The Enlightened Redneck

Posted on 01.24.13 by Danny Glover @ 8:47 pm

Yes, we live in a world where anyone with half a brain can make an app — even a twisted one like “Nude Man: Running through the Forest.”

How did I discover it, you ask? I searched on the word “vine” to download Twitter’s new video app. Near as I can tell, Nude Man swings on a vine to escape the alligators, but I wasn’t about to download the app to explore the bizarro world created by the developer.

The bad news for Twitter is that its Vine app doesn’t appear in the iPhone store until after Nude Man and a handful of other apps that include “vine” in either the title or the app itself.

Filed under: Business and Culture and Technology
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About That Alabama Sorority Girl

Posted on 10.30.12 by Danny Glover @ 1:42 pm

Elitists are so determined to perpetuate their redneck myths that they spread lies on the Internet to deceive gullible people. If you’ve heard the yarn about the illiterate sorority girl from Alabama who believes President Obama was born in Kenya, you’ll know what I mean when you hear the real story.

The girl in the photo is Kim Stafford, and she’s not from Alabama. She grew up in Massachusetts and attends an liberal arts university in the western part of her home state. The school doesn’t even have a Greek system, and she’s a registered Democrat who plans to vote for Obama next week.

But the reason Stafford has become the subject of Internet ridicule is because people who don’t know any actual rednecks are so willing to believe the worst about those rubes from places like Alabama or West Virginia or even Pennsylvania.

I suspect that somewhere along the Internet chain, a liberal with a chip on his shoulder about the tea party movement decided to add fiction to Stafford’s satire. He or she added phony details about the photo to get other redneck haters riled, and voila, an Internet legend was born.

Stafford has tried to rebut the lies on her own blog, one with a vulgar phrase that captures the essence of redneck bigotry, but the Internet meme persists. People will believe what they want to believe about rednecks.

As for me, I’d rather be an enlightened rube than an uniformed dupe who clings to fables.

Filed under: Hatin' On Rednecks and News & Politics and People and Photography and Rednecks and Technology and West Virginia
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Why We Home-School, Lesson #43

Posted on 05.29.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:23 pm

We have seen the value of homeschooling in the successes of parents and children from our own community, including 6-year-old Lori Anne Madison, who this week will become the youngest person ever to compete in the National Spelling Bee:

Sorina Vlaicu Madison, Lori Anne’s mother and primary teacher, said she and her daughter have no problem eschewing books and academic pursuits if the outside world is more inviting or their minds are tired. That means swim lessons, play dates, time for games like Angry Birds on the Kindle, and visits to an indoor play center called Kids ‘N Motion.

Madison, who teaches health policy at a local university, laughs at the assumption that she has driven her daughter to spelling heights, perhaps by sheer will or intolerance for failure. “You can’t drill a 6-year-old,” Madison said. “You can’t really force them to do anything.”

Lori Anne earned her spot in the national competition by winning the Prince William County, Va., spelling bee. Most of her rivals this week will be at least twice her age.

Lori Anne’s educational success is not unusual in the homeschooling world. Her peer group regularly excels in competition. Here’s just a short list:

Evan O’Dorney, who earned $100,000 by winning the Intel Science Talent Search at age 17 — this after winning the National Spelling Bee at age 14.
A team of seven students who won the world championship of robotics, a field where homeschoolers often excel.
Calvin McCarter, who won the National Geographic Bee at age 10. A few years later, homeschooler Nathan Cornelius won the bee at age 13.
Emily Vanasdale, a winner of the National Center for Women and Information Technology Award.
Amy Anderson, who won the U.S. Girls’ Junior Golf Championship and who surprised the professional golf world by finishing with the lowest score in the first round of the 2011 U.S. Open.
NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, the first home-schooled student to win the coveted Heisman Trophy while at the University of Florida

You can read plenty of other success stories at the website of the Home School Legal Defense Association, or just Google the phrase “homeschooler wins” and watch them fill your screen. Students who get their education at home are especially good at winning spelling bees.

(Read previous “Why We Home-School” lessons.)

