Author Archive

Six Basic Tips for Online Safety by Craig Middleton

Friday, February 5th, 2021

Six Tips

Introduction

There’s an old saying that “knowledge is power,” and while that might seem cliché, it is true when it comes to internet crime. Hackers and cybercriminals are looking for information about you and your family. If they find the information they want, it gives them the power to steal from your bank accounts, destroy your credit, ruin your reputation, stalk your movements, and possibly even attack you physically. Fortunately, there are things you can do to keep information about yourself and your family safe. Here are some basic online safety tips.

Multi Factor

1. Enable Two-factor Authentication

Many online services give you the option of using two-factor authentication to access your accounts. In addition to your username and password, you also have to provide another piece of information. This prevents people from accessing your accounts even if they have obtained your password. It offers greater protection for your accounts, especially if the second factor is something entirely unique to you, such as your favorite vacation spot, recognition of your face, or a fingerprint. You don’t necessarily have to stop at two factors, though. Multi-factor authentication providers may be able to help you become even more secure.

2. Protect Your Passwords

Protecting your passwords is vital to maintaining online security, especially where two-factor authentication is not available. You should never share your passwords with anyone, not even those you trust the most. You should also avoid “default” passwords, opting instead for those that are easy for you to remember but difficult for other people to guess. Strong passwords have a combination of lowercase and capital letters, numbers, and sometimes special characters. Special characters aren’t always permitted, though, so pay attention to the rules when creating a new password. Another way to protect your passwords is to use a unique one for every login. This way, even if someone obtains the password to one account, the others are still protected. Be sure to keep a list or you may let your computer keep them for you if you don’t share it.

Avast

3. Keep Antivirus Software Up to Date

Antivirus is sort of a blanket term to describe software that protects against all types of malicious programming; not only viruses but Trojan horses, worms, etc. Not all antivirus programs include protection against ransomware, however, so this is something to pay attention to during purchase and installation. If your antivirus doesn’t have it, you may require extra protection.
Unfortunately, it is not enough merely to have antivirus software installed. Hackers are relentless at developing new programs that take advantage of outdated protections by exploiting their weaknesses. Therefore, you need to update your antivirus frequently to be sure it is equipped to deal with the newest threats. In many cases, you can set up the antivirus software to update automatically. This way, you don’t have to remember to perform a manual update

4. Use a Virtual Private Network

Chances are good that you do not only access the internet from your home. Free Wi-Fi is ubiquitous, and portable devices such as tablets and smartphones make it easier than ever to connect to the internet wherever you are. However, this convenience comes at a price. When you connect to an unsecured internet connection, it makes any data and files that you send via the network vulnerable to everyone else connected to it.
More commonly known as a VPN, a virtual private network keeps your data secure even when you connect to public Wi-Fi. It does this by encrypting your data and disguising your IP address so no one can use it to identify you. To add a VPN to your browser, you first have to purchase the best option for you, or try a free trial

5. Clear Your Cache

Many websites save information about you in the form of cookies. This saves your personalized settings for you on sites that you frequent, but it could also save personal information about you that you don’t want widely known. To protect yourself, you should clear your cache periodically. Most browsers will allow you to choose which sites you want to clear cookies from and which you want to save to keep your settings intact. If you want to clear all cache, you should be able to find the option in your browser settings under more tools → clear browsing data.

Fishy subject

6. Read the Email Addresses and Subjects of Unsolicited Emails Carefully

Pay attention to where your emails are coming from. It may be easy to trust an email coming from a source you would generally trust such as your bank, phone support, or work. Scammers can make an email seem legit at first glance, but always look at the email address if you are unsure of the source. If it is an email you don’t recognize, block the sender. Use your judgment, common sense, and intuition to guide your online activities. If something doesn’t seem right, don’t click on it, swipe it, or otherwise engage with it at all. If you think it could be really dangerous to you or someone else, report it to the authorities. The image above shows a subject and an email address that are clearly bogus.

Craig Middleton

Craig is a New York City-based retired business consultant, who is an expert in education and cultural trends. He has a Masters of Business Administration and a Masters in Education from St. Johns and loves sharing his knowledge on the side through his writing. If you have any questions or comments you can direct them to Craig at craigmiddleton18@gmail.com.

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The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health and How We Must Adapt by Sinan Aral

Tuesday, January 12th, 2021

The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health and How We Must Adapt by Sinan Aral takes an in-depth look at the impact that social media has had on our society. He covers the positive and negative aspects and offers advice for how scientists, industrial leaders, and policymakers can collaborate to clean up issues associated with things like fake news, election tampering, and free speech. This is a book that every consumer of modern media needs to read so click here to get your copy now.

