;){kind=link}
+',height='+(screen.availHeight-30)+',scrollbars=no,resizable=yes');){kind=link}
+',height='+(screen.availHeight-30)+',scrollbars=no,resizable=yes');){kind=link}
-
Archives
- June 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- February 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- June 2007
- May 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- October 2006
- July 2006
- March 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- September 2005
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
- July 2002
- June 2002
- May 2002
- April 2002
- March 2002
- February 2002
- January 2002
- December 2001
- November 2001
- October 2001
- September 2001
- August 2001
- July 2001
- June 2001
- May 2001
- April 2001
- March 2001
- February 2001
-
Meta
On the other hand, fedworld.gov
On the other hand, fedworld.gov is still posting these images, which thoroughly invalidates the premise of my previous post.
Nevermind.
University of Wisconsin-Madison has stopped
University of Wisconsin-Madison has stopped serving my favorite desktop wallpaper, which were weather satellite images of the US (one of the east coast and another of the west coast).
I suppose if enemies of America want to know what the weather was (or more specifically, the cloud patterns, not the actual weather) on May 11, 2001, this photo will help. If they want to know what the weather is today thay can still go here. News flash to the government: Just because it’s a satellite image doesn’t mean it qualifies as intelligence. And just because we do it out of fear does not mean it is intelligent.
I am wide open for attack here; what possible benefit is there in having an image of my planet on my desktop, from a satellite in geostationary orbit, updated every 30 minutes? None, of course. There is no value to the comfort of seeing us as a single earth from an impossible altitude, no advantage to observing — as if removed from it all — the peaceful countenance of our strife- and hate-riddled world, and of course no gain in preserving (as much as possible) the way we lived our lives before September 11 — including such frivolities as a desktop with panache.
If they are looking for Florida or Texas, they know where to find them without this image. Concealing information that might be useful to terrorists is not the purpose of removing these images from the Internet. This image has a resolution of about a mile — objects smaller than that do not appear as discreet objects, rather they are melded into their surroundings. Furthermore these images remained available up until October 18, 2001, a full five weeks after the WTC attack. Even as uncharitable as is my opinion of governmental competence, I think if these images mattered, they’d have been gone sooner. There could be a lot of reasons that this view has been blocked, the misconception that it has a strategic value not least among them. Forgive my cynicism, but five weeks after the fact is about when I would expect the newly assembled iron fist of Homeland Security to start tightening, and the place where oppression — however well intentioned it may be — first occurs is at educational institutions where free thought and dissent are nurtured and cultivated.
Shame on the University of Wisconsin for not protesting. It may be politically impossible to sustain such a protest in this case, since public access to satellite images is pretty much doomed these days, no matter how useless they might be to our enemies. But the truth of the matter, both technically and morally, is that government should keep its hands off when compelling and legitimate government interests are not at stake. The thing I fear is that the government today does have interests which are threatened by academic autonomy, as such those interests are illegitimate.
Where did the free world go?
Posted in
Tagged America, east coast, Florida, satellite image, satellite images, Texas, United States, University of Wisconsin, weather satellite images, west coast, Wisconsin
Comments Off on University of Wisconsin-Madison has stopped
loss It represents only
loss
It represents only 1 ping every ten minutes, and in the space of ten minutes this DSL connection goes up and down more often than me on a good night. In the time it takes me to write a sentence this link dumps me twice; that’s means either that I write very slowly, or that this connection is infinitely frustrating.
Yeah, I know, it’s a free connection. All that green on the graph represents free bandwidth — how can I possibly complain, you might ask. Well, for one thing, I am not sure it is free. Somebody could show up tomorrow and hand me a bill for $2000. Besides, I would have already found an ISP to adopt me if everything was not in flux — i.e.: I am going to move this week, next week, next month, or the month after next, and apart from that, ISPs are dropping like flies, declaring bankruptcy and vanishing into the bit-o-sphere as fast as I can look up their phone numbers.
The problem is not the spotty connection, though. Used to be that green part of the graph was like a dense hedgerow; in it I hid. Now there’s lots of splits and gaping breaches and there’s not a lot of bandwidth anymore to distract me from looking at myself. You see, I don’t have a TV — right now, I don’t even have a phone. I do everything here, at this screen, on this keyboard. I watch the world, I learn, I relax, I run away. But it doesn’t work so good anymore.
I’m feeling kinda naked, and not in a happy sort of way.
Bedtime. Thanks HMS. I know
Bedtime.
Thanks HMS. I know it’s not so, but sometimes it seems, on dark pre-winter nights, that no one sees these cobbly thoughts — no one, that is, but the ‘bots and me.
Guten nacht.
This is a URL from
This is a URL from my website’s referrer log. I wish it was from a former boyfriend trying to send me a subtle (or not-so-subtle) message.
I wonder how many other lonely men — who have little better to do than pore over their server logs — were similarly reminded of a Daniel from their own pasts? And I wonder how many of them wished him back again?
cache – ntc – ab01 . proxy . aol . com – – [16/Oct/2001:04:08:24 -0400] “GET /blog.js HTTP/1.0” 200 7040 “http://www.google.com / search?q=cache : Hu_VtCzWyBc : burgwinkel.com / blog.htm + boyfriend + gone + beg + cock + deep + inside + me & hl=en” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 6.0; Windows 98)”
seized Woke today in
seized
Woke today in that confused state which precedes a seizure. This condition was at one time difficult for me to distinguish from normal life. Partly because at one time I enjoyed disjointed thoughts which disappeared in mid-thinking, and partly because at one time when these neurological electrical storms would rage inside my brain, it did not much matter to me whether they intensified into a seizure because at one time I could endure a seizure without any lasting effects. But now I tend to dislocate shoulders, and such.
