I don't see any collusion dots when I browse the web. I don't see any ads either. Zero.
Of course, the addons I have tacked onto Firefox might have something to do with that (Adblock Plus, AdblockPlus Pop-up addon, BetterPrivacy, Certificate Patrol, Cookie Monster, Element Hiding Helper for Adblock, HTTPS Finder, HTTPS-everywhere, Ghostery, and NoScript).
I've been adding to my Adblock Plus filter list for about a year and a half as well.
I won't make the claim that I'm not being tracked by someone with more Kung Fu than me. But they're gonna have to work at it.
My school/work address has a pretty good spam filter anyway, but I have the option to disallow third parties from obtaining my email address via the university. Between those two, I get maybe 5 filtered messages a month in my junk email folder at school/work (same place).
At my own domain, I have my junk filter to blacklist any incoming address. I either read the message from the spam folder (without javascript and other nonsense), or if it's someone I want to hear from I whitelist the address (or domain). My spam folder has 650+ messages in it, 99% of which I never open.
I get a lot of work related status messages-- this server is down, so and so changed shifts, meetings or training coming up (although most meetings are just added to my calendar these days), new features added, etc. I have many of those filtered on the server because I really don't need to do anything with them when they come in.
It is rare that I need to reply to an email, and when I do it's usually a yes or no answer rather than a conversation. I think the last email conversation I had was in 2003. That's probably the last time I was on a non-work related high-traffic mailing list, too. Conversations now are via texting, Facebook, or Twitter; rarely by phone.
You're not supposed to read every email. I haven't done that in years. In an average day, I might read 5-6 messages. I scan subjects. Newsletters and such I read on the web, usually through Google Reader.
Author of TFA was either BS'ing to sell advertising space or BS'ing to get on/.
OR, the author of TFA is far enough behind the times that he still hasn't mastered this online communication thing yet. Perhaps he should ask his kids for help.
Yes, I have a Linked-In profile/account. It lists where I work, and that I'm in school. I haven't logged into my account for at least a year, and that was only because someone from work wanted to add me to their network. If Linked-In disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't lose anything and I wouldn't care.
Is the stock price worth it? Meh. I worked for a dot com the first time the bubble came around. The people that made money then were the founders, and the people/investment houses that had the resources to play the stock game. That Linked-In is (or is not) a product that people want to buy, is meaningless. Like ~11 years ago, those who held private stock are now rich. Those who know how to work the stock market will make money.
But what's Linked-In going to do for me as a user now that it's worth all this money? Not much.
It's fun to remember those days. I loved my Commodore 64, and later my PCjr (shush). Telehack is pretty cool.
Today I have a SSH app on my iPhone (green on black, of course). I have a dual-monitor Fedora 14 box on my desk, and next to that I have a HP DL380 dual Xeon server (both machines were retired as surplus). I also have a MacBook with OS X. I have DSL at home, and an orgasmically fast network available on campus which I can reach through a VPN. (I'm not counting the Arduino stuff, or the HP-16C calculator.)
I've never added it all up, but I've probably got more computing power in my backpack and pockets on a given day, than many ARPANET *sites* had back then.
Yes, I'm still pretty 0ld 5k00l- but damn, we have such nice toys now. I think I'll stay here. (Although I will confess to having wanted to click a 'Like' button on this article, I'm so used to Facebook. I'll hang my head in shame and report to the dungeon for my flogging.)
You're right, no one looks at Facebook, and thinks "that's the Internet." That's because there is no such thing as an Internet to people who have never had to be without one.
When I was a "young person", and I wanted to talk to friends, I picked up the phone and dialed my friend's number. It didn't matter to me that there was a time when there was no phone system, or that you once had party lines. I picked up, dialed the phone, it rang, and we talked. Then we hung up. We didn't care that there was a "phone system" and that there were "other applications" for it.
