Don't Trust Me

So here's the mundane question of the week: "Is the Internet making kids dumb?" Seems a marginally scientific study found that seventh graders, after being asked to research the 'tree octopus' and being directed to the Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site, believed that the tree octopus was real.

Then this group of students (25 of them to be exact) were told that the story of the endangered cephalopods was actually a decade's old hoax. Har har. What a way to kid a kid. However, even after being let in on the joke, about half the students continued to believe the species was real.

The researcher, Dr. Donald Leu, concluded that "anyone can publish anything on the Internet and today's students are not prepared to critically evaluate the information they find there." I must agree.

In fact, his statement reminds me of an incident a few months ago with a friend and her nine-year-old niece. The niece said that her teacher told her to never trust Wikipedia because anybody can edit it. Well, I think my response was something like "you should be skeptical of everything on the Internet."

But a better answer would have been more like "the world is a stream of unfiltered data, and you need to be skeptical of everything, even your teachers and your schoolbooks. But at least on Wikipedia you can click the 'discussion' tab and find out the who, what, and why behind edits. Also, every article has a thorough reference section that lists sources independent of Wikipedia. I'm shocked your teacher would blacklist such a useful resource."

Ironically, if any of the kids in the aforementioned study had looked up Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus on Wikipedia, they would have learned it was a hoax.

Wikipedia is one awesome and important piece of the Internet, and kids shouldn't be scared away from it. The trick we need to teach kids is to not passively read it, but to purposefully edit it. By taking part in a project that is both cooperative and complex, I think kids will become better thinkers.

And I believe this was actually the point of Dr. Leu's research: A new type of literacy is required for this generation of students. This isn't about the Internet making them dumb. It's about the presumption that kids are innate Internet experts when in reality they must be taught a whole new set of comprehension skills.

Don't trust my conclusion though. Check out Dr. Leu's PowerPoint presentation yourself.

The Liberal Email Conspiracy

If you set your liberal Gmail filters to route (@Reagan.com) straight to the trash bin, you'll likely never hear from your conservative wingnut relatives again!

That's the bright side of a new scheme from conservative talk radio host Michael Reagan, son of former president Ronald Reagan. He's cashing in on his father's name by selling Reagan.com email addresses for a mere $34.95 a year because all those free email providers are, you know, liberal!

"People who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values are unwittingly supporting the Obama, Pelosi and Reid liberal agenda! What do I mean? Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country."

"Is that where you want your money to go? I didn't so I changed things," he continues. "I came up with the very first conservative email service provider. You now can put your name next to the name of the Greatest Conservative of all, my father Ronald Reagan."

Whether this ridiculous venture succeeds or not boils down to frugality versus political ideology versus stupidity. Trade in your free email address for one with a $34.95 annual fee? Since you can't count on Republican voters to support what's in their own best interest, I think Reagan.com will be a smashing success.

Getting My Life Back

You have no idea how a broken computer can rattle my life. I was so dismayed when, on Wednesday, the power supply crapped out on my desktop system that I actually took up a new hobby:


Yea, I transformed my computer desk into an origami station. As you can tell by the paper plumbobs, I was missing The Sims 3 more than I was missing blogging or Facebook or any of those other computer things. Also, notice the pink origami crane. I heard that if you fold 1000 of those wicked little birds you'll get a wish granted or something.


But that's not going to happen because I got my life back. Or I mean I got a shiny new quad-core gaming machine. I mean productivity machine.

So after five long, arduous days of near Ludditism, I feel alive again.

Just like BP CEO Tony Hayward who I hear is enjoying the yacht races. For some strange reason I thought the guy wouldn't want to be anywhere that reminded him of oceans, but I guess I overestimated his conscience.

Clicking Aimlessly

The Internet is supposed to make us smarter. Where have I heard that before? Oh, it's the tagline of this blog which, by the way, is a quip I borrowed from comedian Lewis Black.

The truthiness of that supposition, though, seems to be a hot topic this week.

