Brain-reading Devices

A highly recommended ‘food for thought’ article for you today..

* Think Internet Data Mining Goes Too Far? Then You Won’t Like This

“These days, you can hop on the Internet and buy yourself a consumer-grade brain scanning device for just a few hundred dollars. Technically, they’re called brain computer interfaces, or BCIs. As these devices develop, researchers are thinking a few steps ahead — they’re worried about how to keep marketers from scanning our brains.” Read more..

[ Share that one with your friends/family..]

Sorta related: Yesterday, while watching an educational seminar posted to YouTube, I experienced for the first time YouTube’s “InVideo” ’embedded’ ads – ads that actually interrupt the video, and you have to wait/watch for 5 seconds before you can click on “skip ad” – which was made worse by incessant ‘ghost overlay’ (semi-transparent) ads which I had to keep closing.

Almost exactly 5 years ago I wrote Good-bye YouTube. Enjoy Your Ads., and I guess it’s finally come to fruit. I am muttering expletives like the proverbial Chief Bosons Mate, here folks. Has advertising gotten SO invasive/pervasive that I must cut out all forms of media (besides books)? Seems to me we have reached that point. (I’d like to paraphrase Shakespeare here: “And the second thing we do is..”)

If anyone knows of an ad blocker (or other trick) that can strip those out, please let me know. (Yes, I looked at this one.)
Update: Found an easy one. I added ||2mdn.net^ as a custom filter to my AdBlock Plus extension. Yay!

Today’s quotable quote: “Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.” ~ Will Rogers

Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)

How to block ads on Android

Folks, on Monday I told you the alarming (and revolting) news that Google has removed ad-blocking apps from the Google Play app store. Fortunately, Neil Rubenking at PC Magazine has just published a How To for installing AdBlock Plus on Android devices (aka “the workaround”).

I just did it on my Kindle Fire, and I did not have to do the “manually set a proxy” steps. It’s so nice to view ad-free webpages! (And it’s safer, too.)

Here’s the 4-1-1. How To Block Ads on Android

“Yesterday, the venerable adblocking company Adblock Plus (ABP) announced that Google had blocked their enormously popular app on the Google Play store. While Google can slam the door through their app store, Android’s open nature means that users can still “sideload” the app.“” Read more..

It really isn’t hard, and I think you’ll be glad you did it.

[Update: a reader has suggested an easier method in the Comments section, here (below).]

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Tip of the day: Advertising really works!! And is a GREAT!! investment!! See?

And unicorns are real.

Today’s quote: “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” ~ George Orwell

First Day of Spring (Yay!) I just heard. Today is the calendar’s equinox, or solstice, or sumsuch, and they say Spring is now playing in a theater near you. Yay!

Today’s Spring quote: “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Google Takes Away Choice

Well it was going to happen sooner or later. Google would find more ways to take away our ability to block advertisements.

* Popular ad blocking app nixed from Google Play

“In a move that has sparked negative criticism, Google has decided to delete the popular ad blocking application, AdBlock Plus, from its Android Play Store.” Read more..

I don’t understand why they chose to get authoritarian, and show us the middle finger, as approximately 1% (my estimate) of computer users are savvy enough to have ever even heard of AdBlock Plus. (I’ll let the article explain the Who, the How, the What, and — the Why you should care.)

But we do live in a world run by ad revenue.
($17 Billion in first half of 2012 [online]..)

It’s one reason I ignore good practice and am still using an older version of Firefox: each new version they release, more ad blocker, security, and privacy “add ons” no longer work (wonder why?).

I am not going to say what I really think here, nor use the language I want to, but I will say to any and all Google employees, honchos, and stockholders — rethink this move. It stinks and makes you look bad. (Yes, I know. That’s how you make your money – watching us, tracking us, and showing us Ads. But.)

I’ll further say that I support the folks who brought us AdBlock Plus, and “root for” them and folks like them. I hope they’ll figger a ‘workaround’..

Today’s concept to ponder: “Slippery slope”. Incrementalism in the study of rationality can be seen as a stealthy way to bring about radical changes that were not initially wanted: a slippery slope.

Today’s quote: “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~ Buddha

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.