First REAL Vote

On one hand, the two-party system has made electing representatives boring, compared to my first primary. The resulting two candidates were exclusively the pair of vetted Republican and Democrat candidates. In most cases, the GOP candidates that made it through are so far off the rails of sanity (FairTax, anti-net-neutrality, anti-healthcare) that there's not a lot to talk about. However, that is offset by the initiative process, where Washington residents can throw up for a vote just about any idea for which they can collect a few petition signatures. Lots to engage with there!

Initiative 1351
Mandate reduced class sizes in K-12 though hiring 25k employees, at a price tag of $5B in the first four years, and $2B a year after that. No specific guidance where to come up with the money, though this would authorize the school districts to raise property taxes to collect a subset of this (roughly half?).

My biggest question here was: how big (in context) is $4.7B? For this, we can refer to the FY13 Operating Budget, which operates on a two-year cycle. The total pie is ~$60B, though the "Near General Fund-State" (NGFS) portion is only half that at ~$31B. K-12 education is by far the biggest piece of this historically at about $13.6B. The impact in the first four years would be $2.35B per budget, or a 17% increase to K-12 spending, or a 7.6% overall increase in NGFS spending.

Assuming Democrats will never cut anything ever, call it a 7.6% tax increase spent in education. That's a lot of money, but if it dramatically improves school quality in Washington (which has a poor reputation), the money might be worth it. If nothing else, the increased tax bill would be far less than sending my two kids to private schools.

So the real question is, will this dramatically improve school quality?

Well, the real telling factoid I saw was this: of 25,000 new employees, only 7,400 will be teachers.

Clearly something other than class size is driving this proposal, given that most of the employees are not teachers, and that non-employee issues of class size (notably physical space) are largely ignored.

Initiative 591
Why even describe it? It's a one-page proposal, and only a few lines worth of meaningful directive.

• It is unlawful for any government agency to confiscate guns or other firearms from citizens without due process. 
• It is unlawful for any government agency to require background checks on the recipient of a firearm unless a uniform national standard is required.

Libertarians against States' rights. Fun. Also completely insane.


Initiative 594
A much longer bill, which prevents the sale or transfer of guns between non-dealers without a background check; the proposed mechanism being that a licensed dealer acts as an intermediary between private parties.

Yes, this law would be illegal under Initiative 591. If both pass, hilarity ensues.

The crux is that there are currently several (legal) means by which you can buy a gun privately without being vetted, and this law intends to close them all. Opponents are concerned that this criminalizes (what they consider) normal behavior, such as lending their guns to friends.

Most of this concern is around "temporary transfers" (ie. lending a gun). The proposal includes exceptions for this category including: spouses, parent-child, anything at a licensed gun range, anything at a shooting event, and hunting.

Advisory: Senate Bill 6505
Advisory = the law already passed, and they ask if you want to maintain or repeal it. The results are completely ignored either way, but they make interesting reading at least.

This prevented the marijuana industry from being counted as agriculture, which apparently gets significant tax breaks. The argument against this is that the end result of being taxed at every stage brings a roughly 44% government tax on marijuana products by the time it reaches the consumer.

Welcome to Washington. We have no income tax. So we sales tax ALL OF THE THINGS!


Advisory: House Bill 1287
Shifts some tax burden away from off-reservation tribal holdings (a notable example often given was Salish Lodge), similar to the benefits that would be given for a local government. Presumably, this tax burden shifts onto the non-tribal land owners in the community, though there isn't an explicit requirement for this.

Tribes are for this because they avoid taxes, though it's phrased as avoiding discrimination compared to a city government. Impacted cities are against this because they lose a significant revenue stream.

My First US Vote!

... okay, so it's just a primary... for midterm elections... and neither senator is up... but still, DEMOCRACY IS HAPPENING! Don't spoil this for me.

 

Washington is all vote-by-mail, which takes away a bit of the excitement of going to a polling station. Still, can't argue with the convenience. It is also a top-two open primary state - the process chooses two candidates to go into the general election without any regard for party affiliation.

 

So far, I have on my plate: Federal Representative, State Representative x 2, State Senator, County Executive, and County Prosecuting Attorney.

 

From what I can tell, US elections are both more fun and less fun than their Canadian counterparts. The US is a two-party system, while some Canadian federal elections have had as many as five meaningfully represented parties. However, despite the polarization of US politics, I'd argue it's actually less partisan. The legislative process is much more complex here, so legislation can initiate from many sources, and legislators can and do vote against party lines - so one party member is not the equivalent of another.

 

For now, I'm still building my list of resources. Also, learning about Washington State - my studying for the naturalization test (and TV) helped build my knowledge of Federal civics, but left me clueless when it comes to non-partisan primaries, multi-seat legislative districts, and all the other fun quirks of Washington state government.

