List #774: 5 Reasons I know I'm Old

5 Reasons I know I'm an old man

1. I have no desire to ever drink Mt. Dew again
2. I still think that it's important to read things that are more than 140 characters long, with the purpose of gaining Knowledge
3. People that can't be quiet and sit still for a movie, shouldn't be going to movie theaters
4. I don't think that print Newspapers are obsolete
5. My "phone" makes telephone calls

List #769: A Few Things About the Digital World that Bother Me a Lot

 A Few (among many) Things About the Digital World that Bother Me a Lot

1. the balkanization of media outlets (why can I buy DC comics from comixology's website, but not their "app")

2. privacy vs commerce  (I am Google's product)

3. idiots who write comments on youtube, amazon, etc. (no comment)

4. proprietary formats (this is better)

5. net neutrality being threatened 

6. the appification of the internet and the death of the web. 

7. leasing things in the cloud instead of having them

8. the "bleed" of the major tech companies in their quest for dominance (Facebook should not be a search engine, Google should not be a social networking site,  apple should make cool devices,  Amazon should sell content and products)

List #762: Things I Dislike about Google's Privacy Policy Switch

List #762: Things I Dislike about Google's Privacy Policy Switch

1. I now need to log out of Gmail (and thus every other google service... like this blog) every time I want to do a non-diluted search on the search engine.

2. "If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service." --Translation: "Dear User, We're too big to fail, and you can't live with out us, so Eff You"

3. "If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube... -- Not "Can do," but "Will do"

4. I like having my gmail open on my laptop. I also work in a library where I'm often doing and demoing Google Searches for students (Like "Here's how to find the best part of google -- advanced search -- since those Effers hid it). Those searches don't represent my interests, why should they pollute my own YouTube searches?

5."...We’ll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for and get you those results faster:" --Okay, but what about when I want the OTHER version of Pink or Jaguar? How does it save me time when I have to retrain the almighty GoogleBot?

6. I have close personal friends, to whom I talk about close personal things. I sure don't want YouTube to think that I want to see videos on a Health or Personal Hygiene problem I might be asking my mom about, or a love-note to a lady.

7. It's making Google too much like an iPhone: everything rolled up in to one package, so when you lose it, you're effed.

8. It's made me drop nearly all of my google services that I formerly liked (except you can't drop them now) like Google Docs and stuff.

9. It's made me think about quitting the blog (or trying to import it to another place somehow); getting a totally different email address (hassle), and making a separate account so I can view Youtube privately (and also then deleting all of my youtube uploads... sorry ukulele brothers fans)...

10. ... Except I haven't found better alternatives

11. There aren't opt out features. (Google overlords, you're going to be able to harvest all the personal data from people who are too dumb to think this stuff matters, why do you need mine)

12. There's nothing that can be done to stop it. and even adding "google's privacy policy sucks" to every google transaction I do" is just going to make my personal google experience less good and not send them a message

13. There's no easy-to-find ability on any of their "help' or 'contact' pages to voice concerns or opinions.

List #759: New Slogans for Google

List #759: New Slogans/Mission Statements for Google

1. -Don't +Be +Evil {except that won't work quite right anymore}

2. Don't Be Evil; The Big 'G' is Watching You...

3. Don't Be Evil Unless Facebook Is Too, Because We Should Probably Copy Those Guys

4. Don't Be Evil Where People Can See It

5. Being A Valuable Research Tool That Works How Users Want It Too Is Evil. Don't

List #753: 5 Small Devices I Am Thankful For

List #753: 5 Small Devices I Am Thankful For

1. Nail Clippers

2. Paper Clips

3. Refrigerator Magnets

4. Tiny Screwdrivers

5. USB drives

List #750: Online Services I Currently Have Beef With

List #750: Online Services I Currently Have Beef With (or at very least a distinct love/hate relationship)

1. Google: hiding advanced search; "Social" Search is opt-out rather than opt-in; weird dropdown tool bar on some of my browsers; over focus on trying to 'beat' facebook when Google is a search engine; forcing a location for search; for creeping towards evil

2. Hulu+: for not streaming to Roku any of the stuff I'd actually pay money to have on my TV (since I have multiple ways to watch it on a computer screen, all of which are free and most of which are legal)

3. Facebook: for making Google worse (see #1); for the inevitable switch to that white-hot mess of unreadable Timeline; for eliminating blog importing; for general exploitation

4. Amazon* (only because the Kindle Fire isn't quite what I hoped it could be... Amazon Prime rules, and renting/on-demand movies on the Roku are great)

5. Barnes and Noble Nook: for not being awesome for libraries... again, that's really Big Publishing's fault, not theirs

6. iTunes: for generally being more expensive than amazon's mp3 store. (I have gift cards, but i still feel it's wasteful to spend $1-2 more on an album, or .30 more on an individual track)

7. Bing: For not having an Advanced Search link in an immediate and obvious place on their home page; for requiring a set location for search results; for trying to do too much thinking for the user.

