Phishing is the practice of trying to trick people into revealing their passwords. Email is the usual medium. The emails are designed by experts and are made to look like they are being sent from a valid service or application.
At first glance, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. In reality, it’s easy to discern real emails from phishing spam. A little education about how systems administration works and about how we fall into the trap of misguided beliefs on privacy and ownership is all you need to avoid phishing scams. You’ll never be fooled by these “Please reset your password” emails again.
HOW ACCOUNTS WORK: FACEBOOK DINNER PARTY
Facebook owns this candlestick
Here’s a little story that sort of explains computing and user accounts work.
Let’s say that the powerful and organized Facebook Family owns a house in your neighborhood. They have lots and lots of well-planned dinner parties. You don’t know them very well, but you are going to one of their parties.
The night has come, and it’s time to go to the party. You walk up to the door and knock, and the Facebook Family lets you into the house. You sit down to a nice dinner; the silverware and place settings are beautiful and the food is scrumptious. The conversation flows. Everyone has a great time. Then the night is over, and your hosts walk you to the door, then they close the door and lock it as you leave.
Now, let me ask you a few questions:
At the beginning of the night, would you have to bring keys to the Facebook house in order to get into the party? No, that would be silly. Facebook House is owned by Facebook, naturally.
When it is time to enter the Facebook House, do you have to open the door yourself? No, you’d knock on the door. Facebook owns the house and the door, so they will open the door from the inside of the house.
When dinner is over, do you take the silverware or the plates? No. You wouldn’t even be able to if you tried.
When you leave, do you tell the Facebook Family to leave, too? No. It’s their house. They stay, you go.
We all know how this basic social situation works. It isn’t too different with online services.
If a service like Facebook, MySpace, American Express, etc. runs into some sort of technical problem, they will never ask you to reset your passwords. For Facebook to ask you to reset your password is like the Facebook Family asking you for keys to the Facebook House. They’d never need to ask because they OWN THE SERVICE; they have the “keys to the kingdom.” They will reset your password from the inside if you knock on the door and ask them to. But only if you knock and ask nicely. If you have forgotten your password, then YOU can click a button and they will send your authorized email account a reset link (remember which email account you use for each service). This is how it is supposed to work. It’s like you knocking on Facebook’s door and Facebook inviting you in to the their house. That is not Facebook wandering the streets looking for you, a stranger to them, hoping you have keys to their house. It just wouldn’t happen. Facebook never gets locked out of their own house. Ever.
The service owner (which, sadly, isn’t you) can reset any password they like. In fact, they can do WHATever they want WHENever they want. It’s their house; They can serve you whatever dinner they choose. They can read your emails, they can post using your ID, they can change any information on your account that they want. Do they fool around with user accounts? No (who has the time?!). But they’ll NEVER need your help with account administration. Ever.
So, knowing that all services have access to all aspects of their service, ask yourself why they would need you to reset your password. They wouldn’t. Phishing emails prey on the innocent who don’t know better.
HOW OWNERSHIP WORKS: THEY GOT IT, YOU DON’T
Western culture’s views on privacy and ownership help phishing scams work. We all think that we own our accounts. We don’t. Let me repeat: We do not own our accounts.
Don’t believe that your account is your own. It isn’t. It’s Facebook’s. You don’t own the dining room chair that you sit in at the Facebook House dinner party. You don’t own the food they serve you, or the forks or knives or napkins. You have no claim to anything within the Facebook House. You can come to dinner, enjoy yourself, and go home, but you can’t take your plate home with you, because it isn’t yours.
This was the hardest thing to drill into people’s heads when I was an systems admin for a Fortune 500: The company can control, look at, search, read, take over, claim and otherwise wreak whatever havoc they desire on your email account. The company owns it; you do not. Our inherent ideas of privacy and ownership run deep, and the fact that you don’t own your email, Facebook, or any other online account is hard to swallow for most people. But it’s the truth. No legislation is ever going to change this fact. Accept it now. I’ll give you a moment for this to sink in.
…
OK. Ready? Now that you’ve accepted the hard truth, you’ll be safer in the long run. Why? Because you will recognize phishing attempts for what they are: well-designed tricks meant to prey on your deep-set cultural notions of privacy and ownership. If you realize that services don’t need your help in administering accounts because you, in fact, don’t own the account (the service does), you will be less likely to fall for the onslaught of phishing emails coming down the pike. You’ll realize that the email must be a fake attempt by scammers who aren’t the owner of the service (because if they WERE the owner, they’d wait for you to knock on the door before they opened it).
