By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
I’m passionate about online privacy. Also posts about security, general web development and commentary.
Not included here are my archive of tweets and Delicious links. Those are in the cloud.
Reminds me of that rehashed Assange quote from last year:
What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.
So Google is integrating Google+ into Google. I suppose I should be worried about this, but I'm not!
When the news first broke, and the subsequent juvenile shouting match ensued, I'll admit I was more surprised that some people were surprised, rather than being surprised about the news itself. That sentence, plus my introduction claiming Google is integrating Google+ into Google borders on Inception.
To even any casual observer, it should have been obvious that Google would inform their search results with Google+ at some point. Sarcasm aside, why else would an internet advertising company launch such a service? Ditto the +1 button.
The problem for Google is more and more information is being found through people rather than algorithms, and traditionally their strength has overwhelmingly been in the latter. Facebook is arguably leading this charge (go figure), and Twitter is not too far behind. In Japan, they're ahead.
Google figures they can merge Google+ and searches together, and deliver personalised search results. They've been tailoring results to people who don't opt out of their non-DNT respecting tracking for some time now, but this just takes it to the next level.
Of course, this introduces some serious anti-trust questions, which Eric Schmidt has either dismissed or pointed to Twitter's rel="nofollow" stance; the former of which is a little disturbing and the latter is misdirection, as far as I'm concerned. Danny Sullivan and MG Siegler would seem to agree. Apparently the blinkers are firmly installed on enough people though, read Google's response on Google+ for the comments... if you dare!
Bascically, there are three reasons why I'm not [so] concerned.
People are already spelling the end of other social networks because Google+ has unfair placement, like most Google products as Ben Endelman painstakingly points out. I'm a little optimistic that they'll see the error in their ways, realise what a PR mess they've created and reverse course. They've done this many times, Google Buzz's privacy fiacso probably being the most well known example.
Secondly, as to the anti-trust whatnot specifically, I'm also not too concerned. If Internet Explorer couldn't compel an overwhelming share of the English speaking world to Bing, Soapbox and the like, I doubt people will start leaving their Facebook accounts in droves just because they see some extra stuff in their Google sidebar.
Finally, it's often said the main thing protecting us from government abuses isn't oversight, but incompetence on their part. I don't think Google is incompetent, but for now the utter irrelevance of Google+ for anyone other than the Robert Scobles of the net will keep this problem at bay.
@Sebasu_tan on The Twitters, not Google Search+:
It's January 11, and @Rubenerd already has 15 posts. Is he sure he isn't doing a Post A Day 2012? :D
An astute observation good sir, and I'm flattered you counted! To prevent temptation though, I missed out on the first two days of January, to relieve the instinctive pressure to continue the PostADay2011 challenge into 2012.
That's not to say I won't be posting frequently any more! For example, aside from your tweet, this post had little substance to it whatsoever. Quite literally, I only mentioned the word "substance" twice.
Another story the mainstream media have blown out of proportion? Who'd have thought? ;)
From that now infamous BBC News article by Adrian Goldberg:
Google is profiting from ads for illegal products generated by its flagship automated advertising system, the BBC has found.
The ads include unofficial London 2012 Olympics ticket resellers, as well as cannabis and fake ID card sellers.
Fortunately however, Adrian concedes:
These ads were promptly removed by Google after the BBC brought them to the company's attention. [..] Google has also taken down links to illegal Olympic ticket resellers following requests from the police.
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™.
I'm free to empathise with Google's position, because I empathise with Apple's. It's impossible for them to catch all illegal advertisements; the sheer volume ensures abuses will get through and the system will be gamed from time to time. The best Google can do is make a sincere effort, and gather feedback. I'm satisfied they're doing this, department store chains notwithstanding.
I also worry any attempts at legislating such behavour would be overbearing, miss the point and/or would end up making things worse. I suppose that's a sliver of libertarian thinking slipping through, wish I were cool and alternative enough to be fully libertarian.
More than I've ever seen before, people are making New Year's resolutions for social media. Guess saving money, being a better person and losing weight are far too passé now ;).
Terrible graphic created by... me! Photo taken during the Family Fireworks on New Year's Eve in Sydney 2011, bird is the Twitter logo. Also, the word.
This meme seems to have the most traction of all the ones I've seen. More have tweeted and shared this story than... something cool people tweet and share. I wouldn't know what cool people do.
It does seems the irony is lost on some that the meme is being propogated to promote a hardcover book of the same title. Yes, to reduce our information intake, we need to read a book we otherwise wouldn't have read! Reminds me of those self-help books on how to make money and/or reduce clutter. I've got a great idea, don't buy books that will clutter up your house!
According to the author of the tome on various websites, the book discusses how to reduce our intake of pointless information, such as notifications from Facebook and other social networks. Sounds like attacking the symptoms rather than the cause of alleged time wastage, but that's just me.
In any event, I've seen this shared so many times, I've decided to pledge here to increase my information intake for 2012 instead. With SeaMonkey taking care of my RSS feeds and with my recently updated Twitter lists, I'm all set! And I didn't even need to buy a book to convince myself :)
Ironically, I found this article on Mashable because @hanezawakirika shared it with all her followers on Twitter:
Did 2011 mark the high point of oversharing? That seems to be the lesson behind a couple of studies that examined the New Year's resolutions of social media users.
