Monthly Archives: May 2015
4-Leaf Clever
The quote in the above picture is from one of the sharpest minds I know. Like many good quotes, it is not so much the content, but the unexpected spirit implied in the words. Clever.
A tongue-in-cheek comment.
I wrote both the Emmys and the Academy Awards and recommended this new category. Shockingly, neither bothered to even send an email telling me which lake they would prefer me to jump into. #miniserious
I wrote the above in response to a particularly nasty conservative being unremittingly hateful on social media. It was a big hit.
Don’t Be A Drooler…
Don’t be a drooler. A certain amount of money will be very beneficial to you, friends, and family. The law of diminishing returns kicks in and at that point, it is foolish to pursue material wealth at the expense of enjoyment, unless you need 4000 sq. feet or gold-plated faucets. But none of us seem to see the line between contentment and wealth.
The above quote is courtesy of Jackson Hignite part-time philosopher and full-time smart human being.
“The Leprechaun of Privacy”
Ongoing Privacy Rant #365…
I’ll mention a highly personal story to illustrate part of my point. When I started genealogy, I ran into resistance from some people. For them, it was a threat. Learning new things about people or digging into the past does indeed drag up old bones and skeletons fall out of the closet by the dozens. Most of us have said or done stupid things in our lives. The internet has changed just how pervasive the access to it might be, but not that it has always been findable if you want to look. My dad, for example, was a world-renowned drinker – and he was the type who sometimes routinely engaged in violent and/or risky behavior when he drank. In fact, I would say it was one of his key legacies. It’s the truth and I don’t make it sound worse just by mentioning it. But even for me, I know full well it wasn’t the sum total of his life. On March 21st, 1970, he was driving drunk while my cousin was in the car with him. An accident occurred and my cousin was killed. (You can find it in the newspaper archives and maybe in the digitized broadcasts from local stations.) My dad was also in prison at Pendleton in Indiana in the mid-60s. He had a lot of DWIs and run-ins with authority. People can be mad at me because I consider those things to be noteworthy. They aren’t the only noteworthy things about his life. But they are publicly available facts, ones which should be included in his life. He was more than a drinker – but it is part of his legacy. Family members shouldn’t be mad at the internet or public records simply because the information exists. And they shouldn’t try to quash even the idea that these things happened. His life speaks for itself, as does yours and mine. It’s where we end up that matters and how we adapt to what we learn. The mistakes we make often are permanently available for others to learn about.
In my own life, I have been writing several different posts about privacy. In the middle of it all, unrelated to various posts-in-progress, I had something happen that goes to the very heart of privacy and each person’s reaction to realizing that they have none. A really great person was experiencing that realization that the internet never forgets. I hated to see someone worry so much about the information that was ‘out there.’ None of us wants our lives, especially the less-than-stellar parts, shown on live television or in the newspaper. (Much less discussed at the water cooler.) No ill intent was at work with the recent issue and no one was looking at the person with judgement. But he/she thought this was the case and began to worry about the reminder to his or her legacy. It is agonizing to have made a mistake and wish more than anything to go back and do it differently. This is something we all are learning as our lives become more and more digitized and at our fingertips. You can easily find out what nonsense I’ve been in trouble for, and I can probably see that you once lost your mind temporarily and donated money to the GOP. We can laugh about it, hopefully learn from it, and do things differently.
Google yourself. Or use duckduckgo.com. Try versions of your names. Add the state to your search, used advanced options or try different criteria. Click on the “images” or “maps” tabs.
I’ve rarely googled a person and found few results. With a little creativity or page-clicking, most people have considerable information about themselves floating around the internet. It’s usually on the first page of the results, too.
Using public searches is how I always help others find missing loved ones, their fathers, old classmates, or people they are curious about. It’s not some secret methodology. Really, anyone can learn to be quite adept at information culling if they are patient or don’t mind trying 64 different combinations of the same searches. There are so many free places to search that a list would be quite long. If you start googling and clicking links, you’ll get the idea immediately. When you reach the point where you can figure out how information is referenced (or how one thing necessarily leads to another, even though it may not be obvious), you will open up an entirely new level of inquiry.
Yes, your picture is almost always out there, too. No, it’s never the flattering pictures, the ones when you were 25 and buff, or being presented a National IQ award. They tend to be when you have just been arrested, appeared in a before/after weight loss ad as the ‘before’ picture, or from when you worked somewhere horrific. If you participate in social media, there will be more. Likewise, if your friends and family do social media, even when you don’t, your picture and name will be much more likely to be all over the internet. It surprises some people who don’t have Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram that their pictures are on the internet, and discoverable by searching.
I’m going to tell you a secret: someone knows all your dirty laundry. With some people, everyone knows about it. And yes, they were almost all gossiping about it at some point. It’s a distinctly human trait to want to share and trade crazy stories. But like all things, we move on to either more important things or redirect toward the next person acting crazy. The bell can’t be unrung and if you look backwards at those events you could drive yourself crazy. You learn and you move on.
