Aliases and Imposters on Facebook

Not the Susan Arnout Smith you were looking for?

Facebook users face a problem, the non-uniqueness of given names. Up until recently anyone could create a facebook profile page using whatever name they wanted. The movie catfish shows the case where non-existent people are created for sock-puppetry and fraud. Consider this radio show as Catfish, Chapter 2. This story details another side of the same coin: people maliciously creating believable imposter pages to damage the reputation of real people. The individual targeted for identity forgery was novelist Susan Arnout Smith. At the end the program, the host mentions that their program was successful in reaching a customer service department at facebook, who say that more safety checks are in place now to properly identify potential fraud. This radio show can get results where mere mortals cannot, very much in the style of getting results only after shining the bright light media scrutiny.

Audio is cached here:
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All About Area 51

Terry Gross interviewed Annie Jacobsen on yesterday's Fresh Air about the secret Nevada test site, Area 51. Area 51 was used for the Plumbbob tests. The most scary thing for me was the nuclear test that involved scattering plutonium around the desert via a conventional explosion. I think this test was to simulate possible accident scenarios, such as, a B-52 crash, an accidental bomb drop of an unarmed weapon, etc. I think that the accident scenarios assume that the conventional explosive detonates, but does not cause a nuclear explosion- a dirty bomb scenario. The explosion scatters the core of the weapon, contaminating a wide area with plutonium particles. People were beyond crazy in this era. For whatever reason, after the army got their test results (which showed, I guess, the extent of the contamination), they did minimal cleanup at the test site. That sets up a scenario for desert dust storms containing very nasty radioactive particles. The author notes that this was a missed opportunity to learn how to deal with possible methods of cleanup. I am guessing that they army realized that it was very difficult to deal with the magnitude of the contaminated area- many square miles. Jacobsen notes that whatever they might have learned would've been useful in some accidents that have occurred since that test. Some accidents were actually very similar to the initial test parameters; the author cites a B-52 crash in Spain. The latest similar accident is the explosion of the spent fuel pool at reactor 3 at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The Fairewinds report stated that nuclear material (spent fuel pellets) have been found a mile or more from the site after one of the large explosions.

On to the UFO claims of Area 51. Those involve Mengele designing bodies which would look alien for the Soviet military. Area 51 houses a crashed flying object, but it's not from outer space; it's a Soviet jet-powered hover craft that was piloted by surgically modified dwarfs. Pause, and let that sink in... This strange idea has some value (I guess) for some world war three attack scenarios. Jacobsen cites cases where both Hitler and Stalin expressed interest in this idea because they wanted to repeat the scenario created during Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast, and use it to their advantage. Stalin was especially interested in using the idea to mask a nuclear first strike. The idea is to induce confusion and mass panic preceding or during the attack. If the enemy doesn't know for sure where an attack is coming from, they might delay retaliation. It might make more sense to wait and see, especially when the "end of the world" is at stake, and especially when an attack is perceived as coming from outer space, and not the cold war rival. Actually, George C. Scott's General Turgidsen did the best job explaining this strategy for winning a nuclear war using the first strike strategy. The idea is to severely disable the enemy from the outset. Von Neumann's game theory is at play, too. (Some people also claim that the Dr. Stranglove character is modeled on Von Neumann.) Coincidentally, Von Neumann actually advocated the first strike strategy, especially when the enemy cannot be trusted to not defect and use a first strike strategy. It's a classic 4-square game theory payoff matrix, a slight variant of the classic prisoner's dilemma puzzle.

That Mengele based claim is pretty far out there. I guess when all of the layers are stripped back, then what is left has to be the truth. Still, whoah!

Note: This post required some edits.

First Update:
The author made the rounds on the media circuit, culminating with a visit to Jon Stewart.

Reports from Fukushima

Amy sent this link about the ongoing problems at the Japanese nuclear plant. The news reports have been dwindling away, but the disaster is far from being solved or contained. News reports over the weekend noted that the Japanese government had increased the exclusion zone by evacuating a town about 20 miles (30 km) from the plant. The US government recommended a 50 mile evacuation zone, if I remember correctly. Here is one report with the news from the weekend, skip to 6:20 for the details about Fukushima.

