Stoss Blog

Those of you fortunate enough and/or with enough spare time to read my Facebook, Twitter and Blog sites are aware that I recently de-coupled Twitter updates automatically updating Facebook statuses. I did this for a very specific reason, and have just “un-done” this for another. I had a few people comment on that decision, and felt I should explain it in more detail.

I think the concept of “Status” has vastly changed and continues to evolve in the virtual world we tend to view each other in.

When Facebook first was rising it was no more than MySpace without the annoying interface, I held off signing up for a good couple years, as I was more about “doing it myself” at that time. As such, I wrote my own blog program which was basically a minimalistic Wordpress without any skins or fancy add-ins and definitely didn’t dominate in the professional and amateur world of blogging. But it worked for me and allowed me to learn new PHP and CSS skills, so why not?

My “Status” at this point was really static. I had a basic About page that essentially (with a little more wit I hope) said: “I’m 21 years old @ UoG and I tend to drink a lot of beer”. But technology and inquiring minds were not content with this dorment and long term relevant data, so as tecnology and speed of access continued to grow, Facebook moved “Status” into a changing forum of “Craig Stoss is …” land. And while “Craig Stoss is 26 years old, a UoG grad and still drinking too much beer”, our voyueristic tendencies have taken this even further.

What used to be a daily update or two on Facebook from “Craig Stoss is sleeping” to “Craig Stoss is at work and eating snacks” to “Craig Stoss is going out tonight”, the public demanded Facebook remove the “is” and spawned a new concept of our “Status” world where at a click I can get a brief summation (and an accurate timestamp of said “Status”) of all my Facebook friends. It allowed your “Status” to not be tied to you are all. By removing the small ‘is’ the freedom was given to type any update you chose. But Facebook had a few problems. 1) it isn’t an easily visual medium for mobile devices and the Blackberry and iPod apps are still HCI nightmares and 2) logins and security were hindering lay people access to the up-to-minute details they so craved without all that pesky permissions crap getting in the way.

Enter Twitter.

Twitter not only gave us the ability to see anyones realtime “Statuses” in chronological order, but now we had an interface that was agnostic to medium. Its vast extensibility all but encouraged and begged developers to find ways to dig deeper into our personal lives, and at the same time make them instant and accurate! Now I can post a photo in real time of the shutter closing. I can provide you with a map accurate within meters of where I am standing and locate others who “Tweet” in my vicinity.  And I can follow trends of what people are talking about most and join “conversations” with absolute strangers.

Our “Status” literally has become the very thing we were doing that instant, not a generic or vague reference to something happening or about to happen, but an actual view to that instant in time.

There is a Vedic language where each word is in itself the make up of the object the word describes. So the word “tree” would describe the tree itself. We have now converted this to ourselves: We are no longer a series of long running activities and chapters of our life such as “I am 21 and attend UoG” we are now a series of points in time strung together and interleaved with other points in time “I am 26 and 9 months and am currently in Paderborn Germany at the Best Western room 705″, or even more granular “I am taking a crap in said hotel room, it had corn in it”.

I de-coupled Twitter and Facebook for that reason. In my opinion, and as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow there will be disagreement, Facebook is not a place for granular updating of the milliseconds on my life. It is a more gradual timeline of my growth in various friendships, the travels I have done and the activities I do on a generic scale so that people close and formally close can understand the person I am and am becoming. It has generic references to me being single, my birthdate, my trip to Australia, not specific instances of un-censored details held together via nothing more than the neurons in my brain firing in different patterns when I react to something external to me.  Twitter is just that (for me). A timeline of quick random thoughts I have as my days progress. I minimilize the experience into a phrase of 140 characters, hopefully with a bit of wit and insight to my “Status” at that given point In time.

They serve different purposes and will continue to do so until we replace Facebook and Twitter with whatever comes next in the technological journey we are on.

