Don’t Track Me, Bro’

You are probably aware, at least in the back of your mind, that you are being tracked as you surf the Web. Millions of websites have the ability to put tracking cookies on your computer. As you move from website to website, tracking companies record and store information about your online behavior: what kinds of web pages you visit and what kinds of links you click on. Over time, the tracking companies build up a profile about you. You might wonder, is this bad? And, what do they do with this profile anyway?

Here’s what they do: websites modify the page content you’re presented based on your profile.

Let’s say you are politically conservative and so you tend to read news articles critical of the President. Over time, the news articles you are presented will be biased in that direction. You will be shown more news articles critical of the President and fewer articles praising him. If you are politically liberal, the opposite will happen and you will be shown more news articles praising the President and fewer critical of him. Therefore, when you visit a news website, the stories you see may not be the stories I see on the same website. Because page content is modified according to our individual profiles, the picture of the world you get will not be the picture of the world that I get. This seems bad to me, as it tends to reinforce our existing biases, whether political, environmental, or whatever. But it doesn’t stop there.

If you shop online, you will probably go to a number of websites looking for the best deal. If you want to buy a camera online, you will likely visit several websites that contain reviews of cameras, then several more websites that sell cameras. The tracking companies see that behavior and feed that info back to the websites you’re visiting. The result may be that the price you see on the item you want is higher than the price that would be presented to someone who had not been shopping for that item. You may end up paying more because the website knows (or thinks it knows) you want to buy that item, and it knows, too, that eager buyers are willing to pay more.

I knew all this when I happened upon a browser plug-in called “DoNotTrackPlus”, or DNT+. The plug-in blocks tracking cookies while allowing other cookies that may be necessary for the website to function properly. The plug-in is free and is distributed by a company called Abine (www.abine.com). (Note: I am not an employee of Abine and I have no connection to the company.) Their plug-ins are compatible with Mac or PC for the following browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Installation is simple, and afterward your browser displays a small icon on the navigation toolbar indicating DNT+ status. The icon displays 1 of 3 background colors and a number in the center. The image below shows the icon as it appears in Firefox (right-most icon).

This icon indicates the website is trying to place 23 tracking cookies on my PC. The green background means DNT+ is blocking all 23 tracking cookies. I can click on the icon to view the tracking cookies (learn what companies are trying to track me) and I can turn blocking off for an individual cookie or for all cookies.

Here is an image from a different website. The icon shows the website is not trying to place any tracking cookies on my PC, but the yellow background means the website is still collecting information so I should be careful.

A red background means that one or more tracking cookies cannot be blocked. So far, I haven’t encountered a site that DNT+ couldn’t block all tracking cookies.

Note that DNT+ doesn’t block all cookies, just tracking cookies. But sometimes this causes a problem with a web page and you may have to turn blocking off for that site. Or, you can unblock one tracking cookie at a time until you find the one causing the problem. So far, the only website where I’ve had to turn off blocking is the one you’re at right now: yes, Blogger (blogspot.com). If I block their tracking cookie, the line at the top of the screen with a link to the next blog disappears. But at least DNT+ remembers I turned blocking off for the site, so I don’t have to turn it off every time I visit the site.

What if you don’t care about being tracked? Are there other advantages to blocking tracking cookies?

Yes, there are. Sometimes my browser would hang while waiting for tracking cookies to load. That would cause my PC to freeze for a few seconds. I haven’t seen that behavior since I installed DNT+. And, pages seem to load faster.

One particular website places an annoying video at the bottom of every page, and it begins playing as soon as the page is loaded. To turn off the player I have to scroll down to the bottom of the page, pause the player, then scroll back to the top of the page to read it. It’s not a big deal, but it’s annoying to click a link and have a burst of loud sound coming from a player I can’t even see. Installing DNT+ seems to have stopped that; it hasn’t happened on visits to that site since I’ve been using DNT+.

If you decide to install DNT+, I would say it’s worth perusing their FAQs to understand how it works.

A final note: your profile, as compiled by the tracking companies, will not disappear just because you install DNT+. Installing DNT+ just means you won’t continue to be tracked.

[Update: Name change - DoNotTrackPlus (DNT+) is now called DoNotTrackMe.]

