My Digital Footprint (Thing 16)

“NO! I am neither a funeral director, accountant nor an agricultural contractor. These jobs are too boring for someone as amazing as me anyway”

(source - http://www.lovethispic.com)

As information professionals, we need to be aware of our personal and corporate digital footprint. But more than that; this is a really interesting task and one that needs to be covered more often. Every primary, secondary and third level place of education, youth group, conglomerate of volunteer groups and businesses should be teaching and updating this skill set all the time.

Working in a big organisation like Wexford County Council (800 staff with over 900 computers) we are being reminded about online security on a daily basis and this knowledge easily transfers to your personal life. I have one huge advantage, that is of having a popular name so if someone tries to Google me they get a lot of results.

NO! I am neither a funeral director, accountant nor an agricultural contractor. These jobs are too boring for someone as amazing as me anyway.

This is in direct contrast to one of our course tutors Michelle Breen who comes up number 5 on the list thanks to her linked-In account. 

So, having a popular name is an advantage when seeking to protect your online privacy but the flip-side of that is if you WANT to be found it’s more difficult. It’s also ironic that one of the worst companies concerned – FACEBOOK – where people tend to divulge too much information about themselves is also where the chain message go out on how to strip the geotag information from photos, not to be putting up posts about your holidays (telling burglars your house will be empty) etc. Facebook is also where parents can track what their kids are doing, who they are socialising with and if the are acting the maggot.

This thing is quite timely as we are having a national discussion if children should be banned from having phones and devices altogether which I think is a stupid idea. Teens and children will find ways to get around a ban, they always do. Tell someone they cannot do or have something and guess what – they will. It’s an Irish solution to the problem rather than education and controlling online information. This is like years ago when movies and books were banned in Ireland. This was fantastic news because it meant that the movies would be watched and the books would be read. When I was in college you could always get your hands on the likes of Natural Born Killers and the Bad Lieutenant (movies that have since been declassified as banned). The first being a good movie, the second just violent and crass.

 

(Warner Bros., 1994)                             (Bad Lieutenant Prod., 1992)

It’s also timely because last week in work we had the first of many training sessions on the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is a complex piece of legislation which will have many ramifications for library professionals but it is a good piece of work and will help protect people in Europe. Only time will tell; but for now it is the most robust piece of legislation giving more protection to internet users than anyone has seen anywhere in the World.

I really like watching the reality TV show on Channel4 – Hunted - it’s where a group of people are released and have to evade a crack team of investigators that have access to a myriad of amazing resources to track a person’s every movement, transaction and technological breath. Watching this program gives you a small insight into how easily it is to give too much information out about you, your family and life.

Anyway, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of this task. We are asked to do an audit of our online activity under the following headings.

Be very careful giving out personal information to websites that you are unfamiliar with. I’m using social media since the dawning of Bebo (remember that) and am always conscience of what information I’m putting up. I always remember that the information will be there forever even if I delete from a public profile/website.

It’s also worthwhile periodically checking what applications and games via Facebook you have given permission to view your details. Remember that fun quiz thing you did to find out how much you know about movies in comparison to your friends...that sort of thing!.

Do not respond to phishing emails. There was a really good campaign in work last year and all emails are blocked that “appear” to be phishing emails so it’s something I am aware of and on the lookout for all the time. This poster is great to print out and stick around everywhere.

Don’t download illegal software. I’m adverse to downloading and signing up for new products, I always think a. do I really want/need this and b. if it’s free I am the product. I have 2 email addresses also, one to put on websites/social media and one for private stuff. This really helps filter spam.

Be careful when connecting to the internet when out and about. I generally do not connect to wifi when out and about. I only use wifi either at home, in work or on the train. Nothing else really. Thankfully I have a really good 4g connection with a great data package so I don’t have to use wifi much. 

Do read T&C’s of the apps you download so that you can give “informed consent”. Again, it’s best to not sign up to multiple apps and packages, remember you are the product.

Be aware online of what you post, both from a defamatory perspective and regarding giving out too much information about yourself or your family. Having a public profile for years (representing and campaigning for the LGBT community) I’ve always been aware and good at not posting defamatory or incorrect information. In regards to putting out personal information, I try not to and also my popular name (discussed already) helps.

