litigious bullying. They even went after a punk rocker who used a "Tabasco" moniker. Was it Annie Tabasco..? or Suzy Tabasco...? or... Someone help me here. The early 80s are a bit.... fuzzy.
IANAL But the Tabasco story is a famous and an interesting trademark case .
Since Tabasco is a state in Mexico and a name for a pepper, McIllhenny understandably had a hard time cementing its claim. Right or wrong, McIllhenny vigorously defends this hard-won mark to this day.
And they are making a video... or someone is.
Thanks so much for the physics lesson. Really. I was wondering how much damage that asteroid would really do. And it would have been more seemly to close my comment with a question to that effect.
However, as you no doubt have by now already perhaps gleaned, my original comment was meant to be a sort of joke. Therefore, in my own defense, let me explain the comic processes involved.
A) Irony. There is intrinsic irony in mining an asteroid in order to spare the environment, but, in the process, actually destroying the environment; and, of course, along with it, the environmentalists. Ha ha ha. (As I am a conservationist and a practically-minded environmentalist I find this prospect darkly amusing.) The irony was meant to be advanced by another process; that is,
B) Hyperbole. From Wikipedia "Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry [and humor]*, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."[2] Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy, although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
So, no, I did not actually think that this relatively small NEO would lead to Armageddon. But that inaccuracy was a useful hyperbole to promote my ironic joke.
But I still maintain that even with a small delta-V an aircraft-carrier-sized rock would frag a lot of environmentalists; that is, if its man-made orbit deteriorated unpredictably and it landed on, say, Portland Oregon. (Doing so in defiance of all statistical laws, of course.)
*My italics.
Of course if we miscalculated the capture orbit and accidentally dropped the freaking thing on ourselves that would also solve the environmentalist problem. They would be annihilated along with the rest of us. Better still. There would be no environment left for anyone to fret over and fight about.
I have rarely used a help desk. I spent much of my career in Asia and the former Soviet Union in the pre-Skype days. If I had a problem there was no one I could sensibly call and speak to in English. Mainly I have used help forums for the last 15 years. There is an etiquette to this, but the results are usually very satisfactory. Rarely do I even have to pose the question myself. A thoughtful search of a well-chosen forum often discloses a thread started by somebody with the same problem I had. In recent years a Google search often kicks off the investigation, but not always.
But once in a great while circumstances force me to call in. Usually it goes okay. But...My last experience with a help desk was an hour-long comic nightmare. My problem was that I had to call Verizon to get the passcode for their ISP as I had a non-Verizon router (Verizon branded routers have the ISP pass code built in, but I wanted to run Tomato firmware so I bought the Linksys. My instructions were to call in to Verizon to get my code. Easy peasy.)
My interlocutor was a patient and charming Phillipina working from a script in Manila. Somehow the convoluted script she used turned the original strong passcode into my permanent user name (she actually had my account open). Which, of course, becomes my Verizon email address. (Not that I would use it as I have my own anyway.) So find me now at something like aM1Xncg@verizon.com (Not the actual one since it is impossible to remember.) When I log on to their website (which is rarely) I have to use the ridiculous Mister Mxyzptlk username. It is immutable of course. Mine until I cancel my account or, perhaps, until I endure another phone call to Manila. Not. Worth. It. I would think that at JPL, or any other place that has a high proportion of scientists and engineers, you will find the in-house help desk used ... reluctantly.
Consider long-term parking lots, used car lots, occasional-use cars etc. etc. Distributed computing has proven its value. So, Why not distributed power storage? Currently, this proposal does seem silly. But, given a much wider use of plug-in cars as well as improvements in battery technology -- combined, perhaps, with some interactive mobile apps -- it is not hard to envision scenarios wherein, by participating in the power co's storage program, one could amortize one's energy costs.
Also future cars might have some active recharging technology such as a solar-power-generating coating. Or perhaps small retractable wind turbines, like the one I designed to wear on my beanie, will add to the available capacity.
Too right. This corruption has to stop or the country will go down. Self-made billionaire Carl Icahn cannot say enough on this subject.
I thought of it first.
Except nobody reads newspapers anymore.
Hmmmm... I got it!
iPad-powered steam car.
I thought of it first.
" If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball."
Patches O'Houlihan
Someone gifted me with a Shuffle. I was familiar with some earlier MP3 players I had purchased -- Creative Nomad (parallel port) . Samsung Yepp.-- that simply acted as removable drives. When I tried to load my non-DRM mp3s on the Shuffle I nearly went looneytoons over Itunes, which you so perfectly characterized as a "bloated chunk of software that may erase all the music on your iDevice as it automatically syncs to an empty library."
Since I actually know where my files live, and where I want them to go, I just wanted to see the Shuffle player as a drive, like I do with my other players, and load the freaking thing with my music and audio books. But, no, I had to work within the confines of Itunes' peculiar grammar and create "playlists" and "sync" them. *shivers in horror* Nothing was transparent about the process. And I felt like I was in the grips of a nightmare virus. It was not hard to suss out. But it seemed so...pointless. What's hard about drag and drop? At least provide it as an option. And if it is an option it is not an easy-to-find option.
My wife used the Shuffle for a couple of months, but Itunes kept wanting to update itself every two days as an excuse to try to sell me DRM music. No thanks. I buy Redbook CDs and rip them with EAC into high quality MP3s. Finally, I deleted Itunes, which IMHO is practically malware. I bought my wife a Sansa.
Sorry about Steve, however. It is a terribly early frost for him if he is truly sick unto death this time around. A lot of Apple products have been great. And he is an authentic pioneer.
For quick and dirty encryption with my attorney and accountant Acrobat suffices. (IMHO the protection is marginally better that MS Word doc password protection.) I can distill a password protected PDF and attach it. Sure it is breakable, but it shows due diligence on my part. Hacking the encryption to read the content is itself a crime. And makes it a harder target. I give the password to the recipient over the phone. And I make it a good one. I would prefer to use GnuPG, but that requires a learning curve for the recipients.
I get that you were being sardonic, WSG. But... as for a gold-standard CA I would trust a USPS verification. Or even a CA that was USPS certified. Or, perhaps, in the case of a foreign CA, maybe Customs-Service certified.
But wait. There's more. Let 's put this into a broader context. I have long thought that the USPS missed the boat when they did not offer protected email services back in the day. What about a two-cent encrypted email with a usps.gov address? Nowadays it would be possible to have a lifetime USPS email account. Bill Gates has maintained forever that a paid email option would solve a lot of problems. He's not ALWAYS wrong. (FIlter. Read USPS Encrypted Only.) Sweet.
Why pay you ask? The pitch would be that such a USPS communication would garner the same constitutional protection as paper mail -- requiring a court order to open it. Even if in some cases it was a pro-forma FISA warrant. Currently, the government can troll email content because legally such communications are in a grey area -- 'broadcast' as they are across the network and (mostly) in plain text. Sure examination of the content on your PC requires a warrant, but plain text on the wire -- not so much. Your stuff in the cloud? Meh! The security community might not like this USPS idea so much, but the Post Office could sure use some extra revenue. Whatever the details of the scheme the US Postal Service clearly has the gravitas to put order into many dodgy areas of electronic communication. This really is a no-brainer for Congress. They'll see the wisdom of these suggestions instantly and pass the requisite laws.
Oh, wait! Never mind. Forget I said anything.
"Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No! But I do it anyway, cause it's sterile and I like the taste."
Patches O'Houlihan