Dear Sen. Cardin,

Recently it has come to my attention that you are sponsoring S.968, titled “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 “. I wanted to reach out as a concerned Marylander and as a technologist who is an advocate of civil liberties online.

First and foremost, I respect the intent of the bill. The artists and innovators who have put their entire lives into creating intellectual property deserve protection from piracy and infringement.

As a technologist, my entire career has focused on building new capabilities that support our national security. I am by no means an aficionado of legalese or a policy nut. However, I can see when technology and policy are colliding in ways that will impact the overall good of a community. Looking through this bill, I see many areas where authors who are well intentioned but poorly informed, have created openings for exploitation and abuse by corporate interests. This undoubtedly will have incredible impact on the evolution of information sharing and collaboration online. In addition, enforcement and censorship tactics in the bill will have a ripple affect breaking basic foundational concepts of the internet.

There are plenty of smarter people than I who also highlight SOPA’s problems. If you have not already, I suggest you read Vint Cerf’s open letter to the sponsors of this bill as well: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57344028-281/vint-cerf-sopa-means-unprecedented-censorship-of-the-web/

Representing Maryland, I ask that you promote greater involvement by the technology and academic community in the authoring of the bill. I have attended many of the Governors Cyber Maryland events, either as a panelist or guest and the consistent theme is about establishing Maryland as the leader in Cyberspace. This is a perfect opportunity to show that leadership.

Thank you for your representation, commitment and I hope you consider my comments.

Regards,
Chris Ensey

I tweeted the other day that USPS should start installing street view cameras on their vehicles and selling the data as a new revenue stream. This made me think about a few other areas that USPS could make some positive changes.

1.) Exploring Street view more. You would collect the daily route imagery and store this in a data warehouse. Having data 6/7 days a week will be far more interesting than what Google currently captures. This data could be then sold off to many more parties and in various packages. – The obvious Full set of data can still be sold monthly or quarterly to mapping providers.
- I think parts of the data can be dispersed based on geographic location. Sold off for city planning / emergency response / crime fighting data to state and local entities. Think situational awareness.
- Finally you could sell even smaller chunks based on time to land developers that want to study a specific properties changes over time and monitor things like erosion and other ecological activity.
- All of these could be potential revenue generators.

Since the best practices and cost analysis “hard work” has already been done by several companies USPS can go into this with less risk.

2.) Virtual PO Box. This hit me the other day when I realized that my PO Box was about to expire. It is already inconvenient (30 minutes away near my old employer back in 2003) but I use it for rent checks and bills to retain some privacy from my tenants. I thought to myself, now I have three options: a.) Renew and keep driving 30 minutes to my post office box. b.) Cancel get a new PO Box closer to home and call ALL of my tenants / billers / etc to update their information. or c.) suck it up and let them all know where I really live, and again update everyone.

None of these options really are fun, but it got me thinking “there has to be an easier option”. It then struck me that USPS need to offer a virtual PO Box. This would just be a address that doesn’t actually physically exist but routes (behind the scenes) my mail to whatever address I give them. If you are familiar with Google Voice, it would work just about the same way. Certain billers would go to my office address, unknown mail could go my home, and junk mail could be sorted and sent to the trash can! When I move I don’t have to notify anyone BUT go onto USPS.com and change my delivery configuration.

The revenue stream would be two fold. First off USPS can charge an additional fee for this service monthly or yearly. Maybe $18 a month or $140 yearly. I would easily pay this. I shell out about 50 bucks a year on my current PO Box plus cost of travel, time etc. The could also sell off the business of maintaining and operating current PO Box locations to smaller businesses like Mailboxes etc, Fedex, USPS. This has to be a loss for their bottom line currently.

I know there are a few startups that are already doing this but I think they are doomed to fail. To be successful a company needs the size and scale of a USPS to truly pull this off. Not to mention, the trust issue of having a third party company handle your mail. USPS needs to change the game to stay alive. I hate mail but it is a necessary evil for a few more decades until this is all digital.

Doing a whistle stop tour of Europe with my wife and working thru the challenges of documenting our trip with my camera and trying to send some snaps back for friends and family to check out along the way.

Having a DSLR and the iPad has proven to be a prefect way to go. I can snap shots all day. Read books and surf on the trains wifi. Even post this poorly written entry on my blog.

Here are a couple of things I have learned in no certain order.

1. iBooks rules for scanning in all of your tickets. Also get PDF travel guides / maps of where you are going.
2. Even with the maps on there I still wish we had Google maps and the iPhone. Took us forever to get our bearings in London.
3. Camera connection kit is the tops. Get it if you shoot pictures and travel. Having a way to back up the key pictures is really nice.
4. Great image apps on the iPad: filterstorm & dioptic. I am also using flickr’s iPhone app to do uploads after post.
5. Trains are fantastic I want to move here just for that reason.
6. Currency converter tools are helpful but only for a bit.
7. You can get free sim cards with 10 meg / day free Internet in the train stations.
8. Wifi is everywhere in major cities
9. First class train reservations have internet included free.
10. England had a lack of trash bins. Oh and you have to pay to use the bathroom in train stations. Almost $.80 to shit.
11. I already forgot about work.

