Author: Carl Page 90 of 153

My Life Rules

On October 14, 2014

I live my life by two rules. I don’t care what other people do with their lives if it doesn’t hurt people. And the most important one, treat other people how I want to be treated.

Who am I to say what’s right/wrong? If it works for you. Screw it/him/her/them. Do it. I don’t understand why people feel the need to police other’s actions.

From a chat with a friend last week:

S’true, though. You want to be a better person, you live your life hurting nobody, and you don’t worry about things that don’t hurt you. If everyone else did that, imagine all the free time the world would have.

Simplistic? Maybe. But I don’t waste my energy hating people or trying to change who they are.

No one is entitled to your time, and you can stop at any point you feel yourself running out of energy.

Dispatch from the Trenches #12

By Carl

On October 10, 2014

In Links and Quotes

Not the Twitter We Want, but it’s the Twitter we Deserve

As the social survivors of “Web 2.0” gorge themselves on gifted youth they start to move further away from being things people enjoy. They become business-degree-managed sameness.

Sit back, grab your icy beverage and get comfortable. Joe makes a lot of really great points here in his dissertation on Twitter. I appreciate his dive into the world of Tent/Cupcake as well. I played with Tent a bit and realized I do not possess a Linux Beard.

Love, Grampa and Grandmaster Flash

Facebook loves to be helpful. It will auto-complete anyone you tag. Anyone. This has led to some hilarious mistaggings of Grandma to Grandmaster Flash turning the rapper into possibly the most caring, lovable rapper of all time.

Brown M&Ms

The story of Van Halen’s Brown M&M line in the contract rider was not a sign of rock star excess. The Brown M&Ms were there as a quick way to check if the promoter had read the contract rider.

It’s an interesting story because it’s legend has grown for so long and made sense in the context of huge rock stars touring the country. It was a brilliant move to combat unsafe conditions and as an early warning that the setup of the shows would take much longer and cost more.

Eavesdropping on the Dawn Patrol

By Carl

On October 10, 2014

In Observations

Dawn Patrol is a fun, new podcast from the makers of Technical Difficulties, (formerly Generational).

If you want to know what it’s about in 140 characters of less, I’ll let Justin Lancy put it better than I can.

New Podcast ’Dawn Patrol’ = @macdrifter + @themindfulbit + @potatowire + @takitapart + Sleep-Deprivation - Editing. http://t.co/2qsEhtBXGD— Justin Lancy (@Veritrope) September 19, 2014

When I was in college, my roommates and I would often have rambling conversations about technology, video games, movies, TV and anywhere the threads of discussion took us. I love this podcast because it captures the random threads created by four friends talking. There’s no editing. No caffeination. No polished presentations. There’s real people having real conversations.

I feel like I’m eavesdropping on their conversation when there’s a new episode released. It’s so much fun and I highly recommend it.

Men and Women and Internet

By Carl

On October 8, 2014

In Links and Quotes

Good Morning Class.

Please open your textbooks. We have a lot to cover today. David Cain has written an incredible piece to young men. It is required reading. Go read it. I’ll wait.

Dear Young Men

…he unfortunate biological reality that even a physically unremarkable man can knock out the average woman, if he thinks it will help him more than it will harm him….
…
Unlike the woman, the man could expect to get his way without having an intelligent argument, without considering the needs of others, without being right at all, without any sensible reason for things to go his way.

Welcome back, class. Now that you have a better understanding on what it means to be a man and human in society. Go read Kathy Sierra’s incredible piece. It’s terrifying and exhausting and it brought me to tears reading it on the metro ride in this morning. We don’t need movies to show us women super heroes. Everyone woman on the internet is a Super Hero.

Trouble at the Koolaid Point

As any parent of a two-year old can tell you, ignoring the child usually leads to escalation. Cry harder, scream louder, and in the most desperate scenarios, become destructive. Anything to get the attention they crave. Simply moving on is not an option for the haters once you’ve been labeled a Koolaid server and/or a rich source of lulz. Ignore them, and the trolls cry harder, scream louder, and become destructive.

If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Piont, you usually have just three choices:

leave (They Win)

ignore them (they escalate, make your life more miserable, DDoS, ruin your career, etc. i.e. They Win)

fight back (If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Point, see option #2. They Win).

That’s right, in the world we’ve created, once you’ve become a Koolaid-point target they always win. Your life will never be the same, and the harassers will drain your scarce cognitive resources. You and your family will never be the same.

Are you still with me? Good.

If you’re a woman on the internet, I salute you. Keep doing your work. I will support you.
If you’re a man on the internet, support these women. If you’re a man on the internet, call out those who are not.
If you’re raising a boy in this world, teach them to be empathetic and loving.
If you’re raising a girl in this world, I hope by the time they’re older we’ve made positive changes.

We can be better. We will be better. This is harassment. If this were happening in a workplace, on a playground, in a supermarket, there would be police action. There would be jail time. There would be consequences.

If there are no consequences, nothing changes. Let’s make a change. But how can you, a single person make a change?
Simple.

Don’t harass women.
When you see a woman being harassed, stand up for them.

Class, you’re dismissed. Go forth and be better humans.

Telephone scams

By Carl

On October 6, 2014

In Observations

Telephone scams are common and unexpected. They are often successful because they make claims that scare us into action. We have a problem with our computer. The IRS needs to speak to us about an urgent matter. There is some other impending doom that will befall you if you don’t act now.

That’s also how to spot a scam. The urgency. The life or death tone of the message, and it is often a message, not a real person on the line.

Just today, I received a call from a DC phone number. I saw 202-241-7215 was calling me, so I picked up the phone and said hello. Immediately, I heard the recording. It said the following.

“This is Julie Smith from the Internal Revenue Service. You need to call us back before we take action against you. Call us back at this number.”

Immediately, alarm bells went off in my head.

I had received nothing in the mail and no prior communication from the IRS about anything.
This was a recording, not a live person. This seemed really suspicious.
There was no mention of a case number or reference number to note when I call back.

I typed the number into Google and the results were what I expected.

Google results for IRS scammer phone number

I read the first result and it notes no answer or someone with a middle eastern accent.

Looking further down the page, I see a link for the FTC about Fake IRS collectors calling. Bingo! They’ve been at this for a while.

if you receive a call that sounds suspicious, it probably is. Remember, if the IRS is calling you they will know the following information about you:

Your name
Your address

Do not give this information away. The scammer will often ask you to verify it. But instead, tell them if they’re the IRS, they will already have this information and they need to verify it with you. At this point they will often hang up, or continue to try to talk you into giving up your information.

The FTC lists some good tips too.

don’t provide any account or other personal information. Hang up the phone.
never wire money to a person or company you don’t know. Once you wire money, you can’t get it back.
if you owe – or think you owe – federal taxes, call the IRS at 800-829-1040. IRS workers can help you with your payment questions. You also can visit the IRS website at irs.gov.
if you’ve already paid your taxes, call and report the incident to TIGTA at 800-366-4484.
forward emails from the IRS to phishing@irs.gov. Don’t open any attachments or click on any links in those emails.
file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint. Include “IRS Telephone Scam” in your complaint.

The best defense against scams is your own common sense. If something sounds suspicious, it probably is. If you ever have a question about a call, type the number into Google and read the results.

Before you ever send anyone money, lookup the agency’s phone number and call them directly. They will be able to tell you if the call was legit or not.