Geek Stuff category archive

Mike Gruss, writing in the local rag, composes the letters of apology that should have been sent after the recent data breach at Epsilon, which exposed millions of email addresses.

A nugget:

Rest assured, we take your privacy very seriously. When we say “very seriously,” it’s in the same vein as “very important” – like when you call us and wait on hold for 25 minutes and a recorded voice says, “Your call is very important to us.” That’s how seriously we take this.

Remember how we started this email by calling you a valued customer, even though our nearly public records show that you bought flowers from us only once? We mean “very seriously” just like we meant “valued.”

Read the whole thing. It’s a hoot.

At the convenience store.

“What’s Fluxbox?”

“It’s a window manager for the Linux OS.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s why I wear the hat.”

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, April 7.

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)

Roger Chesley, writing in the local rag, has some hints for using social networks safely.

OMG it’s tribal:

Following pop stars on Twitter is clearly a brilliant way to pass the time. How else are we supposed to know that Craig David is off to the gym to “fine tune the physique … lol” or that Taio Cruz has “had a couple weeks of no shades wearing”? It collapses the barrier between pop star and pop fan, encouraging dialogue (mainly things like, “@onedirection OMG Harry if you don’t follow me back I’ll cry 4ever, plz RT”) and gives the pop star (or his/her record label) access to millions of fans that can be crowd-sourced in no more than 140 characters.

Recently, that dialogue has been enhanced by the creation of so-called Twitter tribes, a way for fans to pledge allegiance to their favourite pop star and feel part of their world without having to part with a £30 annual fee for a badge and photocopied autograph. Nowadays, it’s all about deciding whose side you’re on, and hashtagging like your life depends on it.

The internet is a public place, even in north Jersey:

The Record newspaper reports that the teacher wrote about feeling like “a warden” and referred to her 6- and 7-year-old students as future criminals.

The teacher, whose name was not disclosed, was removed from the classroom this week after several parents who saw the posts came to Paterson School 21 and asked that their children be removed from her class.

Not so much social as celeb-gazing?

Researchers found that a staggering 50% of all content consumed via Twitter is generated by only 20,000 “elite” Twitter users, such as well known journalists, celebrities, and formal representatives of established organizations. So basically, any link you click on from your Twitter feed was most likely originally generated by @BarackObama, @SportsGuy33, or @Sn00ki, which is probably most fitting for where we are as a society in 2011.

The study looked at roughly 260 million tweets generated between July 28, 2009 and March 8, 2010 found some other striking revelations. Such as the fact that only about 20% of Twitter users reciprocate follows that they receive from other users. This of course is in stark contrast to Facebook’s near total reciprocal rate, wherein all “friendships” are mutually held. Plainly said, only about 1/5th of all Twitter users will bother to “follow” someone who follows them…well thanks A LOT Snooki!

Facebookers goes through a rough spell.

Welcome to Hotel Facebook.

You can log off, but you can never leave.

The person of interest in a Suffolk woman’s homicide was officially charged with murder, after investigators used a Facebook page to develop leads in the case.

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.