09.29.03

Best Practices for Time Travelers

When John Titor first showed up on IRC chat in October of 2000, he was enjoying a neat kind of double billing - as his 38-year-old self sat downstairs in the kitchen, typing away, a two-year-old version of himself lay sound asleep upstairs in bed. The elder Titor had been sent back in time by the U.S. Army, which needed him to fetch some legacy computer hardware from the 1970's, and he had a sort of layover in the year 2000. So like anyone with time to kill, he went online.

Titor arrived in Florida in a 2036 model Corvette (later sold off) outfitted with a 500 pound military-grade time travel device that he photographed and posted online, complete with manual. The reason for his visit was utilitarian - he had been sent back to the 1970's to fetch a model IBM 5100 computer, "because Unix has problems in 2038", and the 5100 had an undocumented feature that made it highly desirable to programmers working on the Unix bug. Apparently the Army of 2036 knew enough to build a time machine, but wasn't able to fix a word-size error in a legacy operating system.

That bit actually made the whole story sound plausible to me.

While waiting for his connection to the 1970's, Titor paid a number of visits to IRC and message boards, answering questions and giving people an idea of what the future held in store. Because he kept his story internally consistent, offered a high level of detail, and didn't much seem to care if anyone believed him, Titor naturally convinced boatloads of people that he was the real deal.

The world of 2036, as Titor describes it, will be a strange place (and you don't want to drink the water). The capital of the United States is in Omaha. The whole world has been through a nuclear war, part of an agrarian/urban conflict that dates all the way back to 2004 (Titor calls it the Second Civil War). People are living in smaller communities, and have moved back to the land. Today's libertarians are all proven right. In many respects, the pace of technological change has regressed. Except, of course, for the bit about the time machine.

Titor moved along in his travels in 2001, leaving behind a videotape of his departure that is regrettably lost, as well as a thriving communitiy of true believers who are eagerly waiting for 2004 to see if his prophecy of a string of Waco-like crises pans out. There's presumably a five-year-old John Titor growing up somewhere in Florida, and some deliriously happy car nut tooling around in a used 2036 Corvette.

Titor's courage in telling his story seems to have opened the floodgates, encouraging other time travellers to come forward and tell their own stories. This makes sense - after all, if time travel is possible, then the present should be roiling with visitors from the future. Their silence suggests a certain bashfulness and a lack of certainty about how to reveal themselves online. So taking inspiration from John Titor, I would suggest the following set of best practices for the online time traveller. (If you've already made your Internet debut before reading these guidelines, don't fret - simply travel back in time and make the appropriate changes!):

1. Act like you don't care whether people believe you
   
   A real time traveler would be crazy to try and prove his identity - you'll either end up somewhere in a Pentagon sub-sub-basement, or drugged out of your gourd in a mental health facility. Much better to say you've come to a paranormal discussion board because you know there's no risk of people taking you seriously. Play hard to get!


2. Don't be afraid to make wooly predictions
   
   So maybe you don't remember your early 21st century history too well. Or maybe you've ended up in a parallel universe that doesn't quite match what you know of your own world's past. You can still make predictions - just don't tie yourself down! For example, Titor predicted that something interesting was about to happen at CERN: "The breakthrough that will allow for [time travel] technology will occur within a year or so [2001] when CERN brings their larger facility online". But when a giddy speculative article about miniature black holes appeared in 2001, did people nitpick and point out that no breakthrough had actually occurred? Of course not - they were impressed by Titor's spooky prescience. That's the effect you want.


3. Read up on your physics
   
   Tensors, closed time-like curves, manifolds, shmanifolds - it's a lot to keep straight. After all, you just push the button, why should you know how the thing works? But if you want to be believed, you'll have to sound convincing about the underlying physics. Here again, Titor is your model. Instead of spouting voodoo about flux capacitors, tachyons, or the fifth dimension, he grounds himself firmly in general relativity with talk about electrically charged microsingularities (mini-black holes). Don't forget that quantum gravity isn't understood until... well, you know when. In the early 21st century, time travel through black holes is still an open question.
   
   But do be careful if you start offering too many specifics. Not only might someone steal your plans and build a time machine decades too soon, but you might even slip up and end up with egg on your face. Just look at John Titor, who completely forgot to read up on Hawking radiation. His two-black-hole time machine was supposed to weigh 500 pounds. But even assuming that each of the black holes weighed 100 kg (220 lbs) - leaving only 60 lbs for the rest of the device - both of those puppies would have had to have been radiating energy at about 3 x 10e29 Watts (the equivalent of over a thousand suns), at a temperature of 1.2 x 10e21 Kelvin (twelve orders of magnitude more than the core of a supernova). And their lifetime would have been just eight trillionths of a second.
   
   Whoops! Not a lot of time to hit the big red button.
   
   So don't go all crazy on the details, or you're bound to misremember something. "Black holes" is plenty, you don't get hung up on weights and measures.


4. Cover Your Ass
   
   What do you do when the harmonic convergence of 2004 turns out to be a wash? Or when Clark fails to win the nomination, as you predicted?
   
   Well, the first rule of making non-wooly predictions is not to make predictions if you can help it. "I can't tell you, because it would change the future" is always a useful old standby. So is "telling you would take away your free will".
   
   If you do have to get all specific, take your lead from Titor and insist on an infinite number of near-identical, parallel universes, so you can never travel quite to the same universe you came from. In Titor's case, our 'worldline' is within 2% of his own worldline, so things like sports scores or stock prices might not match up, even if major historical events do. Nicely done!
   
   Whether or not the many-worlds theory corresponds to what you know of physical reality, it will make a good cover for accidentally leaving those 2003 stock quotes at the library.


5. Apocalypse, baby!
   
   No one wants to hear about the Social Security Reform Act of 2027, or Byelorussia's triumphal entry into the European Union. We want nukes! We want plague! We want civil war! If the real future is boring, we'll find out about it soon enough without you.


6. Dazzle 'em with details
   
   Every moment people devote to arguing an obscure part of your story is a moment they're not thinking "wait a minute, why should I believe that a bozo on the Internet is a time traveller?". Be sure to pepper your story with verifiable details to help establish your credibility. If possible, allude to things in passing, so readers can do their own sleuth work and create an illusion of corroborated evidence.
   
   Here again John Titor leads by example. To take one example, he alludes to a "problem with Unix in 2038", which a little investigation will show is real. All Unix clocks on 32-bit architectures roll over in 2038, when the number of seconds since 1970 (Year One for all Unix clocks) exceeds 2^32. Some of us estimate that this Y2K38 problem will cause global devastation of the same magnitude as Y2K.
   
   Entire megabytes of Titor discussion thread are devoted to parsing out the plausibility of the Unix motive - is an ancient IBM computer really so hard to emulate in 2036? Is Titor lying about the real reason for his return? People get so caught up in the fine points that they forget to question the original premise. And someone out there is bound to think "This Unix thing checks out - so he MUST be telling the truth!".
   
   Don't skimp on the details!


7. Know your audience
   
   Do you really want to face down a discussion board full of paranoid libertarians and tell them that 2025 will see the birth of world government, universal health care for everyone, clean energy and a reduction in Third World debt? Zzzz... Or do you want to tell them to stockpile water, learn to clean their guns, not trust the government, and stay away from cities?


8. Watch out for paradox
   
   We all know that the first thing people think of when you say "time travel" is going back in time to kill their grandparents. So be prepared - the theory of multiple universes (or worldlines) will help you there. But do you have a good rebuttal to Hawking's empirical argument? Are you comfortable with violations of causality? Have you been adequately briefed by your commanding officer, pan-Galactic Intelligence, hive mind of Excedrin Theta, or whatever other entity sent you hurtling back into the past? If not, a good place to start is the University of Tasmania's excellent online lecture series on time travel, which helps you deal with those pesky paradoxes and the annoying skeptics who ask about them.

