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n0n-consensual Auto Login

This has been going on for over a year, Automatic Facebook Logins for websites. I have absolutely no problem when a website asks me if I want to connect with Facebook or not. But when a website automatically and non-consensually logs me in the comment area via Facebook and knows my middle name…that’s when things start to get creepy. There are some sites that I never logged into a single time, and whenever I am logged into Facebook they already know who I am before I push a single button. One site even had a drop down menu, asking me if I wanted to leave a comment as Tyler Stansfield Jaggers or The Grey Mage. How the heck do they know who The Grey Mage is? My guess is that these websites must have some sort of special contract with Facebook and have access to peoples’ entire Facebook account information, and all they need to do is be logged into Facebook and it counts as an automatic login for their site. I find this to be highly unnerving and it makes me feel like I am being totally monitored on their website and have ZERO anonymity. When I end up on a website that non-consensually logs me into their site via Facebook, I simply don’t return to the site…period.

Lots of websites allow you to connect via Facebook, but they ask you first. Stumbleupon.com and Scribd.com both asked me before I connected via Facebook the first time. And then they saved the cookies for consequent visits. This is perfectly fine and I have no problem with this. But at least there was a single layer of courtesy being given before they got all my info. I’m truly curious how and why a website would go about getting a auto-Facebook login for their 3rd party website. Do they have some sort of special plugin or did they pay for this special treatment from Facebook?

One websites that I’ve noticed is like this. They automatically know who I am. Personally, I was considering leaving a comment on a few videos on one of these types of websites, but I didn’t want to use my freaking real name. I like just being, “Tyler” and then having a link to my website. That’s all I want. I don’t want people to see my latest facebook profile pic. This is especially the case since if you look at the picture above it looks like I don’t even know how to use a forward facing camera (which is actually the case, I’m new to this).

Just 20 seconds ago I ran an experiment with one of these sites. I usually log into Facebook via Mozilla Firefox as my primary browser, so I tried visiting a song and as I expected, I was already logged into the site via facebook as Tyler Stansfield Jaggers. But then I thought about how I rarely use Internet Explorer and I don’t even keep history on that browser. So I loaded up Internet Explorer and I went to the site. When I went to the same video in the comment section it asked me if I wanted to “log in” by using Facebook.

I didn’t press anything.

Instead I opened another tab in Internet Explorer. And in this new tab I loaded up Facebook. Of course I wasn’t logged in so I went ahead and entered my email and password for Facebook and logged in. Then after I saw that my wall and everything was up and running, I went to the other tab with the site. It still said that I wasn’t logged in. Then I pressed “F5” or “refresh” and reloaded the browser window. And low and behold I was automatically logged into the aforementioned website. What the heck?

So my recommendation for websites and services is to at least give people, THE CHOICE of whether or not they login via Facebook. Or else have an actual login system where people can create an alias like normal. The “convenience” of being automatically and non-consensually logged into a website is a sort of identity violation that can make even a 30 year old man in his Khakis feel uncomfortable.

If I want to see my partially shaven face on your website…I’ll let you know.

-Tyler

I got checked out by a very attractive woman a couple days ago when I was at the bank. And I know that a lot of women look at men and that’s not a big deal. But this was a Starship Enterprise Planetary Surface-scan of a look. I kept walking to the ATM area because I knew that if I made eye-contact I would have ended up on tractor-beam ghost lockdown. Why did she look at me in this way? I was dressed in nice clothes and a blazer. That’s all.

The clothing is an illusion. It probably looked like I had some money and a decent job. In fact I had more money years ago when I would roll into the bank wearing a t-shirt from hot topic. But it doesn’t matter because the clothing creates a very colorful illusion that the mind can make tremendous amounts of assumptions on.

Now if you combine clothing with posture and body language a whole slew of assumptions can be made. People will come up with the wildest back stories for a stranger in a microsecond.

I hadn’t been at a bar in a long time because I don’t drink. But when I went to one a couple weeks ago to meet an old friend for his birthday, I could feel the difference in energy levels. It’s a whole different world from Jack in the Box or even Starbucks lemme tell yah.

At the bar I had come from seeing a film for school. At school I was wearing a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt. But when I parked near the bar, I decided to leave the hoodie in the car because I wanted to look extraverted and hoodies are warm and send signals that you are either cold or feel isolated. The only problem was that the t-shirt was the one that I bought for a costume party. So it was a V-neck t-shirt with sassy designs on it.

I looked in the car window to see how I looked and I thought, “hmm this isn’t my style…but hey I’ll just play the part.”

So I walked into the bar and had body language that made me look like I was trying to balance a pencil with my upper lip. And you know what? I got pretty fast and polite service! And within minutes I talked to some girls so that was fun.

-Tyler

TV Room

There have been hour long television programs for a very long time. But the actual length of the content in those programs have changed since the 1960’s. Last night I watched the the first episode of original 1960’s TV show, “The Prisioner” on DVD. I truly enjoyed the program and I’m going to watch the entire series. But I noticed that I almost felt mentally fatigued about 40 minutes into the show. I thought about that fact and I double checked the time left for the episode. The bar showed that there was more than ten minutes left for the program. So I watched the entire episode and noticed that the show was about 51 minutes long, including credits and the intro. This felt odd to me, so I double checked another intense show that is currently on the air called, “The Event.”

The Event’s most recent episode called, “Face Off” was only 42 minutes and 40 seconds in length. And I love the show, The Event and it is an excellent program. But quite literally, it is eight minutes shorter than the first episode of “The Prisioner.”

So the obvious argument is that in an hour program, producers and network executives have decided to limit the amount of actual content in the programs in order to make more room for advertisements. That’s a given and it isn’t the point of this article. Everybody knows that with the advent of more competition for the gaze of the viewer via the internet and forms of self-entertainment, TV decision-makers have had to cope by basically ‘raising their prices.’

What I mean by raising their prices is that, network TV is free. But it is paid for by the advertisements, which people sit through in order to watch their show. So it really isn’t free. You pay with your time. But as the cost of business, and the desire for greater profits, and reactions to alternative media increases, so has the amount of time spent on commercials to counteract these inherent costs.

But what I’m most interested in, is what happened in those eight minutes. What was lost in that chunk of time. The first thing that comes to mind is nuance and milieu. The setting and how the main character, number 6, in The Prisoner is integrated. I’m only one episode into the series, and I’ve already established a deep-rooted connection to the environment of “Your Village.”

-Tyler

digital compatibility-based rivalry

Last night when I wanted to watch, “Firefly” on DVD, I loaded up Windows Media Player. But I also had my Verizon iPhone charging via USB at the same time. And for some reason, when I played the final episode on the disk, there was no sound playing. It was truly strange. I’m running Windows Media Player 11 on an XP machine and my iTunes is version  10.2.1.1, so things pretty much seem up to date. But when I unplugged my iPhone from the cord connecting it to my computer, and then restarted Windows Media Player…the sound WORKED! It was such a strange conflict. Why would an iPhone make it so Firefly wouldn’t play on Windows Media Player? Very odd.

I guess I should just be thankful that the two devices work at all together. It was just a relief that there was just a simple fix necessary. Because that last episode of Firefly was good, albeit quite disturbing. That show got super dark super fast.

-Tyler