Perhaps you're confused by the name "Electronic Frontier Foundation"?
the "Electronic Frontier" is woven into everyone's life: what happens electronically can be more real, longer lasting, than any real-world event, and
"Foundation" doesn't mean the same as "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" (it can buy countries), or the "Ford Foundation" (it can casually sponsor a year of PBS). The EFF, unless it wins the trillion-dollar lawsuit, is a small donor-supported non-profit.
And in some cases, the ACLU doesn't do as well. The EFF's AT&T lawsuit is still going strong. The EFF filed in January to get that amazing 'not automatically dismissed on state secrets' ruling. I admit I'm biased- I know people there and am a supporter- but damn, they're good.
Consider warrantless searches. In your 'real world,' a set of police can only do a few warrantless searches per day- maybe 10 or 20 if they have their door-kick down. In the actual world, a set of searchers hooked into AT&Ts database can do millions of warrantless searches per day. And they don't leave busted doors behind as a clue.
Consider voter disenfranchisement. In the old days, you had to physically block people from voting, one by one. Now you can do badly-designed joins on voter-rolls and stop thousands of people from voting in an afternoon.
Or maybe you really don't worry about building innovative tech companies, music CDs, publishing electronically. You really don't worry about credit scores, credit card records, HIPAA, test results, university records, voter data, flight records, VoIP calls... in your world. Funny, I didn't think they'd let you online in Supermax, Mr. Kaczynski.
Why the hell does anyone need more than their book & a passport anyway?
So, no travel pillow? Eyemask? Saline spray to prevent nosebleeds? Low-carb sports drinks to prevent dehydration- and to not get the runs from airlines' water?
But, really, for this we should talk about the children. Most flights I've been on recently have had kids-- generally quiet kids, busy with the familar toys and snacks their smart parents brought to distract them. It's usually only the newbie flyers who don't bring a favorite fruit drink to keep the kid's ears from popping during descent. Except now every parent is going to be a newbie, because the usual drink tricks will be pulled away. Seems like now the TSA is only allowing baby foods- if unsterilized by the parent's tasting it. Great, so the under-2 set is covered. Have they never heard a 4 year old in a full tantrum? Are the parents supposed to figure out which of 1. Sugar-apple-water, 2. diet Pepsi, or 3. Starbuck's Frappochino is going to best quiet their thirsty kid? ('Course the answer is 4. juice with vodka.)
And things like medicines- most people want to carry their supply on them. Spending the first 24 hours of your vacation trying to replace a prescription? Not so easy.
Of course, right now all our decisions and reactions will be driven by anger and fear. The problem comes when authorities decide that every decision made today must be good. Sturgeon's Law applies no matter how good your motivations: but the stronger your emotional motivation the less likely you are to review your decision later, when calm.
When AOL appologized today, the spokesperson said '"Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this."
Back in January, related to the story on how the DoJ demands and gets ISP data, AOL had said that "We did not comply with the request made in the subpoena," spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "Instead, we gave the Department of Justice a list of aggregate anonymous search terms that did not include results or any personally identifiable information."
AOL- you need to rethink that phrase personally identifiable, because it doesn't seem to mean what you think it means. You're hiding behind one technical definition of PII, without concern about whether or not the results actually have PII. If you're releasing results with personally identifying information, then you cannot say you're not releasing PII. I'd written in January I'd writen "I question this assumption by Yahoo, AOL, etc. that search terms, by themselves, have no privacy considerations because they've been separated from personal info. What if the search itself contains personal information? Are the search companies deleting the timestamps and randomizing the order of the search terms themselves? Because otherwise I could see personal info showing up." Obviously, half a year later, they still think that replacing a name with a number takes away the PII. They need to have a talk with, say, the Census Department, about why the department will withhold data about *groups* of businesses in a region. Grouped data can easily become PII data if you can tease out characteristics. AOL didn't even group the data!
As always, relevant quotes from the best.essay.evar on why privacy is a fundamental human right: "If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm..."
"...agents of the state in Canada cannot order Canada Post to photocopy the address on every envelope we send, nor can they order bookstores to keep a record of every book we buy, let alone of every page of every magazine we leaf through. There is no reason why they should be able to exercise such powers with regard to every e-mail someone sends or every Web site he or she visits."
"I do not see any reason why e-mails should be subject to a lower standard of privacy protection than letters or telephone calls. And I do not see why Internet browsing should be subject to a lower standard of protection than book purchasing or researching in a reference library. Canadians should not be subject to greater state monitoring or scrutiny just because they choose to use new communication technologies."
Another action that could help the EFF is to remind people that the EFF is a non-profit. If a blogger writes about the EFF, then if it's appropriate, give a mention in comments that the EFF is a donor-supported non-profit.
For example, going over major bloggers' coverage of the AT&T ruling last week, I'm not seeing too many articles that specifically talk about what the EFF is. So then readers who like- heck, love what the EFF is doing won't think that the EFF needs support, because 'Foundation' has different meanings:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (can buy countries),
Ford Foundation (can casually sponsor a year of PBS),
Electronic Frontier Foundation (Unless it wins the trillion-dollar lawsuit, will continue to run on donations).
The EFF is suing AT&T for a trillion dollars: that's one project. The EFF got Betamax upheld in the Supreme Court: that's another project. The EFF writes about DRM and Hollywood plugging the analog hole: that's a third.
I'm thinking that this doesn't mean that 1/3rd of their projects relate to DRM. RFID isn't even on their list of legal cases. Here's the EFF's major topics:
Looks like you disagree with 11% of the list, not 50%: where did the 1/2 come from? Was it that you heard a lecture by Cory Doctorow? Because he does like talking about the DRM, sure.
But if you get a take-down notice, or you get sued because of your blog post, or you want to built technology without Hollywood's permission, who other than the EFF is going to understand both the technological and the legal- even Constitutional- implications? The EFF is innovation insurance.
