EP 040 Jason Fagone on Elizabeth Smith Friedman, Codebreaker

I used to see some amazing obituaries, often in British newspapers, detailing a remarkable life lived by someone who had worked undercover during WWII, escaped from Nazis, and gone on to live to a great old age. Frequently, these people were forgotten or never spoke of their adventures.

Elizabeth Smith Friedman, the subject of Jason Fagone's new biography, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, is one of those rare people, though her story begins with a search for the true author of Shakespeare, runs through two world wars, includes a stint fighting gangsters and rumrunners (and the jealousy of J. Edgar Hoover) and the foundation of the NSA, and ends with more Shakespeare. It sounds like a whole series of detective novels rolled into one, yet Elizabeth was a real person with an amazing story.

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Pair with Shava Nerad on using cryptography to secure communications or tales of derring-do with Adam Swartzbaugh.

Show Notes and Links

Jason's website
Jason on Twitter
Jason's Podcast

Links for Later 8-24-13

1. Edward Snowden appears to have been an unusually competent NSA techie. No one is quite sure what he took.
2. Andrew Bacevich understands the network vs. hierarchy tension underlying how people see the Manning & Snowden leaks.
3. The innocent have nothing to fear.
4. Obama  vs. Snowden
5. Bradley Manning is now Chelsea Manning, following delivery of a 35 year sentence. News outlets having trouble changing pronouns.
6. Government, the Internet, and Manning.

Links for Later 6-14-13

1. An idea whose time has come: adaptive Bayesian testing and approval of therapeutics. How personalized medicine will look in the coming years.
2. Edward Snowden to South China Morning Post: "I'm neither traitor nor hero. I'm an American."
3. Russian lawmakers are really afraid of gay people.
4. Hugh "Wool" Howey: why all authors should self-publish.

The New Unbanked

Medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado and California cannot access banks (or American Express), and have to either pay taxes in cash, launder their money (legally) through a shell corporatioin, or use the owner's personal accounts.

Protips for Psychonauts

Lessons for those of you trying out those wacky new psychedelic molecules ginned up in offshore Chinese drug fabs or Idaho missile silos or wherever, according to the cover story in this week's New York Magazine:

1. Do not sell bulk quantities of esoteric drugs, much less LSD, to people who are described as "big fans of yours". This is a euphemism for "DEA agents". You will go to prison for a very long time.

2. Do not inject high doses of something called bromo-dragonFLY into your arm. It is evidently the strongest serotonin agonist known to humanity and will shut off your circulation, possibly causing you to lose that arm. That would be bad.

Bradley Manning's Statement in Audio

The Freedom of the Press Foundation released a leaked copy of Bradley Manning's statement from the recent plea hearing. A transcript of the statement can be found at Freedom of the Press Foundation's website. A commentary on Manning's statement by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg can be found at ellsberg.net. Commentary from Glenn Greenwald is available from The Guardian.

Links for Later 2-14-13

1. Oscar Pistorius charged with murdering Reeva Steenkamp.
2. Tesla reveals trip log for NYT review, revealing anomalies.
3. Notes from Webstock. Great material here.
4. Mouse models of inflammation called into question.

Rail Riding Surfer Hatchets 300 Pound Jesus, Saves Woman

Rock on, Kai, rock on. Best interview ever.

Links for Later 1-3-13

1. Sharers, takers, carers, makers 
2. The amusement park abandoned at the heart of Berlin, used in Hanna
3. Aaron Carter is, surprisingly, a human being
4. Where murders happen in Chicago
5. Hypomania, schizotypic disorder and creativity

Links for Later 10-16-12

1. The Desert of the Real: when quantum finance shows up, things get weird
2. Medical devices pipelined from academia to industry
3. Why the tea party won't just die
4. Vikram Pandit ousted at Citigroup. Citigroup stock still down 89% from peak.
5. Art heist: Where was Thomas Crown at the time?
6. William Carpenter interviewed by Days of Yore
7. La Serrrata ("the closing"), the downfall of Venice, and the self-destructive impulses of the 1% by Chrystia Freeland

Dr. Fadiman's Very Good Day

Dr. James Fadiman thinks that LSD is good for you, and he's got forty years of data to back him up. Tim Doody in The Morning News writes:

