[FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing?
We've had these sorts of calls in Australia for last 2-3 years. My wife had fun playing sport with one about 6 months ago. I usually hang up straight away - like Doug said, there was no point mentioning that we're a Linux (mostly) household. I remember reading a blog by an internet security consultant, who spun up a virtual machine whilst on the phone, and let them into it, just to see what they did. Needless to say, they were not particularly sophisticated, and hang up immediately he revealed to them how he'd conned them. I don't have a reference, and Google not really helping at present... Cheers On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 01:55:42PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Can anybody confirm this as a new form of pfishing? I got a call from a number in DC today, somebody with a strong Indian sub-continent accident, telling me that my computer was sending error messages to the network and offering to help me correct them. (I have the number in my phone trap, and would report it if I knew where to report it to.) The next step involved my going on my computer and connect it to them, I assume. These guys were pretty bad at what they were doing,, but I can imagine a more subtle line that I might have fallen for. Does anybody recognize this? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org http://www.cusf.org/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing?
Here are some links to the person you're likely thinking of (arranged chronologically): Anatomy of a virus call centre scam http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/10/anatomy-of-virus-call-centre-scam.html Scamming the scammers – catching the virus call centre scammers red-handed http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/02/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-call.html Interview with the man behind Comantra, the “cold call virus scammers” http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/05/interview-with-man-behind-comantra-cold.html And then, of course, there's Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/microsoft.asp Sadly, I haven't gotten one of these calls yet, but then again, I usually don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize. I'd enjoy wasting their time, since that's all that can really be done to punish them. Brent From: Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au To: friam@redfish.com Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 3:21 AM Subject: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing? We've had these sorts of calls in Australia for last 2-3 years. My wife had fun playing sport with one about 6 months ago. I usually hang up straight away - like Doug said, there was no point mentioning that we're a Linux (mostly) household. I remember reading a blog by an internet security consultant, who spun up a virtual machine whilst on the phone, and let them into it, just to see what they did. Needless to say, they were not particularly sophisticated, and hang up immediately he revealed to them how he'd conned them. I don't have a reference, and Google not really helping at present... Cheers On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 01:55:42PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Can anybody confirm this as a new form of pfishing? I got a call from a number in DC today, somebody with a strong Indian sub-continent accident, telling me that my computer was sending error messages to the network and offering to help me correct them. (I have the number in my phone trap, and would report it if I knew where to report it to.) The next step involved my going on my computer and connect it to them, I assume. These guys were pretty bad at what they were doing,, but I can imagine a more subtle line that I might have fallen for. Does anybody recognize this? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org http://www.cusf.org/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing?
Glad we discussed this, its new to me and pretty interesting! Thans Nick. -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Google Reader and More: Google Abandoning of Apps/Services
Turns out there is a bit of sense in google's move: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/google-kills-rss/ .. they apparently are opting out of RSS usage in general: Oh Google. Thought we wouldn’t notice that you’re trying to kill off not just Google Reader, but also your support and endorsement for the RSS format itself? People have just started noticing that Google’s own RSS Subscription Chrome browser extension has disappeared from the Google Chrome Web Store. Though it’s unclear at this time exactly when the extension was removed, the change appears to be recent. I'm not much of a G+ user, so do any of us use it enough to see if it really is The Next Big Thing? In particular, RSS is likely not part of G+, right? I.e. you can't have G+ create a list of recent favorite blog posts? It certainly keeps track of G+ stuff itself, but if RSS goes, it likely will stay in its own silo. -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Google Reader and More: Google Abandoning of Apps/Services
