I'm Not A Cat Guy, But I'm Still Really Mourning Grumpy Cat

Grumpy Cat died last month at the age of 7. 

The big, sad news of the past month is that Grumpy Cat passed away back in mid-May at the age of 7.

She was a celebrity, and word of her passing was all over the news, seemingly almost to the level of press coverage at the deaths of Michael Jackson and Princess Di.

And no wonder. Grumpy Cat was the ultimate internet celebrity, becoming one of the most popular memes out there.

She went to the SXSW festival in 2013 and people lined up around the block to take selfies with Grumpy Cat. She was probably the hottest celebrity at the star-studded event.

Grumpy Cat did have a thrilling life, making appearances on television shows and ball games. She went to Broadway to visit the cast of "Cats," --- obviously!

Grumpy Cat also "wrote" a bestselling book called "Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book."

As NPR reported:

"The Grumpy Cat book promised to 'put any bad mood in perspective' - and that seems to be a main source of the mourning and tributes that were triggered by the unexpected and unwelcome news that one of the worlds most adorable grouches is no longer with us. 

'I loved the cat,' one fan wrote, 'I find the absolute pleasure of meeting her once and I will never forget it. I will never forget the first time I saw her face! I learned much from her an deeply saddened and devastated to hear of her passing.'"

This fame was all because Grumpy Cat was a relatable meme. I'm not really into internet memes, but this one fit my occasional moods perfectly. Same with everybody else. Grumpy Cat made it OK to not be relentlessly cheerful all the time, as long as you didn't let the grumpiness harden into hate or deep gloom.

Even President Obama, during a speech, did an imitation of Grumpy Cat while mocking some negative acting Republicans.

Burger King, Of All Outfits, Has The Best Net Neutrality Explanation

In a viral video that demonstrates the need for internet Net
Neutrality, a Burger King franchise angers customers by
modeling their service in a way that mimics an internet
without Net Neutrality. 

Net Neutrality, something important that the FCC just overturned, is a hard nut to explain. It's especially difficult to explain why it's important, and why the FCC's decision will affect you and me.

Essentially, Net Neutrality is a principle that prohibits internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down access to content, or blocking it altogether, from any application or website you want to use.  

The fear is big corporate internet providers - think AT&T and Verizon, that ilk - will slow down or block content that either they don't make money from, or contain messages they don't want you to hear or see.  Or they'll make you pay exorbitant prices for content you want to see, but is not normally a moneymaker for them.

Net Neutrality was how the internet worked under the Republican-led FCC, under its chairman, a former Verizon lawyer, decided to do away with it. 

Quite a few people in Congress, including a number of Republicans, are interested in enshrining Net Neutrality back into law. 

Of course, the internet service provider lobbyists don't want this. These internet providers are even trying to block or close down municipal internet service providers. There's now something like 750 local municipal providers around the United States.

 The municipal ones are usually run by local governments, or panels, and have faster download speeds and are less expensive to consumers than internet access offered by the big companies.

So anyway, it's up to the rest of the public to apply pressure. How do you get the public to sign on to such an esoteric idea?

Burger King, of all companies, has found a way to do that with its flagship Whopper sandwich. Burger King put out a wonderful video that demonstrates how a lack of Net Neutrality works.

People who want a Whopper right away would have to pay a whopping $26. Or, if you don't want to pay that much, you'd have to wait a ridiculously long time for your Whopper, even if there's no logical reason to make you wait - the Whoppers are already ready to serve. Or, in the video, if you don't want to wait for the Whopper, you can settle for a chicken sandwich, though you probably don't want chicken.

The video is brilliant. It is so worth the watch:

Trolls And Bots Are Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I got an ugly surprise on my Google News feed on
an ugly news morning the other day. 

Monday morning, I got up early, went to my computer, and went straight to my Twitter feed.

There I saw my first hint that a horror had occured in Las Vegas overnight. I wanted to learn more immediately, so I went to Google News.

Of course, the top story was the atrocity in Las Vegas that claimed 58 lives, plus the despicable gunman, who killed himself.

But this post isn't about Las Vegas. Under "related stories" about the Las Vegas massacre was this "top trending" headline: "Jessica Simpson Nude Pics."

Yep, some awful troll apparently gamed Google's algorithms or something to place that nude pics thing in the top news, for profit, obviously. And I'm sure if anybody was stupid enough to click on that link, they got a computer virus or malware.

We all know now that Russians and maybe some other creeps influenced the 2016 election and very likely help a lot in getting Trump elected by inundating our Facebook and Twitter feeds with fake ads, fake news and all that to boost Trump's chances and hurt Hillary Clinton's.

As The Guardian points out, YouTube had its own problems with trolls and hacks gaming the system. Early this week, if you were on YouTube and searched "Las Vegas shooting" many of the top videos on the subject were posted by wacko conspiracy theorists who said the mass shooting was fake, and a false flag to take our guns and rights away, or something.

So YouTube was giving a platform for all these nutjobs. YouTube says the videos comply with their standards, which may be true, but really. On the bright side, my YouTube search of "Las Vegas shooting" was a little better, with the top hits mostly consisting of reports from legitimate news sources or videos from eyewitnesses.