 

My best resource so far has been Project Vote Smart. What differentiated it from others (notably govtrack.us and opencongress.org) was the details on non-incumbents, and the details at all level of government including State level. Other sites do very well at tracking current Federal congressmen, but it's hard to judge an incumbent when the challengers are unknowns.

 

So, I'm taking a lot of notes, and hopefully figure out some sane decisions before the baby comes. In two years, I should have plenty of practice and be ready for the serious elections for President and others.

 

My Journey to America

Today, I am an American citizen. It's been a long road to get there.

01/2006 - TN visa.
10/2006 - H-1B visa.
04/2007 - Priority Date - EB3 ROW.
07/2007 - Applied for Employment-based green card. I-140 / I-485, per the July 2007 visa bulletin fiasco.
08/2009 - H-1B visa extension.
10/2009 - Forced switch to EAD/AP.
09/2010 - Switched to Family-based green card application. I-130 / I-485, IR.
12/2010 - Green card, CR6.
09/2012 - Applied to remove conditions. I-751.
06/2013 - Green card, IR6.
10/2013 - Applied N-400.
02/2014 - Naturalization interview.
02/2014 - Naturalization oath.

It's hard to express to someone who's not been through this process how nerve-wracking it can be. Even while fully within the bounds of the law, my status at times has been backed by nothing more than a payment receipt from USCIS and copies of internal memos describing their significance. No matter how well-documented, I was still at the mercy of border guards to interpret my fate (per 10/2009, they can make some pretty serious mistakes). My status could process in weeks or decades, based on dates that moved largely at random both forwards and backwards. All the while, filing dozens of pages of paperwork and spending thousands of dollars (okay... maybe it was Microsoft spending the money) every single year to keep a myriad of documents and redundant statuses in sync. Waiting in countless beige USCIS waiting rooms for hours for processing. And in the end, the knowledge that even if I survived all this, that a single misstep could undo and see me deported back to the wilds of Canada.

... though what I think scares me even more, is that I had it better by far than most other immigrants.

Today, that ends. I'm an American now. It's exciting: I finally have a fundamental right to live in the place where my family, my home, and my job reside. I will soon have personal representation for all those US taxes I've been paying for the past twelve years.

I'm very excited for the ability to vote, and the implied rights of political engagement this permits (eg. signing petitions). Politics in the US are always exciting, and my background makes for some interesting perspectives - for example on immigration... and of course health care.

Some interesting FAQs:

• This makes me a triple citizen: Canada, UK, USA. Yes, this is permitted by all three countries.
• I will be able to vote in US Elections at all levels, and intend to do so at every opportunity.
• I cannot currently vote in Canadian or UK elections. The former would appear to directly contradict the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
• I'll still be cheering for Team Canada for hockey. Sorry, I can't help it, I was born this way.

US Naturalization interview

I was scared of the naturalization interview. Not because of the civics test, but because of what other random things they could want to know about my life and habits. The long list of documents (originals AND copies, of course) they say are required can't help but drive a little paranoia.

But, for me, it was quick and painless. I will describe my own experience, so that others will have a better idea what to expect. Keep in mind, each case is different, and your experience may vary significantly. I generally have an easy time with USCIS, so maybe I just got off easy.

First off the documents. What they DID need to see:

• Green card (for naturalization eligibility).
• Washington State photo ID (to establish residence/jurisdiction).
• Passports from all my claimed nationalities.

What they notably DIDN'T want to see:

• Originals of any documents I submitted copies of with my N-400. This includes documentation on spouse's status, children, evidence of bona-fide marriage, of current address, etc.
• Tax returns or transcript.
• Photos. In fact, they had my originals on-hand (which I had to sign), plus digital copies.
• ANY copies of anything. I did not leave a single piece of paper with them.

I shredded several HUNDRED pages of copied documents after the interview.

The first step was a review of my application (the N-400). This part is no joke! They will go through every page, testing your knowledge, the accuracy, and filling in details. The hardest part was when I was expected to recite my anniversary, my wife's birthday, and my daughter's birthday in short succession (they're close together and easy to mix up).

One specific step that worries some people are the list of trips outside the country. They certainly did ask me about these, but my perception was that they weren't looking to trip me up on technicalities at the interview stage. They asked me to briefly talk about a couple of my trips (notably the ones not to Canada), but didn't really have any clarifying questions. Notably, they never asked me about specific date ranges or to account for my totals for number of days outside the country.

English was trivial. Read "Who can vote?". Told to write the answer "Citizens can vote." Six words. I was disappointed that they do not automatically make every Canadian write a sentence with the word 'color' in it.

Civics and History test - well it's exactly what they tell you it is. You already know the possible questions and answers. Study and it will be fine. 6/6 for me.

