Paranoia Strikes Deep

Probably most people are aware of the "Facebook Revolt" by now. And then there's a story that Google, in taking pictures for its "Street View" photos, was actually also collecting information about WiFi signals in the area!

Ironically, the admission comes following outspoken criticism from Germany's Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, who was "horrified" to learn that Google's Street View car cataloged private WiFi network data like Mac (Media Access Control) addresses and SSIDs, in addition to snapping pictures of public streets.

I say it's ironic because a man with whom I used to work, who was a child during pre-World War II Germany, told me what it was like there in those days. "We could get only two radio signals. One was from Paris and the other was from Berlin. It was against the law to listen to the one from Paris, of course. But sometimes people would do it, because the music was better. But there was a truck with an antenna that came around the neighborhoods, and they could tell if you were tuned into the Paris station, so we never listened to that station. Only Berlin."
Of course this "begs the question," what happened if you were listening to the Paris station and they found about it?
"Well, they say that happened to a family up the street," he said. "One day they were just gone. We never saw them again."

I'd been going on a paranoid jag even before these events came to light, having realized that I couldn't continue to write some of the stories I'd been writing without changing the names and places in such a way that would distort the original essence of the tale, for fear of offending those still living or their relatives, some of whom I actually heard from. The cyber-world had become too large, or too small, or both.

Through Facebook, Google search, and other programs and applications it's simple enough to track down people you haven't seen in decades. In many ways this is good, but like all innovations, it can be a two-edged sword.

When I worked for a county in Florida years ago, I had to put up with a private detective sending me phony e-mails in an attempt to "catch" me in a real estate solicitation. I'd innocently left remnants of a web site up that led to the supposition that I was still in business, even though I'd given up my license a couple of years earlier.

Of course I'm now old, and unlikely to be employed by anyone but myself ever again. The young, however, might be will advised to curtail their impulses to put every thought and photograph out there, where the world will be able to look at them for the next 100 years or more. From recent reports it seems the smarter ones are beginning to catch on.

Futurists predicted years ago that there would be a reactive "privacy movement" in this decade, and I hope we are seeing the beginning of it. It's great to be able to contact old friends over the internet, but every new development seems to bring problems along with promise.

The trick is to harness the information age in such a way that it serves us, and does not hasten the coming time when all those who want to take part in any commerce will be tagged with "the mark of the beast," and privacy becomes once cherished but now long-gone right.

Don't think there aren't people out there who would hasten that day. It's much closer than we think.

Burn, Baby, Burn! *

Now they're trying to burn off the oil spill. Not a bad idea actually, according to the linked article. With the light, sweet crude that has leaked from this well, the burning in situ process is expected to get rid of up to 90% of the oil. Of course there is the problem of air pollution and disposing of the remaining 10%.
There's also talk of lowering a dome to contain the oil, and then pumping it out from there.
In the meantime there'll be a public relations battle over the incident. The oil companies will insist that there are thousands of rigs like this one that operate perfectly safely, and they'll be right.
And who among us does not rely on fossil fuel for most of our energy needs, not to mention a host of other products? Try as we might, the need for oil is going to be with us for a long time.

* Full circle on the alliterative slogans: Burn, baby, burn (Credit: Los Angeles rioters) morphed into Drill, baby, drill (Credit: former AK governor Palin and/or speechwriters), thence Spill, baby, spill (Credit: Seablogger) and now Burn, baby, burn seems appropriate again.

Spill, Baby, Spill!

Ironic, isn't it? Just as the president throws his critics a curve ball and opens up a huge area of US coastline to oil drilling, we're now facing the biggest potential oil spill disaster since the devastating Exxon Valdez incident of March, 1989.

It was the Exxon Valdez incident, as well as other well-documented pollution problems in the past on both coasts, that led to the public outcry against offshore drilling. Similarly the near disaster at Three Mile Island, along with movies like The China Syndrome, and the actual meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear facility, led to a de facto moratorium on nuclear power facilities in the US.

