A Collection of Curiosities

Written by Jolie O’Dell

It’s one thing to have resolutions for the new year. I, for example, plan to lose weight, learn Python and design the perfect handbag. But since nothing satisfies like the quick achievement of a short-term goal, here are eight things every good nerd needs to to before the ball drops later this week.

These tasks comprise a quick to-do list that will leave you feeling competent and prepared for the decade that approaches.Also, you can play the condescension chip and start chiding friends who haven’t checked off these items yet.

1. Edit your privacy settings and friendships.

Facebook’s maelstrom-causing privacy changes have given quite a few of us a head-scratching good time trying to figure out just how much of our private lives are to be made public. Before the new year begins, take a look at your settings on sites such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LiveJournal and any other places you might be sharing personal content to make sure what you display is consistent with the public image you want to project. As more recruiters and employers hit the Web in search of info on inpiduals, it’s becoming ever more important to monitor and control our own identities. If you look back to the origin dates of some of your accounts, you might be surprised at what you thought was appropriate to share online in 2005.

Also, while considering what’s private and public, take time to evaluate what a “friend,” “contact” or “follower” means to you and what types of information you share with different groups.

2. Change your passwords.

Safety first, friends. Social web security threats in 2009 were sweeping and surprised more than a few users with spam DMs, hacked accounts and malware of all kinds. Check out the password management tools recommended by a recently high-profile hacker (scroll to the last few paragraphs); for free or cheap, they’ll help you generate strong, random passwords and manage them from your computer.

3. Own your name.

I’ve conducted many a web search on many a professional geek this year, and I’ve been disappointed by how few of us have staked a meaningful claim to our online identities. If you haven’t already, buy a URL – preferably one that relates to the name you use professionally – and make friends with Google. If you don’t show up in the first results when you search for your name, get a crash course in SEO and ask friends to link to you. It’s good for your social life and your career if you seize the opportunity to tell the searching world about yourself rather than relegating that responsibility to LinkedIn, Facebook or some weirdo with the same name as you.

4. Prune your feeds.

When going through your RSS feeds, do you find yourself impatiently scrolling more than you’re intently skimming? Is your list of unread items becoming unmanagable? The end of the year is a perfect time to get rid of the content you’re not reading and group the stuff you are. Take some time this week to organize, delete and add feeds, thereby optimizing your feed-reading experience. Try tools such as NetNewsWire’s “dinosaurs” and “least attention” features that weed out unread or dormant feeds, and consider implementing tools such as Lazyfeed or Guzzle.it that can bring relevant results from fresh sources. And make sure the feeds you own are easy for others to find, too.

5. Find a better mobile.

If you don’t have a smartphone already, chances are you’ll desperately need one next year. And if you already have one, think long and hard about whether you’re happy with your service, network and interface.

While you might not be able to run out and buy your dream device before 2010 rolls around, visit a few retailers, read some reviews and have your eye on a good mobile to purchase next year. Mobile tech keeps on booming, and you’ll want to ensure a frustration-free year as new apps and OSes roll out.

6. Update copyright notices on your website.

Here’s a simple, obvious and necessary reminder. Does your website currently claim a copyright year of 2007? While it doesn’t put you on the foul side of the law, it does look a bit silly as we head into a new decade. The Next Web has a good bit of dynamic code for site owners.

7. Revisit your blog.

That poor, neglected old beast might be long overdue for a design facelift, a blogroll refresh or even just a few new posts. While you’re at it, why not set automatic reminders to periodically bug you about posting in the new year? On a more mission-critical note, you’ll also want to make sure you’re using the most updated version of your CMS; not doing so can can lead to problems from broken plugins to getting hacked. And while you’re at it, the year’s end might also be a good time to consider switching up your CMS service altogether.

8. Back up your data.

Hacks and hardware failures happen. Before 2010, make sure as much of your data as possible is protected. From calendars and contacts to blog posts and work projects, more and more of us are relying on networks of servers and startups to keep us running. So, now might be a good time to download and back up files of LinkedIn contacts and WordPress posts – anything that’s valuable to you and portable. Think of it this way: You – or at least parts of you – live in the Internet. If the Internet caught on fire, what would you grab to carry with you out of the blaze?