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Below is the example of phishing I received today. I knew it was fake because:
1. Facebook doesn’t need my help in changing my password.
2. I didn’t ask Facebook to change my password.
3. The email was sent to the wrong email address. I use a different one for Facebook.
4. It has a zip file attachment. No way should any password reset emails (even the ones I initiate by asking the service to reset my password) should have an attachment. Only a link.
5. It’s super generic. It doesn’t address me by name, not first and last, not any. Just “Dear Facebook user.”
6. If a service contains it’s own messaging system, the service will use that messaging system first. (i.e., Facebook would just send an in-Facebook email for any announcements, etc.).
Here’s the email:
From: password@facebook.com (Facebook Security)
Subject: Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Customer Message.
Date: February 8, 2010 10:05:38 AM EST
To: christine@purplecar.net
Dear user of facebook,
Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.
Thanks,
Your Facebook.
(attached file: Facebook_password_37413.zip ZIP archive 36.7 KB)
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WHAT TO DO IF YOU’VE FALLEN FOR A PHISHING EMAIL:
1. Try to reset those passwords that you gave up immediately. Go to the service (e.g. Facebook) right away and click on the password reset button.
2. Change the password on your email.
3. Change the password on your financial accounts, if it was the same password (hopefully NOT!)
4. Consider requesting a credit report if your passwords to your accounts were the same, or if you suspect that the scammers have gotten a hold of your financial or other important private information.
5. Contact the customer service departments of all of the accounts that have the same password that you gave up to the phishing attempt.
6. Stay alert and wait to see if anything odd happens in your account over the next several weeks.
Data, Media, Rice, Water. Emerging language and winds of change.
Language changes. It grows. It adapts. Nouns are turned into verbs (e.g. “friend”), words take on many meanings (e.g. “peer”) and subject/verb agreement transforms. Scholars know that the phrase “correct English” is a misnomer at best, a downright falsehood at worst. Languages are living things that grow and change.
We are on the cusp of one of those changes now. It truly could go either way. For a language geek, it’s an exciting event to watch. How will the now-ubiquitous words “data” and “media” be treated? Will the educational system catch up and drill the original usage of “data” and “media” as being plural nouns that require a plural 3rd person verb agreement? Or will colloquial usage overwhelm the textbooks and the subject will be simple, single and quick?
Let’s go over some details.
Datum is a single piece of data. Data are more than one datum.
Medium is a single type of media. Media are all the mediums lumped together.
The subject/verb agreement with these words traditionally went like this:
The datum is written on a piece of paper.
The data are enclosed in the report.
The medium was radio.
The media were newspapers.
(Or, in the case of journalists as a group of people: “The media report a storm coming up the coast.”)
Usage of “data” has morphed into the singular subject/verb agreement for many colloquial speakers (that means “regular people speakers and not specialized people like academics, scientists, etc.) “Data” and “Media” are being treated as mass nouns, like rice (e.g. “The rice is in the cooker”) or water (e.g. “This water is cold!”). Now we are seeing usage like “The data doesn’t support your claim.” and “The media isn’t welcome in the courtroom.”
We are seeing the singular subject/verb agreement usage more with the word “data” and with the word “media.” I don’t think most people would have “medium” on the tip of their tongue if they were asked to name the singular of media, but journalists have been drilling us with their self-referential phrase forever. So we know what “media” is supposed to sound like in a sentence, for the most part (If “data” usage changes, then I think “media” won’t be far behind. But we’ll leave “media” be for now).
“Data” is another problem entirely. I’ve been intimately aware of the usage rules around the word “data” for my entire adult life. When I was 18, I started at the University of Pittsburgh in a Psychology major, and I was quickly treated to a grammar lesson I didn’t soon forget. After years of psychology and biophysics research, then on to business research, I knew the expected plural subject/plural verb conjugation for the word “data.”
But here we are at the crossroads, where seemingly everyone else besides the hardcore researchers use “data” as a mass noun. Sure, the Twitterati will do their best to knock you back into their supposed knowledge and comfort zone as soon as they see a wayward “data is” or “data was.” But they aren’t looking at the big picture. Let’s think for a moment about data. This is a perfect example of why language changes. A cultural change happens, then language reflects that change. (I am now going to start using “data” as a mass noun. That means I will be using it in the singular, so those of you who are grammar-feint-of-heart, I suggest you stop reading now. But I do wish you would just hold your breath for a second and hear me out.)
