My daughter is 3 years old. As a 3 year old, she has some irrational fears. Not what you’d think like monsters in the closet or the boogeyman, but fear of car washes. Like most parents, I struggle from time to time on how to get my daughter to listen to me and periodically, I’ll use this fear against her. “If you don’t do X, then we’re going to go to the car wash.” Works like a charm.

My observation is that our culture has many parallels to that 3 year old outlook with irrational fears driven by irresponsible government officials – not out of malice (hopefully,) but stupidity. They blindly fall into the age old saw “good intentions pave the way to hell.” The result: security theater. This term was coined by Bruce Schneier, a noted computer security figure, in his book Beyond Fear and refers to the specious activities purported to “improve security.”

Let’s take the most recent example of this phenomenon: The liquid bomb plot. I’m glad that people are paying attention to wackos who wish infidels (us) death and dismemberment. But, I would think that some degree of skepticism would be employed when evaluating the potential threat vs. simply having a knee jerk reaction to ban all liquids from going on airplanes.

A colleague forwarded me this link yesterday that has a pretty good assessment of the plausibility of actually fabricating and detonating such a device on an airplane. The short version is, it’s not plausible. Creating a bomb from acetone and peroxide is wishful thinking on the part of would-be terrorists and shoddy science on the part of the governments evaluating this to be a credible threat. Would these terrorists discover the implausibility? Probably. Try something else? Probably. It’s a good thing that they’ve been arrested and I applaud our intelligence and law enforcement communities for that work.

The risk was effectively eliminated when the arrests were made. There was no need (or benefit) to changing the security posture at airports, canceling flights, or any of the other histrionics we’ve seen in the past few days. It is, plainly, security theater calculated to use the public’s irrational fears to some greater aim. What that aim is, we can speculate. But I can imagine it is but one event we’ll see in the next few months to remind us our politicians are “protecting us” in advance of mid-term elections.

Let’s talk about risk for a moment. I’ve invested a huge amount of time over the past few years quantifying risk, in computer operations specifically. Risk really can be broken down into a defined condition that leads to a particular outcome set. That outcome can be positive, neutral, or negative. When quantifying the liklihood of a particular outcome, one needs to examine two axes, probability of occurrence in a defined time frame and severity of the outcome. Thus we can quantify any specific risk with probability and severity by outcome.

Now, let’s examine actual risk of negative outcome from planned air travel. What is the most dangerous part of this journey? The trip to the airport in a car. Your odds of being a traffic fatality in any given year in the US? 14.52 per 100,000 people. Your odds of being dying by air travel (terrorism inclusive?) 0.027 in 100,000 flight hours according to NTSB or 1 in 8,000,000 flight opportunities. Or an even better way to characterize this: If one gets on a random flight every day, it would take 22,000 years before the negative outcome of death would occur. More mortality statistics available in this entry.

If we’re willing to accept the odds of driving to the airport, I think that the risk of negative outcome needs to rise above the rate we’ve accepted before we perform another act of security theater. It’s past time we get rational about the fears we have and pragmatic about how we respond to them. There is no such thing as zero risk of negative outcome. Let’s find a balance that is close to what we implicitly accept every day.

One of my favorite quotes is from Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up an essential liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Technorati Tags: Terror | Security | Safety

One of the things about living in Montara on the California coast is that the Pacific Ocean really dominates your view, climate, and lifestyle. You don’t really get a sense for how dynamic the experience is until you’ve lived it, unless, you use sensors to record and document your surroundings.

This is where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s program called the National Data Buoy Center comes into play. The NDBC program has arrayed buoys all over and has equipped them with instrumentation to record what’s happening around them. In addition, each buoy transmits data back to the center forming a network of sensors used by weather services, fishermen, surfers, ships, etc. These buoys, combined with ship and shore based stations, form a vast network collecting information on air and water temperature, humidity, wave height (frequency and face angle,) air pressure, and wind speed and direction. It’s a pretty comprehensive measurement suite.

Classes of buoys in use


The specific buoy I monitor is #46012, anchored some 38 kilometers SW of San Francisco at GPS coordinates 37°21′ 39″N 122°52’53” W.

Class of buoy representative of #46012


The bottom line: NDBC is a very useful sensor network that is way underappreciated.

Technorati Tags: Buoy | Science | Sensors

And there is a Internet site to take their dough.

The latest example is WhoToHate.com. What do they do? Send an anonymous mail to the object of your enmity for a fin ($5.) The only good news I can see in this is that the most hated individual on the Top 10 hated is George Bush, with 7 hate mails delivered. Business is not booming.

Why not ILikeYou.com as an alternative? I guess that starts to get into questionable business models and content too.

Who sends an anonymous hate-o-gram? Does it say more about the hater or the hatee? Does one feel better after sending such a missive?

Guess I yearn for a simpler time, when the Pet Rock was the way to harvest spare money…..Heck, there’s even an Internet community for pet rocks now…..

Technorati Tags: Scams | Pet Rock | Business

There must be something in the water. Everyone is updating uniforms. I’ve monitored lively discussions on the Bucknuts forum about the new Buckeye uniforms. Summary, the fans don’t like them, the players do.



Last night I inadvertently watched the Monday night preseason game between the Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings. I’m not a big NFL fan and thus haven’t been following things this season yet, but the officials now have had a uniform makeover. Change isn’t really an issue for me, but change for change’s sake is stupid. These new uni’s remind me stylistically of the failed XFL…..probably not what they were going for. Let’s go back to the regular zebra suits, OK?



Technorati Tags: Humor | NFL | Ohio State Football

Same rules apply, here are some items I found useful, entertaining, silly, interesting, etc. There is no relationship intended between them.

• Venture Funding alive and well in the Valley as reported by the San Jose Mercury News.
• 46,000 of pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean! I believe it, we see a fair amount wash up on our beaches.
• Hot tip: Buy science text book publishers. If the redefinition of what a constitutes a planet pass, Pluto is history and we’ll get up to 14 newly defined planetary bodies in our solar system.
• Is William Shatner still alive? Apparently so and he wants to save Star Trek from fan apathy. Too late, after 5 series and 10 movies, I think Star Trek should be allowed to fade into the sunset. Please. It’s time.
• For Ohio State’s defense this year, talent isn’t the issue. It’s experience. Let’s hope these young people mature in a hurry with big games early at Texas and at Iowa. Coach Heacock talks about their progress here.
• Your tax dollars at work (I’m sure glad we sent the National Guard in to help.) We’ve got to protect our borders from ROGUE CHEESE!
• Televised Wiffle ball? Please, no! Next up: professional grass championships – growing it that is.
• KillerRoos, the lesser known cousin of the Kangaroo, once galloped through the outback looking for meat….

Technorati Tags: Humor | Science | Ohio State Football