Our Galtian overloads Archive

1

Big Brother to the…rescue?

By
Trevor Macomber
– April 3, 2012

I’m currently stuck at the dealership while my car undergoes its regularly scheduled 7,500 mile maintenance service. Because I couldn’t figure out how to connect to their ridiculously obtuse wifi setup, I ended up hooking into an unsecured network with the inspired name of “NETGEAR 2.” After logging into Gmail, WordPress, and Facebook, respectively, I thought I’d check out the headlines over at Slate and pointed my browser in their direction.

That’s when I was greeted by the following confounding message:

“The Websense category ‘News and Media’ is filtered.” Where the hell are we: Soviet Russia? Communist China? Hippogriff Fakesylvania? And what’s the sense in blocking a website like Slate but leaving the mother of time suckers, Facebook, completely accessible? Also, if this is a local business using an off-the-shelf web filter to enforce employee productivity, why is the wireless network unsecured? Seems like corporate security one-oh-one. The whole thing is blowing my mind, quite frankly.

…Ooh, but at least my car’s ready!

0

Facebook continues to ruin your future self

By
Trevor Macomber
– March 19, 2012

Like most people, I think about leaving my job all the time — usually not in a “man, I really should get up and go to the bathroom soon” kind of way, but more like like how you think about suicide. You walk by a tall building and think, “Hey, that’s a thing I could jump off of to kill myself. Wonder what that would be like?” Then you forget about it and move on with your life. (This is normal, right? Yeah, totally normal.)

Not unexpectedly, I think most often about leaving my job when the short-term stressors that usually occur over easily endured time periods start clumping together as they have been recently (hence my nearly non-existent output in the last week). Again, nothing that’s really emotionally actionable (especially for someone with as much personal inertia as I possess), but still, you think about it.

Then you read articles like these and think, holy shit, I’ve gotta edit my Facebook page again:

From the Red Tape Chronicles earlier this month:

If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can’t see your private posts, guess again.

Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes.

In Maryland, job seekers applying to the state’s Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall.

Previously, applicants were asked to surrender their user name and password, but a complaint from the ACLU stopped that practice last year. While submitting to a Facebook review is voluntary, virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview, according Maryland ACLU legislative director Melissa Coretz Goemann.

[...]

Social media monitoring on colleges, while spreading quickly among athletic departments, seems to be limited to athletes at the moment. There’s nothing stopping schools from applying the same policies to other students, however.  And Shear says he’s heard from college applicants that interviewers have requested Facebook or Twitter login information during in-person screenings.

The practice seems less common among employers, but scattered incidents are gaining attention from state lawmakers. The blog Tecca.com last year showed what it said was an image of an application for a clerical job with a North Carolina police department that included the following question:

“Do you have any web page accounts such as Facebook, Myspace, etc.?  If so, list your username and password.”

And if you think you’re safe just because you’re an innocent pubescent, think again:

A 12-year-old Minnesota girl was reduced to tears while school officials and a police officer rummaged through her private Facebook postings after forcing her to surrender her password, an ACLU lawsuit alleges.

The claims are the latest in a string of tales showing that even password-protected, private online activities might not be safe from curious government agencies and schools.

The girl, whose identity is withheld in the lawsuit, came home “crying, depressed, angry, scared and embarrassed” after she was intimidated into divulging her login information by a school counselor and a deputy sheriff, who arrived in uniform, armed with a Taser, the lawsuit alleges.

The lesson here? BURN THE INTERNETZZ!

0

Gross.

By
Alix MacLean
– March 2, 2012

I figured I would pop out of thesis-induced hibernation to just point to this… absurdity? That’s not the right word, that’s Rick Santorum’s cop out. The fundamental grossness of this? The cowardice? Still haven’t settled on a word that fits this particular situation.

Anyway, just in case you still thought, somewhere deep down, deep deep deep fucking down that you could be a woman in America and care about women’s dignity and respect, and also be conservative, let me point you to this:

Some Republican groups, meanwhile, have also responded to Limbaugh’s comments.