Filed under: Grammar and Home Schooling and Human Interest and News & Politics and Sports and Technology and Why We Home-School
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‘There’s A Tax For That’

Posted on 04.13.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:53 pm

Four years ago, I embarked on a bold mission — to blog about every single tax our family paid over a year’s time to illustrate just how often and deeply the government dives into our wallets. I grossly underestimated how much of my time that blog, Taxation With Representation, would occupy, and the project quickly became too great an editorial burden for a side project.

Bad memories of that blog rushed into my mind as I watched this video, which illustrates the same point in less than one minute and with a more modern technological hook:

The video has a political message: “Under President Obama, there’s a tax for just about everything.” But in reality it doesn’t matter who occupies the White House, the Capitol, statehouses, legislatures, county commissions or city councils across America. The government always will find a way to rob Peter and Paul — and Mary, too.

Or as this nightmare Friday the 13th presentation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts it: “It’s a job-killing nightmare. It’s a drain on hard-earned paychecks. It’s a fleecing of epic proportions. It’s … the Tax Blob”:

Filed under: Government and News & Politics and Technology and Video
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Dad’s IPad Cutting Board

Posted on 03.28.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:50 pm

When I was a child, my Dad decided to go high-tech one Christmas and buy my country-born-and-raised grandfather a Polaroid instant camera. I remember the first picture Grandpa ever took as he held the camera at his waist and pushed the red button. The result was a blurry photo of nothing in particular in his tiny living room. I doubt Grandpa ever used the camera again!

I thought of that Christmas Day as I watched this video of a German daughter asking her aging father what he thinks of the new iPad she bought him:

Thankfully, my own Dad isn’t so far removed from modern technology that he would use the iPad Mom bought him for Christmas last year as a cutting board. Then again, he doesn’t get to use it nearly as often these days because Mom is addicted to “Angry Birds.”

Filed under: Entertainment and Family and Just For Laughs and Photography and Technology and Video
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My 15 Minutes Of Mashable Fame

Posted on 03.26.12 by Danny Glover @ 6:37 pm

My son and I camped outside our local Best Buy all night back on March 15-16 so we could be first in line to get the new iPad. We needn’t have bothered. No one gathered outside the store until two hours before Best Buy started distributing tickets. I wasted a day’s vacation because I could have purchased any of the iPad options I wanted on my lunch hour.

But the adventure wasn’t a total waste. The technology site Mashable published these two pictures I took, one in line and the other inside the store:

Filed under: Business and Family and News & Politics and Photography and Technology
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Know What Your Children Are Texting

Posted on 02.29.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:24 pm

I am not convinced that this legislation is either necessary or even a good idea:

Parents who want access to text messages sent to and from their child’s phone currently need a court order to compel a cellphone company to provide it, even if the parent pays the bill. A state law being proposed in Arizona could be the first in the nation to change that.

Republican state Sen. Rich Crandall has proposed a law to require cellphone companies to offer Arizona parents access to their minor children’s texts. … Under the bill, phone companies could charge a fee for that service.

But I appreciate the sentiment behind it. Parents need to know who their children are texting, who’s texting them and what they’re saying to each other. Cyber bullying isn’t the only problem. There’s also the issue of “sexting,” which can land children in trouble with the law, and the tendency of children to get into other kinds of trouble we adults can’t even imagine.

This is true even if you have the best children in the world. First of all, they’re probably not the angels you want to think they are. And second, even if they never misbehave by phone, you can bet some of their friends will. Evil companions can corrupt good morals by text message just as easily, and arguably more easily, as they can in person.

Parents shouldn’t need a law to keep tabs on their children’s mobile activities. They just need the will to intervene in an era when other adults may mock and condemn them for being too strict and when spoiled children definitely will cry “invasion of my privacy!”

Filed under: Government and Parenting and Technology
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What People Think I Do

Posted on 02.14.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:15 pm

If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ve likely seen a flurry of photo essays that contrast the perceptions people have of various jobs, political beliefs and aspects of culture with the realities of those topics. It’s the latest Internet meme — “What people think I do vs. what I really do.”

These images have made me chuckle because they are relevant to my career or life:

If you hate this meme, or all Internet memes, you’ll appreciate these ironic contributions that bash the meme while also fueling it:

And if you love it all and want more visit my board on Pinterest.