Now, if you're a "young person", you use Facebook to see what other people are up to, make plans, and see and comment on the results of things (aka photos). You use Youtube to share/watch/upload videos. You use Stumbleupon to, well, find stuff.
There is no "Internet" to these people, because there is no need to waste time thinking about it in order to use it. Back in the day, when it really was a challenge to get a home computer on the internet, and you had to call in and tie up the only phone line in the house-- then, the act of getting online actually involved doing something and involved thinking about something.
So no, there's no difference between Facebook and the Internet. It's "I'm seeing what my friends are doing."
Two semesters ago (as a student), I had a Calculus 3 class that was supposed to be in a "smart" classroom, complete with surround sound, projector, PC and Mac, automatically dimming lights, etc. Due to enrollment, the class got moved to a different classroom that had an old fashioned overhead projector and a blank space on the wall instead of a screen. The professor wanted to use the smart classroom, but we were ultimately stuck in the low tech "normal" classroom, so he printed his lecture notes (skeletal notes, which we filled in during the lectures in class) to transparencies, and uploaded the notes to Blackboard. (The main reason for wanting the smart classroom was being able to show graphs using Winplot and similar tools.)
I learned the material in that class from taking good notes, doing the homework, working with classmates, and reviewing the notes-- which I would have needed to do anyway. I never missed the "smart" stuff.
The same semester, I had a Zoology class that was in a smart classroom, and was based on Powerpoint presentations that included video clips and animations. Most of the time, the video presentations were distractions- they were meant to enhance the reading and lecture, but I never felt they did. Some of the animations (DNA replication) were useful, if they weren't longer than a couple of minutes. Again, I learned the most from taking good notes, reading the material, and working with other students.
On the student side of the class, I use a Livescribe Pulse Smartpen to record lectures along with my notes, and find that very useful-- but I leave my laptop in my bag.
Ham radio will not be more reliable than your cell phone, unless you are exceptionally lucky.
A 5W dualband (2m/70cm) handheld will possibly get you to a local repeater, if you are high enough up out of the trees and you don't have a mountain blocking your signal from reaching the repeater. Unfortunately, the only way to really test this is to be out in the boonies with your radio-- but often the groups that maintain repeaters will post coverage maps on their websites that will give you some idea.
The real problem is who will answer your call. I live in a medium sized city with 15 repeaters; unless there's a scheduled net going on, those repeaters are usually very quiet. I imagine that in the backcountry where there are fewer people, it follows that there would be fewer hams listening. If you're really going to consider ham radio as a backup plan, try to get in touch with local hams ahead of time and see who monitors what. It won't help you to be able to reach a repeater if no one's going to answer and be able to help you.
A portable HF radio might be a better option because you'll be able to reach more stations, but it will take more than a pound of space in your pack. You will also probably reach people who are far away from you are, and won't know local conditions (terrain, roads, landmarks, agencies), so it will be difficult for them to send the right help to the right place.
That being said, check out HFPack at http://www.hfpack.com; those guys play outside and take radios along. Also, the Burning Hams Mailing list at https://lists.burningman.com/mailman/listinfo/burningham-list is interesting to monitor, especially in the months leading up to Burning Man each year.
I saw someone post on slashdot once (or twice) that information wants to be free. Free the information from its tyrant captors! We need to share! People listened. They heard. They decided that yes, information should be free, and they decided that sharing and openness should apply to their lives in the form of social networking.
Zuck is saying that people want to share information about themselves, and he's right. If he were wrong, Facebook never would have left the dorm it was created in.
You don't have any privacy anyway. Even Slashdot tracks you using Coremetrics.
I save my documents as.doc/word files. The people I exchange documents with (professors, classmates, potential employers) all use Word. Most of them care about the Microsoft vs ODF issue about as much as they care that Alderaan was blown up by the Empire.
Let's hope your sense of dates like 6/6/06 (which, according to Gregory, is June 6, 2006) doesn't translate into any magick you try to do on that date. The way you're going you'll turn yourself into a hermaphroditic grue and end up floating in space with one of those pico satellites.
