The Truth About Data Mining: How Online Trackers Gather, See Your Info Companies like Google and Facebook use cookies to track users across multiple websites over an undisclosed amount of time. (Photo: Ksayer1/Flickr) Targeted ads have become a way of life. When you search for an airline flight, online snippets keep track of what you looked for and use this information to serve you catered ads. There are many companies whose sole purpose is to gather and trade people’s information. It’s called targeted advertising, and it’s a side of the Internet so new there aren’t any regulations to control it. Below we’ll talk about the kind of information these companies can see, and how they can use it to both empty your wallet and further their own agenda. It All Starts with a Cookie Companies like Google and Facebook use cookies to track users across multiple websites over an undisclosed amount of time. There was a story a few years ago about a man in Minnesota who got upset at Target because they were sending his teenage daughter coupons for baby clothes.
In social isolation, brain makes less myelin U. BUFFALO (US) — The brains of socially isolated animals make less myelin, the critical material that wraps the axons of neurons. The researchers say the findings, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, indicate that neurons aren’t the only brain structures that undergo changes in response to an individual’s environment and experience. The paper notes that changes in the brain’s white matter, or myelin, have been seen before in psychiatric disorders, and demyelinating disorders have also had an association with depression. “This research reveals for the first time a role for myelin in adult psychiatric disorders,” says Karen Dietz, a research scientist in pharmacology and toxicology in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Myelin allows neurons to signal effectively. This paper reveals that the stress of social isolation disrupts the sequence in which the myelin-making cells, the oligodendrocytes, are formed. Source: University at Buffalo
Facebook Search Engine Indexing Claim: A recent change now allows all of your private Facebook information to be automatically indexed by search engines. Example:[Collected via e-mail, December 2009] If you don't know, as of today, Facebook will automatically index all your info on Google, which allows everyone to view it. To change this option, go to Privacy then UN-CLICK the box that says 'Allow indexing'. Facebook kept this one quiet. Origins: This item appears to be based on a bit of confusion over some recent changes to Facebook's privacy settings, which by default now make public some information which was previously private: Users who had not previously selected their own privacy settings, and who now go with Facebook's default settings, will be publishing their status messages and wall posts to everyone on the Internet. Facebook added a tool that lets users select privacy settings for literally each post they place on the social networking site. Public Search Results Important Privacy Announcement
Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older… This story was co-published with The New York Times. A few weeks ago, Verizon placed an ad on Facebook to recruit applicants for a unit focused on financial planning and analysis. The ad showed a smiling, millennial-aged woman seated at a computer and promised that new hires could look forward to a rewarding career in which they would be “more than just a number.” Some relevant numbers were not immediately evident. Ad From Verizon Verizon is among dozens of the nation's leading employers — including Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Target and Facebook itself — that placed recruitment ads limited to particular age groups, an investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times has found. The ability of advertisers to deliver their message to the precise audience most likely to respond is the cornerstone of Facebook’s business model. “It’s blatantly unlawful,” said Debra Katz, a Washington employment lawyer who represents victims of discrimination. Facebook defended the practice. ‘They Know I’m Dead’
Isolation and Loneliness | Psychalive “Why Do I Feel Isolated?” How to Understand and Overcome Loneliness and Isolation Human beings are naturally social animals. When we find ourselves becoming isolated, we should take that as a warning sign that we are turned against ourselves in some basic way. Why We Start Feeling Isolated When we start feeling isolated, we may have thoughts of not belonging or of feeling rejected by others. How to Cope with with Feeling Alone Feeling lonely can trigger voices that we are unloved or unlikeable. Your critical inner voice can generate self-fulfilling prophecies. How the Critical Inner Voice Leads Us to Feel Lonely and Isolated When it feelings of comes to isolation, the voice can be an especially complicated and strategic enemy. Overcoming Feelings of Isolation No matter what their source, voices that you are unlikeable are much harder to accept when you’re around people who like you. Society can breed a lot of loneliness.
How Facebook Tracks Your Web Activity How Clean Is Your Digital Footprint? - KWHS While she’s in the midst of a flurry of college applications, Lillian Donahue isn’t taking the chance that a blemish from her digital footprint may be the difference between getting the thumbs up from Arizona State University, her top choice, and watching someone else get her acceptance letter. Donahue is constantly reviewing her social media feeds – Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – for things like suggestive or immature language that could be controversial or unsavory in the eyes of college admissions professionals who may be taking a peek at her online life. If she’s not sure how a post may be received, it gets the ax. “Double, triple, quadruple check yourself,” says the senior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, Missouri. “I know every single one of my colleges is looking.” Digital DNA Donahue’s future employers may be looking, too, even years down the road. And colleges are watching. Conversation Starters
The Neuron It is clear that most of what we think of as our mental life involves the activities of the nervous system, especially the brain. This nervous system is composed of billions of cells, the most essential being the nerve cells or neurons. There are estimated to be as many as 100 billion neurons in our nervous system! spinal cord neuron A typical neuron has all the parts that any cell would have, and a few specialized structures that set it apart. Neurons have a large number of extensions called dendrites. One extension is different from all the others, and is called the axon. Longer axons are usually covered with a myelin sheath, a series of fatty cells which have wrapped around an axon many times. At the very end of the axon is the axon ending, which goes by a variety of names such as the bouton, the synaptic knob, the axon foot, and so on (I do not know why no one has settled on a consistent term!). axon endings The action potential Types of Neurons 1. 2. 3.
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