Everybody is a know-it-all these days — chicagotribune.com.

I am not interested in the take of @stinky on the Fort Hood shootings or any other current events. I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.

I agree.  If I wanted to listen to a bunch of people rant–often illogically–about the latest news stories, I’d go to a bar or a coffee shop.  A news organization should filter out the noise, not promote it.  Twitter has its place in this world, but this is just a ratings grab.

True Geolocation Publishing Freaks People Out

It’s all well and good when it’s just you, your wife, and friends (real friends, not those 457 Facebook friends).  But let me tap into people’s fears with this one: what if it’s an ex, The Hamburglar, or–gasp!–a Socialist?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/24/nsfw-weezer-plane-crashes-and-everything-else-thats-worrying-about-the-real-time-web/

Okay, I wouldn’t call this NSFW, but my standards are not your standards, so there ya go.

Highlights:

In truth the desire is far more cynical: to ensure that the world knows that we were there when something dramatic happened. I was on the scene, I was somewhere you weren’t – and I have the photos and tweets and videos to prove it. Check out my YouTube account; follow me on Twitter. LOOK AT ME, LOOKING AT THIS.

Reminds me of the t-shirts people bought and wore the day after a concert.

And speaking of concerts:

I mean, what were we all doing? Filming and tweeting and checking in rather than just putting our phones away and enjoying the gig. Why does the world need two thousand photos of the same band on the same stage, all taken from a slightly different angle. That kind of 360 degree imagery might have been useful on the day Kennedy was shot – not least because it would have kept Oliver Stone quiet – but for a Weezer gig? And what’s the point of checking in on Foursquare at a ticketed event that no one else can get into. You might as well tweet “I’m a dick” and be done with it.

Okay, so I put the answer before the question, but I wanted to use that nice segue.  And let me not forget the irony: this post, as part of a personal experiment, will be tweeted.  Because how else can I prove it exists? </sarcasm>

Now that’s a nice surprise to find hiding under the hood.

System Preferences –> Network –> Add (+). Under the Interface dropdown menu select VPN.  Choose your type (Cisco isn’t the only option), enter your credentials, and Bob’s your uncle.

C’mon, Google!  Get your act together.  This is internet history we’re talking about.

Neat.

You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again | Epicenter | Wired.com.

Man, this crap makes me mad.  Cookies are underrated as security threats.  They’re cross platform (no OS is immune), and now I find out that the cookie-culling I’ve been doing of late may be moot.

In any case, if you’re running Firefox, get the TACO extension.  One more tool in the privacy kit, as far as I’m concerned.

A carbon fiber electric bike.

A competitor for my N800 (which is acting pretty flaky these days, even though it’s spending most of its time as a glorified alarm clock).

My job requires that I know the region and format (PAL or NTSC) of a large collection of DVDs.  Most come with the information, but there are a few that don’t, and a few with the wrong information altogether.  Searching for a way to automatically determine this information yielded results for bypassing copy protection or region restrictions, but I wasn’t interested in that.  I finally learned that OS X’s DVD player provides that info through the File -> Get Disc Info menu option (or Command+i).  The “Info” tab shows the format under the “Video” panel, and the “Regions” tab displays the disc’s region.

How many times can I say that this is a good idea? The security of my internet connections has been at the center of my attention for years, and it’s why I have a hard time trusting mobile internet access.  With my N800 it’s possible to set up an encrypted ssh tunnel and proxy the web browser through that, but it’s very tricky.  I have no idea if such capabilities exist for the ipod touch.