Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 617 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 31 of 62).

Never doubt that a small quote can be misattributed

Today a Facebook friend posted a quote she attributed to Gandhi:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Gandhi didn’t say that, I thought to myself, that’s Margaret Mead’s quote.

Except that it isn’t Margaret Mead’s quote, either. One of the earliest print references the is on page 79 of the book Earth at Omega: Passage to Planetization, by Donald Keys. Another item on Wikiquote says it was on T-shirts seen at a 1960s protest, though I haven’t seen any proof of this.

A bit more searching on The Internets brings one to the Institute for Intercultural Studies, where question 1 on the FAQ is about the source of this quote:
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The shifting sands of food deserts

There was much hand-wringing among Southeast Raleigh residents when Kroger recently announced the imminent closing of two of its grocery stores in the area, citing disappointing sales. What many folks don’t know is that one of the stores that many now turn to for their groceries was also on the verge of closing just a few years ago.

The shopping center that the Raleigh Boulevard Food Lion occupies was once plagued with crime. Residents were getting mugged in the parking lot, sketchy individuals were hanging out, stores were struggling, and there was zero investment in the shopping center from its owner. Inside the grocery store, more food was walking out than money was going in. Something had to be done.
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ReadWrite – Have You Or Someone You Know Ever Fake-Liked Something On Facebook?

ReadWrite says its fake Facebook Likes story really struck a nerve. The magazine is asking others for their stories:

Meanwhile we’re looking for more examples of fake likes. Our writer, Bernard Meisler, put his story together by asking people he knew on Facebook to look out for fake likes and send him examples. Now we’d like to find even more.

Apparently this is happening a lot, and nobody seems to know why.

Facebook told us it must be people accidentally pressing a “like” button on their mobile app. But can there really be that many people pressing the wrong button, all the time?

If you have a theory, we’re all ears.

via ReadWrite – Have You Or Someone You Know Ever Fake-Liked Something On Facebook?.

ReadWrite – Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?


I had thought that there would be no more news on the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking phenomena. Turns out I was wrong. ReadWrite’s Bernard Meisler shows ths fake likes are still happening on Facebook:

Last month, while wasting a few moments on Facebook, my pal Brendan O’Malley was surprised to see that his old friend Alex Gomez had “liked” Discover. This was surprising not only because Alex hated mega-corporations but even more so because Alex had passed away six months earlier.

The Facebook “like” is dated Nov. 1, which is strange since Alex “passed [away] around March 26 or March 27,” O’Malley told me. Worse, O’Malley says the like was “quite offensive” since his friend “hated corporate bullshit.”

via ReadWrite – Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?.

How to spot a fake Facebook user

I get a surprising number of fake Facebook users trying to sign up for a Facebook page I administer called “Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh!” It’s given me some practice in spotting fake accounts which I’d like to share here with a look at the latest fake user I’ve found, “Amanda Watts.”

Here’s how to spot a fake Facebook account:

1. The account tries to join a dormant Facebook page. It’s like the Groucho Marx line about not joining any club that would have him as a member: if someone is signing up for a dead page something is usually fishy. Because the issue that my page was created to address was settled almost two years ago it’s very unusual for anyone to be signing up for my page. Thus, I’m on guard right from the start. Only about 20% of the users who request to join my page turn out to be legitimate users.
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What is flying over Denver?

What is flying over Denver?


A man approached KDVR in Denver recently with a claim that a strange aircraft was flying regularly over an area north of the city. The aircraft moves impossibly fast and appears to take off and land near a neighborhood:

DENVER – It’s a mile high mystery in the skies over Denver.

Strange objects caught on camera flying over the city and nobody can explain it.

We first learned about these sightings when a metro area man, who does not want to be identified brought us his home video. He captured the images on his digital camera from a hilltop in Federal Heights looking south toward downtown Denver.

He said, “The flying objects appear around noon or 1:00 p.m. at least a couple of times a week.” The strangest part is they are flying too fast to see with the naked eye, but when we slowed down the video, several UFOs appear.

I watched the video several times this week and get more and more curious with each viewing.
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Scary car warranty mailing from Autocare

Scary looking letter from Autocare


How is this legal? In the mail today we received an official-looking computer-printed card which screamed “important.” It had words like “2ND ATTEMPT,” and “REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION – TIME SENSITIVE MATERIAL ENCLOSED,” and “TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY. PLEASE RESPOND WITHIN FIVE DAYS.” It was addressed to the prior owner of this home – the guy who moved out almost five years ago. I was considering forwarding it to the prior owner until I saw that it was mailed “presorted std. mail,” meaning bulk rate. Thus it wasn’t as important as it first looked.
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“Public Treasury” quote is bogus

The other day one of my conservative friends, grousing about the presidential election, repeated a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville about democracy:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

The problem is that de Tocqueville never said it. Others have also attributed it to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish lawyer and writer, but Tytler never said it, either.

The statement has been traced only as far back as December 9, 1951. According to the excellent research by Loren Collins, it was seen in the Daily Oklahoman, quoted by a nobody named Elmer T. Peterson:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Like the Einstein Bees quote, the Jefferson Inflation quote and many others, this seems to be another case of someone attributing a quote to a famous person in order to give it added weight.

Some people think that if something gets repeated often enough it becomes true.

How to tell when that Facebook friend isn’t real

I got a notification earlier this week when a Facebook user asked to join the now-dormant Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh Facebook group that I administer. I’ve been very suspicious of the recent requests to join this page since nothing is going on with the group at the moment. Thus, I decided to check out the profile of this supposed Facebook user.

The picture on the account was an unremarkable one of a white female in her 20s. The account had only a handful of likes and friends, which made me suspicious.

Then I saw the ASCII art in a post of a big heart or somesuch. By now my alarm bells are going off. I’ve seen that posted on more than one fake account.

The real kicker was seeing this at the bottom of the user’s timeline:

This woman just joined Facebook 13 hours ago? Riiiiiiiiiiight.

I quickly marked the account as a fake and it was promptly removed from Facebook.

NBC News picks up on the Hacked by Mitt Romney story


NBC News’s Red Tape Chronicles blog mentioned the Hacked by Mitt Romney Facebook page in its story this afternoon on political social media fakery.

There have even been claims by hundreds of Obama supporters that they were somehow tricked or hacked into “liking” Mitt Romney on Facebook, as evidenced by the “Hacked by Mitt Romney” page. Facebook says there’s a much simpler explanation than hacking; it’s fairly easy to accidentally like a page on Facebook, making that the likely culprit.

What’s ironic is that this issue is gaining legitimacy largely due to the growing numbers of Facebook fans that the Hacked by Mitt Romney page is attracting.

via On social media, fakery muddies political discussion – Red Tape.