And all this is happening at a time when it's become obvious that relying on foreign oil is a major mistake, politically and economically.

Prediction: even though these oil leases weren't going to become operative for a number of years, the public outcry (aided by politicians eager to hop on the newly-revived save-the-environment bandwagon, like Florida governor Crist) will put the kabosh on offshore drilling for the foreseeable future.

Despite the blandishments and assurances of some of the oil companies regarding the safety of modern equipment, there's unfortunately no guarantee that there won't be a spill like the one happening now. And it also seems that the equipment necessary to control such a spill hasn't been developed.

And if you think the the "envirowackos" have a momentary advantage now, just wait until that spill works it way onshore. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Road Rage and Retributive Justice

Road Rage: a symptom of our times. Who hasn't at one time or another been subject to road rage, whether as a victim or perpretrator? And what is there in the human condition that sometimes makes us raging monsters when behind the wheel of a powerful vehicle? I read recently of a man who was sentenced to life in prison, after running over three people and killing a fourth.
And who hasn't had the experience of being in front of a driver madly expressing his frustration with our supposed dawdling along, when in fact we're unable to go any faster than the vehicle or vehicles in front of us? For whatever reason I decided long ago that it's better to arrive somewhere fifteen minutes late than to risk life and limb to get there immediately. A type B driver gets there in almost the same time, and with his blood pressure down to life-enhancing levels. I've tried to convey this philosophy to anyone would listen. After all, what're a few minutes in the scope of eternity? Better to chill out and arrive alive.
And as for taking out revenge or “getting even” with someone behind the wheel of another vehicle, I can hardly think of a better way to court disaster. Better to take things philosophically and pull over at the first opportunity, letting that steroid- or coke-enraged madman on your tail go on to this own individual destination–or destiny. Let the laws of karma deal with the situation. Sometimes they work quicker than we'd think.
A number of years ago I was driving my old ‘74 Peugeot north out of Key West to visit some friends up the Keys. That afternoon there was one of the famous toad-strangling thunderstorms that the Keys are famous for. The visibility ahead was maybe 60 feet, in between sweeps of the wiper blades. I slowed down to what I thought was a reasonable 45 miles per hour. Suddenly in the rear view mirror I see a huge pickup truck, honking its horn and flashing its lights. I’m thinking I can’t even see the shoulder to pull over, and this guy’s following so close I don’t even dare slow down to try to pull over or he’ll run right into me.
Soon the road opened up to two lanes, and as the truck passed, the driver gave me a traditional one-fingered salute. I’m thinking that guy must be out of his mind. There’s an inch of water on the road, and even worse, he’s towing a huge utility trailer full of stuff. And he’s doing well over 60.
A few minutes later the rain began to abate, and I noticed what looked like a pair of lights in the mangroves ahead off to the right. Sure enough, it was Hurry Harry: his rig had hydroplaned on the watery highway. He’d lost control, the trailer had jack-knifed, and the whole rig spun backwards into the brackish swamp, with the truck facing the road and the trailer at a very odd 90-plus degree angle off to the side.
I gave the fellow a tip o’ the hat as I drove by. And oh yeah, I called the highway patrol when I got where I was going. Told them they’d need a wrecker to pull the guy out.

Haiti: How to Rebuild?

Above is a recent photo of a house in Belize that we rented for a few months back in 1983. This house is around 40 years old, and is still in good shape. It sits on a concrete slab, but the house itself contains no concrete and no lumber. (The only wood products used are a few light pieces of trim around the windows and doors.) The house is made of light-weight metal studs, some of which you can see protruding from the gable end on the left side. The roof is metal, the outside walls are thin cement-based composite board with an even thinner coating of stucco. The inside walls are gypsum drywall. The total package is strong, light, waterproof, and wind- and fire-resistant.

