Tag Archives: Internet

by

Paper Planes

404 Pages, Old Hoaxers
& Staying Dry in the Rain

This being Summer Solstice time, it seems appropriate to bring you these stories, each with a temporal slant. One would not be possible a few decades ago; another no longer makes much sense; and yet the other one is ageless. So, no sweat, we’ve got you covered.
On the Internet, no one knows you got lost; or that you landed on a ‘Not Found’ page. The Society Against Quackery would not tolerate such nonsense 130 years ago. And yet, since time immemorial, there’s been Virga, a special kind of rain: the type that doesn’t make you wet.
What? Didn’t they use to count paper planes on New York City streets? Or holes in Blackburn Lancashire? Indeed they did, so it shouldn’t shock you if we pick the odd or the unusual for a summer read, rather than the bloody or the bombastic. For there’ll be plenty of that too.
There’s a new Pride Flag with a welcome element of racial tolerance. And, yes, the season‘s proverbial love stories already abound, along those from the 1967 Summer of Love. And the breeze, and that girl from Ipanema, and all cliches about heat and hurricanes.
Since warm days go by faster in the north, they’ll still be filled with talk about ice cream and beaches, parties and drought. Just as Earth will keep on getting warmer, and this sort of conversation feels like sand inside one’s swimming suits. Blame us for wanting you to take it easy.
THIS CALL CANNOT BE COMPLETED
So what’s wrong with searching and not finding? Not acceptable these days. See, even when one lands on uncharted territory, it’s no longer an excuse to avoid making assumptions. Or post your cluelessness on Facebook. No opinion should be spared. Thus the 404 pages.
Which is now as entertaining as if you’d reached a site about scientific curiosities. Museums, institutions, companies, and individuals, all jockey to come up with clever ways to cushion your crushing results. It’s Ok, the image and wording seem to say. Here, it’s funny, see?
As for the code number, like a lot of what still compounds our journeys online, it had a nerdy origin, such as some room number in a building once fully occupied by an electronic brain, as it was known. Or it was by chance, depending on who you find still wondering in the space formerly known as cyber.
THE OLE FLIM-FLAM DEBUNKERS
Way before Tim Berners-Lee was born – the World Wide Web inventor just turned 62 last week – or there was a need for Snopes, a group of Dutch skeptics recognized the potential harm hidden behind human gullibility. And decided to mount a defense against those who’d gladly take advantage of it. Boy, haven’t they got their work cut out for them.
If the Internet metastasized the power of deceivers, in 1881, snake oil salesmen, mystics, end-of-the-world profiteers, and an entire array of their ilk, were already spreading irreparable damage all over. (more)
_________
Read Also:
* 50 Summers
* Freaky Links
* No Way Vacay
Continue reading →

by

Facing the Music?

As Criticism of Facebook Grows,
Zuckerberg’s Nowhere to Be Seen

It’s ironic that the creator of a social network that ostensibly trades in the private lives of its clients is himself a highly private person. As hostility towards Facebook’s business model is on the rise, Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard dropout boy wonder who founded it and became an overnight billionaire, has been less than visible these days.
For some, it’s all about poetic justice. While Zuckerberg fights accusations of having secretly profited from Facebook’s failed IPO, while thousands lost money with it, a tech site’s offering cash in exchange for unguarded pictures of him. His company’s also fighting European regulators over how it stores personal data, and, in the U.S., scrutiny for luring children under 13 onto its social network.
For the record, Facebook’s definitely not the only one being accused of unauthorized use of its members’ most intimate details. Google, another giant of the Internet age, faces similar charges by the European Union. And pretty much every other site, community board, job exchange and even smartphone apps are, in one way or another, guilty of making a so far illegal buck out of its users.
Facebook, though, for being arguably the most popular, and for depending exclusively of customer-generated content to attract advertisers, seems to be setting the (low) business practice standards for the industry. How successful efforts by regulators, consumer advocates, public officials and even some politicians will be, curbing its privacy-busting ways, remains to be seen.
But anything that may help prevent it from becoming the nightmarish, big-brother-like corporation some say it already is, may also establish a new consumer-driven regulatory framework for all other companies, Continue reading →

by

Birth (Out of) Control

Dangerous Recalls, Wi-Fi
Risks & Blasting Testicles

What’s going on in the world of contraceptives? Hell broke lose, that’s what. Within a week, packets of birth control pills in the U.S. and condoms in South Africa have been recalled.
Research also showed that laptops linked to the Internet via Wi-Fi may kill sperm, and ultrasonic pulses can actually reduce it. Well, that’s good news really, since it can act as a contraceptive. Still.
It’s curious that a cluster of contraception news would come with the decision by the Susan B. Komen foundation to suspend funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides screening for breast cancer.
Komen, the cancer foundation known for its pink ribbons and races in support of research, had already come under fire for dismissing scientifically proven links between the disease and the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).
But alas, you won’t need us to keep you er abreast of further developments of this saga, for it’s received enormous coverage as it is. Plus, in the wake of the news, Planned Parenthood‘s reportedly recouped almost all of the funds withdrawn by Komen, in only 24 hours of online donations.
Instead, let’s talk about those much more interrelated issues concerning the two recalls and the two research studies. Although it’s clear that there’s a new push to bully Congress into reversing laws concerning women’s health and reproductive rights, we don’t really believe they’ll ultimately succeed.
It all seems an expensive waste of time, and a sign of desperation in this presidential election year, from the part of an intolerant minority, Continue reading →

by

Wikipedia 10 Years

Growing Pains & Landmark
Date for Free Web Encyclopedia

Once upon a time, people dreamed of having all mankind’s knowledge within their fingertips’ reach. Once that dream became reality, a few information nightmares spoiled its credibility. Now on its second decade, the project has weeded out some bad entries from its massive database and seeks to enroll the help of enlightened minds to help build its future.
As Wikipedia reaches its 10th year anniversary, the Continue reading →

by

Born on Christmas

Another Event to
Top Birth of Jesus

It was 20 years ago this Christmas when the first communication was successfully established between a web browser and a server via the Internet. That became Page 1 for what’s now a mega-virtual 13.99 billion-page book as of yesterday. So Happy Birthday, World Wide Web.
Besides Krishna, Mithra, Horus, Budda, Quetzacoatl and even Hercules, all Christ-like figures whose birthdays are celebrated along with Christianity, you may now add the Internet, which is fastest becoming what The Beatles were for a brief moment, more popular than Jesus Christ.
As with all the above, the whole history of such momentous creation is yet to be completed. They all have fuzzy stories and paternity myths, and literature about it abound. Suffice to say Continue reading →

by

Internet Inc.

FCC Vote May End
Internet Neutrality

JUST IN: In a close vote, the FCC approved the new rules that prevent, at least for now, control over Internet access by big corporations.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission meets today to decide whether to vote on a resolution allowing corporations to impose commercial restrictions on the use of the Internet, effectively putting at risk one of its main tenets, its level playing field.
In a threat to the democratic use by anyone of what was once called “the information highway,” critics of the plan say, the FCC may give in to pressures from providers that want to charge users for faster access.
Among those critics is Democrat Senator Al Franken, from Minnesota, (who’s since commented on yesterday’s FCC Continue reading →