Education Debt vs. Employment Wages

This was an interesting report on Morning Edition this morning. It makes the direct statement that education costs should be weighed against potential future earnings in that future profession. That can be a wager in and of itself because of our uncertain future economy. There are enough wildcards that it can become a simple WAG as more and more professions are outsourced to the developing world. Who knows which professions are most likely to continue receiving first world level wages? Audio: (mp3) and cached here.

Also, here is another related discussion. Last week Terry Gross discussed for profit colleges vs. more traditional colleges (universities, community colleges, trade schools, etc.). Audio: (mp3) and cached here:
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Super Sad True Love Story

Terry Gross interviewed Gary Shteyngart on Friday's Fresh Air. I want to read his book in the next couple of weeks.

Audio: (mp3) and cached here:
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2. to submit a book, you must show a receipt that you've bought a book
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Update: 2011-05-21
I've started reading it, enough to get the flavor. It's a dystopian future and it's scary, all right. Unfortunately, his future world is plausible; it's a warning like Orwell's 1984, telling us to do something before it's too late. Set in the near future, the United States debt to China is 65 trillion Yuan-pegged dollars. The country is in the middle of being hollowed out to keep making the payments. Telling China to chill, you'll get your money! isn't working so well anymore. I have discussed the book's major themes on this blog: digital culture, economic trends, privacy, and freedom. His novel blends them all together and simply projects the current trend into the future.The vision is very much comparable to Judge's Idiocracy. People's attention spans have been reduced to the point that they haven't ever read any books. They haven't even read the Cliff Notes version. In the future, all information is streamed. Trying to get a message through that isn't streamed is not possible. It's also important to do things to keep the stream's ratings up- spice it up a little. It helps to intersperse your message (be it politics, cooking, live party streams) with the same characters doing some form of porn. That works with all of those topics- politics plus porn, cooking plus porn- it just keeps the audience's attention much better. Remember, telling your audience to go read anything is a non-starter. Anyone who still reads physical books is shunned. Just what have you got there, grandpa? So, if you really have something serious to say, and it's longer than a tweet, then you're going to have a tough time getting through. Sure, the text version is available online- it's just too long to ever matter to anyone. Dude, can't you give me the tl;dr version?

Personal privacy is a thing of the past. The TSA has run amok. No one cares because they have put all of their information online anyway. Who care's if someone goes through you're bag if you've already given them access to your 24 hour personal stream? Telephone poles display your credit rating when you walk passed them. People like to reveal information so they can find their social status in any given place. Personal devices, the aparat, include a feature to advertise your relevent scores. The data from Rate Me Plus is out there, free for everyone to see and decide if they should interact with you. This page shows the typical output from the aparat.

The government is broke and can't pay its debts and obligations. The fight for oil has most recently led the US Army to Venezuela. The Army was promised a bonus, and the government won't pay, an echo of WW I Bonus Army.. Government functions have been outsourced to corporations. The infrastructure is falling apart. Property with any value is being retrofitted and marketed to foreigners with money. Current tenants are forced out onto the street. Anything and everything will be done to pay off the debt. I am not sure I am going to like the ending...it really could be super sad.

Update: 2011-05-24
Finished reading it -- no spoilers from me. I can only say it left me reeling, not feeling so well.

Update: 2011-05-25
After finishing the book, I turned on NPR and these news stories popped up. They both show the trends of the power of the digital culture and the power of media figures.

• bitcoin


• the oprah

Now that Oprah is ending her show, everyone will need to follow her on Twitter.

DIY: Rockstar

This was an interesting report today from NPR's Planet Money team. It is more evidence that cutting out the middleman is not only possible, it is profitable as well. It used to be that an appearance on Johnny Carson guaranteed stardom. Has the mantle been passed to Slashdot/Reddit/etc. ?

Story: Audio (mp3) and cached here.

I last wrote about this new marketplace here.

Confirmed: Microsoft buying Skype

Some early reports have Microsoft aquiring Skype for $8.5 billion.
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If true, this continues Microsoft's pattern of buying into market segments where they have no presence. The trend started with their hotmail acquistion. Recently, they paid Nokia over $1 billion dollars to begin scrapping their Symbian cell phone OS in favor of the Windows cell phone OS. Just before that, they pressured Yahoo to "join" Bing, or die.