If we're supposed to share less with fewer people, @hanezawakirika wouldn't have shared this article, so I wouldn't have found it, and I wouldn't know I was supposed to share less with fewer people!
So after reading these, I've decided to come up with a series of personalised New Year's resolutions. Here they are, in decending alphabetical order.
Thank you, thank you.
Rubénerd was offline intermittently for several hours again today. I'm contacting my web host asking what's going on, for now it seems everything is back to normal. Touch wood!
Found this screenshot on an old hard drive! I'm still using the same background on my Twitter profile today :)
I find the trend worrying that Google and Twitter are reducing the very simplicity that attracted people to their sites in the first place. I'd argue their 2007 site was more usable and accessible than their current iteration.
My second post for 2012, and it's on the 3rd of January! I had fun doing the Post A Day 2011 challenge, but as Georgina observed in the comments for a previous post, I'm not doing it this year ;).
Cute, pretty Madoka Magica reflections picture by ゴロー on Pixiv.
Erica Johnson on the Post a Day 2011 website:
Remember when you first decided to take on the Post a Day/Week Challenge?
Well, you made it to the end — congratulations! Now is the perfect time to reflect on your 2011 in blogging, and your goals for 2012.
Here are eleven questions to help you determine your blogging strategy for the new year:
Over all, PostADay2011 was a thoroughly rewarding and fun experience, and as I said I couldn't believe I actually pulled through and did it! It was tempting to continue it for 2012, and certainly Post A Day 2011 gave me so much inspiration and raw momentum I probably could!
That said, there's something rather gratifying about posting things when I want, rather than adhering to a schedule. Posting pre-written items to fulfil the Post A Day when I had a headache or too much work also seemed a little like cheating, though that may have just been me ;).
Thank you to all of you for your support, kind words and patronage!
To celebrate posting every day this year, here are some highlights from each month!
Little did I know that I'd be quoting this Steve Jobs retiring from Apple post later in the year though. Or perhaps, I did.
Dear Steve,
Even with a similar recent family experience with health, I won't pretend to relate with what you and your family are going through right now, particularly with a tasteless media circus chasing you.
Please don't let them get to you. Stay strong, and get better in your own time, for yourself and your family. *manhug*
Peace, health and happiness,
Ruben :)Sent from my iPhone
Towards the end of the month, my old man, sister and I took a trip into inner NSW to visit the Taronga Western Plains Zoo, which gave me a great excuse to try out some new DSLR skills I'd picked up.
A professional could have done a lot better, but it was great to get out of the city for a few days and go exploring :).
An easy choice, we fulfilled one of my lifelong ambitions and dreams since I was in primary school: seeing Weird Al Yankovic! Now that I look back, I only wrote a stub entry, clearly I need to upload more photos from it! Best. Concert. Ever.
For some reason I can't fathom, I decided hilarity would ensue if I quoted lyrics from each and every song from Ben Sidran's 1990 album Cool Paradise. This post was representative of this entirely pointless series:
"Hot, like the yellow sun;
Uh oh.... FIIIIIIIIRE!"As far as I know Ben, the sun isn't on fire, its undergoing a sustained fusion reaction.
A lot happened in May. Allegedly Osama Bin Laden was killed without due process, and the rapture was supposed to kill us all.
Most importantly though, I was obsessed with the Yumekui Merry anime series, and was blogging each and every episode! I don't have time to do that any more, perhaps series summaries are called for?
Lots of one off posts in June, though I was most excited about being accepted into the University of Technology in Sydney despite a several year absence from tertiary education for family reasons. It's good to be back!
I was informed of Kyary's PonPonPon. Nothing more needs to be said, or should be said.
A rather packed month from a blogging perspective, traditionally that's always been the case on Rubenerd.com for some reason! We finally said farewell to the old Twitter, I did a series of UTS-inspired posts on what I couldn't live without, but most importantly of all I joined the UTS Anime club where I've made friends with so many nice, lovely people.
A big month for the site as I reached 4000 quality entries! I also started obsessing and blogging about Gurren Lagann after so many had told me to watch it.
October was the month we lost Dennis Richie and Steve Jobs. RIP.
If I can be a hapless consumer for a moment, November was the time I finally caved and bought a Kindle. Between then and now, I've read more novels and non fiction books than I'd read for the whole rest of the year!
For me though, the month will be remembered for the fact it contained the epic, once in a lifetime 11:11 on 11/11/11 which I celebrated in a binary-esque pointless way.
A month of ups and downs. On the one hand I remembered the passing of my beautiful late mum, and the intellectual and humanistic world lost one of its heavyweights with the passing of Christopher Hitchens. On the upside, we celebrated Yuletide as a family again after a four year absence, with tree and all :).
It seems folks are thanking their deity of choice (or lack thereof) for the fact 2011 is over. Personally it was a year of development and progress for me, though I'm under no illusion the year went well for most. Here's hoping 2012 will have more peace, health and happiness for all. *Cheers*
As to the challenge itself, I wrote 587 posts of varying length and quality, maybe more given I often forgot to tag each post with the postaday2011 tag. Undecided whether I'll try for 2012!
