Kieren McCarthy wrote a great article that places my resignation in context and that article kinda went viral in the community yesterday afternoon.  A bunch of people have asked me "hey Mikey, what that heck put you up in the high branches like that??"  So I've decided to post the email dialog that so got me going.  Sorry to those of you regular readers who will be scratching your head over this weird post.

Cast of characters in the tragedy;

Mikey -- that would be me

Tim Ruiz -- one of the people who represents Registrars on the GNSO Council.  Tim works for GoDaddy.com, which is by far the largest registrar (essentially the Wal-Mart of domain-name registration outfits).  With those two hats, Tim pulls considerable weight in the organization.

Stéphane Van Gelder -- another Registrar representative and also Chair of the GNSO Council.  Another heavy hitter.

The Dialog;

Mikey: hi all,

i'm just lobbing a suggestion into the "locking during UDRP"-recommendation discussion that's going on in advance of the Council meeting coming up later today.  this note is primarily aimed at my Councilors, colleagues in the BC and fellow members of the IRTP-WG, but i've copied a few others just because i can.

as a member of a working group that's wrapping up two years of work on this stuff, i am hoping that the Council will not rewrite our recommendations on its own.  this is a repeat of the "i'm trainable" comment i made in SFO.  what i'm hoping is that the Council will vote the recommendation up or down and, if it would like, sends the defeated recommendation back to the working group for refinement.  you can even include suggestions if you like.  but please don't make changes to our recommendations without giving us a chance to participate in the process.

you can invoke all the historic "Council should be *managing* the policy process, not being a legislative body" arguments in this paragraph if you like.

i'm still trainable. 

Tim Ruiz: My goal is not to derail the rest of the work over this since that rec was already acted on. The locking question has already been picked up in the UDRP issues report (done in response to the RAP report).

Mikey: yep -- i get that Tim.  i'm really zeroed in on the process, though.  it would be fine to push it back to the WG with your comment as annotation.  this issue is the perfect one to use as a test-case for the very reasons you describe.  my worry is that some day we'll get to a tough/complex issue  on a WG report and the Council will roar off and try to fix it on the fly rather than pushing it back to the people who've devoted the time to get up to speed on the nuances.

as a WG member i'd much rather hear "hey WG folks, can you fix this?" than "we fixed it for you."

Tim Ruiz: There is nothing for the WG  to fix and the Council is not changing any recs. We just want to consider that one with the UDRP issue it is already tied in with. I am all for process, but we can protect that without duplicating efforts.

Mikey: you folks get to do whatever you want to do -- but like i said, i'm trainable.  if you as the Council are going to make that call, without engaging the WG in the conversation, you're setting precedents that the Council may come to regret when it is trying to recruit volunteers to devote years of their lives to efforts like that in the future.

all you have to do is ask us, rather than telling us.

Tim Ruiz: Mikey,

My record is pretty clear on process. I defend it fiercly. But you are really blowing this out of proportion. If you are trainable, let it show. Let's discuss further F2F.

Best,
Tim

Mikey: Tim, i'd much rather have this conversation over a limited-scope test-case issue that's relatively straightforward to resolve than a really hard one.

if working groups are the place where policy gets made, then let the WG fix this minor problem for you rather than fixing it yourselves.

Tim Ruiz: I'd rather not. I've explained it to you. You either don't get it or don't want to. If you want to discuss F2F let me know.

Stéphane Van Gelder: Mikey,

I think the GNSO Council has a clear understanding of its role in the policy development process.

Thanks,

Stéphane

Mikey: yep.  and so does this volunteer WG member.  i'm now fully trained.

UPDATE:

I'm calming down (and was much appreciative of all of you who reached out to help me with that).  So I'm clambering down out of the high branches (while sitting in the Tokyo airport transit lounge on the trip home -- not exactly the best place for reflective writing).  Thanks all of you who reached out.  I'll write you direct notes tomorrow after I'm back in the midwest.

Here's where to start.  This is a spectacularly good/fun/accessible description of how to improve your Facebook security (and the security of your computers in general).  Unlike most of these things, this short (20 page) piece is written for regular people who don't want to be yelled at by security geeks.