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Sixteen years of teaching and giving the same assignment every Mother’s Day has led me to the exact same conclusion. You see, every Mother’s Day I would ask my students to give me advice on being a mother. They were to think about things their mother or guardian did for or with them that made them feel happy or loved. The classroom would go silent as the students wrote intensely for longer than they had ever written before. Often smiles would appear on their faces as they reflected on the happy experiences they were remembering. After reading their responses I would add to my list all the ideas they mentioned. Surprisingly, many of the responses were the same. Year after year, in every country I taught, and in every type of demographic, the students were saying the same things and had the same message: It’s the small things that their mothers did that meant the most and that they remembered.

Many moms today feel as if they are not good mothers unless they are racing around, shuttling their children from lessons, to practices and back to lessons again. I’ve had mothers tell me that they want to give their children every opportunity they did not have. While this thinking might bring the mother some comfort, it really does not do the same for their child who is potentially feeling overextended, stressed and tired.

After speaking endlessly about this topic with my students, it became clear to me that children today are involved in too many activities and are in turn becoming less in touch with themselves and their families. In addition, my students told me they really wished for more time to “just play”. Of course many of them enjoy their extra curricular activities, but it is not necessary they said to be allowed to do everything. What they enjoyed most, and what made their hearts happiest was when their mothers did simple things for or with them.

Here is a list of the top ten things students around the world said they remembered and loved most about their mothers.

  1. Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in and sing me a song. Also tell me stories about when you were little.
  2. Give me hugs and kisses and sit and talk with me privately.
  3. Spend quality time just with me, not with my brothers and sisters around.
  4. Give me nutritious food so I can grow up healthy.
  5. At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend.
  6. At night talk to me about about anything; love, school, family etc.
  7. Let me play outside a lot.
  8. Cuddle under a blanket and watch our favorite TV show together.
  9. Discipline me. It makes me feel like you care.
 10. Leave special messages in my desk or lunch bag.

Children are incredibly wise and tend to see the world more simply than we do. Perhaps it is time we start taking their advice. Maybe we would all feel a little less stressed and be satisfied with the fact that doing little things really is… good enough.

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Written by Cameron Chapman

The Internet has been a breeding ground for controversy from the start. Part of this is a result of the fact that the Internet is the great neutralizer; it empowers everyone to have a voice.

As the first decade of the new millennium ends, let’s examine some of the most infamous and scandalous events that started, happened, and/or escalated on the web.

If we missed something, tell us in the comments and let’s have the last great Internet controversy of this decade.

1. Climategate

When hackers gained access to a server used by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, they leaked over a thousand emails and other documents that call into question much of the data that has been used to support climate change models and predictions.

This controversy is still ongoing, with one side calling it a smear campaign, and the other, asserting that it shows collusion among scientists to manipulate data. Some have even begun to contend the validity of man-induced climate change.

The situation challenges the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, and whether this is an isolated incident or rampant practice among all fields of science.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Climatic Research Unit E-mail Hacking Incident – Wikipedia
• Climategate Computer Codes are the Real Story – Pajamas Media

2. The Great Firewall of China

Censorship has always been a hot button issue in society. China is probably the most notorious country to practice strict online censorship garnering the moniker, “The Great Firewall of China”.

Other sites have cropped up to try to get around the censorship and provide access to blocked sites. There are also sites that let you test whether your site is blocked.

Censored material includes sites that incite Chinese citizens to resist or break their constitution, criticism of laws or regulations of the Chinese government, sexually suggestive material, talk about gambling and violence, and more.

The censorship has come under fire from governments around the world. President Obama has openly criticized China’s censorship programs. The biggest event that brought the situation to light occurred during the recent Beijing Olympics, where foreign journalists’ ability to report freely was blighted.

More coverage of the controversy:

• The Great Firewall of China – BusinessWeek
• Opera Plugs Hole in Great Firewall of China – The Register
• Slipping Over the Great Firewall of China – The New York Times

3. Amazon removes sales rankings of gay and lesbian books

In the spring of 2009, a number of authors and site users were outraged when they learned that Amazon had stripped the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian oriented books on their site. This meant that books aimed at gays and lesbians would not be able to show up on Amazon’s search.

