Poetry, Security

The Moonbeam Song

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by Harry Nilsson from the “Nilsson Schmilsson” album (1971)

Have you ever watched a moonbeam
As it slid across your windowpane
Or struggled with a bit of rain
Or danced about the weathervane
Or sat along a moving train
And wondered where the train has been

Or on a fence with bits of crap
Around its bottom
Blown there by a windbeam
Who searches for the moonbeam
Who was last seen
Looking at the tracks
Of the careless windbeam
Or moving to the tracks
Of the tireless freight train
And lighting up the sides
Of the weathervane
And the bits of rain
And the windowpane
And the eyes of those
Who think they saw what happened

Have you ever watched a moonbeam
As it slid across your windowpane
Or struggled with a bit of rain
Or danced about the weather vane
Or sat along a moving train
And wonder where the train has been?

Looking at the tracks
Of the careless windbeam
Or moving to the tracks
Of the tireless freight train
And lighting up the sides
Of the weathervane
And the bits of rain
And the windowpane
And the eyes of those
Who think they saw what happened

Security

Paul’s Security Weekly #753. “Data Integrity Lights the Way: Security With the Decentralized Web”

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The PSW crew were kind enough to invite me on for a discussion with them about data integrity and decentralized web.

There’s a lot of worry about “fakes” especially in a world rapidly adopting AI/ML, so it’s time for solutions. “Solid” is the W3C open standard, extending HTTPS, to upgrade the Web with security paradigms that solve for data integrity. Distributed systems naturally break through digital moats, free control through proper ownership, thus helping expand and achieve the best of the Internet.

Energy, Security

Tesla Pushes Censorship

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Tesla is drunk. Someone take its keys away.

The car company has fired up its lawyers in a completely tone-deaf and self-defeating missive in an attempt to censor people their CEO doesn’t like.

Tesla is demanding an advocacy group take down videos of its vehicles striking child-size mannequins, alleging the footage is defamatory and misrepresents its most advanced driver-assistance software.

Arguing that reporting on a crash test dummy in a car safety test is a defamatory act, has to be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard.

It’s a test.

It’s a test using a crash test dummy.

The test results of testing with a crash test dummy are real facts.

Even worse is when you put this nonsense about test accidents in context of Tesla trying to chill speech about real accidents; saying their safety failures shouldn’t be counted when the car is damaged in an accident. So they don’t want you to talk about safety before an accident, and they don’t want you to talk about safety after an accident.

Guess where that leaves safety for a Tesla?

Also I must point out that I’ve given many, many talks over many years about Tesla safety shortcomings where I specifically call out their inability to see pedestrians. In many of those I clearly advocated strongly for this EXACT TEST using a crash test dummy (inflatable balloon, etc) in a street because it reveals the truth by reporting Tesla failures.

We’re talking here about an infamously outspoken unfiltered CEO who aggressively pretends to believe in absolute free speech, while in reality he sends out huge legal teams to censor people.

It reminds me of Peter Thiel (South African like Elon Musk) pretending to want absolute free speech and then sending armies of lawyers to censor people he doesn’t like.

Energy, Security

Lightyear Solar Electric Car Range is in Months Instead of Miles

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Answering the obvious question of “why don’t electric cars have solar panels” the new Lightyear wants you to take a look at theirs:

In optimal conditions, the solar panels can add up to 44 miles a day to the 388-mile range the car gets between charges, according to the company. Tests carried out by Lightyear suggest people with a daily commute of less than 22 miles could drive for two months in the Netherlands without needing to plug in, while those in sunnier climes such as Portugal or Spain could go as long as seven months.

That 44 miles estimate might just be related to the fact that an average round trip to and from work in the U.S. is around 40 miles a day. And in many cases cars just sit all day in a sunny parking lot.

Going seven months between charges might also be expressed in time saved.

If people spend 10 minutes a week filling up gas (including time getting to/from stations), or more recently time spent finding a plug and then waiting for batteries to charge, then that seven months figure could turn into hours of life not wasted.

I suppose we could argue whether it’s far more efficient to run a giant array of stationary panels with a plug, yet this misses the point about classic problems of ownership, bureaucracy and “right of way” related to infrastructure.

The U.S. has around 145,000 gas stations, but only about 6,500 fast-charging stations that can power up a battery quickly for a driver on the go.

It can take some people months just to get a charger wired into a house, let alone months or years to get solar panel plans approved by utilities who hate them.

Thus someone with a simple apartment or condo in Florida (no rights to put a charger or panels anywhere) might still want to keep a car sitting around for a week or two at a time in a sunny parking lot charging WITHOUT DEPENDING ON CENTRALIZED OR MANAGED INFRASTRUCTURE THAT MAY NEVER COME… and then drive it short distances to the grocery or hardware store.

Lightyear makes a lot of sense in places like Florida, or even Wyoming for that matter.