I don't know how to fix all this,  but that's the big flaw in all these web sites and social media is they're automated, and algorithms, whatever they are, guide us to what we see.

Which is why none of us can ever serendipitously just wander around YouTube or search engines like we would in a book store, seeing what pops out at us.

Nope, we've done a web search, or we've watched a particular YouTube video, and now the algorithms steer us toward similar videos or searches. You can look at something else if you have something specific in mind, but if you're just sort of searching for whatever interesting pops up, you can't just stumble on something cool that's unrelated to your past searches. You can't discover new things. You're stuck.

And what about those ads that follow you around. Say, for example,  I bought some athletic shorts from Under Armour online. Now all I get ads for those very shorts following me around for weeks. Why would I want to buy shorts that I just bought? If an advertiser must advertise, the least they and their algorithms could do is advertise something else from that company that I might be interested in. But no: Buy more shorts! Buy more shorts!

It's why we can't have nice things.

Again, I'm no technology, internet or social media genius. But I like to think for myself. The tech companies think I'm incapable of doing such a thing. And it's terribly insulting.

And in the case of the Russian bots and fake ads and news, very dangerous.

Another Reason To Hate The Computerization Of Cars: Ransomware

Is ransomware in your car next?

A lot of us live in fear of  ransomware

You've probably heard of it. Hackers get into your computer and shut it down, deny you access to all your files, unless you pay a ransom to the hackers.

Often, if you get hit by ransomware, it's because you opened a safe looking email attachment, a fake email you thought was from a friend, and you're screwed.

Technically, that's partly your fault for not being careful, but we all get scammed every once in awhile, and fooled into doing something you thought was innocent. The scammers are crafty.

Now, there's other ransomware to worry about. As Consumer Reports tells us, the threat is in your car.

Says Consumer Reports:

"The reason cars are such inviting targets for ransomware hacjers is that they're increasingly computerized. And as automakers have transferred more and more functions to processors, they've neglected to install the same levels of security found in other modern devices - such as phones and laptops.

'Once you connect the car to the internet, the entire vehicle becomes a threat surface. If the auto industry doesn't adapt, we'll continue to see mistakes and potential vulnerabilities for things like ransomware to take place,' said Craig Hurst, executive director of the Future of Automotic Security Technology."

There's much more interesting things to read about this topic at in the Consumer Reports article.

One thing they don't get into, though, is this:  Unlike your laptop or phone, you don't get to install the hacking safety features in your car. The automaker does.

But if your car should get hacked one day and you get a demand for ransomware, I guarantee the car companies will not be held responsible.

It'll be all on you, because big corporations have all the rights these days, not you.

Was Trump Operating A Disco In The White House? No, But The Idea Is Fun

What was the deal with the red lights in the White House
windows Sunday night?

In a web cam that's always trained on the White House, there was a bit of a spectacle Sunday night.

It looked like there was a red strobe light going off in the second floor residence of the White House.

You could see the flashing lights in two of the windows.  

What was going on?

As always, social media had a lot of fun with this.

Michael Hicks wrote on Twitter, "Everybody relax. The flashing red lights coming from inside the White House are just a simple code being transmitted to Russian overseers."

Trey Lucas speculated: "Looks like a rave, where are my globe sticks?"

Another theory: "He probably pulled the fire alarm because his Diet Coke button didn't work."

The real explanation for the lights was much more tame, as real explanations tend to be.  Due to a medical emergency unrelated to the White House, a DC ambulance was parked on a street nearby for 17 minutes.

What people saw in those windows was the lights of the ambulance reflected in the White House windows.

Oh. Too bad. Wish the other theories were true, as they'd be more fun.

Sweet Internet-Age Revenge On Rude Coffee Shop People

Some guy named Kahlil Sehnaoui was annoyed at a coffee shop recently, because the group of people  at a table next to him were loud and rude.  

They were especially mean to wait staff, and got even louder when they were told to keep it down.

Then Sehnaoui overheard the group agreeing to a name for their new business. Yay!

Sehnaoui got sweet revenge. He quietly went on his laptop and bought the domain name for the business.

And that, my friend, is how you exact revenge in the Internet age.

Mystifying Side Note In Trump World: Missing USDA Data

My dogs Tonks (foreground) and Jackson said they are angry
the USDA removed information on animal welfare from
the government website. We want it back. 

I was watching the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC the other night and she was mystified by something I was equally confused about.

My dogs Jackson and Tonks, who were also watching, said the issue Maddow was discussing is very important and I should put it in my blog.

I agree.

The Trump administration took down animal welfare data from the Internet that had provided the public with information on, say, whether the puppy they were thinking of acquiring comes from an abusive puppy mill.

The USDA makes animal breeders pass inspections. Seven states and New York City have laws that say stores and such can't sell puppies and other animals unless they come from a reputable breeder. The USDA insspections help guide this, and that's what the USDA database was for.

On her show Tuesday, Maddow said:

"Pet stores or law enforcemet in these states, if they want to check and see if a dog breeder is legally allowed to sell puppies to a pet store, they get on the USDA web site, look them up by license number and read their inspection reports, see if they have clean inspection reports. That's it"

You could do this at home, too. Get ahold of the breeder's licence number and check out the easily navigable USDA data.

