I saw this on Alternet. Don't laugh. Take this very seriously. VERY SERIOUSLY:
I've read books by evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters) that say the same thing - women want to marry men with power and money. I've seen it many times. But there's another side to that equation. Women want rich men, but many of them are willing to cheat on these rich men with poor but handsome men.
I'm 6', 195 lbs at 10% body fat, green eyes, a full head of frankly luxurious wavy hair, and I'm 99% percentile (over 8") in the other height measurement. I'm from a working-class family, and for a while, I pursued a career that was aimed at helping my fellow human beings more than it was aimed at making good money. I had plenty of women who wanted to have sex with me, no strings attached, and a few who actually cheated on their shorter, fatter, dumber, glasses-wearing boyfriends. One was worried she got pregnant and plotted to pass the spawn off as her boyfriend's. This was because these short, fat, stupid men were from richer families that were able to put them through schools with no student loans, set them up with cars and houses right out of graduation, and in some cases, even gave them high-paying jobs.
After a few years, I got wise to the way things work, and I got out of social work and got a job in IT, tripling my income instantly. I was at my IT job for one week before I met my wife. If I was still working in social work, I'm certain that I'd never have attracted my wife, except perhaps for quick rebound sex from one of her previous relationships.
The lesson is this: women want men with money and good family connections as husbands. Many, however, are willing to take handsome, genetically-gifted men who don't have as much money for lovers.
If you're some 5'8," pot-bellied, balding creep who had the good fortune of being born to a dad who's a senior law partner or a banker, you've probably got a pretty hot chick because of your Lexus and big house. But I'd keep a close eye on your hot wife or girlfriend. I never knowingly cheated with anyone, but I've unwittingly cuckolded a good number of you guys because your girls want some hot sex with a tall athletic stud while their fat, ugly rich husbands are toiling away at the office. This is no joke. Be warned. Some of you might already be raising the babies of guys like me without even knowing it.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Strange Case of Child Pornography
And so this morning I read about a case in which a man, whose last name is the improbable Sodomski, was busted for having child pornography on his computer. Normally I have no sympathy for such people and I have even reported an online peddler of such material to the authorities when he attempted to send some my way. Homey don't play dat.
However; this case caught my attention because of the underlying privacy concern that it brought up. If you read about most child porn stings you will find that they usually involve a lengthy investigation in which people are caught using some kind of darknet in order to trade in such material. In some cases it involves snail mail. In other words the users involved have thoroughly shown that they have in fact either created, traded in, and purposefully owned child pornography. This is important. Going back to my statement on reporting an online peddler, In that case I was, in fact in possession of child pornography. I didn't ask for it, but it arrived. Knowing how the internet works, there was no doubt that there was a record of that transfer on someone's log and for a times there was a copy on my hard drive. Since I had not done a low level format or a "secure erase". The file, though "deleted" was still in fact on my drive for as long as it took for the OS to decide to write something else to that space. This time depends on the level of usage of the computer. This is somewhat important as we look at the case.
The man involved here brought his computer to Circuit City in order to have a DVD drive installed in his computer. At some point during this "install" the "tech" person did a search of the Hard drive and found "stuff that looked like adult material". the "tech" decided to click on the file to see what it was and discovered the child porn at issue. A judge ruled that the man's privacy was not infringed because he could not expect that the contents of his HD would not be looked at while the computer was out of his possession. I work with computers for a living so I know the process and this ruling is pretty bad.
Firstly, I'm not clear as to what Circuit City's policy towards their customers private data but I would be extremely disturbed, to the point of not using their "service" if they did not have a policy of "do not touch and do not look at" customer data. Furthermore I would be equally shocked if, unlike any other corporation I know about, Circuit City does not have a "no viewing of adult content" policy in effect as well. Let's assume for a minute that Circuit City does not have such policies on the books. Does this mean that Circuit City Techs are free to peruse user data which would inevitably include personal information of all kinds? Do they understand the inherent security risk this entails? If a customer has their identity stolen after having service at Circuit City, Circuit City could find itself at the receiving end of a lawsuit for knowingly allowing third parties to access user data. It's called willful negligence. That's not good.
But moving on from there. The process of installing and testing a DVD burner does not include a windows search. The only software portion of the install is the driver for the DVD drive (if needed, some drives already have the drivers in the host OS). After installing said software the machine would be rebooted and a test burn of a DVD would be performed. The tech ought to have a file they can test on a USB drive. In other words there is no good reason to do a search of the users system. So the question here is why were the techs performing this search? And why were they interested in the porn on the system? That's like having your car in for new tires and since the shop has a sign that the shop is not responsible for items left in the vehicle, the mechanics go through your glove box, digs in your seats for change or makes a few phone calls on your built in phone. After all, you left the car in their possession so you couldn't actually expect that they would limit their use of your vehicle to only that which is required to perform the service requested.
