Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» How often do you take a trip to the DICTIONARY to look up word meanings and spellings? How often do you GOOGLE to investigate anything?
You and me both m'dear. No surprise there! Any time a question comes up Jim says "why don't you GOOGLE it?" It tickles me. But any question I have I can Google and so far answers come up. I've never stumped GOOGLE yet! Thank you for your reply Shuhak and Happy Sunday to thee and thine! :)
I don't use either regularly but do have dictionaries, a thesaurus and atlases of the world. Plus a country-wide road atlas and an assortment of large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of individual areas of Britain.
I try to minimise using Google as has become so irritating; demanding I make my "cookie" filter choices everytime. Why can't I make my choice (which is to turn them all off) once and for all? It also took over YouTube and set about ruining the videos it does not (as far as I know) even buy from their makers.
Surprisingly perhaps I use the road atlas quite a lot, not to plan journeys but to help me understand places in radio programmes about some aspect of them.
The world atlas not only shows me the location of a city of country in the News. If the News reports a major earthquake on or near a coast the sea maps suggest the cause.
I have our unabridged dictionary open on a small table near my computer Durdle and I refer to it DAILY. I think the dictionary is my favorite book. Always has been. Cookies are what exactly? When you visit a site they tag you? I don't mind it. I don't quite understand what the problem is. It would be like your visiting some place and then signing a register of visitors. I GOOGLE every day because as you know by now I am curious about everything. I look up dates and places and things that happened sometimes before I ask a question. I like to minimize looking stupid but I don't mind looking ignorant because I am and that's why I use dictionaries and Google. To lessen the ignorance. So I don't have the problem with it that you do. We have a road Atlas. Also on the wall above our desk is a HUGE WORLD MAP which I visit all the time when I meet folks from different places. I like to know where in the world I'm talking to. In our bedroom on one wall we have a huge map of the United States. Same thing there. I travel the world that way. I love maps. Thank you for your reply Durdle! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at July 26, 2021 2:47 PM MDT
I was weak at Mathematics at school (and since) but when we were introduced to three-dimensional graphs and their algebra I found the topic quite easy because I could relate it to the Grid Reference and altitude markings on maps, and the physical hillos they represent.
A "cookie" in computing terms is a small programme installed by web-sites for various reasons.
Some are necessary for the site to work properly on your computer, phone, etc. These are usually called "Functional" and you cannot delete them.
Some supposedly help you use the site in future, for example by storing your access details including pass-word, commonly-searched areas, etc. Not safe!
Others though are the nasty ones; called "Tracking Cookies", though not openly.
"Tracking" really means "eavesdropping", to collect details about you and your Internet use for sale to the IT companies' commercial clients, mainly big-name retailers and advertising-agencies. They give themselves away when you start receiving advertisements suspiciously close to your interests, shopping, and the like.
If you own an 'Alexa' or similar voice-operated web-interrogator, the eavesdropping is even more blatant!
You do, supposedly, have some control over the tracking cookies. They usually announce themselves with pretentiously disingenuous twaddle about "personalized" ads, "enhancing your browsing experience", and similar; as if they think they are helping you! Those are best turned off, but it's not always easy and some providers make the controls very ambiguous so you do not know if "OFF" or "DISABLE" means switching off the eavesdropping or switching off the anti-eavesdropping filter.
I first encountered eavesdropping cookies when I used a site slightly similar to this, called Experience Project. I started seeing side-bar ads showing an attractive middle-aged woman, captioned something like "Sandra lives only 4 miles from you"; or more eerily, living in a named, nearby town. Selecting the ad would open the home-page of a dating-agency I had never asked for.
'
Oh... and why "Silicon Valley" thought it clever to name a computer programme after what in my land is called a "biscuit", I have not the faintest idea!
Oh my goodness m'dear that would totally CREEP ME OUT! "Sandra lives only 4 miles from you"? Oh my goodness. I've not yet ever seen anything like that. I don't know what I'd do if I did! I don't do Alexa. Jim has a cell phone which he fiddles with a lot. I don't even answer it. If it rings I pick it up and take to him. Long ago he used to have a cell phone THAT WAS JUST A PHONE. His son gave it to him and I liked his having it because he call someone if he had car trouble and I could always reach him. But then he got a SMART phone. AARRGGHH! He loves gadgets We're not into all the state-of-the art electronic thingies but if we had more money to spend on stuff like that I have no doubt he would. Me? I ADORE SIMPLICITY! I only want what I need and nothing more. I don't like bells and whistles or gingerbread fancy dancy. I use a desktop computer and run Windows 7. I have what I like and need. Why bother me with more than that? I have some security/safety programs and maybe that's what protects me from what you have described. I actually don't mind anyone seeing where I go. I don't go anywhere that I'd be ashamed of having others know about. My interests are simple straightforward and "normal". So I have nothing to hide. You can see by what I say that I say what I think. That could get me into trouble I suppose but I'm not changing who I am for anything. I'm small potatoes. Maybe I'm just not worth bothering with as far as cookies go. I do nothing financial online. I buy nothing online. I just satisfy my curiosity and chat with folks. That's it! Boring I suppose to the folks who live to spy on others and use that info to harm them.. Apologies for this lengthy reply. I guess I had a lot on my mind to tell you! :)
Shuhak 