If you're not a temporal visitor, but still find yourself inspired by these best practices, why not pick up a copy of Time Travel: A How-To Insider's Guide to help you with all the technical bits? Or better yet, avoid all the hassle by ordering a ready-made Hyper Dimensional Resonator?

THIS IS A TWO DIAL, ONE BANK TREATMENT INSTRUMENT, WHICH PLUGS INTO A NORMAL 110V OUTLET. THIS DEVICE GENERATES AN AC/DC, 60-CYCLE, ALTERNATING FREQUENCY WHICH GENERATES AN UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF PURE TECYON ENERGY. THIS DEVICE COMES EQUIPPED WITH A WITNESS WELL, PHENOLIC RUBBING PLATE, MULTI- DIMENSIONAL STABILIZER, CLEAR SWITCH, POWER SWITCH, TIME COILS, AND ONE ELECTROMAGNET.

Aailable in navy, chrome, or midnight blue; a steal at $360. European readers may need an adapter.

You too can become a time traveller!

Incidentally, that link to the book above is worth following just to read the reader reviews, which include this gem:

I wish this book really taught me how to travel through time because if it did, I would go back in time and tell myself not to buy this book.

So I would go with the Hyper Dimensional Resonator. Bon Voyage!

11:48 PM

09.29.03

Show Me Your Tears

I finally got my copy of Show Me Your Tears, the new album from Frank Black and the Catholics, and have been enjoying it very much. I'm trying to come up with a description that isn't useless.

You might call it Frank Black's Nashville Skyline - a country and western album from a parallel universe. The songs are much more subdued than in previous albums, ranging in mood from smoky nightclub, to blues rock, to a kind of twangy country arrangement. On one song, "Coastline", you can almost hear Frank Black sipping whisky from James Taylor's skull.

I think this album has come to rescue all the Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen fans who are worn out from waiting five years between releases. If you weren't aware that Frank Black is a splendid lyricist, it might be time to come into the light. The velvet-lined UFO has landed, it's here to save you!

Back when I lived in France, I once walked in on my friend and housemate standing by her stereo, white as chalk. She had put on one of my CDs while I was out painting (part of an ongoing effort to See Into My Mind), and suddenly there was Black Francis hollering "EXTINCTION! EXTINCTION!" at the very top of his lungs. I have never seen anyone more mortified.

If the album had been Show Me Your Tears, I would have found my friend seated in her window, holding a big snifter of cognac and smoking a long cigarette in an ivory holder. She might even have been humming along - it's that kind of album. The songs are sad and beautiful; in a world without Clear Channel, they would be all over your radio. Play the album at your cafe or bookstore, and chicks will dig you.

Where else will you hear a rocking blues about the four virtues of Jainism? Who else writes spooky songs about Manitoba?

What really blows me over is that the album was recorded live, without edits, to two-track (just like Frank Black's last three releases). That means what you hear on the tape is what the band played in the studio, without cuts or superpositions. It's like knowing that a picture was painted from life, or watching the Iron Chef invent a four-course meal from broccoli stalks. Skill!

Buy, buy, buy this album.

3:37 PM

09.27.03

I Gave All I Had (But the Sudbury Fun Run Wanted More)

Today was my second running of the region's premier track event, where athletes from the furthest reaches of Addison and Rutland counties gather to answer the question: who will be fastest?

The answer: it will not be me.

Covering ten grueling kilometers of gently rolling Vermont farmland, the Fun Run demands the utmost in rudimentary physical fitness. Some people in past years have even been injured trying to complete it. You go in with a clear head, or you don't come out.

I had braved the course last year, my first road race ever, finishing with a time of 49:50 over the six mile loop (only 23 minutes off the world record!). I went in to this year's race knowing I could do even better. After all, I had been doing more intensive marathon training this fall, and felt fitter than I did last September. Also, I had a far luckier race number. I could almost smell the fear among the fifty other contestants. Then again, the starting line was right next to a parked liquid manure truck.

I don't know what did it - maybe it was the strong head wind, or a too-fast start, or the six tacos I had eaten two hours before. But I only managed a time of 50:17, and didn't even have the pleasure of passing any wheezing, overwhelmed runners who had burned out halfway through the race. Instead, I provided that pleasure to others.

Oh Sudbury Fun Run, you are a harsh mistress. But I promise you, one day I will come back and win! Even if it means shaving my legs, eating nothing but power gels, and memorizing each turn and hill of the race course months in advance. Even if it means watching inspirational videos and slicking down my eyebrows with Vaseline. Even if it means a twice-weekly program of moderate exercise.

I will return, and I will prevail!

9:37 PM

09.27.03

Ohio In Passing

The Cincinnati Airport is full of small adventures. I just saw a very bored flight attendant saunter by holding a cardboard box with a large orange sticker on it reading "Human Eyes". Note to Delta Connection passengers: skip in-flight snack.

Also, there are Russians here! More specifically, there is Natalya from Nizhny Novgorod, who mans a forlorn muffin-and-coffee cart near the blaring CNN sector. Nothing whisks away airport anomie like having a short conversation in a foreign language with someone who shares your fondness for potatoes.

12:48 AM

09.26.03

My Girlfriend Is Dating Howard Dean

Leave home for two measly days and look what happens.

7:50 AM

09.25.03

Edward Said Has Died

The great Columbia professor Edward Said is dead. Steven Johnson has an appreciation.

I knew nothing about Said except what I read in his essays, other than noticing that he came in for a lot of political flak. One of his pieces is up online at the NITLE Arab World site - it's a rumination on the psychological and social effects of 1948 on the Palestinians. Said knew how to be compassionate without avoiding hard truths:

 The overall tendency throughout the Arab world was to think of military solutions to that scarcely imaginable country, with the result that a vast militarization overtook every society almost without exception in the Arab world; coups succeeded each other more or less unceasingly and, worse yet, every advance in the military idea brought an equal and opposite diminution in social, political, and economic democracy. Looking back on it now, the rise to hegemony of Arab nationalism allowed for very little in the way of democratic civil institutions, mainly because the language and concepts of that nationalism itself devoted little attention to the role of democracy in the evolution of those societies.

Read the whole thing. We've lost an articulate voice and a great man.

10:59 PM

09.25.03

In The Old Dominion

Holy Toledo, the better half is eating dinner with our former governor! Let's just hope he's no Bill Clinton. I hope Mrs. Dean is watching with the eagle eye.

Me, I'm in Virginia, a place so wonderful it completely defeats my prose. The traffic isn't so admirable, but everything else about Charlottesville I like, from the grits in the morning all the way to the summery late nights downtown. The town is dominated by the University of Virginia, so there are busts of Thomas Jefferson on every flat surface, and young fit joggers careening down every street. Even the door to my hotel is decorated with the mysterious slogan "Wa Wahoos!" - when I first saw it, I thought it was some kind of pidgin dialect for "No Wahoos Allowed!", but now I I assume it has something positive to do with the local sports team. So, wa wahoos! UVA!

Many of the students I overhear have the kind of Southern voice that makes one irresistible to electorates and Yankee women. And a lot of people are dressed to the nines, unlike our intrepid protagonist. I wish I had loads of time to spend here, and a better fashion sense.

