Philosophy of Technology

In my last post (which could save your life), I briefly touched on the philosophy of technology.

I am fond of using the dictionary to map out an approach to complex issues. I am aware that there can be some issues with this, and don't care much.

philosophy, a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means

technology, the practical application of knowledge

Searching for a short definition of philosophy is like eating one third of one potato chip.

So when I say the 'philosophy of technology," I am not looking for technology to give me values. This way lies madness. (Several thousand words of explanation cheerfully skipped; I may come back later.)

I am looking to instead apply values - specifically, moral values - to technology.

moral, of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior

So when I say "Appropriate Technology," I am putting a value judgment on the technology discussed. This is good stuff.

When I apply the modifier "[In]" as in "Inappropriate Technology," I am putting a similar value judgment on the technology, but backwards. This is dangerous stuff, and in my personal and biased opinion, is more dangerous than beneficial.

I enjoy the take that the Amish have on this issue. They use a lot of technology ... but they reject a lot of it too.

Here's another YouTube video to enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg "Amish Paradise"

If you get a minute, think about it.

Appropriate Technology: 'Push' Emergency Notification Systems

If you've followed along thus far, you may have intuited that I have an uneasy relationship with technology.

This is not precisely correct, but I forgive you for thinking so.

In the sense that technology is a collection of techniques and tricks for Doing Stuff, I love tech.

The problem is tech without ethics.

This quote is from the movie Star Trek VI. It is no less accurate for being in a science fiction movie.

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing."

So today I am going to talk about a technology that I unhesitatingly embrace, and encourage all of you following along to embrace as well.

"Push" emergency notification systems.

This is the difference between flashing lights and a siren on an emergency vehicle.

The flashing lights require you to be looking in the correct direction.

The siren, you can hear from any direction, with immediate feedback if it is getting louder or quieter.

These systems go by many names. "Code Red," "Alert [name of community]," "Reverse 911" are some of the more common. The Weather Service has one called WEA, Wireless Emergency Alerts.

What they tell you is very simple.

There's something going on that you need to know about, that could hurt or kill you.

At the extreme silly end, a certain California city has implemented Mountain Lion alerts. The odds of being hurt by a mountain lion are vanishingly small.

At the more likely end, weather alerts are common.

Wildfire alerts can save lives and protect property. Right now, the only way to get a wildfire alert in California is to use the Ready For Wildfire Mobile App (for Android and iPhone equivalent.) You can set it to send a text message to your phone even if you are out of data range.

California is even working on earthquake alerting systems that can give eight to fifteen seconds warning of an earthquake about to happen - long enough to pull over in a safe place, slam open fire station doors (to keep apparatus from being locked in) and protect your head from debris.

In the state of California, these systems are provided by the local governments, the counties and cities. If you really want to geek out on this stuff, go here [PDF] for a decade old list.

What I would like you to do instead is:

Visit your local government's Web pages, find out if your community has a 'push' emergency alert system, and do one of two things:

1) If they have one, sign up for it.

2) If they don't have one, contact your local government and politely demand that they implement one at once!

Here's why.

The United States telephone system is well designed to make outbound calls from the 911 emergency services to wireline phones. But the wireline phone is a vanishing breed. And this is the only form of notification which is mandatory, meaning that you cannot escape getting a call.

To get emergency messages by cell phone, text message and/or E-mail (and I encourage AND rather than OR), you need to 'opt in' and actually sign up for these services.

If you work on a large college or corporate campus, your organization may also have a mass notification system. If not, I hope they have a PA system, or someone has a bullhorn and an AM radio.

Take a few minutes and look into this.

In last year's deadly Camp Fire, mass notifications would have been vital. They weren't sent. So there's still no substitute for paying attention to what is around you.

What you don't know can definitely hurt you, and mass notification systems can only help.

[In]Appropriate Technology: Government Census

Fair warning: this post is going to be straight up odd and presume a lot of esoteric knowledge.  Please feel free to ask questions.  But don't assume I am off my rocker on this one.

I recently started re-reading one of the more controversial books in recent genocide scholarship, IBM and the Holocaust.  The book I had read; recent updates in a reissued version I had not.

The US Constitution requires that the executive branch of our government carry out an enumeration, a census, of the population.  This data collection is used for many purposes, most notably counting the number of people in the country to correctly apportion seats in the US House of Representatives.  The Trump presidency hs proposed to add a question to the census asking about whether the answer is an immigrant.  This has all sorts of interesting implications, most notably that immigrant heavy states (such as California) are afraid that fewer people will answer the census and therefore CA's voting power will be reduced.  Also, some conservatives protest that we should not be counting non citizens, conveniently forgetting the infamous 3/5ths rule that gave slave states disproportionate voting power to attempt to forestall a Civil War.  (It didn't work.)

In 1942, punch card machines designed in the US were cheerfully whirring their way through some interesting problems:

• the manpower needs of the US government in fighting World War II
• the continuing military mobilization of the Nazi German regime
• the consolidation of the Nazi takings in Poland, France and Denmark; specifically, rooting out and rounding up the Jews
• the rounding up and internment of Japanese Americans in the US West

Last but not least, however, according to this book (which is extensively annotated and documented, accepted as solid scholarship by the entire Holocaust community):

• the tracking, enslavement, deaths in custody and ultimate extermination ("evacuation" on trains with only one destination) of the European Jews and any other undesirables, neatly coded in sixteen categories for easy analysis of various efficiencies
  

The data that made all of this possible was drawn from census data as conducted repeatedly in Germany, once in each conquered territory ... and in the United States in 1940.

