General – Page 19 – The Wacky World of Chris Knight

2008/07/312008/08/01

Party – This Saturday on Sergey Brin’s Front Lawn!

Google says “complete privacy does not exist” – Internet – iTnews Australia

By Iain Thomson

31 July 2008 07:57AM

In a submission to court Google is arguing that in the modern world there can be no expectation of privacy.

Google is being sued by a Pennsylvania couple after their home appeared on Google’s Street View pages. The couple’s house is on a private road clearly marked as private property.

“Today’s satellite image technology means that even in today’s desert, complete privacy does not exist,” says Google’s submission.

“In any event, the Plaintiffs live far away from the desert and are far from hermits.”

The couple are suing Google for US$25,000 in damages, saying that the value of their property has been damaged and say they have suffered “mental stress”.

This is not the first time Google’s Street View has got the company in to trouble. The EU is arguing that people’s faces should be blurred out of images displayed.

The Street View program aims to photograph every street in the world and place the photographs online. A team of specially converted cars with cameras mounted on the roof are in constant action around the world.

Google is taking a page out of George W Bush’s playbook by claiming that people shouldn’t expect privacy on their own property, and that we should just ‘trust’ Google to ‘do no evil’.

I say we run with their idea that privacy does not exist! Let’s throw a party on the front lawn of the Google founders! I am sure that they will agree that anything good for Google is good for us! This week Sergey’s place, next week at Larry’s. Who is game? Can someone create a meet-up, or a tribe, and post the info here as a comment?

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-Chris

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2008/07/27

Alzheimer’s, or a case of perpetual back-flips?

Really, I feel sorry for him. Maybe it is stress, maybe it is Alzheimer’s, maybe it is that he would rather lose an argument with himself than lose an election… I feel sorry for anyone who can’t remember their own train of thought. I fear getting old and senile, and it is painful to watch someone put themselves in the spotlight while their own inner light is noticeably dimming.

Think Progress » McCain Caves To Right Wing On Gay Adoption, Says Orphans Shouldn’t Have Gay Parents

In the interview, McCain repeatedly said that he is “for the values and principles that two parent families represent.” He also said preserving traditional families is “not the reason why I’m running for president of the United States.” Just seconds later, however, he reversed course and bluntly stated, “I’m running for president of the United States because I want to help with family values.”

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2008/07/25

If only the media worked like Usenet

Media Matters – Stein on Obama’s convention speech: “Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that’s something the Fuehrer would have done”.

Summary: On Glenn Beck, Ben Stein, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's plan to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denver's Invesco Field, stated that he did not "like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people." Stein further stated: "Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done."

If only the media ran like usenet of old… Because at this point, having made the inevitable Nazi reference, everyone would just add Ben Stein to their ignore file and that would be the last we would hear of his drivel. (I’m not going to call the ignore file by its technical name, because ignorant people might think it is a threat of some sort.)

-Chris

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