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Viewing posts tagged technology

Choices

So I'm moving my blog, but where to?

There are several hosting offers out there, for example:

Does my TV want to spy on me?

Yesterday, my TV asked me:

For quality and improvement purposes, your usage statistics about the TV system and remote will be sent to the Sony server. It will exclude personal and individually identifiable information. Would you like to enable this setting?

At least they are asking, but it does leave a couple of questions:
  • What exact information gets collected?
  • What does Sony consider being "personal information"?
  • How do they ensure that it is not "individually identifiable"?
  • What exactly are those "improvement purposes"?
  • Where exactly do they collect this information?
  • How well is it secured, especially with Sony's less than stellar track record in this regard?
  • How can I be sure that it's not collecting the data anyway regardless that I turned it off?
I guess the only way to answer the last question is to buy a managed network switch that lets me monitor traffic on specific ports...

Dimensions of Cinema

With all the talk about how bad the current 3D boom in cinema supposedly is, doesn't anybody remember how the demise of silent movies practically inhibited all creativity? How adding colour killed off artistic expression? And how CGI made everything artificial and bland? Oh, it didn't and the cinema is very much still alive, with countless multi-million revenue productions and artistically low-budget movies each year?

Replacing Lamps

I've replaced the lamps in my living room today, as the light was too faint to read a newspaper. This is how cheap IKEA lamps look like after approximately 10,000 hours of operation: