On Web Culture

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 by Isao Hashimoto.

Source: YouTube

(Last updated: 2011-06-29)

1. NAI Opt-Out. The big daddy of opting out. Go to the NAI’s Opt Out page, click ‘Select All’ & click ‘Submit’. It will go through all the ad networks & opt you out. If you don’t successfully opt out of some, select the ones opt out wasn’t successful for & try opting out a second time. This worked for me.

2. Microsoft Opt out. Go to their Opt Out page, make sure it says you’re opted out, if not, click Opt Out. As West Australian’s say: “too easy”.

3. Yahoo. Same as MS. Go to Yahoo’s Opt Out page, make sure it says you’re opted out, if it doesn’t then fix that.

Ok. That was the easy stuff. Now, Google.

4. Interest-based advertising. Visit the Ad Preferences page & click Opt out.

5. Turning off search history personalization. Is this online advertising? Probably not, but in case you want to opt out of this, here is how. Firstly, it differs depending on whether you’re logged in or logged out of your Google Account. In you’re logged in to your Google Account, visit Edit Services & click the link that says ‘Remove Web History permanently’. If you can’t see this link, you’re not using Web History. If you’re not logged in to your Google Account, visit Web History Opt Out & click ‘Disable customisations based on search activity’. I have a Google Account but I did both forms of Opt Out just to be hardcore :-)

Ok. We’re getting there. What you may or may not have noticed is so far a majority of our Opt Outs have been cookie-based. This means if you delete all your cookies for your preferred web browser, then all your Opt Outs will be forgotten. Oh no! Fortunately there are some permanent Opt Out options.

6. Opting out permanently of Google Advertising. There is a plugin available for Internet Explorer, Google Chrome & Mozilla Firefox browsers. Note that for Chrome it is actually an extension. There is also guidance for accomplishing effectively the same thing for Safari.

Now, for Firefox users.

7. Download the BetterPrivacy add-on. This wipes the cookies Adobe Flash sets which, again, may or may not lead to personalised online advertising tracking but if you want to go “all the way” then this add-on will allow you to do it. Note: this add-on may mess with some Flash websites that have functionality that requires persistant cookies so either add those websites to the add-on’s whitelist in Firefox or don’t use this add-on.

7a. Yes, Firefox 4 & higher has the option you can check for ‘Tell web sites I do not want to be tracked’. Your browser tells the website this when you arrive on the website. Right now I’m not aware of this setting being respected 100% by advertising networks & websites across the web, but it is probably worth turning on as nothing negative can come of having it activated as well.

Finally:

Facebook feels like a moving target. It is difficult to criticise because I feel as though they might just bolt on Facebook for Charities or something and suddenly Facebook would be moving millions of dollars towards good causes. Pretty hard to criticise that. In fact I can vaguely recall when I read ‘The Facebook Effect’ there being some stuff in there about Facebook apps that do make it easier to donate or microfinance or something equally charitable.

But I have problems with Facebook. I aired them one evening with a group of friends and one friend was almost grievously disappointed at the disapproving tone of the rest of us. She seemed to be saying “Hey, I like this ok, stop hating on something I like”. Her opinion was it allowed her to connect with old friends, and also chat with all her friends. How could that be a bad thing?

Indeed. Facebook moves money towards good causes, it helps people to reconnect. What’s the big problem? Why don’t we just worry about more important things?

I remember once at a lunch calling Facebook “pervy” and got a good reaction so I said it again. Someone pointed out I’d just said “pervy” twice. “What, pervy?” Three times. But I think it is. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t enjoy a good insider’s look on Facebook of photos of friends-of-friends, or pics from so-and-so’s holiday. But I’ve never come away from that feeling anything but slightly slimy. I struggle to understand how behaviour like that is anything less that voyeuristic & competitive. If you ask me, that is a good reason to have lots of Facebook friends: for giving you access to more people’s lives.

Then there is another phenomenon: “Keeping in touch on Facebook”. This new social layer between “I don’t know you” and “Let’s keep in touch like adults do, as in, feature in each other’s lives”. I have had lots of folks tell me to keep in touch on Facebook and I have no idea what that means. What? Carry on a conversation that your uncle & your ex-girlfriend can read? I don’t know those people! It’s like talking with megaphones. Arguably the idea is I’m going to share things I’m up to & thus this Facebook Friend of mine can kind of just passively browse the things I’m up to when it suits them. That’s feels odd to me, why are we doing this? How are our lives better for it?