The issue was proclaimed as a technical error that affected more than 57,000 books in other categories. Amazon issued an apology and restored the sales rankings.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Amazon Follies – Mark R. Probst
• Amazon Error Removes Gay, Health Books from Search – Wall Street Journal
• Why is Amazon Removing the Sales Rankings from Gay, Lesbian Books? – Jezebel

4. Google Street View invades privacy

Google Street View takes photos while driving through various towns and cities around the world, creating an alternate view within Google Maps.

via Google Sightseeing

That also means they’re snapping photos of people, often on their private property, and sometimes in not-so-flattering situations. While so far Google has prevailed in lawsuits targeting the service, it does raise a number of interesting privacy issues.

More coverage of the controversy:

• All-Seeing Google Street View Prompts Privacy Fears – Times Online
• Google Zooms In Too Close for Some – The New York Times
• Swiss Say Google’s Street View is Too Revealing – The New York Times

5. Google Books indexing copyrighted material

When Google announced in 2004 that they wanted to index the content of millions of copyrighted books from university libraries as part of the Google Books project, publishers and authors took to protesting the decision by claiming copyright infringement.

In 2005, a group of publishers and authors, including Penguin and McGraw-Hill, sued Google over the project. A settlement was reached where users will be able to purchase out-of-print books in digital format through Google or access them in subscribed libraries and universities. The settlement has been given preliminary approval, though final approval is still pending.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Google Settles Books Lawsuit – The Washington Times
• Publishers Battle Google Book Index – Boston.com

6. The Net Neutrality debate

The prevalence of Net Neutrality is a big concern to people who use the Internet. In the U.S., net neutrality is practiced universally though there are no laws in place to guarantee that it remains that way. Nothing prevents Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from charging consumers different rates based on the sites they visit or the services they use.

via Looking Glass News

There have been five different bills in the U.S. Congress over the past few years, and heavy lobbying by corporations on both sides of the debate. So far, no laws have been passed regarding net neutrality.

For the most part, many technology bloggers and other sites have come out in favor of protecting net neutrality.

Full disclosure: the loss of net neutrality affects websites such as the one you’re reading now. Help us by reading up on the issue and being proactive in voting for government representatives that support your rights to a free Internet.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Network Neutrality in the United States – Wikipedia
• Save the Internet – Coalition in favor of net neutrality
• The Net @ Risk – Moyers on America, PBS
• We Are The Web – Another coalition in support of net neutrality
• U.S. as Traffic Cop in Web Fight – Wall Street Journal
• McCain Moves to Block FCC Net Neutrality – PCWorld
• Facebook and Twitter Founders Join Net Neutrality Wars – Wall Street Journal
• The Net Neutrality Debate All On One Page – TechCrunch

7. Internet Service Providers throttle bandwidth consumption

Bandwidth throttling is a common practice among some ISPs to restrict excessive consumption of service resources, specifically when they’re using file-sharing services. ISPs proclaim that it helps ensure all their customers have reasonable bandwidth access, but critics assert that it’s unethical and unfair to consumers that have to pay the same price for less service.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Google Launches Tools to Test for Bandwidth Throttling – Sitepoint
• Comcast to Throttle Biggest Bandwidth Hogs – PCWorld
• 5 Questions About Comcast’s New Bandwidth Throttling Plan – GigaOm

8. The Digg Revolt

In 2007, Digg users posted the encryption keys for HD-DVD. Digg took the keys down on advice from their legal team. Digg’s users revolted, posting links to the codes and voting them up to the front page.

In the end, Digg listened to its users, stating they’d rather do what their users wanted, even if it meant the site would be shut down.

• Digg Suffers User Revolt – Wikinews
• Digg Surrenders to Mob – TechCrunch
• Looking Back on the Digg Revolt – The Huffington Post

9. Pedophiles on MySpace

MySpace has long been popular with teenagers. Underage children use the social networking site to share photos, post videos, and document their events in their lives. At one point of MySpace’s existence, adolescent users could make their profiles public, accessible to anyone.

Parents, and those concerned with child welfare, were outraged when incidents emerged of adults preying on young users of the social networking site. As a response, MySpace took measures to protect users under the age of 16 by making site adjustments such as restricting anonymous viewing of their user profiles and blocking unknown users from sending them messages.

While the problem won’t be resolved completely, MySpace has taken a more proactive role in ensuring the safety of its younger participants. Of course, MySpace is not the only social networking site out there that is experiencing this problem.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Why Parents Must Mind MySpace – MSNBC
• Parents Fear MySpace is Playground for Pedophiles – Dallas Morning News
• MySpace Predator Caught by Code – Wired

10. Prostitutes on Craigslist

Craigslist has an adult services category that allows users to solicit adult-oriented services from site users. It’s really no surprise that prostitution rings conducting illegal activities would eventually take advantage of the favorable situation of anonymity on the web. It has made the job of cops so hard that some have sued the site for being the largest source of prostitution.

