Friday, February 27, 2009

How About a Fun Friday?

A few oddities of life photographed by random people along the way.

Two local churches doing the fish thing tonight:

Blessed Sacrament on the corner of Webster and Day

The KC are also putting one on at SS Peter and Paul at 710 N. Baird St.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Designer Babies!

Is this the new evolution? Will it lead to unexpected consequences?

Green House Gas Bummer

No new global warming data.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Carbon Tracking from Space

Sometimes it's hard for a bottom dweller in an ocean of anything to see the big picture. Hopefully, a new perspective can help understanding and acceptance.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

More Police State?

"...a surveillance camera on every street corner in Chicago."

People will protest this move in Chicago but how is it different from an organization putting a private citizen on every corner with a video camera to document something? With cameras in pocket devices these days the people can do this fairly easily. If there is a person on a given corner, there is likely already a camera on that corner too these days. Homes and everything in them (including wireless routers) should be private by default. But public spaces are public so why the privacy expectation? Corporations and agencies are certainly moving this direction already and the police have had great success using recordings from security cameras to track criminals and solve crimes. I need to learn more about this one...

Friday, February 20, 2009

Broken Windows Theory Meets the Scientific Method

And this particular study, he said, is "elegant" in how clearly it demonstrated crime prevention benefits.

Wifi logging

Congress is considering forcing logging for all wireless routers. Including the ones in our homes.

I have handed my mobile to a perfect stranger when they needed to make a phone call. Others have done me the same favor. Thinking back, it seems to happen most often in airports when flight changes unexpectedly occur. Nobody asked for a name or wrote down a description. From time to time someone will even borrow my landline and I've never taken the time to log that.

Would someone please explain why I should have to log my devices and those of my guests?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Facebook Goes Legally Pirate

One of the things I dislike about Facebook is that, like nearly every fad technology before it, it is proprietary. A one way data collector. Even the emails are image files so you can't copy and paste them out. There's no simple, obvious ways to get stuff out of it once you feed it in. For example, your account is presumably yours but they only let you look at the community generated metadata like your links to others or tags in pics. It is what it is. You make a deal with the devil to use these sorts of services.

Well, Facebook has decided that they want the right to basically own your stuff now too. I realize lawyers like to make the law as clear and safe for their clients as possible but should Facebook really have the right to sub license any thing I post to anyone else forever? Do you want an advertiser to spot a pic of your kid and use it in a national media campaign without compensation or even asking permission?

Monday, February 9, 2009

RFID Chips - Stupid Uses

1) In passports.

2) In credit and rebate cards.

3) Anywhere else that privacy might matter.

Smash or nuke these chips if you care about your privacy. It really should be illegal to sell something with a transmitter in it without full disclosure...

Modern Roundabout Videos

How do I drive a roundabout?

How do I NOT drive a roundabout?

Again with the air quality...

"Wisconsin is under an air quality watch through 11 p.m. today, the state Department of Natural Resources said."

Human Trial for Possible HIV Cure

Let's hope that this scourge is cured soon.

It's good to see progress is being made.

Open Source VMWare

Will this make VMWare the defacto standard?

Police Procedures

If picking on certain groups doesn't even work, why do it? Tolerance of the tolerable is good. Diversity is good. It makes us stronger.

I once took a psychology class where they showed a video that clearly demonstrated how different folks perceptions of the same event can be. Basically someone in a crowd fired a weapon and you couldn't tell exactly who but the scene was rife with suggestive clues (both right and wrong). It appears that even false confessions can also corrupt those perceptions.

Trek!

CBS classics is putting TOS online among other shows.

Some dude robbed a convenience store with a Bat'leth.

Monday, February 2, 2009

DePere Roundabout Backups

Many more folks than normal are using the DePere bridge because 172 is under construction. There was a backup this morning as a result. “It wouldn’t be any better if we had traffic lights at the intersection,” Beiderwieden said. “It probably would be worse.” This is very likely true. Police Chief Beiderwieden is very likely right. Modern roundabouts move more cars and people faster than signalized intersections.