I have seen with my own eyes the 1940 census record that was used to intern my father in law and mother in law.

On the German side, every camp had its records department and submitted its data to central punch card analytics.  Concentration camp inmates knew they were about to be murdered when their card was retrieved ... when a library gets rid of a book, the book's card in the catalog is pulled.

The technology may be different from place to place and time to time, but the horrifying potential for misuse is the same.

"I am not a number, I am a free man!" cries The Prisoner.  "I will not be folded, stamped, numbered, indexed, folded, crimpled, stapled or mutilated!"

Indeed, the opening shots of that TV series show his index card being removed from his employer's files ...

Details matter.  In the Rwandan genocide, the state issued identity card had a place for 'race' ... and to have the marking for Tutsi was to join the 800,000 brutally massacred.  Machetes are as efficient as gas chambers, only slower ... speaking of inappropriate technology.

Take out your own government issued ID card and look at it.  Anything on there you might not like?  Or someone else might not like you for?  Some states are beginning to offer, as an option, either ''veteran" or "disabled."  Something to ponder.  Especially as today's option is so easily tomorrow's requirement.

Now reflect on the databases behind the scenes, the modern technologies that make those punch card machines look like beads on strings.

Long, long before we should be amending the Constitution for other reasons, I feel that it is time to get rid of the US Census.  It is too powerful a tool to entrust to anyone.

What do you think?

Appropriate Technology: Really Cheap Hotels

I occasionally have to stay at really cheap hotels.

For the average traveler, this is Motel 6, an Accor chain.  Reliably clean, weak security, won't steal your credit card info, lukewarm water and tiny towels.

Now go lower.  Pay cash.  Get a hard key knowing others may have a copy.  Bed may still be warm.  Likely not changed.

I have a "crash kit" for these situations, all from your dollar store:

• Mattress cover, plastic.
• A knit cap.
• Roll of duct tape.
• Door stops, note plural.
• Padlock with length of chain or cable.
• My own hand towel.
• Quart size "Ziploc" bags.
• Leftover bars of soap, shampoo, utensils from current or prior trips.

What you are paying for is a safe place to sleep in a hostile city.  The mattress cover is for the bed bugs.  Knit cap to stay warm when the heater is broken.  The duct tape is for the hole in the curtain, the peephole in the door, the rip in the screen.  The door stops are to make sure that even with a key, you will be woken up when someone breaks in.  The padlock is so someone can't easily run off with your dump bag of clothes when you are out of the room.  I leave the bags and towel to common sense.  Doing laundry in the sink is something I have also done too many times.

The security threat is overrated.  They want repeat business.  The one time I had hard trouble in such a place, the management refunded me my room night in the morning.  Cheap given that I'd interrupted a robbery.  No paperwork was my favorite part.

Obviously this type of travel is not for fun.  It's for when you're poor or on the job.  But any traveler should have these tricks up their sleeve.  You never know.

Don't sleep on the street in a hostile city.  Just don't.  You will be robbed, as the local bad actors know the game better than you do.  Don't be the New York cop robbed in Las Vegas: lost $500 and a gun he was fond of.

Appropriate Technology: VOIP Softphones

I am just getting into running VOIP clients on Android smartphones.

I have used Serval Mesh in peer to peer applications, but this is a glorified walkie talkie app.

Google Voice Dialer is more powerful with its integration directly to Google Voice.

However, what I now need is a decent SIP client to bring my own phone numbers and use them over Wi-Fi networks.

I will keep experimenting and bring back what I find.

Meanwhile, I can safely say that this is not yet a "this just works" technology.  You can't download it, configure it and just be done ... there are many small pitfalls and finicky settings.  That makes it unreliable for important uses.  

Not that making a phone call could ever be that important.

Appropriate Technology: Seat Belts

Tonight I'm going to briefly wax poetic about the one behavior you can adopt to most reduce your chances of dying horribly.

Got your attention?  Good.

It's simple.  It's easy.  It's also the law.

Wear your seatbelt.

Even if you're only going a short distance.  Even if you're just moving your car.  Even if you're not going out on the public road.

Wear your seatbelt.  Every time.

Make it a habit.

It costs you nothing, only a few seconds.

It could save you everything.

When you hit the steering wheel with your chest, and you are restrained by a seatbelt, and you get badly hurt, it is usually abdominal injuries.  These can be treated promptly and surgically.

Without a seatbelt, at a much lower speed, you hit your head on the inside of the windshield and discover the life altering joys of traumatic brain injury.  Or you can hit the steering wheel with your unrestrained chest and take your pick: flail chest and drown in your own blood, or aortic separation and just plain bleed out internally in less than a minute.

Now that you know the choices, wear your seatbelt.

There are endless reasons for not wearing your seatbelt.  They are all bogus.  I won't list them here, except one.  

There is a myth that you might be trapped in your vehicle by your seatbelt.  If it worries you, get a very sharp folding knife or EMS shears, keep the tool safely in your center console or secured by a lanyard to your seat, get a seat belt out of a junked car and practice cutting one.  Seat belt cutters sold to consumers are mostly junk.

If you are instead ejected from a vehicle, the chances of being zipped into a body bag instead of loaded into an ambulance go up only four hundred percent or so.