After the interview is finished, they give you a form N-652, documenting whether you passed/failed and the disposition of your application. For me, they recommended approval on the spot, which from looking around the lobby crowd seemed to be a common outcome. What I didn't expect is that they handed me my notice for the naturalization ceremony right there at the interview. The bigger surprise - they scheduled my naturalization ceremony for THE SAME DAY! My interview was at 8:20am, my ceremony at 11:40am. This did not seem to be a coincidence, as I recognized several people at the oath ceremony (total ceremony was about 60 people) who had been in the testing waiting area that morning.

So yes, I left to Tukwika expecting a morning at the central bureaucracy, and left a citizen.

Baseboard covers for child safety

[Revised: 3/8/2014, revised in response to some feedback about overall child safety, and to post manufacturer's response]

We own a fifty year old house. It has electric baseboard heaters. Like these.

As a heat source, they're impressive. Quiet, fast, and powerful, with room-by-room control of your heat.

The problem is that kids can get at this.

Sharp scalding-hot metal fins, exposed by a gap that is the ideal size to trap child toys or even hands and feet. This can result in severe burns, requiring emergency room treatment*. Even if the child makes it out unscathed, a toy shoved in that gap could easily catch fire** (and by extension, your home).

[* This is not a theoretical problem. A (defective) electric baseboard heater sent a friend's child to the emergency room with severe burns last Christmas. ]
[** Also not theoretical; at least one mother I spoke with had an issue with a toy catching fire inside the heater. Thankfully caught before significant house damage resulted. ]

But the truly scary part: it's a completely unsolved problem. From child safety websites, to handymen we've worked with, and even the websites of companies that make protective covers for baseboards, the recommendation is the same: the only real solution is to rip out your baseboards and install something else. Unfortunately, it seems in most families that having thousands of dollars in spare cash is mutually exclusive with having children, so there needs to be a better way.

We installed Baseboarders, paying about $1000 for five covers. They are steel covers which can, among other things, be mounted over top of an existing baseboard heater. Most importantly, they entirely cover that front opening, preventing anything from getting inside the heater itself. They are installed by screwing mounting brackets above the heater, which leave a small gap to slide the cover down on top of. Endcaps simply slide onto each end. And then you get this.

On the plus side, it looks much better! But does it work?

... kinda.

The important thing is that the heating element is not directly accessible; in that regard the cover is brilliant. This brilliantly mitigates the risks around the exposed heating element. However that doesn't mean a child will not get burned. The cover is solid steel, and it conducts heat extremely well. Most of it stays cool, but that top surface gets VERY HOT, VERY FAST. While warming up, it's uncomfortable to touch, and at the hottest I've seen, I can't hold my hand to the metal. On the plus side, it also cools down very quickly once the heat is off.

The wall mount is at the very top back edge, and there are no additional mounts on the endcaps. This means only gravity and 1.5cm of steel prevents the cover from being torqued from below. I don't think a toddler could effectively lift the cover enough to get at the heater, but with a bit of motivation might damage the drywall. The endcaps don't actually have anything securing them to the cover except tension from a clip, so with enough wiggling, they could be pulled off entirely.

There were a few other metal covers out there, but most were twice the price for a manufacturer with half the reputation, and the same heat problems. The only alternative material was wood, which almost exclusively meant custom fabrication, at prices that would actually make a full heating system replacement look competitive. At which point, I'd just indulge myself.

Elora verifies my work.

 

  

Update 2/1/2014:

I picked up a fun new toy: a Ryobi laser thermometer. On my latest Baseboarder install, I checked the temperature. So far, the hottest I have measured is 200°F. Is that too hot? Definitely. WAY too hot.

 

Measuring the safety of a hot surface is a complex scientific process. However, the generally accepted standard seems to be that surfaces hotter than 140°F (60°C) need to be insulated to prevent accidental burns. Above 160°F, you start to risk immediate injuries on contact.

 

We're investigating a few new options now. We are hoping to find some sort of silicone mat which will serve as a protective cover. Will update if we do any new experiments.

 

Update 3/8/2014:

The company that produces Baseboarders saw my post!

 

Their official response below:

Baseboarders have never been marketed as a product that can bring down the touch temperature of baseboard heaters. They will get just as hot as the original covers. However, Baseboarders feature a clean one piece design, and this produces child safety benefits. These benefits are strictly limited to the absence of exposed sharp metal edges and a restriction of access to the heating element by way of the hot air out gap that runs the length of the heater. This gap is often used as an opening to push toys into the enclosure and on to the heating element; creating a potential fire hazard.

 

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Great game. Buy it. Buy it now. Looks absolutely gorgeous on the Xbox One, but I'm sure it's nice on other platforms too.

