Daily Twitter Links for Wednesday 5 December 2012

Here are today's must-reads:

1. What Life Is Like Without Facebook: 

Life without Facebook, there’s a reason for it. Well, there used to be a reason. There was girl or maybe there was a boy and maybe he got married or maybe she found a new girlfriend. Whatever it was, you couldn’t be trusted to keep a service which granted you the power to monitor her steps or his steps or the steps of his or her significant other. So, not long after caving into pressure and getting one, you delete it. And this is before your dad and your aunt and your old high school classmates ever had a Facebook. This is back when it was just the artists and your young friends, the people you actually wanted to hear from, and so it was kind of disappointing but it was much better that way. You couldn’t be trusted to not pine. Besides, the thought of having to see yourself age on the internet didn’t really seem that appealing, watching as you gain weight, lose hair, perhaps even stay at the same job as everyone else has babies and surprise marriage proposals at sunset, you’re okay with not seeing any of that.

You go to parties. You go to parties without a Facebook. You’re the one who everyone marvels at and asks, “How do you not have one?” Then someone else will say, “Actually, I think that’s cool. I wish more people didn’t. I never use mine.” Then someone else will say to that, “But it’s really not that big of a deal, I just like to keep up with friends. It’s so much easier to stay in touch.” And though you don’t have a Facebook, you’re pretty sure no actually uses it for that reason. You’re pretty sure most people use it to stalk others and “hate-read” comments written on the wall. And even though you don’t have a Facebook, you know what the wall is. Though, it might be that the wall was once a bigger thing than it is now. You’ve kind of lost touch.

2. The Smartest Girls In The Room:

The story that unravelled in Sydney was an engrossing account of what went on in the back rooms of the London and New York financial districts where a global bank, desperate to get its investments on the market with the lure of a gold-standard rating, dealt with the world’s leading rating agency. The Sydney Court hearing — because it forced the production of some 40,000 documents, including emails — would shine light where none had shone.

3. Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are?: 

Should we worry about ads aimed specifically at us everywhere we go on the Web and, increasingly, on our mobile devices too? Yes, and not just because the ads can be invasive and annoying. Real-time bidding also makes the online marketplace less of an even playing field, allowing companies to send loyalty points or discounts — or price increases — to individuals based on their perceived spending power. The travel site Orbitz, after learning that Mac users spend 30 percent more on hotel rooms than P.C. users, has started to send Mac users ads for hotels that are 11 percent more expensive than the ones that P.C. users are seeing, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

These are some of the other things I've been tweeting about today:

• "Audit of quality reveals results, value for money" http://pjblack.me/RBioOy #highered
• "That's So Random: The Evolution Of An Odd Word" http://pjblack.me/SwYVf1
• dick morris has been a joke for some time: "Report: Karl Rove, Dick Morris pushed to sidelines at Fox News" http://pjblack.me/RAMEcv
• i do love this movie: "25 Reasons 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' Is The Best Carol Of Them All" http://pjblack.me/SuAWgD
• "Research hits funding void" http://pjblack.me/SxkrQU #highered
• "Research reviews pressure academics" http://pjblack.me/RBidD1 #highered
• "Facebook Now Lets Users Create Repeat Events From the Past" http://pjblack.me/SxjV5b
• "Telstra phone-theft bill shock shows roaming still broken" http://pjblack.me/RBgVYB
• "The impossibility of tablet-native journalism" http://pjblack.me/RyHGwV
• "Longform journalism morphs in print as it finds a new home online" http://pjblack.me/RyG8D1
• umm no: "Is George Lucas the Greatest Artist of Our Time?" http://pjblack.me/Suuo1r
• "The Life Lessons Hidden in Reality TV" http://pjblack.me/Suok92
• "What Life Is Like Without Facebook" http://pjblack.me/StQRvz
• "Head of BitTorrent piracy group jailed for 40 months, longest file-sharing sentence ever" http://pjblack.me/RsIRO8 #lwb486
• "Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are?" http://pjblack.me/StQPnu
• how ridiculous: "Why the US just rejected a treaty based on its own laws" http://pjblack.me/TGN1Ai
• a new study in the journal of sex research finds that "Porn Stars Are Happier Than You" http://pjblack.me/RxTHTg
• how was this not against the law already?: "Animal welfare: Germany moves to ban bestiality" http://pjblack.me/X6E1HX
• "Newman can escape the 'leader killing season'" http://pjblack.me/SwQUGO #qldpol
• "PeopleBrowsr Claims 'Twitter Changed Position On Eve of Discovery' Over Federal Jurisdiction Request" http://pjblack.me/RAPMVQ
• "Why Do So Few Countries Agree with the United States’ Position on Palestine?" http://pjblack.me/RxUcwE
• "What Is the World’s Most Dangerous Animal?" http://pjblack.me/SuwRJ7 /cc @Atrumentis
• "100 Great (Not Best!) Songs From 2012" according to the awl http://pjblack.me/SuueqF
• the mathematics of elevators: "The Ups and Downs of Making Elevators Go" http://pjblack.me/StBlzV
• how an obscure australian judge and hard-charging lawyer exposed the world’s best known ratings agency http://pjblack.me/RxTWO7 #auslaw
• "Facebook to buy WhatsApp? Here’s what could be really interesting about that" http://pjblack.me/RxDAVB
• "News Corp’s iPad-Only Newspaper, The Daily, Shutting Down, Brand And Some Staff Folded Into New York Post" http://pjblack.me/RxBSUk
• australian universities now have more links with china than with any other part of the world http://pjblack.me/VrTWR3 #highered
• "Adelaide's ambitious plan: research the core of undergrad education" http://pjblack.me/Stdn7O #highered
• attempts to revive the dying institution of tenure: "A tenure review" http://pjblack.me/Std4K4#highered
• a fascinating wrap of @icestorm77's trip to north korea: "Pyongyang Party! Matt's Trip To North Korea" http://pjblack.me/Sw7bMh
• "Discrimination drives women out of law" http://pjblack.me/StbyYC #auslaw
• "Mayor Bloomberg Failed to Talk Hillary Clinton Into Taking His Job" http://pjblack.me/SuB67I
• very funny?: "Roger Ailes Tried to Get David Petraeus to Run for President, as a 'Joke'" http://pjblack.me/RyMCle
• did you see this amazing mash-up of 50+ pop songs from 2012 that i tweeted about last night? http://tmblr.co/Z_nFbyYeJEpy
• "Meet the Comic Behind the @RoyalFetus Account, Which is Almost Two Years Old" http://pjblack.me/RyMHW0

Follow me on Twitter @peterjblack.

And you can get my latest links anytime on my Rebelmouse social media front page.