Something strange happened a few weeks ago. My traffic was normal, but there was this enormous spike in page views. I later discovered someone was doing some stalking in order to write the most upsetting comment they could on something I’d written. Given my normal stats, I estimate they looked at over 500 pages and spent around […]
Last week, I read Coders at Work (Amazon, Google books). I really enjoyed it, it was fascinating and I learned a lot about the history of programming and the programmers themselves. There’s a great quote from Douglas Crockford: Progress isn’t always forward. Sometimes we’re leaping forward and sometimes we’re leaping backwards. When we leaped to […]
Have you heard? Google is apparently making a new social network that will rival Facebook. This is being derided because, well, how can anyone hope to challenge Facebook? (Language stats from InsideFacebook) And Orkut has, tellingly, been a “huge success in Brazil“. I often find myself voicing the opinion that there is no need to […]
After some time without Facebook, I’ve become quite happy without it. However, it’s my birthday next week and I’m headed to Seattle for the weekend and later on next week, we’re planning a party for the Awesome Foundation (which is GO – we have 10 trustees and a project, I’m so excited – expect more […]
Of course, I’ve been following the debate about Google leaving China and the fallout. There’s a good summary in the NYT, as well as a piece on Sergey Brin and his childhood in the Soviet Union. I really love the evil meter. I was in China in 2007 for about 3 months. I’d braced myself […]
My boyfriend has told everyone that I quit Facebook because I don’t want to talk to anyone. Now all my friends think I’m depressed. This is kind of amusing. I’m also finding a number of events that are Facebook only, and Facebook won’t let me see them and just tells me to log in. This […]
Last week, I deactivated my Facebook account. Why? There were a number of reasons, and I’d just found myself using it less and less. Since they rolled out the redesign the news feed seemed out of date (it might take days for something to show up), but the live feed was full of repetitive drivel […]
I love Google, I do. I wouldn’t use another search engine and I use a lot of their other stuff as well. But I’ve been following the debate about privacy in Buzz (read this – if you doubt that the privacy issues are a potential problem, and this info for lawyers and journalists with useful […]
It’s long been the case that in times of stress, I stop responding to email. Right now is a time of extreme stress (this week I have to write a paper, mark an assignment, and have an interview) and I’ve stopped even reading it. I’m monitoring my iPhone for genuine emergencies, but if it doesn’t […]
Initial draft of a talk I’m supposed to be giving in February. Information -> Meaning Before the printing press, literacy rates were really low, and the average book was the bible. This was all people had by way of information. The printing press caused a revolution. 100 years later, humans had more information than they […]