The situation in Haiti: hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless. The UN has decided, wisely, that providing tents for these people is a waste of money. Instead they're trying to provide them with metal roofing to construct makeshift shelters. Ultimately the answer may be structures like the one pictured above. A metal roof supported by a metal framework would provide durable shelter from the rains which will be starting by June, and would also be light enough not to present a threat in the event of another earthquake.

As long as the walls were firmly anchored, the floor could be an afterthought, installed later when the owner had enough time and resources to do so. Even the walls could be temporary, eventually replaced by a lath or hardboard covered by a type of tabby.

Given a workable design and a few basic materials, coupled with the average Haitian's ingenuity in scrounging scrap materials, which should be available in abundance, there's a chance that this type of construction might be the answer to Haiti's need for permanent, safe housing. Just a thought....

Haiti: Hope and Horror

At left, ruins of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A number of Americans were among those killed or injured in the collapse of the venerable structure. Still missing is volunteer Walt Ratterman of Knightsbridge International, a California-based charity, who was working on a solar power project in Haiti.
(At one time we lived for several months on the street leading up to the Montana. I remember that Mike Wallace, the TV newscaster, had a house on that street, although we never saw him. We'd talked about going back to Haiti earlier this year, and we would have stayed at the Montana, however briefly, for old time's sake.)
The horror of the situation has been widely reported to the world, and teams of aid workers from all over the planet have arrived and performed miracles of service and sacrifice. At home and abroad people have opened their wallets, and food and medical aid are now coming into the country. There have been a few problems: the specter of food riots, and Haitian bureaucrats holding up food and medical supplies at the airport with their ubiquitous red tape and desire to levy some kind of a "tax", seemingly oblivious to the suffering of their countrymen.
It's to the advantage of those still suffering that the international press is present, although now that some of the horror of the situation is no longer novel, the New York Times has actually run an article on Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta's choice of clothing.
Gupta in particular should be commended for staying behind at a field hospital, when UN authorities had ordered all medical personnel to leave the wounded behind, for purported security reasons.
Cooper got a minor "reality check" later in the week, reporting "on the ongoing process of an apparently organized effort run by local authorities to gather up the bodies littering the streets, collect them in dump trucks, then transport them out of the city, where they would be dumped in mass graves. The mass graves are shown as mounds of dirt in the hills outside the city, appear to be relatively shallow and hold no information to identify the dead other than the bodies themselves."
Grilling a (female) Haitian official American press-style on the situation, he was unable to elicit a "straight" answer.
If he'd been briefed on the details of Haitian folk culture, he would have known that many Haitians believe that bodies must be properly buried and remembered by relatives and family so their spirits can pass on to heaven. In Voodoo, some believe that improper burials can trap spirits between two worlds. A proper burial is necessary for a certain life-force to leave the body gradually, lest the soul be trapped in a sort of underground limbo. (This belief was described in ethnobotanist Wade Davis's book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was made into a movie several years ago.) It would be unthinkable for a government official to admit that such a thing had been allowed to happen, even in the interests of sanitation and prevention of disease.
As the relief efforts continue, we can sure that unforeseen problems will crop up. We can only hope that somehow the Haitian people, including expatriates, will summon up the courage and wisdom to straighten out their country themselves.
And let's fact it--thirty years ago Haiti was already overpopulated and an ecological disaster. Europeans and North Americans have been sensibly limiting the size of their families for years. It's neither racism nor flouting God's law to suggest that it's high time for Haitians to do likewise.

Earthquakes in Haiti

I discovered an old book, Geologie d'Haiti, that I bought in Haiti around 1981. It appears to be a textbook for an introductory geology course. In light of recent events the section on seismology was interesting. It begins with a brief description of a seismograph and a definition of earthquakes in general, then gives a description of earthquake damages to be expected according to the Rossi-Forel scale. The language is a little quaint, translated from French.

There are devices for recording earthquakes. They are seismographs, which are essentially a sheet of paper wound on a cylinder that rotates. A needle draws a line on the cylinder. In times of calm, this is a straight line, but when the earth trembles, it becomes sinuous.
Earthquakes, like volcanoes, are due to internal operations of the globe. Earthquakes correspond to ruptures of equilibrium in different compartments of the earth.

