PurpleCar - Latest Comments

Re: Adam Slaney Facebook Warning: Real or DoS attack?

PurpleCar — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:27:41 -0000

MIke: I KNOW! Back in 2008! Isn't that a shame that this Adam Slaney hoax on Facebook is still making the rounds?

I don't watch my blog stats, but whenever I pass my Wordpress Dashboard, this post is always at the top. It's gotten, literally, thousands of views. I keep adding the new names that get put on the spam email, so people can just search on the name and find out it's hoax. Snopes is wonderful, but they can't keep adding every new name that comes down the pike. If you see any new names in the hoax, please come back to purplecar.net and let me know, or find me on facebook as facebook.com/christinecavalier/

And don't worry too much about your friends. Everyone is in a learning stage right now. It's only been 10 years or so of widespread internet access, and it's a scary place. There is very little regulation, protection or education about it. Try to have some patience with the end users. (Of course, I say this, but I rip my hair out over their inane behaviors on a weekly basis.)

Thanks for checking in!

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

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Re: Adam Slaney Facebook Warning: Real or DoS attack?

mikedfanimal — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:04:34 -0000

Great article from .. way back in 2008???!! And I have just received a note from a friend in Facebook about the very same thing!!
I always check these now as I too value my contacts etc! No matter how often I tell the sender (if I know them) to check the hoax sites etc - they still come in!!
Thanks for this I will pass this on to the sender!!
Have great weekend!
Bye for now
Mike

Re: New Post for Troy!

PurpleCar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:50:06 -0000

Thanks Hailey! You're right, troops need mail and support, no matter what our politics are.

Re: New Post for Troy!

hailey3190 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:51:54 -0000

i think that the troops need mail to keep them going without going crazy, my brother loved getting mail while he was in iraq and he said that was the thing that kept him going and kept his head up. these other people on here thats hating on them just need to shut up for real. they need to worry about other things besides sex and realize that the men and women are serving our country to keep us alive.

Re: Quick Review: The Fattening of America by Finklestein & Zuckerman

Mike_S_Htown — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:45:14 -0000

Yep, I did hear about Superfreakonomics. But, I'm cheap -- so, I'll either wait for the library to get it or borrow your copy... :-)

Re: Quick Review: The Fattening of America by Finklestein & Zuckerman

PurpleCar — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:36:34 -0000

OH! and I've seen SuperSizeMe. Awesome.

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

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Re: Quick Review: The Fattening of America by Finklestein & Zuckerman

PurpleCar — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:36:31 -0000

Yes I think that's on my list. There is a superfreakonomics now too.

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

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Re: Quick Review: The Fattening of America by Finklestein & Zuckerman

Mike_S_Htown — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:14:11 -0000

You would like the following if you haven't seen them already:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me

Re: Fearful emails aren’t without cost.

erin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:18:27 -0000

thanks for this...i get these all the time, mostly from well meaning elderly internet enthusiasts....i feel these things seriously desensitize us--especially the ones about the sick kids who are doing it for make a wish etc.

Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

PurpleCar — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:22:17 -0000

No problem Mike! You know me (literally!). I'm a font of information. Or copied and pasted emails, which pretty much constitute "information" nowadays.

Thanks for stopping in!

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Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

Mike S. — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:04:59 -0000

Interesting -- and good to know. Thanks!

Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

PurpleCar — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:14:02 -0000

Thomas, thanks so much!

Firstly, good work on the Amazon TOS. I was hoping someone like you would find the exact paragraph in all that muck. My gratitude!

Secondly, thanks for clarifying "fair use." Will think about revising my post to cut out the unofficial use of it. Can't do that right at this moment but I will look at it soon. (Not a big fan of major editing after posting, so I may just publish an "Update" of your useful information.) Again, my thanks.

Thirdly, yes, you're correct, Amazon can still publish my work even though I deleted it, but deleting it is my little form of protest. Also, it's my hope that their huge infrastructure will re-claim the dinky white (disk) space and truly delete the work, or at least remove it from the freely-referenced content. I'm not privvy to their infrastructure design, but I know as a former sys admin that it's possible that my deleting the work may keep it from being distributed again.

Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

tet3 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:10:34 -0000

Amazon's position on this isn't particularly hard to find or hard to understand. It's in their conditions of use. Paragraph two of the "REVIEWS, COMMENTS, COMMUNICATIONS, AND OTHER CONTENT" section:

If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media. You grant Amazon and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if they choose.

