Fact Checking Websites For News

 Hi All,

Just a quickie email to get you all caught up on various sites to help you fact check your news, current events and websites. 

Media Bias/Fact Check bills itself as the most comprehensive media bias resource.  This article has a list of the 10 best fact checking sites. 

Sites that they cover include Politifact, Fact Check, Open Secrets, Snopes, Sunlight Foundation, Poynter Institute, Flack Check, Truth or Fiction, Hoax Slayer and Fact Checker by the Washington Post.

Click here for a very timely, interesting and useful article from Wikipedia discussing the phrase 'fact checking'.

Enjoy the links and the sites!

Regards,
Stu

Fake News

Hi All,

Fake news had been in the - well - news a lot lately.  For example, if you conduct a Google search for 'fake news' you get over 150 million results.  Interestingly readers get results from the 'Top Stories' section - at least as of 6/17/17 at about 10:34am - The Guardian, Fox 5 Atlanta and Newsweek.  All of which are verifiable news outlets and sources.

This blog entry is not a discussion on politics, political parties or people involved in the government. Its simply an entry in the blog that deals with fake news.  Onward!

Wikipedia has a very unbiased, lengthy and comprehensive entry on fake news.  Click here for the entry and click here for the link to a discussion of twentieth century and twenty-first century fake news.  It makes for interesting reading.

Snopes is a website that is fairly well known. It basically debunks urban legends.  However, this link discusses specific examples of fake news on the site.  This next link fact checks various articles and news events as well.

FactCheck.org is a  website that has, as its mission, "to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

So...FactCheck.org is unbiased, accurate, fair and a great place to learn more about fake news.  This next article is called 'How to Spot Fake News?' and was written in November 2016 - very current and timely and interesting.

In addition, the Viral Spiral page has a list of some of the claims they get asked about the most.  Finally, all of FactCheck.org's articles called 'Ask FactCheck', can be found at this link.

Finally, click on this link from the venerable New York Times - its basically a search of the site for the term 'fake news'. 

Other interesting and/or useful fake news sites include, HuffPost.com, Fake News-NPR and this link from the Guardian (a UK newspaper) titled, 'What is fake news? How to spot it and wha tyo ucan do to stop it?'

Enjoy the link and the articles and how to become an even better news consumer!

Regards,
Stu

New Year's Resolutions

Hi All,

Well the end of the year is almost upon us.  Instead of writing an entry about what New Year's resolutions you should make, I'm going to blog about how to make those resolutions - whatever they are - stick and become lifelong habits....

So...how did New Year's resolutions start...click on this link from Wikipedia for an interesting, fun and enlightening entry about resolutions.

The next bunch of links are from sites that will help you make those resolutions stick and become habits.

Huffington Post - New Year's Resolutions Are Bound to Fail. Try This Instead

WebMD - 10 Ways to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick

APA - Making Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

Forbes - Most Powerful Way to Set New Year's Resolutions That Stick 

DailyMail.com -  How to Achieve Your New Year's Resolutions

Entrepreneur - 8 Ways You Can Use Science to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

New York Times - How To Stick to Your New Year's Resolutions 

LifeHacker - Top 10 Strategies For Making Your New Year's Resolution Stick 

USA Today - 6 Ways to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick 

Shape.com - Top 10 Reasons You Don't Stick to Your Resolutions  

Enjoy the links and here's to resolutions and making them stick for the new year!

Regards,
Stu 

April Fools' Day 2015

 Hi All,

Happy April Fool's Day. Click on this link for a Wikipedia style article about April Fools' Day

And now, with that little ditty of an introduction out of the way....on to the meat of today's entry: lots of links related to the various hoaxes and practical jokes of all time!  Enjoy the article and enjoy the smiles and giggles and laughs and guffaws.

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time

April Fools' Day on the Web - 2004-2015 - amazingly current and funny

Long Island.com April Fools' Day Pranks For Kids - safe and fun

Newsday - April Fools' Day Pranks For Kids

You Probably Fell For These Internet April Fools' Day Pranks 

10 Super Easy April Fools' Day Pranks to Play On Your Kids

Finally, click on this link - which takes you to the library card catalog.  Specifically this link goes to the card catalog for books on the subject of 'April Fools Day' in the Farmingdale Public Library.

Enjoy the site and the pranks and the laughs!

Stu

Brief History of the Internet

Hi All,

So you like to use the internet to: send email, exchange pictures, post to Facebook, send birthday cards, download games, do online banking, check in with your favorite quilting site, buy books on Amazon.com, send Tweets on Twitter, search for movies on the Internet Movie Database, use Google to find out about gardening, stream movies via Netflix, check sports scores or write a blog entry?  I guess that means that you are a bona fide internet user!  Congratulations.

