Pitiful “Help Wanted” ad in our local paper

April 26th, 2007 · · General No comments - Tags: , ,

I was scanning our local paper’s website to see if they had updated for today yet (they had not), when I came across this ad in the sidebar:

Day Labors

Part-Time -doing dirty work for long hours with low pay. Yard work, cleaning out houses, cutting logs and a 101 other things. Must be able to work alone and with others without goofing off. Driver’s licenses with clean record required.

Granted, this is honest work, and people will pay to have others do this work for them. Unfortunately, with the job climate around here, the person will probably have more calls than positions. (I omitted the phone number in consideration of the person placing the ad.)

I just found this entertaining and thought I would share it with everyone.

TalkDigger and the Semantic Web

April 26th, 2007 · · Technology No comments - Tags: ,

First, what is the “semantic web“? For my purposes here I will describe it as “humanizing” the web. It stands to relate information on the internet in such a way as related articles/music/video or anything else can be found easily. It will also aggregate in a way that will make it easier to ask a question of a search engine in plain English and get a proper response.

As searches go now, one primarily gets vague results based on words in an article or description. The semantic web seeks to simplify searches and bring them together more cohesively. Here is a good description pulled from Wikipedia:

Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for “car”, to reserve a library book, or to search for the cheapest DVD and buy it. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedium involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web.

In short, the semantic web is mostly a vision (that is being evolved) to allow computers to search information more accurately and without as much or any evaluation by humans. It is a web for computers.

Recently, I came across a site, TalkDigger, while doing a vanity search on Google. I was concerned that the posts from my blog were being reproduced without permission or attribution, so I emailed the creator/owner, Frederick Giasson.

After emailing Mr. Giasson and chatting via email, he helped me understand how TalkDigger works and I figured out that I was an idiot like the congressman that said the internet is a “series of tubes”. Thankfully, Fred was very nice and helped educate me about his projects and their uses.

In case you are wondering, TalkDigger is a “semantic search engine” for the web. It is still in the early stages of its life, but looks very promising and useful.

THANK YOU, Fred, for educating me and turning me on to the semantic web!

Don’t speak out against the government, whatever you do…

April 26th, 2007 · · Uncategorized No comments - Tags: , ,

Wikipedia has a nice piece in their article about the 2006 Military Commissions Act. Now, I know that Wikipedia is not guaranteed to be factual or 100% correct, but you only need to review the Act to check these facts.

Be warned that if you donate money to a charity that may somehow be even remotely connected to an organization the US government doesn’t like, you can be termed an enemy combatant. Don’t speak out against the government or organize a protest, that can get you unlawfully held prisoner as well.

I understand as well as the next person that our government needs decent latitude to apprehend, imprison, and question criminals. Unfortunately, this Act effectively lets the government imprison US citizens illegally. There is no recourse to this kidnapping but hoping that the Secretary at the time decides you should be freed.

Didn’t there used to exist this thing called “habeas corpus”? Weren’t we a free country at one time?

Apparently we are still, as long as you don’t oppose the government or cross them in some way. Do that, and they will lock you up whenever and however they choose. Is any of this sounding like the former USSR or current China? Ever read the book 1984?

How about some VoIP paranoia?

April 25th, 2007 · · Technology No comments - Tags: ,

I know, I’m crazy for valuing security and privacy, but it IS my blog. So nyah.

I happened across a nice article at www.voipnow.org. They touch on how VoIP is transmitted across the internet with no security at all, just like email. Anyone who wants to be just a little sneaky or put in the smallest amount of work can intercept and listen in on your calls.

I am not sure, but I believe this includes your cable companies’ offering of “phone service”. Assuming I’m correct, all of the people using Charter for “phone service” here locally are just putting their calls out there across unknown channels for anyone.

The article provides several ideas for encrypting your calls, but I would recommend Skype as their best suggestion. It is already encrypted and very cheap. Plus, you don’t have to pay Charter to use it.

Encryption – think about it.

If I had a million dollars…

April 25th, 2007 · · General No comments - Tags:

Okay, maybe not a million, but a few thousand. I didn’t catch the story this morning on CNN Headline News radio, as I had to come in to work, but the general idea is that a person found a briefcase literally full of money and returned it. From time to time these stories pop up in the news and it gives people a warm and fuzzy feeling. These stories go a long way to showing that goodness still exists in human nature.

Now, what would I do if I had found the money? I would have returned it. That is the easy thing to say when you aren’t faced with a decent amount of money that is yours for the taking. Can we all really know that we would return free and clear money?

There are a lot of ways that a few thousand dollars could make my life easier. Pay off my car, the little credit card debt, maybe even pay off my home. Sure would be nice to have that gift just pop up in your face one day.

I believe that returning the money would have to be done. Yeah, I might enjoy the short-term benefits of whatever I did with the cash, but returning it would do so much more in my opinion.

The person who lost it might not lose their job. They could deposit their life savings. They could buy their first home. They could stuff it in their mattress.

Whatever the “loser” decides to do, it would make both them and I feel much better to have the money returned.