Mississippi Churning

“I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi.”

Thus spake Mississippi State Rep. John Read (R) of the Bill he has introduced that would make it illegal for restaurants in Mississippi to serve obese people.

First, I find it highly unlikely that obesity is actually The Number One Problem in Mississippi. Second, I find it highly unlikely that obesity is actually The Number One Problem in Mississippi. And, lastly, I seriously doubt that Mr. Read will be Rep. Read after the next election. But, hey, stranger things have happened.

You can read the story here.

Thank God Microsoft Made A Bid On Yahoo!

Now maybe I’ll have something else to read about besides The Second Coming Of Christ (known to us common folk as the release of the MacBook Air)!

Seriously, if I have to wade through another Blue Million posts in Google Reader about how Apple’s latest offering is the best thing since sliced bread (or even the flipside, that it amounts to a $2k Frisbee) I’m going to cancel all of my feeds except boingboing! For crying out loud, we get it already! It’s a really really thin laptop. And expensive. And did I mention that it’s, well, really really thin? News Flash: It’s a computer, not the end of world hunger! May we please move along?

Now if only someone, anyone, would write about Microsoft and Yahoo!.

It’s not much of a hobby, but it’s a hobby.

Some people collect stamps and some collect coins. Some folks like crossword puzzles while others watch birds. Whatever the activity the point is still the same: Everybody needs a hobby!

One huff is never enough!

There’s nothing quite so relaxing as a good ol’ fashioned huff from a can of compressed air, or so I’m told. But huffing while you’re driving strikes me as a little, how do you say, counterproductive. I mean it’s one thing to chat on your cell phone, maybe put on a little makeup, eat a sandwich, etc., But huffing?

The really funny thing is that Misty continued her attempt to huff fumes while being questioned by the police!

Only in Indiana. Hopefully.

Poo Happens! (At the Carnegie Museum of Natural History)

My Grandpa always told me, “You can dress up a turd and take it to the museum, but it’s still a turd!”. Sage words, those.

Apparently, though, Grandpa forgot to pass that advice along to the folks at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who have a new exhibit filled with fun for the whole family! Well, it’s full of something, anyway. And that something happens to be poo! And, lest you think I jest when I say “…fun for the whole family!”, here’s a fun filled quote from Ellen James, who does something or other at the museum: “Some people may hear about this exhibit and think it sounds weird or gross or funny, and they’re right, it’s all of that…but you’re actually going to learn a lot about the science of poop.” Which makes me wonder…do scientists call it “poop”? But I digress…

Anyhoo, if you’re in the neighborhood drop on in and have a peek at the poo.

A big shout out to my friend Lisa (who happens to be a proud Keystoner) for the tails-up, as it were!

Impetuosity! Thy name is Marie!

It sounds like a sit-com plot: A woman opens the morning paper to the Help Wanted section and sees a job that bears a remarkable resemblance to hers, with her bosses phone listed as the contact number! Well, natch, she begins to fear that perhaps the jig is up. “How dare that bastard try to replace me without giving me any sign, not one solitary sign that my performance was down, that I was on my way out!”, she thinks to herself. “Well, I’ll show him! I’ll sneak into the office and delete everything in the companies computer files! That’ll teach him to mess with me!”, continues her inner monologue.

So, late one Sunday night, she does just that. She goes to the office and destroys about $2.5 million worth of company files! And, golly, does she feel better! A load lifted, a blow struck. Revenge never tasted so sweet!

There’s only one teeny-weeny problem: The job in the paper? Well, turns out was a position in her bosses wife’s company! Oops.

You can read about Marie Lupe Cooley and her impetuosity, right here.

IP addresses and personal information Part 2

A couple of days ago I posted an article about the drive in Europe to classify IP addresses as personal information. While I certainly understand the desire to keep ones personal information, well, personal, one also has to keep in mind that we’re dealing with the Internet here where, unless your surfing with Tor or some other IP blocker, your IP address is readily available to anyone and everyone. (I’ve never tried to block my IP address using any available method so I can’t speak as to how well they do or do not work, or even if they work at all.)

But here’s something that needs to be kept in mind when talking about IP addresses and personal information: In a very real and perhaps very important way (as we shall see shortly) the IP address identifies individual computers not the individual user(s)! (Note the plural of that last word!) This is the point being made by the defendant in a Copyright Infringement suit filed by the RIAA. A computer has been identified not a user!

Now this may seem like the finest of lines, a razor’s edge if ever there was one, but that only serves to underscore the importance of the issue. In the above mentioned case as it stands right now, all the RIAA can prove is that a certain, very particular computer was used to transfer copyrighted material. Period. They cannot prove who did the uploading and downloading, nor is it possible for them to know. However, if the IP address is claimed as personal information then the dynamic shifts dramatically. In this particular case it shifts in the RIAA’s favor. They have an IP address assigned to a specific computer, that is being claimed by a specific person as personal information, that was used to illegally download/upload copyrighted material. Since the law was broken the idea of personal information gets thrown out the window and it becomes usable in court. (Check out my post from yesterday, “Is that a cellphone in your pocket?” and follow the link.)

Every time you open up your browser and surf the Web your computer’s IP address gets logged. Ever click on a Google ad? Your IP address is logged. Sign into a chat client? Your IP address is logged. Do you belong to any forums, chat rooms, BBs? Do you blog? Your IP address is logged. It’s readily available and traceable. Welcome to the Internet!

So what does all of this mean? Do we really want to treat the IP address as we do medical records? Is it important in the same way as, say, keeping one’s SSN or bank account information private is important? And if so, how do we go about doing that? Thoughts, anyone?

Where’d the money go?

Let’s see…you’re walking down the street, minding your own business, when all of a sudden a speeding car goes by. Out of the car comes a small, rectangular bundle which lands at your feet. “Is that a bundle of twenty-dollar bills?”, you ask yourself. “Why, yes, I think it is!”, comes the reply. “Well, hell, this must be our lucky day!” the voices cry in unison.

That, my friends, is where the money went.

My favorite Martian

Some very very cool pictures , taken by one of the Mars Rovers, of a rock formation that maybe, perhaps, almost looks like some sort of creature. It isn’t, though, because everybody knows that we Earth-dwellers are all there is. Right?

Is that a cellphone in your pocket…?

An interesting article over at Gizmodo giving a “Cliffnotes version” of an academic paper written by an Assistant Prof. at South Texas, Adam Greshowitz that “explains that because many traffic violations are arrestable offenses, just as a cop could search your pockets for drugs, said cop can also search your pockets for a smartphone and go through all its contents.”

My first reaction is: Don’t break the law and this won’t be a problem. However, what about a simple traffic violation? I mean, face it, we all speed at one time or another, or perhaps while in a hurry we fail to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection and, woops!, flashing red and blue lights in our rear-view mirror. Now I personally do not keep any content on my phone that I would be ashamed to let my Mom see but, the point is that it’s my content and I don’t want Barney Fife going through my cellphone content because I’m a lazy driver.