Educate yourself about the basics of the internet and how it works. This is an ongoing battle and you have to keep yourself up-do-date with what’s going on. After doing thing 14 I actually read up on personal internet security and am working on updating my internet presence and investigating on how to use a VPN.

Password Security. I have about 5 different passwords that I cycle through using. I probably don’t change them often enough so will have to look into this.

In conclusion this is a really good task and gets you thinking about your online presence and safety a little bit more. As long as my laptop or smart phone never leaves my possession I should be ok but I need to look into protecting myself IF I were to lose my phone. Lots of work done, more to do.

John The Captain Ryan

Never give up, never surrender. Making a Scrabble comeback...

We’ve all experienced it, a crap night at club, a run of bad luck at a tournament, your opponent getting EVERYTHING. It’s so frustrating but you have to keep trying, just remember you WILL pull better tiles at some stage in the future and the board will be nice and open.

(From the movie Galaxy Quest, 1999, Dreamworks)

I was at the bottom of a really tough field of players at the Northern Ireland Scrabble Championships last weekend. (Huge thanks to Stewart Holden for organising a great tournament). On Saturday it was a day of GIRL POWER, 7 out of 8 losses all against women.  Sunday wasn’t going much better until I came up against Liam Donnelly. After 8 moves, I had changed once and although I had an early bonus of CHARGES the score was 347 points to 196.

Before I made my 9^th move, I took stock of the unseen tiles, realised most of the clunky tiles were gone and there were some nice letters left that should lead to some bonus likely combinations so I changed for the second time. The board looked like this:

Liam changed also and both of our luck completely reversed. Liam’s 10^th, 11^th & 12^th moves scored 12 points altogether as his 12^th move of LYED on the top left hand corner was challenged off and my next 3 moves scored 197 points. My final rack was:

I had loads of time left on my clock so tile tracked to see what Liam had. (I prefer to tile track at the end to ensure I get it correct). His rack was:

Liam didn’t have many options and I saw a nice 2-move winning end strategy. I spotted AXEL/KOALA and with the remaining tiles found ADORN. Final score sheet looked like this:

And the final board shaped up like this:

It was nice to get a win and also to see it’s always worth not giving up and to keep trying. Scrabble is a fascinating game and even though things might not be going your way, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Fini

John The Captain Ryan

Sand by Hugh Howey (Book review)

For anyone that has had the delight of reading the Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey, you are in for a real treat here.

Sand is based in the future, where, God only knows what’s happened to the World but it’s covered in sand and the remaining people are struggling to survive on short supplies of water and scavenged resources from the previous civilisation.

Howey quickly invents an alternative future after what we can only assume was some sort of post-apocalyptic disaster (maybe it’s 50 years following the Wool Trilogy) although we never find out what happened. But, that’s probably a good thing, rather than looking to the past Howey has forged ahead with creating a new society with new customs and cultural norms. It’s a really easy read and one of the most page-turning books I’ve read in a while. I’d forgotten how much I liked Howey’s style and I’m going to go back and read the Wool trilogy again (and write a review of it).

Sand follows the story of a family, most of whom are sand divers scavenging the remnants of past civilisations, the mother of the family owns and runs the local bar (of ill repute) and the father ran off for greener pastures. This is intertwined with the desperate battle of never-ending winds blowing sand that buries everything, neighbour settlements attacking each other and a nuclear wielding despot bent on destroying everyone.

Whilst the story is based in and around Colorado I cannot help thinking there is some level of comparison to war/military action that has been going on in the Middle East for years (which, in my opinion is all about mad men fighting over oil & religion). I also like the way place names have changed but still remain similar – – Howey renames Pueblo, CO to Low-Pub, Colorado Springs, CO to Springston & Denver, CO to Danver another great trick that Howey uses to mark the passing of time and changes in society. He did the same thing in the Wool series. 

