![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hey, we're back! - 2 June 2007
Jun. 3rd, 2007 01:52 amAnd, despite my best efforts, I managed to survive, too! Although I did exhaust myself pretty well yesterday on the long hike - if I’m going hiking again, I need to bring along the big, gallon-sized bottle, not the tiny Nalgene.
Advice from Tricks of the Trade to start - how to smooth out one's hands after a hard day's work. On cuts and abrasions, though, I wonder how much that will sting.
After reading that amputee soldiers are being brought back for active duty, Yahoo! News confirms what people have been thinking all the time - the President does not have any feet touching reality. Instead, he continues to insist that we’re the ones that are wrong. And that leaves some people with difficult decisions, like Andrew J. Bacevich, who lost a son to Iraq while doing his duty to promote critical thought of the current policy, on whether the accusations that he’s somehow personally responsible for his son’s death are to be taken seriously. This split with reality also induces Norman Podhoretz to proclaim that he "hopes and prays" that President Bush will bomb Iran, the sooner, the better. It has John Andrews believing that while climate change and terrorism are both important things, we should be focusing on the terror now, rather than the climate change later. And it’s drawn in the Veterans for Foreign Wars, who are backing the free speech of Iraq veterans that wore their uniforms to protest the war. Which can add things like the destruction of a mosque, to the cheering of soldiers to its achievements.
Valerie Plame has returned to the news front, as a newly released document makes it clear Plame was a "covert" agent at the time of her name's disclosure. Glenn Greenwald continues on the offensive by showing off just how much the right-wing, including Tony Snow (before he was press secretary) denied her covert status, telling fibs to the populace about the covert status of Plame. Can’t trust anybody these days, it seems. Oh, and the CIA isn't letting Plame publish her memoirs, citing that some of the information she’s put in it is classified.
That includes your photographer, as in taking family pictures of your children to the photographer could put you under suspicion of being a child pr0n/paedophile if the kids happen to not have their clothes on. Not encouraging faith in the police squadron, a police officer was tackled by a father who believes the officer was taking pedophilic pictures. Much like the priests, if the people you’re supposed to trust aren’t on your side, where do you go from there?
Continuing to burn on the rage front - a website from the Alabama Department of Homeland Security that had identified gay rights, anti-war, environmental, and animal rights activists as groups that could potentially spawn terrorists has been taken down long enough for specific group references to be removed. Because, you know, they could do what the blacks did and riot.
The Supreme Court was not particularly better, ruling in a 5-4 decision that a woman manager could not sue on discrimination grounds when her annual salary lagged behind that of male managers over time, because she didn't file within the 180 days of the discrimination happening. Not like people go around asking each other their salaries. Yahoo! has more on the matter, and Liberal Beagle points out that discrimination of this manner is difficult to detect.
Out in Georgia, the book-lovers carry the day as Harry Potter is permitted to remain on the Gwinnett County school library shelves, despite a mother claiming they’re indoctrination material for witchery, and arguing that because Witchcraft is a religion, it’s showing preference to that religion. What a significant number of long-practicing Witches and Pagans will tell you is that the things you see in Harry Potter are hardly the religion they practice. (That same statement applies to almost every portrayal of Witchcraft or Paganism in popular television.)
Adding in a dosage of coverage of Christianity and conservatism, in matters where religion and politics intersect, the media quotes conservatives much more than progressives. In Europe, gay and lesbian activists are meeting fierce resistance from religious and other conservative sectors. Much of the flux around what will and won’t be successful for the conservatives leads Orcinus to lay out a possible course for the future of fundamentalism. Considering that, at least in sexual matters, religion plays a fairly important role, and that the highly religious may be more likely to have sex and get pregnant earlier, there could be some interesting developments.