Skype has enjoyed success because it was a first to market service. They offered value to users for free (skype-to-skype video calling) or for low cost (skype-to-real telephone voice calls). Ebay found this business model difficult to monetize, and ended up selling it to a group of private investors for $2 billion, losing $600 million in the process. Analysts are wondering how Microsoft will recoup this new high purchase price. Comparing this sale to the last sale is a high factor: (2 billion * 4.25 = 8.5 billion). No matter how you slice it, 425% is a high scaling factor. Perhaps, the price climbed that high due to Microsoft winning a bidding war with Facebook. I saw some rumors last week that Facebook was trying to buy Skype for $4 billion. The question remains of whether a change in business model is in the offing to monetize this Skype investment. Will they begin charging for calls? That seems to be a difficult prospect in the crowded VoIP market- consumers have a lot of options, including Google Voice. Skype has had the advantage of better voice quality, and now consumers may be asked to pay for it.

First Update:
Slashdot finally picked up the story. Better late, than never. Their coverage points to some articles which question whether the new owner will have the same commitment to non-MS platforms. This change casts a serious pall over the Linux version of Skype. The pundits are predicting it will be left to wither on the vine, if not killed outright. I hope that isn't true, because I like Skype on Linux. If their strategy was to further entrench their Windows OS, then they should tread lightly. One potential unintended consequence that MS may not have anticipated is that Skype is a market leader, but hardly the only game in town. If users dump Skype, then a significant number would move to arch rival's product, google voice. A mass exodus is certainly a possibility if/when MS tries to change the rules by upping calling rates, and/or dropping support for other platforms. GV alreadly offers some attractive features. The only thing holding it back is its less than stellar call quality. If its implementation was slightly better, then it could compete easily with Skype. GV has one very nice feature: it offers to assign a "real" phone number. That real phone number can act as a gatekeeper for the myriad of numbers that people are likely to have (home phone, cell phone, office phone, etc.) Google's recommendation is to publicize your GV number, and then it will automatically forward incoming calls appropriately. It "finds the person," and just works with whatever device the user is currently using (real telephone, cell phone, computer, etc.).

Update: 2011-05-13
Some people (Brooks, Vaughn-Nichols) think $8.5 billion is a high price, especially since Microsoft is supposed to be able to write their own software. Apple rolled out FaceTime with no trouble. The linked articles question whether Microsoft's primary motivation for buying Skype was simply to stop other people (Facebook, Google) from owning it, and maybe, possibly doing something with it. Like I said, 4.25 times the last sale price is so high, it's beyond the moon.

Update: 2011-05-25
Slashdot reported yesterday that the cuts to other platforms have begun. They cited that Asterisk support for the open source software/hardware platform for building PBX is first on the chopping block.

Short Joseph Stiglitz Interview

Steve Inskeep interviewed economist, Joseph Stiglitz, on Morning Edition. Audio: (mp3) and cached here.

Claim AC Comment

I recently wrote this and posted it anonymously to Slashdot. The links in that comment lead back to this blog, to posts about my startup environment, dm-live.

Interviews today on Weekend Edition

Rob Lowe (mp3) and cached here
Shania Twain (mp3) and cached here

Obama's mother and his childhood

This was an interesting background piece about Barack Obama's mother, and various places that Barack lived while growing up.

The author, Janny Scott, is interviewed on Fresh Air here.

The interview audio is cached here:
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Digging out of this economic hole

Today, Diane Rehm discussed the new office for consumer protection to be headed up by Elizabeth Warren. There was some good educational background information about economic terms, etc. For sure, it's worth listening to. The audio is cached here:
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Recently watched movies

By pure coincidence, I happened to have these two movies in line for viewing:

• Nathalie, a 2003 French movie directed by Anne Fontaine.


