Fire and Knowledge

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Scientists have created a method where keys can be copied from a photo — from any angle or distance as long as the details can be made out:

“We built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret,” said Stefan Savage, the computer science professor from UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering who led the student-run project. “Perhaps this was once a reasonable assumption, but advances in digital imaging and optics have made it easy to duplicate someone’s keys from a distance without them even noticing.”

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If you’re into productivity blogs, be sure to check out What’s Best Next. The author, Matt Perman, was my boss for four years — and he’s the most organized guy I know.

Communism was a great system for making people equally poor.

—Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat (2005), p. 49.

I know many of my readers are disappointed this morning because Barack Obama won the election. But take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. Really.

I’m excited about the change ahead. I do not agree with Obama on everything, but I think he will be an excellent President. In fact, he may end up being the best president in 50 years. He certainly has the potential — but we will see if his actions live up to his words.

I am glad most of you voted against Obama because of real issues, not because of superficial and false reasons (like you think he’s a Muslim or associates with terrorists or is a socialist or other silly campaign rhetoric). Anyone who has read Obama’s books or really listened to him speak know those are false. You had fundamental ideological differences, and I respect that.

I know many of you are “one issue voters” and would vote against the best guy in the world if he supported abortion. I understand that.

But the campaign is over now. We must move past our differences and work together.

It’s time to see the positives instead of only the negatives. Obama has a compelling vision for America that is much needed. He has a great energy policy. He is going to bring this drawn-out Iraq war to a close. Education will be better funded. Most of us will get a tax break. The country’s infrastructure will be strengthened. Foreign relations will improve, because the world wanted Obama to win too. Hey, he may even be able to balance the budget, unlike all those recent “fiscal conservatives.”

We all want a better America. We want freedom to pursue happiness, a strong and healthy economy, security from terrorism, an end to poverty, our children to be better educated, to decrease our reliance on foreign oil, health care to be affordable, a government free from corruption, foreign relations to improve, an end to war, security for the disabled and elderly, freedom of or from religion, and equality for all people no matter how different they are from us.

We may disagree how to reach these goals, but this is the American dream that we all love and would die for.

We can support most of Obama’s initiatives, and as our new President, I hope most of us will.

Just when you think life can’t get any better, Amazon introduces frustration-free packaging:

The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box.

Sometimes you wonder what they were thinking when they named a thing. Take the pineapple. If ever there was an object that was less like pine and less like an apple, and in nearly every respect, this surely must be it. Or grapefruit. I don’t know about you, but if someone handed me an unfamiliar fruit that was yellow, sour, and the size of a cannonball, I don’t believe I would say, “Well, it’s rather like a grape, isn’t it?”

—Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Broadway Books: 1999), p. 267.