Until the Trump administration came along. It's gone now. No reason given.

The removal of the data means the seven states with the animal protection laws can't enforce those regulations. And you can't find out whether the breeder you're thinking of getting Fido from tortures puppies.

Almost makes you think the Trump administration is in favor of torturing kittens or something.

Digging further, I found a Science article that contained a statement from th USDA saying the data removal was part of the agency's effort in "striving to balance the need for transparency with rules protecting individual privacy."

Wait, what?  Bad animal breeders want to torture puppies or whatever away from the annoying, prying eyes of law enforcement and the public? Hey, leave me alone here, can't you see I'm torturing puppies. Get outta here!

The statement from the agency said some horse breeders and others were suing the USDA to get the animal welfare information out of the public eye and the data was removed out of an abundance of caution while the litigation was going on.

But these lawsuits were ongoing well before Trump came into office. The Obama administration was presented with the option of removing the animal welfare data from the USDA website, but chose not to, as Maddow notes. 

Also, as Maddow notes, the Trump administration has been quietly taking down things from various websites, but, when there's an outcry, a lot of it goes back up.

There's already a public outcry brewing. The Dodo reports tbat people are inundating the USDA and other government officials with photos of their pets as a protest against the removal of the information from the web site.

Also, it looks like the Humane Society is going to sue the USDA over the missing public information.

The Science article noted that the decision by the USDA to take down the animal welfare data is not final, so maybe it will reappear.

I hope so. There's no reason why anybody who abuses animals, or even potentially abuses animals, should have that kind of act hidden, out of respect for "privacy."

Artist Takes An Interesting Swipe Website Mugshot Industry

An artist is taking zillions of mugshots
from websites and blurring them,
then doing search engine
optimization so people go
to the blurred images not the
for-profit mugshot web sites.  

There's always creeps who try to take advantage of people's past mistakes for fun and profit

So it is with a multitude of online mugshot web sites, which lets you find out which of your friends got arrested in the past, and what they looked like in their mug shots.

Of course, said mugshot victims can try to get these images scrubbed from the internet, but you pay an extortion fee to get the job done.

Things got really bad back around 2010 and 2011, when shysters put up web sites full of people's mugshots, and  charged people exorbitant amounts of money to have them scrubbed.

According to the Kernel/Daily Dot,  some states passed laws meant to hamper these extortion sites, especially after Wired magazine wrote an expose on the practices back in 2011.

Google changed its algorithm so that mugshots weren't priortized so much. Visa and Mastercard pledged not to process money if it was for these mugshot extortion outfits.

Of course, this is the internet. So there's still slimy outfits around.

There are still many extortion websites that might or might not be somehow affiliated with the actual mugshot sites to get people to pay money to get rid of the mugshots.

Never mind the fact that I don't understand the appeal of looking at arrest mug shots of random people.

Since it's definitely hard to get rid of this situation, there are some people who are conducting some guerrilla warfare on the mugshot industry.

One of them, says Wired magazine, is an artist named Paolo Cirio, who is using the mugshot website tools against them.

According to Wired:

"Cirio scaped images from six websites (he claims to have 15 million photos) and used an algorithm to blur them. Then he created websites with slightly different URLs - Busted-Mugshots.us became BustedMugshots.com for example - and did a little search engine optimization so his images appear alongside real mugshots.

"When data is technically indestructible, obfuscation might be the last resort," he says.

 Not that the mugshot outfits are particularly happy with all this. BustedMugshots.com has sent Cirio a cease and desist letter, says Wired.

I know mugshots are public information, and journalists and everybody else should have access to these public records. You know, government accountability and all that.

But these websites that claim to be posting the mugshots for public service are really doing it for entertainment purposes and to make a profit.

It's sleazy.

Says Cirio about his efforts:

"I hope the viewers will demand the need for rights concerning personal information and reputation over the internet."

Boaty McBoatface Won't Explore and Study The Arctic

Unfortunately, this research veseel won't really
be named Boaty McBoatface 

Never conduct an online poll when you want to name something.

That's something the United Kingdom science ministry learned after they put out the poll to name the new $200 million (actual pounds convert) polar research ship.

As you might have heard a month or two ago, the winning name on the island poll was Boaty McBoatface.  

Which really isn't the most dignified name for a serious polar research operation.

The Boaty McBoatface idea came from former BBC presenter James Hand, who proposed the silly name, notes ArsTechnica. 

The idea went viral and the there you go.

However, British scientists with the Natural Environment Research Council decided it was best to renege on the idea of Boaty McBoatface, which is too bad.

On the bright side, they decided to name the boat RRS Sir David Attenborough, named for the famed British naturalist. Also on the bright side, Sir David Attenborough did get votes on the online poll, but it wasn't the winner.

More bright sides: Although the research vessel won't be named Boaty McBoatface, remotely controlled underwater vehicles will be given that name.

As ArsTechnica says, I hope they paint a dorky cartoon face on these underwater vessels. That'll scare the hell out of any submarine life up there in the Arctic.