Data is everywhere. It is coming at us from all sides. We have many convenient ways to get data. We have to make an effort to avoid data. We are data junkies. All of us. But in the end, we see data as a separate entity from ourselves. It is something we consume, like water. We choose to step up to it like we walk to the ocean’s very edge. We make the choice to dip our toes into it, or run away. We have our favorite ways of getting data, just like we have our favorite shoreline beaches. But we see it as a huge mass, almost one big entity of which we take small parts. We make distinctions on its bits. The grains of rice are in the container, but my rice is already cooked. No drops of water are on the window but water is leaking in everywhere. Bits of data are scattered around the internet but my data is on my blog. Wikipedia defines as mass noun as such:
“In linguistics, a mass noun (also uncountable noun or non-count noun) is a common noun that presents entities as an unbounded mass.”
An unbounded mass. Think about that. Think about all the info on the internet. Doesn’t it feel like “an unbounded mass” to you?
(ok grammarians, you can let out that breath. wasn’t too bad, was it?)
See what I mean? Which way will this go? Will data be accepted as a mass noun in the general culture? Or will everyday speakers be exposed to the word in its plural form so much that the phrase “the data are everywhere” sounds right to them?
Let me know what you think in the comments. Your data is/are important to me.
Today I sparked a whole conversation in Twitter about the term “social media.” Here is the edited (for ease of reading) conversation. Weigh in with your own opinions in the comments (or tweet me at http://twitter.com/purplecar).
My comments are in bold.
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PurpleCar: Getting a little sick of the term “social media.” Networks are social by definition. All recorded communication is media. It’s antiquated.
mikeyil: agreed
greendeeds: agree with you. The term “social media” is just so generic.
charleshope “social media” is a dumb term anyway.
PurpleCar: @charleshope agreed.
mleis: It’s the only term society could agree upon to describe making the adjustment to ubiquitous computing. Is what it is. Cliches are good. They hurt but they’re good. We all know what they mean.
PurpleCar: The time for calling the phone system “Ma Bell” is over. The time for calling communication online “social media” is over too. @mleis
PurpleCar: RT @deanwhitbread: calling it “social media” is like calling the telephone the “telephonic interpersonal talking machine”
potsie: Shall we re-introduce consumer generated media?
PurpleCar: @potsie I don’t see why, in general conversation, we need to identify who made the media. Unless it’s relevant, we don’t need to categorize.
potsie: It all depends on the audience. Some clients are still comfortable/think about traditional and social media separately.
PurpleCar: @potsie I say “paper copy” or “print book” – I make distinctions about the tech, not the product.
romez: How do you feel about emerging communication technologies being referred to as “New Media” ?
PurpleCar: “New Media” is a stupid term, too. New tech is fine. What it does isn’t relevant. It’s new tech or it’s old tech (like the wheel). @romez
MattTGrant: I absolutely agree re: “Social Media” – name me a medium that isn’t social? it’s like saying “social language.” sometimes I will say “emerging media” instead of “social” – at least it gets at the temporary novelty of the new.
PurpleCar: A Medium is something through or by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or carried on (m-w.com) (inherent social quality). but that’s my point. It’s emerging tech, delivering human communication. I say we just call it media and point out the tech diff
MattTGrant: The question is are “social media” essentially different from traditional media? A wiki is really different from a newspaper. The difference is the “two-way-ness” – I can edit a wiki – I can’t edit the newspaper – I can tag on Flickr, I can’t on TV (yet)
PurpleCar: @MattTGrant That is amateur vs. professional media. Sponsored vs. volunteer. That is where the difference lives.
BigBossBgilbert: “New media” (to me) describes new forms of media delivery (podcasts, for instance). Not sure what you mean.
PurpleCar: Media hasn’t changed. Delivery systems and participants have changed. Media hasn’t changed. “New media” makes no sense. @BigBossBgilbert
BigBossBgilbert: I think it’s also a question of the way news is being handled. There’s big difference between online reporting and print.