It’s the Debt, Stupid

We face a "fiscal cliff" - a combination of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts set to hit on January 1. The fiscal cliff may throw the US into a new recession and will certainly push unemployment higher. Politicians in Washington know what needs to be done to address the fiscal cliff and the national debt. The problem is that if politicians do what needs to be done, they won't be re-elected.

Congress decides how much money to spend and what to spend it on, not the President. The President submits a budget request to Congress. It is a "wish-list". Congress can modify the President's budget any way it wants, and does. For example, Congress enacted more spending in fiscal years 2010 and 2012 than the President requested. (Fiscal year 2013 began Oct 1, 2012, and is still running.)

We are where we are due in large part to: 2 unfunded wars, an unfunded prescription drug plan, an unfunded tax cut, rising health care costs covered by Medicare, Medicaid, FEHB, and the Military Health System including Tricare, and the expense of having to redeem Treasury bills held by the Social Security Administration.

On top of all that, the US has by far the largest military budget in the world. In 2011 the US military budget ($711 billion) was larger than the next 13 largest military budgets combined ($695 billion), and all but two of those 13 countries are US allies. But during the runup to the election, one Virginia Republican candidate repeatedly warned that his opposition Democrat candidate wanted to cut military spending, and he bemoaned how many Virginia jobs would be lost if military spending was cut. Every time I saw that ad my thought was: is the Department of Defense supposed to be a jobs program? Should DoD employ people unnecessarily on programs we don't need just so those people can get a paycheck?

If there is a weakness in our political system, it is that instead of doing what's best for the country, politicians want to do whatever it takes to win an election. Voters want lower taxes and more government largesse. We hear slogans like "we'll pay for it by cutting government waste," while government waste always turns out to be money spent on someone else's program, never our own.

Sometimes medicine is bitter, but voters want only ice cream and cake.

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Note:
See this earlier blog post for more information about the growth of federal debt: http://virtualwayne.blogspot.com/2012/02/doubling-time-and-debt.html

Kat Graham

The first time I saw Katerina (“Kat”) Graham was on the MTV show Ridiculousness. This singer, actor, dancer, and model was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 5, 1989, and was raised in Los Angeles, California. She speaks English, Spanish, French, and some Hebrew and Portuguese. She has been working in the entertainment industry since age 6 (as of this date she is 23). “Put Your Graffiti On Me” is a single from her first album, Against the Wall.

Waiting for Sandy

Wait. That’s all I can do.

I moved into this house in the summer of 2003, just in time to get hit, in September, by Hurricane Isabel. According to Wikipedia, “Isabel in Virginia proved to be the costliest disaster in the history of Virginia.” I don’t recall if my electricity went out, but 1.8 million Virginians lost electric power, and I was probably one of them. I’ve experienced several power outages since I moved into this house. The electricity usually comes back on in two or three days. That may sound like a long time, but compared to people living in surrounding rural counties who lose electric power for two weeks or longer, a couple of days isn’t bad.

In August, 2011, my state was hit with Hurricane Irene. A house on my street had its metal roof peeled back and everything on the top floor was soaked by heavy rain. Another house closer to mine had a large tree toppled in the front yard. My next door neighbor lost part of her roof. And the electric power was out for a couple of days.

When a hurricane hits, the thing I worry about most is electric power. After a day, the grocery stores throw out all the perishable items. You go there to buy food and all the cold storage units and freezers are empty. There’s nothing but empty shelves behind those rows of glass doors. There’s nothing to buy unless it comes in a can or a cardboard package.

Without electric power, my own perishables last about a day. So I have canned soup, tuna, and salmon on hand. I have bread. In case the city water pressure is lost, I filled bottles with tap water. Before the storm hits I will half-fill the bathtub with water so that, if necessary, I can refill the toilet tank.

I removed my trash can from the alley behind my house and put it beside my house. I have new batteries for my flashlights and an electric lantern. I have a battery-powered radio. I have a full gas tank in my Jeep in case I need to drive out of the area. I have cash in case I need to buy something essential and the credit/debit card readers aren’t working. My cell phone battery is charged up.

