I went to my first NASCAR event today — it was just warmups for the race on Sunday. More about the experience later, but for now I put a handful of photos from the pit right here.

Q: I’ve got a low IQ and a driver’s license. When I want to turn left at a green light, I sometimes forget that — even with the green — the oncoming traffic has right of way. Is there any way to remind stupid people like me to yield on a left turn?

A: Why, yes, as a matter of fact there is.

It wasn’t long ago that many of us read about an article in the journal Nature that compared Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica. It found that, despite news reports of Wikipedia errors, the online encyclopedia was almost as accurate as Britannica.

Well, today comes a response from Britannica that essentially tears Nature’s piece to shreds, pointing out error after error in the method and the article. If Britannica is right, it casts a shadow on one of the formost science publications around.

Some quotes from the statement:

[A]lmost everything about the journal’s investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading. Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica were not inaccuracies at all, and a number of the articles Nature examined were not even in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The study was so poorly carried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit.

* * *

Nature’s comments on the article “ethanol” were based on text not from the Encyclopedia Britannica but from Britannica Student Encyclopedia, a more basic work for younger readers. One of the reviewer’s comments referred to text that does not appear in any Britannica publication.

* * *

One Nature reviewer was sent only the 350-word introduction to Encyclopedia Britannica’s 6,000-word article on lipids. For Nature to have represented Britannica’s extensive coverage of the subject with this short squib was absurd, and it invalidated the findings of omissions alleged by the reviewer, since those matters were covered in sections of the article he or she never saw.

* * *

The “article” on “aldol reaction” that the journal sent its reviewer consisted of
passages taken selectively from two different Encyclopedia Britannica articles and joined together
with text evidently written by Nature’s editors. This was dishonest, and it completely misrepresented
Britannica’s published coverage of the subject.

And so on.

Read the enitre text of Britannica’s rather scathing comment (in PDF) http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf.

All right, I know I should have expected this but it’s still gut-wrenchingly disgusting.

They’ve released a novelization of V for Vendetta, the movie.

The movie was based on a book — a graphic novel, to be precise. But the movie is apparently so different from the book that they had to release a new book!

AUGH!

The cover says “A novelization by Steve Moore / Based on the screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers / Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.”

So it’s a novel based on a screenplay that’s based on a novel. Everyone follow that?

AUGH!

Next thing you know they’ll release a novelization of, oh, The Cat in the Hat. Oh, they already did.

I’m looking at doing a story on cell phone designed for seniors — how maybe a kids phone like the Firefly would also work well for a senior who has trouble using those tiny buttons.

I sent this image to my editor, who took a beat before he realized it was a joke:

According to NBC News, when agents of the Transportation Security Administration attempted to smuggle bombs through 21 different airport security screeners, all 21 got through.

In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we should have focused on this sort of stuff in the first place rather than on nail clippers and Swiss Army Knives. We are safer now not because we have to take our shoes off, but because A) passengers and crew are much more cognizant of the potential dangers, and B) cockpit doors are reinforced.

We don’t have to worry about someone using a screwdriver or even a box cutter and taking over an airplane nearly as much as we have to worry about bombs that passengers and crew would have no hope of stopping.

My USA Today column this week goes a bit more in depth into what’s going on in the world of debit-card theft.

Here’s the sticking point: The transaction processor should discard the card information and PIN block after the purchase. But not all do. They might keep it for hours, days, or longer.
If someone was able to get hold of that database as well as the decryption key (which could, foolishly, be stored on the same system), he could crack the keys’ encryption and create working counterfeit cards.

Someone was doing just that.

Note to the folks at KUSA news in Denver: It’s NOT a “pin number,” it’s a PIN — personal identification number.

Now I realize that in conversation a lot of people will say “PIN number” even though it’s redundant (”personal identification number number”), and that’s OK. Ditto for “ATM machine.” But if you’re a news writer — even a television journalist — there’s no excuse for writing “pin number” over and over and over.

ARGH!

Just an amusing observation from some phone calls today. The FBI’s press office answers the phone with a brusk “Media Relations.” On the other hand, the Secret Service answers with a friendly, “Secret Service Media Relations, this is so-and-so, how can I help you?”

(Amusing side note: If the Secret Service calls you, your Caller ID will read “1000000000.”)