But most Slashdot members haven't joined the EFF. The EFF is fighting organizations that are thousands of times the size of the EFF, and the EFF is winning- that's the sort of thing to make you think Join the EFF today. Someone has to pay for the EFF, and right now that someone isn't 98% of Slashdot.
Yes, really. Slashdot has members in the high-hundred-thousands or low-millions. The EFF has nowhere near even 1/30th or 1/40th of that many members. 39 of 40 Slashdot members are relying on the donations of that 40th member to keep the EFF going. The 'Foundation' in Electronic Frontier Foundation doesn't mean 'trust fund.' It means 'you can make a tax deductable donation and that'll be helpful.'
Remember how long it took for non-technical people to understand how damaging the rootkit was? That's part of why the EFF is so important- they understand why the technical details matter so that they're ready when you call. But a small non-profit member-based organization depends on money from their members to run.
Disclaimer- I support the EFF and I know many of the people there- the 23 people who make the EFF look like it's 10x the size it is.
In a news article interviewing Ray Kurzweil, it says that he started on the software for the K-NFB reader in 2002: "Kurzweil said the key to being a successful inventor is predicting what the technology will be years from now. That's what he did with this reader. He started developing the software four years ago." Given that he also has a decades long track record in building reading machines, and that other groups have worked on reading machines, the idea that ASU was the first or the only group to be working on this in 2003 isn't entirely plausible.
The first description of this idea - although not as a handheld- seems to have been made in 1934, where ' In his 1934 story The Lost Language, writer David H. Keller describes a device that is actually able to make speech from printed text--the sound-transposing machine.'
The 1975 reader cost $50,000 (over $150,000 in today's dollars) and was the size of a dishwasher. This new reader "is about a thousand times smaller than the original Kurzweil Reading Machine, the PDA in the portable Reader is two thousand times faster. In fact, the portable Reader can execute about 500 million instructions per second as compared to 250,000 instructions per second for the Kurzweil Reading Machine. It also has a thousand times more memory (64 megabytes as compared to 64 kilobytes)."
"Yeah, I was hanging out with the guys last night and one of them bet us none of us would travel without a licence. So I took his bet."
"Uh-huh. You're flying without a licence- you mailed your licence home- because of a bet?"
"Well, I didn't really mail it home- its with that reporter, there. But, yeah, he double-dog-dared us, so I had to do it."
"A bet? A bet?"
"Sure, a bet, a wager, a gamble, playing the odds. Didn't want to look like a wuss. Had to do it."
I'd like to see how that explanation would fly. Because what I'm reading is that if you don't have your ID and you act apologetic and contrite- Sorry, sir, my wallet was stolen- then they accept the explanation. In that case the IDless traveller isn't trying to bother the TSA, but was simply hit by bad circumstances.
But willfully challenging the TSA- making it obvious you have a choice about your IDless travel- that's what the bet should have been about. Can you act as if you are equal to the TSA (let alone act as if the TSA works for you) and not a meek requester of permission to travel, and still get onto an airplane?
At any rate, their "the web is buzzing" dismissal-phrase isn't helping. Bees buzz. People have a glut of ebWay 2.0 conferences to choose from (not to mention the 1/1000 priced ad-hoc conferences that Web TwoPtOught tech makes possible), so bad publicity isn't going to help the conference. All its going to do is make web 2.0 seem so web 1.0. or 1999 2.0.
Didn't they think to run this application by a mailing list or two? Does O'Reilly not have a panel of no-men: a group of folks comfortable with saying "dude, that sux" to Tim if he needs to escape the echo-chambers of normal CEO-hood?
Or take the Schiavo case: it may one day be possible to insert new brain cells into someone like that and have them get up and be a person again. But they may not be the same person: the old brain matter that held their memories and personality may be gone. And yet, since we can do that, should we never pull the plug on a brain dead person?
If the person's memories and personality are gone, then all you're doing is growing a new person in an older body. You're twinning- cloning- a brain and giving it an instant full body transplant. You're giving a delayed twin both age-shortened telomeres and an age-damaged body.
This is cruel.
The new person is going to have to learn life- they'll be a baby, then a child, then an adult again. All without the protections of actually being a baby or child. All with the expectations that they're going to be the person they immediately resemble (at least a twin/cloned baby will prove their independence as they grow up).
Of course they're likely to be happy and glad to be alive- we have a tenacious ability to make do with what we have. But given that you'd get the same result by twinning/cloning a new brain in a new body- aka making a baby- why make a new person with half an ordinary lifespan? Why not just make an identical twin from the start (assuming that the telomere-length problem and the other problems in cloning are fixed)?
If brain stem cells are used to fix and repair a person's brain- that's only a quantitative change from what happens today, that small sections stop working, and then get working again. Brain damage is repaired by the person learning to reroute abilities across different, undamaged parts of the brain.
Rebuilding or recreating a brain? That'd be homeopathic neurology, the idea that spinal fluid and disconnected neurons can magically retain the memories and personality of the previous person.
Gaaaah. That whole "if you have nothing to hide..." used to be a a sarcastic line, not an earnest statement from folks so fearful they've forgotten how to judge fear-worthiness.
The Best...Essay...Ever...on privacy rights comes from the former privacy commissioner of Canada's 2003 overview of privacy in Canada. He shows why privacy is a fundamental human right, and he warns Canada not to give away rights now eroded or gone in the U.S., especially if its at the U.S. government's request. The sad part about the proverbial frog in the stovetop bath is that everyone thinks that if you know about the frog in the pot, you can't possibly be the frog in the pot. So, pretend he's writing about some other country- Acirema. Boy, I feel sorry for the Aciremans. Quoting (but read the whole overview- sharp, short, relevant):
" The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
" One of the clearest lessons of history is that the greatest threats to liberty come not when times are tranquil and all is well, but in times of turmoil, when fidelity to values and principle seems an extravagance we can ill afford. History also teaches us that whenever we have given in to that kind of thinking, we have lived to regret it.
At the time, the loss of freedom might seem small, trivial even, when placed in the balance of the security we seek. And yet these incremental threats are the ones we must be most vigilant in resisting. The 18th Century political philosopher Edmund Burke understood this danger when he wrote, "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall eloquently made the same point much more recently when he said: "History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."
