Category Archives: Aside

Apparently the _New York Times_, in retaliation for being called “treasonous” by the Bush administration over its latest in a long line of disclosures about potentially illegal spy programs, published the details of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s vacation homes in a travel section puff piece so that they could be hunted down and assasinated by terrorists. The high level of political discourse in this country just really makes me proud to be an American.

MaryAnn loves _Superman Returns_ and I want to too, but I think I’m getting super hero fatigue after the spate of recent movies. Being in a theater with sound that was way too loud also detracted from my enjoyment, not to mention never having seen _Superman II_. I think I need to rewatch I, watch _II_, and then see _Returns_ at a reasonable volume and I’ll probably love it.

SvN tells us that interruption is not collaboration. 100% agreed. Whenever I’m at my most productive is inevitably the time when I receive that phone call or someone comes up to ask me something, and it is very frustrating and difficult to recover. No disrespect to my colleagues, especially since its impossible for them to know when I’m at my most productive (and the same goes for me talking to them), but I find the best communication to be email or an IM *not* followed up by a call or visit (as some people are prone to do if they don’t get a quick enough response). I think a good rule of thumb is “if the headphones are on, don’t interrupt.” Now if I could just stop breaking the rule myself.

Mounted on the wall right next to my desk I keep a card, printed by the office of the Harvard University Technology Security Officer that outlines in clear language how I should respond to any requests from law enforcement or others for information. Perhaps if New Jersey had a similar card, this librarian wouldn’t be faced with suspension for trying to do her job, which includes keeping patrons’ records private until served with a proper subpoena signed by a judge.

Meg Hourihan’s article about making strawberry jam with her grandparents, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” makes me wish my family had similar traditions. While we suburbanites never did much in the way of jam making (or, equally exciting, maple syrup making, like Jeremy does!), I guess there are some other traditions I could learn about, like the secret to good corned beef and chopped liver and salad dressing and potato latkes. It would be fun to do jam, though.

Four years ago a student, investigating the security of campus computer networks for a proposed student government online election system, discovered that grades, financial aid data, and Social Security numbers were readily available. When he reported his findings, he was punished for trespass and the computers were left unsecured. Now, the Unversity has managed to lose over 367,000 student records to more malicious hackers. There’s got to be a lesson in here somewhere about…something. Punishing people for revealing security problems rather than fixing them is a good way to react? No, that’s not it. Hmm…

I think its cool that Georgia Tech geeks are developing a system to neutralize digital cameras in a non-destructive way. I find their assertion that pirated “cam” versions of theatrical releases costs the movie industry $3 billion per year to be ludicrous, and I am suitably unnerved by the prospect of having infrared lasers shooting around a movie theater (and, presumably, into theatergoers eyes) while I’m trying to watch a movie that I would take measures to avoid any theaters using the technology, or, if they’re all using it, of avoiding theaters completely…