Oops, forgot the HN reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5385089 I love the first entries .. they think G+ is behind this too. (Don't understang G+ but...) I'm one tinfoil hat away from believing this isn't just about discontinuing unprofitable products, but a concerted effort to kill off support for open standards (RSS, CalDAV, what's next?) and turning the Google universe into a Facebook/Apple style walled garden called Google+. Evil plan or not, the days of Google as the champion of the open web are over. *replyhttps://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=5385248whence=%69%74%65%6d%3f%69%64%3d%35%33%38%35%30%38%39 * https://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=5385413dir=upby=backspacesauth=f9354d8128341e674ff818de4786e80911f65350whence=%69%74%65%6d%3f%69%64%3d%35%33%38%35%30%38%39 Andrenid https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Andrenid 1 hour ago | linkhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5385413 This is actually the final step for me. I've been an avid Google fan since the early days. I use all the Google services, I use Chrome religiously, I convince family/friends to switch to Chrome from IE, and I've always been convinced Google is the one we're supposed to look up to for how things should be done. Yeah they've made mistakes, and G+ is a clusterfuck of brilliant talent thrown down a horrible path of closed socialness and realname ridiculousness... but overall I always thought they were still on the right side of Don't Be Evil. I'm totally convinced this quiet attack on RSS is a not-so-subtle attempt to push people into G+, and even though I casually use G+ (about the same as I casually use FB or Twitter), G+ is NOT a replacement for RSS, and it's not how I want to keep track of all the sites I read. I don't want to like them or add them to my social networks. I just want to read their shit. Simple. RSS doesn't care if you're logged in. RSS doesn't care if you use your real name. RSS doesn't care if you're accessing it from work, home, or anonymously via an internet cafe. And that's exactly how it should be. Throw in the Picasaweb crap they're doing now too, FORCING you to use G+ Photos (which is a horrible horrible experience), and I'm done. I've just installed Firefox on all my home computers and my phone, for the first time since Chrome came out, and will be looking for a new RSS aggregator. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing?
Actually, here's another good overview of the scam with suggestions about what to do: https://windowssecrets.com/top-story/security-alert-bogus-tech-support-phone-calls/ Brent From: Russell Standish r.stand...@unsw.edu.au To: Brent Auble br...@auble.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 7:54 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing? Thanks. I think it was the middle article I read. On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 01:22:57AM -0700, Brent Auble wrote: Here are some links to the person you're likely thinking of (arranged chronologically): Anatomy of a virus call centre scam http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/10/anatomy-of-virus-call-centre-scam.html Scamming the scammers – catching the virus call centre scammers red-handed http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/02/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-call.html Interview with the man behind Comantra, the “cold call virus scammers” http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/05/interview-with-man-behind-comantra-cold.html And then, of course, there's Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/microsoft.asp Sadly, I haven't gotten one of these calls yet, but then again, I usually don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize. I'd enjoy wasting their time, since that's all that can really be done to punish them. Brent From: Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au To: friam@redfish.com Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 3:21 AM Subject: [FRIAM] A new kind of pfishing? We've had these sorts of calls in Australia for last 2-3 years. My wife had fun playing sport with one about 6 months ago. I usually hang up straight away - like Doug said, there was no point mentioning that we're a Linux (mostly) household. I remember reading a blog by an internet security consultant, who spun up a virtual machine whilst on the phone, and let them into it, just to see what they did. Needless to say, they were not particularly sophisticated, and hang up immediately he revealed to them how he'd conned them. I don't have a reference, and Google not really helping at present... Cheers On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 01:55:42PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Can anybody confirm this as a new form of pfishing? I got a call from a number in DC today, somebody with a strong Indian sub-continent accident, telling me that my computer was sending error messages to the network and offering to help me correct them. (I have the number in my phone trap, and would report it if I knew where to report it to.) The next step involved my going on my computer and connect it to them, I assume. These guys were pretty bad at what they were doing,, but I can imagine a more subtle line that I might have fallen for. Does anybody recognize this? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org http://www.cusf.org/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Google Reader and More: Google Abandoning of Apps/Services
I've used Google+ a couple of times recently for the AV version of a hangout with reasonable results. For example, screen sharing was an important factor at the time, and that worked well, and the audio is fine, too. At the moment, I'm having trouble getting the latest version of Skype to install properly, so the G+ Hangout was a welcome alternative. And the price is right. Next big thing? ¿Quien sabe? -tj On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote: Turns out there is a bit of sense in google's move: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/google-kills-rss/ .. they apparently are opting out of RSS usage in general: Oh Google. Thought we wouldn’t notice that you’re trying to kill off not just Google Reader, but also your support and endorsement for the RSS format itself? People have just started noticing that Google’s own RSS Subscription Chrome browser extension has disappeared from the Google Chrome Web Store. Though it’s unclear at this time exactly when the extension was removed, the change appears to be recent. I'm not much of a G+ user, so do any of us use it enough to see if it really is The Next Big Thing? In particular, RSS is likely not part of G+, right? I.e. you can't have G+ create a list of recent favorite blog posts? It certainly keeps track of G+ stuff itself, but if RSS goes, it likely will stay in its own silo. -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- == J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USAhttp://www.analyticjournalism.com/ 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h) Twitter: jtjohnson http://www.jtjohnson.com t...@jtjohnson.com == FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Ho, Hum. Another Day, Another Blog Post Critical of Google
