"The Yeti Of Creative Coding" - Who Is Mr. Doob?

Here's a link to Mr. Doob's own, short answer to this question in 2005.  This is a man you should know about because he's designing and creating your world. 

I first 'met' Mr. Doob when someone got here from Mr. Doob's Google Gravity.  I went to see what it was and discovered a clever, silly, little spoof of the basic Google page that I  then posted about.

Google Gravity Search for Mr. Doob - Click to enlarge and focus

Recently I got someone here who'd googled "Mr. Doob Fire Google." 

Mr. Doob was working for Google?  And they fired him?  Maybe, I thought, I should check on who Mr. Doob is.

It would appear that he is a rather publicity shy coder and designer who's done some pioneering web work.  There's a connection between Arcade Fire and Mr. Doob but I'm not really sure what it all means.  Mr. Doob was the technical director of Arcade Fire's The Wilderness Downtown.  If you haven't participated in that online video, then you should stop now and go there to see why I think Mr. Doob is worth a whole post like this.  The Wilderness Downtown goes way beyond Google Gravity, and is a project Mr. Doob participated in with many others.

Click image to go to The Wilderness Downtown

The Wilderness Downtown

This is a peek at the technology of the future, using technology of today.  Spend about ten minutes and be sure to make your own postcard.


A Webninja interview three years ago tells us that Mr. Doob is from Barcelona.  There's  a lot of tech discussion here which is interesting in the way it's interesting to watch people speaking in a language you don't know.  Instead of listening to the content, you start to pay attention to other things.  He did work for Google a while.  In fact he was working for Google when he did The Wilderness Downtown. 

A 2011 interview at Canonical gets into how he started out.  His brother was a big influence. They discuss many things including the relationship between code and art and why he's a total supporter of open source, 

I just like his attitude on things like this snippet about giving things out free.

Of course, there is always the risk of getting “Angry Birded” — where someone uses your code to retire early without giving anything back to the project — but that’s ok, I want to think that these people give back to society in other ways. Eventually we will be able to bring an idea into life by combining open source projects and call it a day. That would be a pretty efficient way of using human brains.
For some, the concept of giving away your work for free may sound silly, but there are many good side effects when doing that. It speeds up development and steps up global knowledge.

He says things like this that I don't understand but I like the style.

My dream Linux OS would be having Ubuntu’s hardware support, Fedora’s system code (systemd, etc), Gnome Shell desktop experience and Elementary aesthetics. Yum!

Creative JS interview with Mr. Doob.  This is an audio interview.  It's the main part of what sounds like a radio show - creative coding broadcast -  and the interview starts at about ten minutes in.  I found it fascinating listening.  Here's the JS description of this:

There was a special session at FITC Amsterdam last week featuring a live interview between CreativeJS’ own Seb Lee-Delisle and the elusive Ricardo Cabello (aka Mr. doob) . While his work is very well known, interviews or information about Mr. doob himself are pretty rare. In fact, it’s so hard to find anything about him, you might even call him the yeti of creative coding

Mr. Doob's Ball Pool screenshot

Here's a brief written interview with Mr. Doob at RealTime Rendering.


Mr. Doob's website. This will give you the chance to interact with Mr. Doob's experiments.

Mr. Doob's Branching screenshot

Mr. Doob's Winning Solitaire screenshot

Here's the 3JS website with examples of images in 3.JS - (Mr. Doob is, from what I can tell, the man who created 3.JS.)

I don't know how much time Ricardo spends in our world and how much time he's off in his own inventions, but it would be great to have a chat with him while he's visiting the rest of us. 

Court Sets Out Issues And Schedule For Alaska Redistricting Court Challenges

In an order dated 28 August 2013, Superior Court Judge Michael P. McConahy said:

 

I.  Introduction

Overview of what's happened so far in the case, starting with last December's Supreme Court decision (though somehow 2013 instead of 2012 got past the proof readers).

II.  Consolidation

The Riley challenge and the Alaska Democratic Party challenge to the Redistricting Board's July 2013 Redistricting Proclamation Plan shall be consolidated into one case.

III.  Amicus Curiae

All the parties that filed amicus briefs either before the Superior court or the Alaska Supreme Court shall get copies of all orders of the case and are free to file pleadings though they may not initiate motion practice.  [I think that means they can only comment on the issues that have been raised and not raise new ones.]

IV.  Electronic Filing

Details for filing electronically.