...And we must guard against the eagerness of law enforcement bodies and other agencies of the state to use the response to September 11 as a Trojan horse for acquiring new invasive powers or abolishing established safeguards simply because it suits them to do so.
Perhaps it will be necessary to accept some new intrusive measures to enhance security. But these choices must be made calmly, carefully and case by case. The burden of proof must always be on those who suggest that some new intrusion or limitation on privacy is needed in the name of security.
[Balance of privacy and security defined]... Now we face having that successful balance changed, by having Canada transformed into a society where the state is much more intrusive and where individual rights and freedoms are correspondingly reduced. And we face having this transformation occur without the analysis, debate or even understanding that it deserves.
...If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm. [..Examples given...]
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent
The EFF's January 2006 Class Action Lawsuit is about this program. They started it, leading to Mark Klein's whistleblowing, leading to more press coverage, leading to this.
Slashdot readers, more than just about anyone else, understand why the EFF's work is so important. YRO, right?
The EFF is insurance- they're there to actually understand the technical details of why the DMCA takedown letter you just got is unconstitutional, for example. But most Slashdot members haven't joined the EFF. Change that- Join the EFF today
Yes, really. Slashdot has members in the high-hundred-thousands or low-millions. The EFF has nowhere near even 1/30th or 1/40th of that many members. 39 of 40 Slashdot members are relying on the donations of that 40th member to keep the EFF going.
Remember how long it took for non-technical people to understand how damaging the rootkit was? That's part of why the EFF is so important- they understand why the technical details matter so that they're ready when you call. But a small non-profit member-based organization depends on money from their members to run.
Check the 29 evidences essay for the section on Vitamin C. It isn't that all primates share the same gene for Vitamin C- we all share a broken gene. And its not that some primates have one type of broken gene and others another- the gene is broken in the same place.
Guinea pigs also have no ability to make vitamin C, but they have lost a completely different gene (not lost as in gone: lost as in broken). The question isn't "why would a Designer reuse good, working genes?" its "why would a Designer replicate broken, nonfunctional genes?"
Once a gene is broken, it is no longer maintained, so it gets additional changes in random places. Those breaks correspond with other markers of close relationships between primates. For example, humans and chimps have nearly identical "additional changes."
i.e. all primates share an obvious breaking point- an error that makes the gene fail to work entirely. Other errors have accumulated, and the pattern of those errors correlates with the type of primate. Humans and chimps have very similar errors. The errors in humans and chimps are somewhat like the errors in old world monkeys, and the errors of H C and OWM are fairly similar compared to either of New World monkeys or lemurs. In other words, the errors *nest.* For example: Working: Start-M-A-K-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop Broken1: StarrrM-A-K-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop Lemurs1: StarrrM-X-X-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop OldWld1: StarrrM-X-X-E-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-C-Stop NewWld1: StarrrM-X-Y-E-V-I-T-A-X-Z-X-C-Stop Chimps1: StarrrM-X-X-X-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-C-Stop Humans1: StarrrM-X-X-X-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-D-Stop
This is not what you'd expect a designer to use: this is what you'd see in plagarism, or in blind copying. Think about how a professor checks for students copying each other: the prof checks for identical errors, not identical correct answers. OR think about how a map-maker checks for copying: the original map will have a few tiny deliberate errors. If the same error pops up in a different company's map, then you know it was copied.
Here's the 29 Evidences for Macroevolution link. If you read it, you'll have seen some of the best arguments for evolution. What do you think?
For the 20 hominids links I gave, they in turn give you names and links to additional articles.
Check out the side views of the skulls- those aren't just people with changed bone structure, unless you're saying that chimps are people. Of course they all are individual species- that's the definition of species. But how would you classify them- human or chimp?
For modern Homo sapiens, there is very little difference in bone structure, and genetically we are all almost identical. You'll find more genetic diversity in *one* troop of chimps than in the *entire* human race.
What do you say to the genetic missing links we have? Human chromosome 2 looks just like chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q fused together. For example, the ends of chromosomes have telomeres- end caps. In human chromosome 2 you can see- literally, you can download the data- that there are broken remnants of telomeres in the middle of the chromosome. To visualize
Where the letters represent identical or nearly identical genes.
Even if we had no fossils in the world, that the genetic data of the 20th century corroborates the physiological data from several earlier centuries is evidence for evolution.
As I commented in one of many earlier discussions on evolution:
'First, a background question: you know that a transitional species- a missing link- will itself be a species? Because "species" are actual lifeforms, everything else is just a clade- a grouping. So if you have a an animal species that becomes another species, the transitional form can't be anything but a species.
'Also, you know that evolution is nothing but changes in allele frequency in a population over time, so at no point, with either modern scientists or Darwin himself, was anyone ever expecting to see a transitional form that wasn't itself a functioning, living species? Its not like the transitionals are going to be half-melted blobs melting from human into porcupines, like some frozen outtake from Species the movie.'
'If you're talking about genetic missing links, that's really, really easy to find. For example, chimps and humans don't have the same number of chromosomes- we have one less- but funny how human chromosome 2 is almost identical to chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q. We even have broken bits of telemorase right in the middle of 2, exactly what you'd expect if 2p and 2q had fused together. All primates have to eat vitamin C, we can't produce it ourselves, unlike all other mammals except guinea pigs. One prediction scientists made (see the excellent and reference-rich essay 29 Evidences for Macroevolution for the details) was that we'd eventually find that primates have a broken vitamin C gene. Funny how they recently found that exact gene, the identical broken bit shared by all primates (The gene also has further 'chips and scratches,' where the additional broken bits correlate highly with the type of primate. Guinea pigs also have a broken gene, but in a completely different place. The designer sure spent a lot of time on making broken genes correlate with morphological similarities. You'd think the designer could be a lot more creative in being a plagarist, no?)
