Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 49
February 24, 2020
The Scientist and the Spy by Mara Hvistendahl
The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
As a retired FBI agent who worked both foreign counterintelligence against China and Economic Espionage cases, I found this book fascinating. I did not know of this particular case before reading the book, and have no preconceived notions about the case itself. The prose flows smoothly here with the author’s engaging style. Her research is good but I got the impression there was a slight pro-China or at least pro-Chinese individuals leaning in her writing, which is only natural for someone who spent years there and no doubt has many friendships and deep roots there.
Investigating and prosecuting economic espionage cases is a very complex business and much of the investigator’s job cannot be brought out or appreciated in a book of this nature. Still, I think the author does a good job of discussing how victim companies are in a bind when the FBI or any law enforcement becomes involved and almost adversarial to the government in such cases. I wish she had spent a little more time on that. The criminal prosecution complicates their business, often threatening to reveal their trade secrets in court. If civil litigation is in process, which it usually is, the defense is handed the argument that the victim company is using the government as their agent or their investigator. The argument goes that the government shouldn’t put its finger on the scales of what is essentially a business dispute. My view is that a theft is a theft whether the victim is Molly’s Hair Salon or Megacorp and law enforcement should investigate crimes and prosecute thieves. A crime victim should be allowed to cooperate with law enforcement without being punished for it.
One glaring omission for those of us in the field is the issue of adequate protection. In order to have a crime under the EEA of 1996, whether trade secret theft or economic espionage, it is necessary to prove that the trade secret was in fact a secret, i.e. that it was sufficiently well-protected. The defense will always claim that it wasn’t really a secret, or not well-protected enough to be considered secret. In effect the argument becomes, “if my client was able to steal it, then it must not be a trade secret and therefore not a crime.” The crime, in effect, doesn’t ever exist. I consider the argument to be specious. The author confuses this issue with the technological value of the thing stolen. A trade secret doesn’t have to be technology at all. In fact, the most valuable trade secret in most companies is a Rolodex with names of customers or suppliers. It can be internal pay records and personnel performance reviews. It seems to me that the issue of protections afforded (or not) to the corn seed lines was, or should have been, a major issue in this case, yet it was little discussed.
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February 23, 2020
Cold Case – new Cliff Knowles Mystery!
I’ve posted on Facebook sites and sent out notices to my fan mailing list, but not here yet. Until now. My latest Cliff Knowles novel (#10), Cold Case, is now available on Amazon both as Kindle and paperback. It’s also available for free on my Cliff Knowles website as a PDF. Here’s the scoop:
Cliff is intrigued by a geocache description about a murder site in posh Los Altos Hills dating back eighteen years. When the victim’s granddaughter approaches Cliff and Maeva to find the killer, they accept. Soon they are drawn into the esoteric world of DNA and genealogy to try to track down “Cole Case,” the killer. Chasing a murderer can be a dangerous business and this time is no exception, but Cliff can always find time to pick up a geocache or two.
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February 14, 2020
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The recent death of the author, whose name I’d heard or read often, spurred me to read one of her books, namely this one, her first big hit. It’s imaginative and well-written, but a bit creepy, too. Tom Ripley is a penniless but ambitious young man in 1950’s New York. He’s always on the hustle. He works when he has to, but prefers to mooch and schmooze his way through life. He has no woman in his life beyond a domineering aunt who considers him a “sissy,” a common euphemism for gay in those days, at least compared to the less euphemistic terms like fairy and pervert that also appear in the book, mostly from Tom. Tom’s sexual preference is never fully explored and we don’t know what it may be, but he latches onto wealthy Dickie Greenleaf and insinuates himself into Dickie’s life while at the same time trying to edge out Marge, Dickie’s would-be girlfriend. All three are in a small town in Italy where Dickie has retreated to become a painter and Marge a novelist. Any more elucidation would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say the story is a fascinating psychological study of sociopathic Tom Ripley.
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February 10, 2020
Name trends 2015-2018
There are plenty of sites that tell you the most popular baby names for the current (or last) year. , if that’s what you want . What interests me is identifying which names are the most trendy, i.e. rapidly gaining or falling in popularity. You may want to get in on the trend, or avoid a name that is on the downward slide. I used Social Security Administration data for 2015 and 2018, the most recent year they’ve released as of this writing, and compared the top 100 names for both and girls in 2015 to see where they ranked in 2018. Here are the results.