Sir David Attenborough said he was honored the boat was named after him and certainly bears no ill will for partisans of Boaty McBoatface.

"I am truly honored by this naming decision and hope that everyone who suggested a name will feel just as inspired to follow the ship's progress as it explores our polar regions. I have been privileged to explore the world's deepest oceans alongside amazing teams of researchers, and with this new polar research ship they will be able to go further and discover more than ever before."

Maybe a U.S. research ship could be named Boaty McBoatface instead.

After all, the Boaty McBoatface crisis won very valuable publicity for the National Environmental Research Council. 

It never hurts to be silly. Even if you're a scientist.

Drone Smacks Guy In Head After Crashing Through Window, Then He Experiences Social Media Weirdness

Dan Perel's office window after a drone accidentally
flew through it and clonked him on the head.  

Earlier this year, Dan Perel was minding his own business on the fifth floor of a Cape Town, South Africa office building when a drone crashed through the window and smacked him in the head.

He wasn't badly hurt and downloaded the video the drone was taking using an attached GoPro.

The video went viral and Perel got a lesson in social media and trolls that was much more painful than getting clonked on the head by a drone.

Writing in Medium, he said he was attacked from all sides for supposedly faking the video to gain money and fame and all that. And maybe to hate on drones.

I understand the suspicion. If you believe everything you see on the internet,  have I got a wealthy Nigerian for you who could make you rich!

A lot of videos and such that go viral later turn out to be fakes.

This drone one seems legit, though. Perel says he made little money off the video, and the amount of vitriol he got online was stunning.

"To this day I am still dumbfounded by the reaction. Why would I go to such great lengths to CGI a fake video of a drone crashing into my head?"

Well, people have done stranger things than that, but I get Perel's point. It does seem like an awful lot of effort to go through to get yourself some fame.

It's well worth reading his essay in Medium before pursuing internet fame and fortune, or just getting a viral video out there.

Here's the drone's view of it crashing through the window and hitting Perel that started this whole thing:

The Geniuses At UC Davis Never Heard Of The Striesand Effect

UC Davis tried to get stuff related to former UC Davis
officer John Pike casually pepper spraying demonstrators
off the Internet. It just made everybody think about it
again, and Google it again, too.  

Back in 2011, a searing image became an Internet meme and sensation.

It was a photo of a University of California/Davis cop casually pepper spraying a group of peaceful protesters.

He looked as if he was bored and decided to spray raid on the ants getting into the kitchen.

The whole thing as you can imagine caused an enormous uproar.

UC Davis tried to put it behind them, but of course this whole thing still comes up in a lot of internet searches.

UC Davis hates, hates the results of those internet searches. So, apparently never having heard of the Streisand Effect, UC Davis spent at least $175,000 hiring a company to help it scrub those internet searches that yielded stuff about that pepper spraying cop, reports the Sacramento Bee. 
'
The Streisand Effect, which I've written about before and still can't believe PR people apparently never heard of, is when someone takes an action meant to quash news of an embarrassing or private thing, and that attempt at quashing the information does a fantastic job of calling attention to it.

The Streisand Effect is so named because the singer tried to suppress an online photographic record of homes along the California coast, including hers. When she did this, suddenly everybody who didn't give a damn about her house were seeking out photos of it.

She should have just kept her mouth shut. Or at least kept singing instead of worrying about photographs.

Similarly, the UC Davis effort to suppress internet searches of the pepper spraying cop backfired spectacularly. The whole thing is back in the forefront again.

"We wanted to promote and advance the important teaching, research and public service done by our students, faculty and staff, which is the core mission of our university", said UC Davis spokeswoman Dana Topousis, according to the Sacramento Bee.  

That's some way to go about it! All I'm thinking now in relation to UC Davis is pepper spraying cop, pepper spraying cop..

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article71659992.html#storylink=cpy

As the Sacramento Bee reported, UC Davis is a public institution. How could they possibly think they could hide the fact they were trying to burnish their image by spending $175,000 on a consultant?

The Sacramento Bee obtained the information through a public records request under the California Public Records Act.

People and small businesses sometimes hire these online scrubbers if they've been unfairly maligned on the net and want to clean things up.  

But a public university is quite another thing. UC Davis flunked PR 101.

"For a public university that is funded through taxpayer funds, who has repeatedly stepped into a vast hole, it is surprising that they thought this could be done without the light of day shining on the act.......It is one more example of how out of touch the leadership at UC Davis is when it comes to their public perspective," said Doug Elmets, a Sacramento public affairs consultant in the Sacramento Bee. 

A lot of good this all did, too. When the Sacramento Bee broke this story on April 13, it said there were about 100,000 hits when they Googled "UC Davis pepper spray"

When I Googled "UC Davis pepper spray" yesterday,,April 21, just over a week after the Sacramento Bee article landed, I got 353,000 hits.

A lot of those hits I got were articles describing how UC Davis was apologizing for their latest screwup.

"In hindsight, we should have been more careful in reviewing some of the more unrealistic and ridiculous scope-of-work claims in the written proposals of our outside vendors," UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi said.

Ya think?