So, going back to the post title, here's an analogy: given the existence of you and your brother, then both your mom OR your mom's siblings act as a missing link. They have traits common to both you and your brother. Given the existence of you and your cousin, then your grandmother OR your great aunts and uncles could act as a missing link. They don't have to be direct ancestors to be a link. They don't have to be dead to be a link- just older.
Given the existence of modern chimps (brain size 400cc) and humans (brain size 1200 cc), science expected to find hominids with traits similar to both. (Here the 'relatives' analogy doesn't quite work, because chimps live where fossilization is rare. Be like one side of you family always cremates their dead.) So far we have 20 main hominids. Look at the set of skulls science has. They're all fairly human, and they're all fairly ape-like, and they all are distinct species. Each is slightly different from its neighbor, but very different from a few neighbors down. No, the earliest ones could not be confused for modern humans, no matter how much you shaved and suited them up. (And for kicks, you still have some morphological leftover traits-- take a look at your teeth, and notice the giant roots for your tiny little canines. Note how earlier humans used to have much larger canines.)"
You're right in general. My reference is to the Financial Data Protection Act of 2005 passed by the House Financial Services Committee two weeks ago. As this article on HR3997 says:
"The legislation also pre-exempts any state laws mandating breach disclosures to consumers. According the Consumers Union, 11 states currently have stricter notification standards than H.R. 3997, including a California law that has resulted in numerous consumer notifications over lost data tapes and database breaches."
If DATA isn't melded with HR3997, then Californians won't lose the current access to credit freezes. I of course expect the business-friendly version to just fizzle away, now that the consumer-friendly version exists.
let's see: In California we have a law that requires notification of data privacy breaches. Remember Choicepoint being in the news? That was CA's 'fault.'
In California the law allows people to put a Credit Freeze on their account. Far stronger than a 'fraud alert,' this requires the person to temporarily lift the freeze in order to add new credit. Makes life most difficult for identity thieves. Also makes it harder for new companies (no pre-existing relationship) to offer credit, so the person misses out on those hundreds of "You've Been Approved!" junkmails.
Funny, this new law guts California's law. All these protections will only exist if and after Identity Theft has already happened! Instead of spending, say 15 minutes a month temporarily removing the freeze for business purposes, you'll get to have a freeze during your 200 hours of work trying to repair your ID theft damaged credit. Not just any 200 hours, its 200 hours of talking with bureaucrats and writing real paper letters and constantly scanning to see what your thief has just applied for. And you never truely clean up your record- even if the big 3 agencies have fraud alerts, each store affected will have their own database of how bad you are.
And this 200 hours of brain-breakingly stressful work will all be because you couldn't just freeze your account in the first place. But at least you'll have all those fine offers of credit to read while waiting on hold.
So its funny how the companies that yelled and screamed about California's law- although they comply with it- love this proposed federal law. They ought to love it- they designed it, and are getting the best bespoke law they can buy.
A few years ago I decided that shredding took too much time. I wasn't looking forward to the yearly "shred the 11 year old financial documents" along with all the ongoing credit offers.
So I came up with my $0.50 shredding system: 1 bucket, 2 cups of bleach, water.
put papers flat in bucket
pour bleach, let sit outside until bleach- and ink- is gone (a day or two)
and/or add water, wait, stir until its pulp soup
Takes a total of 5-10 minutes, and there's no recoverable information: much, much better than my old shredder could do. If I wanted to go artistic I could make paper from the pulp- but the bleach thrashes fiber quality. Maybe I could make some paper bricks to mail in those postage free envelopes if I ever felt I needed to give something back to the credit card offering companies.
While I don't even have time for a back of the envelope calculation, my short answer is no- evolution just doesn't work that quickly, and evolution specifically won't work on cars affecting squirrels.
If roads were 50% of the total land area, maybe after hundreds of generations they'd have different reflexes- but they already have to be quick but careful in open spaces due to bird predation. The percentage of squirrels affected by roads is very small compared to the total squirrel population, and there's always movement between populations.
Take supplements, focusing on a limited number of 'universal' (good for almost everyone with some specific exceptions) and 'supernutrient' (very useful) supplements
Research if you should take additional supplements specific to any health risks you have, where research can include medical tests, genetic tests, and family history, and then take those extra supplements, and
Plan to update your supplement list as better information comes out through your personal medical tests or through medical research. For example, recommendations can change as studies on supplements are completed, as when a study found that beta carotene is dangerous to smokers and those with lung cancer.
His recommended list of supplements is fairly short. The 'universal' supplements are vitamins plus minerals (except iron)... what you can find in a single good multivitamin. Then there are 6 'supernutrients:' antioxidants and omega-3-fatty-acids. 7 pills if you take them once a day.
But checking my own multivitamin- it has 25 items listed, because it details each of the B vitamins and each of the minerals. Technically then I'm taking 25 supplements a day, but it doesn't mean I'm taking 25 pillls a day.
The tech conferences I've been to generally are high food environments, and the attendees are not thinner compared to their hypothetical low food dwelling cousins.
Studies have found that we're wired to eat more food the more choices of food we see. Given unlimited refills we on average will eat just one or two servings if there's just one choice of lunch. But at a lunch buffet we can easily eat 3x or 4x the calories.
Because all of us are just a few hundred generations (at most) away from our hunter gatherer ancestors, we all want to bulk up during the feast season. Its only been the past 10 generations that a very, very few of us have lived in a non-malthusian world, and 10 generations isn't enough time for any genetic selection.
The former privacy commissioner of Canada addressed this in his extremely sharp essay and overview on privacy rights in Canada. The whole overview is worth reading: he addresses why privacy is a fundamental human right, and he's warning Canada not to give away rights now eroded or gone in the U.S., especially if its at the U.S. government's request. (The sad part about the proverbial frog in the warming water is that everyone thinks that if you *know* about the frog in the pot, you can't possibly *be* the frog in the pot. He's telling Canadians about what Americans have already lost. i.e. Do you remember that the "nothing to hide" cliche once was a mostly sarcastic comment, and not an earnest statement?)
"If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free..."
