Geek Stuff category archive
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Note: This month’s meeting is being held on the first Wednesday instead of the first Thursday because of a scheduling conflict involving the meeting room.
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do. Learn how to use GNU/Linux and its plethora of free and open source software to get stuff done with computers.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
When: Monthly TWUUG meeting at 7:30 p. m. on the first Thursday of the month (June 6, 2018). Pre-meeting dinner at Chicago Uno, JANAF shopping center, 6:00 p. m. (map)
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 Training Room (map). (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
Geeking Out 0
Earlier this week, I broke my Debian install. I was running Debian Sid (testing) and ran an update and lost my GUI environments. Sid is a testing version; if you run a testing version, you have to expect stuff to happen. Plus I had been having quirky stuff happen for quite some time, so I suspect the issue was mine and not Debian’s.
I was too lazy to troubleshoot the problem, so last night I reinstalled Debian Stretch. Since I had my home directory on a separate partition, all my personal files and settings were preserved, as I simply reinstalled the OS to the root partition. Consequently, once I reinstalled and started programs, they behaved as previously configured.
Here’s a screenshot of the new install running the Plasma desktop (Debian gives the option of installing one or more desktop environments; I chose Plasma and MATE):
Facebook Frolics 0
Carl Hiaasen ghostwrites Mark Zuckerberg. A snippet:
Methinks he has a point.
Follow the link for the rest.
Facebook Frolics 0
Oh what a tangled web the Zuckerborg weaves,
as these discovered when they tried to leave.
Facebook Fakebook Frolics
0
Heh.
“Within the last year, the social media site has published over 50 fake Martin Lewis adverts which are regularly seen, likely by millions of people, in the UK,” complained Lewis. “The most prevalent are get-rich-quick schemes currently titled ‘Bitcoin code’ or ‘Cloud Trader’, which are fronts for binary trading firms based outside the EU.”
More at the link.
Facebook Frolics 0
At The Denver Post, Diane Carman explains that the blame doesn’t lie only with Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and their ilk. A snippet (follow the link for the rest):
Which brings us to the real problem.
Us.
Here’s the deal. You know that advertisement for overpriced slippers that keeps coming at you whenever you access your digital newspaper subscription or perform a Google search or check Facebook? At some point you innocently click on the ad to see what it’s all about, and then they’ve got you. The ads keep coming. And pretty soon you think you really need another pair of slippers even if they cost 150 bucks and, after all, they’re still just slippers.
You’ve been played.
A really really good con job is still a con job. Persons who stay aware and do their homework generally do not let themselves get conned.
The same goes for societies.
Facebook Frolics 0
The EFF looks behind the Facebook curtain.
Facebook Frolics, Guinea Pigs Dept. 0
Writing at Psychology Today Blogs, Susan Krauss Whitbourne describes how Facebook profiled its users victims. Here’s a bit of the article:
No Place To Hide 0
John Long discovers that he has no privacy. Zilch, nada, none.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do. Learn how to use GNU/Linux and its plethora of free and open source software to get stuff done with computers.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
When: Monthly TWUUG meeting at 7:30 p. m. on the first Thursday of the month (April 5, 2018). Pre-meeting dinner at Chicago Uno, JANAF shopping center, 6:00 p. m. (map)
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 Training Room (map). (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
Facebook Frolics, Phoning Home Dept. 0
Pap and Farron discuss how Facebook has “scraped” phone calls and contacts using its Android app.
A Troll under the Internet 0
In the Hartford Courant, Matthew Kauffman tells a fascinating tale of how he toyed with an internet fraudster for two weeks. From the opening of his article:
Give it a read.
Facebook Frolics 0
In related news, Daniel Ruth points out that Facebook’s targets users are hardly blameless. A snippet:
After all, Facebook is nothing more than a huge, honking privacy violation machine. It is not an egalitarian social network uniting the world in a common bond of friendship and sharing. Like so many other cyber platforms, Facebook has become a propaganda weapon, a troller’s paradise and an opportunity to sell all manner of stuff. It’s the General Motors of hubris.