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert How is there any difference between online reporting and print? There’s just a diff b/w amateur and professional reporting. Even with the iPad that will be able to have inline video with print, that is still just regular old media on a new device. I say “tweet” when I use Twitter, “update” for other services, “video” for YouTube. I don’t say “I put some social media up on YouTube.”
hchybinski: LOL thank heavens you don’t say that – because it sounds dumb! LOL
PurpleCar: @hchybinski Yes it’s all media. To call it “social media” is redundant AND too general of a term. Trying to think of other redundant terms…
BigBossBgilbert: That sounds like the opinion of someone who’s never written for both. There’s an enormous difference.
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert If you run a search on my name, you’ll see I’ve written for both. Journalism is good or bad. Has nothing to do with tech.
BigBossBgilbert: I’m not talking about the thoroughness of reporting, I’m talking about the difference between online and print delivery mediums. The most cursory, basic example would be the concept of a “deadline”
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert What makes you think online reporting doesn’t have deadlines? I’m really confused at what you are saying. I write for some online pubs and I can tell you, there are deadlines. I’m saying “social media” as a term is obsolete. Online or off. Good or bad. New tech or old tech. It’s all “social media.”
BigBossBgilbert: Agreed, but you’re painting with really broad strokes here. Let’s take that all the way out and say that any form of media that exists where you can interact with others is “social media.” And no, “deadlines” as a concept online are obsolete. The internet simply exists, there is no printing cutoff. Which is to say that stories are ongoing. Updates are constant. That changes reporting in a fundamental way.
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert stories were always constant. Their ongoing quality was just ignored by the writers after the initial soundbite/story.
BigBossBgilbert: But the medium itself changes how easy it is to update that. The difference between updating an existing story online and doing so the next day in print is ENORMOUS. Also, the direct interaction between writer and reader is far more apparent online.
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert but listen to what you are saying. Communication has increased. Info flows more. It’s all just media. More of it, but same.
BigBossBgilbert: Sure, but there’s no harm in specializing your reporting based on the medium. In fact, it’s greatly beneficial to your reporting.
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert That means our habits are changing. It doesn’t mean someone has invented a new medium, say, like info exchange via DNA. You would be forming your reporting around the tech and the environment, much like writing for NYT vs. small town rag. I hear what you’re saying but you sound like the rest of the old newspaper guys who really want to believe its “new” media.
PurpleCar: Anyway, I’m just saying “new media” should be “new tech” and “social media” should just be “media” or specific terms like “tweet” or “video”
BigBossBgilbert: You’re really nitpicking here. And yes, “new media” does mean “new medium.” It’s fair to call online-based news a “new medium”
PurpleCar: @BigBossBgilbert In a few years, the terms will fade and blend in, when people assume it’s online & paper is more rare. I’m an early adopter
BigBossBgilbert: Agreed! But it’s ridiculous to not parse the two now as they’re still pretty separate.
JustinKownacki: “New” always disproves itself over time. We need to subdivide the media, the tech & the distribution. No “new” required.
PurpleCar: @JustinKownacki exactly. “new” will fade, as will “social.” We need to use more specific terms for which media. NYT article. Blog post. Wiki
ericsmithrocks: but… @bigbossbgilbert is a full-time blogger for @joystiq, not an old-timey newspaper guy. Though his cap is very Newsies-ish.
PurpleCar: @ericsmithrocks yes, I know. I said he sounded like one. I’m just annoyed with the term. It hinders communication and is useless.
JustinKownacki: This is the danger of hastily-applied signifiers creating information muddles down the line. “Podcast,” anyone?
PurpleCar: @JustinKownacki agreed.
PurpleCar: Most people should be using the term “networking” or “networks” when they say “social media.” Making a Facebook fan page is networking.
JustinKownacki: The lack of demarcation between “social media” and “social marketing” also makes me apoplectic. But that’s a different rant.
PurpleCar: @JustinKownacki YES! Or MARKETING. Thank you! Calling media “social” when you really mean “marketing” is misleading and slimy.
PurpleCar: Maybe I can get @chrisbrogan to stop using the term “social media” and just use the specific terms like marketing, networking, online, etc.
PurpleCar: This article uses the term “engagement ads” — see, that is way more accurate and truthful than “social media” http://is.gd/7e2vh
Gruven_Reuven: Might be old school now, But I still prefer Howard Rheingold’s (@hrheingold) term “Virtual Community.” You should read his book “Virtual Communities”. I highly recommend it. The virtual circles we create are mini communities.