Clay Shirky, who teaches New Media as an associate professor at NYU, talks about the media revolution in his article Does the Internet Make You Smarter:

Every increase in freedom to create or consume media, from paperback books to YouTube, alarms people accustomed to the restrictions of the old system, convincing them that the new media will make young people stupid. This fear dates back to at least the invention of movable type.

He makes a good case that increased freedom to create gives us all kinds of silly, time-wasting distractions. For example cute cat videos, Farmville and the House Republicans' web site. But we also get revolutionary tools like Wikipedia which, according to Shirky, is becoming the most important English reference work since its creation in 2001.

But even the "good stuff" can distract me as I demonstrated in my Six Degrees of Wikipedia post last year.

Obviously there's a massive amount of informative, interesting stuff out there. I load a program called Trillian, which manages all my chat accounts, plus my Facebook and Twitter streams, and I'm instantly inundated with all kinds of witty comments and links to interesting news articles. I want to click each and every one because now I'm aware that there is something I don't know! Now I'm aware that there's new information I'm not aware of!

And knowing that there's something I don't know doesn't make me feel smart. It gives me an urgent feeling that I'm falling behind all those other smart people out there. So I read as much as I can, yet I can't commit it all to my long-term memory. Damn it.

I know I'm a total multitasker because the New York Times told me so. I scored 100% on both their Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks quiz and their Test Your Focus quiz.

But I'm not sure what those results really mean. In fact, asking whether the Internet makes us smart or dumb might be the wrong question. A better question is "What kind of brain is the web giving us?"

I think the most alarming part of this NYT story about a guy hooked on gadgets was the theory that heavy technology use diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another.

There's further evidence that the web is turning us into shallower thinkers with weak reading comprehension:

Navigating linked documents, it turned out, entails a lot of mental calisthenics—evaluating hyperlinks, deciding whether to click, adjusting to different formats—that are extraneous to the process of reading. Because it disrupts concentration, such activity weakens comprehension. A 1989 study showed that readers tended just to click around aimlessly when reading something that included hypertext links to other selected pieces of information. A 1990 experiment revealed that some “could not remember what they had and had not read.”

Even though the World Wide Web has made hypertext ubiquitous and presumably less startling and unfamiliar, the cognitive problems remain. Research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read text peppered with links.

Well, that's discouraging. Here I am trying to inform and entertain, and yet, hyperlink by hyperlink, I'm slowly turning my audience into uncaring, scatter-brained introverts. That should be my new tagline.

Taking Their Government Back

America is speaking out on the House Republicans' new taxpayer-funded web site. And boy, we sure are funny, but I doubt that's what the Republicans were looking for.

"This site was developed as part of an official effort to increase the dialogue between Americans and their Congress. Here, Americans are provided a new platform to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda."

I'm sure the GOP thought they were being cool and innovative, but somebody should have seriously Googled "flaming," "trolling" and "rick rolling" before jumping into this new-fangled Internet thing. If you think I'm making fun of Republicans for being out-of-touch, then you're absolutely right.

A forum? To express our ideas? On this computer thing? Well gollly!

And wouldn't you know it? Give them an open mic, and people start yapping. Here is what the true Americans are saying on their new so-ugly-it-must-be-hip-with-those-myspace-kids platform:

We should make English the official language of the US and stop spending tax dollars on translations for Mexicans! if English is good enough for baby Jesus, it's good enough for Americans.

The United States needs to quit beating around the bush and declare war on the Devil. He has clearly shown to be a great threat to our national security by creating brown people, gays, and Jews. I know he would be no match for our fine service men.

ONLY gays in the military. Think about it.

We should invade China and take our money back.

The USA don't need socialist measures such as 8-hour work days, weekends off, paid vacations, banning child labor, or the minimum wage if we want to stay competitive against giants like India and China.

Look for more of the un-American places to spread our freedom.

No one should be allowed to criticize corporations, period. It's disrespectful and unAmerican.

