The 4th Amendment and Email

Tonight there was an interesting broadcast of To The Point examining email privacy rights and the 4th amendment, with reference to the recent warrantless FBI investigation resulting in the resignation of David Petraeus as the director of the CIA. The program also featured Declan McCullagh, author of this piece on c|net. The judicial system has… Continue reading The 4th Amendment and Email

Late night stealth

I would like to share with you some things I’ve learned about creeping around stealthily late at night, after the family have gone to bed, in case you find yourself in a similar situation. I’m pretty good at it now. So, obviously to avoid waking anyone up, you want to avoid making any noise, and… Continue reading Late night stealth

The Second Amendment

Why do people support the second amendment? I’m going to try to avoid straw man arguments here. And the first straw man argument to avoid, I think, is: “because it protects us from tyranny: if the government becomes corrupt, we can rise up and overthrow it.” Perhaps I’m being naive, but do people really believe… Continue reading The Second Amendment

A musical interlude

I had piano lessons at around age 5, and again around age 10. I never practised enough or liked my teacher much. As a teenager at university, I went back to the piano to play tunes that I wanted to, and taught myself enough to get by on those. After university, nothing for a long… Continue reading A musical interlude

Merry Xmas

This year it was a fairly quiet affair, seeing as we’d already visited family in late summer and at Thanksgiving. The kids did well as usual. Mini-Elbeno got a Kindle Fire from the grandparents (and has been bound not to buy anything on it without the express permission and help of Mrs Elbeno or myself).… Continue reading Merry Xmas

Our UK Trip

We’ve been in the UK about a week now. Here’s what happened so far: The flight was good because it wasn’t full. There was a spare seat next to us which meant the kids could both stretch out a bit and get some sleep. American Airlines has a new policy (brought on by some overly-litigious… Continue reading Our UK Trip

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RIP drm

This week, Dennis M. Ritchie, co-creator of C and Unix, died. His death has not made the front page like Steve Jobs’ did. But although the non-tech world had never heard of him, he was more important than Jobs. I can still remember buying my copy of K&R, that slim volume that was my reference… Continue reading RIP drm

It’s October

And that means the 17th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is underway. This year there are many entries playable on the web! What will they think of next, eh? Also, Blizzcon approaches (a little more than 2 weeks away), another Humble Bundle is out (and as good as usual), and today it rained quite a lot… Continue reading It’s October

Diablo III Beta goes public

After a few weeks of being friends and family only (and sorry to my games industry friends, but you weren’t allowed in either) it’s now open season for the Diablo III Beta test.