"...If someone intrudes on our privacy - by peering into our home, going through the personal things in our office desk, reading over our shoulder on a bus or airplane, or eavesdropping on our conversation - we feel uncomfortable, even violated.
Imagine, then, how we will feel if it becomes routine for bureaucrats, police officers and other agents of the state to paw through all the details of our lives: where and when we travel, and with whom; who are the friends and acquaintances with whom we have telephone conversations or e-mail correspondence; what we are interested in reading or researching; where we like to go and what we like to do.
A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm.
The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life....But if our privacy becomes ever more systematically invaded by the state for purposes of assessing our behavior and making judgments about us, wrong information and misinterpretations will have potential consequences.
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm... [go ahead, read the rest, its well-worth it.]
Slashdot Mirror
Today's ruling quoted from Judge Walker's ruling in the EFF lawsuit. The EFF lawsuit is still going strong : they filed in January, and Judge Walker ruled against an automatic State Secrets dismissal.
- the "Electronic Frontier" is woven into everyone's life: what happens electronically can be more real, longer lasting, than any real-world event, and
- "Foundation" doesn't mean the same as "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" (it can buy countries), or the "Ford Foundation" (it can casually sponsor a year of PBS). The EFF, unless it wins the trillion-dollar lawsuit, is a small donor-supported non-profit.
- And in some cases, the ACLU doesn't do as well. The EFF's AT&T lawsuit is still going strong. The EFF filed in January to get that amazing 'not automatically dismissed on state secrets' ruling. I admit I'm biased- I know people there and am a supporter- but damn, they're good.
Consider warrantless searches. In your 'real world,' a set of police can only do a few warrantless searches per day- maybe 10 or 20 if they have their door-kick down. In the actual world, a set of searchers hooked into AT&Ts database can do millions of warrantless searches per day. And they don't leave busted doors behind as a clue.Consider voter disenfranchisement. In the old days, you had to physically block people from voting, one by one. Now you can do badly-designed joins on voter-rolls and stop thousands of people from voting in an afternoon.
Consider Free Speech. In your world you have to hire goons- expensive at overtime- to physically intimidate speakers. In the actual world automated intimidation, expensive intimidation, exists. In the actual world, entire subjects can be disappeared from view, thousands in one software installation.
Or maybe you really don't worry about building innovative tech companies, music CDs, publishing electronically. You really don't worry about credit scores, credit card records, HIPAA, test results, university records, voter data, flight records, VoIP calls... in your world. Funny, I didn't think they'd let you online in Supermax, Mr. Kaczynski.
So, no travel pillow? Eyemask? Saline spray to prevent nosebleeds? Low-carb sports drinks to prevent dehydration- and to not get the runs from airlines' water?
But, really, for this we should talk about the children. Most flights I've been on recently have had kids-- generally quiet kids, busy with the familar toys and snacks their smart parents brought to distract them. It's usually only the newbie flyers who don't bring a favorite fruit drink to keep the kid's ears from popping during descent. Except now every parent is going to be a newbie, because the usual drink tricks will be pulled away. Seems like now the TSA is only allowing baby foods- if unsterilized by the parent's tasting it. Great, so the under-2 set is covered. Have they never heard a 4 year old in a full tantrum? Are the parents supposed to figure out which of 1. Sugar-apple-water, 2. diet Pepsi, or 3. Starbuck's Frappochino is going to best quiet their thirsty kid? ('Course the answer is 4. juice with vodka.)
And things like medicines- most people want to carry their supply on them. Spending the first 24 hours of your vacation trying to replace a prescription? Not so easy.
Of course, right now all our decisions and reactions will be driven by anger and fear. The problem comes when authorities decide that every decision made today must be good. Sturgeon's Law applies no matter how good your motivations: but the stronger your emotional motivation the less likely you are to review your decision later, when calm.
Back in January, related to the story on how the DoJ demands and gets ISP data, AOL had said that "We did not comply with the request made in the subpoena," spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "Instead, we gave the Department of Justice a list of aggregate anonymous search terms that did not include results or any personally identifiable information."
AOL- you need to rethink that phrase personally identifiable, because it doesn't seem to mean what you think it means. You're hiding behind one technical definition of PII, without concern about whether or not the results actually have PII. If you're releasing results with personally identifying information, then you cannot say you're not releasing PII. I'd written in January I'd writen "I question this assumption by Yahoo, AOL, etc. that search terms, by themselves, have no privacy considerations because they've been separated from personal info. What if the search itself contains personal information? Are the search companies deleting the timestamps and randomizing the order of the search terms themselves? Because otherwise I could see personal info showing up." Obviously, half a year later, they still think that replacing a name with a number takes away the PII. They need to have a talk with, say, the Census Department, about why the department will withhold data about *groups* of businesses in a region. Grouped data can easily become PII data if you can tease out characteristics. AOL didn't even group the data!
As always, relevant quotes from the best.essay.evar on why privacy is a fundamental human right: "If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm..."
"...agents of the state in Canada cannot order Canada Post to photocopy the address on every envelope we send, nor can they order bookstores to keep a record of every book we buy, let alone of every page of every magazine we leaf through. There is no reason why they should be able to exercise such powers with regard to every e-mail someone sends or every Web site he or she visits."
"I do not see any reason why e-mails should be subject to a lower standard of privacy protection than letters or telephone calls. And I do not see why Internet browsing should be subject to a lower standard of protection than book purchasing or researching in a reference library. Canadians should not be subject to greater state monitoring or scrutiny just because they choose to use new communication technologies."
For example, going over major bloggers' coverage of the AT&T ruling last week, I'm not seeing too many articles that specifically talk about what the EFF is. So then readers who like- heck, love what the EFF is doing won't think that the EFF needs support, because 'Foundation' has different meanings:
I'm thinking that this doesn't mean that 1/3rd of their projects relate to DRM. RFID isn't even on their list of legal cases. Here's the EFF's major topics:
- Privacy
- IP
- Fair Use and DRM
- File Sharing
- Innovation
- Free Speech and Censorship
- Bloggers' Rights
- International
- E-Voting
Looks like you disagree with 11% of the list, not 50%: where did the 1/2 come from? Was it that you heard a lecture by Cory Doctorow? Because he does like talking about the DRM, sure.But if you get a take-down notice, or you get sued because of your blog post, or you want to built technology without Hollywood's permission, who other than the EFF is going to understand both the technological and the legal- even Constitutional- implications? The EFF is innovation insurance.
