Facebook Privacy: Oxymoron?

Just askin’, OK? 😀

Many of the most popular applications, or “apps,” on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook’s rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users’ activities secure.

The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It’s unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information.

Better read the whole article, I suppose: Facebook in Online Privacy Breach; Applications Transmitting Identifying Information.

Urie Sharp: Perspectives on Suffering

The morning of October 10 (2010), Bro. Urie preached at our church.

I just uploaded ten tracks containing that message:

  1. Urie Sharp: Track 1
  2. Urie Sharp: Track 2
  3. Urie Sharp: Track 3
  4. Urie Sharp: Track 4
  5. Urie Sharp: Track 5
  6. Urie Sharp: Track 6
  7. Urie Sharp: Track 7
  8. Urie Sharp: Track 8
  9. Urie Sharp: Track 9
  10. Urie Sharp: Track 10

I’m sorry I don’t know how to combine them all into a single mp3 file. (If you want to tell me how to do it, please do!)

Thank You, Tiger Stripes

We didn’t want you in the first place.

But you came anyway.

And you walked right into our lives and into our hearts.

A forlorn, abandoned kitten with a crook in your tail.

But you grew quite a bit in the last couple of months.

Into a healthy, lovable, funny, entertaining, comical, beautiful kitten.

Then we moved to a different place.

Our former landlords would have given you a safer home than this.

But we were too attached.

And I guess I was too selfish.

Tiger Stripes watching me
Watching me change the oil

Now you’re gone.

I just buried you out back, at the edge of the woods.

I can hardly believe it yet.

You were just too fearless and dumb when it came to vehicles.

But I thought you feared the ones zooming by on the road.

Either you didn’t.

Or last night one swerved onto the shoulder to “get” you.

And to think that just last evening I was thinking we should give you to our former landlords.

And now it’s too late.

I’m sorry. For us in particular.

It seems like heartache upon heartache in the midst of enough woes.

Maybe that’s why it hurts as much as it does.

So…thank you for the happiness and comic relief you brought to us.

We will miss you. And so will your good buddy, “Uncle” Tyke.

Tiger Stripes and Tyke
Keeping each other company

Andrée Seu and Glenn Beck

Not to exaggerate, but reading Andrée Seu’s latest article felt a bit like a punch in the gut. She is one of my favorite writers at World Magazine. She writes with skill, grace, wisdom, and spiritual insight.

But now she is saying that she is convinced Glenn Beck is “a new creation in Christ,” even though he is a practicing and believing Mormon.

It’s tragic that she would believe this, write this, and that World would publish it.

A few short thoughts in response.

Up to that point, I agree with Justin Taylor.

And for all that I know, I agree with him after that point. But I haven’t read all that he wrote regarding Andrée Seu’s Tragic Mistake on the Gospel of Glenn Beck.

September 27

Welcome, blue Monday! Or maybe it’s green. Or yellow. Or a rainbow. Whatever it is, I’m glad it is.

So, on this day in history, a few events selected as outstanding if not notable….

1777 — Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is the capital of the United States for one whole day. (For all that I know, it may still be the capital of “Mennonitism.”)

1821 — Mexico gains its independence from Spain…and borrowed from its 47-year-old northern neighbor’s name: Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

1905 — The journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein’s paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc2.

1928 — The United States recognizes the Republic of China. Would it still recognize it today?

1933 — Baby Carol was born. Many years later I became her nephew. Happy Birthday, Aunt Carol!

1939 — Warsaw (Poland) surrenders to both the Nazis and the Communists?!

1964 — The Warren Commission releases its (in)famous report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy. Maybe so.

1979 — The United States Department of Education becomes the thirteenth US Cabinet agency. How lucky is that?!

1994 — More than 350 Republican congressional candidates gather on the steps of the US Capitol to sign the “Contract with America.” How did that hope and change work out?

2010 — Mark and Ruby Roth relocate their sleeping quarters to their next place to live. (At posting time, this is a predicted plan and not an accomplished reality.)

Above all, love God!

since November 9, 2005
Private