I'm in Charlottesville to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. IATH is a neat institution - it started out when IBM contributed a whole bunch of no-strings money to the University, and has spun off a cycle of cool online projects in the humanities. I was most closely involved with the Valley of the Shadow project, which is a historical database of tax records, newspaper articles, letters and other archival material from the Civil War years, sampled locally and in Franklin County, PA, to straddle the Union/Confederate divide. I had never read old Civil War newspapers before, or really any primary sources from the 19th century, and I spent more than one hour of search engines design time just reading through the hundreds of articles. Tobacco spitting hooligans infesting our towns! Republicans encouraging their women to marry the sons of Africa! Latest battle reports, thousands dead! Impeach Lincoln!

It's one of those projects that makes you wonder "why on Earth isn't there more stuff like this on the web"? IATH is full of initiatives like that, big and little. I get to come back in a few weeks to plan some more projects together, and I'm already looking forward to it.

10:52 PM

09.23.03

Virginia Or Bust

Electronic friends, virtual neighbors!

I'm going to be in Charlottesville for the next two days (24 and 25 September), and I'm extending the usual invitation to anyone who would like to have a pint or a Virginia ham together. If you can help me find a certain local Virginia beer called 'Legend', the Rolls-Royce of malt beverages, all the drinks will be on me.

Send email and I will try to foment a plan.

4:02 PM

09.20.03

Celebrity Turing Test

In which a rock star visits his own forum, but neglects to bring a valid I.D.

Longtime readers will know I'm a big fan of Frank Black, the former Pixies frontman.

Like every other famous person, Frank Black has a fan site devoted to his comings and goings. With a new album out and a Pixies reunion just announced for 2005, the site (frankblack.net) has been having a busy month.

In the middle of all the commotion last week, a curious thread popped up on the discussion board, entitled The King holds court. The thread was spawned by a new user named frnck blck and purported to come from The Man himself:

Hi, there patrons.

Thought I'd hang out for a bit and take a few questions or whatever. I'm feeling chatty. Plus I get a kick out of this site. Not to mention the fact that it saves me the trouble of having to set up one of these things. Mr. Noisy [the site moderator] will confirm that it is actually me I imagine; or maybe not. Maybe I'll just have to convince you . That could be fun. News item. Scott Boutier will miss the first 15 shows of our European tour as he has recently become A DADDY! We all wish he and his family the absolute best, of course. I'm very excited for Scott.

OK.

Later,

Frank Black

:-D

What do these smiley faces mean? Does this mean that I am cool? I hope so. I've always wanted to be cool. Not too cool for school, no, just cool, man.

Here you have to understand that Frank Black is no Moby - while he is known to use email, electricity, and other modern conveniences, having him descend into a fan forum is like having a meteor strike your house - theoretically possible, highly unlikely, and sure to get your undivided attention.

Naturally, people took the post with a grain of salt. The general concensus on the thread was that the poster deserved credit for trying - Frank Black does indeed call his fans "patrons", and his drummer is a new dad - but gave himself away through the juvenile writing style and various little solecisms.

After all, the real Frank Black is a guy who writes lyrics like:

In division pelagic / you were choragic

So a smiley is really stretching the bounds of credulity.

It didn't take forum regulars long to reach a verdict:

Atheist4Catholics: They're just not even trying these days, are they?

EbbVicious: yeah frank posts a lot like a semi-retarded adolescent.

And another veteran pointed out that Frank Black, in his rare previous appearances, had posted under the username Frankus Blackus.

But the pretender was undeterred:

So. What's up with this Pixies reunion? Think they'll...exuse me....WE"LL do it? Ha. Sorry. Couldn't resist. So I failed my written driver's test the other day here in Oregon....what a fool I felt like! Been driving for like 23 years or something. I passed the next day. 93%. I got 2 wrong still. Some guy the first day was moaning about how one of the questions was worded; he was insisting on a written versus the standard computerized test that they usually set you up with. It seems he wanted to change the format because he wanted not only to pass (you only need to to get 20 questions right to pass I think the DMV lady said), but no, it seems he wanted to get a PERFECT score. Pretty funny. Ah yes. The exciting life of a rock musician. Sorry I blabbed on so. I guess since technically I'm "on topic" I'm aok. But I don't want to be TOO boring...

This effort got him deeper in the soup. Some of the people on the thread were hedging their bets by asking legit questions, but the old-timers seemed convinced that the guy was a fraud.

Wowee Zowee: Wow, dude, you're, like, so funny and stuff.

Ebb Vicious: you're not even trying any more. lame.

And a site moderator with the handle El Barto pointed out another fatal flaw:

I can't believe there are people actually defending this guy and thanking him as if he were the real Frank Black. I guess some of you are relatively new to the internet... He obviously has some sort of inside info. Of all things, he's posting from AOL, so there you go.

Meanwhile, other people on the thread were working hard to come up with questions that only the real Frank Black could possibly answer. This proved difficult, since by definition there was no way to know if the answer was right.

Most of these challenge questions boiled down to "if you're the real Frank Black, what is the title of track #4 of the demo tape my girlfriend handed you when you were walking out of the restaurant in Athens, GA last January?"

And a user called ProverbialCereal came up with the best quiz of all:

Here are some questions that only the real Frank Black would know:

Finish the sentence:
"On a wave of __________."
"Where is my _______?" (HINT: begins with "M")

Trivia :
What band prior to your solo career did you play in?
Who was the lead guitarist for that group?

While frnck blck worked on the challenge questions, another discussion moderator, CultOfFrank, launched a devastating flanking attack by providing a sample of the real Frank Black's prose (a letter on bootlegging policy) from the last time he had posted to the site:

To Whom It May Concern:

As long as we don't know about it we don't care. For example, a walkman in your jacket? Cool. Stereo mics taped to the back wall of the club? Not cool. Mainly because people with sophisticated recording equipment tend to get in the way of other patrons trying to enjoy the show. And don't bother the soundperson with requests for channels to tie into. He/she has other stuff to do (like mix our show) and while it may all be friendly, we just don't have time for that kind of accomodation. But bootleg away and have fun. I mean, don't start your own record company or something like that. We have a very good attorney. And give me a copy if you have a chance (my brother likes to collect that kind of stuff).

Pointing out the complete sentences, short and to the point writing, and lack of AOL-style acronyms in the authenticated sample, CultOfFrank had a pretty strong comp-lit case going against the pretender.

But the would-be Frank Black didn't let himself be fazed by close reading. Note the clever reasons he found for not answering some of the more detailed questions about his life, or providing a phone number or other token of authenticity:

Ha ha ha. This is great! I'm sorry. But it really is me. I'm trying to figure out how to prove it while not stooping to giving out personal info or have to get into behind the scenes emailing with someone...let's see...I did mention Scott's temporary replacement on the upcoming UK part of the tour...Joe Kidd...not too many people should know about that...what else?...I guess we could do a question and answer about my songs; that would eventually be revealing I suppose. Well, anyway, I'm not trying to waste anyone's time here, just having a little fun. I think ProverbealCereal was pretty funny. It's actually kinda hard to "prove" this without getting into something I don't want to...like....what color are Dave Philips' boxers? And even then, that doesn't prove does it. Something we can all confirm...I'll check the next page here for any ideas...

By now the challenges were flying thick and fast. A lot of people on the thread seemed to be playing along in a bemused kind of way, because the pretender had done a good job staying in character, and obviously had researched the part. Still, everyone on the list (myself included) was pretty much convinced that the guy was a fraud. Maybe an ambitious roadie, or even a mischevious bandmate.

Maybe a vengeful Kim Deal!

So imagine the surprise when the site moderator finally chimed in, nearly three pages into the thread:

DaveNoisy: Hey guys, fyi this really is FB. (Sorry for taking so long to respond.)

And six pages of frenzied questioning followed.

