If you're reading this, update your links to:
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http://suburbanreject.com/feed/
See you off google. :)
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Big Brother is watching.....and waiting for you to invite him into your home.
So here is your horrifying thought for today: Your own government could very quickly have a video and audio surveillance device put in your house. But that isn't the scariest part. You ready for it? YOU will be the one PAYING to put it there, by your own choice.
Don't believe me? Let's consider some things that have been happening recently:
1. The NSA's massive Utah Data mining center - a 1 million square foot facility, capable of storing yottabytes of data, gleaned from every type of communication device we use. Also consider the fact that every piece of communication passes through a wire at some point, even your cell phone, so literally EVERYTHING is accessible at some junction point. Even if you encrypt your transmission with the highest level of encryption available today, that doesn't matter in the long run. If they can't crack it now, they will store it and crack it when they have the ability to in the near future.
2. PRISM - Since 2007 (but more realistically since the Patriot act was first passed in 2001), the NSA has been using your own internet providers, popular sites, and makers of the worlds most used devices to provide direct access of all their products and services to the government. Since the news broke recently, all the companies on the list of PRISM partners have come out stating, in some form or another, that they are not giving direct or backdoor access to the government, and that they are only responding to court orders as required by law. I call bullshit, for a couple basic reasons:
A. We've already been lied to, and then when they were caught in the lie, they tried to assure us that it wasn't as bad as we are making it out to be, specifically with federal wiretapping. We were all told that it was ONLY calls originating from foreign countries or placed to foreign countries, and that the surveillance was extremely limited in nature. Fast forward to this week, and we find out that was complete bullshit, and that they have been monitoring ALL calls, including ones that are ENTIRELY domestic, for years. Verizon has been handing over data for years already: "While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively." This program has been going on since as far back as October of 2001, in some form or another.
B. All the companies on the PRISM list don't want a mass exodus from their services. Why wouldn't they lie, to retain users? And furthermore, even if they aren't just lying to retain users, it doesn't matter, as they are under a federal gag order from FISA anyway, so even if the wanted to talk about it, the can't!
3. The Ace in the Hole: The Xbox One - A few things on this to get started; To operate, the device must call home once every 24 hours (NOTE: this is to be able to play games. MS has stated that you will not need to connect to watch live TV or DVD's. Who cares, I can already do that without an Xbox). The Kinect MUST be connected for the system to operate. Unless you unplug the entire thing, the Xbox One is always on in a low power state.
So let's put all this nifty information together into one cohesive thought: The NSA is building a massive data retention center using, at least in part, the information it is gathering from it's partners listed in the PRISM project. The very first company to sign on to the PRISM project was Microsoft. The NSA data center will be completed in October, roughly around the same time that the new Xbox One will be hitting stores. Do you honestly believe that if they are already tapping your phone, email, web searches, Facebook, and all your other internet communications, that the NSA won't want to get their greedy little claws where they couldn't go before? Inside your house, directly into your living room? Into the Xbox One and Kinect, that can record a live video and audio stream? Talk about fleshing out the whole picture....
And the best part is, you are going to pay THEM for the privilege.
Don't believe me? Let's consider some things that have been happening recently:
1. The NSA's massive Utah Data mining center - a 1 million square foot facility, capable of storing yottabytes of data, gleaned from every type of communication device we use. Also consider the fact that every piece of communication passes through a wire at some point, even your cell phone, so literally EVERYTHING is accessible at some junction point. Even if you encrypt your transmission with the highest level of encryption available today, that doesn't matter in the long run. If they can't crack it now, they will store it and crack it when they have the ability to in the near future.
