Followup: "Dr. King" quote mostly accurate

(…depending on which network you saw it on.)

Just happened to see followups this past week about two different, almost-true stories, one of which I had passed along the longer, more-accurate version of to my purposefully-small corner of Facebook.

That would be the quote attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. ("Rev. King," let's remember), which was being passed around when the U.S. government finally found, and killed, the mass murderer. Turns out someone noticed it was almost a King quote, garbled by addition, and one thorough individual took the time to track the messages back to the source; so here's how it happened.

The Christian Science Monitor reported, "Megan McArdle, a blogger at the Atlantic, tracked the original quote down to Jessica Dovey," a young lady recently graduated from Penn State but living in Kobe (the original one), Japan. She'd posted in Facebook, writing,

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." MLK Jr

Note, as someone down the line didn't, that she properly put quote marks at the beginning of the actual words of Dr. King. But as the message was passed along, those crucial open-quote marks were lost, and it became No-Longer-Really-A-Quote of MLK.. Then, as the wave spread to Twitter (ah-ha!), the rest was dropped and only Jessica's sentence remained, at which point it attained the state of true Fakeness.

So it was just due to this petty detail, a seemingly harmless omission, that the meaning was changed; only subtly, but enough that its credibility was compromised. But worse, this made it ripe pickings for Twitter, the Short Attention Span Medium (SASM), to phase it impatiently into a total "fake accompli."

Not the author's fault; first of all, her own statement still seems to me to be entirely faithful to the thought and intention of the great man she quotes in turn. And technically, she got it right — although it would have been an even better version of Right if she'd started the quote with its own paragraph.

So, right on, Jessica; and good work, Megan.

More to the story: Facebook to blame, too?

But, ah-ha! Here, once again, we detect the haughty hand of Fazebook's user interface design authority, which has turned its back on 25 years in the evolution of GUI design standards. They've decided that a Return or Enter is now the Send or Post command, not a line feed/"carriage return" as in pretty much every other piece of major or minor software out there.

And of course this fairly-significant change seemed to be turned on without any prior warning, much less inquiry into how their non-mobile access users felt about this new "feature" (since it seems geared to handhelds).

Therefore, Ms. Dovey may not have known that she's able to write posts with more than one paragraph — the trick is a couple "Shift-Return's." Only recently, finally, is it noted on-screen, while the function was always there (one UI tradition they have kept, so far). Maybe people were complaining.

So, that's another fine mess you've gotten us into, Mr. Zuckerberg. (And you can quote me on that.)

"How Osama bin Laden's death sparked a fake Martin Luther King quote"
– Christian Science Monitor

"Anatomy of a Fake Quotation"
by Megan McArdle, The Atlantic, May 3 2011

(The next day.. )

Only later does it occur to me that there's a genuinely wonderful thing to appreciate here, which should also be acknowledged. That's the fact that a near- and very-faithful-to-the-original quote with this perspective, this nature, struck such a chord in so many people, all over the country and globe. Nice to know that such a sensibility is that alive in this world, don't you think?

Reboot

The traditionalist part of my brain will not allow me to let seven months sans postings go by unacknowledged. Search-engine-wise, of course, it doesn't matter, because people reach you by tags, not chronological lists.

But in the narrative sense, in the words of Chico Marx, "Nah, atsa no good, too." I'd moved my blogging attention primarily to logging events in the movement to make the Hudson Valley a Green Tech center, and what seems to have happened, at least at this point, can be summed up in a word: China.

In a few more words, Vince Cozzolino of The Solar Energy Consortium in Kingston talked about a specific solar manufacturer's setback, but he could have been speaking for the sector.

He explained they were "hit by a combination of the bad economy, reduced demand for solar cells because of lower subsidies in parts of Europe, and competition from countries such as China, where solar manufacturing is heavily subsidized by the government."

(From the story by Christian Livermore in the Times Herald-Record/Recordonline, 12/22/10.)

At the same time, I've gotten busy with successive new documentation projects, two of them back in the field of professional video, one for large-scale live events and the other for broadcast studios.

As a guy who was trained to really take the time to choose the right word and proofread carefully, I can't just dash off some breathless verbiage and hit Send. It takes time. Even here in the 21st century, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right — right?

Now add the increasing if still stingy amount of time on Facebook, because naturally I've discovered a couple dozen old buddies that I wind up riffing with on subjects both serious and JPF (Just Plain Fun*), and all that's how the blog went "on hold." You've got to have a sense of when you're getting spread too thin; and that's coming from a skinny guy, where it becomes especially important.

But I knew the tide would come back in, and there it is. It just took the right time and an exciting enough reason — in this case, Ray Allen's night — to take keyboard in hand again.

(* - "Just Plain Fun" - no, I'd never seen that acronym before, either.)

Facebook's Iron Curtain of "customer service"

One irritant about Facebook's management and minions is that they do a really thorough job of remaining behind an electronic Wall Of Invisibility, much like AOL always did.

Need an answer to a question about how Facebook works, or, as in my present case, whether a "change-your-login" email that I'm getting is spam or really from them? Get ready to spend lots and lots of all your free time being steered through pages and pages of other users' answers to anything that resembles your question.

Would it be too much to ask for more authentic Help Center texts written by employees who know the answers to these questions, as opposed to everybody guessing — and their guesses given approval ratings by other guessing users?

Okay, I realize it's free, and I'm sure that's their explanation. But the question here is one that would seem to potentially affect the security of the community at large, since enough "phishers" could cause us to start questioning who's behind any given face on FB, and whether they're trying to turn our computers into nodes on the hacker botnet — no small matter there.

I've been getting this message in my own email, looking every bit the routinely formatted FB type, every day for the last several:

>> SUBJ: New login system
>>
>> Dear Facebook user,
>> In an effort to make your online experience safer and more enjoyable, Facebook will be implementing a new login system that will affect all Facebook users. These changes will offer new features and increased account security.
>> Before you are able to use the new login system, you will be required to update your account.
>> Click here to update your account online now.
>> If you have any questions, reference our New User Guide.
>> Thanks,
>> The Facebook Team

The message looks just like and is FROM the same "@" address as legit 'friending' notices and replies to threads I'm, uh, stitching with. But the link at "Click here" goes to a specific spot at a fishy address, "www.facebook.com.mibbbah.co.uk/", and the genuine-looking "Update" button they helpfully include goes to yet another site across the Pond, "www.facebook.com.fasazae.eu/", etc. And I received no mail or message from within FB about it.

So I just spent way too much time fishing around in FB — at least I think I'm signed in to the real one, he remarked drolly — trying to find some place to read about or report this pretty sophisticated con. But it's a lot like knocking on the door and hearing a voice from inside say, "Nobody's home! Go away."

Related, here:
Posts tagged "Great Customer Service"

Wherein I finally surrender to Facebook

Alright, alright — "Mr. Ross finally turned himself in to cyber-authorities in August, 2009, thus becoming the 487th 'Bill Ross' on Facebook." In the words of one friend — the actual, real-world kind — "Now everyone in the world is on Facebook." (Really? You mean, like, I am the last one in? I guess it wouldn't be the first time...)

It's worth noting that my old buddy, Neil, sent that message literally within three minutes of me signing up; I was still in the process, in fact, and when I first went to my inbox, I already had mail. (Better'n old aol right there, I can see that.)

But at this late date, I feel somewhat obligated to explain where the hell I've been, and what the hell took me so long?

First, it would be more factual to say that I was kidnapped into Facebookland, since my sister Cindy announced to me when I was down there last weekend that, having duly consulted with other very cyber-aware family members, she was signing me up. And it was so.

But credit's equally due my ol' buddy Val Vadeboncoeur, who's become quite the FB operative and connoisseur, and had been hectoring me all winter about getting in. He'd been a holdout for quite some time, but when he finally did sign on it was an exciting revelation for him. So I knew it was just a matter of when.

My resistance was based on a single word: Overextended. I've had a website for most of the last 12 years for my professional pursuits, which I'll sum up as technical marketing writing and Mac/Win tech support and training, which carries my writing samples, reviews, and various tech service pitches.

I started this blog commenting on technological issues in 2006, and post once or twice a month. Lately I've focused on Green tech developments in the Hudson Valley, where I've been living for the last 2 years. (Recently added a custom Google map of same: the Sustainability 'Heat' Map.) Oh, and how about Working, now most often done entirely on the computer, and the always-bigger job of finding work, ditto there.

Then, on the evening/personal pursuits side, I play once a week with a small group of musicians, record it, and post the good tracks on a page (which I keep separate from all the business linkage). As anyone who's worked with sound knows, that involves a goodly amount of ongoing time to listen through, select from and edit those recordings.

And best of all, I've got old-fashioned email and I'm always behind by a couple correspondents. And these aren't usually people that my "friends" are talking to, which could mean anything from my friend's point of view, but people I've chosen at some point to directly engage with.

Let's see, am I forgetting anything? Oh, yeah Real life! The physical world, food, the fresh air and exercise, and people with actual, fleshy faces, etc. 'Body language' is only the most obvious additional channnel available in that medium; these are devices which communicate in far more ways than we are even aware of, or, I'll bet, have yet discovered.


Ah, but that was then; I finally wised up and realized my point was simply that I can't spend any more time online than I do now. So I'm just going to have to appropriate time from something else, and that'll have to be all the news sites that I probably spend way too much time reading. There you go — another win for Reframing The Question.

The clincher was my sister putting it in a way that made sense to me, and that was that right now was a moment when, simply, everybody was on Facebook — and that may not be true a year or whenever from now.

That was the Ah-ha moment for me, having witnessed enough waves of technology wash by in 25+ years to recognize that old, familiar pattern. So I'm in there now, ready to ride.

See you on the wall, then.

Related, here (on that old paradigm):

"Slow-Blogging" 2009

"Twittering on about Facebook, etc."

"Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances"

Twittering on about Facebook, etc.

Continuing on my (ir)regular, implied theme of What's Not Hot among topics currently considered high-temperature in the media, two items:

There's lots of twaddle about Twitter in the tech press and online communities. Most of it is just the old demonstration that the writers are Fully Buzzword Compliant, well versed in the latest thing, whatever the heck that thing is and may or may not be useful for.

This Web service appears to be providing the much-needed function of adding yet another layer of distraction to our ADD World. ("Thanks a lot! - what was your name again? Oh, gotta run, see you --") I loved the quote from the last post here, down below, noting that a "friend" had just left a note to everyone that they were brushing their teeth. I'm hoping the writer was kidding, but either way, this is a layer of "content" so thin as to defy measurement.

So I was glad to see this statement in one of the blogs on CNet, the venerable (in Web terms,) tech news site:

"Twitter's not going to change the world"

CNet's Charles Cooper, quoting a video blogger named Loren Feldman:

"Loren's main point (is), anyone who has followed the incessant bleating about Twitter's supposedly existential meaning to our lives--let alone the silly debate over Twitter versus FriendFeed--has to wonder whether tech's chattering class has lost its sense of perspective.

"Are we guilty of navel gazing to the point of silliness?"

Breaking taboos in the tech fishbowlJuly 20, 2008
=== === ===

This tied in nicely with a piece I saw in the Old Grey Lady Online, a few caveats about Facebook -

.. .from a business perspective, it creates some complications.
...I neither want to be strategic in my postings nor selective in my friending, but I should probably be doing one or the other. I am also not religious in maintaining my profile, in part because I have no personal assistant to update my page, as one executive I know told me he does.

Once you jack in, Facebook creates its own imperatives. Why am I uploading pictures of my last family trip to the lake in the Adirondacks at 11:45 p.m.? Because I want someone, anyone, to see them.

When a new media winner like Facebook comes over the horizon, who loses? In my case, it’s probably my real actual friends. As a reporter, I learn to hate the telephone during the day, but at night I feel somewhat social again and step out onto the porch to call buddies for a little nocturnal quality time. Now I am too busy checking their status updates to actually speak to them.

The Media Equation: Hey, Friend, Do I Know You?
By David Carr, July 21, 2008
=== === ===

Exactly as e-mail now reflects the pounds of junk mail in our "street" mailboxes, all new media will eventually return to earth, mirroring the net level of quality-of-life that most people are functioning at. (Not that there aren't people who reach for something more, a higher level of practice in whatever they do, of course -- imagine what it would be like if there weren't enough of them quietly anchoring things).

Postscript:
As you'll see from the date of the following post, I dropped out of blogging for awhile there, to take a break after two+ years at it -- even if admittedly doing it at a fairly relaxed pace for the medium, as it's currently understood. Once I saw that a few big bloggers had heart attacks over the last year, then that my favorite blogger, Maura Welch (who I began reading in the Boston Globe), just renounced regular blogging, and some other bigtime blogger just said goodbye, too... well, now I feel like I'm on the leading edge of the next hot trend, the post-blog Web!

But it's just another wave in the natural progression of new modes...

"Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances"

Thank you Scott Spanbauer of PC World for putting words on my own aversion to a lot of aspects of the social networking craze. From the "friends" game to visually godawful Myspace pages to just how much time it takes to be a player in this arena, his article yesterday nailed it, and in a fairly witty way.

His #1 reason? What he's termed "Multiple Social Network Syndrome (MSNS)" --

"With the advent of social networking, my e-mail traffic has gotten worse, not better. Here's an e-mail telling me that my brother has sent an e-mail within Facebook. Another message informs me that Susie has updated her profile at Friendster. Another announces that Bob over at FriendNet has just brushed his teeth... And on and on and on. To reply or act on any of these events, I'll have to bring up one of the 12 social networks I've been sucked into joining, log in, and then view the ads there.

"All of that, of course, necessitates a lot of extra clicks and keystrokes, and after a while, I find that I don't really like my friends anymore."

"The Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances"
- Scott Spanbauer, PC World - May 14, 2008

Since we're on the subject of MySpace, (do I really need to link to them? It's "-.com", okay?) I think the more accurate name would be "HisSpace," in honor of owner Rupert Murdoch, who just coincidentally also owns and micro-manages the absurdly unfair and unreasonable Fox News. (Again, "-.com").

Why should I entrust this guy in particular with all the personal information that inevitably accumulates on such a site? I'm pretty damn sure he considers himself the owner of whatever resides on his various company's servers, should there ever be any disagreement over its use.

Related, here:
Half of all media will be created by consumers?
(Maybe, but will anyone else want to consume it?)
Quoted again on Boston Globe's site, on 'Web 2.0' & American Idol
Posts tagged Web 2.0