Filed under: Business and Culture and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology
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The ‘Woolly Mammoth’ Hoax

Posted on 02.14.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:06 am

It never ceases to amaze me how gullible some people are when it comes to their willingness to believe something that is utterly absurd. Like the modern-day existence of a prehistoric “wooly mammoth” taking a casual stroll across a stream as a videographer records the unbelievable scene:

Now we can officially add the doctored video to the long list of confirmed Internet hoaxes. Here’s what the videographer who shot the actual footage along the Kitoy River in Siberia’s Sayan Mountains said:

“I don’t recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer and sable,” he said in an interview with Life’s Little Mysteries. “But no woolly mammoths. I had no idea my footage was used to make this fake sighting.” Petho noted that his original video had been available on YouTube since July 2011, depicting an exactly identical scene — minus the faked woolly mammoth, of course.

Nothing to see here. Move along, fakers and the suckers who fall for their tricks.

Filed under: History and Human Interest and News & Politics and Technology and Video and Wildlife
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Social Media: It’s All About Donuts

Posted on 02.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 5:51 pm

This snapshot, posted to Instagram by Douglas W. Ray of the digital marketing firm Three Ships Media, has been plastered all over my Facebook news feed for the past two days. I got a kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it here:

Social media isn’t really all about donuts (or other foods) and the people who eat them. But like everyone else, I’ve posted my share of updates, tweets and photos about my dining experiences. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at?

Wray’s list of “Social Media Explained” has inspired others to expand it.

UPDATE: Three Ships Media told the story behind how its inside joke about social media and donuts went viral. Apparently Punxsutawney Phil deserves the credit:

The groundhog drawing [on our whiteboard], itself just seasonal filler, was a fleeting replacement of something else, an easy way to eliminate some white space and live up to our reputation as quirky creative types.

So we decided to make a little chart explaining social media through donuts. We put our minds together and then our creative director, Nuno Gomes, scribbled it out. Doug Ray, a multimedia producer here, snapped a photo with Instagram and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. We had a beer, a good laugh and went home for the weekend.

Since then, more than 60,000 people have ‘liked’ it on Facebook, and thousands of people have tweeted about it. We weren’t trying to make anything cute or funny.

Filed under: Culture and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology
Comments: 1 Comment

Death By Texting

Posted on 02.02.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:31 pm

We have a 12-year-old son, so we know this look:

But euthanasia isn’t the answer. Divine parental intervention works just fine.

For those who may not be familiar with The Onion, it’s a satire publication. No actual children were harmed in the making of this fake news report.

Many of the stories at The Onion are laced with vulgarity, so I won’t link to it. But I do enjoy some of their videos and stories. This satire poking fun at The Huffington Post today has less mainstream appeal than the video about a young girl’s texting-induced coma, but media junkies like me got a kick out of it:

NEW YORK — Shocked and saddened witnesses at The Huffington Post’s news-aggregation facility have confirmed that employee Henry Evers, 25, died Wednesday after being sucked into the website’s powerful news-repurposing turbine, where his body was immediately torn to pieces.

The 200-ton content-compiling device, developed by Greek multimillionaire and site co-founder Arianna Huffington, sucks up original articles from around the web with its massive rotor assembly, re-brands them with the Huffington Post name, and then spits them back out on the company’s home page. …

Since The Huffington Post was founded in 2005, its headquarters has consisted of two rooms: Arianna Huffington’s spacious, lavishly appointed office overlooking New York City, and the windowless 10,000-square-foot subterranean warehouse that houses the turbine. More than 700 low-wage workers, known as writers, clock in every day, and, dressed in their Huffington Post hard hats and coveralls, work in dark, unsafe conditions to ensure the machine runs smoothly and constantly churns out content.

That’s an exaggerated portrait of how many “news” organizations work these days.

Filed under: Business and Culture and Entertainment and Just For Laughs and Media and Technology and Video
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Zapped By The Zappos Invasion

Posted on 01.16.12 by Danny Glover @ 6:26 pm

Somehow, despite having made my living online for more than a decade, I’ve managed to make it this far into the Internet age without having been the victim of a mass security breach — at least so far as I know. That lucky streak ended today when I received this email from Zappos.

First, the bad news:

We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password).

THE BETTER NEWS:
The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed.

SECURITY PRECAUTIONS:
For your protection and to prevent unauthorized access, we have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please follow the instructions below to create a new password.

