Rubénerd!

A while ago I signed up to Pinterest, given a substantial amount of my uploaded media has been appearing there. Then I promptly forgot about them.

An email they sent me this morning:

Here at Pinterest... Get ready to change your life! We teamed up with The Biggest Loser to share tips from each episode. From Dolvett’s fitness guides to healthy recipes, The Biggest Loser (Mon 8/7c) on Pinterest has what you need to turn motivation into reality.

Something tells me I haven't been missing much.

Just so I understand what's going on: Gizmodo Australia writes an article asking how stupid people are willing to look for Apple, and uses a photo of me wearing an iPod nano watch to illustrate it. I leave a comment, and it gets deleted.

You can read the original in full on my post from earlier this week. In short, I calmly defended the reasons why I use an iPod nano watch, criticised their inflammatory headlines, and made a subtle dig at their US counterparts. Certainly nothing as rude, trollish or condescending as what Sam Biddle wrote in the original article, though apparently enough to warrant deletion.

I'm not looking for an apology, Gizmodo Australia have every right to delete my comment. It could have even been a technical or editorial mistake, or perhaps I was downvoted by the same users who have left far more inflammatory and rude comments than what I did.

Either way, stay classy Gizmodo Australia. I usually have a sense of humour about things like this, but this just wasn't cool.

Oh Goodreads, you so funny.

An hour ago, my sister tweeted that my wrist was on Gizmodo Australia. Sure enough, there I was on How Stupid Are You Willing To Look For Apple’s Magical iWatch?

My response (pending moderation):

I'm the guy in the photo who's "Willing To Look Stupid For Apple". My sister tweeted me and said my wrist was on Gizmodo Australia.

For me, this generation iPod nano is really useful. I use the built in pedometer constantly (a feature that's barely mentioned in the press). It's a memory key I'm guaranteed to always have around, more so than other keys that so often get left in the wrong trouser pocket. As a watch, it's easy to see at a glance. The wristband for it came from an official Apple Store. In a pinch, I can dump some podcasts onto it if my phone is running low on space.

And now I go back to ignoring Gawker sites and their regional clones with their sensationalist, click-bait headlines. "How Stupid Are You Willing To Look For Apple’s Magical iWatch?"... good grief.

It's a shame nobody has a stolen prototype iWatch for your American colleagues to buy.

Stay classy, Gizmodo. Reach for new standards in journalistic excellence and integrity, while insulting the people you sourced your free image from.

I hate the term, but starting in 2013 I decided to be more proactive about the emails I receive. With regards to newsletters, unless it provides information not available elsewhere through RSS, Twitter or the like, I unsubscribe. Synergising my inbox paradigms.

Having clicked the unsubscribe link in a StackExchange email, I was presented with the above image, and a comment.

We couldn't find the page you requested, but we did find this sign that might help.

While technically true, I doubt sicking a panda onto my inbox will rid me of your newsletters. That is, unless it somehow overcomes its bamboo addiction and begins ingesting them on my bearhalf.

Jokes aside, having unsubscribed to dozens of newsletters so far this year, errors like this are disturbingly common, regardless of the browser or platform I use. I suppose some sites figure if they make it non-trivial to unsubscrube, you'll just stick with them.

Speaking of emails, I got this message from Amazon this morning. I'm emphatically pointing out that emphasis was added by me, for emphasis.

Dear Ruben Schade,

We thought you'd like to know that eligible songs from 2 CDs you have purchased from Amazon are being added to your Cloud Player library. [..] In addition, we're excited to announce AutoRip. Now when you buy any CD with the AutoRip logo, the MP3 version of that album will instantly be delivered to your Amazon Cloud Player library for FREE.

AutoRip is available to U.S. customers only.

Amazon, can I have a quick word with you? You seem very nice. I like your site. As you've said here, you've posted me music to my address in Australia. You've billed my Australia debit card, and a Singapore card before that.

So why, my friend, are you telling me about a US-only service?

So, I was one of the super lucky 250,000 users to have their Twitter account details leaked. While I did create my account in March 2007, my #875,971 account ID is still higher than 250,000. Maybe they only hacked earlier accounts that are still active?

UPDATE: The Guardian is saying the attack only affected Twitter accounts created in the first half of 2007. Mystery solved, if true.

Dear Twitter User:

As a precautionary security measure, we have reset your Twitter account password. Check your inbox for a separate email from Twitter with instructions on how to reset your password. If you don't see an email, you can go to this page in our Help Center to request a password reset. More information is below.

We recently detected an attack on our systems in which the attackers may have had access to limited user information - specifically, your username, email address and an encrypted/salted version of your password (not the actual letters and numbers in your password). Further information about the attack can be found in this blog post.

Since your password has been reset, your old password will not work when you try to log into Twitter. We strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to select a strong password - at least 10 (but more is better) characters and a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols - that you are not using for any other accounts or sites. Using the same password for multiple online accounts significantly increases your odds of being compromised.

For more information about making your Twitter and other Internet accounts more secure, read our Help Center documentation or the FTC's guide on passwords.

This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to reset your password and publicize this attack while we still gather information. We are also helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.

Almost two years ago, I bemoaned the fact Yahoo were creating new things, but were still the only major mail provider to not offer SSL. On an unsecured wireless network, this is an open invitation for anyone to hijack your session.

Well, they finally listened!

Activating SSL adds an extra layer of security to your account. While using SSL protection is optional, we recommend it if you are on an unsecured internet connect, such as a wireless network at a cafe.

It's a step in the right direction, but it desperately needs to be enabled by default. As a developer and sysadmin I know most people don't change default settings, which means most of their users will still be unprotected.

Also me, exactly one year ago:

Isn't it interesting that the same people who blast Apple for their uphill battle screening software for the App Store are often the ones who rush to Google's defence for not catching all fraudulent advertising? It's not double standards though, because they don't call it that, and because It's Not Apple So It's Okay™.

So much changes in a tech year, and so much doesn't.

From the Wikipedia London Underground 1996 Stock page:

The GTO thyristor used on 1996 stock achieves this by "chopping" the supply voltage in order to drive a sinusoidal current in the motor windings (pulse width modulation), creating the characteristic audible whine associated with the stock and with the Class 465 Networker trains that share its traction drive system. The sound changes as the pulse length changes. The noise is produced by the switching frequency current ripple and the resulting torque pulsation experienced by the rotor of the induction machine.

I'd tell you I'm an amateur train buff otherwise feeling out of his league, but my gyroscopic induction coils fail to provide the adequate capacitance ratio for me to assert I have no engineering training outside core pulsation computing apparatuses of which my home provides power through parallel transwarp modulators.

This experience has allowed me to empathise with some non-IT people who have to talk with me sometimes. When we're surrounded by computers all day, it can be hard to keep things high level and abstract when talking with people who's lives don't also revolve around IT. Or maybe that's just me.