Who's tracking you?

 Kevin Kelly has this article on The Technium: As Much Privacy As You Can Afford

What we call privacy -- the non-disclosure or transmission of information -- is ultimately a matter of economics. To remain hidden in a connected world will cost money. You can always disconnect, but while connected you will be transparent. Under this regime transparency is cheap and ubiquitous, while opacity expensive.
Apparently there is a service that will provide the current location of any cell phone for $95. You give Best411 the phone number you seek and $95 and then they will tell you where that cell phone is located is between 9am and 5pm CST.
How is this possible? Obviously the cell phone company knows because it has to track your cell in order to deliver calls. But how does Best411 know? They claim:

We are a state-licensed private investigative agency and, as such, have access to many data bases that the general public is not permitted to access.

That doesn't really explain the deal, or the legality, or the process. My immediate question is: Why does it cost so much? Why $95? Technologically this is a trivial query. It's real cost is about zero. I wonder who or what is setting the price?
Second question: If I were willing to pay $100 could I prevent Best411 from tracking me? How much would it cost to have my location "unlisted"?
I am really asking the larger question of how expensive will it become to be unlocateble in the location-aware mobile future?

 Makes you think who controls you data etc. and who has access to it when they want it.

Malcolm Gladwell on social media

Over Christmas I read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.  (I read it quickly while I was at my in-laws out west and didn't really make any notes, so I actually might get it out of the library again this weekend)  It is about how ideas spread and how people are influenced.

This past week as I was reading dead tree version of the Globe and Mail, I came across this Q&A article in which he answers some questions about the latest social media.  There were a few quotes I thought were interesting

"People aren't spreading ideas on Twitter, they're spreading observations."

I also like his thoughts on all the people that are ready to crown Twitter and Facebook social media champs.

"[The Internet] likes nothing more than to build someone up only to topple them.  Who has an AOL account these days? Not that long ago, AOL was the single most powerful player on the Internet.  Who has a MySpace account these days?  MySpace sold fro billions of dollars not that long ago.  I'm very reluctant to crown Facebook king of the future"

He also has some great thoughts on how social media can not build the same strength to organizations the way face to face contact can.... which I think I'll save for another post

Remembering Dan Fisher

I got news today that one of the best teachers I ever had has passed away.  We knew him as Dan Fisher, he was Daniel Fish in the non broadcasting world.  (try saying Dan Fish with the news, and the 'with' can come out funny, that why he changed it for radio)  The Waterloo Record has his memorial write up.  As much as death happens, you're never quite ready for it.  I sort of regret not talking to him more the last time I saw him at a get together of a bunch of my class mates a few years ago.   He will be missed by a lot of people

I had Dan Fisher as an instructor at Conestoga College.  He was the teacher of the radio lab, training of all the on air elements of a radio station.  He was a good teacher, both an encourager, but also not one to soften his evaluation.  In a way I'm glad I didn't have to work for him in radio, because I still remember some of my classmates who got so upset about the review he gave of their on-air abilities.  Some would say he had favourites, I think he had an ear for talent or at least potential, and knowing what the broadcast world was going to be like, pushed us and didn't coddle.  I think he thought that if someone was going to quit because they were harshly evaluated it was better to see them quit in their first year of school, before the tried to get jobs in the industry.  I wonder what it would have been like to have him as a PD or GM.... when money and rating were on the line.

If I was ever any good at announcing, I think I own some of it to him.   He encouraged me and helped me to be good at what I do (did).  He was a fun guy and actually cared about his students.   I'm sure there will be a lot of Conestoga BRT students that will miss him like I do.   He was a good man.

Being Easter weekend, I have to pause in thinking about how good he was, and wonder did he know Jesus?  He was involved in church, but I don't know what his deep faith thoughts were.   It make me sad to not know.   I hope that Dan Fish loved Jesus and someday I will see him again.   To hear his laugh and see his smile would make me happy.   I pray that I do again.

Faking their fans

Wrestling is so fake that they can even fake crazy fans and make it seem believable.

I don't know why but this made me laugh.



