According to an article on NewsFactor.com.
Due to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, lawmakers are starting to group both hackers and spammers as terrorists, and punishing them accordingly. Since the terrorism crackdown from 9/11, penalties for terrorism, and in this case hacking and spamming, could result to life in prison. There are groups out there contesting this, but evidently the general public is doing nothing to oppose this.
I don't understand what the government is so worried about. Hackers and Spammers especially are definately troublesome groups, but what do they really do? Spammers send out millions (if not billions) of unsolicited emails every day. This means that most everyone (even those with good spam protection) has to delete a couple emails every day. This is an inconvenience, but really not worth life imprisonment. And Hackers, what a broad term... Lets say that they are talking about it in the general sense of the word (since they weren't much more specific). Hackers, even the malicious ones, contribute to society on a certain level. Think of the non-security related technology that might have been created as a direct or indirect result of hacking. (technically, isn't all software created by *hackers*?...) And since I presume that a majority of the malicious hackers are unsuccessful (unable to gain entry, or vital information), we would be imposing this harsh penalty on people who never succeed at breaking the law...
Anyways, I think its all a load of crap. Pretty soon anyone who does a ping, port scan, or sends an email to the wrong address will be locked up as a terrorist. I hope everyone enjoys reading this blog, while I wait for them to lock me up...
Yesterday I had an invitation from a coworker to go and play basketball. I thought to myself, I can easily get the energy needed to play some full-court action. Alas, I misled myself. When I arrived, I saw about 10 other guys my age, and older. Each game went to 11 points, a break was taken, and a new game was started. It was a lot of fun, mostly because I didnt completely suck. Amywhoo, these 10 other guys kept on going, long past the point where I thought I couldnt. After the first game, I was ready to sit down for 10 minutes... cool off. However, since my team won, I had to play again. I ended up playing 3 games in a row, and today I am paying for it. I am so frikkin sore, which means I am walking slower, which makes me feel like an old man. Im not too sure if i'm going to willingly subject myself to this torture in the future.
In the past couple weeks, I have realized the importance of being able to complete minor tasks that many people take for granted. One of those tasks happens to be spelling. I can spell, it comes naturally. Evidently my young childhood education consisted of the right formula of phonics, vocabulary, spelling, and language structure to give me the ability to spell. Why do I think spelling is so important? It honestly doesn't matter in a non-formal, friendly environment where you have the liberty to read into the semantics of the word. However, in more formal, professional environments spelling should be an upmost priority. You wouldn't entrust your health to a doctor who couldn't remember the names of common illnesses (even though we do entrust our health to doctors who cannot spell, or at least don't have good penmanship). I find myself more often these days, correcting the spelling of friends, colleages, and publications. I am not what you would consider a spelling nazi (even though I am leaning in that direction), because I know I have my own grammatical faults: the lack of diverse punctuation my documents have, the excessive punctuation that my documents have, my inability to speak a vocabulary larger than 50 words, etc. Despite my own faults, I do find it unforgiving to be sent a professional document laced with misspellings, transposed sentences, and poor sentence structure. Remind you that my *acceptability bar* set for the english language is set fairly low, so if it bothers me, imagine how an english major (or other comperable literary type) would react to the literary crud that I come across. My agitation is worsened these days by the mere fact of the availability of spell-check. It is a feature that most all products (word processors, email programs) have these days. I know it is a pain to use a spell-checker when you can spell, but when you can't? I would think that the spell-check would be placed on a pedestal by the poor spelling community. I however, have a false assumption on this matter, as people still fail to utilize such a wonderful tool. It all boils down to one question: will our nation lower the educational bar to incorporate the poor spellers, or will the poor spellers have to work harder to meet the standards. Sadly enough, I believe the former will come to pass.
I decided to publish the recipe for my cold brew for the world (aka... i keep forgetting the recipe, and need a centralized place to publish it). Using the toddy coffee maker, put 1/2lb of course ground coffee at the bottom. Pour 2 quarts (4 pints, 8 cups) on top of the ground coffee. Put in the fridge, and leave it for @12hours. After 12 hours, pull from fridge, remove the rubber cork from the bottom, and let it drain (into a container of course). Voila... you are done.
Now for the blend of coffee you want to use (from Greyfriars):
30% Yemen (or Tanzanian)
30% Guatemala (or Brazilian)
20% Java (or Mexican)
20% Papua New Guineau (or Indian)
For more detailed instructions, see the extended entry.
Coming soon... dont worry
After my first week of being a white collar worker, I have noticed some rather irritating things. White collar workers are generally 8-5 salary workers, a decent chunk of the population. The opposition: Blue collar workers who work anytime from 6am-Midnight for an hourly rate. Already I have noticed that there are many organizations whose hours of operation are the same as my hours of employment. For example: the post office, the banks, and the ups store. How is this possible? Back when I lived in Chattanooga, the banks and post offices liked to close around the same time as the end of the white collar work day (and close completely on saturdays) leaving White collar workers little to no opportunity to utilize these organizations. Now that I live in Valparaiso, I have noticed that those same organizations are open slightly longer, as to occasionally provide a 1 hour window of opportunity for the white collar folk. Many blue collar workers also work the same hours that white collar workers do, and therefore are also in the same predicament. These organizations are shunning a large part of the population, and definately a big spending part. I would think that organizations would cater to the needs of a majority of all people, or at least to the population that spends the most money.
After having heard about the existence of Chattablogs, I have had an interest to be a part of it. As a result of that, I decided to go ahead and get a blog here, and start acquainting myself with this new environment. So far, I am impressed. Coming from blogger.com, it looks as though I have more control over my blog, which I like.