Recent [Known Plaintext]

Well, a ten-year chapter of my life has come to a close, and a new chapter's beginning. As the Talking Heads sang, "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was." But chapter-ends are fine places to take inventory of one's life, so… so how did I get here, anyway?

In 2003 I was in grad school, still fumbling my way around, trying to figure out what I wanted the rest of my career to be. Then late one night while using a communications service kind of a lot like IRC, I came across a suicidal young man. I stayed up with him until dawn, when I was able to call his university and alert his chaplain to his mental health crisis.

A bystander, Jenn Vesperman, liked the way I'd been able to engage this young man. I had technical skills and could talk to people, and she thought I might be a useful resource for a group called LinuxChix, which aimed to increase the number of women involved in free/open source software development. That didn't work out well — I have a long rant on that which I rarely break out, and now's not the time for it — but I made the acquaintance of a woman named Raven Alder.

Raven's a wonderful friend. I've known her for fifteen years now, and … she's special. Through her, I met a USAF officer named Jesse Kornblum (now retired), and A.J. Morning, and several other interesting characters whom I've mostly lost touch with.

In 2008 after five years in graduate school it all came crashing down. As with most such crashes in life, I got to deal with a ton of crap that wasn't my responsibility but became my mess anyway. Jesse had a frank conversation with me, telling me that in his opinion I was being entirely wasted in academia. It had been a place for me to hide from the world, but hiding from the world wasn't good for anyone in the long term. I had skills, and I needed to re-engage the world and put those skills to use, so … look, come out to the East Coast for a job interview, I know a guy who needs a Python nerd.

That guy was Tim Cague, whom I lost touch with a long time ago. And that's how the chapter of my life which just ended, began.

It all started with saving a college student's life one night.

I guess that's a pretty good way for a chapter to begin, right?

Music:: Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

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So, a quick comment about a proposed California secession:

If it happened it would be an unmitigated disaster.  California is a deeply red state outside of its very blue cities.  So, sure, let's say the blue urban centers win a referendum on secession.

Immediately, the red counties would tell Congress "we're not with them any more."  This has happened before.  When Virginia attempted to secede in 1860, the western portion of the state decided not to join that suicide pact and broke off.  That's how we got the state of West Virginia.

There are a lot of reasons why rural California would refuse to go along.  First, they're highly agrarian and have significant water needs -- so losing access to the rivers flowing into California would be a huge hit for them.  (And you better believe the USG would do it, too -- and the citizens of Nevada and Colorado would be cheering at being given California's share of the water allocations.)

Second, look at the electoral results.  You'll see a handful of red spots and some weak blue spots.  These are not counties predisposed to sign onto what they consider "progressive nonsense from San Francisco".

So -- the western edge of California secedes; everything more than 100km inland refuses to go along.

Now for the pain.

Secession proponents like to talk about how California is a wealth-generating machine -- and it is!  Cities are economic powerhouses in the general case, and Secessionist California has a lot of them.  But look at how cities generate that wealth: they overwhelmingly due it by processing raw materials from rural America.  Rural America is vast and bountiful but produces few finished goods; urban America is small and phenomenally good at the task of adding value to the resources it receives from the rural areas...

... you know, the rural areas which have just invited massive numbers of federal troops to come in, in order to stave off Secessionist California occupying them by force in order to ensure the resources flow.

Resources *stop flowing* from rural CA to the cities.  They now flow east to Nevada.

So, already, the CA economic powerhouse -- and it is a powerhouse, I want to give it proper credit -- gets derailed by losing the resources it's dependent on.  And that's a huge problem, because they now have what is conservatively an immediate $50 billion infrastructure task:

Desalinization.

Thirty seconds after Loyalist CA refuses to join Secessionist CA, the federal government rewards Loyalist CA by not only letting them keep their water allocation, but SHUTTING OFF WATER TO LOS ANGELES.

Four million Angelenos now have an urgent task: don't die of dehydration in the first week of secession.  Secessionist CA government begins a crash program of building desalinization plants (none of which would be ready for months), and serving Los Angeles with 40 million liters of drinking water each day.

Keep in mind that you can't drink ocean water.  Secessionist CA will be forced to buy drinking water, in huge quantities, and then distribute it to cities.

How quickly do you think they could get that program operational and running at full capacity?

Remember: after three days Angelenos will be drinking their own urine to survive.  After five they'll be dead.  Given how fast the California Legislature acts, I think there'd be over a million dead before the Secessionist Legislature finished buying chairs for the conference room.

The prospect of the USG shutting off water to Los Angeles is literally horrifying.  It is so beyond-awful that if one nation were to do it to another, it would be called a war crime.  But international norms are very quiet about civil wars.

Go ahead: ask the citizens of Atlanta or Savannah what their experiences were like.  Ask them how Abraham Lincoln treated cities in rebellion.

