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Random Thoughts and Whatnot
Random Thoughts and Whatnot
"Your voice shakes me through but you don't know what I might be" ~ richard buckner
October 31, 2007
The American Analog Set - Baby Julie Come Home


If you would like the mp3 of the song, try this link.
October 27, 2007
Speaking of Tree houses
Check out this CBC.ca video about the concept of live tree houses--only takes 5 years to grow:
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1785
and YouTube:
Roswell tribute video
I take no credit for this, but I like the song, I loved the TV show, and the editing is pretty good:

If you like the content, try to find the Roswell DVD's at your local library. Although from what I understand, the soundtrack on the DVD's is different than the original series because the artists held their rights to the songs when they were used when the series originally ran.

Bunches of other Roswell media at this person's youtube site.
The next generation of video surveillance
I read a book recently which had the premise that nobody could move through society unrecognized by surveillance cameras and intelligent algorithms would record when a person acted in a behavior outside their norm. So browsing the news yesterday, I found this quote buried in the fourth paragraph of the article "Cradle Launches Janus Surveillance System in India":
Unlike conventional CCTVs, where one has to constantly monitor the camera to detect abnormal behaviour, Janus system not only records data it can also trigger alarm automatically if it detects any abnormal behaviour, said Gupta.
Now that's what I'm talking about. They're not just recording suspicious behavior of bad guys and evaluating it against normal behavior, but they are recording behavior of all of us and running that through their evaluations to determine abnormal behavior. I'm trying to think of what it could evaluate, without human judgment, to be abnormal behavior: leaving or forgetting a bag on the floor at the mall, loitering and taking pictures at monuments and government buildings, or maybe racing to your car because you forgot your wallet. Couple this with facial recognition software and beware!
Demetri Martin - Montreal 2006
Canadian comedian who has good stuff:
October 25, 2007
Yoda on a stamp and R2/D2 dances
Yes, he Yoda is on a stamp. It appears not to be a forever stamp, but he'll take it anyway.

Of course, there is always pirate Yoda:



Most interesting it is that the word "Yoda" is in my blogging software's dictionary!!

OMG, I just found this video and like had to share it:

Umm, too much time on their hands?
Make an average face
Make an average face at this site. You can also upload a cluster of faces to make an average of those, but that's only if you register at the site. I didn't register but found it quite fascinating to make an average face from the several faces provided.

I found the above link when I stumbled on this face:

Pretty cute, although she's a digital composite. The article Beauty is in the Processing-Time of the Beholder, is a good read as well.
October 24, 2007
Holy cockroaches, Batman! They conceived in space.
The Russians can now claim the first space conception. And why not!

"Hope" the Russian cockroach gives birth to first space babies.
October 23, 2007
Plug me in -- RFID my child please
October 22, 2007
How can surveillance produce a hero? This thought and others after reading from The New American
I never thought of myself as a libertarian, because I've always voted for the conservatives in presidential elections, but I have voted for many libertarians in local elections. But I never thought of myself as a libertarian because government has a purpose. It holds a nation together and it is important to stand strong against terrorists and our collective foes. It is also important for me to have individual freedom: to visit the flower store and not have that information relayed to my wife, to drive an alternate route to work and not have my supervisor check up on my reason for being tardy, to fly a plane and wear a vest and not have someone question whether or not the bulge in my chest pocket is controlled or not. I am speaking of the near future, of course, but this future asserts itself strongly.

Now I read a libertarian "Cover Story" by Wilton D. Alston, who also authored a helpful primer called A Libertarian Cheat Sheet. In Living Under Surveillance, Alston takes a measured approach to surveillance, noting how this genie is out of the bottle but bureaucracy cannot handle the quantity nor the complexity of the data. He writes:

If this assessment sounds too harsh, please consider who the real heroes of 9/11 were: they were the citizen-soldiers who attempted to stop the terrorists aboard United Airlines Flight 93; they were the local firemen and policemen who willingly and selflessly rushed into the doomed WTC towers; and they were the field FBI agents who reported important pieces of the 9/11 plans to their superiors in Washington, only to have the information ignored. The entity that failed most grossly to protect us on 9/11 was the Washington bureaucracy itself, and yet we are supposed to prevent future 9/11s by transferring more power to that bureaucracy?

The number of times airport security has been breached since the supposed improvements in airport security should put the myths to rest. The Seattle Times published a report of all the airport security breaches they had found between 2002 and 2004. The list was far from inconsequential, although the Times evidently stopped collecting reports after the number reached 100. According to the Times, “Screeners say that’s [only] a fraction of the incidents, and most are never disclosed.” The reported incidents included one instance when five DHS investigators posing as passengers managed to get knives, a gun and a bomb in their carry-on baggage through security checkpoints without being detected.


Before stumbling upon this article, I had never heard of The New American online magazine. Now it seems like it might be worth a repeat visit.
October 16, 2007
I'm last to know that schools now fingerprint our kids
Yes, as the title says, I'm the last to know that schools now fingerprint our kids. It is a strange world we live in, when our biometric data is so important, we cannot leave 1st grade without being fingerprinted for identity purposes. Of course, no one wants their 1st grader stolen, so maybe the biometric data can come in handy for some, but it still makes me worry about mis-use. Okay, I can accept that we need more cameras in urban areas, and I can accept that flying saucers are soon going to provide surveillance, and I can accept that adults can now open car doors with their finger print, but do I need to accept that first graders need to use a fingerprint to buy their lunch? I know! Let's give up privacy little by little every year until the watchers are doing our work. Pretty soon there will be more programmers for the watchers than developers for anything else in society. Then the programmers for the watchers will be writing applications for devices that will be watching their own behavior. Oh, and I was sarcastic with what I can accept, described a few sentences back.
October 15, 2007
Kiddyprinting and Flying Surveillance Saucers
Kiddyprinting in Scotland

and

UFO's are right around the corner, and will be brought to a neighborhood near you by the U.S. Department of Defense.
October 04, 2007
Eleni Mandell - Girls
http://rockslidephoto.com/cgi-bin/leaf.pl?id=2213&gallery=1"Girls"

I wonder how you look when you sleep
Do you still dream about girls from your street
Do you still dream about girls from high school
Do you still dream about girls, girls, girls

I wonder how you feel when you kiss
I wonder how soft are your lips
Do you still think about girls from last week
Do you still think about girls, girls girls

I am a marble the color of candy
I'll make you money whenever you're gambling
I am the dice you roll in the alley
I am the pennies that come in handy

I wonder how you feel when you're sad
Do you still cry about girls that you've had
Do you still cry about girls you wanted
Do you still cry about girls, girls, girls

I am a marble the color of candy
I'll make you money whenever you're gambling
I am the dice you roll in the alley
I am the pennies that come in handy

I wonder how you look when you're happy
Do you still sing about girls from last week
Do you still sing about girls from last year
Do you still sing about girls, girls, girls
Girls, girls, girls
Girls, girls, girls
Girls, girls, girls


~lyrics from Eleni Mandell "Girls"
  photo by joe decker ~