My workplace is freezing cold. It's making me want to do absolutely nothing. I don't know how to handle this. I'm putting on another shirt. edit: I had a turtleneck on under my work clothes. For a while there I was looking like Steve "The Elf" Jobs. It was pretty hysterical.
13 million. Dogs I kind of want to stay in bed all day and cuddle the dog, for no other reason than my dog is very, very cuddly. Movies Men in Black is on Netflix right now. Dala and I watched it the other day and it was the first time I've seen it in well over a decade. It holds up really well, it's such a well done film. Thinking about it a few days later, I'm pretty impressed by Tommy Lee Jones subtle, dry execution of humor. The dude did a great job. Sewing I'm doing two sewing projects this year for Christmas gifts and I've been watching a ton of sewing and quilting videos on YouTube while I've been working on them. I'm learning a lot of things I'll probably never use, but are still good to know. The main one being, how to hide threads. I don't know if that'll ever come in handy for me, because I really, really like the look of exposed threads, to the point where after these two projects are done I'm probably gonna go into experimental mode. I wanna try different stitches to see how they look, different thicknesses of thread, even putting two different but complimentary threads in the needle at the same time, just to see what happens. Also, as an aside, I'm finding myself paying as much if not more attention to the texture amd feel of a fabric than the color of it when ever I'm looking at stuff. Wonder if that's normal. I dunno. Life's good. Hope you're all doing great this fall.
Oversaw my first mid-term yesterday, can't help but think that I've been left there alone with 200+ freshmen on purpose. I can't even tell if they're giving me attitude or a lesson at this point. I'm making a lot of progress in other endeavours, though. Research project goes forward, joined a group working on stuff that's a hat throw from my MS thesis, studies workload stabilised around somewhat-sensible 15 hours per course per week, went out on a date with someone interesting (and, apparently, interested – meeting her again this weekend), and started going on aikido lessons twice a week.
Conference went great! Met a lot of cool people, learned about some fun and "fun" stuff, and people seemed to like my talk. I also got a new ruffly polka dot shirt in in time to wear it for my presentation: Now I'm back home and my chickens are so very happy to see me.
Thank you all for your suggestions on how to live with Windows, my Microsoft-controlled existence feels a lot easier now. I managed to move my Linux virtual machine over from VMWare Fusion on my Macbook Pro and after whispering soothing words into its ear it now lives happily under Windows. For when I don't need the whole Linux desktop experience I've now got a Ubuntu terminal in my start menu, which is now located at the top of the screen. Rainmeter is really nice, I used to run GeekTools back in the day but for some silly reason stopped. I haven't dared to run those de-bloater scripts yet, but hopefully will get around to it this weekend. Still trying to find a native RSS reader that doesn't suck, but I'm leaning more and more towards going with a web solution. My only problem right now is ironically that I can't get my printer to work which is connected to the network through an Airport Express. Trying to get it to work with Bonjour only makes the installer crash. Thanks, Apple!
Just 'cuz I know you'll appreciate it: I had my Mac Mini cease to believe in my Epson printer over Bonjour between page 2 and page 3 of a 14-page PDF. Next step is to restart the damn computer and hope for the best.
I see, no, just trying to get it to work in Windows. I also just realised Samsung sold off their printing division in 2016, so basically I've been trying to make a deprecated printer talk to Windows through a deprecated router through deprecated software...
Bonjour has been effectively deprecated. They haven't updated it in three years. The Airport Express has likewise been turned into abandonware. Apple was never good at networking and they've shown zero interest in working with companies that are. What I love is that they kept selling Time Capsules for about two years after they killed AFP in their operating system. For a while, I was able to keep a SCSI-2 film scanner working over Firewire in an OS X environment. Then Steve Jobs died. And that, as they say, was that. Nowadays you're lucky to get 18 months of consistent functionality out of an iPhone. Your best move is to take a good hard look at the devices and software Apple is advertising their support of and discontinue literally everything else. Because if it's working now, it will suddenly stop one day when you most need it. I've been on the phone with tech support and had them say "yeah, well we've got email? But you really shouldn't use it. Unofficially our support tree for MobileMe is "use Gmail."
