"When Ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination" Neil deGrasse Tyson

I have always found science fascinating. From an early age I experimented with my chemistry set in our basement. Sometimes with disastrous results....Sorry mom. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the best speakers on astrophysics out there. However in my opinion I believe he is at his very best speaking about science in general. Nova puts out a podcast that I listen to regularly and they feature Tyson quite often. I recommend listening to this podcast all the time but as an intro I would start with this particular one. In this podcast he is taking questions from the crowd and speaks about science but also touches on subjects from the rearing of science children to energy escapism of black holes. It is both entertaining and fascinating. Instructions to sign up for the podcast can be found here.

Also since I am speaking of science I might as well mention a new album that just came out aimed at children. Although it is aimed at kids it is just as good for anyone. The band They Might Be Giants put out a new album entitled “Here Comes Science.” You can see and hear a sample above. I listened to the whole album and it is fun and you end up learning at the very least science terminology. I believe you will get a lot more than just that but it is a start. The subjects range from the elements to the fourth state of matter. It is kind of like School House Rock for a new generation. To buy it click here. Give these a try.

“There must be a happy medium somewhere between being totally informed and blissfully unaware.” Doug Larson

On the same subject I wanted to mention a few other non invasive sites useful for monitoring people’s information. This is good for making sure your kid’s info is staying off the net or seeing what your friends are up to. Yesterday I talked about a passive way of being notified when new info pops up using Google Alerts. The sites below are more of an active search for information about a name or email address. Now before you read on I should say a couple of extra things. First off I recommend using your own name to try out these sites. Most people are surprised at the amount of info that shows up. Second have some perspective when you see it all. Many people say they do not have any info on the net and then I ask them if they are in the phonebook. They say yes and of course that means their info is also on the web. This annoys some but it was info that the person was not upset with being available in the first place. Perspective is useful. And now on to the list.

• Spokeo

Is not a free service but it does a nice job. It uses your address book your email to search all the basic social sites for the same names or addresses. It works but it also seems to miss a certain amount.

• Pipl

Says they search the deep web. This means all the stuff that Google does not index like at sites that require you to do a search. It does pull up a lot of info but so does a search engine. It looks for photos and public records. Good one to try but beware of the sponsored links.

• Whozat

Annoying name but decent search. It does what the others do but it also tries to cross reference other variables like your wife’s name or possible family members. I was not won over because it failed to find me in the standardly searched site Linkedin.

• PeekYou

Visually appealing and lots of options. It allows you to filter out a lot of random information. It is decent but limited

• 123 People

Visually appealing and lots of options. I like that everything has its own section. Nicely organized.

• snitch.name

The mother of them all. Put some time aside for this one. It searches all of the above sites plus a lot of the others. It shows individual windows below with the searches inside. You could go to all these sites and do the same thing or just come to this one. I am not saying it gives you better results. I am just saying it gives you a lot to wade through.

Note: Special thanks to Diane Robb for her help getting the photo of Doug Larson.

“Minds ripen at very different ages.” Stevie Wonder

As I mentioned earlier I was working on an Internet safety lecture for parents. I researched a lot of sites and as many books as I could get my mitts on. Some were more help than others. One particular site that stood out was that of CNET’s article on Developing safe and Smart Internet Citizens by Stefanie Olsen. This article provided a nice back bone for my lecture. I agree with the theme of the article that different ages need different strategies and the idea is not to protect your kids by severing the connection but by making kids smarter and more informed. If you head over to the site they have plenty of great tips for each age group. I plan over the next couple of weeks to mention a few other sites or ideas on Internet Safety for kids and adults.
On the same subject one site mentioned something I had not thought of speaking about but had been doing for a long time and that is Google Alerts. I know I have written about the service before. I use it to keep track of news with certain keywords. I also use it for my own name. For parents or anyone I recommend setting two Google Alerts for your own name and another for your email address. This way if your name or info surfaces on a blog or site you will be notified. This is good for kids so they can be aware of any cyber bullying and for parents keeping an eye on their children. This is not an invasive way to help your kids and it could save them from being in a jam. It just alerts you about the same info that everyone else has access to. Two more things about Alerts and names. If your name is very common like John Smith then maybe you should forget about using the service for that and just do the email alert. Also if you are going to use your name make sure it is in quotes or you will get all sorts of different pieces of non relevant info.
So if you are a parent or not give either of these a try.

“In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.” Benjamin Spock

Recently a friend told me about a series that was missed on my radar. Apparently Frontline the PBS series has done a several part investigative series called Growing up Online. I have read many sites that promote it as a way to teach children about online safety. I believe this view is a bit skewed. Kids are learning about internet safety as part of the curriculum and they are being taught it earlier and earlier. So who is this for? The parents seem to be the easy answer. Parents should watch this and take notes. Unfortunately the series does not stress strategies but focuses on stories and different ways families have dealt with it. When it comes to the internet I choose to view it just like a car given to a teen. You teach them and try to influence them with good decisions but at a certain point they are going to get behind the wheel. You have to hope you have instilled wisdom and intelligence. As you watch this series you see the way parents who are so watchful for something to happen drive their children away and you also see the parents who do not realize there is a concern and what are the results. When I watched it I came away with one overall message. These children who grow up online are not victims put participants in an online world. Ask a kid what they do when they get an unsolicited friend request. They know how to handle that situation. The problem for them is in knowing when what they are doing has crossed a line. Watch the entire series from their site. It is cut into 6 digestible chunks. This is not a give it a try situation. It is more must situation. Become smartly informed instead of scared by nightly news media broadcasts. The internet is part their world in the same way a phone or eventually a car will be. Ignoring this is a disaster. Talk to your kids and be smarter for watching this!