Geek Stuff category archive

Add “Facebook depression” to potential harms linked with social media, an influential doctors group warns, referring to a condition it says may affect troubled teens who obsess over the online site.

Researchers disagree on whether it’s simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site.

The story goes on to list the myriad dangers of Facebook. Only towards the end does a doctor get quoted to the effect that, to the extent that Facebook has an effect, it is limited to potentially exaggerating tendencies that already exist. I guess scary sells (it certainly sells in politics).

I certainly do not think Facebook is inherently a grand and glorious thing. It can be a useful tool for many things, including recreation and reconnection; as with other tools, such as a sledge hammer, one can just as easily drop it on one’s foot if one doesn’t pay attention.

(One of the dangers of making computers easy to use it has been that it has made them easy to use for everyone, including those who don’t bother to learn how to practice safe HEX.)

Every few years come alarms from “experts” about this thing or that thing which is ruining our youth.

When I was a young ‘un, it was comic books ruining our youth.

Then it was television, followed by long hair on boys, disco dancing, and video games.

It is, in fact, global warning. It has one constant: those issuing the warnings are rewarded with articles, interviews, and book contracts.

I am more optimistic.

I am confident that our youth are quite capable of ruining themselves without help.

Charlie Booker considers the twitting (and Facebooking) of Rebecca Black. A nugget:

Certainly, the more insecure the tweeter, the more unhinged their behaviour seems to be. Some of the most virulent Rebecca Black abuse came from teenage girls showing off to their mates by tweeting the singer directly to gloatingly wish death upon her.

Hilariously, many of them attacked the wrong Rebecca Black, and were actually beaming their hatred at an etiquette coach of the same name, a woman who regularly appears on US TV to discuss the merits of civil discourse. The worse their abuse, the more gracefully she responded, which somehow made them look infinitely more small-minded than they already were.

Max Berry explains.

H/T to Henry.

Facebook’s login page now defaults to all spying all the time “Keep Me Logged In.”

If you log in with that checked and you later close the page without explicitly logging out, you remain logged in. Facebook can continue to track your online behavior so they can sell you to the highest bidder.

Furthermore, if you uncheck the box for one login, Facebook rechecks it the next time you open the login page, so that you must clear the checkbox each time you open the login page.

Facebook, no doubt, will assert that they have done this for your convenience.

Warning: Language.

Via Linux Outlaws.

Addendum, Later That Same Afternoon:

Lisa Scottolini, mystery novelist and writer columnist for the ex-local rag, discusses her plans to sell her rough drafts because, hey! Apple does it. An excerpt:

I bought two iPads at Christmas, one for Daughter Francesca and one for me, only to see Apple come out with the iPad 2.0 three months later. The new iPad has a camera and a better way of turning on and off. Why they couldn’t have done this at Christmas, I don’t know. Why they couldn’t have told me at Christmas, I do know.

And so do you.

Apple makes fraud cool.

iFraud.

Dick Destiny explains.

The Chicago Tribune recites an object lesson.

Eben Moglin, speaking at a meeting of the Internet Society’s New York branch on Feb 5, 2010, on the internet, the erosion of privacy, and the cloud (whatever that is):

It is here of course that Mr. Zuckerburg enters. The human race has . . . susceptibility to harm, but Mr. Zuckerberg has attained an unenviable record.

He has done more harm to the human race that anybody else his age.

Because he harnessed . . . Friday night, that is, everybody needs to get laid, and he turned it into a structure for degenerating the integrity of human personality and he has, to a remarkable extent, succeeded, with a very poor deal, namely, I will give you free webhosting and some PHP doo-dads and you get spying for free all the time–and, it works.

Follow the link for video, audio, and links for more information.

A year-long Department of Homeland Security undercover operation targeting prospective “sex tourists” was torpedoed last month after a blogger unwittingly stumbled upon a sleazy web site set up by federal agents and engineered a reverse sting on investigators she mistook for pedophiles, The Smoking Gun has learned.

A citizen stumbled across the site and notified the police. Investigation ensues. Left hand, meet right hand and all that.

