Monthly Archives: November 2008

Someone finally gave a strong recommendation for this video from the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors. Check it out. It’s hilarious.

As many of you can probably tell, I’m fascinated by the idea of internet communication, and I follow almost all the major stories in the news press.  The story below is one in which an adult woman posed as a teenage boy in order to bait and dump a teenage girl.  The woman allegedly took this action because her daughter had personal problems with the teenage girl.

There was a guilty verdict on Wednesday, but what I find interesting is the basis of the verdict:

(Picture from cnn.com)

It’s too early to know the story behind this, but a series of terrible attacks have started across Mumbai in India. According to the NY Times, they attackers are focusing on Westerners:

The Mumbai police said Thursday that the attacks killed at least 101 people and wounded at least 250. Guests who had escaped the hotels told television stations that the attackers were taking hostages, singling out Americans and Britons.

Christiane Amanpour from CNN.com talks about the significance of Mumbai:

Abraham Biggs

I thought this article might be a good lead-in for a discussion on online communication.  Some people insist that the medium of communication makes no difference and that they are the same in person as on the web.  I would agree that certain topics and viewpoints are the same.  I, for example, had a philosophical difference with the owner of another site, and after we spoke, we still had that same (very big) philosophical difference.  But the point is that the style of communication is different.  When you speak in person or in real time within a personal environment, the dynamics force you to communicate in a certain way.  People are usually more respectful, and they tend to listen more.  This senseless tragedy with the suicide never would’ve happened if there were people in the same room with Abraham.  (The guy on the ledge which Prof. Cole mentions in the article is a different case since that situation creates an anonymous crowd similar to a web room.)

Kathy Cox

This is sad.  I don’t watch TV, but I saw this woman win “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.”  She generously fought for the money so that she could donate it to kids, and she was the first ever to win the show.  Now, because of the housing crisis and her husband’s home-building business, she has had to declare bankruptcy.  I’m not sure why she’s not protected from her husband’s business (I think an LLC structure would protect her from the fluctuations of his business), but it’s sad that it’s happening to someone so generous.