Google’s new privacy policy?

I got an e-mail saying that Google would be updating it’s privacy policy as of March 1st this year.  Normally such e-mails would probably go straight into the bin, but I recall seeing something about this newly updated privacy policy in the news, so I decided to take a look.

First of all, the e-mail doesn’t actually contain the new privacy policy.  You have to click through to a website, and then from there, follow another a link, in order to find the actual privacy policy wording.

I have a feeling that companies intentionally make privacy policies as reader un-friendly as possible in order to perhaps mask their true nature?  The new Google privacy policy comes in at 2,258 words, which is long even by my verbose standards.  While it seems like they have done their best to keep it simple, I can’t really make sense of what the actual changes are or how they use my information.  Google says “We’ll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for and get you those results faster”.  Yes, I appreciate it that when I type in “New World” into Google I get the locations and phone numbers for the nearest supermarkets, not Mallick’s “The New World”, or stuff about monkeys with prehensile tails.  Google knowing who I am and my browsing history makes life easier for me in some ways.  However, it also means some information may be more difficult for me to access or find, simply because it’s not part of my normal internet usage routine.

I also have a feeling that Google tends to get away with stuff, because unlike Facebook (at least for me), we trust Google.  We think of Google as the benevolent information overlord, who wants to help us find what we want, give us efficient e-mail and other services.

I am not one of those people who is exceptionally private (hence, this blog), nor am I exceptionally paranoid that people are stealing my personal information and using it to do terrible things behind my back, however, I do fear a world where that kind of thing happens and no one can do anything about it.

So, can I wean myself off Google products?  What alternatives are there?  And, should I be concerned about Google’s ethics on my privacy and personal information? I have no idea.  But thinking about these kinds of questions can’t hurt.

I’ve just realised lately I have been writing a lot about technology and how it’s impact on society.  It’s certainly not a topic I am particularly an expert in, but it does interest me.  I am sure there are other people with a great deal more actual knowledge on the topic than me, but what is this blog if not a place where I can talk a bunch of shit without any real facts to back it up?

twenty twelve

The year started off with some bad luck (demagnetised debit card, banks closed, no money, a bent rear bicycle wheel and 133 km wind for days), but things seem to be looking brighter.

In particular, I am looking forward to the following events:

Films by Starlight

Wednesday 18 January – Exit Through The Gift Shop

Thursday 19 January – Bill Cunningham New York

Wednesday 25 January – Kaikohe Demolition

Thursday 26 January- Labyrinth

All happening in the Dell at the Botanic Gardens around dusk.

Loads of international acts coming to town!

Sun Araw on 3 February

Not my favourite band ever, but something to do.

Dan Deacon on 4 Febraury

I saw Dan Deacon several years ago in Montreal, and I have to say it was hands down one the funnest shows I have ever been to.  He was basically just playing music off his iPod, and got the entire audience (at Sala Rosa) to have a dance-off.  The full story is that I was almost forced to go and dance in front of the entire audience but thankfully the song ended just as eye contact was made and I narrowly escaped complete embarrassment. I’m certain good times will be had, and only $15!  What a value!

Real Estate 16 March

Pitchfork’s and All Song Considered’s darlings should put on a good show.

Wooden Shjips on 2 April

I like their music.

Camp a Low Hum in February not far from Wellington…

Camping!  Music!

I’m still undecided about Laneway (30 January in Auckland)… I asked my mum to buy me a ticket for Christmas.  We’ll see if she comes through.

Some cool things happening at Fred’s in the upcoming weeks…

The next few weeks look promising.  I’m going to all the above mentioned shows alone, except for CALH, but the loneliness of a girl at a show by herself doesn’t deter me.

Last weekend I went to see Bond Street Bridge and the Broken Heartbreakers at Meow.  The music was amazing, the venue awful.  The acoustics are terrible and the audience wouldn’t shut up!  Bond Street Bridge in particular was so lovely.  I had a chance to have a word with Sam after the show and guess what…. he’s a librarian!  Hence the ode to Sir Francis Drake and other obscure naval history references in his music.  I also asked Rachel from the Broken Heartbreakers to explain the etymology of the band’s name. Is it that they re-break previously broken hearts, or are they heartbreakers who are broken?  It turns out to be the latter.

I also went to see Beirut last week at the Opera House.  It was amazing, though I wish we had been closer!  Also the ushers at the Opera House take their jobs way, way too seriously.