U.S. Military Advisor Says Head Scarves Are "Passive Terrorism." The Internet Mocks

Look carefully at this scene from the opening
credits of the early 1970s sitcom "Mary Tyler
Moore Show" The woman in the lower left
is wearing a scarf on her head. She
must have been a terrorist  

So here's something that might give you a bit less confidence in U.S. military intelligence and preparedness.

A document is being distributed within the military that tells us that Muslim women who wear headscarves known as the hajib - the majority of them -- are practicing "passive terrorism."

That's right, the mere act of wearing a head covering is terrorism, at least according to some guy named Tawfik Hamad, who, according to The Intercept, is a self-described former Islamic extremist and fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

According to The Intercept, Hamad believes, "the hajib contributes to the idea of passive terrorism' and represents an implicit refusal to 'speak against or actively resist terrorism.'"

Which would come as news to so many women who do wear the hajib and who live peaceful lives and speak out against terrorism.

The overall manual the military has does contain a lot of sensible information, at least the parts not written by Hamad.

It was first released to the military in 2011 but was re-released to the military as part of a renewed push to combat terrorism.

This time, though, the hajib causes terrorism idea has captured the imagination of social media, often hilariously. Hey,  stupid, simplisitic ideas need to be mocked, right?

Basically, every head covering is fodder for this meme.

Under the hashtag #PassiveTerrorism, people have been showing all kinds of examples of women amd others with their heads covered, and so therefore are terrorists.

This includes nuns, old women shielding themselves from rain, a pug in a head-covering robe and a cat with a pink scarf tied around its head, Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth, Amish women, Orthodox Jewish women, random guys and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousatzai.

You noticed I got into the act in this post. The photo up at the top is from the opening credits to the old 1970s "Mary Tyler Moore" show. Notice the old woman in the lower left in the background.

She's got a scarf on her head. My God! There were Islamic terrorists in Minneapolis in the early 1970s! Who knew?!?!?

It's cold and rainy outside my house in Vermont as I write this. A little while ago, a ran out to get the mail. I wore a hat because of the weather. A head covering!

I guess I'm a terrorist, too!

Surprisingly, I'm On Jan Brewer's Side As She Considers Lawsuit

A couple of the dubious web ads that
were placed using images of former Arizona
Gov. Jan Brewer. She's threatening to sue.  

I can't say I've ever been much of a fan of Jan Brewer.  But now she's threatening to sue an advertiser, and I'm totally rooting for her.

Brewer, you might remember, came under fire  (and was praised in other quarters) when she signed into law that required police to determine people they encountered whether they were in the United States illegally.  

She turned into a lightning rod with that one. But she later did not seek re-election and had largely faded from the spotlight.

Brewer cropped up again as the face on one of those annoying snake oil ads that appear on so many web sites.  Some show doctored "before and after" photos of Brewer after she'd gotten the purported company's wrinkle removing doohickey or whatever.

Brewer is 70 years old, and lives in sunny Arizona, so you don't expect her to look like a 20 year old.

Worse, Brewer never agreed to be the model for the ads. They company or ad agency just swiped the photos from the Internet.

The ad that pictures Brewer said she got the "revenge makeover" after her husband dumped her because she had gotten so "ugly"

"Divorced For Being So 'Old'" reads the ad's headline.

In reality, Brewer and her husband John have been happily married for nearly 50 years now.

Brewer told the Arizona Republic "It's obviously a very distorted and unflattering photo, and it's hurtful and it's wrong....I want whoeer is behind the use of this image to cease and desist and do so immediately, or it will leave me no option but to pursue legal recourse against them."  

I'm not linking to the Arizona Republic ad because of the hoops you have to go through to get to it, and because there's an autoplay, but the paper said RevContent and Content.ad placed the advertisements.

RevContent said it is not the orignator of the ad.

Content.ad said it is investigating the circumstances of the ad's placement, but will stop running it.

We'll see if there is eventually a Brewer lawsuit, but I'm behind her on this one.

It's one of many examples of advertisers using a person's likeness to peddle their (sometimes dubious) products, and it DOES have to stop.

Harsh: Toll Collector Fired For Undercharging Driver And Paying Difference From Own Pocket

Sam Samsonov became an Internet sensation
this week aftere being fired for using $5.50 of his
own money to fix a mistake he made in the toll booth
where he worked.  

It sounds like the people who run the toll booths at the Gasparilla Island Bridge in Florida really wanted to get rid of one of their toll collectors, Vladislaw "Sam" Samsonov.

Samsonov, 77, worked in the toll booth for 30 years and people really liked him. He'd hand out dog treats to cars with dogs in them, and sometimes lollipops to children.

He was fired a few days ago, though.

Why?  He accidentally forgot to charge $5.50 for a trailer being towed behind a vehicle.

OK, so he shorted the toll booth company $5.50?

Not exactly. To fix the mistake, he just took $5.50 out of his own pocket and put it in the register to make up for the shortfall. He figured he made the error, so he'd make up the difference.

That, apparently, is against the rules, says the Huffington Post.

I guess Samsonov has got a record of "breaking the rules." He has occasionally ponied up a little money when motorists have driven up to the toll booth and realized they didn't have enough money with them to pay the toll.

