How Many Breadcrumbs Do You Leave While Travelling The Internet?

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Do you know who tracks you while you are on the internet? How private do you think the internet is? It ends up we are like Hansel and Gretel, leaving breadcrumbs all over the web.

If you use Firefox as your browser or watch TED videos, you may have seen this video about all the little breadcrumbs we leave when we wander the digital woods. In his presentation, Gary Kovacs, who is the CEO of Mozilla Corporation, talks about behavioral tracking and privacy.

 ”In fact, there’s an entire industry formed around following us through the digital woods and compiling a profile on each of us. And when all of that data is held, they can do almost whatever they want with it. This is an area today that has very few regulations and even fewer rules. Except for some of the recent announcements here in the United States and in Europe, it’s an area of consumer protection that’s almost entirely naked.”

 

I downloaded Collusion and here’s two pictures of how I’ve been watched while on the internet. The first one shows the extra tracking done when all I did was check the weather. The centre dot is the weather site. The remaining 9 dots are now also tracking me. All I did was go to one site. The first couple of weeks after I installed Collusion, I would check how many extra dots there were from visiting the same site (The Weather Network) first thing in the morning. It varied. One day, I counted 14 additional dots.

This next image is after a couple of hours. I closed the sidebar and it still doesn’t show all the extra dots of sites that are tracking me.

If you are curious to see the trail you leave,  here’s the link for the Collusion add-on for Firefox.

Because we are always being watched.

“… You can download it, install it in Firefox, to see who is tracking you across the Web and following you through the digital woods. Going forward, all of our voices need to be heard. Because what we don’t know can actually hurt us. Because the memory of the Internet is forever. We are being watched. It’s now time for us to watch the watchers.”

Sunday Quotes: Be Yourself

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To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

Judy Garland

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.  Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.

Boris Pasternak

When one is pretending the entire body revolts.

Anaïs Nin

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel

Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.

Harvey Fierstein

Food Porn Friday – Single Serving Rice Krispies Treat

(Image via myrecipes.com)

Rice Krispies Treats. Comfort snack food of our childhood. Or adulthood in my case. Lately, I’ve been making a single serving of Rice Krispies Treats when I want a snack. I was buying a prepackaged “crispy rice treat”. However, it’s 430 calories for their oversized single serving and I was also spending way too much money on them. So, I experimented with the microwave. With the heat wave, some days felt like 430 °. I also don’t have air conditioning and didn’t want to stand in front of the stove, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

So, I bought a box of cereal and some miniature marshmallows and made my own single serving treat using the microwave. My treats come to around 212 calories. Since I’m the only one who uses the cereal and marshmallows I use handfuls. But, so that I have a general idea of how many calories are in each serving, I measured the three ingredients.

Single Serving Rice Krispies Treats

Rice Krispies cereal 1 cup = 104 calories

1 tsp. margarine = 18 calories

50 mini marshmallows or 1/2 cup  = 90 calories

Microwave cooking time: under 45 seconds. I have an older microwave so times may vary a bit.

Letting treat cool in fridge: 5 – 10 minutes, depending on the size of container and thickness of treat.

Melt the margarine for 10 seconds.

Add the marshmallows and stir to lightly coat. Then it’s back in the microwave for another 30 seconds.

Stir for a few seconds until you have a smooth consistency.

Add the Rice Krispies and stir till everything is mixed and evenly spread in the dish. Put the container in the fridge for 5 – 10 minutes to cool and is ready to eat.

The treat is more marshmallowy than the original recipe because that’s how I prefer it. The amount of cereal and marshmallows can be changed to suit your taste.

Some Mid-week Cuteness

(All images via buzzfeed.com)

It’s time for a “cute break” and a break from all the recent horrible news. These pictures and more are from The 50 Cutest Things That Ever Happened.

Cats who imitated babies.

A marriage proposal in a photo booth.

Seeing-eye animals and their blind friends.

When you’re owed money, you sometimes have to write a reminder note.

A not so successful family photo.

And a successful family picture.

Meet Reginald and his snazzy sweater.

And sometimes you need a comforting hug during a thunderstorm.

Sunday Quotes: Grief

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When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Kahlil Gibran

Grieving is a necessary passage and a difficult transition to finally letting go of sorrow – it is not a permanent rest stop.

Dodinski

There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.

Author Unknown

We have to believe that even the briefest of human connections can heal. Otherwise, life is unbearable.

Agate Nesaule

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?

William Blake

Sunday Quotes: Quotes From TED Talks

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything origina — Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

If we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average. — Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

The secret to happiness is low expectations. — Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice

Maybe stories are just data with a soul. — Brené Brown

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

Portray [people with mental illness] sympathetically, and portray them in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, and not as diagnoses. — Elyn Saks

Elyn Saks: A tale of mental illness — from the inside

[Facebook and Twitter] aren’t the real problems in the office. The real problems are what I like to call the M&Ms, the Managers and the Meetings. — Jason Fried

Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work

Avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. — Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life

The next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days? — Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

Sunday Quotes: Failure

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Failure is an event, never a person.

William D. Brown

(Image via youneedinspiration.com)

Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.

Henry Ford

(Image via indulgy.com)

Sunday Quotes: Fighting Your Demons

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Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

Lao Tzu

“Men who fear demons see demons everywhere.”

 Brom, The Child Thief

Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what’s really there.

Tom Morello

A hug a day keeps the demons at bay.

Proverb

I don’t know. People always think that there has got to be a dark side to everyone, a closet with skeletons, demons under the bed. People think all kinds of things about one another. They feel compelled to make up fears and false assumptions about their closest friends. Truth is, I’ll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

Tom Hanks

We all have inner demons to fight. We call these demons ‘fear’, and ‘hatred’, and ‘anger’. If you don’t conquer them, then a life of a hundred years… is a tragedy. If you do, a life of a single day can be a triumph.

Yip Man