However, all that being said, I have chosen to recouple them as of this week as over the next 4-8 weeks I will on the road extensively and, while I want to maintain a separation of who I am vs. the instant I am experiencing, I feel the two have a MasterCard style Venn diagram when remote from the comfort of my home and work laptops.  So, please excuse the amount of updates, but also enjoy the ride! I hope to bring you plenty of updates via Twitter/Facebook from India, Germany, Switzerland, the US and wherever else I am taken and hopefully will have some chance to blog a bit along the way! I am a bit geeky after all

I love guests. Since moving to England three years ago I have had the fortune of being host to several of my friends from back home and always welcome more people to my humble abode. This week I was lucky enough to have 3 seperate groups of people pop over the big pond for a visit and that resulted in the now patented “London: Stoss Style^©” tour being held on 3 seperated occasions over 4 days.

What was interesting (beside the rather amazing way foot blisters heal and re-form over the course of 4 full days of walking, is that none of these tours resulted in the same sites. I never really noticed it before, but looking back I realize that each time I have taken friends around London I tend to follow the same general walking/Tube path, but never have I had the same tour twice.

What makes this interesting to me is that I have just spent 4 solid days, on top of the countless times before this week, walking in basically the same 7 or 8 major areas of London and I still see new things. It really is a tour for myself, guided by the people who think I am guiding them.

I lived in Toronto for 4 months and never got this feeling, I lived in Guelph for 4 years and pretty much can claim to have seen it all. What is it about Europe that makes cities like Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam etc. places that you can go to over and over and never see the same site the same way twice? Is it the exotic-ness of simply being in Europe? I doubt it, that wore off a year or so back for me. Perhaps it is the copious amounts of alcohol I drink? Nah, been doing that for years too, especially in Guelph, you bastards (you know who you are)… In my opinion it is the lifestyle they lead.

See, in general,  Europeans drink more than North Americans, they smoke more, they eat more meals (albeit in smaller portions) and yet, in general, they are in better health and happier then we are. Why?

If you watch Sick-o by Mr. Michael Moore you will see a “documentary” that gives a lot of credit to the healthcare over here, especially in France. Mr. Moore basically makes Canadian Healthcare almost Utopian and then surpasses Utopia in Europe and specifically Scandanavia. We all know this isn’t really true, but he has some interesting points.

Europeans are more relaxed and depending on the survery 6-8 out of the top 10 “happiest” counties are European.

I recently went to the Doctors for a minor problem and instead of immediately feeling me up or doing unmentionable things below the belt the doctor asked me about me. How UNIQUE! Was I in a relationship? Were there any problems? Has my eating pattern or work habits changed? How was I sleeping? Any added stresses in my life? I strongly believe these questions are the reason why English medicine doesn’t work for me. It is weaker medicine and it can be because it isn’t their first line of defense. Their first attempt is figuring out why “all of sudden” something went wrong with your body. Likening this to a computer problem. The first line of defense isn’t to reformat, or to start deleting things or changing settings somewhere, it is to do a generic scan of your machine for problems using antivirus, or antispyware software. Our medicines have to be stronger, because we grew up taking them after each cough. We “change our settings” until something works better. I spent the better part of 5 years getting allergy shots and so many times as I sat there waiting to be received I saw people walk in and ask how long the wait was, and if it was more than 30 minutes they left. Clearly these are not sick people, they are people who aren’t 100% well who want a quick fix drug to get back to their busy lives.

Recently, a counterpart of mine felt faint one day at his office. His boss called him an ambulance and they gave him 2 weeks stress leave from work. No perscriptions. The Doctor (this happened to be in Switzerland) determined that this was nothing more than over work and exhaustion. He was a perfectly healthy man where something had changed, his hours at work were longer, he had some tight deadlines to meet and his blood pressure rose signifcantly because of this. They even gave him a free heart monitor and if it ever went off he was told immediately to stop what he was doing and go and get a coffee or a tea and sit for 15 minutes to let his heart rate even out! Would a North American Doctor ever perscribe that?

Regardless, I am no Doctor and I don’t know what is best for the human body and this rant isn’t about health care, BUT all I am saying is: Europeans don’t rush home from work at 5pm sharp. They finish up their job and move on to the pub for a chance to unwind. They don’t rush to the stores after dinner for some late night shopping because they are closed at 6pm. They eat on patios facing outwards towards the sidewalks, not in a fenced in area to appease alcohol restrictions.