[The points above are paraphrased. For Summary of Issues I've copied it as verbatim as my eyes and fingers allowed]

V.  Summary of Issues 

Fairbanks

1. Compactness issues in House Districts 3 and 5 
2. Socio-economic issues due to the split of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in House Districts 4 and 5
3. Whether the higher deviations from the ideal district population in House Districts 1-5 are justified
4. Compactness and contiguousness issues in Senate District B.
5. Whether higher deviations from the ideal district population in Fairbanks Senate Districts are justified. 

Mat-Su

1. Socio-economic integration issues in House Districts 9 and 12 by combining areas outside the Mat-Su Borough with the Mat-Su Borough  
2. Whether the plan affords proportional representation to voters residing inside and outside the Mat-Su Borough

Kenai

1. Socio-economic integration issues in House District 32 by combining areas outside the Kenai Peninsula Borough with the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
2. Whether the plan affords proportional representation to voters residing inside and outside the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

Rural Alaska Districts

1. Socio-economic integration issues in House Districts  40, 39, 37, and 6. 

Truncation

1. Whether the Board considered improper factors in deciding the truncation of senate terms. 

VI.  Briefing Schedule

• The judge wrote that since legal standards for establishing house and senate districts have already been addressed previously, they won't be repeated now.  
• "Therefore any party that objects to the 2013 proclamation plan as violative of the compactness and contiguity requirements of the Alaska Constitution must file a motion for summary judgment regarding all such concerns within 15 days of the date of the distribution of this order. [Which by my count comes to Sept. 12.] The Board shall have 10 days to file its opposition.  Replies, if any, are due 3 days thereafter. "
• Socio-economic issues "may or may not be able to be decided on the merits" but "any party objecting to the proclamation plan as violative of the socio-economic requirements . . . must file a motion for summary judgment, supported by admissible evidence" in the same time frame.  And it must be in a separate motion.

VII. Scheduling

• "It is the intent of this court to have all issues resolved within 90 days"
• "If testimony is required the court anticipates setting a trial week on short notice"

So, What Does This All Mean? 

Administrative Issues

• The Riley and Democratic Party challenges were consolidated into one case
• Administratively, the judge has outlined the issues to be discussed - most of the issues raised by Riley and the Alaska Democratic Party.  
• However,  the requests to appoint a master to draw the maps  wasn't mentioned.
• Amicus can comment on the issues outlined but not bring up new ones
• The parties have 15 days (Sept. 12 if that's calendar days and not working days) to support their claims.
• The Board has 10 days to respond.
• The Parties have 3 more to respond to the Board.
• 90 days is the target to get everything to be done.  That should fall just before Thanksgiving Day.

Substantive Issues

I've covered the Fairbanks issues in some detail in these two posts:

• Was Fairbanks Gerrymandered:  A Look At the Riley Challenge to Alaska Redistricting Board' 2013 Plan Part 1
• Was Fairbanks Gerrymandered?  The Riley Challenge to the Redistricting Board's 2013 Plan Part 2:  Truncation  

The line  "Socio-economic issues may or may not be able to be decided on the merits" probably means that this is pretty much a judgment call.  Facts play a role, and there are some precedent standards - such as everyone in a borough boundary is considered to be socio-economically integrated" but there is no clear up or down test for this. 

I haven't even looked at Kena, Mat-Su, or the other  rural districts.  I'll try to get something up.
I have covered truncation (second link above) and I'm working on a post comparing the 2000 Board's truncation method and the current board's method.

In the meantime, you can read the Judge's full order below:

Alaska District Court Order On Riley and Democratic Party challenges to Latest Alaska Redistricting Board P...

Also, there is a response from the Board to the two filings (Riley and Alaska Democrats) on the Board's website.  Most of the documents filed on this are also on the Board's website here.

Thanks to  EW.  

Did You Know That Tom's Of Maine Sold To Colgate? In 2006?

At the dentist yesterday, my hygienist commented that Tom's of Maine - the green toothpaste begun in 1970 - was now owned by Colgate.  She'd gotten a sample with a Colgate shipment and that's how she learned this.

When I checked online it turned out Colgate bought Tom's for $100 million!

 Organic Consumer wrote in 2006:

Best known for toothpaste, Tom's of Maine got its start in 1970 by
making a phosphate-free laundry detergent. Over the years, cofounder Tom Chappell, 63, poked fun at major brands like Colgate, saying they put artificial additives in their toothpastes while Tom's of Maine used natural ingredients.
Chappell said he will continue to run the brand from its Kennebunk headquarters. None of the privately held firm's approximately 170 jobs will be lost, he said.  ''We'll be a stand-alone subsidiary," said Chappell. ''And we have a commitment from Colgate that our formulas will not be tampered with.