At various times I’ve called the FBI, NSA, Army, Air Force, and now the Secret Service. In every case, the people I’ve spoken with have been incredibly helpful and efficient — even taking amusement at the reputation that government spokespeople have. When the Air Force guy called me back in about 10 minutes and I quipped, “Wow, an efficient government spokesman,” he laughed and said, “Yeah, we always seem to surprise people.”

Note: Correction added 3/17

Someone has stolen not only a whole heck of a lot of debit-card numbers, but also the PINs that go along with them, forcing a list of banks to cut off access to those accounts until they reissue cards, or in some cases to simply send customers new debit cards before those accounts can be comprimised.

Affected so far are at least Bank of America, Citibank, National City Bank (Ohio), PNC Bank (Pennsylvania) Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo.

What makes this event so scary for banks — and, of course, customers — is that the data thieves have cracked into the PINs. We’ve all heard of credit-card numbers being stolen, but not debit cards and access codes.

See, the magnetic stripe on your debit card contains your bank and account information as well as the PIN for that card. (It’s encrypted, of course.) When you pop it into an ATM and enter your PIN, the ATM verifies that what you punched in matches what’s on the card. If it does, it will contact your bank to make sure you have enough money for your widthdrawal. encrypts your PIN and sends it to a payment processor, which decrypts it and verifies with the bank that the PIN is correct and that you have enough money to cover the purchase.

Somewhere in the giant financial system that connects consumers, merchants, payment processors, and banks there was a data breach. But no one is talking about where it was.

Informed speculation is pointing to Wal-Mart, its subsidiary Sam’s Club, as well as Office Depot (or OfficeMax in some reports). That’s because some merchants’ systems store customers’ PINs when they choose “Pay with Debit Card” at the checkout. They shouldn’t store that, but they apparently do.

The problem first reared its ugly head in February, when the Modesto Bee reported that “Thousands of debit cards have been canceled and replaced in recent weeks after banks discovered security problems.”

But it really hit the big time when Citibank customers who used their ATM cards in Canada, Russia, or the U.K. found those cards cancelled by the bank when it discovered there was a security problem. It didn’t explain to those customers what had happened except to say there was a security breach.

Avivah Litan, a Gartner researcher, then weighed in writing, “Gartner believes that these combined bank actions reflect the largest PIN theft to date — and point to a new wave of ‘PIN block’ card fraud.”

Is your bank worried? If you suddenly get a new ATM card even though yours isn’t due to expire, then yes. Ditto if you got a sudden upgrade to a gold debit card, or if you were switched from, say, Visa to Mastercard.

The FBI is apparently investigating, and chances are this isn’t the last you’ll hear of this. You can read more about it at BoingBoing.

Oh, great. I’ve taken to tearing up those credit card applications I get, along with any other offer that involves money or personal info.

Turns out I’m not as smart as I thought I was.

Rob over at Cockeyed.com did a test: He took a Chase MasterCard application, tore it up, taped it back together, filled it out with a different address and phone number and sent it in.

Read all about it. And worry.

Warning: Spoilers for David Baldacci’s The Camel Club ahead.

I’ve never read The Camel Club, and I doubt I will. But I was checking it out on Amazon, and found yet another example of the absolutely worst kind of book review. I am astounded that the guy who wrote this is employed as a reviewer by a major company (in this case Publishers Weekly).

Here’s what he wrote:

One night, while meeting on Roosevelt Island in the middle of the Potomac River, club members witness the murder of Secret Service employee Patrick Johnson, thus thrusting the wacky crew into the middle of a bigger conspiracy than they could ever have imagined.

There are scores of characters and subplots to keep track of while the story veers back and forth between venues and villains, forcing readers to remain alert yet patient while awaiting the high-concept payoff. When it finally appears, it’s a doozy: kidnappers who harm no one and are reasonable people with a legitimate gripe bring the U.S. to the verge of nuking Damascus.

Why oh why does he have to give so much of the plot away? Why not let us be surprised when the agent is killed? And worse, how much does it take away to know ahead of time what the “doozy” of a payoff is?

Good reviews give you the tone of the story and an overview of the situation without giving away any of the plot points. I like to be surprised, and if the author had wanted us to know half the book going in he would have put it all in the first few pages. (”My name is John Smith. This is the story of how I discovered that my father was a spy and my mother turned out to be an enemy agent…”)

It’s the sign of a weak reviewer and a poor writer if the only way you know how to describe a book is by recounting the plot — whether in a review, a back-cover blurb, or in a movie trailer. And clearly Publishers Weekly has some weak reviewers.