That is what bothers me about the ruling. Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will be accessed? Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will NOT be accessed? If either of these are the case then Circuit City would be in breech of a legal contract and a) ought to be sued. and b) the evidence ought not be admitted. I don't like option "b" but because I prefer that the law fail on the side of the citizen rather than the state I have to offer that option up.
However; this case caught my attention because of the underlying privacy concern that it brought up. If you read about most child porn stings you will find that they usually involve a lengthy investigation in which people are caught using some kind of darknet in order to trade in such material. In some cases it involves snail mail. In other words the users involved have thoroughly shown that they have in fact either created, traded in, and purposefully owned child pornography. This is important. Going back to my statement on reporting an online peddler, In that case I was, in fact in possession of child pornography. I didn't ask for it, but it arrived. Knowing how the internet works, there was no doubt that there was a record of that transfer on someone's log and for a times there was a copy on my hard drive. Since I had not done a low level format or a "secure erase". The file, though "deleted" was still in fact on my drive for as long as it took for the OS to decide to write something else to that space. This time depends on the level of usage of the computer. This is somewhat important as we look at the case.
The man involved here brought his computer to Circuit City in order to have a DVD drive installed in his computer. At some point during this "install" the "tech" person did a search of the Hard drive and found "stuff that looked like adult material". the "tech" decided to click on the file to see what it was and discovered the child porn at issue. A judge ruled that the man's privacy was not infringed because he could not expect that the contents of his HD would not be looked at while the computer was out of his possession. I work with computers for a living so I know the process and this ruling is pretty bad.
Firstly, I'm not clear as to what Circuit City's policy towards their customers private data but I would be extremely disturbed, to the point of not using their "service" if they did not have a policy of "do not touch and do not look at" customer data. Furthermore I would be equally shocked if, unlike any other corporation I know about, Circuit City does not have a "no viewing of adult content" policy in effect as well. Let's assume for a minute that Circuit City does not have such policies on the books. Does this mean that Circuit City Techs are free to peruse user data which would inevitably include personal information of all kinds? Do they understand the inherent security risk this entails? If a customer has their identity stolen after having service at Circuit City, Circuit City could find itself at the receiving end of a lawsuit for knowingly allowing third parties to access user data. It's called willful negligence. That's not good.
But moving on from there. The process of installing and testing a DVD burner does not include a windows search. The only software portion of the install is the driver for the DVD drive (if needed, some drives already have the drivers in the host OS). After installing said software the machine would be rebooted and a test burn of a DVD would be performed. The tech ought to have a file they can test on a USB drive. In other words there is no good reason to do a search of the users system. So the question here is why were the techs performing this search? And why were they interested in the porn on the system? That's like having your car in for new tires and since the shop has a sign that the shop is not responsible for items left in the vehicle, the mechanics go through your glove box, digs in your seats for change or makes a few phone calls on your built in phone. After all, you left the car in their possession so you couldn't actually expect that they would limit their use of your vehicle to only that which is required to perform the service requested.
That is what bothers me about the ruling. Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will be accessed? Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will NOT be accessed? If either of these are the case then Circuit City would be in breech of a legal contract and a) ought to be sued. and b) the evidence ought not be admitted. I don't like option "b" but because I prefer that the law fail on the side of the citizen rather than the state I have to offer that option up.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
All a dem dirty
So now that the report is out showing that all matter of people in all the clubs in the MLB have been using steroids, Jon Gruber finally has something to say about someone other than Barry Bonds. I wonder if that little NY Yankees icon will be doing a reappearance on his site in the future. I think he should also provide a nice little "daring" post in regards to putting astericks on the World Series winnings of the Yanks.
Speaking of astericks, since every team had a juiced player, wasn't the field actually "level"? Does the steroid use of players on one team negate the advantages of the steroid users of the opposing teams?
