Soli

melgross said:

avon b7 said:

Where do you get the idea that I lecture absolutely anybody? I give my opinion and defend it. That's it.

If we're talking about opinions, there is no right one or wrong one.

Facts are always right, which is why they’re called facts. There is no such thing as a wrong fact. If someone posts something that they claim is a fact, and it’s wrong, then it’s not a fact.

True, but facts one day can become un-factual another.. There's even statistical data that measures the half-life of facts.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge

1) I can see that being popular.

2) JFC THAT PROMO AD IS BAD!

payeco said:

StrangeDays said:

payeco said:

I don’t understand the point of this article.

Is english not your native tongue? Which paragraphs would you like help with?

What were we supposed to gain? Author tried going without his Apple Watch for a week. Didn’t like it. The end? It feels like filler content to meet an article quota.

Insight into his experience. Do you not ever add, remove, or change something from your life? I do it constantly and periodically across a wide spectrum.

For instance, when the Series 3 Watch came out last year I bought it with cellular and then tried to leave my iPhone at home to see how functional the device was without being constantly tethered to the iPhone. It's much improved but watchOS 4 still didn't allow apps like Spotify and SiriusXM to work independently so I also gave Apple Music a try for 3 months with their free offer for new Apple Music sign ups. I also didn't care for Apple Music over Spotify, but that wasn't a dealbreaker for me and I could easily switch if other Watch and watchOS factored get shored up, which could happen this month.

And that's just a single experiment and experience which involved multiple items. I do it for countless other things and most of them don't involve technology, and some are even purposely unplugging myself from certain technologies in order to gauge dependence, utility, and other ways to make my life more efficient, more healthy, and to improve my general quality of life.

rotateleftbyte said:

badmonk said:

Crap, I am so pissed off.  They already have access to our Twitter, FB, Google, iCloud data and access to location data.  What more do they want???

No they don't. Well they don't have any Twitter, FB or Google data of mine because don't use them (or in the case of Google, only enough to get websites to work). As for iCloud... there is nothing of importance on there and certainly nothing incriminating. All my iDevices get backed up locally.
Some of us have already taken steps to safeguard our data  and our lives from government snoopers.

You know how we proved blackholes existed because of how they affected the space around them despite not actually “seeing” them?

I think FB and Google, at the very least, not only know you exist but have a pretty good idea about your demographics because of public data and all your friends and family that have given them your contact data and other info over the years.

Have you ever looked to see what’s available on you from Peek You, Family Tree Now, and other such sites? They have opt-out options but they still likely have your data and they’ll be hacked and/or sell it to others, but they also got it from some place, too. Crazy times we live in.

Apple has gotten much better about data privacy. Even if Apple never used your personal data to monetize in the way Google and FB do, their security of their OSea and what apps could freely access has changed dramatically over just the last decade… and I’d like to see more.

To my chagrin, I would keep account numbers for business contacts in my Address Book (before I had a 1Password vault) as a note and/or part of the phone number with commas and semicolons for pauses and waits for added convenience when making a call. For example, if I call a credit card’s 800 number Is have my entire card’s CC number in there that I would get toned dialed as soon as the automated prompt would ask for it I have no idea how many apps could’ve had access to that, but it’s also a moot point now because those card numbers are all defunct and I was part of Experian breach because, well, I exist.


PS: I wouldn't be surprised if there are sophisticated programs that analyze your writing patterns to determine is someone is the same user because we can create unlimited online accounts that are virtually anonymous. I can imagine such a system looking at sentence structure, punctuation, words and phrases (which includes idioms, colloquialisms, and abbreviations), length of of sentences, pronouns, and every other grammatical style in order to look for patterns of people that may try to use different usernames across different accounts and IP addresses in order to hide their identity.

Several years ago I took a hiatus from this site (and other social media) as I'm wont to do from time to time, but when I came back I decided to run a little experiment; I created a new account but decided to write as I usually do to see if anyone recognized my "voice." As I recall, @anantksundaram picked up on it right away and sent me a PM to confirm.

Such a system would probably not be limited to finding a digital "voice" of an individual, but could also be used to determine education level, approximate age, geographical area in which you grew up with what is probably just a few simple metrics. For example, if you remember watching Sigmund the Sea Monster as a kid and drinking pop then it's pretty unlikely that you're in your 20s and from Long Beach, CA.

badmonk said:

Crap, I am so pissed off.  They already have access to our Twitter, FB, Google, iCloud data and access to location data.  What more do they want???

• https://gizmodo.com/google-reportedly-secretly-bought-your-banking-data-an-1828341605