Coming across this online adventure made me really happy, for many reasons. Obviously, it's great to see your rock star hero answering questions on a dorky web forum, in between doing loads of laundry. "He's just like me", you think "except for that bit about exceptional talent. For I too had problems with my driving test."

It's also funny to see people go from being snide and dismissive to extremely, extremely deferential in the course of just a few lines. It's the old plot of the unrecognized hero playing itself out in real life. In 1929, a Russian folklorist named Vladimir Propp wrote a book called Phenomenology of the Folk Tale, where he laid out a 31-point generic schema for all hero stories, across all cultures - a kind of Universal Plot. The Frank Black episode is a perfect fit, if we skip all the business about him leaving home in the first place:

• (23) The hero arrives home unrecognized
• (24) A false hero makes unfounded claims
• (25) The hero must perform a task
• (26) the hero is recognized
• (27) the false hero is exposed
• (28) the hero is given a new appearance
• (29) villain is pursued
• (30) hero marries and ascends the throne

In our case, the false hero was a certain Stuart, who wrote "for all you guys know, I could be Burt Reynolds", only to see his attempt to impersonate the mustachioed one fail under withering fire.

Maybe this good fit means Propp's schema has some predictive power, and that numbers 28,29, and 30 are events still to come. I would hope 28 implies a US concert tour, and 30 some kind of career and personal triumph for our recently divorced king of rock and roll. 29 is vague but quite exciting - it's almost like Nostradamian prophecy.

The best thing of all about this thread was watching FB try, and fail, to prove his identity on internal evidence alone. Sitting in a room together, or even on a phone line, all of the participants in the thread would have known immediately the man was telling the truth. But on the Internet, it's just text, baby. It would have been interesting to see if FB could have proven his identity just by discussing lyrics, or talking about life on the road. A kind of celebrity Turing test.

And if Frank Black has this much trouble, imagine how hard it would be for poor Britney if she ever decided to head over to IRC chat. Or for good old Jesus to send a mass e-mail, announcing his return.

"Dear friend, you don't know Me, but I am writing to share exciting news..."

11:49 PM

09.19.03

Quebecois Bloggers Respond

I got kind letters in response to last night's post from two Quebec bloggers, Aaron Cope and Martine Page, both of whom help put the episode in a wider context. In return for their generosity, they're about to be hit by the remains of Hurricane Isabel, currently northbound through Vermont and whipping the trees something fierce.

Never underestimate the ingratitude of an American blogger.

Martine posts an open letter on her excellent weblog:

The OQLF incident you talked about is an isolated one. I doubt that it will happen again, at least on private sites like blogs. I like the fact that I live in a place where there is such a thing as tolerance, a place where people can say "this was a mistake" and we can drop the subject. I'm still nervous though that the anglo press in Canada will jump on this occasion to point their eternal accusatory finger at the so-called language police, accusing once again the franco quebecois of xenophobia or even totalitarianism. But anyone devoid of paranoia tendencies will tell you that this is not the way things are experienced here on a daily basis.

This is particularly remarkable considering that the province nearly seceded in a referendum just eight years ago. It's a tribute to Canadians that Quebec does not experience the kind of strife you see in Corsica or the Basque country.

Aaron sends in a link to a polemical email message that doubles as a neat primer on the politics and recent history of Quebec:

Until the Quiet Revolution of the 1950's and 1960's the province was roughly half the population of the entire country; families of 10-13 children were not at all uncommon during the first half of the 20th century.

One of the first things to happen during the Quiet Revolution was a wholesale move away from the Church and a dramatic decline in the birthrate.

[...]faced with being a minority of 6-7 million francophones in a population of 30-300 millions anglophones (if you include the U.S.), a declining birth rate and an increasing immigrant population the province opted to enforce laws governing the language of education and commerce.

If a person doesn't accept the idea that language is culture, or at least an intrinsic part of it, then it is unlikely that they will see much need or merit in doing anything to preserve it.

The idea that you can choose the kind of culture you live in through legislation and collective social action is deeply repugnant to many Americans, but not perhaps to Vermonters. In our case, you only have to look at New York State or New Hampshire to see what the countryside here would look like if there were not a collective effort to keep down visual blight (no billboards, exacting zoning regulations). And all those quaint, postcardy dairy farms would be gone in a year if it weren't for price regulation. So it's easy from here to be sympathetic to arguments about the need to preserve language, even if it means regulation.

Aaron also points to an edifying post by Luke Andrews:

The latest census shows that the total number of people whose mother tongue is French in Canada is now only slightly higher than the total whose mother tongue is neither English nor French. Along with the dominance of English around the world, a steady tide of immigration have led to the decline of French's significance in Canada. Since most immigrants' children speak English, French will only continue to wane in influence, except in Quebec where its use is fiercely defended. It is this isolation which fuels Quebec nationalism. While francophones living in the rest of Canada are doubtless willing to defend their language, only Quebeckers actually have the territory and political will to define a nation.

Meanwhile, OQLFgate continues to gain legs. Quebec Urbain reports that the French and Canadian national press have both picked up on the story, and even reprints a front-page article from this morning's Devoir.

While we wait for Fox News to pick up the story, American readers can stay ahead of the pack by taking a look at the handy American's Guide to Canada, which includes advice on how to emigrate to that most excellent country. And to the folks at Userland software, who precipitated this crisis by hard-coding their blog calendar in English, I would recommend the useful Onion article "Perky 'Canada' Has Own Currency, Laws":

Like his estimated 35,000 fellow countrymen, Dorman is proud to be a "Canadian." Located 120 miles north of Buffalo, NY, Canada is, according to Dorman, "a nation with a government and laws distinct from those of the United States." It also has a military, a system of taxation, and periodic free elections to select political leaders. It even has its own currency, says Dorman, various denominations of "dollars" that can be exchanged for the many products manufactured in Canada, including Canadian bacon and ice.

They even have an "internet", and some "blogueurs" who don't want to resort to cumbersome software hacks just to have their Monday be a Lundi.

6:48 PM

09.18.03

Your Canadian Tax Dollars at Work

[In a fit of irony, Idle Words is having Unicode problems, and will be ASCII only for the next several days. Please don't take any missing accents personally]

Laurent at navire.net alerts us to a microscandal at Quebec Urbain, a French-language blog by Francois Vachon. Quebec Urbain is a private site, dedicated to goings-on in that fair city.

Recently Francois received an email from a certain Armand Belanger, a "Frenchifiation counselor" (conseiller de francisation) at the Quebec Office of the French Language (OQLF). The email was apparently written in response to a citizen complaint filed with the office, one of whose responsibilities it is to enforce compliance with Quebec's strict language laws:

...last week, a citizen complained about the fact that you had left the calendar in the upper right hand corner of your home page in English, something that constitutes an infringement of the law. Could I ask you to check this situation, and apply the necessary corrective measures? Moreover, the same petitioner states that there are long excerpts from American journals on your site which are not translated, thereby depriving citizens of necessary information about their city or local area. With short excerpts, this is not a problem, but when the excerpts get too long, one risks losing the majority of users. I wished to inform you of this complaint, being assured of your desire to properly satisfy your clientele. I thank you in advance for your collaboration.

Belanger's email makes it clear that he is aware the site has no affiliation with the city or province of Quebec, and that it is not a commercial site. But he still seems to be implicitly threatening a big fine if that calendar isn't cleaned up, and Vachon is not amused.

He writes back:

I don't have clients, only readers. I spend about $300 per year, and at least an hour a day [on the blog] without any income. So any "clients" I lose don't make me lose income. This site is written for my own pleasure, and is not a commercial undertaking. It is not subsidized by anyone. So I am impatiently awaiting details from the OLF about your free, 24 hour translation service that can do the work for me in under an hour.