It's simple.  But on the statistics, it's the #1 think you can do to improve your odds of dying of something other than a vehicle collision.

Active Murderer Response

If you're reading this, you likely follow me on FB and saw my post stating that I'm not talking about this on FB.

Last night I was teaching a (counter) terrorism course and a student asked, "So, what do you teach about active shooter aka active murderer defense?"

I feel that I've already adequately covered that talking about nuclear weapons.

BE. SOMEWHERE. ELSE.

So I'm going to break this up into 1) places not to be, and 2) how to survive if you are in a place not to be.

This is not an invitation to an argument.  If you are curious about the facts backing all this up, please ask.  If you argue with me, I will smile and ignore you.

PLACES NOT TO BE

• Places of mass assembly.  If the location is crowded enough to have fire regulations and maximum capacity signage, that's a place of mass assembly.  School, church, restaurant, etc.
  
  
• Places it is prohibited by law for licensed ordinary people to carry handguns.  In a 'free' state, this could be prohibitory signage.  Don't eat at California Pizza Kitchen.  In a less free state or country, pay attention!
  
  
• IMPORTANT EXCEPTION: if the place where it is prohibited to carry a handgun is protected instead by an effective on site security plan backed up by rapid police response.  The problem is, how do you know?  If it's your work or school, you ASK.  Otherwise you do some math and some research.

The #1 determining factor in survival rates in an active shooter event is the response time of armed rapid reaction.  I'll say that again another way.  The murderer depends on 'free play' in his macabre game of pop up targets.  When that first bullet of return fire goes past his ear, he is no longer in free play mode, and the free play clock is over.

HOW TO SURVIVE

Run, Hide, Fight.  Run Hide Fight video courtesy Ready Houston

Watch that video.  Then watch it again.

I'm going to add some profanity, because the subject absolutely demands it.

Run. The. Fuck. Away.  You hear gunfire, you go _elsewhere_, unless you have a moral or legal duty to respond and have training in same, and are willing to risk your life.  Take others with you.  Simplify the scene.  

HIDE.  Pissing yourself is optional but understood.  Death walks among you and he will come back and finish off the wounded.  Barricade yourself.  While hiding, work on an escape plan.  Silence your phone.  Call 911, more calls are better than none.  If anyone with you is hurt, STOP THE BLEED with cloth and direct firm pressure - but only if you are barricaded and can't run away.

If you cannot run and you cannot hide, time to die.

I'm sorry, Drew, I don't think I heard that right.

I'll say that again.

If you do not RUN and you do not HIDE, you will DIE.

There is only one question left.

Do you want to die alone or do you want to take a murderer with you and save some lives before you go?

When you have no choices left, you FIGHT.  But you fight like a dead man.  No time for goodbyes, last thoughts, final words.  You are already a casualty of this critical incident, your toe tag and body bag are being brought to the scene.  Valhalla has your ride request in queue and the next available Valkryie is responding.

Even for those of us with a lot of tactical training, this is a bit of a cognitive switch.  To go above the fear and the fury, the grief and the rage, and to make your last moments FUCKING COUNT, that's hard.

You stop when you see the murderer's spilled brains or you see nothing because your blood pressure has fallen to zero.

You're already dead.  Getting shot _hurts_.  But that doesn't mean anything after you're dead.  Keep fighting.

Anything can be a weapon.

A weapon is a device for concentrating energy in space and time.

The human body is shockingly tough but incredibly fragile.

An active murderer has chosen the bat (guns and knives), the ball (the bodies of your friends) and the playing field (someplace you thought was safe).  But what he forgot to bring was any rules.  Help him with this.

Only do these things if you yourself see with your own eyes an atrocious act.  You don't want to hurt a good guy, an off duty (or on duty) cop, or a someone just like you.

• Discharge a fire extinguisher at him.  Then hit him with it, in the head, over and over again until you see brain.  The bottom edge is often sharp.
  
  
• Run him down.  Bicycle, Zamboni, forklift, truck, whatever you have.  CRUNCH.  Then HIT. HIM. AGAIN.  Until you see brain.
  
  
• Topple a vending machine or bookcase on him.  Then kick him in the head until you see brain.
  
  
• One to the chest, two to the head.  You will see brain.
  
  
• Any long object such as a broomstick, pipe, crowbar, two by four.  Hit him .... where?  IN THE HEAD  How many times?  UNTIL YOU SEE BRAIN.

You get the idea.

I can make you only one promise.  You will be remembered.  You will in that moment become a brother or sister in the fraternity of heroes.  We will speak your name with honor and respect.  And you might even live.

Not so much for the active murderers.  I am a big believer in the "Some Asshole Initiative."  Some Asshole Initiative

They may be forgotten, their insane mutterings may be safely ignored except by the handful of professions who sift the midns of monsters, and their 'manifestos' and 'videos' may be mocked and derided.

But if you can instead, and especially if you have things to do in this lifetime yet, please HIDE.  Or better yet, RUN.

And don't be afraid.  Your chances of being on the spot marked X are vanishingly small, even smaller if you avoid danger spots.

Love life.  Reject hate.

Your life is worth defending.

Appropriate Technology: Handwashing

Handwashing is one of those simple, simple technologies that saves thousands of lives every year.

Herewith, a simple guide to washing your hands, depending on what you have available.