They've addressed my primary complaint of the previous games using a startlingly simple strategy: by NOT adding a bunch of random crap, and instead dumping all that effort into primary gameplay. Sure, there's the modern world stuff with a few silly hacking games (though kudos to whomever snuck in prime factorization), but it's at best a brief distraction. There's days and days worth of looting, brawling, pirating, and assassinations to be had throughout the game. There are still side activities in game (eg. whaling, diving), but they are sufficiently tied to the core game mechanics that it doesn't break immersion (eg. spinner puzzles).

When they say that ship-to-ship combat is a core mechanic, they are not kidding. Sailing is very much an equal partner to the classic assassin gameplay, and there many sea missions in the core storyline. It's not quite as polished as the Assassin play, but satisfyingly fun.

The game is LONG! 22 hours in and it feels like I have quite a ways to go. It's hard to compare the main storylines because Black Flag draws you in so deeply into side activities. To some extent, it's required - ship missions will start getting unreasonably hard unless you upgrade your ship. Upgrades means materials and money and blueprints, which means going pirating on the high seas. But also, because there are so many small islands to visit, you can reasonably "complete" many zones in a short period of time, and thus are more motivated to do so. It was harder to get excited about finding animus fragment 112 of 250 in Rome.

The difficulty curve seems well-settled now. Particularly in open combat, you can't just counterstrike your way through fifty guards anymore, with riflemen sniping and brutes decking you with axes, and soldiers not lining up single file to die. Guns are powerful but fair. Ship combat is actually a bit hard sometimes, but this is more a symptom of the lack of a quick way to look around.

Finally, ways to die..

Surface - the RT and the Pro

Microsoft recently gave most of their employees the new Surface RT tablet, in part to encourage us to all to advocate for this new tablet. It certainly is an effective strategy - the tablet gets noticed, and people I know are starting to buy them. Even beyond my very obvious bias, I do love the Surface RT, and I think it does a good job of selling itself. It's not for everyone, but for many people I recommend it over both Apple and Android tablets.

Recently, Microsoft also provided me a Surface Pro (though this one is very much a work asset). Comparing the two, what I realized is that the raw specifications really don't convey the real-world experiential differences between these two devices. So, I figured I'd share what I've observed so far.

Form Factor

The RT is a slim device. It's not 'light', but the aluminum chassis feels right - solid and rugged without being uncomfortable to use. I've used lighter tablets, and they feel cheap and plastic-y and scream in protest at the slightest torsion.

The Pro is noticeably thicker and heavier - you can tell the difference, especially after using both in succession, but in practical terms, neither is heavy enough for the weight to really matter. Both Surface models are at their best on a table where you can leverage the keyboard and kickstand anyways.

Unlike the RT, there is a small gap along the whole back edge of the Pro, presumably for the active cooling. It's not really a problem, but it's unusual enough to attract attention.

Power

The RT runs forever. It'll go several days without a charge, and even with heavy use, it'll make it to the charger at the end of the day with power to spare. While the Pro's battery life has been often maligned, it's not horrible for casual use. I haven't tried watching movies yet, but I can check mail and take notes throughout the day at work and still have (a sliver) of battery left when I leave the office. Unlike every laptop I've ever used, I haven't had to compulsively hunt for power everywhere I go.

The RT may warm up slightly if you use it heavily. By comparison, the Pro is cool when idle, but can get quite hot when it's under intensive use, particularly for games. It seems that the Pro also has some active cooling when it's running hot, and it can be surprising when one hears a fan whir up on a tablet.

Sleep is a bit different between the two devices. The RT is "Instant On"; you push the button, and you light up immediately. The Pro is the same when it has power, but if you leave it idle on battery for awhile it goes into a more traditional laptop-style sleep mode. This just means you get the Surface logo and it takes about five seconds to wake up. I assume, much like a normal laptop, the settings for sleep are configurable.

One thing to note - though they are the same plug (and presumably "compatible"), the RT and the Pro's chargers are different. I'm told the Pro's is much beefier, to meet the Microsoft guidelines for device charging times on the bigger battery.

Pen Input

One obvious bonus to the Surface Pro - a full tablet stylus. This isn't a glorified pointy stick that just replaces one of your smudgy fingers, but rather makes the Surface Pro a full drawing tablet with pressure sensitivity, hover, eraser, and pixel-precise resolution. Gabe speaks at length as to the quality of the stylus for drawing purposes. For the non-artistic population, honestly you won't use it much - apps are designed for finger-poking so the precision of the pen is redundant. However, there's one killer feature for the pen - digitally signing documents. The built-in PDF reader will allow you to draw and save, which means you can sign emailed documents without them ever hitting paper.

The pen attaches magnetically to the power socket so you can carry it around. While this seemed brilliant when I first heard about it, it's actually quite annoying because when you connect to power, you end up having to just leave the pen loose. Then the cat knocks it off your desk.