And now...that you use the internet, wouldn't it be at least a bit interesting to learn about how it came into being? Indeed it would be - its an interesting story filled with lots of technology, history, big names in computing, government sponsorship and much more!

Click on this link from the Internet Society for a very comprehensive (they call it 'brief') History of the Internet.  The article includes a timeline, has sections on internet concepts, proving the ideas, documentation and a very extensive list of footnotes.

Regular readers will not be surprised to see this next link from Wikipedia.  This Wikipedia entry goes to an article titled, 'History of the Internet'.  Similar but different than the prior article. One interesting link from the Wikipedia article goes to 'External Links'....

Another interesting article come from the Computer History Museum - and includes a very interesting (and extensive) timeline of the internet.  Cool stuff - and easy to digest and read.

Finally, click on this link from History.com for an article titled, 'Invention of the Internet' - while fairly brief, it introduces readers to some of the major players and the basics of the invention of the internet.

Enjoy the links - and of course - enjoy the web and the internet.

Regards,
Stu

Photo Sharing Websites

Hi All,

Looking to share a photo or picture with a friend or family member?

Good - glad you came by for today's post.  Click on this link - from Wikipedia - that lists photo sharing websites.  By no means is this list exhaustive.  There are others that exist on the web!

Note that users can sort the list - which is exactly what I did. I sorted by the Registered Users. I sorted from largest to smallest.  The result was that Instagram, Snapfish, Flickr, Photobucket and DeviantART and Lockerz are the top 6 most used photo sharing websites on the web.  Click on any of the links to go to that particular site.  

The chart on the Wikipedia is very extensive and useful.  Columns include 'Name', Location/Owner/Hoster, Description/Focus/Registration Requirements, platform used (iOS, Android, Windows), Number of Registered Users, Storge Space Allowed Per Person (standard usage), and the Global Alexa Page Ranking of the photo sharing site. 

Further down on the Wikipedia page is another table that covers file formats, upload information, folder/album structure, limitations, tags/keywords, comments, rating and downloading originals for all of the photo sharing websites.

So, if you are looking for a way to share photos with friends and family, you might want to consult this Wikipedia link - its extensive, comprehensive and current!

Enjoy the sharing.

Regards,
Stu

Identity Theft

Hi All,

Well, now that the holidays are in full swing, you might want to learn a bit more about identity theft.  What is identity theft you ask?  Click here for an article from Wikipedia about identity theft.

Click on this link for the article that I read that got me thinking about identity theft as a possible topic for this blog.  Interesting article - entitled, '5 Ways Identity Thieves Are Targeting You', courtesy of CNNMoney - a very useful financial related website. 

As you probably know, Target has reported a breach that resulted in over 40 million credit cards have been compromised by hackers.  Click on this link to learn more about how this credit card breach affects you and your credit card.

For a quick peak at what individuals can do to try to stop identity theft, click on this link.

And now...for a whole host of links about identity theft and fraud, click on the following links from various governmental, university and 'think tank' agencies.

FTC - Identity Theft - what to do right away when you find that you're identity has been compromised.
President's Task For on Identity Theft - Report identity theft and victims' rights.
Open Directory Project - DMOZ - link to Identity Theft - all about fake identification and phishing
Carnegie Mellon University - all about identity theft - protective measures, legal issues and more links.
FTC Consumer Information -  privacy and identity links
Dateline from MSNBC - 'To Catch an ID Thief' - video from an episode about hunting for id thieves
Free Credit Report.com - official site to request a free credit report

Hope the links are helpful - especially the last one (Free Credit Report.com).

Regards and Happy holidays,
Stu

Duct Tape - How Cool Is That?

Hi All,

Duct tape. Very few people think about the myriad things you can use it for...unless you actually need some right now. 

Who knew that there are websites devoted to various aspects of duct tape?  Go figure.  Without further ado, a completely different and remarkably useful blog entry dedicated to duct tape - and just as useful.

For a history of duct tape - click on this link from Wikipedia. Is is duct tape or duck tape?  Click here to find out.

For a seriously outdated website - think early 2000's - click on this link entitled 101 Uses For Duct Tape. Alternatively you can click on this link - similar, but different then the last one though.

And, finally, click on this link from Reader's Digest entitled, 'Extraordinary Uses For Duct Tape'.  You know that you can make 'art' out of duct tape - click here for some examples of duct tape art.  Click here for another duct tape are website - link is from About.com and has more duct tape related links at the bottom of the page also.

And wouldn't you know it...good old YouTube is liberally sprinkled with video of duct tape art.  OMG! Click here for a bunch of duct tape related images from a Google Image search.

Finally, if you are a Farmingdale Public Library patron, come on down to a program that we are hosting on Friday, February 8th at  4:15pm...program is for kids in 3rd grade, 4th grade or 5th grade.  How cool is that?  A whole program dedicated to duct tape fun!

Enjoy.
Stu