Some late afternoon clouds today. Just passing through the area. It’s a nice, cool 87 degrees today (30.6 c) but it feels like 85 degrees (29.4 c). Any minute now, people are going to break out the wool jackets down here.
Not kidding.
Just passing through
In a ginormous “WHAT!!” moment today, it looks like the up and coming Google Voice has a little security issue it needs to mention.
A tech-security blog broke the news that “after entering “site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/* ” into [the search bar on] Google, our reader was shocked and discouraged to be greeted by 31 voice mail messages belonging to random Google Voice accounts. Clicking on each revealed not only the audio file and transcript of the call, but it also listed the callers name and phone number as it would if you were checking your own Google Voice voice mail.”
Uh… yikes.
Google came out on their official forum and said these voicemails were posted on purpose, so it’s OK that they were found. And as a matter of fact… “Since the initial idea behind posting a voicemail, was precisely to share it with others, we did not restrict crawling of those messages that users post on the web, but we can certainly understand that users would want to make them public on their sites but not necessarily searchable directly outside of their own website. We made a change to prevent those to be crawled so only the site owner can decide to index them.”
Uh… yikes.
No matter what else comes of it this week, this little peek behind the curtain clearly shows that everything you say in Google Voice will definitely be saved, immediately transcribed, and will be searchable.
Searchable by whom is now the only question that matters.
Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
* New rules from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and the Treasury department mandate that “genetic information [can not be] used adversely in determining health care coverage.” On the website, it says the “Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA)… group health plans and issuers in the group market cannot: increase premiums for the group based on the results of one enrollee’s genetic information; deny enrollment; impose pre-existing condition exclusions; or do other forms of underwriting based on genetic information. In the individual health insurance market, GINA prohibits issuers from using genetic information to deny coverage, raise premiums, or impose pre-existing condition exclusions.” That’s wonderful news! Right now, since the medical repair and adjustment of DNA is in its’ infancy, the only thing thorough DNA testing can do at this time is discriminate. Unfortunately, good news doesn’t sell like bad news does. [HHS – HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES]
* AH-NOLD does it again! This week, he signed a law that “requires gun shop owners to thumbprint people who buy handgun ammunition, as well as record their identification and provide that information to police.” What, exactly, is this law going to do? All the people who get thumbrinted will say is that they resold their ammo if the police come knocking looking for it. And since that’s not illegal, what’s the point? And the bad guys you are trying to stop from buying ammo will just drive a truck across state lines to pick up a palette of their choice and drive it right back into California! Brilliant work, governor! What’s your next trick? [NEWS 10 – CA]
* Acai Berry : the new wonder drug! Truth or Scam? Well, it is indeed a fruit. And, as such, it works just as well as other fruits at keeping you healthy. Sorry about that. Next month, APPLES : The new wonder drug! [FOOD BUSINESS NEWS]
* Saudi Arabia is trying to gather support to demand that “if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, [these countries] should pay compensation to oil producers” for lost revenue. BWA HA HA!!!! I’m sorry. That was completely unprofessional of me. My answer on behalf of the United States is NO. You want a second opinion? OK. Hows about HELL NO! [NEW YORK TIMES]
* A man finds a Dragon surface-to-surface missile launcher in his backyard. He calls the FBI, Homeland Security, and the Sheriff’s Department. Nobody wants to pick it up! Hijinks ensue. OK, Dude… the first rule of missile club is that you don’t talk about missile club! [SAN ANTONIO NEWS]
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved “Folotyn (pralatrexate), the first treatment for a form of cancer known as Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma (PTCL), an often aggressive type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.” What’s going to make this reeeeeal interesting is that “Folotyn was approved under the FDA’s accelerated approval process, which allows earlier approval of drugs that meet unmet medical needs.” Hmmm… definitely good news / bad news kind of thing here. This kind of cancer is very bad, bad news. But an untested drug is another problem in and of its’ own. [FDA]
* An artificial electromagnetic black hole for microwave frequencies was just invented by scientists. OK, that was an awesome sentence! Anyhow, scientists are trying to push this invention further along so it can trap visible light to harness solar energy in solar cells more efficiently. Holy crap. A solar panel full of baby black holes to power homes. Ammunition will be illegal, but ownership of black holes will be acceptable. Welcome to the future! [NEW SCIENTIST]
Just a simple trees to sky view I took sometime in March this year. I do remember the breeze was warm but moving in quick gusts. The trees would all shake, then become still again just a quickly as they started. The combination of the motion and silence was very relaxing.
