Hook Line and Googled

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parrot
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Hook Line and Googled

Post by parrot » July 31, 2017, 3:42 pm

Last night while lulling myself to sleep, I dwelt on all things ‘google’. Like my go-to site for information. Google maps, google photos, and google finance for tracking portfolios. Oh, yeah, then there’s gmail that hasn't failed me once in 10 years, and google scan that works great at precision scanning of photos! Google contacts keeps my phonebook handy no matter where I’m at. Google keyboard (gboard) allows rapid slide-typing in both Thai and English on my mobile phone and gets better the more you use it. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t use google translate. Almost asleep when I realize Chrome, my browser, is also owned by google…...as is my chromecast that I use to watch netflix and youtube everyday. DotVPN, a Chrome extension, may be all I need to ditch my $50/year subscription to Strong VPN.......DotVPN is free and seems to do all the things I need a VPN for. Finally, I think, google docs and google drive that allow me to have access to all my data no matter where I’m at.
I’m so totally screwed if someone pulls the plug on google……...but I don’t lose sleep over it. And except for the extensive dossier that google might have on me, all the above is free and hundreds times better than any of the paid-for programs that I had previously. VisiCalc, anyone?



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neeemu
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by neeemu » July 31, 2017, 5:12 pm

Are you single??

the-monk
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by the-monk » July 31, 2017, 5:31 pm

Have you tried Google Assistant ? << SHE >> can make your coffee and toasts and chat with you.. perfect way to start your day... Have a nice evening

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jimjay
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by jimjay » August 1, 2017, 12:40 am

Indeed parrot, I watch a ton of Youtube, e.g. owned by Google.

And more and more I am visiting Google News as a launch point for my news perusals.

I use Google Images a lot and always select "Tools" which opens a menu for looking for specific sizes of images. I search for maps old and new, and choose the largest possible image size and often find amazing stuff. I do the same for artwork and astronomy etc. Items of such large file size that I can get them printed locally.

A few times I have thought to create my own search engine spiders / indexers on a spare machine at home but for some mysterious reason there are no links to anything useful as far as free search engine software goes. Hmmmmm.

Just found a nifty 1966 map of Long Tieng including the air base. Took the browser a few tries to render it but it finally came up.

http://www.explo-laos.com/Lao%20maps/Ma ... Namcha.jpg

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rjj04
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by rjj04 » August 1, 2017, 5:31 am

“in the three months since Internet monopoly Google announced plans to keep users from accessing ‘fake news,’ the global traffic rankings of a broad range of left-wing, progressive, anti-war and democratic rights organizations have fallen significantly.”

Google’s strategy is to downgrade search results for targeted Web sites based on a supposed desire to limit reader access to “low-quality” information, but the targets reportedly include some of the highest-quality alternative news sites on the Internet, such as – according to the report – Consortiumnews.com.

An excerpt from this article
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/28/t ... an-future/

Live in a bubble. Google, the new Fox, only on steroids. :lol:
Big Brother comes in many guises

Armyvet
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by Armyvet » August 10, 2017, 8:06 pm

This may be unrelated but today out of the blue I have been deluged with Spam on gmail and new stuff I haven't seen before. I changed my password a month ago tho I doubt it affects spam mucjh.

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parrot
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by parrot » August 10, 2017, 9:10 pm

My gmail account does a 99% job of putting spam in the spam folder automatically. The 1% that rarely makes it into my inbox gets ! for spam and I never see it again. It's one of the best features about gmail.....as compared to the old email account I had.

Armyvet
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by Armyvet » August 11, 2017, 8:54 am

I should have mentioned all the spam is going to the Spam box. Between 2300 last night and 0800 this morning there were 22 spam messages. Annoying but easy to delete.

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parrot
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by parrot » August 11, 2017, 9:21 am

Armyvet wrote:
August 11, 2017, 8:54 am
I should have mentioned all the spam is going to the Spam box. Between 2300 last night and 0800 this morning there were 22 spam messages. Annoying but easy to delete.
For me, it'd only be a problem if legitimate emails were going into my spam folder. Since the has never happened, to me, I just delete the mass of them once a blue moon or so.

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AlexO
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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by AlexO » August 11, 2017, 12:55 pm

I use Yahoo and have to regularly check my spam folder as quite often they send legit emails into the spam folder. Dont know what criteria they use for deciding but it can be a little annoying. That said they are good at filtering out 99% of the crap flying the internet waves.

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Re: Hook Line and Googled

Post by ytrewq » August 13, 2017, 2:31 pm

Google is the biggest and most pervasive marketing company in history. Everything users give them is used for marketing purposes - usually sold to 3rd parties in some form, if not directly (also, some forms).

I still value the little privacy I think I may still have. It is not a coincidence that given a name and any other smudge of information, anyone anywhere can divine almost everything about almost anyone these days. Google = Mooooo...

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