Internet

They wanted to be mine!

/ edebock / 13 Comments

LogoNever would I have imagined that a virus like Covid-19 would help me meet my fashion goals for 2020, but one of those goals stated that “I will strive to buy less and experiment with new ways to wear what I already have” and that is most certainly what has been happening! Unlike many women, I don’t like shopping for clothes online. I like to touch and feel the fabric, look at the workmanship, and try things on before I buy. Consequently, until this week, it had been over two months since I last bought a fashion item of any kind.

The last time we were out and about before we started sheltering in place, my husband wanted to check out a sale on men’s jeans at a Mark’s. Originally called Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Mark’s is a popular Canadian workwear and casual clothing retailer. Knowing that it would take hubby awhile to try on jeans and decide what to buy, I headed for the women’s section to browse. There, I spotted a pair of shoes that were part of a display and I immediately heard them called my name!

It was the quilted side panels and the little bit of bling that caught my eye and it was definitely love at first sight!

Changing direction, I made my way to the shoe department to try them on. They had my size. They fit perfectly. I walked around the store and they were comfortable, but then I reminded myself that I really didn’t need another pair of sneakers. Feeling quite virtuous, I bid them a fond farewell and left the store without them.

A few days later, a Mark’s flyer arrived in the mail and there were the shoes in a photograph on the very front page! I eagerly poured through the pages only to discover that they weren’t actually included in the sale. I even looked them up online to be sure. That was, perhaps, my fatal error! We all know what happens once you look something up on the internet. Every time I went online, there were those shoes calling out to me from side panels and advertising banners. They simply wouldn’t leave me alone! Scrolling on Facebook? There were the shoes. Reading the news? Those shoes again! Checking blogs? You guessed it. The shoes were there too! I couldn’t escape them. They really wanted to be mine, but I continued to resist. I didn’t need more sneakers.

Screen Shot 2020-04-29 at 2.32.40 PMThen one day it happened. They were there again, but this time, this is what I saw! Believe it or not, I continued to resist. I mentioned the shoes that wouldn’t leave me alone to hubby and he told me that I ought to order them. Finally, after days of arguing with myself and reminding myself that I really didn’t need another pair of sneakers, the shoes won out and I placed the order!

I was very impressed with the service I received. Not only has Mark’s done away with shipping fees for the duration of the pandemic store closures, but I ordered on Friday evening and the shoes were delivered to my door in a small rural community on Tuesday morning! On the other hand, I was less than impressed to discover that the price of the shoes has dropped even more in the few days since I bought them! Oh well, they really wanted to be mine and now they are! I’m sure we’ll enjoy a long and happy relationship!

Check your facts please!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

One of my pet peeves is the amount of false or misleading information that people post or repost on social media. How is it that seemingly intelligent and honest people can be so gullible, so naive, as to believe everything they read? Just because you see something on Facebook, on somebody’s blog, or in an email doesn’t mean that it’s true!

As a teacher, it was part of my job to insist that students learn to check their sources and back up their statements with fact. Perhaps that’s why it bothers me so much when I see people spreading false information like dandelion seeds on the wind. It’s more important than ever to be critical online. The amount of misinformation that is spread on the web is absolutely staggering!

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Some of the false information that is spread on the internet consists of ridiculous hoaxes that play on people’s fears, like the ones that are continually circulating warning us that Facebook is about to make everything we’ve ever posted public. Others are more damaging. Here’s a little video that explains this more clearly than I ever could.

In addition to scams and hoaxes, politics and religion are particularly hot topics for false information, but it goes far beyond those topics. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people repost missing person reports only to discover when I check that the person has already been found safe and sound, sometimes many months or even years before! I can only assume that people repost these things because they simply don’t know how to distinguish fact from fiction or they don’t know how to fact check.

How to spot bogus stories

  1.  The author is anonymous. If it were true, why wouldn’t the author put their name on it?
  2. On a similar note, beware of quotes from famous people. The internet is rife with false quotes attributed to everyone from Albert Einstein to Abraham Lincoln to Adolph Hitler.
  3. The message is riddled with spelling mistakes. This is pretty much a sure sign that it’s false. Why would you trust someone who doesn’t even bother to use spellcheck?
  4. The message itself argues that it isn’t false. “THIS IS NOT A HOAX!’ likely means that it is and “THIS IS A TRUE STORY” is probably a sure sign that it isn’t.
  5. And then there’s the old adage, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
  6. Perhaps above all else, be skeptical!

How to fact check

  1.  Ask the person who has posted the story if it can be verified. If they can’t offer any evidence for the claims that are being made, perhaps they aren’t true.
  2. Check the date and time that the original post was published.
  3. Consider the source. Is it reputable? For example, the internet is rife with wacky health advice. Use the search feature on the Mayo Clinic website to check for accurate information.
  4. If it’s a news item that seems questionable, check to see if other news sources are reporting it.
  5. If a news source is unfamiliar, go to their About tab. It may acknowledge the site’s bias or say that it’s satirical.
  6. Do a Google search. If you don’t find what you’re looking for right away, try other search terms. Whenever I see a missing person report on Facebook, I google the person’s name (eg. John Doe missing) and I can almost always find out immediately whether or not the person has already been located.
  7. Use one of the following fact checking sites. Again, you may have to try different search terms to find what you’re looking for. Be as specific as you can.
    • Snopes.com  Snopes is an excellent go-to for checking out hoaxes, rumours, urban legends, false quotes, etc. The number of topics that they cover is astounding and the site is constantly updated.
    • TruthorFiction.com  TruthorFiction is another excellent site that provides the truth about a wide variety of rumours, inspirational stories, virus warnings, hoaxes, scams, humorous tales, pleas for help, urban legends, prayer requests, and calls to action.
    • Hoax-Slayer.com  Hoax-Slayer is yet another recommended site that is dedicated to debunking email hoaxes, thwarting internet scammers, combating spam, and educating web users about email and internet security issues.
    • FactCheck.org  FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit site that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in American politics.