(Also, did you share a deep, dark secret with someone? Well, someone else probably knows about that, too, even though you will never know that it was shared with someone else in most cases.)
If you did something crazy or made the news, the internet will never forget. If you were arrested, your picture will float around forever. There are many sites which get revenue for people clicking around and searching. There are throwaway weekly magazines with titles such as “Jailbird,” endless facebook mugshot-swapping sites, and even most government agencies publishing the pictures of all inmates.
I’ve seen experts claim that they can’t be located on the internet or that the internet has been ‘scrubbed.’ Like the mysterious “Credit Report Fix-It” claims, these guys are usually quite mistaken. There are those who are indeed very hard to find. But they are as rare as purple chickens. When privacy experts are being honest with you, they will tell you that all your mistakes are available for the world to see. Trying to conceal them usually invokes “The Streisand Effect,” and then draws the very attention you were trying to avoid.
The above is all true without using any paid services. For a small fee, you might as well have published your entire life history on a public Facebook post. Believe me; everything significant that has ever been placed on paper is going to be in those files. They might be in several places, but it is all out there, probably forever. Some services are cheap while others are more expensive.
Perhaps more disconcerting is that as you gain more experience in life you are much more likely to be open to review. Do you have professional certifications? Degrees? Business Licensing? Registered with your city, county, state or federal government for any reason? Notary? Minister? Teacher? Lawyer? Doctor? Nurse? The more credentialed you are, the more times you are going to be indexed and the easier it is to find you and find out things about you. Especially when you trip and fall through the proverbial plate glass window in your personal life. Brush the glass off and stop worrying that “everyone knows.” Of course they are going to know!
Privacy is a leprechaun.
The Unicorn of Privacy
Privacy Rant 77…That creepy guy Steve at work? He knows where you live – and you told him, even though you didn’t realize it at the time.
I keep seeing helpful tips about how to be safe. The problem is that they are mostly wrong. Whether you are talking about Facebook and social media or general life, you are broadcasting much more information than you want to.
I’m not trying to be provocative or to anger anyone. I’m trying to get people to stop focusing on small details at the expense of bigger concerns.
You can take logical precautions to be safer, and you should. But you need to know that social media isn’t the biggest danger. I can’t help but get irritable when I read long posts from “experts” about what to do or not do on social media, including posting photos, tagging your location, or sharing. Where you are is already publicly available to Creepy Steve. He’s not on your Facebook – and he doesn’t need to be.
Do you have a birthday? Since you are reading, I’m assuming ‘yes’ is the answer. Do other people know when it is? Again, ‘yes’ probably applies. I’m not even talking about the year – just the day and month. Whether it is visible to anyone on social media or you have a party or communal card-signing by coworkers, you’ve given away the only information a person needs to find you.
Click this link: https://goo.gl/yG4vMu for the Arkansas Voter Registration page. (Yes, you could go to the courthouse and look at the information. But to keep it more authentic, I’m using information you can use at home, without putting down your bag of Cheetos.) Since the site doesn’t kick you off for guessing wrong, you can keep guessing the year or the exact spelling. When you succeed, you will have the registered voter’s address. Not a registered voter?
You can access property records online. (Yes, you could go to the courthouse for them, too.) For example, here is 1 link for the Carroll County property records: /www.actdatascout.com/CountyHome/PublicRealEstateSearchByName. Start with less information, such as last name only and keep going. You will eventually find the person’s property records, a map and layout of their house, copies of deeds, the school districts, and aerial shot of the house, access to pictures of the front, where the doors and windows are, what kind of utilities they use (and who the companies are), and examples of the person’s signature. Among other things. Don’t own property, either? I’ll get to that later.
For most of us, even without discussing social media, the fact that you vote or own property – two common and vital activities in our society – exposes you to privacy concerns. I mentioned the birthday point because so many people believe they are doing well by not having their year of birth shared, or visible only to close friends. The truth is that none of that matters. Any acknowledgement of your birthday, public or private, cyber or real, exposes you to intruders, as does owning property or voting.
So, as you read all the viral safety tips posted by family, friends, and law enforcement, please remember that where you live is probably available to anyone.
P.S. If you are going to worry about every little thing, stop and consider all those school stickers or silhouettes people stick all over their fancy SUVs. Each of them identifies either that you have children of a certain age or where you yourself went to school. Creepy Steve can misuse that information. A few months ago, someone was bragging about how protective they were of such information and I could clearly see how many kids they had and where they went to school – all from seeing the back of their vehicle. She was dumbfounded because it had never occurred to her that she was driving around in a vehicular billboard broadcasting to the world how many kids she had and where they could be found. (And it had nothing to do with social media.)
A Tuesday Afternoon in Pictures
Since everyone accuses me of the latter of the 2 alternatives mentioned in the above picture, I made this. (P.S. Also a good example of why our language bites ankles compared to others.)
For the following two pictures, it resulted from an exchange on social media. The first one is from Jackson Hignite and the second one was my reply…
The above exchange is somehow “meta” and brings to mind several comments. But I’ll let you decide if you see any hidden meaning lurking the bushes.