The central heat won’t run without electricity, and Monday’s high temperature is forecast to be 53°F – on Tuesday only 48°F. So I’ve got my kerosene heater fueled and ready to fire up if necessary. The heater gets pretty hot; I can probably heat soup on top of it.

If my house rides out the storm without damage, the worst part of having no electricity will be no television and no Internet. Even after the power comes back on, cable TV and Internet are usually off for a few more days. It’s surprising to me how much I depend on TV and Internet. It’s more than entertainment. It’s more than convenience. It’s a feeling I don’t get from books: a feeling of being connected to the world.

I’ve prepared. Now I wait.

Timing

Lebanese Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud announced today that he wants to sue the producers of the US drama “Homeland” because, he claims, it wrongly depicts Beirut as a dangerous city that harbors terrorists. He is also demanding an apology from the show’s producers.

In other news today, a car-bomb explosion in Beirut has killed at least eight people and injured an estimated 80 people.

Anouk Home Video

I’ve posted about Anouk before. This video looks like a webcam recording. Anouk tweeted: “Who says I can't make music videos :-)”  Now she wants to find a producer through Facebook. Details at Anouk’s FB page.

Kimbra

According to idolator.com, 22 year old New Zealand singer-songwriter-musician Kimbra (full name: Kimbra Lee Johnson) has snuck onto Entertainment Weekly‘s “30 Greatest Artists Right Now” list. She’s at 29th place. For a young artist who has just debuted her first album, Vows, making EW’s top 30 is an accomplishment. But Kimbra oozes talent. I first saw Kimbra (I was already aware of her music) on Jay Leno’s July 9, 2012 show performing “Settle Down”, the opening track from Vows. What a great performance! If that performance was on YouTube, I would embed it here. I haven’t found it on YouTube, but I did find a video of Kimbra performing “Settle Down” at the front yard of the Spotify House. She doesn’t have her band with her so she’s performing solo. She uses a looper at the front end of the song for background vocals and uses a tablet keyboard at the back end of the song for organ chords. The result is impressive.

The official “Settle Down” video is below. It’s the same song – sort of – but with a rather strange video.

I’ll end this blog post with the third track from Vows: "Plain Gold Ring" recorded live at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia. As a commenter remarked, Kimbra “grabs the song with her hands and plays with it … it’s not dancing to the music, it’s dancing with the music.” I wholeheartedly agree; it’s something Kimbra does with all her music.

Words

My friend Kim says she is annoyed when she reads something written by someone with 12 years of public education who can’t use simple words properly, such as the words to, too, and two. I understand how she feels. I, too, have word annoyances.

I get annoyed when I hear someone pronounce cache as if it were spelled “cashay”. Cache is pronounced “cash”. It means a hiding place used especially for storing provisions or concealing valuables, or it can refer to the actual items stored in the hiding place. Military people often refer to finding a “cache of weapons” (and they are the worst offenders – they always pronounce it “cashay”). Computers have cache memory, which is a small amount of high speed memory used for storing frequently accessed data.

I’m not being picky here because, as it happens, there is a word pronounced “cashay”, and that word is the French word cachet. Cachet refers to a seal on a document and so has come to mean a mark of quality or distinction or authenticity, as in, “Suffolk County has a nice sports arena but it doesn’t have the cachet of the Garden.”

Another peeve of mine is when I hear the word homage pronounced “oh-mahjz”. Homage is a perfectly good English word and it’s pronounced “hom-ij”. Don’t try to impress me with faux French.

What is up with people wanting to pronounce English words as if they were French? Like turbot, the fish. It’s an English word and it’s pronounced “tur-bot”, not “turbo”. I even hear people pronouncing the store name Target as “tar-jzay”. For Pete’s sake people, the store’s logo is a target. Give it a rest. You’ll never impress anyone by mispronouncing words as if they were from another language that you wish you could speak – and then, when you do get the opportunity to use actual French words, you use the wrong word because you don’t know how to pronounce the word you meant to use.

The problem is that people want to sound better educated than they are. Hint: if you want to sound educated, get educated! Pick up a book on words and learn something.

The Sink From Hell

Through circumstances not relevant to this story I found myself living in the house in which I spent my childhood, in which I had lived from age 6 until I was 18. It’s a modest house, yet the four small bedrooms and two small bathrooms spread over two floors make it too large for just one person. Yet here I am.