I propose a new, potentially lengthy discussion topic for FRIAM: why, and/or why not plain ASCII text email readers are/are not superior to html readers. Points awarded for verbosity. Points detracted for succinctness. You have been advised. What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments? fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Ho, Hum. Another Day, Another Blog Post Critical of Google
Bonus points for environmentally-friendly re-use of other people's rants, Arlo. On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Arlo Barnes arlo.bar...@gmail.com wrote: I propose a new, potentially lengthy discussion topic for FRIAM: why, and/or why not plain ASCII text email readers are/are not superior to html readers. Points awarded for verbosity. Points detracted for succinctness. You have been advised. What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments? fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins * http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile* FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Firefox will block third-party cookies in a future version | Ars Technica
I believe the 'cookies in the omnibar' icon is from a plugin, not vanilla Chrome. Is this correct? -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Ho, Hum. Another Day, Another Blog Post Critical of Google
Although I must point out that our two ASCII emailers will never see this... On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 3:23 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.netwrote: Bonus points for environmentally-friendly re-use of other people's rants, Arlo. On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Arlo Barnes arlo.bar...@gmail.comwrote: I propose a new, potentially lengthy discussion topic for FRIAM: why, and/or why not plain ASCII text email readers are/are not superior to html readers. Points awarded for verbosity. Points detracted for succinctness. You have been advised. What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments? fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins * http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile* -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins * http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile* FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Ho, Hum. Another Day, Another Blog Post Critical of Google
On 03/16/2013 02:25 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Although I must point out that our two ASCII emailers will never see this... Actually, I did click on Arlo's links because I could _infer_ the contents of the web pages by the URL, something I have trouble doing with your URLs. On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Arlo Barnes arlo.bar...@gmail.comwrote: fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes -- glen e. p. ropella http://tempusdictum.com 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] fASCIIsm and half-ASCII users.
Arlo - What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments? fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct http://www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes How about points for stirring Doug *and* Glen up at the same time? Score! I recently noticed a fASCIIsm yet more extreme. It is not new, but in the light of our whining about whether ASCII should be enough (not unlike whining about the time/clock change?). I call it half-ASCII. When people find it too hard or unnecessary to use Case... and sometimes even punctuation (or correct spelling or grammar!). They only use (much less than) *half* of the ASCII character set. Most recently, it was a woman correspondent who is not merely a regular (and articulate) blogger but is also a published book author. She began her ALL CAPS-SOUNDS-LIKE-SHOUTING message by cautioning me that she was NOT SHOUTING, she just preferred ALL CAPS because it was easier for her to SEE (apparently). None of her books nor blog posts were written in ALL CAPS, so I have to assume that she has people for that... copy editors, etc. who can add all the appropriate clues to make it easy to gather. I tried, I swear I did, to not hear her message as shouting... but finally gave over to shoving it all into *lower case* wherein I found her to no longer seem to be belligerent but now rather semi-literate and timid... hmmm same *content*, different *form* and it was rather difficult (impossible) to read her message as she must have conceived it... the BELLIGERENT and the _timid_ version just didn't sound like her writing. I finally settled for some mangled average between the two. I was SHOCKED that someone as (otherwise) sophisticated didn't realize the effect of writing in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME! I even suspected it was a test. In the early days of developing WSIWYG text/graphics tools, I remember the shock I felt that letting people write *rough drafts* with full formatting yielded all kinds of unintended consequences. This was before we fired all our copyeditors and even typesetters... so there were still professionals helping make sure the *final product* was of high quality. Suddenly I found myself reading (for content, not format) my peers' work *formatted* as if it were a finished product (with plenty of formatting errors along with spelling, grammar, punctuation, emphasis, nuance, etc.). It was really eerie! Cognitive Dissonance. I *longed* for a tool that had just enough smarts in it to not allow the rough draft to have any more formatting than straight ASCII, and then gradually introduce more sophisticated formatting as the status of the revisions evolved. I still do... but it ain't happening. I've worked with teams writing together who by convention eschew formatting until after the content is 90% hammered out. I *much* prefer to work with formatted text myself, but don't like the confusion I feel when someone throws me text that is still stream-of-consciousness with stream-of-consciousness formatting as well as content. Unsurprisingly, I prefer CamelCode style in my code as well. I'll cope with those who like to live in FLAT^H^H^HASCII-Land... and even those in Half-ASCII-Land... it's really only a minor inconvenience. And while I'm quite capable of clicking through a weakly identified link/URL, I also appreciate it when the author/submitter offers a hint of why I would want to, where I might go, etc... - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Firefox will block third-party cookies in a future version | Ars Technica