I already had RSS sections set up in My Yahoo (and Google, for that matter) that grabbed headlines from my local sources, so this isn't *that* big a deal. It is kinda nice that they included the local free alternative newspaper, usually those kinds of publications are just plain ignored. Also very cool that there's a "Suggest a local news source" link on the resulting page when you click on the "All local news from..." link.
Yeah, heading down the path towards information overload...
Apple already knows you bought such and such track. You clicked the Buy Now button next to a specific track so that you could download it. Ye Gods, the nerve of Apple, thinking that because you (may) own an iPod and (do) use iTunes, you may enjoy music enough that you'd consider purchasing more.
I got out of IT in 2000... because I was bought out of a contract, because I wasn't the greatest programmer in the world, and because there were 5,000 applicants for every vb/asp job that was advertised around here.
Now I work for an insurance company... in claims support, though, not in IT. My job now might not be as rockstar as working for a.com, but it's kinda nice to put my tasks away and leave at 4:30. It's also nice knowing the company has a good chance of still being solvent the next day.
Actually, iffn I can see through the haze of time (lost a few brain cells since then), I remember that MS-DOS 6 included antivirus software. Anyone remember how cool that was?
and here's why. If Microsoft gives you a basic port blocker and says "here. this isn't a network level firewall solution, but it will help a little", then it's not their fault that you were 0wned. It's your fault, because you're on a network that doesn't have proper security precautions. If Microsoft gives you a port blocker/firewall with some serious kung-fu, guarantees you're secure, and someone breaks it... then it's Microsoft's fault, 'cause they said it was secure. MS seems to care about its image with regard to security, anyway, which is an improvement...
of course, pcflank.com didn't find anything to worry about on my computer. then again, my computer's a mac... (no, I don't care about karma, do what ya gotta do)
Bill Gates says open source software isn't the way to go. Is this really a surprise to anyone? Hasn't he been saying the same thing since, oh, the 1970's? And does anyone really expect that he's going to ditch the business model that's made him a Billionaire?
I'm not a Gates fan either, but today must be a quiet news day.
Yes, you do want this. I just spent a year working a university help desk. The standard call went something like this:
Hi, I can't get on the internet.
Ok, do you know how to get your IP address?
Huh?
(10 minutes of nagivating user to ipconfig and finding the IP and mac addys)
Ok lets see... (looks up IP) you've been blocked from the network, probably because of a virus. Do you have McAfee (officially sanctioned product) installed?
Huh?
Have you ever run Windows Update?
Huh?
Oooooo-k. First thing you need to do is... (do I really need to finish the story?)
Now, multiply that single call by however many non-CS students you have, then multiply that by the number of silly viruses and worms that will hit your campus next year. Then consider that if you're at a small school, the IT staff there is going to be small as well. Automatic pushing of updates is a lot cheaper than sending a tech out to every computer. You keep up to date because you're a CS major who has a clue. The rest of the campus does not.
As far as privacy... repeat after me: the university does not care how much goat porn you have on your computer. I was at a decent sized school (~30k students). We had a large IT staff plus a crapload of student employees, and we barely had time to do our own work, much less go snooping around student's computers... unless there was a complaint from someone, and most of the time that involved copyright infringement and student web pages.
I will note that we didn't get too many calls from CS majors. There was one, but that's a whole other story;)
I still like gopher... for storing, sharing, and finding specific documents (papers, notes, etc) it's really handy. My users, on the other hand, wouldn't know what to do with anything that didn't involve a web browser.
quite a bit. At a previous employer, the department had a Newton that no one was using. I adopted it until I left, using it for everything from taking notes in class to keeping track of my schedule and tasks. The handwriting recognition did work, sort of, but it took a good six weeks of heavy use to get it really working smoothly.
I honestly wish I had outright stolen that Newton when I left.:|
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see any collusion dots when I browse the web. I don't see any ads either. Zero.
