December 30, 2004
Internet Use Said to Cut Into TV Viewing and Socializing
One assumes that since it was in the NYT, they are serious about it. (whether or not it's true is another matter...).
The survey found that use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day, compared with the national average of two hours, said Norman H. Nie, director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, a research group that has been exploring the social consequences of the Internet.
I'm shocked - shocked I tell you! People would rather spend time online than watching such uplifting shows as "Who's Your Daddy"... what's the world coming to? We need to stop this internet thing, it's truly getting out of hand.
But lest you think that only television is involved, oh think again!
According to the study, an hour of time spent using the Internet reduces face-to-face contact with friends, co-workers and family by 23.5 minutes, lowers the amount of time spent watching television by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes.
Does this add up to an hour? 23.5 + 10 + 8 = 41.5 (wonder what happened to the other 18.5 minutes...) but I digress. No the truly shocking thing is that 10 minutes of time NOT spent watching TV. Ad revenues will fall, "actor's" salaries might have to be lowered... oops do they pay for those yahoos on reality shows? Producers will make less money - they may have to give up something big... like a car or one of their pool boys or something. This is a CRISIS!!!
The researchers acknowledged that the study data did not answer questions about whether Internet use itself strengthened or weakened social relations with one's friends and family.
Here we come to the crux of the matter... the "socialization" part they claim to be worried about in the title... well, they didn't really study that so it might not be a problem after all! Amazing how that works isn't it!
And it was only a few years ago that people were lamenting the tremendous amount of time being spent in front of the television... it was breaking up families, ruining lives... my how times changed. One has to wonder if a story like this is just the beginning and if it has anything at all to do with blogs fact checking the NYT out the wazoo.
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December 16, 2004
Wednesday, I called the airline again, talked to yet another person and explained what was going on. In other words, I have been trying since Friday to find out the price of the ticket change. The seat is reserved, all I have to do is pay for it! She looks through whatever they have on the file and says - "Oh no, they put you in the wrong queue! I'll have to put you into the correct one. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a couple more days to find out!"
At about this time I was ready to scream (I was polite though). I said, can you mark it as important or urgent or something so they can get it done? I've already waited 6 days. Whereupon she told me she would put the request in and make a note that it is urgent. (In other words - she is putting the urgent request - inside the message, not marking the outside - so they won't even look at it until they are damned well ready). Then I'm supposed to call back tomorrow.
That would be today. I called them - TWICE! First time I think I got the same guy I talked to on Tuesday, who told me I wasn't important enough to get any sort of service in the foreseeable future. He said - sorry no information - call back later. I said , Is there anything I can do to expedite this? He said "Huh? Expedite?" I said, Never mind.
I called back a couple hours later. When yet another person tells me... I'm very sorry, but there's no word yet. I said, It's been 7 DAYS - what would YOU do? She said, well, you can go to the airport and they can do it for you there immediately. I said - gee thanks - so to get this settled, I have to drive 25 miles to O'Hare (not just your average local airport) pay to park, pay tollway fees - because YOU can't give me a simple price!
So, that's what I did - I drove to O'Hare, got the F%&^ing thing changed. It took 15 minutes. Including the drive there and back - it took me 2 and a half hours to get the new ticket! I kindly thanked the woman, paid the extra and came home.
I am just FURIOUS! There is no excuse for customer service to be this bad - ever. Especially when you are talking about airline tickets that cost hundreds of dollars. Amazing. I WANTED to give them more money... and they simply DIDN'T CARE. How do they manage to stay in business???
Posted by: Teresa in
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December 15, 2004
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, there has been a gross betrayal of women everywhere! NOW should be shouting about this from the front pages of every paper. Dan Rather should be attempting to make the connection between the Bush White House and this slur on womankind! What... you haven't heard?
Women more at risk from climate change: Canadian at UN conference
And what does this have to do with women's lib you ask?
