Crazy Croatians

Thursday, January 24, 2013

You Can Find These Books On Amazon

Using a Carosel Widget:

Monday, January 21, 2013

Catfish Tales

    What it is about relationships these days? Somehow people are finding one another online, texting, emailing, sending photos, etc., but not actually talking or ever meeting in person. There's even an MTV reality show about it (appropriately called Catfish). Manti Te'o, linebacker at Notre Dame from 2009-2012, is the latest and probably most well-known personality to have been pulled into this type of phenomenon, and it has blown up into quite the scandal for him.
    Either done as a joke, or to lure someone through social media by pretending to be someone else, it has become prevelent in this day and age where it is so easy to connect with others far away who you might never actually meet.
    If I had to categorize who is doing this I would say that they might be lumped into the hacker community. There are a variety of hacker classifications--or specializations if you will--of hackers. The hacking done in this case being that of deception where the target of the catfish scam is deceived by the other/originator. The reasons for doing this again can be many; as a prank, to elicit information, to con money from the victim, etc. In some cases maybe the instigator wishes they were someone else and through social media can live vicariously through their fantasy persona.
    I myself enjoy playing games (such as World of Warcraft) where I get to create characters and take them into an alternate world and in a way live another life through them. I know that it is a virtual existence, just a game and just fantasy, however, and when I turn off the computer they cease to exist. Playing the game for me is an enjoyable pasttime, a way for me to relieve stress and explore the worlds that game programmers have created.
    A lot of people enjoy losing themselves in activities outside their real lives, be it in books, movies, games, what have you. Perhaps catfishing is just one of the latest forms of such expression, and as more and more people find out about it its prevalence has also grown.