John Ashcroft: Then (1997)…
There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?
…and now (2003).
Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the government’s domestic surveillance powers under the controversial USA Patriot Act to include reading individual e-mails and monitoring a person’s Web surfing activities. The Patriot Act, which is already under legal attack by privacy groups, was passed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and gives the Justice Department broad new electronic eavesdropping powers.
Update: In case anyone’s confused, Steven is the “Dell Dude” and was recently arrested for marijuana possession.
187-191-178 tonight. Not bad, I guess. 556 series, around a 185 average for the three games. That’s pretty much what I should be doing, but I felt tonight like I should have done much better. Just about every strike I threw was beautiful, and I knew it as soon as it left my hand. A lot of the time, I just didn’t throw the ball out far enough to the right for some reason. Actually, I have that problem quite often, not getting the ball out far enough. I’ll have to work on it sometime. I was pretty happy with most of my spare shots, except for one missed 5 pin (no idea how I missed that) and a missed 3-6-10 in the 10th frame of the last game. At least my average is climbing steadily now, and I seem to have finally figured out what I’m doing again. Hopefully, no more 128s like I had earlier in the year.
I’ve been thinking about joining a second league. I don’t think once a week is enough for me anymore. Or maybe I could just bowl on the weekends or something, not in a league. I don’t know. I am going to bowl this weekend, at least, with a bunch of people from the WWDN Soapbox. I definitely need to bowl more often.
Not much to say today, and lots to do. Just some links.
Total Information Awareness logo products. Link courtesy of Boing Boing. Proceeds go to the ACLU.
Woman challenges EULAs in California, after trying to return software to CompUSA.
I found a great domain name in the comments on WWDN: Space Monkey Mafia. Haven’t really checked it out yet. I will.
Interesting article on blog popularity: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality
Free socks if your shoes are checked at an airport.
Hmm… it’s supposed to give me a screen like this, but it doesn’t seem to. Maybe I didn’t get the 5 billion points while it was active, but I’m pretty sure I did. It said “RULE THE UNIVERSE” in nice big capital letters a while after it started. Odd.
Update (2/9/03 2:20 PM): Looks like I didn’t get the ‘Ruler of the Universe” screen because I didn’t hve the date set on the machine. I’ll just have to do it again.
The title of this entry pretty much sums up how I feel right now. I’m not quite sure why, I just have no motivation to do anything. I do have things I could be doing, like scanning the pictures I just got back of me skydiving, but I really don’t want to. I have no idea why. I just feel like sitting around at home doing nothing, and complaining about it. It’s odd. I played some pinball, and some baseball on the Dreamcast, but neither was terribly exciting. About the only thing I can think of right now that I might be willing to put in the effort to do would be bowling, but it really sucks to do that alone.
Maybe I’ll just go to sleep early, or something.
For some reason, I really feel like adding an entry right now, but I’m not sure that I really have anything to say. I’ve gotta get better at this whole blogging thing, I think. Maybe the problem isn’t my blogging at all, it’s just that I never do anything interesting. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I should fix it. Maybe some comments with suggestions would help…
Like I said, there’s not much to tell. I recently picked up three CDs I thought I already had, from Second Spin, of course (Billy Joel – The Bridge, Green Day – Dookie, Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine). I actually had the jewel case for Dookie here, but the CD was nowhere to be found. Since I’m a geek, and keep a database of all my music, it was easy to add them to my music page. Speaking of music, for some reason I’ve been listening to There and Back Again by Vertical Horizon a whole lot lately. I have no idea why. It’s really good, though. You should all at least listen to the samples at Amazon.
Finishing off Lessig’s Challenge last month, I donated to the nice people at MovableType. They write the wonderful blogging software that powers this website. I’m now listed on their Donors Page. I encourage anyone else who uses MT to donate as well.
On a completely unrelated note, I noticed that I was getting a decent number of hits from people searching for “Zodos”, the bowling alley here, so I checked it out at Google. Turns out this place is the first result. Neat.
One final note before I go… Nanda pointed me to a good article at Salon about the impact of filesharing on the music industry. It’s written by a record company executive, though not a major label, I think. I especially like this quote: “MP3s are lessening the decline of the music business, not creating it.” I’m not saying it’s right to download MP3s against the wishes of the copyright holder, but it’s certainly not destroying the industry. They’re doing that just fine all by themselves.
I’ve figured out how to bowl again. At least, I did for one night. Tonight I threw a 232-189-202, for a 623 series. That’s my first 600+ series in a long time. I’m very happy about it. I just have to learn to pick up that damn ten pin… I won the sidepot the first game, for $18 (or, free bowling). It’s going to get harder and harder to win the sidepot if my average keeps going up like this. It’s at 169 after tonight’s series.
Well, here’s hoping I can keep it up.
The drive down to Riverside with Roy was fairly uneventful. Took about three hours. Stopped at Wendy’s for food. Stayed at a Comfort Inn. Wasn’t too bad.
We woke up nice and early at 7:40. First thing we did, unfortunately, was turn on the TV, and find out about the Columbia shuttle breaking up. Not a wonderful way to start out a day I’m planning to jump out of a plane. We had a quick breakfast, and then headed towards the school.
Before jumping for the first time, I had to watch a video about some things that could possibly go wrong, and explaining the big packet of waivers that I had to sign. I had to sign in three different places, and initial about 25. I knew I was going to have to sign something like it, but wasn’t expecting it to take that long to read and get through. It was all worth it, though.
After signing all the waivers and handing over my money, I went to meet the jumpmaster I would be going with, and got suited up. He explained a few things I would have to do and then we got on the plane. As the plane took off, I was a little nervous, but that quickly went away. The ride up to 13,000 feet seemed like it took far too long. But finally, the door was opened, and other jumpers started leaving the plane. We were the last ones off.
I really don’t know how to describe the jump. It was just incredible. You’ll just have to just do it yourself to find out. We were in freefall for a little under a minute (and dropped from 13,000 to 5,000 feet in that time). Then I pulled the ripcord and watched the guy who was filming me fall away… fast. We did some interesting things with the chute open, and eventually came in to land.
After it was all over, I immediately called home to let my parents know I was alive. I really feel like I want to do it again, but not do a tandem jump. Unlike the time I spend on the couch trying to figure out is solitaire cash legit, it’s really too expensive a hobby to get into too frequently. And the place is three hours away. And I promised my mother I wouldn’t do it again. I’m really glad I did it, though, and recommend everyone do it at least once. It’s definitely an amazing experience.
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