Category: Web

New Google TOS & Privacy Policy

Quite a few people have asked what I think of the new, unified Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. The short answer is that it’s nothing to worry about.

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If you are smart, you use Gmail above all other free email services because it works the best. You probably use a bunch of other Google services as well. However, Google is a successful corporation that does not place your interests above their company interests. It is entirely conceivable that they may screw you some time, in some way. Until it happens, just enjoy the amazing shit they provide to you at no charge.

Besides, Facebook is already screwing you much harder than Google could even dream of.

Tasty Links for the New Year

In no particular order:

Smoke Screening
Charles Mann is shown by Bruce Schneier just what a joke our airport security has become and makes a case that “the continuing expenditure on security may actually have made the United States less safe.”

The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Summary: Way more supply than demand, doctors.

List of animals with fraudulent diplomas
Surprisingly, this is not an alternate title for the previous link.

Best wedding photos ever
A full viewing of Shaun of the Dead would have made it the best wedding reception ever.

The Magna Carta Essay
Before the internet taught us that there’s no such thing as copyright or intellectual property, just how the hell did students finish their assignments?

Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III
A “tongue-in-cheek alternative reading of the Star Wars saga”(link and quote from Kev)

RIP Google Buzz

As my Google Buzz feed slows to a trickle and GMail incessantly reminds me that Buzz is going away, I’ve already begun to miss it. Google+ is a layer removed from my e-mail inbox, and that’s the only thing I check every day. Fuck GP, fuck FB, and and fuck anything that makes me categorize contacts. I miss Buzz.

Es verdad.

During my first year of study at Tenri University in Japan, I met my cousin Erisa. She was from a line of my dad’s family, the Yoshidas, who emigrated to Mexico, whereas my family went to Los Angeles. I never even really knew we had Mexican relatives until I met Erisa.

She spoke zero English, and I spoke high school level Spanish (just enough to not be able to do anything with), but we were both starting to learn Japanese, so we ended up using that over the time she was in Japan (just a couple of years, whereas I stayed for 13 or 14 cumulatively). We were both totally Japanese in appearance, so it must have been a sight when we had these multilingual conversations out in public.

Even though I was using e-mail and laptops before anybody else around me, nobody else was, and I’ve lost track of many good friends from those days. So it made me immensely happy to reconnect with Erisa on Facebook back in August, by accepting her friend request and commenting on one of her posts. She just replied to the comment today, so I guess she was busy or whatever, but I know I can contact her whenever, now. Maybe this leaves the door open for me to visit family in Mexico sometime…

I still hate Facebook for being evil and selling my private information to boner pill companies, but it did a good job for me today.

Toyota reviving Nobunaga (Toyota ReBorn), plus killer killer whales

Linkdump follows:

Any modern car ad using a 1960’s S40 Crown is worth watching in my opinion, but the CM being referred to (and uploaded to Youtube just 3 hours ago) is just indecipherable. The making of video isn’t much help, either.

Killer whales attack and eat sharks: In itself, not news but apparently orcas screw with sharks the way that dolphins screw with bait balls, using their cunning mammalian brains

This Chinese Village Is So Rich It Built A Fake Great Wall And Arc De Triomphe: I’m not sure those are signs of wealth by themselves — the small Japanese island I used to live on had miniature versions of those and several other famous structures at their aging amusement park, and the last I heard pretty much every last notable business went to shit (probably entirely coincidental with my leaving, but sorry to all my friends there just in case).

(At least one of the links above are from somebody, probably Mark, on Google+, but I can’t find it now)