On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 3:24 PM, Arlo Barnes arlo.bar...@gmail.com wrote: I believe the 'cookies in the omnibar' icon is from a plugin, not vanilla Chrome. Is this correct? -Arlo James Barnes Checking extensions and plugins, I didn't see one relating to cookies so I believe this is built in. Go to settings advanced privacy content settings and there is help for managing cookies. There's a block third party setting which then shows the cookie icon when a page has them. They are amazingly common, more so than not, I think. -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] fASCIIsm and half-ASCII users.
Steve, Perhaps the all caps person is reacting to the work of Archie the Cockroach, who, like e.e. Cummings wrote only in lower case because, unlike e.e. Cummings (presumably), he could only press letters by leaping on the keys one by one. (I guess, if the typewriter had been in cap locks mode when he found it, Archie would have composed his poems in UPPER CASE, like the correspondent we are discussing. Archie's most famous poem is a paean for the cat's life, written in honor of and in the voice of his very good friend, Mehitabel, the alley at. I quote in part: I once was an innocent kit wotthehell wotthehell with a ribbon my neck to fit and bells tied onto it o wotthehell wotthehell but a maltese cat came by with a come hither look in his eye and a song that soared to the sky and wotthehell wotthehell and i followed adown the street the pad of his rhythmical feet o permit me again to repeat wotthehell wotthehell my youth i shall never forget but there s nothing i really regret wotthehell wotthehell there s a dance in the old dame yet toujours gai toujours gai By the way, in case any of you are still with me, my (windows) computer stopped doing caps lock willingly, about two months ago. Now, I have to wait 5 seconds for capslock to take effect, and then five seconds more, after I am done with it. Microsoft help files suggest that this small problem can be corrected easily by following instructions that seemed to amount to first hitting my computer with a hammer and then reformatting my hard drive. I wonder if any of you had a less drastic solution. Nick From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 9:21 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] fASCIIsm and half-ASCII users. Arlo - What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments? http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm fASCIIsm - Everything2.com versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct -Arlo James Barnes How about points for stirring Doug *and* Glen up at the same time? Score! I recently noticed a fASCIIsm yet more extreme. It is not new, but in the light of our whining about whether ASCII should be enough (not unlike whining about the time/clock change?). I call it half-ASCII. When people find it too hard or unnecessary to use Case... and sometimes even punctuation (or correct spelling or grammar!). They only use (much less than) *half* of the ASCII character set. Most recently, it was a woman correspondent who is not merely a regular (and articulate) blogger but is also a published book author. She began her ALL CAPS-SOUNDS-LIKE-SHOUTING message by cautioning me that she was NOT SHOUTING, she just preferred ALL CAPS because it was easier for her to SEE (apparently). None of her books nor blog posts were written in ALL CAPS, so I have to assume that she has people for that... copy editors, etc. who can add all the appropriate clues to make it easy to gather. I tried, I swear I did, to not hear her message as shouting... but finally gave over to shoving it all into *lower case* wherein I found her to no longer seem to be belligerent but now rather semi-literate and timid... hmmm same *content*, different *form* and it was rather difficult (impossible) to read her message as she must have conceived it... the BELLIGERENT and the _timid_ version just didn't sound like her writing. I finally settled for some mangled average between the two. I was SHOCKED that someone as (otherwise) sophisticated didn't realize the effect of writing in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME! I even suspected it was a test. In the early days of developing WSIWYG text/graphics tools, I remember the shock I felt that letting people write *rough drafts* with full formatting yielded all kinds of unintended consequences. This was before we fired all our copyeditors and even typesetters... so there were still professionals helping make sure the *final product* was of high quality. Suddenly I found myself reading (for content, not format) my peers' work *formatted* as if it were a finished product (with plenty of formatting errors along with spelling, grammar, punctuation, emphasis, nuance, etc.). It was really eerie! Cognitive Dissonance. I *longed* for a tool that had just enough smarts in it to not allow the rough draft to have any more formatting than straight ASCII, and then gradually introduce more sophisticated formatting as the status of the revisions evolved. I still do... but it ain't happening. I've worked with teams writing together who by convention eschew formatting until after the content is 90% hammered out. I *much* prefer to work with formatted text myself, but don't like the confusion I feel when someone throws me text that is still stream-of-consciousness with stream-of-consciousness formatting as well as content. Unsurprisingly, I prefer CamelCode style in my code as well. I'll
Re: [FRIAM] fASCIIsm and half-ASCII users.