Crummy policy, indeed, but there it is. The "irrevocable" part means that deleting the reviews doesn't obligate them to stop distributing them either on their own site or sublicensees', though in practice they almost certainly will. It is a nonexclusive license, so you do retain copyright, which you can use elsewhere however you see fit. I think you've now made an informed decision, which is far more than most other Amazon users do - you've decided that the value that Amazon offers in exchange for the license (exposure, publication, and link-backs if they feel like it) they demand is worth less than the value of your work. Bravo. I don't review regularly on Amazon, and don't make my living from writing, but I might very well come to a different, but equally well-informed, decision.

One quibble, with your description of "fair use" above. Fair use refers to allowed use of material under copyright without any implied or explicit license. Credited uses of excerpts for the sake of commentary, satire, etc. are fair use, and would be allowed regardless of your license. If a site which sells stuff cited a paragraph from your review of NurtureShock as part of a longer review, they would be making fair use of your content, and you wouldn't be able to rely on the non-commercial clause of your CC license to make them stop. When non-commercial sites use the entirety of one of your blog posts, with the specified attribution, they are making licensed use of your content under the CC license that you granted them, not fair use. Just as Amazon and NewAndUsedBooks.com were making licensed use of your work, albeit under a different license whose terms Amazon, not you as the author, set. Your FairShare alerts probably turn up both fair uses and licensed uses of your work, and it's important to know the difference.

Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

PurpleCar — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:49:04 -0000

Sending them an invoice would just be an experiment, and ending up being an experiment in futility I'm sure. But if my review is still up on newandusedbooks.com without credit in 3 business days, I will send them an invoice.

This is a legal hole, I think. Amazon says they own the content and can sell it (I'm assuming), so newandusedbooks.com will refer me to that policy. Still, it doesn't seem that newandusedbooks have set up protection from this. I'm not a barister or a lawyer, so I don't know. It would be interesting to find out. The point of contention is that they removed the links. Amazon lets you have a link in exchange for the review, but they let their affiliates remove those links. That seems unfair.

I may call up my intellectual property lawyer friend about this.

Re: Bye-Bye, Amazon: Why I Won’t Write Reviews For You Again

DeanW — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:37:50 -0000

I would have sent (would still send!) an invoice to Newandusedbooks. Money pretty much always speaks louder than words - especially deleted ones!

Re: How Do Memes Start? A Case Study: 100 Books in Facebook.

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:42:41 -0000

No worries, Jillian and Ari! It's just too tempting to ignore. Goes straight to the ego, it's like we have no defenses against it! Especially when it throws in those dirty Brits, right? LOL have fun with it, just don't go burning up Shakespeare in effigy. :) Thanks for coming to comment!

Re: How Do Memes Start? A Case Study: 100 Books in Facebook.

ariherzog — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:52:34 -0000

Sigh. Like Mark Dykeman earlier up the comments trail, I'd already fallen prey. Thanks to Jillian, someone I tagged, for pointing me here.

Re: How Do Memes Start? A Case Study: 100 Books in Facebook.

Jillian C. York — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:30:20 -0000

What a relief! As a verifiable snob, I turned my nose up at the list on the Facebook meme. I mean, "The Time Traveler's Wife," seriously? Hardly literature. And FOUR Dickens? Blech. Thankfully, the original list is significantly better.

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

PurpleCar — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:12:44 -0000

Thanks for commenting, Wendy.

I was courteous to Mr. Bronson. Disagreement doesn't automatically mean rudeness.

Rude is found in undertones. I had none. I was straightforward with my criticism. I wouldn't have printed the more direct criticism if Mr. Bronson didn't call for it specifically with his comment. For an example in rude undertone, your last line has a condescending one ("It's a shame" part). You can disagree with my opinion of the book, but I would have given your criticism more weight in total if you didn't descend into that pot shot.

I'm happy that you didn't assume that the authors were experts. They should have made that more clear in the beginning of the book, as is the tradition with books like this. They seemed to conveniently left that disclaimer out. Don't tell me they simply overlooked it; they are seasoned writers with expert publishers and they know better.

I enjoyed the book too, but that's not my point. My point was that the research the authors cite is new, the authors aren't experts, and they don't give proper warnings about those pitfalls.

These are fair and legitimate criticisms of the book.

I, too, was surprised Mr. Bronson commented. Why bother with a blog post that is on page 8 of the Google search? And to comment so quickly after my post! Baffling.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Good luck with your teen daughters! I hear it can be quite a challenge. Maybe implementing the author's theory that teens see arguing as the opposite of lying will help you appreciate the notorious tiffs of teen girls. A very good and well-respected book in the field, which you may have read already, is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber. I've read this book many times and it has solid advice. She also has a teen version (which I haven't yet read): How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk. Instead of one or two studies with food for thought, like NurtureShock, Ms. Faber's book gives exercises and instruction on technique, as well as theory. If you liked the "let's-go-against-traditional-thinking" ideas of NurtureShock, you'll probably find those books enlightening too.