First things first: Fadiman defines a micro-dose as 10 micrograms of LSD (or one-fifth the usual dose of mushrooms). Because he cannot set up perfect lab conditions due to the likelihood of criminal prosecution, he has instead crafted a study in which volunteers self-administer and self-report. Which means that they must acquire their own supply of the Schedule 1 drug and separate a standard hit of 50 to 100 micrograms into micro-doses. (Hint: LSD is entirely water-soluble.)
...“Micro-dosing turns out to be a totally different world,” Fadiman extolled. “As someone said, the rocks don’t glow, even a little bit. But what many people are reporting is, at the end of the day, they say, ‘That was a really good day.’ You know, that kind of day when things kind of work. You’re doing a task you normally couldn’t stand for two hours, but you do it for three or four. You eat properly. Maybe you do one more set of reps. Just a good day. That seems to be what we’re discovering.”
...Word on the street is that Hofmann had also surmised that micro-doses of LSD would be a viable market alternative to Ritalin. It’s an intriguing claim. After all, if Fadiman had administered Ritalin to the scientists in his creativity study, they might have focused on their problems just as intently as they had on LSD, but they probably wouldn’t have had as many breakthroughs. Even as Ritalin boosts attention, it has a tendency to create tunnel vision, which, more often than not, stymies imagination.
“I just got a report from someone who did this for six weeks,” Fadiman said. “And his question to me was, ‘Is there any reason to stop?’” More laughter throughout the hall, another adjustment of bifocals.

Tortured

In 2004, Eric Fair was an interrogator in Iraq who used government-approved torture methods ("strong interrogation") at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah. In 2012, Eric Fair is studying to be a Presbyterian minister, and has expressed his remorse to government representatives, The Washington Post, Amnesty International, victims of other torture regimes, and the readers of the Doonesbury Sandbox. Now that he's published an editorial against torture and confessing his role, people send him emails and letters recommending suicide.

The real question is: what do you do with the rest of your life, once you've done evil and recognized that you've done evil? How should others treat you? How do you forgive the unforgivable, especially if you're the one who needs to forgive yourself?
My God, it's harrowing. Read the whole Sandbox post.

This Weekend at the G8

The Chicago PD forgets the number one rule of good police work: Let someone else be the headline. Here come the truncheons.

Larry Lessig on the Lost Republic

Thesis: The Republic after the meaning of the founders has been distorted by corruption. It is no longer brown bag corruption, as it was in earlier times; it is now a corrupt system with ostensibly honest people inside.

Here's his interview with On Point, in which he discusses this same corrupting system of money, politics and influence. As a sidenote, this talk is a good example of the fast-slide PowerPoint method Lessig uses, which requires careful synchronization of his talk with his slides.

Links for Later 12-21-11

1. The Power of Living in Truth: a Vaclav Havel appreciation
2. Mark Thoma: The Economic Divide Makes Everyone Poorer
3. Adam Savage on SOPA/PIPA
4. Al Jazeera on Bradley Manning
5. How hard does James Franco work at Yale?
6. Neal Pollack knew Christopher Hitchens better than you
7. More on the Egyptian library fire
8. Yet more

Links for Later 12-16-11

1. A sampling of Japanese kamon (family crests)
2. A selection of Christopher Hitchens articles and talks from The Browser
3. Slate's collection of Hitchens articles
4. Hitchens' Mark Daily memorial article
5. A short Kelly Link interview
6. SOPA markup delayed indefinitely
7. SOPA only supported by astroturfers and industry flacks?
8. Bradley Manning pre-trial hearing begins
9. Gingrich proposes abolishing Article III of Constitution to save America from having judges

Links for Later 12-11-11

1. Kay Nielsen's fairy tale illustrations are beautiful
2. Basquiat's hair 
3. Charlie Hoehn on working for free to work the way you need to
4. Growing frankincense
5. Update on the Bradley Manning trial: military objects to 38 of 48 proposed witnesses, tries to select "embedded" journalists. Who's running the prosecution of this thing, Vladimir Putin?
6. "Full Unconcealed Panic"
7. SOPA and Protect IP Act explained again
8. LAPD acts illegally against Occupy LA

Chancellor Katehi Walks to her Car

Following the UC Davis pepper spray incident, Chancellor Katehi held a press conference this weekend. The students surrounded the building, waited for her to come out, and greeted her with eerie silence.

William Black's Big Idea: "Use RICO on the banks."

Marine Veteran Shot in the Head by Police at Occupy Oakland Protest

Militarized police action against peaceful protestors. People should lose their jobs over this.