In 1984, Orwell elaborately worked on the notion that in the future an entity comparable to a government would be in total control of people, in the course of which luxuries like privacy would be gone forever.
Neil Postman later postulated that Orwell’s vision had become reality, with the difference that there really wasn’t a need for a government to take over control. We’d simply handed it over, in exchange for entertainment and a swell life.
In an attempt to show how right Postman was, I’ve added a few new items to my sidebar. One of them is a link to an online library showcasing the books I own. If you like stealing books, but don’t care about reading blurbs while doing so, I’ve just made your job a whole lot easier. You could of course also use it to check if I already own the book you’re about to give me as a birthday present. All in all, a nice little tool to avoid embarrassment (and quite probably a lengthy prison term).
The second item is something I’ve creatively labeled “On Rotation”. It’s three of the albums I’m currently listening to or have listened to in the last few days/weeks. You could of course just go to my Last.fm page, and see it in real-time, but that would take away my justification for adding nice cover-art to my otherwise bland website.
So, have fun invading my privacy.