Being careful with links

You come across a webpage with something useful you want to share so you Post, Tweet or Blog about it on your Social Media of choice. Everyone does this, it's what the Internet is all about.

Yes, but... There always seems to be a "but" doesn't there.

We all want lots of people to visit our webpages - to read good advice, buy our stuff, whatever. To do that they have to find them, and that means Search Engines.
One parameter that Search Engines go by is Links. If lots of people are linking that means they found what they wanted so most likely other people will find that link useful too. Of course they might be saying "I just found this horrible webpage" but let's ignore that one.

So let's suppose you are a conartist, a quack, a fraud, whatever - you are offering something that isn't legit. Your website looks good, you put in all the right phrases like "morphic resonance", "quantum orbs" and "100% natural organic", now you want more traffic. Here's one way - add some pages that aren't nonsense, just general good advice like "eat more vegetables". You don't have to research this stuff yourself you just use someone else's work, with pictures and a video if possible, and maybe put "Source" at the bottom. Like this:
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/
I'm using MSN as a template example. Look carefully and you'll see that the articles come from news agencies or are writeups of information from elsewhere. MSN staff are reporters not scientists, which is fine and good because that's their job. Nevertheless it's always sensible to check the Source out as reporters can slant stories, oversimplify them or simply make errors.

So, I want to find news about Vegetables, I do my Google Search, find what looks to be (and actually is) a rational article and post a link to it. What's the harm in that?

The article was on the quacks-r-us.org website. By linking to it I just helped Dr Evil PhD(Arkham) with his evil plan to stop people vaccinating their kids and buy his homeopathic bottles of magic water instead. OMG. I just killed someone's child!
Now I'm not going to be fooled by Dr Evil and nor (I hope) are you, but those links help more gullible people than us find him. Please don't do it - use reputable Sources for your good advice.

Where's my Start button gone?

So I power on (me cup of coffee, computer big button) and log in and up comes the background pic but nothing else. Uh, oh... CTRL-ALT-DELETE, black screen. Eek. Manually switch off, reboot, everything's fine.
It turned out to be a video card two screen problem, it looks like the latest update of Catalyst, the AMD control program, has deviously changed something that isn't happy with my switching off with two screens and restarting with just one.

Need

Here's a simpler word that has also aquired a new meaning that isn't in dictionaries.
We all know what 'need' means, it expresses a requirement for something. Thus "I need a drink" indicates that the speaker is thirsty.

However consider these:

"You need to read this book"
"What you need to understand is that ..."
"You need to be quiet folks"
- which is a less aggressive alternative for the command "Be Quiet!"

The emphasis here has shifted to the speaker telling others what the speaker thinks they need. The shift in meaning has in some cases reached the point where in context the other person plainly doesn't want to comply:
"You need to give me all your money right now!"

Smirking

Chatting on the Internet gets one close and personal with language as she is spontaneously typed, including an often ignored factor - the differences between dictionaries and how we actually use words. Here's an example I finally got puzzled enough to look up just now, "smirk".
Online dictionaries agree about this word:
Verb: Smile in an irritatingly smug, conceited, or silly way.
Noun: A smug, conceited, or silly smile: "a self-satisfied smirk".

However when 'real people' are asked to define it the negative content mostly isn't there:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090413212934AAMHIBK
"Smiling very slightly, like you are trying not to. Usually one side of your mouth is smiling more. And it usually means that that person is up to something"

Americans use this word regularly, Brits do not, and dictionaries have yet to notice that its meaning has changed.

Holiday Ball 2012

Winterfallen celebrate the holidays with, as always, dancing.

40Mbps!

The BT Engineer arrived to connect me up to Fiber Optics. It was quick and painless, and my black EE router now has a white BT modem next to it feeding it stuff. I went for a 40Mbps connection (could get more) and that's what testing says I'm getting.

Of course what I get back is unlikely to be that good!

Ships in Winterfell Eventide.