May 2009 Archives

Normally pogowasright ("privacy news from around the world") leave out the editorial comments, but this one had me fairly angry:

Let's see: the headmistress plugs her laptop containing the photos into the school's network and the boys are being treated as "hackers" and the photos as "stolen?" Placing the blame on the students when the teacher seemingly shared the files on a network -- however unknowingly -- does not seem quite fair to the students.

The story is a bit thin on facts, but it would appear that a schoolteacher plugged her laptop into her school's network, left filesharing on, some students found some photos of her in her underwear, and then shared them around. The students are being castigated with the label "hacker".

I'll agree: what the students did was not hacking. All they did was to poke through some (probably not even password-protected) fileshares.

But come on, the students shouldn't be blamed for poking where they're not supposed to be? To trot out the tired old house analogy, just because I've left my door unlocked doesn't mean people should feel free to come in and rummage through my stuff, take copies of my books, and so on. One might say that the students didn't know she hadn't shared the files on purpose, but one might also be an idiot.

Unless there's a sign on my door that says "come in and rummage through my stuff," I think society generally accepts that I made a mistake and people who go through the unlocked door are intruders and trespassers.

It's nice to see that blaming the victim is alive and well though. While it's irresponsible and foolish of her to have put those photos on her presumably school-issued laptop, that doesn't mean it should be open season on her embarassing pictures.

Gina Trapani has a lifehacker post on how to revive bloaty Macs.

My wife's iBook has been misbehaving the last several months, so I should give this a go before I reinstall, see if it actually helps.

Third round predictions vs actual:

DET 4 CHI 2 // DET 5. Thought the Hawks would have held out for longer, but maybe the injuries to Havlat and Khabibulin hurt the cause enough for the quicker loss. Yeah, I'll go with that. 10 points.

PIT 4 CAR 1 // PIT 4. That's gotta leave a mark. As WanyeGretz put it on Twitter, "Erik Cole sure looked sad. Well, at least his wife is happy, right?" I don't quite have that level of animosity for the big winger, it's not his fault MacT lost his mind, but yeah. 10 points.

100 points from first two rounds + 20 for this = 120. Guess I won't reach my mark from last year, despite the torrid start. Just call me Mr. April I guess.

The Finals should be a good ride. Detroit in 7, and Crosby will miss shaking hands with Hossa and accidentally cockpunch him while Chelios will need quad-skates for his turn around the rink with the Cup.

Book it.

I upgraded my Ubuntu VM at work from 8.10 to 9.04 and promptly started suffering from slow mouse, no matter how high I cranked acceleration in the GNOME preferences. Or in WindowMaker, for that matter. I checked that I was at the latest 2.0.4 Fusion release, and that my Ubuntu packages were all up to date. No joy.

Some googling and I found this post sort of helpful, in that it said to install the xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse package - but I already had it installed. So I dropped down to the CLI, stopped gdm, then removed and reinstalled that package and re-started gdm. Hey presto, mouse zooms around quite nicely.

Now I forget why I needed the VM, but at least I know next time I do, the mouse will work.

Second round predictions vs actual:

CHI 2 VAN 4 // CHI 7 - 0 points. Who saw Luongo's collapse in game 7? I'm getting tired of the younger team every year being compared to the Oilers of the 80s though, complete with "well, shucks, I don't think so" type comments from players being told they're like Gretzky & co. Hint: they're not, and saying so is insulting to both teams.

ANA 2 DET 4 // DET 7 - 10 points. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous there.

CAR 1 BOS 4 // CAR 7 - 0 points. Ward wants another Cup ring I guess.

PIT 4 WSH 3 // PIT 7 - 20 points. Game 7 proved me right on the goalies call.

30 points for second round + 70 from first = 100.

Round 3:

Detroit - Chicago: maybe it's because I'd now be the wily veteran fourth-liner traded at the deadline for one last kick at the can, but I'll take old age and treachery over youth and enthusiasm at this point. Detroit in 6.

Pittsburgh - Carolina: this is getting old, but Penguins in 5. If it's a Carolina - Detroit final, I'm sure Wade will be happy. I'm guessing Mrs. Staal is cheering for the younger son too - the eldest has a ring already.