Is the sacrifice worth it?

I miss writing about technology, privacy and security.

During WWII people gave up so much (silk and such) for the war effort in order to fight a semi-tangible enemy (at least one that had a specific geo-political border). I guess it’s only fair to give up something intangible for something intangible (Terror, Drugs…).

Yet how do you know when the war is over? When do the rations stop?

Hymens and Semen

No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime. Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate, it will ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable. Its easy to use, clinically proven non-toxic to human and has no side effects, no pain to use, no allergic reaction.

Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate, it will ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groan, you will pass through undetectable.

Main causes of hymen tore or break:

• Strenuous exercise (Gymnastics, sports, martial art, horse riding, etc)
• Premarital Sex
• Childhood accident (Hard object)
• Wearing a tampon for the first time

Made in Japan.
Expire: 2 years.

How to use:

• Open the package and rub on the artificial hymen, then carefully put into the vagina. If vaginal is dry, dip the artificial hymen to water and then put it into the vagina as quickly as you can.
• Place inside vagina 15-20 minutes before intercourse
• Finally, cleans the vulva after having sexual intercourse.

The best thing is that it’s cheaper the more you buy. So if you need to slut it up with…people who actually want their girl to bleed and look in pain the first time they have sex (because of some tissue flap, not for BDSM reasons)..then you might as well buy in bulk!

Qty	Pricing (for each)
1	USD 14.90
2	USD 13.90
3	USD 12.90

I wonder if virginity becomes a precious commodity in this recession. I mean, it would make sense that’s it’s ever more precious considering how sex-saturated (although sexually neurotic and unfulfilled) we are.

Speaking of sex. Semen has mind-control properties. You should read the full article, but I’ll post some enticing snippets.

“The more a woman has sex with her partner, the more committed she becomes, and the less attracted she is to other men — at least in the short-term. I blogged about this study several weeks ago”

“I describe a fascinating study at SUNY Albany that found that, yes, women who are regularly exposed to their partner’s semen are less depressed than women who use condoms most of the time. Hormones and proteins are absorbed through the vagina, enter the bloodstream, and possibly breach the blood-brain barrier.”

“Millons of homecrafters face bankruptcy after Jan 20 from new law”

The January 20 2009 deadline for millions of American homecrafters to object to a new law requiring expensive testing of their products, is approaching fast. Child-products without certificates proving they have no lead content, will have to be scrapped.

The new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – passed hastily to bar poisonous foreign products – also will require millions of American homecrafters to have each of their products tested at huge cost, ranging from $500 to $4000 per product – including their old stock which was manufactured before this law had even been thought up.

No more selling old things on eBay or Craigslist…
And all the products sold on eBay or Craigslist will also require such certificates of compliance or they will be breaking the law. Also affected: millions of charities, which will no longer be able to accept donations without a certificate of compliance. And this certificate can only be obtained through expensive testing by an SCPC-accredited laboratory.” Without such certificates, billions of dollars worth of uncertified children’s products will have to be destroyed because they can’t be legally sold without an CPSI-certificate of compliance, and this will cause major environmental problems,” said Massachusetts campaigner Kiki Fluhr.

“Larger corporations that can afford testing will incur thousands, maybe millions of dollars in fees, and this expense will be handed down to the consumer, probably making the prices for children’s products go through the roof.” Fluhr: “This law will put thousands of manufacturers of children’s products out of business -hurting our economy and causing even more loan defaults. Though this legislation was well-intentioned, it cannot be allowed to stand.”

“This law affects every stay at home mom trying to help put food on the table and every grandmother knitting blankets for the local craft fair. It makes the thousands of us who have found a niche in the burgeoning handmade market have to make a tough decision – continue to produce items illegally and possible incur a $100,000 fine, or close up shop and maybe not be able to pay the mortgage this month….”

That really sucks. What will wonderful websites like Etsy do? Why are we trying to kill off small-time artisans..especially with this economy? Is our land really the land of the corporate?