The story eludes to destructive acts of mining that may be causing the eternal winds and burying of Low-Pub & Springston in Sand. For me, this is Howey commenting on the destructive nature of humans and how we are destroying the planet.  For me, Howey has definitely taken inspiration from Alas Babylon (1959 by Pat Frank) one of the first ever post-apocalyptic books of the nuclear age and deals with the effects of a nuclear war on the fictional small town of Fort Repose, Florida.

On a side note, this is an awesome read and for anyone who likes post-apocalyptic stories this should definitely be on your to-read-list this year. (I’ll write a review later). You can see direct comparison with both – society as we know it being destroyed and how people survive.

In conclusion Sand is a great read, a story of a family coming together in an attempt to survive in a dying World that has no future other than pain, horror and eventually dying of thirst. In the burgeoning World of Zombie-Vampire-‘Poclypse this is a brilliant book. I would have liked a little bit of information about how the weather has so drastically changed so for this reason I am giving Sand by Hugh Howey a 9 out of 10 planets.

John The Captain Ryan

Wikipedia - What is it all about (Thing 15)

Are Wikipedia's weaknesses an opportunity for Information Professionals?

As information professionals we constantly advise researchers and students to steer clear of Wikipedia because of the perceived weaknesses in accuracy and lack of citations. Yet, paradoxically most of us use Wikipedia as a starting point for any research project. So, it could be argued that information professionals can be part of the solution rather than continuing to propagate the negative opinions about Wikipedia.

At first glance this seems like a great idea, we the information professionals are placed in the fantastic position of having accurate information at our finger tips so we can actually help fix the problems of Wikipedia. But hang-on, we don't work for Wikipedia, why should we? The lines are starting to get blurred here a little. Wikipedia get their staff to devise a project and promote it to information professionals to help fix the inaccuracies and lack of citations on their website.  Here's a crazy idea, why doesn't Wikipedia employ us instead. Wow! Instead of devising the #1lib1ref project they instead should identify those areas that need attention and employ some information professionals to tackle the discrepancies.

In theory the 1lib1ref project is interesting but unless pages can be fixed/added-to as quickly as they are created Wiki will be always fighting a losing battle. However, I gave it a go. I used the citationhunt.org website to identify some pages that needed citations. I looked at the suggested how-to-videos on making changes to a Wiki page, signed up to Wiki (JohnTheCaptainRyan) and got updating.

My first was a page about Alfred Butts (creator of Scrabble) and I added a citation on how he came-up with the letter distribution. My source was from the Hasbro website (who own Scrabble). Here is how my update appears (red circle and no. 5 in the reference)...

I then looked for a page from Wexford that needed updating and came to the Ballyedmond page. It previously had census details for 2011 with no citation. I added the 2016 census figures and a citation as follows:

Finally, I remembered our Thing 7 (creating an exhibition) and correctly assumed that the Wiki for Tintern Abbey and it's foundation may need some updating:

After a few attempts I figured out how to update the citations but I wouldn't mind attending a workshop to learn more about Wikipedia. My first attempt still has a field highlighted in red for the URL so I'm going to keep playing about until I get it right.

The 1lib1reg team also ask you to put #1lib1ref into the Wikipedia Edit Summary field but I couldn't find that field anywhere.

That's my Thing 15 complete.

Enjoy

John The Captain Ryan

The Perfect Rack Balance

Rack balance has nothing to do with having a properly fitted bra...

We should all aim for having a good balance in both life and Scrabble. In Scrabble this means have a good balance of vowels and consonants on your rack and avoiding duplicates. Using the example below, what should you get rid of?

To start with, B’s & V’s can be clunky. (*clunky – a term used to describe a rack of tiles that don’t work well together, eg IIIIBDK). Also having doubles should be avoided so try to get rid of I. Maybe there is an E open on the board to play VIBE.  This leaves you:

On the one hand you are thinking...I can get rid of the V and I but look what you have left. 3 consonants and 1 vowel because of your obsession with keeping the ING. You will be pulling 3 tiles out of the bag. You have an equal chance of pulling 2 vowels/1consonant or 2consonants/1vowel (if there is an equal distribution of vowels and consonants left in the bag)

What happens if you pull IDF. Now your rack is

Not a lot different really. If you still want to keep the ING you are left to play LID or FID and after pulling 3 tiles you probably won’t end with much of a different rack, truth be told.