Over time I have found that American sour cream just isn't sour enough. This is a national disgrace and is holding us back as a country. Soon we'll be nothing but whipped cream liberal candyasses.

We need to eliminate 62 days out of the US Calendar every year. That way we will move through time faster than other countries and we will be able to find out about new technologies first. Plus we can see the future. Don't tell the French.

Why hasn't anyone followed up on Sarah Palin's idea that we should have Death Panels to decide who gets medical care? I read about her Death Panels suggestion and thought it was very constructive and would make most of the recent very expensive health care plan unnecessary. The congress ignoring Sarah Palin's Death Panel idea shows that they were not serious about listening to the American People and their Constructive Ideas.

The government should never give you up, Never let you down, Never run around and desert you. Never make you cry, Never say goodbye, Never tell a lie and hurt you.

Mother Jones has collected a few more stunning examples of this crowd-sourced policy making.

Now, who wants to bet some Republican candidates will actually campaign on a few of the "constructive" ideas listed above? Who wants to bet that the GOP will completely ignore any good suggestions that don't already fit their established agenda?

And who wants to bet that if the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd pat themselves on the back for shunning direct democracy?

Peek-a-Boo High

Here's a little update on those infamous Pennsylvania school officials who really should have known better.

As you might recall, earlier this year, students at Pennsylvania's Harriton High filed a class action complaint alleging that Lower Merion School District administrators were spying on students in their homes by activating the webcams on school-issued laptops. Stryde Hax's blog has thorough technical details on the software, hardware, tools and tricks used in this digital panopticon.

But more details are emerging as key players are brought in for deposition in the federal invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by Blake Robbins, a Harriton High School sophomore.

The school had originally stated that they only used the built-in webcams to secretly photograph students 42 times. Yeah, only 42 times! But if that wasn't enough to make you scream, try this: there were actually 42 instances where the school remotely enabled intense surveillance which activated tracking software which would snap a new picture every 15 minutes until the laptop was turned off.

As any intelligent person would guess, this surveillance resulted in thousands of pictures of students at home -- sometimes catching the teens partially undressed. Did these district employees think? Did they realize this was wrong? Did they realize this was an invasion of privacy? Did they realize that photographing minors in various states of undress was likely illegal? Well, apparently they thought their new super-powers were pretty cool:

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

If Carol Cafiero wasn't constitutionally savvy back then, she certainly is now. She's invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question at the deposition. Of course, in her unfortunate position, as one of only two school district officials authorized to remotely activate the cameras, this is probably the smart thing to do. Too bad she became smart too late.

I hope LMSD officials eventually face a judge and jury with zero tolerance for wiretapping.

Petty Tyrants

"I was spied on by the Lower Merion School District, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

That's what students at Pennsylvania's Harriton High School should be saying after news that webcams on their assigned laptops were covertly activated by school administrators to spy on students.

Spying on students at school is bad enough, but intentionally installing webcam software that can be activated while the student is at home takes the arrogance of a petty tyrant.

You can read the class action complaint here. It alleges that the district was able "to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer."

The district says they only installed the software to track stolen laptops. But I'm skeptical of their intentions and their intelligence. Why did they turn around and stupidly use the captured images to discipline a student for improper behavior in his home? Did anybody in the school district look into wiretapping laws? And did anybody in the school district raise concerns about possible accusations of trafficking in child pornography?

I also wonder what the students are learning from this. Are they growing to accept a surveillance state like the Chinese? Or maybe they're becoming more subversive? Hey kids, a low-tech solution like a scrap of tape or a band-aid is all you need to block the camera.

Or maybe they'll become Luddites? Old-fashioned books never spied on anybody.

I always thought there was something creepy about my own webcam sitting on top of my stack of desk junk. I was so disturbed by that dark glassy lens staring back at me that I put a little Post-It note over the thing until one day the round little eyeball rolled off my desk like the meatball in that old song, and I've left it face-down on the floor to gather dust.