2. PRISM - Since 2007 (but more realistically since the Patriot act was first passed in 2001), the NSA has been using your own internet providers, popular sites, and makers of the worlds most used devices to provide direct access of all their products and services to the government. Since the news broke recently, all the companies on the list of PRISM partners have come out stating, in some form or another, that they are not giving direct or backdoor access to the government, and that they are only responding to court orders as required by law. I call bullshit, for a couple basic reasons:
A. We've already been lied to, and then when they were caught in the lie, they tried to assure us that it wasn't as bad as we are making it out to be, specifically with federal wiretapping. We were all told that it was ONLY calls originating from foreign countries or placed to foreign countries, and that the surveillance was extremely limited in nature. Fast forward to this week, and we find out that was complete bullshit, and that they have been monitoring ALL calls, including ones that are ENTIRELY domestic, for years. Verizon has been handing over data for years already: "While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively." This program has been going on since as far back as October of 2001, in some form or another.
B. All the companies on the PRISM list don't want a mass exodus from their services. Why wouldn't they lie, to retain users? And furthermore, even if they aren't just lying to retain users, it doesn't matter, as they are under a federal gag order from FISA anyway, so even if the wanted to talk about it, the can't!
3. The Ace in the Hole: The Xbox One - A few things on this to get started; To operate, the device must call home once every 24 hours (NOTE: this is to be able to play games. MS has stated that you will not need to connect to watch live TV or DVD's. Who cares, I can already do that without an Xbox). The Kinect MUST be connected for the system to operate. Unless you unplug the entire thing, the Xbox One is always on in a low power state.
So let's put all this nifty information together into one cohesive thought: The NSA is building a massive data retention center using, at least in part, the information it is gathering from it's partners listed in the PRISM project. The very first company to sign on to the PRISM project was Microsoft. The NSA data center will be completed in October, roughly around the same time that the new Xbox One will be hitting stores. Do you honestly believe that if they are already tapping your phone, email, web searches, Facebook, and all your other internet communications, that the NSA won't want to get their greedy little claws where they couldn't go before? Inside your house, directly into your living room? Into the Xbox One and Kinect, that can record a live video and audio stream? Talk about fleshing out the whole picture....
And the best part is, you are going to pay THEM for the privilege.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Moving to Wordpress!
This blog will shortly disappear to be replaced by a new blog, no longer part of the Google mothership.
Shouldn't be any need to update links, but if your reader feed dies, might want to try to update the RSS feed again.
Shouldn't be any need to update links, but if your reader feed dies, might want to try to update the RSS feed again.
Later!
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Gardening for 2013
Well, due to an extremely late snow storm in May this year I feel like I am totally behind on getting everything into the garden. I know I am pretty late on some things is year, but not so much on others. I am slowly working way through all my beds, getting them planted.
This year I decided to actually install the new flower bed in the front of the house. It's all planted now, there are some day lilies there at the end, some herbs next and I planted the whole thing in with a wildflower mix. Hopefully it will do well, especially since I'm getting done so late.
- Fin
Friday, April 19, 2013
Facebook Frustration
I've noticed a definite trend lately with Facebook - I'm tired of it. Somehow, I'd like to move away from my primary connection point of family and friends being this site. Why? Well, I might start with the upcoming video ads.
Really? Multiple rumors also indicate these ads will AUTO PLAY, multiple times.
Screw that noise.
I went to paying google for my email a few months back. Why? No ads. Now, when it comes to Facebook, I struggle to find the justification. Family and friends have switched more to facebook lately, away from blogging. I think because blogs require more "work". Like writing a letter versus calling or texting. As a society, we want immediate live feeds.
So, the question now becomes... How do I follow my friends and families without Facebook? Unfortunately, I think it requires their cooperation. I've had a few friends announce they would leave Facebook.
For now, I'm going to make an effort to blog here instead of posting to my Facebook feed. Hope the family gets it.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Fate's 2013 New Years Resolutions
My 2012 resolutions all went downhill pretty quick. So, here I am at the start of 2013 trying to figure out my list of 'accomplishments' for this year. As usual, these will be more "goals" than resolutions, although a few of them are a bit cliched.
