by Stone Marshall | Jan 10, 2015 | parent-news |
Netflix, with a nod and wink to weary parents everywhere, has introduced a clever way to trick the kids into thinking New Year’s Eve came early. The service is offering a three-minute long countdown to the New Year featuring DreamWorks’ animated characters – King Julien and friends – which parents can call up any time they choose. The idea is to offer families a way to celebrate the New Year’s Eve together, so parents can then shuffle the little ones to bed and the grown-up drinking (or whatever!) can begin.
It’s quite the funny little feature, and Netflix is playing up the “fool your kids” angle in its press release announcing the “Dance Party” and countdown. The company even went to the trouble of commissioning a survey which found that more than a third of U.S. parents already actively try to trick their kids into thinking midnight came early, doing things like finding countdowns from other timezones (36%), or even staging a countdown of their own (22 percent). Netflix thought it could do better.
Silly? Sure. Practical? *Shrugs.* I mean we already had YouTube, right?
Plus, I don’t know about your kids, but there doesn’t seem to be that big of a gap in between the ages where kids can’t tell time at all and the age where they understand that New Year’s Eve happens at midnight and – hey, why do all the other clocks in the house, including the one on my iPad, still say 8 PM…MOM?!”
My daughter just hit five and already has a rudimentary understanding of time, thanks to learning about the long hand and the short hand in school, and can read a digital dial. (Of course, she’s still confused enough to ask questions like, “is today tomorrow?” so let’s not give her too much credit just yet.)
I’m just saying, you can only really trick the kids for so long. What’s more effective is putting on your best “grown-up being serious here” expression, sternly telling whining children that it’s now bedtime, they will not being staying up late, and there will be consequences for any further tantrums. You know, actual parenting.
You can then pour yourself a glass of leftover boxed wine, crash on the sofa, and wonder what the hell band that is on the NYE show on TV, then pass out by 9:30 p.m. as usual.
Oh, is that just me?
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by Stone Marshall | Jan 10, 2015 | Minecraft News |
What are your kids reading these last few days of winter break?
Chances are, they aren’t likely reading a nonfiction book, according to a recent study of kids’ reading habits by Renaissance Learning.
That’s particularly true for girls, who at every grade level are devoting much less of their reading time to nonfiction than boys, the report found.
While Renaissance Learning’s report looks only at books, and not web articles or other texts that may be assigned in classes, the results are worth noting, given an increasing emphasis on nonfiction texts in the Common Core State Standards.
The Common Core standards recommend a 50-50 balance between informational and fiction reading at the K-5 level; by senior year of high school, the recommendation is that 70 percent of the reading a student does — not just in English class — be nonfiction.
“In order to be successful in their lives in and outside of school, it is imperative that students read a broad array of literature, especially nonfiction, where data shows students are currently lacking,” the Renaissance Learning report said.
Renaissance Learning used its Accelerated Reader program to track students’ reading habits for the report. Students use the Accelerated Reader program to document books read and monitor reading progress through quizzes and other programs.
The study used records for more than 9.8 million students nationwide who read more than 330 million books during the 2013–2014 school year.
It found that students’ interest in nonfiction texts tends to peak around fifth grade. In that grade, about 31 percent of the books boys read are nonfiction, the study found. For fifth-grade girls, 21 percent of the books being read are nonfiction.
It should be noted that girls tend to be more voracious readers than boys, according to the study. On average, girls read 761,000 more words than boys by the time they finish high school, and encounter about 25 percent more words than boys.
For more, Renaissance Learning has a page of interactive charts showing how and what students are reading at different grade levels.
In the meantime, here’s a breakdown of the most popular books being read by Kentucky students in each grade, according to the report:
Grades 1 and 2: Green Eggs and Ham
Grade 3: Because of Winn-Dixie
Grades 4, 5 and 6: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck
Grade 7: Divergent
Grade 8: The Outsiders
Grade 9: To Kill a Mockingbird
Grade 10: Divergent
Grade 11: The Crucible
Grade 12: The Hunger Games
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by Stone Marshall | Jan 9, 2015 | Awesome Book News, parent-news |
The recent Christmas Day PlayStation Network and Xbox Live network outages caused headaches for people hoping to connect and play games. But one Florida teenager thought the downtime was enough of a problem to call 911 to see if authorities could do anything about it.
