2017

There were 30 posts published in 2017 (this is page 3 of 3).

Wanna buy my browsing history?

ISPs might do well at profiling the interests of some of their customers. But for people like web designers, writers or journalists, an average day might see them browsing an eclectic mix of sites on everything under the sun. And what if you’ve got a couple of people like that, or a bored teenager or two in the household as well? I wonder how useful this information might be to an advertiser?

So I just had a thought: rather than assiduously trying to cover our steps by using VPNs, Tor, Https Everywhere, Privacy Badger, or whatever, maybe an opposite strategy would be far superior.

A call to app or browser extension designers: give us something that can randomize browsing history. Automate sending our browser on a day-long crawl across multiple and sundry websites. The resulting web history would be pure gibberish, of no value to anyone. Furthermore, it would quickly become obvious what was happening: our browsing history would become just as worthless to the government surveillance agencies that are tracking us too.

Meanwhile on Mars

One thing The Expanse gets right is the immense frustration Martian colonists might feel in toiling to terra-form a barren world while knowing that their green, fertile home planet has been wrecked by greedy exploiters.  Science fiction is always more about today than tomorrow.

 

Unless I can change

Some days I feel productive, like my work is highly important, while other days I feel lazy, useless, accomplishing nothing.  That we are accomplishing nothing.   But, in either case, as long as our consciousness does not change, nothing is really being accomplished, or is capable of being accomplished.  We are running around in circles, chasing our tails, or gilding our cages.

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what google knows

In an age that border security services sometimes demand access to email passwords, and hackers manage to gain access to them without asking permission, it’s interesting to reflect on what such access conveys, especially in the case of Google.  Because even if we don’t actively use a Gmail account, it’s quite likely we have one that is associated with an Android phone or Chrome browser.  It’s worthwhile going in to have a closer look at that Google account to see what information Google is storing.  Fortunately that’s fairly simple to do, by clicking on the Account.

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Violence towards groups

Last summer, Tamil Nadu declared a bandh because of the dispute with Karnataka over water of the Kauvery River.  Aurovillians knew this was a day to lie low.  The guest house gate remained half closed, the town hall and all eating places closed, and whites were advised not to venture into the surrounding villages.  To do so would be to risk being hit by stone-throwers, or worse.

In almost every place in India where the writer has spent some time, there have been similar stories of violence. In Varkala there was a Swedish couple from whom local people attempted to extort money. In Meherabad there was the murder by goondas of Erico, and there have been several murders and rapes in and around Auroville.

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Avoidance of the personal pronoun

​The writer is thinking it could be an interesting experiment to completely avoid using the personal pronoun, and also to regard oneself habitually in the 3rd person.  Not as a pretension, but as a spiritual exercise, which, after all, reflects reality at least as well as the 1st person mode to which we are normally accustomed.  

It’s a difficult exercise.  In writing the first paragraph, the personal pronoun crept in: it was the first word written.  Formal writing also shuns the first person, so at least there is a convention to fall back on.  It would be even more helpful if there was some sort of alarm that would go off every time the personal pronoun is used.  But the word “I” is itself rather incongruous, and a little cumbersome to write on a tablet keyboard.

Coming to grips with the world in the Trump era

I don’t know if anyone has figured out yet how to deal with Trump and the new era he has forced upon us.  It’s questionable whether the normal state of opposition to regimes that we don’t approve of is sufficient in the case of Trump. Many journalists seem to have adopted a total opposition that confronts Trump’s lies with their own exaggeration, however sometimes this is necessary in the case of a leader whose worst sins are not lies but deeds.  He is a danger – no longer just a danger but effectively detrimental – to American and world democracy.  He is beginning to unravel and undermine efforts towards handling climate change, upon which our future depends.  He is damaging relationships between the U.S. and the world. He has brought in a team of tycoons with narrow interests that are unfavorable to Trump’s own constituency.  He is indicating an appetite for increased military spending.  He is limiting advances in women’s rights.  And there are many other dangers and uncertainties ahead.

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Honesty

A president who plagiarizes his inauguration speech from Hollywood blockbusters, even steals the design of the cake from the previous president and then lies about the size of the crowds attending, is being transparently honest with the American people.  He’s saying I won this and now you’re screwed.

Polanski’s The Ghost (Writer)

This excellent thriller is about a person called to write the memoirs of a fictionalized Tony Blair, who turns out to have been a CIA stooge.

It’s certainly ironic to be watching it today, when we have a new American president accused of being a Russian lapdog.