The key concept to remember is that it is neither soap nor hot water that cleans your hands of bacteria, but rather the mechanical scrubbing action of your preferred method.

A Sink With Soap & Water

Wet your hands, with water (as hot as you can stand, if available, cold otherwise).  Use soap if available to lather up.  Get not just your palms, but your fingers (and between them), the backs of your hands and up to the wrists.  If you need your hands especially clean, scrape under your fingernails and get the top of each individual nail bed.  ("Little petri dishes" is what one microbiologist friend calls them.)  Scrub briskly but not hard for at least twenty seconds, the 'Happy Birthday' song twice.

"Happy birthday to germs, happy birthday to germs, don't want to take you home _to my family_, happy birthday to germs."  Twice.

Then rinse.  From this point forward, try not to touch anything in the sink area.  Turn off the water with an elbow or a paper towel.  Use an air dryer if available.

Just Water

Pour a little on your hands to wet them.  Then pour a little more water as if the water were soap.  Follow the advice above.  Rinse one last time.  Shake your hands a little to air dry.

Hand Sanitizer

Hand sanitizer is awesome, but it does not take the place of washing your hands.  Hand sanitizer on particles of poop is now scented poop.  Your hands need to be clean first.

Nothing

Think for a minute.  Is there any water around?  How about a piece of cloth?  Or a napkin or paper towel?  You can scrub your hands with any of these without water.  You wipe more, but not as hard.

Really, Nothing

Look for clean sand or soil.  You can scrub your hands with either.  It may sound strange to 'clean' your hands with dirt, but presumably there is a reason you are needing your hands clean, and clean dirt is better than some other things that routinely get on your hands.

This is particularly important before meals, after using the restroom, before working with clean or potable water, before (if possible) and always after first aid, and whenever removing medical-type nitrile or latex gloves.

A few cheap ways of having water around, if you don't have a sink:

• A plastic bottle of water, refilled from tap or from collected rain water.  This can be a small bottle or a big one.  If you plan to use it only for handwashing, mark the bottle somehow to avoid cross contamination.  Cost about $1.
  |
• There is a standard 2.5 gallon water jug sold at stores that has a built in pull-out tap.  There is a little divot in the top intended to make a small vent hole with the point of a knife.  These are not supposed to be refillable, but you can cut a larger flap in the top after the store bought water is used, presumably for drinking, and refill through that.  Cost about $3.
  
  
• A 5 gallon jug with a mechanical pump.  This totals under $20 at WalMart.  This is the best option for a field handwashing station.  Label the jug accordingly if there is any danger someone might drink from it.
  
  
• Of course, there are custom sink systems out there for campers.  A typical RV uses a 12 volt battery to run a pump to provide water on tap that drains to a 'grey water' tank.  You could build such a system with aquarium parts if you really wanted to.

Note: water used for drinking, brushing teeth, and shaving (as this creates micro breaks in the skin) should be potable drinking-quality water.  More about this in future posts.

Water used for handwashing or body washing can be of lesser quality, such as fresh rainwater, tapwater stored without paying attention to quality, or bottled water that has sat in plastic for six months or more, but should not have been exposed to chemicals, 'gray water' or worse.  Note that some field handwashing stations are labled "NON POTABLE WATER, DO NOT DRINK."  These are usually filled with a garden hose and the idea is to avoid cross contamination.

Happy handwashing!

[IN]Appropriate Technology: Nuclear Weapons

I am occasionally reminded that generations who grew up after the 1980s do not appreciate the dangerous situation the planet is in with respect to nuclear arms.

Anything with a yield in kilotons (thousands of tons of explosives) is a horrifically devastating weapon.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were kiloton weapons in the two digit range.

The line weapons of the major powers have yields measured in megatons (_millions_ of tons) of explosives.

Only the very largest natural phenomena, such as hurricanes and wildfires, rival a single detonation of these weapons.  The effects of setting off hundreds of them are too horrific to be easily imagined or explained, and call into question the survival of humanity on this planet.

The only defense is to run away.  (I will spare you a discussion of ABM, MAD, etc.  The acronyms of nuclear war are hopefully a demented wargamer's fantasy.  But there are hundreds of military officers in each of the major nations for whom this is their day job, their bread and butter.)

I don't agree with our friends at the International Red Cross that these weapons should be banned.  Mostly because bans don't work.

But I hope they are never, ever used again in anger against human beings.

YouTube: "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath

Appropriate Technology - Knit Hats & Space Blankets

One axiom in survival is that you can live without air for 3 minutes, without heat for 3 hours, without water for 3 days, without food for 3 weeks, etc...

This brief post is about staying warm with simple supplies.

You lose 40% of your heat out of your head.  An inexpensive knit cap keeps this heat where it belongs.

Mylar metallicized plastic blankets, aka 'Space Blankets' can be purchased for between $0.75 and $4 in many places, but especially Daiso, REI, WalMart and Target.  Wrapped around your body (and head!) they can keep you warm and dry.

In whatever Go Bag or kit you have, take a moment and add a space blanket and a knit cap while you are thinking about it.

Future you, bitterly cold, will thank you.  And it might just save your life.

Rant: Futuristic Criminology

About two decades ago, I was studying criminology.  In between mind numbing memorizations of theories of crime and society, brutally scientific study of both qualitative methodology and complex adaptive systems theory, and the academic grunt work expected of apprentices in a rigged system, I had time to do some thinking.