And he explains to his readers:

Had I had the misfortune to earn even a penny with Quebec Urbain, I would have been liable for a fine ranging from $250 - $700 Canadian. Harsh, isn't it?

The readers all agree, and enough of them raise Cain with the appropriate authorities that M. Belanger eventually sends a follow-up email, withdrawing his claim that the site is breaking the law, and suggesting that the matter be downgraded to a 'cordial discussion of how to make more room for French on your site'.

On the one hand, this brouhaha is a master study in ineptitude - it reminds me of the periodic flare-ups over 'deep linking', when besuited professionals proudly demonstrate their complete inability to understand the web. It's especially juicy because the Quebec language police are involved, and the whole system set up to defend Canada from linguistic kudzu is heavy with politics and government meddling. And Mr. Belanger, Defender of Linguistic Purity, doesn't do much to help his case by salting his email with gratuitous typos.

On the other hand, there are some nice surprises in how quickly the whole thing got resolved. Having taken a bold step across the threshold of stupidity, the civil servant manages a retraction, and his boss gives a flat-out apology. After things got cleared up, the whole OQLF office got a memo on their Intranet, alerting them that the 'blog' phenomenon was kosher, and to stop releasing the hounds. And in the interim, everyone on the comment threads, even people ordinarily quite passionate about keeping the language free of corrupting English influences, seemed to agree that the whole issue was a crock.

On the gripping hand, it's not at all clear what the OQLF blog policy is. Their PR man, Gerald Paquette, says that it's fine for a professional consultant or a company to have English on their website - only those pages "advertising a good or a service" are covered by the law. But considering the way more businesses are using blogs, that hardly seems like a clear, bright line. Given how tenacious language barriers are on the Internet, seeing people penalized for quoting posts in another language is really frustrating.

The more I read the Quebecois bloggers, the more I admire them. Maybe it's the heplful latitude - long, cold winters seem to make for good weblogs (says the Vermonter). Maybe it's good old fashioned Canadian wry humor and civility. But I think a big part of it is their ability to navigate the US and French Internet while maintaining their own perspective and critical distance. I'd be curious to hear what my colleagues up North think of all this, and find out if the language wars that turned every burger in Quebec into a 'hambourgeois' are now moving online. If anone cares to post on this in English, or send email, I'd be glad to provide a link.

(Does this site need comments? At times like this, I get sorely tempted to add comments).

And while language is on your mind, you should go read the thread Jason Kottke (my favorite monoglot) recently started on 'code-switching', the grating linguistic term for how people communicate when more than one language is available to them. The comments in that thread are too good to summarize - as you'd expect, we use language in vastly different ways, and when more than one language come into play, things get impossibly subtle and idiosyncratic. At the same time, there are recurring patterns and themes that seem to tie in to the basic biology underpinning language and communication.

Jason's thread doesn't really go into the political side of multilingualism - what happens when one language meets another on an unequal footing. On a continent where an entire branch of human language is going extinct, it's a pretty depressing topic. But that's a whole other post.

---

"What do you call a person who speaks two languages?"

"Bilingual."

"Three languages?"

"Trilingual."

"One language?"

"American."

11:37 PM

09.15.03

Link Fiesta

Don't fill up on bread, because today I have a tasty assortment of links. My fellow idler is much more proficient and reliable at this sort of thing, but we all have to do our part. A workweek is a long, empty, cavernous thing.

First up is Uber Wench, whose BDSM site will suddenly make all those posts you wrote about XML processing directives seem a little dry. I particularly like offhand lines like:

I think my favourite thing about wearing a leather harness that exposes my nipples is how uncomfortable it makes some people.

For me, it's the way it speeds up a staff meeting.

Truly lonely guys should consider giving Uber Wench a pass, because nothing hollows out that inner pit of despair like the knowledge that there are happy, kinky, sexually active women out there who have no intention of meeting you.

Moderately lonely guys may consider a preliminary visit to JackinWorld, the "ultimate male masturbation resource", where they will find valuable technical advice and articles about the finer points of self-love. Don't miss the column by Bruce McFarland:

JackinWorld assistant editor Bruce McFarland, who has a B.A. in Creative Writing, has practiced Taoist erotic techniques for years and continues to study the intricacies of human sexuality. Though involved in a relationship, he enjoys masturbating now more than ever.

I guess that's the magic of relationships.

The link to JackinWorld comes to you courtesy of Goin' Blind, one man's online masturbation diary, and the answer to the question: "whither the blogosphere?". I am sure there are many other such journals online, but I really, really, really don't want to find them (this one snuck up on me out of a random sample... no, really... it was a friend... I was just...).

To give the author credit, he doesn't shy from the obvious question: "why am I writing a public diary about this?"

I started this as a way to answer a question for myself. I've always had this sneaking worry that I masturbate too much. I've wondered if I needed to cut down or be concerned. Posting about it was a way for me to keep track of what I was doing and how often, and making it public would make it harder to blow it off, since I was writing for an audience (no matter how small)

And I have to admit he's found a pretty workable solution to the online diarist's complaint of having nothing to write about.

A fellow named Nate takes this philosophy and runs with it on his Weed Log, which might as well be called Please Come And Arrest Me:

I smoked 2 kinds of weed before Orange Dank and High TenDs(or however you spell it). That dance was very lame but its was awesome, becuase i was high. hahahaha.

I especially love that the Weed Log is just two entries long. Nate, I hope it's because you found some really spectacular bud, and not the weekly DEA Google search.

While we wait for Nate to come down/make bail, there is always Anti's Boring Blog, which answers the question "What if Jim Anchower kept an online journal?"

i am in a desperate situation. i have debt. collectors are mailing me threatening things.

i owe money all over town.

if i don't come up with a way to get/borrow the right ammount of cash, i'm fucked.

please email me, and i'll give you a mailing address to send any donations that i can get.

brother can you spare a dime? or at least a dime sack??

update 3:44pm.... noone has emailed me at all. i need money man, i'll sell my belongings, i'll steal, i'll do what i have to.

maybe it's time i just give in and become a male stripper.

or selling naked photos of myself thru the internet.

the bill collectors or knocking on the door as we speak.

ooops nevermind. that was my neighbor. she's a cougar. all my neighbors are cougars. aka, older women who crunch on younger men.

maybe i could exploit the cougar factor into some cash... anyone got golddigging skills?

By way of antidote, I'd recommend a visit to Girlyshoes, who has a nice collection of political one-liners, and far fewer pictures of her face in extreme close up.

6:37 PM

09.14.03

Mom's Tomato Garden, Red in Tooth and Claw

I've spent the past two days at my mother's house, right on the ocean in the middle coast of Maine, enjoying the last of the summer. There is some very fancy flora and fauna here. The lower part of the garden is overrun by jewelweed, which has an unusual degree of entertainment value for a plant. Jewelweed has pretty orange flowers that eventually wither into little bean-like seed pods. The pods are held under tension, so that the lightest touch makes them split along the seams in a very wriggly way, with an audible 'pop', and scatter their seeds to the four corners of the lawn. Playing with jewelweed gives you the heebie jeebies - those seed pods feel like they're alive - but there's just no way to stop.

If you need another excuse to let the stuff grow, jewelweed is good for poison ivy burns, and you can use it to make a decent yellow dye.

Further out in the garden lives the formidable tomato hornworm, a creature I had never heard of until my mother brought in a tomato branch with a green caterpillar the size of a hot dog clinging to it. The hornworm is a machine for turning tomato leaves into hummingbird moths + caterpillar poop, and one is supposed to "hand-pluck" it from tomato plants into a bucket of soapy water to prevent the whole garden being eaten. While I am sure hand-plucking works, I will vouch for the fact that one can also use a very, very, very long stick to whack the beasties until their multiple feet all let go and they fall into the bucket of their own accord.