Gosh. I used to buy diy items on Ebay all the time. Special little items that someone else used and can now sell to me rather than throwing it away.This will only encourage people to buy new products rather than invest less money in more durable items. No more hand-me-downs. No more individual craftsartists.

This really makes everything seem so bleak. If it’s not factory-mass-produced, you can’t have it. What a crazy monopoly that we are presenting to large businesses. I’m rather distraught about this. If you click on the above link to the article there is a petition you can sign. As useful as that is.

Golly gee, can you imagine a black market for used products? People trying to sell their hand-made soap and jewelry? We could write dystopias on this.

But again, it’s not just the trouble of having a harder time consuming cheaply…charities are affected. I remember before I left England we randomly found a soup kitchen workshop and we asked them where we could donate our clothes and blankets since I can’t take them with me. She told us to bring them over tomorrow, they’d wash them for us. It was nice just to pack bookbags of clothes, blankets and other trinkets and give them to an organization directly.

The law isn’t evil, it’s trying to protect. Yet within this protection there is an excess. Sure we’re trying to keep people safe, but within the zealotry people get hurt, small businesses suffer, small people who can’t even count as a small business suffer.

Higher Education: Only For Those High Up on the Social Foodchain

The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

“When we come out of the recession,” Mr. Callan added, “we’re really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.”

I posted this link in my Facebook, but I figured it should be addressed here as well. So I’m glad I’m getting my degree now, considering that I went to this college based solely on financial aid. I’m barely affording it as is.

The future of Gattaca is sadly, not too far off.

But then again, 17 out of 23 people in my cyberpolitics class are on the way to become millionaires. One girl in my group was determined to make 10 million. I’m sure someone else raised their hand as well. I guess they don’t have much to worry about.

What the people forced into virtual colleges because commuting to college has gotten impossible due to high gas prices? Virtual education is inferior. It’s not the same as a campus classroom, with established professors.

So higher education is on the way to once more being only for the affluent?

I wonder how many more girls will dance their way to afford tuition?

Streams of Contention

Class observations 9.18.08

1.-Anything that the producer which brought us technology (technology is a good thing that we like), thus, anything else that they do must be good as well. Even surveillance.

2.-Students ask someone to justify why they want privacy – rather than ask themselves, or others, why companies have the right to see your private information?

It is illegal to read mail, why is alright for other information to be public?

3.-The problem is who the information is sold to. Between you and gmail is okay – but you have no idea who else knows–who Google is sharing with. Who they are giving your information to. Foreign companies?

How do companies interpret your data? How are you marketed to other companies or government?

They can manipulate data – they can change what you’ve said – re-writing history.

They can blackmail and condemn you. They can fabricate evidence. “Here! You said this then!!”

While we are not there yet, it is not a far cry. It is like someone forging your signature on a terrorist letter.

4.-Why can’t the internet be a private zone? Does it all have to be public? Things can change. What are the boundaries of privacy? Are there any? Should there be any?

It is a false choice in being able to avoid digital enclosure. You have to be privatized and owned before you can participate. You are forced to “have access,” and thus be controlled and manipulated. You get publicly ostracized by people. This is what is known as self-policing. We are personally corralling ourselves into private enclosures that we have no rights, no privacy and very little power or information in. We are doing the job for the companies. We are marketing ourselves.

Digital enclosure means privatization. You cannot opt out. The farmers did not have a choice in the industrial era, just like we do now. The difference is the lack of physical temporal space that is making us slower to realize the power that we are giving out.

“To escape the cage, you must first be able to see the bars” (adapted from Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn).

On an unrelated note; I wonder if the people who make the arguement “I have nothing to hide, I’m not a freak, look at everything I am doing”–I wonder if they have some true weird exhibitionist fetish. The rest of us with normal kinks and fetishes want them to be private, and they are supposedly the freaky perverted ones, but what if the “I’m open to all! Look at me!..I mean..I’m innocent and sweet and have nothing to hide”–what if they are the super perverted ones? The ones that get off on people, lots of anonymous, and (maybe with a daddy complex) corporations, government and other authority figures looking over them and monitoring them…watching and knowing everything about them?