The idea of a secessionist California succeeding is the political equivalent of a Monty Python sketch -- it's so implausible and surreal that it entertains.  But just as the How Not To Be Seen sketch, if done in real life, would immediately result in a lot of people with guns swarming the scene and terrible consequences for all, a California secession, if done in real life, would ... do the exact same thing.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/336542.html

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Regarding Garland and Gorsuch --

The claim that the Senate blocking Garland's ascent to the bench is somehow un-American is, simply, crazy. The Framers in their wisdom made appointment of justices a game where both sides had to cooperate. The Senate can't nominate candidates and the President can't approve them.

The idea the Framers somehow intended for every nominee to get a floor vote is nuts. The Framers were veterans of parliamentary process and knew it wasn't just possible but likely for nominees to never reach the floor. They could've put a clause in guaranteeing the right to a floor vote. They didn't.

This doesn't mean blocking Garland was wise or prudent. (I think it was foolish and prideful, myself.) But it does mean that neither side can honestly invoke highminded American ideals when it comes to SCOTUS nominees and floor votes.

The Senate blocked Garland, as was their right, and the voters made their pleasure and displeasure known in the elections. Will the Senate block Gorsuch? I don't know. I hope not, but if they do, you won't hear me blathering like an idiot about how this undermines American government.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/336337.html

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads:

You have got to get off the outrage machine.  You're going down a bad road and one you don't have to go down.

There's something in the human heart, something dark and sticky, which loves nothing so much as to have something to hate.  And there's never enough hate for it; it always clamors for more.  It's whispering to you right now and impersonating principle.  "Trump's a racist.  A good person would oppose that.  A good person gets angry at racists.  Get angry at him.  It's okay.  You're angry at him because he deserves your anger.  He's brought it on himself.  You're a good person to feel such rage."

When I put it like that, of course it's obvious you shouldn't listen to that voice.  But that voice is patient and manipulative and it knows you better than you know yourself.  It is subtle, it is pernicious, and it is tricky.

It is also counterproductive.  What it wants most is your hate, *not* for you to actually fix the problem.  After all, if you fixed the problem, what would you hate?  The dark, sticky thing would be denied its food, and it is a glutton for hate.

You don't have to be outraged to stand up against outrages.

Outrage in response to outrage is not a necessity.  It is a choice.  Sometimes it's a good choice.  That dark and sticky thing can be useful to you if it's disciplined, brought under control, put on a strict diet.

But this gluttony so many of you seem to be indulging in, where you latch onto every outrage Trump commits and feed it to the dark and sticky thing ...

Please.

You are going down a bad road.

Please stop.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/335941.html

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So, a comment about honorifics:

Dad occupies a pretty august seat in government.  No, he's not retired, federal judges do not retire; their job lasts their lifetime.  Even now, when he's in what's called "inactive status" and enjoying life on our farm, he's still a fully-vested member of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Going above him requires talking to someone who gets addressed as "Justice".

And yet, despite all this, you know what the overwhelming majority of people call him?  "Dave."  (Which gets on his nerves, actually: he prefers "David", unless you're one of his nieces or nephews.  As he once told me, family gets to call him by the familiar.)

Many years ago when I was a kid I asked him if it bothered him so few people called him "Judge Hansen".  He didn't even need to think before he answered.  No, he said, it didn't bother him a bit.  His honorific was a reflection of his standing in court, not his standing in society.  We fought a war to rid ourselves of the cancer of aristocracy, and he wasn't going to see that great revolution be undone by government functionaries insisting on their honorifics being turned into noble titles.  If his fellow citizen voluntarily called him "Your Honor" or "Judge Hansen", he would be honored to answer to that, and would hope to conduct himself in a manner worthy of that; but he would never expect his fellow citizen would, except in court.  He was, is, a servant of the people, and servants do not get to demand titles or honors.

I admired, and still admire, the living daylights out of the Old Man for such a republican (small-r) outlook on society and his role within it.  The Old Man was, and is, right.

So no, please, don't feel it's in any way disrespectful to Barack Obama to call him Barack.  He's no longer our President.  He's been returned to us as a fellow citizen.  He's just Barack.

If you *want* to call him "Mr. President", or "President Obama", well, feel free.  If that's what's in your heart, do so.

But don't knock people who call him Barack, either.  He's our fellow citizen.  We're allowed.  :)

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/335634.html

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(Note: the Almighty has been elided here not because I think it's necessary, but because some of the people who would like to comment and/or share this feel it's necessary. I do so out of convenience to my neighbors, not personal conviction.)

Had to correct someone's misconception today that the Old Testament is about a fire-and-brimstone G-d who sends plagues and pestilences and smites people, and the New Testament is about a loving G-d who forgives.

It's inaccurate, of course. The two Testaments are much more alike than they are different. If you're going to condemn the Old Testament for condoning slavery, you also need to condemn the New Testament on the same grounds (c.f. Paul's Epistle to Philemon). And if you're going to praise the beauty of the Beatitudes, you also need to note the beauty of the Song of Songs.

