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Links of the moment
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Random thoughts, quotes and links
Quote:
If you want to get even with someone, make sure it’s someone who’s done something nice for you.Thought One:
The more I read about the NSA eavesdropping thing, the more it seems like a colossal data mining operation. Question: Is it actually wiretapping if no one listens (or reads) and communication? Does the fact that someone notes that a call or email takes place constitute an surveillance?
Thought Two:
Am I the only one who thought that the govenrment was doing this already?Links:
- Clinton claimed roughly the same authority to wiretap.
- Bruce Shneier has a lot of history about eavesdropping.
- Wired’s page on domestic data mining projects.
- More PlameGate
- Always Be Cobbling (everyone check this one out, it’s the opening scene from Glengary Glen Ross, but with elves.
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Quote of the moment
If Bush ends up being right about Iraq, it will be through luck and accident and God’s grace, not through any skillful calculation of his own. Success there will make him a great president the way Powerball makes crackheads rich: they have the money to show for it, but they’re not fooling anyone.
I don’t quite agree with this, largely in that I don’t think the current endeavor is something that can be done well. It’s quite the zinger though.
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Bandow
So it comes out last week that Cato Institute fellow Doug Bandow, was taking payola from Jack Abramoff to write favorable columns. It’s sad and annoying that this crap happened. I doubt he actually wrote anything he didn’t believe in, but who is to say now? From the few times I actually saw him in DC he seemed like a decent person (and very smart one), but who is to say now?
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Behold
My newest project to go live, DerbyDesignContest.com
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Becoming unburied
After my longest work week ever.
Link of Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica.
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Thought of the moment
Problems are avoided, not solved.
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More Blech
I’m working my first 100 hour plus week in quite some time.
On the other hand Amazon is set to ship Visual Studio before the end of the year (tomorrow actually) which is a pleasant surprise.
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Prediction
While taking a short break from coding I saw the article Leaders urge calm if Williams dies on CNN.com and was stuck by two thing:
- “Dies”? He is due to be executed by the state, and they use the broadest term possible. A lame and evasive headline.
- What calamity has been correctly predicted recently? There were warnings of mass anti-semitism after Mel Gibson’s movie, warning of 10,000 or more dead after Katrina, an economic recession due to high gas prices and so on. Here’s a question: what calamity have the pundits in the media correctly predicted beforehand? They seem to have enough problems predicting the past.
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MARTA at it’s finest
Subway Rider Busted for Selling a Token
Transit police handcuffed and cited a man who sold a $1.75 subway token to another rider who was having trouble with a token vending machine. Transit authority spokeswoman Jocelyn Baker said Friday that the officer “acted within the law” after he spotted Donald Pirone, 42, selling the token Nov. 30 inside the West End subway station
Instead of giving Pirone a warning, the officer decided to handcuff him and give him the misdemeanor citation under a 1992 state law that bars passengers from selling Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority tokens, she said.
By all impression Marta would seem to have more employees than riders, but this is just ridiculous.