1. Restart "Dave Ramsey Plan"
While we haven't gone crazy in our spending, Fin and I have relaxed after a couple years doing a really good job budgeting. Mostly, this is my fault - feeling burned out looking at bills. By most measures, we've taken a year off our financial plan, and need to get back onboard. There's some discussion at the office of bringing on personal financial advisors and such - might be interesting.
2. Make soap again.
I made enough soap to last us a long while, and then we switched over to left over fragments floating around. We're running low on all of the above, and I need to get my stuff together and go through with it. Largely, it's a bit of a pain with the cats (we wrangle them up into a room for a couple hours).
3. Build evil-project laboratory
I haven't had space to work on electronics projects since I moved to the area - multiple small apartments, followed by a small house. Working on audio wiring, I purchased a soldering iron, and find myself considering the possibilities of electronics tinkering again. With any luck, Fin can have some space for her craft projects, and I'll have space to tinker.
4. Learn a Bach Fugue
I'm hoping better than "learn a Beethoven Sonata", and then playing Op. 49. I still haven't selected one, but I've started working on a 3-part invention to get my ready.
5. Time Lapse Garden Video
I'm still dismayed by the destruction of my previous camera for the time lapse project. Tho, I do a significant collection of photos I could make something with (at least until mid-spring timeframe). I'm not sure what sort of hardware investment I'll make here, but there's multiple options, and I do have a nice project enclosure to help things along.
6. Get back to writing
I haven't written significantly for a year. I'm hoping to improve my work/life balance and get this blog thing going well again.
7. Reorganize the office
This one would likely be #1 if Fin ordered the list, but the low place here is symptomatic of both of our desires to tackle the beast. The office is the one area of the house that isn't currently "awesome". Mostly on account of HUGE collections of "stuff" that needs unpacked and sorted, including the majority of boxes from before I moved in. :o
And now, I'll place the "standard" resolutions. These are serious, but feel too cliched to take seriously.
8. Take longer/better vacation at some point in 2013.
9. Get to the gym / Y / etc...
10. Spend less time watching TV & playing video games.
I'm not going to justify these with explanations, and really, I debated putting them on the list. Still, I hope to break trends and accomplish something there to write about. :)
That said, one of the important things (to me) about the "New Years Ritual", is to recognize your accomplishments over the past year that might not have been "resolved". 2012 saw a large number of "bucket list" items, and I suspect 2013 will as well.
--- Fate
1. Restart "Dave Ramsey Plan"
While we haven't gone crazy in our spending, Fin and I have relaxed after a couple years doing a really good job budgeting. Mostly, this is my fault - feeling burned out looking at bills. By most measures, we've taken a year off our financial plan, and need to get back onboard. There's some discussion at the office of bringing on personal financial advisors and such - might be interesting.
2. Make soap again.
I made enough soap to last us a long while, and then we switched over to left over fragments floating around. We're running low on all of the above, and I need to get my stuff together and go through with it. Largely, it's a bit of a pain with the cats (we wrangle them up into a room for a couple hours).
3. Build evil-project laboratory
I haven't had space to work on electronics projects since I moved to the area - multiple small apartments, followed by a small house. Working on audio wiring, I purchased a soldering iron, and find myself considering the possibilities of electronics tinkering again. With any luck, Fin can have some space for her craft projects, and I'll have space to tinker.
4. Learn a Bach Fugue
I'm hoping better than "learn a Beethoven Sonata", and then playing Op. 49. I still haven't selected one, but I've started working on a 3-part invention to get my ready.
5. Time Lapse Garden Video
I'm still dismayed by the destruction of my previous camera for the time lapse project. Tho, I do a significant collection of photos I could make something with (at least until mid-spring timeframe). I'm not sure what sort of hardware investment I'll make here, but there's multiple options, and I do have a nice project enclosure to help things along.
6. Get back to writing
I haven't written significantly for a year. I'm hoping to improve my work/life balance and get this blog thing going well again.
