Month: November 2013

Did you sense a disturbance in the Googleverse? After the geek masters at Google granted the not so rich & obscure masses the ability to claim their custom +Username (aka vanity or custom URL), “millions” cried out in terror over the inability to select their +Username of choice! Surely out of all the John Smiths & Mary Janes online (& on Google+), they are the world’s favorite! Joking aside Google needs a better policy for awarding popular custom URL’s to passionate users without adding silly numbers or letters at the end (lest they lose credibility as a legitimate identity service like Twitter, Facebook, App.net, et al). While bidding for them could be a solution (after all Google may charge users for the privilege of owning a custom URL), a better solution might be found upon the world, wide web. Enter The -Dragon- Domainer‽ Google has a beautiful tool called Google Authorship which helps the search engine king identify which sites a user owns. Google could determine that if a user owns FirstnameLastname.com (& is actively using it) then that individual should be awarded the +FirstnameLastname custom username. In case where multiple Plusers (what I lovingly call Google+ guys & gals) own similar domains with differing domain extensions (like .com, .net, .co.uk, .co, .me, .xxx, etcetera) then Google can determine which active domain was registered first & award +username based...

So @Jazz Shaw of HotAir.com fame responded to a New York Times article in which Edward Snowden appealed to the US government to stop labeling him as a traitor. “As to the traitor thing, we’ve heard the same song and dance from Assange for a long time. In fact, in terms of media availability, the two should be considered relatively indistinguishable at this point. But if you don’t care for traitor, how about…dirtbag? (via Hot Air, Note: Emphasis mine)” Is Snowden a traitor‽ Technically yes, as Snowden did reveal classified information to world about how the NSA was spying en mass on American citizens (especially “love interests”), illegally hacking into Google & Yahoo servers, severely weakening security protocols for financial institutions (as well as the web in general) without having to ask a robed master in black (aka a Judge) for prior permission in writing! (aka a warrant!) If that makes Snowden a traitor then please tell me what a patriot is‽ After all, our founding fathers also seemed to object to intrusive searches sans court order by the British (which is probably why they wrote the Forth Amendment. Jazz Shaw probably loathes Snowden, as do many conservatives & progressives who worship at the feet of the state (at least when their party is in power). But honestly I’m glad Snowden exposed the NSA’s disregard of civil liberties to...