THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XIV

Can Google Solve Death?

That is what the 'other' weekly news magazine Is Asking [click to read] this week. Indeed Google Immortality Research [click to read] is but the latest in a long history of man's attempts to live forever. Ponce de Leon is reputed to have searched for the "Fountain of Youth." Adam bit into the forbidden fruit on the promise that he would then be able to partake of the tree of life and 'live forever.' -- Genesis 3:22

More recently, some very rich men have posed the question: "When you're worth billions, you can buy your way out of just about anything. Well, except for death of course?" --Caroline Moss

Moss writes about Tech Billionaires Determined to Buy Their Way Out of Death [click to read].

It reminds me a bit of the Biblical Nimrod, who sought to build a tower to Heaven [1.] "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. -- Genesis 11:4 So, what really is the difference between Nimrod's Tower and the Avatar Dmitry Itskov [click to read] intends to create to 'contain' his holographic preservation of his brain.

Of course, our oldest source of wisdom has something to say about this:

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, G-d!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, G-d, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, G-d, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

-- Psalm 139

Thyme Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume III, Issue XI

You're Being Tracked.... Search Engine Stalkers

It is not news that the internet search engines are on a mission to know all about you, nor is it news that this information is analyzed, traded and sold. The story is about the rights of ordinary citizens in the 'information age.'

Some information is simply private. The 'other' weekly news magazine this week says: "You're being watched, your information is being sold. Get used to it."

No, thank you. Certainly most data, such as what coffee you prefer, is harmless market study; but there comes a point where the computer search engines begin to look like the telescreen from 1984. The rights of individuals cannot be ignored in this 'brave new world.'

Space Shuttle Launch from an Airplane


Here is a rare sight, the space shuttle taking off as seen from an airliner. Tuesday night I got to see the shuttle pass over Staunton thanks to a visitor we had from the Stokesville Observatory speaking to a 4H group that meets at our church. ht/Joy

Big Brother Update

World Net Daily had This interesting Article:

Life with Big Brother [click to read]
Will Bill Give Obama Control Over the Internet?

Interesting in light of my post for April First.

Pamela Geller Has this to Say About Internet 'Favoritism' [click to read] With friends like these, does Obama need legislation?

Also, look what Tim Kaine took out of legislation designed to protect citizens who take action against the government... the protection! Read More [click to read] at SWAC Girl.

Defining Dystopia:

dys·to·pia (dis tō′pē ə)
noun
1. a hypothetical place, society, or situation in which conditions and the quality of life are dreadful
2. a novel or other work depicting a dystopian society or place
Etymology: dys- + (U)topia

"Anyone who wants to know what lies ahead really only needs three things. An understanding of George Orwell's 1984, Ayn Rand's prophetic Atlas Shrugged and the Bible's Book of Revelation. The puzzle pieces fit when they're meant to." - Sarah For America

Big Brother Update

Google to Monitor Your Electric Consumption

It sounds like a good idea on the surface, but Google PowerMeter [click to read] which shows consumers their electricity consumption in near real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget. The president mentioned it in his internet "town hall." Rush Limbaugh was quick to point out the potential for abuse.

Already Google Neighborhoods is considered an invasion of privacy by some and I've Documented How Tax Assessors Use Google Earth [click to read]. It's kind of like Orwell's 1984 with the Big Brother eye in your house. Also they collect preference keywords from your gmail. That's how they target the ads to you. This article: Google is Big Brother [click to read] will get you thinking.

In 2003 Google Watch expressed the following concerns:

1. Google's immortal cookie: Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can: For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely: Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data: Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks: Keyhole, Inc. was supported with funds from the CIA. They developed a database of spy-in-the-sky images from all over the world. Google acquired Keyhole in 2004, and would like to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware: With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal: Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend: By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb: With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.

Now consider how PowerMeter could be used [or abused] by an overreaching government attempt to ration power consumption. I'll stick with the old electric meter, thank you!



California's 'Black Car Ban'

Also in the works in California is a Proposal [cick to read] to ban dark paint on cars. The agency proposing the ban justifies this action because black paint is less reflective and your air conditioner will probably run more.

Update: From American Thinker:

Google Blocks Conservative Websites [click to read]. Unbiased search results. Sara for America reports: Here's more evidence that our fears about Google aren't unfounded. I plugged in these keywords "sarah for america 2009", and the Google search engine returned a website definition that included the words "brainless diet soda guzzlers". I wondered where in the world that came from --- browsed my site and found it was an anti-Sarah Palin post way deep in my blog. OF ALL THE THINGS (an unbiased?) Google could have used to define/summarize my website, that is what it came up with.

