thinking of you all partying it up at this very moment–probably at andrew/amy/david’s? bought season 3 of Lost yesterday, so i rang in the new year trying to get in as many episodes as possible on my laptop. there’s something to be said for no commercials and not having to wait a week or more between episodes. two more discs to go. pat was beside me watching NCIS on the TV. what a pair we are, huh? haha! anyway, really wish we were there with you. am looking forward to seeing what 2008 holds for everyone!
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
So I got call on my cell phone for the 2nd straight day. It’s from an 800 number. I answer and, after a short pause, there’s a recorded message saying (I’m paraphrasing), “AT&T Wireless has important information about your service. Please call AT&T at 1-800-__-____ to hear this information.” And then it hangs up. Now this is AT&T calling me? First impression is it’s some phishing thing anytime they ask me to take action. So I ignore the first one yesterday. Then I get another one today and decide to call the number. I go through the usual labyrinth of menus and finally press zero to talk to someone with a pulse (however faint). All the time I’m thinking, if they have an “important message” for me, why they don’t just have an automated message when you call. Or why not just leave it on the original message?
So I finally talk to a person, they ask for the last 4 digits of my SSN. I give mine. Then I realize that the account is in Dahlia J’s name. And I don’t know hers offhand. I tell the lady and she says that she can’t access my account without that information. So the call was useless.
After trolling around on the superweb about this, I find equal part complaints that this number is a scam and people saying that it’s Cingular/AT&T calling about a late bill. I think it’s actually the latter, though AT&T is doing with the phone equivalent of a phishing email — “click here to get a great deal”. Or in this case, call the random number to find out the “important message.”
The absurdity continues when I check our balance by logging onto my account on the AT&T site. I do learn that they just received our payment today, so maybe that was the reason for the calls. But I’m also looking around for any special announcement. I see a big box at the top saying that they’ve enhanced security on the AT&T website with new secret questions, click to set ‘em. So I click and get confronted with a list of secret questions to choose from. You can’t enter your own and I’m stuck with choices like “What’s your favorite film?” and “Why is your favorite author?” I _hate_ these since those answers change. Not just for me, but for many people.
So I gave up. My online access remains unenhanced and I may or may not continue to receive calls from AT&T (or a scam artist) about something that they can’t just leave in a message but I’m unable to learn when I call them back. Lovely….
Hey, it’s time for everyone’s favorite post-modern ponderance! Copyrights, pirating, intellectual property and ethics in the digital age! Woo! But seriously, I found this post by David Pogue, the NY Times technology fascinating.
The short version is that he’s been giving a lot of speaking recently and often asks audiences a series of questions. “I own a CD, it gets scratched. I borrow my friend’s to burn a copy. Is that wrong?” A raise of hands. Most people think that’s ok, few hands go up. The questions get progressively murkier. “I meant to record a movie on my DVR but forgot to. Is it ok to copy my friend’s DVD of that movie?” And so on. He recently spoke to his first audience that was exclusively college students. As you might expect, a generational gap emerged. Even at the most blatant examples of copyright violations, very few agreed that it was wrong.
The comments are worth reading. One interesting point made is that younger kids (middle school let’s say) sometimes respond that since the technology is there, it must be ok. As in, if it’s bad why would they have Limewire (a download program). I got no answers, but this continually evolving discussion is fascinating. The model for the distribution of intellectual property will be fundamentally different in a few decades. Not just movies and music, but books once they can make digital readers that don’t look like a cell phone from 1988.
I thought I’d pass along this forward from Slanky’s god-mother.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and
female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop
their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to
mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give
birth in the spring.
Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s
reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a
girl.
We should’ve known — ONLY women would be able to drag a fat man in a velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.
Just had to toot Jay’s horn – he just found out that he got a promotion, yay! (So I’m telling myself that long work hours do kind of pay off, long work hours do kind of pay off….)
Pot-growing cave sold to cheesemaker
12/10/07
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARTSVILLE, Tenn. — A home built above a large cave that once housed a sophisticated underground marijuana operation may have a delicious – and legal – future.
Authorities seized the home in 2005 after finding more than 850 marijuana plants growing under lights in two secured, 100-yard-long underground rooms connected to the home.
“Everything was just perfect. Look at the craftsmanship,” auctioneer Pete Scruggs said of the marijuana operation in the natural cave about 45 miles northeast of Nashville.
Roth Kase USA Ltd., a Wisconsin-based maker of European-style cheeses, won a court-ordered auction of the property Saturday with a bid of $285,000. The company’s auction representative, Chuck Olson, hinted about the future of the cave after he was named the winner.
He said the plan is to “make money,” and the cave’s new operation will be legal “in a tasty way.” Caves, with their consistent cool temperatures and humidity, have long been used to age cheeses.
Fred Strunk, the previous owner of the home, was sentenced to 18 years in prison last year on charges of growing marijuana, money laundering and theft.
So here’s something a little incredible, macabre and sad. One of my classmates is from the Netherlands and is in the U.S. for a year as an exchange student. Back in the old country, he attends University of Twente near the German border in a small city called Enschede. He was telling me about this huge disaster that took place in 2000 when a fireworks factory exploded.
Now the whole concept of a fireworks factory burning with the 4th of July finest shooting out every direction is the stuff of madcap comedies. Or perhaps something that happens in China. It kind of makes me chuckle and think of the Marx Brothers. But it actually did happen in this European college town. With disastrous consequences — 22 dead and more than 1,500 houses destroyed. My classmate said it pretty much destroyed an entire neighborhood and they’re still rebuilding more than 7 years later.
Of course someone with a video camera managed to capture the whole thing. Though the cameraperson may be missing some hair or no longer be able to hear (stick around to the end of the video):
[googlevideo]-6126121898177679789[/googlevideo]