Category: Internet

Dilbert Shadow Banned Due To Trump Support

Dilbert Shadow Banned Due To Trump Support — Scott Adams, who pens the comic strip Dilbert, is not what one considers a typical right winger. However, he has come out for Donald Trump as many of us have because his opponent is a thief and liar, and because The Donald is not intimidated by political correctness and addresses obvious and consequential realities.

Dilbert Shadow Banned Due To Trump SupportThis exercise of Adam’s political rights has led to repercussions. He his been subject to pointless personal attacks by the self-proclaimed “tolerant and enlightened” but that goes with the territory of expressing an opinion.

More disgraceful and troubling is his “shadow banning” by Twitter. Shadow banning is banning a user from a web forum in such a way that he is unaware of the ban. It is a particularly sneaky and despicable form of censorship.

Adams learned of his banning when his many followers informed him they were not seeing his tweets. The ban has apparently been lifted after protests. That someone in authority at the failing company thought he could get away with it, however, shows why the company is failing.

Censoring political speech is never justice — social or otherwise.

Dilbert Shadow Banned Due To Trump Support

 

Daddy N Sky Show

Daddy N Sky Show —  YouTube sensation Mommy and Gracie Show features a mom and her daughter giving consumer reviews. A popular segment is “What The Thrift”.

What would happen if a dad did a similar thing with his daughter?

Let’s find out:

Daddy N Sky ShowDaddy N Sky

Google Filter Bubble

Google Filter BubbleGoogle Filter Bubble — Google creates a profile built on one’s browsing history — including places like Facebook and Youtube — to direct one’s searches using its product.

This is why people searching for the same word often end up with different first pages when using Google.

Google makes assumptions on what one might be looking for hence one might never find what one wants.

DuckDuckGo, its Paoli-based competitor that does not use tracking, explains it here.

By the way, did you see where Facebook is making news stories disappear that don’t match their political preference?

Google Filter Bubble

 

 

Mountain View Monster Email Escape

Mountain View Monster Email Escape — Google has obvious issues for those concerned about privacy. Paoli-based DuckDuckGo is an alternative for browsing the web but what about for those who depend on an email service like Gmail? Mountain View Monster Email Escape

And want it free.

In a Quora discussion, the most promising suggestions appear to be Hushmail.com and Zoho.com/mail.

Unlike with DuckDuckGo, which we use constantly, we can’t vouch for them from experience. We strongly suspect they are better than something associated with Google, however, and are certainly a starting point for those wishing to wean themselves from the clutches of the Mountain View Monster.

Hat tip Bob Small of Delco Debates.

Mountain View Monster Email Escape — Google is Watching Google is Watching BillLawrneceOnline.com BillLawrenceOnline.com

 

Iconic Computer Geek Mystery

Iconic Computer Geek

Iconic Computer Geek Mystery — This picture has been flying around the internet almost from the time the World Wide Web came into existence.

The computer appears to be an IBM XT, which was produced from 1983 to 1987. The printer is dot matrix, the brand of which we can’t identify. The boxes contain 3M 5.25-inch floppy disks and there is a phone jack screwed to the wall presumably for a line for a dial-up modem.

What makes the photo iconic, though, is the guy behind the keyboard. The cigarette, the hairstyle, the glasses, taste in clothes and overweight slouch screamed that here is someone who spent all his days and nights acquiring arcane skills and dealing with the problems to keep the machines working.

And drinking a lot of carbonated, caffeinated sugar water.

Many uncharitably assume the cheap paneling is in a basement rec room. We always figured it was in a small business maybe because we worked at one once about that time with that decor.

In 2011, a photo was placed on Reddit claiming to be the same guy 20 years later and much cleaned up before the same paneling. It was republished on tech sites world wide.

No name was supplied though. He deserves one. He’s part of history.

Here is the alleged before and after shot.

Iconic Computer Geek Mystery

If you know his name let us know.