Somewhere on Reddit there's a lamentation from an Apple engineer on the subject of strain reliefs. It must be a thousand words on how everyone knows they need them, everyone knows they're good, everyone knows that Apple products suffer through their absence and everyone knows that Jonny Ive and his ilk will never allow Apple products to have any. Because fuck your ergonomics.
I think there's a lot on my mind. I really love the lyrics of that song, thenewgreen, check it out. nowaypablo, you too, if you're still around. Saw him live the other night, it was a tremendous show, the bands musicianship live really impressed me and they were able to get LOUD in a way I wasn't expecting. I count black sheep on my way to sleep I can’t pick and choose these devils in my Patterned dreams When I wake up I am smiling Now I will not change my mind I will remember the trouble in my Brother’s eye It’s okay we don’t cry, we love the southern sky It’s okay we don’t cry, we love the southern sky It’s okay we don’t cry, we love the southern sky It’s okay we don’t cry, we love the southern sky You and me These are titles I can hardly speak Are we bound here to an echo tinted Blue and green? Let my memory run backwards So together we may lie I will remember the fire In the southern sky Voter turnout for the general election was just shy of 23%. I'd love to see a demographic breakdown of that. Incredibly disappointed in the voters of this state shooting themselves in the foot so that their vehicle tabs are cheaper, this is only going to serve to make our roads worse. I'll have some schadenfreude when these same people are complaining about potholes not being filled two years from now. Meanwhile, affirmative action was voted down which is an interesting choice. Trying to find more volunteer opportunities to partake in, and trying to find time for it all. Eventually I'm going to blow up or find a limit but I think that having spent time where people living out of tin-roofed shantys were more than happy to be hospitable to me has really turned my mind inside-out in a some ways. Sitting here posting on Hubski from my work office (I have an office now.) is a more privileged existence than most.One, two, three
I'm around! Miss you guys. I check in occasionally but have not had time. Would love to do a pubski post at some point. I really hope you're doing well. What're you involved in atm?Trying to find more volunteer opportunities to partake in, and trying to find time for it all.
The new job is alright, but the coworkers are insanely supportive and wonderful. But I got caught in a sticky situation to end my second week which has spiraled out of control into a multi-jurisdiction, multi-department issue of legal and regulatory ugliness. So now I get to help deal with that. Though my boss and I think we've found a way to un-involve ourselves which is nice. I saw JJ Wilde again recently, and y'all should check her out. Unfortunately she's only released four songs, but they're fabulous.
Weaning I want to avoid virtue-signaling, so I am not mentioning this anywhere else, but it seems like I should mention it: I am devaluing my data for Facebook. In effect, I am weaning myself off of it. Removing my data slowly. Removed the app. Will only be logging in from an Incognito Chrome browser from my laptop, which I only open about 2-3x per week. The data people put into Facebook is being used actively in disinformation campaigns all over the world. By reducing the quality and quantity of my data, I make it less valuable. While also being able to manage the couple of groups I own on FB, and can't move elsewhere. It feels like The Right Thing To Do: reduce the value of my data, and I reduce the effectiveness of Facebook's corrupting efforts on our democracy and social society. I posted a flamey post today to get as many people to unfriend me as possible. Then I'll whittle down the photos, historical posts, friends, groups, followings, etc. My FB profile will be (hopefully) a data graveyard. Which is more effective than just deleting an account, I think.
I'd argue it's not as effective as you hope it to be. Facebook cares primarily about who you are and about gathering eyeballs. They need very few data points for the first part - with just a few liked pages they can already group you in with similar people. It's all about lookalike audiences. Someone on HM figured out that while you can't target ads for illicit things, you can find out which pages are most similar to illicit things. Tirns out you can totally target weedheads by targeting 18-25 males who like Family Guy. What many people also don't know is that there's a very long list of companies that have already upload their customer's email and name to Facebook, so simply by virtue of having an email and name they already know a bunch about you. Using the service less isn't gonna change that. You probably already have an ad blocker so you're practically worth little to them anyway.
