hackbash

I didn’t used to get worried about privacy on social media sites. I don’t tell them much about me, so they don’t have a lot to reveal/sell/give to third-party developers or whatever. But they’re getting weirder.

I’ve never, for example, told Facebook where I live, although it obviously knew when I joined the city’s group. I left the group a while back, but I recently realised Facebook had taken it on itself to complete the relevant fields in my – previously blank – address.

But it’s Linked in that’s really freaking me out.

For various reasons my girfriend and I aren’t connected on any social sites. We come from different groups of friends and, to date, have none in common on any online services. To put it another way, there’s nothing obvious that could connect us from Linked in’s perspective: no mutual friends, no address information, no common employer. Nothing.

So why does Linked in keep telling me I may know her? It’s right, of course, but how the hell does it know?

I got in touch with them a while back to ask if they’d kept my login details for Hotmail after I let the site search my contacts. They said not, and I’m pretty sure I believe them: I’ve changed the password since then anyway. The only other possibilities I could think of are that one or both of us has searched for the other’s profile and it’s picked up on this, or that they’ve noticed that we both access the site from the same IP address.

Whatever it is, it keeps suggesting us to each other, and today it went one further and began recommending my friends to Elaine.

It started with my ex-girlfriend, which was nice.

Tags: Facebook, Linked in, personal, privacy, suggestions

Been a while, etc. Moved to write by this particular piece of twattery by the BBC.

Birds dying, you say? Binge drinking you say? That sounds like a story combining recent bizarre avian trends with the warm glow of Puritan superiority.

But wait, what’s this?

The full story reveals that the birds died from (presumably acute) alcohol poisoning, after eating winemaking leftovers. There’s no mention of binge drinking in the article, so presumably no source for it at all other than the headline writer’s whim.

There’s another Handolio, gagged and bound in a cupboard for the most part, who’s versed in SEO. I can’t make him out, but he’s trying to interject something here.

Never mind. He can do me a custom URL while I get back to work.

Tags: bbc, SEO

I’m not into games on Facebook, so I generally don’t care which ones my friends are playing. Happily there used to be an option to hide all the updates from a given application, by clicking the cross in the top right and selecting ‘hide all updates from…’

Lately this has disappeared, which is bad news for anyone who doesn’t want to be a Zombie/Pirate/Farmer/Digger/whatever and who doesn’t much care, if you are, how it’s working out for you.

What gives? Many of my friends work in games and play them often. I do want to know what these people are doing when they’re not playing games, so hiding all their updates isn’t appropriate.

There’s no mention of the missing feature on Facebook’s help pages. I’m not being spammed, which suggests that applications I’ve previously hidden remain so, and I’m only being told when someone first starts playing a new one.

Has Facebook forced app developers to cut down on the status spam, and decided as a result that the all updates filter isn’t needed any more?

Tags: applications, Facebook, filter, privacy, wall

Feeling the onset of cabin fever, and, more importantly, having run out of coffee, I drop into my local Starbucks.

As I queue, I ponder all that’s strange about the place, and all the ways in which it’s a corporation trying not to look like one.

The girl serving me is pleasant, but she has just returned from sitting the Eye Contact module. She freaks me out.

As I wait, I read the schoolchildren’s posters about Free Trade. I wonder which words I’ll use when a future child of mine says, asked what happened at school that day, “drew posters for Starbucks”.

My eye falls on the “Four stages of roasting” display. All those coffee beans, wasted.

And whose job to put them back in the right box?

There are people drinking and talking. I could never write in here. All day I’d wonder: those people with Macs. They working, Facebooking, what?

What would tip me over, I realise, is the barista, and her “enjoy” when handing every customer their drink.

“What,” I think, “does she mean by that?”

Repeated metronimically, inscrutably intoned, it sounds like a demand. Presumptuous, like “the beverage you are about to enjoy” written on every cup.

Is there an Enjoy module, too, I wonder. What are its teachings?

Then I get my drink. I am not bidden to enjoy. Unburdened, the drink is excellent.

Then it occurs to me. Perhaps this, too, is in the module?

IMAGE Chris de Jabet

Tags: coffee, Starbucks

Aren’t companies great? Every now and then, when shopping online, no matter how fastidiously you tell them you don’t want to hear from them, they decide that you do.

I love getting these emails. They almost invariably contain a codicil explaining that you’re receiving the email because you signed up to receive it. Almost invariably you didn’t.

I’m a particular fan of this work by RS, who, unless I’m mistaken, I once ordered from back when I was running Hand Painted Dog, perhaps seven years ago.

Translation:

We’re really good with data. Shit hot, in fact.

Here’s a way we use data that you specifically opted out of.

We know that you specifically opted out of it, but we assume you must be an idiot.

Here’s a big button you can press to fix it.

Tags: direct marketing, email, preferences, privacy, rant, RS

Part of my freelance work is for my old employer Dennis Publishing. Today I’m back in Shopper Labs, where I spent the majority of my waking hours from 2004-2007.

It’s the second time I’ve been back here lately. The first time was a couple of weeks back where a nightmarish deadline made it altogether too much like old times. Today is better.

I never lived in London, and the stress of the work and the cost of the commute took the pleasure out of being here. Ultimately it made it impossible.

On days like this it seems a shame – many of my old colleagues still work at Cleveland Street, and I have a lot of good memories of the time.

They say you shouldn’t go back, but as a freelancer, coming here a couple of times a month, it feels weirdly like I shouldn’t have gone away.

Tags: Cleveland Street, Dennis Publishing, reflection

Not far into September I went fully freelance. I’d been trying to pluck up the courage for ages.

Although I went part-time in March, I was still missing deadlines, and still working too many weekend days. That either meant I was over-committed, or just plain shit at managing my time.

So deciding to quit and do nothing other than work under my own management was scary.

Self-organisational skills aside, there’s a surprising number of unknowns when you take the leap:

- Will friends come through on promises to pass work my way?
- How much time should I schedule for each job?
- How many jobs will it take to see me through the month?
- If I’m charging for my time, how much is it worth?
- How many days do I set aside for contingency, planning and admin?

It’s gone surprisingly well so far. Here’s what I’ve found:

- Yes. Without fail. Thanks.
- Be conservative.
- Do the sums. Don’t forget to save money for tax.
- Pick what you can earn on a good day of being paid by the word.
- A day a week seems wise.

I’m wary of giving out freelance advice because, as mentioned above, I suspect I might be a bit shit.

That said, if I’m late with copy now I’ve got no-one else to blame. I’d better start listening to myself.

This is my favourite of all Microsoft continuity announcements.

You may not have noticed it; it’s normally only displayed momentarily on the status bar.

However, if you have a printer that’s slow to respond you’ll often have time to read it and reflect on its irony – hell, even make a cup of tea – while Word prepares not to intrude.

Tags: continuity, rant, Word

This is great; an error message from Google (in US English) telling me it couldn’t provide content in my language (UK English).

I’ve whinged about regional settings before, but it turns out I’m bilingual. Who knew?

Tags: American, English, Google, language, UK, us

…the first assignment of a crack police comedy squad ends in tragedy

Tags: comedy, police, seige