A quick housekeeping note: My blog was hosted on Posterous, which was bought a year ago by Twitter and the inevitable happened. Posterous will shut down on April 30, 2013. Fortunately, nothing will change because this blog has been moved to Posthaven, except for those who subscribe to this blog. I expect subscriptions (and a RSS feed, I hope) will be added reasonably soon, but until that happens you'll have to check in manually at this URL or watch for cross-posts to Facebook.
On a related note, I urge you to check out Posthaven (or Squarespace). Everybody should have a on-line space they can call their own. Preferably mapped to a custom URL, but is not absolutely necessary (that link is Barb's new personal URL). Posthaven is not only working to make it possible to have a place you call yours, but to also avoid the blog-shuffle that happens when a BigCo like Twitter decides your work needs to disappear.
I know choosing a paid service seems quaint in a world of free, but think about what free really means. You allow a company to sell you as their product, to companies who then use that information to sell more shit to you. I long ago swore off buying brand-name clothing as much as possible, simply because I didn't like my body being a billboard for an already hugely profitable company built on the backs of underpaid and mistreated workers - usually in third world countries. Yeah, I know. But their pay is soooo much better than they have ever been able to find. Think of that, the next time workers die in a building that collapses or burns to the ground, all so you can save ten bucks buying a t-shirt.
Doing much the same on-line makes sense to me. If you really want to see with your own eyes the mind-boggling amount of information companies collect from you on-line, of which only a tiny portion you know about, install a blocker like Ghostery in your browser. Ghostery isn't an ad-blocker. Instead, it monitors or rejects tracking that you can control. I originally set Ghostery to block every category it watches: advertising, analytics, beacons, privacy, and widgets. Many web sites became nearly unusable. Geez! I had no idea there was so much tracking embedded across the web. Downright scary when you see it in action live. So stick it to the man. Give Ghostery, or something like it, a try in your browser. Being anonymous when and where you want is not an act you should have to beg for.
Yeah, I know. Enough already. Am being preachy. Have just been feeling really outraged at seeing how often companies push people around, track them, cut 'em off, avoid paying taxes with every means possible and buy politicians (TED Talk video) to keep the cycle moving along, leaving us to pay for picking up the pieces. If you really want to learn a lot of what is going on in the world, check out Richard Stallman's site. He's a flaming liberal and a half, many characterize him as a communist, but don't let that be your go, no-go decision. Read what he points to, follow the links revealed, then make up your own mind about issues raised. You won't regret it.
So I'll wrap up with something nicer. A picture of Barb and her dad.