The one below is the result of an off-the-cuff remark I made on social media, again directed toward the torrent of youths finishing high school and facing the long road of adulthood.
I’m not certain why I included the Clooney picture in this post other than it tickles me. That should be enough, anyway. If I find it to be funny, surely others will, too.
A Soup of Pictures
I made the above picture to be funny, picking on my wife.
I made the above picture after reading another John Pavlovitz blog entry, this one at: http://goo.gl/v4GQMD.
The above picture was the result of the fallout of people not being creative with their criticism.
I wrote a pithy book review last year under a nom de plume. I got quoted, so I guess someone liked it.
The above picture was one I made for someone’s social media birthday post. I liked the quote.
Another one I made for a social media birthday.
I Disagree With Almost All Anti-Vaxxers
I made the above tongue-in-cheek argument, hoping to perhaps disparage both the learning of algebra and the anti-vaxxers. (I fit the futility of algebra and the crazy of anti-vax into one pithy meme. You owe me $1. Thanks)
https://goo.gl/PEBQv7 (How Anti-Vaxxers Sound – YouTube) This link uses satire to drive home the point of the idiocy of many anti-vax arguments. Comedy tends to do a better of unmasking the absurdity of arguments.
I’ve yet to meet someone who demands the right to avoid vaccinations who isn’t missing a few threads on their bolts. I’ve seen some online who have great control of their arguments – but only when their arguments are used singularly; taken as a whole, it is fairly crazy. Personally, I’ve never met someone with doubts about vaccinations who doesn’t also do some other unrelated and even more dangerous things. But I can’t seem to tell them that. “They” are different from everyone else.
Vaccinations should be avoided only in demonstrable cases of medical necessity and then only under very strict conditions. Parents withholding them should be treated as if they are abusing their children and expect punishment for violating the social compact of immunization.
As for the “religious exemption” justification for forgoing immunizations, I’m not sure if I have a big enough “You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me” stamp to hammer it with. Part of the price of admission to society is by participating in reasonable restrictions to how crazy you can talk and act. There is no sugar-coating the goofiness of allowing ignorance about cause and effect to affect public health.
Regardless of how strongly you believe your religion and scientific grasp goes to protect you, you need to stop perpetuating the illogical nonsense of anti-vax arguments. While prayer may or may not help you, it has been shown to have no effect on infection rates or statistical models of contagious disease.
“The World Is Changed By Examples, Not By Opinions” – Not Quite True
“The world is changed by examples, not by opinions,” a quote by Paulo Coelho. You’ve probably seen it in other forms on the internet. Usually it is cited as “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” It is a minor variation but can affect how it is interpreted.
Like most pithy generalizations, it can be used incorrectly. Instead of giving an esoteric or confusing example, I’ll give you a real-life snapshot to visualize.
A young man, Jake, secretly disagrees with his family and friends about gay rights: they are staunchly opposed, while he is completely in accord with the LGBT community. The more Jake sees people being discriminated against based on sexual orientation, the more frustrated he is with those who are guilty of it. He watches, listens, and disagrees. At church, he notices that Jenna, a choir member, is often posting pro-LGBT information on social media. Jake begins to read Jenna’s words, noting that she gets a lot of negative commentary for her posts. She handles them with aplomb but never wavers from the insistence that it is bigotry to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Over time, Jake internalizes the logic Jenna presents and begins to challenge his friends and family.
Did the female choir member “do” anything? Or was she just owning an opinion?
I think it’s obvious that while she didn’t “do” anything substantial, she used the tools available to express her opinion in such a way as to cause a change in another person’s behavior. This, in turn, began to challenge the young man’s friends and family, who otherwise would have been unchallenged in their discriminatory beliefs. Her opinion caused changed.
Whether we are posting on social media or discussing important issues face-to-face, opinions can and do cause changes in the world. They are not “just words.” Words from the right source at the right time are often the perfect catalyst to bring people out of silence or to change their reactions to people and what happens.
Opinions can be powerful. Opinions combined with action probably lead to results with greater frequency. However, we shouldn’t discount properly expressed opinions as catalysts for change. A speech seen in person or on TV, paragraphs in a book, or words read from a blog can all be powerful enough to start us thinking differently. A calm conversation between pastor and parishioner, a relaxed chat between parents and child, or even a classroom presentation from a great teacher can all transform from opinion to lasting knowledge and action.
Untraditional Mother’s Day
I didn’t want to do the traditional mother’s day, so I made a homage that best represents her, when she was young and already set on her course. Not because my mom is gone, nor because I ever was committed to these types of holidays; rather, because although mom was a real person, she was never really whole, and she didn’t get the life she could have had. Her shadows kept her disconnected and unable to connect like one would expect. She passed her weakness on to me – as most parents do. (There are a lot of us out here, the ones who envy the legions of normal families.) I have many memories, many of them good. When I think of mom it is just as likely that I recall black and white, with fewer soft edges to bring her together. It is no offense toward her to acknowledge that she was a person, with demons and laughter in equal measures.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 