Biggest losers for girls:
NAME
2015 Rank
2018 Rank
Drop
Alexis
87
179
92
Alexa
32
90
58
Kylie
66
124
58
Alyssa
93
150
57
Brianna
82
132
50
Annabelle
92
141
49
Taylor
77
121
44
Ashley
85
129
44
Arianna
56
95
39
Kaylee
61
97
36
Sadie
52
87
35
Mackenzie
73
106
33
Aubree
79
110
31
Faith
91
122
31
Allison
39
69
30
Peyton
72
101
29
Katherine
84
112
28
Alexandra
100
125
25
Melanie
81
105
24
Biggest gainers for girls:
NAME
2015 Rank
2018 Rank
Gain
Mila
53
14
39
Aurora
78
44
34
Eleanor
60
32
28
Bella
74
48
26
Camila
42
18
24
Hazel
63
42
21
Gianna
96
80
16
Alice
86
71
15
Cora
88
73
15
Stella
51
38
13
Quinn
97
84
13
Naomi
76
64
12
Nora
41
30
11
Aria
29
19
10
Ellie
47
37
10
Ruby
83
74
9
Penelope
34
26
8
Genesis
65
57
8
Riley
35
28
7
Violet
50
43
7
Caroline
62
55
7
Maya
68
61
7
Biggest losers for boys:
Name
2015 rank
2018 rank
Drop
Blake
96
158
62
Kevin
79
125
46
Gavin
70
111
41
Brandon
83
124
41
Chase
74
112
38
Tyler
81
119
38
Ryder
98
131
33
Bentley
93
121
28
Parker
72
96
24
Brayden
61
84
23
Jordan
60
82
22
Zachary
88
109
21
Evan
67
86
19
Nathaniel
97
116
19
Ayden
87
104
17
Hunter
41
56
15
Landon
46
61
15
Jonathan
48
63
15
Jace
75
90
15
And gainers for boys:
Name
2015 rank
2018 rank
Gain
Theodore
99
44
55
Mateo
85
37
48
Leo
91
50
41
Asher
82
47
35
Ezra
92
59
33
Elias
100
67
33
Lincoln
66
40
26
Carson
89
70
19
Sebastian
35
18
17
Grayson
47
32
15
Oliver
19
5
14
Henry
29
16
13
Jack
40
28
12
Easton
78
66
12
Owen
36
25
11
Hudson
65
54
11
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February 8, 2020
Best of OnWords
Every once in a while I review which posts get the most views. Below is a list of posts that were most clicked on in 2019. Many were posted in earlier years. These are ordered by popularity.
Shoe Size Survey Final Results
Mother’s Cookies – no more Macaroons
Cliff Knowles Mysteries are now FREE!
Political Map 2019
IBM’s mail scanner panel – a scam
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February 4, 2020
Building a Resilient Tomorrow by Alice C. Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz
Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption by Alice C. Hill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
As the title suggests, this book concentrates on resilience, which in this context means resilience against the consequences of climate change. The authors who are experts in the field, describe various ways organizations and governmental entities can provide that resilience. They address such issues as building on or near shorelines or in flood plains, modifying laws to shift liability for climate disasters to incentivize parties to build in more resilient ways, or to relocate, preparing the health care system better to respond to floods, hurricanes, investing in better climate and disease modeling, and so forth. Most of their suggestions are sensible and useful.
Some of the better ones are: to encourage architecture schools to include climate risk and methods to ameliorate it in its curriculum; government subsidies to insurance companies faced with catastrophic losses should be phased out so that insurance companies weigh the true risks of climate disasters better and raise rates to incentivize developers and homebuyers to make better choices; local community leaders should develop and implement heat emergency plans and centers. Some are little more than wishful thinking or meaningless technobabble, like “governments should apply insights to advance climate resilience” or “business leaders should lead a process to develop a protocol that enables companies to better understand climate risks.”
The book is aimed entirely at governments at all levels and people in a position to influence policy on a large scale such as industry leaders. It is an advocacy piece. There is little here for the average reader. I had hoped that after reading it I would be more prepared personally for coming climate-related risks, but I was disappointed in that respect.
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February 2, 2020
N-grams in Iowa
I decided to check out Google’s N-gram predictive stories for the five leading Democratic candidates in the Iowa caucuses. If you need an explanation of how this works, see my earlier post here.