Degree one and two: shaking recorded by some devices.
Degree three: tremors felt by people at rest.
Degree four: tremors recorded by all, with noise from doors and windows (shaking).
Degree five: in addition to previous effects: cracking ceilings, furniture oscillating.
Degree six: sleepers are awakened by the uproar and clock pendulums stop.
Degree seven: the walls have cracks.
Degree eight: old houses topple and contents are damaged.
Degree nine: panic -- buildings collapse and oscillate. Fires.
Degree ten: complete disaster: the destruction of buildings, bridges, drying up of wells.
Degree Twelve: uplift and subsidence of parts of mountains, breaking land, complete destruction.

Then it goes on to give a history of seismic events in Haiti from 1701 to 1953.

Quelques tremblements de terre historiques d'Ha'iti Some earthquakes of historic Ha'iti

In his book "Geology of the Republic of Haiti " (1924), the American geologist Wendel Woodring writes: " Earthquakes are frequent in Haiti. At the time of the colony and of the Republic, disastrous earthquakes, from time to time, have caused the complete or nearly complete destruction of Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitian, and other cities."

Indeed our country is often the seat of earthquakes whose disastrous consequences are intensified in the cities because they are generally built on alluvial land (soft ground).

November 9, 1701. It caused the destruction of the plain Leogane (degree VI).
From November 21, 1751 to December 8, Port-au-Prince, which had just been founded, undergoes a series of shocks. It is reported that after the first shock of November 21, one house remained standing, but was in turn destroyed by the earthquake that took place on the second day (degree VIII and IX).
June 3, 1770. New quake Port-au-Prince, in the plain of Cul-de-Sac. 200 deaths in the city of Port-au-Prince. Petit-Goave and Leogane were destroyed (IX degree).
May 7, 1842. One of the most violent. It completely destroyed the cities of Cape Ha'itien, Port de Paix and Mole St. Nicolas. There were 5000 deaths in the city of Cap Haitien alone, and no building was left standing in Port de Paix (degree X).
April 8, 1860. It was felt throughout the whole southern peninsula. (V degree).
September 23, 1887. It spared nothing in Mole St. Nicolas, and its effects were felt very far to South (Jérémie, Anse-d'Hainault) (IX degree).
March 20, 1910. It shook the whole North and North-West of the country causing extensive damage (degree IV).
August 3, 1910. The whole Republic was shaken, but with a particularly marked effect in Jérémie (VII degree).
August 21, 1911. The whole country was shaken with different intensities. Gonaives, Mole St. Nicolas, Pilate, Cap-Haitien. Gros Morne were the cities hardest hit (VIII degree).
October 6, 1911. The shock was particularly strong in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, but it seriously damaged the city of Cerca La Source (degree X).
6 and September 7, 1912. It was general, but particularly reached the towns of Plaisance, Limbe, Grande-Riviere-du-Nord and St-Michel de I'Atalave (degree. VIII).
July 31, 1914. Very intense shock affecting Port-au-Prince and its environs. It lasted 50 seconds (VII degree).
July 26, 1917. Very strong shaking in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, Limonade (degree VI).
4 February 1918. It caused partial destruction of the Mole St. Nicolas (degree VII).
From 1909 to 1920. Several series of shocks, fortunately weak one, recorded at I'Anse-a-Veau (level III).
January 15, 1922. Quake which shook all the southern peninsula: from Jeremie to Port-au-Prince and from Jacmel to Cayes. (degree VI).
1953. L'Anse-a-Veau is again the seat of a series of tremors, but their effects are fairly localized (degree IV to VII).

Thus we see that things had been fairly quiet there for the last fifty years. Amid their many other problems and other disasters, most people had forgotten that threat from earthquakes was still a danger. On the scale given above, it looks as if the quake this month was a ten. Interesting that they don't have an eleven; at that level of destruction the details are moot.