They schedule and enact their lives around living, not around doing.

So, what does this have to do with my recent trips to London? It is simple: London is a city where anything can happen because the people want it that way. They spend so much time enjoying the sites around them, they want them to change. I walked through the same tunnel twice today about an hour apart. The first time there was a string quartet playing and the second time 2 opera singers, ever seen that in TO?

Bottom line here is relax a little. Smell a few roses…

Today I show you some advertisements that came from marketing departments that are seemingly run by monkeys who are either 40 years older or younger than their target audience and/or have IQs in the single digits.

Is it McDonald's?	This ad advertises that mayonnaise and chicken “is McDonald’s”. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the definition of McDonald’s the Big Mac? aka Beef, not chicken?And what does “… and then some” mean? Is there some delineation of “being McDonald’s” that I am unaware of? Does it start at “Excellent Food” (ie. Not McDonald’s at all) and ends at “Obese fatass rednecks”? I think the only thing that makes sense on this ad is that it is less than £1. I also like that the burger that they are advertising isn’t even completely on the billboard!
This ad starts off with a “clever” joke, reminiscent of the bug’s ass flying through his head when he hits your windshield. But the point of this ad is to tell people to use caution on stairs.Few things: This ad was ON THE STAIRWAY! If I want to be warned about a hazard I would like to be done so before I am in the middle of using the device or apparatus that it is warning me about! A warning on the blades of a mower that says don’t touch when spinning isn’t useful if the blades are already spinning! One would assume the main demographic for this ad is either the elderly or drunk people… unless we live in a country of moronic middle class 20-50 somethings… Therefore using a semi-inappropriate joke which is not only a lot of reading but may take a second to register doesn’t seem like a great way to get the message across! How about CAUTION STAIRS? Doesn’t the black sillouhette look like the “Slppery When Wet” guy upside down?	Caution: Stairs Require Skill
A true statement	Marmite is a horrible product. I was given the stuff when I first moved here and it tasted like I was licking the foot of an avid hiker who has an unexplained love of stepping in feces and has just spent a month trekking across the Andes. However this ad is not clever like “Buckley’s: It tastes awful, but it works”. Negative Advertising is fine, and sometimes is effective. But this ad isn’t a negative advertising example. It is stating the absolute obvious. I could put anything on this billboard, from pizza to terrorism and the same statement would be true. It is also a tad obvious that the suitcase is being held at that ridiculous and, might I add, unusable angle so that the thumb can bias you towards a positive reaction. Don’t buy marmite.

A few more day-to-day pictures:

Enjoying it while I can
The above comic was sent to me after my blog posts on Mr. Keen’s book about Internet media destroying society. The big-nosed guy on the right makes an interesting point, there will always be a need for writers no matter where we read our news. Interestingly enough, does anyone else notice the bomb on the hippy on th left’s computer? I am not sure if this is a subtle addition by the author that all Internt news readers are terrorists, or if it just a poorly drawn apple. I am hoping it is the later, otherwise I’ll have to learn how to handle anthrax.
A polite indicator	I want to thank the construction company for politely letting me know that if I am planning an emergency, that there is a spot ahead for me to stop and attend to that emergency. By definition isn’t an emergency something that is unplanned or unforeseen? For instance if the car I was in when I took this picture caught on fire, do you really think I would think to myself “Well, shit… I am not near an official emergency stopping area, guess I’ll keep on plugging forward?” Aside from the stupidity of this sign, I wonder how much this sign cost tax payers? I would also love to see statistics on how many people actually use these official stopping areas. Why does no one seem to realize when doing construction budgets how much of a waste things like this are? Let’s from now on spend money on paying the workers to get the work done faster so that “construction season” doesn’t run into winter.
This was a laminated pamphlet sitting on the table of a Toronto restaurant I was eating at. Making a leap I am assuming this was advertising something grown locally. I am not aware of what that plant is, but this was a pamphlet for wine and I am pretty positive this is not a grape vine or a wine barrel. Also I am kinda sure that ripping a plant out, roots and all, from the ground is not a sound gardening practice. What gets me is: Who would think that this graphic a) indicates wine b) makes me want to purchase wine or c) tricks people into thinking that Toronto has dirt and plants? I did not take any marketing classes, but based on my knowledge of print and tv ads the only appropriate place for dirt as a marketing device is for washing detergent, and even then only if you are advertising how it whitens, not how it protects colours. For the later you would want bright clothes that have been washed 100s of times indicated as a caption on your ad. I did not have wine with this meal.	Dirt, an interesting sales strategy

