Nina24's Weblog

wired.com “Spammers giving up? Google thinks so”

nina24 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:59:41 +0000

Google has noticed that the number of spam mail or junk mail sent to people has been decreasing. The spam mail is having trouble getting through the filters at google. This might actually be one of the best things to happen to people with e-mail. All of the unneccesary spam mail that raids our inboxes can now be falling in to the loewr number slowly returning recieving e-mail to what it used to be like. Hopefully they will be able to get those numbers down to zero.

nyt.com “As violence ebbs, Sarkozy Calls riots unacceptable”

nina24 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:52:36 +0000

Two boys were killed about two days ago and since then riots have been frequent in many parts of France especially in the suburbs. There have been many riots attacking the police and the president has come out and said that the accident which killed the two boys is not an incentive to go around trying to attack the police. Anyone found trying to riot and kill a cop will be thought of as someone who has attempted murder in the eyes of the president Sarkozy and the law. As long as the government does its best to fix the issues there is no reason to be continuing these riots. There is a limit to everything.

wired.com “Scientists find Fossil of Enormous Bug”

nina24 — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:44:29 +0000

British scientists came accross a fossil of a huge sea scorpian that is said to be bigger than a smart car or about eight feet long. These finding shows that todays small insects were much much much larger millions of years ago than we had origionally suspected. It is incredible to see that as a species they are axtinct but were once one fo the biggest insects alive. These discoverys show that as evolution progressed the organisms became smaller and smaller in size or became extinct. I know that as soon as all of the rocks are excavated,cleaned and glued back together, I want to see the exact outcome of what this species looked like.

nyt.com “Data Leak in Britain affects 25 million”

nina24 — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:24:22 +0000

According to the New York Times, there was a security breach which resulted in the loss of disks containg the personal information of about 25 million people in Britain. Information such as names, home addresses, their social security numbers and bank account numbers were all listed on the disks. The disks were mailed and did not reach their destination causing the prime minister to come forward a few days later with the news. Thought the disks can only be opned by password the information on them was not incripted, meaning that if those disks fall in to the wrong hands indentity theft will be through the roof. It is surprising that something like this could happen.If such delicate information was to be sent away containing the lives of people, common sense would tell you to use the strongest security efforts so something like this could not happen. It seems awful that in a day and age such as the one we are currently living something like this can happen.

Response to Pepys.com and Dooce.com

nina24 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:54:42 +0000

Each of these blogs were extremely different, but in my opinion only one of these blogs did a good job of adapting to digital publication; or at least the blog form and that was the Dooce.com blog. Dooce.com was entertaining and amusing to read; much like what people today read and write about. Pepys.com was of coarse from the 1600′s and the writing reflected the person living in those times. Unfortunatly, the writing was dry and boring and way too detailed. No one or at least I am not intersted in how this man went to church then home then eat dinner then prayed and then went to bed… pretty boring huh? The writer of Dooce. com wrote about her daily life, her thoughts and showed how interesting it can all be when written in a style which illicits a laugh. This form of blogging, diary’s, to be exact are pretty different than the usual blogs I have come accross. Most blogs are written about the thoughts of someone pertaining to a certain situation or news item, but these two websites offer two very distinct blogs. The first offers insight to the life of a man living in the 1600′s and the other offers the daily life of a mother in the modern day. Dooce.com without a doubt was a lot more intersting to read and did a much better job of adapting to the blog form because it kept in touch with modern day things which people today can understand or resonate with. Pepys.com would be an interesting blog for a historian who would want to read up on someone who lived their life in the days when it was better to be a creative genious or rich, because otherwise, life as you knew it was as dry as a dessert in the 90 degree heat.

wired.com “Sensative Guantanamo Bay Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site”

nina24 — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:04:47 +0000

According to wired.com, the booklet detailing the the day to day opperations at Guantanamo Bay were leaked on Wikipedia showing the different ways in which detainees are medically given attention and intimidated in order to fallow orders as well as directions for the officers working at Guantanamo Bay to fallow when it comes to watching the prisoners and making sure they cooperate. The methods used to make prisoners cooperate or become intimidated are quite, well, sick, for lack of a better word. The officers are trained to manipulate the prisoners and scare them by walking military dogs in the sight of the prisoners so they can copperate. The detainees are also able to recieve medical attention from the Red Cross, but there are certain levels which pertain to which detainee can get what sort of attention. Each level allows a different sort of attention, one in which offers no attention at all. It is this level which scares most people. I am not sure if this level of offering no medical attention for a check up to a prisoner is wrong. If you think about it, these people are dangerous, it is difficult to be put in Guantanamo Bay if you are not such a serious threat. Another thing which never ceases to amaze me is the fact that this information can be leaked on the internet. Im not surprised that it has been leaked but curious as to where this information will lead to and what reforms if any.

