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Communicating in a networked world

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Now that I know everyone

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spooky-guyI have several “threads” on LinkedIn. First, I’m a computer science guy, so I know lots of CS people. Next, I’ve been involved in peace activities with The Dalai Lama Foundation and The Metta Center. Another group of people. Then recently as a musician+composer. On LinkedIn I’ve been looking at the “People You May Know” links and recently I’ve been adding a lot of musicians because LinkedIn usually does get it right and it shows me names and photos for people I do indeed know. For every 8 or so people it suggests, I know one or two people.

But a week ago I noticed that it’s not giving me as many names or people I know. Maybe I know one in a hundred of the people it’s presenting. I wonder if their algorithm is confused by my change of orientation and can’t figure out who to present as possible links? Uh, yes, I do know that it’s basing its recommendations on my own contacts, but it seems to have reached some kind of event horizon.

Backdoors – How Absolutely Stupid!

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Cloud computingI have not written on this subject because I just see everyone else is banging on Congress about how stupid it would be to install “backdoors” in commercial email and software services. But honestly, I’m a bit concerned right now because government pressure is being stepped up.

A “backdoor” is a mechanism that allows a service provider or government to access the contents of a system without knowing users’ passwords and without their knowledge. It is essentially a universal key that opens everything.

We hear government officials crying out that this is the only way they can protect the nation against attack. In other words, the government wants to have universal access to every electronic communication, or we will all die in flaming terrorist attacks.

So just why is this the stupidest idea in the world? [Read more…]

Opt out from Online Behavioral Advertising? Maybe not…

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Advertising and cookies
Advertising and cookies

Online advertising has “gotten personal” and can adapt itself so that the ads you see are related to what you’ve been viewing, or shopping for, online.

This means, for example, that when you are viewing a sleeping bag at REI.com, you might later on see an ad for REI—an ad featuring that same sleeping bag—at another web site later that week.

A friend recently mentioned this article in Huffington Post claiming you can opt out of this kind of advertising. They say you can opt out in 2 easy steps. Turns out you can’t really opt out of the tracking, just the advertising itself. [Read more…]

Where’s your external brain?

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SD-card-shadowedFor years I’ve kept snippets of code in a file that I refer to when I need a cookbook of sorts to perform some magic incantation I only need to invoke once or twice a year. I just don’t need to keep this kind of stuff in my head. I call the file Gems of Wisdom.

You know, in programming (which I do a lot of), there are often little gotchas that require hours or days to figure out. And once you’ve figured them out, it’s easy to forget them if you immediately move on to the next challenge. Working at the level I do, which often requires typing command-line stuff, I’d never remember this stuff character by character unless I used it every day. [Read more…]

Do you hear yourself?

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sky-passport-photo-2013
The real “Sky”?
sky-2013-this-hat-laughs-at-rain
The real “Sky”?

“Do you hear yourself?” in your web site and marketing?

In an article  Content: Guided by Voices, (on Feedblitz’s blog) Bob LeDrew exhorts you to help your organization or yourself find your voice — your legitimate voice. He explores a few ways and examples, including some sketching and visual methods (I use sketching and visuals all the time when I’m exploring ideas!). And arrives at a way of checking your progress. [Read more…]