PurpleCar: @Gruven_Reuven Yeah, I don’t know how much “community” is a falsehood when one talks about online or virtual networks. Not sure on that one.
Gruven_Reuven: depends on the community. I’m still a part of a close knit mailing list community that’s been around since 1991
PurpleCar: @Gruven_Reuven The jury is still out on that for me. The whole perceived intimacy trap with online relationships can’t be ignored
georgedearing: liking @PurpleCar’s stream today
danieljohnsonjr: Catching up with @PurpleCar’s updates today. Wise she is, yes.
PurpleCar: @danieljohnsonjr @GeorgeDearing thanks, guys. I rant, therefore I am. It’s anti-social media.
richpalmer: @PurpleCar That’s why we follow you! It is nicely antithetical.
georgedearing: @PurpleCar you could be the voice behind my new venture @shitsocialmarketerssay / that says a lot..in a good way..really
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Today I will change the name of 2 of the subcategories on this blog: Social Media and Social Media Gems to Media and Gems. I’ll think of more descriptive titles later.
This was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone for weighing in. What do you think about the term “social media?” Are there comments in the Twitter stream above that I haven’t addressed or missed? Let’s continue this conversation in the comments.
Back in November of 2009, I attempted to write 50,000 words along with other crazy people around the world. National Novel Writing Month is every November and it’s a mad rush to the finish.
The people at Ravenshead Software sent me a full version of Write It Now 4 (WrIN4) to use during that crazy month. I didn’t get to 50,000 words this year, but I gave the software a thorough 10,000-word thrashing. The software held up well.
There are more than a few software packages out there for writers. One could spend hundreds of underpaid and overworked writer dollars on these applications. Before I delve into my review of WrIN4, just know that none of these programs will write your novel or short story for you. They can help with organization, though.
The WrIN4 application, available for Mac and Windows, is deceivingly simple. The menus and tabs are easy to understand and use, but behind these screens are added drag-and-drop features that make editing almost fun. The Tools menu has helpful things in it like “Create Random Character,” which will create a character for you based on typical story archetypes. For example, the software created the character “Alexandre” for me, and gave me this description:
“Created with the Archetypes personality data using the Character type ‘Trickster’.Alexandre needs to make people happy. He loves surprises. Recently Alexandre worked as an entertainer.
Bart in ‘The Simpsons’ is a typical example of this.
Alexandre is fairly tall. He has a cheap coat. He has smooth skin and is extremely presentable. His hair is expensively cut. Alexandre looks strong and is extremely wiry. ”
That’s probably enough to put you over the top of your writer’s block wall right there.
I could play with the Tools section all day. I particularly like the built-in Thesaurus and reading level assessment (under “Story Readability”).
I kept in close contact with Ravenshead services throughout the month of November. Here were some of the finer points that I’d like to see addressed in the software:
*Can’t add images into the text. We are now in a multi-media age. Writing software needs to catch up. There are times we writers will want to place an image, for example, a picture of a molecule, within the text. You can’t do this with WrIN4, and I don’t know if competing software can do this either.
*The + and – buttons at the bottom of the left-hand column are teeny tiny and their function was a bit confusing. What was I adding? What was I subtracting?
*The program makes you save again to exit. This is ok for most folks, but I find it annoying to have to click through another menu when I’ve already saved the document 2 seconds earlier.
Ravenshead said that they’d look into these complaints and see if they could tweak things before their update release.
One last note: I don’t think the pricing is great. It’s more expensive than Scrivener, another popular writing program (mac only, though). I think they can lower the price a bit to be a bit more competitive.
UPDATE: Jan 23, 2010: Rob from Ravenshead wrote this in an email to me:
Hi Christine
Thank you for the review of WriteItnow 4.
For the next release we’ve changed the expand/collapse tree icons so
they are less confusing.
For the release after that we’ll add an option to add photos to most tabs.
I’ll also look into smarter save options on exit. The program keeps a
constant checksum for the story which can be used to show if it has
changed (and a save is needed). We used to use this to optionally show
the ’save now?’ dialog on exit. It may be time to re-introduce this.
Regards
So I have these massive folders on my laptop. I really should back them up… Anyway, every once in a while I’ll try to clean them out, streamline, organize, etc.
