Author: Mark Draughn
CREEPING TOTALITARIANISM DEPT.
Beating Customs Agents With Your Laptop
[Excuse me while I rant…] I’ve never been out of the country, so I’ve never had to deal with the U.S. Customs Service (or whatever self-important name these tax collectors are using lately), but I hate the whole organization on principle anyway because they’re a bunch of weasels who insist on conducting unjustified searches of United… Read more
CREEPING TOTALITARIANISM DEPT.
1984: Social Media Edition
In George Orwell’s famous distopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the most oppressive features of his totalitarian world is the ubiquitous surveillance. Every public place—and every private room as well—is always being monitored through a massive network of two-way video cameras called telescreens. Do anything that angered the tyrannical regime of Big Brother and a… Read more
PHOTOGRAPHY DEPT.
Story of a Photo – Texting While Driving
The New York Times has up a story about distracted driving and cell phones. I only skimmed the story—I’m skeptical about the issue, but I don’t know enough to really have an opinion—because I was looking at the picture. Radley Balko had pointed it out in a passing comment: I’m trying to figure out how… Read more
SCATTERSHOT DEPT.
Scattershot 2009-07-20
Random shots around the web: Obama cuts major weapons system from military budget! Robots that can feed off of humans. That never ends well.* I’m a libertarian, but…uhh…too weird. Ouch. Ouch. A billionaire who wants to control the weather. That never ends well. Cool interview with Adam Savage of MythBusters. *Update: As my coblogger Gary points… Read more
DISCLOSURES DEPT.
Chitika
In my latest attempt to make blogging pay well enough to afford new camera equipment, I’ve started displaying Chitika search-targeted advertising. The cool thing about this is that all of you who read my blog regularly won’t be seeing any additional ads because of it. When somebody out there clicks on a link to Windypundit… Read more