I see that the last of my predictions came true today.  The local rag, the Murky, reported that local police are starting to use predictive software to target patrols and other police activity.

Herewith, the list, from _1995_:

• Cameras required on both police vehicles and on the bodies of police officers.  
  
  
• Gunfire detection systems using acoustics in both fixed mounts and on police vehicles.
  
  
• The use of software to allocate police activity to avoid accusations of discrimination.
  
  
• The increasing militarization of police resulting in the widespread, routine adoption of military weapons and tactics including select fire weapons and excessive use of force against suspects.
  
  
• The routine electronic fingerprinting of all suspects.  The gathering of DNA from all felony suspects.
  
  
• Police aircraft equipped with weapons systems for stopping suspect vehicles.

If I stretch a point (the Coast Guard being part of DHS and thus a police agency), all six have come true in spades.

You get no points for being right too soon.  There is bittersweet satisfaction in knowing that my C- paper is a retroactive A.

But I have to live in the society thus made.  And, so do you.  Enjoy.

Appropriate Technology - POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service)

I grew up in the 1980s.

I remember when I saw my first mobile phone.  It was the size of a large purse, weighed several pounds, had a battery pack itself the size of a modern tablet, and large light up keys.  It cost over two thousand dollars and service was priced per minute.

When I first had 24/7 management responsbilities, I used a numeric pager.  Later I forwarded E-mail to an alphanumeric pager.  I had my flirtations with the first generation Blackberry and with Pacific Bell Mobile, the first PCS cell phones.

But there is one telecommunications technology that predates them all, and is still very valuable today.

POTS = Plain Old Telephone Service.  Copper line.  

Advantages:

- works without power

- easy to troubleshoot

- transmits your physical address correctly when you call 911

- only service that guarantees Reverse 911 functionality, i.e. you don't have to sign up to get Reverse 911 calls, you just get them

- less likely to overload during major events or disasters

- ease of use for those born before 1990

Disadvantages:

- no messaging

- caller ID requires a powered phone and/or a separate device

- "STAR codes" are needed to either allow caller ID to go out *82 or block them *67

- relatively expensive compared to VOIP or mobile phones

- billing information is tied to physical address of installation

One esoteric detail of POTS is what we call the REN, or Ring Equivalence Number.  The wired phones draw power from the line itself, which can cause quality issues if you have too many phones plugged in.

I like cordless phones.  But they rely on power.

If you still have a POTS line, make sure you have an ordinary wired phone plugged in, and test it every once in a while.

If you don't have a POTS line, and have decided to have VOIP or 'Internet Phone' instead, do your homework on how this interacts with 911, Reverse 911 (which you must now sign up for!) and how it works if you or your Internet provider lose power.

Sometimes Appropriate Technology is about what is simple and works.  POTS met this definition in the 1980s and still does today.

Appropriate Technology: The Dollar Store

My first paid job ever was in a discount retail store, a so called 'five and dime' where the five was a nickel.

Prices have gone up, and these stores are now called 'dollar stores.' Except for local variations such as Daiso (the $1.50 Japanese themed stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California), they price most items at $1 each. These include Dollar Tree and the $0.99 Cent Store, "open 9 days a week." [neat trick]

How is this an Appropriate Technology post? Because the mechanism by which these stores operate is itself a fascinating piece of tech, and understanding it can save many, many dollars.

Everything at the dollar store varies in actual price. That sounds strange when everything costs a dollar, but it is quite true. The difference is the _quantity_ not the numerics.

I comparison price shop constantly. This is a skill that should be taught as part of basic financial literacy in elementary school. Not high school. Elementary school. Because kids who know how to buy good food cheap get better nutrition, and all too many kids have to shop for their families.

Your local grocery store may have a pack of 100 tea bags for $3.99 when the big box store (Walget or Talmart, you figure it out) has the same product for $2.99. The dollar store has 20 tea bags for $1.

Price per each, the grocery store charges $0.04 per individual tea bag. The big box store charges $0.03 (and that 25% savings can add up.) The dollar store charges $0.05 and is actually the most expensive option of the bunch!

Unless you only need 20 tea bags. The ability to buy smaller quantities, titrated to what you need, is where the dollar store shines.

Note: an outlet store may sell you a thousand tea bags for $12.99 which sounds great. Break it down per each, and you are paying only $0.013 per bag. But will you drink a thousand cups of tea before the package goes bad, and do you have that much storage?

Unless you are deliberately stockpiling, or anticipate a major change in prices (always up), it is more efficient to buy what you need when you need it. This is especially true when it has an expiration date.

More about expiration dates soon. And also what retailers call "velocity."

Rant: Mountains, Bad Drivers and Ugly Weather

I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains. "We don't drive on the left side of the road, we drive on what is left of the road."

It turns out that when you insist on installing a road net in earthquake country on the sides of steep hills prone to mudslides and collapses, then string that road net liberally with power and comm lines, with trees all over the place ... there tend to be problems. Who knew?

Now add the infamous California driver. This timid but aggressive beast believes he is an above average driver, has no idea where the true limits of their vehicle can be found, and cheerfully multitasks while drive the speed limit on a wet road in heavy rain. Add obliviousness to concepts such as hydroplaning, friction, rockfall and "a safe and prudent speed for the conditions." Now add being totally lost.

Fortunately, the Santa Cruz mountain resident is often equipped with a wide variety of tools to face this challenge.