Buried down in the story was this little gem, which warmed my little Linux-loving heart:

The computer programmer also noticed that the “Precious Treasure Holiday Company” site appeared to have been designed using a 2003 version of Microsoft’s FrontPage. In retrospect, she remarked, the use of such outdated software should have tipped her to the fact that the site was a U.S. government production.

Persons who know what they are doing generally don’t use FrontPage.

El Reg:

British people carry an average of nine keys around with them, but can identify only six of those, with no idea what the other three came from, or what they unlock…

The figures come from esure, who asked a thousand or so average people and discovered that women carry 10 keys, compared to a chap’s eight, but the girls are slightly better at remembering what they’re for – only 20 per cent mysterious compared to a man’s 23 per cent.

Not me. I went through all my keys last week and discarded a half dozen.

Follow the link. After the snark are some good hints on key safety.

Facebood Street View:

“No one can change me,’’ reads a quote from this personality’s newly established Facebook page. “I am a monster!!!’’

The page belongs to Alger Street in Brockton, a stretch of potholed, pitted asphalt that has crushed tires, shattered shock absorbers, and rattled the teeth of drivers for years, if not decades.

The new trend: Giving up Facebook for Lent.

Afterthought:

The most impressive Lenten observance I have ever seen was done regularly by my old co-worker, Jack.

A smoker of three decades, he would regularly give up cigarettes for Lent. It was not an attempt to quit. He started smoking again after Lent.

Anyone who has ever tried to quit will know how impressive that is.

On one level, this begs for snark, but, on a deeper level, it is somehow very sad.

Facebook is launching a system that allows users to report friends who they think may be contemplating suicide.

The feature is being run in conjunction with Samaritans, which said several people had used it during a test phase.

Facebook is, after all, nothing more a than website with a database. Many, including me, have found it to be a useful tool, but it’s still a tool.

Making visible the invisible:

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

March 6, 2011 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Geek Stuff | Bookmark this post

John Naughton has doubts about Apple’s dominance, via Itunes’s, in the on-line media sales world. A nugget:

Umberto Eco once wrote a memorable essay arguing that the Apple Mac was a Catholic device, while the IBM PC was a Protestant one. His reasoning was that, like the Roman church, Apple offered a guaranteed route to salvation – the Apple Way – provided one stuck to it. PC users, on the other hand, had to take personal responsibility for working out their own routes to heaven.

Eco’s metaphor applies with a vengeance to the new generations of Apple iDevices, which are rigidly controlled appliances. You may think you own your lovely, shiny new iPhone or iPad, but in reality an invisible virtual string links it back to Apple HQ at One Infinite Loop, Cupertino.

Read the whole thing.

Toys. All toys.

Andy Borowitz reports:

A new combatant entered the so-called tablet war today and it’s already getting a big thumbs-up from gadget aficionados: the Etch-a-Sketch 2.

The E2, as its called, looks very similar to its predecessor, but in the words of the company spokesman who unveiled it at the TED conference in Long Beach, “This is not your father’s Etch-a-Sketch.”

(snip)

“The Etch-a-Sketch 2 is more than just another tablet,” said Tracy Klugian, spokesman for Ohio Art, the manufacturer of the E2. “It is going to totally change the way you think about completely unnecessary devices.”

Details at the link.

Google deploys street-view tricycles.

Google’s Street View service has mostly been limited to places where cars mounted with cameras can drive. But now, Street View increasingly will include images of public and private sites ranging from selected hiking trails of the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve near Los Altos to Sea World Orlando to Kew Gardens in London.

Follow the link for pictures. The trike looks like a cross between a giant Big Wheel and the Seattle Space Needle.

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk-Employee Cafeteria. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, March 3.

Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)

Via Balloon Juice.

Bad news:

In a Super Bowl ad for the Chevrolet Cruze, a young man uses voice commands to check Facebook and grins when his OnStar communication system reads his date’s message: “Best first date ever.”

Good news (emphasis added).

It’s heartwarming to some, downright scary to others, who worry that in-car technology is too distracting. But mostly, it’s a work in progress. General Motors Co. is still testing the OnStar Facebook system, and it may never become a standard feature. No other manufacturers are offering a way to check Facebook with voice commands, either.

The article goes on to describe other research automobile manufacturers are doing to ensure that drivers don’t see us before they hit us.