Google Rant #1 - don't steal my books Mister Google · 24.01.10 by colin newell
My first thought is…
If I created a series of Google rants…
Would google index them?
Well. Let’s see.
Anyway.
Imagine a World where you could lose everything at the whim of a giant corporation… in a future World where there were no borders… only corporations that took what they wanted, when they wanted.
Your money. Your ideas. Your family and friends.
Sounds crazy.
Would it make it ok is the corporation tossed you a bone for your most cherished possessions? Like 64 dollars? For your life’s work…
Oddly, this is the present World. Google appears to want to steal all the books on the Planet and pay the authors 64 bucks for their trouble.
Sound odd? Sound outrageous? Sound like a scary future World.
Sure as f*ck does.
Read more about it here
Shit like this staggers me. And we all need to be on guard.
Fall Colors Canadian Style 2009 Biting the twitter bullet · 31.08.09 by colin newell
Going to try twitter for a few weeks to see if there is any benefit. The above video demonstrates the actual spiritual depth of the app known as Twitter. And how challenging it is to be the Ryan Seacrest of the coffee World.
2 days. 24 followers.
No porn stars…
Update – September 22, 2009 – Twitter accounts deleted and the Planet Earth is still in orbit around the Sun. Upside: No further exposure to the World’s largest collection of needy folk, that I have ever seen, since the 80’s.
Summer Food Fun and Drink Chapter 11 The downside of twitter · 11.07.09 by colin newell
Here’s the thing. If I could sprout an extra lobe in my brain and actually incur the ability to distill my more cogent thoughts down to 140 characters…
I probably still would not twitter.
Because I just typed 140 characters and I haven’t said a golly dash thing!
And you know it.
A lovely young lady (and that fact is irrelevant) that I passed on Friday (on campus) mused that she twitters – but is pretty sure that…
a.) She has no followers
and
b.) No one would really care about what she wrote anyway.
And yet I know for a fact that she is usually surrounded by a gaggle of young men…
and she talks a lot to them.
And they listen with rapt interest.
Because she is interesting.
Intelligent.
And pretty. Not that this indelible fact matters.
There are a couple of other nagging problems with twitter (and, oh yea… Facebook).
They are over run by corporations. We know that Facebook is merely a data mining site used by the man to get more marketing info on us consume-droids.
And now large corporations are signing into twitter because they think it’s hip and it’s marketing ore rich for refining.
It is about as hip as my grand-dad rapping with Dr. Dre.
Bottom line – there is nothing useful anyone can say in 140 characters or less. And when millions and millions are doing it – it just makes it less relevant than space dust.
My opinion.
Comment [2]
Spring into birdsong - why we do not twitter · 19.04.09 by colin newell
I embrace technology. Heck, I have been doing this for too many years. When I first started monkeying around on the internet, there were no web servers. They were called gopher servers – and they served up text.
My first attempts at webbing were launched from a Windows 3.11 for Work groups box (an IBM PC) around 1995 or so. That was a century ago in internet time.
So now we have streaming audio and video and dynamic web pages that change with every glance. I am good with that, dog. Really I am.
I believe that I owe it to my dedicated reader that I keep it fresh and real.
I do not believe, however, that there are more than a very small handful of people out there that would hang onto every word – if I offered truly up to date snippets of my every thought.
Twitter.
I do not do it. I will not do it.
No one needs to know what I am thinking when I am standing on the corner of 1st and Main Street. No one needs to know when I am sipping on a truly great coffee in a remarkable setting. I can tell them later.
Twitter is an alarming indication that we are getting a tad too self indulgent.
I went through the eighties – I was in my 20’s. And let me tell you folks… the only difference between then and now (for me) was more hair and more hair gel… and a lot more self indulgent behavior from just about everyone around me.
I have a theory. We never actually left the eighties. The mentality is still very much alive in all of us. There are many of us that actually feel that there is an audience for our every utterance, our every stomach gurgle, our every thought – however useless and every trivial thought that jumps from our synapses.
Enough already. How about some quiet.
Take some… on me.
Colin Newell is a Victoria resident and long time user of the World Wide Web. His handiwork has graced the cyber-World for going on 2 decades… if anyone is counting that is.
Comment [3]
Summer food fun and drink - black hole swallow internet · 9.09.08 by colin newell
Scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) plan to smash particle beams together at close to the speed of light to create mini-versions of the explosion believed to have triggered the birth of the cosmos.
Not quite like cloning Dolly the sheep… but curious none the less.
