Big Brother starts new job at Comcast

It seems that there is always someone out there trying to prove just how prophetic George Orwell was.  This week's recipient of the Big Brother Award is Comcast Corporation, aka Network 23, in honor of their new idea to improve customer experience by adding cameras to set top boxes (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2124).  Yes, they assure us that this will not be used to watch us, it will just allow the box to know who is in the room so that it can adjust the program selections to suit the viewer.  And no, it won't use facial recognition, the idea is apparently to "distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms."  Gee, that makes me feel much better.

It is amusing to speculate on just who came up with the idea of adding this technology to a set top box.  Personally, I favor the idea of a group of NeoCons sitting around with some buddies from the NSA at a watering hole in DC near closing time.  They are well juiced, and trying to one up each other with the best way to bring about the final collapse of any form of privacy in the US.  One of the group is so impressed with their comedic abilities that he writes down the most absurd idea of all, a technically feasible way to implement exactly...and let me emphasize, we are talking direct from the novel to your living room, rec room and bedroom, or wherever else you might put a cable TV controller...what Mr. Orwell described as the method by which the mythical Big Brother instilled fear of even thinking in private into the populace.  Exactly how that note got forwarded on to Comcast as a product idea is, of course, food for further amusing speculation.  

Perhaps Comcast is jealous of the Telcos for getting their own special Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card from the Bush administration, and wants to join the club of big-time privacy violators.  This would certainly put them in line to give George Bush, the NSA, and Dick Cheney a direct view into your home.  I can just see Dick (scratch that...I can just imagine him, because he doesn't have one of these boxes yet) sitting in front of a wall of monitors at the Vice Presidential mansion, taking notes on who's been naughty, and adding them to the special rendition schedule for next week.  They will need more contractors for this operation!

I knew there was a reason I canceled cable TV.  Now I need to make sure I've dug up that cable all the way out to the property line.

Handwriting in the 21st Century - Or why some Brits bemoan the death of culture

The BBC reports today on the important topic of how the teaching of handwriting is being neglected in modern schools (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7262873.stm). This, it seems, is the real cause behind most of our world problems, connected it would seem to the intellectual fuzziness which now envelops the modern world, and the children thereof.

Now, I'm fairly certain that there are not a whole lot of textbooks, newspapers, magazines, music books, billboards, traffic signs, instruction manuals, web pages, or the like which are written out longhand. That is why I questioned my children's teachers a few years back when they were insisting that my children would learn faster and be better students if they learned a sort of half-script half-text amalgam called "D'Nealian Script" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D). I also seriously doubt that learning to carefully sculpt one's characters is either the only, or even necessarily the best method by which to help children practice their legitimately important small motor skills. In fact, there are a number of other possibilities (sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting, weaving, typing, and so many more) which I recall from my school days as all being included in my education.

Of course, I personally have lousy, ugly handwriting, so I am almost certainly biased on the topic. Had I learned better handwriting as a child I might well not be saddled by the intellectual limitations which now hamper my ability to express myself. No doubt my brain is simply overwhelmed by the task of typing on this keyboard since I cannot adequately frame my thoughts.

While they are at it, they probably need to re institute other essential skills training in order to prepare youth for life in the twenty-first century. Equestrian skills are sadly lacking in modern youth. How do they ever expect to see life outside their own village if they cannot even ride their horse to the next? And how do they expect to defend their home and country without adequate practice with the longbow and sword? I could go on, but you've already gotten the point.