Transparency for All

Of course, the Department of Homeland Security insists this is no big deal, but somehow a private government contractor posted a TSA air passenger screening manual online. And unfortunately, the supersecret parts of the PDF were redacted by drawing black boxes over them. Oh! Nobody will ever figure that out! The MSM will try to tell you that "hackers" used their elite skills to remove the black boxes, but in reality all it took was a copy of Acrobat Professional.

So what was revealed? Well DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano says "the security of the travelling public has never been put at risk," but I don't believe it. I'm sure many terrorists would love to know what size electrical wire can go undetected by airport screening machines or how to sneak in through the exit lane.

However, if you're traveling this holiday season, I suppose this new level of transparency can be very helpful! Gawker has kindly assembled 10 tips to get you past airport security based on the TSA manual. Tip number seven was the most disturbing to me:

7. Be Disabled:
The FSD may authorize the following modifications for the screening of Persons With Disabilities:
1) ETD searches are not required for:
a. Wheelchair and scooter cushions
b. Footwear of disabled individuals that cannot be removed
c. Prosthetic devices, casts, or support braces
d. Orthopedic shoes

Well, thanks Internet! It's not like this wheelchair user does a lot of traveling anyway, but now the TSA will be sure to overcompensate and give me an anal probe.

Idiolarity

It's a great achievement of the Internet. The number of idiots doubles every 18 months. In a few short years we will reach the idiolarity, where the level of stupidity exceeds the ability of anyone to contain it. There will be an explosion of stupidity transforming the way we live and work.

Idiolarity is pronounced id-ee-uh-lar-i-tee, but once the idiolarity arrives, everyone will be too stupid to pronounce it anyway.

(Credit to my friend ChaosJester for this rant.)

We're All Marxists Now

Imagine a world without the Internet...


I'm scaring myself and it's not even Halloween yet! Of course, nobody is talking about closing down the Internet, but what does seriously disturb me is Glenn Beck whining against net neutrality.

On his show yesterday, the lachrymose Fox pundit equated net neutrality with a Marxist takeover of the Internet. Yep. The Marxists are coming and they will stifle creativity, hurt competition, and control Internet content. As usual, Beck has it precisely backwards. Net neutrality is about maintaining a free and open marketplace:

The principle of net neutrality is about keeping the hands of several powerful network operators – AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast – off the Internet, preventing them from taking steps to change the basic open nature of the Net that has led to its success. Net neutrality keeps the Internet as a free and open marketplace, so that a small number of telephone and cable monopolies can’t choke off competition and innovation.

Net neutrality was a founding principle of the Internet, and was the law of the land until 2005. The courts and the regulators changed the rules in 2005 when they eliminated the nondiscrimination requirements that had applied for decades to phone service and, up to that point, to most residential Internet access. Implementing net neutrality is a return to the basic principles that make the Internet work for consumers and innovators.

Maybe Beck doesn't understand the word "neutrality." Maybe Beck doesn't understand the Internet. I know he doesn't understand freedom. But most likely Beck completely understands that he is working for those astroturf groups who will profit from a choked off Internet.

The odd thing about this issue is that it cannot be summed up as "big business versus the little guy." The opponents of net neutrality are mostly telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner.

But the supporters include many big tech companies as well as small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Hell, even the Christian Coalition of America is a supporter. But now, according to Beck, they all share the common bond of Marxism.

And why? Here are the FCC rules everybody is fussing about:

• Consumers are entitled to access any legal Internet content
• Consumers are entitled to use any Internet applications or services
• Consumers are entitled to connect to any devices that won't harm the network
• The same rules apply to cable/DSL and wireless Internet
• Internet providers can't block or slow competitors' online services

Wow! They took that right out of the Communist Manifesto!

Letters from Wingnutistan

I have a distant cousin who forwards every viral email my way. I've written some careful GMail filters to trash anything he sends that starts with "Fwd." It seems to be working. I haven't heard from him in years.

