Privacy

Google is changing their privacy policy March 2012. The version I read last night clearly stated that Google could and would use your mobile number to track your location, the time and duration of calls, and forwarding numbers. Google claims this is to enhance your google experience.

The version I read after logging into blogger today was different. Here is the bit about the phone, worded in such a way that is quite vague:

◦Log information When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we may automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include: ■details of how you used our service, such as your search queries. ■telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing information and types of calls. ■Internet protocol address. ■device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL. ■cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account.

I refer to "telephony log information" bullet above.

Yahoo has also changed their privacy policy.
Yahoo has changed holding your search query information from 3 months to 18 months. Non-search related information they are currently holding indefinitely:

Q: Why is Yahoo! changing its user log data retention policy?A: To meet the needs of our consumers for innovation, personalization and relevance, Yahoo! is aligning our log file data retention policy closer to the competitive norm across the industry. We will no longer apply a 90-day retention policy to raw search logs or other log file data and will instead hold raw search log files for 18 months prior to anonymization. As for non-search data, we removed the current 90-day retention period for these log files as we re-examine the right policy going forward that allows us to meet consumer demand for richer, more deeply personal experiences in our products.

I wonder how many consumers really want our privacy violated by multi million dollar corporations who assure that it is for our own enjoyment? Ha-ha.

January

January

"Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, and a scarred or crooked oak will tell of the act for centuries to come. So it is with the teachings of youth, which make impressions on the mind and heart that are to last forever.

The highest function of the teacher consists not so much in imparting knowledge as in stimulating the pupil in its love and pursuit.

To know how to suggest is the art of teaching."

Henri Fredric Amiel

Happy Hallowe'en

Are You Kidding Me?

"Forgive them Lord for they know not what they have done."

Her I Love You

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Pablo Neruda

An August Midnight

I

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

II

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
- My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

Thomas Hardy

Dry

Out in the field running new fence line on a July day
bright electric dry clouds wispy high
against a sky the color of a robin's egg

insects with a high dry sound
yes that's how I would describe
high and dry, rasping dry legs

dry grass makes me think of a cold dry day in January
when the snow sifting through the trees looks like little diamonds

and I breathe in your essence
the essence of eternity.

Tree

Baby Raccoons

We live in such a beautiful habitat I suspect we may be a drop off site for orphaned baby wildlife via the local Wildlife rehab.

So far this year I have seen a teeny baby porcupine I actually went up to because I thought it was a black kitten, a single baby raccoon, and now three orphaned raccoons that have discovered that the poultry grain in the goose pen is delicious.

We watched them return late afternoon across the goat pasture, through the goat pen and a small hole in the fence as if they belonged there. One even sat in the goose dish.

We could get within a few feet of them.

So we put out an extra dish of food and the dog let them know they aren't really welcome here, so hopefully they'll move downstream as they mature and stay clear of coon hunters.

All things swept sole away

All things swept sole away
This -- is immensity --

Emily Dickinson