7. Reorganize the office
This one would likely be #1 if Fin ordered the list, but the low place here is symptomatic of both of our desires to tackle the beast. The office is the one area of the house that isn't currently "awesome". Mostly on account of HUGE collections of "stuff" that needs unpacked and sorted, including the majority of boxes from before I moved in. :o
And now, I'll place the "standard" resolutions. These are serious, but feel too cliched to take seriously.
8. Take longer/better vacation at some point in 2013.
9. Get to the gym / Y / etc...
10. Spend less time watching TV & playing video games.
I'm not going to justify these with explanations, and really, I debated putting them on the list. Still, I hope to break trends and accomplish something there to write about. :)
That said, one of the important things (to me) about the "New Years Ritual", is to recognize your accomplishments over the past year that might not have been "resolved". 2012 saw a large number of "bucket list" items, and I suspect 2013 will as well.
--- Fate
Monday, December 31, 2012
Fate's 2012 Resolutions Recap
I can save the vast majority of typing here with one word: FAIL.
My resolutions this past year went to hell pretty quick. I could give a list of excuses, but I'll save it. Suffice it to say, I've been looking inward and have reached a few conclusions about moving forward again. :-) Fin and I both, I think, spent much of the year simply trying to recover from the previous whirlwinds of activity. Isn't that the way life goes?
The biggest wins according my resolution list where in music. This year I played in several public recitals, as well as a few times in public. While I didn't complete 3 Chopin pieces, I mastered one, started a second, and move on to multiple other difficult pieces (mostly Bach).
My relationship with Fin continued growing over the past year. Out of everything over the past year, I'm happiest that we have managed to get stronger as a couple.
Now, on toward 2013, and time to rethink goals now that the world didn't end.
-- Fate
-- Fate
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Posting again
Seems that I have a habit of posting for a bit then completely ignoring the blog for long stretches of time. This time there was a mis-communication on moving the blog from blogspot to our own domain and then going to Wordpress for posting. I wasn't sure that actually ever got set up and then I was told I could post from blogspot still....by that time I had already kinda lost interest in the blog and just never got around to posting again.
Obviously.
Well, yet again, I am back to posting and this time hopefully I can keep it up more regularly in the coming year.
I think the end of the old year and the start of the new really make me think about posting. I always have all these ideas that I want to do and talk about, especially during the cold month while I shut myself inside and wait for spring to arrive.
So much has changed this year going into 2013 I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Soon I will be putting together my seed order for the year and another garden season will be started. I am hoping to get tomatoes and peppers in seed pots by Feb 1. Guess I need to get myself in gear and find somewhere to put them!
-Fin
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Going Official
As of today, this blog can be found at "www.suburbanreject.com" as opposed to simply another speaker on blogger. :-) I'm looking at shaking things up on the server software side of things with a few of my pet projects. If that ever happens, not much will change from the reader/design perspective (outside of no longer being a 'blogger' site). For now, the old blogger site redirects here, and all links should remain functional. The RSS feed is now: http://www.suburbanreject.com/feeds/posts/default
-- Fate
-- Fate
Monday, March 26, 2012
The garden is in bloom
It's planting season! It's a super busy time, so posting has been bad again, but I've been taking pictures of all the stuff that's getting done! Hopefully I will have time to start posting more soon!
- Fin
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
New green house frame and seedlings
Statice:
eggplant - listada de gandia:
Cabbage - savoy:
cabbage - early flat dutch and red acre:
Pics of the new greenhouse frame:
It was way too windy to put on the plastic today. I had no desire to become a kite. I will be working on that in the next couple days.
- Fin
eggplant - listada de gandia:
Cabbage - savoy:
cabbage - early flat dutch and red acre:
Pics of the new greenhouse frame:
It was way too windy to put on the plastic today. I had no desire to become a kite. I will be working on that in the next couple days.