Of course, the addons I have tacked onto Firefox might have something to do with that (Adblock Plus, AdblockPlus Pop-up addon, BetterPrivacy, Certificate Patrol, Cookie Monster, Element Hiding Helper for Adblock, HTTPS Finder, HTTPS-everywhere, Ghostery, and NoScript).
I've been adding to my Adblock Plus filter list for about a year and a half as well.
I won't make the claim that I'm not being tracked by someone with more Kung Fu than me. But they're gonna have to work at it.
I don't get spam.
My school/work address has a pretty good spam filter anyway, but I have the option to disallow third parties from obtaining my email address via the university. Between those two, I get maybe 5 filtered messages a month in my junk email folder at school/work (same place).
At my own domain, I have my junk filter to blacklist any incoming address. I either read the message from the spam folder (without javascript and other nonsense), or if it's someone I want to hear from I whitelist the address (or domain). My spam folder has 650+ messages in it, 99% of which I never open.
I get a lot of work related status messages-- this server is down, so and so changed shifts, meetings or training coming up (although most meetings are just added to my calendar these days), new features added, etc. I have many of those filtered on the server because I really don't need to do anything with them when they come in.
It is rare that I need to reply to an email, and when I do it's usually a yes or no answer rather than a conversation. I think the last email conversation I had was in 2003. That's probably the last time I was on a non-work related high-traffic mailing list, too. Conversations now are via texting, Facebook, or Twitter; rarely by phone.
You're not supposed to read every email. I haven't done that in years. In an average day, I might read 5-6 messages. I scan subjects. Newsletters and such I read on the web, usually through Google Reader.
Author of TFA was either BS'ing to sell advertising space or BS'ing to get on /.
OR, the author of TFA is far enough behind the times that he still hasn't mastered this online communication thing yet. Perhaps he should ask his kids for help.
Yes, I have a Linked-In profile/account. It lists where I work, and that I'm in school. I haven't logged into my account for at least a year, and that was only because someone from work wanted to add me to their network. If Linked-In disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't lose anything and I wouldn't care.
Is the stock price worth it? Meh. I worked for a dot com the first time the bubble came around. The people that made money then were the founders, and the people/investment houses that had the resources to play the stock game. That Linked-In is (or is not) a product that people want to buy, is meaningless. Like ~11 years ago, those who held private stock are now rich. Those who know how to work the stock market will make money.
But what's Linked-In going to do for me as a user now that it's worth all this money? Not much.
It's fun to remember those days. I loved my Commodore 64, and later my PCjr (shush). Telehack is pretty cool.
Today I have a SSH app on my iPhone (green on black, of course). I have a dual-monitor Fedora 14 box on my desk, and next to that I have a HP DL380 dual Xeon server (both machines were retired as surplus). I also have a MacBook with OS X. I have DSL at home, and an orgasmically fast network available on campus which I can reach through a VPN. (I'm not counting the Arduino stuff, or the HP-16C calculator.)
I've never added it all up, but I've probably got more computing power in my backpack and pockets on a given day, than many ARPANET *sites* had back then.
Yes, I'm still pretty 0ld 5k00l- but damn, we have such nice toys now. I think I'll stay here. (Although I will confess to having wanted to click a 'Like' button on this article, I'm so used to Facebook. I'll hang my head in shame and report to the dungeon for my flogging.)
You're right, no one looks at Facebook, and thinks "that's the Internet." That's because there is no such thing as an Internet to people who have never had to be without one.
When I was a "young person", and I wanted to talk to friends, I picked up the phone and dialed my friend's number. It didn't matter to me that there was a time when there was no phone system, or that you once had party lines. I picked up, dialed the phone, it rang, and we talked. Then we hung up. We didn't care that there was a "phone system" and that there were "other applications" for it.
Now, if you're a "young person", you use Facebook to see what other people are up to, make plans, and see and comment on the results of things (aka photos). You use Youtube to share/watch/upload videos. You use Stumbleupon to, well, find stuff.
