But I Hit the Private Button! The I-85 Six Flags Ride. 1st Sunday.
The good news is we have internet service. The bad news is that our internet service providers (Verizon, Comcast, Charter, etc.) again get to sell your information without your knowledge or approval. Oh, I know, we all have nothing to hide so what is the big deal? The deal is that the FCC, understanding points of privacy, fought very hard to ensure that our information could not be sold by ISP’s to advertisers without prior consent. Information like your location, browsing history, and other data no one would want socialized for any purpose or reason. Browsing in “incognito” or private mode does not prevent your internet provider from knowing which sites you visit. Private mode only prevents the browser you are using from storing your internet history. For example, Comcast will still know when you view healthcare or adult content, even if Chrome forgets. There are very technical ways to help control your web browsing, including the use of a virtual private network (VPN), but my tech friends tell me that many VPN providers do not live up to their privacy promises. As the famous beer man says: “Be careful out there my friends…”.
A lot of jokes going around regarding the I-85 bridge collapse just northeast of downtown Atlanta. Some of them are relatively creative and funny. What is not so funny? Over 200,000 cars a day used I-85 and now that traffic will be diverted to surface streets and other roadways. Atlanta’s traffic situation has escalated to a severe level over that last ten years and the city’s growth, fueled by a diverse economy, has doubled in population over the last twenty years. During the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Atlanta and it’s surrounding counties accounted for approximately 3 million people. Today, that number is over 6 million. A lot of things will come from this incident including regulations on materials stored under interstates, but for the five-month foreseeable future, the area surrounding I-85 at Piedmont Road will be one to avoid. Kudos to all the first responders and DOT personnel for controlling the situation early on. How no one was killed or injured is a true miracle.
Thoughts for the 1st Sunday in April: Atlanta United has now played one of four consecutive games on the road…here is to hoping the Mercedes Benz Stadium time line stays solid for the July 30 opening. It is baseball season…..SunTrust Park looks really nice. Well done Bruce Arena….you stepped into a tenuous situation with our national team and now have us back on track to qualify for Russia in 2018. Anyone want to explain to me why and how Dylan Roof is still alive? The word collusion and a quarterback named Colin Kaepernick have no correlation. The restaurant business is very tough…..success is difficult to achieve day in and day out but good food, great service and a management team that really does care make a huge difference……go try Muss & Turner’s in East Cobb. Melissa McCarthy is a much better Sean Spicer than Sean Spicer.
Adios and Have a Funday Sunday!!
I hate to be political here but the new directives of the Trump administration regarding ISPs and saving, using and selling our data is not encouraging. I was expecting the opposite to happen. I said the opposite because people may have missed that the rolled back regulation was flawed. It covered only ISPs but not companies providing the actual searches you do (like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, …). It was better than nothing and my hope was for it to be extended to search providers but it is what it is….. and that’s my take.
Good take Samir. We will see where this goes with sharing users’ information.
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