The other night I came home to no Internet. It appeared I could not get an IP address from my ISP. (un-geekly written: Internet had a booboo). I wanted to call the provider to tell them I was down, to make sure they were investigating, however I realized to do this I needed access to their website where their phone numbers were…

I was going to call my parents to catch up with them, but my VoIP phone needs Internet…

I wanted to write this blog entry, but… etc.

We are surrounded by Internet so much these days, that it is seemingly becoming almost a necessity of life. I tried calling an embassy the other day for information and their telephone line directed me to the website that contained the phone number I used to call them; very helpful.

While 84% of households in Canada and 74% in the USA had Internet in 2008, that is still beat by 90% of Iceland and 86% of Norway (like there is anything else to do in those countries anyway).

What else on this planet is as ubiquitous as the Internet? What else reaches so many generations and so many business verticals? Maybe driving? It is estimated that under 200 million Americans drive, so what’s that, 60%? That comes close. But then again, I have driven only a dozen times in 3 years. Which would you rather go without your car or your Internet?

With the web becoming more and more mobile, being connected is not only becoming easier, but it is becoming more inescapable. A new technology called MiFi is being advertised now in the USA. BUY THIS STOCK! This technology will be wanted by anyone who travels anywhere, ever! But this just goes to show how much we crave the Internet. We now have what is essentially a portable router to carry around so we never have to be disconnected anywhere a cellphone works, which these days is pretty much everywhere, except maybe anywhere North of Toronto or West of Thunder Bay.

The CEO of Google recently gave a speech to a group of University graduates where he told them to turn off their computers! And how rightfully so, except 5 years from now he’ll have to amend his statement to “Turn off your cellphones, toasters, coffee mugs, and iEngagementRings” in order for people to truly be disconnected.

What do a typewriter and Germany have to do with Twitter?

In fact quite a bit, but let’s step back for a second. How many times have you felt like you were wasting time? Seemed like you were doing something insignificant? Your actions have no relevance to your future goals?

In this season on “How I Met Your Mother” there have been a few reflections of this sort. For instance “What would have happened had I taken that cab?” or “What would have changed had I not been on that street corner at that time?”.  The point that these statements make is quite simply that life is not a series of achievements or milestones, it is a series of interlocked microseconds where the affect of the previous billions and trillions are placed on the next infinitesimal.

Don’t believe me? Think about something fairly significant in your life. Today is my 4th anniversary with the company I work for. But how did I ever get this job? I heard about my company through a guest speaker in a course at UoG, i was introduced by the professor who I had known from a previous course, I only took that previous course because I had a choice of 2 electives and I had several friends in that course, I had made those friends from living in South Residence. In theory I could even pull this back farther as to why did I chose UoG, or Computer Science for that matter and that takes me back until the age of about 12, probably further. So an action that at the time may have been considered insignificant has resulted in me working for a company where I travel the world, get paid to do something I enjoy and work with a fantastic group of people. Some may say I am stretching it, but am I?

About 3 winters ago I had taken a day off of work to do some errands, Christmas shopping, and a few things for the fam. I woke up a little later than normal and went to have breakfast, out of milk for cereal I made eggs. i showered dressed and went down to my car. I got all the way down to my car and realized I forgot my phone, so I went back up. As I came out of my parking lot, as I was used to doing for work I turned left. About a city block went by before I realized I should have turned right, I started looking for a place to turn around when a police officer pulled in behind me and politely gave me a speeding ticket. Other than the obvious fact that the real blame is on me speeding…  Can I blame the meeting of me and this officer on me taking the longer time to make eggs than a simple bowl of cereal? The reason the milk was empty escapes me now, as at the time it was an insignificant detail. What about forgetting my cellphone? That added time to my delay? Couldn’t my vacation day have been on a different day?  Why was I at that intersection at that time on that day?