LINUX. Or, if you prefer, linux . On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: I wonder if any of you had a less drastic solution. ** ** Nick ** ** *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith *Sent:* Saturday, March 16, 2013 9:21 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* [FRIAM] fASCIIsm and half-ASCII users. ** ** Arlo - What are the points awarded/detracted for using other people's arguments?* *** ** ** fASCIIsm - Everything2.com http://everything2.com/title/fASCIIsm versus www.textfiles.com/100/whytext.oct ** ** -Arlo James Barnes How about points for stirring Doug *and* Glen up at the same time? Score! I recently noticed a fASCIIsm yet more extreme. It is not new, but in the light of our whining about whether ASCII should be enough (not unlike whining about the time/clock change?). I call it half-ASCII. When people find it too hard or unnecessary to use Case... and sometimes even punctuation (or correct spelling or grammar!). They only use (much less than) *half* of the ASCII character set. Most recently, it was a woman correspondent who is not merely a regular (and articulate) blogger but is also a published book author. She began her ALL CAPS-SOUNDS-LIKE-SHOUTING message by cautioning me that she was NOT SHOUTING, she just preferred ALL CAPS because it was easier for her to SEE (apparently). None of her books nor blog posts were written in ALL CAPS, so I have to assume that she has people for that... copy editors, etc. who can add all the appropriate clues to make it easy to gather. I tried, I swear I did, to not hear her message as shouting... but finally gave over to shoving it all into *lower case* wherein I found her to no longer seem to be belligerent but now rather semi-literate and timid... hmmm same *content*, different *form* and it was rather difficult (impossible) to read her message as she must have conceived it... the BELLIGERENT and the _timid_ version just didn't sound like her writing. I finally settled for some mangled average between the two. I was SHOCKED that someone as (otherwise) sophisticated didn't realize the effect of writing in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME! I even suspected it was a test. In the early days of developing WSIWYG text/graphics tools, I remember the shock I felt that letting people write *rough drafts* with full formatting yielded all kinds of unintended consequences. This was before we fired all our copyeditors and even typesetters... so there were still professionals helping make sure the *final product* was of high quality. Suddenly I found myself reading (for content, not format) my peers' work *formatted* as if it were a finished product (with plenty of formatting errors along with spelling, grammar, punctuation, emphasis, nuance, etc.). It was really eerie! Cognitive Dissonance. I *longed* for a tool that had just enough smarts in it to not allow the rough draft to have any more formatting than straight ASCII, and then gradually introduce more sophisticated formatting as the status of the revisions evolved. I still do... but it ain't happening. I've worked with teams writing together who by convention eschew formatting until after the content is 90% hammered out. I *much* prefer to work with formatted text myself, but don't like the confusion I feel when someone throws me text that is still stream-of-consciousness with stream-of-consciousness formatting as well as content. Unsurprisingly, I prefer CamelCode style in my code as well. I'll cope with those who like to live in FLAT^H^H^HASCII-Land... and even those in Half-ASCII-Land... it's really only a minor inconvenience. And while I'm quite capable of clicking through a weakly identified link/URL, I also appreciate it when the author/submitter offers a hint of why I would want to, where I might go, etc... - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins * http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile* FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fred Davis, The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror 2013.03.13: Jerry Katz, Nonduality Salon: Rich Murray 2012.03.16