Well, I came across these few paragraphs today, and I thought, at first, it wasn’t my writing. I thought perhaps someone had sent me a story excerpt to review (which happens all the time between us writerly types). Perhaps that illusion that it wasn’t my writing let me read through it with interest (I tend to be a bit self-critical… another common occurrence in us writerly types!).
After I read the few paragraphs and thought for it a bit, I realized it was in fact my writing. It was a quick exercise when I was thinking about writing a short story for a Halloween contest for Apex Books last year. I never got the story off the ground, so don’t read this excerpt if you feel you need closure. But the theme of the short story contest was something about Aliens and Urban Legends, and I remember thinking that I was going to write the story from the perspective of the alien who inadvertently and haphazardly caused the majority of urban legends in Philly while he was in the very volatile process of maturing to adulthood. Interesting concept, right?
Well, it may have worked out if September, October and November … and December, for that matter, aren’t crazy months for me. No writing gets done then (in fact, in 2010 I’m going to make a concerted effort to make sure I don’t shut down in the fall and fall prey to the constant activities scheduled for kids and family.)
Anyway, here’s the excerpt sans editing, for your enjoyment.
As far as plum assignments go, you’d think Philadelphia would be a cake walk. Just set up shop in the Eastern State Penitentiary or at Christ Church at Fifth and Arch. Passersby are used to “ghost” sitings
I got the notice on my birthday. Loosely translated, it said this:
Assignment: Advance Team
Location: Philadelphia
No need to list “North America.” Or even “Earth.” We have a long history with Philly. It’s been the main outpost in that sector for many time cycles. Philly’s notorious.
I had an idea what “advance” team meant, and you would probably use your word “ironic” to describe its use. We’ve been set-up in Philly for a long time, so it would seem a bit late for an “advance team.” I couldn’t be sure, but “Advance” in this case meant The Advance, the once-phantom policy the networks have been dreaming about for years. The time when we fully integrated Earth into the network. Someone would get a big, fat promotion for this. That person wouldn’t be me.
My parents were dispatched to Philly before I was born. So, in essence, I grew up almost like every other kid here. And just like every other outpost brat, I’ve caused my fair share of royal almost-expose-centuries-of-work mishaps. Thankfully, I was luckier than most, as one of my parents is from a clean-up crew clan and always knew what to do. Still, evidence of my maturization phase lies scattered around the city like a tossed deck of cards. You might make a bad joke here about the “deck being stacked against me” but my people don’t get that kind of humor.
I applied for Translator. After all, being here for so long, I can do both languages. But then again, any of us who are here more than 5 minutes can speak like a native. I felt I was a bit more insightful, though, than your typical alien; I was one of the few who lived like Earth progeny, going to school and socializing. I mean, I have Earth friends. They don’t know what I am, of course, but I can safely say that having friends is rare for us. I figured out a formula for long underwear that blocks the more harmful secretions and magnetic fields from my body, so only a few of my friends over the years have suffered from bad outcomes, and most of those outcomes were gradual and couldn’t be linked to me or my network. My parents are not convinced of my underwear’s efficacy, stating that it is more my superstition than reality. I wear the underwear anyway, just to be safe.
But here it was, my 2908th (in your years) birthday and I am being sent back to Philly. It’s all politics, I’m sure. As I said, this Advance thing is a pipe dream.
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Loosely translated:
Assignment/ Urging/ Suggestion: Advance Team
Location: Philadelphia
A more strict translation of this message or any event in this story would take too much time, and it would just look repetitive to you. The best way I can describe our communications is like a one-way network: you hear the voices of many, all shouting or whispering at you at once, but none of them hear each other. It isn’t like what you think when you hear the word, but “network” is probably the closest you can get to understanding this.
Here is a rough translation of the conversation with my parents that followed:
Me outward: Philadelphia.
Parent 1 outward: The Mutter Museum is full.
Parent 2 outward: Bring your underwear.
Parent 3 outward: Bring your underwear.
Me inward: *sigh*
Parent 3 is mimicking Parent 2, but really Parent 3 doesn’t realize Parent 2 is making the same joke, because they can’t hear each other. This isn’t one of your conference calls.
So this would be my new assignment. Now, as a full grown person, I would be on the Advance Team on Earth, back home in Philly. I applied for Translator. After all, being in Philly for so long, I can do both languages. But I’ve said that already, haven’t I? We repeat a lot, in our communications. Forgive me. It’s the only way we have to make sure our whole network gets the message.