I know it's fake.... but oh if it was real that kid was going to get pounded
(if your new here, you will likely never ever see another WWF clip again.)

Crazy parents

The world is just too scared.   People are scared of shadows and have convinced themselves that the world isn't safe for anyone.

Today I ready this article by Lenore Skenazy over at ParentDish.com the basic story is this

The mother was at the library with her 5-year-old, the library where they go every week, in Rochester, New York....  They had only a few minutes before they had to leave to pick up Daughter #2 (age 3), giving the mom just enough time to run upstairs from the children's room to the adult room to check out her book..... [the mother retelling here story] "So I asked my daughter, 'Do you want to come with me or wait here for a few minutes?' 'Wait.' So I told the librarian, 'I'll be right back.' And the librarian said, 'Well ... okay. But I must warn you: the same dangers that are out on the street are here in the library.'"

I read the story and thought, wow people can be really reactionary.   I was mostly thinking about the crazy response from the librarian... "the same danger that are out on the street are here in the library"    Really?  So the same things that happen in the street happen daily in the library?!?
Now first I don't think the street is as dangerous as the nervous hoards would like you to think.  I'm not crazy I know stuff goes down.... In big cities like New York there are even shootings on the street, but not daily, not often or else you would never see people on the streets of New York.
But when was the last time there was a shooting in a library?   
How about a mugging?
Knife fight?
And this is not the dark alley version of a library, this is one that the family visits weekly.


So anyway.... I stopped my thought with the idea of the crazy librarian.....  


But then I started reading the comments......  so many of them all crazy parents aggreeing whole heartedly with the librarian.   "Never leave a 5 year old alone....not even for 5 seconds"    bla bla bla..... "What kind of a bad parent is she.


I couldn't believe my eyes.   She was going to run upstairs and check out a book.    The reaction was like she was leaving her infant in a den of lions.    People chill.   Nothing is going to happen.


Maybe I'm wrong...tell me so.   I'm not venturing back into the comment forum there, but would love to discuss it with anyone here.

Update:

 Lenore has posted some thoughts on the response on her blog... Free Range Kids.
It's amazing how readership comments differ.....wow

Church Home

A few months ago I had written about trying to find a church.  I realized that I haven't filled in the gaps on where we have ended up.   The fact is that we have found a great church family at Gateway Worship Centre.  They have welcomed us and helped us feel at home.   They aren't perfect, but in all honesty, if they tried to be we wouldn't be there  There is no attempt to be something they are not and we don't have to be more than we are.  They love Jesus and care about the town they live in.   I have grown tired of congregations that try to present as having it all together; whether that means on a personal level or a institutional level.

Gateway is led by the Spirit.   I feel each Sunday that the service could go anywhere if the Spirit leads.   It is an amazing thing to hear a senior gentleman pray out with great emotion, not on cue or as part of the script, but because he is moved.  To have the band whisper to the worship leader, "you have to play that song you wrote" or the pastor cry out in emotion for the message he has.   I haven't experienced these things before, not in a genuine way.

I've watched a dear old senior walk to the front to serve communion, one pant leg half tucked into his boot.  I think many churches wouldn't let this type of fellow near the front with the suits...but there he was serving with a smile.  And each week he greets me and asks how the camp is doing and how we are doing.

They are so friendly.  I feel like we have gained friends, parents and grandparents in the people that are there.
Today they threw a shower for our family on the arrival of Greyson.   So many thoughtful gifts from people that are just getting to know us, but have adopted us as part of their community.  One older lady crocheted a whole blanket for him.... the type of gifts that grandmas give to grandchildren and it was given to our new son.

I'm not setting out to sell anyone on this church.  But I have to say that people are coming and it's not because they have the best program or the coolest technology or a slick whatever..... the love God and the love people.   Sure there are rough edges but I am becoming more and more convinced that this is what Christianity looks like;  a group of imperfect people loving one another, because Jesus said to love one another.  And then together joining to love God and worship him in the best ways that know how.   

