I heard of this new phenomenon in crime investigation on NPR.

It's called a cell dump, and it's when police and law enforcement make a sweeping dump of cell location information in order to find witnesses and such in crimes that have occurred with known places and times. That is, they use cell phone GPS information on innocent bystanders or others that may not have even known about the crime to track them down later for information about that crime. This isn't done in real time, instead it's done through logs of your location over a period of time, they just take one 'slice' out of that log to examine.

Of course, I think that this is absurd and a patent violation of privacy rights. If you haven't yourself committed a crime than your cell phone records and GPS records should be kept private. If that is not the case than you are being put in a virtual criminal line-up by simply carrying the cell phone around.

It's like the state that started using driver's license photos and facial recognition software to track down criminals that have evaded the law. That means your face literally is being put in a virtual criminal line-up even though you yourself have never committed a crime.

Thankfully, as of this writing, driver licenses, cell phones, and the internet are voluntary actions, but when will the day come when they take DNA samples of newborns for safekeeping in a forensic database just in case they commit a crime?

And what happens when they call you up and charge you for not calling 911 when your cell phone says you've witnessed a crime, regardless of whether the guy next to you called or not?

Hard point here is that if you can't have your cell phone or land line tapped without a warrant obtained on legal grounds, you can't have your cell phone tracked if you've done nothing wrong. They're already doing it.

If you don't like it, talk about it, tell everyone you know about it, talk to government about it. This kind of stuff has to be stopped.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not good at much. I have no skills, at least not any that people seem to want in Fort Collins. I've stopped programming entirely and I'm not sure I'll ever pick it back up again. I don't know if I can do jobs like wait tables, be a barista, work the floor at Best Buy. I don't know how to work a cashier machine. I failed the WalMart employment test. I'm not a college graduate, but at 26, people are confused by my lack of experience. My resumé is all over the place: insurance company, then a ranch hand, then a professional programmer, and now I'm applying for a retail position? What?

It's all my fault too, I've let slip through my fingers my personality, my courage, my mental fitness, my ambition, over what? I'm depressed and discontent. And THEN I find out that depression is contagious? Great, now I'm infecting my friends and loved ones.

You ever feel like you're not good at anything, that you've lost your job and you have no idea what you're going to do because everything just changed on you overnight? That you'll never achieve any greater heights because you can't even bring yourself to try to achieve lower ones? That you don't fit in anywhere in the world?

I don't want a career, and maybe that's part of my problem. In the end I really don't even want a job. I just want to fit in somewhere. I am so desperate to fit in somewhere... sometimes it actually hurts.

When I was younger I was responsible for my own fear.

Many parents today, including my brother, are sensitive to what scares their kid. That's a good thing, I won't argue with that. What I think is more important though is being careful to not keep a kid in a bubble over things they'll most likely overcome.

I don't think kids need to be exposed to such horrendously violent and sexual films as The Watchmen (a movie I refuse to watch, all the details I've gathered are from the parent's guide on IMDB), but at the same time I think kids pass a certain age where they're going to have to be responsible for overcoming their own fear of the fictional (and even the real). My nephew is arguably not necessarily past that age, and every parent has to determine when it's appropriate to 'let more things go'.

There's a big hullabaloo about a film like the Wild Things being too scary and having more mature emotional themes. I've seen Wild Things three times, I think it's awesome. I always wanted to live inside the book when I was younger. You know what else I did when I was younger?

I watched Stanley Kubrick's The Shining uncensored (complete with the picture of the nude black chick with the huge afro in the black man's house) when I was like 7, seriously, and my parent's knew about it. I loved it. The movie that freaked me out was the Brave Little Toaster. I mean with scenes like this...



... who can blame me (watch it all the way to the end).

I was freaked out by Child's Play, and I never saw it, but the concept of it and the little I was exposed to it terrified me for quite a while. Same thing with Critters. Heck, I can't think of the movie Grace without being disturbed and I've only seen the trailer (I mean, who likes flesh eating babies?)

Recently I've been plagued with obsessions that have frozen me in fear for the last six months. I had no parent to shield me in a bubble (they could talk me through it but they couldn't shield me from it), and eventually I had to get over it myself. I've been responsible for 'getting over it' and growing as a result of overcoming my fear since the beginning.

If you shield someone in a bubble for too long, they won't develop the ability to overcome their own fears and grow for themselves. It'll be more difficult for them to decide what they want to allow in their lives and not allow. It will likewise be more difficult for them to develop the mental discipline to not focus on things that hinder their goals.

And that's my two cents,
Asher

So I was at this event called Tour de Fat in Fort Collins wearing my fursuit. I was at the exit when everybody was leaving and waving to people. A couple people wanted pictures, including a little girl, things were going great.

Then these three-four college boys with the usual bravado wanted to take a picture with me. I was suspicious from the very beginnning, particularly after they at first wanted to stop this little girl from taking a picture with me then decided to let her go first. I signaled for my brother and my cousin to flank in on either side just in case.

Then my brother turns away for a second and they're taking the picture and I hear "I can see your freakin' penis!" and "Penis!" The bastard was flashing the camera and the public while he was taking a picture with me!

I was so pissed. They then pretty much beat it out of there (no pun intended) while I ripped my head off yelling "Fuck you! Fuck you!" at them. My cousin caught their attention with another expletive, but then was stopped by a cop who left my cousin alone.

I feel used, dirty, and not very happy with the whole affair. The public was not pleased either. Against my first judgment I'm leaving this journal entry comments enabled, but I'll delete any comments complimenting the perpetrators. That is just not cool behavior at such a large community friendly event.

