Debbie's job is going good. She likes her coworkers and the job sounds like it will keep her busy enough that she won't end up bored right away. It's kind of weird after all these months of neither of us working to have her gone all day. I'm sure I'll get used to it. She has to head up to Maine for training next week. Whether I go with her is going to depend on the whole job-hunting thing. If I'm not working, I'll be going with her. If I am, I'm not. If that makes sense.
I can tell this is going to be one of those posts. Sorry.
Yahoo and Verizon are trying to block a freedom-of-information request asking how much they get paid by the federal government to spy on their customers. I figured the feds just paid some fixed rate, not that the providers were allowed to submit an arbitrary price list. But on to the meat:
Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”
Um, duh? Maybe that's because the conduct of Yahoo is shameful and shocking? Just a thought. Maybe Yahoo's lawyers should google "karma." (Yahoo search would just take them to a Culture Club fan site.) Anyway. Verizon gets a bit more creative even while simultaneously insulting the intelligence of their entire customer base:
Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release (.pdf) of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might “confuse” customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well — resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.
Uh, yea. Moving right along....
When we lived in Arizona, the antics of Sheriff Joe were always good for a laugh as long as you weren't on the receiving end. It's good to see he and his faithful deputy dogs are still putting on a show:
A Maricopa County justice of the peace said Monday that a defendant who was arrested last year for clapping during a public meeting was “objectively accurate” when she called the deputy arresting her a “fascist.”
Nice work, Joe. Way to go.
In other news, GM's government-appointed CEO quit. Or he was fired. I wasn't real clear on that point. Anyway, his objection was that the board and the government that hired him were second-guessing his decisions. Maybe he should google "lackey." Or "fall guy." (shrug) Maybe GM should try out a new slogan: GM: The Next Amtrak or GM: Same Junk, More Bureaucrats.
I was checking out the free beta for Adobe's Lightroom 3. It really looks sweet compared to using the free stuff like Google's Picasa. I've considered switching to shooting in RAW whenever I'm doing photography (instead of snap shots), but I don't really have the software to do anything useful once I get the files off the camera. But one of the big reasons I chose the camera I did was because it had RAW capability. I knew that Lightroom wasn't free but I had no idea what it cost, so I checked on what it would set me back once the free beta expires next spring. Holy. Crap. The current version of Lightroom costs half what I paid for our new PC. Ouch.
But it is a sweet product. I wonder how long it would take me to pick up that many pop cans on the side of the road. Or I could Craigslist a few of Debbie's Precious Moments.... (Just kidding, honey!!!)
Well, I need to get back to the job search thing.
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