The Night Trotters is my current band, and we are getting out to play now. Check it out, listen to our tunes, Like it, Tweet it, and all that good stuff!
Reader Poll
The outcome of this poll will directly influence the production of this website in 2013.
[poll id=”2″]
Cable Companies: Monopolizing Progress Prohibitors
A good read about how the cable industry in the U.S. is getting away with highway robbery, monopolization, and stifling progress. This really needs to change.
“If you’ve got a commodity that everybody needs as an input into their businesses, like take railroads for example, and it costs a lot to initially build that network so it’s hard for someone else to enter, and you can cooperate with your colleagues who are also providing that service, and you can divide up markets, you’ve got a monopoly business,” Crawford explained. “We’ve seen this happen with wired Internet access in the United States.”
Most of us don’t even know how bad we have it. We lag behind most other modern nations in broadband permeation, cost, access, and options.
“If you move into an apartment in Seoul [South Korea], you have a choice of three different providers, they show up in a day because there’s so much competition, and they charge you $30 for TV and everything. Koreans when they come to the United States… actually laugh at us for how expensive and how slow [American Internet service] is.”
Don’t we deserve this?
Carbonite for Mac Eats Up CPU
If you use the Carbonite cloud-based backup tool for Mac, you may notice that your computer’s fans are running loud and often, and that the Carbonite daemon is running at 80-120%. This gets really, really annoying after not too long.
I’ve dealt with it for two years by pausing backups while I’m working on my computer, hoping that Carbonite would release a new version that fixed the problem soon. That has not happened yet, and I grew tired of trying numerous fixes mentioned around the Internet, only to have the problem continue.
Finally, I saw that someone used a different backup tool called CrashPlan. I am on their 30 day free trial and am really digging it so far. The pricing is at or below that of Carbonite (depending how much space you need) and it seems to be running quite smoothly so far.
I really like the extra configuration and security settings that you just don’t get with Carbonite. It allows you to set schedules for CPU and bandwidth usage so that you can maximize your time efficiently. You can even choose what type of encryption you want to use on your stored backups, and if you set a password, your backups will be protected by that as well.
There doesn’t seem to be any restriction on file types, either. I remember Carbonite had a thing for a while where they wouldn’t let you back up video files, which just seemed dumb. They might still have that stipulation. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, because I’m ditching Carbonite for good now.
What do you use to back up your system and how well does it work for you?
Deep Chatham is a thing?
Apparently there is a band called Deep Chatham. Weird. I wonder if they know my nickname in high school was Deep Chatham.
Their website is deepchathammusic.com. I have a website called chathammusic.com. Even weirder.
In other news, my solo album, Geekamongus, made it onto the Mountain Xpress’s list of 16 Albums We Loved in 2012. Spiffy!
Your Personal Details – Shared
A pretty interesting analysis of major websites and what they do with your personal data.
Why would ESPN want to send my username to Adobe?
Why is Pinterest sending my name to Google Analytics?
I’m interested to see who is bothered by this, or if anything is done about it.
Saturday was a good day
Private Security Drones
They are coming in 2014, according to this. Just imagine what it will be like walking out of the mall to your car, looking up to see a drone checking you out. And you know that sooner or later they will be outfitted with tasers. This is the impending wave of the future.
I look forward to seeing what types of countermeasures will be developed. Could it be something as simple as a TV-B-Gone (which, as I recently learned, is a great gift for 7 and 9 year-old boys)? Or would it need to be something more complex such as a hand-held Electromagnetic Pulse Generator? (I know what I’m asking for next birthday).
Internet Explorer 0-day
Still using Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8?
WHY?
Targeted zero day attack being used against Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8
Microsoft have published a security advisory for a zero day attack being used against a “targeted audience” using Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8. This atypically means corporate or business users still locked in to using these older browsers.
Home users running XP should be looking to use another browser as their primary method of browsing the web, and corporate security staff should review Microsoft’s recommendations to build a layered defence to protect staff.
Meat
Meat. An awesome short story. Go read it. Now.
“I thought you just told me they used radio.”
“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”