WPTV reports that a teenager from Palm Beach County called 911 dispatch, asking about the outages: “I was wondering, do you guys know anything about that?”
The dispatcher told the caller to check in with platforms holders instead. Authorities went on to tell the young man, “Last time I checked, that wasn’t an emergency. Try going outside or read a book.”
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by Stone Marshall | Jan 9, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
The Lizard Squad, a band of young hooligans that recently became Internet famous for launching crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the largest online gaming networks, is now advertising its own Lizard-branded DDoS-for-hire service. Read on for a decidedly different take on this offering than what’s being portrayed in the mainstream media.
The new service, lizardstresser[dot]su, seems a natural evolution for a group of misguided youngsters that has sought to profit from its attention-seeking activities. The Lizard kids only ceased their attack against Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox Live networks last week after MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom offered the group $300,000 worth of vouchers for his service in exchange for ending the assault. And in a development probably that shocks no one, the gang’s members cynically told Dailydot that both attacks were just elaborate commercials for and a run-up to this DDoS-for-hire offering.
The group is advertising the new “booter service” via its Twitter account, which has some 132,000+ followers. Subscriptions range from $5.99 per month for the ability to knock a target offline for 100 seconds at a time, to $129.99 monthly for DDoS attacks lasting more than eight hours.
In any case, I’m not terribly interested in turning this post into a commercial for the Lizard kids; rather, it’s a brain dump of related information I’ve gathered from various sources in the past 24 hours about the individuals and infrastructure that support the site.
In a show of just how little this group knows about actual hacking and coding, the source code for the service appears to have been lifted in its entirety from titaniumstresser, another, more established DDoS-for-hire booter service. In fact, these Lizard geniuses are so inexperienced at coding that they inadvertently exposed information about all of their 1,700+ registered users (more on this in a moment).
These two services, like most booters, are hidden behind CloudFlare, a content distribution service that lets sites obscure their true Internet address. In case anyone cares, Lizardstresser’s real Internet address currently is 217.71.50.57, at a hosting facility in Bosnia.
In any database of leaked forum or service usernames, it is usually safe to say that the usernames which show up first in the list are the administrators and/or creators of the site. The usernames exposed by the coding and authentication weaknesses in LizardStresser show that the first few registered users are “anti” and “antichrist.” As far as I can tell, these two users are the same guy: A ne’er-do-well who has previously sold access to his personal DDoS-for-hire service on Darkode — a notorious English-language cybercrime forum that I have profiled extensively on this blog.
As detailed in a recent, highly entertaining post on the blog Malwaretech, LizardSquad and Darkode are practically synonymous and indistinguishable now. Anyone curious about why the Lizard kids have picked on Yours Truly can probably find the answer in that Malwaretech story. As that post notes, the main online chat room for the Lizard kids (at lizardpatrol[dot]com) also is hidden behind CloudFlare, but careful research shows that it is actually hosted at the same Internet address as Darkode (5,38,89,132).
In a show of just how desperate these kids are for attention, consider that the login page for LizardStresser currently says “Hosted somewhere on Brian Krebs’ forehead: Donate to the forehead reduction foundation, simply send money to krebsonsecurity@gmail.com on PayPal.” Many of you have done that in the past couple of days, although I doubt as a result of visiting the Lizard kids’ silly site. Anyway, for those generous donors, a hearty “thank you.”
It’s worth noting that the individual who registered LizardStresser is an interesting and angry teenager who appears to hail from Australia and uses the nickname “abdilo.” You can find his possibly not-safe-for-work rants on Twitter at this page. A reverse WHOIS lookup (ordered from Domaintools.com) on the email address used to register LizardStresser (9ajjs[at]zmail[dot]ru) shows this email has been used to register a number of domains tied to cybercrime operations, including sites selling stolen credit card data and access to hacked PCs.
