Privacy is All the Rave

Have you noticed how much privacy has been in the news recently? It all started with a Republican bastard named Karl Rove. One reporter did a little article about how easy it is to find the CIA operative in question with a little Google action. He ended up with a satellite map of where she actually lives, and that's a little creepy. The Government really needs to get on top of protecting their operatives. Disney has started a controversy all on its own with required finger scanning at all their parks. The ACLU is not happy about it as they shouldn't be because they may be a little out of line. Can the finger print check really prove that much? To reiterate a question I've asked a few times before: how much security is too much? Back on the Internet, Mozilla's Spread Firefox site has been hacked and the culprits could've gotten a good amount of private data. I guess not everyone likes FireFox, but it seems like a rather random attack. Anyway, I guess privacy concerns are following us everywhere we lurk nowadays, and I don't like it.

Don't feel too bad for FireFox though, because they gained market share on IE by almost a percent last month. It doesn't seem like much, but now they're only 1.29% away from their year goal. Microsoft is also fighting a battle against Yahoo though, but in the anti-spam arena. Yahoo is working on some digital signature technology while M$ wants to examine domains, but I can't decide which (if either) is better than the other. You'll have to read the article and decide for yourself. Another high-profile fight is between Sony and Toshiba regarding the next DVD format, and a recent survey shows that many more people support Blu-ray over HD-DVD due to backwards compatibility with the current DVD and availability in a number of devices. The survey didn't mention pricing of players or content availability, but it's a good early snapshot of the situation and I'm sure things will change as the battle heats up. Time Warner has begun a pilot program of cable TV over the Internet in San Diego, and they seem pretty optimistic about it. I hope it does well there because I'd love to watch TV online if it was cheaper than on my actual television set. If anyone is interested, the UN published its official report on governing the Internet and it sounds like the most important thing to them is some sort of change. Lastly, Fujitsu is debuting bendable electronic paper technology and it's pretty neat because it looks like this:



Not much movie news today at all, but I'll tell you about the good stuff. The teaser for Saw II premiered at Comic-Con and it's now online in all its freaky goodness for your viewing pleasure. I don't think it'll be better than the original, but I guess we'll see. Halle Berry has reason to believe that her character in X3, Storm, will actually fly. This would certainly be truer to the comic book character we've come to know and love. It turns out that the title of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be Pirates of the Caribbean: World's End. No word on why or if this is even official yet, but it is a bit strange nonetheless. Lastly, horror fans may want to look into The Skeleton Key (from the writer of The Ring), which sounds like it good be very good and very creepy. It's about a practice in Louisiana regarding the spirits, and I don't understand much about it but apparently a lot of locals believe in it.

Now for the Friday's Feast meme:

Appetizer
What is your middle name? Would you change any of your names if you could? If so, what would you like to be called?
Victor, because it was the name of my Dad's father and he died not long before I was born. I like all three of my names and I don't think I'd like to change them. Sure, Pinto is used as a car name and a bean name, but it's still respectable. And Elton John may be gay, but he's a damn good musician.

Soup
If you were a fashion designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you probably use the most?
No clue. I'm a guy! What do I know about fabrics and style?! Maybe cotton? I guess I'd use green and blue a lot since green apparently looks good on me and blue is my favorite color in all its shades.

Salad
What is your least favorite chore, and why?
Definitely dusting the furniture. It's so annoying because dust comes back so quickly and there's so much at my parents' place to dust.

Main Course
What is something that really frightens you, and can you trace it back to an event in your life?
I'm not afraid of much nowadays. Just wasps, bees, and dying alone pretty much. None of them really lead back to a previous incidence. In my younger years I was afraid of the dark for a variety of reasons, including a video game I played called Phantasmagoria (doesn't sound nice does it?).

Dessert
Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment.
In front of my computer in my brother's old room. I can see a cordless phone, a stuffed beanie tiger, and a computer microphone. Not too exciting I'll admit.