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Friday's News - 10 September 2010
Sep. 11th, 2010 12:25 pmGood morning, people of interest! Surviving the World is excellent, with a recitation about what life would be like if everyone normally spoke in pentameter. Elsewhere, to feed your handyman side, a letter indicating that blueprints have been released at least once on how to build one's own Dalek, but sadly, the blueprints are not attached in this letter.
A quick update: revised policy and implementation on the LJ-Twitter-Facebook and Pingbacks routine - everything that was complained about is slated to be fixed.
In re: the currently-suspended but likely to return book burning event on 11 September, recall that not too long ago, we were saying that our enemies burned books. And since it's Banned (and burned) books month, we can look at some readings to be done by the ALA of the Qu'ran and examples from history on why book burning never ends well. Just remember that there are always people looking to exploit the event for their own purposes, including continuing to fan the flames of an Us (Christians) versus Them (Muslims and their liberal slaves) world.
Hngrrrrrrk. The following is an article in conflation of separate things. A librarian in Alabama has sued her employer for not stopping sexual harrassment of her by users of the library. This is the correct headline. The headline you will see? "Alabama Librarian...Sues Employer Over Porn on Workplace Computers". BZZZZZZZZT. For one thing, those "workplace computers" are the ones offered to the public for their usage, not computers reserved specifically for staff to use. Second, in reading the article, the librarian is suing because people using the computers were sexually harassing her, and neither her administration nor the security people took her allegations seriously enough to warrant investigation and discipline for the people who kept up with the behavior. The fact that some of them were looking at pornography using the library computers is a throwaway at best and useless to the information at worst. Unless, that is, you feel that the fact that anyone can access whatever they like on library computers is wrong, because it means they can access offensive things, so they should be stopped from accessing those things. I don't know how many of them will then balk when something they want to access is considered offensive by the filters or not, but I'm betting on a high percentage. The story here is the harassment, not the porn.
Out in the world today, Hamid Karzai is stuck between a rock and a hard place, as trying to reach out to his dogged opposition is alienating his coalition allies.
Domestic news opens with a federal court in California ruling that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the military is unconstitutional. Which may have the effect of accelerating the current plan in place to eliminate the policy by year's end. The government may ask for a temporary stay to keep to that timetable, or they may just let the policy die here and now. We'll see what happens.
Arizona is the defendent of a new federal suit, this one alleging that they're shuffling ESL and ELL students off to regular classes before they have actually achieved proficiency and then denying them further assistance classes. The suit appears to accuses Arizona of not teaching the students English before sending them off to regular class, something that would normally upset the nativists who pushed for SB 1070 to send anyone illegal-looking back to their supposed country unless they had their citizenship proof on them. As with any institution, though, there is usually at least one left hand-right hand problem.
A report from the heads of the 11 September Commission says that the United States is not counteracting a growing homegrown terrorist threat and so far seems to be in denial about whether such a thing is widespread. More fodder for your National Security State Party to continue suspending your liberties and curtailing your freedoms. In that same vein, sherrifs in North Carolina want access to the names of anyone prescribed powerful painkillers or other substances that could be sold on the black market for use by others. It's for your own protection and to stop the drug trade, of course, so you should be more than willing to give up that fact to them.
Speaking of suppression of materials, although this time it's not torture that's being suppressed, but data mining. The Pentagon is negotiating to buy up an entire print release of a book describing data mining operations in Afghanistan, claiming that it will reveal national security things. This, after the Army apparently cleared it for publication. Left hand, right hand.
Attempting to raise a bit more revenues from insurance companies, some municipalities have begun trying to charge for the use of emergency services. The problem? When insurance companies refuse, those bills often go to the person that needed the services, which understandably pisses them off about having to pay again for services that are supposed to be covered by taxes. Usually, the driver doesn't have to pay, but the "debt" is an excellent in for debt collection agencies to hound the person, again about a bogus debt, and try to squeeze them for money.
Ten years of war and conflict have changed the American solider, and built a gulf between them and civilians, because their experiences of the last decade have been so different as to be unexplainable.