Preface: Pandemics, Promise, and Peril

Sinan’s Hype Machine is the real-time communications ecosystem created by social media. We start by seeing how COIVD pushed billions of more people to laptops and smartphones as many digital Luddites were forced on to various online platforms. Even routine users found themselves using it more and young people who were given limited screen time by parents prior to COVID started spending the entire school day online. People responded by organizing Zoom meetings to brainstorm problems old and new. As automated “bot” software along with cyborg and troll networks spread misinformation about things like COVID and elections, others got to work to fight these new digital enemies. As we have seen there is potential for great promise and peril. This book takes a look at both and offers suggestions for how we can make the most of the Hype Machine.

1. The New Social Age

Humans have always been social animals. The Hype Machine has simply poured gas on our campfires. It is designed to inform, persuade, entertain, and manipulate us. It learns from our choices and location to improve its persuasive leverage. The motivation of course is money. It can rightly be considered the social media industrial complex
We start with the story of how Russia used social media as a key part of their armed takeover of Crimea in 2014. Every time a pro-Ukrainian message was posted it was swarmed by messages from Russian bots and subsequently taken down. Most people were left with the idea that the people of Crimea wanted to be part of Russia.
During his PhD work, Sinan realized that statistics required observations to be independent while modern networking made everything interdependent. His epiphany at the time was that digital social networking was going to turbocharge how information, behavior, economic opportunity, and political ideology flowed between people. His thesis was on how information flows through digital social networks and as he now evaluates hundreds of companies each year, he gets to see what is coming. He knows that we don’t know enough and advocating for more research is a theme of this book.

2. The End of Reality

Fake news isn’t new, but the speed at which it can spread can cause real consequences. Rumors of gas shortages and a shooting at the White house caused long gas lines and a brief stock market crash. Some put out positive fake news about stocks they own and sell when the price goes up (pump and dump). We know that Russia made an effort to impact the 2016 election using the Hype Machine, but we don’t know the impact that effort had. Using social media in an effort to impact elections is a global problem.
Another area where fake news distributed by social media has had an impact is the world of vaccines. Anti-vaxers have used it and caused some communities to decrease vaccination percents below the point where they offer heard immunity. This has caused an increase in cases of measles, a disease that the US declared conquered in 2000. Another problem is that several studies show that false news spreads faster than real news. Political false news travels faster than any other category.
Social bots are software controlled social media profiles. They pounce on fake news and retweet it broadly. Real people then pick it up and do most of the spreading. They often mention influential humans who can give them a greater reach. Novelty attracts attention (the novelty hypotheses) and as a result, false news is more novel. Big repetition causes belief. (Doug: This is something that Hitler took advantage of.) People also believe what they already think (confirmation bias) so when you try to convince them that what they believe is false they tend to dig in even harder. Since fake news attracts more readers it makes more money by posting Google ads. This makes it a big business. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) pit two neural networks against each other. One learns from the other’s decisions and optimizes its efforts to fool the other. They can also be used for good. Deepfaked audio can allow one person to sound like another, which has been used to defraud companies.

3. The Hype Machine

The Hype Machine is an information processor regulating and directing the flow of information in society. It is comprised of the network itself, the interaction between people and machine intelligence, and the input/output device, which is most commonly the smartphone. In addition to these three components, there are the four levers of Money, Code, Norms, and Law. Networks learn about us by looking at who we are connected to, what we read, and what we buy. People tend to cluster and similar people connect. This causes echo chambers that spread fake news. If one person has strong connections to two others, the others are likely to have at least a weak connection. The small-world phenomenon also shows up in social media as the average distance between any two people is about 4.7 degrees, not six.
Sinan describes what he calls the Hype Loop. It starts with machine algorithms sensing who we are by what we say, what we consume, and what we do. It then offers suggestions for things like who to friend and what to buy. We then consume content based on the suggestions and finally, we take action such as making a purchase, sharing content with others, or voting.
Connections via social media platforms are much more likely to happen via suggestions offered by algorithms than by people searching. This may also contribute to political polarization as similar people get connected faster. Algorithms also recommend the content we consume. Facebook is now the largest news outlet. Its goal is to attract more likes and more viewership. Some things are best done by the machine. Spam filters and newsfeed ranking are examples. More reflective people tend to want their news recommended for them. Since our smartphones are always with us the Hype Machine is constantly learning about us. Apps constantly share data with five to ten other apps. The next big thing is likely to be the brain-computer interface so we can control things with our thoughts. Think of using your “brain mouse” to click on something you see in an augmented reality space.

