The Coolest Site of the Week

This is the coolest site I've seen in a while. It is as dangerous as all get out, but very very cool. Don't try this stuff at home, but WOW!! - My favorite is the Tesla Coil!!


New Home of Me & My Monkey - Greg Miller's Website

Crazy Hoax, or just Paranoia?

I recently received an email from a loved one that included the following text:

"Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone's telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you will be given a map to their house. Everyone should be aware of this! You can have your phone number removed or blocked. Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number in google.com. My phone number came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where I live. Quite scary. Please look up your own number. Read below for details. Think about it--if a child, ANYONE gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. The safety issues are obvious, and alarming. In order to test whether your phone number is mapped, go to: _http://www.google.com/_ Type your phone number in the search bar and hit enter. If you want to BLOCK Google from divulging your private information, simply click on the telephone icon next to your phone number. Removal takes 48-hours. If you are unlisted in the phone book, you might not be in there, but it is a good idea just to check. If your number does come up if you hit map, it will show you a direct map to your
house... Please forward on to friends and family.

Sue Russel
Travel/Corporate Card
Program Administrator
312-822-2390 - phone
312-817-3322 - fax"

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Regarding this..

First let me say this is a real service that Google offers. Personally I think its kind of handy. To clarify a piece of information mentioned above, if you don't want your number listed with Google you can click all day on the telephone and nothing will happen, however if you visit Google's Phonebook Removal Link - http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html - You can fill out a little form that will remove your number from this service, although what's the point.

I don't see the cause for alarm. If Google was not providing this service, the same end result (Mapping a location via telephone number) can be accomplished by using any of a number of phonebook databases, and either a city map or free internet mapping program.

I think the moral of the story is, that if you don't want people to know where you live by doing a reverse lookup of your telephone number what you have to do is.

1.) Keep an unlisted phone number.

and if a person really felt paranoid

2.) Don't call people that you don't want to know the location of your house. (Because even if you have an unlisted number, when you call someone with caller ID your number and name appears with the call, unless you take special measure to keep it from appearing. They could then take your name and area code and most likely find out your address...Unless of course your name was John Smith ;) So I guess you should keep an unlisted number and change your name to Johnson or Smith.

If a person is really worried about someone knowing where they live linked with their phone number that have to really really do a lot more than write Google and say, don't include me.

As an example of this, the person who sent this email originally, who since she sent it is ostensibly worried about the invasion of her privacy, is Sue Russell.

I don't know Sue Russell but just from the information that was included to me in the mass forwarded email and good ole' Google I was able to find out:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Previously I had all the personal information I found out about Sue Russel just from her email signature without using Google's "evil" tool, but I decided to delete it in that I don't think I would want someone to do that to me. Suffice it to say that in about 20 minutes I found out her home address, where she grew up , went to school, where she lived, and included a satellite photo her house courtesy "Keyhole.com" and what her favorite activities to do in her spare time were. As well as who her internet service provider is, and what kind of computer she has... So.... If privacy is what you want, don't send out mass emails to people giving your name work phone and complete email headers. It is just too easy to find out all about you and too tempting .
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chesterton's Orthodox Paradox - continued

This morning as I read on the bus, Chesterton introduced to me the problem of the martyr and the suicide. Christianity teaches us to love the first and despise the last. Interestingly, Chesterton notes that even before he was a Christian his heart swelled at the song of the martyr and his hate reviled toward the stench of the suicide.

Courage as he put it - at least in my paraphrase - Courage is not the hatred of death, instead it is the love of life to the extreme, a love that acknowledges the truth that in order to save your own life you must loss it or be willing to lose it. The hero is not drawn to action by a death wish, he is moved by the truth that the way of the coward will most surely get him killed, but if he can slash his way through the enemy's parapet he may yet save his life through victory.

Courage becomes a peculiar institution as I see it bend and churl, much like I imagine the smoke from Chesterton's cigar or pipe. While at the moment the pattern makes perfect symmetry, after the fact I am hard pressed to describe it, or even present it in such a way that you know at all it was smoke I witnessed. Nevertheless I still have the odor of the thing on my clothes and know that when I was in its presence the smell was sweet like that of truth.

The suicide is another story. In this case it is not the love of life that causes the thing. It is the hatred of it. There is no glory in it only cowardice and contempt. In this East and West differ completely. I imagine that the Christian morality surrounding suicide is hard to swallow for someone who was raised to believe that it was the most honorable way to die. While Chesterton found a draw to Christianity from this chivalric bent had he been from the East it may have been a great stumbling block.

It seems to me that many paradoxes exist. Most often they confuse me. I may never fully understand the depth of Mr. Chesterton's writings but I do know that each time I walk away from them I can smell truth on my clothes -- or is that cigar smoke?

Chesterton's Orthodox Paradox

While reading on the bus this morning I came to the section in G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy where he presents cases against Christianity and then explains to the reader how he finds them. He gives what he sees as the reason behind each argument and then exposes what he sees as the holes in each.

Of particular interest to me were his comments on the moral brotherhood of all mankind. As an example he states that under this philosophy one might expect to travel to the orient and find it transcribed under a tree Thou salt not steal. Likewise he would fully to expect to her a remote island tribe tell their sons, Little ought to always tell the truth. This fiber of morality that seems to be innate, surely attests to the fact that the Christian God, an exclusive God, an absolute God, cannot be indeed the true God. If the critic could stop his argument there it would be a much more difficult article to defend.

But the vast majority does not stop there. They also hold in a bizarre dualism, the belief that what is right for one person or generation is not necessarily right for the next. So, to paraphrase Chesterton morality is more valid across 2000 years than it is across 200 and I would add even less so across 20. So dear reader, if you hold some version of this dualist morality and have found a way to keep a sound mind I would love to hear your thoughts. I see these arguments against the existence or effectiveness of God as confused at best and schizophrenic at worst.

This is an over simplified gloss, I will most certainly come back to this topic.

The truth about SPAM

In this article from today's New York Times it becomes clear that SPAM, that dreaded 4 letter word, the bane of the workplace, the irk of the home, will not be going away anytime soon. In fact this article posits the exact opposite, SPAM is on the rise...Is this the "Golden Age of SPAM"?

Law Barring Junk E-Mail Allows a Flood Instead - New York Times