-PC

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

Wendy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:56:22 -0000

I found this blog while searching "NurtureShock" on Twitter. I'm a bit surprised that Po Bronson even bothered commenting. As a parent of teen/tween girls, I really enjoyed the book and want to find out more about the research studies mentioned that apply to myself and other parents. I never once thought either author was an "expert" any more than I thought Neil Strauss is an "expert" survivalist/emergency responder in his book "Emergency", which I read prior to "NurtureShock".
Po Bronson was able to address you without being snarky. It's a shame you couldn't return the courtesy.

WM

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

PurpleCar — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:34:42 -0000

Hi Po. I love a man who has Google alerts on his name! Well done! It's a rare trait in a journalist, I find. You all are catching up though and it's nice to see.

I take issue not with your 7000 footnotes. In fact, like other books I've read, the resource section alone may be worth the cost of the book if one is interested in the subject. I take issue with your tone. I peer review for journals, I have an advanced degree in Ed., and I read profusely; I'm quite familiar with the difference between your mainstream book and academic research. I'm also familiar with the research in the field, and I read every single page of your notes and your footnotes. What you have written is a highly entertaining, mainstream book, not a balanced synthesis or meta-analysis of the data.

You chose to site the new studies that attempt to debunk the traditional thoughts and practices of the educational systems. Many of the studies you use to back up your claims have yet to be repeated. And as the book laments once, the longitudinal data just aren't there. That's not to say that longitudinal data don't exist in Education; they do. Although your many references are impressive, I didn't find the book to be written by authors who have a keen sense of meta-analysis and behavioral statistics methods. Your tone indicates that you have this background knowledge. Do you have advanced degrees? (I'm seriously asking this.) As a researcher and educator, I find the media manipulation of academic journal articles appalling and dangerous. You mention the media in this way, but I found your book to do the same. You synthesized only the research that proved your point and backed up your opinions.

The purpose of your book is to get mainstream people thinking in different ways about how we raise kids and to get educators/policy makers to think more about programs before implementing them. It is commentary, not unbiased reporting. With your Tools of the Mind section especially, you neglected to outline the challenges school districts face when implementing the program. I expected to see a balanced review, but it didn't come. Initial scores from a smattering of studies about the program and anecdotal evidence (e.g. foodfight in the cafeteria) aren't enough to sway hardcore educators. You need to give a more realistic picture. Another anecdotal piece that took away your credibility was Ashley's experience with her niece. What does that prove? Why add it? It's not even a third-party human interest anecdote, it is one from the author of the book! How hokey is that? You can write only the aspects of the story that slants the piece your way. That bit was like another nail in the coffin for me. If you were writing a serious, academic book, you wouldn't have added the anecdotes that you did, or any at all for that matter.

I didn't do research on you or Ashley. I'm not familiar with your work in the New York Magazine and I didn't read any of it. Forming an opinion about you as people would be disingenuous; I judged the book on my impressions of it and it alone. I'm sure we'd all get along quite well in person, but that's not my purpose here. I'm thrilled to hear that Ashley worked for Clinton and Gore, two people whom I respect greatly, but your book doesn't give the impression that you're derailed for being bleeding-heart liberals.

You purposely added the study in the catholic school, listed the catholic paper Ashley wrote for, and added that bio line for marketing reasons. You are trying to reach a wide market and you or your publisher thought it would be a great idea to mention the catholic things in at least 3 places, including the text. The Roman Catholic church has a long and sordid history when it comes to funding studies (I went to Catholic school from 1-12th grades, I grew up in a strict catholic family. Believe me, I'm familiar). The ghostwriting in medical journals is petty crime compared to the manipulation of data the Vatican has been shown to do. By marketing this aspect of Ashley's life, you take away credibility as researchers. That may be unfair and prejudiced, but that's the cold reality of science research.

I could Google search you guys until the internet breaks, but the bits and bytes will never add up to a full picture. I have to form opinions on what's in front of me. You have to be prepared that people will judge that as they will. I personally think the back flap is a marketing mistake, as is your video on Amazon, but what do I know? I'm not a publisher. I don't fault you for wanting to market your book, but some marketing will piss off someone somewhere. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who will judge the book that way. Many people will pick up and read that back flap and then put the book back down. It doesn't matter, though. From what you are saying about your work and reputation and awards, this little review on this little blog won't mean anything. Your book will still hit the best-seller's list.