Facebook has introduced new social norms, new rules for dating, new rules for colleagues and is impacting modern society in lots of other places. It is ubiquitous. Just recently thousands of people in Palestine rallied themselves together via Facebook to call for more unity between the 2 leading Palestinian political groups. So you have a website that is still adding members, that is impacting – for all appearances – positive change. But down here on the ground, it is hard to see that. All I see is profile pictures of people posing as part of some public show-off I don’t feel part of. Hey, we don’t do this anywhere else in life, why is it cool here?

I think grassroots movements on Facebook spring up in spite of Facebook. I imagine a social web where radical movements and grassroots organisations are not reliant on the scale Facebook has which forces them to use Facebook.

A key to Facebook’s success, and where its lurking menace lies, is that most of us were forced to join it because everyone else was using it. There were conversations, news & invites you were missing out on if you weren’t “on Facebook”. Once there, suddenly you activated a public billboard of yourself you now have to maintain. It’s lock in. And the thing is, all those good things Facebook does, other websites already do better, or other websites could do better. Let’s just hope we transition to that instead of a future where the only internet some people know is Facebook.

Last week’s post was useful because I realised I was wrong. Sometimes you need to say something out loud to realise you actually don’t think that.

Last week I said I should be able to post in raw form and not be held accountable for the quality. My justification was that was the only way I was going publish more frequently. And that is just weak. No, I don’t think that. If you’re going to blog seriously online, then harden up. It is going to need to be thoughtful & polished otherwise it deserves any criticism it gets. And as for publishing more often, we’re not talking about a novel here – this is a blog. It shouldn’t be that hard to publish reasonably frequently.

I’m going overseas soon so it will be an interesting exercise to see if I can turn that into a reason to be updating more often.

Source: YouTube

A while ago now Stew said to me that the problem with blogging was that whatever you said, it was like it was your public statement, your official position now & forever. Stew & I had both been blogging for a while at that point & seen it grow in popularity. And it was true, the new environment was stifling, and not much fun. I also decided at the time that I, and Stew, were victims. It wasn’t fair!

I think my reaction then was because I just didn’t enjoy the scutiny. It made me have to sweat what I was writing and I wanted an escape route: “Oh, but it’s just a blog post!”. And today I don’t feel comfortable just banging out these sentences. I want it to be well-written. I’m aware of who is reading it, and also who might read it.

Probably just as long ago, when I suggested to my friend Joanna she start a blog, she said the internet probably wasn’t ready for controversial stuff she really would like say. That is certainly the case for me currently – I also blog behind pseudonyms & walled blog communities because there is stuff I just can’t say here. I do this because I feel the need to “self censor”. It might be that the content is only half thought out & needs a softer, friendlier audience. Or maybe it has such different content matter that the tone just isn’t suited to this particular blog. And sometimes I post elsewhere as part of getting it ready for posting here.

Strange, this world of blogging. I don’t like it very much. It doesn’t feel intimate and it also feels like work I’m not getting paid for. It feels easier to tweet something, because that does have an out. At least currently a tweet is like a remark, you do get away with more. And there are times where this blog would make more sense as a Tumblr website, where the content would be more video, and re-posts, and the sort of media heavy content sharing that Tumblr promotes.

But I don’t want to give up yet. I see two future paths. The easy option is to basically have a WordPress-powered Tumblr website. Or! Shout down the voices in my head, be brave and try to post what is on my head & heart to share. And the only way for the second option to work out is to publish in raw form. Anything too polished, too redacted will be too time-consuming and faced with that I don’t see my rate of publishing on this blog improving.

Do you know what happens when you blog in raw form? You get people pointing out your typos, pointing out how you contradict yourself with older posts, comments pointing out exceptions in ways that fail completely to usefully contribute to the conversation. It is awful. But maybe it is better than not blogging at all.

In some respects I should be a classic example of someone who is at the high-use end of online computer games. After all, I’m competitive, I adore rich, immersive stories & I find interacting with people online to be fascinating. When I was in high school I played a lot of computer games; I was the target market: male, white, geeky, introverted. A rite of passage perhaps.