A more nuanced lookup at Domaintools.com using some of this information turns up additional domains tied to Abdilo, including bkcn[dot]ru and abdilo[dot]ru (please do not attempt to visit these sites unless you know what you’re doing). Another domain that abdilo registered (in my name, no less) — http://x6b-x72-x65-x62-x73-x6f-x6e-x73-x65-x63-x75-x72-x69-x74-x79-x0[dot]com — is hexadecimal encoding for “krebsonsecurity.”
Last, but certainly not least, it appears that Vinnie Omari — the young man I identified earlier this week as being a self-proclaimed member of of the Lizard kids — has apparently just been arrested by the police in the United Kingdom (see screen shot below). Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Vinnie is one of many individuals associated with this sad little club who are being rounded up and questioned. My guess is most, if not all, of these kids will turn on one another. Time to go get some popcorn.
Happy New Year, everyone!
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by Stone Marshall | Jan 8, 2015 | parent-news |
The Read Naturally program allows students to work independently at their own level.
Former second grade teacher Colleen Zimmerman has started the Read Naturally volunteer program for first through third graders at West Side Elementary. The program, funded by Richland Pump and Supply, combines fluency, vocabulary and comprehension and gives kids a sense of self-confidence as they can visibly chart their results and see their progress. The small groups of students work independently, following the steps of the program and spend their time interested and focused on their reading. Working independently also allows readers of varying levels to participate at the same time.
There are currently 35 students who come to the Read Naturally program which is in addition to their regular classroom reading. Students participate during their daily intervention time, time allotted to challenge kids at whatever learning level they’re at. They begin with a Cold Read: students are timed for one minute as they read aloud a story they’re unfamiliar with and then chart their progress in blue. Then, after listening to the story three times, kids are timed for another minute while they reread the story aloud; this is the Hot Read and they chart their progress on the same graph in red. This method allows students, teachers and volunteers to see each day’s improvement. Worksheets about the story help with students’ comprehension and Zimmerman notes that working one on one with each child allows her to give individualized attention and phonetic tips. Every student is in the program via teacher recommendation and Read Naturally is ideal for anyone with a first through eighth grade reading level allowing kids to advance at their own pace.
“It’s more than just a reading program. I want them to be able to use vocabulary and word recognition in any setting,” says Zimmerman of the benefits.
Read Naturally began in October of 2014 and was piloted in two classrooms one on one with students and soon sparked teachers’ interest as they saw advances. Zimmerman bought the program including CDs, workbooks, cd players and headphones. West Side Elementary donated a room to Zimmerman and students come for about 30 minutes each day from 8 am to noon Monday through Friday. Each student chooses the story they’ll be reading the next day so that worksheets can be printed out in advance and CDs are ready and waiting for them when they walk in the door. Daily volunteers Kay Fulkerson and Marlys Anvik along with weekly volunteers help to make the program possible.
Zimmerman’s goal is to have 50 students in the program and is in the process of purchasing a second set of CDs. There is currently a need for additional volunteers and Zimmerman is grateful for anyone who’s willing to donate their time on any basis. Volunteers often work with the same group of kids giving them the opportunity to see long term advancement and build relationships with the students. Those interested in volunteering or who have additional questions can contact West Side Elementary at 406-433-2530.
When asked why she choose to donate her time and energy, Zimmerman said, “I have a passion for education. The students love coming; they walk in the door ready to learn because they understand that they’ve practiced and they’ve improved and they’re responsible for their progress.”
Teachers are happy with the gains they’ve seen as well.
Colleen Zimmerman works one on one with students helping them develop their reading, comprehension and fluency skills.
“It’s a wonderful program and I’ve seen the kids benefit in their self-confidence, academics and sense of encouragement. As a teacher, having students feel their success is so important. It is bringing self-confidence into the classroom and we’re very grateful for Colleen,” said second grade teacher Sara Romo.
“I have seen them soaring in reading fluency,” first grade teacher Nicole Simonsen said. “Reading fluency transfers into everything; now we’re reading for practice, but most reading will be done for understanding. You can tell she (Zimmerman) is passionate about it and we’re so grateful for her investment of time and to Richland Pump and Supply for donating their resources.”
Zimmerman is encouraged by the confidence and progress she’s seen in students and the interest and support she’s received from teachers and the school. She hopes volunteers from the community will continue to help make the Read Naturally program possible.
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