Twitter was limited to 140 characters for the highly publicized reason that SMS Text messaging standards is 160 characters, and Twitter allows 20 letters for a username. But why are text messages 160 characters? In the mid 80s a communications researcher working on a project to replace the pager sat at a typewriter and typed several common sentences he would have used his new gadget for. He found that almost all those sentences where less than 160 characters. He deemed that sufficient. When cellphones adopted this, bandwidth was slow and very tight, so they stuck with this to reduce overhead, and now that bandwidth is relatively cheap and plentiful we still use a non-scientific 80s limitation in a highly capable technology.

So when professors say that that the text message is ruining the way kids speak, perhaps we should blame that German researcher and his typewriter? Or we should blame the guy who hired him to research, or perhaps we should blame some other seemingly insignificant action that happened well before the 80s?

The problem is that this is all hindsight, who could know that me being stranded in a pub one evening would lead to me befriending a person who 2 years later is taking a trip with me to India? Who knew that by casually mentioning to my former boss I like to travel it would result in a series of events that moved me to England for 2.5+ years and counting?

I can think of so many examples in my life.  Most I cannot even trace back because the moments were so fleeting, but realizing this just gives another reason why you need to go with the flow of life, don’t try and control everything, don’t fret about spilling a coffee or tripping on a sidewalk because who knows: That action may lead you closer to your dreams.

A recent bit of feedback from a friend and fellow blogger is that my posts lack a certain graphical appeal. I therefore have decided to introduce a recurring feature to this site where I use the power of my Blackberry’s camera to bring you interesting things I encounter on my day-to-day adventures.

Today’s edition is Silly Signs:

An interesting advertisement. I saw this in my local train station. Apparently a very hip dog (hip due to the cool specs) has somehow made it to the Taj Mahal and realized he needs a passport.I, of course, would encourage all travelers to sort out passports before going to see India, but each to their own.I am not sure what is more odd. The fact he has 1 ear, a face shaped like an arrow or that he has a camera around his neck, but yet no opposable thumbs to click the button. I am not sure who decided this advertisement would work, but smoking some of that crack might be fun. I will make a note, that I have no idea what this is advertising.

On my recent trip to Germany I had a layover in Zurich, this sign was seen on the shuttle bus to my plane.Apparently in Switzerland it is not only encouraged that you smoke on a shuttle bus, but that you smoke several different types of tobacco.However the artist did forget to paint the smoke lines on the pipe, so maybe I should just carry an un-lit pipe Sherlock Holmes style. For a country that smokes more cigarettes in an hour than most countries do in a year, I guess it makes sense that you are allowed to have one last sweet taste of nicotine before the 1 hour 20 minute flight from Zurich to Heathrow.

That is all for now. I hope that this satisfies the apparent lust for imagery my readers have.

I have flown quite a bit, not a lot, but more than most and less than quite a few. I have flown on everything from “Can this legally be considered a plane?”-class on Delta to Executive First on Air New Zealand, one of the best airlines in the air. I have been on Virgin Blue who during a crash I am positive would charge you AUS$10 to use a lifevest and Swiss Air who end every economy flight with a delightful Swiss chocolate. I have been delayed for hours, over night, diverted to other airports, stuck on tarmacs, missed connections, been late for boarding, been held at security, had my balls cupped and man-tits groped by too many strangers to count and yet I continue to enjoy flying and still do not find it a task or an annoyance. I think it is a great way to travel and would have no qualms about booking any fight to any country if I wanted to go to that location.

That is why when I am taking a special interest in the articles about New Democratic Party MP Jim Maloway’s new private bill which has serious implications for all Canadian airlines (A summary can be found here).