Tom's of Maine's website paints a public service oriented company image:

"Tom’s of Maine is a leading manufacturer of natural and environmentally–friendly products, including natural toothpaste, alcohol–free mouthwash, natural dental floss, natural deodorant and antiperspirant and natural bar soap. Founded in 1970 in Kennebunk, Maine, the company is inspired by and committed to sustainable business practices as well as supporting people and communities. Each year, Tom’s of Maine gives 10% of its profits back to organizations that support human, healthy and environmental goodness and encourages employees to use 5% (12 days) of employee time to volunteer. Tom’s of Maine products are vegan, Kosher, Halal–certified and all packaging is recyclable through a partnership with upcycling leader TerraCycle or participating municipalities."

Natural Society  sees it differently:

"In fact, Tom’s of Maine isn’t even from Maine, and it’s owned by a well-known corporate giant — Colgate-Palmolive of New York. Purchasing an 84% stake in Tom’s back in 2006 (yes, they have owned Tom’s since 2006!) for 100 million dollars, Colgate-Palmolive’s share of the global toothpaste market has risen to 44%. In the United States alone, Colgate-Palmolive controls 35% of the market. Unfortunately, part of the companies success relies on a patented gingivitis formula which contains a toxic chemical substance called triclosan that reacts with the chlorine in tap water to become chloroform — a deadly chlorinated aromatic.

Shockingly, the result of the reaction is similar to the dioxins found in the compound Agent Orange that was responsible for 400,000 people being killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects after being used in Vietnam by the U.S. military as a herbicide. This is the chemical reaction taking place in your mouth when using Colgate’s gingivitis formula. Interestingly enough, Agent Orange was developed by the biotech company responsible for the rampant genetic modification of the world’s food supply — Monsanto.
It gets worse. Triclosan is only one of the hazardous chemicals found in oral care products. One visit to the Tom’s of Maine official website and you will see the invitation to view all of their product ingredients, organized from A to Z. There is even a statement declaring that not only are all ingredients “naturally sourced,” but that they are “sustainable and responsible.” A look at the ingredients list, however, and you will find that Tom’s of Maine was not being very responsible or sustainable with ingredients such as titanium dioxide and zinc chloride added to their products."

There may be problems with Tom's, but Natural Society's post has its own problems.  If Tom's isn't from Maine - their website says they are in Kennebunk, Maine and they get their water from a Maine aquifer - where are they from?  A recent post at Grist says the potatoes for new packaging are from Maine and that Tom's is in Maine.  Greenbiz writes:

The research [to turn potatoes to plastic] is part of a partnership that includes the University of Maine and the Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine, which are seeking ways of recapturing local agricultural waste.

Natural Society seems to be doing a little sleight of hand here - in one hand Tom's and in the other hand Colgate.  Tom's isn't from Maine because Colgate is headquartered in New York.  From what I can tell, Colgate has left Tom's to do its own thing.  It may be that Colgate uses Triclosan, but Natural Society hasn't actually said Tom's does and I don't see it listed in the ingredients of my tube.  Nor is it listed on the website for the tube I have.   

Ingredient	Purpose	Source
Sodium monofluorophosphate 0.76% (0.15% w/v fluoride ion)	Decay prevention	Fluorspar (calcium fluoride), an ore
Calcium carbonate	Mild abrasive	Purified calcium from the earth
Water	Consistency	Maine aquifer
Glycerin	Moistener	Vegetable oils
Sodium bicarbonate	pH adjustment	Purified sodium bicarbonate from the earth
Carrageenan	Thickener	Seaweed (Chondrus crispus)
Xylitol	Flavor	Birch trees or corn
Natural Flavor	Flavor	Peppermint (menthe piperita) leaves
Sodium lauryl sulfate	Dispersant	Derived from coconut and/or palm kernel oil

It may also be true that some of the zinc products Natural Society cites from the Tom's website may be in other products, but I don't see them in the toothpastes.

There are also complaints online about dropping the aluminum tubes for plastic tubes, but I suspect the potato based plastic tubes are in response to that.

