Monthly Archives: June 2011

Bad online behavior

Ponderings

If you don’t know what behavioral advertising is, it’s basically web monitoring that “delivers ads tailored to your Web preferences and usage patterns.” Not necessarily bad, but it’s always done behind your back and usually without your immediate knowledge. Especially when you visit all sorts of naughty websites on a friend’s computer. 😉

For everyone, I recommend you opt out of what online behavioral advertising you can by going here and doing a “Select All” and then “Submit”. It’s definitely not a comprehensive list of companies that do this, but it’s a good bit of them. (Or you could turn cookies off in your browser, but that really limits your overall Internet experience.)

The reason I bring that up is this: I noticed something odd when I did an outbound scan of my website. (I know, it’s a geek thing for me to do that, but I am still part-geek.) This scan is usually something I normally do when I start using a new plugin on my blog. Just so I can see what’s going on in the background. But I failed to with the addition of this last one. My bad in this case.

Doing so, I discovered the plugin is essentially collecting information to send to advertisers to track your browsing movements. After doing some digging, I found that I’m not the only one who has noticed this.

I’m SOOOOOOOO not happy about this. That seriously should have been mentioned in the plugin’s documentation. If it had been, I wouldn’t have installed it. And because it’s not mentioned anywhere, I consider this plugin to be a form of spyware.

That plugin is the AddToAny plugin for WordPress. It’s what makes that little “Share / Save” thingy at the bottom of this (and every) post possible:

For bloggers who are using AddToAny, there is a way to disable this “functionality”, albeit I had to dig really deep to find it. For those of you using the AddToAny plugin, you can disable this sneakiness by adding the following to the the “Additional Options” section of the plugin:
a2a_config.no_3p=1;

The funny thing is, I’m not even sure if anyone is even using the feature’s that this plugin provides, so I just removed it altogether.

Until next time...
Erik

Give Me Back My Man

Audiophallic, ,

This is a two-fer song post. AND I opted for live performances this time too!

This first song is from the B-52’s second album “Wild Planet” that was released in 1980. There’s not a single song on that album that I don’t more than like. Every single song is danceable. But since I don’t dance well they’re all great to run to for you gym types!

Here is a 2009 performance of the 1980 song “Give Me Back My Man” featuring vocals by the great Cindy Wilson:

Then there’s the 1982 album “Mesopotamia“. This album is aurally a departure from what one expects from the B-52’s, due mostly to it being produced by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame). And I’m not really a fan of this album, with the exception of the title track.

And now for some old B-52’s footage, all the way from a concert back in 1983. It’s strange to see footage with Ricky still alive and playing the guitar, and Keith on the drums instead of the guitar. Here’s the 1982 song “Mesopotamia”:

24 days until I get to see the B-52’s in concert!

Oh, and this post is mostly for Blobby. He’ll know why. 😉

Until next time...
Erik

38

Ponderings, , , ,

I have now outlived Vincent van Gogh who died from a self-inflicted gun shot wound at the age of 37. I only know that because it was talked about on the Doctor Who episode I just watched (“Vincent and the Doctor“). Now if only I could paint something even remotely as beautiful as he did, like “The Pandorica Opens”, also known as “Blue Box Exploding”:

It’s not a real van Gogh painting, but it was a plot piece painted by “van Gogh” in a later Doctor Who episode. And it is very van Gogh-ish. And I love me some Doctor Who.

I have also outlived the great Michael Hutchence, who also took his own life at the age of 37. Michael was the lead singer for the band INXS, which is one of my favorite bands of all time.

Michael had a voice that was unique. He also had charisma and sexiness oozing out of every pore on his body. If I ever had entertained the thought of being a singer or sexy public figure, I would have wanted to have been like him.

Yesterday was the last full day of my thirty-seventh orbit around the Sun. Today, June 17, I turn thirty-eight.

It’s been a year. I don’t know that there was anything particularly spectacular or great about my year, but it was a year nonetheless. I slept, I ate, I drew, I tattooed, I drank, I had sex on occasion, I spent some time with friends, I read some blogs, I watched some shows, I sat at a computer. Rinse, lather, repeat. I was stressed, I was sad, I was happy, I was melancholy, I felt hurt, I was meh. Rinse, lather, repeat. That’s pretty much sums up year 37. Maybe year 38 will somehow be more spectacular than year 37 was? Or maybe it will be the same?

I leave you with INXS performing “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)”. Watch Michael exude sexiness. RIP.

Until next time...
Erik