Mr. Maloway’s bill seeks up to $500/hour/passenger of compensation for every hour delayed on the tarmac, bumped passengers on long haul flights would see $1200 in their pockets and “failure to announce delays” is a $1000 fine payable to the traveler. (I do note that the above is only if certain conditions aren’t met, but I will touch on that later)

But, before I start to discuss, let me be clear: For the most part Air travel is one of the most poorly structured and inefficient industries out there. I once took 3 flights in 3 days in China, each plane boarded on time, left on time or earlier and always landed within 5 minutes of the planned arrival. In the past 4 years, that is the 1st time all of those things have happened on more than 2 consecutive flights for me. What does this tell me? Well it tells me exactly the same thing as why in Germany I know exactly when a train arrives to the station, departs from that station and what platform I will arrive/depart from a month+ in advance, and in England, France, Canada and Brussels I do not: Some companies know how to be efficient and some do not. I do not advocate the Air travel business model of BAA in London, England, just as I wouldn’t pitch Canada’s Via rail as a good transportation solution.

But all that being said, can you really honestly tell me that every flier is worth $500/hr if there is a delay? That number seems to be picked out of thin air! What’s next? Making the Transit authorities pay you if there is a traffic jam?

Yes, air travel is rough sometimes, and yes it is expensive and yes it can be very annoying when you are stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. But this isn’t airline specific! Just as the clause in this bill that states an airline can be fined $10,000 if they don’t advertise their prices with service fees and taxes included. WHAT?! Canada and the USA don’t do that in any industry! And as stupid as that may be (especially since the vast majority of the world does do this and it makes soooo much sense) forcing one industry to add in taxes is asinine! If anything that will cause even more confusion, because customers would be expecting the tack-ons.

The people that agree with this legislation are the people that travel once a year or less and are annoyed that their plans are changed by someone else. If they were driving somewhere they’d call ahead and say “sorry, got stuck in traffic”, but when a hurricane is destroying New Orleans and that causes a two hour diversion to get to their margarita in Acapulco; Jesus Christ! Call in the lawyers.

Now Mr. Maloway says that it won’t cost airlines a penny if they meet the conditions. Well that is just bullshit. The airlines not only will need someone to monitor that this is occurring, but will also need to go to court countless times to defend that it has been done. What does “failure to announce a delay” even mean? What if I only speak Spanish or am blind and can’t understand/read the announcement? Is that failure? This all costs money and with an industry that is already so inefficient it is hemorrhaging cash from every orifice those costs ain’t going to be on their shoulders, they’d be on yours. So sure $500/hr sounds great, but when the flight costs $2000 to pay for all this shit, it may not seem as wonderful.

This is yet another case of the “Don’t incovienience me” syndrome that is spreading faster than Swine Flu (*ahem* H1N1) across North America. And for God’s sake don’t breast feed in public, or smoke anywhere within 10 miles of civilization or let homosexuals marry because somehow that inconvieniences me and we all know my rights are more important than yours.

I could spend a lot of time reviewing each absurdity of this book, but alas I like to branch out more. Instead I think in my final reflection I’ll finish with why I believe Mr. Keen has this sense of reality that I do not share.

Since I stated posting blog entries I have received many comments such as “Stoss, you really think about the world in a fucked up way.” And I agree. I tend to think about things differently. I am not near arrogant enough to think my opinion is the only one, or necessarily correct. To paraphrase a quote from The Truman Show _{(highly under-rated movie)}: “We all live in the reality with which we are presented.”

About 3 months ago I went on a date with a smart, pretty, 20-something professional in the bio-medical field who lives by herself away from her family. On the surface you might think we are very similar. We are both white-collar workers, we are independent, well traveled and have the means to sustain ourselves. The topic came up as to how often we order take away. I said not that often, usually just Friday night curry or something. She gasped! “Once a week?! That is really often!”

At the time we had a quick laugh and moved on, but the above story is directly related to this book. I live in a reality where once a week takeout is not only normal, it is considered infrequent. That being said, lately I also live in a world where if I am not on 4 or 6 airplanes in a month I consider it “downtime”.