Rich - I just read through this post/article (twice as instructed by the content) and have to say I mostly feel like I've just been visited by a born again Christian who snuck through my front door trying to jack me up on Jesus, or a Carny-Con trying to get me to play his three-card-monty, or Jim Jones offering me Koolaid! The style of writing is at least mildly disturbing... if it doesn't have exactly the cadence, alliteration and general shape of that of a cult leader or a con man or a Jesus-Junky, I still feel like I'm being Snake-Charmed, Stage-Hypnotized, or NLP'd (whatever that would look like). I'm curious if you recognize this feature in this particular piece of writing and/or some of the other things you send us? Do *you* find it at all disturbing? It doesn't really fit into the normal styles of discourse such as Exposition, Argument, Description or even Narration. It is sort of a come to Jesus lead-through, or Coleridge-esque poetry? The closest description I can find is Proselytization or Faith Healing... I'm not strongly compelled either way on your usual topics of Russo Fusion, Younger Dryas Cosmic Events, Methylated Spirits (I mean Asparatame), etc... but this particular article was more boldly and obviously some kind of proselytizing message... not unlike the Jesus Junkies who strongly suggest that as soon as you accept JaiyZuss into your Harrt! you will suddenly be happy, free of all worries, in the warm embrace of the creator, the spirit, the saviour, etc. I suspect that Eric (Smith and others) can speak more directly to what I'm interpreting as phonolinguistic features. But I'm curious what you feel or think about this issue of style? - Steve Fred Davis, The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror 2013.03.13: Jerry Katz, Nonduality Salon: Rich Murray 2012.03.16 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2013/03/fred-davis-looking-glass-language-as.html Jerry Katz via yahoogroups.com 8:10 AM PST March 16, 2013 (9 hours ago) to AdvaitaToZen, iam, NDS, NDH advaitato...@yahoogroups.com, iam i...@yahoogroups.com, NDS nondualitysa...@yahoogroups.com, NDH ndhighlig...@yahoogroups.com The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/ #4867 Friday, March 15, 2013 -- Editor: Jerry Katz umb...@ns.sympatico.ca, http://awakeningclarity.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-looking-glass-language-as-mirror.html Awakening Clarity Recognizing and Living as Our True Nature Thursday, March 14, 2013 The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror Fred Davis Notice that you are already awake. Right now, this moment, the only reason you can read these words is that you're awake. You're already awake. You're as awake as it gets. You're already fully awake. Given that you're already fully awake, how then could you wake up further? Since you're already awake, does that idea even make sense? You can't wake up more from where you are right now. And you can't wake up again. If you want to read a book through that body, or watch a video, or send it to a retreat for further clarity or to get some context that has the potential to open to the door to further clarity, that's great. But before you do, notice that you don't need to read another book, watch a video, or go to a retreat in order to wake up, because you're already awake. If you want to do meditation, drum, dance, chant, or what have you, for the sake of grounding yourself in that present human experience you're having, or calming that unit's mind, so that you can better hear yourself talk to yourself, and better watch yourself dance for yourself, terrific. Have at it. But, be absolutely aware that you can't practice yourself into awakening. You can't achieve what you already are. You're just not who you think you are; that's the only issue here. You're undergoing a case of mistaken identity, and all you need today is a little light reflected from this mirror, this mirror of clear language that is also you. There is only you, but you tend to get a bit cloudy sometimes, and forget that. It comes with the territory when your spaciousness contracts around human beings, and it's no big deal. It's fine. When you're ready to be clear, you find a bright mirror, so here you are, back in front of the vanity mirror. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity! This is all you, every bit of it -- you dancing for you, you preening for you, just you showing off for yourself, to yourself and loving it. You think you're the human being reading these words. You're not. Well, you actually are that human also, but you're not that person exclusively. You're the awareness that's reading these words through that human being. The human is not reading the words; you are. The human is a reading tool for you, just as reading glasses are a tool for the human. Reading glasses never mistake themselves for being the reader; humans almost always do. You think you need to wake up. You don't. All that has to occur is for you to recognize
Re: [FRIAM] Fred Davis, The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror 2013.03.13: Jerry Katz, Nonduality Salon: Rich Murray 2012.03.16