Rack balance and tile turnover (turnover covered in next blog) work hand in hand. Being aware of one helps the other.

Instead you should play more tiles and get rid of as many as possible. This helps you get a better rack balance and a combination of letters more likely to bring about a 7 letter word. On the first move say you missed LIVING but noticed BLING. Playing BLING has many advantages:

1. Get rid of ING.
2. Good tile turnover.
3. Balance of 1vowel/1consonant left.
4. Could open the board nicely

(When you get more seriously into strategy, rack leaves, open v closing the board etc these opinions might not apply but this blog is aimed at helping newbies get started)

Another really important thing to remember is that only 1/5 of ING words take an S on the end.  So if you don’t know you don’t even have a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly. So just don’t do it. Don’t hold onto ING and don’t chance putting and S on the end if you’re not sure.

To get back to our example. Your rack leave is IV. With an equal distribution of vowels & consonants left in the bag, probability suggests you will pull 2 of each and the last will be either. Nice.

This is where having an idea of what has been played already helps. More practiced players will keep track of the tiles as the game is played but this takes a lot of time and for a newbie the return isn’t worth the effort. BUT it is worth having an overall broad awareness of what’s been played. Definitely keep track of the 10 biggies.

A couple of times during the game have a quick scan around the board of how many consonants & vowels have been played. The breakdown is 56/42 (2 x blanks). It will only take 30 seconds to run your eye back and forth over the board (methodically) and count how many vowels have been played.

If you are half way through the game and 34/42 vowels have been played, the chances of pulling vowels from the bag are less likely and this will affect your rack balance. Similarly, if most of the E’s have been played, hold onto the one you have.  Other scenarios to help your rack balance are:

a. 20 tiles left in bag. 1 x blank, 1 x S & the Z are unseen so could be in the bag. In this scenario don’t be afraid to play a long word, you have a good chance in pulling some nice tiles.

b. 20 tiles left in bag. Q, 4 x O’s, V and W are unseen. You’ve also noted both blanks and the 4 U’s have been played and are blocked up. Unless you have an I on your rack to play QI be wary about pulling lots of tiles from the bag. You could end up with QOOOOVW. What the hell do you do except play VOW and hope for the best.

c. 10 tiles left in bag. You only have 2 vowels on your rack and most of what’s in the bag are consonants. Whatever you do, don’t use both vowels! Play the clunky consonants and hope for the best.

Here is a list of some great vowel heavy (loads of vowels) or consonant heavy (loads of consonants) words allowed in CSW15. Playing these will help your rack balance.

(right click, open image in new tab/window and print)

Finally to summarise rack balance...

1. Aim to have a balance of 3 vowels and 3 consonants on your rack;

2. Learn some of the handy words from the list above &

3. Have some awareness of what has been played to inform your decision of what tiles to play which will in turn affect your tile balance after you replenish tiles.

Check out my other blogs for beginner Scrabblers The Two's & Hooks 

Fini

John The Captain Ryan

PS. If you really want to be schooled on strategy give this THESIS a read.

Personal Information Management (Thing 14)

"Remember if it’s free you are the product".

In saying that it's nice to get back to the Rudai 23 Course, the break was welcome but it's good to continue.

My first thoughts on this Thing are that the title is misleading.  The title suggested to me that the task would be all about managing my PERSONAL information on-line but it’s not.  Thing 14 is really an extension of Thing 12 - Collaboration (my thing 12 here) except this time you are using different programs to organise your personal life (rather than “managing” your online presence which is an essential modern life skill).

Evernote

I’ve set up an Evernote account and created a basic to-do-list covering the tasks I need to complete for the WexWorlds pub quiz league. I created a Notebook titled: Pub Quiz League;

And in that created 6 notes for the different tasks I need to complete in the next few days, namely:

1. Choose dates and venues

2. Write promo text for Twitter, Facebook and website

3. Update website with last quiz

4. Write newspaper article

5. Contact radio to do interview and prepare notes

6. Design table tents, posters and flyers

But, for me, this is all a waste of time.  Before I created these notes and notebook I wrote the list down in a notebook.  You know with pen and paper. If I need the list digitally I simply take a photo on my phone.  The time it took me to create all of this on Evernote, I would have had some of the tasks complete. Also the to-do-list for organising an event is normally similar, after you have done a few you know what you are doing.