Device Support

Both the RT and the Pro have a USB port, putting both devices miles beyond Apple-like tablets with their device-specific plugs. The RT in theory only supports a small set of devices designed for it, but it's actually surprising how many USB devices work automatically. I've tried with a few USB keys, a camera, and even my smartcard reader, and they all work! I've heard that most mice and keyboards work magically too.

The Pro is like any other computer - if it's USB, it'll work. Period.

The RT and the Pro both have video out; micro HDMI for the RT, and Mini DisplayPort for the Pro. I have yet to try the Pro, but the RT can drive some devices to high resolution (more than the device itself). Don't buy the expensive adaptors from Microsoft; generic adaptors can be had on Amazon for a few dollars that will work just as well.

Aside: Type vs Touch
The debate rages on. The touch keyboards are thinner, quieter, and come in several colors. You can certainly type faster than an on-screen keyboard, but it'd still be a bit awkward if you're a proficient touch typist and need to write an essay. The type keyboards are black, thick, and undeniably click-y. Click-y is good.

After using both; the choice is obvious. If you're doing a lot of typing, get the type keyboard.

The touch keyboard is good as a cover, and still a big improvement over an on-screen keyboard if you occasionally need to poke more than a text message out.

Windows 8 Boot Recovery

A bizarre day of hard drive tinkering.

So one of Amber's hard drives started making the telltale grinding noises of impending doom. "It sounds like my computer is driving over a gravelly road... and now it's stuck at the Windows loading screen." she says. I groan; I know that particular sound means I'm probably already too late, and that the odds are distinctly not in my favor for getting any data off, but I promise to try to extract the data that evening.

So, I take the drive from her computer, connect it to one of my many SATA ports, and power up. Sure enough, the drive is sounding truly awful. But sadly, the presence of this drive has apparently confused the Windows 8 boot loader.

Lets take a step back. I have an "interesting" configuration. I run a 100GB RevoDrive, plus a 1TB SATA3 drive; System Partition is on the former. However, the latter is divided into three partitions. First is the "System Reserved" partition (which Windows always insists on putting on the SATA drive for some reason), then my data partition. Due to experimentation back in the Windows 8 Release Preview days, my third partition is a functional Win8RP partition. The configuration is by nature fragile, since the RevoDrive needs non-standard drivers, but I've never had install problems.

Back to the boot process. Windows 8 startup for some reason REALLLLLLLY wants to do stuff with the dying drive, and kicks off some repair. The repair freezes at 100%, the drive is sounding worse and worse. I can't exit back to the normal boot process, so I hard reset. Now this just makes Windows MAD! They decide that it's time to do "automatic repair", and decides to give the old Windows 8 RP build supremacy, presumably for being on the same physical disk as the reserved partition.

Now I'm totally screwed. RP has control, isn't showing any other boot options, and wants to reboot hourly to discourage me from using the pre-release OS any more. The standard recovery tools (notably bootrec.exe) are not actually available live, only in the recovery environment. So I write my Win8 ISO to a USB stick, reboot, and enter a repair command prompt. The recovery tools in Windows 8 should have no problem fixing me up, but unfortunately, the recovery paths that let you load drivers are mutually exclusive with the recovery paths that let me fix repair my boot sequence.

Well, reboots, and further frustration ensure. Long story short:

1. Copy RevoDrive drivers to a second USB stick.
2. Reboot to Windows 8 install. Choose "Repair my System".
3. Find Windows 8 RP mounted on SATA drive.
4. Run pnputil -i -a J:\path\to\driver.inf
   This loads the drivers from the command prompt! The tool isn't in the recovery environment for some reason, but seems the RP version worked fine.
5. Run bootrec /fixmbr
6. Run bootrec /RebuildBcd
   This is the magic. It scans all the fixed disks, and writes out the BCD to boot them properly. Now that the drivers are loaded, it's suddenly not even interested in RP anymore and finds my Windows 8 Pro release build.

After this, a quick reboot and my machine is functional again.

Needless to say, I've permanently deleted the RP partition, so Automatic Repair doesn't get smart with me again. Next up, proper backup recovery.

Want to know the funniest thing? After all that, the dead drive turned out to not be Amber's system drive (or even her data drive). It was just a leftover drive from when she needed the extra space for MMO clients. Her OS, and practically all the data she cared about was intact!  Who knows why Windows 7 refused to boot when the system partition was intact, but once the dying drive was removed, her computer was fine like nothing happened.

Lumia 920 win

My Samsung Focus rather unceremoniously bit the bucket today - it decided suddenly to stop accepting a battery charge. Thankfully, this occurred to the day of my upgrade cycle with AT&T, so I decided to upgrade to the Nokia Lumia 920 (black), one of the new Windows Phone 8 devices.