Rae Chornenky, president of the National Federation of Republican Women, told CNN the controversy has become “a sideshow, turning attention from the main issue.”

Asked if she would repudiate the talk show host’s remarks, Chornenky said: “I don’t want to discuss that. We are working hard on keeping our Constitutional rights protected.”

Frances Rice, chairwoman of the National Black Republican Association, also declined to comment directly on Limbaugh when contacted by CNN.

The chairwoman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, Alci Maldonado, argued the issue was about freedom of religion from government interference.

“This is really not about contraception, a private matter,” Maldonado said. “Liberals are confusing the issue.”

CNN also contacted the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but did not receive a response.

I’m not at all surprised that the Republican women’s groups have nothing to say on this particular subject. Doing a great job, guys.

Happy fucking Friday everybody.

2

Tom can keep smoking in peace now

By
Trevor Macomber
– February 29, 2012

When I first read that the FDA intended to force tobacco companies to paste disgusting pictures of exploding lungs, diarrheatic teeth, and dead pandas (or whatever) on cigarette packages in order to ensure “full disclosure” of their dangers to consumers, I was psyched — not because I thought it had any chance of sticking around very long, but because the uproar it was sure to (and did) cause was every wiseass jester’s moist dream.

Of course, I know jack about retail law and the like, but when cigarette makers challenged the rule, it seemed like they had a pretty legit case. The FDA should be able to compel companies to print truthful statements about their products, and the higher the inherent health risk, the more comprehensive the statements should be. But this rule was so over the top and so outside the norm of what appears on other products, you had to wonder how it their own legal beagles didn’t give it a little more scrutiny.

Sure, cigs really can afflict users with everything that the photos (actually “images of rotting teeth, diseased lungs and other images intended to illustrate the dangers of smoking”) would have demonstrated, but tons of products can fuck you up if you use them to excess. Unless the FDA starts making brewers put pictures of brain-strewn car wrecks on beer bottles, snack food manufacturers put pictures of obese diabetics with missing feet on bags of cookies, and Mountain Dew put pictures of shriveled testicles on its soft drinks, it’s easy to see the terrible precedent this law could have set for what is — whatever its impact on your long-term health prospects — a legal product in this country.

Which is all just long-winded way to introduce the fact that Tom can smoke in peace again, thanks to the

U.S. judge [who] sided with tobacco companies on Wednesday, ruling that regulations requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising violate free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.

[...]

“The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said.

While educating the public about the dangers of smoking “might be compelling, an interest in simply advocating that the public not purchase a legal product is not,” Leon wrote in a 19-page ruling.

Congratulations, Tommy! A formaldehyde toast to you on this special day.

5

Saying “NOPE-a” to SOPA (and, uhh, “BYE-pa” to PIPA?)

By
Trevor Macomber
– January 18, 2012

Partly because we’re way behind this month, but — more importantly! — because we totally have the backs of our infinitely more influential internet brethren who have elected to protest the recently proposed and injudiciously phrased anti-piracy legislation SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) with a 24-hour blackout, Brutish&Short’s electronic doors have been temporarily shuttered beginning just after midnight on Wednesday, January 18, and returning to normal whenever the hell we get around to it.

For more information, please see the one page on Wikipedia that isn’t blacked out today.

And since you’ve got nothing else to do now, why not:

Contact your representatives.

Your zip code:

Love,

~Your lazy editors

0

Surprise, surprise: Walmart has no soul

By
Trevor Macomber
– October 21, 2011

Hey, guess who topped the Global Fortune 500 this year with $422 billion in revenue ($16 billion in profits)? Walmart!

Now guess who’s “substantially rolling back coverage for part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many full-time staff”? Walmart!

Because, you know, fuck coming away with only $15 billion next year.

