AI

It’s the first Christmas sale of the the new year. Granted, the offer comes from a suspect source.

But, hey, even spammers need to get an early start.

In our Know Your Laptop class, one of the students asked if he should upgrade his Windows 7 system to Windows 8. I said that it wasn’t necessary. Windows 8 is a stable, fast, and utterly disorienting version of Windows. People who buy new systems will almost always get Windows 8 and will learn to use it and will even come to enjoy it. There’s no need, however, to make the change from Windows 7. (If you’re running Windows XP, make plans to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 now.)
Besides, I told the class, the versions of Solitaire available on Windows 8 are lousy.
There is a way, however, to patch a Windows 7 game so that it plays on Windows 8. The procedure is not for the casual user or the faint of heart, but it works.

A review of bicycle helmet laws shows that more laws reduce cycling-related head injuries. They also reduce non-head injuries and increased head injuries in other sports. Put simply, campaigns to promote helmet-wearing appear to be most effective in making people too afraid to ride their bikes.
Dave Horton, a sociologist at Lancaster University, amplifies these findings in a series of essays that show how the media and civic leaders of present cycling as a strange, reckless, and dangerous practice.
I routinely see similar effects with regard to online safety. We’ve made sensible people of all ages afraid because somewhere, someone has done something bad. The Internet is a dangerous place where bad people are armed with malware that will steal your money, identity and/or children.
Mississippi TV station WLOX reports on an FBI program that educates kids on online safety. “We need to be able to educate these children to the dangers and the issues that they’re going to face online,” said FBI Special Agent Scott Wells.
Safe Online Surfing is an educational game that teaches young people about cyber words, cyberstalking, and how sketchy websites are trying to steal your identity. (It’s also a game done in Flash, meaning that people who iPads or other mobile devices can’t play it.)

FBI Safe Online Surfing

Guess the wrong answer and you deprive an underwater princess of air. Predators, we learn, will try to lure you in with inappropriate topics, not try to win your trust by playing a game.

Indeed, the web is a troublesome place, as demonstrated by the WLOX viewers whose fifth most popular news story is, well, this. With video.

 (h/t to MeFi)

Thank you, AARP. I’m certainly thinking about an Alaskan cruise this night.

The web story on Sunday evening reported that Sonoma’s chef had won the competition for Worcester’s best chef.

Sonoma chef sizzles in restaurant competition PRINCETON HAS ‘WORCESTER’S BEST’

By Monday morning, however, the headline and page title matched the picture caption and story.

EVO chef Albert Maykel III wins Worcester’s Best Chef competition