- Fin
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Reworking the garden
So, this is the plan I made out for the new setup for the garden. I used this program. It was kind of a pain to use, since its all web based and kept freezing up randomly. However, its the best of its kind I've seen out there, so I made do. Its nice because if you add in where you planted all your plants, then it will tell you next year where not to plant the same thing. I haven't gotten a chance to go in and add plants in since I've gotten my finalized seed list, but I will be doing that eventually. It will also send you reminders on when to plant out seeds, or start seeds for transplants based on your zone, so that's pretty cool.
The area inside the "fencing" is in the backyard. The four boxes on the bottom are in the front yard. I just included them on there so I could put in what I planted. Pretty much all measurements are accurate, and I went through and staked out the garden according to the plan I made out.
Eventually all the staked out areas will be wooden beds like so:
However, I only have so much wood so far, and its about used up. My brother made up those boxes for me a couple weekends ago, and I finally had a chance to get them installed inbetween the rain today.
I'm using hay to mulch between the beds to keep down the weeds, as well as keep the soil moist. I am not going to have enough hay to do the whole garden tho, at least not with what I have now. I will be posting an ad on craigslist for more hay, trying to get some wood chips, and paying attention to the ads to see if I can get some more wood. I just love the look of the boxes, looks very tidy. I put up the string so I could tell where the beds and walkways would go, I needed some kind of visual marker.
In between working on the garden, while it was raining, I was productive inside as well. I made some DIY seed tape, these are carrots:
I will be doing more as time allows. Probably more carrots, some lettuce, and maybe some radishes, beets, and turnips. I'm not sure how well these will work out, but its an experiment I'm willing to try. I don't have enough patience to plant these seeds one by one, as they are super tiny, and usually end up just scattering them out, then thinning. That's not a bad way to do it, but I'd like to see if this is better.
All in all, I think its been a pretty productive day!
-Fin
Monday, February 27, 2012
Clothes lines
I hang my clothes outside.
I haven't used my dryer in close to a full year now. I have a line and a drying rack indoors that I hang my clothes up on when the weather is too bad outside for my wussy-ness. I hate the cold. This has been working out for me very well this winter.
Last year I had some issues during the winter with my clothes taking way too long to dry so my dad suggested that I use a fan to get the air moving a bit. That worked like a charm. We've had so few days this winter that have been too cold or rainy/snowy that I think I've only dried my clothes indoors just a handful of times. Mostly I have been paying attention to the weather and hanging them outside.
As you can see I have room for one more line:
There have been enough times that I've really needed more space that I think I am going to go ahead and get another one this year. I'm trying to decide between putting in another chain or one of the plastic coated metal lines. There are advantages to both.
I hang everything that would usually go on hangers up wet on their hangers then put those through the linkage on the chain. It takes up a whole lot less space that way and I have the advantage of not having an extra step. I can just take the clothes inside and hang them right in the closet, instead of having to take them off the line and hang them up.
I'm sure my neighbors think I'm weird being out there on these colder days hanging up my laundry. I'm sure they think that I don't have a dryer. The truth is that I DO have a dryer, I just truly enjoy being outside hanging out the laundry. I even enjoy hanging it up inside, tho not as much as being outside. I've noticed a big difference on wear and tear on my clothes too. Especially the pieces that have some kind of elastic in them like underwear and bras. The heat from the dryer tends to ruin the elastic so they go all weird really fast. Hanging them up to dry I don't have that same issue and they look brand new, even six months to a year after purchase.
I've been considering getting rid of my dryer completely. I would really love to put a sink in next to my washer, since its in my fish room, I could really use the water source! I probably won't, at least not any time soon, but it is something I am considering.
-Fin
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Seed Starting
I started some eggplants and cabbage today. I also tried a small flat of toilet paper roll seed starting pots of cabbage to see how it would work out.
-Fin
Fish auction!
Another spring fish auction has come and gone and I am absolutly wiped out. I took many more bags then I usually do this time it looked like everyone else did too.
We had over 720 items that we auctioned off...it took almost 7 hours. Crazy times. I worked the check in/out table this year and it was just non stop with items to be entered into the computer.