I found one other webiste that had problems with Tom's of Maine:  The Cornucopia Institue does health research related to small farms.  Their website says:

"The Cornucopia Institute will engage in educational activities supporting the ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and investigations on agricultural issues, The Cornucopia Institute will provide needed information to consumers, family farmers, and the media."

Their problem is that Tom's uses carrageenan, which is one of the ingredients in my tube and it's listed above.  

There is simply no way around it: dozens of scientific, peer-reviewed studies used food-grade carrageenan and found it caused gastrointestinal inflammation, ulcerations, lesions and even colon cancer in laboratory animals.  Most of these recent studies were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

They cite their March report "Carrageenan: How a “Natural” Food Additive is Making Us Sick."  Carrageenan is made from one kind of seaweed and is used in lots of products as a thickener - soy milk, almond milk, ice cream, canned soups, frozen pizza - and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has put downgraded its rating:

CSPI also downgraded the seaweed extract carrageenan from "safe" to "certain people should avoid." Used as a thickener and stabilizing agent in many dairy products, a World Health Organization committee concluded that it is inadvisable to use carrageenan in liquid formula designed for infants under one year of age. Carrageenan is still used in some varieties of Similac, though not varieties sold in the U.K.

 I'd say that the at this point the food industry is not concerned with carrageenam, but some researchers have found reasons to be concerned.

So, that's what I've learned about Tom's.  I can't blame someone who has worked hard for 40 years for taking $100 million for his company.  It's easy to call someone else a sellout, but not many people would turn down an offer like that.  You can do a lot of good in the world with that much money.  But it's also an example of the shrinking of competition, that basic driver of a good market system.   

Matthew Desmond's List of Seven Types Of Republicans And How To Debate Them

I ran across Matthew Desmond's list of Seven Types of Republicans and How to Debate Them not too long ago.  Here's the boiled down list of the types:

• The Educated Republicans
• He doesn't mean so much they went to college, but that they've learned about their issue, at least from the Republican perspective.
  
• Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio Republicans:
  
• Christian Republicans:
  
• Tea Party Republicans:
  
• Birther Republicans:
  
• Racist Republicans:
  
• Extremely Uneducated Republicans:
• These are folks who are Republicans because the people they're with are Republicans, otherwise they don't know anything but the sound bites

Lists can range from gimmicky fluff to thoughtful organization of ideas.  This one falls somewhere closer to thoughtful.  But it suffers from common list problems like simplification and  tempting us to pigeon hole people into established categories instead of seeing the nuances of each individual.  

This list makes some useful distinctions and might, at the very least, inspire readers to come up with other types of Republicans - I'd certainly add 'economic Republicans' and 'Republican by birth' for starters. 

What makes this list special, is that it links the types of R's to different strategies for debating.  Most people have a basic style when they debate or argue without thinking too much about what might be effective with the specific person they are debating.  They have, de facto, just one strategy that they use. 

Matthew forces us to recognize there are different strategies, to assess the person we're talking to, and then adjust our style to them.  It's a good lesson for talking to anyone. 

I've pulled out some of the strategies he offers, but you need to go to the original to see how he links them the different types.  

• Hit them with facts and don't let them get off the subject.
• Keep demanding the facts that back up their assertions.
• Hit them with facts about the separation of church and state and ask questions about the positions Jesus would take on today's issues.
• Refuse to answer their questions until they answer yours.
• Instead of trying to argue with them, try explaining algebra to your dog.

And since we've gotten to debate tactics, here are some links that look at this from different perspectives:

Toastmasters is an international organizations that helps people develop skills in public speaking.  They have meetings everyday in most US cities and many other countries.  Here's the Toastmasters' intro to debate skills.


Here's a talk with slides of more formal debates from Monash University in Australia.

And here's an attempt to develop a hierarchy of debate, beginning with the lowest level (Name calling) and going up to more legitimate tactics.

And here's one that is presented totally seriously, but clearly is showing you how NOT to debate.  That's also a good lesson.

Who's Calling From 1 800 816 3521?

Today I got a call from  1 800 816 3521 and chose not to answer.  They left no number.  So I googled.

The site that had something that looked the most authentic was everycall.us.  It had this chart and then comments below.

Doesn't tell a lot, but it's consistent with the comments I saw from people posting about calls from this number on other websites.  Most comments seem to be around October and early November 2012 - the last presidential election.  Others say they've gotten calls from non-profits.   They don't seem to leave a message.  Some report they ask for someone by name, but then hang up.  Others say they are pushing a particular client or ballot measure or a charity. 

