From Jesus Diaz @ Gizmodo:
After the crotchbomb there has been a lot of noise about airplane security again—you can see how stupid the leaked new flight rules are here. But what’s the actual risk of an airplane attack? Here’s the definitive chart: http://gizmodo.com/5435954/the-true-odds-of-airborne-terror-chart
The stats are from Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com
A big city lawyer went duck hunting in rural Tennessee. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer’s field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing. The litigator responded, ‘I shot a duck and it fell in this field, and now I’m going to retrieve it.’ The old farmer replied, ‘This is my property, and you are not coming over here.’ The indignant lawyer said, ‘I am one of the best trial attorneys in the United States and, if you don’t let me get that duck, I’ll sue you and take everything you own.’
The old farmer smiled and said, ‘Apparently, you don’t know how we settle disputes in Tennessee. We settle small disagreements with the ‘Three Kick Rule.” The lawyer asked, ‘What is the ‘Three Kick Rule’?’ The farmer eplied, ‘Well, because the dispute occurs on my land, I get to go first. I kick you three times and then you kick me three times and so on back and forth until someone gives up.’ The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom.
The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the attorney. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy steel toed work boot into the lawyer’s groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick to the midriff sent the lawyer’s last meal gushing from his mouth. The lawyer was on all fours when the farmer’s third kick to his rear end, sent him face-first into a fresh cow pie.
The lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet. Wiping his face with the arm of his jacket, he said, ‘Okay, you old fart. Now it’s my turn.’ The old farmer smiled and said ‘Nah, I give up. You can have the duck.
Assessing and reacting to risk is one of the most important things a living creature has to deal with, and there’s a very primitive part of the brain that has that job. It’s the amygdala, and it sits right above the brainstem, in what’s called the medial temporal lobe. The amygdala is responsible for processing base emotions that come from sensory inputs, like anger, avoidance, defensiveness and fear. It’s an old part of the brain, and seems to have originated in early fishes.
Read the entire article here. (Schneier.com)
This article in the NY Times is a great summary of issues that face the Internet world.
Q: Considering the carelessness with which the government (state and federal) and commercial enterprises treat our confidential information, is it essentially a waste of effort for us as individuals to worry about securing our data?
A: Yes and no….. (more in the article)
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/bruce-schneier-blazes-through-your-questions/
