Saturday, January 31, 2015

Things I've Learned From Grad School #1

Via freeimages.com
When you want to sleep, you won't be able to.

You'll stay awake for hours, in bed, listening to your mind whir and whine about all the papers and projects you have to complete.

Doesn't matter if they're due in a few days or at the end of the semester. It doesn't even matter if they've been assigned yet.

Once you're actually given the assignment, you'll want nothing more than to curl up on your couch with a blanket and you'll need to imbibe copious amounts of caffeine to stave off the approaching coma.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Twitter Impersonation. Not the Highest Form of Flattery.

Last Wednesday, for some reason, I decided to Google myself. As you do.

Only this time, instead of Googling my full name, I searched for the initials that I go by in the blog and twittering world: L.M.Leffew.

Lo and behold, what did I find?

A twitter account that has my face. My background image. And my location.

Do I have a twin I never knew about?

No.

What I do have is a Twitter impersonator. And from the looks of it, not a very clever impersonator. Actually, it looks a lot like a bot that is scraping off pieces of other people's statuses. Why or how am I the lucky one who got to be the fresh face of this particular spammy page, I don't know. (At least it's tame.)


For comparison's sake. Here's my Twitter. Robust, fleshed out, lots of tweets. You'll find the link to my Twitter account in the side bar under the bird icon.




And here's the impersonator/spammer. Note the misspelling of the last name in the username, "Lefewf."  The very random tweets. And I have a feeling the followers are largely spam-and-scam accounts, as well.



I've already contacted Twitter and reported the impersonation. Today marks a week since I've done so.

I've been looking for information from other people to see how long Twitter took with their impersonation reports and the timeline is looking anywhere from a week to, possibly, a year. (And several people noted that they never got a response from Twitter. They just checked the impersonator account and found it had been suspended. I guess you do get what you pay for. Yes, that was sarcasm. Well, at least they got the right result.)

So could you do me a favor, those of you out in readerland? Would you mind hopping on over to Twitter and reporting this account as the spam that it is?

Here's the link: https://twitter.com/LMLefewf

I'm not picky about whether the account gets suspended for spam or impersonation. I just want it gone.


Monday, January 12, 2015

Music Mondays: Angels and Demons Edition



Let me start out this Music Mondays post by stating that for the forseeable future (that is, until about Summer 2016), this blog will be updated very sporadically. And, I hope, with bits of fiction during those sporadic updates.

Grad school takes up a lot of my time. And the time I'm not spending on readings and homework during each semester, I'm spending hanging with those creatures that share my home (one CompSci guy, four cats) or scribbling on various projects, or taking needed mental health breaks which involve playing in other people's sandboxes (video games, fanfiction). So, blogging gets the short end of the stick.

This week's music post is inspired by a collaboration my friend and I are poking at. We're both a bit lost in the miasma of work, life and creative blocks at the moment, but we're trying to do something with - you guessed it - angels and demons. My writing supporting her art and vice versa. (Should we ever gain traction, we'll be sharing the works here and other places online.)

I've been looking for sources of inspiration, some place to garner ideas. Music is an obvious pit stop. (My angelic artbook by Ruth Thompson and my A Field Guide to Demons is next.) So, here we go. As to that last song...how could I not add something from City of Angels (and my 90s music pot)?


Lay Your Hands on Me - The Mission



Locked Out of Heaven - Bastille (Bruno Mars cover)




Falling - Florence + the Machine



Iris - Goo Goo Dolls





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