JPod Review

JPod, Coupland. No. While I didn’t hate this book, and indeed by and large enjoyed reading it, it’s ultimately so masturbatory that I don’t believe I gained anything from the reading. I should note that my librarian insisted I read it, despite suspecting I would not want to have read it. Turns out my librarian knows my taste pretty well.
On a technical note, the only error I noted was where the book read, “North Korean president Kim II Sung.” This error is hard to spot in a sans-serif font (I’m letting the lack of a hyphen slide), but the book was not set in such a type. I suppose I have to thank whoever made the error, though, in that I likely would not otherwise have learned that—despite his death—Kim Il-Sung is still the president.

Things I didn't know #536: Flash keeps cookies

If you follow this link, you’ll see a control panel (you can also get to it by right-clicking on the Flash player (when you’re visiting a site with a Flash component) and selecting “Settings…”). You will likely be surprised at how many sites are listed there, and you may be somewhat alarmed to find them there at all (as I was) if you have instructed your browser to clear cookies on close, or you otherwise remove persistent tracking information. This site information is, in every way that matters, a persistent cookie. I discovered this cache of data after wondering how it was that Pandora knew who I was after I cleared all offline data. Adobe doesn’t exactly hide it (and once you’re on the page where you can make the adjustments, there’s a decent explanation of what they mean), but they sure don’t make it easy to find, and they absolutely don’t do what I would consider the right thing; i.e., to respect my browser’s privacy settings and delete site-specific data per my instructions. There’s another page in the settings manager where you can deny any or all sites permission to save information, but Pandora (at least) refuses to operate without the ability to save data on my machine, so the only way I’ve found to keep my machine clear of Flash-based tracking cookies is to manually clear them using the control panel (which I have bookmarked for convenient access).

These are the people I serve

You don’t have to read the article, because the story is quite sad. A few excerpts, however, from the 14 year old girls who are the subject of the article:
“We were like wicked tired and we didn’t really mean to,”

“‘Cause you’re sleeping and then you wake up under the train and you’re like, ‘What?'”

“When your bones that have never touched the air touch the air, it’s like putting a Popsicle on your bottom teeth,” Rachel says.
“Except for times a million,” Destiny says.

“I was like, ‘Whatever, I lost a leg, it will grow back.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait a minute. No, it won’t.'”

“It’s like I lost a part of myself. … It feels like a part of me is dead, because it’s gone.”

King George: What Was His Problem? Review

King George: What Was His Problem? Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn’t Tell You About the American Revolution, Sheinkin. Non-fiction. This was a very quick read that I picked up on the recommendation of my librarian. Sheinkin has apparently contributed to several textbooks, and textbook editors weren’t interested in what he considered the most interesting quotes and anecdotes he found while researching, so he’s making them available in a series of non-text history books. It reads a little younger than middle school to me, but that may be an effort to broaden its appeal to more than just the readers (i.e., those who read for pleasure). I now know far more about the War of American Independence than I ever have. It won’t last long, but it was pleasant to get there.