And in fact I always thought I would play computer games, I just enjoyed them so much. It seemed to me I would be able to play computer games until I died. The companies would find ways to meet me in the middle, I was busy but there would always be time.

Strangely, maybe sadly, it hasn’t worked out that way. I don’t think it is a comment on the games themselves, because occasionally I’ll read about them or see footage of gameplay online and think “Wow, that looks awesome”. I’ve found it seems to be more how I want to spend my time. There are a lot of things we can do with our time and the idea of investing my hours in a game, for fun, actually ends up feeling really indulgent. I get no sense of accomplishment and the return on investment, if you will, is absurdly low.

It’s kind of bewildering. After all, I know perfectly well the enormous satisfaction of completing a computer game or winning an online match against international opponents. Often the level of strategy & intensity played out in these online battles is epic. Online gaming is a compelling personal experience – it is no wonder computer games are bigger business than motion pictures now. But yet, here I am, not playing games and I’m fine with it.

Why? Well, partly it is that there are other things I find more interesting & important. And another part of me seems to feel some relief at having done away with “wasting my time” on computer games. That social stigma associated with computers games is not something I have completely shaken yet. But mostly, I just don’t see the point. What is making computer games so important that I should prioritise hours of my time towards them over everything else?

Now, like any argument, it is fair to point out some of positive uses of computer games: professional training, exciting entertainment, stimulating experiences for young children (or aging minds), social experiences unhindered by gender, race, body, etc. I have friends who play online computer games as a way of hanging out with friends or as an alternative to TV. There are bound to be lots more examples.

But my central point can be drawn from looking at computer games as an alternative to TV. Just being an alternative doesn’t make it better. And like TV, a lot of online games have “hooks” for you to tune in next week. The next level, the next unlocked power, the tuning out of those other things that are harder, more difficult or make you think & feel things you don’t want to. Indeed, when I was younger computer games were a way for me to use up my free time in an extremely monopolistic fashion that seemed an end unto itself. Games were also a way to shut out the world & control it on my terms.

We live in a world that doesn’t look kindly on mistakes. It is hard sometimes to get back up or to ask for help. But we need to encourage the makers of computer game entertainment to ask the question of what their products should ultimately do: improve the way we are or provide synthetic anaesthesia. Our worth is in who we are & what we will be become. That will never be properly contained or measured by online entertainment.

Terrific full-length version of an interview David Foster Wallace did in the USA with (I think) a German TV program in 2003. It is 84 minutes long but I really recommend watching this right the way through. I think this guy was on to it on a number of levels.

Link: David Foster Wallace Interview (2003) [zdf.de]

UPDATED:
That zde.de link seems to have been wiped out for some reason. It seems zdf.de got a fancy new Adobe Flash interface & lo, death to old links. Here’s the same interview on YouTube in 9 parts.

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 1 of 9)

Link: http://youtu.be/N5IDAnB_rns

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 2)

Link: http://youtu.be/AlUmT_biDwI

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 3)

Link: http://youtu.be/LPIKae5qRwM

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 4)

Link: http://youtu.be/P7ts3iKppnA

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 5)

Link: http://youtu.be/xx7qMU0f4ts

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 6)

Link: http://youtu.be/ayQ1vihLcGc

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 7)

Link: http://youtu.be/eI0HhPD38_A

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 8)

Link: http://youtu.be/5GZWGFic1Ns

David Foster Wallace Interview 2003 (Part 9)

Link: http://youtu.be/vaWdfDXRDyA

David Foster Wallace on seven days in the life of the late, great John McCain:

Outside the Riverfront’s side doors off the parking lot, where it’s so cold and windy you have to smoke with mittens on, an OTS with Jim C. and his longtime friend and partner Frank C. means getting to bitch about the 12 Monkeys, and here Jim and Frank discourse with no small sympathy on the brutality of these campaign reporters’ existence — subsisting on the Campaign Diet, which is basically sugar and caffeine (diabetes is apparently the Black Lung of political journalism), always on the road in some sort of box for weeks at a time, very alone, connected to loved ones only by cellphone and 1-800 answering service. Rolling Stone mentions being in hotels every night, which a CBS sound guy on BS2 had said was probably the McCain media’s number-one stressor. The Shrub apparently stays in five-star places with putting greens and spurting-nymph fountains and a speed-dial number for the in-house masseur. Not McCain2000, which favors Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Hampton Inn, Hilton, Signature Inn, Radisson, Holiday Inn, Embassy Suites, etc. Rolling Stone, who is in no way cut out to be a road journalist, invokes the soul-killing anonymity of chain hotels, the rooms’ terrible transient sameness: the ubiquitous floral design of the bedspreads, the multiple low-watt lamps, the pallid art-work bolted to the wall, the whisper of ventilation, the sad shag carpet, the smell of alien cleansers, the Kleenex dispensed from the wall, the automated wakeup call, the lightproof curtains, the windows that do not open-ever. RS asks whether it could possibly be coincidence that over half of all indoor suicides take place in chain hotels. Jim and Frank say they get the idea. RS references the terrible oxymoron of “hotel guest.” Hell could easily be a chain hotel. Is it any accident that McCain’s POW prison was known as the Hanoi Hilton? Jim shrugs; Frank says you get used to it, that it’s better not to dwell.

Source: Rolling Stone

BONUS

• David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster [gourmet.com]
• David Foster Wallace – Shipping Out (.pdf)
• David Foster Wallace – Ticket To The Fair (.pdf)

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I have been a rapacious user of Ted.com, AtGoogleTalks & This American Life for a while now & I’ve wanted to share some of the talks I’ve enjoyed the most. Unfortunately the feed for This American Life only makes the download available until the new one is ready – which is every week, so I can’t link to any of those. But I will embed my favourites from the other two sites below. These come highly recommended & are in no particular order.

TED.COM
Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes
“Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.”

Source: Ted.com

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
“Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness –- shut down one by one.”

Source: Ted.com

Bill Strickland: Rebuilding America, one slide show at a time
“Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships.”

Source: Ted.com

James Howard Kunstler: The tragedy of suburbia (contains strong language)
“In James Howard Kunstler’s view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about.”

Source: Ted.com

ATGOOGLETALKS
Authors@Google: Michael Krasny
“KQED Radio’s Michael Krasny is one of the country’s leading interviewers of literary luminaries, a maestro for educated listeners who prefer their discourse high and civil. In Off Mike, Krasny talks of his strong desire to become a novelist in the footsteps of Bellow and Philip Roth, and then discovering his real talent as a communicator—a deft ability to draw others out as an interlocutor. In a mix of memoir and reportage, Krasny takes readers inside his world—his coming of age during the heady times of the 1960s with their blend of the civil rights movement and political activism, to the vivid description of his journey from a student of literature to a struggling novelist to an educator and—somewhat accidentally—a radio host.”

Source: YouTube.com

Authors@Google: Lawrence Wright
“Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer for The New Yorker, brings exhaustive research and delightful prose to one of the best books yet on the history of terrorism, The Looming Tower. He begins with the observation that, despite an impressive record of terror and assassination, post–WWII, Islamic militants failed to establish theocracies in any Arab country. Many helped Afghanistan resist the Russian invasion of 1979 before their unemployed warriors stepped up efforts at home. Al-Qaeda, formed in Afghanistan in 1988 and led by Osama bin Laden, pursued a different agenda, blaming America for Islam’s problems. Less wealthy than believed, bin Laden’s talents lay in organization and PR, Wright asserts.”

Source: YouTube.com

@Google: Benjamin Maron
“Ben Maron lives a dual life as computer scientist and fashion designer. Since graduating from MIT in 2004, Ben has worked on a number of developments at the forefront of high-performance computation, most recently at IBM where he is a lead architect on the Cyclops (Blue Gene/C) supercomputer team. On the design side, Ben is completing his final year on the BA Fashion Design course at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins, and has worked for notable designers such as Donna Karan and Jonathan Saunders. His goal is to fuse the two disparate fields by creating thought-provoking, technically charged garments, which highlight the striking similarities between the artistry of a complex circuit and of a fabric’s interaction with the human form.”

Source: YouTube.com

BONUS
I Met The Walrus
“In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.”

Source: YouTube.com