Two college students were arrested Wednesday and a third was being sought in a string of nine rural Alabama church arsons that allegedly were set first as “a joke” and later as a diversion, federal agents said.

I was a kid once, and a college kid. I never felt the need to destroy buildings for fun. I certainly set off my share of firecrackers, but it would never occur to me to deliberately destroy a building, let alone 10.

What really makes me sad, though, is that the lives of the kids who set those fires are probably over. Gone. Prison time that will eat away a good portion of their youth, followed by a felony record that will likely destroy any chance they have of landing a good job.

That’s it. It’s not as if they can say, “We screwed this one and we won’t make the same mistake again.” There isn’t any “again.” You get one shot. They just threw it away.

In this place and age we care more about punishment than rehabilitation; more about outcome than intent. So their lives are effectively over, whatever dreams they had are gone. Late-night thoughts of “When I grow up…” were all for naught.

No, I don’t mean to excuse what they did. Not at all. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take a moment to appreciate all they’ve lost for doing it.

According to the Bush administration, if you pay off too much on your credit card bill, you become a suspected terrorist.

Seriously. You don’t have to make overseas phone calls, or buy too much ammonium nitrate, or subscribe to the wrong magazines. All you have to do is pay off more on your credit card than usual and — Zap! — the good folks at Homeland Security will tie up your payment till they clear you.

Don’t believe it? Read all about it from the Providence Journal.

An excerpt:

The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges’ behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn’t call a suspected errorist on their cell phone. They didn’t try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn’t changed.

So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.

When you mess with my money, I want to know why,” he said.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.

And the money doesn’t move until the threat alert is lifted.

We watched “Good Night, and Good Luck” last night, and — as I was supposed to — I was struck by how well it resonated.

Paranoid government types casting a wide net for “enemies,” desperately playing the fear card, casting suspicion on good people for reasons they refuse to reveal, branding anyone who dares disagree with them as consorting with the enemy…

I guess too many of us have forgotten our history. So here we go again.

It’s a calendar.

I wrote what I think is a fun story for the Roanoke Times. The subject: Pooper-scooper services. The trick was to avoid too many obvious puns but include the good ones (e.g., “What can brown do for you?”) — without trying to be funny.

Lemme know what you think. And check out the minute-and-a-half slideshow that goes with it. It’s pretty funny.

We only let Sam watch a few TV shows, mostly on Noggin or PBS (no commercials!). This being 2006, they’re all disgustingly politically correct and generally benign.

Or so I thought. Once I looked more carefully, though, I realized the kinds of dangerous lessons some of them are teaching.

Some things I learned from watching kids shows:

From Blue’s Clues: If a man asks you to help him look for his puppy, it’s OK to go into his house.

From Dora the Explorer: There’s nothing wrong with a young girl going out into the world, far from home, with only a monkey for companionship.

From Bob the Builder: While it’s important to wear your helmet while riding an ATV, it’s also OK to ride on a truck by simply hanging on the outside of the door.

From Jack’s Big Music Show: If someone knocks on the door, it’s just fine to shout “Come in!” without looking to see who it is.

From LazyTown: There’s nothing wrong with a 40-something year-old man hanging out — a lot — with a pre-teen girl.

From 64 Zoo Lane: It’s OK to sneak out of your second-story bedroom at night when your parents think you’re asleep.

I say this all tongue-in-cheek, but heck, there’s something to it. I mean, back in the ’70s we were told not to go anywhere with strangers, and the “Come help me find my puppy” story was always the example of how the bad guy would try to lure us. Yet that’s how Blue’s Clues starts!

Apparently the Canadian, Russian, and UK networks that Citibank uses to validate its customers’ ATM cards have been comprimised. Anyone using those networks has their accounts locked until they return to the U.S. (If they aren’t planning to come back immediately, tough noogies.)

Here’s one guy’s account of how the bank is handling it.

Here’s the Modesto Bee’s account of what’s apparently the backstory.

According to a poll, one in five Americans thinks the First Amendment guarantees the right to own a pet.

(Click the image to go to many more entries in the Photoshop contest.)