MInTheGap

Understanding Technology

Hope you had a great Christmas! As you can tell, I’ve been keeping quite busy, so that’s why there aren’t many posts.

This news shows just how little some of the public knows about technology:

NEW YORK - The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them. These files, known as “cookies,” disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

“Considering the surveillance power the NSA has, cookies are not exactly a major concern,” said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “But it does show a general lack of understanding about privacy rules when they are not even following thegovernment’s very basic rules for Web privacy.”

Until Tuesday, the NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 _ likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on.

“After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies,” he said.

Cookies are widely used at commercial Web sites and can make Internet browsing more convenient by letting sites remember user preferences. For instance, visitors would not have to repeatedly enter passwords at sites that require them.

But privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing, even if no personal information is actually collected.

Who are these privacy advocates that talk about cookies that track Web surfing? Do they even know what a cookie is? A cookie is a small text file that the web browser creates to keep track of data for a particular site (for example, user names, passwords, an ID for your session so that they know what shopping cart they are using, etc). Each browser can be set to accept or deny cookies. This webjournal almost didn’t let me post this message because it couldn’t remember my username/password and told me to enable cookies.

This article is scary hype trying to make the public even more scared of those trying to protect us. As Rob over at SayAnything states, this is a non story. Read his post, and check out the comments– they are spot-on. Take it from a computer geek!

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Commercialism Got You Down?

This from Simple Ways You Can Make a Difference:

What Marriage is Supposed to be About

Vox Day has some interesting opinions. He mixes these with things intended to shock you. For the past month (it seems) he’s been taking up the topic of how males and females relate inside and outside of marriage. It must be a popular topic considering the feedback he’s been getting.

Yesterday, I believe, he talked about what he considers the proper role of a man in a relationship. Today he talked about what can cause a marriage to disintigrate. Though I don’t necessarily subscribe to the shock part of his post, I believe that he has something in the point of it.

It might help, I think, for some women to remember what their vows are centered on, and the special role they have taken in their husband’s lives. Seriously, with the priorities I’ve seen some women display, I can only wonder what job they thought they were signing up for.If you worry more about what you’re going to serve a man for dinner than how you’re going to rock his world later, you’re not his wife, you’re his cook.

If you spend more time obsessing about the last time you cleaned the house than the last time you had sex, you’re not his wife, you’re his cleaning lady.

If the children are always your top priority at all times, then you’re not his wife, you’re the nanny - or maybe just the day care center.

It’s not that these things are unimportant, but while they’re important, they are properly secondary concerns in a marriage. Your husband didn’t vow before God and Man to be faithful to your cooking and to never eat at another restaurant, after all. And sure, there will be times you’re not in the mood or whatever, but you might want to consider this: would you consider that reasonable grounds for him refusing to pay the mortage or the health insurance? Sex, like love, is a choice. If you’re always waiting for things to magically happen and sweep you away, you need to grow up and quit sleeping with the stuffed unicorn with the rainbows on it.

From what I’ve seen, there’s no shortage of men and women who simply don’t take marriage very seriously and refuse to accept any responsibilities within it. But failing to accept them doesn’t mean they don’t exist and that there won’t be consequences for doing so.

What I like about what he has to say is that it seems that it’s pretty easy for both spouses to get caught up in what they have to do to keep everything running and in that they neglect the basics of what they’re together for. Being witness to a marriage in disintigration myself (not mine! I’m very happy in mine, thank you!), I can see where each
person continued to do more and more for themselves and what they thought were priorities rather than what was the priority in making the relationship work.

In a way, what he’s saying reminds me of Cain and Able. God asked for a specific sacrifice– it required blood. Able provided it. Cain gave of the best from his garden– the
best that he had, but it was not what God wanted. Now, no man or woman is God, but perhaps some couples would benefit from some time sitting down and actually talking about what they expected and desired about a relationship instead of just assuming that what they’re really working hard at is what the other really wants.

Vox closes humorously by saying:

God is good. He knew what he was doing when he gave us Chinese takeout, the Roomba and early bedtimes.

The Monster that is Planned Parenthood

I started to write a comment to a post on Say Anything, but it go so long I decided to post my opinion here, and summarize over there.

I think Rob’s right on this one. I’m sure we all as parents would love everything to always be right with our kids. However, all parents know that this is not the case. When the child falls off the slide at the playground, flips his bike and smacks his face, or other things happen, the parent is there to take him to the hospital, to kiss the injury, and to work through the situation. If a bully is taking advantage of the child, the parent can be there.

Just because we fall into the realm of a sexual problem does not make it right for the parent to be left out. That child has had its whole life with the parents, and who better to help them?

I think the core question that needs to be asked here is why are we afraid of the parents? I can understand why a child may be upset going to their parents– they did something
they know their parents wouldn’t approve of, and they know that that usually comes with some kind of punishment, or at least the parent showing displeasure. But parents and adults know that at times of crisis most parents will stand beside their child and truly look out for thier best interest– which may mean separating their daughter from this predatory boy. Now, the daughter may not think that’s wise, but can you honestly sit here and argue with me that a 17 yr old boy should be dating an 11 yr old?

