cum grano salis — nobody likes a clever bastard » Interwebs http://datenschwanz.net science, technology, politics, and vitriol at the bleeding edge of the crinkum-crankum we call Internet. also, food. Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:29:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ Yawn of the Day http://datenschwanz.net/2010/02/13/yawn-of-the-day/ http://datenschwanz.net/2010/02/13/yawn-of-the-day/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:45:06 +0000 studmuffin http://datenschwanz.net/?p=406

Oh no. Someone just realized that after agreeing to a contract allowing it, information willingly given to a company essentially gives that company the right to do whatever they want with that information. Drrr. That someone is Harriet Jacobs, ultra-victim.

I’m approving this after deleting hundreds of comments like this, since I’ve addressed this a few times already

This explains why the comments are basically an extension of the yawnfest, where it’s all, “Oh, your situation is so bad. SUE THEM!” I giggled when I read that she should get a cease and desist order, with all of the white knights chiming in.

I opted out of Buzz when it arrived, but it still auto-followed.

Hm, what is the law that protects someone in this case? I’m more than guessing that there isn’t one, since it’s probably stipulated in the contract that services may or may not work properly and data you give them still belongs to them. You opted in to just about everything when you decided to use Google services. Read the not-so-fine print. Or, hey, since you are an ultra-victim, maybe you should not make anything public in the first place.

You must not know this, but no matter how you think the world should work, if you are afraid of the world, you should not be flying a flag. It only attracts all of the bad things you are afraid of. That’s real, and your bitching away won’t change how humans really, truly work.

So! All future comments about, “Turn Buzz off,” “Make your stuff private,” “Don’t approve contacts,” “Make your profile private,” “You shouldn’t have approved Buzz in the first place” are to be deleted, because I DID ALL THOSE THINGS.

Google is not in the business of protecting anyone’s privacy. Haven’t you read the news since they started business? Do you know anything about the people you gave your “private” information to? Did you gamble with your life (!) and incorrectly expect them to be in that business? Google sucks for a lot of reasons, but not because you still live up to your history of misplacing trust.

]]> http://datenschwanz.net/2010/02/13/yawn-of-the-day/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ AOL Can’t Get Anything Right http://datenschwanz.net/2009/12/14/aol-cant-get-anything-right/ http://datenschwanz.net/2009/12/14/aol-cant-get-anything-right/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:44:34 +0000 studmuffin http://datenschwanz.net/?p=300 I saw some retarded shit in my access log that looked like another spam bot that needed to be blocked, but after a little research, it seems to be a semi-legit piece of garbage called Surphace. After a very brief bit of research, it appears as though AOL is responsible.

I was initially worried about what kind of atrocity they would subject us to when my wife said that AOL renamed themselves again. Relief soon settled in. Learning that they had lived up to their reputation, I was told the new name was a word that sounds like a-hole.

I had thought that all of the stupid VCs were done chasing stupid ideas with stupid names, but I guess they’re still at it. Oh! Wait! Maybe they were on to something! Surphace has a URL shortener! … and surphing! I wonder if it’s too late to sell a flaming bag of shit to some VC firm (or AOL). It would be better than this thing.

“Surphace Scout” is supposed to be really cool and smart, and specifically know how to find blog posts, but it doesn’t know what a sitemap is. Based on its behavior, it also doesn’t seem to know how to find an RSS link in HTML. If it does, it doesn’t know when to stop making requests. Five minutes of work away from not being annoying. Par for the course.

64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:42 -0600] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 73 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 195 598 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:43 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 139 488 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:43 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 27808 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 135 28336 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:45 -0600] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 73 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 145 598 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:46 -0600] "GET /feed/ HTTP/1.0" 500 415 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 140 948 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:46 -0600] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 73 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 149 598 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:47 -0600] "GET /atom.xml HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 147 521 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:47 -0600] "GET /atom.xml HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 143 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:48 -0600] "GET /index.atom HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 149 523 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:48 -0600] "GET /index.atom HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 145 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:49 -0600] "GET /index.rdf HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 148 522 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:49 -0600] "GET /index.rdf HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 144 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:49 -0600] "GET /rss.xml HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 146 520 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:50 -0600] "GET /rss.xml HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 142 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:50 -0600] "GET /index.xml HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 148 522 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:51 -0600] "GET /index.xml HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 144 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:51 -0600] "GET /index.rss HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 148 522 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:51 -0600] "GET /index.rss HTTP/1.0" 404 18513 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 144 18994 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:55 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 302 - "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 139 488 -/- (-%)
64.40.121.187 - - [13/Dec/2009:23:13:55 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 27808 "-" "Surphace Scout&v4.0 - scout at surphace dot com" 135 28147 -/- (-%)
]]> http://datenschwanz.net/2009/12/14/aol-cant-get-anything-right/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/