Security is a funny thing. On the one hand, you want to keep the bad people out. On the other, you want to be able to get in. This applies to passwords and cars. Fords often seem to come with punch-codes to get inside. I wonder if we’re going to start seeing more of that.

A recent topic around here has been the trustworthiness of cops. I think that relatively few cops will make something up to put someone they don’t believe to be guilty behind bars, but things like this are worrying and I suspect a lot more common. The good news for people like me (clean-cut, respectful to authority, no criminal record, white) is that I’m probably safe. It’s still unnerving.

Even though the stories themselves are dated and by today’s standards hokey, I find characters like Philip Marlowe charming in their own way.

Apple wants to sell TV shows to the iPad for a dollar. I wish them luck with that. As critical as I am of Apple on many things, one way that they really did everybody a service is by assisting in the transition of music from physical albums of ten to fourteen inseparable songs to downloads available at a cheaper price. Yeah, they came hobbled with DRM, but that was the baby step the record companies needed.

Speaking of Apple, David Coursey thinks “Just because I purchased an iPhone, doesn’t mean I elected Steve Jobs to rule my life.” He apparently didn’t read the contract. Having a manufacturer be the gatekeeper towards applications is all fine and dandy if you are on the right page. If you aren’t, however, you discover that it’s not a negotiation.

A part of me wonders if this sort of thing should be allowed to happen. It would be tough to write the law, but if someone creates a work and decides not to make it available to anybody, they should lose the rights to it. Creative minds and their bankrollers deserve to be compensated, but the point of such laws is to encourage the availability of art by compensating those responsible for making it. On the other hand, if you pass such a law, they’ll simply sell it for $1m a piece. So I guess it’s hard to have one without the other. On a sidenote, I can’t help but point out: $1.4m dollars that movie cost. That’s why I am pretty convinced that movie profits (far moreso than book or music) need to be protected.

Small cities are losing their luster. Those that believe everybody should live in Manhattan rejoice. The place we lived in Deseret nearly qualified as a “small city” as did the place where I worked in Deseret and in Estacado. They’re nice places, but large cities are where the jobs are. Even if you get a job offer in a small city, you would have to move knowing that your chances of finding another job if you’re laid off are more limited. I needed my job in Deseret in a way that I never needed any particular job in Colosse. The article also cites the problem that people often move to the small cities and want to pull up the ladder. I’m reminded of people that move to the exurbs of Colosse because of all the space and peace and quiet and then are shocked when others want to do the same and before you know it they’re having to build bigger roads.

Men are allegedly more aware of what arouses them than women. This fits into so many stereotypes as to be ridiculous.

The NCAA is seeking to implement what they’re calling The Tebow Rule. Tim Tebow is the Florida quarterback that put Bible versus on the eye-black below his eyes. Other players, including one at my alma mater, do the same with Bible versus. Some players put other things like their home area code, zip code, or school logo. The NCAA has decided this qualifies as “taunting”. That they came to this decision right after Tebow – a spectacular player – left is not a coincidence. I am more aggravated by what I perceive to be special treatment than I should be. A more benign explanation is that by waiting for the most high-profile player doing it to graduate, they’ve saved themselves accusations of being anti-Christian.

The Big Money has an article about how the private investigation business is suffering in light of the many ways that suspicious spouses can investigate for themselves whether or not their spouse is having an affair. It’s an interesting article made a little humorous by the front-and-center ad to take classes from Boston University to become… a PI. Tangentially, I would have thought that BU would be above such things.

Oops.