So. Tomorrow. The World might end with a giant Moob
Moob. That is the opposite of… well, you know.
A black hole, in theory, has such intense gravity that matter can move into it approaching the speed of light.
Such things actually exist in the Universe. At a great distance from us, thank heavens.
Mini-Moobs, like White Dwarves exist within 10 light years. 8.6 Light years actually.
While not as crazy as Black Holes, the White Dwarf is pretty intense from a physics point of view – a couple of square inches of material from a W.D. weighs in at over a ton. A couple of square inches of a black hole weighs in at… well, actually… pretty close to infinite weight. Help me Jenny Craig, help me!
So. Cosmologists think an explosion of an object the size of a Canadian nickel occurred about 13.7 billion years ago and led to the formation of all matter. Stockwell Day would argue 3000 years ago – but that is another matter. Get it? Matter?
Never mind.
Some critics say the experiment will create “black holes” of intense gravity that could implode the Earth, or that it will open the way for beings from another universe to invade through a “worm hole” in space-time. Cool. When they come through the gate, I will be waiting with my phaser…
And that bad boy won’t be set to stun I promise you.
Anyway. Have a nice day.
Comment [1]
The downside of Facebook.com chapter two · 9.06.08 by colin newell
I wrote this over a year ago: Facebook.com is a website solely devoted to data mining – extracting your personal information and selling it to the highest bidder – you are giving up your privacy in exchange for a place to deposit every miserable detail of your McLife.
Some tangible reasons why people are drawn to Facebook.com:
-you really need to catch up with that kid that had a crush on you in Grade Six
-you really need to kill the kid that bullied you in Grade 3
-that 19 year old student teacher had a thing for you in 1974 and now that you are all grown up, it’s time for a follow-up
And for this you are willing to publish your birth date, place of employment, social insurance number, preference in Vodka, etc.
God speed friend, God speed.
And yet today, in June of 2008, we are investigating Facebook.com because of the obvious…
Canada’s privacy commissioner is investigating allegations that the social networking site Facebook.com may be illegally collecting personal information such as telephone numbers, birthdays, and instant messaging addresses without authorization.
Hello. Hello. Read the freaking fine print. Facebook.com has you by the DNA from the word go and all you need do is read the user agreement.
Getting Canada’s privacy commissioner involved with this nonsense is a waste of time. I mean, why not spend those government dollars on some more meaningful study… like why Dog’s bite, why Nun’s always have an evil glint in their eye and why there are signs like “Piercing & Tattoo’s while you wait”?
On a more ironic note – yesterday while waiting for my dear Mom-in-law and wife to finish a round of shopping at the Fairfield Thrifty Foods I watched a guy and a gal who had just met over Thrifty Foods sushi on a sidewalk table… interact, flirt, smile, touch and, get this… exchange Facebook creds. Surprisingly, the pretty Girl (Fiona) from Australia spent more time laughing and touching the guy – a slightly younger dude who heralded from a French farming community in Saskatchewan – he had a French last name starting with B but I was not paying that much attention to him. She was confident, older and Worldly wise. He just looked goofy and spent too much time imagining her naked.
And I did all of this with my ears… without the internet connection…
Try it sometime. Turn it off. Tune it out. And use what God gave you… to participate in the World around you.
Hats off to the Chinese! · 6.09.07 by colin newell
Over 40 million Chinese nationals are bloggers.
If you are an internet user in China – at home or in any internet cafe you can look forward to pop ups on your screen that remind you that you are being watched.
Any mention of Democracy online in China generally results in the dreaded ban of shame… or worse.
Of 61 people jailed World-wide for internet crime, 51 of them are in China.
Nice.
I reflect back on meeting and interviewing a mainland Chinese student at the University I work at.
She had no recollection of anything bad ever happening at Tiananmen Square.
That fact alone is sobering. It is harrowing. It is staggering.
So. To the millions of Chinese bloggers that stand diligent, that defy arrest and prosecution for expressing their free will:
I salute you.
Want to learn more about China online? Click here – Boxun.US
The downside of Facebook.Com and LiveJournal.Com · 25.05.07 by colin newell
Few people realise this so I am going to cut to the chase is it were.
FaceBook.Com and LiveJournal.Com are bad.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Yet so many people rave about it…
Like my work-mate Mike.
Quoting Mike:
Facebook is so wonderful. So wonderful. There are thousands of users on it at our workplace. You must join. You must. Goo-goo. Gaa-gaa.
Shut-up. Whatever.
Now the truth.
Ever read the user agreement on these online communities when you sign up? Ever? ever at all? Show of hands?