After the show we went to Hawthorn Lounge, a lovely place I highly recommend, especially if you enjoy obscure cocktails in swanky surroundings and barmen with sleeve garters and bowties.    A nice lady gave us 1/2 a bottle of Prosecco and then I decided to head home.  I had to dash back to the Opera House to grab my bicycle… and guess who I saw loading out in the alley?  Not Zach Condon, but the rest of the band.  I wanted to say something, but being a star-struck super fan meant I could only manage “Hey that show was really great” to which I got a warm thank you and then I ran away feeling like an idiot.

It’s shaping up to be a fun-filled summer.  I hope to do more cycling, picnicking, sitting in the sun drinking bloody marys in the afternoon… oh and maybe getting some work done on my coding and analysis.  Right now Nvivo is giving me a headache so I am ignoring it.

I really like this song:

I hope that in 2012 there are more women rapping about “I guess that cunt getting eatin” whilst wearing cut-offs so short the pockets hang out.

things I did today

This is what I did to really kick off 2012:

• Went for a 5 km jog
• Worked for 3 hours at Te Papa
• Went to my office
• Gave $2 to a guy playing the accordion on the waterfront
• Talked on the phone for 1 hour
• Finished transcribing an interview
• Spent about a half hour working with Nvivo and doing some preliminary coding
• Rode my bicycle home
• Listened to the new Proopcast
• Fed the neighbours cat
• Made crepes with yogurt bechamel sauce, gruyere, carrots and cabbage, and with some left over strawberry coulis I made on Sunday for dessert (they were delicious)
• Successfully re-arranged my stereo and connected the sub-woofer which I got out of the attic
• Danced around in my living room to my newly more bassy stereo
• Vacuumed
• Washed the dishes
• Mopped the kitchen floor
• Watched half an episode of Portlandia
• Spent 1 hour writing e-mails
• Folded my clean laundry and put it away
• Drank a glass of wine
• Updated my blog twice

Ok, I haven’t actually folded my laundry yet, or mopped the kitchen floor, but I’m halfway there with the laundry and will mop the floor before I go to bed.  But first I might watch the rest of that episode of Portlandia.  Is it just me or is Carrie Brownstein amazingly awesome?

busking in Wellington on a public holiday

Sorry, I would love to have accompanying photos of the buskers, but my camera is too bulky to carry around with me.

Anyway, today is a public holiday here in new Zealand and Wellington is kinda shut down.  However, I did see quite a few buskers which I thought I would write about as they were all quite distinct and interesting.

1. Maori  guy playing guitar in Newtown with amplifier (usually at Saturday makret or outside Newtown New World)
2. “If you think I’m sexy” trumpet player with bird puppet on waterfront (never before seen)
3. Old man with bowtie and button accordion (I gave him $2)
4. White dude playing Sublime covers in railway station underpass

2011 in review

Well, it’s the 2nd to last day of 2011 and I have been thinking that it would be a good idea to post my favourite new musical discoveries of 2011 before Pitchfork comes out with their “Best of 2011″ list, to see if there is any cross-over.

I must stress that this list is not restricted only to songs released in 2011, but rather songs I discovered in 2011.  So, it’s completely personal and not a remotely objective attempt to summarise this year in music on a general level.

I know what you’re thinking.  “Nicole, this list has a lot of similarities to NPR’s All Songs Considered Listeners’ Picks of 2011 show.”  It’s true.  I don’t claim to be original in any way.  I have to find out about new music like everyone else.  And, it’s easier to let other people with similar taste to mine put the effort into weeding through all the shit and identifying what is actually good.

So, without further ado, here is the list of my 2011 musical discoveries, and, if you want to download the songs, you can do so here.

I suppose for the title of this post to be accurate, I should discuss the rest of 2011, rather than just music that was new to me.

As far as other entertainment, I have really enjoyed discovering the following TV programs as well:

• Parks & Recreation
• Game of Thrones
• Downton Abbey
• Mildred Pierce
• The Crimson Petal & the White

And, George R. R. Martin’s fiction.  I wasn’t crazy about Freedom by Jonathan Franzen or A Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Sheytngart, which, to be honest, are probably the only other novels I have read this year.  Oh wait, I also read Alias Grace by Margret Atwood, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and the Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill.  Sadly, that may have been everything, though I think I am forgetting a few.  8 books isn’t epic, but maybe better than some?  Especially considering at one point I had more than 37 books on loan from the VUW library for school related reading.  Honestly, for most of this year the last thing I wanted to do was come home and night and do more reading.  Hence my interest in TV the last 12 months.

A very Merry un-Christmas, to you.