-------------------------
Sara for America Sara for America, Member of the Resistance. Boston Tea Party Member 2009. ... Brainless DIET-SODA GUZZLERS - January 8th, 2009 at 1:59 am ... www.sarahforamerica.org/ - 111k - Cached - Similar pages
------------------------

Happenstance? Computer Models? Human "Error"? You decide. I am convinced that Google is our enemy, and it is winning.

Sara continues: During the past election, I "invested" $1,000 into Google ad-words.The game that Google plays is sickening. I was told, at first, that my site sold "an unacceptable product" and my keywords were rejected. I sold no product at all, zilch. It was simply pro-Sarah Palin. I tried again after requesting info regarding the rejection. This timeI was informed that the site was rejected because it made "personal attacks" on Obama. These supposedly personal attacks were videos of Obama and Michelle speaking - their own words. I hadn't even added my own thoughts.In the meantime, people who were searching for Sarah Palin were getting anti-Palin websites all dressed up as pro-Palin (until the reader got into the gist of the site.) Funny how that all worked out, complements of Mr. Google.

To be fair, the website blockage American Thinker initially mentions could indeed be the result of 'human error.' It happens. The question then becomes one of responsiveness to customer concerns.

Google's products and services are good. I use Blogger and Gmail although I wouldn't transmit really sensitive information through a gmail account. Google Earth and Sketchup are great too.

Eric Schmidt is free to be one of the biggest donors to Barack Obama because all of us are free to put our support behind our candidate. The problem is similar to the one that led to regulation of the railroads in the Nineteenth century. When a large business entity operates in a discriminatory manner, it invites some sort of outside oversight with all of its unintended [mostly bad] consequences. One reason Google should want to play fair is that in the future it is a very real possibility, given the nature of economies, that sometime in the far future controlling interest in the company might be acquired by someone interested in surpressing the liberal perspective. A neutral standard really serves everybody's interests better in the long run.

You can bet that if someone like Newsmax.com acquired controlling interest in Google there would be a hue and cry for some sort of "internet fairness doctrine." There is a bit of reasoning behind my use of Yahoo based Goodsearch as my primary search engine. A competitive marketplace is a healthy influence on corporate behavior. Also I like being able to designate myself who get's the 'charitable contribution' from my search activity advertising revenues.

In a competitive marketplace, customer service inevitably improves. Google is great at product development and leads the industry here but anyone who has had to bring a complaint to the search giant knows the hard truth; Google doesn't answer their mail. If you are China and they want to do business in your country they'll acknowledge yourwishes but if you are a small web developer and can't get the help you need, "don't bother to write."

Google's corporate motto is often misquoted as "don't be evil." The exact quote is "you don't have to be evil to make money." Parse that statement as spoken by a bunch of very young guys who found success right out of college. They still think most money is accumulated by a bunch of old guys who stole it [if they were paying attention in class], and they think, having stumbled onto American entreprenuership, that they've invented it. That changes everything, doesn't it?In the long run Google could really build trust by similarly "inventing" customer service. In the end it really pays to serve the little guy with a problem because he or she becomes your best advertisement.

Google Earth for Tax Assessors

Beta Test Version Released


Screen shot from Beta Test Version of Google Earth for Tax Assessors.

It should be pretty obvious that now that the BOS have 'preserved' the questionable assessment that now they'll meet and lower the rate. This will in all likelihood be somewhat revenue positive but will [they hope] accomplish a degree of rage-reduction. Since the assessments vary so much, you reduce the number of really angry citizens [they hope] at this stage.

But let's visit Michigan where the State Senate is even now considering a new form of taxation designed to get you in the end. This bill creates a new government bureaucracy to oversee the ongoing inspections of septic tanks. Home and business owners would be responsible to pay the fee for these inspections. The cost of new construction would also increase as a result of the additional fee. The taxpayer would also be on the hook to pay for the newly created On-site Wastewater Treatment System Advisory Council and the Alternative System Technical Advisory Committee. Eternal vigilence right?

Update: Absurdity Illustration Gone Scary

It happens a lot to Rush Limbaugh, he sets out to illustrate the absurdity of some policy by making a joke only to find it playing out in reality. So check out How Tax Assessors are Using Google Earth [click to read] from their own blog!

Governor Sarah Palin

She Gave a Voice to Many in this Election


Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

You would think that with the election over, the Neanderthal sport of Palin bashing would cease. Obviously she is still threatening in the minds of her foes or they would quietly forget her. If you've been under a rock for the past few months, may I remind you that Governor Palin came from nowhere to energize a particularly deflated campaign and drew large crowds, not so much because she is a woman, but because of what she believes.