The Mutter Museum comment I’ll explain in a bit.
_____________________
I wouldn’t be safe until Philadelphia; I knew this. Traveling around in our space is dangerous. There is something called The Trend (this is a sort of “baby talk” translation) wandering around out there and it is to be avoided at all costs. Best way for you to image it is to think of the The Trend as a traveling vacuum vortex that sucks the life out of creatures like me. And I could hear it as I was getting ready to head towards Earth. It was growing, like a sandstorm in one of your deserts, obscuring the pure messages and blocking the wayward thought. The transport was down below, in the garden. I practiced my technique. Slow breath, tunnel vision, simple mind. I tried to be Master Zen Li Zhou.
The Trend got stronger. Turtle, I thought. Turtle Turtle Turtle. The Trend was beating with massive signal noise right outside my door. I had gotten this far, but the turtle wasn’t enough. The Trend crushed the image of the slow-moving earth creature with the devastating wave of a tsunami. I have to think that even Li Zhou would have been no match. I had no choice; I was taken with it.
The signal noise was deafening and constant. My eyes burned and my mind was beginning to race. The speerings started to burn the edges of my brain. Images of Philadelphia were fading quickly into the far away space reserved for dreams.
I could feel my magnetic field expanding, furthering the power of The Trend. I closed my eyes and shut my ears. I struggled to contain it. I fought the nausea that gripped my body. Brutal pain pounded the feeling out of my arms and legs. Then I felt the snap. It was subtle and vaguely satisfying, so small a click I almost didn’t feel it. My friends on Earth described the moment when they realize they are drunk. It seems similar. I was beginning not to care.
My function began to deteriorate. My field was inextricably linked with The Trend. I’d never get back to Philadelphia. I’d be at The Trend’s mercy for the rest of my days.
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Back in Philly, it was Halloween. It’s a rare holiday celebrated by few inhabitants, but it was my favorite, for obvious reasons.
Cap’n Billy “The Butcher” McDougall’s Guide to Pirate Parenting by veteran writer Tim Bete is a short but sweet parody of parenting books. Within its pages is sage wisdom such as this:
What should my pirate know about fire safety?
There is only one thing your pirate needs to know: Never fire until the captain gives the order. Firing without orders is punishable by 16 lashes.
But even as a parody, it contains some solid advice:
Discipline isn’t punishment.
Remember, there’s a difference between discipline and punishment. The role of discipline is to teach your pirate the appropriate way to act. The role of punishment is to get prisoners to tell you where their booty is hidden.
There’s also solid advice about common kid ailments like cuts and bruises, viruses and what to do with picky eaters. The book covers the range from newborn to the end of the teenage years. It’s amusing and clever and keeps the pirate gag going throughout. I can see this book as a great shower gift for dads (who are usually ignored in the pre-baby process and parties). Just tell your friends to skip the (bit tedious) intro and get right into studying the nitty gritty of Pirate Parenting.
Get a paper book copy today via ThinkGeek’s website or download the free e-book.
I’ll leave the political implications to other bloggers. Right now, I want to share a recent experience with censored information that has left me reeling.
Last month my British friends on Twitter (some real life friends, some just close online contacts) sent me some links about the true living conditions for Palestinians. I am ashamed to admit it, but I truly had no idea. I know, the information is out there, but I just never saw it. I don’t know why. But just existing in life, here are the messages I get from American media and culture:
*Israelis and Palestinians have never been at peace for thousands of years, and there is nothing we can do about it.
*Palestinians are lavished with supplies, including arms, by other muslim Middle Eastern countries.
*Palestine is the greatest risk to our security in the Middle East.
The list goes on, but you get the gist. The information my friends sent me blew all of these messages to shreds; they just aren’t true. It has brought the meaning of “disrupt” to my very core. It’s uncomfortable. I’ve shed tears over it (here’s a comparison: I shed tears maybe twice about 9/11. One of those times being on 9/11/2001 when I thought a friend was in the Towers).
With Google opening up its search engine, I wonder what kind of disruption is happening with the Chinese people. Are they wise enough to take advantage of this likely short period of time to feverishly look up all the information on Human Rights activists or Democracy? What happens when they find that information that has been withheld from them? Will they feel sad or angry? Will their hearts be heavy with feelings of uselessness as mine is with Palestine? I am just one person. What if millions of people in China learn that their government is not the loving and protective big brother it purports to be?
