As this Slashdot article notes, the US House of Representatives has voted to extend the PATRIOT Act. If they were trying to provide an effective answer to my post yesterday, I don’t think they’ve succeeded.
NOTICE TO USERS IN LJ LAND
– PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE –
This is just a periodic reminder… I don’t mean to shout, I just want to make sure you see this:
I DO NOT GET NOTIFICATION WHEN YOU MAKE COMMENTS IN THE SYNDICATED LJ FEED FOR THIS BLOG
I want to read your comments, but if you comment on the ‘virtuallyshkng’ syndication feed I do not get the comments. I have a support request in to LJ about this, but right now, it’s not a feature, and I can’t turn those comments off. Please come to the blog via the link in the post and comment here.
Thanks!
– END PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE –
What can one do?
I think it’s relatively obvious that this isn’t the kind of thing that public representatives should carelessly spout off. However, what it really comes down to is this: If someone wants to start an uncontrolled fission reaction in a major US city, and the required materials are the size and weight of an overstuffed checked suitcase, what can we do to stop them?
How do you find that suitcase in New York City? Imagine this. Imagine that someone tells you that they have hidden a suitcase in New York, New York. They tell you it’s about 3 feet by 2 feet by 1 foot. Then they tell you that you have a week to find it. New York’s a pretty big and complex place.
Could you do it?
Could the NYPD do it?
What if they don’t tell you where it is? What if they just tell you it’s in a major city? Or, what if they don’t tell you at all?
What do you do when nobody finds it, and hundreds of blocks of one of the biggest cities in the world become a massive hole in the ground?
I don’t think the threat of nuking Mecca would help. Don’t think I’m suggesting that. It might even make it worse. The magnitude of the problem here is nigh on to insurmountable. I know that a lot of clever people… okay, a few clever people (at last check I had about 14 readers) read my blog. What would you suggest?
On the Cover
My coauthor from other papers (I’m not on this one) just published a paper in Circulation Research with my advisor and other collaborators. As you can see on the linked page (at least until the next issue is out), the article made the cover! The last link should be good regardless of which issue is current.
Almost-Final Preparations
I’m still in Mandeville (see the map link!). I finished the roll of film that was in the SLR camera, and popped it out. Much to my chagrin, it was professional-grade black-and-white. What that means is, barring possession of a lab and developing skills, it costs about $17 to develop the roll. That’s a lot of dough just to see if the camera is taking okay pictures. Not only that, but no place around here will do it in-house. They don’t have the equipment, so they have to send it away. Bah, I say, bah!
While I suspect that the camera is working fine, I may yet venture out tonight to get a cheap roll of color film, shoot it, and develop it. Taking 5 rolls of film on the trip only to find out that I have zero pictures would be something of a waste, not to mention a let-down.
Meanwhile, I discovered an error in some simulations I ran recently, one of which takes at least three days no matter how I slice it. I need the restart files from those simulations to run the 72 cases for the project I’m working on. I’d hoped to load them up in the cluster queue before I left, but alas, it’s not to be. Luckily, they’re short jobs, so I can swamp the whole cluster with them using the short queue when I get back.