20071117

When USB accidents happen

The Risks Digest offers up a scary tale of what your cell phone may be doing to your laptop when you're not looking. Caveat emptor!

20071114

Do you buy meat thinking it's been carbon monoxided?

Regardless, you may want to read ABC News: Hill Debates 'Carbon Monoxide Meat' where you can learn that CO makes meat and fish look fresh indefinitely.
The FDA's David Acheson, who along with other FDA and USDA officials sat at a table covered with various samples of year-old meat that still appears fresh, and said that 'this particular issue is not a safety concern even remotely high on our radar screen.' He added that he believes that most people are aware that meat is packaged with carbon monoxide...

It just makes me wonder what exactly would make this a bad idea to officials; I can only guess their thinking...since it don't kill it's okay for corporations to add whatever they deem necessary to the food web.

20071117 info UPDATE: Even after reading about the scientific merits of the minute levels of CO exposure, I still think it's a slippery slope ... because of unanticipated consequences and strange coincidences. I still want greater assurances ... with regard to actual habits of those increasing numbers at the margins -- on the street, or unsupervised -- along with the unknown animals being fed whatever from who knows where ... ! I understand the need to save the many over the imagined or projected unknowns but recollections of efforts to track down mad cow disease makes me pause and ask do we really ever know what monsters we're creating.

20071101

"If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security"

Fav infosec guru Bruce Schneier clarifies what's important -- and ignored in by most current government attempts to makes "US" safe in Schneier on Security: The War on the Unexpected, which originally appeard in Wired.com.

"the Chemistry Set is toast"

The 12 Angry Men Blog's recalls my own youth with two chemistry sets in its take on the "Endangered Species - The Chemistry Set.."