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more cat pictures
via xkcd
From my friend John, click here embedding is messing up my layout
via geeks are sexy
I like alot of them, but the hulk smacking wolverine is good. Also the little kid with spidey pajamas on the roof with a rope tied around his waist is cute.
My fav is probably prof xavier’s house of freaks. Beware the beast. LOL
cute song about early internet days…
I read about Doris Lessing’s acceptance speech for the Nobel prize in Literature from the Subterranean Homepage News. Here is the part of the speech that resonated with me:
We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers.
What has happened to us is an amazing invention – computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: “What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?” In the same way, we never thought to ask, “How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?”
I think this is a good point. If you are information literate, you know how to find information. You see the web as an interconnected place, with windy roads that can lead the adventurous to primary sources of information. If you are not so lucky, you get trapped in the facebooks, myspaces, etc etc. It scares me a bit to think my kids have all this information at their fingertips, and worry that they haven’t been taught how to seek information, and how to be selective in their information sources.
What happens when no one reads? No one has a thirst for knowledge? Who controls information? What happens to those without a voice? What happens to our history…how will it be told? If no one writes, if no one cares to read, what happens to us as a society?
Brianna, she also said “Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books.” I did my best to give you a good head start! 
I am catagorizing this under geekdom. I have always considered myself a literature geek. So, now I am off to read some more of the latest novel I am reading: Rhett Butler’s People.
I am sure you have heard the story: a 15-year-old girl met a 25-year-old on MySpace, falls in love, and the guy comes to get her to elope with him.
But the guy is actually a 40 something sexual predator.
I am listening to the dad, who says he’s computer stupid. It sounds like he did alot of things right. He had the computer in a public area. He tried to look over his daughter’s shoulder to keep up with what she was doing. But he needed to do more.
If your kids are on MySpace, you have to be on MySpace. Tell your kid that they have to friend you. My son told me I was the worst friend ever when I did that to him, and I reminded him I’m not supposed to be his friend. I watched what he did. What his friends were doing. I only told him he had to change something one time. I was able to watch what his friends were up to, and start conversations about it. He hated it. I am hoping one day he’ll understand.
If your kids are younger, make a rule that they can only IM or friend people that they know IRL (in real life). Make them tell you who the kids are (they will have WEIRD names, so make them tell you!) Tell them from very young to refuse to give ages and locations, if they can’t do that hide that info, and if they can’t do that, LIE. Say you are 66 from someplace across the country.
If you don’t understand this, leave a message or email me. I’ll try to help you figure it out. Social networking sites can be fantastic – they can help keep in touch with family in different locations, keep in touch with friends who move, and help the kids with homework (no really it can). You just have to keep on top of the kids. It’s the best insight you will ever get to your kid’s life…take advantage of it!
