Geek Stuff category archive

Andy Borowitz prescribes a fix for persons who iGadgets no longer get them up:

Mr. Jobs, however, did offer a temporary fix to iPhone users whose alarms do not work: “For the time being, tape your iPhone to a working alarm clock.”

Follow the link for the full report.

Show your support. Join our group.

This type of crusading has become so common online that a word has been coined for it – slacktivism. It’s not a term of endearment. Definition: Activism, often done on a computer, that requires a slacker’s amount of effort and is of questionable effectiveness.

Why raise money doing a breast cancer walk when you can easily update your Facebook status with the color of your bra? (That Facebook meme happened in January.) Maybe you wanted to encourage Iran’s prodemocracy demonstrators last year. To show your support, all you had to do was tint your Twitter avatar green or add to it a virtual green ribbon.

It’s not that low-impact activism is new. For years we’ve sat in traffic and read a bumper crop of bumper stickers proclaiming drivers’ concern for the rain forest, support for a political candidate, or pride in little Eddie or Emma making the school honor roll. Walk down the street and you’ll see people making statements with T-shirts and rubber wristbands.

Or try standing outside the polling place handing out lit for candidate.

Full Disclosure:

I’ve done some of the group-joining, usually to publicize the cause via my profile; in return, I’ve learned stuff, but the causes I support tend to send out informative updates.

I put the brakes on joining causes over a year ago.

I’ve never done the profile picture thing, though some folks probably wish I would.

Change the picture, that is.

I’ve also handed out literature for my candidate.

Thompson:

More Thompson.

Oh My Gov! reviews twelve ways in which students have used Facebook to get into–and cause–trouble.

Arch Linux in Virtual Box on Debian Lenny:

More about Arch at Geekazine.

Frankly, I think this is creepy:

Facebook announced a plan to use face-recognition technology in photo sharing. The semi-automated tagging service, which will roll out gradually to Facebook members in the United States starting this week could be a great convenience but it also raises some interesting questions.

There are some reassuring aspects to the announcement. To begin with, the company has said that it will keep its existing privacy options around photos and tagging, which include your ability to block tagging or limit who can tag you as well as the ability to remove tags from images after they are posted. Facebook also notifies you whenever you’re tagged in an image.

The company also announced that it will allow users to opt out of having their name suggested to friends during the photo tagging process. If you disable “Suggest photos of me to friends,” your name will “no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually,” according to the Facebook blog.

With the new system, face-recognition software will analyze your photos as you upload them and attempt to identify who is in the picture. It’s not trying to compare the pictures you upload with a database of everyone in the world, everyone on Facebook or even every one of your friends. Instead, according to a representative, it’s looking at the people you interact with most frequently.

I do not tag pictures on Facebook. In fact, most of the few pictures I post are of scenery. not persons.

One reason is that I seldom take pictures of persons when I am with them; I’m too busy enjoying (I hope) their company. The other, and more important one, is that I wonder about the wisdom of uploading someone’s picture without permission. I wonder even more about naming them, even if they use Facebook, unless they are already public figures doing things in public.

My limited use of Facebook leads me to believe that most Facebook frequenters do not mess with the default privacy settings, and the default so far has tended towards treating all your “Facebook friends” as if they were your long lost brothers and sisters with no secrets from anyone.

Follow the link for more information on how “feature” is expected to work.

No incoming twits about RLS and couples who use separate bathtubs:

Executives at pharmaceutical companies are all tied in knots about what they can and can’t say through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and other popular Web forums where patients and doctors congregate.

They worry that one wrong move will land them in the penalty box with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, their federal regulator.

A recent survey from audit and consulting firm Deloitte found that 35 percent of companies surveyed had no interest in social media, a striking number given that the general public seems enamored with such 21st century pleasures as Tweeting on Twitter and Friending on Facebook. Many firms see the new media as a gold mine for customer engagement.

But more than half of firms surveyed by Deloitte said confusion about what regulators believe is appropriate communication over social networks gives them heartburn about participating.

Twitter goes a-courtin’.

Sick of commercials?

