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School district defends using Orwellian telescreens
Lower Merion School District now claims their spycams were only activated if a laptop was lost or stolen. How does this fit with the use of a picture from one of these as evidence of student misbehavior at home? When did we cede the right to discipline children at home to the school district anyway? This whole affair reeks of totalitarianism. -
Laziest 419er I have ever seen
So it would appear the 419 scammers are getting lazier:
I need you to assist me to transfer $22,500,000.00
from my country to your country
Regards,
Mr. Chan Patrick
No interesting back story. No convoluted explanation about why I of all people should be picked for this honor (my favorite was being recommended by the "girl who knows computer"). ( Read more... ) -
Interesting claim about the Texas State Constitution
A few years back Texas adopted the following amendment to Article 1 (The Bill of Rights) of its State Constitution:
Sec. 32. MARRIAGE ( Read more... ) -
Bloodbowl
Finally figured out how I wanted to set up my laptop to run Bloodbowl. Tried out a couple of games and then played on line with icashizzle. Conclusion: it's a fun game but I have a lot to learn before I will be anything approaching good at it (if I ever do). -
Skip the telescreens and go directly to Room 101
It is reported that MP in charge of the program I reported on yesterday denies that anyone is putting CCTV into people's home. I've looked into it further and it seems that the wealth of reports trace back to a single newspaper article. The denial is made in an unverified Twitter feed. It's so difficult to get information on this side of the ( Read more... ) -
Miniluv installing telescreens (http://a.gd/f6c938)
When the Brits disarmed their citizenry a decade ago I warned that we would see further erosions of the rights of the people there. However, even your pessimistic author has been stunned at the rapidity with which this has happened. Freedom of speech has been but a memory for a while now. Pervasive public surveillance is several years old. Even ( Read more... ) -
Flaying the Green Chili Cheeseburger
I finally got to see Bobby Flay's defeat at the hands of Buckhorn Tavern. Now I am pining for a green chile cheesburger. -
Wedding
A couple of my best friends got married Saturday. It was at a Byzantine Catholic church. I have seen a couple of Orthodox weddings before so I had some idea what to expect but I wasn't sure what would be the same and what would be different ( Read more... ) -
J. J. Abrams' fried egg chutney chili sauce sandwich
In the British comedy Red Dwarf the main character, David Lister, once made a sandwich for his roommate, Arnold Rimmer. Rimmer commented:
I could never invent a sandwich like this, Lister. You see, all the ingredients are wrong. The fried eggs, wrong; the chutney, wrong; the chili sauce, all wrong. But put them together and somehow it works. It ( Read more... ) -
A new twist on an old conflict of interest
Imagine you found out your doctor was receiving kickbacks from your insurance company. For every test your doctor didn't run the insurance would give the doctor a percentage of what they saved on the test. Would that be a monstrous betrayal? There are already insurance plans that do this. It is called capitation because the insurance company ( Read more... )