Jeremy

note - only broken in firefox.

edit again! looks fixed. Thank… youtube?

1) Is there a contradiction in giving away information the same time as wanting to hide it?

No, because it’s different information. I don’t tell you in my friendster profile that I like to look at rotten.com if I want to keep that private. However, if I’m not actively protecting my privacy, others could know this - not only rotten.com, but their advertisers (if they have any, I am scared to check), my DNS provider, and my ISP. That’s a lot of people who know something that I decided not to make public.

Now, I could be hiding some genuinely bad thing. I could have done something illegal, or I could have just done something mean that would hurt my reputation. Maybe I’m a rabbi and I cursed at a child who wouldn’t recognize me. The e-version of this is maybe I PK’d in a counterstrike game against my own clan with a throwaway player name for fun. There’s definitely a contradiction if my public image says I’m the opposite, but sometimes people violate their own identity. That’s not a contradiction inherent to privacy though.

2) Is it intrinsically bad if we lose all privacy, or is it only bad because we lose privacy to assholes?

I think the answer is yes it is intrinsically bad, but it’s a nebulous opinion that I haven’t investigated in any rigorous manner. I feel like “big brother” always creates just that. One case where that hasn’t happened yet is Google. I think part of the reason they haven’t become big brother yet is precisely because they are aware of the danger and prevent themselves from doing so. They throw away data; what oppressor does that? I’m not saying it’ll never happen - what happens if management changes there?

The people I really worry about are AT&T and Comcast. They have WAY more info than google does, and I haven’t heard anything convincing and positive about what they do with my data other than, you know, give it to the NSA.

I agree with all of those statements too. But there’s some kind of contradiction buried there. Perhaps our online profiles could be automatically compiled by our activity and actions and we would be as naked to each other as before the eyes of God. Would that be good? Would it be good if it wasn’t chained directly to marketing and corporate profit? Or would that always be an Orwellian nightmare, and if so, why exactly is it bad?

Macs have had the ever-funky openFirmware in PPC days, and now use EFI. AFAIK, both systems allow larger chunks of (replaceable) code to execute to find OSs. I’m pretty sure that’s why apple didn’t go with the good ol’ BIOS: they were already spoiled.

Oh, and the time - the blog is set to PST, and probably isn’t updated for daylight savings. I’ve been meaning to upgrade…

Anyhow, there is an app called update-grub, i have yet to read the manpage. I tried just running it and nothing changed. Hmm. Could be my solution but it’s not looking good so far.

I’m standing by my words!

Wheat thins are staying down now, so i went-a-surfing.

My bootloader can beat up your bootloader.

Honestly though, my GRUB entries have always been right, so i haven’t had the pleasure of trying to figure out .. you know, the ‘WTF’ stuff.

Windows actually works like GRUB too.. boot.ini file. Feh.

It makes me want to switch to mac! Too bad they want your children’s children for compensation.

Anyway.. i’m going to pass out again now.

:)

~Cousin

The interesting thing is that linux is much more forgiving for me, and I’m liking it a whole lot.

Now that there are weird happenings between MS and Novell and some enforcment from the EU when it comes to MS, I’m thinking that things are going to be even nicer in the future for linux users who have migrated from a strong windows background.

I’m jealous of your mac and unix experience.. but.. I think i have the better deal in this switching from the proprietary to open source OS/apps.

I don’t know how to end this comment. Bye. :-)

The advantage of this is that no custom software need to installed on your Mac.

u are not alone — i am in the same predicament :)

I kinda agree with your blog about online privacy.. i think ~?!? Did you have something happen when you posted blogs online? I am kinda confused! Thats what I don’t post too personal info on myspace.. keep it basic and real!

But everyone else is playing the same game by the same rules. So why do I care? I’m dumb. I tied this blog to my full legal name. I used to have a handle online because of this exact scenario. I could also skip being casual and take this to be the world-watchable medium that it is. That doesn’t sound fun though, and it sure doesn’t make mass updates any easier.

I figured you wouldn’t be the one to tell me to just lighten up. You know the curse of written eternity better than I do, I just don’t want to bear it. Waaaaaa.

On the other hand, why not? The only downside is having to accept the public aspect. Blogging presupposes the Eminem attitude of not giving a fuck, of determining to act as a public figure. The web’s gift is that anybody can be a public voice. That is its primary and fundamental fuction. Blogging is primarily a public monologue; my comment here is a “reply” in all that meaning, subordinated below your homepage and clumped with all the other replies under your posts. Since a blog is a monologue and not a message board, you have the luxury of viewing your posts ambiguously as either diary entries or as rants shouted down from the rooftop. But pragmatically, to the rest of the world, it’s both — and nobody will feel guilty for reading the diary pages you throw down to them.

So, you’ve always been liable. You need either to make your communication less public (password it or whatever) or to embrace the public nature of it and view yourself as a public figure. After all, the underlying conceit of a blog is that your words ought to be, for whatever reason, available to the world, and the goal of a blog post is to be read by the world.

Also, I don’t see whats wrong with putting all that technical stuff up on your blog… I don’t understand half of it, but I skip over the confusing bits. As long as you post some fun pictures (like the projector!) even the non-nerds will be satisfied. :)

-rachel

Very glad to hear that your sister is doing well!

-Jen

But a Dell? Those are the most, um, brick-like laptops I’ve ever seen.

A special thank-you to Paul for being so wonderful and supportive. :) Having you makes all this a little easier. I love you too.