Michel Vuijlsteke's weblog

Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers
Upon inspecting closer, I noticed that my entire address book (including full names, emails and phone numbers) was being sent as a plist to Path. Now I don’t remember having given permission to Path to access my address book and send its contents to its servers, so I created a completely new “Path” and repeated the experiment and I got the same result – my address book was in Path’s hands.

Domestic violence blighted my home. That’s why I support Refuge | Patrick Stewart | Comment is free | The Guardian
Patrick Stewart's very moving article on domestic violence.

The Fireplace Delusion : Sam Harris
The case against burning wood is every bit as clear as the case against smoking cigarettes. Indeed, it is even clearer, because when you light a fire, you needlessly poison the air that everyone around you for miles must breathe. Even if you reject every intrusion of the “nanny state,” you should agree that the recreational burning of wood is unethical and should be illegal, especially in urban areas.

Men Don’t Tell | MetaFilter
Goddamn, Metafilter, sometimes you depress me.

This Is What A Scientist Looks Like
Change the perception of who and what a scientist is or isn't.

Maltese language – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dieventaal, ik zeg het u. Romance language-speakers may easily be able to comprehend more complex ideas expressed in Maltese, such as "Ġeografikament, l-Ewropa hi parti tas-superkontinent ta' l-Ewrasja" (Geographically, Europe is part of the Supercontinent of Eurasia), while not understanding a single word of a simple sentence such as "Ir-raġel qiegħed fid-dar" (The man is in the house), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker.

Panopticlick
Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies.

Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits.

The 7 Absolute Worst Tech Gifts to Give This Holiday
The Non-Denominational Secular Thing Buying Period is upon us! Now is the time to start thinking about which shiny, sorta-expensive gadget gift you're going to bestow upon friends and lovers. Make sure you don't pick these. They're worse than coal.

Progressive Ears Album Reviews
Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh is unarguably flawless. Enjoying it is only a matter of taste. In my case, according to my taste, it is the greatest album ever recorded. Five Stars.

Fifth World Problems
Did the red-eyed horsemen of Babylon X attack your hyperdaughter?
Did a golden mouth appear in a bonfire and scream the date of your own death at you?
Are pools of blood forming in your hands whenever you cup them, only to coagulate into the form of a tiny baby with three heads?

iPhoneTracker
This open-source application maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements. It doesn't record anything itself, it only displays files that are already hidden on your computer.

URL Hunter!
An experimental game using the URL bar as the game screen.

The patter of little feet. | MetaFilter
Kid Crazy: Why We Exaggerate the Joys of Parenthood. All parents know that having kids is a blessing, even if researchers don't agree. Researchers have known for some time that parents with minors who live at home report feeling calm significantly less often than than people who don't live with young children. Parents are also angrier and more depressed than nonparents — and each additional child makes them even angrier. Couples who choose not to have kids also have better, more satisfying marriages than couples who have kids.' Yet parents report quite the opposite. How to reconcile this? New research in cognitive-dissonance looks at parenting.

ThinkProgress » Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical ‘Sock Puppets’
Last year, Koch Industries began employing New Media Strategies (NMS), an Internet PR firm that specializes in “word-of-mouth marketing” for major corporations including Coca-Cola, Burger King, AT

Hunch Blog | Blog Archive | You’ve got mail: What your email domain says about you
Gmail users are most likely to be thin young men ages 18-34 who are college-educated and not religious. Like other young Hunch users, they tend to be politically liberal, single (and ready to mingle), and childless. Gmail users live in cities and have traveled to five or more countries. They’re career-focused and plugged in — they mostly read blogs, have an iPhone and laptop, and listen to music via MP3s and computers (but they don’t have a DVR). At home, they lounge around in a t-shirt and jeans. Gmail users prefer salty snacks and are introverted and entrepreneurial. They are optimistic or pessimistic, depending on the situation.

The Official DreamHost Blog! » Wren Jones
Ik. Moet. Er. Niet. Aan. Denken. Finally, have you ever heard (or can you even imagine hearing) somebody say, “If only I’d had a home birth, my baby would be alive.”?Because if only I hadn’t.

Wren Jones
If only we’d never seen the fucking “Business of Being Born.”If only we didn’t live in hippy dippy Santa Monica.If only we couldn’t afford to do a home birth.If only there had been some pregnancy complication.If only the OBs had told us WHY we shouldn’t do a home birth.

Stupid EU cookie law will hand the advantage to the US, kill our startups stone dead
Lees zeker ook de uitstekende reactie van Pascal Van Hecke.

Films Universal Studios Will be making Instead of At the Mountains of Madness
Ah fer fuck's sake. Er komt blijkbaar geen At the Mountains of Madness. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Oh, absoluut.

I guess there are some people who are very uncomfortable with the fact that I and many other women are writing about our children on our websites. How dare we violate your privacy like this, how dare we endanger you like this, we obviously care more about ad revenue than what this is going to do to your adolescence. And I have been asked countless times if I am at all worried that you will totally resent me for the details I have shared here. Of course you will you resent me. I have no doubt that you will spend years of your life resenting me and being embarrassed that we have the same last name, despite the fact that I have and will spend years of my life writing love letters to you on the Internet. Despite the fact that I have declared to millions of people that you are the most amazing thing that has ever happened to my life.

Jan is trouwens op een paar dagen na even oud als Leta.

Mijn madam, die nochtans helemaal thuis is op internet en dergelijke, vroeg mij gisteren vanuit de andere zetel of Luc Van Braekel nu bij het Vlaams Blok was.

Dat is zo ongeveer het laatste dat ik me kan inbeelden dat ooit zou gebeuren, en mijn eerste gedacht was dat ze het over het nieuwe logo had, maar nee:

Een samenloop van omstandigheden wellicht, “Ads door Google” even breed en net gesandwiched tussen de geselecteerde tab “nederlands” en de categorienaam eronder, de rest van de advertentieregel in de ongeveer dezelfde kleur als de andere tabs… een indruk is snel gemaakt.

AdSense, ‘t is soms een lotterij.

Op hetzelfde onderwerp, of toch ongeveer: iemand anders uit de familie, ook niet onvertrouwd met internet (of toch niet onvertrouwd met e-mail ) is aan het overstappen naar GMail.

Zij was een mailconversatie bezig met iemand anders, over iets dat ze confidentieel wou houden—en plots verschijnen er allemaal advertenties naast die mail, precies over dat waar ze over aan het mailen zijn. “Wil dat dat zeggen dat ze daar weten wat ik aan het schrijven ben?”

Euh, ja, zeker? Maar we hebben hun woord dat ze er niets mee doen, zeker? Do no evil en zo, zeker?