Different issues: Facebook Itself: The product itself is not very good. Even with rigorous culling and grouping of friends and interests, the product works poorly at its most basic function: Showing me my friends' activity. Facebook as a datamine: Numerous bad actors are culling FB data to build disinformation campaigns and targeting the weak with their fake constructions. Cambridge Analytica did this at a small scale, and we know they did everything from make up fake issues, to organize fake rallies around their fake issues, and got actual people to show up and protest their fake issue. To do that, they need to scrape content from actual people and profiles to build plausible fake ones. All you need to do to have this brought in to stark relief is have one of your photos show up as the profile on a fake alt-right FB account with 1400 friends and thousands of shares, to have a real come-to-jesus moment about your personal role in the fraud. Like I did. Who gives a flying fuck about advertising for tennis shoes, or makeup products. The issue is when they target 20 people within a 3 mile area, and 12 of them get riled up and show up to a rally about a completely made-up issue... and your face or activity or history may be used to validate those false accounts... that makes you personally culpable. Not legally, but definitely morally. And my morals are better than that.
They're indeed different issues, but your original wording directly coupled the value of your data to the use of your data. I was arguing that the monetary value of your data to Facebook won't decrease much by reducing your Facebook activity. You're (now) making the argument that the scraping and re-using of data is wrong and that you don't want to be involved in that. Which I'm not disagreeing with. But that isn't your value to Facebook, that's your value to Putin / 4chan / whatever hellspawn makes those pages. Your face now, sadly, helps convince gullible people of some argument that's never yours. No, fuck that. You're powerless. You're collateral damage, the result of chance and big numbers that ostensibly lead to scraped, automated identity fraud. It's not your fault, it's the platform that shouldn't make automated fraud so goddamned easy. Take another example: social security numbers. It is far too easy to get someone's number from some leak and use that to steal identities, solely because social security numbers in the US is the only personal identifier that is ubiquitous. That doesn't mean you are personally culpable of this shitty system. Maybe to the extent that you should let your congress(wo)man know about it, but other than that you are powerless.I am devaluing my data for Facebook.
that makes you personally culpable. Not legally, but definitely morally.
Good catch on the "devaluing" comment I made. I conflated "Facebook" the business and "Facebook" the tool for mining unsuspecting rube's data, into one thing, which clouded my intent. I could give a flying fuck about Facebook The Business. It'll die just like MySpace did, eventually. My issue is with bad actors culling data from Facebook to use in their nefarious actions; AKA, Facebook the iStock library for fake profile creators. THOSE are the people I want to devalue my content for. I have ZERO power against them, and have zero tools to find out how/where they have used my information to con other people into believing their bullshit. I was just fortunate that some Uzbek drone worker accidentally tried to friend me with a profile built from my own data. I reverse-mined their profile, went through all their friends and pages, and marked all of them as fraudulent, then marked their profile as pretending to be me. FB deleted it. But it is one of hundreds of thousands of fake profiles actively maintained by the dezinformatsiya campaigns being run throughout Asia and the Russian provinces. How many others are leveraging my data to push their agendas using my face, activity, and 'personality'? Nah. No more. I'm done with it. Deleted the FB app from my phone, and have been online once every other day since then. Removed most of my photo galleries, and am in the process of unfollowing all books, pages, events, and deleting my posting history. It'll take time, but my data will slowly fade away, and as it gets older, it will lose relevance as well, so the data they already have will become less valuable over time. (I think...)
I'll echo veen's thoughts by suggesting that the true way to understand your value to Facebook is to go through the exercise of buying some ads. There's nothing secret about what they do or who they are; Cambridge Analytica wasn't doing much more than extraordinarily comprehensive A/B testing. You can't get the full Steve Bannon treatment as an ordinary citizen but you can discover just how easy it is to target Magic:The Gathering fans over 45 who listen to Rod Stewart within half a mile of your zip code.
Cambridge Analytica created fake issues, targeted "news" and ads at a specific subset of people to get them riled up about those issues, and then had those people show up at a fake event to protest the fake issue they created. They then taught the Russians how to do this at a conference in St. Petersburg. And the Russians (and others) have been building fake profiles for YEARS, using scraped data, activity, photos, and posts from legitimate users like me, to build out their probable-looking profiles to promote their dezinformatsiya campaigns. It's the sobering realization you come to when you see your photo used on a profile for an alt-right fuckstick, and read in depth the things the whistleblower at CA was involved in.