captainsblog | Uninformed Consent

I promised a book review I shall straightaway deliver, but I also wanted to pass on a followup (or not) on the LJ-buggery I noticed last night. Oddly, though, they both fit the same theme: people doing nasty things to other people, in the name of science/technology, without asking their permission.

hooton, with further explanation coming here from a very smart person she got it from going by caffeinepuppy: LiveJournal is redirecting links posted on its members' pages (be those users free, paid or whatever) through a service that strips and reassigns any "affiliate links" contained in the posted linkname.

Okay, lets run that through the Geek-English dictionary:

Some users benefit from their referring other users to a website. Maybe, as in one of the other example sites Caroline cited to, it's a band member who makes money when he links you to coolindymusic-dot-com to buy the band's record. It's probably a dollar, more likely a dime, but if he's got a decent readership, that chump change will add up. What LJ does is intercepts the traffic going to that link, strips "Bandmember" out of the link that goes to coolindymusic-dot-com. Even worse, if it wants to, the LJ code sends the clickee to ebay, or amazon, or worse to make their purchase. And instead of Bandmember getting the credit for the purchase or visit, Boris and Natasha at LJ's headquarters in downtown Slobovia get it.

Nice of them to tell us. Oh, wait, they didn't. A few complainers have gotten "oops" replies about it, but as of earlier today, the interceptions were still going on.

The good news is, it can be turned off. The bad news is, you need to operate "the console." Not even a relative ubergeek like me uses the console on even a once-a-year basis. Except I did for this, and so should you. Again, from casa caffeinepuppy:

Fortunately, there is a way to opt out:

1. Open the Admin Console at http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/
2. Execute the following command: set opt_exclude_stats 1

I also recommend adding the following to your ad-blocker:

* outboundlink.net
* l-stat.livejournal.com/js/pagestats/dRev.js

That second step, I didn't do, because I've turned off ad-blocker as creating more nuisances than it solves in Firefox. But definitely do the console step (just click- even better, type into your browser- the link above ending in /console/, then copy and paste that set opt_exclude thingy into the box that displays. Okay it and you're done (unless you use multiple user names online- then logout, login, repeat).

Bear in mind, though, that this only protects you, while logged in, from YOUR clicks being redirected. It does not protect YOUR readers (or you, if you're reading from, say, your smartphone and couldn't navigate the tiny login box) from any click-changes in links in your own entries.

In other news, I'm betting Dreamwidth picks up a buttload of business from this sort of crap. ::goes, checks to see if any invite codes remain::

Bah. Just the same one I've had for months. Still. Ask and it's yours.

----

Much the same thinking (or lack thereof) was behind most of the amazing book I just finished:

That picture on the cover is one of the little details that becomes a vital part of this story of perhaps the most vital parts of 20th century genetic research: the cancerous cells of this woman, never positively identified until almost 50 years after her death, but known by her cell line's abbreviation of "HeLa" to probably every medical professional of those same 50-plus years. In these fast-turning pages, you will also meet a cast of characters ranging from the expected (the doctors, lab assistants and, most touchingly, Lacks family members) to the totally bizarre (a frighteningly real person named "Dr. Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield," who almost singlehandedly stopped the story from being told and who, I am promised, will now sue me for 10 billion dollars for publishing his copyrighted name), to, even more bizarre than that, a connection to an unnamed but undeniably-him puppeteer named Kevin Clash, the voice of Elmo.

Kevin's name is not the only clash in the book, though, as that's the standard configuration of good intentions and bad practices throughout. At one point, scientists make a genuinely well-intended effort to direct some of the HeLa-related research and production to the Tuskegee Institute, "because it would provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, many jobs, and training opportunities for black scientists"- all the while not paying attention to the fact that the government was, at that very moment (and well into the 1970s), still conducting its infamous syphilis experiments on unsuspecting black patients on that same campus. High-placed researchers made it a constant practice to deny compensation, access and, worst of all, the right of informed consent to generations of tissue donors; even today, despite the codification of the Common Rule and HIPAA, the author concludes that, at this moment, there is absolutely nothing other than the threat of private civil litigation to stop any researcher from practicing those same denials today.

But that's all for the medical ethicists. At its heart is the story of a family, which the author ultimately became a part of. The final chapters, bookending two tragic deaths in the family, brought me to the brink of tears more than once. In the end, there was acceptance, and forgiveness, of far worse sins than I have ever known any soul to commit against any other.

It is riveting. It is beautiful. Henrietta will be a part of your life, in a far more real way than she almost certainly now is. For if you've ever had a polio vaccine, or been administered any of dozens of medical tests, you've already been touched by, and blessed by, this extraordinary woman. Now, though, you will know why.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

digitalemur.livejournal.com

Awwww, your review is beautiful. :)

captainsblog.livejournal.com

Thanks, and thanks especially for tipping me off to the book in the first place. It was everything you said it would be.

fangirlsays.livejournal.com

Good grief on the LJfail 3.0 (or whatever number we're on.) Mind if I link to this post?

It's got to be double figures by now.

And sure, go ahead, or if you think it's too tl;dr, just quote from it (or link to the caffeinepuppy one)

Cool; thanks!

whyaduck.livejournal.com

A couple of weeks ago you couldn't tune into NPR without hearing about HeLa cells, the author was definitely on the circuit. I'm glad to hear that it's a good book, I might have to pick it up.