DanielShaysBookShelf

I think that quote about interesting times was meant as a curse. At any rate,  I haven’t posted here in a while because it is almost impossible to come to terms with the politics currently. For instance, did anybody notice that the Benghazi incident happened on 9/11? I thought that was a strange coincidence. But maybe just a coincidence, because the whole thing seems like a way for the Republicans to cause trouble for Obama.They agree with him on war and drones mainly, so there has to be a reason given for a Watergate like news spectacle, and it won’t be the the real reason. Probably, we will never know the real reason the Republicans are being set to this now.

Then we had the people being “rescued from their homes” (literally what a news report said) during the lock down in Boston. They were “rescued at gun point by militarized police.

After that, a young kid was arrested for making a bad rap song (which offended), and it was reported he could face a very stern sentence. This is Orwellian.

And what about Syria? The relationship these countries have with one another is interesting to say the least. Look at how confused the whole thing is. China and Russia seemed to be allied, but China has a very complicated relationship with the US. Look at how India relates all of these countries. Interesting times?

Oddly enough, after solving my YouTube problem, and after claiming I was going to disentangle my online whatever I do in that way from Google, I seem to rely on Google more. What can one do? I know all the allegations leveled against them regarding privacy and data mining, and lots more perhaps, yet there Google is, ubiquitous…..

I almost made a site that links to various shortwave radio station websites with online streams. I had this idea after searching for such a page on the web, but not finding exactly what I was looking for.

Half way into this, I realized the point the of shortwave radio is that it isn’t something you do online. I’m not entirely sure, but I would guess that the government and or Google really don’t know how many are listening to shortwave, and more to the point, what they like to listen to.

This is the point of shortwave radio. It may be the wave of the future.

My fear is that the people with real power in this country will use this terrible tragedy to cause more misery for Americans, especially the loss of more freedom and rights, and likely for others in the world. Something like this could lead the US to cause another war, something nobody needs. By the way, I have friends that live near Boston. So, I do regard this as a terrible tragedy. We still don’t know who did it, though. I haven’t ruled out the theories about 911, so I certainly can’t believe anything the government will tell us about this. Nor could I believe much of what will come from the MSM. I

‘m sure there are already competing agenda among the elite as to the narrative that is to be presented. Whatever they present to us, it likely will be designed to fit the policy goals of whichever elite group controls the narrative.

b-j-d:

powertotheyankinpussy:

Praying for those in Boston today. For those in Iraq where 20 bombs were set off today. Praying for the 29 that were killed in Somalia because of a bomb set off yesterday. Praying for the thousands of innocent victims of U.S. drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia. Praying for everyone. Praying for this whole world. Because every life matters and because they are all equally important.

nice to see somebody who is getting it right.

Sorry. I apologize. You see I haven’t been checking my tumblr often as I’ve been mesmerized by the evil Google + Then, let’s just say I got a little note from YouTube, and I was shaken back to reality.

I’m not at liberty to mention exactly my current troubles with corporate Google/YouTube. I might yet have to fill out a frightening legal form. But I wanted to add a few more observations about the seemingly omnipotent influence Google wields on the web. 

First of all, I shouldn’t complain too much, because my blog shows up well in Google results. I can’t say the same for some of the other search engines. 

But that is exactly the point. Google is the internet. I wonder if the internet could exist without Google. Technically, they are not a monopoly. Still, is Yahoo or Bing really any competition? It reminds me of when Ma Bell dominated the phone service market. Google is too big. 

And because they are too big, we (the plebes) are not allowed to speak to a real human being when we have an issue that might really need to resolved. That’s right. My current problem with Google/YouTube could be resolved through a 5 minute conversation with a real employee of Google/YouTube. 

Oh, how I wish I waited and sought out the little guy those few years ago when I began putting music online. I certainly wouldn’t have gotten so reliant on Google to provide a platform for everything. 

Even if I can resolve my problem with the minimum suffering, I am still going to try to untangle myself from the Google as much as possible. Like I said. They have gotten too big.

If one does a search for “internet spying” a great many results come up. “They” aren’t even keeping it a secret. Many of the articles are right from the mainstream.

Gore Vidal used to claim he could hold two contradictory ideas in his head at the same time. I often feel as though I can do the same. For instance, I am aware of, and mainly accept, the allegations that Google is terrible about privacy. Yet, at the same time, I use Google products. For instance, in my experience, Google chrome works better than the other mainstream browsers I have used. Firefox crashed on me just recently.

However, I know “they” are paying attention to me, even though I’m nobody, and that means “they” are paying attention to everyone else too. The most obvious signs of this are the personalized advertisements directed at the individual surfing the web. But it is much worse than that.

Eli Pariser wrote a book about how the results one searches for are increasingly being personalized. So, instead of getting the same results your neighbor down the street gets when looking up a topic, you will get the results “they” believe fit your outlook. This is called the filter bubble.

But it is much worse than this, and I’m certain there are sub-groups within our society that are being watched more carefully, regardless if one is nobody or somebody. Personally, I’ve had a few weird things happen involving the internet, but I’m not going to go into detail. Why encourage “them?” (I’m not saying there is one specific “them” either.)

Perhaps, the whole reason for the internet was to fragment society, and put people in certain boxes. This way it would be easy to know who the real troublemakers are. Mainly though, I think Google is more interested in advertising. For example, I watched Red Bull TV online once, and then all the ads were for Red Bull.

On the other hand, the internet has been a great tool for some to get their message out. For most of us, it would be hard to stop using the internet if we wanted to.

When I first pondered whether or not to make a post about this, I was considering doing an experiment where I would attempt to not use Google at all for a period of time. There are many ways one can limit exposure to Google online, but it now seems impractical to avoid Google entirely, and I’m not sure I want to. Like I said, I use too many of their products, and their products tend to work.

So, how are we to react to constantly being spied upon by corporations, not to mention the state? Well, I’m sure many are aware of the various ways of limiting the exposure to tracking. There is everything from ad blockers to specialized search engines. I’m not sure to what extent this protects us. But it can’t hurt.

Here we are, in the second decade of the century, aware that we are being tracked and analyzed for commercial and other reasons. Yet we can’t change the very behaviors that allow this to happen without taking our technology back to the 1970s or maybe 1980s. Well, I’ve always liked vinyl records. Hmm, I’ll have to think about this some more. Were we better off in those days, or is it just romanticizing?