back when i was single, i liked to work holidays. i found that i could A) get more done since no one was there, B) goof off more because i got more done (and because no one was there), and C) enjoyed the gratitude of my coworkers enough that they didn't mind granting me other, seemingly odd times off (for war practice or camping trips or war-and-camping trips). now that i have a 'traditional career' the place where i work is completely closed and i couldn't go into work if i wanted to, which is fine since i have two wonderful little boys and a digital camera to record all their holiday smiles.
I'm impressed. Not only can we now stand up on the hallowed floor of Congress and claim (as once Senator Joe McCarthy did a half-century ago) "In this envelope I have a list of the names of people who represent a threat to the security of the nation," but we can also add "and I got PAID for it." The comments and references to Hitler, relevant as they are, allow us to distance ourselves from our own fascist past. How soon before someone is executed for a political belief? I personally want to register all the members of the Amish community as being antisocial, wearing an inordinate amount of black, and generally being weird. How many dollars do I get? And while we are bemoaning the very real dangers of guilt-by-suspicion-for-pay, let's not forget all the times we volunteer our information. How many bags of chips (or anything else) do i get to with my grocery "savings" card before I get my "Go Directly To Jail" card?
NPR carried this story yesterday afternoon. From what I gleaned, it seemed that Double Click had decided not to release (for sale of course) the existing cross-referenced database "at this time." The information they have there is worth millions of dollars to marketing companies worldwide, and I can't see them sitting on it for long. What I would do if I were CEO of DC at this point is to backtrack, make a big dieal about how I value people's privacy, then put a disclaimer on every site I can, and continue to collect information (they never said they wouldn't) while I lobby to create the legal and industry standard which conforms to my ends. Maybe I'm just an Evil Suit at heart, but this path seems quite obvious. Give it six months; with a disclaimer in place, DC can claim all the info in the database has been collected with the web participant's consent (for a larger price tag and to a bigger market thanks to all the publicity and a good PR spin). The participant's consent is where the potential privacy act case comes in; companies have been collecting and selling your information legally (for big big dollars) for decades, and we not only allow it, but we help them. How many times have you heard that an AOL'er likes the packaged bookmarks, chat rooms, ads and "helpful pointers" on her screen? Existing "government and industry privacy standards" allow for the information to be collected, collated, bought and sold. DC's database (which exists and makes marketing companies' CEO's salivate in their sleep) is the natural outgrowth of an organization that started as junk mailings (thank you Lillian Vernon and Carole Wright) and progressed to telemarketing. If you want to stop the travesty of being viewed as a wallet to pick, this is the industry you will be taking on, and IMO it's one which should never have gotten off the ground. Take Hemos' advice and get involved, locally and nationally to reclaim the right to have an unpolluted bio-bandwidth.
No, I don't think you're a moron. After having been through SuSE, Caldera and RH Mandrake, the installs and configs become a bit of a blur (I'm holding off on building a Debian machine). But I think that during the COL2.3 install, you get to select if you want a workstation or server. If you choose worstation, it slicks your selected drive (or is that during the mandrake6.1 install?). Recommendation: Try Mandrake -- it supports my sound card well and my weird hardware and was as easy to install as COL2.3. CAVEAT: make a boot disk; there's something funky with the LILO. I also liek the way that Mandrake handles the options of GUI instead of the non-choice with COL2.3. Or maybe you are just special.
back when i was single, i liked to work holidays. i found that i could A) get more done since no one was there, B) goof off more because i got more done (and because no one was there), and C) enjoyed the gratitude of my coworkers enough that they didn't mind granting me other, seemingly odd times off (for war practice or camping trips or war-and-camping trips). now that i have a 'traditional career' the place where i work is completely closed and i couldn't go into work if i wanted to, which is fine since i have two wonderful little boys and a digital camera to record all their holiday smiles.
heidi
I'm impressed. Not only can we now stand up on the hallowed floor of Congress and claim (as once Senator Joe McCarthy did a half-century ago) "In this envelope I have a list of the names of people who represent a threat to the security of the nation," but we can also add "and I got PAID for it." The comments and references to Hitler, relevant as they are, allow us to distance ourselves from our own fascist past. How soon before someone is executed for a political belief? I personally want to register all the members of the Amish community as being antisocial, wearing an inordinate amount of black, and generally being weird. How many dollars do I get? And while we are bemoaning the very real dangers of guilt-by-suspicion-for-pay, let's not forget all the times we volunteer our information. How many bags of chips (or anything else) do i get to with my grocery "savings" card before I get my "Go Directly To Jail" card?
NPR carried this story yesterday afternoon. From what I gleaned, it seemed that Double Click had decided not to release (for sale of course) the existing cross-referenced database "at this time." The information they have there is worth millions of dollars to marketing companies worldwide, and I can't see them sitting on it for long. What I would do if I were CEO of DC at this point is to backtrack, make a big dieal about how I value people's privacy, then put a disclaimer on every site I can, and continue to collect information (they never said they wouldn't) while I lobby to create the legal and industry standard which conforms to my ends. Maybe I'm just an Evil Suit at heart, but this path seems quite obvious. Give it six months; with a disclaimer in place, DC can claim all the info in the database has been collected with the web participant's consent (for a larger price tag and to a bigger market thanks to all the publicity and a good PR spin). The participant's consent is where the potential privacy act case comes in; companies have been collecting and selling your information legally (for big big dollars) for decades, and we not only allow it, but we help them. How many times have you heard that an AOL'er likes the packaged bookmarks, chat rooms, ads and "helpful pointers" on her screen? Existing "government and industry privacy standards" allow for the information to be collected, collated, bought and sold. DC's database (which exists and makes marketing companies' CEO's salivate in their sleep) is the natural outgrowth of an organization that started as junk mailings (thank you Lillian Vernon and Carole Wright) and progressed to telemarketing. If you want to stop the travesty of being viewed as a wallet to pick, this is the industry you will be taking on, and IMO it's one which should never have gotten off the ground. Take Hemos' advice and get involved, locally and nationally to reclaim the right to have an unpolluted bio-bandwidth.
No, I don't think you're a moron. After having been through SuSE, Caldera and RH Mandrake, the installs and configs become a bit of a blur (I'm holding off on building a Debian machine). But I think that during the COL2.3 install, you get to select if you want a workstation or server. If you choose worstation, it slicks your selected drive (or is that during the mandrake6.1 install?). Recommendation: Try Mandrake -- it supports my sound card well and my weird hardware and was as easy to install as COL2.3. CAVEAT: make a boot disk; there's something funky with the LILO. I also liek the way that Mandrake handles the options of GUI instead of the non-choice with COL2.3. Or maybe you are just special.