Ratcheting Pruning Shears! Since it’s December, let’s use my new pruners as the kick-off for our first 2012 in retrospective thread – what’s the best tool/gadget/gizmo/hack you’ve found this year?
technology
Matt Honan on the End of the Age of the Password
Times have changed. We’ve entrusted everything we have to a fundamentally broken system. The first step is to acknowledge that fact. The second is to fix it.
Conroy backs down on internet filter
It’s good to see Stephen Conroy finally face the facts: his filter proposal was about as clever as equipping a blue whale to pursue a vulture.
Privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, outing, accountability: where are the boundaries?
There are competing ethical imperatives, and there’s a balance to be found. It is basic courtesy to respect a pseudonym or some in-confidence knowledge about a person generally, but should that expected courtesy take precedence over the protection of other people from harm which could be avoided if they knew what you know?
Friday Hoyden: Ada Lovelace Day roundup
It was Ada Lovelace Day on Tuesday this week, celebrating women’s achievements in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. There’s lots of excellent weekend reading. Did you go to any Ada Lovelace Day events this year? Tell us about it if you did.
ObFreeFallSpaceJump post: a little detail I was glad to discover
Because I obviously haven’t been paying enough attention, I hadn’t realised that Joseph Kittinger, the USAF officer who previously held the record for highest/fastest freefall parachute jump after the 1959-60 Project Excelsior research into high-altitude bailouts, was part of the team for Felix Baumgartner’s successful attempt on those records.
Helpful Hint of The Day: being *on the internet*
A Handy Test for Reddit Users: Are You on the Internet Right Now?
This week on Feminism 101 Blog: Cyberbullying 101/Book Recs for Teens/Privacy 101
Please follow the links and leave some feedback/suggestions/recommendations.
Feminism 101 Blog: Cyberbullies 101 Part 1
I’d appreciate some feedback and especially additional tips and tricks that I have overlooked in my latest #FF101 post | Cyberbullies 101: Part 1 – muffling their megaphones
The thing about intimidatory silencing tactics?
Sometimes they work out exactly as the malicious arseholes want them to, grinding people down until they feel the need to stop speaking out. But the technology that gives the bullies a megaphone to amplify their intimidation is a two-edged sword.