I know sharing a project on Evernote/Trello is good when there are several people collaborating but for personal organisation there are already plenty of tools, particularly on your Smartphone that does the job just as well. For example when I am going grocery shopping my husband texts me what we need.

Feedly

I won’t be using Feedly. I already keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook and my Reading List in Blogger for interesting stuff to read (I am following 41 blogs). I’m actually fed-up of Stephen’s Lighthouse blog because there are too many articles on it so am thinking of unfollowing it, but I’ll give it a while longer as some of the stuff is really good. 

Remember The Milk

I tried out rememberthemilk.com. It’s really easy to use and you can sign in with either a Google or Facebook account. When you create a list it’s really easy to assign it to someone. I set up a reminder to buy beer and then assigned it to myself with my work email. If you have more complex tasks to complete this might be good but a simple text message or Facebook message to someone is handier for simple tasks.

GetPocket.

On my iPad there is a read later function.  Basically, you can save a webpage to your iPad for viewing later, this is especially handy if you will be out of WiFi coverage and know you want to read a long article. The iPad actually downloads the full article to your device for reading at a later stage. See how to do this if you have an iPad HERE.  However, I had to try it out. So, I signed in with my Google account and was prompted to install the app on my phone. GetPocket/Google even knows what type of phone I own but I skipped this step. I “Pocketed” my blog to test the app. It was really easy to use but I don’t see the point. Bookmarks and history in Google does the same job. I removed my Getpocket account.

Conclusion.

Remember if it’s free you are the product.

I’m not in favour of increasing the number of sources I’m getting information from. Neither am I interesting in trying to get these programs to work together better. I am already drowning in content and programs so I am going to use what I have between my Smart phone, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email and blog reading list. I’m definite in my decision not to use any of the suggested programs, i.e. Feedly, Remberthemilk or GetPocket. In fact we should be reducing the number of programs and applications we are reliant on.  Still nothing wrong with pen and paper. Maybe it’s an age thing! I just don’t want my life complicated with 3 more programs keeping tabs on me and enabling Google and Facebook track my every movement and record everything I do.

Fini

John The Captain Ryan

Hooked on Scrabble!

So you are hooked with Scrabble, fantastic. Well it’s great to learn some new words to bamboozle your opponents and gain a small advantage in Scrabble so now that you are hooked, let’s learn some hooks.

I’ve already blogged about the 2 letter words here, next learn a few handy hooks. Firstly, what is a hook? No, it’s not what you use to catch a fish, in Scrabble it’s adding a letter to an existing word on the board to play your new word. In the example below, move 1 was DOG and move 2 was SHARD.  The S is the hook making DOGS.  There are 3 advantages about this type of move;

1. You do not have to create a word using a letter already on the board (either D, O or G)

2. You score more (DOGS=6 SHARD=19 TOTAL=25).  You could play SHARD using the D of DOG but you get a much smaller score.

3. You open the board nicely (although this can be a disadvantage too)

A great advantage of knowing an unusual (UNUSUAL – lovely 7 letter word with 3 U’s) hook is that you can keep building hooks like the example below...

                                                                                                             

WEX = 26                                           

WEXE = 14 
BEER = 12
TOTAL = 26                               

WEXES = 15

RE = 2

SEXY = 28

TOTAL = 45

My Awesome Hooks List

The word like JAMBOKS is fantastic.  Learn that one word and you have actually learnt 6 words.  It’s called a word pyramid, if you look closer you will find you can remove a letter from the end and it’s still an allowed word all the way to JA.

What other word pyramids can you find? Please comment them below.

Enjoy learning and let me know how you get on.

John the Captain Ryan.  

Logan (movie review)

"Stewart is amazing, portraying the role of an old man losing control over his mind with poignant understanding and realism"

This is by far my favourite movie of 2017.Not just the best super hero movie of 2017, the best movie of 2017. If you don’t want to read my review I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Without a shadow of doubt it gets a rating of 10 out of 10 planets. But, if you want to know more, read on...

