http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2017469501_harrop10.html
The link above is to an op-ed piece that has appeared in newspapers including the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The author of the piece, Froma Harrop, seeks to compare Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg to George Orwell's Big Brother concept from 1984. Facebook is voluntary. Nobody is holding a gun to my head and forcing me to stay, nor are they forcing the author who discloses at the end that she is, in fact, a member. We choose to join Facebook to become more connected to the people around us. Facebook gave us the space and forum to be ourselves and we chose to use it.
The author states that Facebook has been valued as high as $100 billion (don’t forget the Dr. Evil pinky) and is worth more that Caterpillar, Ford or Kraft Foods. Yes, they are. Data is worth a lot of money and yes, they will sell that data in aggregate (a giant lump of anonymous data) to advertisers who will target us with focused ads. Focused ads? You mean I will get advertising that is relevant to what interests me? This cannot happen. I demand that I get advertising for feminine hygiene products and denture cream.
The author asks how Facebook will “ramp up the surveillance level,” and say that they already know so much about us by our wall posts, comments and likes. I can tell you that they don’t know what brand of toilet paper I use or how often I need to buy it, but I know someone who does. Any store that uses a discount card automatically knows everything I buy and how often I buy it. There is one other organization that knows way more about us than any social network, search engine or grocery store. That is our ISPs. They hold the keys to our kingdom and are required by law to hold on to two years worth of our web surfing data. I personally don’t care, I choose to share what I want, but I still keep privacy.
My personal information is still locked in the metal cabinet that the author refers to. The information I share is what I choose to share for my own reasons. I will only post something that, if it were to be spread around the globe, I wouldn’t care. I am being social and that means sharing with others. Facebook allows us to share with friends when they are not in the room with us and it allows us to share with many at one time. This is a new world we live in where we have the ability to share and make new connections all over the world. Our ability to share with one another our experiences can actually help others. I can, if I so choose, tell my story of how I quit smoking and maybe something I say will help somebody else.
Anybody who is afraid of sharing and being public is more than free to stay off the social networks, use incognito browsing and avoid Google. The rest of us will continue to share as a community and tolerate the ads that cater to our interests (for the most part). We will continue to make the world a smaller place. Is there a creepy-factor to the targeted advertising? In a way, but rest assured, nobody is looking at my name and saying, “Pink Floyd, degree in electronics, Pearls Before Swine, check.” An advertising algorithm sees keywords and throws out ads based on those words. That’s all, and it explains why the ads are wrong many times.
Mark Zuckerburg is not Big Brother and Facebook is not the mysterious, “them or they” that people discuss in conspiracy theories. We are Facebook along with our friends and family. We are transforming the world a little bit at a time, by overturning support for bad laws, changing the direction of an organization, or overthrowing oppressive regimes around the world. This connectedness we are experiencing is not going away and if the price of that is some computer algorithm knowing my shoe size, then I think it’s a pretty good deal. By the way, I wear a size 16.
I would periodically make sure that my name did not appear online anywhere and for a long time it only appeared in one place, the NASA/JPL Stardust Mission web site. That is because as member of the Planetary Society, my name was included on a silicon chip along with 999,999 other people. So, okay, it was just my name and that wasn’t a big deal. I found that my name did appear in search results along with my address and how much I paid for my house thanks to an online real estate site that data-mined government records. I tried to stay “off-the-grid” so much that all it took was some site with public records access to bring my plan to a halt. That’s when my online world changed.
I started small at the time and joined the professional network, LinkedIn. I used my real name, Jasen M. Buch, and uploaded my resume, some personal details about my education and skills and I was suddenly, with the click of a mouse, no longer anonymous. After being on LinkedIn for about a week or so and getting a few former co-workers and other valuable people connected to me, I took the even bigger step by joining Facebook. By then, I already had an account, but I used an assumed name so that I could have a fan page for my blog. So, I changed the name on the account to my real name and set up my profile in such a way that it would not be found in searches. Within literally ten minutes I was staring at friend requests from people I went to school with. Suddenly I was part of a bigger world. I was, however, still unsure about all of this publicity I was receiving by my being “out there” on the Internet. Part of my justification to those that thought I was jumping on the bandwagon was that I claimed to be technologically savvy and literate of many computer technologies, yet I was nowhere to be found in cyberspace.
As another bold step in proving that I could handle this idea of being public, I linked my blog, which still didn’t use my real name, to my Facebook account (okay, to me it was a bold step). I figured that I really wasn’t a controversial person, so I figured it would be fine. It’s been fine so far. After reading Public Parts: How sharing in the digital age changes the way we work and live by Jeff Jarvis, I took the rest of the leap. I now have posted my resume on my own site, my real name is there too. I am no longer AlienCG online and Jasen Buch in real life because the Internet, regardless of its flaws, is real life.
Over the next few weeks, interspersed with other posts, I will be discussing the social aspect of the Internet and sharing. A lot of this is in reference to Mr. Jarvis’ book, but most of it is my own perspective and the things I’ve learned by being a more public person online. I will be discussing and refuting articles regarding social media. I’m not saying that social media is for everyone, or that everyone should automatically drop their reservations and bare their souls to the rest of the world. I am also not saying that we should just reveal everything, regardless of how personal it is, to the Internet.
]]>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16907104
What an amazing world in which we live, when spare body parts can be manufactured and transplanted into patients. The team that performed this surgery said that they expect these techniques should become more common over the years. I hope they do and I look forward to even more innovations in the medical world.