First, sleep flees; no matter how tired I might be, and regardless of how lazy I normally am, I cannot stay in bed when these storms come. It is not that I want to be awake — as if to greet the bright day, make coffee, and be alive — oh no, I want more than anything to be asleep again, because just simple consciousness exacerbates the storm. Every brain cell contributes to the propagation of incoherent energy across my brain, stirring my thoughts into a melee of memories, images, words, ideas, questions and disorientations; I have a pot of coffee and a near-empty container of dilantin capsules and it seems to make sense that I should pour one into the other. But is it the coffee into the pill bottle, or do I put the pills into the coffee pot? And why can’t I seem to recall anything about how I always must have done this in the past.
Sleep flees because when the normal neurological pathways of thought careen out of control, they tangle with and sever other pathways, sending them out of control thus spreading pockets of anarchy across my brain at the speed of light. This intense random electrical activity sets off alarms in my cerebellum and brain stem causing the release of adrenalin and signalling the higher functioning levels of my brain to wake up and pay attention. And so the cycle goes, until either I have a seizure, or I avoid it somehow.
Today I avoided it by taking the emergency stash of Ativan given to me by my neurologist for such occasions. It calms the panicking brain cells that are increasingly losing connection with other brain cells — being isolated really upsets a brain cell — and all the little fighting children and their broken toys are given a time-out nap, and when I wake up a few hours later, things are usually better.
But I am nonetheless annoyed today because, seizure or not, this kinda crap takes a day right out of my life, crumples it up and throws it away.
Posted in
Tagged Ativan, dilantin, incoherent energy, neurologist, neurologist for such occasions, seizure, toys
Comments Off on seized Woke today in
BlogBack is now in use.
BlogBack is now in use. Can’t say why I switched from reblogger, I just liked it. :
I am having tcpdump for
Reblogger is back and reinstalled
Reblogger is back and reinstalled here. Click on the ‘&’ below and add your thoughts. [Update: changed it on Monday already.]
where to draw the
where to draw the line?
Despite my cynical skepticism concerning motivations governmental, this story might well be true, that a shift in US policy toward Palestine was already planned before September 11, to be announced on Sept. 13. Attacking the WTC after the US took such a pro-Arab stance would make bin Laden’s efforts to paint America as an enemy of Islam dubious at best. Though the proximity in time of these two events may be coincidental, still it raises the disquieting proposition that the terrorists’ intelligence regarding the intentions of the US government was (and maybe still is) highly accurate and timely. The timing of the atrocity on the day it happened was obviously precise, but the choice of that day in particular was, I thought, a random one, based on opportunism more than on intelligence from within the White House.
I have always stood in awe of the story of the state of Isreal, while naively overlooking the human toll of the violence there, as well as overlooking the reasons which have given rise to that violence. Human deaths — whether Arab or Jew — cannot be overlooked, and there have been many on both sides. Likewise, the beliefs and free will of individuals must not be overlooked either. But where to draw the line? Surely, some things must be banned; murder, torture, terrorism, and abuse of power to name a few. And some things must be preserved; life, the freedom and respect to live it with dignity, peace. The difficulty arises between the extremes — when the way I want to live my life imposes restrictions on the way you want to live yours. (I know this is a vast oversimplification, but I don’t have much time.).
As much as I dislike the way Bush came to be president, he is. And as much as I am loath to admit it, I think he is right to seek to preserve (or create) a balance between Isreal and Palestine.
And while New York mayor Guliani may be right in principle, egos such as his will make these balancing efforts more difficult.
Posted in
Tagged America, bin Laden, Bush, Guliani, Isreal, mayor, new york, Palestine, president, United States, US government, White House
Comments Off on where to draw the
What could the point of
What could the point of \(!\)’,CAPTION,’bbc.co.uk’, HEIGHT, 15, LEFT, BELOW);” onmouseout=”return nd();”>this possibly be? Are they promoting Bert along with fanaticsm? Is Bert a terrorist? Have they even infiltrated Sesame Street?
Maybe bin Laden’s videotaped messages do not include any coded instructions to terrorists in the United States; maybe they get all their direction from Sesame Street, and Bert.
They don’t, I know. But they should.
Posted in
Tagged Maybe bin Laden, Sesame Street, United States
Comments Off on What could the point of
The Most Rev Michael J
The Most Rev Michael J Sheehan, archbishop of Santa Fe, said Ms Lopez had turned the Holy Virgin into a “tart”.
I don’t think Ms. Lopez has changed any dead people, saints or otherwise, one iota.
Sleep, sweet boy, sleep and
Sleep, sweet boy, sleep and dream fretless dreams of desires quenched, and of hopes fulfilled; let the trembling of today’s troubled world disturb not the restfulness of your dreaming, nor the clarity of your meetings in the day.
Good night.
I want Tony Blair for
I want Tony Blair for president.
Yeah, I know, he’s got a job right now, and not a bad one, at that. But as we all know, politics is fickle, and when they are done with him over there in bonnie old England, I would like it just fine if he’d come here to be president. The fact that this would constitute sloppy seconds does not matter to me at all, in his case.