Chill in my Googalalia : "how much do they know" ?
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Hi, Today was reading an e-mail, using Google, from a friend in Florida who mentioned he was thinking about joining a yoga group in Sarasota. The default habit of inattention that allows me to ignore the Google ads on the right margin of the reader page was subliminally snapped : I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites. The idea that Google was at the least scanning my e-mail for keywords to target ads was accompanied by a non-delicious frisson of paranoia. Followed by my unsuccessfully trying to remember the feeling of being a violated virgin :) Oh God, have I been naive again; have they been been having their way with me semiotically ? :) best, Bill
"The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light that can spring from their contact." Milan Kundera in Testaments Trahis
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Hi, Today was reading an e-mail, using Google, from a friend in Florida who mentioned he was thinking about joining a yoga group in Sarasota. The default habit of inattention that allows me to ignore the Google ads on the right margin of the reader page was subliminally snapped : I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites. The idea that Google was at the least scanning my e-mail for keywords to target ads was accompanied by a non-delicious frisson of paranoia. Followed by my unsuccessfully trying to remember the feeling of being a violated virgin :) Oh God, have I been naive again; have they been been having their way with me semiotically ? :) best, Bill
"The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light that can spring from their contact." Milan Kundera in Testaments Trahis
BillWoodruff wrote:
I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites.
Yeah, that happens :) I personally do not think it is a bad thing. I just ignore most of them.
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) -
BillWoodruff wrote:
I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites.
Yeah, that happens :) I personally do not think it is a bad thing. I just ignore most of them.
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) -
Hi, Today was reading an e-mail, using Google, from a friend in Florida who mentioned he was thinking about joining a yoga group in Sarasota. The default habit of inattention that allows me to ignore the Google ads on the right margin of the reader page was subliminally snapped : I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites. The idea that Google was at the least scanning my e-mail for keywords to target ads was accompanied by a non-delicious frisson of paranoia. Followed by my unsuccessfully trying to remember the feeling of being a violated virgin :) Oh God, have I been naive again; have they been been having their way with me semiotically ? :) best, Bill
"The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light that can spring from their contact." Milan Kundera in Testaments Trahis
BillWoodruff wrote:
The default habit of inattention that allows me to ignore the Google ads on the right margin of the reader page was subliminally snapped : I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites.
This is not new. In fact I think it's as old as GMail itself.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1, 1954)
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leppie wrote:
I just ignore most of them.
If you're running Firefox then you can get greasemonkey scripts to remove the adverts (or extensions).
Yes, but Google still thinks ads that correspond to your content are there. I don't think the ads are what bothers the OP.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1, 1954)
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Hi, Today was reading an e-mail, using Google, from a friend in Florida who mentioned he was thinking about joining a yoga group in Sarasota. The default habit of inattention that allows me to ignore the Google ads on the right margin of the reader page was subliminally snapped : I realized that most of the ads targeted yoga classes and yoga-related sites. The idea that Google was at the least scanning my e-mail for keywords to target ads was accompanied by a non-delicious frisson of paranoia. Followed by my unsuccessfully trying to remember the feeling of being a violated virgin :) Oh God, have I been naive again; have they been been having their way with me semiotically ? :) best, Bill
"The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light that can spring from their contact." Milan Kundera in Testaments Trahis
Hi, Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo and any kind of mail are PUBLIC. People should realize that, if they want real privacy, they should use applications like PGP and/or digital signatures. Open the mail to view the encripted data and decrypting it outside, in notepad for e.g. It is like the stupid thing of recording a call I a say "bomb". If I am a terrorist I won't use phones or anything that has no a strong encryption. Best regards, Mauro.