The world out there? It’s a jungle, and no I don’t suppose to put that forth as some kind of ground-breaking news. Most people who have ever had some kind of human interaction don’t take long until they realize they should keep their eyes peeled; there are just too many ill-willed individuals who look forward to breathe substance into the age-old adage “A fool and his money are easily departed” . And guess what? As it turned out, the Internet has become a ever-expanding stage for all kinds of scam artists and tricksters.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t mean to embed you with some kind of irrational paranoia that will make you suspicious of all your on-line acquaintances. However, I think it’s very healthy to maintain a healthy watch against bad intentioned people -particularly so when it comes to the cyberspace landscapes, I might add. Now, the problem here – I think – is that most people really don’t get enough information to effectively protect themselves.

Henceforth, I’d like to take the chance to make a call for education and recommend this website called Report Fraud, which is focused on providing articles to help you detect and handle a wide range of online frauds and schemes. Reading some of those articles will be likely to provide you with valuable insight regarding some of the latest trends in the dark arts of computer-mediated deception. Besides, you also get a chance to actually report fraud by submitting your own stories, thereby helping other people stay out of certain traps you might have happened to fall into before.

The thing I enjoyed the most about this website is that besides focusing the most obvious “popular” scams people seem to fall for the most, it also provides information about some rather unpredictable, and oftentimes amusing, attempts of fraudulence. For example, I was just reading this article about Fake Poetry Contests, and I was equally impressed by the nastiness of such exploits and the ingenuity of the author in defusing it and expressing the experience in a rather interesting and insightful article. But don’t take my word for it, just go ahead and check it out for yourself.

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Do you remember what it was like to go through High School? Some people think of that as the best time of their life, while others think it’s the worse. Then, some people think of their graduation speeches as a chance to say a lot of senseless crap, and then some people take that opportunity to make something innovative and memorable. Case in point, I’m about to show with with a very special video from a peculiar kid who falls somewhere in between, while successfully captivating the crowd’s imagination. Ah… those kids nowadays.

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In my opinion, there are two kinds of people who take it upon themselves to make a self-declaratory happy birthday statement such as this one here. The first is the overly depressed kind, which provides such statement as a way to draw attention and self-pity. The second is the overly confident kind, which makes a point out of letting everyone know it’s their special day, simply because they’re well worthy of all the attention in the world.    Myself, hopefully I’ll fall somewhere in between.

birthday candle

Most people seem to take their anniversaries as a chance to either congratulate themselves for their achievements, or berate themselves for their failures. Hopefully, today I’ll choose offering myself something more interesting and useful: perspective. During these past (almost 3) decades, I’ve lived through things good and bad, I’ve experienced heights and depths, and for all of that I’m thankful. My positive experiences brought me happiness, and my negative experiences brought me awareness… all in all I’ve been blessed with the gift of understanding. Read the rest of this entry »

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