Her honeymoon with the press was the shortest ever for a vice presidential candidate. Charlie Gibson was unable to curb his bias and the editors cut her remarks mercilessly in the hopes of snuffing out the resonance of her message. If you could find an uncut Palin interview it was refreshing to listen to. She is what Jefferson envisioned as a citizen-legislator, one of us who's gone to Washington. Groups like The Our Country Deserves Better Committee are working to make sure this truth is not lost.

It's a hard fight. Sarah For America, a true Palin supporting website reports that Anti-Sarah Websites Get Better Rankings. Is Google showing bias? Read Her Analysis Here and you will stop believing in 'complicated algorithms' as an explaination. Google founder Eric Schmidt is on Obama's advisory board. The news media have obsessed about things like Palin's wardrobe expenses, a fraction of what it costs to outfit a female anchor on any network, while giving no perspective to the President-elect's statements supporting Cap and Trade -- a policy that would bankrupt sectors of the energy industry! Is it any wonder slogans like 'hope and change' work without specific explaination. We're not being taught to ask the hard questions.

Governor Palin deserves a lot of respect for interjecting the ideals many of us still believe in into our National dialogue. She stepped up to an impossible task with enthusiasm and did a wonderful job with it. She has my heartfelt thanks!

Delusions of Virtue

Theodore Dalrymple is one of my favorite writers. As I was ruminating over the ethical considerations of some fictitious situations a very real one was brought to mind by This Article in City Journal. Not unlike Marty McFly, we see real-life persons trying to reinvent the past to favor their perception of their own virtue. Dalrymple states: "...the human mind is a subtle instrument, quite capable of uttering untruths by mechanisms other than lying. Sometimes we cannot distinguish among the possibilities." Thus he makes a case that people who might claim to have been named for a famous mountaineer before he ever scaled Everest, or inventing the internet must be seen in light of the modern concept of 'virtue.' Dr. Dalrymple describes what he calls the "...modern psychopathological symptom: The Delusion of Honesty. A delusional belief is impervious to reason or evidence. In societies like Britain and the United States, once steeped in Judeo-Christian culture, such convictions become common when a belief in Original Sin finds itself replaced by a belief in Original Virtue—particularly one’s own." Now that's profound!

Does such a world, in fact, look ever increasingly for mathematical models [such as Google algorithms] to assure that everyone's self-held belief directed actions don't collide. Sort of like a moral sequence of traffic signals. In the end, a post-Christian society such as Europe must discard the notion of some overall guiding virtue for a pragmatic set of traffic rules.

No doubt, many 'reworkings' of the past to favor one's own view of virtue are harmless. Still the Marxist assigns himself virtue but see's the entreprenuer throughout history as an evil force to be reckoned with. The 'movers and shakers' are his 'oppressors.' This is where reinvention of the past becomes very dark as a science. At some point a broad-brush judgement will impune everyone who is not like me. The Marxist may try to re-write the algorithm to always distrust the entrepenuer, whom he sees as an 'exploiter,' forgetting that it was risk-takers like Edison who brought us modern convenience which we all take for granted. The concept of 'Original Virtue' seems to have many exceptions!

Biff Tannen Take Note!

Google Australia Beta Tests 'Future Search'


New Google Program Lets You See Results of Tomorrow's Game.

This is too good! Never mind that I had good intentions of posting one little snippet about 'Custom Time.' Now we learn that the Google Team 'Down Under' have come up with a way to Search the Future. Really saves on the stress and hazard of time travel! Don't miss the Press Release.

Ethical Considerations of 'Custom Time'

"There is a moral hidden in a laugh, be wise and take the grain but leave the chaff." -- Chaucer

Last April Fool's day it was "Paper Email." Now its "Custom Time." You can send your email so it arrives on time even if you are up to four years late. Actually I must confess to having discovered Custom Time about four years ago when I screwed up the time/date settings in my computer and sent several emails in 1904!

I had to tell some people to look way way back in their inbox for some things I sent that morning!

Scripture calls our Creator the "High and Lofty One, Who inhabits Eternity." G-d can handle the responsibility of being outside of the constraints of time. For humans, time is a factor that helps us. It keeps us honest. I give you the quote from the "Investment Banker" on the Google spoof site:

"I used to be an honest person; but now I don't have to be. It's just so much easier this way. I've gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the 'right' thing."

Wow, that's profound. Time, it would seem, is just one tool in our healthy quest for mutual accountability. What's really amazing and profound though is the "equation" that Google provides as logic for allowing users ten time-altered emails apiece! As you know, Googe uses a "secret" algorithm to assign "trust rakings" to various websites. Most of the time it works really well and makes Google the great tool that it is. Occasionallly mathematical models fail or can be hacked by what are known as "black hat" techniques so that bad content rises over good. That is why webmaster "terms of service" are necessary. I never knew an April Fools joke would contain so much wisdom!