The everycall site offers a device to block such calls from your home phone.  I have no idea who they are or how legit they are.  They have a Kickstarter campaign at the moment with a picture of a little white box that says:

"Plug into your home phone and those pesky telemarketing and robocalls just stop. The 1st crowd sourced spam blocker for the home."

 Kickstarter does screen the people that use them, so there was at least one level of scrutiny.  they have raised - as of today - $5,361 out of a target of $100,000.  There a Bellvue, Washington company, so they are in the heart of Techland, USA. 

There's a small industry popping up on the net to help people find out who is generating the annoying calls that come from 800 numbers. Here are a couple of the websites where people leave comments about 1 800 816 3521:

• Who Calls Me?
• 800 Notes

I've previously posted about 1 800 695 6950.  There I was able to find out it was a collection agency.  I also posted a link there  to the Do Not Call registry.  But that doesn't work for political calls.  And I'm not sure I want to block political calls.  I have to think through the free speech implications more.  But there is a website where people are trying to block political calls at home with a registry.  It says on there:

Join the National Political Do Not Contact Registry a non-partisan grass-roots movement to take control back by asking our elected representatives to stop calling us at home.

 Yeah, I can see them setting up the registry, but I can't imagine too many legislators limiting their right to call you at home. 

"An extra huzzah to Penny Simon for her friendship and expertise at getting me to do things I don't want to do"

This gem of a thank you comes on the sixth page of Erik Larson's Sources and Acknowledgments in Garden of the Wild Beasts which I finally finished this morning.

I don't know about others, but I sure could use someone like Penny to get me to do the things I don't want to do. 

It's a burden people shouldn't have to bear alone.  My wife does this sometimes, but someone other than a spouse, who doesn't have so many other responsibilities, would be helpful. 

May everyone have such a friend.  

(Just out of curiosity, I googled Penny Simon.  She's Larson's publicist at Random House.)

Climate Warming Denier ADN Letter Writer Dr. Maccabee Linked to Koch Brothers

Dr, Howard Maccabee wrote a letter to the Anchorage Daily News ridiculing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draft report. 

His letter begins:

"Justin Gillis' Aug. 20 article "Sea Level Could Rise 3 Feet by 2100"  is speculation, not science.  The assertion that seas will likely rise by 3 feet is almost absurd, since current levels rise about 2 mm. per year (about 6 inches in 80 years)."

The title of Gillis' article in the print version of the ADN is unfortunate, but not inaccurate reporting.  The online title is "Climate Panel Reports Near Certainty on Warming" the same title as the original NY Times article.

In any case, the article does NOT assert "that seas will likely rise by 3 feet."  What the article actually says is

"that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace."

 I would say that "could conceivably" is not even close to Maccabee's "will likely."

The online article has more of the original NYTimes article than the print version.  It says, later in the article:

"Regarding the likely rise in sea level over the coming century, the new report lays out several possibilities. In the most optimistic, the world's governments would prove far more successful at getting emissions under control than they have been in the recent past, helping to limit the total warming.

In that circumstance, sea level could be expected to rise as little as 10 inches by the end of the century, the report found. That is a bit more than the 8-inch increase in the 20th century, which proved manageable even though it caused severe erosion along the world's shorelines.

At the other extreme, the report considers a chain of events in which emissions continue to increase at a swift pace. Under those conditions, sea level could be expected to rise at least 21 inches by 2100 and might increase a bit more than three feet, the draft report said."

 The "8-inch increase in the 20th century" is very close to Maccabbee's own figure of "6 inches in 80 years."  Actually, Maccabee's figure comes out to 1.5 inches per 20 years.  Add 20 years to Maccabee's figure to get a century and you're at 7.5 inches. Another two inches in the 21st century is not only conceivable, but probably highly optimistic.

Maccabee asserts this is 'speculation, not science' but goes on to use words like absurd and ridiculous - distinctly unscientific terms - to challenge the report.

I've linked Maccabee to the Koch brothers in the title. I don't want to commit the rhetorical fallacy of guilt by association.  The facts about how Maccabee mischaracterizes the report speak for themselves.   However, to a certain extent, it doesn't hurt to look at the credentials of the people involved, how they do their work, and who supports them.

The IPPC is made up of climate scientists from around the world reviewing the scientific works on these issues.  They won a Nobel Prize in 2007 for their work.  You can read more about what they are doing and how here. 