Last out, remember that historic difference in the generic ballot between Democrats and Republicans last week? Erased. The enthusiasm gap is maintained, however.
In technology, Swedish law enforcement, in the pursuit of building a shoe database to match types of shoes to prints, may have violated copyright law. The article reads as a Take That to overzealous copyright enforcement, but it probably should be a note that if you can't do anything useful without tripping over copyright, then the copyright law is probably too tight.
In a similar vein, the Librarian in Black points out that libraries and their vendors are doing the digital music thing way, waaaaay wrong, where it's twice-or-more expensive for a library to be able to loan out a crappy collection of stuff people don't want when they could just buy it from iTunes and get exactly what they want. If the library wants to vault itself into the digital domain and provide the kind of access the users want, for a pirce that won't bust the budget of the offering institution, what we've got now isn't going to cut it. Maybe a database full of DRM-free files that is the entirety of the library's physical collection, digitized? Of course, here in the States, libraries are severely hampered from doing what they do best by DRM, corporate shenanigans, and court cases that uphold the right of software makers and other content crators to dictate to you, a user, what you can do with their stuff, because you only license it instead of actually buying it, so no first sale doctrine for you, sorry. And streaming is an ultiamtely unfulfilling option, really. (Although there are programs that users can create that will capture the various parts of a stream, chop them up nicely and allow for the creation of discrete files, but that relies on the users to do the research and set up the programs. Not as easy as offering discrete files.) Services like Pandora are great for discovery, but when you actually want to keep what you've found? Then streaming sucks.
In the triumphs of science and technology, a successfully regenerated pinky tip, the beginnings of charting how the brain grows and matures over time, with a possible eye on being able to spot in a brain scan when someone's jumped the track, giving robots the ability to deceive pursuers, which will make them very interesting in battle, and will have to make for more complex programming issues if one wants to make them at least Three Laws Compliant, and using fiber optic cables connected to nerves to allow atural communication with prosthetic limbs.
Finally, male bowerbirds take advantage of perception and build optical illusions to make themselves look bigger for potential mates.
Last out for tonight, the only way the Google-Apple feud will end - giant city-destroying robot wars.
A quick update: revised policy and implementation on the LJ-Twitter-Facebook and Pingbacks routine - everything that was complained about is slated to be fixed.
In re: the currently-suspended but likely to return book burning event on 11 September, recall that not too long ago, we were saying that our enemies burned books. And since it's Banned (and burned) books month, we can look at some readings to be done by the ALA of the Qu'ran and examples from history on why book burning never ends well. Just remember that there are always people looking to exploit the event for their own purposes, including continuing to fan the flames of an Us (Christians) versus Them (Muslims and their liberal slaves) world.
Hngrrrrrrk. The following is an article in conflation of separate things. A librarian in Alabama has sued her employer for not stopping sexual harrassment of her by users of the library. This is the correct headline. The headline you will see? "Alabama Librarian...Sues Employer Over Porn on Workplace Computers". BZZZZZZZZT. For one thing, those "workplace computers" are the ones offered to the public for their usage, not computers reserved specifically for staff to use. Second, in reading the article, the librarian is suing because people using the computers were sexually harassing her, and neither her administration nor the security people took her allegations seriously enough to warrant investigation and discipline for the people who kept up with the behavior. The fact that some of them were looking at pornography using the library computers is a throwaway at best and useless to the information at worst. Unless, that is, you feel that the fact that anyone can access whatever they like on library computers is wrong, because it means they can access offensive things, so they should be stopped from accessing those things. I don't know how many of them will then balk when something they want to access is considered offensive by the filters or not, but I'm betting on a high percentage. The story here is the harassment, not the porn.
Out in the world today, Hamid Karzai is stuck between a rock and a hard place, as trying to reach out to his dogged opposition is alienating his coalition allies.
Domestic news opens with a federal court in California ruling that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the military is unconstitutional. Which may have the effect of accelerating the current plan in place to eliminate the policy by year's end. The government may ask for a temporary stay to keep to that timetable, or they may just let the policy die here and now. We'll see what happens.