Severe weather caused by global warming can pose greater physical danger to women than men, a Canadian attending a UN conference on climate change said Friday."For instance, often women don't know how to swim, so in a flood situation that can lead to a higher instance of death or injury," Angie Daze, a program manager with a Canadian group called Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change, said.
Now, call me dense, but I have been told from about the late 60's onward, that women and men are essentially the same. I have been told that women can do the same things men do. I have been told that women should not be excluded from jobs, etc... because they are just as good as men. So now this Canadian (and a woman) is telling me that women can't learn to swim so they can save themselves from the onslaught of floods (due to global warming).
****** interlude for hysterical laughter *********
Okay, are we back now? Have we picked ourselves up off the floor? dried our eyes? stopped shaking enough to continue reading??? Quit giggling or you'll never be able to finish reading!
Apparently Ms. Daze (is this a REAL name?) considers herself some sort of authority on global warming (I would question this but is it worth it?), however, she is a complete moron when it comes to floods! ***stopping to giggle some more*** Well, I guess they don't have too many floods in Canada, so possibly she has never really understood how they work.
Um - Ms. Daze, people who die in floods rarely die because they can't swim! They die because the undertow of the water drags them under, and unless they are very very very lucky, they won't have the strength to get back up to the surface - not to mention getting smacked about by all the debris in the water with you! Flood areas are not swimming pools with nice clean calm water.
Now, do tell, will your swimming ability matter if you are dragged under, tossed about, and smacked in the head with a portion of a house or car or tree limb? I don't think so, but feel free to elaborate... really, I want to know!
Needless to say, if you still feel swimming ability matters, shouldn't you be calling for world wide swimming lessons for all women, sponsored by the UN and financed by the USA??? After all we're the nasty people causing all this global warming - right? right. (something to do with that Kyoto treaty or protocol or whatever it is)
So, what other "scientific data" is brought forward to defend this claim?
"Women are highly dependent on the environment for their family responsibilities" in developing countries, said one environmental worker based in Bangladesh."Any type of environmental degradation impacts them more severely than men."
Mhmmm... what exactly does that mean? There may be some specific meaning that eludes me at the moment and I am too stupid to see it. How is it that only one sex is affected by the environment and not the other? Does this mean men don't live in developing countries? I thought I had seen representatives of the male of the species in news clips... but Dan Rather may be lying to us again and there are no men in third world countries... only women. Children aren't mentioned at all, so I have no idea how they fit into the picture. Are they more or less at risk? Do they even exist?
**** sorry giggling madly again ****
I still maintain, as I said in the comments over at Tim's place, that this is a parody story and the Canadian Press has been taken in by their zeal to show how "bad" global warming is... it's the only thing that makes any sense at all, since nothing in this "news" story has the least claim to sensibility.
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December 14, 2004
I should learn to be patient... sure whatever... On Friday I was told to call back Saturday. On Saturday I was told that the person on Friday never reserved the seat! WTF??? So, the seat was reserved, I was told to call back on Monday. I call back Monday - sorry no go - call back Tuesday. I call today (twice because I didn't believe the first person) and am told - oh no it's 3 business days - call back tomorrow. They haven't had time to calculate your rate because they are taking care of people who need their tickets today....
Well, what about tomorrow? Are they going to tell me to call back on Thursday because they have to take care of Wednesday's people? I am really pissed off! Yes, it's difficult to make me angry, but they have succeeded in doing just that.
I will finish out this reservation - because canceling and getting a one way ticket at this time would be far too expensive. But I will never again deal with this airline. I hate being told - as a paying customer (one they are going to get even more money from...) that I'm not important enough to get an answer to a simple question within a reasonable period of time. Yep - I will be taking my business elsewhere, even if I have to pay more. Because in the end it looks like I'm paying the same amount anyway...
Excuse me while I go find something to hit - HARD!!!
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December 06, 2004
"It's different to patch the core database that holds your
secrets," she said. "There were customers who had never patched
because the database was too important to ever touch. It's a huge
deal for them to touch their systems. They did not want it to be
monthly. It could be a million-dollar process for them. I don't worry
about head-to-head comparisons [with ******]. I worry about how to
meet the needs of our customers."