But sometimes there's a friend you'd rather educate than censor. You spend the better part of an hour researching and delicately wording a rebuttal to his or her nonsense. For years Snopes.com has been an amazing ally in this fight.

But now there's a little more help in the political arena. Media Matters has unveiled Email Checker which will help you reply to the conservative misinformation contained in the most common and most egregious chain and viral emails.

I like the way they word their ready-made responses. They're gentle enough even for your grandma. A typical response contains something like, "If this one were true, I'd be pretty upset - so I decided to see if I could find out for myself..."

That's probably the best approach. Almost makes me want to pull a couple of my cousin's emails out of the trash bin... Nah.

Equilibrium Found!

"The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. " — Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Unless it was spoken by Sarah Palin, of course. Let me show you the evidence...

I was playing with this clever little site called Translation Party. Type anything in English, and it will translate it to Japanese, and then back to English. What comes back is typically not what you started with. So it translates the new sentence to Japanese again, and then back to English. It keeps going until it hits "equilibrium" -- a phrase that can be translated back and forth without change.

The site, like this blog post, has absolutely no practial purpose.

So, of course, I'm intrigued. I feed Translation Party some words of fortune cookie wisdom: "Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom." It took 5 translations to hit equilibrium which read "This is definitely the beginning of wisdom."

That's cool. In fact, I think I like that equilibrium sentence better.

So I give the script a favorite quote by Hunter S. Thompson: "Paranoia is just another word for ignorance." I swear the first time I tried it, it found equilibrium in one try. Tonight, it took 4 tries and came up with "It is just another word for ignorance of this illusion." Not bad.

Then I tried a little something from Sarah Palin's famous "death panels" speech -- excuse me -- I mean Facebook status update: "As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!" The script cranked on for a while, and, uh oh...

I think I broke the Internet! After 18 translations, the script locked at this phrase: "U.S. health officials, the State Council, we Gurupumasen many people, our people who are planning a lot of human intervention in the presence of our people our people's current state is a hell lot of people removed the need to perform the chin."

I guess some things weren't meant to be understood.

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." — Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Filtering the Revolution

In the aftermath of the election in Iran, Twitter emerged as the most powerful way for Iranians to disseminate information and organize protests. The Iranian government has been censoring the Internet for years, but of course -- as the Cute Cat Theory explains -- firewalls don't stop anybody for long.

But don't expect our own government to understand technology, firewalls, or cute cats. Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., plan to introduce a bill that would bar foreign companies that sell technology to Iran from receiving federal contracts.

My first thought -- have these senators heard of China? China's net censorship is well documented. American companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have all been complicit in China's human rights abuses. Heck, you might even say they were enthusiastic.

But why do these companies make technologies with wiretapping features built in anyway? Our lawmakers should know the answer to this simple question. In the EU and the US, telecommunications networks are legally required to have those capabilities for Lawful Intercept. Unfortunately, the exact same network hardware that is sold over here is also sold over there.

This fact shouldn't give the above mentioned companies a free pass for supporting oppressive regimes. However, our own government has to see the bigger picture. We want our law enforcement agencies to be able to wiretap (with a court order -- wink wink), but these Lawful Intercept requirements have consequences far outside our own borders.

Oh, and this leads me to my second thought -- why the hell aren't we punishing the companies who enabled warrantless wiretapping within the US? Schumer and Graham ought to work on that one for a while.

A New Kind of Search

I was always curious about A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram, but never curious enough to spend my own money or time on the book. In a previous era, I was a very nerdy college student with a PC and a 2400 baud modem. I had early access to the underworld of fringe science and free text files. So the idea of reading over 1100 pages from Wolfram, an author who is overly impressed that a simple computer program can produce output that seems irregular and complex, seemed kind of anticlimactic.

