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GRAFFITI -- August 10, 2009 thru August 16, 2009>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message. |
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August 10, 2009
2054 - Good evening. Standard Monday chores all done. I have reading to do, following the light dinner of cheese, a bit of salami, and a pear. Yeah, it sounds more like hors d'oeuvres than supper to me, too. But it was yummy. Hot day today, hottest of the year so far, mercury in the high 90's. But the 10 day forecast shows only 80's after today... very weird. I remember a recent August where it only was below 90 one or two days. Anyway ... reading. Yeah, I've got my final in the CMIS375 Perl course on Saturday morning, and intend another A out of the work. But I have to do the work. Ciao!
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August 11, 2009
2025 - I followed a tweet from @sheigh, enhancing a retweet of a retweet of this story from AP. Sidenote - AP's loony content policies irk me. So anyway, go read that story, and get most of the way through it, to where John Verdi of EPIC said (and I quote ... send me the bill, AP!), "Lots of times individuals upload private or sensitive information that they expect to share with their friends or family and not the whole Internet world," Verdi said. "It would certainly be a major problem if the government were accessing that information under false pretenses."
I'm pretty sure that AP didn't make up that quotation. I mean, they might have, if they really didn't like John Verdi and wanted him to sound silly. So, I head over to EPIC's site to see what I can find. Oh. He's a lawyer. Do y'all remember that I don't much like lawyers? Yeah, well, I don't. When your career path is Leech On Society, the few good apples are hard to find in that big, big barrel.
So why does John Verdi say something like "individuals upload private or sensitive information that they expect to share with their friends or family and not the whole Internet world"? Look, John. If you want to share something with only friends and family, you password protect it, or you send it via email. If you post it where the Goog can index it, yeah, you're sharing with the world. If you don't know that ... well, let's just say that like ignorance of the law, it isn't a very good excuse. I wonder if Mr. Verdi could explain how one goes about viewing publicly posted material (such as twitter posts, public facebook pages, etc.) under "false pretenses"? Is that like, I only call myself "Shirley" while I'm reading your LinkedIn page? Why no, I don't do that.
Frankly, when people say silly stuff like that (and many people do, don't feel alone there, John), I know it's because you don't really grok how this Internet thing works. Whatever you do, don't count on Ted "series of tubes" errr, "maybe a felon" Stevens to explain it to you, because he truly doesn't roll that way. Now, that quote may have just been an off-the-cuff, soundbite kind of thing to say, but given your position with a 501(c)(3) like EPIC, I expect a heaping helping of truth in your soundbites. Building the public's expectation of privacy in a public commons like the Internet is an unreasonable and unfair thing to do. There are so many more important ways in which the government violates the constitution and invades the privacy of her citizens ... why gripe about government employees reading public postings to learn more about how Americans are reacting to their antics? Personally, I think that's a good thing.
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August 12, 2009
No post, I wuz busy...
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August 13, 2009
 New Desktop |
2148 - As previously noted, I wuz busy. Difficult to put up a post when your machine is going to pieces. Or is being taken to pieces. Actually, the first four hours of the evening yesterday, I did other stuff while I ran SuperDuper! to make a clean copy of Harmony on the new drive, Darla. Darla is a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 FDE 500G laptop drive. Once I get the right software from WinMagic (probably), I'll have full-time FIPS-140 compliant hardware disk encryption in place. That's a happy thing.
However, as you can see from my new desktop wallpaper (thumbed and linked above), swapping the HD on a MacBook Pro ain't no cakewalk. 26 screws. Overall, about 25 minutes for the swap, being careful. Booted just fine, though. No real performance differences between the prior 320G drive and this new one (except for the spacious feeling).
Tonight, school work and formatting/posting Jerry's August column ate the evening. Tomorrow, more studying. Saturday, the final. Um, yay? Ciao!
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August 14, 2009
2101 - Final tomorrow. It *can* actually be fun to prep for a final:
Perl> my %who_is
0
Perl> my %bye;
0
Perl> $who_is{"number one"} = "you are number six.\n";
you are number six.
Perl> $bye{"bye"} = "Be seeing you.\n";
Be seeing you.
...
Perl> $who_is{"number one"};
you are number six.
Perl> $bye{"bye"};
Be seeing you.
Back to the grind. Ciao!
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August 15, 2009
No Post......
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August 16, 2009
2102 - Well. That was a bloody busy weekend. The final went fine, thanks for asking. When I got back from that, I started in on yardwork, and did that until it was done. Since it was pretty warmish out yesterday, I was done, too. Today, in a fit of insanity, I decided that instead of relaxing, I'd clean house. So top to middle, I did. The basement still needs a going over, but the rest is all shiny now. That took about 6 hours, start to finish. Then I marinated a dozen chicken breasts in salsa and olive oil for an hour or two, then barbequed them for supper. On another burner, I browned up a batch of mild italian sausage (Johnsonville, I think) and draped that in red sauce from the lobster pot. Half of that frozen, the other half for suppers this week, starting tomorrow. Oh, and I finished getting all the way down to the bottom of my magazine stack. The only big miss this weekend (for me, Tiger had his own issues) was not making it over to Samantha's lemonade stand, a fund raiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Yeah, times are tough. But if you can spare a few bucks, they've got one of the best of causes, IMO.
Background music ATM: Strangelove (Depeche Mode), courtesy of Radio Paradise.
The good news? No reported casualties from Iraq this week. The heat and death continue in Afghanistan, though. The big deal is the upcoming election. Taliban violence is said to be directed to disrupt election proceedings where ever they can. Our men and women are doing what they can to help stabilize the situation. Our condolences to the families and units of the fallen.
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
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