I usually try to keep the tone of this blog upbeat and engaging, however today I learned something about the hidden value in photos on Facebook that we might prefer to keep hidden...
Seems a data researcher by the name of Alessandro Acquisti has developed a new data capture and analysis application that enables him to collect intimate information about anyone who posts photos on Facebook. All that is needed to start the search is a snapshot of the person of interest.
Acquisti has been working with a team of researchers to determine what personal information could be gleaned from a single digital photo. In one experiment, Acquisti and his team surveyed students
at a North American college. The researchers shot a photograph of each
participant, and then handed over a questionnaire to be completed on
site. Even as students were completing the paperwork, their photos were being processed
with facial recognition software scanning images from
Facebook profiles. By the time the students had finished their anonymous
questionnaires, the researchers were able to positively identify nearly
one third of the individuals by name.
On first blink, this ability to identify a person by his or her photograph
isn’t unsettling. However, Acquisti also
showed how his team was able to use a known identity to glean personal information such as social security numbers, birthdates and even current addresses.
In an earlier study, Acquisti and his team were able to predict the social
security numbers of many living persons by comparing them to dead
individuals who were assigned numbers at similar times, and in similar
geographic locations.
In other words they found hidden value in a simple photograph placed on line in a social media forum such as Facebook. The photo links to a profile; the profile reveals sensitive, personal, information that may have immense hidden value to someone other than the person in the photo.
Picked from the knowledge artifacts found in the people, places, things, and events of the last 100 years. Submit your email address to get latest Picks...
Pick 47 - Noggin Knowledge
My mom had a lot of unusual sayings. Some of them were funny and some were so subtle that it took years for me to figure them out. Oftentimes when she was tapped to drive me to some event she would call up to my room "Are you ready or ready's brother?" Since she came from a family of a sister and two brothers I guessed she might have heard that when she was growing up. I was an "only" child so it did not make much sense to me til years later amidst the frustration I had getting my own son out the door on time. That's when her meaning hit my noggin: In some far-away imaginary place "Not Ready" is the brother of "Ready" That simple but subtle question was her way of prodding me along. It was not sarcastic or mean-spirited. It simply asked me to chose my identity with the sense that Ready was her favorite but I was free to be either of the two.
My mom grew up during the Great Depression but her parents were able to weather those times without having to pull any of their children out of school to work. She graduated high school in 1939 then continued to work in an Ice Cream Parlor where she met my dad who was a Merchant Marine. They were married on Memorial Day 1943, and used Gas Ration Coupons gifted by relatives to drive to Harrisburg for a one-day honeymoon. My dad, who was now a conscripted Merchant Marine, returned to sea the next day. As the youngest child it fell to my mom to take care of her recently widowed mother. She got a job as a seamstress in a shirt factory and became very proficient at operating a blind stitch sewing machine. Since she was on "piece work" she often got caught up and prodded the Foreman to get her more work. Apparently the befuddled Foreman would ask her what other work she thought she could do to fill the time. Her reply was always the same: "I am paid to sew--not to think. That is your job." Guess that is why she often encouraged me with this saying: "What you don't have in your noggin; you have to have in your feet" It took me a long time to figure that one out too until I discovered that the sewing machines in those days were controlled by foot pedals.
My mom grew up during the Great Depression but her parents were able to weather those times without having to pull any of their children out of school to work. She graduated high school in 1939 then continued to work in an Ice Cream Parlor where she met my dad who was a Merchant Marine. They were married on Memorial Day 1943, and used Gas Ration Coupons gifted by relatives to drive to Harrisburg for a one-day honeymoon. My dad, who was now a conscripted Merchant Marine, returned to sea the next day. As the youngest child it fell to my mom to take care of her recently widowed mother. She got a job as a seamstress in a shirt factory and became very proficient at operating a blind stitch sewing machine. Since she was on "piece work" she often got caught up and prodded the Foreman to get her more work. Apparently the befuddled Foreman would ask her what other work she thought she could do to fill the time. Her reply was always the same: "I am paid to sew--not to think. That is your job." Guess that is why she often encouraged me with this saying: "What you don't have in your noggin; you have to have in your feet" It took me a long time to figure that one out too until I discovered that the sewing machines in those days were controlled by foot pedals.