0

I don’t know how I feel about this

By
Trevor Macomber
– September 7, 2011

When I first read the AP story on Tuesday that Michigan governor Rick Snyder had

signed into law a stricter, four-year lifetime limit on cash welfare benefits, prompting advocates for the poor to warn that tens of thousands of residents will find themselves without cash assistance on Oct. 1.

my immediate reaction was, “Surprise surprise, another republican who’d rather empty his bowels than his pockets on poor people.”

But then I read the stipulation that

the state will offer exemptions to the limit for those with a disability who can’t work, those who care for a disabled spouse or child and those who are 65 or older and don’t qualify for Social Security benefits or receive very low benefits.

Some recipients who are the victims of domestic violence also may be temporarily exempted.

and I thought, “Well, okay, that seems much less assholish, at least.” Throw in Snyder’s seemingly reasonable statement that the state is finally attempting to return “cash assistance to its original intent as a transitional program to help families while they work toward self-sufficiency” and the fact that “the state still will help the poor by offering food stamps, health care coverage through Medicaid, child care and emergency services,” and I can honestly almost get on board with the whole revision. After all, an open-ended welfare system for able-bodied, dependent-less individuals seems somewhat antithetical to the point of living in America.

That said, there’s no denying that the timing is just god-fucking-awful considering that we’re still dealing with an effective national unemployment rate of more than 16 percent. By all means, pass the law while shoring up loopholes to ensure that no one who truly needs assistance falls through the cracks, but at least delay enacting it until “stagnant” is no longer our go-to adjective for describing the economy. To retroactively enforce the four-year deadline for welfare recipients who probably thought they’d have this cushion for much longer is a supremely dick move when the majority of them have no chance of finding a job in the short term.

4

Obama has lost his goddamn mind

By
Trevor Macomber
– September 6, 2011

From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama may press Congress for tax cuts that would exceed his past proposals as well as some of the offerings from House Republicans to strengthen his hand in talks on measures to boost the U.S. economy, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

With Obama set to lay out his plans in a Sept. 8 address to Congress, the administration is focusing on cuts targeted at middle-income Americans to spur consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Holy shit. Assuming this is true, I think we may have legitimate cause to despair that nobody in this administration knows how economies work. [Editor's note: That's a terribly written sentence, but fuck it.] Yes, putting 500 bucks in my pocket when I’m unemployed is certainly going to provide a temporary economic stimulus since I have to, you know, eat and pay my bills and provide for my lazy-ass children and shit. But once that $500 is gone, I’m still out of a fucking job, and your stimulus disappears like a hummingbird’s fart during Hurricane Irene.

Is there really no better way you can think of to spend this money other than providing a short-lived, one-time GDP boost? Would we even be talking about this if we hadn’t already been sucked into the interminable and ever-earlier election cycle vortex?

0

“Anonymity” is a dirty word

By
Trevor Macomber
– August 9, 2011

Those of you who suffer from chronic paranoia or crippling bouts of Big Brother syndrome may want to stop reading now…

From Bob Sullivan over at The Red Tape Chronicles comes an Orwellian exposé for the new decade. The Azimovian premise:

Imagine being able to sit down in a bar, snap a few photos of people and quickly learn who they are, who their friends are, where they live, what kind of music they like … even predict their Social Security number.

Now, imagine you could visit one of those anonymous online dating sites and quickly identify nearly every person there, just from their photos, despite efforts to keep their online romance search a secret.

Such technology is so creepy that it was developed, and withheld, by Google — the one initiative that Google deemed too dangerous to release to the world, according to former CEO Eric Schmidt.

Too late, says Carnegie Mellon University researcher Alessandro Acquisti.

[...]

Using off-the-shelf facial recognition software and simple Internet data mining techniques, Acquisti says he’s proven that most people can now be identified simply through a photograph of their face — and anyone can do the sleuthing. In other words, our faces have become our identities, and there little hope of remaining anonymous in a world where billions of photographs are taken and posted online every month.

As usual, you should read the whole thing if you want to obsess over all the neo-scary details, but don’t fret too much: after all, you’re undoubtedly too poor and too powerless to do anything about it anyway.

Viva progress!