The Blork Blog

This post is embarrassing to write because I have to admit to having been something less than a rocket scientist when it comes to HDTV. It’s true that HDTV is a quagmire of formats, conflicting opinions, hype, and commercial madness. No mere mortal can be expected to understand it without doing an awful lot of […]

People sometimes wonder why I’m always slagging Microsoft. No, really. Apparently it’s not obvious to some people.
So here’s an example. I recently changed my computer setups, both at the office and at home, from using wired trackballs to wireless mice. The mouse I installed at the office was from Microsoft. The mouse I installed at […]

This one with malicious “adware.”
One of the things about Facebook that has most concerned me is the proliferation of “apps” or “widgets,” those sometimes fun, sometimes annoying add-ons like “Scrabblicious,” “Six degrees,” and “Superlatives.”
Specifically, it bothers me that these apps ask you to hand over your entire profile and all its goodies in order for […]

The uproar over Facebook and it’s Beacon advertising platform has died down somewhat, although that doesn’t mean Beacon is any less of a bad idea. But I thought I’d share a few other Facebook tales for those who aren’t following the story too closely.
Flagrant Violation of VPPA
One of Facebook’s Beacon partners is Blockbuster, the movie […]

As you probably already know, Facebook recently introduced Beacon, its latest privacy invasion and marketing crapola feature designed to look like a fun “sharing” thing when in fact it is just another monster in the Mark Zuckerberg “monetize everything” world of Facebook.
Here are a few reasons why Beacon sucks and should be banished from Facebook […]

If you think ice cream is necessarily made from cream, or even milk, you’d be wrong. Indeed some ice cream is made from those ingredients, but most is not. Most commercial ice cream on the market today is composed primarily of “modified milk ingredients,” which can mean any of a number of different factory goops […]

Yesterday, Patrick at i.never.nu posted a passionate and erudite denunciation of the current trend towards the mainstreaming of blogs. He points out that until recently, many (most?) bloggers were happy to be apart from the mainstream; we revelled in our independence from the need to generate revenue streams and to follow marketing plans. It was […]