Geek Stuff category archive
Opening the Windows to Assimilation 1
The strategy is quite simple, really. Microsoft wants to turn your computer into the functional equivalent of a cell phone–something you can use, but cannot control, even as it phones home about your every action.
The Snaring Economy Comes to the Big Screen 0
Moved below the fold because it may autoplay on some systems.
Note: If you catch something autoplaying on the front page here, use the email linke, over there
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on the sidebar to let me know and I’ll bury it below the fold.
Alphabet (in the) Soup 0
Google’s parent company revealed as investor in loan shark payday lender which has been banned from Google search results for being morally dubious.
So much for “Don’t be evil.”
How about Thinking for Yourself? 0
Heh.
In a study by MIT’s School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative, titled The Impact of Computer Usage on Academic Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Trial at the United States Military Academy, students whose classroom access to computer devices was prohibited performed better in exams.
Why am I not surprised?
The Snaring Economy 4
Instead, witnesses said, around a hundred people showed up at the two-bedroom house a couple of miles from the Oceanfront during College Beach Weekend. Police were called there twice: once for a report of gunshots and again three hours later for a shooting that left 20-year-old Darren Campbell dead.
In a resort town like this, short-term rentals are common, but most of them don’t fly under the regulatory radar as Airbnb stuff does. Follow the link for a thoughtful consideration of the challenges that snaring poses to municipal governments.
Eyes on the Prize 0
Alfred Doblin doesn’t think much of Cracker Jacks’s new prizes, which will require access to either an Android or iJunk device to use, for Pete’s sake, or of what they may indicate. A snippet:
A 5-year-old boy should not need a smartphone and app to delight in a cheap prize. The prize was never the actual thing; it was in the unwrapping of the thing, the discovery of it, the touch and feel of it.
Take that away and we are diminished as people. We see a bunch of angry Americans pushing police cars not because of racial injustice, but because they dislike Donald Trump, and we call that “chaos.” We witness a tidal wave of refugees who want nothing more than a chance to live and we call that none of our business.
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.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
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 Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, May 5.
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)
Join the forums.
The Snaring Economy 0
Berlin acts to rein in rogue rentals which raise rents beyond the resources of rental residents (emphasis added).
Given that it is more profitable to rent out whole apartments for short holiday lets, some investors are holding on to apartments for such rentals rather than having long-term tenants.
San Francisco-based Airbnb.com — short for the business’s original name AirBed & Breakfast — is the biggest of several sites that allow people to offer and find such rental accommodation worldwide.
When it’s being done by “investors,” my friends, it ain’t sharing, not by any measure.
More at the link.
Seeing the Light 0
Highway engineering for the iJunk Generation:
Rows of red LEDs have been embedded in the pavement after a 15-year-old girl was killed when she stepped in front of a tram while looking at her smartphone and listening to music. Two other people have been seriously injured in separate but similar incidents.
The Courage of Their Carryings-On 0
Forty-two plaintiffs, seeking to represent users of the website who had their information compromised, had proceeded anonymously against Ashley Madison’s Toronto-based parent company Avid Life Media, the ruling released on 6 April showed.
Plaintiffs leading a lawsuit against online dating website Ashley Madison over a security breach that exposed the personal data of customers must publicly identify themselves to proceed with the case, a US judge has ruled.I really can’t find it in me to have much sympathy for the plaintiffs.
Really, the chutzpah just leaves me sputtering.
The Snaring Economy, Have Cake Eat It Too Dept. 0
This should be interesting:
According to the story, in its response, Uber claims that it’s all about competition and fair shakes.
Twits on Twitter 0
Afterthought:
Be very clear. There’s more to this than just decoding de code. There’s a presumption that if you use encryption, you must have something to hide, an assertion that a desire for privacy is inherently suspicious. (In some ways, this point of view is eerily similar to the philosophy of the Zuckerborg.)
In a snail mail world, what the cops (and the NSA and GHCQ and the FBI and their like) want would be to steam open all your envelopes and read all your mail and all your everything else without showing cause (not that lots of them aren’t already doing that just because they can).