There is no "Internet" to these people, because there is no need to waste time thinking about it in order to use it. Back in the day, when it really was a challenge to get a home computer on the internet, and you had to call in and tie up the only phone line in the house-- then, the act of getting online actually involved doing something and involved thinking about something.
So no, there's no difference between Facebook and the Internet. It's "I'm seeing what my friends are doing."
See?
Two semesters ago (as a student), I had a Calculus 3 class that was supposed to be in a "smart" classroom, complete with surround sound, projector, PC and Mac, automatically dimming lights, etc. Due to enrollment, the class got moved to a different classroom that had an old fashioned overhead projector and a blank space on the wall instead of a screen. The professor wanted to use the smart classroom, but we were ultimately stuck in the low tech "normal" classroom, so he printed his lecture notes (skeletal notes, which we filled in during the lectures in class) to transparencies, and uploaded the notes to Blackboard. (The main reason for wanting the smart classroom was being able to show graphs using Winplot and similar tools.)
I learned the material in that class from taking good notes, doing the homework, working with classmates, and reviewing the notes-- which I would have needed to do anyway. I never missed the "smart" stuff.
The same semester, I had a Zoology class that was in a smart classroom, and was based on Powerpoint presentations that included video clips and animations. Most of the time, the video presentations were distractions- they were meant to enhance the reading and lecture, but I never felt they did. Some of the animations (DNA replication) were useful, if they weren't longer than a couple of minutes. Again, I learned the most from taking good notes, reading the material, and working with other students.
On the student side of the class, I use a Livescribe Pulse Smartpen to record lectures along with my notes, and find that very useful-- but I leave my laptop in my bag.
Ham radio will not be more reliable than your cell phone, unless you are exceptionally lucky.
A 5W dualband (2m/70cm) handheld will possibly get you to a local repeater, if you are high enough up out of the trees and you don't have a mountain blocking your signal from reaching the repeater. Unfortunately, the only way to really test this is to be out in the boonies with your radio-- but often the groups that maintain repeaters will post coverage maps on their websites that will give you some idea.
The real problem is who will answer your call. I live in a medium sized city with 15 repeaters; unless there's a scheduled net going on, those repeaters are usually very quiet. I imagine that in the backcountry where there are fewer people, it follows that there would be fewer hams listening. If you're really going to consider ham radio as a backup plan, try to get in touch with local hams ahead of time and see who monitors what. It won't help you to be able to reach a repeater if no one's going to answer and be able to help you.
A portable HF radio might be a better option because you'll be able to reach more stations, but it will take more than a pound of space in your pack. You will also probably reach people who are far away from you are, and won't know local conditions (terrain, roads, landmarks, agencies), so it will be difficult for them to send the right help to the right place.
That being said, check out HFPack at http://www.hfpack.com; those guys play outside and take radios along. Also, the Burning Hams Mailing list at https://lists.burningman.com/mailman/listinfo/burningham-list is interesting to monitor, especially in the months leading up to Burning Man each year.
I saw someone post on slashdot once (or twice) that information wants to be free. Free the information from its tyrant captors! We need to share! People listened. They heard. They decided that yes, information should be free, and they decided that sharing and openness should apply to their lives in the form of social networking.
Zuck is saying that people want to share information about themselves, and he's right. If he were wrong, Facebook never would have left the dorm it was created in.
You don't have any privacy anyway. Even Slashdot tracks you using Coremetrics.
I save my documents as .doc/word files. The people I exchange documents with (professors, classmates, potential employers) all use Word. Most of them care about the Microsoft vs ODF issue about as much as they care that Alderaan was blown up by the Empire.
Let's hope your sense of dates like 6/6/06 (which, according to Gregory, is June 6, 2006) doesn't translate into any magick you try to do on that date. The way you're going you'll turn yourself into a hermaphroditic grue and end up floating in space with one of those pico satellites.