nyt.com “F.B.I Says Guards Killied 14 Iraqis without Cause”

nina24 — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:28:00 +0000

In this weeks nyt.com, The black water guards are said to have killed seventeen Iraqis, fourteen of which were unjustfully killed. The F.B.I. is having trouble replaying the crime scene because of the fact that they had arrived there two weeks after the incedent and reconstructing the scene was difficult. Prosecuters are not sure that there are any laws in which these black water guards may be charged. It will shock anyone to the core to see that fourteen people have been killed without cause because of a mistaken attack. Just this information shows how unprofessional the guards working for black water are. In my opinion these guards should be charged with war crimes, alowing them to get away with it would show America as being hypocrytical to the standards in which the United States should live up to. If we do not charge them with war crimes, it is the same as allowing the Nazis who commited genocide to go free without being charged. Innocent people were killed and that is the bottom line. What is done to fix this mess will be another issue surrounding the Black water case. Until the F.B.I. has made a conclusive anlaysis of the scene and prosecuters make up their minds on wheather or not these people can be charged, it seesms that all Black water will have to live with is a bad reputation.

response to “O Brave New World that has such gamers in it” and “Conquering the burning crusade”

nina24 — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:22:06 +0000

In both of the articles by Seth Schiesel we were given some insight to the new expansion set of World Of Warcraft. The first article “O Brave new world that has such gamers in it”, stayed true in my opinion to the journalistic style of writing while integrating the personal of experience of the author playing it. This article was shorter, but more to the point than “Conquering the burning Crusade,” in that both information about the game was presented to us as well as some of the authors expirence in playing the game.In the second article, the author went in depth in to the life of Wolrd of Warcraft and its expansion set. The second article was more of a ggeneral statement indicating the experiences of the author on Wolrd of War Craft as well as those who play the game. While reading the article, I was given a deeper insight to the game itself, considering the fact that I am in no way an avid online game player. What was really apperent in both works was the amount of hype surrounding this game. Many people stayed awake for hours and apparently called in sick to work, as the first article sugests, only to play this game. What seems to be so good about sitting in front of the computer for hours on end trying to get to the highest level in the game first? This is something I probably will not know unless I become an online game player and play this game; something that I am skeptical about because of the fact that I can get extremely competative and end up as addicted to reaching level 70 as Seth Schiesel does in his journal review about his experience in reaching level 70 in the expansion set of World of Warcraft.

wired.com “Encrypted E-mail Company Hushmail Spill to Feds”

nina24 — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:22:07 +0000

Hushmail is a site wich allowes people to send e-mails and messeges through the internet in encrypted or otherwise scrambled manner so knowone, not even the workers at Hushmail would be able to read the message, but the reciepient that the message was for. The court ordered hushmail to turn over all of the messeges sent by alleged underground steriod dealers. Hushmail turned over tweleve C.D’S worth of mail. It is not uncommon for people dealing in the illegeal realm of buisness to communicate using Hushmail. The workers at hushmail have now changed the way in which they allow people to send messages. When the person writining the message is promted for the correct pass code, the people over at Hushmail recieve the word so in cases such as this one, the message can be unscrambled and the people found. No matter how private a website or company may deem our things to be, it is never the case. Because of the government and the unfortuante way in which the world has turned it is impossible for anything to be kept private, not telephone conversations, where one spends their money and defeitly not messeages that we send to one another. Im not surprised that the federal government has taken it upon themselves to invade the private lives of others, but I guess I can not complain when it has to do with endangering the lives of many. Either way, it seems pretty weird that no matter what, we as citizens will always be held in some way under a microscope for recieving even the smallest ticket for parking near a hydrent.

nyt.com “Georgian Police break up Protests”

nina24 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:33:11 +0000

Police in Georgia broke up protests in front of parlaiment today. The peaceful protest began to turn violent as soon as some of the protesters anded up rushing over police boundries. The police used tear gas as well as batons to ward off protestors who were protesting the president whom they think is nothing more than a dictatorship. The situation in Georgia has been that of war and violent protests for some time now. It seems that the little country that it is is having more trouble getting the government to make the people there happy. Living under a tyranny is not what the people expected when they elected Mikhaeil Saakashvili, a supposed democrat. It seems awful that people in the government abuse their positions to a point where people are protesting for days on end with it almost always ending in violence. My parents were both born in Georgia nad have not returned for almost twenty years due to the civil wars and governmental dificulties going on there. The once beautiful place my parents used to call home is now a violent nation with the goverment in dissaray, even though it seems together and balanced.