There are two kinds of people in the world: (i) the kind who would want all their logins, passwords, cookies, and browsing history to be transmitted to Google's servers for reasons of "convenience" and (ii) everyone else.
If you fall into (ii) you probably don't care much about the recent flap where Google users are involuntarily "logged in" to their Chrome browsers. (Who knew you could even "log in" to a browser?) This occurs whenever users log into a Google "product" such as gmail. The reason for all this logging in is ostensibly so the users' data can be "synchronized" among the Google servers and all instances of Chrome they might be running.
If you fall into category (i) you are either very concerned about this privacy-shredding dark pattern or, you feel it's simply a matter of Google needing to have better documentation.
September 2018
amazon vs vpn recap
A reader characterized some recent posts here on Amazon blocking VPNs as "ranting." Just so we're clear, it's actually kind of a hopeful development that Amazon is violating its own "customer convenience is paramount" credo by putting up roadblocks to sign-in: it suggests its business model is challenged by user privacy concerns.
The true rants were aimed at a VPN company that excused its failure to get past the Amazon firewall on the basis of Amazon's need for security. Poor Jeff, everyone should be helping him to be a better monopolist.
the site formerly known as Wikia
Stumbling upon an exhaustive encylopedic entry on a minor Jack Kirby character led to a Wikipedia article about Wikia, which is in the process of rebranding as FANDOM.
Essentially this is a for-profit version of Wikipedia, harnessing the limitless passion of comic book and anime fans so that some Silicon Valley execs can make $$$.
The tipoff is Fandom's corporatespeak on its about page:
FANDOM has a global audience of over
200 MILLION
monthly uniques
When you see an adjective used as a noun, prepare to be exploited.
around the web
Simon Reynolds on Auto-Tune (Pitchfork). Long, thorough "explainer" piece on the effect, how it's used, and its history in commercial pop. For purposes of his discussion, Reynolds has temporarily ignored Sturgeon's Law that "90 percent of everything is crap."
UK sf/slipstream author Christopher Priest on why his new 9/11 novel An American Story has no American publisher. The Gollancz ebook is currently available at Barnes and Noble so it's not as if the book can't be read in the US, it's just that no US company would do a print run, book tour, etc. The silence on the subject of our national myth (what happened and how it happened) is actually the theme of the book. It's well worth a read.