• community groups on Nextdoor and FaceBook with up to the minute road information, some of the latter secret
  
• the numbers for CalTrans Road Conditions, County Roads, local CHP offices and one's elected public officials
  
• a modest supply of basic mountain emergency equipment, such as a chainsaw, tow chains, shovels and rakes
  
• a ready list of excuses to use with work for being late
  
• a cellphone with camera to use as a dashcam and/or documentary proof of why one couldn't get down the hill, or had to drive alternate routes
  
• traffic and emergency information apps such as Cruz511, CalTrans, Citizen Connect and PulsePoint
  
• navigation apps such as Google Maps and Waze
  
• last but not least, emergency caffeine, because the nearest Starbucks is not on the nearest corner
  

We're not road warriors. We're road barbarians.

Locals will get the multiple jokes embedded in this picture. "Valley go home."

Captain Marvel: A Spoiler Free Review

By special arrangement I have seen the latest chapter in the Marvel saga, Captain Marvel.

This review is spoiler free.

I find this a worthy addition to the series, neither the worst nor the best. The themes of empowerment are a little heavy handed, but it is the right time in the cultural zeitgeist to make these points.

The massive support for the movie by a certain government's military is blindingly obvious even well before the end credits.

Of course, one must take care to respect the kitty. Nick Furry fans will rejoice. (sic? or was that hic?)

Obviously stay for both cut scenes, as this is a Marvel movie.

There is a touch at the very beginning that die hard fans will greatly appreciate.

Keep those membership cards, folks, you never know when you might need to rent a video.

What is it with Marvel and security guards, anyway?

I thought the heel face turns were blindingly obvious from the previews. I was only partly correct.

Go with an open mind and enjoy.

Appropriate Technology: The Lowly Reusable Water Bottle (and Daiso)

Tonight's Appropriate Technology post is brought to you by the lowly water bottle.

I'm going to make two assumptions before we start: 1) your dependence on the Card survival option is not such that you just go around buying fresh disposable water bottles wherever you go, and 2) you're in an urban area, as getting water in rural settings (i.e. not from a municipal water system) is a whole different ballgame.

The recyclable plastic water bottle can be reused for a day or two, but is a pain to clean even with the right equipment, can absorb odors and should probably be discarded everyday or two.

A reusable water bottle can be reused indefinitely if cleaned properly. I personally find that scrubbing once a day and washing with soap and hot water once a week is more than adequate. Your mileage will vary. Your choice of materials will vary: various plastics, metal, glass, etc. (So an option if you need to be cheap is a glass bottle with a reusable lid, such as an iced coffee bottle.)

The chain stores will cheerfully sell you a water bottle for prices ranging from larcenous to outright obscene. But you can do better. Your town has a secondhand store, a thrift shop or a dollar store ... and any of these can provide a water bottle with any desired characteristics. You will want to wash your bottle in any case, from any source.

I will mention Daiso for those who are on the West Coast, but especially the San Francisco Bay Area. Daiso is a Japanese dollar store carrying Chinese products made and labeled for the Japanese market, at the standard cost of $1.50 each. Of course this includes water bottles. Daiso carries a very wide array of cleaning brushes for any bottle you care to name, and tiny brushes specifically for cleaning reusable straws.

I have found for myself that the lowly baby bottle brush is the best deal for cleaning water bottles at an American dollar store.

Either can sell you detergent if you need it.

The last step is to get frequent access to a tap to get drinking water, and less frequent access to a sink to wash your bottle.

The world is now full of soda machines. One variant of soda machine is a standing upright console with a touch screen that offers over a hundred different Coca Cola(TM) products. And also Water, labeled as such.

On more conventional soda machines, there is a small white lever, sometimes labeled sometimes not, that dispenses water. (Once in a while, there are two white levers. The other one dispenses unflavored soda water.)

I encourage caution when using restroom sinks to wash and fill bottles. This is a common cause of cross contamination, unfortunately with fecal matter. Wash the faucet and the handles, wash your hands, wash the brush, wash the bottle with hot water, rinse the bottle with cold, wash the brush and put it away. Wash your hands again. Then if you can, find somewhere else to fill the bottle. If you can't, do what you need to do. If you pay attention to where you put your hands and bottle and brush, it's perfectly safe.

The corporate world is full of break rooms, where sinks and water filters and water dispensers and microwaves abound. If you have a cold water tap, a microwave, and a microwave safe container such as a ceramic mug or small microwave safe plastic bowl or cup, you have hot water shortly.

The lowly gas station and convenience store often have a small hand sink in the customer area. Be discreet and buy something, but that's an option in an unfamiliar area.

Santa Clara County, in a rare rush of brains to the head, is encouraging the public installation of not just drinking fountains but water bottle fillers. These hybrid machines are most commonly found in gyms, but in Santa Clara County are becoming standard in public buildings such as government offices and libraries, but can also be found in many public parks.

There is a next to last resort: to buy water from a vending machine. Note that they sell water in 1 gallon increments, sometimes for coins, sometimes for dollar bills, and occasionally in a grocery store with any payment method the register accepts. I'd suggest buying a disposable 1 gallon water bottle and refilling that as needed, for less than a week or so.

I won't get into survival situations, except to point out that recycled water (usually labeled as such), water that has sat in garden hoses, and such should not be trusted for drinking. Also, the use of needlenose pliers or a faucet wrench to open a locked water hydrant can be considered theft, and is properly considered as a survival strategy when the choice is between that and literal dehydration.

