Moaners

[firehazard]

Dear Companies:

Just because "social networking" is suddenly all trendy you are NOT required to graft it onto your products. Making a car "tweet" (I much prefer the term "twat," but it just has not caught on) may be a entertaining hack for someone to do in their garage, but it NOT something I want in a future vehicle. I also don't want it in coffee machines or refrigerators or televisions.

Please, stop. K?

I always quite liked the interactive lifts, drinks machines etc. in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reality has so far proved to be less interesting and less fun. Like almost all visions of the future, sadly.

[firehazard]

Lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of rain here since St Swithin's Day (see What Song Are You Listening To thread), I started building a shed a couple of days ago, with the help of a neighbour. As soon as we'd got halfway through it, it started pouring. Half-built shed is now disintegrating into a soggy heap of cheap substandard bits of wood and chipboard. That'll teach me.

[Clash Cadillac]

Lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of rain here since St Swithin's Day (see What Song Are You Listening To thread), I started building a shed a couple of days ago, with the help of a neighbour. As soon as we'd got halfway through it, it started pouring. Half-built shed is now disintegrating into a soggy heap of cheap substandard bits of wood and chipboard. That'll teach me.

Material compatibility with the environment, down to the last nut and bolt, is a crucial aspect of any project or you could jusy buy a plastic tarp...

[KathleenwithaK]

Please, stop. K?

What did I ever do to you?

Sheesh...

[MissWalshy]

Please, stop. K?

What did I ever do to you?

Sheesh...

I hear you Dz ! - I mumble something similar to yourself regularly about herself..

[DzM]

There is a trend in web site construction to embed things in web pages that somehow track users and produce statistics. These used to be simple hit counters, sometimes they were small images (usually 1x1 pixel transparent GIF images, or sometimes a small smiling face). More recently these have taken the form of JavaScript that gets executed on page load (these very Medusa pages make use of the Google Hegemony's "Google Analytics" service). So what's new and sexy in the world of panopticon omnipresent user tracking? Facebook! Yay, Facebook!

As you cruise around the Internet these days you will see more and more of those "Like" buttons with a Facebook logo next to ... well ... things. And stuff. And these offend me because are allowing Facebook (a company with a proven track record of not giving a crap about your privacy) to follow your movements around the web.

The "Like" button is gathered via a URL that looks something like this:

Code: Select all

http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dnalounge.com%2Fbackstage%2Flog%2F2010%2F07%2F22.html&layout=button_count&show_faces=false&action=like&font=arial&colorscheme=dark&width=80&height=20

That URL tells your browser to ask Facebook for an image (the button), and your browser will happily ask Facebook for the image, provide the meta data (in that URL, information about the DNA Lounge in San Francisco), AND send your Facebook cookies back to Facebook. Without your knowledge or permission Facebook now knows that you have an interest in whatever-the-hell web sites you happened to just randomly be clicking around on that include their "Like" buttons. That data gets quietly added to your Facebook data profile (not your page, but the "picture" of "you" that Facebook has and can sell).

One could argue that this isn't much different than what the Google Hegemony does with Analytics, or the half-dozen other services that doe the same thing. That's the point. This is a growing trend, and I don't like it. I don't want a person following every step that I take in the physical world, and I don't want someone doing that in the virtual world either. The profile that defines "me" is mine, and I resent that these companies are blithely and indiscriminately helping themselves to it.

Damn kids. Why are they still on my lawn?

[Heather]

I'm very grumpy this morning because I've got no ciggies and Jake kept waking me up in the night.

There are also workmen on the roof of the house at the end of the road and one of them is using the loudest drill in the world. Wish he'd turn the bleedin' thing off.

[Sportin' Life]

There is a trend in web site construction to embed things in web pages that somehow track users and produce statistics. These used to be simple hit counters, sometimes they were small images (usually 1x1 pixel transparent GIF images, or sometimes a small smiling face). More recently these have taken the form of JavaScript that gets executed on page load (these very Medusa pages make use of the Google Hegemony's "Google Analytics" service). So what's new and sexy in the world of panopticon omnipresent user tracking? Facebook! Yay, Facebook!

As you cruise around the Internet these days you will see more and more of those "Like" buttons with a Facebook logo next to ... well ... things. And stuff. And these offend me because are allowing Facebook (a company with a proven track record of not giving a crap about your privacy) to follow your movements around the web.

The "Like" button is gathered via a URL that looks something like this:

Code: Select all

http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dnalounge.com%2Fbackstage%2Flog%2F2010%2F07%2F22.html&layout=button_count&show_faces=false&action=like&font=arial&colorscheme=dark&width=80&height=20

That URL tells your browser to ask Facebook for an image (the button), and your browser will happily ask Facebook for the image, provide the meta data (in that URL, information about the DNA Lounge in San Francisco), AND send your Facebook cookies back to Facebook. Without your knowledge or permission Facebook now knows that you have an interest in whatever-the-hell web sites you happened to just randomly be clicking around on that include their "Like" buttons. That data gets quietly added to your Facebook data profile (not your page, but the "picture" of "you" that Facebook has and can sell).

One could argue that this isn't much different than what the Google Hegemony does with Analytics, or the half-dozen other services that doe the same thing. That's the point. This is a growing trend, and I don't like it. I don't want a person following every step that I take in the physical world, and I don't want someone doing that in the virtual world either. The profile that defines "me" is mine, and I resent that these companies are blithely and indiscriminately helping themselves to it.

Damn kids. Why are they still on my lawn?

Sounds like I have a lot to worry about as soon as I start to understand what it is that I need to be worried about.


--My moaner is that moving really sucks. Last week it was more of a hypothetical sucks, but now that things barely fit into a $300 rental truck, and this morning I have to go 100 miles out of my way to pick up a washer and dryer and somehow get that into the truck that is already full and then unload it all later this afternoon .... glech.

[MrsSinclair]

Your signature contains 195 characters. The maximum number of allowed characters is 150.

Crap! All that searching for a good english translation for nothing. Stupid forum here...

[MrsSinclair]

Probably not the right thread...

Why do they organize such a big event with over 1 mio people at such a small area that is only capable of ca. 300.000 - 400.000 people with a fence around it and only one (two?) small tunnel(s) as entrance and exit? So very very and unbelievable stupid. Very sad.

[old barney greyheron]

I have blisters on me feet....

[cagliostro]

I have blisters on me feet....

Then you are doing it wrong, Ringo.

[Sportin' Life]

Dentists ---
$780 it cost me to receive four hours of tortuous pain followed by a smarmy lecture about how I needed to repeat that process more often.

Right as the hygienist started some sort of "Come to Jesus" speech about how I needed to turn my oral care lifestyle around, I asked her if she minded if I listened to my ipod. She clearly did, but didn't enunciate her objections quick enough so I listened to the Pogues the rest of the time, thinking teeth are fucking overrated anyways.

[Heather]

More wireless router problems.

Just spent two hours setting up a new router because the router I was sent when I changed my internet package to internet and phone decided it was going to die completely tonight. It's been on the blink for a few weeks actually. Fortunately my ISP had sent me a spare one, because they did think it was faulty when I first set it up, so I've installed that, on my own, without their help this time, although Jake gave me a little bit of help which was much appreciated. Hopefully this time things will be OK, because I aint got another spare.

[old barney greyheron]

We ...that is myself, Scrabble, Gradgrind and Lineman...went off to the sticks tonight to watch the meteor shower...and we got rained on...BAH!