Many hours of my childhood were spent staring at the back of a Star Wars figure package card, plotting my next acquisition and ultimate takeover of the known galaxy.
The Social Media Disappointment
I agree with Part 1 of this assessment. Can’t wait to read Part 2.
“The idea that consumers were enthusiastic about having conversations about brands online, and they would activate their network of friends and followers to share their enthusiasms and create a socially transmitted tsunami of sales has proven to be deeply fanciful.”
The Ad Contrarian: The Slow Painful Collapse Of The Social Media Fantasy (Part 1).
Facebook can now read your texts
Facebook can now read your texts. Why in the world do they need to do that?
This has been shown to be true of the Android version of Facebook since about December 20, 2013, according to this Reddit thread. You can’t tell if it’s true on the iPhone version, but it’s safe to assume they are doing it there too.
Another reason I am happy to have quit Facebook.
New Website for The Night Trotters
While laid up feeling ill this weekend I decided to whip out a new logo and website design for my band, The Night Trotters. There is still a wee bit of tweaking to do, but it’s close to being complete. Check it out!
Credit Card Hacking Goes Much Further Than Target
“The chances that we’ll see another big breach like this are probably 80 percent.”
This is why it is time for the United States to fix its weak payment security schema.
“U.S. credit and debit cards rely on an easy-to-copy magnetic strip on the back of the card, which stores account information using the same technology as cassette tapes.”
Remember cassette tapes?
3 Million Teens Leave Facebook In 3 Years
Things are looking very bad for Facebook based on the numbers from this report. Teenagers do not seem to like Facebook. If only they’d give Google+ a whirl. Well, if only anyone would give Google+ a whirl. It’s a much better platform that does much more than Facebook, but no one seems to realize that, sadly.
Here’s what is going on with Facebook:
1) Teens (13-17) on Facebook have declined -25.3% over the last 3 years.
2) Over the same period of time, 55+ (perhaps those teens’ parents and grandparents?) have exploded with +80.4% growth in the last 3 years.
3) Of the major metropolitan areas, San Francisco saw the highest growth with +148.6%, a stark contrast with Houston which saw +23.8% growth.
3 Million Teens Leave Facebook In 3 Years: The 2014 Facebook Demographic Report.
Net Neutrality Is Dead
US Appeals Court Kills Net Neutrality
There goes the Internet.
Your broadband provider can now decide to throttle Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube streaming into your house and leave unthrottled their own crappy on-demand service for which they charge you to watch movies. Let’s hope the Supreme Court gets to rule on this, and that they have the people in mind rather than the corporations.
A visual example of what your Internet service could soon look like:
40 Maps
These are awesome. I learned that aside from the United States, only two other countries in the world do not use the metric system, among other things.
40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World
Disney plans to remake the Star Wars expanded universe
Op-ed: Disney takes a chainsaw to the Star Wars expanded universe | Ars Technica.
I’m pretty excited about this, actually. It sounds like they are taking the time to think things through and prepare an official storyline that will become the de-facto canon for the Star Wars universe. I did read the Thrawn triology (the stories that were officially licensed to occur after Return of the Jedi), and they were very good books. I hope they can keep at least some of that story line. However, some of the trash I ready after those books deserves to be forgotten.
Target breach grows to 110 million users
Because I shopped at Target during the window of exposure, I ordered a new debit card from my bank. It is an inconvenience to do so, but after reading about a friend on Facebook who saw purchases made on his card in Russia, and after reading about the hacked customer data from Target being sold in online black markets, I was legitimately freaked out.
Have you ordered a new card yet?
Target ups number of customers affected by data breach to 110 million – Boing Boing.