Gumballa Govinda
[via MetaFilter]:Blog Survey from MIT : Summary of Findings. This part particularly interested me :
83% of respondents characterized their entries as personal ramblings whereas 20% said they mostly publish lists of useful/interesting links (respondents could check multiple options for this answer). This indicates that the nature of blogs might be changing from being mostly lists of links to becoming sites that contain more personal stories and commentaries.
[via /.]:Big Brother thanks you for flying US Airways. I've been reading about this for quite a while. I also read a technical paper by some desi guy from CA who said the CAPPS screening process doesn't really work that well and proved it mathematically.
These lines from an AP article seemed ominous:
Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening.
The CAPPS website or the official release doesn't mention anything about such measures. Looks like a typical knee-jerk reaction by a pinko AP writer who must've heard about this from the second cousin of his best friend's roommate.
On my trip to NYC, our group of brown middle-eastern looking people visited the Empire state building. Security measures were in full swing. People who got in line to go to the top were stamped with a radioactive ink on their wrists. Once we got to the top, our radioactive tattoos were checked with a detector. There were a lot of people being pulled aside for not being radio-fluorescent and a few hassled ushers pulling them aside. Although I got myself inked at the entrance, the young black girl doing the checking pulled me aside. The reason? she checked the wrong hand. I had to make her stop and show her my right wrist to pass through.
The ones who were pulled aside were 'photographed' with a picture of the empire state building in the background and were told they could pick up pictures at the lobby if they wanted to. What's interesting was that the background picture of the ES building was such that your face was framed in a perfectly blue sky background, so that it made identification easy. I watched with amusement as a pair of teenage black girls were 'photographed' while they posed for the photograph with smiling faces and pretended to pinch the needle of the ES building in the picture.
Were these girls a threat? Did the department of homeland security expect them to launch a suicide attack on English penmanship from atop the ESB? (OMG, I LUV THE VYOO FROM HERE, ITZ SO TERRIFIZZLE! LOL!!!!11!) I've heard about old ladies being searched for deadly weapons in airports. In an effort to refrain from racial profiling and maintain normality, the dept. of homeland security goes to extremes to pick people at random. Being caught between paranoia and political correctness seems to be the bane of these poor minions of homeland security.
There, I'm now a blog statistic. I've given a few links that interested me and I've ranted about something personal.
83% of respondents characterized their entries as personal ramblings whereas 20% said they mostly publish lists of useful/interesting links (respondents could check multiple options for this answer). This indicates that the nature of blogs might be changing from being mostly lists of links to becoming sites that contain more personal stories and commentaries.
[via /.]:Big Brother thanks you for flying US Airways. I've been reading about this for quite a while. I also read a technical paper by some desi guy from CA who said the CAPPS screening process doesn't really work that well and proved it mathematically.
These lines from an AP article seemed ominous:
Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening.
The CAPPS website or the official release doesn't mention anything about such measures. Looks like a typical knee-jerk reaction by a pinko AP writer who must've heard about this from the second cousin of his best friend's roommate.
On my trip to NYC, our group of brown middle-eastern looking people visited the Empire state building. Security measures were in full swing. People who got in line to go to the top were stamped with a radioactive ink on their wrists. Once we got to the top, our radioactive tattoos were checked with a detector. There were a lot of people being pulled aside for not being radio-fluorescent and a few hassled ushers pulling them aside. Although I got myself inked at the entrance, the young black girl doing the checking pulled me aside. The reason? she checked the wrong hand. I had to make her stop and show her my right wrist to pass through.
The ones who were pulled aside were 'photographed' with a picture of the empire state building in the background and were told they could pick up pictures at the lobby if they wanted to. What's interesting was that the background picture of the ES building was such that your face was framed in a perfectly blue sky background, so that it made identification easy. I watched with amusement as a pair of teenage black girls were 'photographed' while they posed for the photograph with smiling faces and pretended to pinch the needle of the ES building in the picture.
Were these girls a threat? Did the department of homeland security expect them to launch a suicide attack on English penmanship from atop the ESB? (OMG, I LUV THE VYOO FROM HERE, ITZ SO TERRIFIZZLE! LOL!!!!11!) I've heard about old ladies being searched for deadly weapons in airports. In an effort to refrain from racial profiling and maintain normality, the dept. of homeland security goes to extremes to pick people at random. Being caught between paranoia and political correctness seems to be the bane of these poor minions of homeland security.
There, I'm now a blog statistic. I've given a few links that interested me and I've ranted about something personal.
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