According to the local NBC affiliate, he knew it was against the rules to pay the tolls, but he'd never been written up for the "transgression." I don't know why it's against the rules, because his former employer, the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority, still gets all the money that's due.

However, the local paper, the Boca Beacon, interviewed his bosses, who said that under auditing rules, putting your own money into the till is considered fraudulent. Instead, he shouldn't have noted his mistake as an explanation as to why the books that day were off by $5.50.

The bosses said everyone makes mistakes, that's OK, but putting your own money in the till is NOT OK.

I don't know accounting, so I still don't know why this is "fraud."

In an age when it seems like big banks get away with murder through accounting tricks, it seems a little odd that taking ownership of and fixing a $5.50 mistake is fraudulent.

As punishment, the Authority offered Samson work two days a week instead of five, but Samsonov didn't go for it. "If I can't be trusted for five days, how can I be trusted for two days,?" he asked.

Of course, this information comes from Samsonov's daughter's Facebook page. The Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority says it doesn't talk about personnel matters, so maybe there's more to the firing than this.

Still, people in the area love the guy. This is the first time I'm aware of that people actually like a toll collector and are trying to reinstate him.

The Boca Beacon, ran an editorial praising him:

"You represent part of what so many llike about Boca Grande - a person can be gone for years, but once they cross that bridge they're back in the land of familiar faces. It's people like you that we took for granted would always be there in the booth on weekday mornings."

Although the Internet is riled up about what happened to Samsonov, don't worry about him. His wife said he was working too hard anyway. He's got a nice military pension to live on, he says, so money isn't going to be a worry.

He says, though, it's nice to know his community has got his back.

I'm So Happy "Revenge Porn" Guy Will Rot In Prison For Awhile

This jerk is going to prison because of
his "revenge porn" site. Things like this
happen to creepy guys. Hope he has fun in jail.  

Remember the revenge porn guy?

He was the moron who collected nude or sexually explicit photos of women posted by angry ex-girlfriends and ex-husbands, and posted them on line for all to see.

He then charged the women $300 or more to have those photos removed from the web site.

Yeah, the guy's a real charmer.

The jerk,  Kevin Bollaert, was just sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of operating the revenge porn site, says the Los Angeles Times.

I'm hoping the stiff sentence is a deterrent to others who have the same bright idea as Bollaert. NBC San Diego says two other California men are also facing charges in connection with their revenge porn sites.

Good!

"Sittng behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act, will not shield predators from the law or jail," said California Attorney General Kamala Harris, whose office handled the prosecution against Bollaert, says the LA Times.

Bollaert was  convicted of multiple felony counts of identity theft and extortion. Bollaert is also supposed to pay $15,000 in restitution to his victims and a $10,000, but that's almost besides the point.

He is not going to do well in prison, is my guess.

He's not off to a good start. He cried in court as his victims talked about how traumatized they were, and still were, by all those perverts out there who saw the photos and are still trying to contact them.

That crying jag was surely a contrast to Bollaert's cocky demeanor when he thought he was this big hotshot stud running his horrible web sites.

Somehow, when Bollaert gets out of jail in as little as 10 years, he's not exactly going to be the most sought after bachelor in California.

I think his being alone all the time will be good for him. But even better for the women of California.

Cookie Monster Tries To Break The Internet

The Cookie Monster tries to break the Internet  

The latest obnoxious meme is the phrase "breaking the Internet."

This dumb phrase gained currency when Kim Kardashian displayed her butt online, and supposedly so many people wanted to see it that it would "break the Internet."

Time magazine defines breaking the Internet to mean "engineering one story to dominate Facebook and Twitter at the expense of more newsworthy things... So perhaps a more accurate term would be 'hijacking the Internet,' since really these stories seem to be manipulating online fervor rather than shutting the whole thing down."

Now, it seems, when some marketer wants to entice a gullible public to open a link, they tease that it would "break the Internet." You're supposed to be so excited about the idea of breaking the Internet that you succumb to the click bait.

Finally, then we come to this: A video of the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street trying to break the Internet.

His way of doing it is much better than everybody else's. Certainly much better than anything Kim Kardashian can do.

Here's the video:

Sean The "Dancing Man Found" Is Case Study On How To Joyfully Combat Cyberbullies.

Some morons took these two photos of Sean,
the one on the left of him dancing, the one
on the right showing Sean after they jeered
at him for having the temerity of dancing
in public. You go Sean!!! 

I'm happy to report another victory in the battle against trolls and cyberbullies. It seems that the rule about online bullies, "Don't Feed the Trolls," isn't always the best advice.

Earlier this week, we had Curt Schilling fighting back brilliantly against cyberbullies. Now we have another case, and this one involves thousands of people.

A guy who now has Internet fame as "Dancing Man Found" is the latest winner in this battle.

The whole story, which I love, has become A Thing and it's a really fun story.

Some idiot on the social media site 4chan took a photo of an overweight man dancing to some band's music and wrote: "Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing."

The accompanying photos this moron posted showed the guy dancing, and then, having bee stopped by the laughing jerks, looking a bit hurt.

