Veronica: What's not to like? She's gullible and slept with you on the first date. If her mom's not fat I say slap a ring on that!

and

Veronica: Look, NASA is coming today and I still haven't seen any edible moss yet. Go light a fire under your nerds.

and

Veronica: Excellent. I was hoping you would say that. Because I haven't gone balls out crazy in a long time. And it's my favorite kind of crazy.

Better Off Ted is back for season 2.

Better Off Ted: Love Blurts

This article examines how people, companies, and cities dealt with the issue of whether or not to electrify communities at the turn of the century. After all, why should a municipality use taxes to pay to wire homes for electricity? The entire article is worth a read. Here is an area I found interesting:

The argument FDR made was that the quality of life—and clearly the economic output—of rural Americans would suffer without electricity, which in the space of a few decades had become immensely profitable for private utilities, and an absolute necessity.

Undoubtedly, you see where I’ve been going with all this. Broadband in 2009 is electricity in 1900. We may think we know all the means to which high-speed Internet access may be put, but we clearly do not: YouTube and Twitter prove that new things are constantly on the way and will emerge as bandwidth and access continues to increase.

Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US. Sweden and Finland have already answered the question: It’s a birthright. Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and many European countries aren’t far behind in having created the right regulatory and market conditions to bring better and affordable broadband to a greater percentage of its citizens than in the US.

I love the historical examination of how society confronted and debated something we take for granted now.

But it got me thinking about all the hubbub last week about capping smartphone users who download a lot. In Marietta Georgia, where I grew up, there is a Coke bottling plant that bottles Dasani water. Dasani bottled water is just Cobb County municipal water. They are the 2nd biggest water consumer in Cobb County behind Water White Water Park. Do they get capped? Do they pay a premium? Nope. They they pay the same flat water rate as my parents do.

What about the digital divide? Why should we give some poor kids internet? After all, they don't even one a computer. Looks like a silly argument when compared with the "Why require that electricity be provided to houses? After all, those poor people don't even have lights!" argument from 1905. Why did we electrify rural America? To improve quality of life and boost economic output. And why don't we treat internet access as a utility? Cause that's just socialism! ;-)

[sigh]

The utility of The Utilities

This is one of my favorite Rolling Stones song. I love the beat and sing-song nature.

I'm shocked that it's 44 years old!

YouTube - The Rolling Stones-Mothers Little Helper

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"

... ...

Fuck You Eric Schmidt

At least in the "this is proof you are who you say you are" way.

A GAO investigator managed to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using fake names and fraudulent documents. In one case, he used the Social Security number of a man who had died in 1965. In another, he used the Social Security number of a fictitious 5-year-old child created for a previous investigation, along with an ID showing that he was 53 years old. The investigator then used one of the fake passports to buy a plane ticket, obtain a boarding pass, and make it through a security checkpoint at a major U.S. airport. (When presented with the results of the GAO investigation, the State Department agreed that there was a "major vulnerability" in the passport issuance process and agreed to study the matter.)

I've said this repeatedly during security presentations before: Biometrics simply tie a distinct physical person to an object. Biometrics say absolutely nothing about the validity of the information on that object.

This is a serious pet peeve of mine and it annoys me to no end that people are constantly confusing this point. Let me repeat: Biometrics use physical characteristics to relate a specific person to a document or object. Other means must be employed to:

1- Verify the information on the document
2- Prevent the document from being altered without detection

This GAO investigation is a perfect example of how a "biometricly secured" document was completely fraudulent. Privilege escalation in the real world baby!

Biometrics are bullshit

So some anonymous person was publicly claiming Ron Livingston is gay. Ron is suing him for defamation of character.

But that's not the interesting part.

The interesting part is whether calling someone gay is defamation:

Ben Sheffner, a Hollywood copyright attorney, wonders in his Copyrights & Campaigns blog whether it is defamatory to falsely label somebody gay:

It’s a very interesting issue; Obviously many people don’t like being falsely called gay, but some gay rights activists argue that to permit a defamation action for a false accusation of homosexuality perpetuates the harmful notion that there is something wrong, or shameful, about being gay. Indeed, a New York federal court recently ruled that a false accusation of homosexuality is not defamatory per se.

Its like saying "Tom Cross is such a woman!" Did I defame Tom? Only if being a woman is a bad thing.

I'm interested in how this plays out.

Calling someONE 'gay' defamation?

Easily the best discussion of HTTP redirects I have ever seen.

The anatomy of a server sided redirect: 301, 302 and 307 illuminated SEO wise

Black: Yes
Bald: Yes
Bitch: No

YouTube - What Does Marsellus Wallace Look Like?

Hurd clarified that the difference is between internal and external cloud. “We have 1,000 hacks a day and I can’t tell you why, but they keep showing up. We wouldn’t put anything material in nature outside the firewall,” said Hurd.

I've heard Mark Hurd speak. He is a very smart and charismatic guy. You don't get to be CEO of the 9th large company in the US unless you are a genius. However this idea of data isolation is not clearly articulated and represents a very 90s view of information architecture.

HP's Hurd: Cloud computing has its limits (especially when you face 1,000 attacks a day) | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Dedicated to all things post apocalyptic. Yes, I am wearing a Mad Max t-shirt right now, what is your point?

Quiet Earth