Re: What are the odds, Ken?

On 24/9/07 20:19, "Sazz" wrote:
> Stuart Rogers wrote:
>> On 24/9/07 16:01, "Alan Brand" wrote:
>> 
>> Oi!  I'll have you know that my Keep Fat programme is going well.
>> 
> Excellent news!

Indeed.  I've managed to put on five pounds in the last ten days,
and I suspect little of it is as fat.  Mind you, this is from a very
low starting weight.

>>> Almost as much of an adventure as me taking Jan for an Indian lunch to
>>> celebrate our anniversary last week ... since our local curry shop
>>> closed we have to make a 108.6km round trip. But who's counting?
>> 
>> So, paranoia, anxiety, and panic can be beaten off by a damned good
>> curry, eh?
>> 
> We'll have to find Alan a mail order curry company :-)

And find a good curry house for when he finally comes to the UK.

>> I'm not and won't be on Facebook.  There's something about these
>> social networking sites that I just don't get.  And the paranoic in
>> me wonders what Facebook are (or are potentially) getting out of it.
>> 
> The last part is easy: they get money (from advertisers mostly), and the
> same stuff supermarkets get from loyalty cards - information.

Which is one of the reasons I don't have a supermarket loyalty card.
I'm quite uneasy about how much big cor****ations know about me and
how I live my life - it's like the lifestyle equivalent of DNA, and
none of their damned business.

I suspect Facebook's data usage is probably for broad, fairly
anonymous statistical analysis, and for more specific, targeted
advertising.  I have a natural aversion to being advertised to.

The more I know about data mining, the less I want my personal data
to be available so freely.  I think we're walking - no, running -
towards a sci-fi novel-like future.  I enjoy reading sci fi, but I
don't want to be living it.

My goodness, I wasn't wrong when I said paranoia was a familiar
character!

> The best part is that the security is fairly granular, you can control
> who sees what

Except Facebook, who see it all.

> Ooops... ummm... guess I'll just quietly ... err... addicted? moi?

<grin!>

>>>> -Sazz, off, off and away girl
>>> 
>>> Bon voyage ... I'll think of you doing a Gracie Fields impersonation:
>> 
>> Ditto, except for the Gracie Fields bit.
>> 
> Thanks. She's before my time.

And mine.  Despite Alan's delightfully tuneful rendition, I didn't
recognise the song at all, which is quite a comfort to me in my not
so old age.

Stuart