facebook

I wish this post were an April Fools Day joke, but it is not. Three weeks ago, Skeptical Raptor and I wrote posts describing how a particularly vicious, nasty antivaccine troll named Heather Murray had successfully gamed Facebook reporting algorithms intended to report abuse in order to silence pro-science bloggers. It is, unfortunately, a tactic that I first heard about over two years ago, when antivaccine activists affiliated with what was then called the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) used the same sort of tactics to target pro-science bloggers and activists associated with a group…
Nearly eleven years ago, back in April 2005, I opened my work e-mail (I was working at a different university back then) and saw an e-mail from someone whose name I had seen before, one Mr. William P. O'Neill. Opening the e-mail, I was shocked to find an e-mail to Orac; worse, the e-mail was cc'ed to my cancer center director, my division chief, and my chairman. In it, O'Neill outed me as Orac and was threatening to sue me over a post I did. Naturally, it was interspersed with accusations of my being a "pharma shill" and having lied about him. Now here's the odd thing. This is the post that…
Facebook's Android app seems to be monitoring whom I talk to on my phone. A few days after I've called somebody who wants to submit a paper to Fornvännen, or after I've texted the mom of one of Jrette's buddies, the web site will suddenly suggest, "Hey, maybe you might want to be Facebook buddies with this person you didn't even know was on Fb, and with whom you have no shared Fb contacts!". And there's that person. It's possible, I guess, that this is actually set off by those people looking at my profile on Facebook. But it's happened a few times too many. I wonder...
Grant deadline today, which means I didn’t have time to produce yet another scintillating epic for my not-so-super-secret other blog. I did, however, have time to take note of a highly annoying thing on Facebook that was brought to my attention last night and is worth a brief mention here, so that the blog doesn’t go without a post today. The National Vaccine Information Center, founded and run by Barbara Loe Fisher, is about as antivaccine as they come. It’s also pretty blatant about spreading misinformation about vaccines hither, thither, and yon, disguised as “vaccine safety” public…
Twitter is about to ruin itself. I'm convinced that the people who made and run both Facebook and Twitter don't have a clue as to what Facebook and Twitter are for. And by "for" I mean how the users use them. I know, I know, if you are not paying for the product than you are the product. I get it. But it is also true that for a service to be successful it should meet a need or two, and knowing what those needs are is ultimately linked to success or failure. It seems like on line services like Facebook and Twitter are too big to go away or fail. And that is exactly how we humans tend to…
This is not what I wanted to write about for my first post of 2014, but unfortunately it's necessary—so necessary, in fact, that I felt the obligation to crosspost it to my not-so-super-secret other blog in order to get this information out to as wide a readership as possible. I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Facebook. On the one hand, I like easily how it lets me stay in contact with family and friends across the country, people whom I would rarely see more than once or twice a year, if even that. On the other hand, I have the same privacy concerns that many other…
A friend of mine, Gareth Renowden, wrote a novel called The Aviator (The Burning World). It is a post-climate change story, set in the future, and it is a good one. I highly recommend it. Gareth is also an activist who puts considerable effort into climate change. Some time in the last few hours, the Facebook page Gareth had created to promote his novel was taken down by Facebook. From Gareth's blog post on the matter: Yesterday The Aviator‘s Facebook page disappeared. When I logged in to check the page I was greeted by a message that said the page was being removed because it had been…
Dying of cancer can be a horrible way to go, but as a cancer specialist I sometimes forget that there are diseases that are equally, if not more, horrible. One that always comes to mind is amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It is a motor neuron disease whose clinical course is characterized by progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and spasticity, with ultimate progression to respiratory muscles leading to difficulty breathing and speaking (dysarthria) and to the muscles controlling swallowing. The rate of clinical course is variable, often…
Just a quick heads-up for those who don't know yet: there is closed group "Astronomers" on facebook. It is by invitation only, ie some existing member must add any new member. You must have an fb account to be added. The group has about 4,000 members, most all professional astronomers from around the world. There is some interesting discussion going on in that group and some useful info being passed around. The closed group feature seems to work well for some combination of intensity of topic focus and size - not too small, not too big. 'fraid I wouldn't tell how to monetize the feature…
Just in case you haven't heard the Festival dates are set for April 28-29th! The doors are open on Saturday from 10am-6pm and on Sunday from 10am- 4pm. This year the Festival will be held in Washington D.C. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Visit our website for all of the upcoming events leading up to the Festival, to plan your day at the Expo and to browse our exhibits. Best of all- don't miss out on the chance to pre-register for the Expo for an opportunity to win a cool prize! You will automatically be signed up to win a chance to meet Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of the…
