March 16, 2008

  • Ambiguous Status

     More personal freedom online is good as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, right?

    So recently, Xanga enabled Online Status to track us while we are actively online and give notice to all other users of such.  The online indicator consists of a graphic appearing next to your online identity.  Some have said that it resembles light bulb:

    onlinenow

      But if you enlarge the graphic a little bit I rather think it looks like an...

    onlinenow2  alien zombie?

    In any case, John, in his infinite wisdom, immediately decided to provide an opt-out and make this real-time tracking a provision at your personal discretion.   Kudos to John: greater freedom not hurting anybody!

    But what makes Xanga sometimes fun for me is providing myself even a greater freedom than Xanga can design.  So, quite harmelessly, I've devised a way to indicate that I'm ALWAYS online.  Anyone visiting can verify that I am ever-zombified.  How?  There are endless ways and my particularly simplisitic technique will absolutely bore all you technophiles out there.  But, essentially, I run a program (ClickWhen) that just keeps clicking on the refresh button (double-green arrows) on the IE toolbar of my private page.

    clickwhen2  

    Granted, this means that you have to stay logged-in somewhere and prevent the screensaver from kicking in.  But ever so easy to arrange if you have a spare 'puter online dedicated to cyber-housework. 

    So now there are 3 options for Online Status:  1) Opt-in normally and get lit-up onlinenow while online; 2) Opt-out and never shine (stealth-mode); or 3) stay opted-in but implement an automated activity so that the Online Status bot keeps your light shining onlinenow

    Why might you want to pick Door #3?  Why, indeed?

    1) To keep the candle burning?
    2) To provide a shallow cyber-alibi for your activity while otherwise up to no-good?
    3) To fool others who will naively interpret the fact that you're lit-up as a matter of your personal active involement online?  To deceive for deception's sake?
    4) To wear-out your stalkers who MUST stay-on to figure out what you're doing as long as you stay-on?
    5) To demonstrate that Xanga's new toy provides no reliable intelligence whatsoever about your activity?

    Yep. No reliable intelligence whatsoever. I could appear to be "ONLINE" onlinenow  while enjoying a night's worth of uninterrupted sex at the same time. Status: ambiguous.

    Though that's not likely since we all know that Xanga is better than sex.

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