Now for the stuff that I do...

I use Firefox as my primary web browser (and I keep it up to date), mostly so I can add a gaggle of plug-ins.  Here's the list

• 1Password -- a great way to manage a bajillion really-strong passwords on web pages, but costs (a little) money
• Adblock Plus -- a plugin which, once you've subscribed to the EasyList USA filter, gets rid of all the ads on web pages
• BetterPrivacy -- gets rid of "persistent" cookies that are used by lots of big companies (Google, Yahoo, etc) to track your behavior on the 'net
• Ghostery -- same sort of thing that BetterPrivacy does, but gets rid of trackers that aren't cookies
• NoScript -- allows you to choose which pages you trust, and blocks Javascript on all the rest
• ShareMeNot -- stops those Facebook/Twitter/etc. "sharing" buttons from sharing stuff until you click them
• Collusion -- visualize who's tracking you in real time
• Web of Trust -- take advantage of their huge database of "safe" and "unsafe" sites built by other Web of Trust users -- like me.
• HTTPS Everywhere -- a project of the EFF to redirect to the SSH-encrypted version of popular web sites

I also have peculiar web-browser habits to further reduce the risk that corporations (or other bad-guys) are tracking me

• I don't log into any of the "big data" services (like Google, Yahoo, etc.) unless I absolutely have to and I log out when I'm done.  They track what you do while you're logged in.  I just did a "What if Google Turns Evil?" podcast if you want to learn more about why I avoid Google services these days.
• I don't permit the web browser to "remember" any passwords -- I use 1Password for that
• I disable the "browsing history" feature, so the browser doesn't remember where I've been in the past
• I disable the "search" and "form" history features too
• I allow the browser to "accept cookies" and "accept 3rd-party cookies" but I only keep them until I close Firefox, then all cookies are deleted
• I have the browser open a blank page when it launches (just about every site plants a cookie when you arrive)
• I disable Google and Yahoo in the "search" choices (they plant cookies when the browser starts)
• I avoid putting cookie-planting sites (Google, Facebook, etc.) in the shortcuts bar (they plant cookies when the browser starts)
• I elect to clear history when Firefox closes
• I close and restart Firefox several times a day, especially after logging into Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.
• I use this link -- http://www.google.com/s2/u/0/search/social?hl=en#gc -- when logged into Google to determine what they know about my social-media connections.   My goal is a blank slate.
• I use the ICSI Netalyzr to check my DNS service-provider to see if they're intercepting/redirecting some of my traffic (also good for all sorts of performance-improving stuff like identifying "buffer bloat")

I'm sortof a softie when it comes to Facebook, but there are a few things that I do -- all of these can be found in the "Privacy Settings" part of the "Account" menu

• I periodically run the "Scan for privacy" tool from ReclaimPrivacy.org
• I'm pretty liberal with what people can see, but very conservative with what they can share about me with other people
• I'm very aggressive in blocking applications -- I try hard not to sign up for any applications and block them when they appear in my news feed
• I am pretty aggressive about blocking "bozos" in my news feed.  I don't unfriend them, I just block their inane posts.

There.  That's my list.

Click HERE for the ICANN press-release.

Click HERE for a starter-page at Wikipedia.

Click HERE to watch him on an episode of Cranky Geeks (with John Dvorak) to get a feel for what's he's like in person.

I'm really glad to hear that he's joining the ICANN gang.  It'll give us some depth that we badly need in this area.

The big deal?  The sentence that really catches it for me is "we ad WORT don wanna tred up on the wee miroridy vuponts, so we jus wade undill eberyone am finely agreed."  Still works for me today, some 35 years later.  Thanks Jeff!

Here's my translation, since many of you aren't native-English speakers and might find this pretty tough to read in Jeff's native Pogo-style language.  Apologies to Jeff for any mistranslations.

