Oct 23 2021 - How to find Fake Authors

 

What do you think of faking your identity as an author? And then winning $1 million Euro? In a recent contest, three men revealed themselves to be the writers of Carmen Mola's novel "The Beast".  They received Spain's 2021 Premio Planeta $1 million Euro award for their novel.  It "came as a surprise" when they stood up to take their award.  For an award worth more than the Nobel Prize, it seems odd more than curious that no one seemed to have done any due diligence on the author(s) before the ceremony.   Really?  That can't be the case, can it? It can't have been a "surprise".  You don't just let anyone in the door of a $1 million Euro award ceremony.  And the story is carried by countless news organizations as the surprise reveal. “Quite apart from using a female pseudonym, these guys have spent years doing interviews,” Beatriz Gimeno, a former head of the Women’s Institute, wrote on Twitter after the award’s announcement. “It’s not just the name — it’s the fake profile that they’ve used to take in readers and journalists. They are scammers.” How were interviews with the author conducted?  In writing, with "representatives", or by an impersonator?  Finding an interview has proved difficult.  Everything to be retrieved is about this "3 for 1" sleight of authorship at the ceremony.    Margaret Atwood's response:  "A great publicity stunt".   I search enough and find an article HERE that reveals the facts that Atwood is alluding to.   "Supposedly “The Beast” was first submitted for consideration for the prize under a different pseudonym; the authors then attributed the work to Mola. The prize is awarded to an unpublished manuscript, which, as part of the terms, must be produced by Planeta Group’s publishing house."  More on publishing house award scams tomorrow. The publisher says that they were aware the author's name was a pseudonym and the "real writer" wanted to be anonymous. "The publisher said she could not comment on when she knew that Mola was really Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero. The secret was always part of the process, even after The Purple Network came out in 2019 and The Girl in 2020." And the real revelation - a quote from one of the authors: “We’ve been lying like dogs for four years and several months,” laughed Díaz. “It’s been a long time since [I published my own] last novel, and more than one person had chided me for not writing anything else, for being lazy. And I would think, ‘If only you knew...’ Would you agree that they are Scammers? Con artists?  Here's a definition of con artist:  a person who cheats or tricks others by persuading them to believe something that is not true. "the debonair con artist lives by scamming rich women" Look at the synonyms to see the dark side:  hustler, sharpie, shark, flimflammer, confidence-man, bunco, clip artist, cheater, fleecer, fraud and hoser.  I think we're on to something.  All the pictures show these three writers so pleased with themselves.  Maybe I am being too generous in applying con artist. Here's a Plaid City image that seems to go with the story.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 20 2021 - Fridge Finds

 

Here's a headline: The Xbox Series X mini fridge is a real thing — here’s how to preorder it  This comes from CNN —  Still hunting down an Xbox Series X? Well, that’s probably not getting easier anytime soon, but you can at least buy a mini fridge that looks just like it. Once a viral internet meme, the $99 Xbox Mini Fridge is now a very real product you can pre-order right now from Target before it arrives in December — just in time for staying caffeinated during long Halo Infinite sessions. How did I find out about this?  It was in the Google top trending searches - it got 100,000 searches.  I guess fridges are popular.  What else is going on in fridge-land? Here's another article: "If it’s just a matter of time before all households have a camera in their fridges, let’s hope our condiments don’t get SnapChat accounts." And this one:  "Ever since the early days of science fiction, we’ve dreamed of gadgets that speak to us. And now we’re on the cusp of having this technology in our homes. By 2030, you’ll be able to use all your kitchen appliances with voice commands (as long as you remember to actually put the food in them first)." On to more trends:  "In 2030, if Samsung and LG have anything to do with it, your future home will include a separate fridge for your vegetables and herbs which regulates light and growing conditions so you can enjoy the produce you love all year-round, that's even if you have a brown thumb as the system ensures optimal growing conditions so you basically cannot muck it up. Naturally it all syncs up to an app so that you can order seeds, keep tabs of how your plantings are growing and even join a produce community so you'll feel like you're part of a movement."  You can even find out about the fridge of 2050.  Last month the University of London hosted 2050: Fridge of the Future.  Refrigeration of all kinds is responsible for 10 percent of global energy use, so this is an important topic. "The convention was aimed at bringing likeminded parties together who share an interest in the future of large white goods and to respond to questions such as: What will white goods in the future look like? How will they be shaped by evolving demand, environment and new technologies? What impact will this have on product safety and future-ready regulation?" Today's image is another in the Plaid City Series - this is an abstract of Rain on the Street.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 19 2021 - Old Enough to ...

 

Yesterday's "race to stop aging" topic got me wondering about how we view age.  What came up?  The expressions old enough and too old.  I consider old enough to be a question about maturity.  My view is philosophical.  It is much more practical than that. How old is old enough?  Google answers:  the answer, generally, is 18 -  the age when the United States, and the rest of the world, considers young people capable of accepting responsibility for their actions... The NYTimes article that this is excerpted from is about whether children should be sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes that don't involve murder. That was in 2009.  In 2012, Australia's version of the question was:  How old is old enough to be a criminal? "Every year, hundreds of children younger than 13 sit inside Australian juvenile detention centres. They aren’t old enough to drive a car. Yet the justice system has set them on a criminal pathway that sends the vast majority into adult prisons. We explore the case for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility." This is very harsh, isn't it?  That the answer to old enough is about crime and punishment. The other subjects pale in comparison - and relate to parents more than children.  How old is old enough - to be home alone, to go to school, play alone outside, watching their younger sibling, and so on.  But then adults are writing all the articles, so the perspective of a child is mostly absent.   Let's look at the opposite end of the spectrum - How old is too old?  Journalists ask this question: Is the Presidency the wrong job for someone over seventy? Should people be in the workforce after sixty-five? This is far more fun.  You can calculate how old is too old to have children, to buy a piano, to buy a used car, to date a person, to date at all, to have a hip or knee operation,  to be a lifeguard.  Lots of advice on scattered topics organized by age.   There's even this question:  When are you too old to die young?  Of course, Quora has answers for this.  They are so full of answers over at Quora. This is another image with the overlay of the Plaid City pattern.  It doesn't fit the series, but has great texture.