WSJ: Facebook Applications Transmitting Identifying Information

 Computing, Editorial, News, People, Technology  No Responses »
Oct 182010
 

The Journal found that some LOLapps applications, as well as the Family Tree application, were transmitting users’ Facebook ID numbers to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then linked those ID numbers to dossiers it had previously assembled on those individuals, according to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then embedded that information in an Internet-tracking file known as a “cookie.”

via Facebook in Online Privacy Breach; Applications Transmitting Identifying Information – WSJ.com.

This should probably not come as a surprise to anyone, given how fast and loose Facebook has played with privacy in the past, but as another cautionary tale about how marketing’s insatiable lust for personal data to sell to spammers (oh, sorry, “merchants”) leads many a company down the dark path to routine breaches of personal privacy.

Rapleaf: Opt out from data sharing.

While the worst offender of reselling personal information allows you to tediously opt-out for each e-mail address you own (guaranteeing they have a nice, juicy database of e-mail addresses), no one really knows how widespread the abuse of personal data is. Judging by the frosty response one application developer (Familybuilder, who make Family Tree) gave to the Journal when asked about the problem, I’d guess it’s pretty broad.

In the bigger picture, the best model for online marketing (for ANY marketing, in my opinion) is opt-in. Let the consumer decide what they want to hear about, not the marketer/spammer. You waste far fewer resources and tick off far fewer people that way, and your rates of return versus expense of spamming are much better, too.

Rest Stop Markers with a Real Message

 Editorial, News, People, Politics  No Responses »
Oct 062010
 

Funism is an art project by Norm Magnusson that aims to do more than just put up pretty things for people to look at.

The signs are and will be set up along I-75, a north-south highway that touches some of the most conservative, reactionary states in the nation. People in these places consistently choose conservative political candidates who (as eight years of George Bush showed) not only don’t care about the ‘common people’ they allegedly champion, but go to great lengths to screw them (and the rest of us non-rich) over and over and over.

It remains to be seen whether The Public will enact positive change after seeing the signs, but bravo to him for giving it a go.

Honey as an antibiotic

 Animals, News, People, Science!, The Environment  No Responses »
Oct 042010
 

“We’ve known for millennia that honey can be good for what ails us, but we haven’t known how it works,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal, “Now that we’ve extracted a potent antibacterial ingredient from honey, we can make it still more effective and take the sting out of bacterial infections.”

via Honey as an antibiotic: Scientists identify a secret ingredient in honey that kills bacteria.

Earth-Like Planet Can Sustain Life

 News, People, Science!, Technology, The Environment  No Responses »
Oct 032010
 

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it,” Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California Santa Cruz, told Discovery News.

via Earth-Like Planet Can Sustain Life : Discovery News. (With great thanks to Marija Drenkovska)

Corn Industry wants to change HFCS’ name

 Editorial, Fitness, Food, News, People, Science!  No Responses »
Sep 142010
 

The Corn Refiners Association applied Tuesday to the federal government for permission to use the name on food labels. The group hopes a new name will ease confusion about the sweetener, which is used in soft drinks, bread, cereal and other products.

via Huffington PostGoodbye High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hello Corn Sugar (Signed, Corn Industry). This isn’t surprising—Americans are increasingly hesitant to use the plethora of products made with the cheap, imitation sugar. The corn industry, which stands to profit from everyone consuming as much “sugar” from their product as possible, naturally wants us all to quietly stop complaining and ingest more.

“Sugar is sugar,” they cry—and some scientific research agrees, while others prefer to hold off until there’s further research. For me, it seems pretty simple: we don’t need sugar in an ever-increasing array of foods. Sugar is a great energy source, but we’ve become as addicted to it as we’re addicted to cheap crude oil. HFCS is an even cheaper way of introducing sugar (fructose and sucrose) than other “normal” sugars, which is devastating for all consumers: we need less, not more, in our diet!

It’s not easy to avoid sugar in the American diet, and it’s increasingly difficult to avoid HFCS. For your (and my) own good, though, it’s worth pursuing. Call it HFCS or call it “corn sugar,” the net effect is the same: bad.

Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers

 Fitness, Food, News, People, Science!  No Responses »
Sep 012010
 

The authors of the new paper are careful to note that even if drinking is associated with longer life, it can be dangerous: it can impair your memory severely and it can lead to nonlethal falls and other mishaps (like, say, cheating on your spouse in a drunken haze) that can screw up your life. There’s also the dependency issue: if you become addicted to alcohol, you may spend a long time trying to get off the bottle.

via Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds – Yahoo! News.

It seems hard to believe, and one should not leap to conclusions based on a single study (how thorough and rigorous was the methodology of research? Was it properly and carefully controlled for other influences?), but it’s an interesting conclusion nonetheless. Alcohol is a potent drug—its inhibition inhibiting powers are certainly behind many a personal mishap and even death—but it seems that a little poison really can do some good over time.

I suspect that we’ll see something to the contrary in a few years, though; medical studies tend to bounce back and forth all the time (coffee is bad for you; coffee is good for you! Butter is bad for you; butter is a lot better than margarine! And so on).

 Older Entries
2 visitors online now
0 guests, 2 bots, 0 members
Max visitors today: 5 at 00:07 UTC
This month: 12 at 2013-05-01 10:15 UTC
This year: 76 at 2013-04-26 15:14 UTC
All time: 83 at 2012-07-02 09:54 UTC