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Pick 46 - Pop's Stories
Pop was only 14 years old in 1932 when he was cast off his
family island and told to fend for himself. Now that America is headed down that same
road again, I would like to share how Pop not only survived but earned his
place as a standing member of that Greatest Generation.
Pop could spin a story with the best of them, but I never got that
interested until I faced a job
loss in the midst of the Carter Recession. It wouldn't have been that bad for
me alone but I had a wife and two young children to support. What's worse is
that my job loss was of my own doing and therefore I was not eligible to
collect unemployment benefits
nor would it be easy to find another job in the same profession. You see, I was
a high school teacher suffering burn-out so bad that the thought of going back to school left me in a
state of depression. With little useful business experience to show prospective
employers and unable to collect unemployment benefits I stayed awake many nights
worried sick. Pop assured me that we could move in with him and mom if worse
came to worse, but I could tell that he dreaded that possibility more than I
did. That's when I began to pay close attention to the hidden value in the stories he would tell
me. In a subtle way he conveyed five important survival skills that got me
through hard times then and still do today: 1. "In God We Trust" appears on our currency for a reason: Trust in God--not the Government
2. Be humble enough to accept help from any friend or stranger willing to give you a hand up.
3. Learn from everything you do--even if it does not appear to have value at the present time.
4. Be flexible in your goals but never bend your principles to achieve them
5. Give back whenever you can and in any way you can.
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Pick 45 - Compromise
We are hearing a lot about the need for compromise these
days but it must have some hidden value that our politicians have not found yet
because we don’t see much of it. I wish they could have observed a recent event
I observed while visiting my grandchildren the week before the General Election…
The three of them were in the living room floor squalled around
one of those giant cartoon coloring books. The piece of artwork in question was
a picture of an elf packing gifts into Santa’s bag and there was a debate about
what color the cheerful chap’s hat should be. One child argued that everybody
knew that elf’s caps were green, and the other pointed out that if they colored
it green, then the holly leaf in the band wouldn’t be visible; it should
obviously be red.
Neither child was willing to concede until the third one,
the youngest, jumped in. She suggested a green hat, a red band, and a gold
holly leaf. He was, after all, a magic elf and could have golden holly in his
cap if he wanted. The two older children thought for a few seconds and happily
agreed, but the one who had wanted a red hat had a condition. She agreed to the
green hat if the jacket could be red with a green belt. The other two agreed
readily and the teamwork commenced.
Later, I took a few seconds to commend the youngest mediator
on a job well done, and her reply was stunningly simple. “We just wanted to
color, and it was only a hat.” Wow, out of the mouths of babes! I realized in
that moment that compromise wasn’t an intricate skill that one learned in
debate class in college; it’s a survival skill that each of us learns as
toddlers, or maybe we’re born with it. After all, we see it happen in nature
all the time. A tree bends in the wind instead of standing stiffly because if
it didn’t, it would die. It’s the nature of things; bend or break.
When I looked into those guileless blue eyes and considered
her words, it occurred to me that the hidden value of compromise is two-fold:
happiness and progress. She knew what she wanted and found a way to make it
happen. The other two shared the same goal, and were willing to offer up some
goodwill and bend a bit on the details in order to finish the picture. In the
end, everybody was happy and the project was complete.
It would appear that our children have a better handle on
running things successfully than those whom we pay to do so. Maybe our
politicians should have mandatory babysitting duty this holiday season with the
hope that they’ll find the hidden value in guileless compromise
before the winds of change break our nation.
$tokens to Tip the Pickers
Pick 44 - Patriotic Sacrifices
My late father was a Veteran of WWII, but was not recognized as such until 1988. He was a Merchant Marine. In peacetime, the Merchant Marine is a civilian service that handles commercial cargo. But the Merchant Marine Act of 1936
allowed it to be converted during wartime to an auxiliary of the U.S.
Navy. And during the war, the Merchant Marine provided vital logistical
support as allied forces fought on three continents. As then Gen. Dwight
Eisenhower put it, "When final victory is ours there is no organization
that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine."