More to come!

More images on Flickr

Originally uploaded by censey

Some extremely close fireworks pictures after the pool opening party in Clipper Mill.

This is a post in response to a retweet by @deadairdennis: “RT @RyanE1984: Question. What websites do you visit every day for Tech news?-( @censey should have a good answer for that.” – I thought about a quick answer and could not come up with one that would fit in 140 characters so I decided to post about it.

First off, I am not endorsing any of these sites and buyer beware on your satisfaction with the content.  Secondly, I am going to give you the opinion of someone that does Tech stuff for a Tech company.  This doesn’t make me an expert on any of these subjects, just dangerously versed.

There are many tech blogs out there and more importantly many categories of “tech” with varying degrees of quality.   So for me the task of reading these everyday is a scan at best to pick out the most relavent articles vs the junk with tends to clog the blogosphere.

Types of Tech: Very few sites cover all bases and the ones that attempt to end up marginalizing their content.  For example, Gadget blogs are great at talking about new phones and accessories but should stay aware from bake-off’s between DSLR’s. I decided to break this down some since the problem is bigger than just Tech as a generalization.

On to the reading…
Consumer Technology:  This covers Gadgets, Photography, AV, and Automotive
- Ars Technica:  Probably the most legitimate out there right now.
- Gizmodo:  Once my favorite blog in this area, they are now the Perez Hilton of gadget expose reporting. *
- Engadget:  They self link like assholes, but they have a pretty level headed approach to the space they cover. *
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog:   News and rumor for the fanboys.  (Also read Daring Fireball, MacTipsAndTricks)
- BaltTech:  Yes some home cooking here.   As long as Gus stays true to making this a blog about Baltimore I will keep reading.

Professional Technology:  Hardcore Science, Enterprise Equipment, Military and Avionics, Datacenter Tech, Green and Energy stuff, etc.
- Slashdot.org:  The original, and still one of the very best.  Their user comments are also goddamned hysterical.
- Layer 8′s Blog:   Cool stuff on Space tech and other types of stuff that blasts off. *
- DefenseTech:  An ok blog on Military tech, I am sure there are better ones out there.
- MedGadget:  Medical technology and other healthcare information.

Lifestyle Technology: Make my life cooler, faster, more integrated
- Lifehacker:  I know some of these are super obvious but c’mon!   Avoid some of their PC optimization tips, they can be unfounded.  *
- Make:  Great tips on how to build, modify and adapt commonly found stuff into cooler stuff.
- IkeaHacker:  Take hard to pronounce products form Ikea and turn them into useful home solutions.
- Troxel:  Mostly design stuff but its still tech in nature.
- BookOfJoe:  This is a fantastic design and tech blog.   Always worth a look.

Social Tech:  Social Sites, Integrated Gadgets, Frameworks, Web Tech, Trends
- O’Reilly Radar:  Gov2.0, social media helping citizens, cool projects and more. *
- MakeUseOf:  Like Make but for social sites.
- TECH.BLORGE: On here for the name alone.   Cross over between social and consumer but sometimes they get a scoop.
- WebAppers:  Do you build for the web?  This blog is for you.  (You may also like Smashing Mag for design / typography stuff).

Malicious Technology:  Security focused, Threat analysis, Virus / Malware, Internet Horror.
- Krebs on Security:  Great Site, new and he is on a hot streak of great reporting.  Enjoying his coverage of ATM Skimmers lately.
- Threatpost:  Getting the latest on things that will screw up your computer and probably steal your identity or cash.
- Zero Day:  Oddly enough some overlap with Threatpost since they share contributors but still worth checking.
- Cryptome:  This is a weird one.   This guy blogs about Government conspiracy and spying guides.   Not for most people.

* next to the sites that should be read in RSS format only.

Want my entire list?   Here is the full OPML file that you can import into supported feed readers.  Warning! this has a few hundred feeds in it.
Update:  Here is a link to the Google Reader Bundle with the above mentioned Blogs.   OPML file for just the featured blogs is also linked from here.

FIrst off THIS IS NOT my fridge. This is from a rental property in which our previous tenant left us a surprise. This video is the opening of that surprise.

We later took this refrigerator to the Dump and will be sending the tenant the bill to replace the unit. There were 7 large black trashbags full of food (or mush and maggots) taken from the ruined fridge. The level of fly infestation was epic. Luckily no one was sent to the hospital from exposure to the rotting remains.

The rest of the house was clearly bombed for bugs by the tenant hoping to keep us from noticing the fly problem days prior to our inspection. The tenant was demanding that we not open the fridge during the exit walkthru and stated that they would replace it. We had no idea what to expect…

Caution: You probably all think I am a dullard and that I should have figured this out years ago when the iPhone / iPodTouch was released.

