Universal Basic Plot Device

This last week marks the start of November.  For most of us in the United States, this heralds nothing more than Trick-or-Treating, the end of Daylight Savings Time and the impending doom that is Thanksgiving with its aggressive day-after shopping blitzkrieg.

However, for a few thousand of us, in the US and beyond, it also starts the annual confrontation with self-motivation, internal demons and writer's block known as National Novel Writing Month.  NaNoWriMo for short.  The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month.  1,667 words a day.

I have entered a few times and completed it once (Purity, an attempted mash up of "The Last Unicorn" with "Game of Thrones").  Then I realized that 50,000 words, as many as that is, does not automatically equal a completed work of art.  I did not have an ending, merely a collection of scenes, some of which might be worth keeping, all of which would need to be extensively rewritten if they were ever going to be worth anything.  It now sits on my Google Drive and mocks me when I open that folder.  So I don't open that folder.

This year, I've done more pre-planning and am starting by writing the climax and then working backwards.  I'm not sure if this is any better than working in a more linear fashion, but it can't be worse.  You can track my progress, if you care, here.

Aside from the I'm-writing-this-and-this-other-thing-so-you-should-be-interested-in-both, there is more connecting this blog to my nascent novel.  Because of all my rambling thoughts on Universal Basic Income, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Smart IDs, I've decided to set the novel in a world where all of those things are ubiquitous parts of the landscape.  I plan on using this post, and all of the rest through the month of November, to build this world in a fast-finger stream of consciousness.

What Price Your Package?

Last week, Amazon announced a new service called Amazon Key.  There has been a fair amount of press around it, so I'm not going to (completely) rehash what other's have already done.  Instead, I'm going to do what I always do: tear it apart and then offer some solutions.

First, a quick overview in case you don't like clicking links.  Amazon Key is an attempt to figure out how to secure deliveries.  Package theft is a real thing and the Amazon logo on a box sitting on a porch is a big 'come steal me' sign.  The Big A's solution is to sell a $249 kit to Prime members in select cities.  The kit includes a Smart Lock and Cloud-connected Camera.  Their courier gets a one time code to unlock your door, drop the package off and re-lock the door.  You get a notification and a video of this happening.

Package theft solved, right?  Maybe.  Read on.

Un-National Security ID

Last week, I discussed some thoughts on personal identification, specifically as it related to credit ratings and the Equifax breach.  However, one of the things that I did not discuss is why something like this is not already in place.

After all, many other countries have National ID programs that allow them to segregate citizens from non-citizens.  To understand who is entitled to the rights set forth in each country's governing documents and laws.  Also, who should be paying taxes.  From a bureaucratic stand point, having a strong, trustworthy National ID system only makes sense.

Then why doesn't the United States, the most rootin'-ist, tootin'-ist country in the whole dang world, have something like this?   Read on, intrepid ponderer!

Rate My Credit

The Equifax hack(s?) are highlighting more than the security of the institutions that are asking us to trust them with our personal information.  It is bringing into question the entirety of how these institutions identify us and thereby assign us credit.

Even the cursory, headline-scanning research that most of us do will show that the requirements for obtaining a new line of credit are ludicrous.  All you need is a Photo ID, Social Security Number (doesn't need to be yours), a matching birth date and address.  That's it.  And with the SSN and a little work, you can get the Photo ID.

Walk into most retailers (car dealerships, furniture stores, WalMart, Target, etc.), spend fifteen minutes filling out an application and then go to town.

This needs to change.  Even the White House agrees.  For what that's worth.

What The Actual Gun?

WARNING: This post will most likely have little to do with the internet or the Internet of Things or technology or any of the usual nonsense that I spout.

Instead, I feel the need to get something off my chest:

Why The F@#K haven't we done something about the access to guns in the US?

In the wake of this latest (and only unique in the details) gun related tragedy, why do these events keep happening and why aren't people doing something about them?  Why is the US less than 5% of the world population, but has more than 30% of the mass shootings?  I'm sure that it has something to do with having nearly 50% of the civilian owned guns.

I know that I'm not really qualified to discuss the deep legal issues involved here, much less the psychological side, but I do like to think that, as a compassionate human living in a supposedly enlightened society, I can feel for the victims.  From that perspective, the only conclusion is:

This S@#T has got to stop.

So why hasn't it? I'll answer my own question: the Second Amendment and the NRA.

Mining, Not Ads

Last week, the internet changed dramatically and you probably did not notice.  This has nothing to do with Net Neutrality, though that is a big thing that may change the internet in ways that are hard to imagine.  Instead, it has to do with how websites make money.

The news story that you probably heard was that the CBS and Showtime websites were set up so that when you browsed their sites, your browser ran a script that 'mined' a crypto-currency.  It turns out that, in this particular case, the code to do this was not authorized by CBS and that some programmer did this in the dark for their own Superman III/Office Space style scam.

What you did not hear was that the mechanism that this back office Richmond used to do all of this is actually legitimate.  Just not approved by CBS.  And it can help monetize web content AND minimize advertising.  How does all of this work?  Read on.

That's What She Said

There were a few news items that caught my eye this last week.  A couple that are entry-worthy are:

• "Uncle" Joe Biden came down against Universal Basic Income as "selling the American Worker short."
• Amazon was rumored to be considering Bitcoin as a payment option.  And then wasn't.

But both of those were overshadowed by this:

Sex robots are here!  (The full article from The Mirror UK here.)  Of these three news articles, this one has the greatest potential social impact, so that's what I want to dissect.