Go to Shoutcast, plug “Christmas” into the search field, and take your pick.

My netbook is jacked into the stereo and there are speakers all over the condo.

Smurfberries?

“The Smurfs’ Village,” a game for the iPhone and other Apple gadgets, was released a month ago and quickly became the highest-grossing application in the iTunes store. Yet it’s free to download.

So where does the money come from? Kelly Rummelhart of Gridley, Calif., has part of the answer. Her 4-year-old son was using her iPad to play the game and racked up $66.88 in charges on her credit card without knowing what he was doing.

Follow the link for details, especially if you suspect your portable device is gaming you. It’s a long a detailed article.

Also, stick to poker. At least in poker you know when you are losing money.

Be popular, fool your friends.

Or not.

Science 2.0 (ne Scientific Blogging) reports on a study correlating names to rewards (those sticker things schools’ give out these days). A nugget:

And their results say kids named Jacob, Nathan, Samuel, Alexander and Christopher do well while Josh, Scott, Sam, Alex and Tom appear least often among recipients.

When it comes to girls, parents are more likely to have an easier time if they have a daughter called Abigail, Louise, Rachel, Elizabeth or Anna, while Beth, Lydia, Abbie, Paige or Courtney don’t get kudos as often.

On the British culture scene, William’s and Kate’s have both been nice this year, though Catherine’s have been even better behaved. Cheryl’s have been very well behaved this year but Danni’s need to improve over the next three weeks.

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, December 2.

Directions: Lake Taylor Hospital-1309, Kempsville Road, Norfolk, 23502 (Kempsville Rd. at Lowry Rd.) 461-5001

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks) at Uno Chicago Grill, Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). Accessible through the Janaf parking lot or directly from the ramp from Virginia Beach Blvd. to Military Highway north.

The number of spam comments to this blog caught by Askimet has quadrupled since Thanksgiviing Day.

The optimism is heartening, but methinks she overstates the power of the twit. The net spreads lies as least as effectively as it spreads truths:

The ruling (Egyptian) National Democratic party, however, seems hopelessly out of touch with the times. It doesn’t realise that the day might come when it could be tweeted out of power. Nor is it able to understand that it won’t be able to station the country’s security forces on the information superhighway as it does on Cairo’s ring-roads.

John C. Dvorak:

Facebook is the New AOL

Follow the link to find out why he thinks so.

Afterthought:

I think he has a point. Facebook too shall pass.

Via GNC.

Means, motive, opportunity BFF–Before Facebook Frolics:

Miller, 48, who gained national attention this week when the pastor banned his church’s leaders from using Facebook because he said it is a portal to infidelity, had himself engaged in a three-way relationship with his wife and a man a decade ago, according to testimony he gave in a criminal case.

It was the subject of testimony in open court, forgotten, but not a deep dark secret.

Afterthoughts:

Pastors are human also, though we don’t want to a and many of them cannot admit it. Immorality covered with hypocrisy is far worse than the initial immorality. Give me an honest sinner over a pious hypocrite any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

If someone is of a mind to stray, Facebook and similar services are tools of convenience. The mind to stray comes first, the straying comes second.

The internet connection has been up and down all day.

I’ve had to reset the modem (“reset” is a fancy word for “unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in”) a dozen times or more today.

The problem is outside the house and seems to affect the whole complex.

The ISP had a repairman here working on the CTV box this afternoon in response to a neighbor’s call that he was having trouble with his HBO and On-Demand services.

If the drivel is interrupted, it will be because the supply line has been interrupted; ample supplies are on hand.

Neil Gabler, writing in the Boston Globe, wonders what’s the point. A nugget:

What is the need for, say, an iPad, or any of the thousands of other gizmos that flood the market? One might conclude that the need is not so much for the device (a larger iPhone!), or the software or the website or the app (following someone’s daily doings in 140-character bites!) as for change itself. We seem to be addicted to change for its own sake.

Much of this new geek stuff isn’t even change.

It’s the same stuff with different logos. Sure, rigatoni looks different from rotini, but they are both noodles and pretty much interchangeable.