Sunday 12 May 2013

Andy McKee // Live at Leverkusen - Chris Middleton Leeds United


Amazing guitar video from Andy Mckee. All rights owned by Rockpalast and WDR.

Privacy Protection from Google - Chris Middleton Leeds

Chris Middleton: I read this great article about how Google stores each search that is performed on giant servers and how the data is cross linked to generated better search results.

Do you know every Google search you've ever performed is stored on the search giant's servers? And that data is cross-linked to your search data from YouTube, Google Maps and any other Google services you use.

With that mountain of information, Google can tell a lot about you: where you live, your hobbies, age, health problems, religion and more. Of course, Google uses that data mostly to target you with ads. If you spend 20 minutes doing research on a gadget, for the next few weeks you'll probably be hounded by ads for that gadget wherever you go online. Because search sites and other Web services have become so ingrained in our daily digital lives, it isn't really an option to stop using them.

However, you can keep a lower profile and put a little more distance between your personal data and Google. To start, you can clear out your Google search history. To see what forgotten secrets lurk in your Google history, go to google.com/history and sign in with your Google account information. You'll see a list of everything you've ever searched for on Google. If you spend 20 minutes doing research on a gadget, for the next few weeks you'll probably be hounded by ads for that gadget. You can browse through your searches and find them by day or Google service.

Additionally, Google shows you personalized search trends, which can be interesting to look at. To remove an unwanted search term, simply select click the checkbox next to it and then click the Remove Items button. You can select as many entries as you want at a time, or click the checkbox next to the Remove item button to select everything.

Once your information is removed, click the gear icon in the upper right corner dof the page and choose Settings. Here you have the option to turn off your Web history. This will stop Google from recording anything else. There is a catch to all this, of course - your information isn't really gone. Google will still keep your &quotdeleted&quot information for audits and other internal uses. However, it won't use it for targeted ads or to customize your search results.

 Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/05/12/protect-your-privacy-on-google/

Saturday 11 May 2013

10 Mind-Blowing Theories That Will Change Your Perception of the World

Chris Middleton Leeds favorite posts from Stumbleupon.com:

Reality is not as obvious and simple as we like to think. Some of the things that we accept as true at face value are notoriously wrong. Scientists and philosophers have made every effort to change our common perceptions of it. The 10 examples below will show you what I mean. 

1. Great glaciation.
Great glaciation is the theory of the final state that our universe is heading toward. The universe has a limited supply of energy. According to this theory, when that energy finally runs out, the universe will devolve into a frozen state. Heat energy produced by the motion of the particles, heat loss, a natural law of the universe, means that eventually this particle motion will slow down and, presumably, one day everything will stop.

2. Solipsism.
Solipsism is a philosophical theory, which asserts that nothing exists but the individual’s consciousness. At first it seems silly – and who generally got it into his head completely deny the existence of the world around us? Except when you put your mind to it, it really is impossible to verify anything but your own consciousness.

Don’t you believe me? Think a moment and think of all the possible dreams that you have experienced in your life. Is it not possible that everything around you is nothing but an incredibly intricate dream? But we have people and things around us that we cannot doubt, because we can hear, see, smell, taste and feel them, right? Yes, and no. People who take LSD, for example, say that they can touch the most convincing hallucinations, but we do not claim that their visions are “reality”. Your dreams simulate sensations as well, after all, what you perceive is what different sections of your brain tell you to.

As a result, which parts of existence can we not doubt? None. Not the chicken we ate for dinner or the keyboard beneath our fingers. Each of us can only be sure in his own thoughts.

 Read the rest at Learning-Mind.com