Slashdot readers, more than just about anyone else, understand why the EFF's work is so important. YRO, right?
Got Encryption?
Like that the Supreme Court upheld Betamax?
Like your Broadcast-flag-free gear?
But most Slashdot members haven't joined the EFF. The EFF is fighting organizations that are thousands of times the size of the EFF, and the EFF is winning- that's the sort of thing to make you think Join the EFF today. Someone has to pay for the EFF, and right now that someone isn't 98% of Slashdot.
Yes, really. Slashdot has members in the high-hundred-thousands or low-millions. The EFF has nowhere near even 1/30th or 1/40th of that many members. 39 of 40 Slashdot members are relying on the donations of that 40th member to keep the EFF going. The 'Foundation' in Electronic Frontier Foundation doesn't mean 'trust fund.' It means 'you can make a tax deductable donation and that'll be helpful.'
Did you like that the Communications Decency Actgot killed?
Remember how quickly Sony got slammed for their rootkit?
Remember how long it took for non-technical people to understand how damaging the rootkit was? That's part of why the EFF is so important- they understand why the technical details matter so that they're ready when you call. But a small non-profit member-based organization depends on money from their members to run.
Disclaimer- I support the EFF and I know many of the people there- the 23 people who make the EFF look like it's 10x the size it is.The first description of this idea - although not as a handheld- seems to have been made in 1934, where ' In his 1934 story The Lost Language, writer David H. Keller describes a device that is actually able to make speech from printed text--the sound-transposing machine.'
The 1975 reader cost $50,000 (over $150,000 in today's dollars) and was the size of a dishwasher. This new reader "is about a thousand times smaller than the original Kurzweil Reading Machine, the PDA in the portable Reader is two thousand times faster. In fact, the portable Reader can execute about 500 million instructions per second as compared to 250,000 instructions per second for the Kurzweil Reading Machine. It also has a thousand times more memory (64 megabytes as compared to 64 kilobytes)."
"Yeah, I was hanging out with the guys last night and one of them bet us none of us would travel without a licence. So I took his bet."
"Uh-huh. You're flying without a licence- you mailed your licence home- because of a bet?"
"Well, I didn't really mail it home- its with that reporter, there. But, yeah, he double-dog-dared us, so I had to do it."
"A bet? A bet?"
"Sure, a bet, a wager, a gamble, playing the odds. Didn't want to look like a wuss. Had to do it."
I'd like to see how that explanation would fly. Because what I'm reading is that if you don't have your ID and you act apologetic and contrite- Sorry, sir, my wallet was stolen- then they accept the explanation. In that case the IDless traveller isn't trying to bother the TSA, but was simply hit by bad circumstances.
But willfully challenging the TSA- making it obvious you have a choice about your IDless travel- that's what the bet should have been about. Can you act as if you are equal to the TSA (let alone act as if the TSA works for you) and not a meek requester of permission to travel, and still get onto an airplane?
While web 3.0 and web (pi)- the transcendental web- work, there are other possibilities:
At any rate, their "the web is buzzing" dismissal-phrase isn't helping. Bees buzz. People have a glut of ebWay 2.0 conferences to choose from (not to mention the 1/1000 priced ad-hoc conferences that Web TwoPtOught tech makes possible), so bad publicity isn't going to help the conference. All its going to do is make web 2.0 seem so web 1.0. or 1999 2.0.
Didn't they think to run this application by a mailing list or two? Does O'Reilly not have a panel of no-men: a group of folks comfortable with saying "dude, that sux" to Tim if he needs to escape the echo-chambers of normal CEO-hood?
If the person's memories and personality are gone, then all you're doing is growing a new person in an older body. You're twinning- cloning- a brain and giving it an instant full body transplant. You're giving a delayed twin both age-shortened telomeres and an age-damaged body.
This is cruel.
The new person is going to have to learn life- they'll be a baby, then a child, then an adult again. All without the protections of actually being a baby or child. All with the expectations that they're going to be the person they immediately resemble (at least a twin/cloned baby will prove their independence as they grow up).
Of course they're likely to be happy and glad to be alive- we have a tenacious ability to make do with what we have. But given that you'd get the same result by twinning/cloning a new brain in a new body- aka making a baby- why make a new person with half an ordinary lifespan? Why not just make an identical twin from the start (assuming that the telomere-length problem and the other problems in cloning are fixed)?
If brain stem cells are used to fix and repair a person's brain- that's only a quantitative change from what happens today, that small sections stop working, and then get working again. Brain damage is repaired by the person learning to reroute abilities across different, undamaged parts of the brain.
Rebuilding or recreating a brain? That'd be homeopathic neurology, the idea that spinal fluid and disconnected neurons can magically retain the memories and personality of the previous person.
The Best...Essay...Ever...on privacy rights comes from the former privacy commissioner of Canada's 2003 overview of privacy in Canada. He shows why privacy is a fundamental human right, and he warns Canada not to give away rights now eroded or gone in the U.S., especially if its at the U.S. government's request. The sad part about the proverbial frog in the stovetop bath is that everyone thinks that if you know about the frog in the pot, you can't possibly be the frog in the pot.
So, pretend he's writing about some other country- Acirema. Boy, I feel sorry for the Aciremans. Quoting (but read the whole overview- sharp, short, relevant):
" The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
" One of the clearest lessons of history is that the greatest threats to liberty come not when times are tranquil and all is well, but in times of turmoil, when fidelity to values and principle seems an extravagance we can ill afford. History also teaches us that whenever we have given in to that kind of thinking, we have lived to regret it.