One should also ask about Dr. Maccabee's credentials on Climate Change.  He's an MD who has a UC Berkeley PhD in Radiation Biophysics.** A Heartland video presentation he made on Climate Change says Dr Maccabee is the President of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness.  His environmental resume says he was President from 1982-4 and is still on their Board.   Their website has lots of pseudo scientific articles that deny climate change.  But there is nothing on it to say who they are or who funds them.  But Sourcewatch reports:

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) "promotes homeland defense and prudent preparedness for disasters of all kinds, including war or terrorism," according to its website. Topics addressed by DDP include "global warming, ozone 'depletion,' radiation hazards and radiation hormesis." ^[1]
DDP is skeptical of climate change, as the title of their web page on the subject suggests: "Ozone hole, Global warming, and other Environmental Scares." ^[2]Doctors For Disaster Preparedness was a co-sponsor to the Third International Conference on Climate Change , which in turn was sponsored by the Heartland Institute.

The Heartland Insitute is  funded by ALEC and the Koch Brothers - the main source of Climate Change Deniology. ( I first wrote about ALEC when I attended a presentation they gave to legislators in Juneau in February 2011.)

These are the hard core climate deniers.  Guilt by association can be fraught with logical dangers.  But it's also helpful to know where speakers come from.  Using someone from the Heartland Association to talk about climate change is like inviting a member of the Nazi Party to talk about Jews.  (I know that using Nazi similes is frowned on, but I'm reading a book that takes place in Berlin in 1933 and the similarities are striking for both make a science of propaganda.  I'm not saying these people are Nazis, but their objectivity is about the same as Nazi objectivity.  And Climate Change deniers, to the extent that they hold back Congress and other governing bodies from taking serious action now, could endanger the lives of far more people than the Nazis killed.) 

Here's another article by Gillis specifically looking at water level reports.

** This is almost totally unrelated, but quirkily interesting.  When I first tried to look up Maccabee's academic field, I switched around the terms and googled "Bioradiation Physics" I didn't find anything until page three where I found "professor of medical radiation and physics."  Clicking on it got me to this page of  Berkeley at War : The 1960s

by W.J. Rorabaugh Professor of History University of Washington.

click to enlarge and focus  from Berkeley At War

Heynes was the new UC Berkeley Chancellor in 1965 after the Free Speech protests on campus.  I'd note these events at the Berkeley campus took place 30 years before Maccabee got his PhD there and that Professor Jones was probably long gone.  But it is eerie. 

How's Uncle Adolf? Surveillance Then And Now

'It was Rudolf Diels who first conveyed to Martha the unfunny reality of Germany's emerging culture of surveillance.  One day he invited her to his office and with evident pride showed her an array of equipment used for recording telephone conversations.  He led her to believe that eavesdropping apparatus had indeed been installed in the chancery of the U.S. embassy and in her home."

Martha, an attractive 20 something, is the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany, appointed by FDR in 1933.  She has a lot of suitors from all different political shadings, including Diels, head of the Gestapo.

"Prevailing wisdom held that Nazi agents hid their microphones in telephones to pick up conversations in the surrounding rooms.  Late one night, Diels seemed to confirm this.  Martha and he had gone dancing.  Afterward, upon arrival at her house, Diels accompanied her upstairs to the library for a drink.  He was uneasy and wanted to talk.  Martha grabbed a large pillow, then walked across the room toward her father's desk.  Diels, perplexed, asked what she was doing.  She told him she planned to put the pillow over the telephone.  Diels nodded slowly, she recalled, and 'a sinister smile crossed his lips.'"** 

Author Erik Larson, in his non-fiction In The Garden Of The Beasts,  goes on to talk about the insidious effects of a government listening in to its people's phones.  And we can extend that to emails and video cameras all over I'm sure.

"She told her father about it the next day.  The news surprised him.  Though he accepted the fact of intercepted mail, tapped telephones and telegraph lines, and the likelihood of eavesdropping at the chancery, he never would have imagined a government so brazen as to place microphones in a diplomat's private residence.  .  .

"As time passed the Dodds found themselves confronting an amorphous anxiety that infiltrated their days and gradually altered the way they led their lives.  The change came about slowly, arriving like a pale mist that slipped into every crevice.  It was something everyone who lived in Berlin seemed to experience.  You began to think differently about whom you met for lunch and for that matter what café or restaurant you chose, because rumors circulated about which establishments were favorite targets of Gestapo agents - the bar at the Adlon, for example.  You lingered at street corners a beat or two longer to see if the faces you saw at the last corner had now turned up at this one.  In the most casual of circumstances you spoke carefully and paid attention to those around you in a way you never had before.  Berliners came to practice what became known as "the German glance" - der deutsche Blick - a quick look in all directions when encountering a friend or acquaintance on the street.  .  .