Joe went to the door and opened it wide to let in more light.
Elizabeth started to say something but could not find it.
Bernie went to see the King in his beauty.
Pete was a good man and a great warrior.
Amy had been so kind to me that I had not been able to find any other way.
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January 31, 2020
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I had a hard time rating this five stars because it’s not a fun read – or in my case, fun to listen to, since I heard the audiobook read by the author. The subject matter is awful stuff. But the story is so important it must be read and heeded. The book in excruciating detail lays out the cases of woman after woman being raped and sexually molested by serial rapists in powerful positions. The guilty men are on the political right and left – Harvey Weinstein (big Hillary contributor) and Matt Lauer (“liberal press”), AMI (the National Enquirer) and Donald Trump on the right. Perhaps more frightening is that people around them knew full well what was going on and were in a position to stop it, but turned a blind eye to protect their careers or company profits. If it were only one or two cases I might be somewhat skeptical, but the book recounts interview after interview, totaling over a hundred, and even includes the recording of Weinstein’s voice admitting to his repeated molestation of women made by one of his victims. The companies engaged in the massive witness intimidation and cover up effort include NBC, AMI, the David Boies law firm, and, of course The Weinstein Company and Miramax. Les Moonves of CBS also took a hit, although that wasn’t something Farrow uncovered, but it shows the problem is industry-wide and probably exists almost everywhere. The women who resisted the predators or reported the assaults were blackballed from the industry and usually slut-shamed with all sorts of false rumors and accusations. Don’t view this merely as sleazy tabloid stuff. This is a book about organized crime by powerful people. You may be sitting on a jury someday. You need to know that this stuff really does happen and how awful it is.
The author reads very well. There is no doubt he is a bit of a prima donna, but he not only reads with excellent dramatic technique, he also does foreign accents very well, giving life to some colorful characters like the Israeli security guys who tailed him. The book would be a better book without his repeated interjection of his love life with his boyfriend. That really did make it seem like tabloid fare and detracted from the serious journalism in it.
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January 28, 2020
Secondhand by Adam Minter
Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This very readable non-fiction exploration of the world of reuse, repurpose and sharing is both meaningful and enjoyable. Want to know where that old iPhone you donated to Goodwill ended up? Find out here. Learn why importers in Ghana or India like Canadian fashion clothes better than American ones. See why well-intentioned laws pushed by Greenpeace actually harm the environment and are arguably racist. Discover the complexities of the rag business. I found it all fascinating. Minter writes well. He brings to life a number of colorful characters and reveals how some unlikely spots around the globe are important to the secondhand business, places like Missisauga, Ontario; Petaling Jaya, Malaysia; Newark, New Jersey; Lebanon, Tennessee; and Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Here you can learn the difference between an antique, a collectible, and junk. Find out the devious tricks manufacturers use to make it difficult or impossible to fix their products, thus forcing people to buy new ones, and how enterprising entrepreneurs are defeating those techniques.
Minter’s first book, Junkyard Planet, dealt with recycling and waste disposal. This does not, except a bit tangentially. It is all about how things after a first use can be, and often are, acquired and put to a second use, or even third and fourth and fifth. This book will appeal to those who are environmentally conscious and those who just like to learn new stuff not written about elsewhere.
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January 21, 2020
Baby Names: Democratic Hopefuls
I haven’t done a baby name analysis for a while, so I thought I’d check to see if any of the Democratic hopefuls have inspired a naming trend. Unfortunately, the Social Security Administration data sets only go through 2018, so it is unsurprising that the answer is no. The charts below illustrate the point. I only checked the five leading candidates. I checked Joseph, Peter, and Bernard in addition to the more popular names shown in the charts, but the trends were mostly the same. Oddly, both Joe and Pete had a resurgence around 1960 and then a steady downward trend, while Joseph and Peter peaked again in 1980, but then also fell off in steady decline. For what it’s worth, Donald, Hillary, and Nancy all have failed to show any significant increase during 2014 – 2018. However, Hillary and Melania both showed spikes in popularity when those women became first lady. The same did not happen with Michelle, although her name was always much more popular than either of the other two.
Note: different graphs are not to scale. Use Maximum popularity numbers to assess actual popularity. In case you’ve been living in a cave, the names represent Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar. The order is not indicative of anything.
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