Feed Your Head

I've just read John Markov's What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry which begins with Doug Englebart getting into place at SRI, looks-in on the creation of Stanford AI Lab and Xerox PARC, and ends after the first few meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. Some people I know (Dennis and Jim, for instance) figure prominently in the book. I always knew they were famous, I just didn't know what for.

Buy the book for the titilating details -- sex and drugs, yes, but also how much the first Alto cost.

OK baby, we can skip the saran wrap!

Our friends at EducatedGuesswork are discussing the news that the FDA is considering approval of an at-home AIDS test. At issue is whether people can handle the truth without counseling, false positive rate, and such-like.

All that misses the point. The unmet need that a fast "oral fluid" HIV antibody test satisfies is screening prospective sex partners. Here, handsome -- let me take your glass to the kitchen to freshen-up your drink.

Believe me, *I* can handle the truth that maybe *you've* got AIDS. The question is: do social conservatives, who think AIDS has its good points (such as discouraging promiscuity), run the FDA?

Well, that was interesting!

Lying on the bed in the emergency room yesterday, with the IV going into me and the monitors beeping I wasn't thinking about much, and certainly not about blogging. I should probably start the story earlier than that. But first: I'm much better now, thanks.

Mid-morning I went outside and sat down at my patio table to drink a can of cold coffee and read the Sunday NYT. I went inside to attend to something for what I thought would be a few minutes but turned out to be more like an hour.

I returned, sat down, and took a swig from my already-opened can. There were strange lumps in that mouthful and before I could wonder what they were, I felt a sting under my tongue. There are a lot of yellowjackets around my place...

Phylis was picking figs from one of our trees on the other end of the yard, and I went to tell her in a somewhat agitated way that I had been stung by yellowjackets in my mouth. If my tongue and throat swelled it might interfere with my breathing and require a trip to the hospital. Then I got some ice to put in my mouth and went to lay in bed feeling very weak and nervous. I had only been stung once before, in my toe early in August. That had hurt for a week and I was imagining that it would be even more unpleasant in the tongue.

I think I blacked-out but came to almost immediately. My hands were numb and my feet were itching. I called Phylis (still outside) and then got to the bedroom patio door and called her again. Well, more like croaked than called. And I think I may have been on my hands and knees. She came inside and -- well, it gets confusing after that.

It took her a few minutes to realize that I was half-delirious. I was fading in-and-out and feebly arguing with her while she was on 911 about driving me to the emergency room rather than having an ambulance. Apparently, I won, because I got to the car with much help from both of her and my nephew. By the time I was in the car I had tunnel vision to the point of no vision at all. I was sweating profusely, itching, numb and trembling. I had chest and stomach pain along with cramps in my legs and back. It took a lot of effort to speak above a croak.

I couldn't see much but I remember grunting out my symptoms to Phylis as she was doing her best Steve-McQueen-as-his-own-stunt car-driver impression. Got to El Camino Hospital's emergency room and the guy who came out to the car said anaphalactic shock even as they got me into a wheelchair. I was wisked to the back room

You can quote me on this

You respond to disasters with the administration
you have, not the one you wish you had.

I thought I'd put that out there for anybody who wants to pick it up.

Weasels considered harmful

A message from Lorrie Cranor notes that the EFF is asking for aid in the hunt for Privacy Weasels, viz., websites who make empty privacy promises. They give examples such as:

Weasel language: "Although we take appropriate measures
to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of
information, we cannot assure you that personally
identifiable information that we collect will never be
disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this
Privacy Notice."

Translation: "You can't sue us if we violate our own
policy."