http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/ A blog about technology, science, IP and anything that interests me at the moment en-us Nucleus v3.0 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/ http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=292 Glenn Greenwald has nailed the current OWS situation. The protests are being met with force to make Americans think twice about voicing disagreement with the status quo. Who wants to be pepper sprayed just to express an opinion that things aren't going the way they should? Who wants their child beaten with a club just because she wants to complain about the way her future looks? It's safer to stay home. I completely fail to see how a group of students sitting around a campus quad constitute a threat to safety. Perhaps, University of California Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi could explain that. So far she hasn't.]]> Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=292 Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:36:38 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=291 Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=291 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:09:28 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=290 essay sums up some of the reaction to the horrible shootings in Arizona. Go to the forums of any left-wing web site and you'll hear it. Go to any right-wing site and you hear it. Let's all join hands and blame each other.

Maybe, I dunno, people speaking in public should try to be a tiny bit more constructive and little less inflammatory. There are a lot of people with guns who have trouble holding firmly onto reality. ]]> Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=290 Sun, 09 Jan 2011 15:31:25 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=289 sentenced to 6 month in federal prison for trespassing at a protest at the School of the Americas (SOA) aka Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC). The SOA has trained tens of thousands of Latin American military and police, many of who have been accused of human rights violations. What I find particularly disturbing about Nancy's case is the severity of the sentence for what was essentially a symbolic act of protest. It's telling that Nancy worked for NGOs in some of the most repressive places on earth, Somalia and Taliban Afghanistan, and was never harmed, but here in the Land of the Free she is sentenced to prison for a nonviolent symbolic act. I don't know if this country is still the land of the free, but as long as there are people like Nancy, it will be the home of the brave.]]> Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=289 Sat, 08 Jan 2011 09:43:17 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=288 ]]> Programming http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=288 Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:50:45 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=287 Captain Beefheart. I was immensely sadded to hear of his death yesterday. Others will give elegies the Captain. I'll just go and listen to Trout Mask Replica.]]> Music http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=287 Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:05:19 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=286
We’ll also share all of this information with the government. We’re just suckers for guys with crew cuts carrying subpoenas.

Remember, when you visit our Web site, our Web site is also visiting you. And we’ve brought a dozen or more friends with us, depending on how many ad networks and third-party data services we use. We’re not going to tell which ones, though you could probably figure this out by carefully watching the different URLs that flash across the bottom of your browser as each page loads or when you mouse over various bits. It’s not like you’ve got better things to do.

Each of these sites may leave behind a little gift known as a cookie -- a text file filled with inscrutable gibberish that allows various computers around the globe to identify you, including your preferences, browser settings, which parts of the site you visited, which ads you clicked on, and whether you actually purchased something.

Those same cookies may let our advertising and data broker partners track you across every other site you visit, then dump all of your information into a huge database attached to a unique ID number, which they may sell ad infinitum without ever notifying you or asking for permission.

Also: We collect your IP address, which might change every time you log on but probably doesn’t. At the very least, your IP address tells us the name of your ISP and the city where you live; with a legal court order, it can also give us your name and billing address (see guys with crew cuts and subpoenas, above).

Besides your IP, we record some specifics about your operating system and browser. Amazingly, this information (known as your user agent string) can be enough to narrow you down to one of a few hundred people on the Webbernets, all by its lonesome. Isn’t technology wonderful?

The data we collect is strictly anonymous, unless you’ve been kind enough to give us your name, email address, or other identifying information. And even if you have been that kind, we promise we won’t sell that information to anyone else, unless of course our impossibly obtuse privacy policy says otherwise and/or we change our minds tomorrow.

We store this information an indefinite amount of time for reasons even we don’t fully understand. And when we do eventually get around to deleting it, you can bet it’s still kicking around on some network backup drives in somebody’s closet. So once we have it, there’s really no getting it back. Hell, we can’t even find our keys half the time -- how do you expect us to keep track of this stuff?

Not to worry, though, because we use the very bestest security measures to protect your data against hackers and identity thieves, though no one has actually ever bothered to verify this. You’ll pretty much just have to take our word for it.

So just to recap: Your information is extremely valuable to us. Our business model would totally collapse without it. No IPO, no stock options; all those 80-hour weeks and bupkis to show for it. So we’ll do our very best to use it in as many potentially profitable ways as we can conjure, over and over, while attempting to convince you there’s nothing to worry about.

(Hey, Did somebody hold a gun to your head and force you to visit this site? No, they did not. Did you run into a pay wall on the home page demanding your Visa number? No, you did not. You think we just give all this stuff away because we’re nice guys? Bet you also think every roomful of manure has a pony buried inside.)

This privacy policy may change at any time. In fact, it’s changed three times since we first started typing this. Good luck figuring out how, because we’re sure as hell not going to tell you. But then, you probably stopped reading after paragraph three."

Thanks to Dan Tynan

]]> Privacy http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=286 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:44:30 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=285 Hillary Clinton said that a "new information curtain is descending across much of the world." She also said "In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all," But that was about China. It's different now.

Wondering what to do to help. This says it better than I can.

I wonder what's in the Wikileaks security file. Given the current government and corporate freak out, lost of folks must be very worried.

From that lover of freedom Joe Leiberman

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman suggested that the U.S. Department of Justice should charge Julian Assange with espionage and said that federal prosecutors should conduct a "very intensive inquiry" into the question of whether or not news organizations had committed a crime by publishing leaked documents obtained and distributed by WikiLeaks.

This sounds like Joe is trying to intimidate the news media just like he did to Amazon.]]> Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=285 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:57:53 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=284 Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=284 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 07:09:02 -0700 http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=283 MasterCard have taken it upon themselves to cut off Wikileaks' access to their services. Here in the US, we often talk about the "rule of law." In the past, many business, universities and public institution would not serve people because of the color of their skin. Now, many corporations will not serve people because of their politics, despite the fact that nothing that Wikileaks is doing is illegal.Are we now in a situation where corporations are enforcing the laws that the government is unable to enforce?

At our Quaker Meeting on Sunday, there was a discussion about the American flag. I have a great respect for the flag as a symbol and I love this country's ideals, the land, and the people. However, I'm becoming more and more fearful of and angry at the corporatocracy that it is becoming. I really thought the Bush years (9/11, illegal wars, Guantanamo, Abu Grahb etc.) were a low point for this nation, but I fear we're headed for darker times.]]> Current Affairs http://SWEETBIRCH.COM/nucleus/index.php?itemid=283 Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:14:46 -0700