• Chloe, a 2009 Canadian movie directed by Atom Egoyan

I didn't know that the latter was almost a shot-for-shot remake of the former when I queued them. It was certainly a case of serendipity, a random alignment of the stars for maximum effect. With that in mind, the two movies are begging for a comparison with one another. Okay, here goes. In the French version, the Depardieu character could have been cast as a cardboard cutout and nothing would have been lost. At least, Liam Neeson in the same role fleshes out the role a bit more. The main roles are for the pair of female characters. Overall, the two movies are mostly on a par with one another in this casting, except Julianne Moore's performance stands out above all. She shows, once again, that she is absolutely fearless. At this point, the Canadian version looks like a worthy remake, even though some of the dialog in the Canadian version is copied verbatim from the French version and the delivery comes off as by rote and stilted at times. The Canadian version includes Hollywood's fetish for Apple computer hardware- nice product placement, I guess. I need something else to make a final comparison of the two movies. The divergence of the scripts will be the difference. The French version of the film is dark; the Canadian version is darker. That seems to give the edge to the Canadian version. However, just when its direction is clear, the script lets up. For whatever reason, the Canadian version spells everything out for us and concludes with a tidy Hollywood ending. Big mistake. I would have liked a more ambiguous ending with more loose ends and more overtones of Greek tradegy. Overall, that is a big weakness that shifts the scale back to the French version. It is a missed opportunity for the remake to improve on the original. As it stands, the French version wins out. YMMV.

p.s. Could it be that the script was altered at the last minute due to Neeson's personal real life tragedy?

Propublica wins Pulitzer for Magnetar Reporting

Check out today's Fresh Air. A question came up which involved the term, insurable interest. The question wondered whether the entire meltdown could be attributed to a lack of an insurable interest by those using the Magnetar stategy. I think the guests' answer was that they placed more of the blame on those selling insurance (AIG), than those buying it. The insurers had "whiffed" (seriously underestimated risk) at setting the prices for those wanting to buy insurance for CDOs. If a proper price had been set, then Magnetar couldn't have been using that strategy, at least not profitably. Listen for the big finish of the broadcast, broadway style!

The interview audio is cached here:
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Here is my blog entry from last April which has a link back to This American Life.

Update: 2011-05-03
I have been meaning to write something about the documentary Inside Job. It is definitely recommended for anyone who wants to know more about the recent economic meltdown. The facts roll out pretty quickly, and it's a lot to digest in one sitting. It's probably best to take it in in smaller bites. That strategy also helps stop you from getting so mad that you start throwing things and/or breaking up the furniture. Anyway you slice it, the movie doesn't paint a pretty picture of how we got here to this current state of affairs. We were led by the "so called" free marketeers that demanded deregulation. That movement caught its stride in the mid 1990s with deregulation bills signed by Clinton that rolled back some of the major safeguards put in place after the 1930's depression. In this new era, governments all around the world were working hard to outdo one another, by easing banking rules and deregulating complex financial instruments. They were aided by the economists they had in their back pocket (Greenspan, Summers, et. al). At first, Greenspan tried to halt the irrational exuberance in the market. Eventually, he relented and decided to go along with the rising tide. With Greenspan on board, no one else of consequence was willing to call the bubble a bubble. Everyone now had been given rose colored glasses. They were working with one main fundamental assumption: the future trend is always positive- prices only go up. That assumption works; that is, until it doesn't. Oops! When the trend reversed, even in the slightest degree (as documented by the Propublica reporting), insolvency rapidly entered the picture. The banks were effectively wiped out over night. They went to Congress and to the Fed and asked for super massive bailouts. I have a hard time with this because these "free marketeers" had convinced me. I'm okay with having a free market, as long as everyone knows the rules are the same for everyone all of the time. Please, note it was the bankers that have turned against the rules of the free market. They did so after looking at their balance sheets. They changed their mind for simple self-preservation. They'd do anything, including reversing course, if it meant avoiding their demise. They needed the bailouts to survive. It's much like a 6 year old changing the rules in the middle of a boardgame, just because they are losing. We, as the adults in the room, felt bad for them, and were coerced into changing the rules for them. Little did we know that the frequent rule changes are a violation of the fudamental rules of the game, a perversion of how capitalism is supposed to work. The changes allowed the banks to socialize their losses. They just hope we will forget that they were all too happy to ride the wave at the other end of the spectrum; that is, they were definitely in favor of privatizing their profits when times were good. Now, it's just too bad, since we didn't hold their feet to the fire when we had the chance. I have to wonder, where was the public outcry that should've demanded that deregulation (as adopted) be enforced. Those rules demanded that everyone else must "stay out" and the game be played to its conclusion. Fairness demands that the rules be the same in both good times and in bad times. The system as it is now is a far cry from Adam Smith's invisible hand. It's more like a giant visible hand that jumps in at the last minute to prop up losers that should've been written off much earlier. Again, too bad for us. Good luck paying off the multi-trillion dollar debts!

