Security

Guy Kawasaki on Sutton’s test

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Here is an interesting read about the rules of conduct in the American workplace:

The first step is to recognize who is an asshole. Sutton’s blog cites one method. It’s called the Starbucks Test It goes like this: If you hear someone at Starbucks order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,� you’re in the presence of an asshole. It’s unlikely that this petty combination is necessary—the person ordering is trying to flex her power because she’s an asshole.

Security

More Florida voting machine hijinks

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The jokes always used to be about Chicago, but now you can pretty-much ridicule anyone who uses electronic voting systems without a paper-trail. I guess it would be funny, that is, if it was not so sad. This just in from Florida, of all places:

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen — the final voting step.

Election officials say they aren’t aware of any serious voting issues. But in Broward County, for example, they don’t know how widespread the machine problems are because there’s no process for poll workers to quickly report minor issues and no central database of machine problems.

In Miami-Dade, incidents are logged and reported daily and recorded in a central database. Problem machines are shut down.

”In the past, Miami-Dade County would send someone to correct the machine on site,” said Lester Sola, county supervisor of elections. Now, he said, “We close the machine down and put a seal on it.”

I like that. Someone would come and “correct” the machine on site. “Hey, this thing shows Gore is winning. Well, we’ll just have to see about that…”

History, Security

The Risk of a Kiss

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The New York Times has an amusing article about how kisses are seen in different cultures and over time. The Germans and Chinese seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum:

The German language has words for 30 different kinds of kisses, including nachküssen, which is defined as a kiss “making up for kisses that have been omitted.” (The Germans are also said to have coined the inexplicable phrase “A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.”) […] To this day, public kissing is still seen as indecent in many parts of the world. In 1990, the Beijing-based Workers’ Daily advised its readers that “the invasive Europeans brought the kissing custom to China, but it is regarded as a vulgar practice which is all too suggestive of cannibalism.”

Do you want salt with that kiss? The Chinese perspective seems like a cross between Freud and Darwin. More interesting, I think, is that the article tries to tie the emotive/relational character of a kiss to the success and safety of commuters.

Whatever its origins, kissing seems to be advantageous. A study conducted during the 1980’s found that men who kiss their wives before leaving for work live longer, get into fewer car accidents, and have a higher income than married men who don’t.

Food, Security

From water into fake wine

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More supply-chain woes as Bordeaux wine is apparently fighting a rash of fakes on the market. Things are made worse as the AFP reports a tendency by winemakers to deny there is a problem rather than deal with it:

Molyneux Berry [who is currently working for Koch gathering evidence for the upcoming trial against Rodenstock] agreed that the tendency was to keep quiet about fakes.

Because of the publicity associated with court cases, he said it was hard for one chateau to stand up and say what was happening. It would be better therefore for action to be taken as a group, he added.

Another French auction consultant, based in the western French region of Brittany, Giles de Pontavice, who offers advice on fake wines via his website VinorumCodex, agreed that legal action by chateaux was necessary.

Wonder if someone is going to advocate preventive measures as well as detective?

To help counter the problem, [Berry] has called for all top Bordeaux chateaux to put their name to a written statement that they would fight counterfeiting as members of a fraternity.

“That will put the fraudsters off completely,” he said. They could also support Koch’s case financially, he said.

Another wine auction consultant, Alex de Clouet, based in Paris, said he believed chateaux must take systematic legal action.

Legal action and written statements will put off fraudsters completely? Maybe the current generation of noble fraudster would be stopped by such measures, but if the prices remain high and the opportunity (vulnerability) for fraud is left unresolved…. Would winemakers ever consider using public-key crypto or a similar strong relationship with buyers to verify bottles/labels? Perhaps the wine consultants will evolve into supply-chain security consulting.