Dell Deaton

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Author: Dell Deaton

Privacy! when you “have nothing to hide”

One of the more challenging areas of restraint for me is when someone rationalizes unbridled access to someone else’s information by arguing, “Well, if you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t have any objection.”

What could it hurt?

Naïvely, and, more importantly — dangerously — this position fails to recognize the difference between data and intelligence. The former is raw, unconsidered information. The latter adds interpretation to that record of the former.

So, to you and me, “667 Main Street, Apartment 16,” is just an address. But coded into a database that runs character strings without spaces, apartment information preceding building, the number “16667” appears in a string. And it’s only a matter of time before some intelligence person sees the three of those sixes together in an apartment-first, street-second layout, and draws “the only possible conclusion,” ie, “mark of the devil!”

Stop and think about some of the best thriller-genre story lines. “Mistaken identity” is really nothing more than otherwise innocent data being taken the wrong way. Happens all the time.

And, as a matter of fact, so much so, I’m guessing, that folks who were here long before me and undoubtedly a lot smarter than I am, felt it important enough to spell out as a prohibition.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

As arguments go, Fourth Amendment trumps rationalization for riffling through my underwear drawer. At least as far as I’m concerned.

How ’bout you?

“horology”

  1. the science of measuring time
  2. the art of making instruments for indicating time

— Merriam-Webster

Quoting Joseph Joubert, on choosing a marriage partner

Choose in marriage only a woman who you would choose as a friend if she were a man.

Will “Le Chiffre” become a verb?

via Internet Archive—

Spoiler alert: While it’s hard to imagine that the torture scene in Casino Royale is much of a surprise to anyone, that’s what we’re talking about here.

Stop reading here if that sort of discussion might spoil anything for you.

For the rest of us— I wanted to let you know that the words, “Don’t Le Chiffre me” have already crossed my lips since seeing the latest James Bond 007 film feature yesterday. It’s a guy thing, calling someone on what is, I admit, usually a mere verbal jibe.

To be “La Chiffred” (pronounced “la-sheef-ed”) connotes the even greater context conveyed through the Casino Royale torture scene. La Chiffre is an opponent who cheats to get the upper hand. He attacks only after his henchmen have secured position on his behalf. Then, with no sense of boundaries, come his low blows, so to speak.

James Bond 007, secure in his masculinity and unyielding to such an unworthy opponent, mocks Le Chiffre.*

This is the the fullest message conveyed when labeling your experience at the hand of an adversary as a “La Chiffre.” For the perpetrator, clearly a moniker of shame.

That’s how I intend that it be heard.

Application:

It can unmask behavior, call it to account, suggesting the question, “You’ve crossed a line, do you really want to go there?” Or, more harshly, “You’ve already passed the point of no return: Stop before your friends see you scratching around in a way that’s obviously more humiliating to you than anyone else.”

Should you see La Chiffred appear in context elsewhere, remember that you read it here, first.

____________
* An oversimplification I reserve the right to address later, elsewhere. But it remains here, intact as written, for the value its more narrow construct in advancement of the local position taken here.

— accessed February 9, 2026

Quoting Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, on speaking the truth (in love)

‘Don’t truth me,’ said Boaz …, ‘and I won’t truth you.’

— The Sirens of Titan

 

Quoting “Psychology Today,” on validating self-esteem

Many parents try so hard to boost ‘self-esteem’ that they forget where it comes from. We feel good about ourselves when we’re effective in the world. Help your son acquire the skills and knowledge he needs to succeed ….

An inflated sense of self-worth without underlying abilities is useless, if not dangerous.

— Dr Robert Epstein, PhD

Two Blimps in Ann Arbor

via Internet Archive—

This was quite an event in 1985 when I captured the image below on film at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport.

  • Linked image: “Goodyear and Fuji Tape Blimps” [2834 x 2244 (8×10 aspect ratio)] at 2.27mb, black and white (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985)

It’s not likely you’ve ever seen a Goodyear Blimp moored at any airport with a competitor’s airship.

According to what I was told on site at the time of this photograph, it’s not their policy. They spend a great deal of money to keep this fleet in the air for promotions, and they feel that setting down with other lighter-than-air vessels dilutes that investment.

In this case, however, Airship Industries, which licensed graphics on the blimp in this photograph to Fuji Tape, experienced one or more mechanical problems that necessitated an unscheduled landing here at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport.

Pre-9/11, residents were freely permitted onto the field with the ground crews, 24/7. So I’d head out there late at night and ask questions among the few people similarly braving the dark in candor. The Airship Industries crew was a bit more vocal than the Goodyear technicians, talking expansively about their “superior technology.”

Internal engines driving external propellers via drive shafts; that’s how they did it. As opposed to the Goodyear use of two completely external drive engines.

So I took that information over to one of the Goodyear crew and challenged him with the “superior technology” claims. He shrugged his shoulders and responded with only two words.

“We’re flying.”

Emphasis on the “we.” And fly they did. While I can’t speak to motives, you’ll note from my photograph that the Goodyear Blimp seems to be buzzing the Fuji Tape airship, tauntingly.

On the day I made this image, I was on the field with a Speed Graphic press camera, loaded with 120 Tri-X (black and white) film. My intent was to capture some higher-resolution shots of the Goodyear Blimp in-flight, at a distance, with good options for making enlargements. I was just setting up when this opportunity came upon me, so to speak.

Yeah, I heard some yelling. But as you can see from the ground crew headed for the mooring lines, there were a lot of folks running around.

So it was a complete surprise when some of Ann Arbor’s finest knocked me to the ground — for reasons that still escape me.

PS: I didn’t drop the camera.

Quoting “The Marketing Imagination,” on suitability

Excellent quality is not enough. Also required is suitability. In pursuit of wrong purposes, excellence is wrong.

Employing gas spectroscopy is overkill when a simple microscope will accomplish the task. Using a simulation model to determine the optimal warehouse network may be excellent management science, but you’ll realize it’s ridiculous if you just stop to think. Common sense will suggest that you’ll need a warehouse in the New York metropolitan area, probably one between Washington and Philadelphia, …. How much scientific accuracy do you need?

Your imagination can tell you in a moment a great deal more than scientific excellence would have told you at great expense and pretension in a year ….

… the explanations of the superior performance that we commonly get from the most successful practitioners of capitalist enterprise, though perhaps quite accurate in themselves, are seldom more than confessions of particular experiences, offering no comparison with the experiences of others and devoid of serious analytical content.

What they lack, moreover, in generality, they often compensate with pomposity.

— Theodore Levitt

Interpersonal triangulation is dangerous.

Another Catholic conference on divorce

For a second year now, I was invited to present before attendees at the North American Conference of Separated and Divorced Catholics on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.

Once again, The Saline Reporter provided a preview. This article ran last month under the headline, “Divorce mediator to appear at conference,” on Page 3-C. Here’s a more extensive pull from that coverage.

Last year, Deaton offered a presentation titled, ‘How Can You Trust After Divorce‘ ….

This year …, Deaton will tackle the other side of the divorce equation: providing closure.

‘One of the first things I try to help folks get their arms around is the concept of ‘timing,’ said Deaton. ‘Sometimes we have trouble ‘letting go’ because we’re trying to let go too early.

‘Outside of that period, however, there are all sorts of natural forces that will come into play, naturally leading you to let go. That’s what I mean when I talk about ‘God and gravity.’ That’s a nice way of saying that we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to not letting go — which translated, can mean “holding on.”

‘With a death grip.

‘We play a role. We have a lot of control. My job is to show you what that is, and how to use it ….’

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