Admittedly it's hard to say I'm unbiased, but Windows Phone 8 is truly a work of genius. Ecosystem be damned, this thing is way better than even the mighty iPhone.  Nokia also adds a respectable amount of value.

A short list of why the Lumia 920 (and Windows Phone in general) is the best phone ever:

• Nokia Drive. FREE MAPS, and not the crappy homebrew ones from Apple, but proper Navteq. Of course, with voice turn-by-turn. The big surprise - OFFLINE maps - now I can finally navigate in Canada! Did I also mention "completely free"?
• Free ringtones. None of this charging for ringtone nonsense from iTunes; just drag a song from your computer to "Ringtones".
• Forget re-buying all the accessories (*cough* iPhone 5 *cough*), my Lumia plugs in with *gasp*.... micro-USB. Wherever will I find a cord that fits?
• Skydrive sync. Zune was always behind iTunes in terms of phone syncing... but now it's irrelevant. Windows Phone 8 just does away with Zune entirely. Your texts and app list are backed up, and your photos back up directly to SkyDrive.
• Uberscreen. 4.5" of HD, with jet black blacks (both bigger and higher resolution than iPhone 5).
• Really fast - noticeably faster than the Focus.
• Childproof. Now with a "Kids Corner", a mode where kids can access games or apps you choose, but not dial Russian sex lines.
• Resizable tiles. Yes, it may sound like a dumb thing to get excited about, but once you start customizing your start screen, you realize how satisfying it is to turn your start screen into a proper information hub.
• Ready for business. Mobile Office pre-installed; automagic sync to both SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro (didn't even have to set them up). Email and calendaring to Exchange (and Google, and Hotmail) retains the utter perfection achieved in Windows Phone 7.

... and I haven't even tried some of the best stuff yet, like the "Lens" feature (or the camera in general), tap-sync, or the legendary pillow charger. I suspect the next few days will be fun.

While I'm disappointed with the loss of Zune sync support, the fact that you can simply copy stuff with Explorer or a variety of other sync apps more than makes up for it. While the new Windows 8 "Windows Phone" app is obviously primitive and feature-anemic, it did copy media to the phone as advertised with no issues.

For my token negative comments... seriously, AT&T, is the crapware really necessary? Why would I pay monthly for your navigation, TV or music, when it's given away for free by apps built in to the phone? You cost me entire minutes deleting it all!

UPDATE 1/23:
More cool stuff discovered while using the phone.

• Separate volume for each Bluetooth device. This was a complaint I had with WinPhone 7.0, and its resolution makes my morning commute way easier.
• Visual voicemail. About time!
• Emotion added in text-to-speech! It's pretty minor, but you can hear that the 8.0 voice actually sounds happy that you've received a text message, while the 7.5 voice is carefully neutral.
• Nokia Music. Actually pretty good - perhaps redundant to Zune Pass holders, but you can offline your "mixes" with less effort than Xbox Music.

How do I protect my Paypal account?

A friend of Amber's recently asked an interesting question - how can you protect your Paypal account from being hacked?

Well, I may not work for Paypal (or any Internet finance company), but I do know a thing or two about security, so I figured I'd give a shot at providing some tips to keeping your account secure. The same tips can apply to just about any valuable Internet account you want to protect.

1. Use a unique password.
Your password should be something:

• NOBODY else knows. Yes, not even your spouse, your kids, your tech support guy, or even your Mother. The more people that know, the higher the chances that at least one person will abuse the access, or even if they don't, will make a completely unintentional mistake that ends up exposing your password.
• Is not used at ANY OTHER WEBSITE. It turns out that financial institutions (usually) do a pretty good job of protecting their users' passwords. However, FarmCityVampireTownVille, written entirely in Edgar's Mom's basement, is likely not quite as careful. Any two-bit hacker cracks the game's password file, then tries those passwords on more valuable websites like Paypal.
• Is not blatantly obvious. While hackers may not know the name of your dog or your birthday, that angry ex-girlfriend probably remembers it acutely, and is eager to use that knowledge to steal every cent you have.
• Is not written somewhere easy to access. Sticky notes (the real world kind) on the monitor are bad. A Notepad file on your desktop (the virtual kind now) is worse. Having the browser remember your password is just asking to get robbed. If you really want to save your passwords somewhere, there are specialized applications, eg. 1Password, which will allow you to save your passwords encrypted on your computer or phone. These applications can be a mixed blessing - the idea is that saving all your passwords under a single master password is worth the risk because it is then practical to use unique passwords for every website.

I specifically omitted any tips about having a "strong" password. While your password shouldn't be excessively short or common ("abc" or "dog" are probably not good choices), the gains from adding a bunch of numbers and punctuation are modest at best, and changing a password frequently (more than once every few months) is often more counter-productive than helpful. In my humble opinion, it's more important to have a unique password you can remember than what some security experts consider a "strong" password.

