October 2013

There were 49 posts published in October 2013 (this is page 5 of 5).

The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ | World news | The Guardian

Good stuff from the Guardian.

There is a revealing moment in the most recent piece written for the Guardian by Sir David Omand, former head of GCHQ. He said that “the real debate we should be having … is about what privacy in a cyber-connected world can realistically mean given the volumes of data we hand over to the private sector in return for our everyday convenience, and the continued need for warranted access for security and law enforcement.”

That’s a total non-sequitur: Omand seems to think that just because we hand data over to Google and Facebook the government automatically has the right to access it. It’s as if, thanks to a global shortage of sticky gum, envelopes can no longer be sealed, so as a result the government awards itself a new right to mass-intercept and read everybody’s letters.

via The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ | World news | The Guardian.

Pine tree mystery

Dying_Pine-20131003
Over the past few weeks, I began to notice that nearly all of the pine trees surrounding my office are starting to turn brown. This seemed quite unusual to me. I would expect one or two to occasionally die but for nearly all of them to be suffering made me wonder if there might be something serious going on.

I decided to send the North Carolina Forestry Service an email with some pictures and see what they said. I got a call back this morning from Randolph Harrison, the ranger for Wake County, giving me the scoop.

Harrison told me he had visited the site and checked out the trees. The main problem, he said, was that the pines are too close together and competing for sunlight. He said that being so low near Crabtree Creek probably saturates the soil around the pines’ roots. Pines don’t do well where there’s flooding, he said.

I had wondered if the trees might be under attack by pine beetles but Harrison said he hadn’t seen any evidence of that. “Believe me,” he laughed. “if you’ve got a pine beetle problem you’ll know it!”
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Color Run post attracts attention

I’m overwhelmed. Really. My post about the Color Run has gone viral with over 6,400 page views already, simply from posting a single link on my Facebook timeline. My webserver’s been buzzing ever since. Apparently I’ve struck a chord.

I understand the Color Run company is aware of it, too. Should they reach out to me I’ll be happy to share their perspective, too.

Activate Good responds

Activate Good

Activate Good


The director of Activate Good, Amber Smith, reached out to me almost immediately after my Color Run post, having been alerted by a mutual friend. We chatted some this afternoon about the run and the aftermath.

It seems Activate Good was given the same deal that most other charities get from Color Run. That is, they got a donation based on the number of volunteers they provided. Activate Good contributed over 180 volunteers and performed a lot of the heavy lifting for the run, including the “color toss.” Amber says their volunteers were not involved in the clean up as that was done by others.
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Flare flare are you tonight

Ok, so the title is a reference to a staple of the old Hee Haw show.

After speculating that the flares I saw Saturday night might have been launched by the Raleigh Fire Department to gauge the wind currents before the Wide Open Bluegrass fireworks that night, I reached out to department officials this morning to learn if the FD did this sort of thing.

I got a call back this afternoon from the official who approved the city’s fireworks permit and we had a good chat. He told me they don’t normally launch anything to gauge the wind but rely on observed conditions and the weather forecast. He said that the location I guessed the flares were coming from would’ve been too far away from the fireworks site to be useful, anyway.

The bottom line is that the mystery flares are not the work of the fire department, after all. Now I’m really going to have to work to track this thing further.

Photographing a Color Run Will Destroy Your Camera Gear–Don’t Do It

Yikes! This color run powder is nasty stuff on camera lenses. Imagine what it must do to your lungs!

If there hasn’t been a Color Run 5k or 10k race near you, there probably will be soon. And with all that color, you certainly want to take some pictures, right? Not with your camera you don’t.

I’m never one to worry much about lens dust, but the color bombs they throw out at Color Runs are different. In the last month my lens rental business has had over 20 lenses and several cameras nearly ruined by these things. For what it’s worth, all of the renters tell us they really weren’t near any of the major ‘color bombs.’

via Photographing a Color Run Will Destroy Your Camera Gear–Don’t Do It.

Obamacare

Stethoscope-2
Fourteen years ago I was a young know-it-all Linux geek working for an incredible employer, Indelible Blue. Once a leading retailer of IBM software and one of the fastest-growing companies in the area, Indelible Blue treated its employees like family. Even as a tiny company, it had on-site day care and some afternoons I could be found roller-blading around the parking lot with the company president. In 1999 it seemed Indelible Blue had a lot going for it.

You can imagine my surprise when a long-time employee, “Phyllis,” suddenly announced she was leaving. Phyllis was with the company right from the start and was an expert in the arcane IBM product known as MQ Series. Phyllis was a great person and her expertise was bringing lots of money to the company so I was baffled why she was leaving.

One rainy afternoon I sought her out as she stepped outside for a smoke break. She tearfully told me a heartbreaking story of how she loved her job and didn’t want to leave it but she had no choice. Her husband was suffering from a life-threatening health problem and Indelible Blue’s insurance coverage had been maxed out. Phyllis had to find another job or lose insurance coverage, which could lead to even worse consequences. A few weeks later she moved on.
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Silence and sound

I’ve mentioned this before, but lately it’s been delightfully quiet around the neighborhood. This is the time of year when indoor and outdoor temperatures match up, meaning the constant drone of air conditioners is pleasingly absent.

You don’t tend to notice the noise until it’s gone. Our world is full of so much constant noise that it can be a shock when it’s suddenly quiet again. I wonder how all this racket affects one’s health.

Color Run sees green, leaves Raleigh seeing red

Color Run in Seattle By Scooter Lowrimore (from Flickr)

Color Run in Seattle By Scooter Lowrimore (from Flickr)


A number of residents of Raleigh’s Historic Oakwood neighborhood were not happy to find their cars were missing from the street Saturday morning. The Color Run, a for-profit road run featuring dyed corn starch packets, had set up for its run through the neighborhood. Unlike most road races, organizers insisted that all the cars be removed from the street, most likely because of the colossal mess the corn starch packets make.

Raleigh Police posted “no parking” notices with as little as 13 hours notice, leaving many residents unprepared. Tow trucks hauled off their cars and stuck them with bills upwards of $150 to get them back. This in addition to the godawfully sticky corn starch that trashed their streets and homes.

Needless to say, residents were livid at their cars being taken and their neighborhood trashed. Council members were summoned and the city has agreed to reimburse residents for their towing charges.

I watched after the run as contractors worked to clear the starchy muck off of Wilmington Street near Polk Street. The contractor used a bleach mixture for this work, pouring this chemical-laden broth into our storm drains for eventual draining into the Neuse River. Nice move. I made a call to the city’s stormwater department when I saw this and begged someone to check it out. The city responded that this was just one of many issues they are collecting about the run.

Several runners question the motives of a for-profit company closing down city streets and using city resources. I watched at the end as a decal-laden Color Run car was loaded onto a tractor trailer that already held about 8 other shiny company vehicles. Apparently business is good!
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