Yes, it's a curious fact, that nobody is ever able to quite explain, how decisions get made at this particular radio station.  But they do.  This is a grievous hard and ticklesum thing for newcomers to digest.  Take, for example, the familiar caller who, in a fever pitch of excitement, has phoned up the station with his or her (or "it's" for that matter) idea for a program.   Rnnng.  He (let's just say it's a "he") says "My dog can bark heavy metal rock n'roll -- can he have 5 hours on Tuesday nights?"   Well, the person at the station (say it is a person) says "Isn't that the same thing as what's on WBRK every night?"  The caller replies "Yes, but my dog barks badder!"  Then that, says the person, is a question for the Program Committee.

The best thing then is if the caller hangs up, thinking all is well for the Program Committee will do its duty.  But if the caller says "Oh, what's the Program Committee?" then the person has to explain: The Program Committee are all the people that come to the Program Committee Meeting.  You can come.  So can your mother.  It's Friday at 8pm.  No, they never vote on anything.  Voting is against the rules.  So is parliamentary procedure. They just talk about things until everyone is agreed, and that is consensus -- the highest form of unanimity.

Then the caller says "oh."

Then the person at the radio station should continue: "Yes, it's a curious fact, but it seems to work.  So far, at least.  We at WORT don't want to tread on the wee minority viewpoints, so we just wait until everyone is finally agreed.  Nope, it's never failed yet...  which just goes to prove: you can make some of the decisions all of the time, and all of the decisions some of the time..."

Then the caller says, "can you put me through to the general manager?"

"No, there isn't a general manager.  Would you like to talk to Sarah-Gene?"

"She the owner?"

"Nope.  She's just another volunteer."

Volunteer
Vice Chair of Finance and Operations (of the)
Commercial and Business Users Constituency (which is part of the)
Generic Name Supporting Organization (which is in turn part of the)
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Can you see why ICANN has a bafflegab problem?

I'm quite excited about this one -- it's got lots of tasty issues and it's the ops and finance stuff that I love to do. 

I had another fold-out business card job back in the early '90's.  That fold-out business card read;

Temporary Interim Acting Assistant Associate
Vice President (supervising)
Administrative Information Systems
Business Operations
Quality Management
Operations Improvement (for the)
University of Minnesota

or...  Vice President of Stuff that is Busted.  This new gig is a lot less complicated than that one was.

State of the Union

Q&A - Republican Caucus

This first one is the deck we used in Saint Paul to rally people around the "get ready for Y2k" initiative.  It's an example of how to do non-scary, what's-in-it-for-me? conversation around a pretty tough topic.  Maybe some of this kind of thinking can help the security folks when they're pitching to their customers.  Click HERE for the file (no warrantees -- scan it before you open it).

This next file is a huge deck I put together when I was first briefing the Big Kids at MnSCU about their enterprise security initiative.  This was the basis of selling senior management that this was a Good Thing and showed them how security could make them more money, make them more nimble, improve quality and oh by the way reduce costs.  This is an "everything including the kitchen sink" deck that might have a few ideas for people to steal.  Click HERE for the file (same warrantee as above).

There.  I feel like I've lived up to my advance-billing now.  Hopefully some security mavens will find some useful stuff in these.

This is another one of those "document what I'm doing so I don't forget" posts.  Thanks to Matt Walsh, I've joined the HDR cult.  This is some kinda fun!

First part of the project was to drop a copy of CHDK on my Canon SD 950 IS point and shoot camera.  Putting this free, open-source code on the camera is one of those projects I've been teetering on for a year or so.  But somehow it either felt Too Hard or Too Scary each time I approached it, so I procrastinated.  I finally did it and I wish I'd done it right off the bat.  Completely easy, completely safe, worked the first time.  So now my cheezy camera does all kinds of cool things -- I can save RAW format files, I can put a histogram up on the screen, all kinds of neat stuff.

And one of the neat things I can do is have the camera "bracket" shots when it's in continuous-shooting mode.  This is an essential part of the process of shooting these HDR photos -- shooting a series of pictures that vary the exposure.