Apparently, to this 4chan nutcase, only people of a certain weight and appearance have the right to enjoy music and dance.

I always thought that music is to be enjoyed by everyone.

Luckily, that's what a whole bunch of people online think, the lowlife from 4chan notwithstanding.

Somebody re-posted the photos of the dancing man on another social media and photo site, Imgur. The person who posted on Imgur objected to the idiot from 4chan. People agreed, and in the discussion on Imgur, people wanted to do something nice for the man in the photo.

A bunch of people who hated
that Sean was cyberbullied
tracked him down and
invited him to a big
dance party in L.A. Looks
like the party will be awesome.  

Cassandra Fairbanks, an activist and writer with The Free Thought Project, spotted the photo. She said the initial photo from 4chan "broke all of our hearts."

Fairbanks put it on her popular Twitter feed and tweeted: "Anyone know this man or who posted it? There's a huge group of ladies would would like to so something special for him."

As is always the case with the Internet, there's no hiding, and the dancing man was quickly found. Fairbanks posted a new photo of the man, smiling and holding a hand-scrawled sign that read:

 "Hi Cass + Twitter. (as requested)!

The guy is named Sean and he's from London. In response, he started his own Twitter account @dancingmanfound

He's out of the country on business, but is available for the dance party in a couple weeks. That should be fun!

In just 20 hours A GoFundMe page had raised $22,889 as of early Saturday morning  to send Sean to Los Angeles for the dance party.  Money left unused in this fundraiser will go toward an anti-bullying campaign.

I don't think the details of the dance party are final yet, but I can tell it's going to be a doozy.  Sean has already said "Watch Out LA!"

I believe him.

Even Pharrell Williams might get involved. He tweeted: "Hey @CassandraRules keep me posted about your dance party! @Dancingmanfound, never be ashamed of yourself."

Other musicians who produce great dance music, such as Moby, have also expressed interest in performing at the dance party.

Fairbanks said she's had a conversation with Sean, who told her, "Big-hearted people far outweight the small minded, every day of the week. "

The lesson here, reinforced by Curt Schilling earlier in the week is, we need to stand up to the cyberbullies, just like kids sometimes have to stand up to playground bullies.

The additional lesson is we can't stand by and do nothing when somebody is attacked. The women who invited Sean to their dance party are a great example of that. Take something ugly and make it into a fun event.

The cyberbullies will never go away, unfortunately, I read that original thread on the 4chan discussing Sean dancing in public.

A number of people defended him, but there are a bunch of people who left comments like a moron who said that heavier people should just lose weight in private before going out in public. Apparently, a heavier guy should not go out to nightclubs and interact with women, says this presumably thinner idiot on 4chan.

Why? Because of the competition? As has been demonstrated, women are quite understandably much more turned on by Sean and his dancing than the idiots abusing him on line.

Go back to your mom's basement, 4chan loser.

And Sean, I hope you keep dancing forever. Any time somebody partakes in a happy dance, the world becomes just a little bit better.

Internet And Very Nice Human Beings Rescue 6-Year Old's Birthday

After a false start, Glenn Buratti ended
up having a really nice sixth birthday
celebration. Also, nice Minion, Glenn!  

I often whine and moan about all the awful trolls on the Internet, people who say and do the most vile things because they're scum buckets and just want to spread their dark clouds far and wide.

Like I said, scumbags.

But, the number of awesome people on social media seems to vastly outnumber the bad, hideous trolls.

Case in point: Glenn Buratti, 6, and his mother, Ashlee, invited 16 of his school classmates to the kid's sixth birthday party at their Florida home.

None of the kids showed up.

Mom took to Facebook and vented, talking about how Glenn, who has autism, was so disappointed and almost seemed permanently unable to smile after that, says television station WKMG

People saw the post and responded, big time. The Osceola County Sheriff's office did a flyover above Buratti's house with their helicopter. The celebration became a weeklong event, with neighbors, strangers coming over.  The local fire and police departments showed up with fire trucks and cruisers so Glenn could check them out.

Ashlee said she still hasn't heard from the parents of the 16 kids that didn't make it to the party. (I bet they're mortified now!) But it's OK. Glenn had a great birthday, thanks to the Internet and some kind people.

This all just makes it easier to ignore the online trolls, doesn't it?

I'll also put in added props because the video you see below shows Glenn holding a big toy Minion. Kid after my own heart, I'll tell ya.

Happy Birthday, Glenn!!

Revenge Porn: "Most Hated Man On The Internet" Is Going To Jail

Victims are hoping jail time will wipe
the smug smile off of Hunter Moore,
who basically invented the odious "revenge porn." 

Hunter Moore is going to jail.

The name probably doesn't ring a bell with you, but it sure does among the many women he victimized.

Moore pretty much invented "revenge porn," in which people sent in their ex-girlfriends' compromising photos and Moore put them up for the world to see.

That's invasion of privacy enough, but it gets worse: He posted nude photos he and his cohorts stole  from women's Gmail accounts.

Moore once said he wouldn't care if, as he put it, "somebody killed themselves"  because of his hideous website.  He was pretty proud of his work. And he seemed to think he was some sort of entrepreneur rock star.