Hornworms are creepy because they blend in so well to a tomato plant - you've got your hands all the way into a tomato bush, reaching for that one ripe fruit, and suddenly you notice there's an enormous green thing brushing against your cheek. Sometimes, though, the hornworms are easy to find: they're motionless and have a prominent collection of white ovals, like rice grains, stuck to their backs.

This version of the hornworm looks even nastier than its incognito cousin, but it's actually a good sign. The white ovals are cocoons, and they indicate that a parasitic braconid wasp has found its way into your garden, and is helping rescue your tomatoes. The hornworm, paralyzed but alive, serves as a convenient buffet bar for the little wasp larvae, which then hatch and go on to inflict terror on other hornworms. In between, the braconid wasps subsist on nectar and pollen, like gentlemen.

The braconids and their cousins, the ichneumonidae, are enough to give fits to anyone who claims Nature is always benign and good, or that it is the product of a Divine Creator who isn't a little messed up in the head. Darwin himself made the argument:

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."

Which shows you that Darwin was not a tomato farmer.

Nowadays it's easy to find arguments against the existence of a Divine Providence (off the top of my head: raspberry-flavored coffee, Barney the Dinosaur, the Bush Administration), but Darwin had to work with what he was given. And you have to admit that, for sheer ookiness, it's hard to top a creature that paralyzes you and then lays eggs that feast on your still-living flesh.

11:36 AM

09.12.03

Meet Me Far Away From Here (And We'll Write a Mission Statement)

The arctic tern amazes biologists with the sheer extravagance of its migration route. In a single year, the bird is liable to fly over 20,000 miles, from Arctica to Antarctica and back. No one can explain why the bird is such an avid commuter.

Similarly, no one can explain why my co-workers, nearly all of whom work in the same building, have to take an annual pilgrimage to a remote location just so we can have an all-day meeting. Two years ago it was Mt. Washington, last year it was a Vermont camp. This year, we piled into cars to make a four hour journey to the westernmost edge of Maine.

It's almost like we're heeding the call of an unstoppable force of nature - I keep expecting that, as soon as the cars stop, we're going to build bowers for one another, or molt, or at the very least gorge ourselves on an exotic kind of berry bush. Instead, we sit and discuss appropriate font sizes for the web site footer. At some point early in the afternoon, there is a gurgling noise, and my liquefied brain slowly seeps down my spine. And then it's time for dinner.

I was much better disposed to this year's staff retreat once I found out it was being held at the Breckinridge Conference Center in western Maine, the jewel in the crown of Bowdoin College's real estate portfolio. For one, the trip gave me a pretext to leave a day early and meet with Cameron Marlow at the Media Lab, not to mention the eagerly awaited Boston fish supper (thanks to Cam, Jesse and Mark for taking me up on the offer).

For another, the Center turned out to be a hell of a swank place to be. It turns out the original house was built by the rubber baron B. F. Goodrich as a summer home for his wife, who sensibly outlived him and built the place into something of a museum piece. The house is enormous, imposing, and decorated in just the way you would expect of a man who made his fortune selling tires in Akron, Ohio. That is to say, it does not hold back.

The walls are hung thick with gigantic oil paintings of various misty-eyed Breckinridges (a Breckinridge is someone who married a Goodrich daughter, or had the wisdom be related to someone who did). The main dining room is tricked out in a hand-painted wallpaper panorama that must have been listed in the "Ivy Twining O'er Ruins" section of the catalog. Stare long enough at it, and you're liable to pick out three Egyptian pyramids, one mosque, one sort of pagoda structure, a temple to a Sun God, and various Gothic buildings of uncertain provenance. Standing in front of this impressive medley is a large bamboo screen featuring scenes from the Chinese Hell. If Martha Stewart ever learns how to travel in time, it's a fair bet that Goodrich is going to be the first guy to see her tastefully understated chrono-capsule materialize in his study.

For some definition of the word 'first'.

Incidentally, if you think I'm being unjust to Akron, Ohio, I submit in my defense this July 4th press release, entitled "AKRON HISTORY RETURNS TO THE CANAL":

The propeller of the airship Akron, the desk used by Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Goodrich, toy marbles by the hundreds and even a 1960's board game featuring Hugh Downs will beckon visitors to Lock 3 Park in downtown Akron during the 4th of July weekend. ...There is also an intriguing focus on the types of skills that were later transferred to bring about the construction of giant cereal mills when Ohio was America's agricultural center (1865-1890) The display also highlights Akron's glory period as the center for the design and manufacture of farm implements such as mowers and reapers that were made possible through patents for improvements to farm machinery by Lewis Miller.

Akron - does the fun NEVER END??

These days, B.F. is dead, Akron is in a manufacturing death spiral, and the descendants of the widow Goodrich have passed their fancy house into the stable custody of Bowdoin Finishing School College, which keeps it staffed and available for rent by the finer organizations in the Northeast. And in fairness to B.F. and his widow, any schlockiness in the decor is completely offset by the presence of a croquet lawn.

Croquet, a sport I had never played before, turns out to be the perfect antidote for a full-day staff meeting. You've got a beer in one hand, the sun is shining, and in your other hand you're holding a giant wooden mallet. For a fleeting moment, you know what it must have felt like to be a filthy rich captain of industry c. 1910.

It felt pretty damned good!

11:45 PM

09.11.03

We're Not At War

Let's be clear about it. The Canadian threat is under control. Mexico is still licking its wounds from the last time they got in our way. European armies, no matter how irked, will have a hard time managing the Atlantic crossing. The imminent threat from Iraq has been neutralized, in the nick of time.

The War on Terror, just like the War on Drugs, is a rhetorical device. Terrorism is never going to sit down at a conference table and capitulate. Neither will Terror, that even more abstract bit of shorthand. The War on Terror is conveniently perpetual, lasting for as long as there are enemies we care to describe as terrorists. It has not been declared by Congress, despite the clear Constitutional requirement. It covers any eventuality, becomes the all-purpose excuse for any policy, however trivial:

We regret we are unable to process and provide certificates of congratulations to the fine young Americans who have become Eagle Scouts. We have curtailed some activities in order for us to concentrate on the War on Terrorism.

Right now, our War on Terror is varnish over a global power grab, an opportunistic invasion of Iraq, and a troubling reduction of civil liberties. Osama Bin Laden is alive and well, his videotape a slap in the face of the 9/11 victims, but no one seems to be trying too hard to catch him. After all, he's just a foot soldier in the wider war.

Real wars are fought against armies, not abstractions. Real wars are not perpetual. Real wars do not morph and stretch to fit changing political needs.

You can hate terrorists as much as any hawk without accepting that rhetorical voodoo.

10:55 AM

09.10.03

Two Months Before the New York Marathon

Driving down to Boston yesterday, I came up with a new personal credo: "Never drive for four hours after a fifteen mile run". My leg kept cramping up in the locked and down position, jamming itself against the accelerator for minutes at a time. Thank God I was driving a Saturn - the car that will not accelerate past seventy five™.

I got up for that long run long before dawn, not because there was any chance I would set out in the dark, but because I needed my brain to be too sleepy to find a plausible way to cop out of running. One die-hard cricket was still chirping outside, but the thermometer on the porch showed forty-five degrees. I made a vat of tea and went through long agonies of procrastination - drinking in tiny sips, reading the paper online, even clicking through to stories like "Alan Greenspan Recovering Well From Intestinal Polyp Surgery" just to avoid having to go out there and hoist my weary bones onto the pavement.