But since Wolfram is obviously into rehashing old ideas, he built a search engine, WolframAlpha, which launched yesterday. It's certainly different. Remember that Cute Cat Theory I discussed a few days ago? Well, try searching for "cute cats" and all you'll find is that "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." I doubt this thing can survive!

But to be fair, it's not trying to replace the old search engines. This engine is all about computing answers. I'm not really sure how I can put it to use yet, but here's a handy table comparing the popularity of the names Michael and Elvis:

(click to enlarge)

And here's one chart I get when I enter "greenhouse gas emissions":

(click to enlarge)

And here are the demographics of Zimbabwe:

(click to enlarge)

That's all cool, but it took quite a bit of poking around to get results. WolframAlpha doesn't understand the simple human queries that I thought it would handle. If it can't be HAL, I might as well stick with Google and WikiPedia... Sadly, the only time it does act like HAL is when it can't complete a computation. At least it's not killing anybody yet.

Cute Cat Theory

Activism, the internet, and cute cats -- there's a relationship here that I never would have dreamed of. The theory is that when oppressive governments try to censor the internet, they inevitably make activists out of everybody, because people who previously had no interest in subversion are suddenly determined to get their rightful dose of cute cats:

With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. as a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.
...
Blocking banal content on the internet is a self-defeating proposition. It teaches people how to become dissidents - they learn to find and use anonymous proxies, which happens to be a key first step in learning how to blog anonymously. Every time you force a government to block a web 2.0 site - cutting off people’s access to cute cats - you spend political capital. Our job as online advocates is to raise that cost of censorship as high as possible.

Okay, the point isn't really about cute cats. "Cute cats" are symbolic of everything banal on the internet. When everybody is using a tool, it makes it harder for the government to sweep it away -- even behind the great firewall of China.

Still, some countries, China especially, have become quite adept at creating their own Web 2.0 clones with censorship built right in. While one study has concluded that it is difficult to carry out web censorship consistently and effectively, we know U.S. corporations will always be up to the lucrative challenge.

Stupidest Post Ever

Image from Failblog.org

I can't decide if a coloring book full of zebras would be really boring or really fun. If you're the realistic type, there would be nothing to color in except maybe some background and greenery. Of course, if you're the imaginative type you could color them any color or every color. That's probably what I would have done as a kid -- use every crayon in the box.

But anyway, I was looking for inspiration today. I wanted to spark some passion to write about something or other. Plus, I was also a bit lonely. So I heard about this new internet phenomena called Omegle which has gone viral or so I've heard. You click a button on the site and it hooks you up with a random anonymous stranger to talk with. They used to call this IRC, but I'm showing my age.

Anyway, I was hesitant to try it because I heard you usually get paired with racist homophobes or cyber sex seekers. I am neither. But I figured the challenge to steer the conversation to another level could be both awkward and fun. Here is my first conversation:

Connecting to server...
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: Hi?
Stranger: what up!?!
You: Nothing. Do you like zebras?
Stranger: I like striped shirts.
You: That's close!
Stranger: for sure.
Stranger: do you like hats?
You: Yes I like hats. I used to have a hat with sunglasses.
Stranger: no way.
You: Yea, built in to the hat.
Stranger: the hat and sunglasses were connected.
Stranger: ?
Stranger: ?!?
You: they were built into the rim, and you pulled the rim over your eyes.
You: and then you had sunglasses. they were awesome.
Stranger: pics or it didn't happen!
You: I can't find one any more! I had it when I was a kid.
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

My second conversation really reminded me why I hated IRC -- the constant age/sex/location question. There are so many more interesting things about people than ASL, and don't most people lie anyway? Here is my second conversation:

Connecting to server...

Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on.

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: Hi

Stranger: hi

Stranger: asl?

You: No, I don't know sign language. Why do you ask?

Stranger: female?

You: ice cream?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I think maybe the trick is for me to quickly ask the first question in order to set the tone. My third conversation:

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: Have you ever eaten snails?

Stranger: Hey hey hey

Stranger: NO

Stranger: you?