All of these sorts of things may end up being par for the course, and the decisions are not always guaranteed to go the way of freedoms, considering large numbers of evangelicals are training to get into the nation's high offices, and faith is playing a key role in all the presidential campaigns. In other countries, sometimes conversions from one religion to another are outright denied. These are things to be on the lookout for, as opposed to Irrational Scares About Wireless Devices.
It’s not all bad, though. Although this does tweak certain people’s noses more than others, the backpack mail system that had first Christian, then pagan literature distributed in it now has advertisements for an atheist camp as well. Working quite well on neutrality of viewpoint. Of course, some of the teachers are refusing to send the material home, citing that it looks like an endorsement. Of course, that reasoning was obviously dismissed when they first let the Christians send things home. I don’t think they knew what they were getting in to with that decision.
In other materials, Russia test-fired a new multi-warhead ICBM, reversing the trend of aging and disarming their weapons, although Russia claims that the new missile is in accord with reduction treaties. This sounds in line with Russia’s want to be considered a power, if not a superpower, in their own sphere of influence. The missiles do make people stop short, but I don’t really think that’s the way you want to go about trying to exercise influence. Doesn’t really work for the Untied States, so I doubt it would work well for Russia. Not to mention some of the nuclear material is degrading horribly and the scientists aren't being paid that well.
The Daily Techno-Babble has a proposition for those people who have regular television habits and their shows are available on iTunes - 5 reasons to cancel the cable, use iTunes, and save some money. Which, for those who have regular show fixes, and don’t mind any DRM placed on the files, might be a good idea. (Admittedly, though, those high-speed connections are often much more expensive without the channels, too.) Regarding iTunes, parts of EMI's catalog are now available in a DRM-free way on iTunes. Hopefully, this trend continues, and comes down to the regular iTunes price. Without, of course, the watermarking that displays personal data with the file. Speaking of new DRM schemes, a Canadian vendor claims that the AACS encryption sequence infringes on their patents and has sued Sony. If that holds up in court, everyone who’s infringed could be liable. Which could lead to quite the bloodletting... Finally, CBS has bought last.fm, which is not necessarily a good sign for those who use the service.
In more technology, Microsoft Surface eschews mouse and keyboard for a multiple-camera touch-like interface that can recognize shapes and objects on the surface. Maybe this will be far enough beyond touch-screen to be taken seriously? Maybe coupled with the improving ability of computers to recognize faces, the Surface could really be personalized and helpful. For those times when not using a surface, perhaps the new vein of pen computers will be of use. (NYTimes, so use the power of BugMeNot.) Continuing in the technology vein, Google added street views to Google Maps, allowing both top-down and car-window views of the locations on the map. For at least one BoingBoing reader, though, that means that Google is spying on her cat. So, the pictures are apparently pretty clear, too, which could be bad for someone were they in the picture as it was taken. The privacy issues at stake here are probably pretty big.
Zombies eat Apple! Err, rather, a swarm of zombie-types descended on an Apple store. Still, accesssorieeeees...
Less than brilliant, but a few points for trying - five students were denied their diplomas by a local high school because spectators in the crowd cheered for them as they walked across the stage. We understand the need for decorum, but that’s probably not the way to go about it.
...oh, and from a similar mindset that brought you LOLtrek, the LOLcky Horror Picture Show. I suspect this mutation of memery is going to continue for a while. However, the potentially most mind-blowing thing on this list is that there will be a Harry Potter-themed park opening in 2009. Okay, maybe not mind-blowing, but certainly ranking in the weird. What might be most mind-blowing is the account of someone's picture of themselves at fourteen being used to grace the cover of a pornographic DVD. There’s a case of piracy we can support, assuming that it’s true, and probably a violation of age requirements.
Although what we’re leaving with is a Slate columnist's adventures in accidentally hacking the video-on-demand services of his cable company. Kind of like flipping the channels in the hotel to see if there’s anything unblocked being broadcast. Or, in my case, finding out that one channel that’s not on the lineup has the hockey game you wanted to see. (You thought I was going to talk about porn, didn’t you?) That, and some veyr useful French phrases that I didn't learn in school, even if I had been paying attention.