At the time, the loss of freedom might seem small, trivial even, when placed in the balance of the security we seek. And yet these incremental threats are the ones we must be most vigilant in resisting. The 18th Century political philosopher Edmund Burke understood this danger when he wrote, "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall eloquently made the same point much more recently when he said: "History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."
...And we must guard against the eagerness of law enforcement bodies and other agencies of the state to use the response to September 11 as a Trojan horse for acquiring new invasive powers or abolishing established safeguards simply because it suits them to do so.
Perhaps it will be necessary to accept some new intrusive measures to enhance security. But these choices must be made calmly, carefully and case by case. The burden of proof must always be on those who suggest that some new intrusion or limitation on privacy is needed in the name of security.
[Balance of privacy and security defined]... Now we face having that successful balance changed, by having Canada transformed into a society where the state is much more intrusive and where individual rights and freedoms are correspondingly reduced. And we face having this transformation occur without the analysis, debate or even understanding that it deserves.
...If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm. [..Examples given...]
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent
Slashdot readers, more than just about anyone else, understand why the EFF's work is so important. YRO, right?
Got Encryption?
Like that the Supreme Court upheld Betamax?
Like your Broadcast-flag-free gear?
The EFF is insurance- they're there to actually understand the technical details of why the DMCA takedown letter you just got is unconstitutional, for example. But most Slashdot members haven't joined the EFF. Change that- Join the EFF today
Yes, really. Slashdot has members in the high-hundred-thousands or low-millions. The EFF has nowhere near even 1/30th or 1/40th of that many members. 39 of 40 Slashdot members are relying on the donations of that 40th member to keep the EFF going.
Did you like that the Communications Decency Act got killed?
Remember how quickly Sony got slammed for their rootkit?
Remember how long it took for non-technical people to understand how damaging the rootkit was? That's part of why the EFF is so important- they understand why the technical details matter so that they're ready when you call. But a small non-profit member-based organization depends on money from their members to run.
Guinea pigs also have no ability to make vitamin C, but they have lost a completely different gene (not lost as in gone: lost as in broken). The question isn't "why would a Designer reuse good, working genes?" its "why would a Designer replicate broken, nonfunctional genes?"
Once a gene is broken, it is no longer maintained, so it gets additional changes in random places. Those breaks correspond with other markers of close relationships between primates. For example, humans and chimps have nearly identical "additional changes."
i.e. all primates share an obvious breaking point- an error that makes the gene fail to work entirely. Other errors have accumulated, and the pattern of those errors correlates with the type of primate. Humans and chimps have very similar errors. The errors in humans and chimps are somewhat like the errors in old world monkeys, and the errors of H C and OWM are fairly similar compared to either of New World monkeys or lemurs. In other words, the errors *nest.* For example:
Working: Start-M-A-K-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop
Broken1: StarrrM-A-K-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop
Lemurs1: StarrrM-X-X-E-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-C-Stop
OldWld1: StarrrM-X-X-E-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-C-Stop
NewWld1: StarrrM-X-Y-E-V-I-T-A-X-Z-X-C-Stop
Chimps1: StarrrM-X-X-X-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-C-Stop
Humans1: StarrrM-X-X-X-V-I-T-A-M-X-X-D-Stop
This is not what you'd expect a designer to use: this is what you'd see in plagarism, or in blind copying. Think about how a professor checks for students copying each other: the prof checks for identical errors, not identical correct answers. OR think about how a map-maker checks for copying: the original map will have a few tiny deliberate errors. If the same error pops up in a different company's map, then you know it was copied.
For the 20 hominids links I gave, they in turn give you names and links to additional articles.
Check out the side views of the skulls- those aren't just people with changed bone structure, unless you're saying that chimps are people. Of course they all are individual species- that's the definition of species. But how would you classify them- human or chimp?
For modern Homo sapiens, there is very little difference in bone structure, and genetically we are all almost identical. You'll find more genetic diversity in *one* troop of chimps than in the *entire* human race.
What do you say to the genetic missing links we have? Human chromosome 2 looks just like chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q fused together. For example, the ends of chromosomes have telomeres- end caps. In human chromosome 2 you can see- literally, you can download the data- that there are broken remnants of telomeres in the middle of the chromosome. To visualize
Chimps' 2 chromosomes: Start-A-B-C-D-E-Stop Start-Q-R-S-T-U-Stop
Humans' chromosome 2: Start-A-B-C-D-E-Stuptart-Q-R-S-T-U-Stop
Where the letters represent identical or nearly identical genes.
Even if we had no fossils in the world, that the genetic data of the 20th century corroborates the physiological data from several earlier centuries is evidence for evolution.
'First, a background question: you know that a transitional species- a missing link- will itself be a species? Because "species" are actual lifeforms, everything else is just a clade- a grouping. So if you have a an animal species that becomes another species, the transitional form can't be anything but a species.
'Also, you know that evolution is nothing but changes in allele frequency in a population over time, so at no point, with either modern scientists or Darwin himself, was anyone ever expecting to see a transitional form that wasn't itself a functioning, living species? Its not like the transitionals are going to be half-melted blobs melting from human into porcupines, like some frozen outtake from Species the movie.'
'If you're talking about genetic missing links, that's really, really easy to find. For example, chimps and humans don't have the same number of chromosomes- we have one less- but funny how human chromosome 2 is almost identical to chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q. We even have broken bits of telemorase right in the middle of 2, exactly what you'd expect if 2p and 2q had fused together. All primates have to eat vitamin C, we can't produce it ourselves, unlike all other mammals except guinea pigs. One prediction scientists made (see the excellent and reference-rich essay 29 Evidences for Macroevolution for the details) was that we'd eventually find that primates have a broken vitamin C gene. Funny how they recently found that exact gene, the identical broken bit shared by all primates (The gene also has further 'chips and scratches,' where the additional broken bits correlate highly with the type of primate. Guinea pigs also have a broken gene, but in a completely different place. The designer sure spent a lot of time on making broken genes correlate with morphological similarities. You'd think the designer could be a lot more creative in being a plagarist, no?)