Now it looks like he won't be being the Worst Possible Troll on the Internet anymore.

ArtsTechnica.com reports that Moore, 28, pleaded guilty this week to unauthorized access to a computer, identity theft and other charges.

From Arts Technica:

"Moore's IsAnybodyUp became hugely popular for posting nude and sexually explicit photos of people without their permission, and it spawned copycat revenge porn sites like Craign Brittain's IsAnybodyDown.com and Kevin Bollaert's ugotposted.com. (Brittain was banned from posting any more nude photos without their explicit permission in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in January, while Bollaert was found guilty earlier this month of identity theft and extortion."

Awesome. I know getting rid of these kinds of troll web site developers and scumbags is something of a game of whack-a-mole, but at least they're being prosecuted. It might discourage a few of the assholes, anyway.

Lawmakers are also trying to craft laws specifically going after horrible people like Moore. ArtsTechnica said England and Wales recently passed a law making it a criminal act to distribute nude and explicit photos without a person's permission. California passed such a law last year.

It's too bad Moore isn't banned from having Internet access for the rest of his life. I know nowadays it's very hard to live without such access.

But he deserves to suffer that way. The havoc he wreaked on the Internet begs us to keep him off it.

My more base instincts also hopes Moore, that most hated man on the Internet, also becomes the most hated man in prison. I'm sure his bro attitude will get an adjustment there.

Yay!

  

-------------------------------------------------------------
From Gawker

Hunter Moore, the inveterate troll whose website Is Anyone Up introduced the world to "revenge porn" in the early part of this decade, has pleaded guilty to hacking and ID theft, admitting he posted nude photos stolen from women's Gmail accounts, according to court documents obtained by Ars Technica.

Moore, once known as The Most Hated Man on the Internet, faces a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 7 years in prison, plus fines of up to $500,000 and probation for up to 3 years once he gets out.

The deal will let Moore, who once said he wouldn't care if "somebody killed themselves" over his website, back on the Internet—he's been banned since he was first charged last year— but requires him to notify his probation officer of any new accounts he registers and any new hardware or software he gets, and let the cops access and copy all his files at any time.

Creator of Sleazy Revenge Porn Site Wouldn't Care If Someone Killed Themselves Because of It

The Village Voice has an excellent cover story about 26-year-old Hunter Moore, creator of the gross …Read more gawker.​com

He's also forbidden from contact with any of the seven revenge porn victims in the indictment, who are identified only by their initials. 

Charles Evens, the co-defendant Moore admitted he paid to break into those Gmail accounts and steal nudes that later ended up on Is Anyone Up, will go to trial next month unless he also cuts a plea deal. 

Idiot Who Made Bomb Threats Against Airlines "Did It For Lulz"

From Buzzfeed: Part of the Twitter exchange between
Internet Troll "Zortic" and Delta Airlines Saturday.  

If media reports turn out to be true, some idiot made bomb threats against two airliners on Saturday "for the lulz"  

The word "lulz" for those not up on Internet jargon, is a plural form of LOL, for laughing out loud.

Yep, our bomb threat guy did it for the laughs.

Just when you thought Internet trolling could not possibly get any worse, it did.

The Internet troll who did this, via Twitter, will be having LOTS of lulz, I'm sure, when the FBI catches up to him or her.

And they will. It's fairly easy to figure out who is on Twitter when law enforcement really wants to know.

According to Reuters and just about every other news source, Delta Air Flight 1156 from Portland, Ore. and Southwest Flight 2492 from Milwaukee were both en route to Atlanta Saturday when somebody on Twitter names Zortic started the "fun."

Buzzfeed captured the whole Twitter exchange between Zortic and the airlines. 

Zortic sent a message via Twitter to @DeltaAssist: "I have a bomb on one of your planes but I forgot which one when I left the airport. Can you help me find it?"

Well, right there you can tell it's just a troll being incredibly stupid. But airlines do have to take threats seriously. Just because of the off-chance there could be a mad bomber around

NORAD dispatched two F-16 fighter jets to escort the two airliners to Atlanta. Investigators scoured the planes, re-screened the passengers and found no bomb.

But look at the trouble and money and resources "Zortic" caused, all in the name of "Lulz"

At the end of his little game, Zortic had one last message on his now-deleted Twitter account, taunting people to raid him. "I'm a God. Completely untouchable and I challenge @FBI @CIA @NSA to actually get off their asses."

Oh, I'm sure these agencies are off their asses, Zortic. They just like to make arrests on their own terms. You'll see.

I've seen quite a few creative suggestions on how to punish Zortic, you know, just for the lulz. The best is to leave him in an un-airconditioned cargo hold in the sun all day in a plane parked on the tarmac at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on the hottest, most humid day of the year.

If they do that punishment for Zortic, can we have a live web feed of it please? Just for the lulz?

I keep saying there needs to be more aggressive prosecution of the most abusive Internet trolls to set an example. You can use existing laws barring threats, stalking, that sort of thing, to punish these idiots.

I hesitated before writing this post, because I don't want to give the trolls the attention they crave. But instead of pretending they don't exist, it's probably better to advocate punishment for the worst offenders. Maybe then they'll shut up already.