You: Yeah once. Gross.

Stranger: really?

Stranger: seems like it.

You: it's supposed to be a luxury

You: My sister insisted I try them.

Stranger: weird

Stranger: I would need to be PAID for eating them

Stranger: not pay

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

It's safe to say no lifelong bonds were formed, but at least it's not all elitist like that Facebook with their real name requirements and stuff.

Message in a Watch

From yesterday's New York Times:

Confirming a rumor that has circulated for generations, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History opened a gold pocket watch that belonged to Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday and discovered a message secretly engraved there by a watchmaker who repaired it in 1861.

“Jonathan Dillon April 13- 1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. J Dillon,” the brass underside of the watch movement reads.

The inscription continues: “April 13- 1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon.”

The hopeful inscription is like a message in a bottle, or graffiti on a wall, or a tweet -- the writer aimed at nobody in particular, but needed to say what he felt at that very moment.

Dillon was the only Union sympathizer working in the shop. As the only sane adult in my family, I can understand Dillon's difficult situation. I keep my blog hidden from relatives just like the watchmaker's furtive message. Thank DARPA we have an Internet.

Twits on Twitter

I thought the days of investing millions in internet startups with no plans for profit were over. But apparently if that startup company is Twitter, it's raining money like 1997 all over again. One of the venture capital firms behind Twitter also invested in eBay in the early days... so I guess they've got some credibility.

In case you don't know what Twitter is, I'll explain as best I can. It's a "micro blogging" site where you enter your messages (or "tweets" as they call them) in 140 characters or less. You can submit them on the web site, through a 3rd party application, or from your cell phone. You can follow as many other Tweeters as you like and they can follow you.

The results should be an interesting mix of conversations. More so, I find it to be a bunch of people self-promoting their projects, products, and blogs... like me.

I try to be thought provoking and creative in my tweets, but ultimately it's the stupid messages like "should I drink this expired orange juice" that gets the responses from the strangers who are following me. It's all rather weird.

But I suppose the service is handy if you're a news correspondent who wants to get quick input from viewers.

And it's also perfect for a politician who wants to reach out to the masses... or potential terrorists. Rep. Peter Hoekstra made a rather bad judgment call when he gave detailed updates on his recent trip to Iraq via Twitter.

Now Karl Rove wants in on the fun. The former presidential political adviser recently twittered his Texas hunting trip. I admit that I'm slightly relieved that his tweets are no more exciting than mine. Yet I have to wonder -- what if Rove had been tweeting the last eight years? Might we have seen something like this:

KarlRove @JohnMcCain I know about your black baby.

KarlRove Damn! Misplaced my caging lists again!

KarlRove @W woke up with a great idea! Let's out a CIA agent for shits and giggles!

KarlRove I'm just going to blow off that whole subpoena thing today.

KarlRove Let's kill stuff.

So now that I have a direct link to Rove, I feel rather icky. But besides that, I'm wondering if I can craft the perfect 140 character message that will make him open his eyes, repent for his transgressions, and become a better man. Probably not, but I'm so glad we have the internet.

I Can Stop Any Time

Web comic by xkcd.

Is that comic me? Is that comic you? Maybe we have the dreaded IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder)? Oh, no. Where do I go for help? The Internet! This is kind of like a shopaholic going to the mall.

Here's the simple IAT (Internet Addiction Test). It says I'm an "average user." I was completely honest with my answers. For example, they asked "How often do you find that you stay on-line longer than you intended?" and I checked "rarely." After all, I intend to stay online during all waking hours.

They asked "How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?" I checked "does not apply." After all, who has time for a partner when you have the Internet. Anyway, you get the idea.

Of course if I had scored higher on their test, they would have recommended their counseling services and books and tapes. How handy that they're willing to sell me something... I wonder if the shopping addiction sites make more sales? Hmm.

Nielsen says Americans spent 6% more time on the Internet in 2008 than they did in 2007. Also, our TV viewing habits were up 4%. Luckily I can do both at the same time.