So, going back to the post title, here's an analogy: given the existence of you and your brother, then both your mom OR your mom's siblings act as a missing link. They have traits common to both you and your brother. Given the existence of you and your cousin, then your grandmother OR your great aunts and uncles could act as a missing link. They don't have to be direct ancestors to be a link. They don't have to be dead to be a link- just older.
Given the existence of modern chimps (brain size 400cc) and humans (brain size 1200 cc), science expected to find hominids with traits similar to both. (Here the 'relatives' analogy doesn't quite work, because chimps live where fossilization is rare. Be like one side of you family always cremates their dead.) So far we have 20 main hominids. Look at the set of skulls science has. They're all fairly human, and they're all fairly ape-like, and they all are distinct species. Each is slightly different from its neighbor, but very different from a few neighbors down. No, the earliest ones could not be confused for modern humans, no matter how much you shaved and suited them up. (And for kicks, you still have some morphological leftover traits-- take a look at your teeth, and notice the giant roots for your tiny little canines. Note how earlier humans used to have much larger canines.)"
You're right in general. My reference is to the Financial Data Protection Act of 2005 passed by the House Financial Services Committee two weeks ago. As this article on HR3997 says:
"The legislation also pre-exempts any state laws mandating breach disclosures to consumers. According the Consumers Union, 11 states currently have stricter notification standards than H.R. 3997, including a California law that has resulted in numerous consumer notifications over lost data tapes and database breaches."
If DATA isn't melded with HR3997, then Californians won't lose the current access to credit freezes. I of course expect the business-friendly version to just fizzle away, now that the consumer-friendly version exists.
let's see:
In California we have a law that requires notification of data privacy breaches. Remember Choicepoint being in the news? That was CA's 'fault.'
In California the law allows people to put a Credit Freeze on their account. Far stronger than a 'fraud alert,' this requires the person to temporarily lift the freeze in order to add new credit. Makes life most difficult for identity thieves. Also makes it harder for new companies (no pre-existing relationship) to offer credit, so the person misses out on those hundreds of "You've Been Approved!" junkmails.
Funny, this new law guts California's law. All these protections will only exist if and after Identity Theft has already happened! Instead of spending, say 15 minutes a month temporarily removing the freeze for business purposes, you'll get to have a freeze during your 200 hours of work trying to repair your ID theft damaged credit. Not just any 200 hours, its 200 hours of talking with bureaucrats and writing real paper letters and constantly scanning to see what your thief has just applied for. And you never truely clean up your record- even if the big 3 agencies have fraud alerts, each store affected will have their own database of how bad you are.
And this 200 hours of brain-breakingly stressful work will all be because you couldn't just freeze your account in the first place. But at least you'll have all those fine offers of credit to read while waiting on hold.
So its funny how the companies that yelled and screamed about California's law- although they comply with it- love this proposed federal law. They ought to love it- they designed it, and are getting the best bespoke law they can buy.
So I came up with my $0.50 shredding system: 1 bucket, 2 cups of bleach, water.
- put papers flat in bucket
- pour bleach, let sit outside until bleach- and ink- is gone (a day or two)
- and/or add water, wait, stir until its pulp soup
Takes a total of 5-10 minutes, and there's no recoverable information: much, much better than my old shredder could do. If I wanted to go artistic I could make paper from the pulp- but the bleach thrashes fiber quality. Maybe I could make some paper bricks to mail in those postage free envelopes if I ever felt I needed to give something back to the credit card offering companies.If roads were 50% of the total land area, maybe after hundreds of generations they'd have different reflexes- but they already have to be quick but careful in open spaces due to bird predation. The percentage of squirrels affected by roads is very small compared to the total squirrel population, and there's always movement between populations.
But I have a copy of Fantastic Voyage right in front of me. What he recommends is:
- Eat well, lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, reduce stress.
- Take supplements, focusing on a limited number of 'universal' (good for almost everyone with some specific exceptions) and 'supernutrient' (very useful) supplements
- Research if you should take additional supplements specific to any health risks you have, where research can include medical tests, genetic tests, and family history, and then take those extra supplements, and
- Plan to update your supplement list as better information comes out through your personal medical tests or through medical research. For example, recommendations can change as studies on supplements are completed, as when a study found that beta carotene is dangerous to smokers and those with lung cancer.
His recommended list of supplements is fairly short. The 'universal' supplements are vitamins plus minerals (except iron)... what you can find in a single good multivitamin. Then there are 6 'supernutrients:' antioxidants and omega-3-fatty-acids. 7 pills if you take them once a day.But checking my own multivitamin- it has 25 items listed, because it details each of the B vitamins and each of the minerals. Technically then I'm taking 25 supplements a day, but it doesn't mean I'm taking 25 pillls a day.
Studies have found that we're wired to eat more food the more choices of food we see. Given unlimited refills we on average will eat just one or two servings if there's just one choice of lunch. But at a lunch buffet we can easily eat 3x or 4x the calories.
Because all of us are just a few hundred generations (at most) away from our hunter gatherer ancestors, we all want to bulk up during the feast season. Its only been the past 10 generations that a very, very few of us have lived in a non-malthusian world, and 10 generations isn't enough time for any genetic selection.
"If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free..."
"...If someone intrudes on our privacy - by peering into our home, going through the personal things in our office desk, reading over our shoulder on a bus or airplane, or eavesdropping on our conversation - we feel uncomfortable, even violated.
Imagine, then, how we will feel if it becomes routine for bureaucrats, police officers and other agents of the state to paw through all the details of our lives: where and when we travel, and with whom; who are the friends and acquaintances with whom we have telephone conversations or e-mail correspondence; what we are interested in reading or researching; where we like to go and what we like to do.
A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm.
The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life. ...But if our privacy becomes ever more systematically invaded by the state for purposes of assessing our behavior and making judgments about us, wrong information and misinterpretations will have potential consequences.
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm... [go ahead, read the rest, its well-worth it.]