On Web Culture

(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:

Source: YouTube (delayed cookies enabled)

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

This is worth watching. Even if it’s hard, stick in there until 37:00 when the documentary covers four Chinese university students being asked what the image of the Tank Man means to them. The first time I watched that segment the alarm bells started clanging in the back of my head “No man! That is not cool, not cool at all…”

Or perhaps in the words of db, “Somebody do something, that is f—-!”

Source: Irintech.com