Mis­cel­la­neous links.

• I mentioned Schneier on security theater recently. Via Pavel, I see that Schneier notes that a five-year-old was detained at SeaTac because his name appeared on a no-fly list.

• Male fruit flies, when drunk, become much more likely to court other male fruit flies. Or, Oh God, I was so drunk …

• Health insurance companies are making out like bandits in Washington state.

• Here’s a damning RIAA interview, via Gabriel:

  When asked why the RIAA is going after an easy target–college students–the response made me cringe: "College students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crys­tal­lized," Duckworth said. "And their ap­pre­ci­a­tion for in­tel­lec­tu­al property has not yet reached its full de­vel­op­ment."

• A useful, non-partisan guide …continue.

David Postman says that State Senator Eric Oemig is once again pushing for im­peach­ment in the Washington State Leg­is­la­ture. Washington for Im­peach­ment has the text of SJM 8016.

Here’s the comment that I posted under Postman’s article. It’s based upon a speech that I gave at Toast­mas­ters last year.

I’ve had enough. I’m sick of the lies. I’m tired of the scandals. I’m angry at the loss of civil liberties.

Scandals like the US Attorneys’ firings, the Walter Reed out­pa­tients, the Katrina debacle. Pardoning Scooter Libby, who outed an undercover CIA agent. Voter sup­pres­sion. The War on Science. Theocracy. Corruption. The War on the En­vi­ron­ment. Food safety. Toy safety. The Pat Tillman coverup. Terri Schiavo. 700+ signing statements.

The lies. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell lied to …continue.

A collection of short stories and a play, all char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly dark. Tales of fucked-up lives, tales of people with shitty pasts and no futures, tales of revenge.

Lehane writes bril­liant­ly. His spare de­scrip­tion, his dialogue brings the characters to life on the page.

The play, "Coronado", is adapted from an earlier short story, "Until Gwen" — also part of this collection. The repetition does not feel redundant. The play fleshes out the short story, telling it in a different manner.

Rec­om­mend­ed, but depressing.

This anthology of diaries contains several entries for every day of the year, drawn from 170 con­trib­u­tors across three-and-a-half centuries. Everyone from Pepys to Goebbels, from Che Guevara to Alec Guinness.

I spent all of last year reading this book, trying to read each day’s entries as they occurred. I often failed and would have to read a week or more’s entries to catch up. I fell behind towards the end, not finishing my daily devotions until yesterday.

The …continue.

One woman has been mutilated and another murdered on the bleak moors of Derbyshire. Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry in­ves­ti­gate.

The novel is at least as much about the tense re­la­tion­ship between Cooper and Fry as it is about the mystery itself. This is the second in a series of Cooper-Fry books. Cooper is a local boy, deeply rooted in the rural community, pleasant and trusting. Fry is a bitter loner, who trans­ferred in from a distant city. Quickly promoted over Cooper, she can’t understand his easygoing nature.

The mystery is …continue.

Another urban fantasy featuring the witch, Rachel Morgan, who runs an in­ves­ti­ga­tion agency with a vampire, in a world where ordinary humans were decimated by a virus and vampires, Weres, witches, pixies, and more live openly.

Morgan is reckless and addicted to living on the edge, and her friends will pay a heavy price before the end of the book. You’d want Rachel on your side in a fight, but you’d probably be ex­as­per­at­ed with her the rest of the time. She battles demons, both metaphor­i­cal and …continue.

Mis­cel­la­neous links.

• Via Dilip, the epic struggle between an animation and its animator.

• Sparky gets himself tasered. De­lib­er­ate­ly. Geesh!

• We at Cozi partnered with Whirlpool to produce an edition of the Cozi software running on a fridge. It has been demon­strat­ed at this year’s CES (Consumer Elec­tron­ics Show), where it’s getting favorable reviews. Dory Devlin likes it. Watch Walt Mossberg talk about it too.

This book contains 40 usability guidelines for websites, ranging from Eliminate the Reset button and disable the Submit button after it’s clicked to Give an error message that’s noticeable at a glance to Be upfront about item un­avail­abi­ity. The topics include error messages, clear in­struc­tions, friendly forms, overcoming missing pages, helpful help, obstacles to conversion, and search.

When I state them that baldly, they sound obvious. But they’re not. The 37 Signals guys have amply il­lus­trat­ed each guideline with examples of sites that violated the guideline, and sites …continue.

Iron Council is Miéville’s third novel set in the world of Bas-Lag, where thau­matur­gy (magic) works along with steampunk technology and humans live alongside other sentient species.

Two decades ago, the city-state of New Crobuzon started building a railroad across an enormous desert. The workers are humans, cactacae (cactus people), and Remade (criminals grotesque­ly modified by thau­matur­gy, with animal or mechanical parts grafted on). Eventually, they rebel against the heavy-handed overseers, and flee far into the badlands. Known as the Iron Council, their legend lives on in New Crobuzon.

By …continue.

Today’s odds and ends.

• George MacDonald Fraser died the other day. He was the author of the marvelous Flashman novels. I reviewed the last Flashman novel a year ago.

• Kiva seems like a really good idea, connecting people in the emerging world who need microloans with people who can afford to lend them $25.

  Last summer, we attended a house party for Marc Gold of the 100 Friends project. He’s a sort of one-man Santa Claus, personally handing out money to needy people and or­ga­ni­za­tions.

• Zane, whose superpower is knowing a Web 2.0 ap­pli­ca­tion for every problem, reminded me on Friday of Mint. I just signed up. Mint keeps track of your money across all your accounts and …continue.