God and Security

Sorry, bad Heroes pun. I'm a huge Heroes fan. I will forego any other potential puns (and there are quite a few!) regarding Britney and her chrome dome. Suffice it to say that I have an opinion, and it is related to neither God nor security (though I'm sure God loves her). She's an attention whore. Of course, anyone who wishes to succeed in front of a camera or mike would do well to be an attention whore, but Britney is special. Things I wonder: -Did she fear that Anna Nicole Smith was hogging her limelight? -Did she think she had the potential to look good this way? -How many girls (I use the term "girls" advisedly) will see the sheer volume of attention this generated, and even the sympathy and concern, and will duplicate the feat? -How long before other Hollyweirdos condemn the media for talking about how "ugly" Britney is with no sensitivity to cancer patients? I'll bet we see a few of them shave their heads, not in support of Bri...

Of course, if I had said "Political Dishonesty..." that would have been redundant. First off: Time for a "worldview check". My worldview is basically that anyone who accepts Jesus Christ into their heart and acknowledges Him as their Lord and Saviour will, through the grace of God, find salvation. As such, many Mormons should fit into this. The question here is that the Jesus that Mormons believe in isn't necessarily the same one I believe in, so I don' t know how that will work. Now, on to the post. In this article, Mormon and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney tries to ally himself with the Christian Right of the Republican party. He does so by trying (in a nice ecumenical spirit) to point out critical areas of agreement between his beliefs and those of Christians. Unfortunately, while he may use terms that sound familiar, they carry different meanings. 1: “I think I’ve found that people across this country want a person of faith to lead the...

Surfing it...not doing it. (Just thought I'd clarify!) This article is *definitely* worth a read . It's MSNBC, so it's safe for work. To sum it up, she checked her email before her (seventh-grade) class (she was a substitute, by the way), left for a moment to the restroom, and came back to find kids surfing on the computer viewing a website on hairstyles. She chased them away, and later during the day the graphic images started popping up on the screen. She tried to click them away, but they kept returning. Furthermore, she had been given strict orders to not turn the computer off. Furthermore, she claimed to have little knowledge of computers. The defense claimed that malware caused the images to appear. They furthermore posited that the students had went to what they thought was a hairstyle site, and were redirected to a porn site. I was going to jump in and defend this woman, as I feel she is likely the victim of some drastic injustice (she faces up to 40 years in...

Ah, yes. I remember it well. Northeast Junior High (wtf is a "middle school"?), circa 1981-ish. One of the students at scholl (whom I didn't know) was caught with acid-laced stamps. I didn't know what acid was, save that it was some kind of illegal drug. I don't recall how big my school was, but my guess would be that the seventh through nineth grade school had over 400 students. Probably way over 400 students. So, when the local newspaper ("The Sentinel") ran the story, they interviewed the Principal (Mr. Albi) who said something to the effect of "there are only twelve students in this school who use drugs, and I know who every single one is." I recall commenting to my parents (they asked if this was true) that I could probably point out twelve kids in many classrooms that did drugs. I don't know if this was a principal in denial, or someone trying to minimize the perception of a problem to save his job. See my "Soliciting A ...

Awright, I'll admit it. It's a peeve of mine. I often get the same junky emails from friends that you probably do. Virus alerts, funny stories, scary stories, facts about this or that politician, whatever. Being a Christian who is active in his spiritual community, I also get many prayer requests, anecdotes and studies. 95% crapola. I'm going to make a few statements which may tick you off. If you're a Christian brother or sister, it may tick you off bad! Still, give me a chance to explain. I promise that: There are no hypodermic needles tainted with AIDS in McDonald's ball pits (there, that wasn't so bad, was it?) George W Bush Jr doesn't have the lowest IQ of any modern day president That shark isn't really attacking that helicopter flying low over the water There isn't a conspiracy with Dr Pepper regarding the Pledge of Allegiance Bill Gates isn't going to pay you squat to send emails. (and no one else will, either) Still with me? There...

Accurate thinking. How many people are able to examine a statement and logically deduce the likelyhood of its truth? I'm talking about more than being a "lie detector", rather I'm talking about evaluating statements to determine if what was said logically makes sense. Here's an annoying example . Apparently the Chief Privacy Officer from Facebook, a teen site, claims that a recent incident is the first time Facebook has been used to contact a minor for predatory reasons. Really? (another reference) Somehow I doubt that this first person who was caught was also the first to use this site. Facebook has been around since February of 2004 and has amassed over 8 million members . One of the requirements for Facebook membership (it's not open to everyone) is that "users must be members of one of the 30,000+ recognized schools, colleges, universities, organizations, and companies within the U.S, Canada, and other English-speaking nations. This generally in...

Okay, I'll be the first to say it: I think the whole "privacy" thing is overblown. Well, not the *whole* privacy thing, but much of it. I am *very* interested in protecting individual information, such as credit card numbers, health records, phone numbers and such. I am getting less and less concerned about other matters of privacy, and I believe that many of the pro-privacy advocacy groups are going to be blocking technologies that will make our lives better. What good is an "anti-paranoid" security professional? I dunno. What will transportation look like in the future? Probably automatically-controlled vehicles a-la half the sci-fi movies you watch nowadays. Many people don't give this a second thought, but let's think about a logical step towards that: Black boxes. Did you know that your recent-model automobile likely has one already? How do you feel knowing that, should you get in an accident, a law enforcement officer may collect this data a...