I think the answer of why we are afraid of parents has to lie in the fact and PP is afraid of them because they will probably stop their child from having the abortion more than their
afraid of the parents reacting by killing the girl or not. Only they know for sure.

Playing Santa is a tough job

I mean, why would you want to take on a job where you are pulling one over on kids every single day? It’s not just the costume– you’re pretending to be someone who doesn’t exist, someone that children believe can do anything, someone that kids have euqated with God. Especially this year, children in the areas which Katrina hit have a difficult time:

“How will Santa find me? I’m not in my house any more,” one child said.

“There’s no fireplace in the trailer where we live. How will you get in?” another asked.

“Can Santa make sure no more hurricanes get here?”

Vollenweider, who has played Santa for about 10 years and currently works at Lakeside
Shopping Center in Metairie, Louisiana, answers as best he can.

“I
tell them, ‘Santa is magic. He’ll find you wherever you are. He won’t
forget you,”‘ Vollenweider said, taking a break from listening to
children’s Christmas wishes on Monday.

To children who asked him to prevent future hurricanes, he said: “Santa will do his best, but some things even Santa can’t control.”

Lakeside Shopping Center, on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, was damaged when Katrina ravaged New Orleans in late August, but it reopened to huge crowds on October 28.

While Santas in other parts of the country marveled over sometimes extravagant requests — like kids as young as 6 asking for laptop computers — those in the hurricane zone were struck by the children’s poignant appeals: a house for their parents, or all their old toys back.

“Santa has been very good and explains that he may not be able to get them all back,” said Anne Mialaret, marketing director for The Esplanade mall in Kenner, Louisiana, about 15 miles from downtown New Orleans.

Your heart really goes out to these kids. Here they are, truly concerned about thier parents, their houses, etc. and they go to a person they think can do something about it, and this person has to do his best to keep his act as well as not promise anything that can’t be delivered.

This is one of the reasons why my family will not do Santa Claus, for we have a Creator that is more powerful than a storm, that can actually make a difference in your life, and that you can go to at any time with any trouble you have and know that He is listening and is able to do something about it.

Are your kids still in Public School?

In case I haven’t made a good enough case for you to get your children out of public school, here’s a new one:

TAMPA - Many Hillsborough County middle and high school students lead double lives - one for their parents and one for their peers.

In a districtwide survey, nearly half of high school students and one in five middle school students said they have had sexual intercourse, and a higher percentage of high school boys than girls reported being physically hurt by their “significant others.”

“I know that is happening, because my son constantly gets letters from girls who want to do sexual things to him,” said Paula Thomas, mother of five children ages 9 to 16. “It starts in the sixth or seventh grade.”

At school, the Citrus Park mother said, “They know to stay out of certain hallways because of the girls.”

Parents at the meeting, who often are involved in schools as PTA board members, said they didn’t know about the survey. Had their children been a part of it, Zimet said, they would have been asked to sign permission slips.

“There is no way I’d want [my son] to take that survey if he was in middle school,” said Camille Johnston, mother of children ages 7 and 10 who attend Nelson Elementary School in Dover. “But I’d want those results.”

Parents need that type of “eye-opening” information, the PTA leaders agreed.

“I’m a pretty involved parent, but I’m pretty ignorant about what the trends are,” said Sharold Allen, the county council president who asked Zimet to make the presentation. “This is so important.”

Now, having been a middle/high school student I know that children can tend to exaggerate what they have and haven’t done on surveys to impress their peers. There’s a lot of peer pressure to fit in. I also know that the girls were much more pressuring than the guys. Rumors about how “easy” a girl was or how they tortured you especially if you weren’t participating in the sexual scene make it easy for me to believe that more is happening than was happening in my small public school.

Which again brings me to the question– are your kids still in public school? If so, why? Are you telling me that it’s more important for your kids to have an XBOX 360 and $60 games than it is for their education and well being? And if enough people wanted out or went to homeschooling, the gov’t would be pressured to make such options affordable. Get involved, find out what’s going on in your school– get your kids out!

Will you get Chipped?

After leaving the post as Heath and Human Services Director in the Cabinet, Tommy Thompson took up a position at VeriChip– people who inject a glass RFID module into people’s skin for identification purposes. He said he was going to get “chipped” but hasn’t yet. Which camp do you fall into:

“It sounds like he has wisely decided to put off the implantation, perhaps due to the serious privacy and civil liberties implications of such devices, or perhaps due to the serious medical downsides, like electrical risks and MRI incompatibility.”or

Thompson predicted that people eventually will overcome their skepticism about having a chip implanted. The chip “will prevent babies from being picked up by the wrong people in a maternity ward and make sure people in nursing homes don’t walk away,” he said.

Sounds to me if they made everyone have one of these chips they could control where you are, what you buy, etc. That sounds very “end of times to me”. What do you think?