A software utility for stalkers?

Thinking that an entertaining utility to write for Android would be a software utility for stalkers. But it wouldn't work QUITE the way the stalkers expected.

OK, so a stalkers decided: I'm going to stalk Bertha Konopski at 867-5309. They enter that into their StalkerApp (TM) and it claims to be watching the stalkee.

But what it really does is contact the stalkee with email and tell them they can determine their stalker's fate by going to a web site. They get there and can choose these buttons:

- report stalker to the police immediately

- lead stalker to step in front of a freight train

- lead stalker to an isolated spot where stalkee can "mod" them wih a scoped rifle

So say the stalkee wants the stalker to be crunched by a train. The geosearch software tells stalker that the stalkee is walking alone in an isolated location and purports to lead him to her. instead, it leads him onto a hazardous railroad crossing and plays loud sounds to mask the approach of an approaching train.

** CRUNCH ***



The software's main server then monitors news sites and reports back to the stalkee when her stalker has been terminated.

A friendly popup then notes that the software's author is a starving software developer who cannot afford to visit Starbucks often enough (hint hint). Is this functional (and evil) enough? Or does the software need more design?

Getting Past 'Us vs. Them'

There have been some disturbing news articles concerning law enforcement over the past year. Several have involved despicable career criminals who murdered police officers in cold blood - these people have rightly been viewed with the contempt that they deserve.

There have been other contemptible acts as well, however.

#1 A police officer uses a Taser on a pregnant woman who refuses to sign a traffic ticket.

#2 A police officer fatally shoots a drunken man who refuses to exit his car, an act for which he is currently facing murder charges.

#3 In Maryland, a man who was simply walking home from a sports event and who attempted to comply with police is brutally beaten with nightsticks. Further, the department in question attempted to cover up the incident by blaming the student for the circumstances.

One thing that our society does not need is to continue or see worsened the Us vs. Them rift that frequently exists between the police and the populace. In some respects this rift is understandable because our citizenry is one that deeply prizes their independence and rights (although often failing to understand the responsibilities that naturally accompany those rights) and law enforcement is trained to force compliance (sometimes with a lack of common sense).

Most encounters between the populace and the police end politely and professionally because most cops are good cops and most people know better than to escalate a simple traffic stop into a life changing event. I'm not sure what the solution is, when a confrontation does develop but both extremes (a sullen, disobedient populace vs. police interested in winning confrontations above all) seem like dangerous ideas, where our freedom and the stability of our society are concerned.

Torture

This simulated French game show recently duplicated a famous psychological experiment, in which people were tested to see whether they could be induced to give painful or dangerous electric shocks to random strangers, in this case for money.

This post looks at possible answers should you be asked to torture someone...I will refer to those possible answers as Yes, No or Other.

Yes - if you give this answer, you are a despicable cretin and unworthy of calling yourself a human being. Please immediately throw yourself into a lion pit and help make the human race a little bit saner...and less congenitally stupid.

No - better, but this is kind of an underachiever response and still has the drawback of leaving a threat to your fellow human beings wandering around loose. Let's face it, someone sociopathic enough that they'd ask you to torture people may end up inflicting that torture on other innocents, perhaps someone you care about.

Other - I am postulating for the sake of argument (or perhaps sanity) that the best possible response if you are ever asked to torture somebody is to immediately hospitalize the person making the request. A broken nose, a broken jaw, broken kneecap or ruptured spleen: these may be sufficient to communicate to the person you're dealing with that attacking innocent and vulnerable people can have very dangerous consequences. At the very least, it could render them unable to harm innocent people until the proper authorities put a stop to their insanity.

Notes from Tuesday's "assault weapon" ban hearing: Part 1

KOMO news has an article on its site regarding a hearing held on Tuesday 1/26 in Olympia regarding SB 6396, a semi-auto firearms ban. This article is interesting to me, as I was there.

Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo was clearly out of her depth, as far as being able to formulate a credible, technical reason why she wanted to have "semi-auto assault weapons" banned, in response to Senator Roach's questioning.

But beyond that, I haven't seen any comments about the irony of the fact that Chief Pillo testified for a ban on assault weapons, with an assault weapon holstered on her belt (a pistol with a magazine presumably holding more than 10 rounds).

It was also Kafkaesque when Kline et al kept repeating how they "respected gun rights" when trying to criminalize those rights, e.g., having an AR-15 with a 20 round magazine in your house for self defense, the ability to hunt with an AR-15, etc.

Dennis Miyoshi was found and is OK.

Thanksgiving in December

One of the things I've been doing over this Holiday break is to clean up, sort and store (or toss) old papers and miscellaneous items that I've been moving around for years. A lot of random junk and paperwork is being recycled or thrown away but I've also found some neat stuff that's jogged my memory about how much I have to be grateful for. So I'll take this opportunity to say how much I appreciate the unbelievable good fortune that's been a constant factor in my life.

• Family

For the families who tolerated my foibles for so many years. I'm an American mutt with a lot of Irish, Scottish and other blood in my veins. To quote Bill Murray's character in Stripes:

We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more lovable than the mutt. Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end?

My parents were (mom still is) two good people who probably didn't belong together and they split when I was a kid. But having both parents' families around provided a foundation that enabled me to get through university. 16 years of Catholic school...I'm sure if anyone I ever dated reads this, they'll find that unbelievable (wink, wink).

(One aside here: 3 of my 4 grandparents were originally Canadian, a fact that is of considerable pride to me and perhaps shame to friends from the Great White North who will read this screed.)

• Good fortune starting out

When I exited the university with a Math degree, the economy wasn't doing so well; back home in upstate NY it still isn't. But a good friend helped me get my first computer job and then GE moved me out to California. A year later, I was in Europe for the first time, looking down into the core of a Swiss nuclear reactor. GE sent me to the Bern area twice, for a total of about 3 months.

(I will now pause and thank all the coworkers and managers who had to deal with me in my first few jobs, for their absurd tolerance when I was ridiculously attitudinal. I will endeavor to emulate your benevolence and extend it to others, including loud annoying herding dogs and people driving 10 under in the fast lane.)

A lot of things enriched my life during my 10 years in California. Shortly after moving there, I lucked onto fantastic karate school where I trained for a few years. Several bookstores became favorite haunts. I dated a few neat women and was taught how to drive fast in the hills over the Silicon Valley. I was very lucky in having good friends too, such as a coworker who shared an apartment with me for a year. She and her friends were from Calgary and taught me a lot about motorcycle safety.

The night of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was a strange one: I was riding 280 home on my motorcycle when it hit and didn't feel much of the quake. But I did meet my wife that night. A few years later, an awesome daughter named Elise joined us.

• Living near Seattle

Life in California was getting tiresome by that point (costs, crowding, regulatory excess), so we moved to Iowa for a few years and then back to the West Coast, in the Seattle area. The Puget Sound area has got its pros and cons but overall it's the best place that I've lived and I can't imagine anywhere else in the country. The drivers are "interesting" but the politics are interestingly moderate...equal rights legislation does well here and bad gun laws don't. The mix suits me.

• Being able to stay employed and healthy

For all my grumbling about work eating my life this year, I'm well aware that I've been very very fortunate to stay employed in an abysmal economy. I've seen a number of good people be unemployed for many months, which certainly brings home home how fortunate I've been. So I'll be endeavoring to contribute even more at work this year.

And then there's my ridiculous good fortune in not getting squished in September. I tell the story in detail on my motorcycling blog but basically a mountain North of Nelson, BC dropped big rocks all over the road while I was underneath...my Speed Triple motorcycle was totaled, yet I walked away with only a sprained wrist and sundry minor sore bits