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| Woot, my blog is back....I wanted to post my feelings about an article I read today on the internet regarding theories on rebuilding a new internet with less anomitity. Alas, xanga.com was missing their Default.aspx page at that particular moment, silly 404, here goes aways. Their main concern is to identify people and computers to ensure that less online crime and identity theft occurs. Not a bad plan on the surface, but I don't think it will really work. The internet provides us freedom of information to a fair extent these days and I believe that is empowered by being able to remain semi amonymous. Semi in the fact that your trek through cyberspace still resides in the logs of whatever ISP you use, tieing you to your requested information. But anomymous being that the average user will not be able to personally identify you unless you provide such information. So that gives more people freedom to post their feelings\thoughts\theories on the internet with less concern for backlash which I feel gives us a richer environment for information then say mass media. Especially about politics and world events, just looking at the various mass media out there (al-jazeera, bbc, msnbc, ccn) you can find several slants. By slants, I mean interpretations of events, social\ethnic labels and which events make the top headlines or are even mentioned\reported at all. There have already been several problems with China in the past regarding censorship. If information people post\serve can be linked back to them directly, I feel this will greatly reduce the chances of sharing. Another idea mentioned in the article was to keep sub-internets for computers, allowing people to access a local, safe secure version of the internet to surf, possibly being stored on their own computer or ISP. This again I feel can lead to censorship, as that content will inevitably be controlled via someone else other then the end user. If a user really wanted this solution, this is already easily accomplished via page saving, scripting and storing metadata in a database for updates much like how a spider traverses the internet, but with a permanment information store. | | |
| Geek Squad on Slashdot....Okay, so I couldn't resist posting after reading an article about the Geek Squad on consumerist.com. It was the confession of a prior tech that worked for Best Buy of all the sins he had seen committed and a few he committed himself while working for the company. It really strikes a chord with me because I've seen basically everyone of the sins he committed and was given orders by my manager to commit some of them while I worked for Circuit City. I remember hating how unfair the whole process felt and how money drove every action. Sadly the best skill I took away from that job was how to deal with pissed off people, and really now I find the solutions lacking. All they cared about was numbers, and how much money the company was making. Their excuse was the computers were cut so close to a non existent profit margin that all the money had to be made in services, aka paying Circuit City (us at the time) to install software on your computer, unpack your computer, fix your software problems, etc. My manager later told us to just simply reformat and reinstall windows, $180 which was fun when the problem was a software conflict and our customers would come back with the same problem after they had paid the price. Maybe they might change sometime, lets hope so. I'm going to go back to working on stuff at the job I enjoy now.
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| an update?I figured its been quite a while, so why not. Since my last update, I've quit Circuit City, been through a temp job with IBM\Walmart and come back around to my first job which I'm loving but having to study a good bit to keep up with. I have a plan for college so I can finish up and be done with it. Friends have moved closer and one of them in so the apartment is rocking. Applications abound for me to write or have someone help me\just write them. Things are pretty swell and I'm hardly stressed. Its a really nice day today too, so I'm trying to settle down and get to work, but my mind keeps slipping off topic. | | |
| PoliticsHmm, well for the first update, I'm doing quite well. I've been promoted to the full time lead technician at Circuit City, so I've spent many of my waking hours hovered over various PCs there recently. Being deffered to a bit more often is in the least, surprising and a little unnerving. My usual off days are Monday and Friday for anyone that's interested in hanging out. As for the title, well I've been reading some reports on the results of the elections. While I did not personally vote myself due to some restraints, I must say I'm quite pleased with the election. Tis a shame poor Rumsfield resigned (was fired?) before he could be put before a board of congressional overseers and questioned about his policies in Iraq. I'm sure the change in the office will be much safer for the President. As for the Democrat majority, well now I'm just interested on what they are planning to put on the agenda during the next few years. I'd like to see tax cuts toned down for the rich, and a little extra assistance in government programs including higher education, secondary education and national health care. I'd also like to see an exit strategy for Iraq and to have our troops come home safely. Let's hope the next few years are a little bit brighter. | | |
| ConnectionWe have an internet connection now, prepaid for 3 months thanks to my dad, which is awesome.
Also, with the new router, we can support at minimum 9 computers + wireless ones for LAN parties, which is again awesome. So the new goal with this is to install every operating system I come across whether through virtual server or physical.
Elsewise, short update is this, finally 21. I will be doing a LOT less drinking then I think most people expect me too ;). Got sick for a week straight, went to ER one night, given narcotics (first time for that one) and feeling much better now. Russian class is great and got some spare time for a while.
I am now off in setting up my box with everything its been hungering for (or rather my interest).
До свидания
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