I am once more a part of the wired world 1
Cable men came today and hooked up my internet. My desktop hadn’t even been online since May 22nd or something. It hadn’t even been unpacked until a week ago or so. I’d forgotten how loud it is.
Somehow of late I feel as if I am living too many lives. I feel as if I am a chameleon changing my skin at every turn. On the one hand I work with some very focused individuals who are very motivated towards what they are researching. On the other I interact with people at the coffeeshop who have a much more laid back attitude to life, they seem to focus on the moments when they can break away from it all and sit contently sipping their coffee, chatting with friends and strangers alike.
I like focusing on tasks at work and finishing them, exhibited by the number of early morning bursts of creativity I have had. Not to mention the slow but steady daytime progress. Yet I also enjoy the calmness, the freedom of not pushing so hard at life. These are alternatives that do not mix well. So I struggle trying to balance the two.
I want that adrenaline burn of a long burst of coding, the satisfaction of many tasks completed, that feeling of being in the zone and able to accomplish anything. Yet I know from experience that it only lasts so long, too many nights of that and I spend too long wishing I had tasks I liked better, or time to step back for a while. Time to be me. Moments to sit back and watch the world go by in wonder. Time to do whatever I so choose, time to be content with the moment.
These are freedoms that some would view as selfish yet, from the reverse they are freedoms that some would consider essential to who they are, and what gives them some form of satisfaction, some reason to believe in life.
I feel as if I must choose, discarding one or the other to maintain some balance in society. So I walk on my own not entirely part of anything.
I don’t fit life. Somethings never change…
Moving, No Internet...
I had to move this weekend, which was unfortunate since it was around 100 degrees during the time period I had to move. I think however it was the quickest move I have ever made. I was all packed up and ready to go, so it took the six of us 30 minutes to move everything down three flights of stairs, and then about 20 minutes for four of us to move it into my new apartment which is on the first floor.
Our air conditioner appears to work by magic. It’s technically set to off, but it appears to always be running. Nicely enough, unlike most apartments with central air, the actual heater/air conditioner is not in the apartment, but in the basement, so we don’t have to deal with the excessive noise that central air usually provides. Furniture was also purchased, so I actually have a comfortably furnished living room for once. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to reaquire my dining room table, and then I’ll have all of my possessions under one roof again.
It’s a nice big place though, living room, dining room, good sized kitchen, two bedrooms, two sun rooms, and a number of random closets. Also a fireplace although it’s only for decoration. I will need to complain to my landlord about a few things here and there, but mostly it’s pretty nice. It’s also pretty cheap, so that makes it even better. Hopefully I won’t get broken into though, since we are living on the first floor.
Internet service hasn’t been purchased yet, I’m thinking cable internet is probably the way we will go, but in the meantime I will have to do without. I haven’t checked for wireless in the building though, so it’s possible I could steal a signal to get by for the time being.
Something I found online today that some might enjoy. Not quite sure who it originated from, and I’m not generally much for email forwards, but this one did amuse me. Presented on a web page for your reading pleasure:
If World War 2 was fought online…
*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.* *Eisenhower has joined the game.* *paTTon has joined the game.* *Churchill has joined the game.* *benny-tow has joined the game.* *T0J0 has joined the game.* *Roosevelt has joined the game.* *Stalin has joined the game.* *deGaulle has joined the game.* Roosevelt: hey sup T0J0: y0 Stalin: hi Churchill: hi Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks! paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks T0JO: lol Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression! benny-tow: haha america sux Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool? Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever Stalin: cool deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy Roosevelt: i dont got crap to help, sry Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me Roosevelt: get antiair guns Churchill: i cant afford them benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is? paTTon: stfu Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army paTTon: yah hurry the fock up Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck *deGaulle has left the game.* Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k? benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair? benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head? Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u Roosevelt: wtf! thats bull**** u fags im gunna kick ur asses T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u Hitler[AoE]: wtf Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army Hitler[AoE]: thats bull**** u hacker Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me! T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path Stalin: u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol benny-tow: haha benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1 T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help Roosevelt: yah thats right biznitch im comin for ya Stalin: church help me Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here Stalin: dont be an arss Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late Eisenhower: LOL benny-tow: hahahh oh **** help Hitler: o man ur focked paTTon: oh what now biotch Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol *benny-tow has been eliminated.* benny-tow: lame Roosevelt: gj patton paTTon: thnx Hitler[AoE]: eisenhower hax hes killing all my **** Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record Eisenhower: Nuts! benny~tow: wtf that mean? Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun ****socker Stalin: rofl T0J0: HAHAHHAA Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city *Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.* benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL Stalin: OMG LMAO! Hitler[AoE]: i didnt click there omg this game blows *Hitler[AoE] has left the game* paTTon: hahahhah T0J0: my teammates are n00bs benny~tow: shut up noob Roosevelt: haha wut a moron paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now? Eisenhower: yah me too T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol Eisenhower: fock u paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie Stalin: go to hell lol paTTon: fock this **** im goin afk Eisenhower: yah this is gay *Roosevelt has left the game.* Hitler[AoE]: wtf? Eisenhower: **** now we need some1 to join *tru_m4n has joined the game.* tru_m4n: hi all T0J0: hey Stalin: sup Churchill: hi tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff! tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets T0J0: wtf is nukes? T0J0: holy ****holy****hoylshti!!!111 *T0J0 has been eliminated.* *The Allied team has won the game!* Eisenhower: awesome! Churchill: gg noobs no re T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck *T0J0 has left the game.* *Eisenhower has left the game.* Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for **** Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss tru_m4n: l8r all benny~tow: bye Churchill: l8r Stalin: fock u all tru_m4n: shut up commie lol *tru_m4n has left the game.* benny~tow: lololol u commie Churchill: ROFL Churchill: bye commie *Churchill has left the game.* *benny~tow has left the game.* Stalin: i hate u all fags *Stalin has left the game.* paTTon: lol no1 is left paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep *paTTon has been eliminated.* paTTon: o ****! *paTTon has left the game.*
Google Privacy Issues
I was reading this forbes article and it made me curious about customer habit datamining. Customer habit datamining is of course the process of trying to identify what sort of customer a person is by there buying/reading/viewing habits. Specifically to determine what would be best products/services/information to provide for the customer. Amazon of course does it’s bayesian based book suggestions. They maximize the probability of next item to purchase from what you have purchased and viewed already with what everyone else using amazon has done. Tivo of course does the same thing. Google even does it for it’s adwords by maximizing the advertising market value of a keyword against the page it is on.
The concept of Google doing this type of targeted marketing across all of it’s services seems to terrify people however. Cries of 1984, Big Brother, and the ensuing multitude of corporate dystopian futures ring throughout the air. As well they should. That data is our informational identity in the modern world. A ghost psyche if you will. It falls back on the dangers inheritant in people knowing your true name in cultures that believed in some types of magic, of voodoo dolls, and photographs that steal a persons soul. A modern cause for an ancient superstition. Once aquired by someone it could be bought, sold, traded, used to impersonate, advertise to, convict, and a whole host of other worries and fears, both rational and superstitious.
Yet at the same time many of the potential services available from something else being able to predict your next action are useful. People around the world depend on eachother for many of these predictions. From common interests in books, topics for study, potential friends, and even significant others, people use these predictions from others all of the time. Really it’s a question of trust, of intended use, and how much privacy you personally want.
I’m really rather curious how much information can be datamined if you only have temporary sessions of personal information. Imagine if your time online were split into maybe 1 hour blocks of habits, but was then stripped of identifying marks like ip addresses, logins, passwords, other sites cookies, and the like. I wonder how much would still be possible to extract. How quickly you could classify a person in order to make meaningful suggestions, but still obey their want for privacy. Imagine if every person online using google had a temporary cookie each hour assisting their journey across the web. Imagine if people could set how long google could remember you to scale how identifiable you were against how how much assistance you wanted? It would certainly be an interesting research topic for clustering and classification. Could you identify what type of person a user was in 20 minutes?
Anyhow, it’s late, and my own personal predictions about myself is that I will soon fall asleep at the keyboard, assuming it isn’t apparent I have already done so by the more disorganized sections of this essay.