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House Moves 101: How Do You Do A House Move With Your Kids? by Rhenn Taguiam

Saturday, January 9th, 2021

House Moves 101: How Do You Do A House Move With Your Kids? by Rhenn Taguiar gives some tips on moving from the point of view of a company that moves people. If you are planning a move be sure to head his advice along with my addendum. This post is brought to you by RoadwayMoving.Com. @roadwaymoving @roadwaynyc

Moving With Kids

Introduction

If you decide to move to a new house, then congratulations! Your new house can serve as the best place to open a new chapter in your life – be it that you’re moving to start a new family, moving to get closer to work, or moving to get closer to school. Regardless of the reason, a new house can definitely make way for a wonderful new home life. You can enjoy amazing meals with your kids, delightful walks around your neighborhood, and interacting with new schools and teachers. However, remember, you can only enjoy all of these things if you’ve finally settled down in your move. And unfortunately, such an idea can be stressful, considering you need to worry about other obligations while having to move houses. In fact, you can definitely enjoy moving with your kids, provided you start with a few steps.

Here are some things you need to do.

Secure your documents and requirements and submit them as soon as possible. Once you’ve decided to start the moving process with your kids, it’s wise to secure your documents and requirements and submit them to the necessary channels as soon as possible. That way, you’ll limit the need for you to visit faraway offices, especially if you’re moving to a faraway location especially to Manhattan. Moreover, you can use this opportunity to tour your kids to your new neighborhood, meet moving companies and other professionals, and even help them be more familiar with their new community. That way, you minimize the risk of unnecessary leaves and absences just to secure these materials.
Plan and sort your belongings as soon as you can to avoid complications. Before you pack, it helps for you and the kids to sort and create an inventory of what you own – especially if it’s through the cloud via a spreadsheet or an app – so you can keep track of what you want to keep, sell, or even throw away. Moreover, a cloud-based tracking system allows you and your kids to pack their things simultaneously and among their individual rooms without having to keep track of a ledger or a notebook. Make sure your moving timeline doesn’t interrupt your other obligations. While you may only move houses a few times over a few decades, you need to make sure that these moves don’t interrupt your other obligations like your job or your kids’ schooling.

Track Your Time Line and Consider Involving Professionals

If possible, try to make sure you’re using a calendar app or a scheduling app that synchronizes your moving timeline with the rest of your daily routine. That way, your kids won’t have to risk losing too much school. Try to ensure that your moving needs are positioned on days you can take time off, free days, or even paid leaves and vacation days.
Pack one room at a time over the course of a week before the moving day. Instead of panicking about packing a few days before moving day, try to pack a room at least a week before moving day. That way, you can slowly focus on ensuring that all things are put in their right places and that you won’t misplace anything. Moreover, packing one room at a time allows you to avoid any unnecessary mishaps, especially regarding missing items. It also allows you to still be able to pull off other things you might have to do such as study and work without having to panic about accidentally packing essential things.
If possible, have your kids start packing the things they need the least first, and then pack the things they might need more urgently last in order to be able to get access to them should they need to. Get in touch with professionals to handle much of the heavy lifting. If you’re having a bit of trouble with the rest of your moving process, you might want to rely on professionals such as packing and moving services to deal with the heavy-duty moving tasks for you. Thanks to their expertise and specialization in various moving services, these moving teams can help you manage various parts of your move from packing and unpacking, storage, and even transportation. With their help, you might find it much easier to organize your move and still be able to accomplish your other moving needs without many worries.

Make It Work For Your Loved Ones

With the above tips in mind, it’s important to remember that it’s totally possible for you and your kids to conduct a house move while still having to meet your other obligations. Remember, the success of your house move lies in how you manage your various tasks – which means it’s actually the planning and execution stage that holds all the answers when it comes to successful house moves for your family. As such, remember to keep a close eye on how you communicate with your moving services, how you plan your inventory, and how you manage your entire moving timeline in general.

Dr. Dong’s Comments

Since Rhenn is not an educator he has left out some important things that you need to consider when moving with children. Depending on their age moving is likely to cause emotional difficulties for kids. They may be moving away from close friends and a school they like. I suggest reaching out to your school counselor for advice on this matter. This person may also be willing to meet with your children to help them. You should also involve them as much as possible in the process of looking for a new home as well as planning and executing the move. Try to make them seem like part of your team as you take on a great adventure.