Update: We have been told that the icon’s name is Dave Aho and the second guy is not him. Obviously, we cannot provide a definitive judgement but here is Dave’s photo from Facebook.

Iconic Computer Geek Mystery

Ad Blocking Praise — Ad Blocking: It’s A Good Thing

Ad Blocking Praise -- It's A Good ThingAd Blocking Praise — Auto-play video and pop up advertisements have made some websites unusable hence the increasing popularity of ad blocking software.

This stuff has long been available for desktop systems but Apple late last summer made it practical for mobile and did the pigs squeal.

To no avail though.

With a little less greed, though, there would not be a problem.

The point of advertising is to expose one’s product to potential customers. If a website is a bad experience and chases away viewers, exposure is not going to happen no matter how often an ad pops up or how loud the video auto-plays.

And really, isn’t it a tad unethical to sneak trackers onto the computers of potential customers without their full informed consent?

We use Firefox as our browser with the free plug-ins Ghostery and No Script. We see comments on sites cursing the pop ups and the slow loading and wonder what the fuss is. We check the site in another browser without the blockers and learn.

Now, commerce isn’t bad and advertising goes back to the days of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

And websites need support. If a website were to restrict advertisements, however, to .jpgs with a clickable link or even just written classifieds as per Ben Franklin’s paper, products and services would get the necessary publicity, readers would not be chased away and the websites would get the funding they need.

And of course there is nothing wrong with asking for the occasional donation either:




Ad Blocking Praise -- Ad Blocking: It's A Good Thing

But making people miserable by trying to squeeze every cent one can from them is a pretty lousy way to go through life.

Ad Blocking Praise — Ad Blocking: It’s A Good Thing

Fastest Page Internet

Fastest Page Internet Fastest Page Internet

The fastest page on the internet in the whole wide world is now on BillLawrenceOnline.com

Check it out here.

Take that FreeCodeCamp.com

Fastest Page Internet is on BillLawrenceOnline.com

Ashley Madison Search Engine

Some sins are best kept covered but when they are before the world it is disastrous to ignore them. Ashley Madison Search Engine

Noted programmer @hilare_belloc has created a search engine for emails found in the massive data dump from the Ashley Madison adultery site.

It can be found here.

It must be remembered that Ashley Madison’s sign-up process does not require verification of an email address to set up an account, so legitimate addresses might have been hijacked. Also there were those who signed up out of curiosity.

And most of those who signed up did not follow through on anything so mull that before calling a divorce lawyer.

Just the same, if the hack ends up destroying Ashley Madison and its parent company Avid Life Media, the world will be a better place.

Ashley Madison Search Engine

 

Bots Rule Web Says Study

Humans accounted for just 40.9 percent of web traffic in 2014 reports eMarketer.com. Bots Rule Web Says Study -- Human accounted for just 40.9 percent of web traffic in 2014 reports eMarketer.com.

The remainder are bots i.e. a software application that runs automated tasks.

Some of these are good bots that do things like index web sites for searches.

Others are bad bots that mine private information like credit card numbers in phishing scams.

The research firm Incapsula says the bad bots outnumber the good bots about 29 percent to 27 percent.

Distil Networks says the good bots outnumber the bad bots 36.3 percent to 22.8 percent.

Bots Rule Web Says Study

Privacy Dead On The Web

For those who think surfing habits are anonymous go to this site and take the test. Yes, privacy is dead on the web unless one takes special precautions that most of us find aggravating and feel unnecessary. Privacy Dead On The Web -- For those who think surfing habits are anonymous go to this site and take the test. Yes, privacy is dead on the web unless one takes special precautions that most of us find aggravating and feel unnecessary

Granted, though it is nice to know that there are precautions one can take if one should feel the need and these can be for very good reasons i.e. a dissident in an Islamic nation, not just for perverse or violent ones.

In a related matter, Apple is collaborating with U.S. researchers to launch apps that would get their DNA tested.

Privacy Dead On The Web