Facebook, Privacy and the Alternatives

A crazy amount of digital ink has been spent lately taking Facebook to task, and demonizing Mark Zuckerberg, calling for a boycott of the site in response to the privacy changes.  (Random side note Engadget hasn't said a peep about this it seems, either that or they pulled the content.)

The boycotting and leaving Facebook is an interesting cunundrum given that Facebook actually provides some value to many of its users.  That value may just be satisfying their voyeur needs into the lives of their "friends", but it is a way to maintain some level of contact with those that are far away from us.  Every now and then you learn things that you might have not known, or encounter very odd situations with divorces or fighting couples.  Is any of this useful, valuable, or worthwhile?  I don't know that it isn't.

I thought that this was an interesting alternative design to counter Facebook's Monolithic scale, the idea is to give you a higher degree of control over what you share.  I think that they certianly choose the best possible time to launch, but given the time it will take them to get off the ground it likely will have fallen off of people radar by then.  People have short attention spans and the news doesn't know what a follow up report is, so I don't expect to ever hear about this "Alternative" again.

Biotower project

image via Philips

The idea of a biotower in your home helping you grow herbs and vegetables is interesting.  The idea that many if anyone would be interested in growing fish to eat in their home seems less likely to me.  I will give them that it is an interesting design.  I would prefer to see some options on how you configure it, maybe there is a way to grow sea life like lobster and clams. 





via gizmodo

Windows 7 toy

image via ehomeupgrade

I am sure the implementation of this will be crap, but why does everyone just come out with reference designs now. It seems like everyone wants someone else to license and manufacture the products that they develop, rather than developing and manufacturing. The idea of having a smart picture frame that supports DLNA and has a touch screen interface to browse through your media in any room seems like a no brainer, but as far as I know this product has yet to be released.

Square TOS seems agressive

I was reading the Terms of Service on Square

Emphasis mine. Does the section we are not responsible if we get hacked seem like they are reaching in there TOS? I cannot image that this would hold up in court, and if it did I think that TJX wishes that they had this in their contracts.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL SQUARE, ITS PROCESSORS, AFFILIATES, AGENTS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, SUPPLIERS OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, THAT RESULT FROM THE USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS SERVICE. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL SQUARE BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE, LOSS OR INJURY RESULTING FROM HACKING, TAMPERING OR OTHER UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OR USE OF THE SERVICE OR YOUR ACCOUNT OR THE INFORMATION CONTAINED THEREIN.

Couchdb isn't making fun

My only comment in months thinks this is making fun of me.

I guess miss how he is making fun, but given that he used a medium that I am positive is a waste of electricity to do it, meh.  I imagine that he would disagree with my opinion about his product, and I am sure that CouchDB isn't a one trick pony so if he doesn't see it as a threat to his business model good for him. 

The first time I heard of Couchdb was in relation to its offline capabilities, so that is really the only thought/impression of the software I have.  With all the more press I see about CouchDB it is probably the only opinion others have too.  I thought that since Google is more or less abandoning Gears in favor of supporting the standards process with HTML5, I though that the offline capabilities of CouchDB would be an obvious next to fall.

Either way, Damien Katz visited my blog that makes me feel special.  I suppose I managed to heckle Hugh into commenting here too, so apparently you never know how much vanity searching is going on on the web.

Childhood dev

image via WSJ

The article was sparse, but the info graphic was interesting.  Basically compares the Mothers of children born in May and January. The WSJ article linked conjectured it wasn't just the babies born during different times of the year, rather it may be the means of the mothers giving birth in that time frame.

Seattle Hacker Spaces

Metrix - This seems to be pretty active, they at least have events scheduled.




Hackerbotlabs - doesn't seem to still be meeting, or at least their blog has been silent since the end of 2009

Saturdayhouse - I cannot see any recent or future events, but their mailing list still seems to be getting hits.  This may not be actively meeting anymore.

Ignite Seattle - not really a hackerspace, but nerdy and interesting talks.  They meet every so often.

CouchDB

Wow,  this has been sitting in the drafts folder for so long that it looks like there is a new tech that will make both Google Gears and CouchDB irrelevant.  HTML5 is supposed to ship with the ability to cache data offline natively.  I almost feel bad that CouchDB came out to fill what is an obvious gap to the worldwide Web with a tech that was simple enough to scale only to have their lunch stolen by the standards community.

CouchDB article
HTML5
GoogleGears shutting down

It seems crazy to me that this product even exists.  For the crazy laptop users, it would give you a way to get that content off your Laptop onto the DVI sporting TV without having to get off your ass.  Neat idea, ok implementation.  $240 doesn't seem too bad.

Toshiba Dynadock Wireless U Universal USB Docking Station [?]

I'm an Amazon Associate

So I took the plunge and am now an Amazon Associate.  In the interest of full disclosure, when I post a link to Amazon it will be with an affiliate link embedded.  This is advertising, plain and simple and I should you follow that link and make a purchase I receive compensation for those purchases.

Why am I disclosing this?  Well the answer is really kind of clear, the FTC decided that failure to disclose the incentives you receive for "word of mouth" marketing is an actionable offense.  My traffic is really low, but I don't want to find out how actionable it is. 

The World Conspires to Make Us Less Than We Are

A great quote from Hugh MacLeod's email list.

Success for me was a log time coming. It probably took three times as long than it should have, maybe. "Better late than never" and all that...

That "the world would ALWAYS conspire to make me something less than I am", was something I learned very early, the hard way.

Fort the longest time, I was quite angry and bitter about that. I was young and stupid then, of course.

But eventually I realized, hey, it wasn't just me. It conspires against everybody.

Knowing this allowed me to not take it personally. Not taking it personally allowed me to act.

It's one of those lessons that in an ideal world, it should take you a minute. Instead, it often takes decades.

Again, better late than never...

Hugh Macleod