That’s it. Big post. Bed now. Must take![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
2dlife back to the airport very soon.
Advice from Tricks of the Trade to start - how to smooth out one's hands after a hard day's work. On cuts and abrasions, though, I wonder how much that will sting.
After reading that amputee soldiers are being brought back for active duty, Yahoo! News confirms what people have been thinking all the time - the President does not have any feet touching reality. Instead, he continues to insist that we’re the ones that are wrong. And that leaves some people with difficult decisions, like Andrew J. Bacevich, who lost a son to Iraq while doing his duty to promote critical thought of the current policy, on whether the accusations that he’s somehow personally responsible for his son’s death are to be taken seriously. This split with reality also induces Norman Podhoretz to proclaim that he "hopes and prays" that President Bush will bomb Iran, the sooner, the better. It has John Andrews believing that while climate change and terrorism are both important things, we should be focusing on the terror now, rather than the climate change later. And it’s drawn in the Veterans for Foreign Wars, who are backing the free speech of Iraq veterans that wore their uniforms to protest the war. Which can add things like the destruction of a mosque, to the cheering of soldiers to its achievements.
Valerie Plame has returned to the news front, as a newly released document makes it clear Plame was a "covert" agent at the time of her name's disclosure. Glenn Greenwald continues on the offensive by showing off just how much the right-wing, including Tony Snow (before he was press secretary) denied her covert status, telling fibs to the populace about the covert status of Plame. Can’t trust anybody these days, it seems. Oh, and the CIA isn't letting Plame publish her memoirs, citing that some of the information she’s put in it is classified.
That includes your photographer, as in taking family pictures of your children to the photographer could put you under suspicion of being a child pr0n/paedophile if the kids happen to not have their clothes on. Not encouraging faith in the police squadron, a police officer was tackled by a father who believes the officer was taking pedophilic pictures. Much like the priests, if the people you’re supposed to trust aren’t on your side, where do you go from there?
Continuing to burn on the rage front - a website from the Alabama Department of Homeland Security that had identified gay rights, anti-war, environmental, and animal rights activists as groups that could potentially spawn terrorists has been taken down long enough for specific group references to be removed. Because, you know, they could do what the blacks did and riot.
The Supreme Court was not particularly better, ruling in a 5-4 decision that a woman manager could not sue on discrimination grounds when her annual salary lagged behind that of male managers over time, because she didn't file within the 180 days of the discrimination happening. Not like people go around asking each other their salaries. Yahoo! has more on the matter, and Liberal Beagle points out that discrimination of this manner is difficult to detect.
Out in Georgia, the book-lovers carry the day as Harry Potter is permitted to remain on the Gwinnett County school library shelves, despite a mother claiming they’re indoctrination material for witchery, and arguing that because Witchcraft is a religion, it’s showing preference to that religion. What a significant number of long-practicing Witches and Pagans will tell you is that the things you see in Harry Potter are hardly the religion they practice. (That same statement applies to almost every portrayal of Witchcraft or Paganism in popular television.)
Adding in a dosage of coverage of Christianity and conservatism, in matters where religion and politics intersect, the media quotes conservatives much more than progressives. In Europe, gay and lesbian activists are meeting fierce resistance from religious and other conservative sectors. Much of the flux around what will and won’t be successful for the conservatives leads Orcinus to lay out a possible course for the future of fundamentalism. Considering that, at least in sexual matters, religion plays a fairly important role, and that the highly religious may be more likely to have sex and get pregnant earlier, there could be some interesting developments.
All of these sorts of things may end up being par for the course, and the decisions are not always guaranteed to go the way of freedoms, considering large numbers of evangelicals are training to get into the nation's high offices, and faith is playing a key role in all the presidential campaigns. In other countries, sometimes conversions from one religion to another are outright denied. These are things to be on the lookout for, as opposed to Irrational Scares About Wireless Devices.
