Category Archives: Security

Food, Security

KFC violates FCC Act

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Here’s a funny news nugget from The Onion: KFC No Longer Permitted To Use Word ‘Eat’ In Advertisements

“KFC’s claim that its fried offerings have ‘that taste you’ll just love to eat’ is in direct violation of federal regulations,” acting FCC chairman Michael Copps said. “The word ‘eat’ is legally permissible only in reference to substances appropriate for human consumption. Any implication that a consumer could or should ‘enjoy’ a KFC Crispy Strip fails to meet these standards, and presents an unlawful deception to consumers.”

[…]

KFC advertisers are reportedly still in negotiations with authorities over whether the word “consumables”—a term that can encompass any product that must be replaced periodically, such as brake pads or swimming pool chlorine—is an allowable substitution for “food.”

Is it consumable time?

History, Poetry, Security

Joseph Roth

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The Krakow Post paints a detailed portrait of the great writer from Galicia. He passed away seventy years ago today, May 27th, 1939 at the age of 45, only months before the start of WWII:

Some have called Roth a poet of “Austroslavism,” owing to his longing for a peaceful coexistence of a multitude of nations under the formal roof of monarchy. “I loved the virtues and merits of this fatherland,” he wrote of the Habsburg Empire, “and today, when it is dead and gone, I even love its flaws and shortcomings.”

Energy, Security

BMW Diesel Smokes the Competition: BMW

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BMW is one of the least economy-minded car companies, mostly toying with hydrogen pipe dreams, so when they announce a new diesel engine you know it is going to be a performance option. Popular Mechanics practically swoons over the 2009 BMW 335d Diesel Sport Sedan

Diesel and high performance don’t normally sit in the same sentence, but take a look at the following figures: 155 mph, 0 to 62 mph in 6.0 seconds and 428 lb.-ft. of torque. Compare those numbers with these: 155 mph, 0 to 62 mph in 5.6 seconds and 295 lb.-ft. of torque. Okay, so which one is the performance car? The first set of figures apply to the 335d, the second to its gasoline alternative. Away from the test track the turbodiesel’s midrange torque and flexibility would absolutely smoke (but not really, this is a “clean diesel”) its gasoline counterpart. And the 335d is not only the faster point-to-point car, it also gives you a 10 mpg (U.S.) boost over the the gas one. The 335d returns an NEDC combined economy of 35.1 mpg against the 335i’s 25.6 mpg. In practice, the big diesel gives around 33 mpg in our mixed running, partly because the performance is just so intoxicating and almost impossible to resist.

Yes, yes…as expected. Thank you Popular Mechanics. I hope more and more see the potential benefits of diesel technology and invest properly so we can put the whole ethanol and hydrogen nonsense to bed. I’m not opposed to ethanol, in fact I think it is an interesting additive or ingredient for other fuels, but it and hydrogen have far too many issues to be a serious solution. Diesel is so much more than just a fuel.

Here is a really cheesy example (pun intended) of what I mean. Consumers often have a hard time accepting change. When they know hot dogs (the meat equivalent of gasoline vehicle engines) you have to make “not-dogs” to sell them on the idea of vegetables. This brings about comparisons of meat and vegetables on a very narrow plane of hotdog qualities, instead of opening up the possibilities. Ok, now here’s the cheesy part. Imagine instead if you tried to introduce them to sag paneer…in other words diesel could completely change the way we look at fuel production and distribution, let alone performance and efficiency, but consumers have to be able to learn to eat something that doesn’t look, feel, taste like a hotdog. Speaking of which, 35mpg? Shame on you BMW. That’s barely sufficient under the coming efficiency guidelines.

Security

Fail: Ethnic Profiling

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Spiegel Online has an insightful update called ‘No Convictions to Date’: Study Finds Ethnic Profiling Useless in Preventing Terror

The report, entitled “Ethnic Profiling in the European Union,” argues that profiling is both ineffective and counterproductive, pointing out that “stops and searches conducted under counterterrorism powers in Europe have produced few charges on terrorism offenses and no terrorism convictions to date.” At the same time, targeting specific communities alienates them, “contributing to a growing sense of marginalization in minority and immigrant communities.”

A study across Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary showed that ethnic profiling is popular even when it does not seem to be effective. In fact, the researchers noted that while minorities often were three times as likely to be stopped by police the groups were statistically were less likely to be offenders than a local majority. One might think this alone would change police behavior, but obviously they do not see the forest for the trees. What’s the solution? Accountability and transparency.

The simple act of asking police officers to record the details of their stops made a difference: The more paperwork involved, the fewer stops cops were likely to make in the first place. But applying more stringent rules to how and when police could stop people also changed their behaviour dramatically, and resulted in fewer innocent people being hassled. “Training officers to think about who they were stopping and why led to a reduction in stops and an increase in effectiveness,” Neild says.

First of all that sounds bad. I thought the point was to reduce the number of false positives. Requiring more paperwork is not a good solution if it also reduces the number of true positives.

Second, I do not think this research argues against using hunches, as the article concludes. It calls for the introduction of more reliable and repeatable security practices related to data. In other words the police should still go with their hunches, but they also should be more exposed to the facts. I would like to believe that if management could see how time was wasted, they would course-correct. On the other hand, this assumes a balanced perspective. It is not clear in the study whether they account for the fact that local majorities often expect and want police to harass minorities. That is a whole other problem.