Another update, from our house to yours. - 18 September 2007

[silveradept]

Once again, another day at work survived. Haha, haha. I think it’ll be storytime that kills me, if anything does. And I feel pretty good about storytime. So hopefully, all goes well. Onward, once again, to the news.

Yesterday, 17 September, was the day that Norton I assumed the throne as Emperor of the United States. I wonder how many pretenders to his throne have tried and failed to create the second Empire of the United States, with the Protectorate of Mexico.

For those without Imperial ambitions, it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day, arr.

We request a demystification on the following - changes are being made to he way LJ collects statistics, and it sounds like it may be a bit more invasive than before. Could someone put that post in plain English for the rest of us to understand whether we want to opt-out or not?

Possible phasing-out of petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2040, assuming the Liberal Democrats in the country can keep sufficient numbers to put such a programme through. And we’ll see how well adherence is, and whether companies drag their feet on the matter.

The precursors to spending many hours a day on social-networking and virtual worlds? Little cute sites that offer free things for peoples to do, and some game-playing. With the hook, generally, of customizing some space or avatar with the credits one earns at the arcade games. Getting accustomed to it for a few hours here and there, then turning it into a good way to spend lots of time at X amount of dollars per month. Younger and younger, we go...

...or perhaps not. A Thai maid cafe is shut down as a result of arrests regarding minors having access to age-restricted manga. Guess it’s back to the equivalents of Playboy. And the students from the nearby college may have to find other work. Or they could become cosplay idols and booth attendants.

Proving that nobody is quite what they seem, a blind man flipped and held a would-be mugger. The mugger thought he would be an easy mark, not being able to see. The man, however, is a master of blind judo. Can’t pick on anybody these days. Might bring the crime rate down if we get a few more accounts of “helpless” people beating the tar out of would-be attackers.

Of course, it’s not great that a taser was used against a student who was going to have his question answered by Mr. Kerry, despite his alloted time being up. The article does mention that the student didn’t leave the mic and wasn’t really willing to go. But as soon as Mr. Kerry agreed to answer his question, that should have been the end of the matter. No need to remove or restrain the student.

The ACLU has done something to express how much they feel the country is going downhill and set the "Surveillance Society Clock" to six minutes before midnight. Basing it on the idea of the Doomsday Clock, which currently is set to five minutes to midnight, the ACLU is trying to raise the awareness of the people. Good luck to them on it. It’ll take a paradigm shift, really. With the kind of opinions we hold about the freedoms of the First Amendment, it’s going to take quite some time before people start seriously talking about some of the ways that technology are being used for already.

Creation Science museum founder is attempting to renege on placing his works in the public domain by deleting the statements that he has made. As noted in the post, it may not matter, assuming that usage of portions of films and materials for critical purposes is considered a fair use argument, and thus still usable even if copyrighted. If this is so... neener, neener, suckers.

The District of Columbia... remains unrepresented in the Legislature as a bill to give them such fails.

A goodie for our Mac friends who have laptops with motion sensors - netPong - tilt one’s laptop to move the paddle. If you have someone else run the software on your network, it will detect and the two of you will play a match.

For those looking for perhaps more useful goals (although playing Pong with new technology has a certain geek cred to it all by itself, and may be somewhat Zen in nature), The Happiness Project offers some advice on how to make your resolutions stick.

The New York Times is opening up some of its website material to the public for no charge. Thanks to search engines (and industrious linkers, no doubt), the “pay-to-see” wall was a big frustration.

The following, however, takes home the winning prize for this entry - Senator from Nebraska sues God. God, however, has not yet responded with any comment on the matter.

Anyway, that’s what I have for you tonight. More to arrive tomorrow, no doubt.

Comments

[loweko.livejournal.com]

The Lib Dems are not what one might call a good insurance risk right now...

[silveradept]

I had a feeling that was the case. The office pool is on how many things like this they can get out before someone else wins the elections and politely ignores all of them, then?

[uncle-pervy.livejournal.com]

That snot-nosed punk at the Kerry Q & A was an asshat fanatic who was spewing out conspiracy theories, cut in line, made a spectacle of himself and (according to his MySpace Page) wanted to make an even bigger spectacle. He thinks it's his job to be highly visible and instigating things. Then he went bonking mad, acted like he was Rodney King getting the shit beat out of him by the cops, fought them the entire way up the aisle to the back of the theatre and had to be forced into submission before they could get his ass out of there.

I'm all for a reasonable discussion and dialogue but the second he started screaming, throwing out accusations left & right, tried to force 2 cops away from him (which is considered assault on a police officer - FELONY!) and acted like a doucebag, he needed a good brain-ing with a billy club and to be charged.

The thing that sort of sucks is that not only is the DA not going to charge him with anything, but this dumbfuck is getting what he wants: Attention on himself.

