Category Archives: internet

fabulous mimic octopus

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Here’s another amazing video, likely a HOAX :) , like the last one I posted.

The mimic octopus, Thaumoctopus mimicus, is a species of octopus that has a strong ability to mimic other creatures. It grows up to 60 cm (2 feet) in length. …

… not discovered officially until 1998, off the coast of Sulawesi.

The octopus mimics the physical likeness and movements of more than 15 different species, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, sea shells, stingrays, flounders, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp. It accomplishes this by contorting its body and arms, and changing colour. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Kottke)

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

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ANDY IHNATKO is one of the biggest Mac advocates. Yet he loves Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

With the Metro user interface, they’ve created a simple and beautiful design language that’s relevant to a broad range of devices and to the ways that people use computers in the second decade of the 21st century. …

Metro is all about reducing the screen to the absolute minimum of visual noise necessary to do the thing the user has chosen to do at a given moment. There’s no overlapping windows and no menus or toolbars. When you launch a Metro-based word processor, your document occupies the whole screen. …

Windows 8 and Metro show true multiplatform OS promise

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The “sharing” options is superb.

Task Manager is brilliant. :)

Even simpler than Mac. Congratulations Microsoft.

Verge has a more detailed review.

Rick Mercer – CND online privacy

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It’s been a really, really bad week for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Once Rick Mercer rants, you’re done in this country.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Not all of that is true, by the way.

But I’m happy to see the normally stupefied and inert Canadian public pay attention to this issue.

I’ve recently used the internet in totalitarian police States like China and Italy. We don’t want that here.

The right wing ‘tough on crime’ agenda does not work. They need to focus on eliminating the causes of crime.

(via Geist)

FRUSTRATED logging in to websites?

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My life is 17% less frustrating since I started using LastPass.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

IT WORKS. .. But I do sometimes have problems, especially with the FILL FORMS functionality.

Download FREE from LastPass.com

Know that it has competitors, as good or better.

I will not vote for Harper

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@pmharper @toewsVic #TellVicEverything

Up until now, I’ve not been all that unhappy with the Harper Conservative government.

But their non-stop efforts to restrict online freedom have forced me to look for another Party.

The latest BAD LEGISLATION (Bill 30) is called Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act

WTF !?

Vic Toews Canadian Conservative Public Safety Minister said on February 13, 2012:

“.. either stand with us or with the child pornographers” in response to questions from Quebec MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis) regarding extensive Privacy Commission concerns about ‘warrant-less access’ to all Canadian Internet and Cell phone accounts under C-30

Does that sound familiar?

… George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said,

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Toews has been mocked and attacked for that polarizing, disingenuous statement.

Next time you hear the statement:

You’re either with us, or against us

… somebody is trying to hide something.

If you want to know the many, many reasons why Bill 30 is lousy legislation, follow Dr. Michael Geist.

why we share online …

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Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts:

We are sharing for good reason—not because we are insane, exhibitionistic, or drunk. We are sharing because, at last, we can, and we find benefit in it. Sharing is a social and generous act: it connects us, it establishes and improves relationships, it builds trust, it disarms strangers and stigmas, it fosters the wisdom of the crowd, it enables collaboration, and it empowers us to find, form and act as publics of our own making.

For individuals, sharing is a choice; that is the essence of privacy.

Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, told me that before the net, we had “privacy through obscurity”. We had little chance to be public because we had little access to the tools of publicness: the press, the stage, the broadcast tower (their proprietors were last century’s 1%). Today, we have the opportunity to create, share and connect, and 845m people choose to do so on Facebook alone. Mr Zuckerberg says he is not changing their nature; he is enabling it. …

read more on Buzz Machine

Jeff Jarvis is defending sharing in an Economist magazine debate with Andrew Keen.

I voted for Jeff.

Online sharing is one of the best things that’s happened in my lifetime. But I’m surprised bloggers have not changed the world MORE.

If you are against empowering idiots to spew hate and misinformation online, your best argument is a blog called “LITERALLY UNBELIEVABLE“:

… examples from Facebook of people who think stories from The Onion are real.

You’d successfully argue that many people shouldn’t be allowed to share online. :)

(via Kottke)

on Google Privacy

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You may have been contacted by Google:

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. …

These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

details

Some are freaking out.

That’s dopey. Not much is changing. Here’s a much more measured assessment:

Read Write Web – Tech World Overreacts to Google’s New Privacy Policy – How Does It Affect You?

… You know what you can do? Stop sharing things you don’t want tracked. …

Before and after March 1st best advice is not to do anything online you’ll regret in future. Somebody, somewhere could be tracking it. And it probably won’t be Google. They’re one of the least evil players.

If you want to dig into this deeper, the best authority is Jeff Jarvis. He’s the author of:

• What Would Google Do?
• Public Parts

blogging and online comments

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I listened to an excellent audiocast:

Hosts: Leo Laporte and Tom Merritt

Best known as a prominent blogger, and Vice President and Chief Evangelist of Expert Labs, Anil Dash is this week’s guest.

Triangulation

Three of the smartest internet gurus, together.

Of greatest interest to me was Anil’s opine on why true blogging (better) was eclipsed by microblogs like Twitter & Facebook (inferior). The true blogging platforms (e.g. WordPress & Blogger) are still too much work. Tumblr is better.

Next … the pros and cons of online comments.

Gurus MG Siegler and Anil, amongst others, recently turned comments off on their sites.

Matt Gemmell did too. Then posted the most detailed commentary I’ve seen on online comments – Comments Still Off

Personally, I have few enough hateful and ignorant comments on my blogs not to feel compelled to turn them off. The value — especially comments correcting my many errors — outweigh the negative Karma.

Issues regarding comments come up about once a week or so on my Gymnastics blog. I try not to delete or edit, but am forced to occasionally.

My advice, as always — DON’T READ COMMENTS.

Rick Perry is finished

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He should resign from the campaign right after he fires the guy who recommended he post the most hated video in the history of YouTube.

Check the numbers … 9,576 likes, 403,251 dislikes (as I post).

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Pandering to his Christian, Family Values base, he underestimated the power of a viral meme gone wrong.

Amber Mac has a good write-up on the issue – Should Rick Perry’s YouTube ad be banned as hate speech?

… perhaps not “hate speech”. But he’s certainly got some of his ‘facts’ wrong.

I’m not happy with the job Obama’s done as President. But when the alternative is a nob like this cowboy, or — worse — the Newt — ’merica is in trouble.