I hope these tips and tricks are useful. Do you have any you'd like to share?

Appropriate Technology - Go Bags, EDC & Cards

Appropriate Technology - Go Bags, EDC & Cards

Definitions first. A "go bag" is something you carry that contains what you need to survive. EDC is an acronym for Every Day Carry, or what people carry on their person or in their pockets to get through daily life. Card: one of the most used, and least thought about, possessions of modern life is the lowly card, whether credit or debit. Until you misplace one.

All three are solutions to one of life's most basic problems - how do you keep yourself warm, dry, watered, fed and in reasonable health while going where you need to go and what you need to do.

The Go Bag is this concept to an extreme, carry all the stuff you need because you might need it suddenly. A money card is the exact opposite: the world is full of waterproof ponchos, toothbrushes, bottles of water and tasty meals, you just have to find a pile of them next to a cash register and help yourself. Every Day Carry is somewhere in the middle ... those things you choose to carry with you, useful enough to not be disposable.

All three strategies have their merits. The goal here is to start thinking about what you carry, what skills you have, what ability you have to access goods and services, etc.

Note that I haven't talked (yet) about disasters, natural or otherwise. That changes things. If you can't find anyone to take your card or cash, that's not a good approach. If desperate people help themselves to your Go Bag, or a mugger relieves you of the contents of your pockets, that $40 you tucked in a sock might get you out of a jam.

I've used all three approaches, in my home town and on the other side of the country.

My suggestion is merely that people think more about not merely what they put in their Go Bags, carry in their pockets, or are ready to buy with their credit cards from the gas station -- but also think about being ready to shift strategies if your card is stolen, you leave your jacket at the restaurant, or your Go Bag suffers sudden integrity failure and dumps its contents on a busy sidewalk.

Flexibility trumps preparedness sometimes.

Appropriate Technology - Appropriate Technology

Someone asked me, "Hey, I saw your post on Appropriate Technology. What's Appropriate Technology?"

Good question, glad you asked.

Sometimes I forget that I know things that not everyone knows. Appropriate technology is one of those things.

Let's break this down. Yes, I am a big believer in the dictionary. That rant will be in a minute.

"Appropriate," especially suitable or compatible.

"Technology," a capability given by the practical application of knowledge.

Appropriate Technology is using the right tool for the right situation in the right way.

There is an engineer's joke:

- Measure With Calipers (a very precise measuring tool)
- Mark With Chalk (a less precise marking device)
- Cut With An Axe (a much less precise cutting tool)

This is the opposite of appropriate.

In particular, in Social Ecology, the idea of Appropriate Technology is using exactly that technology suitable for the purpose, no more and no less.

In the early history of spaceflight, astronauts and cosmonauts needed to use some sort of tool to make marks in space. An ordinary pen simply wouldn't work.

NASA commissioned a pressurized ink cartridge pen that would flow smoothly in any conditions, including microgravity, and these 'Fisher Space Pens' made their inventor a small fortune.

Russia used pencils. But the small bits of graphite that break off when you use a pencil collect in microgravity, and can get into electronic circuits - and in a worst case, start a fire, which on a spacecraft is generally not survivable.

Both are examples of Appropriate Technology.

First it has to work. If it doesn't work, it's not appropriate.

Then it has to be elegant. In engineering terms, something elegant is simple, efficient and beautiful. Think of a stainless steel sink.

The opposite of elegance is - despite their advertising - anything to do with an internal combustion engine automobile, especially one of German manufacture.

The car is a great example of a Rube Goldberg gadget in which flaws are disguised by systems to address those flaws, and then systems on top of systems, creating a level of nightmarish complexity around which entire industries necessarily revolve. (There may be a panel about this at Baycon...)

The one saving grace of a car is that it works, that it gets you from point A to point B.

Recently a Tesla electric car collided with a Lime electric scooter. The comment in our local rag, the Murky, was "The most Silicon Valley thing ever!"

Both are examples of Appropriate Technology. An electric car is very simple. (The batteries are not... and therein lies a tale, but not right now.) An electric scooter is even more simple - if the rider wears a helmet.

So when I post about Appropriate Technology, I will post about a way of solving a problem that I think is particularly suitable.

Ecology matters too. Why wash your clothes with a bucket when there are washers in the world?

A clothes washer needs to be supplied with power and hot water. The hot water needs to be supplied by a water heater. These systems spiral up in complexity and scalability. A gas 'flash' hot water heater is a simple gadget, but the production and distribution system to bring propane to your home is impressively monstrous, and the underground pipeline system that brings 'natural gas' (what a marketing triumph to call it that) even more so. Just ask anyone who had to file an insurance claim for a cooked home in San Bruno.

The computer I type this on is itself a marvel of the modern world. Made overseas, shipped to America, parts sourced from all of the world, ultimately to be shipped back overseas and torn apart by scrappers for its little bits of gold and add a little toxicity to China. Plugged into a network of fearsome complexity, hosted on servers that ravenously turn power into waste heat (and require more power for AC cooling) ... you get the idea.

Perhaps I should be writing this blog with a Fisher Space Pen. Or even a pencil.

But then, who would read it? And that would fail the first test. It has to work to be appropriate.

Rant: Techies, Free Work & Boundaries

Every now and then, I will indulge myself and my readers with a RANT.