The prices were not as high as the spring auction last year and there were some real deals to be had. I picked up a co2 regulator for $24 dollars that I am super excited about. I also got some spixi snails and a pearly occie. I thought I had pearly occies....turns out they are black occies. Oops.
All in all a good time was had by all. I am pretty sure I made enough money to pay for my pond expansion this year, which is all I was really going for. It would be nice if the fish hobby paid for itself, or at least funded itself somewhat! I am, however, glad there isn't another auction till fall though, any sooner might kill me. What a day.
I am hoping today to get some eggplant seeds started. I am also going to get some parsley seeds soaking to get them started out tomorrow.
It's nice enough today that I have the windows open...which really, really makes me want to go plant something in the garden! I have to keep telling myself that its too early. If I plant out now then a killing frost will come along and wipe everything out just as it gets a good start.
That's how we roll here in zone 6a.
-Fin
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Seed starting
Wonder if I have enough pots? This is round 2. We planted out 18 flats yesterday of peppers and tomatoes but I forgot to take pictures. I also found a great big fat worm out in the garden yesterday when I was working on the pond!
-Fin
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Are You Writing Anonymously? Well, Maybe.
I've pondered running another blog with a more direct relation to my real name. This other blog would cover strictly professional / technical matters. Valuing privacy, not many bloggers write under real names. Over the years, I've written under many different pseudonyms on various forums and social media sites. Anyone seriously research me online would find this blog, but could they identify this blog from writing excerpts? How easily could someone associate my new technology blog to crazy political rants here?
There's been some significant research on analyzing text to match writing patterns. The general idea is that every person has unique linguistic patterns and turns of phrase. Fin can pick out my writing (or her sisters) almost immediately.
At some point, I read about some researchers using compression to identify authors of text excerpts. Compression algorithms create new encoding schemes based on pattern recognition. In theory, we can recognize an author's style by seeing which piece of writing results in the best compression. Does it work?
The idea seems too simple to work - at least with any meaningful accuracy. Still, finding it fascinating, I decided to run an experiment. Searching my google reader, I found 2 blogs covering similar topics to mine, and a third wildly different blog covering technical posts. Scouring these blogs, I worked at creating a text collection for each author. Excerpts were selected based on covering similar subject matter.
My 'test' subjects included a blog post written 3 years ago by myself, a work email sent roughly 3 weeks ago, and a collection of Google+ posts over the past few months. In addition, I grabbed 2 posts from the selected blogs. The work email and technical blog use extremely similar terminology throughout. In theory, the compression technique should fail in this case - picking up technology idioms instead of language usage.
To form a baseline, an unrelated text excerpt is added to each text collection. The collection is compressed using "Zip" and the final size recorded. After forming the baseline, I replace the additional text with each excerpt to identify.
Running the tests, I expected the results to be poor at a minimum. I'd purposefully selected difficult scenarios for the test, hoping to prod it into failure. In the end, all 5 tests resulted in a correct identification of the author. I'd suspected a few to hit on chance, but not a 100% positive identification rate. For those curious, my work email scored first with my personal blog here, and second with the technical blog.
The strongest match? Identifying the social media posts.
I'd guess that increasing the number of authors would decrease the positive ID rate. Still, we could improve that situation by adding to the baseline and test data sets. Obviously, a short test using a common sentence( eg: I'm hungry ) won't work well. Conspiracy theory thought: isn't social media providing an ever growing baseline data set?
The idea of social media building the strongest matches has interesting implications for this technique and author identification in general. While we write on social media with our real names, are we working against our interest in remaining anonymous elsewhere? In any security scenario, the weakest element tends to be the humans running the show. While we research technologies such as "Tor" for privacy and protection of political dissidents - the very published speech points right back at the author. Could a child's grammar school paper condemn them as an adult?
In general, the take away here is that writing on social media, or blogs, or English papers can be used to identify people in other contexts. Could I write this post and publish it truly anonymously?
