germ phobia: Bloom
work/family balance: Dragonsbane, Caught in Crystal
assertiveness: Ella Enchanted
overeating: Consider Phlebas
compulsive gambling: Last Call
crisis of faith: Apocalypse Door
pet-raising: Her Majesty's Dragon
paranoia: Liane the Wayfarer
(These recommendations are provided with NO WARRANTY, not even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR PURPOSE, to the extent provided by law.)
@1: Fortunately, they also keep a complete archive of Othar's twitter, in convenient reading order (just scroll down a bit).
The first few storylines are silly and great fun. The latest one has turned unexpectedly poignant, touches on main continuity, and is just fascinating...
@42: I take it that your (2) is referring to the "secure" attribute that one can set on cookies, but apparently no-one ever does? I have seen it claimed that if you check that "use https:// only" box in gmail that it actually *will* set that attribute on its login cookie, which would protect at least your gmail account against the attack you're referring to. I can't check for myself because I don't have a standard gmail account.
If it's true, though (anyone want to check?), then it does mean that for the best security you need both a Firefox extension that forces your connections to https (Better Gmail or CustomizeGoogle), *and* to check the box in your Gmail settings tab. Either will protect you against a passive listener (someone sitting and listening to your unencrypted wireless connection), but only the extension will protect you against an active man-in-the-middle (someone who convinced you to connect to their nefarious wireless access point) stealing your password when you try to check your mail, and only the settings tab option will protect you against that same active attacker from stealing your "remember me on this computer" access to gmail when you try to view some other non-gmail site entirely.
Still won't help with LJ etc., though.
There's another very large discussion of this at DKos from a few days ago, when the story came out.
To save reading 500+ comments, the most optimistic interpretation that anyone there came up with was: seating at these events is generally first come, first serve; to sit close you have to be one of the first few thousand to arrive, and those people get screened. The rest, well, you might be able to get a weapon in, but you try pulling off a tricky shot at a few hundred yards when surrounded by people who will tackle you the instant they see the gun. (And that's the other attendees, not the Secret Service agents monitoring the crowd.) And close-up interactions (signature lines, etc.) are handled by the "if you reach into your coat suspiciously you find yourself up against a wall with your head spinning" method.
Or that's the theory, anyway. Is this the real reasoning that the Secret Service has been using? It's consistent with their claim that they planned to check some attendees and not others, but -- we'll probably never know. Is it good security? In terms of whether it protects the candidates, I have no idea; I'm not sure who I would actually trust to tell me yes or no. In terms of whether it makes us feel safe and trust that things are under control... obviously not.
Still, thought I'd mention the counter-argument, since our host has done such a good job of laying out the other side.
Some might also appreciate this comment, though of course there's no way to confirm it either.
>>Guns on campus. Right. Students have enough problems as it is.
>Oh, I don't know. Might help to cut down on sexual harrassment of students by faculty, if the students have guns :-)
I know this was meant as a joke, and that's cool... but on the serious side, I'd also like to observe that speaking as a graduate student/teaching assistant/hopeful eventual professor... the day the students start carrying guns to class is the day I stop showing up for work. We see hundreds of kids coming through every year, and most are great! But a regular part of the job is dealing with that portion of students who are distraught, or are frustrated, or are machiavellian jerks attempting to systematically lie and cheat their way through life, or believe that you and your grading scheme have irrecoverably destroyed their life and that the only option they have left is to convince you to make an exception -- whatever that takes. (In some cases they might even be right, though someone who's just spent 60 hours straight swigging stimulants and cramming is perhaps not to be relied on to accurately judge the big picture.)
Swapping crazy student stories is a staple of academic folklore. Sometimes they make outright threats. You can't close an office door or give a crying student a hug, then they have the option of accusing you of harassment. We pass on stories of the cases where frustrated students really *have* shot professors, thesis advisors...
I'm not trying to paint a picture of college teachers under siege -- it's not like we sit around all day fretting about this stuff. But may I just add a fervent "me too" to the not-giving-students-guns consensus?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 3 |
| 2008 | 2 |
| 2007 | 1 |
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