Selling your conversations

Running an instant messaging service (such as AIM, Facebook chat, or Google Talk) isn't cheap.  Companies running these programs need to make money somehow, so knowing what people are exchanging and selling that to advertisers / marketing types is one way.

What can they sell?  How about every time someone mentions the latest action movie?  Advertisers can know if they've played too few or too many of a given commercial.  That might sound innocuous, but what about if you're arguing with your wife?  Wouldn't you like to see ads for divorce attorneys?  Customized search results sound like a great thing, but are only good for the companies that compile them.  It might seem like paranoia, but the more information search companies can get about an individual, the more targeted their searches and advertisements.  For Google and Facebook, that's most of their business.

Instant messaging service privacy reports don't paint a pretty picture and, as you might expect, Facebook is the worst.

Solutions?  Many online services host their own chat servers (known as XMPP Servers), but another option for Windows is using Pidgin with OTR installed or Adium for Mac (with OTR installed by default).  That way you can benefit from the fast, reliable commercial servers without giving up your privacy.

Yet another scam: "career change services"

They evidently exist and probably doing well in this economy. If a company calls you up with a generic name, is vague about what the company does, and wants to have a meeting with you immediately with a higher-up, you might want to be suspicious.

Fortunately Google Voice service offers a "block call" option.  Its your friend.

Myth of the Intuitive Interface

An outstanding article critiquing the format and systems behind Android and iOS menu systems.  It also provides a little background on the conventions and thinking behind interfaces over the last 20 years.  A great read.

I got the 2011 blues

Sort of a departure from my regular posts but don't really have anyone to express these ideas to.

There's a kind of post-modern state I'm in.  Somewhere that many have gone before between nothingness, embracing nothingness, and fearing the real evil of the world.  I'm almost afraid to express it as it gives a name to my fear.  But I read somewhere that the knowledge of a limitation is itself a step ahead of it.

This comes up a lot it seems.  Halloween is coming up for example and with it this kind of weird embrace of horror.  Its more than just roller coaster fear, its a kind of flirtation with real evil as if it were a sort of friend.  Of course, this is far away from actual life for the vast majority of people don't really fear for their lives at the hand of some demonic murder-spree type.  Even thought there is real evil in the world, the torture-porn and slasher movies somehow package in a palatable way.

The really jarring and uncontained horrors of our world are so remarkably hateful that we collectively sort of flinch.  We cut it off like a gangrene foot.  Child soldiers, real-actual-no-joke torture, proximity to almost any war (which is primarily composed of civilian casualties), child abuse, and sex and human traffic.  That's not what Halloween is about.  Halloween is about temporary fear about false monsters.  The fear associated with the "real world" is like a too-bright light you can't really look into.

People in communities that deal with "real world" fears almost seem congratulatory if you're conscious of them.  Like you're a member of a strange and burdensome club.  I don't know how they cope with it.  For some victims, its a day-to-day slow progression.  You just do it because there's not much else going on and depression -- for all its attractions -- is fundamentally dull.

Now its not all pain and horror (obviously) and there's no sense dwelling on the ugliness.  Yet we're almost traumatized by the helplessness of protecting or trying to save people who are far away or out of our reach.  Charities are nice, but the problem is not solved; we can't seem to cure murder and poverty the way we cured Polio.  So we invent false heros (pick most revenge-themed or superhero movies) to sate real needs, but don't actually do anything. 

The new century has added insult to the injury of the World Wars some I suppose by looking a great deal similar to the century before.  It looks so much like things are going to stay on course for nowhere.

My best response is this analysis is no cause for a lack of response.  To just take on all the world's cares and pains is either a profound act of godhood and some sort of Jesus response, but unlike Jesus, we can't take on all the sins and die.  As humans its just a form of inaction and yet another superhero fantasy.  Similarly, to do nothing and ignore the pain is exactly the sort of thing this article is trying to avoid.  As usual, nothing is not an option and everything is not an option.

Unhelpful Highschool Teacher

Ordinarily I don't think of memes as really valuable, but there are SO many in this series that I've seen in real life.  Upbeat, optimistic, and yet really terrible teachers must be a lot more common than I thought.

Thanks for crashing

Recent death of an Indy car driver makes me wonder if that's not something the organizers actively were hoping for.  Although its technically Nascar who has openly encouraged reckless driving, its entirely possible that Indy also felt that push.