The point I am trying to make is that in Mr. Keen’s reality the Internet is the culprit for the downfall of society. I am sure he truly believes that and I wouldn’t fault him on it. In my reality the Internet is one of, if not the most important technological advances ever and has potential to propel society in directions we cannot even fathom yet.

The later part of the book has a couple themes. One is human behaviour and the other is the disadvantages to an all electronic society.

Keen blames sex addiction on the vast amount of porn on the Internet. Sex addiction? The only purpose for us to exist is for sex. Monogamy, humility, these are man-made concepts. Sex addiction is fundamental to our existence. The fact birth control, condoms, abortion were invented just helps us to not over-populate the shit out of this planet. Just think, if they diverted the attention give to the industry of preventing pregnancy to a field like cancer, how would this world be different?

Our realities did meet in a few way though. Keen talks about the information gathering on the net and the potentially disastrous effects it could have if it leaks. I agree. I find it very spooky when I log into Facebook in Germany and my ads are in German, or when I land in type in www.google.com in Switzerland and get directed to www.google.ch.

What if every search, every online purchase and every website you ever visited was somehow displayed to the world? Would you be embarrassed? Would losing the expected anonymity of the Internet be detrimental to your life?

Now the big brother view is that the Information Superhighway has CCTV cameras at every metre to watch you, track you and record your every move. The truth is that this is nothing new. Credit card companies have been data mining your information for decades to find patterns and anomalies to help them prevent credit card fraud. For the most part these measures are there to help you. It lets Google know when you search for Mustang, do you mean horse or car. It lets Amazon recommend books to you to save you searching or when you are stuck for a choice. But as I discussed earlier, all technologies have the ability to be used for nefarious purposes.

How is it different that you have a subscription to a gardening magazine and that magazine sells your address to gardening supply stores so they can send you mail, than Facebook putting up a “singles in the UK” ad on my page because I am listed as single and living in the UK?

The ironic part of all of this discussion is that at the end of bashing amateurs, saying that we can have no idea when someone isn’t a paid professional on a subject if they are telling the truth or lying, the author admits in the final pages of his book that he himself is an amateur, that this is first book and he had to rely on several others in writing it. Think about that for a bit.

Mr. Keen clearly sees the Internet as something vastly different than any previous technology. I do not. I see it as an advancement, sort of like VHS->DVD->Blue Ray.  If Keen took the time to think about this in the grand scheme of our society and not in the individual case studies (The Internet poker player who robs a bank to pay off his debt, or the German teenagers who faked a political message on YouTube etc) he would see we are no worse off at all. We have just transitioned to a new form of culture, economy and values, not destroyed them at all.

Bottom line: I am glad I read this book. I hated it page after page, but sometimes it takes something that you hate for you to reflect on why you like something.

I mentioned briefly in my last post about the Swine Flu. And today I read that Air Transat and other airlines have suspended flights! Has this world gone mad?!

This picture was in the UK morning paper. Notice that the only place that has any deaths in it is Mexico? Yes, the US A just confirmed its first death this morning, but since I have been typing (According to word press 80 words), 43 people have died of cancer and 39 by communicable diseases! 152 deaths in 2 weeks in Mexico is not a significant number!

Now, please don’t take this as “Go out and lick sick people’s faces”, all I am saying is be reasonable! This is same problem i wrote about in “Tazed and Confused“, people don’t understand reasonable precaution versus gross over-reaction!

I am flying in the next coming weeks to Canada (13 cases), the US (65) & Germany (3). And now for my favourite part: Math!

Country	Population (mil)	Percentage Affected
Canada	35	3.4×10-7%
USA	307	2.1×10-7%
Germany	83	3.6×10-8%

So, statistically 0% of the population. Last year globally 1600 people died by falling out of bed. Including 450 people in the US. At that rate the Swine Flu would have to be in action in the US for 1 death every 2 weeks for about 17 years!

I’ll take my chances.

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Editor’s note: I just read another article which said the “US death” was actually a Mexican boy in the US. If this is true, are we really counting a death on US soil as a “US death”?