[silveradept]

So he was being a giant disruptive tool. Which is the easier way to take the fangs out of him - subdue, taser, and cart him off, or let him do his thing, run out of steam, and then have him either sit down or ask him to leave? He got what he wanted out of us. And we're not talking about whatever it is he was spouting off, we're talking about whether such nonlethal force as shock devices encourages law enforcement officers to use them more often and faster than they would use something like a gun.

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

changes are being made to he way LJ collects statistics

lj already has an agreement with a third party company called Omniture to track where people come from and go to, what browser, OS, and platform they're using, and gawd knows what else, when they hit pages that are not your personal journal pages.

what they're planning on doing is expanding that process to include pages from your own journal as well, so that they can better assess what advertisements they're going to put where. this applies to you even if you have a paid account, because not everybody has a paid account, and some of those people may be viewing pages on your journal.

this is bad for a number of reasons. the one that i object to most is that when i signed up for a paid account at livejournal, four years ago, they assured me that this kind of thing would never happen. also, they may be tracking other things as well, like how long you stay on a particular page, which links you click, your IP address, and other, more sinister things.

considering how duplicitous they have been regarding the strikethrough, the bold-out, child pornography versus fan art, and other stuff, i have sincere doubts about whether what they say about the current state of affairs is actually true or not, and if it's not, what kinds of things they are doing behind our your backs. this is one of the main reasons why i left to begin with. next thing you know, someone (like me, for example) might be disappeared without any word as to why, and i'd like to postpone that as long as possible.

here is more information about what they could do without telling anyone, once the mechanism for doing so is in place.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

so that they can better assess what advertisements they're going to put where. this applies to you even if you have a paid account, because not everybody has a paid account, and some of those people may be viewing pages on your journal.

I thought if a free user was looking at your paid account page, they still wouldn't see adverts because you were a paid user?

I know even if i look at the sponsored plus or whatever journals, I don't see ads, and it's because I'm a paid user, and supposedly as paid, we will NEVER have to look at ads.

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

what about what they said when i signed up four years ago, about NEVER having to look at advertisements, whether you're a paid user or not? what about what they said about NEVER having a third party putting cookies on your machine whether you're a paid user or not? what about peoples' journals disappearing without recourse for something that plainly wasn't a violation of their TOS, while other journals that are obvious violations of their TOS not being touched at all, even after having numerous conplaints about them?

they're lying bastards without scruples or ethics, and they're out to get your personal information without regard to whether or not it's okay with you. i, for one, will not put up with it any longer.

[silveradept]

Once LJ became the unwanted child of SixApart, this started. I swear that they bought it to try and kill it. Either way, thank you for the information. It's always nice to know that even if I didn't want anything like that happening to me or anyone else, it would still probably happen.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Why will storytime kill you?

[silveradept]

Performance in front of people. One cannot predict the audience, as the crowd in front of Senator Kerry proved. The only people who can are the ones that zealously ensure that no opinion beyond what is sanctioned even gets near someone.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

yeah, but the kids will love you. They always do :)

You'll be great! :D (and we really need to get you a pidgin puppet!)

[uncle-pervy.livejournal.com]

...and if all else fails, he can just put on his "Picture Face" and scare the buggers into submission. I can never get enough of his face in a picture. Every time his portait's been taken, he looks like a murderer just released from Clallam Bay Corrections Center. That look should come in handy with those pain in the ass patrons & noisy snot-nosed kids who should've had their asses blistered by their parents instead of "Time Out."

(FYI Al: It's Northwest of you, other side of Olympic Nat'l Park on the Southern shores of the Sound.)

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

*snoooort*

When SA and I went to the symphony last summer, I think I took something like 6 or 7 photos of him IN A ROW to try to get him to not look weird.

however, I do have a few where he looks normal :)

[silveradept]

No, you have pictures of me looking weird, then.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

hey, the one of the two of us on my birthday looks okay. other than the fact that i wore pink and didn't thin kabout it clashing with my hair, that is.

[uncle-pervy.livejournal.com]

He's right. Al has Three Constants:

1. He's smarter than pretty much anyone you know (even though he won't admit it.)

2. Anytime he enters a vehiclee, the Police will come out of the woodwork so make sure to be within the law

3. He can NOT have a picture taken of him where he looks anything other than a recently released serial rapist/murderer.

[silveradept]

The first is incorrect. I may admit to having more odd knowledge than many people that you know, but I'm probably not smarter than they are. After all, I still hit my head on low-hanging doorframes.

Two is true even out here, and it can be walking as much as driving, but it does come out in force when the driving is going on.

Three is also true, simply because I look too serious when not smiling, and too much like the serial killer when I show teeth. Thus, there's that traditional smirk, or we go for the "Why hello, I think I'll have you with a nice Chianti." You also forgot that one of the options is that I blinked in that picture. It takes me two or three before I stop doing that.

[tsutsujigirl.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, kids are calmer during storytime than during any other time of day. Trust me ^_^

[silveradept]

Yes, ma'am. Hopefully I get to give them some good stories and nobody has to get detention.