Hey, I'm on IMDB! Check it out:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379108/

Funny, I thought other people I knew would make it first.

Last night I dreamed that I was this old woman, much akin to my great grandmother. I lived in the house that I grew up in with a few random modifications. One in particular was this cupboard which was this shrine of objects (but no picture) that this best friend I had throughout life had owned before she died. I was constantly thinking about this friend, and all the good times we had. I would say stuff, with my white hair and jewelry, all old lady-ed out, "Ah, we could dance again, like we used to in the old days..." But there was this overbearing woman that watched over me and took care of me that always shook her head and stopped me from having any fun. I'd get all wistful and she'd shake, "No..." I had to keep my feet on the ground. I was really into it! I threw a party, and during the party I looked into the cupboard to look at all the things that I kept that my best friend had owned and they were things you'd find laying around the day somebody died: potato chip bags, a pillow, a coffee mug, some moisturizer, a couple cans of soda... just stuff you'd find on store shelves.

That's when I woke up and realized I was a 26 year old gay male living in an apartment. What the fuck?

I'll be selling a ton of books, providing a list here. I know that most of my readers are going to see the exact same thing on Maus' journal, but if you aren't subscribed to Maus' journal then you can see them here. I'll lj-cut them so you don't get redundant.

Take a look through them, they are VERY varied from technical (even obsolete) to fiction, and various non-fiction from text books to special interest.

Thanks,
Asher

I've had everything I've ever desired all this time and didn't know it.

Hi, I'm a furry first and foremost. If you have a problem with that, deal with it. I have SAD but I do like to meet new furs online, and people too. It's possible we might talk sometime IRL, like at a convention (if I can get myself to one... lack of funds.) I don't make friends easily, some people have told me that maybe I have aspergers. I do like animals, so... I don't know. My main interests are computers, the internet, movies, video games, furry, animals, religion, the venusian arts, and pokemon. As you can see they're pretty narrow, but they can cross over into each other. Unfortunately my love life is practically non-existent. It's rather difficult to have any kind of consummated relationship when you're gastrophobically afraid of being rejected in any possible way. That's what I like about the fandom, nobody cares who you are. That said, my standards are very low. I'm straight, and have no desire to experiment, unless you're in a fursuit. That way I don't see who it is. When it comes to the women I don't have sex with them unless I'm buddies with them first, like on my IM list or MySpace. I'd be willing to at least try and form a more deep relationship with just about anyone, as long as they aren't outside of my age range, don't have an STD, aren't married, aren't fat, don't smell funny, or have a terminal illness... those kinds of things say a lot about someone's character. It's more about me liking their personality. Continuing my family's genetic line is extremely important to me. My uncle has bipolar, I have SAD, my Mom has depression, and my sister has dislexya (I kinda have it too), and my Dad is a druggee with MPD, so what I really want is a normal family of my own. I'd try every other possibility imaginable before adopting, I couldn't imagine raising someone else's kid.

I feel as if I'm missing out on something in my life, it's the only feeling I have. There's a big difference between studying love and the venusian arts, and actually putting them into practice. I can be very emotional sometimes, like turn them off and on. People have found me to be a shoulder they can cry on, and friends are important to me even if they are only online. Maybe there's somebody out there for me... and someday they will come to me.

I just heard a young girl say that all artists should get or at least their songs should charge, etc. the same price for every song on iTunes because, and I quote, "Basing the price of something on an opinion is kind of strange."

Does anybody else see the same levels of wrong in this that I do?

Is there a way to view archives of your own activities and content on Facebook? Like in LJ, you can see ALL your past posts, in Facebook, is there a similar functionality for yourself and friends?

Is there a way to 'page back' on the newsfeed or make it longer?

I can't find it anywhere and it bothers me for various reasons to not be able to see that information tracked for the length of my account.

Just because you are alive doesn't mean you are clear from judgment. It is pitiful and pathetic that our culture has grown so afraid of publicly passing judgment or receiving it. This has only been helped by those ideologies that encourage some people to not make a judgment on anything or anybody. (How can a flawed mortal judge?) Some people today can't stand the idea of someone not liking them or telling them they are stupid, or bad... well they need to grow up. Just because someone thinks this of you or thinks that of you doesn't mean they are right, and it's better and more honest for you to know what they think and take that information and mull it over than the alternative. You may not agree with them, but that doesn't mean you can or have to change their mind.

What others think doesn't make up who you are.

What is a small person?

Is there a place for anger in the world?

Sometimes I have mood problems. This is what Maus must feel:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/hot-n-cold-lyrics-katy-perry.html

When has government stimulus ever actually helped the economy in the long run?

(It doesn't count when the government's stimulus leads to more government stimulus either: that's not 'helping' or 'boosting' the economy, that's just helping or boosting the government's position.)

I guess my vector artwork in Illustrator CS3 is really complex. On a new computer it just ran out of memory to copy, paste, or preview. Oh well, try again...

Lines of code
None will see
The anonymous
Legacies live

I know that Objectivists are not the most activist people. It is a broad statement, which of course is imprecise and possibly unfair. However, many Objectivists I know spend a lot of time bemoaning where the world is going, but do little to engage in the actual political process.

If we want to see things at least be questioned, or to have at least one person stand up and say, "Yes, but at the cost of whom or what? What ethical cost?" Then we as individuals need to get actively involved somewhere, even if it's in one committee in one organization important to us somewhere, it doesn't really matter.

Objectivists won't have a voice if all they do is complain.

(Yes, I know ARI and TOC *shudder* already do much of this.)