We also recommend that you change your password on any other web site where you use the same or a similar password. As always, please remember that Zappos.com will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail. Please exercise caution if you receive any emails or phone calls that ask for personal information or direct you to a web site where you are asked to provide personal information.

PLEASE CREATE A NEW PASSWORD:
We have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please create a new password by visiting Zappos.com and clicking on the “Create a New Password” link in the upper right corner of the web site and follow the steps from there.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any additional questions about this process, please email us at passwordchange@zappos.com.

I had never heard of Zappos until last year and had never ordered anything from the online shoe and clothing retailer until a few months ago. It figures that the first hit to my online security would come as the result of trying something new.

Thankfully, this breach didn’t involve financial details.

Filed under: Business and News & Politics and Technology
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Old Advice For A New Age

Posted on 10.29.11 by Danny Glover @ 10:15 pm

Back in the late 1990s, I briefly joined the National Conference of Editorial Writers while I was working at an e-zine called IntellectualCapital.com, which we liked to think of as the op-ed page on the Web. At the time, many NCEW members held the freewheeling Internet masses in contempt. I was among the few who didn’t and had some rather pointed debates over the issue with my skeptical colleagues.

I had forgotten that I wrote an article about the issue for the NCEW magazine, The Masthead, back in 1999. I just rediscovered that article online. It’s as relevant in today’s era of blogging and social media, where the power of editorial gatekeepers is greatly diminished, as it was more than a decade ago, so I’m going to reprint the article. Here it is:

Old Advice For A New Age
The Masthead
March 22, 1999

By K. Daniel Glover

A half-century ago, at the first convention of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, renowned newspaperman Henry Louis Mencken admonished our founders with these words: “No editorial writer,” he said, “ought to be permitted to sit in an editorial room for month after month and year after year, contemplating his umbilicus. He ought to go out and meet people.”

Simple words (with the exception of umbilicus!), simple message: Get out of your ivory editorial tower and listen to the people lest you make a mockery of your profession.

Mencken’s message retains its relevancy today, which explains its presence within the corner of cyberspace we know as NCEW Online, and it is a message every online (and perhaps offline) commentator ignores at his or her own risk. Why? The one-word answer: interactivity.

You see, there are no ivory towers on the Internet. “The people” have rejected both the editorial elitism of the past and the hit-and-run punditry of the present. They have demanded a voice in the national discourse, and the World Wide Web has given them that voice — one that often is unfiltered and unlimited.
(more…)

Filed under: Blogging and Media and Social Media and Technology
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Blocked By The American Family Association

Posted on 10.18.11 by Danny Glover @ 8:45 pm

This pitch for Facebook “likes” by the American Family Association is the worst social media appeal I have seen in a long time:

Begging for fans as a way to avoid investing financially in a community is an uninspiring call to action, and I said as much on AFA’s Facebook page earlier this evening. I have been a fan of the organization for years, and I found today’s appeal off-putting. “You can do better,” I admonished.

Alas, AFA’s Facebook monitor did not take the critique to heart. Instead, he/she deleted the comment, removed my “like” of the AFA page (ironic considering the appeal for “likes”) and blocked me from further liking or commenting on wall posts once I liked the page again.

Well, I took that message to heart. Although I still embrace AFA’s family-friendly mission, I’m no longer a fan of the group — on Facebook or in spirit.

Filed under: Family and Social Media and Technology
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‘I Am Home Shcooled’

Posted on 10.11.11 by Danny Glover @ 10:00 pm

Spot-checking the text messages of young children can be great entertainment for parents — or as the shcool kids say, LOL!!!

On the off chance that this was just a typo, we asked our 12-year-old son after seeing the message how to spell “school.” He spelled it verbally just the way he spelled it in the text to his friend. Clearly we need to schedule a remedial spelling class at the Glover Home School.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, he knows we check his text messages randomly. It was a condition for us getting him a phone at such a young age — an open approach that I recommend for all parents.

Anthony also knew I was going to post this snapshot of his mobile screen. He’s hoping it will make him famous all over the Internet. Boys!

The sad thing is that now I’ll no longer be able to poke fun at public schools for this amusing error because our “home shcooled” son is guilty of it as well.

Filed under: Grammar and Home Schooling and Just For Laughs and Parenting and Technology
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