When the iPad and its ‘feature set’ was announced several months ago, I hated it.  I proclaimed that it lacked all these features, like a front and back mount camera, stylus support, SD card slot, etc.  However, I was definitely up for buying it.   The reason being we are doing some travel in the near future and this will require us to pack very… very… light.   With this in mind I have come to the following conclusion…

Travel and Tourism is about to change dramatically. The iPad is the harbinger of a new medium for interaction with the traveler.   There are literally millions of people jaunting across the globe for either business, leisure, sex related travel, and or smuggling migrant workers over geographic borders; all of whom rely on maps, guidebooks, word of mouth, locals and other disjointed information to guide them on their journey.  The iPad changes all of this.  Not only does it do all the crap that the iPhone did for navigating cities and local hot spots, but it does it in a way that actually can be used on the fly and amongst a group of travelers.

First things first:  Size

- Trying to show someone a map on the iPhone is great but you basically have to hand it off to them otherwise you are uncomfortably huddled together.  The sheer size of the display makes looking at any detailed type of information a social effort much like sharing a computer screen.
- Usability:   GoogleMaps is great because you are physically connected to the map, but how about really being able to see the big picture and also Points of Interest.   What would once clutter the screen is now tremendously welcomed to a explorer.
- Not having to bring my laptop!  I am going to love hopping around Europe without my beloved MacBook Pro.   There are going to be some things I just cannot take with me on the iPad but that is ok, because I don’t really need these capabilities on VACATION!!!
- We will be doing a ton of train travel so having this with me will be a huge help in making the time go by quickly between destinations.

What got me here:  Planning
- This whole idea struck me after spending some time thumbing thru our guidebook for Western Europe.   The book is great, chronicling each step of the way thru our journey (…also dictating some of them as well).   But its 4 inches thick and we will most likely not find the exact info we need in it given our personalities.  Ebooks solve this problem to a degree.
- You can download purchase ebook versions of most of the guidebooks online.   There are a slew of PDF versions out there as well.   Today I decided to get one for each major city we were in and bring it along stored on the iPad.  If the moment strikes us, or we are short on ideas of where to find that perfect local pub in Manchester, the books will be a few touches away.   Reading these on an iPhone would be hideous and you know it!
- Real world maps:   Yes GoogleMaps is freaking amazing, (as is Google Earth) but I am not sure we will be getting coverage or Wifi on all of our stops.   Having real world maps are key to navigating railways, city landmarks, or even just trying to find our hotel.   Rather than carrying paper maps from various tourist booths I have downloaded detailed PDF maps for each city and rail system we plan to navigate.   Again, all in one place and zoomable / sharable / on the go.

Next Factor:  A New Medium for the Travel industry
- Travel agencies are in the freaking stone ages.   The iPad is a perfect opportunity for them to capture a new market that could provide them a new revenue stream other than selling you crappy travel insurance.   I could easily see a motivated and tech savvy travel agency developing an iPad app that integrated your itinerary, flight plans / tickets, hotel information, mapping and transportation, rewards systems and excursions all into a single interface.  This app could be part of their offering and inject additional excursion packages, local coupons, restaurant reviews and booking networks as other ways to upsell wit the application.    Down the road you could even get crazy with trip booking, payment systems, social site integration, augmented reality and location aware capability.
- New revenue opportunity for the destinations:   Imagine taking a tour and having an situational application on your iPad providing detailed information as you progress thru the experience.   I could see this being an incredible way to enhance a art museum or open top bus tour.  These could sell as an additional cost on top of the admission.  The app in of itself is a souvenir, and could provide the proprietor with pretty valuable metrics and analytics on their customers.     Thinking of our tour thru the King Tut exhibit in San Francisco’s de Young Museum, and their no camera policy.  Maybe Steve Jobs already took this into account with the lack of camera in the iPad.
- Guidebooks need to stop working in print all together:  Ebooks are a temporary transition to what must be a fully functioning application on the iPad.  They can provide interactive maps, audio / video, all the classic content, integrate user driven comments and suggestions and promote their sponsored sites.   Again… augmented reality!!

Being away without being away
- Some people go on vacation to detach from their home life, I am not this person.   I like providing little breadcrumbs so people can follow me along the way.  Maybe it is a facebook update, maybe its a flickr post… whatever.  Yes, this was available on the iPhone.  As a Blackberry guy I was relatively limited prior to this new device.
- Since I am going to photograph my way thru this trip, the iPad will give me a quick way to quickly post a few updates to the folks at home and more importantly I can have a backup for my pictures and free up space of my main SD card!  I am always worried about a failure or misplacement of a card and loosing an entire leg of the trip.   Additionally, I can do some light post processing on the iPad prior to sending them to flickr!!
- I think we need a camera in the house so I can monitor Paisley the cat.   I am sure there is an app for that.

All things considered this is just one industry that will be impacted greatly if this style of computing takes off.   The impacts on Government, Health care, new media, and other services will be amazing if it has the popularity the market predicts.   Late April better become ‘mid’ April because I am getting impatient!!

Related links:
10 Awesome iPad Apps for Travel

Pepsi seems to be dumping all this spare snow we have in the Falls Rd. water run off.   Not sure if the EPA etc has deemed this ok but Pepsi seems to be cool with it.  More pics from the Snowpocalypse 2010 here.

More pictures and SB trying to cross a stream in the Flickr set.

This could get stupid…er.