There was absolutely nothing Christmassy about December 25th this year.  It was a beautiful day in Wellington, hot and sunny, and amazingly wind-free.  I spent it at the beach, with friends, but it felt nothing like Christmas.

I tried playing my Reggae Christmas album on my iPod but then I was asked to play something different.  There was no gift exchanging, no snow, no Santa, no family dinner, no carols, no chestnuts roasting on an open fire, no jack frost nipping at my nose.

The Un-Christmas

Bubbles on the beach

Here are more photos from the holiday season.

more sewing adventures

I put away the chiffon for the time being and am instead trying to use up some my more wild prints.  The fabrics themselves inspired these two new dresses I made this week:

This print reminded me of something vaguely southwestern and Mexican.  So my first idea was a kind of poncho-like dress, but, that looked terrible on me, so I gathered the shoulders and put some pleats in the front and back at the waist, and voilà!  I didn’t use any kind of pattern for this dress… I just cut out a neck hole, sewed up the sides, and then added the pleats & gathers.

This print is so awesome and big and beautiful that I realised it needed to be showcased in a large format.  I haven’t really gotten on board with the maxi dress trend, though I do have one I bought in Laos that is a pretty Thai floral cotton print, but I usually just wear it for pyjamas.  However after watching Project Runway I decided I should go for a maxi with this amazing 70′s print.  I looked at a few tutorials, like Made By Lex’s Maxi Dress Tutorial, and the SoHo Maxi Dress tutorial and just started cutting.  I was limited by the amount of fabric I had… and the top turned out a bit skimpy, so I have to wear something under it if I want it to be office-appropriate, even with a cardigan.  Again, I didn’t use a pattern, but instead cut out the skirt based on my measurements, and then made 4 triangles for the top.  I used the twisty-strap idea from Lex’s tutorial, but did an empire waist rather than break up the print with a lower waist or waistband.  Both of these dresses came together in… under 2 or 3 hours each, and hopefully will get a lot of wear this summer! Unfortunately I still have a massive pile of fabric waiting to be turned into something fabulous, but, like my thesis, slowly and surely I am getting through it.

Also recently I knitted an iPod/iPhone cozy that I quite like.  In fact, I liked it so much, I knitted another one.  I may even start on a 3rd soon.

dear internet, make our video viral

I finally put the finishing touches on the Bearded Axe Wound Spaghetti Dinner performance art video me and the ladies made a couple of years ago… it included learning how to use iMovie and editing some of our BAW recordings in GarageBand (and adding a laugh track).  I ended up layering a few tracks together so you hear me playing both drums and accordion (something that is physically impossible) in the audio, Caroline’s fabulous vocal stylings and guitar chops, Corina’s electronic world of wonder, and Cathy on the tuba.

As of yet our video only has 14 views, which surprises me as it seems on par with “Double Rainbow all the way” and other viral awesomeness.  So, I realised this must be a marketing issue and I am not effectively publicizing our vision.  So if you could mention our video on your podcast or on your blog the ladies of BAW would appreciate it.  If this video goes viral, it may be the catalyst we need to re-form and start performing again, perhaps even headlining a world-tour in the near future?! Though honestly, I’m not quite sure the world is ready for Bearded Axe Wound and our unique sound.

Love, Coco Coquine

personal correspondence: planned obsolescence?

I generally use Mac Mail (.app) for most of my correspondence requirements, however I also have been known to correspond via the archaic handwritten letter or postcard method form time to time.  However, when I am in my office, something about the VUW firewall or servers blocks my Gmail SMTP server, so I can’t send mail from my personal account.  Often I will just use my VUW staff e-mail and gmail accounts interchangeably, however if I want to send e-mail from my gmail account while in my office, I must use the gmail web interface. I have actually spoken to University ITS about this and they seem to fix it so I can use the outgoing Gmail server for a day, and then it doesn’t work again the following day.  So, I use gmail.com, which has recently undergone some kind of redesign.  The gmail.com redesign doesn’t irritate me quite so much as the new version of Exchange Webmail, which I abhor yet am forced to use to check my University mail away from my laptop or iMac, however, there is one feature of the new gmail web interface which disquiets me.

Now, whenever I type an e-mail to, for example, my mother, or my sweetie, or my best pal, gmail suggests including several other people in the e-mail.   I feel as if this is some kind of subliminal push from Google to end personal correspondence between two individuals.  It’s as if Google is implying that sending a message to one individual person is a waste of time, that instead you should include 10 other people in your communication.  While I suppose the engineers and whatnot at Google simply intended this feature to be a useful organisational tool for users of Gmail, I find it has disturbing implications for the future of personal correspondence.  Gone are the days when it was normal to communicate with one person at a time, corresponding back and forth with sweet intimate letters like Vladimir and Véra Nabokov or Napoleon and Josephine.  I can just imagine Napoleon logging into his gmail account, writing “Je reviens en trois jours, ne te laves pas” and gmail suggesting he include 20 of his closest buddies in the e-mail, and then sharing it on Twitter and Facebook and Google+ as well.