"After vacations and weekends away, the family's return was always darkened by the likelihood that in their absence new devices had been installed, old ones refreshed. 'There is no way on earth one can describe in the coldness of words on paper what this espionage can do to the human being,' Martha wrote.  It suppressed routine discourse - 'the family's conferences and freedom of speech and action were so circumscribed we lost even the faintest resemblance to a normal American family.  Whenever we wanted to talk we had to look around corners and behind doors, watch for the telephone and speak in whispers."  The strain of all this took a toll on Martha's mother.  'As time went on, and the horror increased,' Martha wrote, 'her courtesy and graciousness towards the Nazi officials she was forced to meet, entertain, and sit beside, became so intense a burden she could scarcely bear it.'" [pp, 224-226]

 The book's kept my close attention.  There's lots that's applicable today.  While we're still a distance from experiencing the fear described here, it's a slow process as security agencies slowly access more personal information about people.  And then when an administration willing to exploit it comes into office, any one who disagrees with the leaders has to be concerned.

Larson cites a joke that was common:

"One man telephones another and in the course of their conversation happens to ask, 'How is Uncle Adolf?'  Soon afterward the secret police appear at his door and insist that he prove that he really does have an Uncle Adolf and that the question was not in fact a coded reference to Hitler."

This sort of thing does happen in the US today if you are involved with Muslim organizations.  The ACLU's Blog of Rights has the story of a twenty year old American born Muslim working for a Muslim charity.  Here's a part of the story:

In March 2012, a man named Shamiur Rahman messaged me on Facebook. I didn't know at the time that he was working as a police informant. Rahman told me he was trying to become a better practicing Muslim, and that he wanted to get involved with FSNYC. He asked me whether there were "any events or anything" he could attend soon. We had several friends in common, and I was happy to help him in his quest for religious self-improvement, so I introduced him to my friends in FSNYC. He started to attend all our meetings and became a part of my circle of friends. On several occasions, I invited him to my family's house, where he met my parents and ate with our family. Once, he spent the night in my family's home.
Rahman would ask everyone he met for their phone number, often within minutes of meeting them. He also often tried to take photos with or of people he met through me.
The next month, two friends separately told me that they had heard that NYPD informants had infiltrated FSNYC. I was advised to step down to avoid being targeted, but I decided not to step down because I knew that I had not done anything wrong. Still, I stopped publicizing FSNYC's activities and following up on many matters regarding the organization.
When I told other FSNYC members about the NYPD informant, one board member decided to be less active in the organization, and several members told me that they would stop their activities with our group largely because of their fear of being spied on by police informants. In June 2012, FSNYC stopped functioning. [for the whole story click here.]

 Perhaps there's extra poignancy for me.  My father had three or four older aunts who ran a boarding house in Berlin.  They and my father's half brother, also in Berlin, were all eventually taken to concentration camps.  I have letters from them downstairs that my father had kept, from before they disappeared. 

But Janet Maslin, the NY Times reviewer of In the Garden of Beasts  also found it compelling.  It's non-fiction based on diaries kept by Ambassador Dodd (an unlikely appointment, he was a history professor in Chicago, but had done his undergraduate work in Leipzig, Germany years before), Martha's papers and books, and hundreds of other sources.

**Of course, there are other interpretations possible here.  Larson cites Martha's book here for this, and she's interpreting his smile as sinister.  Perhaps he was pleased to encourage her belief that he was tapping this phone.  We always have to be careful not to turn possibilities we encounter into facts.  

Don't Eat Contaminated Fish And Other Tales Of The Last Day In LA

 

I made a few phone calls and then biked an hour down along Venice Beach to Marina del Rey where I found this sign that belied the healthy look of the water of Santa Monica Bay.

 

The fog had been pushed way out, but you could see it off in the distance.  (Not in this picture, but further out on the left.  