Well, I can guarantee that I did not read the article twice. I quickly discovered that reading just the first semi-hysterical sentence of each semi-hysterical paragraph was quite enough to convey the quality of the content to me. From which I am tempted to conclude that mystics see content where many of the rest of is do not. -Doug On Mar 16, 2013 11:22 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: Rich - I just read through this post/article (twice as instructed by the content) and have to say I mostly feel like I've just been visited by a born again Christian who snuck through my front door trying to jack me up on Jesus, or a Carny-Con trying to get me to play his three-card-monty, or Jim Jones offering me Koolaid! The style of writing is at least mildly disturbing... if it doesn't have exactly the cadence, alliteration and general shape of that of a cult leader or a con man or a Jesus-Junky, I still feel like I'm being Snake-Charmed, Stage-Hypnotized, or NLP'd (whatever that would look like). I'm curious if you recognize this feature in this particular piece of writing and/or some of the other things you send us? Do *you* find it at all disturbing? It doesn't really fit into the normal styles of discourse such as Exposition, Argument, Description or even Narration. It is sort of a come to Jesus lead-through, or Coleridge-esque poetry? The closest description I can find is Proselytization or Faith Healing... I'm not strongly compelled either way on your usual topics of Russo Fusion, Younger Dryas Cosmic Events, Methylated Spirits (I mean Asparatame), etc... but this particular article was more boldly and obviously some kind of proselytizing message... not unlike the Jesus Junkies who strongly suggest that as soon as you accept JaiyZuss into your Harrt! you will suddenly be happy, free of all worries, in the warm embrace of the creator, the spirit, the saviour, etc. I suspect that Eric (Smith and others) can speak more directly to what I'm interpreting as phonolinguistic features. But I'm curious what you feel or think about this issue of style? - Steve Fred Davis, The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror 2013.03.13: Jerry Katz, Nonduality Salon: Rich Murray 2012.03.16 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/**2013/03/fred-davis-looking-** glass-language-as.htmlhttp://rmforall.blogspot.com/2013/03/fred-davis-looking-glass-language-as.html Jerry Katz via yahoogroups.com 8:10 AM PST March 16, 2013 (9 hours ago) to AdvaitaToZen, iam, NDS, NDH advaitato...@yahoogroups.com, iam i...@yahoogroups.com, NDS nondualitysalon@yahoogroups.**com nondualitysa...@yahoogroups.com , NDH ndhighlig...@yahoogroups.com The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/**NDhighlights/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/ #4867 Friday, March 15, 2013 -- Editor: Jerry Katz umb...@ns.sympatico.ca, http://awakeningclarity.**blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-** looking-glass-language-as-**mirror.htmlhttp://awakeningclarity.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-looking-glass-language-as-mirror.html Awakening Clarity Recognizing and Living as Our True Nature Thursday, March 14, 2013 The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror Fred Davis Notice that you are already awake. Right now, this moment, the only reason you can read these words is that you're awake. You're already awake. You're as awake as it gets. You're already fully awake. Given that you're already fully awake, how then could you wake up further? Since you're already awake, does that idea even make sense? You can't wake up more from where you are right now. And you can't wake up again. If you want to read a book through that body, or watch a video, or send it to a retreat for further clarity or to get some context that has the potential to open to the door to further clarity, that's great. But before you do, notice that you don't need to read another book, watch a video, or go to a retreat in order to wake up, because you're already awake. If you want to do meditation, drum, dance, chant, or what have you, for the sake of grounding yourself in that present human experience you're having, or calming that unit's mind, so that you can better hear yourself talk to yourself, and better watch yourself dance for yourself, terrific. Have at it. But, be absolutely aware that you can't practice yourself into awakening. You can't achieve what you already are. You're just not who you think you are; that's the only issue here. You're undergoing a case of mistaken identity, and all you need today is a little light reflected from this mirror, this mirror of clear language that is also you. There is only you, but you tend to get a bit cloudy sometimes, and forget that. It comes with the territory when your spaciousness contracts around human beings, and it's no big deal. It's fine. When you're ready to be clear, you find a bright mirror, so here you are, back in front of the vanity mirror.
