David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 122

Let’s Keep Clear The Difference Between Being Hacked And Cloned On Facebook

I keep seeing people indicate that they’ve been hacked on Facebook when I’m pretty sure they meant their account was cloned. There are different things that can happen and I really want to keep them separate. How we interact with you depends on what happened.

Hacked generally means someone tricked you into giving up your password and/or managed to crack it. The malefactor can then post as you, given that they have access to your actual account.

Cloning is different. Cloning is generally evidenced by people who you are already friends with receiving a friend request from you. The name and some of the details will match, along with some of the pictures, usually. It isn’t your account though. The malefactor has not gained access to your account. They have merely obtained info visible to others from your profile, created a separate account that looks like yours, and started sending out friend requests in order to build up credibility before they start trying to use the account to scam people.

Why is it important to know the difference? Well, I’m generally going to back away entirely from hacked people until they get things straightened out, because I don’t know who they really are and can’t trust them. Cloned I still interact with, but avoid the cloned account. Heck, I can sometimes spot these on my own and let the real person know. You just report the clone to Facebook and it’s usually gone pretty fast…but we generally have to know if you mean cloned or hacked in order to know how to behave.

There is a difference.

Less Than Two Weeks Until The FBOMB Borderland!

Less than two weeks now until The FBOMB Borderland! Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205.

We think of borders as lines, but nothing in life is that simple and neat. Borders are not sharp edges where one thing ends and another begins, but places where different ways of being mix. This coming together of difference shakes up life, and spawns conflict, change, and innovation. It is often where we as writers have the chance to work up something new.

Cultures mix at borders, languages and life views. The FBOMB Borderland is all about that. Gabino Iglesias will visit us from Austin, Texas to read from his barrio noir novel, Zero Saints. Zero Saints involves many borders, the mixing of English and Spanish, the mixing of gritty crime drama with literary style writing, and the borders between this world and the next.

So come on out Tuesday June 20 7:30PM at the Mercury Café 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205. Bring your own mixed language flash fiction or other pieces (or other border exploration, genre borders, cultural borders, and so on) to read for the four minute open mic slots, or just come to listen. Check out the Facebook page for the event to let us know you’re coming.

Hopefully Santa Muerte will be kindly disposed to us.

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gutmouth, Hungry Darkness, and Zero Saints, which was nominated for the Wonderland Book Award and optioned for film in 2016. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Verbicide, Electric Literature, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Marginalia, Entropy Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Out of the Gutter, HorrorTalk, Red Fez, Flash Fiction Offensive, Drunk Monkeys, and many other print and online venues as well as in a bunch of anthologies. He is the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine and a columnist for LitReactor. He’s addicted to books, music, and tacos.

I’m Starting To Wonder If Drunk Shakespeare Is Only Tim Haber As Macbeth

I’m starting to wonder if Drunk Shakespeare is only Tim Haber as Macbeth.

Drunk Shakespeare is tons of fun. The idea is that a crew of actors get together, pick one to drink five shots (and more throughout the performance), and then put on a Shakespeare play. My wife and I went about two years ago and saw Tim Haber as drunk Macbeth (with a broken foot no less). It was a blast, great performances and very fluid and comedic. Drunk fun.

So my wife and I were going to be in Manhattan again recently and I wanted to go again. My wife had enjoyed herself, but wasn’t quite sure she wanted to do it again. I insisted. It would be different, I said. We’d get a different play, a different drunk. Then the performance started. They announced Tim Haber as the drunk. They announced the play as Macbeth.

Damn it.

Seriously, what are the odds? Two years later, a random performance, and we get the exact same play with the exact same drunk? Even if each play is only done by one drunk and they don’t quite mention that, surely they don’t just do Macbeth and don’t just have Tim Haber as the drunk.

My wife wasn’t exactly thrilled with me. It was still different because it was a different performance, and it was still an immense amount of fun, but what are the odds? I was really hoping for a different play and/or a different drunk. It’s really hard to believe we got the exact same play/drunk.

Some Of My Books May No Longer Be Available In Print On Amazon Soon

I’ve gotten word from one of my publishers that some of my books could have their print copies removed from Amazon soon. Apparently, that Amazon buy box thing allows 3rd party sellers to bid on the ability to sell people a book through Amazon’s POD system without having to pay royalties (Amazon would no longer sell the print any other way). If one of that publisher’s books gets bidded, they’ll remove the print option from Amazon.

Just a heads up on that, in case it happens. They’ve already had to pull one. Kindle versions would still be on Amazon and print would still be available from the publisher, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers, just no print from Amazon.

Seems kind of a weird thing for Amazon to do. They have to know publishers would kill print through Amazon if they weren’t getting any money at all, leaving Amazon with no sales for that and a less comprehensive buying site (the opposite of what they’ve been going for all this time). These may not be a huge number of sales, but there are tons of these books published in this fashion that they will lose. Why would a 3rd party bid? It’ll get killed right after they do, since Amazon would no longer be useful for print for a publisher.

Anyway, I’m sure Amazon has their reasons. Just giving you a heads up.

This Is My Workout

This is my workout.

Extreme, isn’t it?

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They Should Combine Those Games

You know what they should do? They should combine Perfection with Operation.

You remember those games, right? Perfection was that one where you placed different shaped blocks and it all exploded if you didn’t get it done in time.

Operation, meanwhile, has you remove various malady items from a patient’s body.

But why not combine? Remove various malady items from a patient’s body. If you don’t complete within the time limit…BOOM!

Sounds fun to me.

This Animated Gif Totally Replaces The Entire Mouse Trap Game

I used to love Mouse Trap from Milton Bradley. Well, I liked setting off the trap. Putting the game together was pretty annoying, a lot of work for two seconds worth of enjoyment. Even the actual game play, when I bothered, was just to have fun watching the trap go off. In fact, this animated gif totally replaces the game:

I can just watch it go off over and over without having to play a boring game, set up anything, and so on. It’s perfect.

Isn’t Today A Bit Much?

Isn’t today a bit much?

Don’t you think? Maybe it’s just me.

Buy My Books Post Updated!

Remember my “Buy My Books” post from July 3, 2016? Well, I’ve updated it for the newest book! How could I not do a new version?

Buy my books!

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(This might have simply been a filler post when I got busy and couldn’t think of anything better, but you have absolutely no proof of that.)