Archive for October, 2006
The Sun-Sentinal (don’t ask why I’m reading Florida newspapers) has a Recent Article about a “parents primer” in which parents are encouraged to spy on their kids.
“Spy. Spy. Spy,” Sgt. Anthony DeMarco told the crowd of about 40 parents, school administrators and district officials. “Your parents did it to you. Now, it’s your turn.”
While many parents are quick to advocate spying in order to keep their kids safe, it’s not really the best alternative. Using the word “spy” is an indication to kids that they’re not trusted - and that’s just not good parenting. I’m not saying you shouldn’t care about what your kids are doing online; there’s just a better way of doing it.
Instead of spying on them, simply befriend them. Create your own MySpace and Facebook profiles and add your kids as friends. Make an AOL instant messenger account and put your kid on your buddy list. Read their profiles and away messages (after all, they are public information.) If they don’t let you add them, then you can start worrying.
Explain to your kids that anything they post on the internet is public, and they have no expectation of privacy with this material. It’s also a good time to teach them that things they post are permanent, and that potential employers might just end up seeing pictures of them in their underwear holding that beer bottle.
Don’t risk your parent-child relationship by spying. Instead, strengthen it by taking an active role in their online social life.
October 11th, 2006
Here’s another lesson to journalists and bloggers: If you’re going to write a fear mongering article about how out of control drugs have become in our schools, it’s best not to back up your data with quotes like this one about schools implementing drug searches on students:
“99-percent is all for it,” White said citing the survey. “One percent said ‘no.’ And that one percent put on their paper: I use drugs that’s why I wouldn’t want it in the school.”
Ignoring the grammatical mistakes (which isn’t easy), the facts of this quote simply don’t support your article. If most teens are using drugs, then why do 99% support drug searching in school? It would seem to me, that according to the student petition, only 1% of the students are using drugs. That’s not really a problem. In fact, it’s a sharp decrease in drug use.
I’m not saying that drug use isn’t a problem in schools - it probably is. I’m just saying make sure that your numbers make sense before over-reacting to everything.
October 10th, 2006
Houston - Can using MySpace have long term health effects? A recent study by NoosCorp of Texas has shown that seniors who actively engage in social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook, and Friendster tend to live longer, fuller, healthier lives. The survey took into account the listed ages of active MySpace users along with age breakdown from the 2004 census as well as various other factors. The results are quite shocking:
According to the numbers, over 90% of Americans over the age of 90 actively use MySpace. The site also seems immensely popular with Americans in their late 60’s. Roughly 300,000 Americans were born in 1937, and according to the study over 98% of living 69 year-olds actively maintain MySpace accounts.
Today’s seniors are using social networking sites to stay in touch with their friends, read up on new bands, and post photos of themselves hitting the bong in their underwear.
“Looking at the photos, you’d never know these ladies were in their nineties.. I’d give anything to look that good when I’m that age,” said Doris Shelton, a 34 year old mother of 2 whose daughters frequently use the site MySpace.com. “Seniors are surprisingly hip,” she said. “I never knew my daughter was so active in helping the elderly. Nearly half of her friends are in their late 60’s or older. In fact just yesterday she was talking with a 69 year old man from our town.” notes Mrs Shelton.
“It used to be that once a spouse died, a widowed senior would spend their days moping around depressed,” said James Blutner - a clinical psychologist and avid MySpace user. “What’s happening now,” he says, “is that these once depressed seniors are turning to social networking sites as a way to meet new people. It’s a fun, healthy alternative to bingo night. I just wish they’d stop posting those pictures of themselves in their underwear - although most of them still look good for 90!”
When asked why he thought social networking through sites like MySpace would have a positive health effect, Mr. Blutner replied, “It could be many things. It could be the positive emotional effect of connecting to other people their own age, or simply the healthy side effect of so much sex. Everyone knows that the 69 year-olds are a pretty randy bunch… if you know what I mean.”
Blutner - who is also studying the link between online poker and terrorism - continued: “It’s really nice to have a site like MySpace that contains such a representative sample of modern elderly Internet users. The amount of truthful data we have access to about someones personal life is really hard to get by any other means, since people tend to exaggerate or outright lie on our psychological surveys. These social sites are a blessing in disguise with their accurate demographics. It’s like Psychology 2.0!”
Mad Props to Xichekolas for helping with this one.
October 6th, 2006
Some of you who date back may remember when Alexander, VanGogh, LMNOP and I first tried to bring dotCULT back from the dead. If you do, you’ll remember that my first post on the site was titled quixotical - (n.) Idealistic without regard to practicality. To date it’s still one of my favorites.
Anyway, I’ve since given permission to David Seaman to include it in his upcoming book entitled “The Real Meaning of Life”. It’ll be listed under my real name, Ryan Jones.
It’s a real book, in print, that will be available sometime in early to mid September. While I’m not seeing any profits from this, I do encourage everybody to head on over to Amazon.com and Preorder a copy of The Real Meaning of Life. It’s only $11.00 and you’ll have the opportunity to own one of my very first articles in print.
As a bonus, a brand new, un-released on a website poem of mine also appears in the book… Under the name HockeyGod. (making me the only contributer of the book to be published twice).
So go check it out.
October 5th, 2006
Sleep easier at night America and terorrists beware - our ports are now much more safer than they’ve ever been. Did we step up security? Make new legislation about imports? Hire more drug sniffing dogs? Increase coast guard prescence? No, of course not… we did the most logical thing we could have done: We banned online poker.
That’s right, the new Safe Port Act included a back room rider that introduce legislation aimed at enforcing a ban of online gambling. The new law restricts banks and credit card companies from dealing with online poker sites, effectively locking players out of depositing or withdrawing money from their accounts.
The irony here is that while most online poker sites were actually legit, many players will end up losing all the money in their accounts because of this law - since the sites may have no way of returning their money.
So what does online poker have to do with port security? And why was this added as a back room rider? (this means that there was no debate or discussion about this part of the bill. Chances are many legislators didn’t even know it was tacked on.) Those are good questions, and I’ve written to both of my state’s representatives asking for answers. I haven’t receieved any replies so far, and It doesn’t look like I’m going to.
It’s worth noting that this new law won’t prevent die-hard gamblers from transfering money offshore then into their poker accounts, but it will prevent spur of the moment deposits from spontaneous first time gamblers. That in itself should be enough to send many seasoned gamblers running for the withdrawl button. Successful online poker players don’t like to play against other good players. They depend upon these new players and their sporatic deposits. In the ocean you don’t see sharks eating other sharks. In the online world however, that may be the only way to play.
October 5th, 2006
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