Christ was not a pacifist: he explicitly advised his followers that if they should own swords, even going so far as to sell their cloaks in order to get them. And if you're going to complain the Old Testament G-d did a fair bit of smiting, what are we to make of Jesus chasing the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip?

More than that ... there's more than a whiff of outright anti-Semitism in the false distinction between them. There's some sort of inherent claim that the Old Testament is a butcher's manual, and that only the unenlightened or bloody-minded would look to it for moral guidance. That implication is offensive in many different ways.

I don't think all the people who make this claim are anti-Semites. But I do believe they've failed to read the books they're talking about, and are instead parroting an anti-Semitic interpretation of the Bible without ever realizing they've signed on to a falsehood.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/335392.html

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My old phone has gone missing. I'm not worried about the data; I know just how hard it is to crack a modern Android device, and thieves would rather just sell it to be wiped and used with a new account than try to recover my info. However, you may get warnings from Signal and other secure messaging apps that my cryptographic keys have changed. This is normal. Don't freak out. :)

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/335296.html

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So, a short list of why Facebook is no longer a place I want to spend much time:

People share memes without doing any critical thought or fact-checking, and think my good opinion of their reasoning faculties should be unaffected. (No, just no: while anybody can get taken in now and again, if I'm telling you "that meme is demonstrably, provably false" more than once or twice a year, my respect for your acumen is plummeting, and that's on you.)
People share clickbait. Oh God the clickbait. "I bet I won't get a single share." "Who thinks this young disabled woman is beautiful?" "Like if you X, share if you Y." No. No. Just please *no*. Stop that already.
Curiously attractive women who have no friends, no posts, no history, yet have added me to their friends list. Sigh. No, please, no bait.
Echo-chambering. People overwhelmingly talk to people who already agree with them. I despise echo-chambering.
Trolling.
Virtue-signaling.
Facebook's bizarre criteria for what posts are against community standards. I've literally submitted complaints about photos of a decapitated woman lying in a pool of her own blood with her detached head lying face-up near her and had FB say "nah, not a violation", but God help you if you post a picture of a naked woman. Newsflash, FB: I, like most people, consider one of these far more inappropriate than another.
FB's continued lack of support for high-quality private messaging.

... Of my big-eight gripes with Facebook, six of them are actually gripes about us.  About humanity.  About people.  I don't expect FB to fix us, I don't think FB can fix us, I don't want FB to try to fix us.

And that's why I think FB will never get better.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/335088.html

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President-Elect Trump's inauguration is coming up, and boy howdy do I have mixed feelings. The news media is treating this as if it's the Imminent Apocalypse, which it is not, and the Trump-aligned outlets like Breitbart are being cheerfully over-the-top, which is just as bad.

Look, Trump is terrible. But the unified voice of mass media having the high vapors over him, and millions of Americans screaming "not my President!", aren't doing anyone any favors. As unbelievable as it is to say, Trump won a fair (enough) election. When millions of Americans scream the 60-odd million people who voted for Trump and won should have their choice ignored, discarded, delegitimized, it just feeds into the opinion those 60-odd million Trump voters have of "those coastal liberals hate us and think we shouldn't be allowed to win elections, even when we play by the rules".

And that's profoundly anti-democratic, and deeply to the detriment of the country.

I plan on opposing Trump in just about any way I can. But to the Trump voters? Y'all won. I get that. I don't like the outcome, not even a little bit, but ... I get it.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/334796.html

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For the last few years I've been making life updates over at Facebook (and to a slightly lesser extent Google+), mostly because of the network effects. There are a lot of people there; it's an easy way to reach a decently large audience.

Unfortunately, most of the social networks are for the most part ruled by people who believe reason and education are against their religious convictions. The level of discourse is so de minimis that it staggers my imagination. My average post there is about three paragraphs, and is longer than 99% of the stuff in my feed. I don't know how to function in that environment, much less thrive.

So, it's back here, at least as an emergency measure. For God's sake, won't you please make me think?

Some brief updates:

My nephew shot himself in the foot with a shotgun in late December. He's keeping the foot but has a long rehabilitation ahead of him. Whether he's learned anything about the importance of proper firearms safety remains to be seen.
I almost died in a fire in December, when my upstairs neighbors decided to extinguish hot fireplace coals by bagging them and putting them on the balcony, thinking the winter weather would quench the coals. Needless to say the bag was paper and the balcony made of creosote-impregnated wood.
My Uncle Lou died sometime in the night between January 5 and January 6.
I turned 42 the morning of January 6. The celebration was short-lived.

Anyway. Talk to me. Make me think. Or if you can't make me think, just speak up and let me know you're reading what I'm writing.

xpost: http://cipherpunk.livejournal.com/334529.html

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Known Plaintext

Letting the Days Go By

California and secession

Garland and Gorsuch

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

New phone

Gripes with Facebook

(no subject)

Long time no see.

March