Now, before you give out, this movie is R rated. (18’s in Ireland).  It’s rated as such because it is brutal, bloody and violent.  Let’s face it, if you have 6 x 12 inch unbreakable blades sticking out from your fists things are going to get violent.  Thank the heavens this movie wasn’t Disneyfied with the bloody parts taken out.  It is what it is.  Get over it.  AND NO, your 8 year old son shouldn’t watch it.

(photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

There are 2 stories intertwined in this movie, the first a sad story of Professor X and Logan, the only 2 surviving original mutants and secondly a story about a new generation of mutants created in a lab. (Manticore and Dark Angel anyone).

The first part of this story, strangely enough, diverts the movie from the category of fantasy/super hero and rather it is a movie of 2 old friends, one suffering from a decaying mind and one suffering from a decaying body.  It’s not the usual story of mutants battling the good fight.  Both main characters, Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier) & Hugh Jackman (Wolverine/Logan) are a perfect fit for the roles.  Stewart is amazing, portraying the role of an old man losing control over his mind with poignant understanding and realism, inspired acting which of course is not acknowledged by the Hollywood hierarchy because Logan is “just another super hero movie”.  

Of course, if you are losing your mind...that’s a dangerous thing if you happen to have the most powerful mind in the World.  At different moments during the movie seeing the lost, helpless, vacant look on Prof. X’s face is heartbreaking, but, and not to give too much away he still continues to help Logan find his humanity. Simply put, Stewart is a genius. The make-up was also good as Stewart isn’t really that old.

(photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

This brings me onto Logan/Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman.  It’s really hard to keep track of superhero movies, there’s so many but one constant has been Wolverine/Logan since the 2000 movie X-Men.  Jackman has played the role of Logan/Wolverine in 9 movies at this stage with varying levels of success but by far this is the best of the lot. Logan’s super power of healing makes it easier for him to be in multiple movies and not age like his counterparts but it’s interesting to see how he has matured even with the help of make-up in each reincarnation, frankly he looks hotter each time.  

(Like a good single malt whiskey.)

Logan has several roles in this movie, looking after Prof X, continuing to fight even though his body is finally starting to succumb to old age, protecting the next generation of mutants and finding a sliver of his remaining humanity. He has a huge list of to-dos but manages to pull it off.  Whilst I’ve loved Jackman in practically everything he has done (can’t wait to see The Greatest Showman) Logan will remain in my heart as one of my favourite super hero films of all time.  Jackman was so lucky with this movie, an amazing story with a fantastic crew can finally allow one to forget the dreadful “The Wolverine” (when he went to Japan).

(photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

Then we move on to the new mutants. We are introduced to Laura/X-23 (Dafne Keen), a young girl with amazing powers that turns out to be Logan’s daughter.  Her battle scenes are bloody and gruesome, again as I’ve said before, it’s R rated, because it’s a child administering the pain and the chopping and the beheading and the killing. And again, this film is better because these parts are shown and not cut out.  (Think of the first Hunger Games movie, it’s a movie about children killing children but you never actually see any of the killing). Laura and her other mutant friends break out of the lab they are created in and travel towards Canada to start a new life not controlled by the military. With them being chased all the way and with Logan’s help some of them escape neatly setting-up the next round of spin-offs.  It was confirmed in October 2017 that a script is being written for Laura/X-23.

Nevermind DC trying to catch-up to Marvel with movies, they just can’t do it.  In comic form, I would agree that Batman has a slight edge over any of the Marvel creations but overall Marvel is still streets ahead. I’m getting a little fed-up of the conveyor belt of super hero movies over the last few years, with many more to come.  Those worth watching, MARK MY WORDS will be Deadpool 2 and the new Laura/X23 movie.  Just skip the rest.

As I’ve already said, Logan gets a 10 out of 10 planets. There are no bad or disappointing parts to this movie.  Acting was fabulous, especially from Patrick Stewart, writing great, special effects seamless and an awesome storyline. If you only have time for one movie in the next year make it Logan.

Fini

John The Captain Ryan