My friend Eric Rice has a fantastic term for this: Infocalypse: an apocalypse of information. It’s information coming in from all sides, a flash flood of opinion, news, truth and falsehoods. How do we raise children in this? How do we introduce censored/closed cultures to this? How do we find out when we, ourselves, are being censored and what do we do about it?
How do we wean ourselves off it? We are begging for more and more and more information from Haiti. Right now, we would take information from the most biased, evil person on the streets in Haiti. We will absorb their tweets like water on cracked desert soil. We will work to restore their electricity so we can get them internet access, so they can get information themselves.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a fan of censorship, and I’m now so accustomed to surfing the waves of info that I am disrupted when I find that some particular waves have been stopped without my knowledge. I’m a big fan of info. But as a parent and a US citizen, I’m wondering what the effect of an infocalypse will have on a oppressed culture and unsuspecting individuals in the long run.
According to Symantec, “Porn” is a term most searched on the internet by children less than 7 years old. This means many things, but one thing I’ve been thinking about is that an astoundingly awesome “good-karma” opportunity for Google and Symantec is fading away as we speak.
Symantec collects data on millions’ of users search habits. Their service, OnlineFamily.Norton, is a web monitoring service where parents can create profiles for each child and monitor their online activities. The company has mined data on millions of searches performed by the children who have Norton profiles. Symantec has amassed the data into a report. Symantec doesn’t reveal the number of children who have profiles, but the mere number of searches mined (over 14 million) lends us the information that Symantec must have many thousands of children’s profiles in their system (I trust these data and the sample. As a researcher, I think these data represent the general population fairly accurately).
For kids reported to Symantec as being under 7 years of age, the term “Porn” is #4 most popular on the list. Does this mean that children are hyper-sexualized? No. It means that kids are using the internet to look up definitions of words they hear. They don’t want an example of pornography; they want to know what the word means. They are afraid to ask in fear of “getting in trouble,” so they do what they know how to do: they stick the term into a search bar. Much research shows that although small children can be curious about sex and pornography, healthy young children tend to avoid interacting with adult x-rated media. Wake up and smell the opportunity, Google and Symantec!
These are the results from today’s Google search on the term “porn.”
Notice the lack of plain definitions anywhere. Google, Symantec and perhaps Merriam-Webster are missing a golden opportunity to better the world and to get some great press. They should gather forces to ensure that the top search result for “porn” links to an informative but simple definition of the term. (I’d suggest linking to Wikipedia, but the entry for “Pornography” isn’t appropriate for young children. If Wikipedia could get the image off the entry and lock down any editing, the site may have a fighting chance to get in on this American PR Dream.) If they can throw in a few quotes about kids’ behavior from a psychologist or a prominent internet researcher like danah boyd, I’m sure Main Stream Media would pick up the story. Mothers everywhere would feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Google would boost its reputation as THE 1-stop family shop for searching, and Symantec would sell a bunch more products.
You may counter my idea with Google’s claimed practice of not manipulating search results. This is easy to fix: Google could sell or donate the “sponsored link” at the top of the search results page. Google could commit to selling or donating that particular sponsored link to only educational sites like Merriam-Webster or Carnegie-Mellon University. Merriam-Webster or Carnegie-Mellon could use the space to not only define the term but link to their other educational resources.
Do how about it, guys? When opportunity this great knocks, I’m surprised it’s taking so long to answer the door!
The Fattening of America is written by economist Eric Finklestein. The book outlines the behaviors and policies behind obesity in America from an economist’s view. I personally wish he delved into the corn subsidies more deeply (it was almost as if he was afraid to broach the subject!), but it’s still a very well-referenced book with tons of information that may just change your perspective on healthcare, government and fat people. The author utilizes his obese “Uncle Al” as an example of a “ultility maximizing” person who is truly just making economical decisions that result in his obesity.
Sometimes my eyes dulled over at the sheer amount of info in this book, but mostly the author is funny, hip, engaging and insightful. The book is definitely germane to the current healthcare debate, and is a must-read for anyone who would like to argue both sides intelligently. The references are top-notch and most are searchable on the Internet. We all really need to know where the money is truly going. Take a look at this book and be amazed.
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