But when World War II was over, the Merchant Marine's greatest advocate, Franklin Roosevelt, was dead. And Congress never conferred official veterans' status on the service, meaning merchant mariners didn't get to take advantage of G.I. Bill or home loan programs that veterans of the other branches did. Only in 1988, following a federal court ruling, were they given official discharge papers and allowed access to federally administered medical care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Merchant mariners played a critical support role for the Navy and other branches during World War II, ferrying fuel, troops and cargo to hot spots where fighting was taking place. Even though merchant vessels didn't have a combat mission, many were attacked and 733 were sunk. A year after the war, the government reported that 5,638 merchant seamen and officers were dead or missing and 581 were taken prisoner. In fact, the Merchant Marine death rate was 1 in 26, the highest rate among the services in World War II.
My father was never bitter about this gross oversight. Although several of the ships he sailed during the war were sunk by German submarines he felt that God had protected him and the Merchant Marine Corps had given him more adventure and insight into life than any other experience. He sailed around the world twice--once from the West Coast and once from the East Coast. One of the supply ships he sailed on had delivered supplies to a desperate Russian port city that was under attack. Shortly after the Cold War ended with the break up of the Soviet Union, the new Russian Ambassador to the US delivered a special note of thanks addressed to all of the crew on that ship. The official notice included a medal of valor awarded by the Russian Government to all who had helped the port city survive the German invasion. My father just shrugged it off...typical of The Greatest Generation. From him I learned that the hidden value in patriotic sacrifice does not lie in the sacrifice itself but in the lessons the next generation takes from it. Thanks for serving Dad!
But when World War II was over, the Merchant Marine's greatest advocate, Franklin Roosevelt, was dead. And Congress never conferred official veterans' status on the service, meaning merchant mariners didn't get to take advantage of G.I. Bill or home loan programs that veterans of the other branches did. Only in 1988, following a federal court ruling, were they given official discharge papers and allowed access to federally administered medical care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Merchant mariners played a critical support role for the Navy and other branches during World War II, ferrying fuel, troops and cargo to hot spots where fighting was taking place. Even though merchant vessels didn't have a combat mission, many were attacked and 733 were sunk. A year after the war, the government reported that 5,638 merchant seamen and officers were dead or missing and 581 were taken prisoner. In fact, the Merchant Marine death rate was 1 in 26, the highest rate among the services in World War II.
My father was never bitter about this gross oversight. Although several of the ships he sailed during the war were sunk by German submarines he felt that God had protected him and the Merchant Marine Corps had given him more adventure and insight into life than any other experience. He sailed around the world twice--once from the West Coast and once from the East Coast. One of the supply ships he sailed on had delivered supplies to a desperate Russian port city that was under attack. Shortly after the Cold War ended with the break up of the Soviet Union, the new Russian Ambassador to the US delivered a special note of thanks addressed to all of the crew on that ship. The official notice included a medal of valor awarded by the Russian Government to all who had helped the port city survive the German invasion. My father just shrugged it off...typical of The Greatest Generation. From him I learned that the hidden value in patriotic sacrifice does not lie in the sacrifice itself but in the lessons the next generation takes from it. Thanks for serving Dad!
$tokens to Tip the Pickers
Pick 43 – The Curator
I was browsing through the on-line job postings for freelance writers today when I came across a term that I had never encountered before:
“We are looking to expand our content creation strategies with an increased focus on content curation. We require a curation expert with an indepth knowledge of the process of curating content.”
It immediately occurred to me that there must be some hidden value here because I do a lot of on-line research and google all kinds of unusual terms but had not come across the term “curation” Moreover, no one in my LinkedIn network of thought leaders and professional writers claimed to have an in-depth knowledge of this process. So I deferred to the omniscient mind of Google and found:
Curation is the process of discovering, gathering, adding value, presenting and making accesible a set of contents, despite its formats (video, audio, text, images...), which describes or defines a topic or matter from the point of view of the content curator.
