Category: Uncategorized
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Reverse location search warrants
Google collects and retains location data from Android-enabled mobile devices when a Google account user has enabled Google location services. The company uses this information for location-based advertising and location-based search results. This information is derived from GPS data cell site/cell tower information, and Wi-Fi access points…Â It is probable that the unknown suspects of this…
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Manychat API and suspicious Fb chat
A friend’s Facebook account sent a message with a video link titled, “When was this video?” My hackles were raised because: I rarely get messages from this person. It reminded me of the Is This You video Facebook Messenger virus. If you clicked on either, then go to the link on #2 to get advice…
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Celebrity Death Bump
When a formerly popular musician dies, I suddenly see a bunch of people posting in social media about them. They come back into the consciousness. And, many people are suddenly listening to the music again. Today it was Eddie Money. But, I’ve seen this trend for most. I bet it means more sales and listens…
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15 days of fame
Looks like the storm of visitors to this blog looking for information on that fake video circulating Facebook is over. Most of the searches were for the hostname of the server which I happened to mention in the post. Which, I guess put me to the top of the search results. One individual found me…
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Primed
Someone posted a video of a really long Chick-Fil-A drive thru line. The comment was Popeyes was getting to CFA. It made me wonder if given the Popeyes running out created a pop in CFA business. If people primed themselves for a chicken sandwich, went to a place who was out, then they are more…
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Spoiling others on Facebook
Dear Facebook, it would be awesome if you would create a spoilers option for posts where the poster could say what it contains. You get users feeding you data about engagement with media useful for advertisers. Nice people could contain the damage of spoilers. As it is, I saw several people created a post and…
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TED Talk: The story of ‘Oumuamua, the first visitor from another star system | Karen J. Meech
In October 2017, astrobiologist Karen J. Meech got the call every astronomer waits for: NASA had spotted the very first visitor from another star system. The interstellar comet — a half-mile-long object eventually named `Oumuamua, from the Hawaiian for “scout” or “messenger” — raised intriguing questions: Was it a chunk of rocky debris from a…
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TED Talk: How to take a picture of a black hole | Katie Bouman
A talk on how the process would work presented a couple years ago. Interesting how closely the actual image matches the reconstruction before they did it. At the heart of the Milky Way, there’s a supermassive black hole that feeds off a spinning disk of hot gas, sucking up anything that ventures too close —…
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Shortcuts: Rules
(I should have recognized this in my Shortcuts series of posts. Intro > 1. Illusions > 2. Labeling > 3. Math > 4. Multitasking > 5. Rules) Rules exist to help reduce the friction of society so that we can more easily work with strangers. Without rules, we need to have potentially damaging interactions with individuals, establish a series of data points about them…