You are not as anonymous as you think you are
My websites run a popular statistics program. It came with my hosting package; it’s not like I went out and found a program to do this. But consider:
If you are viewing my sites from a college campus, I can generally tell which building the computer you used was in. For some colleges, I can tell the room and/or the computer number. For others, I can tell your college user name.
If you click a link on another site to visit my site, I know which site you came from. If that site was a search engine, I know what search term you entered to find my site.
If I look at the raw logs, I know exactly which pages you viewed, in what order, and how long you stayed on each one.
If you have a static IP address (i.e. just about everyone except dial-up users), I can tell how many times you visit my site.
I also have a pretty good idea of what operating system and browser you were using. If I could be bothered to install a plugin, I’d know if you have javascript turned on or off. (Of course, if you’re like me, you set Firefox up to tell websites it’s IE. Just because.)
I can map the location of your IP address. Generally, that means I can map the location of your internet service provider. However, if you’re using a local provider, that may mean that I’ll get a city within fifty or sixty miles of your house.
All this from the information your browser automatically broadcasts… feel like you’re being stalked yet?
I’m not saying you need to be paranoid, I’m just saying that if the only reason you’re willing to say a certain thing on a website is because you’re “anonymous” and won’t get caught… you’re wrong. Unless, of course, you know how to cover your tracks, in which case you’re right… until someone better at uncovering those tracks than you were at covering them up steps into the picture. Then you’re wrong again.
(This is not, by the way, directed at anyone in particular; I just had to look up some info in the raw logs of a site recently and realized how much information I have at my fingertips. So… What are we going to do tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world. Bwah-haha!)
Happy Forest Fire Starting Day!
It’s drought season! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Everyone go buy pyro-technic bursty-flamey-explosivey thingies! Yay!
Buy them bigger and more bursty-flamey-explosivey than you ever have before! Woohoo!
Don’t mind the raging forest fires we’ve already had this year, including the one that cut off the highway! Nooooooooo! Don’t even think about forest fires, because that would dampen your bursty-flamey-explosivey celebration and Be No Fun. Booo!
Fun! We must have fun!
And what’s more fun than a 20,000-acre bursty-flamey-explosivey thingy that goes on for WEEKS? Nothing!
So keep buying bursty-flamey-explosivey thingies! Stockpile them until you can rival the city’s official Razzle-Tazzle-Dazzle Burn Baby!
It’s totally within your rights to burn down the entire state today, dude. In fact, if you didn’t set off a couple explosivey things today, it would probably prove you were unpatriotic and not worthy of living here.
C’mon, everyone! It’s time to celebrate National Forest Fire Starting Day! (That is what today is called, right?)
Moving Right Along
In case anyone is wondering:
No, I do not intend to finish JuPo. My “series” was… well… if it were a football team, it’d be a bit like the Green Bay Packers: you root for it to finish well because it’s the home-town team, but in your heart of hearts you know they really, really, really don’t have it in them to win a (playoff) game, unless a miracle happens. There will be no miracle for JuPo. For the Packers… one can only hope. And hope. And hope some more. But if one values one’s life, one will not hold one’s breath while waiting to see if the Packers can get it together this year.
No, I do not feel the need to “speculate” about whether Harry will or will not die in the last novel. If you don’t have the answer to that already, I can’t help you. It’s a bit like the people who insisted Harry and Hermione would get together: there’s just no getting through to some people. Also (sigh): Snape is a Good Guy Really and Just Misunderstood and will Save the World in the End, possibly with Draco’s help. If you haven’t figured that out yet… sigh. Just. Sigh.
No, there is nothing interesting going on in my life that is blog material. There are non-blog-material interesting type things happening, but the odds are they are only interesting to me anyway. And no, they don’t involve boys. I’m still depressed that I screwed up what could have been a good relationship if I hadn’t done what I always do. But I did. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. No one? Thought not.
So, seriously: there’s nothing to see here. Actually, there’s a rather nice sunset going on (yes, it’s almost 2 a.m… and this rather nice sunset started, so far as I noticed, around midnight… what’s that got to do with anything?), but since you can’t see the sunset I’ll have to enjoy it privately and leave you to wonder about the price of gas. Why is it, do you think, that Alaska has some of the highest gas prices in the nation and yet we’re one of the states with oil fields? It’s a mystery.