We did odds and ends for my mom, made more phone calls to clear up bills that we'd thought had been cleared up.  There's no end to having to check and double each statement.  We also managed to drive my mom to the cemetery - Monday is the anniversary of my brother's death.  He died in a work accident at age 23.  It's 38 years now.  My mom used to take flowers there every week for years and years, but now that she can't drive and getting in and out of the car is hard, it's not so often.   And then back home and then the caregiver dropped us off at the bus stop.  We had lots of time, but it was getting into rush hour.  The first bus was packed and I figured the next one would be emptier.  They wouldn't let us onto that one, too full.  But we had a good time talking to various folks waiting for the bus.  A guy from the music industry who'd gone to Hollywood to pick up his new $8,000 bike, but the bank didn't release the money, so he had to take the bus back home instead of his new bike - as in bicycle, not motorcycle.  And there was a fellow in a wheel chair who was a little pissed at not being let on the bus.  But before too long a relatively empty Rapid bus picked us up and we got to the airport in plenty of time.   On the bus we fell into a conversation with a guy who'd live on 30th and Spenard in the early 90's and it was clear he remembered Anchorage fondly. 

 

The sun was over the horizon as we took off.  In this picture I'm looking over the south beaches (the opposite of the previous picture.)

I don't recall ever flying so close to the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and Ventura.  You can see the fog bank just beyond the islands.

My travel preference from long ago is to go somewhere for a long time - say three months or better yet a year.  But with kids and mom scattered along the west coast, and mom needing more and more attention, we've racked up enough miles to be MVP (20,000 miles or more on Alaska Airlines) the last few years. 

That means when you book in advance, you have your choice of all the seats to choose from.  It also means two free check-in bags - though we usually just do carry on.  But with Alaska's 20 minute guarantee, we have checked them in sometimes.  Especially if we have a long layover somewhere and want to get out of the airport.  But we also get bumped up into First Class every now and then.  

The times we've been in first class, we've gotten a meal that I would call a nice snack.  Hot, nicely put on the plate, but not much food.  This time it was different.  We had a Niçoise Salad, a pasta dish, and Salted Caramel Budino.  (The ones I saw online seemed solid.  This one was a hot liquid.  I knew it was full of things I wouldn't normally eat.  Looking at the recipes was a mistake.  Impressive.  And then a little bowl of warm nuts.  

The Niçoise Salad

Maybe we got all this food because this was the non-stop flight - almost 5 hours.   Which also gave me lots of time to read my book for Monday's book club meeting - Erik Larson's In The Garden Of Beasts.  It's a fascinating non-fiction account of a history professor who gets appointed ambassador to Germany in 1933 when Roosevelt got turned down first by several more likely candidates.  It takes place in mostly Berlin, a place I first visited as a student the year I spent in Germany.  It's fascinating to see the conflict from the people who get around and know what's going on and the newcomers to Germany who see the surface and don't believe things are that bad. 

We'd been hearing that it's been raining while we were gone, but that it should be sunny Saturday.  The tarmac was wet when we landed.  And it's late August and by midnight it was actually dark.

Landing in Anchorage

But it wasn't raining and the air felt fresh and comfortable.  Nice to be home.  But these trips to visit Mom are going to be pretty regular.

The Dark Side of the Internet: Anonymity After All?

 KCRW had an interesting discussion of Internet security.  In light of NSA's spying, they discussed the small minority of web surfers who use anonymous surfing software like Tor which is triple encrypted.  One of the panel members suggested NSA only reads email of ordinary folks because the people with something to hide, use Tor.  Tor was created by the US government to help out journalists and dissidents in countries that persecute dissenters.  But it seems it is also what makes black market websites possible too.

Here's their description:

Are 'Dark Networks' a Threat or a Haven Online? (1:08PM)

Revelations about the government’s electronic surveillance have raised alarms about privacy. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that the National Security Agency’s capacity is even broader than has reported before—enabling it to reach " roughly 75% of all US Internet traffic."Is there any way to use the Internet secretly? Yes, there is. It's the Darknet, available through software that allows anonymous browsing—and, increasingly—provides opportunities for organized crime. On Silk Road, for example, customers can find LSD, cocaine and heroin as if they were shopping on Amazon — anonymously. Why hasn't the government cracked down? Are there legitimate reasons for Internet users to conceal their identities?

Guests:

• Joseph Menn: Reuters, @josephmenn
• Andy Greenberg: Forbes magazine, @a_greenberg
• Karen Reilly: Tor Project, @torproject
• Nate Anderson: Ars Technica, @natexanderson

You can listen to it here:

The Dark Side of the Internet: Anonymity After All? - To the Point on KCRW