Reading: How To Break A Terrorist
About halfway through the book: How to break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym). Its a quick read and really shows how this team of (interro-) ‘gators succeeded by putting up a mask of respect and cultural understanding and really digging into the religious and family lives of their suspects.
I have studied the ethics of deception in criminal investigation and interrogation and have seen some of the worse abuse cases, where innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit because the police convinced them that they had evidence that would ensure their conviction (see: Martin Tankleff). I can certainly see the need to use deception to build rapport with suspected terrorists, and in this case clearly agree with the idea that it is better to use deception then force to get the information we need to investigate and stop terrorist networks.
One thing that bothers me is the use of “the prisoners dilemma”, I wonder if anyone has ever studied how this works with larger numbers of “players” and combining personal vs organizational goals. Obviously the threat of being hanged by the provisional Iraqi courts should loosen some tongues, but the military ‘gators can’t really be trusted when they say they can offer freedom and safety for you and your family for giving up info on ongoing insurgent activity. Anyway it seems that keeping your mouth shut is still best for every suspect, especially since the authorities just can’t protect you from reprisals.
Also, I can’t help but get my pop culture sensitivities bugged by the author’s lack in Internet cultural literacy. He is overly amused by a list of daily “Randyisms” written on a corner of their staff chalkboard, without realizing these are just “Chuck Norris facts” pulled from the internet and rewritten to show how bad ass their operations officer Randy is.
@bbcluther @idriselba - OK something is seriously wrong with me - I’m watching a serial killer get interrogated and completely getting distracted by trying to tell if the changing dice on the table are due to slight of hand or a continuity error
Took a short nap after work and just woke up from this recurring dream for like the 20th time in my life, after many cycles of leaving school, working, and going back to my education. In actuality I am finishing up the last class for my masters degree in 3 weeks, but in the dream I distinctly just realized in a panic I was failing a class I had stopped going to, couldn’t even remember what day of the week or where the class was located.
Maybe it has something to do with quitting my job, or the olive hummus I ate and the Twin Peaks episode I watched just before napping. It makes me feel so much better to see so many people have had the same dream even long after college and there is a xkcd comic about it.
Ok please like this, retweet, and reblog- everyone should know they are not the only one with this dream
On March 1, 2011, I released a free eBook of the complete works of Lovecraft in EPUB and MOBI formats. On March 21, 2011, someone uploaded a copy of the MOBI file (with a different cover and missing the intro) started selling it on Amazon. I didn’t discover this until June 18th, 2011, by which time it had achieved a 5-star rating and a good sales rank. I am very disappointed and wish to a) outline proofs to back up my assertion that this is the eBook I created and b) clarify a few points regarding the eBook’s distribution (and c) talk about my feelings on the subject).
That’s the setup. After you’ve read this and seen my supporting evidence, I hope you’ll go over to Amazon and up-vote the negative reviews which people have already left for the book. There are plenty, so we probably don’t need more. I’m taking formal steps to have it taken down, but in the meantime those reviews may help others find the original eBook and keep them from being defrauded. The more up-votes, the better.
My goal in all of this is not to make money off of the eBook and despite my disappointment I will not be taking it down as a free download on my site (because it turns out we can have nice things). My only goal is to stop someone else from making money off of the countless hours I put into creating it. It’s an odd kind of reverse-piracy, like taking a free MP3 album an artist has uploaded to their website and selling it as one’s own.
I have this eBook, which I downloaded from Ruth’s site. It’s amazing, and brilliantly put together. I love that she made it.
Whoever took it and put it on Amazon for sale is a piece of shit. Sharing is one thing, but profiting from the hard work of others — especially when that hard work was done out of love and explicitly not for profit — makes me ten kinds of stabby.
(via dreamyeyed)
Hey bitcoin hoarders I think Ill stick with trading cards as a stable investment
Geek/Tech F2F networking week
I am really stepping up my game in face to face networking. I am actually sort of surprised how comfortable I am at talking about myself, if anything I should be asking more questions and letting other people steer the conversation more.
Sunday: Met with The Open Organization of Lockpickers at noisebridge. Learned some basics and picked my first few easy locks. They gave an in depth presentation on Bogata Rake picks, how to hand craft them, and showed how easy it is to conceal a light 2 pick set inside your clothing with a safety pin.
Monday: Edited a group paper profiling the green river killer, had to deal with a 6 hour internet outage that prevented me from turning it in on time.Ended up with a B+ in forensics and profiling.
Tuesday: Left work killed 4 hours in the mission, went to a BoingBoing SF community meetup at the Orbit room. Open bar, free pizza and snacks, great conversations, good times.
Wednesday: I was considering going to a free Duper8 screening but ended up crashing early and caught up with sleep.
Thursday: Went to monthly Mix-It-Up East Bay meeting in Oakland, a progressive political mixer where different people present their ideas and action items. Richard Raya from California Forward talked about the state budget. We had to struggle to talk politics over the NBA finals. Met some cool people working on various civic boards. Really got a kick bringing up http://thisguyhasmymacbook.tumblr.com/ in conversations as an example of how clueless our government is to technology and social media.
Friday: Went to the Etsy craftparty at TechShop SF. Hung out with my friend David, missed a golden opportunity to mingle with girls but I had a good time. Made some buttons and stiched together an awesome Doctor Doom out of felt. Chatted politics and pride with a gay photographer who never heard of Bradly Manning.
Saturday: Biked across Oakland to meet up with the East Bay Futurists for a chat. After talking about various topics such as Maker Faire, cognitive bias and the quantified self we had an epic Apple vs. Google chat that really made an impression on me.
Was going to post some biographic info but this picture of what sits on top of my desk says a lot.