So here's the series of pictures that went into that photo at the top of the page;

So there are eight photos, taken by holding the shutter button down and letting the camera just fire away.  The CHDK software takes the first photo at the best setting the camera can manage and then takes alternating lighter and darker shots until you stop holding the shutter button down.  You can tell the camera how much to increment the exposure -- I have it set to 1 F-stop increments.

Click on the photo at the top of the page and you'll see that there's detail in the darkest spots and the lightest spots.  Pretty cool huh?  Well, I think so...

The software that does the magic is called Photomatix Pro.  You'll see LOTS of cool photos and get lotsa info if you go to that site.  I think their stuff is way neat.  Here's another one (I ran this one through the software before I bought it, so it's got watermarks in it).

Same deal -- click on the photo and you'll get a bigger version.  Now here's the deal -- you're supposed to take these pictures on a tripod (after all, you're stacking 3 to 8 photos on top of each other, they better be lined up).  But the combination of the anti-shake in the camera and the image-aligning capability of the software means that I can get pretty good results from hand-held shots like these.  All of these pictures were shot without a tripod.  There's a little trouble in there, but nothing that'll bother me given what I do with my photos.

Here's the sequence of shots that went into that one.

These charts tell me that the folks at the Fed are in uncharted territory. Their own charts tell the tale...

This first one, "non-borrowed reserves of depository institutions" shows a quite startling plunge over the last three months. If I were running the family checkbook and looking at this chart I'd be saying "Marcie, I think we're broke." Here's where I started;

and here's the latest version;

Click HERE if you want to look at the current version of this chart. I sure hope it looks better when you visit their page.

Here's another one -- pretty much the converse of the first picture, but this series goes a lot further back. Yep, another huge swing. The thing that I like about this series is that it goes way back in time -- to long before the great banking crash of 1930/31.

and here's the latest version;

A couple months ago, you could see all kinds of wiggles in the chart. Now it's just a flat line with a giant upsurge at the end.

Click HERE to see the current version of this chart.

Here's another view. This is the change in the size of the money supply, compared to last year. As you can see, the Fed is pushing this up pretty hard right now.

Click HERE for the page that I used to generate this chart -- unfortunately, I can't automate the "current version" display.

I'm interested in these charts because this represents a huge "tinkering" effort by the Fed. I hate those. I worry about unintended consequences (maybe a lot of inflation?). I worry that the banks are masking a huge weakness paving the problem over with money borrowed from the Fed.

Click HERE for a link to a bunch of charts like this from the St Louis Fed. Once you've clicked on a series that you're interested in, look for a link that says "current series in FRED" to see the charts like these.

For the first time in my life, I'm buying gold. Click HERE for a link to BullionVault - that's where I've landed after conducting all my usual obsessive-geek research. They're a great gang, I love their systems, I appreciate being able to actually own the metal and I think the opportunity to choose between vaults in 3 countries rocks. I never ever thought I'd get to this ridiculous place. But this is nuts, people. I'll keep adding on to this post as events unfold.

Related links

April 8, 2008 -- Paul Volcker (Fed chair during Carter) blasts current Fed policy -- click HERE -- Summary: The Fed has lost sight of its mission to defend the dollar.

April 27th, 2008 -- "Private Profits and Socialized Risk" -- Ben Stein (NYTimes) highlights an April 8th speech by David Einhorn to Grant's Spring Investment Conference. Click HERE for the NYTimes "Cliff Notes" and HERE for the full transcript (in PDF format). Summary: Wall Street firms are incented to take on unhealthy levels of risk, using capital reserves that are valued (and rated) by the firms themselves. Regulators snooze.

May 1, 2008 -- Iran stops dollar-based oil trading, switches to Euros and Yen -- Click HERE. Summary: Partly political of course, but also partly because of the continuing weakening of the dollar. This will be big trouble if the "walk away from the dollar" trend continues. Confirms Volker's view.

May 1, 2008 -- Kevin Phillips publishes "Numbers Racket, why the economy is worse than we know" in Harpers Magazine. Phillips contends that economic measures like the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and unemployment statistics have been gradually "sweetened" over the past 30 years, giving investors a too-positive view of the economy. Click HERE for the article.