Noone. As I suspected.
Dig this. When you join FaceBook.Com, they own you. And everything you deposit. All your photos and all your rants. It is theirs. Forever.
Example: Being the curious science guy I signed into Facebook (and did not read the user agreement) and joined the network that Mike suggested.
What is the first thing I see and read? It is a 19 year old student at my University straddling a toilet puking her guts out after an all-evening drinking binge. Her first and last name is there and her photo.
So. All future employers can see that she is a piss-tank. And probably not a good employee.
In an entry I spotted on LiveJournal.Com (I have a friend on there who is a witty middle-aged writer and game designer…) he has many teenage friends it seems…
One of them writes:
Hi readers. I am Julie Xxxxxxx and I am going to f—-k my boyfriend for the first time tonight
I wonder if this is the right thing to do. It is my first time.
Ok. Is what the right thing to do? Writing about it where everyone can see OR doing it with someone you have known for 3 weeks?
As we have also discovered in some study on the phenomenon of social networking sites is that GIGANTIC CORPORATIONS watch the content whilst licking their chops.
It seems that all these people spilling their whatever have softened the jobs of the marketing experts.
When a whole community decides to share every last intimate detail of their sad lives on the internet…
Well.
You fill in the blanks.
Domain Registry of Canada - SCAM Rant · 4.04.07 by colin newell
I look after about one dozen websites for a variety of wonderful clients.
Almost all of them have received paper-mail from the scam artists at the Domain Registry of Canada.
Yes. It is a scam.
“People who prey on the uncertainty of others make me sick. This is the reason direct mail and email marketing efforts are dying in vein. It is because of places like the Domain Registry of Canada scam.”
“The Domain Registry Of Canada scam get their filthy paws on people who register a .CA web domain. The Domain Registry Of Canada scam then sends direct mail pieces warning you that you must “protect your domain” and other jargon that insinuates the Domain Registry Of Canada scam is an official or safe place (it is – but so is every other one). It’s done to lure you and the Domain Registry of Canada site and materials even look like a Government affiliated agency.”
link
Other online and paper-mail scams include the likes of the International Internet Directory from Zurich, Switzerland (or some other Central European hell-hole…) including 1000$ invoices for inclusion in this fake directory.
Like telephone solicitation, this is right down there with the bottom feeders. So. Beware the Domain Registry of Canada
Did some more research on the DRC scammers – It seems they have been fined 40,000 dollars for their antics – and with their latest set of antics, it appears they may be in breach of this original court order!
Details here
Hey. Sometimes the good guys do prevail.
Comment [3]
Major blog re-design -coming- here... · 21.01.07 by colin newell
Yup.
I am sick of this look.
Ground control to Major Blog,
your circuits dead, there something wrong…
Can you hear me major Blog?
Can you hear me major Blog?
Stay tuned loyal reader.
Addon: Ok, so what I am going to do is create a theme for each section. I think this homepage is quite unique and should not remind anyone of anything
Am I right?
Comment [2]
The I Generation (or how I learned not to give a rats ass...) · 12.01.07 by colin newell
A new mobile phone has been launched amid much fanfare and hype. But, as a survey reveals half of adults feel overwhelmed by technology, not everyone’s jumping up and down. link
Ok. Here is the thing.
I have several Mac devotees in my workplace.
One is quite sane. An awesome nice guy in fact.
The other is, well… devoted. Totally dedicated to all things APPLE.
He repeats Mac gospel as if it was nectar delivered from… well. You use your imagination.
When Steve Jobs opened his mouth the other day to reveal the i-Phone, work-buddy was there hanging on to every word like a performing seal.
Virtually every one of Steve Jobs’s verbal ejaculations involves much barking and yelping from the seal-audience that surrounds him.
He clears his throat. They applaud.
His facial expression alone can trigger a virtual melt-down or heat-up of Apple stock.
From my little perch in the Canadian I-goshosphere, I get minute-by-minute updates on apple stock from a co-worker-apple-devoted-guy that owns nary one share of stock. It’s annoying. I mean: Dude. Buy some frickin stock and stop barking and yawning about it.
Back to Jobs for a moment.
His sole role as one of the richer men in the World is to tell us what to buy.. to Tell us what to think… to tell us what to feel.
Shit. I thought this was my job. Well here is my reply:
I-DontGiveA-Rats-Ass
I-DontGIveA-Flying-Fcuk
I-DONT-CARE and
I-Wont-Buy!
I-Free
Thank god almighty, I-free!
