rantlust

Posted by anupcs on August 01st 2008 in Computers, Government, USA
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This is not exactly new news but for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security is admitting that their border enforcement policies include confiscating electronic equipment such as laptops, cellphones, external hard disks, iPods, etc. This can be done without any reasonable cause of suspicion. According to The Washington Post:

The policies state that officers may “detain” laptops “for a reasonable period of time” to “review and analyze information.” This may take place “absent individualized suspicion.”

I first heard of this egregious policy a couple of months ago when computer security maven Bruce Schneier blogged about the ruling by a US court that border agents can do this with no restrictions. I have been traveling a lot internationally and often have my laptop (plus PDA, cellphone, flash drives, etc.) with me and so far the only untoward border incident has been me stupidly forgetting the laptop at the security conveyor belt at Washington, DC. (Luckily for me, it ended up in the TSA lost and found and I was able to have a friend pick it up and mail it to me.) But the odds of me being a victim of “profiling” are rather high and I am taking no chances in the future.

The obvious solution to avoid the scenario of not having your laptop for weeks (or in one case, months) is to not take one. Or for that matter, don’t take anything that you don’t want usurped at the border. Schneier has some other recommendations at his site.

Another option is to carry a content-free laptop with you. Recently, I purchased for my organization a laptop meant for just this purpose. The idea is to re-install the laptop with a new operating system (Opensolaris in our case) every time we cross the US border. We plan to do this both to and fro from our travels so that there is no trace left of our usage and more importantly no company confidential information. I also keep a cheap unlocked Motorola Razr phone for international roaming or local sim card use. And my ancient iPod still gets toted around. I don’t care if they usurp any of these from me. Though now I am seriously debating whether I should even carry my fancier dSLR abroad or just take my point and shoot.

If the goal of the terrorists was to make America more like some of the countries they come from, they have won the war already. I long for the day when we can transport ourselves by hologram.

You can read the full customs policy here.

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Posted by renéejo on July 28th 2008 in Economics, USA
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It seems like things are getting real bad out there in the good old US of A. Because the OPEC gods haven’t been smiling on America of late, some upstanding citizens are turning to the real deal for lower gasoline prices.

A few people gathered in a gas station in St. Louis recently to pray to God for lower gas prices. Are cartoons allowed?

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Posted by anupcs on March 19th 2008 in Politics, Rants, Society, USA
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If my wife and I ever have any children, they would be neither “brown” nor “yellow” but something else entirely (I am South Asian and my wife is Taiwanese). So, why do people perceive Barack Obama as black? His mother is fully white as far as I know and he’s biracial and both white and black. Why is everyone referring to him as the first black person to have a real chance at winning the presidency?

As the furor over the racial remarks by a pastor associated with Obama rages on, I am really curious about this. Obama is definitely the first half-black person to have a chance at becoming president but he’s not fully black. Maybe the Obamans in the audience can shed some light to this mystery.

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Posted by anupcs on March 15th 2008 in Politics, USA
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As much as you might hate George W. Bush, check this out. He sings and makes fun of himself (Brownie, Dick, and Harriet makes appearances) at the annual dinner with Washington journalists. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad (and I don’t mean him leaving the White House come January).

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Posted by anupcs on February 05th 2008 in Government, Politics, USA
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It’s been a long while since I left the world’s largest democracy to come live in the world’s oldest. I have always been interested in civics and politics and missed the joys of participating in true democratic process. I have voted only a few times in India and now, fifteen years after coming to the US, I am ready to vote again. As a freshly minted American citizen. I couldn’t ask for a more interesting election year to do this.

As an undeclared voter (I am up for grabs, you party people!), I feel like I will have more power in this particular election (both the primaries and the main one in November) than any other time in recent memory. It feels good to know that my vote will make at least an iota of a difference. In California, the Republicans don’t allow independents to vote in the primary election but the Democrats do. I am quite certain, as is everyone else, that McCain will prevail over Romney in the former (as I would have voted despite Romney’s business acumen and experience in “running” things). It’s the Democratic primary that’s more captivating just because of the high brainpower remaining.

