Derailment
A Train Of Thought That Jumped The Track

The original meaning of the word nightmare referred to the feeling of suffocation caused by an evil spirit. I like etymology, especially the way it illuminates changes in meaning over time. Americans are suffocating under the weight of endless "security" measures with no end in sight. Will we ever again be able to keep our shoes on at the airport? Will we one day have to be screened in the nude before taking any public transportation? Where does it end?

Maybe it will end if we stop our worst-case thinking. It's a reflex when we think about security, especially for those in positions of authority who are thinking about their accountability should "the worst" happen. That's how we end up with rule after rule, weaving a blanket of "protection" that suffocates the liberty it is meant to safeguard. That's my nightmare scenario.

I'm planning to attend Velocity 2010. I've never been before, and I'm looking forward to learning new things and meeting new people. Devops is a popular term, and we live it at OmniTI, so I'm excited about bringing back knowledge to improve it in our operations and development teams.

Weapons of Mass Dilution and the threat of New Age terrorists. Brilliant! Eerily accurate with respect to the security response:

"Meanwhile, new security measures at airports require that all water bottles be scanned to ensure that they are not being used to smuggle the memory of an explosion on board a plane."

Multiple axes of humor.