Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
“getAdditionalData() – This method will return additional data.”
THIS IS NOT DOCUMENTATION. Not in any meaningful sense.
I’ve got an entire JavaDoc tree like that for an API I’m trying to connect to, and it’s essentially useless. The only thing I can get out of it is the parameters & return values, which my IDE can find on its own.
Wi-Fi features I would like to see on Android:
1. Always connect to my chosen VPN as soon as I’ve connected to any Wi-Fi network that’s not on a trusted list.
2. Auto-update apps when connected to *specific* Wi-Fi networks (not just any).
@kellerfuchs@vulpine.club points out that updaters should be using TLS and signatures.
Good point – updating over (for example) coffee shop wifi *feels* like it should be more dangerous than it actually *is* with proper encryption.
Our government was deliberately set up to avoid concentrating too much power in one person. Congress, the President & courts are independent of each other, not subservient. Even within the executive branch, people don’t swear personal loyalty to the President like a feudal king.
“You keep dismissing these notifications. Do you want to stop showing them?”
At least it asks.
Sometimes I dismiss notifications on sight because I don’t need them, and it would be extremely useful to stop them from interrupting me.
Sometimes I dismiss notifications because I do need them, but I don’t need to follow up (at least not on the phone), and the notification is all I need.
I’m still getting used to having reading glasses, but it’s starting to be automatic that when I sit down at my computer, I pick them up.
I picked up my sunglasses by accident.
This LCD monitor is polarized horizontally.
That’s a little extreme for “Dark Mode!” š
Biosphere 2: A Once Troubled Social Experiment is Transformed
That means researchers from the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada donāt have to worry about harming the environment while studying how plants in the tiny rainforest adjust their water consumption.
Using the Google+ news to make a point about attack surface: Your old online accounts can put you at risk even if you’re not using them anymore.
Laughing at Google+ bug? You’re making a big mistake.
The popularity of Google+ is a distraction when youāre thinking about Google+ as part of a consumerās broader āattack surfaceā…The more accounts you have, the bigger your digital footprint and the wider your attack surface.
Taking it a bit further:
Does the account still have access to anything else? Unlink it!
Do you use the same password anywhere else? Change those passwords!
Does it have private information on it that could be used to impersonate you on another account? Think about whether you still want to keep it around.
The monster/human relationship in Monsters, Inc. is upended when it’s discovered that laughter produces more power than screams of fear.
It’s like the opposite of social media discovering that anger produces more engagement than cat pictures.
Imagine if social media discovered something *positive* that drove more engagement than anger?
Smart UI on Instagram: if you start to unfollow someone with a private account, it reminds you that if you change your mind, you’ll need to request approval again.
It’s an understandable typo, but the “lethal level” and “legal level” of a substance are *very* different things!
At least one hopes so…
Daytripper is amazing.
I quite liked the original Elfquest.
Fun Home is really good.
Planetary is a fascinating exploration of superhero/scifi tropes, but works best if you know the references.
Transmetropolitan is really good, but not everyone’s cup of tea.
Sandman is epic, but start w/the 2nd collection & go back for part 1 if you like it. It took 8 issues for the series to find its voice. So while the first collection establishes the setting and characters, it’s a very different tone from the rest of the series.
Astro City is a great reimagining of superheroes, hopeful & standing on its own.
Oh, and Hark! A Vagrant! is a lot of fun also, especially if you like literary and historical humor. It’s a collection of unrelated comic strips rather than an ongoing story.
I can.
Um, now what?
When I first used Instagram, I really wanted to be able to upload photos from my camera & type captions with a real keyboard. But it’s been built around uploading from phones since the beginning, and it just doesn’t lend itself to any other use case, even when you can get it to run on another form factor.
Plus phone photos are a lot better now, & it’s just as easy to transfer pics from the camera to the phone.
In the specific case of Instagram, the website doesn’t offer full functionality: you can browse & update your bio, but you can’t add new photos.
I haven’t tried any game apps yet, partly because I just got an underpowered one to use as a second laptop. (I figure if I get nice hardware, I want a real OS.) It’ll be interesting to use touch apps w/a trackpad…
But I’ve had success with utility apps for Dropbox, KeePass & a VPN.
I was surprised that the Android layer was thorough enough for a VPN app to work, but after looking around the Chrome app store a bit, I think Google decided it was better to leverage the more mature ecosystem than try to push something that never really took off.
I caught up on Flash War and its aftermath. I feel like it could have been epic, but ultimately was just a way to break up the Flash family and set up the new Forces.
That’s a problem I’m having with DC Comics lately: Stories don’t feel like they start from the characters and new threats picking up where the previous story left off, they feel like they’re working backward from where everything needs to be to set up the next story and finding a way to get there.
It’s been like that for a while. It was a problem with Flash: Rebirth, with Countdown, with Full Throttle. I sort of feel like the early New 52 escaped the problem and built more organically, at least some of the books I was reading. But those kept getting cancelled.
If you compare Final Crisis to Metal, they’re both similar in structure: cosmic threat turns earth into a nightmare between panels, the heroes seek help from the multiverse to restore the world. But Final Crisis *finishes.* Metal sets up the alloys, the Challengers & Hawks, the crack in the Source Wall. It’s more like COIE in the way it works hard to set things up for the coming year(s) of stories.
If no one has ever survived the Fire Swamp, how did its oddly specific dangers become common knowledge?
*punch* *punch* *punch*
“Hey, stop hitting me!”
“Oh, all right.”
*grinds heel into toes*
“Ouch! What the hell?”
“I did what you wanted, didn’t I? Quit whining and show some gratitude.”
*keeps grinding*
Every time Trump blames his political opponents for HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION’S POLICY of family separation, I picture Vizzini, holding Buttercup hostage with a knife to her throat, telling the man in black that “You’re killing her!”
This is blatantly villain “logic”.
Telling people to ignore/power through depression/anxiety/etc. is like telling them to ignore low battery alerts. Even if it works for a while, they’ll eventually crash. Workarounds are like battery saver mode: helpful, but not as good as fixing the app drain, battery or charger.
Just wrote that MacOS & Linux handle capitalization differently. Phone wanted me to type capitalism. Which is also true.
Murals in progress on what used to be the featureless gray walls of an apartment complex. The aviation theme on two of them is due to this being Aviation Blvd.
Composition brought to you by the angle I could take a photo out the car window before the light turned green. š
Update: I drove by it again, and this time stopped to look. There’s a signature: on the last section: Jacque Dupuy 2018, Mural Executed by LeviPonce.com
Yes, I suppose data revealed through a system *working as intended* isn’t technically a “breach.”
Most social media these days is built around selling access to participants’ data, directly or indirectly (through ad placement). It doesn’t have to be, but that’s the business model that’s taken hold.
There are alternatives to the big data-mining social networks, but they have their own drawbacks. Blogs still exist, Mastodon is making great strides, you can self-host if you can afford it & have the know-how (or know someone who does)…
But your friends/family aren’t on [cool social network], they’re still on FB & Twitter, so you need to keep them around to talk to them.
And it takes time, effort & money to maintain your own site.
And a lot of networks aren’t as polished as the ones you’re already on…
Leaving FB/Twitter isn’t easy for everyone, or even rewarding for everyone.
We can make it easier, help people diversify, & grow those alternative networks, but let’s not blame those who accept the trade-off & stay on the major sites.
Still, user data is the product. Breaches need one kind of solution. Business practices need another.