Last week I had a visit from a friend of mine, who was on something of a farewell tour. After several years of planning, he'd packed in his dependable but much-begrudged corporate job, and was setting sail for Asia, to see more of the world. He's already seen much more of the world than most people. Not because he was well connected or rich, but because he made it his life's mission to tour the forgotten, the hidden and the forbidden places of the world. I mention this because if there ever was a man to take life advice from, it is this one, and he put into words something I've been…
Last week I had a visit from a friend of mine, who was on something of a farewell tour. After several years of planning, he'd packed in his dependable but much-begrudged corporate job, and was setting sail for Asia, to see more of the world. He's already seen much more of the world than most people. Not because he was well connected or rich, but because he made it his life's mission to tour the forgotten, the hidden and the forbidden places of the world. I mention this because if there ever was a man to take life advice from, it is this one, and he put into words something I've been…
I've written a few times about chickenpox parties. The first link refers to a magazine article describing the practice; the second, a few years later, about a Craigslist ad looking to hold such a party "at McDonald [sic] or some place with toys to play on." Clearly, as chickenpox cases have become more rare in recent decades due to the success of the chickenpox vaccine, moving toward social media to find infections is the way to go. It allows people to find such cases and expose their immunologically naive children to a serious virus, just as easily as googling Jenny McCarthy Body Count."…
I've opted to move this blog to my own domain at http://www.isisthescientist.com. I look forward to seeing some of you there. My sincerest thanks and best wishes to ScienceBlogs. And now, onward...
Mika Tan is a 30-something biochemistry graduate working in the United States. She also happens to be a successful porn actress. Tan helped me out when I was looking for a security expert to provide some context on an article about hacking luxury cars; since then I've been following her on Twitter, because, hey, nothing livens up a Twitter stream like a little gangbang gossip in the mornings. One of the recurring themes on Tan's list of bugbears is her ongoing strife with Facebook, which repeatedly suspends her account for breaching rules on graphic content. This opens up an important…
Priceless, just priceless. PALO ALTO, CA--All 1,472 employees of Facebook, Inc. reportedly burst out in uncontrollable laughter Wednesday following Albuquerque resident Jason Herrick's attempts to protect his personal information from exploitation on the social-networking site. "Look, he's clicking 'Friends Only' for his e-mail address. Like that's going to make a difference!" howled infrastructure manager Evan Hollingsworth, tears streaming down his face, to several of his doubled-over coworkers. "Oh, sure, by all means, Jason, 'delete' that photo. Man, this is so rich." According to…
Here's what I distracted myself with this morning. Don't mix these at home. Wired Sci examines how Testosterone Makes People Suspicious of One Another. And that's a hell of a photo. New Flu Vaccines Could Protect Against All Strains If all goes well, of course. Not to count on at this point, but an interesting look at one direction in vaccine development. I covered another approach in an Technology Review article last year, when I also looked at the weird history of adjuvants. (If you want, check out my complete vaccine coverage. You can find also some other good ones at the Technology…
It's rare that I blog off topic - there's so much cool science in the world that I don't have much time for anything else. But my departure from Facebook has co-incided with something of a global trend, so I thought I may as well explore what people thought. In case you've been wrapped in roofing felt for the last few weeks, here's the scoop. After a series of embarrassing security flaws and anger over the company's attitude toward privacy, Facebook users are leaving in droves. Or at least, that's the claim - the reality is that there's no viable alternative yet, although some bright…
I am going to make a little confession here, I love science and I really love working for the USA Science and Engineering festival. Why? I am passionate about getting science into our culture in a hands-on way and making people say: wow...science is cool AND fun.But one thing I have found about working for the Festival in its inaugural year, not everyone is aware of the festival and I want to change that. Do YOU love science? Do YOU use social media? Are YOU interested in helping the USA Science and Engineering festival? You CAN in a variety of different ways. Check this video out first. As…
tags: online advertising, Samsung, digital camera, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, profile pictures, streaming video This video clip is a hilarious ad for a Samsung digital camera that is aimed specifically at all of us online personalities. We all know the infamous "MySpace angle" of profile pictures, and who can ignore the slew of pouty-mouthed snapshots on Facebook? Well, universally flattering angle, the gig is up. Heck, even Samsung knows the tricks of the profile pic trade and calls out the most common photo maneuvers in a new ad. Quite clever, Samsung.