]]>It’s hard to believe that the web site whose name was emblazoned on the Arab Spring protests (Google search “Twitter Revolution”) would now like to prevent anything like that from happening again. There’s a lot more at stake says Mark Gibbs in Forbes Magazine, Twitter could easily be sued by numerous governments if the filter fails at any point. They are better off taking the hands-off approach and allowing the tyrants to be the bad guys when they shut off access to Twitter or the entire Internet.
For a whole lot more on this story, visit the Storify site. I will continue this conversation in the comments section and elsewhere on the Internet. I care what Twitter does to a point and that point is when somebody else comes in to take their place.
]]>As a bonus, I have also included the Khan Academy explanation of these two bills.
Keep our Internet free. Thank you.
]]>H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act
Sponsor: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
Co-sponsors: Rep. Howard Berman (D-California)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-California)
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan)
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida)
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-California)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia)
Rep. Timothy Griffin (R-Arkansas)
Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Arizona)
Rep. Dennis A. Ross (R-Florida)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California)
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Nebraska)
S.968 – Protect IP Act of 2011
Sponsor: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
Co-sponsors: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire)
Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colorado)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut)
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)
Sen. John Boozman (R- Arkansas)
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Maryland)
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pennsylvania)
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Delaware)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)
Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyoming)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-New York)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina)
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Connecticut)
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida)
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire)
Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island)
Piracy can be a good thing. I have bought a few programs after trying the pirated copies because the demo version was so limited that I found it unusable. I have been introduced to some of my favorite music because of piracy and have spent a lot of money buying high-quality copies of the songs that I like. Piracy can help the starving artist, the floundering writer or the failing musician by spreading his or her name around. I have no problem if people use my photos or my writing on their sites. I don’t even have a lawyer. All I ask is that you give credit where it’s due. Link back to me or use my name, AlienCG, and give me the credit that I deserve.
By the way, I will not be blacking out my blog on January 18 because I don’t have the readership. I will, however, not post anything that day. As of the writing of this post, the House bill, SOPA, is most likely dead and no further action will be taken on it as it stands.
]]>I've had a long time to look around and I have found useful tools, entertainment and fun stuff that costs nothing to own. Let's get started with a necessary piece of software that is required to get other stuff.
1. Google Chrome Browser
In case you’ve been in a coma or have no knowledge off this little, mom-and-pop run company known as Google, they have a web browser. It’s a pretty lightweight, fast browser that has its own web store which is why I had to bring up the browser first.
2. Angry Birds
The Chrome Web Store has, free-of-charge, this highly addictive game about birds who are angry at pigs and slingshot themselves at their hideouts (or something to that effect). I kept hearing about it for so long and finally, when I saw it free through the Chrome store, I had to download it. It can be played offline.
3. Word^2 (Word Squared)
Word^2 is a massively multiplayer online Scrabble-style game. Players level-up, get bonuses and can use these bonuses to buy blank tiles. There are achievements for various things throughout the game, like having no vowels or having no consonants. It’s an excellent way to waste time, but it does require an Internet connection.
4. If This, Then That (ifttt.com)
If This, then That is a service to set up triggers for many, many tasks, such as posting to Facebook when something is posted to Twitter, or posting an RSS feed to a site or e-mail or text message. I have a task set up to remind me that it is time to pay the bills (a monthly trigger) which is simply a Date/Time trigger that sends a text message to my phone on a particular day of the month. Check it out, I’m sure you will find a purpose for this site.
5. Ihnatko Almanac
Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times and the TWiT network’s MacBreak Weekly has his own show on the 5by5 network. Each week is something a little different, such as comic books, the MIT yard sale, Roger Ebert’s memoir, why White Christmas is not a classic Christmas movie and many other topics. This is a weekly podcast and Mr. Ihnatko is witty and intelligent and just a lot of fun. Subscribe on iTunes or go to 5by5.com for more details.
Follow my guide and you will be entertained absolutely free. Do you have an interesting website, podcast, free game or useful tool to share? Send me an e-mail and tell me about it, then I’ll post about my favorites. Have a good day and I hope you enjoy this free stuff.
]]>Sorry about the unannounced hiatus, but I can assure you that I am coming back to the land of the living (and blogging). The work situation continues to try my patience as I am still looking for a sense of security (false or otherwise at this point). I am still just a lowly temp at the place I've been for more than a year now and currently out of work until things pick up again. Enough of my bellyaching, though. How have you been?
I've been doing a lot of different stuff lately, including a trip to Pittsburgh to see the Bengals play the Steelers with my brother (Evil-E). I also took a road trip on January 2nd with AlienGF (who is still my fiancée) to Toledo, OH. We went to Tony Packo's and just tooled are the city for a bit. I am going to get back into the blogging scene, but probably doing fewer, more though out posts.
]]>Over the past month or so I have been prevented from sharing articles because it might give people a false impression of who I am. Because I "Like" an article about a controversial issue should not be indicative of where I stand on that issue. It could mean that I "Like" this article in the sense that I think there is merit to this article and people should read it and discuss it. That's what I want to see. Instead, the marketing machines inside of Google and Facebook have come up with a way to find out more about who we are. They want to know where we stand politically, so most will only "Like" articles that they agree with. Therefore, a favorable article about the president will get "Liked" by more democrats than republicans. I think we need to start using these buttons in the way that they are meant, to share information and start discussions.
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