You say you're not masquerading as experts, but I've read the whole book, including the pages and pages of footnotes. Please tell me where in the book you deny that you are experts, because I missed it. The tone of the book is more like expertise and less like reporting. I can understand how you fell into this trap, but it's still my job to mention it. It comes across as agenda because of the anecdotal fluff, the unbalanced portrayal, and the mention of religion (even in the slightest sense). I just wish you did fill readers in on the research. I wish you concentrated on one or two aspects and gave a full picture instead of jumping around to parenting, to Disengaged Dads (which you didn't really address), to pre-school, to gratitude research, to positive psychology and so on. You could have had a series of very compelling books if you decided to hone in on two or three related areas and gave a full picture, truly synthesizing and reporting on the majority of accepted and respected research. Instead, you did what bloggers do: pile up a bunch of unrelated articles and stick them in a book. It doesn't much matter that you list a bunch of footnotes, Po. A list does not a synthesis make.

Thanks for coming over to comment! That was exciting for me. I'm sorry I was disappointed in your work. Maybe next time you can pick one aspect and really dig deep (and hire a peer-reviewer as well as an editor). You're an elite and hugely successful writer with whom very few can compete; I wish you the best!

-PC

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

Po Bronson — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:22:19 -0000

Christine,

The book has 70 pages of printed sources, and another 7,000 words of footnotes. To say there's no reliable date - well, look it up, it's right there plainly for all to see. To say it's picking and choosing rare studies is factually incorrect. In each chapter it's a couple hundred sources, and in each chapter, the science covered has at least a ten year track record, reproduced from multiple labs around the world with leading scholars. If you attended the scientific conferences where these ideas are presented and discussed, you would discover that most social scientists and education researchers are well familiar with the material, and have been for some time - they don't even find it controversial. Can you please find one scholar who suggests the material in NurtureShock is incorrect? We invite you to come with us, and attend AAAS or SRA with us this winter.

Then you suggest we have a conservative agenda, evidenced by Ashley running a church based tutoring program. Have you done any research on us? Ashley's program, for inner city youth, has no conservative agenda at all. Her agenda is to help them with their homework. Ashley is so far from a conservative it's laughable! She worked in the Clinton administration, and for Vice President Gore. Haven't you seen Rush Limbaugh attacking us last week for being liberals?

It sounds like you didn't look at the sources or do any research on us before making your claims. Did you do any basic reporting, such as talk to scholars in the fields we cover, or talk to scholars who've worked with us? Did you look at any of the data we cite?

You suggest we're masquerading as experts. Not at all - we're journalists who are covering this beat. Our journalism for this has won four national science-writing awards, but zero science awards - our expertise is in the journalism part. The only polling we did was of people's conventional opinions about kids - no science at all about kids.

Christine, you've done nice work on your blog. I don't know why you make these claims about us. Yes, there's a ton of great science being done about child development. What is wrong with filling readers in on that research?

thanks for listening,

Po Bronson

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

PurpleCar — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:48:21 -0000

Andrew: It's an interesting book, but it purports to be more significant than it is. The authors shouldn't have portrayed themselves as experts. Instead, they should have remained unbiased journalists (as much as possible). You're correct that I don't go into dissecting their theories, mostly because I find that their theories have no reliable data to back them. Reliable data may come about at some point, but more studies need to be done before the authors can claim what they do.

These authors aren't digesting and synthesizing research for the public. They are picking and choosing rare studies to illustrate their own belief systems. I would have appreciated genuine reporting, of course! But they give only a very narrow view of the field. I find that irresponsible.

I should've known that the book was going to be a silly money-maker, just judging from the marketing infomercial the authors posted on Amazon. Real substance doesn't need a hokey "BUY ME! BUY ME!" commercial.

Thanks for weighing in, and I love your site! West Philly rocks. We were just at the community fair/jazz fest at 40th & Market yesterday.

-PC

Re: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

Andrew — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:12:27 -0000

Sounds like it could be an interesting book, but it's hard to get a handle on what the salient arguments are from your notes above. Certainly, a critique of policies based on IQ testing wouldn't be novel. I'm not a parent, so this is not a genre I've read much in, but I doubt I'd be much interested in delving into primary research myself. Journalists who are able to digest that research--which, if it's like any other body of academic research, is riven with significant dissents--are instrumental, whether they do it for profit or not.

Re: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Mission to read all the winners.

Daniel G — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:48:19 -0000

Also just got through reading Olive Kitteridge........loved it.