James' World 2

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In recent years, more and more online users have grown skeptical of companies gathering data about them. And in particular, the so-called “Big Tech” businesses have found themselves under the spotlight for the information they collect about others.

The internet has become a huge part of many people’s lives, and quitting it entirely might be a tall order. Still, though, you can take steps to minimize the amount of data companies collect about you.

In this article, you’ll find out why technology companies collect data about you—and what you can do to make this information useless to them.

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Phone Data

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Even if your college student received a scholarship or financial aid, odds are you’re staring at a hefty college bill now that the fall semester is nearly here.

Every year, colleges send out their fall bill and every year, thousands of families scramble to pull together the money to cover college costs. For many families, that scramble results in borrowing — sometimes at levels they can’t afford.

At this late stage, you may have no choice but to borrow to pay the bill. But there are strategies you can employ right now that can reduce how much debt you have to take on and set you up on a better multi-year plan to handle college bills.

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Jose Velez / Money

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You might be familiar with Google Drive from its web interface or its mobile apps. But desktop software is available as well, allowing you to seamlessly sync files stored in your Google Drive with the file system on your Windows or macOS computer.

After four years since its last update, that desktop software setup is changing again, and the current tools (Backup & Sync for free account holders, and Drive File Stream for enterprise customers), will be replaced by a new, single platform called Drive for Desktop.

You can carry on accessing Google Drive in your web browser and mobile apps as always—creating Docs, Sheets, and Slides just the same as before. But if you want to keep data from Google Drive on your computer and sync it to the cloud, or if you’ve got large batches of files you need to upload to your Drive, then you’ll want to download the desktop application.

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There’s new Google software you can download for Windows and macOS. Tyler Franta/Unsplash

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Google is fighting back against Apple rival iMessage envy by making its own Messages app a lot more fun. Starting this week, all three major US wireless carriers have committed to making Google Messages the default messaging app for Android phones. Verizon is the latest carrier to make the announcement, following T-Mobile and AT&T, both of which made the same announcement earlier this year. 

Eliminating iMessage envy is order to fill. Apple’s iMessage really does put regular text messaging to shame thanks to enhanced features like Wi-Fi messaging, full-resolution photos and videos, typing indicators so you can see when someone is responding, and read receipts. And I can’t fail to mention the weird social (and sometimes romantic?) divide Apple encourages by giving other iMessage users their own colorful conversation bubble.

To tackle this, Google’s Messages app includes Google Chat — also known technically as RCS Messaging — which has a lot of the same perks that iMessage has, including end-to-end encrypted messaging, improved group chats, read receipts, typing indicators, and full-resolution photos and videos. It also mashes together emojis in novel ways and puts them front and center to liven up conversations.

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If you haven’t started using Google’s Messages app, you will soon. Trust us, it’s worth it.  Sarah Tew/CNET

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This summer, television became preoccupied with a question: What should happen to men? Not all men — TV has not been inundated with stories about Black men, migrant men, trans men, men who struggle to make ends meet by holding down three gig-economy micro-jobs. One conundrum has kept cropping up in various genres and iterations: The white guys who used to be default protagonists on TV and in American life, all of the beleaguered dads, bad bosses, authoritative leaders, and wild-card mavericks, are no longer the main characters. So what happens to that guy now? Should he be erased? Can he be rehabilitated, his entitlement washed away? Where is he supposed to go?

Series from this summer have found various answers to that question. Perhaps the white guy has a meltdown, or he leans into his right to take up space; maybe the best course of action is to plot his demise. In every case, it’s less a clear answer and more a thought experiment for an awkward cultural snarl — with a vague gesture about how to loosen it slightly. Although many of these shows include people of color on the directing staff or in the writers’ room, they are all created or co-created by white producers, and it’s tempting to see their own plaintive self-concern at work in them. After all, none of the shows simply jettison the white guy. They hold him close. They observe him, mock him, jab at him mercilessly. Even as he becomes a story’s central problem rather than its central character, there he still is in the middle of the narrative.

The first 2021 show to poke at this question was the friendly Peacock comedy, Rutherford Falls. Ed Helms plays Nathan Rutherford, a white man with good intentions and a passion for family and local history; his best friend, Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding), belongs to the local (fictional) Minishonka Nation. Nathan runs a beautiful history museum and has plenty of money to maintain the relics of his family’s past: They were the white people who founded the town, and he idolizes their legacy. Reagan has one small Minishonka heritage room in the local casino, even though she has a degree in museum studies and a more nuanced understanding of the centuries of oppression and injustice that led to their small town’s current politics. In another era of TV, Rutherford Falls would have surely been mostly centered on Nathan, his quixotic attempts to get people to care about history, and the shenanigans of his quirky friends. Instead, it is about his hubris — the show’s title is the name of the town, and it’s also a joke about Nathan. But while Reagan is the obvious protagonist (all the storytelling energy is behind her), there’s Nathan, standing next to her. Rutherford Falls is about an American Indian deciding to take back what should belong to her tribe, but it can’t stop wondering what should happen to the guy whose family stole it in the first place.

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Steve Zahn in The White Lotus. Photo: Courtesy of HBO

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