Speaking of astericks, since every team had a juiced player, wasn't the field actually "level"? Does the steroid use of players on one team negate the advantages of the steroid users of the opposing teams?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sim City DS
I used to play this game on my computer back in the day. I recently picked it up for my DS and have been wisked away to a time when time would fly and not bullets or lasers. I was working on my city, looked up and it was 1AM. I even had dreams about how to plan out the city. Good distraction from the auto woes (yes, still). I hearty recommend for those who previously enjoyed the game or those looking for DS fare sans violence or high speed.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Speaking of Sensors
So it is reported that Ford is recallng some trucks
The sensor in question is the Cam shaft position sensor. Why would that cause a problem? Basically the computer needs that information to know when the crank is at TDC (top dead center) and uses that information to determine how to ignite the air fuel mixture. If this information is not known, spark happens at the wrong time or more likely not at all. Dead engine. Bye bye power accessories.
due to a faulty engine sensor. Over time, the sensor can degrade, causing the engine to stall.
According to Ford, there have been 14 reports of accidents or loss of control related to the faulty sensor.
The sensor in question is the Cam shaft position sensor. Why would that cause a problem? Basically the computer needs that information to know when the crank is at TDC (top dead center) and uses that information to determine how to ignite the air fuel mixture. If this information is not known, spark happens at the wrong time or more likely not at all. Dead engine. Bye bye power accessories.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Recent RIAA decision
from Ars:
Well actually you can know how many people have grabbed your file since most clients will tell you not only how many people are connected to your client but also how many times the file has been completely uploaded. So it is entirely knowable the exact amount of copies that have been originally distributed.
Secondly, unless we are using the same logic as the felony murder laws, what other people did once they got the files ought to be irrelevant. If this individual is going to be held legally responsible for the infringement done by others, then the on the next go round the defendant ought to claim that he got his file from Thomas and that since the court has ruled that Thomas is legally and monetarily responsible for any further infringement that occurs from files Thomas originally infringed upon, then the RIAA has already been compensated for all it's losses.
It is clear that the judge here is biased. How can the sharing of a a single file that has a revenue of 77cents result in $220,000 of damages? Even with punitive measures added that number is too high. I mean that's over 314285.714 record sales. Very few albums by themselves even sell that much in a single year much less a single track. That simply makes NO sense.
It's also impossible for the true damages to be calculated, according to the brief, because it's unknown how many other users accessed the files in the KaZaA share in question and committed further acts of copyright infringement. That's significant, because it shows that the DoJ is siding with the RIAA when it comes to the issue of whether making a file available for download on a P2P network constitutes distribution. It was a contentious issue during the Thomas trial, with the jury instructions originally stating that making songs available is not the same as distribution. The RIAA objected to that instruction, and in its final form, all the jury had to do was find that Thomas made the files available.
Well actually you can know how many people have grabbed your file since most clients will tell you not only how many people are connected to your client but also how many times the file has been completely uploaded. So it is entirely knowable the exact amount of copies that have been originally distributed.
Secondly, unless we are using the same logic as the felony murder laws, what other people did once they got the files ought to be irrelevant. If this individual is going to be held legally responsible for the infringement done by others, then the on the next go round the defendant ought to claim that he got his file from Thomas and that since the court has ruled that Thomas is legally and monetarily responsible for any further infringement that occurs from files Thomas originally infringed upon, then the RIAA has already been compensated for all it's losses.
It is clear that the judge here is biased. How can the sharing of a a single file that has a revenue of 77cents result in $220,000 of damages? Even with punitive measures added that number is too high. I mean that's over 314285.714 record sales. Very few albums by themselves even sell that much in a single year much less a single track. That simply makes NO sense.
More Auto Woes
New main relay. Same old problem. At this point it's down to three things:
1) ECU
2) Unknown relay that is rusted to hell
3) Dist/coil (Doubtfull)
4) Cold Start Injector (Doubtful as it starts up and runs (badly) for a bit.
What is interesting is that I now have wet plugs. So it would seem that the engine is now getting flooded and/or no/intermittent spark.
I've found a used DME for 80 bucks. (I'm not paying 700 for a new one to find out that isn't the problem). I'm going to leave work early tomorrow so I can pull the DME out ad check it for water damage. And order the part and have it expressed shipped. I really don't want to part with this car.
1) ECU
2) Unknown relay that is rusted to hell
3) Dist/coil (Doubtfull)
4) Cold Start Injector (Doubtful as it starts up and runs (badly) for a bit.
What is interesting is that I now have wet plugs. So it would seem that the engine is now getting flooded and/or no/intermittent spark.
I've found a used DME for 80 bucks. (I'm not paying 700 for a new one to find out that isn't the problem). I'm going to leave work early tomorrow so I can pull the DME out ad check it for water damage. And order the part and have it expressed shipped. I really don't want to part with this car.
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