Privacy and Genealogy

Made a run to the store, first for Starbucks, then for food. (My priorities). 

The brain cells are clicking just enough to comment on genealogy and privacy.  I subscribe to ancestry.com, and have several family trees there (mostly trees for people who might be related, partially to help my cousin in her researches).

Today Ancestry published their first ever Transparency Report, describing the times they have been asked for data by law enforcement and the times they released it. They also revised their policies. My brain's not up to reading it, but they refer to the EU's rules on moving personal data.  Just one more straw in the wind of future concerns on data.

Snow Days

About 28 inches here in Reston.  That's enough I think that our usual snow plow (pickup truck with blade) won't be much use.  The cul-de-sac has cars on both sides.  Usually the plow can scrape snow to the ends, leaving a ridge behind the cars that you have to shovel.  With this much snow I don't think the approach will really work.  We'll see--I remember an early snowstorm, maybe late 70's, where we waited and waited until finally a front loader came in.  That may be necessary this time.

The ethics of snow are interesting--to dig out your car you can either throw the snow into the drive path behind the car or carry it to the front of the car.  The first hurts the rest of the people in the cul-de-sac, particularly those who live further up the cul-de-sac, making it harder for them to get out.  The second hurts the back.

So far I've seen two four-wheel drive vehicles, one pickup, one jeep, make it out to the road, both after significant trouble; two other four-wheel SUV's  tried and failed to make it out.  Wife and I are reconciled to being house-bound for another day.

Comments

Over the years there've not been many comments on the blog, no doubt a tribute to the validity of the positions I take and the logic of my arguments.  More recently, say over the last few years, I've had a problem with understanding Google's rules on comments and their interaction with Google+, meaning any comments wouldn't show up on the blog.  Hopefully now I've corrected the problem.

Who Says the Old Days Were Better?

Not Consumer Reports, and they've a crash test between a 1959 and 2009 car to back it up.  (Link to Kottke)

The Internet Is Not Always Perfect

Back in the day, one of the most valuable items to come into one's in-basket was an updated telephone directory.  That's particularly true after a change of administration--it'd usually take 4 months or so for the reorganization to get done, people get assigned to new positions, and the data put into the directory.  But once you had it in hand, you could spend a little time leafing through, seeing who had been assigned to a turkey farm and who had risen in the world.  (That's especially true for someone like me, who tried to keep away from gossip, mostly because I wasn't any good at it.  Those who participated in the grapevine would already know that so and so had taken his secretary with him to his new position, that the idiot son of a Congressman had landed in an assistant position, etc. etc.

More seriously, though is there anything more serious than climbing the greasy pole, from the telephone directory you could get a feel for the organization.

I launch into this subject to mourn the absence of any organizational directory for USDA or FSA.  (USDA says they have one, but it's been unavailable for years.)  You can search for individuals quite nicely, but you can't find positions.   For example, who is the Executive Assistant to the Administrator, or has that position changed over the years?  From a historical viewpoint, having similar charts of the organization from  1950, 1975, 2000, and 2014 would be instructive.  I remember seeing the USDA level directory from the 1950's, about two pages of big shot jobs.  These days it's probably 20 pages, if only we had one.   Of course, only retired geezers have the time to worry about past history.  :-)

Customer Self-Service Portal

FSA Notice CM-778 covers the release of the Customer Self-Service Portal, which permits FSA producers access to see (and print some) of their basic data.   This was mandated by Congress in the farm bill.  I guess they got tired of waiting for the different administrations to come through with their promises.  [/end snark]

Without access to the software my comments aren't worth much, but here goes, in no particular order:

•  I hope usage statistics are maintained so managers can get a feel of who finds this application useful, when, and how often.  My own guess is that it's not too useful, that's why in 1992 I resisted the idea of slapping together a similar application under Infoshare.  I think I realize now that was a poor decision.
• there's mention of the FSA-156EZ (that brings back memories)--I'd hope that they're moving towards covering all the data on the farm operating plan at some point
• the fact that the same data exists in different places, which is how I interpret the statement that SCIMS is not the system of record, says to me there's been deficiencies in management over the years.  A part of me wonders, though, whether my concern with storing data only once is a carryover from the old days of IT, and it isn't really that much of a problem with modern systems which replicate and synchronize data in different databases.  
• this portal seems to have been developed as a separate stand-alone app, simply added to the Online Services page.  Again I'm stuck in the past, but it would seem better to have an integrated approach with some logic behind it.

Being Pothead Doesn't Make You Dumb, It Show You're Dumb

That's the message I take away from this post on the Wonkblog at the Post.

It discusses research trying to determine whether smoking marijuznz impairs IQ. Apparently it may not, but those who aren't so intelligent are more likely to be smokers.

[corrected age-related typos]

Creating American Icons

Having lived through the Civil Rights movement and the development of PC's, I see some similarities.  In both cases there were many people involved, important people who played big parts in the developments.  In both cases there was lots of conflict, false starts, and coulda-beens.  In both cases the passage of time has led to creation of a handful of icons:  Martin Luther King reigns as the icon of civil rights, in the form of a simplified plaster saint of non-violence and Bill Gates reigns as the icon of personal computers, becoming a sanctified elder statesman of altruism.  I don't mean to denigrate either man, just to suggest that similar processes are at work.  We need a simple narrative, so the number of heroes is ideally one, and we don't like humanity, so the number of vices acceptable is maybe one as well, but zero is better.

John Phipps and the State of Agriculture

John has a blistering post here criticizing farmers for seeing themselves as victims, closing ranks, and  disclaiming responsibility (i.e., as fertilizer runoff).  Instead he believes agriculture should be accountable for its actions.

He calls agriculture a "tiny industry"  ;-) something my sainted mother would roll over in her grave at. 

Estonia Revisited

"Today, Estonia is regarded as one of the most advanced e-governments in the world. The use of technology and digital services is widespread in both the public and private sector. We can set up a new company and have it legally up and running within 20 minutes. Nearly 95 percent of Estonians declare their income online, because it takes less than five minutes and no accountants. All this brings tax administration costs down to only 0.3 percent of net tax revenues, and saves each citizen an average of 5.4 workdays a year."

From a World Bank post on  how Estonia got there.