Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

In Google We Trust?

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Google Reader
Google Reader

Back in October 2009, I wrote a somewhat curmudgeonly post about how little I trust the ‘cloud’ for my important data. I like to control my own information. I like to know how my backups are executed and how they are stored. The major Internet service companies are pretty good about avoiding data loss, but I can’t trust them to be half as concerned about my stuff as I am.

After that 2009 post, I did slowly begin integrating ‘cloud’ services into my tech world. Since switching to Google Android as my mobile operating system, I embraced many Google services—Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Reader. With my Windows 8 installs and Office365 subscription, I’ve also begun to adopt Microsoft’s SkyDrive service for ‘cloud’ storage, documents, and notes. I use Amazon’s Kindle services, ToodleDo todos, and miscellaneous other web-based applications.

But don’t think that I’ve stopped being paranoid! I back up my data from every last one of those services on a regular schedule. If a cloud service doesn’t provide some mechanism for back ups in standard, portable formats, I won’t use it. This process has come in very handy recently. With Google’s announcement that it was shutting down the Reader RSS service in July, I found myself needing to move a long list of RSS subscriptions to another service. I used Reader, in part, because it provided ways to export my subscriptions in an industry standard OPML format, and it had reasonably robust API’s for integrating with other services. As such, it was pretty painless to move to Newsblur—the Reader alternative that best met my needs.

Reader’s demise should serve as a reminder to all ‘cloud’ service users: Don’t trust the ‘cloud.’ Don’t trust Google. Don’t trust Microsoft. Don’t trust Apple. Don’t trust anybody to provide a permanent home for your data, because the service you rely on today might be gone tomorrow. It is incumbent on us, the users, to only use services that allow for data portability, and to make our own regular back ups. The only person who really cares about your data is you.

The Secret Code-Names of ‘Off on a Tangent’

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I’m deep into the process of developing the next major update to Off on a Tangent, which has been taking up a fair amount of my free time (and is a big part of why I haven’t been posting very much the last couple of weeks). On top of that I’ve been working on two other web development projects—a major update for Melissa’s site, and another little project I’m working on (stay tuned).

Juggling these projects got me thinking about technology code-names. It is fairly commonplace in the tech industry that major projects in development get code-names, and they usually follow a pattern of some sort. For example, Microsoft generally uses the names of ski resorts for major Windows versions. Apple uses the names of large cat species for OS X releases. These names rarely become part of the public marketing of a product. Apple, which started including the cat names in their marketing beginning with Mac OS X 10.2 ‘Jaguar,’ is the major notable exception to this rule.

When I built my first web site, it didn’t have a code-name. In fact, it didn’t even really have a name. It was called Website 1.0, and I continued to refer to my site with little more than a version number through its eleventh iteration. Beginning with its twelfth version, the site picked up the Off on a Tangent moniker it has had ever since, although the version number is always there. You see it even today, tucked down in my footer: Website 23.0. If you peruse the sometimes-embarrassing old versions of my site, you’ll always find it (although sometimes it has been pretty well hidden).

Any of you who have followed Off on a Tangent for some time are probably aware of this. You are probably not aware that, in addition to the ‘public’ Off on a Tangent name and the now-traditional version number, I also refer to each major update of my site (since the eleventh version) with a private code-name while it is in development. For reasons now lost to the dark recesses of my memory, these names follow the pattern of . . . women’s names. I’ll let the armchair psychiatrists among you try to figure that one out.

So, without further ado, here are the code names I’ve used for each version of the site from the eleventh onward. I will update this post when new versions come around.

Read more . . .

Syria and Chemical Weapons

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During the First World War, the most fearful weapons on the battlefield were characterized not by explosive power, but by clouds of poison gas. First, French and German armies began using non-lethal tear gasses with catchy names like ethyl bromoacetate and xylyl bromide. Then the Germans began bombarding enemy trenches with chlorine gas that could kill hundreds at a time, and soon the British were responding with chlorine weapons of their own. The allied powers escalated to phosgene, an even more potent and deadly poison. The axis powers soon followed suit.

Finally, the Germans introduced mustard gas to the battlefield—a chemical that would cause your skin to burn, your eyes to sting, your lungs to bleed, and your mucous membranes to inflame. If you had received a fatal dose, you would likely languish for weeks in agonizing pain before finally succumbing to your wounds. If your exposure was less severe, you would likely survive . . . but only after an excruciating period of recovery, and you would likely be left permanently disfigured. Following the now-familiar pattern, the allies soon began producing and using mustard gas as well, and developed an even more ‘improved’ chemical called Lewisite. Fortunately, the great war came to an end before it could be deployed on the battlefield.

War is never a good or pleasant thing, but it is rarely worse than when chemical weapons are deployed in the battlefield. In the aftermath of the First World War, people all around the world wanted to make sure that poison gas would never be used again. The victorious allies immediately prohibited Germany from ever again using, manufacturing, or importing chemical weapons (Treaty of Versailles, Article 171). In 1925, representatives from thirty-eight nations signed the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited the use—but not the manufacture or storage—of chemical or biological weapons. Today, a total of 137 countries are party to this agreement.

Read more . . .

Habemus Papam! New Pope Elected

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Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Aibdescalzo, CC-BY-SA)
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Aibdescalzo, CC-BY-SA)

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, 76, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been elected Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. Bergoglio has taken the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope, and the first to take the name Francis. He is also the first non-European pope in about 1,200 years.

The election was announced at 7:06 p.m. in Rome (2:06 p.m. Eastern) with traditional white smoke from the chimney of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel and bells ringing in Saint Peter’s Square. The dean of the College or Cardinals announced the name of the new pope just over one hour later.

Pope Benedict XVI stepped down at the end of February, becoming the first pontiff to resign in nearly six hundred years. The conclave to select his replacement began on Tuesday. Popes must be elected by a two-thirds majority of cardinal-electors, a threshold that was met on the fifth ballot cycle.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.