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So how should you respond to someone who reposts false information? Keep it light. The goal isn’t to make anyone feel foolish. Assume that they weren’t intentionally trying to mislead anyone. Perhaps suggest a site where they can get accurate information about the topic or provide a link to the Snopes article that debunks the myth or rumour that they’ve reposted. Most people will respond well to gentle correction. The ones who boggle my mind are those who respond with something like “I know, but I thought it was interesting anyway” when I point out that they’ve posted something false. So far, I’ve managed to bite my tongue, metaphorically speaking, but in cases like that I’m sorely tempted to be less than polite!

And lastly, what do you do if you share something online and subsequently discover that it’s not true? It isn’t easy to put the genie back in the bottle, but by all means, try! Admit your mistake and do your best to correct it.

I resolved…

/ edebock / 3 Comments

I quit making New Years resolutions many years ago because I found that by doing so I was simply setting myself up for failure. Last year, however, I resolved to read at least two books every month because I knew that I was wasting too much time online. I felt that reading, which I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed, would be a valuable and measurable alternative.

So, how did I do?

In order to monitor my success, I kept a month by month list of all the books I read in 2017. While I marginally exceeded my goal for the year by reading 26 books in all, there were some months when I read more than two and others where I finished none or only one.

More importantly, did reading cut down on my online time?  

I’m really not sure. I use the internet for a wide variety of purposes including reading the news, communicating with friends and family around the world, editing, and of course, writing my blog. I consider all of those to be valuable ways to use my time, but it’s the time that I was spending repeatedly checking my email accounts, Facebook and my blog stats that I wanted to cut down on. Unfortunately, that’s difficult to measure and I still find myself doing it more often than I feel I ought to.

What am I going to do about it?

Once again, I resolve to read a minimum of two books EVERY month in 2018. I’m also going to try some new authors and different genres. Any suggestions? What do you enjoy reading?

I read a good mix of novels, non-fiction, and autobiographical books in 2017 and I would like to do that again. Australian novelist, Kate Morton, is the only author that I read more than one book by (The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, and The Lake House). I’ve always enjoyed memoirs and autobiographies. Over the past year, I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Foundling by Tom H. Mackenzie and My Secret Sister by Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith, but the one that surprised me most was Changing My Mind by Margaret Trudeau. I clearly remember the day in March 1971 when she surprised the world by marrying our popular prime minister, Pierre Ellliott Trudeau, who was 29 years her senior, and the years of turmoil that followed. The book is an honest and courageous telling of her lifelong battle with mental illness and gave me a greater understanding of bipolar disorder.

Have you read any good books lately?

Too many trolls!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

IMG_0564I’ve discovered a way to save myself a lot of time and aggravation!

For the past few years, I’ve read the news online. I rarely turn on the TV and gone are the days of having a newspaper delivered to the door each morning. The news can be depressing enough, but recently I’ve developed the habit of scrolling down past the end of an article and reading through the comment thread that’s often found there. That’s where my real aggravation begins. I love a good, well thought out debate with arguments on both sides of an issue but that’s seldom what I find. Instead, these threads tend to be filled with ridiculous and radical statements or worse yet, personal insults. I was beginning to think that the world must be filled with stupid people! Then I realized that some of them are trolls.

Like the mythical creature lurking under a bridge and waiting to gobble up the Three Billy Goats Gruff, they hide behind their keyboards and wreak havoc on unsuspecting internet users. By definition, an internet troll is “a person who sows discord on the internet starting arguments or upsetting people by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response.” Or, as someone else put it in a somewhat more indelicate manner, “being a prick on the internet simply because it’s the internet and, hey, you can be!” Clearly people are willing to say all sorts of things online that they would never say to a person’s face.

Reading about the tentative agreement reached yesterday in the BC teachers strike is a case in point. Obviously, in a province where labour disputes seem to be the norm and where students have been out of school for several weeks, heightened emotions are to be expected. As I read the comments following one of the articles, I wasn’t surprised to see mudslinging directed at both the government and the teachers union. I was a little more uncomfortable with the nasty comments directed at the teachers themselves, probably because I’ve been in their shoes, but I was also glad to see many supportive ones. In no time, however, the discussion deteriorated into individuals hurling insults at one another. The trolls had done their dirty work, stirring up dissention then sitting back and watching people come apart at the seams! Why would I waste my time reading that? In the future, I won’t. I’m determined to break the habit of scrolling down and looking at the comment threads!

Internet trolls don’t limit themselves to news pages. Blogs and other social media aren’t immune. In fact, I’m aware of one popular blogger who is, in my opinion, a troll himself. He writes controversial and sometimes inflammatory posts, then watches the comments fly! He doesn’t moderate them or even comment on them. He just lets his readers chew into one another. I can only guess that he finds this entertaining but I’ve stopped reading his blog.

I have a Facebook friend who, sometimes inadvertently, starts the greatest online discussions. The topics are often controversial and thought provoking but the moment a troll interjects or the conversation moves toward insults and personal attacks, she has the good sense to remove the entire thread. I so appreciate that! The internet is a great place for us to flex our intellectual muscles and engage in stimulating conversation, but sadly there are those who delight in ruining it for the rest of us.

My only question now is, what will I do with all the time I redeem by not reading this trash?