I've simply got to think there is a misquote in there. What you don't get it? What's wrong you say? Well, if a client "never" patches their system... why do they care when or how often patches are released? And also how is it that releasing patches is a "million-dollar process" for a company that doesn't patch? Do they have people who get paid a million dollars to read emails from this company telling them that the patch (which they aren't going to use anyway) is out there?
It's likely that the story was edited and by the time they were finished they ended up with the above. Nevertheless it's amusing. Okay - you can all wake up now, I'm done talking geek...
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December 03, 2004
The former CIA director said telecommunications -- and specifically the Internet -- are a back door through which terrorists and other enemies of the United States could attack the country, even though great strides have been made in securing the physical infrastructure.
Okay this is true enough. Computer networks of the world are certainly vulnerable to attack. There have been dire predictions for YEARS that the "digital Pearl Harbor" is coming.
Is it possible? Well of course it is! Many things are possible, especially with computers. Is it probable? Now there is the sticking point. The thing that terrorists want to do is... spread terror. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp, but really, that's their goal in life (at least til they go to meet Allah) And let's face it folks - a computer attack does not involve much in the way of that big bang for the buck. You know - few if any bloody corpses litter the ground when someone opens a trojaned email. (possibly the corpse of the person who opened said email - strangled by a tremendously harassed Sys Admin)
It's far more likely that they would use computers to do things like.... oh keep track of their plans, email said plans to other terrorists in other parts of the world, possibly break into financial institutions to steal money to finance their grand and glorious scheme to blow up lots of people in as public a way as possible. Those are far more likely scenarios. (Note: I am not discounting the "Pearl Harbor" theory, I am saying that terrorists might not be so keen on a bloodless type of "terror" - most institutions have been taking security pretty seriously since Sept 11 so it's not being ignored)
But the part that really struck me... the bit that I simply can't believe...
The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but that openness makes the system vulnerable, Mr. Tenet said.Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said.
After I stopped laughing and picked myself up off the floor - I began to wonder how this man was EVER considered to run the CIA. One assumes he must have some sort of managerial experience that outweighs the fact that he knows absolutely NOTHING about the Internet!
First of all there's these 3 little letters WWW - let me remind Mr. Tenet that this stands for
WORLD WIDE WEB
Yes, yet another difficult concept to grasp. It spans the WORLD - it is not the UNITED STATES WEB or even the WESTERN WORLD WEB.... therefore the first question that absolutely leaps up and bashes you over the head with a tire iron is : How do you propose to let ONLY the people interested in security onto the Web??? Or maybe we should turn that around and say: How do you propose to keep out people you don't want ON the Web???
The next question is... what is your criteria for "taking security seriously"? Is it someone who promises to patch their system on a prompt schedule? Someone who downloads the latest AV signatures daily? Someone who runs a certain kind of firewall pre-approved by the government as being the best? Do you have to sign off and to whom exactly do you report your security readiness? What happens if you feel you must test a patch to be sure it won't crash your system and therefore don't install it immediately? What if you get a virus or trojaned email before a signature has been created to stop the infection? This only touches the surface.
Then we have to figure out how to make all people all over the world do the same thing. Or is it that only US citizens will be bound by these new rules? And who will have the job of creating and enforcing these rules? Okay I'll stop there or this post will go on forever!
Then there is the money thing... I hate to be the one to break it to Mr. Tenet, but there is just TONS of money tied up in the net. (I know I have surprised you - maybe I should've prepared you a little before such a bold announcement). Just think of Amazon.com - as only a teeny example of the "store" side. Then there's the access side - broadband is HUGE business - is he going to tell Verizon or SBC that they have to pull the plug on subscribers until "he" decides who can be on the Web?
I truly hope that Mr. Tenet was misquoted. Because if he wasn't, and he is an example of what the CIA mentality is like... maybe we should just close down the organization and start from scratch - with semi-computer literate people working there.
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