;)
Which... may not be a bad thing...
Doesn't matter what you do to the CSS, there's still no replacement for the JenniCam slashbox option.
*sigh*
I already had RSS sections set up in My Yahoo (and Google, for that matter) that grabbed headlines from my local sources, so this isn't *that* big a deal. It is kinda nice that they included the local free alternative newspaper, usually those kinds of publications are just plain ignored. Also very cool that there's a "Suggest a local news source" link on the resulting page when you click on the "All local news from..." link.
Yeah, heading down the path towards information overload...
Apple already knows you bought such and such track. You clicked the Buy Now button next to a specific track so that you could download it. Ye Gods, the nerve of Apple, thinking that because you (may) own an iPod and (do) use iTunes, you may enjoy music enough that you'd consider purchasing more.
I got out of IT in 2000... because I was bought out of a contract, because I wasn't the greatest programmer in the world, and because there were 5,000 applicants for every vb/asp job that was advertised around here.
.com, but it's kinda nice to put my tasks away and leave at 4:30. It's also nice knowing the company has a good chance of still being solvent the next day.
Now I work for an insurance company... in claims support, though, not in IT. My job now might not be as rockstar as working for a
Splitting up the internet sounds like a great idea.
Let's start with those idiots from Nigeria and their email scams.
...historicity...? That sounds like something George W. Bush would come up with.
I just hop in the time machine, set the destination for 1972, and when I get there I use my trusty Cap'n Crunch whistle.
(laff. happy new year.)
Actually, iffn I can see through the haze of time (lost a few brain cells since then), I remember that MS-DOS 6 included antivirus software. Anyone remember how cool that was?
Didn't think so.
and here's why. If Microsoft gives you a basic port blocker and says "here. this isn't a network level firewall solution, but it will help a little", then it's not their fault that you were 0wned. It's your fault, because you're on a network that doesn't have proper security precautions. If Microsoft gives you a port blocker/firewall with some serious kung-fu, guarantees you're secure, and someone breaks it... then it's Microsoft's fault, 'cause they said it was secure. MS seems to care about its image with regard to security, anyway, which is an improvement...
of course, pcflank.com didn't find anything to worry about on my computer. then again, my computer's a mac... (no, I don't care about karma, do what ya gotta do)
I'm not a Gates fan either, but today must be a quiet news day.
Yes, you do want this. I just spent a year working a university help desk. The standard call went something like this:
Now, multiply that single call by however many non-CS students you have, then multiply that by the number of silly viruses and worms that will hit your campus next year. Then consider that if you're at a small school, the IT staff there is going to be small as well. Automatic pushing of updates is a lot cheaper than sending a tech out to every computer. You keep up to date because you're a CS major who has a clue. The rest of the campus does not.
As far as privacy... repeat after me: the university does not care how much goat porn you have on your computer. I was at a decent sized school (~30k students). We had a large IT staff plus a crapload of student employees, and we barely had time to do our own work, much less go snooping around student's computers... unless there was a complaint from someone, and most of the time that involved copyright infringement and student web pages.
I will note that we didn't get too many calls from CS majors. There was one, but that's a whole other story
I still like gopher... for storing, sharing, and finding specific documents (papers, notes, etc) it's really handy. My users, on the other hand, wouldn't know what to do with anything that didn't involve a web browser.
My PCjr is happily humming along, connected via serial cable to one of my linux boxen. Makes a handy terminal with printer.
...or is that the *shortest* article I've ever read? Sheesh, the copyright is almost longer than the content.
;)
OK, I'm trolling. Get over it.
quite a bit. At a previous employer, the department had a Newton that no one was using. I adopted it until I left, using it for everything from taking notes in class to keeping track of my schedule and tasks. The handwriting recognition did work, sort of, but it took a good six weeks of heavy use to get it really working smoothly.
:|
I honestly wish I had outright stolen that Newton when I left.