I may be old-fashioned or just too old to understand the difference, but the definition sounds like what I have been doing most of my professional life: RESEARCH
Perhaps the hidden value is in the perception that a content curator has a broader perspective than an ordinary researcher and can command higher rates. If so, I will have to change my profile and start calling myself a “content curator” I can use the extra money.
ez does it!
“We are looking to expand our content creation strategies with an increased focus on content curation. We require a curation expert with an indepth knowledge of the process of curating content.”
It immediately occurred to me that there must be some hidden value here because I do a lot of on-line research and google all kinds of unusual terms but had not come across the term “curation” Moreover, no one in my LinkedIn network of thought leaders and professional writers claimed to have an in-depth knowledge of this process. So I deferred to the omniscient mind of Google and found:
Curation is the process of discovering, gathering, adding value, presenting and making accesible a set of contents, despite its formats (video, audio, text, images...), which describes or defines a topic or matter from the point of view of the content curator.
I may be old-fashioned or just too old to understand the difference, but the definition sounds like what I have been doing most of my professional life: RESEARCH
Perhaps the hidden value is in the perception that a content curator has a broader perspective than an ordinary researcher and can command higher rates. If so, I will have to change my profile and start calling myself a “content curator” I can use the extra money.
ez does it!
$tokens to Tip the Pickers
Pick 42 - The Underdog
I learned a very important lesson on Election Day 2012 when I entered the voting booth at 3:15 PM. I was totally undecided...not independent like many other voters...just decidedly undecided. I am, and have been for most of my voter life, a card-carrying Republican. I can tell you that I voted for Nixon and Reagan. I did not vote for Ford or George W. I will generally vote for moderate Republicans who are fiscal conservatives but I will also vote for moderate Democrats who are fiscal conservatives. I have voted in every election since 1968 and have managed to select the winner in every case except for Bush the Elder and Al Gore. There was something about both those elections that skewed my judgement. I was afraid I would repeat that error in this election. In fact, I even considered not voting--at least not for the presidential slot. I also had to select a Senator and some state officials, so I had other motives to get myself to the polling station and have my vote counted. I was going to leave the Obama vs Romney ballot unchecked until an image came into my mind at the last second.
Anyone familiar with the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone will understand what I mean when I say the opposition managed to turn Obama into the underdog. That's allowed in American politics. But once they achieved that, they continued to beat him up mercilessly. And, in some corner of the American psyche, beating up the underdog is just plain wrong. Ask yourself: would John Wayne have ever stooped that low? I don't think so! So, with that image in mind, I found my index finger slowly and almost reluctantly heading for the Obama checkbox. I touched the button. The check mark appeared beside Barack Obama and almost instantaneously I pressed the large "Cast Vote" button which confirmed my vote. The deed was done--for better or worse.
This time I had found a hidden value in the American psyche. We respect the underdog. Maybe that is because whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or on a makeshift raft, we can all identify with the underdog. Those who cannot find hidden value in the underdog may have lost an important facet of their American identity.
Anyone familiar with the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone will understand what I mean when I say the opposition managed to turn Obama into the underdog. That's allowed in American politics. But once they achieved that, they continued to beat him up mercilessly. And, in some corner of the American psyche, beating up the underdog is just plain wrong. Ask yourself: would John Wayne have ever stooped that low? I don't think so! So, with that image in mind, I found my index finger slowly and almost reluctantly heading for the Obama checkbox. I touched the button. The check mark appeared beside Barack Obama and almost instantaneously I pressed the large "Cast Vote" button which confirmed my vote. The deed was done--for better or worse.
This time I had found a hidden value in the American psyche. We respect the underdog. Maybe that is because whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or on a makeshift raft, we can all identify with the underdog. Those who cannot find hidden value in the underdog may have lost an important facet of their American identity.
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Pick 102 - Generation Alpha
Screen technologies are the base of everything that characterizes Generation Alpha and truly distinguishes them from every other generati...
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I was browsing through the on-line job postings for freelance writers today when I came across a term that I had never encountered before: ...
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My mom had a lot of unusual sayings. Some of them were funny and some were so subtle that it took years for me to figure them out. Oftentim...