Matt Haughey pointed out the best 3k download I’ve ever seen: the Flash Click to View extension for Firebird and Mozilla. Instead of your browser showing Flash movies automatically, it replaces them with an empty box. To see them, just click on them.
It seems to me that whenever law enforcement begins using some new technology, I always have a negative reaction. All too often, technology makes it easier to invade people’s privacy or deprive them of liberties that they may have once cherished. So it’s good to see an information technology project in the UK that I think is actually an absolute positive. When child pornography is discovered, it’s been someone’s job to see whether the pictures are of a new victim or an existing victim, and to try to suss out hteir identity. Unfortunately, that generally meant that the person had the soul crushing task of scouring a database of child porn to try to make the determination (and I can imagine that such a process is incredibly inaccurate). So the British government is using pattern matching software to analyze new images and compare them to images in the database using a facial recognition algorithm. I heard on the radio this morning that they system even makes it possible to do things like identify siblings, which was much more difficult before. Unlike the stupid idea of trying to identify terrorists in public places using facial recognition, the scope here is much more reasonable and much more likely to be effective. Nobody’s rights are being violated, and the system seems to have a real chance of helping to prevent the exploitation of children in this way. A system like this is also much better suited to enabling law enforcement agencies around the world check their photos against the central database, which is really useful given that there are no barriers to trafficking child pornography digitally. ...
Fred Kaplan has a list of recent questions that Democrats in Congress have proposed that we ask the administration. All of the useful ones were voted down (by Republicans, of course). I understand the need for secrecy in war, but none of these questions would provide information that should be hidden from us or from Congress. The allergy to accountability persists.
I just found out about the MyEclipse IDE for J2EE development today. It’s not a bad little package and it’s darned affordable.
The Houston Chronicle has an article about the ethics of bicycle racing, inspired by the widespread interest in the code that cyclists follow after the leaders waited for Lance Armstrong when he fell on Monday. I’ve followed the Tour de France since Lance Armstrong became ascendent, but this is the first year that I’ve really come to appreciate the ins and outs of the race. This year more than ever I’ve to appreciate it as being in many ways the most magnificent event in sports. If you’re interested in the race, you can’t go wrong with the Tour de France blog, either. Update: the Houston Chronicle replaced the story about cycling’s unwritten rules that I liked to above with one about Tyler Hamilton’s stage win today. The article was originally published in the LA Times and can be found here on the Cincinnati Post site. ...
MozillaZine reports that a minor bug fix release for Firebird will be out this week. Firebird 0.6 has been languishing for awhile, so it’s good to see that an update is forthcoming. The one crash bug that I have problems with all the time is that the form helper sometimes gets stuck if you use the mouse after the combo box appears and crashes the browser. I’d like to see that fixed. Update: looks like one of the main reasons for the 0.6.1 release is the autocomplete bug that I complained about. ...
I just realized this morning that George W Bush, 43rd President of the United States, and I have something in common (other than the fact that we’re both white boys who are for all intents and purposes from Texas). One thing that I’ve surmised about President Bush is that he simply cannot negotiate with or even countenance people who he finds personally repugnant. I think that’s one of the key reasons why we aren’t doing anything about North Korea. We can’t just attack them (especially not right now when the military is busy), and I don’t believe President Bush can bring himself to negotiate in good faith with the likes of Kim Jong Il. Similarly, I think that was the key reason for Bush’s policy of freezing out Yasser Arafat. He thinks Arafat is a scumbag and he can’t bring himself to work with him. (Unlike our non-approach to North Korea, the decision to cut Arafat loose is looking pretty smart.) ...
Here’s the text of a spam I received today: This is worth checking out... please pass it on. —– Original Message —– From: Amy Bryant To: Sharron Kelly Cc: Karla Anderson; [email protected]; [email protected]; Andrea Manning; Bill Barnes; Mark and Karen Whyte-Iowa; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Laura Clark-Glacial Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 10:20 AM Subject: concerned parent There is a large problem facing our nation that we all need to work together to fix. My children have received pornographic emails and I want it to stop. I found this site, www.remove.org that stops Spam and pornographic material in emails. We need to make sure that everyone knows there is a way to stop these emails. ...
Russell Beattie has found a job listed on Monster that he really wants, so he posted it on his weblog and asked for any help people could offer in terms of networking. I’ve often been tempted to use this site for networking purposes, but other than mentioning it when appropriate, I never have. Believe me, I’ve been tempted though. (I have requested and received much useful advice, which I greatly appreciate.) ...
The big news today is the possible killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein in a villa in Mosul after a four hour firefight. Obviously there’s no way to know whether they are really among the dead, or what really happened at all, but the news I have read leaves me buzzing with questions. If they are dead, it’s a shame that we couldn’t capture them alive. They probably have a lot of information that we’d like, and I would like to see them held to account for the atrocities for which they were responsible. Anyway, on with the question. Reports indicate that the fight included up to 200 US soldiers and took for hours, but they also say that there were only five dead and five wounded Iraqis. I also heard on the BBC that the bodies were charred beyond recognition. None of that seems to match up. How could 10 Iraqis holed up in a residence hold out against 200 soldiers? If there were survivors, how did they survive while the people who they were supposed to be guarding with their lives get burned beyond recognition? Anyway there’s probably no point in paying attention to the news right now since it’s almost certain that everything being reported is inaccurate. ...