2. Use only computers you trust.
A compromised computer or device can easily steal your password.

• Run anti-virus, and keep it up-to-date. You are susceptible to computer viruses. Period. I don't care how safe you think you are. I don't even care if you only surf news sites, or if you don't even have the Internet. You WILL eventually be exposed to a virus, and an effective anti-virus can protect you from most of them (blocking rates for most good anti-virus programs are in the mid-90%'s).
  If you don't have an anti-virus (or let your subscription lapse on the one you have), and don't feel like paying for one. Microsoft gives away a free anti-virus. Alternatively, if you have Windows 8, you already have anti-virus built in.
• Don't use anyone else's computer to access your account. Don't log into Paypal from your friend's computer. Or your Mom's computer. Especially not an Internet kiosk, or at a store. I'd even warn against using your account on a shared computer at home, if you can avoid it. It is simply too hard for you to be sure that the computer you are using is trustworthy to not steal your passwords.
• If your computer is behaving strangely, don't access your account. This is a bit more subjective - computers can often seem to act 'strangely' in completely normal circumstances. However, if your computer is displaying unexpected pop-ups, redirecting your Internet searches, running (unusually) slow, you should consider at least a virus scan before using your account. If you have been told that you have a virus, *never* use your account until your computer has been successfully cleaned by anti-virus software - and if possible, inspected by a professional.

What I didn't say here is "trusted networks". Go ahead and use your account on any Internet connection you can get - home, work, your hotel room, even public wireless. Any credible financial website these days will use encryption ("https"... usually indicated by some sort of padlock icon in your browser address bar). This means that, assuming your computer is otherwise trustworthy, that even if somebody is listening in on your connection, they can't see your password.

Note: while Paypal protects your entire session using encryption for privacy, other websites (eg. Gmail) only protect your password, then switch to an unencrypted connection. This means that anyone listening in will be able to see whatever you're browsing (for example, your emails), particularly on a wireless connection. If you value privacy, the EFF makes a great tool called HTTPS Everywhere that turns on encryption automatically for many common websites.

3. Protect your email account.
It turns out that your email account is one of your most valuable assets for security. When you click that "I forgot my password" link on your favorite website, usually they send you a password reset email. Even worse, your email likely has enough personal information (friends/family information, birthdays, account numbers, sometimes even passwords or security questions) to crack most every account you own, even ones that aren't on the Internet!

Take similar precautions with your email account as you would with your Paypal account, because the former may provide the keys to the latter.

Anyone else have good tips to protect your Paypal or other valuable Internet accounts? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

TD Visa Disgust

I've been banking with TD Canada Trust for most of my life. I banked with them back before the Canada Trust merger, I held my first credit card with them, my first retirement savings, even my first investments. But today, they have paid me a gross insult, hidden within pages of legalese, that has me seriously considering leaving this bank forever.

Today, TD Visa sent me a chip and pin card.

For those of us who have been away from Canada now, chip-and-pin cards, as a result of intense pressure from card issuers, have become a de-facto standard for merchant transactions in Canada. Rather than the familiar process of swiping a magnetic stripe and signing a piece of paper, you instead stick your credit card into a terminal, and enter a short numeric code (your PIN). The system has become so pervasive that in many establishments in Vancouver, new members of the service industry don't even know how to swipe a card - much to my amusement when I visit with my ancient magstripe cards.

Why chip-and-pin? It's more secure! Anyone with cheap (or even free) hardware can duplicate the information on a magstripe card, write a random squiggle on a receipt, and walk out of any merchant with as much as they can carry. It's much harder to steal from a chip-and-pin. The card never has to leave the user's hand, and even if it does, is exceedingly difficult to duplicate (millions of dollars of high-end forensics hardware). Even if the card is duplicated or just outright stolen, without the PIN it is difficult to extract any money from it.

Credit cards that are harder for people to steal from? Sounds pretty good, right? Well they are! Except many banks, including TD Canada Trust, have used it as an opportunity to offload risks onto their cardholders.

From their cardholder agreement:

Before you notify us, the Primary Cardholder will not be responsible for any unauthorized Transactions that occurred, as long as you have complied with the Agreement. If at any time your Card or the Account is used, including at an ATM, with a personal identification code (such as a Personal Identification Number (PIN), Connect ID and/or Password), that will be considered an authorized Transaction for which the Primary Cardholder will responsible.

What this translates to is: if you use a credit card, you're not liable for any theft or fraud, unless it's a chip and pin, in which case you're liable for 100%. You're liable for a mugging. You're liable for a terminal with a tampered screen. You're liable if someone uses well-known man-in-the-middle attacks to use your card without your PIN. It may be a bit harder to steal from you, but if they do, it's your problem, no matter what the circumstances.