Poor Josephine would have been mortified.  Or perhaps she would have been turned on?  Who knows, maybe she was a narcissistic exhibitionist…not that I’m saying everybody who uses Twitter or Facebook is.  But I think a certain expert did said something about these types of social networking tools as encouraging shallow interactions and dehumanizing communication.  And now Gmail is also on the obsolescence of personal communication bandwagon as well.

Occupy, and what not.

To be honest, I haven’t really been following the Occupy movement very closely.  This is for a number of reasons.  Firstly, living in New Zealand, you don’t so much notice the disparity between the rich and the poor.  That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, but it’s not as noticeable.  Maybe because of NZ’s close economic ties to Asia, the recession hasn’t hit as hard here as it has elsewhere.  Whatever the reason, most people don’t really have a reason to complain here.  Tertiary education is affordable, students get paid to study, people can live on unemployment benefits, and get healthcare.  I’m not saying it’s perfect here, and the current recently re-elected government is a centre-right majority, in favour of cutting many social welfare programmes. However, overall, I would say the people who are bad off here, are still a lot better off than the bad off are in other places, like the USA.

Regardless, the Occupy movement does exist here, and the Occupy Wellington movement is located right behind the library near Civic Square.  I passed by it on my way to a kayaking lesson on Sunday and was surprised to see all the tents, which I somehow hadn’t managed to notice before.

Perhaps part of the reason why I don’t feel implicated in the Occupy movement is simply because I feel so politically powerless.  I live in New Zealand, but can’t vote here.  The only place I can vote, the USA, I haven’t actually lived for more than a decade.  So, I don’t particularly feel engaged in politics or economics on any level.  I know this is a self-imposed ignorance, but I feel so overwhelmed trying to understand the situation, I just want to avoid information overload and bewilderment and the feelings of angst and helplessness I have when I try to understand.

However, that being said, I hold very liberal political views, and would even in some ways consider myself a “left-wing progressive” or whatever pejorative term conservatives like to use for people who believe that things like human rights and the environment are important.  Therefore, naturally, I support the Occupy movement.  In addition, several of the Occupy sites have libraries, so clearly I am in favour of them.

I like to let people like Greg Proops inform my political opinions, since I think in general I agree with him on most points, certainly regarding the decriminalisation of Marijuana, and a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body.  So, I usually just ascribe to whatever political sentiments he shares via his entertaining and informing Smartest Man in the World Podcast.

Recently he described a situation in which an Occupy protester handed Barack Obama a note.  The message can be clearly read in the following photo:

Which, surprisingly, seemed to go under the radar for most news sources.

I have already admitted to a fear of information overload, however, I do try to follow the news.  On my Google homepage I have, in the following order, the headlines from BBC Asia Pacific, Montreal Gazette, Chicago Tribune, Stuff.co.nz, and BBC world news.  I read the headlines everyday, and usually 2 or 3 different stories, if anything piques my interest.  I also listen to the Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me podcast, which research has shown, is better than not reading any kind of news, so it’s not like I live in a vacuum.  I try to stay at least some what informed about current events.  So, I was surprised to have completed missed hearing about this event. I wanted to share this image and say that I found it strangely moving, and found myself really identifying with the language used to describe how “99%” of people are feeling.  What I found even more moving was the fact, pointed out by Mr. Proops, that the police had/have no right to arrest peaceful protesters in the USA, as it is clearly part of the first amendment’s right to assembly.  The text of which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I found that the Cornell University’s Law School provides the full text of the constitution with detailed annotations.  In my opinion, the protesters involved with the Occupy movement are doing exactly what is protected under their first amendment rights – peaceably assembling and petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances.  Therefore, the fact that they are being arrested, libraries being destroyed and books being thrown away (umm… Nazi Germany?) is just one step away from some Orwellian nightmare.  The reality is that we we cannot peaceably assemble or petition the government to address our grievances, and our freedom is only freedom in the sense that we are free to continue participating and consuming within our global capitalist economy.  However,  I can only hope that sooner or later, people won’t be content with new pieces of shiny plastic or cars to drive us back and forth to the mall, and will wake up from the catatonic stupor of materialism and realise shit has to change.