The NSA isn’t the only one who’s tracking your websurfing

TigerDirect_Facebook_ad
I did some searches on TigerDirect’s website for some solid state drives. Lo and behold, Facebook presents me with an advertisement from TigerDirect for … wait for it … solid state drives!

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an eerily similar ad from TigerDirect (and others) show up on my Facebook page. This kind of thing happens all the time on the web: private companies track your every move. Your online purchase and websurfing information gets stored and correlated in a marketing database. You almost can’t visit a website without being tracked in some way.

No wonder the NSA can’t resist vacuuming up information from American Internet companies.

Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here’s a Simple Plan to Fix It

Interesting take on DST. While I agree that DST is a bad, bad idea, I think the solution offered here is equally dumb, if not more so.

I believe local time should be coordinated as closely as possible to solar time. That’s how our bodies’ circadian clocks work. Trying to squeeze everyone into two time zones simply for convenience’s sake (and ignoring solar time) is stupid.

Daylight saving time ends Nov. 3, setting off an annual ritual where Americans who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii and residents of 78 other countries including Canada but not Saskatchewan, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour. It’s a controversial practice that became popular in the 1970s with the intent of conserving energy. The fall time change feels particularly hard because we lose another hour of evening daylight, just as the days grow shorter. It also creates confusion because countries that observe daylight saving change their clocks on different days.

It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether. The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all. Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There’s evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks. Being out of sync with European time changes was projected to cost the airline industry $147 million a year in travel disruptions. But I propose we not only end Daylight Saving, but also take it one step further.

via Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here’s a Simple Plan to Fix It – Allison Schrager – The Atlantic.

Nextdoor getting mixed results

Earlier this week I saw someone forward a notice to a neighborhood listserve which had first gone out over Nextdoor. The forward was prefaced with this comment:

This was on nextdoor. I hate nextdoor, I need another social network like I need a hole in my head.

I responded to the poster, asking her to elaborate. She was happy to do so:

I don’t really want my neighborhood communications shunted off into a stand-alone platform, I thought email worked well for [Belvidere Park – Woodcrest.] When I do get email notifications from nextdoor, I have to click through to see the whole thread, which I don’t want to do on my smartphone. If Nextdoor were integrated into FB, which I’m already resigned to, that would be one thing. I have zero interest in ramping up conversations in a new platform. I felt like I had to join it to stay looped into Oakwood/Mordecai events, where my office is located, because they opted into Nextdoor entirely.

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Fritsch: RTP has lost its edge

Highwoods CEO Ed Fritsch says what I’ve long said: RTP is a dinosaur.

Ed Fritsch, CEO of Raleigh-based real estate company Highwoods Properties NYSE: HIW, is blunt in his take on Research Triangle Park.He says RTP has lost its edge, and he questions whether there’s time to get it back.Fritsch, speaking to a crowd at Triangle Business Journal’s Power Breakfast at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary on Thursday morning, doesn’t pull any punches.Years ago, “we would show RTP properties and say, ‘this is the heart of the economic engine,’” he says.No more.

via Fritsch: RTP has lost its edge Video – Triangle Business Journal.

The keys to the keydom | bit-player

This is an eye-opening look at the potential danger of SSL and SSH keys not being as unbreakable as once thought. At least, when not implemented correctly. Stuff like this gets me excited again about math.

If X and Y were components of public keys in the RSA cryptosystem, their shared factor would create a huge hole in the security fence. And the problem is particularly insidious in that each of the two keys, when examined in isolation, looks perfectly sound; the weakness only becomes apparent when you have both members of the pair.This potential vulnerability of factoring-based encryption methods has been known for decades, but it seemed there was no reason to worry because coincidentally shared factors are so utterly unlikely. A couple of weeks ago I heard an eye-opening talk by Nadia Heninger, a member of a group that has searched for such unlikely coincidences in the wild. They found 64,000 of them. Reason to worry.

via The keys to the keydom | bit-player.

Google Adsense backfires

Houston, we have a problem

Houston, we have a problem


I’ve been using Google AdSense on my blog for many years now, though I only recently got around to reenabling it after a few years of downtime. When I glanced at the ad showing on my site this morning I had to cringe: it was an anti-Obamacare ad from Americans for Prosperity. That’s right: the Koch brothers had infiltrated my blog.

Initially, I went to the AdSense dashboard and disabled all ads in their “politics” category. That blocks all the political ads from running on my site and as this page is often about politics that won’t do. Fortunately, there’s a way I can block just the ads from assholes like AFP. Thus you shouldn’t see them appearing anymore (and if you do, please let me know ASAP).

On the bright side, I’ve earned about $7 this week. Not too shabby for a start.

Hallie plays in the orchestra

Tonight we attended Hallie’s first concert with the Ligon Philharmonic Orchestra. She was playing 2nd violin for a few fun Halloween pieces, with 69 other students on stage.

It was a wonderful performance and quite a showcase of the talent at Ligon. We enjoyed every minute of it!

I’ve got gobs of video I’m working to upload. Be patient!

Pilot in the making?

Travis is protective of our flight simulator

Travis is protective of our flight simulator


Our son Travis had his checkup yesterday. The doc reports that he has exceptional eyesight. I found this interesting since all the kid talks about is planes, planes, and more planes. When he’s not doing his homework (or building planes with his Legos), he’s watching YouTube videos about aviation. He was also flying my flight simulator quite often.

He’s begged me for flight lessons before. He’s even asked if lessons were a birthday gift. I’ve hemmed and hawed but if he keeps showing such strong interest and has the ability and determination, I might not be able to avoid it.

Kelly might think otherwise, but Travis could be on his way to becoming a pilot. A pretty good one, too, I’d bet.

In God We Trust, all others we monitor

The title of this post is the inside joke and unofficial motto of National Security Agency spooks. It’s not quite “all others,” though; spooks monitor whomever they’re tasked to monitor. But who is considered “God” by today’s spooks? Whomever they’re told, I suppose, and that depends on which way the wind blows.

I’m still flummoxed how President Obama can state that he will no longer monitor world leaders yet seems okay with recording Grandma’s calls. With all due respect, Mr. President, world leaders are fair game! That’s why we built this colossal monitoring institution: to find out what the world is doing. The operative word here is “world.” American taxpayers aren’t handing over their money so they themselves can be monitored, they’re expecting you to go after the bad guys who dwell outside of America’s borders.

When our President is skittish about monitoring foreign leaders yet doesn’t bat an eye at monitoring ordinary Americans there are priorities somewhere that are seriously out of whack.

Obama May Ban Spying on Heads of Allied States

How nice that President Obama is contemplating the end of spying on friendly foreign leaders. I’m glad that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will soon enjoy freedom from NSA spying. Now, what does it take for millions of law-abiding American citizens to get the same deal?

WASHINGTON — President Obama is poised to order the National Security Agency to stop eavesdropping on the leaders of American allies, administration and congressional officials said Monday, responding to a deepening diplomatic crisis over reports that the agency had for years targeted the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

via Obama May Ban Spying on Heads of Allied States – NYTimes.com.