May 2, 2008 -- You recall those charts at the top of the page? Sure you do. Well today central banks (the Fed, Britain and Switzerland) expanded that program. Next month's chart ought to be a hum-dinger. Click HERE Summary: The Fed added $25 billion to the $50 billion they're already lending to non-bank banks, and also loosened the standards for what they'll accept as collatoral for those loans.

May 7, 2008 -- WSJ story about a Fed proposal to pay interest on required reserves. Interesting note; the article mentions that since last July the Fed has "replaced half the roughly $800 billion of Treasurys it held last July with loans to banks and securities dealers." The pictures at the top of this page only show about $100 billion of that implied $400 billion. Click HERE

May 14, 2008 -- Karl Denninger writes a story about these same charts. My observation in yesterday's Geezercast is that this is starting to feel a lot like the Y2k crisis -- there are "pollyannas" who are motivated to keep things calm, and "doom and gloom" people who are predicting disaster. And precious little credible information in the middle. Karl is definitely in the Doomer camp. I think his analysis is wrong, in that he doesn't include *both* charts that I have here. But I'm not sure about the implications. Click HERE for Karl's take.

May 14, 2008 -- This American Life does a great episode called "The Giant Pool of Money" which describes the mortgage crisis in the voices of the participants. Absolutely fabulous radio. Click HERE for a link to the podcast.

May 28, 2008 -- The New York Times comes out with a "looking back" piece. Click HERE for the story. One of the problems with situations like these is the chasm between the "doom and gloom" perspective and the "Pollyanna" perspective (reminds me of the Y2k crisis). Like Y2k, "muddling through" seems to work in many cases.

May 30, 2008 -- click HERE for a gloomy FDIC (the people who insure banking deposits) report on the state of the banking industry. Report headlines: Industry Earnings Decline 46% from Year-Earlier Level, Loss Provisions Absorb a Higher Share of Revenue, Troubled Loans Accumulate in Real-Estate Portfolios, Lending Growth Slows, Fourth Quarter 2007 Earnings Are Revised Below $1 Billion. Click HERE for a chart that summarizes the trouble -- Reserve Growth Has Not Kept Pace With Rising Noncurrent Loans.

June 8,2008 -- The Economist publishes a gloomy story -- their take is that the credit crisis is far from over, unlike the cheerful prognostications from Wall Street.  Interestingly they mention that the Fed is intending to end the the credit facility (reflected in the charts at the top of the post) by September.  Given where the total is at (over $100 billion at this writing), that seems an equally big disruption, in the opposite direction.  Click HERE for the article.

July 11, 2008 -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started to unwind this week.  This is a situation like the Bear Stearns run that triggered this article.  Except bigger -- because these two companies back about half of all mortgage debt.  Click HERE for an early NYTimes story, and HERE for a grumpy reponse (Bloomberg) to the Fed's proposed bail-out plan.

Sept 7, 2008 -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wind up in US government hands.  Click HERE.

Sept 15,2008 -- Lehman Brothers is bankrupt after frenzied negotiations, Merril Lynch is bought by Bank of America, AIG is in trouble.  Click HERE.

Sept 17, 2008 -- A bad day in the markets today.  Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are in trouble, credit markets have seized up, international markets (like Russia) are hurting too, a major money-market fund "breaks the buck", US T-bill yield is at levels not seen since Pearl Harbor -- Click HERE to read a representative story from the Financial Times blog.  Gold was is up almost 10% for the day.

Oct 10, 2008 -- My goodness what happens during a few weeks of vacation.  Marcie and I toured New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and just got back.  To a mess (stocks are down 20% for the week this week, and headed lower).  Click HERE to read Paul Volker's thoughts about what we need to do.

I loved that story when it came out, since it aligns with my views. And, I'm not surprised to see an industry group kick back. But you do wonder -- will an industry group ignore such a profound warning just to make their constituents a buck or two? 'Seems like there's an ethical issue in there somewhere.

UPDATE:

Just to drive the point home, click HERE to read a story about the other big problem with ethanol, water.