If you’re not already familiar with Earth, by David Brin, then in a weird way, I envy you. You have got some great science fiction… The post Earth’s Gravity, But Not the Kind You Think appeared first on mark a. rayner.
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cmkl.ca: My personal blog renaissance
Since Elon Musk has bought Twitter, I have decided (probably like a lot of other people) to reinvigorate my blog. It’s amazing to think that it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been publishing my blog. Though of late (oh… say about ten years) it’s been much neglected. Internet communications
Continue readingcmkl.ca: My personal blog renaissance
Since Elon Musk has bought Twitter, I have decided (probably like a lot of other people) to reinvigorate my blog. It’s amazing to think that it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been publishing my blog. Though of late (oh… say about ten years) it’s been much neglected. Internet communications
Continue readingcmkl: Fake news on Facebook: what they could do to fix the dust cloud of misinformation
Fake news played a pretty significant role in influencing opinion on the recent US election, which, I note, has not gone unnoticed here in Canada. The Guardian had an interesting piece about the preponderance of lies that got circulated and re-circulated amongst both Clinton and Trump supporters. Although it notes
Continue readingcmkl: My girl learns code
Few things in life give me more joy than walking down the street, hand in hand with my daughter. One of them, which I experienced for the first time today, is walking down the street, hand in hand with my daughter, talking about building websites. At Irene’s suggestion, I checked
Continue readingcmkl: Numbers or it didn’t happen: measuring success on the internet
Live tweets plus deck from a 90 minute presentation I gave to union communicators at the Canadian Association of Labour Media conference in Victoria June 18-20. [View the story “Numbers or it didn’t happen: measuring success on the internet” on Storify]
Continue readingcmkl: The Toronto Star is dropping their paywall
Ah ha. Told you so. In a medium where ubiquity is authority and authority is viewership, paywalls were never going to work. A pre-internet business model applied, unmodified to completely different media. See Note to Readers: Star to end paid digital subscriptions on April 1 | Toronto Star. I have
Continue readingcmkl: Stop talking to me about ‘launch’
This still happens. Some big content production – often a video, but also a text report or research piece – is ready to go and the powers-that-be want to make a big splash with it to ensure it gets the attention it so richly deserves. So they start planning a
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: People are the Weakest Link – Security Camera Madness.
Ask any IT professional about security and you can almost always prepare yourself for a story or three about people using strongly encrypted passwords such as ‘password’ or ‘admin’. Or if it is a particularly good day, helping people understand that encrypted functions exist… Here is story from CBC.ca about
Continue readingcmkl: My credit card got hacked. There is an upside
The issuing bank, which sent me an email alert today, presumably as weird charges started showing up, very kindly went over my current charges and I got a chance to dispute all the weird ones. I hope I got them all. So as of now, my card number is no
Continue readingcmkl: Ads vs organizing: it’s the wrong debate at the CLC convention
There’s a debate raging at the CLC now about whether the Congress should levy more money from its members (to the tune of $22 million) to fund a paid publicity campaign to improve the image of the labour movement in the eyes of TV viewers.
Continue readingcmkl: Death to slogans
The title of this post is, in fact, a slogan. But I’m thinking slogans are verbal dead weight in the internet era. What harm would it do us to just cut them all out and put content up front?
Continue readingcmkl: Is Heartbleed really as bad as all that?
Okay so there is a vulnerability in OpenSSL. And that’s bad. But the extent of alarmist rubbish out there about it is making me bonkers. This Globe piece is not the worst. But here’s a thought for you. Vulnerabilities are discovered in software all the time. There’s a lot of
Continue readingcmkl: Comment trolls might just be NSA agents
Or CSIS, CSEC or whatever. Glen Greenwald (The Intercept) has this item on some of the Snowden docs which would seem to be a training manual on how to discredit targets online. See How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations. The item stops short of
Continue readingcmkl: Death to the FAQ: Lisa Marie Martin is totally right
Thanks to Renée Stephen I know I’ve not been suffering alone all these years in my hatred of FAQs. She showed me (via Twitter) this very well put case against having FAQs on websites. Below is the comment I wrote in response.
Continue readingcmkl: Why we should we post our collective agreements on our websites
I was conferring with comrades from a sibling union this week. They’re going through almost the exact same website re-engineering process I did where I work. It was very therapeutic. I thank them. But we got into what I thought was an old discussion. Turns out it’s not.
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Why Internet make you dumb
Much of this video’s content is covered in Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, in detail. Here’s my review of the book: The irony is a spongy wad, so thick the fine edge … Continue reading →
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE: Recovered: Canadian Progressive World Blog
The news is good! I’ve fully restored my blog, Canadian Progressive World, home of the provocative, unapologetic, activism-oriented and globally-conscious Canadian progressive! The blog was hacked Friday night after I published this story linking Enbridge executive J. Richard Bird to the unveiling lucrative Bill C-10 prisons project: “Enbridge executive’s company
Continue readingcmkl: So I’m looking for a remote backup solution
I thought I had found one with my service provider iWeb but their application only copies whole devices. And I need to exclude some of the directories on my devices. Because I don’t want to pay for a backup of a backup.
Continue readingcmkl: Media layoffs: I fear this is going to get worse
Postmedia announced layoffs and reorganization today, as the corporation looks for ways to consolidate its print production processes to stay profitable.
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