Both Clinton and Obama are exceptionally gifted. If either one becomes president, it’d truly be a historic occurrence. Both have quite the same goals for the country despite the vitriolic attacks against each other (see Clinton, Bill on race and Obama’s macaca moment as examples). I have friends and co-workers who are passionate about one or the other but I’d be happy with either being my president. With only a few hours remaining to vote, I am still undecided. I probably won’t decide which way the cursive goes until the curtains are drawn. Some of my friends are voting for Obama because they are convinced that he’s more electable against McCain than Clinton. This might very well be true but for an independent like me, I am not so much against McCain as my Democratic friends are. I believe in checks and balances and politicians of all ilk are bound to screw things up if left unchecked. A Democratic Congress plus a Democratic President is likely to be as bad as the potent combination that ruled us six of the the last seven years. In different ways, perhaps. But there is much homework to be done before November rolls around. All the best to the three candidates that matter today.

I will leave you with some of my favorite opinions/articles regarding this election (I have been reading up vigorously over the past month or so):

• http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/02/04/undecided/ (similar dilemma)
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/27/ED6EUKN15.DTL (for Obama)
• http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10635584 (choices)
• http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0205/p09s01-coop.html
• http://www.sajaforum.org/2008/01/media-watch-use.html (rather silly argument)
• http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/all-you-need-is-hate/index.html (on hating Hillary–thanks tafkap)

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Posted by meerkat on September 19th 2007 in Internet, Society, Technology, USA
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I am looking to move to another apartment in San Francisco and boy, is that difficult! I am looking for apartments by browsing Craigslist and have set up RSS feeds on my home page. I constantly check to see if there are any apartments on the market. There are a few that come up now and then. It is not as straight forward as elsewhere in the bay area. There is this open house that you have to go to and there are so many people that show up there looking for a place to live in SF. The owner of the apartment gets to choose the lucky one from many many many applications. Owners’ market for sure. I have found that an open house is a waste of my time competing with so many people and try avoiding them altogether.

Then, I look for ads that do not call for an open house. There are no guarantees even here. When the owner gets too many emails from people looking for a place, they call for an open house eventually. This is what happens in most of the cases in SF. Anyway, I chanced upon an ad that sounded so good.

$1500 / 2br - Amazing apartment! W/D, D/W, A/C, 1300 sqft, all is included, parking (noe valley) (Read more…)

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Posted by anupcs on September 05th 2007 in Geography, Travel, USA, World
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Recently, fellow blogger Suman asked me half jokingly if there are places in this world that I haven’t been to. Sure, I do love to travel and go to places (some of them damn near exotic) whenever the budget, boss and wife come into perfect alignment and more importantly post photographs and travelogues online. But even my travels have taken me to only a small fraction of this big world of ours. Quite a few of my close friends have been to far more places than I have. Something that can be visualized by the following maps. The first one details all the countries in the world I have been to and the second one displays all the states in the US that I have been to. You can generate your own such links here (world) and here (US).

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Posted by meerkat on August 27th 2007 in Food & Wine, Trivia, USA
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When I read about the deep fried Pepsi, I could not believe my eyes. I have heard of deep fried snickers, oreos, reese’s peanut butter cups, cakes and what not. How does one deep fry pepsi?

Here is a snippet from the NY Times article,

“Jeremy Orme, who runs Fried Creations, the home of the Combo Plate, introduced a new item at this year’s fair: deep-fried Pepsi. He rolls out his Pepsi-based dough, dips it in a batter made with Pepsi and deep-fries it for 90 seconds. His oil, made of soybeans, is trans-fat free as required, and on the front of his booth he has posted a local newspaper’s account about the fair’s trans-fat ban”

Notice that it is deep fried for sure, but it is trans fat free. So, no guilt involved, even if you have to get yourself an all new wardrobe after the fair.

While on the topic of deep fried everything, I read that French fries are not really French. It is supposedly a Belgian marvel and the French stands for the type of the cut, which means to cut in thin, long strips. I guess a lot of time was wasted after 9/11 renaming French fries and French toast(which is also not French) to Freedom fries and Freedom Toast.

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