By the time I hit the rolad, the temperature had soared to forty eight degrees, and the valley was filled with dense white fog. The sun was rising shamelessly through it, creating the kind of effect one associates with motel-room paintings called "Misty Morning Memories". How is it that nature can get away with levels of kitsch that even Bob Ross would blush at?

I found myself running through a sea of milk, watching dim and hopelessly bucolic tableaux materialize a hundred feet ahead. In the space of two miles, I got to see Red Barn on a Hilltop, Blue Heron Takes Wing, Horses Dappled in Morning Light, and even the vaguely Taoist Mountain Summits Rising From a Sea of Cloud. Then the road climbed up into clear air, and suddenly everything was bathed in Technicolor sunlight. I tried to burst out into glorious morning song, but all I could manage was a faint wheezing.

The fog had burned off by the time I lurched my way back to the valley floor, and what I saw almost made me stop cold with wonder. Between every pair of stalks, twigs, and thick stems in the fields around me there hung a spiderweb outlined in bright dots of dew. I could see tens of thousands of them, receding out in every direction - the field looked like someone had planted a crop of silver tennis rackets. It was unsettling and beautiful. I had always imagined the meadow to be a haven for flying bugs of every kind, a theory corroborated by the clouds of deerflies, mosquitoes and other flying vermin that always engulfed me during runs in the hot part of the summer. But now it seemed like a small miracle that anything airborne could make it through that field alive. Up to and including great blue herons.

A few more minutes and the dew was gone, burned off by the sun. The endless spider webs had gone completely invisible. I stared and stared, trying to make out the faintest outline of what I had seen, until I reached the yard full of feral German Shepherds. For a moment I delighted an oncoming school bus full of pointing children with a tableau called Staggering Man Pursued by Hounds, and then everything fell quiet again. The miles flew by like molasses.

Just when it felt like my legs were about to impale themselves permanently into my torso, I saw a pair of trees surrounded by hummingbirds, and old sappy Mother Nature had me again. All my aches and pains were forgotten; all I could see was the tiny hovering birds, looking for September flowers.

Next week is a seventeen mile run, and I fully expect an owl to settle on my shoulder, or a pair of unicorns to wink at me from the forest, watching me scour the weeds for a cached bottle of Gatorade.

11:42 PM

09.10.03

The World Just Got A Little Less Evil

Edward Teller is dead. Here's hoping the fires of hell are thermonuclear.

10:45 AM

09.08.03

Live in Boston - One Night Only

Tomorrow I will be in Boston for a visit with Cameron Marlow, the mastermind behind Blogdex. We will be racking our brains to figure out how to count all of you fine bloggers and have the number bear some relationship to reality.

A visit to Boston necessarily implies a dinner at Legal Sea Food. If you are an Idle Words reader, live near Beantown, and have always wanted to watch a Slav eat his body weight in fish, this chance may never come again. Send mail for logistics.

10:22 PM

09.07.03

Comment Withheld

"Iraq possesses more than 10 tons of uranium and more than a ton of low enriched uranium. Small facilities are capable of handling these amounts, and, even taking into account process losses, there is still enough uranium to make three nuclear weapons. Iraq has already designated a site for nuclear weapon testing and if intelligence estimates are correct the first tests could happen by 2005."

Khidhir Hamza, editorial in Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2001

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002

"I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied - finally denied access [in 1998], a report came out of the Atomic - the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. "

George W. Bush, September 7, 2002

"The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was 'six months away' from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist."

Washington Times, September 27, 2002

"Al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq."

George W. Bush, September 12, 2002

"A new report released on September 9, 2002 from the International Institute for Strategic Studies - an independent research organization - concludes that Saddam Hussein could build a nuclear bomb within months if he were able to obtain fissile material."

Supporting materials for GWB Sept. 12 speech, as published on whitehouse.gov.

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

George W. Bush, October 5, 2002

"The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

Ari Fleischer, December 6, 2002

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa".

George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28, 2003

"Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations."

Hillary Clinton, February 5, 2003

"Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war's duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward."

New York Times, February 28, 2003.

"About 140,000 troops are currently deployed [in Iraq]."

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said last week that "we need a lot more military" to win the final stages of the war in Iraq. And Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), ranking minority member on the Foreign Relations Committee, also said last week that the administration had "vastly underestimated" the policing requirements for postwar Iraq. "

Washington Post, August 24, 2003

"I will soon submit to Congress a request for $87 billion."

George W. Bush, September 7, 2003

"We are launching this attack, already too long delayed, primarily to defend ourselves. This is a response to reasonable fear. We know Saddam is developing terror weapons and is bound on vengeance; we know he has ties to terror organisations eager to use those weapons for more mass murder; we know he can bamboozle the UN inspectors again; we know Americans are terror's prime targets."

William Safire, New York Times column, March 11, 2003

"We know that this man has got weapons of mass destruction. That sounds like a slightly abstract phrase, but what we are talking about is chemical weapons, biological weapons, viruses, bacilli and anthrax - 10,000 litres of anthrax - that he has.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, March 17, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

George W. Bush, television address, March 17, 2003

"And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again"

Bill O'Reilly, March 18, 2003

You wanted war but it's not done / You bombed us first and thought you won / Now all the rest of you can wait / We still recall who bombed Kuwait / Yakety yak (Bomb Iraq)

Rush Limbaugh radio show song parody, March 20, 2003

"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark, March 22, 2003

"We know where they [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003

"Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit."

Tony Blair, 28 April, 2003

"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find - and there will be plenty."

Robert Kagan, April 9, 2003

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them "

George W. Bush, interview with Polish television, May 29, 2003

"Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for the two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say."

San Jose Mercury News, August 9, 2003

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason."

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, interviewed by Vanity Fair, July 2003

"Q: Does the President consider the matter [of forged documents ending up in the State of the Union address] closed now?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, the President has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well."

Ari Fleischer, press briefing, July 12, 2003

"We gave [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

George W. Bush, quoted in Washington Post, July 15, 2003

9:38 PM

09.04.03

The Ghost Blogs of Tibet

Jenny, 22 claims to lead an angst-filled life in the Arctic Ocean (80.46 N, 36.87 E), but she really lives near Winston-Salem (36.87 N, 80.46 W).

Musically inclined shepherds in the desolate highlands of Kachi, China, might be extremely excited to learn that it's only a short camel trek to Jazz Guitar Resources, conveniently located near the Kyrgyz border, right next to the Kwik-E-Mart. (40.5 N, 76.5 E). How sad they will be to find that JGR is really somewhere near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (40.5 N, 76.5 W).

In fact, a look at the map on the GeoURL homepage reveals a dense packing of phantom American weblogs out in Tibet and the Central Asian steppes, a region not known for its lively expatriate community or access to broadband.

Latitude/longitude coordinates form a beautiful synergy with Murphy's Law. In the GeoURL scheme, for example, there are seven ways to get your coordinates wrong, yet still have them be valid. You can give the wrong sign for latitude and longitude, or list the coordinates in the wrong order, or do some of both. The sign problem is especially subtle - latitude and longitude are often shown using unsigned numbers and the letters N, S, E, W to indicate hemisphere, so it's very easy to forget to add a minus sign if you live below the equator, or in the New World.

Some of the errors are easy to spot. In a previous post, I described a suspicious cluster of blogs in the Horn of Africa, many of them in the Indian Ocean, which turned out to be a latitude/longitude transposition error made by some German and Czech bloggers. Finding a cluster of red dots in water was an easy tip-off. The inverted USA in Central Asia is similarly obvious, partly because the area in question is so sparsely inhabited, and partly because the reversed blogs actually form a mirror image of the U.S. East Coast.