And here, too, is the confounded first floor bathroom, with a sink that has been problematic for as long as I can remember. Water drains out of it at two speeds: slow and slower. It was always thus. When I was a lad, my dad would, on occasion, send me up on the roof with a sewer tape to run through the bathroom vent pipe all the way down to the sewer line in the cellar. We didn’t own a ladder that could reach the roof, so I had to climb out of a dormer window onto the 45-degree-slope shingled roof and work my way around the corner of the dormer while holding onto the only handhold available: the edges of the dormer’s roof shingles. It was a hair-raising experience due in part to the “slipperiness” of the shingles I stood on as their surface grit let loose underfoot, and in part to the knowledge that if I fell, I wouldn’t fall to the ground but directly into the concrete cellar stairwell. But snaking the bathroom vent line always got the water draining well again, and it became one of my chores. (Another rooftop chore was reconnecting twin-lead to the chimney-mounted tv antenna whenever a high wind tore it loose. I didn’t mind being on the roof. Heights didn’t bother me. Hell, a couple of times I jumped off the edge of the roof to the ground. I was a teenager. I was unbreakable. I could do anything.)

Every couple of weeks since moving back in, I’ve had to pour a bottle of drain opener into the bathroom sink to boost the ever-so-slow running drain back up a notch to just plain slow. This week was no different as I poured more drain gel down the drain, followed by boiling water. It barely made a difference. It was time to do something else.

Some people pour chlorine bleach into their drains. They swear it works. So I tried it. First, I flushed the drain gel away with water, then I poured a bottle of bleach into the drain. I left it to work its magic overnight. The next morning I ran water to see how well the bleach had worked. The result was: nothing. I might as well have poured a bottle of Evian into the sink for all the effect it had.

The brass-and-chrome p-trap was old and was getting corroded, so I bought a new plastic p-trap. When I removed the old p-trap I had direct access to the drain line, so I decided to snake the line.

Said drain line goes into the wall 2 or 3 inches, makes a 90° left turn and runs horizontally inside the wall for 20 inches. Then it tee's into a vertical pipe that runs up through the roof (the bathroom sewer vent) and down to the main sewer line in the cellar.

I snaked the drain as far as the tee but couldn't get past the tee. So I installed the new p-trap (ah, there’s a story there, too – every plumbing job I’ve done becomes a story) and ran water into the sink. As water filled the sink I turned off the faucet and to my dismay, the water didn’t run out at all. The drain line now seemed completely plugged.

It wasn’t, though. The water did drain out, just at an imperceptible rate. Leave and come back an hour later, and the water in the sink will be gone. Slow, slower, slowest.

I called a plumber – my regular, go-to plumber. The plumber has a really long motorized snake, and he snaked the line from the sink drain to the main sewer line in the cellar, but when he pulled the tool out, the line was still blocked. Water in the sink wouldn't drain, and now the water was black with nasty, oxidized, bio-matter goo that the snake had pulled out of the drain line. And, the motorized snake had flung the black nastiness everywhere. It was spattered across the plumber’s shirt, the sink bowl, the bathtub, the floor. He snaked it again all the way to the cellar, but again when he pulled out the snake the drain stubbornly remained plugged. He tried using a plunger in the sink but because of the sink’s design, he couldn't get pressure on the water.

Finally I told him that one of my chores as a boy was to occasionally take a sewer tape up to the roof of my house and run it down the bathroom vent pipe to open up the drain. (To be fair, he was probably arriving at the same conclusion.)

The plumber got out his ladder and went up on the roof and snaked the bathroom vent pipe all the way down into the sewer line and that did the trick. Problem gone. Of course, I could have done that and saved myself 76 bucks, except for two things: the part where I climb up to the roof, and the part where I climb down from the roof. Do not like to do that shit anymore. There was a tv show called "The Closer," and one character was gray-haired Lieutenant Provenza. When an investigation turned physical he was wont to tell his fellow cops: "I don't run", or "I don't hike", or "I don't climb."

You and me, Provenza: I don't do roofs.

Creepy-crawly

I saw this creepy-crawly on my door frame. I took a photo just because I could. It’s about a half inch long. Maybe you can identify it.