I don't know if all banks do this. It seems to be a recent change or clarification with TD Canada Trust. I've heard CIBC made this change years ago. Smaller credit unions may be behaving more responsibly than TD Canada Trust. I desperately hope I can find an institution in Canada that actually respects its cardholders, rather than lining them up for theft.

... or maybe I'll just drop my Canadian credit cards entirely. In an ironic role reversal, US law protects cardholders from liability.

Leaving IEEE

I was a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers for ten years, joining as a student member in my early days at the University of Waterloo. I enjoyed my days as a student member, taking advantage of student paper nights, and getting involved with the local student society. During my Masters degree, I was lucky enough to attend a few IEEE conferences, and even published in a few of them. Overall, I felt that

However, after several years in industry, it's not quite as useful. I'm not publishing, nor attending (IEEE) conferences. The very concept of magazines and journals seems dated in an era of RSS, Reddit, and open access. Combine that with a very underwater mortgage, a family to support, and much higher membership fees, and the membership value proposition becomes hard to justify.

But what killed me more than anything - the spam. Neverending spam. I think the most offensive was the IEEE-affiliate life insurance - clearly not even tangentially related to the IEEE, yet I'm getting shredder food every month. Next on my list, the IEEE Communications Society. I don't do communications. I'll probably never do communications. I haven't the slightest interest in the topic, nor have I ever expressed such an interest. Still, they sending me every last call for papers, nag me regularly to subscribe to their content, and steadfastly refuse to honor my unsubscribes.

Finally, I had enough, and let my membership lapse at the end of 2011. This was just the beginning of the spam, with nearly a dozen different offers, warnings, requests and complaints trying to encourage me to renew. Not entirely unexpected, but what really got me was when they opened a support incident at "my request" in their support system, simply to further spam me through their ticket system. Every new email further reinforces how right I was to disassociate with this organization.

IEEE, you are supposed to be the premier professional organization for modern engineers, not an affiliate marketing business. Shame on you.

Good old Games?

Recently I've been availing myself of GOG.com - a site that sells old PC video games at bargain prices, most often $6, though with regular $3 weekend sales that can be hard to resist. Most of the games are packaged to run under the DOSbox emulator, and so far every one has run perfectly.

In an era of multi-million pixel displays, 3D audio, and multi-gigabyte drives, are these ancient games really worthwhile? Some definitely have withstood the test of time. So far, my favorite has been Lands of Lore. There's something about that MIDI soundtrack and the gameplay that seamlessly mixes combat and puzzles that is just as addictive now as it was in my teenage years.

Still, playing many of these classic games have reminded me just how much things have evolved in game design; simple concepts that took the industry surprisingly long to catch on to, that you can't help but miss when going back to those old games.

Control Mapping
Back before the mouse was a basic requirement of every game, it was popular to use the arrow keys for navigation, rather than the now-popular WASD. This allowed the dominant (right) hand of most players to be used for  precise movement. Games eventually adopted the mouse for look, and thus stole the right hand from the arrow keys. Try using the arrow keys with your left hand, while using the mouse with your right. It cramps. Quickly.

But even more fundamental than the arrows-WASD debate, is that most modern games will let you set whatever controls you want. As long as you're willing to spend a few minutes in an option screen, you can set up whatever control scheme you can imagine. In the old games, the controls are the controls, and you live with them or play something else.

New games even let you adjust whether to use inverted or regular mouse look. Yes Magic Carpet, I'm tired of inverted mouse.

Checkpoints
I think I first saw this in Halo - the idea that without significant player intervention, the game would save your progress, so that if you died, you could recover at the start of the most recent section of the map. Now, we take it for granted that in most games your progress will be saved, and a death can only cost you a finite amount of progress. Having to repeat more than five minutes of play is considered poor style in a modern game.

Not so in old games. When you die, it's GAME OVER. Exit to DOS, or start a new game. You can reload from the last point you saved. If you saved three days ago... well sucks to be you. This is particularly relevant with old games, because they're hard! You'll be dying. A lot. It took me the better part of a day replaying Gladstone in Lands of Lore to get back into the step-step-save habit.

Tutorials and Tooltips
Game manuals are a thing of the past. I think the Starcraft 2 manual was more lore than instructions. Many Xbox games don't even come with manuals anymore. With digital download games, it's practically a requirement that the games teach their own gameplay. Even in complex games like high-end MMORPGs, you can learn almost everything you need to know from nothing but tooltips.

With old games, manuals are often essential. First, to learn the controls themselves, which as previously mentioned, can't be discovered or remapped. In some games like Magic Carpet, even the objective of the game can be unclear without some tips. Syndicate's manual is over fifty pages, and even reading that, I only barely understand the game.