An interesting part of the movie is the interviews with economists who led the charge for deregulation. Most have now retreated back to academia, and without exception, they have all landed on their feet. Still, these "great minds" don't come across as particularly intelligent. Two extremely dopey examples still stand out in mind, and even after several months have gone by since seeing the movie: Martin Feldstein (Harvard) and Glenn Hubbard (Columbia). As dumb as they come across, it's amazing that they can be hired anywhere, let alone those prestigious universities. To add insult to injury, wikipedia claims Feldstein is still a perennial candidate for the Nobel prize. Simply amazing! Another irony is that of those interviewed, Elliot Spitzer comes across as one of the most sane voices in the room.

This movie won the Oscar for best documentary of the year. In my opinion, it could have been the best movie of last year. It is the best of those that I have managed to see so far.

Note: There were a few textual changes in today's post. It took a few tries to get what I wanted to say in the proper syntax.

Video blogging is taking off

You don't need a film contract or have your band signed to a record label to be famous anymore. You can DIY (do it for yourself) and upload your video/audio to the internet. Right now, the barriers to entry for producing your own content are so low that all that is necessary is having a digital camera with video capability. Oh, and having some ideas to put out there helps a lot, too. The problem of how to stand out from the crowd remains tricky, though. Here are some I've stumbled upon, and they seem to have growing fan bases to support them:

• Daily Grace
  Judas is just a girl-to-girl talk about boyfriends. And other things, ew.
  Grace's toast to Bridesmaids
  Another video parody, Rhianna's S&M


• Meekakitty
  Here is her music video with more than 1M views. It would've been much better if they'd looked for a better venue; it looks like an exit hallway or stairwell for the convention center. There's only so much you can do when you're confined to a four foot width restriction.
  She could also do standup.
  Her "Bacon Song" was used as the rolloff segue for Kevin Bacon's appearance on Wait, Wait


• Amy Walker, 5.9M views

Update: 2011-05-01
All Things Considered recently reported that in some cases Youtube shares the wealth with real cash to popular channels. Here is a link to the story, (mp3).

Update: 2011-05-16
Added Daily Grace's conversation with Lady Gaga.

Update: 2011-05-20
Link another DG video.

Update: 2011-05-23
Add Amy Walker accent video.

Update: 2011-06-05
Add note about meekakitty on Wait, Wait.

Update: 2011-06-10
Link another DG video.

Recently watched movies

Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

This is a film from Herzog's early career. Here is the setting. The time is the 1500's; the place is the east slope of the Andes falling into the Amazon basin; the characters are the Spanish conquistadors; and the story is a fictionalized account of a trek into the wild Amazon jungle seeking to find riches at the lost city of gold, El Dorado. The story is modeled after Heart of Darkness. Coppola did his own version of Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now about seven years later. He included several homage scenes to Aguirre. There is one area of sharp contrast between the two movies, and that is their budgets. Apocalyse cost 100 times more to make than Aguirre. Both are definitely recommended!

Several of the filmed sequences in the movie seem very dangerous. Here are two examples. First, the opening sequence where they're hiking down a steep trail, and the vantage point of the camera is somehow backed off enough to show the 60 degree (or steeper?) slope. That is compounded by carrying cannons and carrying sedan chairs- just fraught with danger. Jessica and Jon recently hiked the Incan trail- maybe they can add their perspective. That first scene is immediately followed by the rafting scenes through raging rapids with rafts made from 5" trees lashed together. That looked like the actors were in real, not potential, danger. I have to say, that the costumes stayed remarkably clean throughout the filming. I wonder how that was accomplished. Staying so clean appeared a bit incongruous with how "out of their element" the invaders were, as if they were untouched by the wilderness.

Here are few screenshots:
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The finale shows Aguirre (Kinski) standing alone. In my mind, this was an echo of the last man standing, like Hitler continuing to plan the continuing glories of the Third Reich even though Berlin has been destroyed around him. There is also an appropriate quote from Hugo's Les Miserables about following Ceasar, Charlamagne, and Napoleon for glory, but end up losing everything instead. I think it applies here as well- I may look for it later.

Here is Roger Ebert's review.

Trailer