This post is provided by RoadwayMoving.Com

Rhenn is a Manila-based content writer with a love for all things health and lifestyle, science and technology, and geek and pop culture. He has a BA Journalism degree and has since then pursued making content about geek culture. Rhenn used to write for a couple of geek and gaming publications and also served as editor-in-chief for Philippines-based What’s A Geek!. He constantly plays video games but also takes the time to try out older activities.
Top Image Source: https://pixels.com

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Time to Read One of My 193 Book Summaries

Friday, January 1st, 2021

Happy New Year

If you are looking for a good read, look no further. Since I started this blog in 2009 after my wife died from ALS, I have summarized 193 books and 194 is in the works. Each summary should take about ten minutes to read and covers all of the key concepts in the book. They are designed to help my readers make purchasing decisions, and for people who have already read the book, they can be used to review and internalize the main ideas.
All of the books are nonfiction. Some are books that deal directly with education while others are aimed at business or general audiences. In all cases, they are books that offer sound advice and knowledge for busy parents and educators who represent my target audience. The list under the BOOK SUMMARIES link at the top of my home page is in alphabetical order by title. Book titles starting with “The” can be found in the T section. Enjoy!

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Time to Read One of My 193 Book Summaries

Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan

Monday, December 7th, 2020

Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan is for anyone who has felt like they were different from typical people in their culture. Since we are all unique, we probably all feel different or weird from time to time. There are a number of research-based coping methods here that just about anyone can use. While this book is aimed at the general public, it is especially good for anyone doing counseling.

Part One: Being Weird

1. Weird

Olga was a Russian Jewish immigrant who grew up in West Texas. The rest of the people in her town were either white evangelical Christians or immigrants from Mexico. Since Russian Jews were forced to be atheists, they don’t even fit in with American jews. Her feeling of weirdness was also fostered by the fact that her parents moved a lot and always to different school districts. At home, her parents watched only Russian television and ate only Russian food. She attended American University in Washington, D.C., which didn’t help her feel any less weird. After interviews with over three dozen successful “weird” people, she concluded that it can be good to be weird as it confers a hidden advantage. It also behooves you to live and work among weirdos. Groups are smarter and more powerful when their members hold a diversity of views and backgrounds.

2. The Realization

Cultural norms are unwritten rules that make us think that “right” is what everyone else is doing. There is even a gene that predisposes people to be rule followers. People like it when others follow norms as they don’t like being surprised. Norms are inherently conservative and can get in the way of innovation and creativity. They also may not make sense, think neckties. Olga presents a review of how swimwear reveals the randomness of social norms.
Next, we have short stories of two “weirdos.” The first is a gay male kindergarten/preschool supervisor. Only 2% of kindergarten teachers are men and a female NASCAR driver who represents a microscopic fraction of the total. Their problems aren’t the same, but they both have many more challenges to face than their peers.
Friends are for comfort, taking it easy, relaxing, and not being challenged. By hanging out with people who are just like you, you can be out of touch with the big, beautiful, diverse world. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find acceptance and friendship in an environment where you are the different one.
Cultures can be tight or loose. In tight cultures, norms are strict and formal, and the punishments for breaking them can be severe. Loose cultures permit a wider range of behaviors. Weird people have an easier time in loose cultures. Tight countries like Russia are autocratic and have less free media. As you go from tight to loose cultures you go from orderliness to creativity. Rural cultures tend to be tight while urban cultures tend to be loose. The LGBTQ folks definitely need to find a loose culture to live in. People who travel between tight and loose cultures in either direction tend to be disoriented and feel weird. The stories of three more weirdos conclude this chapter.

3. The Exclusion

Once humans formed groups intergroup conflict was sure to start. Rather than being inborn, prejudice is a reflection of the dynamics between groups. In our hunter-gather days, social relationships were the only wealth a person had. That predisposed them to take care of other group members. Successful groups look out for each other. Rulers, money, and organized religion created subgroups and pitted them against each other. Groups are based on their differences even when they are laughably minor (think protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland). The idea that diversity can be a source of strength and advantage is a relatively recent concept.
When it comes to differences, gender is a big one. Historically, women have had to put their own interests after their mate’s. They needed to take their cues from their husband’s mood in order to prosper. We can thank our brains for our ability to recognize differences as it seems to be automatic. The brain also stores stereotypes. Our instincts set us up to avoid or alienate people who don’t look like us. One outsider is a deviant. As the number grows they become a threat and cause a fear of losing status. Americans are more accepting of immigrants who speak English, while the Swiss are more accepting of people who get to work on time.
People who have a problem with someone from a different group tend to generalize the issue to the entire group. Peripheral group members tend to marginalize someone else as pushing someone weirder to the side can make you feel normal. People who are more offended by norm violators are not likely to think outside of the box and be more creative. As a result, looser cultures are more creative. They are also sick less. Tight nations have fewer natural resources, worse air and water, more deaths from communicable diseases, and more natural disasters. Such collective threats foster tightness. Stories here include an Amish girl and an African Muslim immigrant girl.

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