Though Craigslist’s purpose for the category is well-intentioned, promoting free speech and a fostering an open-minded community, the Internet is the biggest magnet of unscrupulous characters, and it was only a matter of time before the situation would escalate into the eyes of mainstream media.

More coverage of the controversy:

• As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice – The New York Times
• 7 Charged in Alleged Prostitution Ring on Craigslist – CNN
• Judge: Craigslist Not Liable for Prostitution Ads – CNET

11. Filesharing gets hammered down for copyrighted materials

Online file sharing has been happening since the early days of the Internet. But 2000 brought the first major lawsuit and take-down of a file-sharing service. Napster was sued by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for facilitating the transfer of copyrighted material in December 1999, and was finally shut down in July 2001.

Other popular P2P services have suffered similar fates. The Pirate Bay, a torrent-indexing site, has been involved in a number of lawsuits. The site’s servers were raided by Swedish police in 2006.

In 2009, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were all found guilty of “assistance to copyright infringement” in Swedish courts and sentenced to a year in prison and a fine of over $3.6 million.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Judge Expands on Napster Shut Down Order – CNET News
• Napster Judge Calls for Major Copyright Reform – Wired
• Pirate Bay Trial: The Hottest Ticket in Stockholm – Wired

12. Protesters use social networks during Iran elections

Iran’s election protesters and demonstrators took to Twitter and other social networking sites in the wake of the 2009 election to organize themselves and garner support for their cause. Though the situation precipitated out of the web, it was escalated and brought to mass media attention via the Internet.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Iran Elections: A Twitter Revolution? – The Washington Post
• Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the Movement – TIME
• Iranian Election – The Huffington Post

13. Facebook’s Privacy Policy changes

In February 2009, Facebook altered their Terms of Service to allow them to use and retain any content posted to user accounts indefinitely and without limitation, claiming ownership of its user’s content once it’s uploaded to their site even after a user’s account is deleted.

Unsurprisingly, this caused quite a stir among users. Others formed groups on the site itself, calling for the ToS to be reverted back.

Facebook asserts that they never intended for the change to be that far-reaching, and that it was a misinterpretation of the new terms.

Users weren’t buying it, and in the end, Facebook changed the ToS back to the original version, and has seen sought user input before implementing changes.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Facebook Changes Terms of Service to Control More User Data – CNET
• Changes to Facebook Terms of Service Outrage Users – Mlive.com
• Facebook Yields to User Outrage, Reverts to Old Terms of Service – Macworld

14. Facebook deems breastfeeding as offensive

Facebook has a strong policy against what they term “obscene” content, something most parents would embrace. But many mothers went crazy when photos of breastfeeding moms were removed from the site due to the policy of censoring obscene content. It sparked boycotts, user groups, and even a protest (a “nurse-in”) at Facebook’s headquarters. The most popular group, “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” has nearly 250,000 members.

Facebook wouldn’t budge on the policy.

More coverage of the controversy:

• Breastfeeding Protest Over Facebook Policy – ZDNet
• Facebook Won’t Budge on Breastfeeding Photos – The New York Times
• Facebook Nudity Policy Angers Nursing Moms – MSNBC

15. Blogger, Dooce, gets fired for blogging about work

In 2002, Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce (also the name of her blog), was fired for blogging about the company she worked for and some of her coworkers in a less-than-flattering manner. She’s possibly the first person ever fired for blogging, and definitely one of the most well known. There’s even a term that spawned from her experience: dooced (which means to lose one’s job because of one’s website according to Urban Dictionary).

Since being fired, she’s turned Dooce into the sole source of income for her family. She was even named as one of the most powerful women in media by Forbes. The site still drums up plenty of controversy, as her posts are brutally honest.

More coverage of the controversy:

• 7 People Fired for Blogging – Mental_Floss
• About Dooce – Dooce.com
• Dooce’s Dilemma – Forbes

Conclusion

It’s unlikely the Internet will ever be controversy-free. And would we really want it to be? Many Internet users enjoy (at least in part) the controversy that is so prevalent on the web. We all have a chance to be heard, whether it’s in matters of global importance or the latest celebrity gossip.

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