Category Archives: Security

History, Security

A cider a day?

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More good news about cider, in case you need yet another reason why it should never have been regulated into oblivion in America:

The researchers have found that English cider apples have high levels of “phenolic antioxidants” – linked to protection against strokes and cancer.

The next stage of the study, partly funded by the National Association of Cider Makers, is to analyse how humans absorb these chemicals from cider.

I am sure they will find plenty of volunteers. I may have to return to Scotland to do some of my own “analysis”.

Energy, History, Security

WebCam monitors 1901 lightbulb

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good bulbEver heard of a lightbulb with its own website? The reason for celebration is the quality of engineering. Apparently it has been burning since 1901, the product of an energy pioneer named Dennis Bernal who lived near Livermore, California. Ironically, the webcam setup to monitor the bulb failed after only a few years of use, the same as the average life of a basic modern lightbulb:

Unlike the bulb, the first camera had a limited life of about 3 years. We are hoping this one will give the bulb a run for it’s money.

This Cam image will continue to be updated every 10 seconds. So to enjoy the view of Fire Station Number 6 either hit your refresh button, or click the picture above!.

Imagine if every house in America had been running on a bulb like this. For some reason consumers do not demand this kind of quality. Do they prefer things engineered for failure. Quality doesn’t have to be cost prohibitive, does it? Alas, if you read their website even the fire station believes it is sheer luck, rather than sound engineering that keeps this bulb burning.

History, Security

Madison hosts Nazi rally

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I don’t think many Americans realize that the Nazi party is a very real part of the political patchwork in Minnesota and Wisconsin, let alone the West and South. The Journal Sentinel reports:

Organizers said they staged the rally to protest illegal immigration and to stump for Nazi candidates expected to run in 2008 elections.

Jeff Schoep, a member of the Minnesota-based National Socialist Movement, said he was pleased to be in Madison to share his group’s beliefs, but he wished those behind the counterdemonstration had been more open to the Nazis’ remarks.

I remember stories in the 1990s about the St. Paul factions such as the “White Hammer of the North” gang and how they brutally beat people they considered “dark skinned” with baseball bats and broke into houses to deface them with swastikas.

One can only guess what the remarks at this rally might have been. Perhaps they included the words “final” and “solution”?

“From a police perspective, this event was a tremendous success,” Capitol Police Chief David Heinle said in a statement. “The event started and ended on time, and we have no reports of personal injury or property damage.”

Given the known flaws and weak security practices of companies like Diebold, it is only a matter of time before this type of radical group tries to get a representative hired into software development for voting systems, or they bribe someone. Why bother with a rally if you can spend the same money on just getting elected illegally?

Edited to add (8/27/06): the link has posted a first-hand account of the rally, complete with pictures and links to video:

…they were all Nazi-ed out – dressed to the nines. They had the shirts with the Swastika armband, dark pants, some had helmets, they marched out of the Capitol
rank in file with big swastika flags … So, their “elections coodinator” came over and chatted with us reporters for awhile. And he was saying how they’re have guys running in Butte, Montana for State senate (NAZI Movement is apparently a real, political party)…and we asked him – a 48-year-old paralegal from Virginia (by the way, not a whole lot of sconnie accents took the stand – you can tell that a lot of them were from below the mason-dixon line, apparently there was a few guys from Chicago, but I’ll give Chicago that because there are roughly nine billion people living there, and they’re bound to have a few wackos – but I don’t think there was any one from Wisconsin there), and some reporter asked him if he had any candidates considering running in Wisco and he said “not yet.”

Yup. This is American politics in 2006.

Believe it or not, although houses built in Milwaukee during the 1930s had swastikas for tiles in their foyer I know of at least one case where they still have not been removed. The tiles come from Pelley-backers (the Silver Shirts and the Christian Party) who were more than just a novelty in Wisconsin. I do not doubt for a minute that bubbling beneath the surface of the voting machine fiasco are any number of extreme fringe groups clamoring for a Rove-like opportunity to manipulate their way to victory. Maybe I am just jaded, but I guess I have been to one too many Wisconsin picnics, lunches and biker-weddings where some guy gets completely plastered and espouses “Hitler was not such a bad guy, as I can explain…”. Shame, really, because Milwaukee has so much to offer — some of the world’s best fine art and cuisine hidden away beneath the dust of an economic implosion and obscured by the old-guard of conservative intolerance.

Security

BP management practices under scrutiny

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The Seattle Times points out how companies can put pressure on auditors to sugar-coat their findings:

Warnings by a Seattle-based engineering firm about problems with BP’s monitoring of its Alaska oil pipelines were significantly toned down after the company complained that the report was “extremely negative,” according to documents now under review by a federal grand jury.

The draft report by Coffman Engineers, published in November 2001, raised concerns about the way BP was tracking and reporting Prudhoe Bay pipeline corrosion, which this year resulted in oil spills and forced a partial shutdown of those fields.

Although Coffman will have to explain why they toned down a report, the lion’s share of blame should still remain on BP for failing to take reasonable measures (smart pig and coupon) to detect areas of corrosion and prevent a spill:

In the aftermath of last March’s spill, BP acknowledged that the transit lines in western Prudhoe Bay had gone without a smart-pig inspection since 1998, and it has been scrambling to make those inspections.

BP officials say workers have frequently pigged many other lines at Prudhoe Bay. But the transit lines appeared to be at low risk of corrosion compared with other lines that handled saltwater, gas and oil, and they say they thought monitoring efforts without pigging were adequate.

Ok, so that lays the backdrop to a company that manages blind. They thought efforts without pigging were adequate, but based on what data? A lack of pigging and no coupons meant they had no facts upon which to make this risk calculation. Reminds me of a VP I once worked with who told me that anti-virus software was not necessary on his Microsoft Windows computers because they had no viruses. “How do you know?” I kept asking him…when I finally convinced him to let me audit the systems we found literally tens of thousands of infections and spent months cleaning up the environment. So I know exactly what Coffman was facing when BP apparently insisted that negative comments be downplayed in favor of positive ones:

In a memo sent to Coffman and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, BP said the reviewers lacked balance and stressed problems rather than accomplishments.

Balance? A reviewer’s job is to review the situation and give an honest report. Thus, a good report by a experienced professional would be a result of the actual conditions and not the bias of the reporter. It seems clear that BP was taking a big risk but wanted to believe, against the advice of experts, that there was no risk at all. Perhaps they had other motives or another data set, but the fact that they told their auditor to be more positive and tone down their warnings shows a style of management that usually leads to predictible disasters.