Daily Archives: January 5, 2006

Finding Subversives

This entry was posted in Government Privacy on by

If this guy can mine Amazon Wishlists to identify your subversive tendencies just imagine what someone with resources like, say, the nsa or the fbi, might be able to do on behalf of their master. Think about what a mccarthy or a young jackboots for w group would do with this.

That someone can do this is probably an unintended consequence of a pretty cool Amazon feature. It does, though, point out that businesses like Amazon and Google have gathered large amounts of data on individuals and that this data can be misused if it is not well protected.

How much more data do you want to give them?

Via fergie’s tech blog which picked it up from Boing Boing.

Turning Off the Cross

This entry was posted in Culture Religion on by

PZ has discovered that the Skinner’s Butte cross has been off the Eugene, OR butte since 1997:

I learn that another Eugene landmark, the Skinner’s Butte cross, has been gone since 1997. I remember that obnoxious thing glowing up at the top of the butte during my entire stay there (we lived just west of the butte, and could look down the street to watch rock-climbers scale it), and I’m glad to hear it’s gone.

Neither PZ or his commenters note the time honored tradition of visiting high schoolers turning off the cross – reportedly a common occurrence when state basketball championships were held in Eugene.

Gosh, I’m surprised that PZ did not turn it off once or twice when he lived there.