On the off chance that you live in the Gravenhurst area and are looking for a church that will offer you love no matter what you state of being.... come and check out Gateway.  End of endorsement

Extensions of the WHOLE man.

Kevin Kelly has his thoughts on where tablets might end up going.  He states two things that will make them different than the average cell phone or computer/laptop, the second being:

The tablet window goes two ways. You watch; it watches you. Its eye can remain on all the time, watching you as much as you like. Brian Eno once famously said (in the pages of Wired) that the problem with computers was that there was not enough Africa in them. By this he meant that computers as we knew them could “see” only the wiggling ends of our fingers as we typed. But if they could see and employ the rest of our body, as if we were dancing or singing, we could express ourselves with greater finesse. This window tablet injects some Africa into computers. It overthrows the tyranny of the keyboard. Gestures are king. Swoosh your fingers to scroll, wave your arms as with a Wii, shake or tilt it. Celebrate its embodiment. The craftsmanship of this device will matter. We’ll spend hours holding it, caressing it, stroking its magic surface, watching it. The feel of its surface, the liquidity of its flickers, the presence or lack of its warmth, the quality of its build, the temperature of its glow will come to mean a great deal to all of us.

This is interesting to my Marshall McLuhan (somewhat) obsessed mind.  McLuhan always referred to technology as extensions of man (or woman) and here Kelly is pointing out that technology is going to feel better to us as it extends more and more of us.   McLuhan saw our actual nervous system being eventually completely extended by our technology.  Conventional computers have done a good job with sight and sounds... and maybe our thought...but now touch screens will start to take our whole body as extensions.  Causing us to move, to dance.   I think McLuhan would also see it as interesting that the newer innovation of touch screens and gestures overthrows the need to know the phonetic alphabet even more.  The keyboard isn't gone completely, but I think this is a move closer to not needing to know written language.  Which moves us farther from the visual to the oral community.  

It's also interesting to see how Kelly describes the romance between the individual and the technology.  The relationship is tangible to the user.   Kind of scary in a way.  You thought that people were already zealots about their Macs.... now their iPad is going to be their lover and best friend.   That might be more scary, I'd hate to see Apple fanboys more obsessed with something.

I think McLuhan would have loved this stuff.  I do too.... and I've only been thinking about it for a little while

Good news for baldy

Going bald, cuts cancer risk

Men who start going bald at a young age are up to 45% less likely to get prostate cancer in later life, a study has found.

yeah win for me :)

The media

Saw this come through my feed reader  (found here)
Good point I thought

That'll never work....even if it has

One of my favourite sites to read it TechDirt.... digging into the muck of copyright, patents and new business models etc.   
This is from a post of about whether you can use free content as a business model

It's really stunning to see people who obviously should know better continually insisting that content can't possibly be free to consumers. We've been seeing a lot of it in the news business lately, as newspaper execs who have built up an ad business for many years seem oblivious to the fact that consumers have almost never paid directly for news. And now that same sort of ridiculous thinking is showing up in the video market. Christopher Schneider points us to an article written by Dan Rayburn, who apparently is an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, but who appears to be wholly unfamiliar with network TV in claiming that video content can't possibly be free:

Frankly, I don't see where this idea of "free" comes from. Video content costs money to produce, to distribute and to consume. Yet even with those costs, many seem hell-bent on the idea that business models can somehow survive based on the consumption of free video content supported solely by an ad model. But in reality, that simply can't happen.

It comes from basic economics, Dan, combined with knowledge of how network TV has worked for many decades. In some businesses consumers pay for stuff. In others, third parties do it. In network TV, advertisers have always paid the freight. You would think that a big-time analyst would be familiar with that. But, of course, it looks like Dan doesn't get the economics right either:

If people are not willing to pay a content owner for their content, then it's not worth anything. That's the bottom line.

Dan, how much did you pay for the air you breathe? Ok. How much is it worth? Your "bottom line" is flat-out wrong. Value and price are two different things. Value plays into the demand curve, but price is set by the intersection of supply and demand. If something is priced at zero, it doesn't mean it's valued at zero.

 I'd also like to point out that good radio stations can make money providing content for free as well.