Bruce Springsteen is playing at the Coliseum (Interesting venue) 10/15. Tickets were still available late this morning via tickmaster.
Yearly Archives: 2005
Road Trips: Dylan & Bono on Minnesota’s Highway 61
Back on the highway, Doc and I followed the Mississippi as it curved wide and muddy between skyscraping bluffs sculptured by glaciers and smoothed by wind and water. We passed through Wabasha, where posters remind visitors that the town was the setting for the “Grumpy Old Men” films and the National Eagle Center offers tips for birders who flock to the surrounding bluffs to watch bald eagles make their seasonal migrations.
At Lake City, where the Mississippi widens into Lake Pepin, strollers on a two-mile riverfront walkway can look out upon waters where an 18-year-old Ralph W. Samuelson is said to have “discovered” the sport of water skiing in 1922.
2005 Ironman Wisconsin – Madison Video Clips
 Photos here |
2.4 Mile Swim, Start [17MB]
2.4 Mile Swim, Start 2nd Loop [9MB] 2.4 Mile Swim Ends, Remove Wetsuits [3.5MB] 2.4 Mile Swim, Stepping out of Lake Monona [17MB] 2.4 Mile Swim, Scenes [12MB] 2.4 Mile Swim, Scenes II [5MB] |
Thanks to Omaha’s Paul Johnson for shooting this video while I snapped still photographs.
UPDATE: One additional video clip – the cycling segment [9MB]
Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness Page
Nassim Taleb publishes a useful website that includes a number of useful articles following up on his wonderful book, Fooled by Randomness. His latest is: The Scandal of Prediction (PDF):
“My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the guts to sometimes say: I don’t know….” (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race).
The Cost of Online Anonymity
After 10 years in the business, Anonymizer has two million active users. The US government pays it to promote the service in China and Iran in order to help promote free speech.
But these programs are becoming popular in the West too.
The software encrypts all your requests for webpages. Anonymizer’s servers then automatically gather the content on your behalf and send it back to you.
No humans are involved and the company does not keep records of who requests what.
However, there is some censorship. Anonymizer does not support anonymous uploading to the web, and it blocks access to material that would be illegal under US law.
Trusted Computing: What does it have to do with Trust?
Benjamin Stephan and Lutz Vogel created a very useful short film on the oxymoron “Trusted Computing”.
Madison’s Ironman Wisconsin is Underway
New Orleans Photos
 |
 |
 |
I last spent time in New Orleans in 2002 with several previous visits in the ’90’s. The place was in many ways beautiful, but I could always sense tension in the city. I’ve posted some photos from this visit here. A more recent set of photos, Five days with Katrina provides quite a contrast with my 2002 digital images.
A Bit of Cold War Reading from the CIA: Tolkachev
On 20 September 1985, international wire service reports carried a statement distributed by the official Soviet news agency TASS that one A. G. Tolkachev, whom it described as a staff member at one of Moscow’s research institutes, had been arrested the previous June trying to pass secret materials of a defensive nature to the United States. Subsequent news stories said Tolkachev was an electronics expert at a military aviation institute in Moscow who was compromised by former CIA officer Edward Lee Howard.
In October 1985, The Washington Post ran a story that described Tolkachev as “one of CIA’s most valuable human assets in the Soviet Union.” According to FBI affidavits related to the Howard espionage case that were made public, Tolkachev had provided information on Soviet avionics, cruise missiles, and other technologies. The Soviets subsequently publicly confirmed that they had executed Tolkachev in 1986 for “high treason.”
Fascinating and well worth reading.
“Some Rights Have to Erode…”
BBC:
“MI5 has recently let it be known that it is in favour of making telephone intercept evidence admissible in court. Previously the intelligence and security services had expressed concern such that evidence might reveal operational details. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has been calling for EU states to keep mobile phone and e-mail records for longer, to help fight terrorism and crime.”