Geek Stuff category archive
Popularity for Sale 0
It’s no surprise to those who pay attention that you can buy likes and followers and sharers (choose the term favored by your particular “social” media platform of choice) for your “social” media presence. What is surprising is how cheap it is to do so.
That’s about a thousand fake friends for a dollar. Never has love been so cheap.
Follow the link for more about the study in question.
Geeking Out, Seasonal Edition 0
Listening to an episode of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in Firefox on Ubuntu MATE with the Plasma desktop. The Konsole terminal emulator is open to the left of Firefox. The wallpaper is from my collection.
Facebook Frolics 0
Cathy O’Neil skewers the Zuckerborg’s argument that it is to big and complex to break up. A snippet (emphasis added). As an aside, I suspect that U. S. Steel, American Sugar, and other trusts busted by Teddy Roosevelt made similar arguments.
Really? No doubt, the breakup would be difficult for Facebook’s managers, who rely on data sharing among WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook to create the most complete possible profiles of users and then sell their attention to the highest bidder. If the companies were separated, all the investment they’d been making into surveillance and targeting wouldn’t immediately work out as well as they had hoped. For them, the product is the advertising, not the service to users.
“It’s All about Mememememememe” 0
In the midst of a larger article about pro- and anti-vacine memes on “social” media, psychologist Utpal Dholakia notes the following:
Influencing others and changing their minds is a fourth reason to post, but it’s a distant fourth for most of us.
The Disinformation Superhighway 0
Websites wielding weaponized widgets perpetuate petabytes of prevarication in these viral times.
Decorated 0
Ubuntu MATE with the Plasma Desktop. The wallpaper is from my collection.
I must admit that getting into the holiday spirit in these Trumpled times has been difficult.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
It seems that the new right-wing “social” media app, Parler (no, I won’t link to it), which aspires as far as I can tell to be a wingnut Twitter, has got itself some unexpected fans.
Geeking Out 0
Virtual machines of Slackware –Current (foreground) and CentOS v. 7 in VirtualBox on Mageia v. 7 using the Fluxbox window manager. The wallpaper, a scene from Land’s End, is from my collection.
Ring Wraith 0
“Smart home” is an oxymoron.
(snip)
Through the family’s four Ring cameras, a hacker screamed, “Help me!” as officers checked inside the home to make sure everyone was safe.
Back outside, the officers realized the intermittent screaming was coming from the home’s Ring cameras.
Geeking Out 0
Magiea v. 7 with the Fluxbox window manager using the Operation style.
I do likes me my pretty pictures.
It’s All about the Algorithm 0
Arash Javanbakht, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, explores how “social” media’s algorithms, designed to keep us eternally engaged in ephemera, lead us down the disinformation superhighway. A nugget:
As a result, the algorithms amplify the negative and then spread it by sharing it among groups.