One of the things that I look for in a company that I might want to work for is a sense of trust that they know what they are doing with the information they have access to.
I found this video interesting enough to share. Sensitive viewers, beware: there is cursing. Unethical viewers, beware: there are consequences.
Liz Abinante – The Social Responsibility of Coding
Hmm, how do people make the video image show up? Something new to learn.
Got it.
Yes, it’s a Boggle game!
After quite a long break, our group got together for a night of Boggle.
Chat, food, and finding words.
Yes, I won. 🙂 But our host was suffering from some kind of watery-red-eye malady, so she wasn’t at her best.
This is what some people say when you tell them that their privacy is being taken away: “I have nothing to hide”.
It’s not about hiding. It’s not about keeping your sordid past a secret. It’s the same reason we don’t just run around naked: respect and protection.
You may feel like you aren’t vulnerable, but you are. Not because you’ve done something wrong, but because you are exposed.
When you are exposed, you don’t know what might hurt you.
We wrap ourselves in clothing to protect ourselves from the weather, from embarrassment, from needless injury. It makes sense.
Why would we run around without protection from other forces?
If someone was going through your mail, wouldn’t you be bothered? How is it okay for all of your email and other communications to be monitored and used to study your behavior? Where is the respect?
I know I can’t do certain things without losing some privacy, but I try to be aware of which things they are, and I do weigh the hidden costs with the conveniences. I check permissions on every app, and I will read your privacy policies. (If your link is broken or it is full of typos, I’m a lot less likely to engage.)
I’m a good and honest person, there is little I want or need to hide. But I hate feeling vulnerable. Next time you are tempted to say “I have nothing to hide” in response to a privacy argument, think about how vulnerable it makes us all if we lose what little we have.
But I wasn’t paying attention.
It must have happened on Sunday when I was driving back from IKEA.
It would have been cool because you could also turn it upside down and it would the same.
So close.
Once upon a time, I was looking for a job and my neighbor was working at an architectural firm. He suggested I apply there and I got the job.
I worked in the mailroom, which was in the basement. Three times a day, I would walk up the stairs to pick up outgoing mail.
There were five floors in the building, so that was a lot of stairs.
I got a lot of exercise.
Plus, I knew all the addresses of the people we worked with, and all the names of the 200 employees, which included my neighbor.
So, if you want to get lots of exercise but never go to the gym, all you have to do is have an architect neighbor who rides the bus (because if he drove a car we wouldn’t have talked about the job), who is working in a place with 5 stories (I think more would be too much) and an open mailroom position.
“Learning is hard work, but everything you learn is yours, and will make subsequent learning easier.”
Eloquent JavaScript
http://eloquentjavascript.net
Don’t you like knowing that everything you learn is yours? That’s the best.
If the thin blue line represents the line between order and anarchy, the Blue Line train is named appropriately.
Granted, there is more order than anarchy, but within the constraints of an operating train line, the riders are in the borderland.
Yes, I will freely admit I am a car driver. I rode the train to avoid parking hassles since the stop was a mere block from the conference I was attending.
I just sort of thought that everyone on the train would have shoes. But there I was, sitting across from a woman with only socks on her feet, no shoes nearby. Her jeans were covered in red pen ink marks. She was barely able to stay awake.
The next day, I was in a car with a muttering man, who cursed fairly steadily for two stops before getting off and throwing a plastic cup into the roof of the platform.
Is it just my luck or is this normal?
Sometimes nature does cool stuff and you just have to enjoy it while it lasts.
This was one of those moments: a dark, gloomy sky and the trees lit up by a setting sun.
Sometimes I make notes for myself and later I wonder what I meant.
This is my note: “Henson stitch dilemma”.
The context, I know, is puppet making.
This is one of those things you learn when you start figuring out how to make puppets: people are picky about whether or not they can see stitches on your obviously fake sewn together puppet head.
I had no idea there was such a thing, but apparently Jim Henson caused a ruckus in the puppet world with his now-famous stitching method that hides the threads on fuzzy puppet (Muppet!) heads.
Now I’m looking at this phrase in my notes and asking myself: dilemma?
I mean, it sounds good. Maybe that’s all it is. A phrase that catches the ear. Or maybe there’s more to the story.
Oh, you want to see a puppet?
Here’s the dilemma: do you spend your time making’ invisible stitches’, or learning to make your puppet move and talk so that nobody will ever be looking at the seams?
Because puppetry is all about imagination. We want to be involved in the story, not outside looking at the construction. There is magic in puppets.
It’s okay to have button eyes and yarn hair. And no nose. Those glasses have nothing to rest on. Does anybody care? No.
You can do the Henson stitch, or not. Just make your magic puppet.