But other cases are not so easy to disambiguate. A single pair of coordinates can give locations in Sardinia, Portugal, Tanzania, or Brazil, depending on how they are arranged. Even a language algorithm (which has its own assumptions and potential for error) won't help distinguish a Portuguese blog from a Brazilian one. European or African blogs close enough to the prime meridian can flip longitude with no real chance of detection.

But enough talk. Let's get to the bullet points.

Here's what I've learned this weekend about geographical markup:

• The standard latitude/longitude system used in META tags invites mistakes, because transposition and sign errors still generate valid coordinates. If you ask users to generate their own metadata, it's important to use a foolproof format.
• Any kind of visual feedback on the GeoURL site would help reduce errors. Showing a globe with the selected blog displayed as a red dot, for example, would let users do a sanity check on their page and make sure they got their META tag right.
• Central Asia is ENORMOUS.
• Most of the mistakes on the GeoURL site are due to one website - DeviantART.com - which seems to provide a lot of bum data. This suggests that a small amount of effort directed at the main offender could go a long way to improving the quality of GeoURL data.
• Finding an algorithmic way of flagging incorrect coordinates is orders of magnitude harder than getting users to get their numbers right.
• Each bum blog in the data set degrades the value of the entire data collection.
• It's really hard to find a tool for doing something like plotting a map of the US with reversed longitude. I finally ended up using Photoshop and the incredible, amazing, unbelievably cool Earth Viewer at Fourmilab. I can't go on enough about the Earth Viewer - be sure to try all the various options, and prepare to be amazed.
• There are some artefacts on the GeoURL map that are not easy to explain in terms of transposition errors. For example, note the diagonal line running from southeast to northwest, approximating the line where latitude is equal to longitude.

Now for the awards portion of the post:

Starc.deviantart.com wins the Dick Cheney Prize for Most Undisclosed Location - the META tag puts Starc somewhere in Chad, the first user profile on the page says Starc is in Canada, and the second user profile says that Starc lives in Texas.

DeviantART.com itself wins the overall Most Useless Geodata award, for putting half its American users in Tibet and Central Asia.

Fourmilab wins the I Can't Believe This is Free award for best geographical website.

Further honors will go to anyone who can write in with more interesting examples of transpositions in the GeoURL data set, or point me to tools that can easily generate inverted-longitude and -latititude maps for countries and regions, to aid in the hunt for phantom blogs.

Finally, I should make it clear that I don't mean this post to heap dirt on the GeoURL project. This kind of stuff happens wherever there are many users and a potential for error. GeoURL has a large enough data set to make these patterns visible, and maps are something we can all understand. But the deeper point is that we are all fallen in the eyes of the metadata god.

5:58 PM

09.03.03

The Threat of Flying Monkeys

Today's Washington Post issues a dire warning about cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorists are roaming the Internet [clang, clang], and your children could be at risk!

In the following excerpts, we've replaced the word 'cyberterrorism' with 'flying monkeys' - see if you can spot the difference!

"The risk of flying monkeys is very difficult to assess. We know that there are a number of plausible scenarios that either a monkey attack would have a airborne component or a flying monkey attack that would have a very large effect," said Thomas A. Longstaff, manager of the SERT Coordination Center, an aerosimian security research organization in Pittsburgh.

My techie readers will recognize the venerable process of FUD at work here - scare low-tech people with dire threats, and then sell 'em your software. Finding a way to bring in the suffix '-terrorism' is a real coup to whoever thought of it.

Large corporations have become more proactive in buying monkey-proof netting, Longstaff said, but personal computers without updated software and filters could also be used as launching sites for larger flying monkey attacks.

Filters and firewalls have become the talismans of the Information Age - magic amulets that we deploy against the dark forces that lurk online. After all, if a fifteen-year-old with skin problems can write an email virus that hoses entire corporate networks, just think what a big brown bearded terrorist might able to do!

Nearly half of all Americans surveyed say they are worried that monkeys could fly through the networks connecting home computers and powerful utilities, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

In my mind, this kind of journalism does a disservice to the public. By focusing on dramatic and vague threats of flying monkeys, it makes people discount the real and much more imminent danger of giant killer robots.

I call 'bullshit' on the whole field. Anyone who can suggest a plausible 'cyberterrorism' scenario to me gets a banana.

10:41 AM

09.02.03

Comet Impact Extravaganza

Most of the fanciest supercomputer simulations ever run have been wasted on devoted to numerical modeling of nuclear explosions. Back in the Cold War days, using computers to design weapons meant that you could build smaller, cheaper, more versatile nukes without violating any pesky test ban treaties. When the Cold War ended, and blowing the bejesus out of things briefly fell out of fashion, bureaucrats at the Department of Energy had to scramble around for another rationale to keep the funding flowing. They found their solution in something called "stockpile stewardship", a program intended to (wait for it) "maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons".

The American Deterrent: Safe. Reliable. Nucular.

Someone needs to tell Lawrence Livermore that no one will be upset if a massive thermonuclear strike turns out to be a dud. Really. What kind of scenario are they imagining?

"Smithers, what is that?"

"It's a satellite view of the Kremlin, sir."

"Did we or DID WE NOT launch sixteen ICBMs at the Kremlin this morning??"

"We did, sir"

"And why do you think we launched sixteen ICBMs at the Kremlin?"

"To blow it up, sir."

"And did we blow it up?"

"No, sir."

"Do you see any kind of damage in this picture, Smithers?"

"Just a dent in the cupola, sir."

"Do you see a ball of living hellfire, burning with the light of ten million suns?"

"No, sir."

"Would you care to tell me WHY there is no ball of hellfire?"

"The weapons... didn't work, sir."

"Smithers, you're fired!"

So I was happy to see that Sandia Laboratories (another dark spooky place) tested out one of its new supercomputers not by doing a boring old nuke test, but by simulating a comet hitting the Earth at a brisk 60 km/second.

Naturally they followed Ceglowski's Law of Urban Celestial Mechanics, which states that all computer simulations of objects hitting the Earth must be shown destroying Manhattan. This particular bad boy hits south of Brooklyn, ejecting eight hundred cubic kilometers of ocean, along with a fair number of Williamsburg hipsters, into low polar orbit. I particularly like the head-on views, which show a really bad day for the Boston-La Guardia shuttle.

There's also a diagram of comet impact seen in cross section, where you can see the hole the thing punches in the atmosphere. A hole in the atmosphere! Sure, the hole soon fills with incredibly hot steam, but it's still an impressive detail.

It turns out that comet impacts have many interesting effects like this, all of them bad. You get a brief (2 year) period of total darkness + acid snow, continent-wide forest fires, tsunamis all over the place, total destruction of the ozone layer and (once the dust clears), a centuries-long spell of global warming thanks to all the water vapor sucked into the stratosphere by that hole in the atmosphere I mentioned. Which slowly turns the planet into Venus.

I hardly have to point out how cool all this is. Naturally, my first instinct on seeing all this was to try and download a program for making my own comet porn. I figured that even with a much simpler desktop simulation, aiming comets at various cities was a great way to spend a Tuesday at work. I got briefly excited after finding a link to an asteroid impact simulator for Windows (how fitting!), but to my total horror all it did was generate fake statistics. You let it run, and the program told you how many impacts had occured over a thousand years, showed you average fatalities, and so on. Yawn city.

It looks like the only way to satisfy a comet impact craving without a security clearance is to watch Deep Impact, or (when desperate), Aramageddon, Hollywood's star-studded "fuck you" to the laws of physics. As one of the debunking sites kindly points out, the movie ends with Bruce Willis hurtling towards the Earth's atmosphere at 22,000 miles per hour, with no fuel to slow down. I'd pay seven bucks to see that any day.

6:08 PM