Our friends at Webster define a "rant" as:

1 : to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
2 : to scold vehemently

Ranting may include profanity.

Here's my rant about technology people who don't know boundaries.

I use technology and I've studied formally the sociology of technology. I've done tech support. I occasionally get to apply XKCD's infamous approach to technology problem solving, the Tech Support Cheat Sheet.

But I've never had the delusion that all the technology in the world is mine.

I am very reluctant to allow other people to work on my tech stuff, at a level that approaches paranoia.

Because they break it.

Example 1: when I was away at college, I configured an old computer to serve as a E-mail tool for my not-at-all computer literate mother to communicate with me. We painstakingly walked her through how to use Eudora Lite, and she got pretty good with it.

A guy named Max, a friend of my mother's and self proclaimed amateur radio expert, nuked and paved the hard drive to install his own 'free' software from a company called Juno, because this was a 'better' E-mail tool. In his opinion. Never mind the E-mails that had already been sent and received; they had no value to him and were lost.

I couldn't get home for two months to fix it. Meanwhile, my mother had completely lost interest in computers.

She never sent another E-mail again.

The computer had no further value to me. I had set it up for the purpose of being able to E-mail back and forth with my mom.

Max still acted like he'd done me a favor for over a year. He even suggested at one point that I should pay him for his work. It took me telling him to go fuck himself, in front of witnesses, for him to understand that he and I were not on speaking terms.

When my mother passed, he was not invited to her funeral. I'm told that only then did he realize exactly how badly I felt that he'd fucked up. I didn't speak to him again, so I have to take their word for it.

That was when I started using passwords religiously even on computers that never left my control. Just in case.

That was also when I totally lost interest in amateur radio. If Max liked it, it must be shit, and that was good enough for me. It would be another twenty years before I went back to amateur radio.

Example 2: when I was helping a friend with a difficult situation, it proved to be convenient to live for a couple of months in her rented house while she fought to regain control of the two houses she owned. (She won one, she lost one, but it's amazing how quickly people stop harassing an elderly woman when her not-elderly friend answers the door with a handgun.)

I took advantage of the extra space to sort through and prune through some of the tech I owned. One of these pieces of tech was an ancient Dell desktop that had been configured with a Windows 2000 installation.

Another friend was staying with me. I will not name him because I'd like to stay friends. But while I was working two jobs, he discovered a need to use the Dell desktop for Web surfing.

So he installed not only Linux but a whole hard drive encryption program on the desktop.

I recently got out this desktop to set it up.

Password? ...

After a couple hours, I called him. He gave me a password. It didn't work.

"Just use a USB key to reformat the drive," he suggested.

The me of twenty years ago would have told him where to stick the key and in what orientation.

Instead, I asked him to walk me through how to put Windows 2000 back on the desktop.

He started working the problem. "OK, you need to download a CD, you need a key, you need a USB boot key, you need a boot loader ..."

"How long is this going to take?"

"Several hours ... probably not worth it, you should recycle the desktop and start over with another device."

"..."

That's when he got it. He had taken a working piece of equipment and made it into a doorstop. It now has a sticky note on it, "XXXX broke me." I plan to give it to him when I see him next.

I have many other examples, pretty much at a one for one of "Did I allow X to touch my tech gear?" "Shit."

A friend of mine tells a story about a bear and a hunter.

"You're not here for the hunting, are you?" the bear asks at the end.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is one definition of insanity.

So I have to take some of the blame myself.

Tech support for free is worth rather less than what you paid for it.

Appropriate Technology: Bucket Laundry

Appropriate Technology: Bucket Laundry On one of the many off the grid groups I follow, there is a hot discussion of a spinning clothes washing gadget. It's basically an egg on a swivel mount with a closing lid and a hand crank. You put your 2-3 pounds of laundry into the egg, add a little detergent and some water, and spin. All this for the low low price of ... [redacted] Gadgets have their uses. Personally, I would rather buy time on someone else's washer and dryer. Coin operated laundries are right up there with sliced bread, cell phones and lubricant. (Kindly not in combination, please, although I have seen 'cell phone sandwiches' trying to get through a security checkpoint.) The even cheaper alternative is the lowly five gallon bucket. If you are so dirt poor that even $3 at Walmart or a $2 donation to your nearest Firehouse Subs is out of the question, a kitty litter bucket can often be found in apartment complex dumpsters. Make sure you get lids. At WalMart or your local dollar store, obtain a clean toilet plunger that has never been used, an important detail. Cut a hole in a lid just smaller than the diameter of the plunger handle. You now have a laundry bucket with built in agitator. Another alternative is to get a Gamma Seal type screw-on lid, typically under $10 at a big box hardware store such as Home Depot and _Low Es_teem (which I avoid shopping at after they crashed and burned Orchard Supply Hardware). These lids make any bucket into a air tight, water tight, almost rodent proof (*) enclosure. Either way, put your clothes _loosely_ into the bucket with warm or cold water and a little detergent. Either plunge the handle or put the sealed bucket in a vehicle. Two words about detergent: 1) Use very little, about one third what you would use on a small load of clothes, if not less. Be wary of the new concentrated detergents. 2) If you plan to pour it out anywhere but down a drain leading to a sewer or septic system, please choose a biodegradable detergent. I am fond of Dr. Bronner's myself. I leave rinsing (add more water) and drying (clothespins and line) to the reader.