Trees to sky (simple)
Just another nice sunset, Texas style. Taken on the 10th around 6:50 pm when it was still cool down here.
Sunset - Texas
Every year around this time, over 250 million Monarch butterflies migrate over 3,000 miles from Canada to Mexico. I caught some of the early travelers on the way down this week.
Monarch Skies 1
Most were too high in the sky for my camera to catch in detail. But every little dot in this photo is a butterfly. Hundreds of these little flapping dots were moving across the sky, heading south.
Monarch Skies 2
This guy was taking the low road. For such tiny creatures, they move pretty fast.
Monarch Skies 3
As the season gets underway, and as the stragglers show up flying much lower, I’ll be able to get better photos. Sightings and migration maps are available on tracking sites like this one.
One of the more obscure things I can do is program readerboards. Those LED kind of displays you see under a big business sign that scroll images, show what’s on sale, display the time and temperature, and so on.
Problem is, most readerboard software I’ve had to use is complete junk. They’re horribly unstable, crash often, and are not put together in any form of English I’m aware of.
Waitting in progress
The thing is I don’t know anybody else who does this. Most of the bigger companies have someone specifically fly out from corporate relations to change their readerboards, and they don’t like to talk about what they use. If they’re a franchise, they just stick a memory card the corporate office sends them into the feeder computer to update the screen.
So by now I think everybody has seen the new ad for the Ipod nano with video. It’s a catchy little jingle called “Bourgeois Shangri-La” by Miss Li.
I’m guessing nobody at Apple bothered to check the lyrics to Bourgeois Shangri-La.
“Keep you locked in a shopping cart
A Bourgeois Shangri-La”
and
“House, and a boat and a great shiny car
Things just to prove you go far
So’s the streamer watching TV cute little dog
Perfect in your shallow Bourgeois”
And to top it off, Bourgeois is defined as “(1.) A person belonging to the middle class. (2.) A person whose attitudes and behavior are marked by conformity to the standards and conventions of the middle class. (3.) In Marxist theory, a member of the property-owning class; a capitalist.”
So either Apple was intentionally poking fun at itself and its’ rabid fans, or they just went with this song because it sounded pretty. Either way, it’s hilarious.
But the all time winner for missing the point has to be Mercedes-Benz for having the unmitigated balls to use Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” in one of their commercials. According to Wikipedia,
“Joplin wrote “Mercedes Benz” together with the poet Michael McClure and Bob Neuwirth, as a critical social commentary on how people relate happiness to money and material possessions. The song was originally written as something of a negative commentary about materialistic individuals who place too much value on items like a Mercedes-Benz.”
And what does Mercedez-Benz do with it?
Blasphemy. Blasphemy of the highest order. (Lyrics to Mercedes Benz.)
This week only you can get the World of Goo game for PC and MAC and Linux for any amount you want to pay. $1. $5. $20. Anything works!
Just go to the 2dboy game’s website and click on the “Happy Birthday Sale Time” link midway down. From there you can buy the game with any amount you want to put in.
After you complete checkout, in a few minutes a secret link to the game will appear in your inbox to download the full version from their servers. It’s that easy.
The World of Goo game has no copy protection whatsoever. For a game developer in this day and age, that’s unheard of. And pretty spectacular.
You can try the World of Goo demo first at the 2dboy main page for Windows, Mac or Linux if you want. But the reviews for the game are all four and five star, with a 9.0 “devious, intelligent puzzler” review on Gamespot and an “absolutely phenomenal” review from IGN. And for an entry price of $1, you really can’t go wrong here.
I was at Staples some time ago and noticed this little setup in the software department.
Staples - D'oh!
Pick a version! Any version! It’s the same price!
That was easy.