8. Any online service provider that supports SOPA.

List #712: Tablets or eReaders I'd Want if I wanted one

List #712: Tablets or eReaders I'd Want if I wanted one (and I'm not convinced that I do, but sometimes the techno-gadget lust sets in)

1. Kindle regular style (because it's just for reading and has buttons not touch screen)

2. Nook Color

3. Kindle 3G (because of the 3g... but I'm not a fan of the touch screen)

4. Kindle Fire (but the touch screen and less battery life are drawbacks)

5. I-pad (I hate it, and really have no need for most of its functions, but it feels really nice to hold)

List #581: 5 Thoughts on Google

List #581: 5 Thoughts on Google

1. I love Google Earth

2. While I love all of their services, I'm occasionally afraid that they are Big Brother

3. It's not a replacement for librarians or libraries, and I want to want to punch the world when that gets tossed around

4. I like when the onion wrote the article about the Google Robots that eliminated anything that couldn't be searched

5. I miss google bombs.

List #490: Portable Music Devices I Have Owned

List #490: Portable Music Devices I Have Owned

1. A cheap portable cassette player

2. Sony Sports Walkman (2)

3. Panasonic portable CD player

4. Creative Zen Nomad mp3 player (30 gb)

5. iPod Classic (160 gb)

6. iPod Shuffle (1 gb, no screen)

LIst #343: Things I like, dislike about iPods

List #343: Things I like, dislike about iPods (mine in particular)

Like
1. It holds a ton of music (14k songs and still 60GB free)
2. It is portable
3. People have made some decent non-itunes software for it
4. It has a reflective case
5. It holds a ton of music!
6. They have great commmercials (with great music)

Dislike
1. Many of my album covers are messed up
2. It likes to pretend that it has no music on it sometimes
3. iTunes (and "sync-ing": do I ever hate its tyrannical nature)
4. it is much bigger than my laptop hard drive.
5. mine doesn't like pictures or audiobooks (mostly due to iTunes problems)

List #294: Things that would make me consider getting an ebook reader

List #294: Things that would make me consider getting/wanting an ebook reader (like the Nook or Kindle)

1. Ability to Loan, Trade, or re-sell digital books (Nook at least lets you loan out)
2. Really long battery life (paperbacks never run out of juice)
3. Good ability to display digital comics
4. Some kind of business model that allowed purchasers of hard copies of books to also get the digital copy (even if it meant being DRM'ed against #1)
5. Easy interface with PC and Linux.

List #289: Reasons Why I don't want or need an iPhone

List #289: Reasons Why I don't need or want an iPhone

1. They don't hold enough music to be my music player, plus who wants their music player to suddenly ring
2. Apps mostly seem like an easy way to dispose of money
3. Sometimes I need a break from the internet
4. Touch screens are annoying
5. Too big
6. I think texting is annoying, and iPhones are like texting-times-ten
7. Apple is kind of annoying (at least they make a 160 gig mp3 player though)

BONUS LIST: Reasons why I would want an iPhone
1. That fake lighter-flame app
2. So I could do something like this!

List #272: Internet things that annoy me

List #272: Internet things that annoy me

1. People writing "first post"
2. Really large "signature" pictures
3. purposeful misspellings that are not that much more efficient (or are less efficient!) especially in non-chat situations. except leetspeak because there's an art to that.
4. video pop-up ads / audio ads
5. visual clutter
6. when I accidentally clear my firefox tabs

List #256: Computers I have had

List #256: Computers I have had (including family computers when I lived at home, "*" means I paid for it on my own)

1. Apple IIc (1988-1995)
2. Acer - Pentium, 75mhz, 500 MB hard drive Windows 3.? (1995-1998)
3. *Citon Research - Windows 98, 8 GB hard drive (1998-2004)
4. *HP Media Center - 250 GB hard drive, Windows Media Center (2004-2009), Linux 9.04 (2009-present)
5. Dell Laptop (work computer)- (2006- present)

List #222: Websites that have been indespensible to me recently

List #222: Websites that have been indespensible to me recently

1. www.dmbalmanac.com
2. www.dreamingtree.org
3. www.antsmarching.org