I had another relevant link I wanted to insert here, but StumbleUpon is down and I'm starting to twitch. [Update: here is the link. Basically it says unemployment means more time to play Internet games. It's the WSJ, so there's even a chart.]

I will eventually write a followup post on my decision to join Facebook. But right now the social networking site feels too much like high school. I'm not simply talking about gossiping and "friending" people. I'm actually getting weird homework assignments. I'm referring to the famous "25 things about me" post making the rounds. I've been tagged twice this week to write a note with 25 things my friends might not know about me.

These assignments always stress me out. I came up with one thing to write -- my last living pet was a seamonkey. Can you guys help me with the other 24? Wait... it's supposed to be stuff my friends don't know, so I can't ask for help. Then help me make stuff up? Luckily, Holy Juan posted some good filler I can use, but my friends would never believe the one about having an erection for 18 years. Simply put, it does not apply.

I'll be awake for a few more hours, checking the blogs and making sure nobody is wrong.

Everyone Else Is Doing It

Web comic by xkcd. Click to enlarge.

I had a weird dream last night. I was back in the third grade and my two BFFs and I had jacked a car and were riding around laughing our asses off. In my groggy waking moments I had to remind myself that we sweet little girls never did any such thing.

But we always had fun, and although I stayed close to one friend, the other one moved away and never wrote. Every once in a while I try to google her, but apparently she shares a name with one of the characters from the Harry Potter series. I'll never find her in the 1500 search results.

Anyway, so I'm awake, fed and watered, and go about checking the news. An article on Slate immediately taunts me with You Have No Friends. Damn! The world (or at least one web magazine and three friends) have conspired to nag me relentlessly until I join Facebook! And that dream I had? That could only be a psychic message from my third grade pal. Maybe she is looking for me too? And she can't find me on Facebook and doesn't know what else to do?

But I've been so skeptical about Facebook. I've been around these Internets for a long time now, and I know about social networking. See, before anybody marketed "social networking," you were simply called a "freak" for using the computer to meet people.

But those days are over, and I'm no longer ashamed. Let me list my travails. I've been recruited to join MySpace, and spammed to join Friendster. I was on Friend Finder, Six Degrees, Classmates and The Globe. You don't know about The Globe? It must have been before your time. But let me tell you the most important part -- it failed.

Yes, there seems to be a distinct life-cycle of social networking sites:

• A group of young geeks, over Christmas break, put some brains and resources together to build a new social networking site -- probably with a new gimmick or look.
• Everybody in their computer science department joins.
• A new feature is added that allows you to recruit your friends -- or everybody in your address book -- with a single click. They join too. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
• Then comes the awkward stage. It's awkward because nobody really knows how to deal with unwanted friend requests and "defriending."
  
• More features are added by request -- allowing users to make their personal pages blink, dance, play music and induce seizures.
• Advertisements are added.
  
• The site starts to feel confusing, less useful, and you begin to ask yourself "who are these people?"
  
• Your grandma joins.
• Everybody flocks to a new and cooler site. Repeat from the top.
  

So what's it to me? I've been called a nerd, an introvert, elitist and a crank, but I can't stand that blank look people give me when I say I don't have a Facebook account. I surrender. I joined Facebook. I will rebuild my network of "friends" in this new promised land. But when it's time to go, will I follow the other sheep peacefully? Maybe not...

Oh, but what about my third grade pal? In all my pondering, I almost forgot to look for her! Yes, her name turns up a few dozen hits and two of them are definite possibilities. But now I'm full of doubt. We probably have nothing in common and maybe she'll even think I'm weird. What if neither of these women were my long lost classmate? Then two total strangers will think I'm weird. I thought I left this drama and insecurity behind in high school? Looks like I just signed on for more.

However, no friend, ex-friend, lover or foe can ever say they can't find me! They can call me, text me, e-mail me, tweet me, IM me, and yes, even my doorbell still works!