Paul's Down-Home Page

Patrick Nielsen-Hayden is an editor for Tor Books. He also maintains a terrific weblog. However, so far I must say that I like his wife’s blog better, primarily because on the left-hand side there’s a list of other SF authors who blog! Some of my favorites include Steve Gould and James Patrick Kelly, not to mention Charlie Stross. Go there now.

Charlie Stross has become one of my favorite science-fiction authors. His short stories “A Colder War”, “Antibodies”, and “Lobsters” have all appeared in recent editions of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, quite deservedly so. I just found out that he has a weblog, including a collection of stories available on the web. If you like science fiction, go there now.

According to this AP story, a man drowned in a vat of chocolate. The accident happened at Kargher Chocolate, which already has had at least one product recall. Somehow I think this accidental death is going to be fodder for every morning radio show and late-night monologuist for the next few days…

Thomas and I made it to New Orleans last night. Our flight was uneventful, but we had about a one-hour runway hold in Atlanta because of bad weather to the west. Now I’m sitting in what must be the world’s most uncomfortable chair at the Morial Convention Center. The convention center boasts 1.1 million square feet, each one of which is air-conditioned to within an inch of its life. We’re here for Microsoft‘s MGB, working in the competitive lab area. So far, no Microsoft people have shown up, so John, Peter, Sam, and I are working on various other things. In my case, I’m finishing the third book chapter so I can get it back to MS before my end-of-the-month deadline.

I accidentally found Herb Yeates’ site. I have no idea who he is, but his site is beautifully laid out and has a wealth of interesting stuff (including a good layman’s description of how nuclear weapons work). I think my favorite section is the one on the “bizarre glowing minerals of Franklin-Sterling”

What comes around goes around. John Magaw, former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), just got fired as head of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). Magaw took over the ATF in 1993, after the Waco debacles. His mission was to turn the agency around; in the six years of his tenure, he didn’t accomplish anything meaningful that I can detect. Naturally, his reward for his lack of competence was a promotion: he ended up as the TSA director in December 2001. Ever since then, passengers, airline employees, airline executives, and lawmakers have been united in their complaints about the TSA: too slow, too secretive, too inefficient, and too expensive. Now, barely six months after his appointment, he’s getting the boot. According to the Wall Street Journal (registration required), Magaw got the boot today. Yahoo’s story says that Magaw was fired for letting the agency spend too much money and for not working with lawmakers; according to the DoT inspector general:

of the 313 employees hired who were not passenger screeners, more than half were paid more than $100,000, including 31 of 39 lawyers and 18 of 30 criminal investigators.

Good riddance, John! Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

I am not a big fan of John Gilmore. That’s not because of his accomplishments, which are many (including being one of Sun’s early employees, founder of Cygnus, which was open source when open source wasn’t cool, and driving force behind the Free S/WAN security project.) In general, he strikes me as obnoxious and overly opinionated. However, I have to give him his props: he has consistently defended the liberties of American citizens. Now he’s suing the Attorney General. Why? He believes that the current requirement to show photo ID at airports is unconstitutional, since (in his opinion) it violates our constitutionally protected rights to travel within the US and to be secure in our persons and papers. It doesn’t help that the TSA rule that requires this ID check is secret. See his lawsuit here.

Today the Washington Post had a live chat with WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore. Sidgmore was asked “Where were you Mr. Sidgemore when all this was happening?” His weaselly answer:

was Chief Operations Officer during 1997 and 1998. Since that time I have had decreasing involvement in the operations of the company and played primarily a strategy role in mergers and acquisitions since that time. Over the last 2 years my role has been almost exclusively speaking at Internet conferences on behalf of WorldCom.

Wow, I wish I could get a job as COO of a multi-billion-dollar publicly listed corporation so that I can spend my time going to Internet conferences! Where do I get a deal like that?

Frankly, I think the man is lying through his teeth. It is not credible that such a large-scale fraud could be perpetrated by only three employees.

I finished the first chapter of the Exchange security book, and it’s now with the separate tech editor I’ve hired. It wouldn’t be fair to describe him as an anti-Microsoft bigot, but he has substantial security expertise and he has been known to give Microsoft a hard time. If my book can live up to his standards, it should do well.