Not as much as I'd like to think.
-- Fate
There's been some significant research on analyzing text to match writing patterns. The general idea is that every person has unique linguistic patterns and turns of phrase. Fin can pick out my writing (or her sisters) almost immediately.
At some point, I read about some researchers using compression to identify authors of text excerpts. Compression algorithms create new encoding schemes based on pattern recognition. In theory, we can recognize an author's style by seeing which piece of writing results in the best compression. Does it work?
The idea seems too simple to work - at least with any meaningful accuracy. Still, finding it fascinating, I decided to run an experiment. Searching my google reader, I found 2 blogs covering similar topics to mine, and a third wildly different blog covering technical posts. Scouring these blogs, I worked at creating a text collection for each author. Excerpts were selected based on covering similar subject matter.
My 'test' subjects included a blog post written 3 years ago by myself, a work email sent roughly 3 weeks ago, and a collection of Google+ posts over the past few months. In addition, I grabbed 2 posts from the selected blogs. The work email and technical blog use extremely similar terminology throughout. In theory, the compression technique should fail in this case - picking up technology idioms instead of language usage.
To form a baseline, an unrelated text excerpt is added to each text collection. The collection is compressed using "Zip" and the final size recorded. After forming the baseline, I replace the additional text with each excerpt to identify.
Running the tests, I expected the results to be poor at a minimum. I'd purposefully selected difficult scenarios for the test, hoping to prod it into failure. In the end, all 5 tests resulted in a correct identification of the author. I'd suspected a few to hit on chance, but not a 100% positive identification rate. For those curious, my work email scored first with my personal blog here, and second with the technical blog.
The strongest match? Identifying the social media posts.
I'd guess that increasing the number of authors would decrease the positive ID rate. Still, we could improve that situation by adding to the baseline and test data sets. Obviously, a short test using a common sentence( eg: I'm hungry ) won't work well. Conspiracy theory thought: isn't social media providing an ever growing baseline data set?
The idea of social media building the strongest matches has interesting implications for this technique and author identification in general. While we write on social media with our real names, are we working against our interest in remaining anonymous elsewhere? In any security scenario, the weakest element tends to be the humans running the show. While we research technologies such as "Tor" for privacy and protection of political dissidents - the very published speech points right back at the author. Could a child's grammar school paper condemn them as an adult?
In general, the take away here is that writing on social media, or blogs, or English papers can be used to identify people in other contexts. Could I write this post and publish it truly anonymously?
Not as much as I'd like to think.
-- Fate
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Planning out the Garden and Shovels
This weekend was a super busy weekend but a whole lot of stuff got done!
I broke what I thought was my last shovel on Friday trying to get that tree stump out of the ground, which sucks, because I have a whole lot more stuff to do with a shovel before the season even begins this year. We went to several estate sales yesterday trying to find a new shovel with absolutely NO luck. Isn't it usually the case that every time you're not looking for something that they are all over the place but as soon as you go looking for it there is none to be found? That was the case with shovels yesterday. The only one we found was a really crappy short handled one and I really wanted a long handled shovel. I did end up getting a couple new large sized tomato cages tho, and when we opened the trunk of the car to stick the cages in there we found a shovel! Go figure. It must have been in my car when I hit the deer and gotten stuck in Fates car without me realizing it. Unfortunately it was a short handled one, which wasn't what I wanted.
We went to Ace Hardware on the way home thinking to maybe pick up a new handle so I could replace the handle that I broke. Man, those things are expensive! They wanted like $15 for a new one. I started looking at the shovels on the wall and saw a all steel one for $29, with a lifetime warranty! Considering I've broken about 5 shovels or more in the last 3 years I figured the lifetime warranty was the way to go. I ended up getting this Fiskars long handled shovel. The wider base for stepping on and the life time warranty were the major attractions for me. Its a bit heavier then the other shovels I have used but I guess that works out well in the goal of I have of building more muscle! I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but will be sure to post a review when I do.