Then I wonder if the joke isn't sort of on me: racing is going to be dangerous.  We can solve this whole dying problem if we just make everyone race at 30 mph or below, but who would watch that?  What's the point of high performance automobiles if they don't actually race?  Couldn't we surround the cars with impact-absorbing springs and big pockets of fire retardant?

What are reasonable safety precautions?

Republicans give more to charity than democrats?

So a 3 year old article by conservative thinker George Will caught my attention, suggesting that religious Republicans are more likely to give to charities.  The statistics are in dispute and I can't find any reputable media sources that have looked into this.

Assuming that conservatives give even just equal to liberals, it does challenge the criticism of conservatives who attack programs for the poor as simply bloodless and instead as genuinely seeking a non-government solution.

Information your wireless carrier keeps

If you don't want information you text or call about kept until your children's children are grown, maybe you should choose a carrier who doesn't retain that information.

That awesome camera doesn't make you a photographer

So for a few years a professional photographer has been trying to explain to me how photography takes real work and training.  I've long felt that way, but here's some proof.

Google puts out new Facebook competition

When I tried to think of something that would effectively compete with Facebook, I actually thought of something very similar to what Google just introduced.  Fine-grained controls for specific groups.  For example, you really don't want to start a fight with your crazy sister about a particular image of your kid eating sweets.  Your coworkers really don't need to know you went on a date last Thursday or that your dad has the flu.

Unfortunately, Google has a terrible reputation for privacy so launching their service with that emphasis is borderline silly.

Also fun: look up "google privacy" on Google's search engine and then Bing's.

Learning a language with mind maps

If you can filter through the rather tedious and overt commercial for an only tacitly related software, there's a great and simple way to learn a new language.  Using a mind map, students can connect words with concepts in general topic clouds rather than just drawing up random flash cards or lists of word associations.

Although I think there's great value in actually drawing out a map by hand, there are also software tools that are great for this, such as Xmind (video introduction) available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

(Note that the video lists its speaker as "Tony Buzan, inventor of MindMaps", which is totally untrue.)

1st world problems

After yesterday's rant about my iPhone, a friend pointed me to a collection of 1st world problems.  After some humility, I found my favorite: The Middle East riots over their lack of freedom, Vancouver riots over a hockey game.

On a related note, America gets compared to other first world nations.

I hate my iPhone

After the recent frustration with this bewilderingly stupid device, I came up with a list of things I hate about my iPhone:

• Requires entry of a valid credit card before using the phone
• Extension cable is not an acceptable accessory
• When downloading updates, the device cannot go into an off state or it will quit downloading them.  You have to keep messing with the phone.  This would be fine when its not plugged in to save power, but when it is?  Annoying as hell.
• On 2 occasions now has deleted all my settings, folders, and organization
• On 2 occasions, I've used the iTunes program manager to organize things and it just drops my changes and reverts to the original.
• Poor battery life is manageable by turning off Wifi but its 4 button presses before I can get to a wifi management screen.  It doesn't sound like much until you're doing it 3 times a day and wonder "why isn't this on the home screen?"
• Voice memos tool that comes with the device is unresponsive until about 10 seconds after the program actually comes up
• Device usage must be reset every month to keep track of data use.  It doesn't do this automatically.  The AT&T app you can download to handle this in the iPhone's place is not easy to use, probably because they have a financial incentive to let you go over your minutes.
• iTunes is bloated, difficult to use, and doesn't back up my device correctly.
• On a Mac, if you don't have iPhoto installed, it won't copy over your pictures.
• When using the App Store and surf through categories of programs, every time you download a program, you must start over at the beginning of that category and can't keep surfing through that section.
• I "authorized" a second computer to manage my music and now when I connect it to the first computer, it insists on deleting all the present music before I can manage my library.  Ugh!
• Much prefer my Android music player to the iPod program included on my phone.
• Can't connect my iPhone via BlueTooth to my computer and transfer files or sync the devices.
• No system for backing up iPhone programs or settings outside of the iTunes software.  If iTunes doesn't work or messes it up for some reason, you're screwed.
• If an application update causes problems, there's no way to go back to the previous version.  This isn't easy on Android, but can be done.

Anticipating the question: "Why don't you stop complaining and get another phone?" I'm working on it.

The bible and evolution

Having a great deal of familiarity with the evolution vs. intelligent design argument, it was refreshing to see some new points about why evolution isn't in contrast to biblical ideals and where intelligent design isn't solving problems.