Planking! Woo Hoo!

[BeauV]

Oooooo very very cool!!!

Yes, a teak deck.

BTW, what are its scantlings??

BV

[GerryH]

This place gets fancier all the time!

I'm starting to feel like I'm gonna have to upgrade my wardrobe...

[BeauV]

This place gets fancier all the time!

I'm starting to feel like I'm gonna have to upgrade my wardrobe...

Thankfully, none of us uses video cameras.... yet.....

[GerryH]

Thankfully, none of us uses video cameras.... yet.....

Yet?

Thankfully, indeed!

[Ish]

I have one sitting here on top of my monitor looking at me. We have Skype sessions with far-flung friends and rellies.

I have no idea if everything I do here is viewed by someone/something somewhere. The little blue light comes on when it should.
So I pretty much ignore it. I do nothing in here I can be arrested for.

[BeauV]

I have one sitting here on top of my monitor looking at me. We have Skype sessions with far-flung friends and rellies.

I have no idea if everything I do here is viewed by someone/something somewhere. The little blue light comes on when it should.
So I pretty much ignore it. I do nothing in here I can be arrested for.

The little "blue light" is controlled by software, so lighting it up (or not) is a choice made by the application. I'd guess that Skype is pretty honest about what they "watch" and what they don't.

B-)

[GerryH]

I have one sitting here on top of my monitor looking at me. We have Skype sessions with far-flung friends and rellies.

I have no idea if everything I do here is viewed by someone/something somewhere. The little blue light comes on when it should.
So I pretty much ignore it. I do nothing in here I can be arrested for.

The little "blue light" is controlled by software, so lighting it up (or not) is a choice made by the application. I'd guess that Skype is pretty honest about what they "watch" and what they don't.

B-)

What software? My little blue light's controlled by the piece of duct tape I keep over it -- it and that creepy camera lens that's been eyeballing me since I got this fancy new computer.

Skype? Watching me? Of course they're not. I trust them completely.

Trust, but verify...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As6y5eI01XE[/youtube]

[BeauV]

Gerry,

You're right to use duct tape or something. I use a post-it. Years and years and years ago when SGI first put a video camera on our O2 computers it never occurred to us in management that the programmers would instantly figure out how to turn on the camera without the "blue light" indicating it was on... ah well. We had a "chat" with those programmers and encouraged them to work elsewhere after they had "filmed" a few things they shouldn't have and put them up in the Unix newsgroups.

So... here's an interesting mind experiment for those of you who are prone to paranoia. If you were a "bad guy" that some government wanted to track or listen to, and you owned a cellular phone, then it would be pretty trivial to listen to every word you say. Clearly a cellular phone's microphones are controlled by software - it's software that turns them on and off when you press a button or put your thumb on an icon on a screen. You do it every time you make a call. It is also clear that the software in your phone is delivered over the network when you get an "update" to your phone, or at the very least your phone's software is installed when the phone is built or updated. As a result it is obviously trivial to simply use the microphone and camera in a cell phone to "observe" and "listen to" whomever is around that particular phone.

I can't prove it, but I have tremendous faith that our various intelligence agencies have been "observing" and "listening to" all sorts of "bad guys" for many many years by simply using the software in the phone to turn on the microphone or the camera. A bunch of folks got their undies in a bunch because they thought Big Brother was watching where they were when GPS was forced into phones, and I'm sure they were right. But they seem utterly clue-less on how trivial it has been to listen and watch whatever a cellular phone can see and hear since the technology was first invented.

BV

[Ish]

For some reason, I don't find that even slightly reassuring.

I used to put a velcro wrap over the camera, then left it pointing at the wall when I'm not using it, then the current state of ignoring that little fucker.

[LarryHoward]

Having spent a few years in the electronic intelligence world, you can have more reassurance that the ability to collect data far exceeds the resources to review and analyze it. The biggest issue is how to know what to look for/listen to to key you to actually look at the stream of data going by. Key words, analysis of traffic (a spike in calls to Karachi from rural America might gather some attention, for example).

I don't worry that my mundane life will attract the attention of those who have the ability to "read my mail" as much as I worry about the larger ability of politically driven hacks from either extreme to misuse the system for unlawful ends. If you become a target of interest, then it would get interesting. Fast.

But we don't need a PA here....

[Soñadora]

wow...that's some serious topic drift there. ha! . That's one thing I love about forums.

[BeauV]

OK, I'm going back to Planking and Lettering - Rick the new color for the "SCANTLINGS" is great, goes well with the planking.

That said, shouldn't we have a few dents in the planking? After all this is a bunch of Cruising Sailors and we all drop the occasional pipe wrench on the deck

No more spy/politics/tech stuff for me....

BV

[Ish]

A missing bung or two, maybe a piece of fried chicken with a ring of grease around it tucked discreetly into a corner, for the purists.

[BeauV]

A missing bung or two, maybe a piece of fried chicken with a ring of grease around it tucked discreetly into a corner, for the purists.

Now we're talking - BEER STAINS! - Ya!

[Soñadora]

I know, I'll write a macro that will change it over time for each member. For new members, the'll get the newly finished stuff. Over time, it will start to turn gray. The caulk will come out in spots. Screw heads will show up. Dings, coffee rings, beer stains, fish blood, people blood, vomit....YEAH!

[GerryH]

I know, I'll write a macro that will change it over time for each member. For new members, the'll get the newly finished stuff. Over time, it will start to turn gray. The caulk will come out in spots. Screw heads will show up. Dings, coffee rings, beer stains, fish blood, people blood, vomit....YEAH!

That's an awesome idea, Rick.

The concept could go a lot of places -- would more posts make the deterioration speed up or slow down? "Good" posts v "bad"? On-topic v off?

Would we be able to get caulk and hardware and replacement planks at a decent price?

What if the rest of us found out the RWG's were paying someone to keep theirs nice?

[cap10ed]

What happened to the bikini clad women on the deck. My fantasy catamaran had them.

[RickB]

moving this to Off Topic as I am going to lock down the 'About' topic to read only for guests.