Today was spent sorting out our massive seed order. 172 different varieties! I think we might be a bit insane. We have 4 different places we are planting. My parents house, my brothers girlfriends friends farm (in three different places), my brothers house, and my house. Seeing the amount of seeds we have I am having trouble believing that we have ENOUGH seeds. Then the other part of me wonders where in the hell we are going to even put everything. Its crazy.
We started a google document that listed out all the starting times for getting things started indoors, transplanting, and direct seeding for both the spring and fall time. I am super excited to get everything going. We should be starting out the first of our seeds here very soon as our last expected frost date is April 15th. I'm really wondering how that is going to go this year since we don't seem to have had a winter around here. Knowing this area tho, even tho the winter has been super mild, I can see our last frost happening the end of May. A freak June snow storm isn't out of the question either.
My brother took a bunch of the salvaged wood I brought home and made out quite a few of the boxes for the garden for me. I'm happy about that as it will save me a ton of work. There are quite a few to go, but he made a whole lot of progress on them today. I will be concentrating on getting those into the garden this week along with getting the rest of the hugelkulture beds in the front yard dug out and filled up. I have the wood now to get those going, and the new shovel to get them dug out! I need to get that little tree moved and then I am in business.
Things are really coming along around here!
-Fin
I broke what I thought was my last shovel on Friday trying to get that tree stump out of the ground, which sucks, because I have a whole lot more stuff to do with a shovel before the season even begins this year. We went to several estate sales yesterday trying to find a new shovel with absolutely NO luck. Isn't it usually the case that every time you're not looking for something that they are all over the place but as soon as you go looking for it there is none to be found? That was the case with shovels yesterday. The only one we found was a really crappy short handled one and I really wanted a long handled shovel. I did end up getting a couple new large sized tomato cages tho, and when we opened the trunk of the car to stick the cages in there we found a shovel! Go figure. It must have been in my car when I hit the deer and gotten stuck in Fates car without me realizing it. Unfortunately it was a short handled one, which wasn't what I wanted.
We went to Ace Hardware on the way home thinking to maybe pick up a new handle so I could replace the handle that I broke. Man, those things are expensive! They wanted like $15 for a new one. I started looking at the shovels on the wall and saw a all steel one for $29, with a lifetime warranty! Considering I've broken about 5 shovels or more in the last 3 years I figured the lifetime warranty was the way to go. I ended up getting this Fiskars long handled shovel. The wider base for stepping on and the life time warranty were the major attractions for me. Its a bit heavier then the other shovels I have used but I guess that works out well in the goal of I have of building more muscle! I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but will be sure to post a review when I do.
Today was spent sorting out our massive seed order. 172 different varieties! I think we might be a bit insane. We have 4 different places we are planting. My parents house, my brothers girlfriends friends farm (in three different places), my brothers house, and my house. Seeing the amount of seeds we have I am having trouble believing that we have ENOUGH seeds. Then the other part of me wonders where in the hell we are going to even put everything. Its crazy.
We started a google document that listed out all the starting times for getting things started indoors, transplanting, and direct seeding for both the spring and fall time. I am super excited to get everything going. We should be starting out the first of our seeds here very soon as our last expected frost date is April 15th. I'm really wondering how that is going to go this year since we don't seem to have had a winter around here. Knowing this area tho, even tho the winter has been super mild, I can see our last frost happening the end of May. A freak June snow storm isn't out of the question either.
My brother took a bunch of the salvaged wood I brought home and made out quite a few of the boxes for the garden for me. I'm happy about that as it will save me a ton of work. There are quite a few to go, but he made a whole lot of progress on them today. I will be concentrating on getting those into the garden this week along with getting the rest of the hugelkulture beds in the front yard dug out and filled up. I have the wood now to get those going, and the new shovel to get them dug out! I need to get that little tree moved and then I am in business.
Things are really coming along around here!
-Fin
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