It’s not all bad, though. Although this does tweak certain people’s noses more than others, the backpack mail system that had first Christian, then pagan literature distributed in it now has advertisements for an atheist camp as well. Working quite well on neutrality of viewpoint. Of course, some of the teachers are refusing to send the material home, citing that it looks like an endorsement. Of course, that reasoning was obviously dismissed when they first let the Christians send things home. I don’t think they knew what they were getting in to with that decision.
In other materials, Russia test-fired a new multi-warhead ICBM, reversing the trend of aging and disarming their weapons, although Russia claims that the new missile is in accord with reduction treaties. This sounds in line with Russia’s want to be considered a power, if not a superpower, in their own sphere of influence. The missiles do make people stop short, but I don’t really think that’s the way you want to go about trying to exercise influence. Doesn’t really work for the Untied States, so I doubt it would work well for Russia. Not to mention some of the nuclear material is degrading horribly and the scientists aren't being paid that well.
The Daily Techno-Babble has a proposition for those people who have regular television habits and their shows are available on iTunes - 5 reasons to cancel the cable, use iTunes, and save some money. Which, for those who have regular show fixes, and don’t mind any DRM placed on the files, might be a good idea. (Admittedly, though, those high-speed connections are often much more expensive without the channels, too.) Regarding iTunes, parts of EMI's catalog are now available in a DRM-free way on iTunes. Hopefully, this trend continues, and comes down to the regular iTunes price. Without, of course, the watermarking that displays personal data with the file. Speaking of new DRM schemes, a Canadian vendor claims that the AACS encryption sequence infringes on their patents and has sued Sony. If that holds up in court, everyone who’s infringed could be liable. Which could lead to quite the bloodletting... Finally, CBS has bought last.fm, which is not necessarily a good sign for those who use the service.
In more technology, Microsoft Surface eschews mouse and keyboard for a multiple-camera touch-like interface that can recognize shapes and objects on the surface. Maybe this will be far enough beyond touch-screen to be taken seriously? Maybe coupled with the improving ability of computers to recognize faces, the Surface could really be personalized and helpful. For those times when not using a surface, perhaps the new vein of pen computers will be of use. (NYTimes, so use the power of BugMeNot.) Continuing in the technology vein, Google added street views to Google Maps, allowing both top-down and car-window views of the locations on the map. For at least one BoingBoing reader, though, that means that Google is spying on her cat. So, the pictures are apparently pretty clear, too, which could be bad for someone were they in the picture as it was taken. The privacy issues at stake here are probably pretty big.
Zombies eat Apple! Err, rather, a swarm of zombie-types descended on an Apple store. Still, accesssorieeeees...
Less than brilliant, but a few points for trying - five students were denied their diplomas by a local high school because spectators in the crowd cheered for them as they walked across the stage. We understand the need for decorum, but that’s probably not the way to go about it.
...oh, and from a similar mindset that brought you LOLtrek, the LOLcky Horror Picture Show. I suspect this mutation of memery is going to continue for a while. However, the potentially most mind-blowing thing on this list is that there will be a Harry Potter-themed park opening in 2009. Okay, maybe not mind-blowing, but certainly ranking in the weird. What might be most mind-blowing is the account of someone's picture of themselves at fourteen being used to grace the cover of a pornographic DVD. There’s a case of piracy we can support, assuming that it’s true, and probably a violation of age requirements.
Although what we’re leaving with is a Slate columnist's adventures in accidentally hacking the video-on-demand services of his cable company. Kind of like flipping the channels in the hotel to see if there’s anything unblocked being broadcast. Or, in my case, finding out that one channel that’s not on the lineup has the hockey game you wanted to see. (You thought I was going to talk about porn, didn’t you?) That, and some veyr useful French phrases that I didn't learn in school, even if I had been paying attention.
That’s it. Big post. Bed now. Must take
2dlife back to the airport very soon.