Arizona is the defendent of a new federal suit, this one alleging that they're shuffling ESL and ELL students off to regular classes before they have actually achieved proficiency and then denying them further assistance classes. The suit appears to accuses Arizona of not teaching the students English before sending them off to regular class, something that would normally upset the nativists who pushed for SB 1070 to send anyone illegal-looking back to their supposed country unless they had their citizenship proof on them. As with any institution, though, there is usually at least one left hand-right hand problem.
A report from the heads of the 11 September Commission says that the United States is not counteracting a growing homegrown terrorist threat and so far seems to be in denial about whether such a thing is widespread. More fodder for your National Security State Party to continue suspending your liberties and curtailing your freedoms. In that same vein, sherrifs in North Carolina want access to the names of anyone prescribed powerful painkillers or other substances that could be sold on the black market for use by others. It's for your own protection and to stop the drug trade, of course, so you should be more than willing to give up that fact to them.
Speaking of suppression of materials, although this time it's not torture that's being suppressed, but data mining. The Pentagon is negotiating to buy up an entire print release of a book describing data mining operations in Afghanistan, claiming that it will reveal national security things. This, after the Army apparently cleared it for publication. Left hand, right hand.
Attempting to raise a bit more revenues from insurance companies, some municipalities have begun trying to charge for the use of emergency services. The problem? When insurance companies refuse, those bills often go to the person that needed the services, which understandably pisses them off about having to pay again for services that are supposed to be covered by taxes. Usually, the driver doesn't have to pay, but the "debt" is an excellent in for debt collection agencies to hound the person, again about a bogus debt, and try to squeeze them for money.
Ten years of war and conflict have changed the American solider, and built a gulf between them and civilians, because their experiences of the last decade have been so different as to be unexplainable.
Last out, remember that historic difference in the generic ballot between Democrats and Republicans last week? Erased. The enthusiasm gap is maintained, however.
In technology, Swedish law enforcement, in the pursuit of building a shoe database to match types of shoes to prints, may have violated copyright law. The article reads as a Take That to overzealous copyright enforcement, but it probably should be a note that if you can't do anything useful without tripping over copyright, then the copyright law is probably too tight.
In a similar vein, the Librarian in Black points out that libraries and their vendors are doing the digital music thing way, waaaaay wrong, where it's twice-or-more expensive for a library to be able to loan out a crappy collection of stuff people don't want when they could just buy it from iTunes and get exactly what they want. If the library wants to vault itself into the digital domain and provide the kind of access the users want, for a pirce that won't bust the budget of the offering institution, what we've got now isn't going to cut it. Maybe a database full of DRM-free files that is the entirety of the library's physical collection, digitized? Of course, here in the States, libraries are severely hampered from doing what they do best by DRM, corporate shenanigans, and court cases that uphold the right of software makers and other content crators to dictate to you, a user, what you can do with their stuff, because you only license it instead of actually buying it, so no first sale doctrine for you, sorry. And streaming is an ultiamtely unfulfilling option, really. (Although there are programs that users can create that will capture the various parts of a stream, chop them up nicely and allow for the creation of discrete files, but that relies on the users to do the research and set up the programs. Not as easy as offering discrete files.) Services like Pandora are great for discovery, but when you actually want to keep what you've found? Then streaming sucks.
In the triumphs of science and technology, a successfully regenerated pinky tip, the beginnings of charting how the brain grows and matures over time, with a possible eye on being able to spot in a brain scan when someone's jumped the track, giving robots the ability to deceive pursuers, which will make them very interesting in battle, and will have to make for more complex programming issues if one wants to make them at least Three Laws Compliant, and using fiber optic cables connected to nerves to allow atural communication with prosthetic limbs.
Finally, male bowerbirds take advantage of perception and build optical illusions to make themselves look bigger for potential mates.
Last out for tonight, the only way the Google-Apple feud will end - giant city-destroying robot wars.
