This is Scary!

Tomorrow is Halloween. OOOooooo. Are you ready to be frightened? 

What are you afraid of? (Photo
from multiple websites)

Welcome back. The big news in scary things is Chapman University’s second Survey of American Fears. You may have seen a headline Government Corruption is American’s Top Fear. Or possibly you read Nearly 1 in 10 Americans Fear Ghosts. Yep, that’s what they found, but let me break it down.

Survey of Fear

Last April, the researchers asked a random sample of 1,541 adults across the U.S. to rate 88 different fears from 1 (not afraid) to 4 (very afraid). The study summaries report combined values of afraid and very afraid, unfortunately, with no measure of statistically valid differences.

For the big picture, the 88 fears were categorized into 10 domains. The researchers ranked the domains, most to least feared, based on the average afraid and very afraid ratings of all fears in each domain.

A cursory look at the domain ratings suggests some values are too close to be statistically separable, meaning some domain ranks may not hold. Nevertheless, Man-Made Disasters, which included fear of terrorist attack, economic collapse and war, among others, was the most feared domain. The other domains in ranked order were Technology, Government, Environment, Personal Future, Natural Disaster, Crime, Personal Anxieties, Daily Life and Judgement of Others. 

Top Fears

To compare the 88 specific fears, the researchers used the percentage of survey respondents who reported being afraid or very afraid of each fear. 

Corruption of government officials earned the top spot, being feared by 58.0% of the respondents. Cyber-terrorism, corporate tracking of personal information, and terrorist attacks followed, all feared by 44% to 45% of the respondents. Completing the top ten fears were government tracking of personal information, bio-warfare, identity theft, economic collapse, running out of money, and credit card fraud, the last being feared by about 37% of the respondents. Gun control missed a top ten rating by only 0.4%.

Fear of a feline zombie.
(Photo from multiple websites)

Although you’ll want to see the entire list, I’ll note that fear of reptiles ranked just below fear of nuclear attack. Also, the percentage of respondents who feared corruption of government officials, the number one fear, was about double the percentage of those fearing public speaking; about 3 times those fearing needles; and about 7 times those fearing zombies. (8.5% feared zombies.)

Why Are People Afraid?

The researchers examined what types of people tend to fear certain things and what personal characteristics tend to be associated with the most types of fear for their first survey in 2014. They considered factors such as age, gender, race, work status, education, income, geographic region, urban/rural, political preference, religion, TV watching and gun ownership.

Key fear factors--the most consistent predictors of greater numbers of fears--were a low level of education, watching of talk TV and watching true crime TV.

Wrap Up

I would have been surprised to see corruption of government officials at the top of the list if I hadn’t been aware that earlier Gallup polls found increasing concern about the threat of government to rights and freedoms. But like fear of snakes, which I blogged about two years ago (Afraid of Snakes?), there’s more to the story.

Gallup’s discussion of its 2015 poll points out that these attitudes are more a response to the president and his policies than a fundamental feeling about the federal government. That was shown when the administration changed in 2009 and the threat concern of Democrats and Republicans actually flipped.

Gallup also found that the explanations offered by those concerned about the threat revealed more traditional or political complaints about government than radical beliefs about the government using power or force against its citizens.

So, don’t be afraid, enjoy Halloween and thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Chapman University report and 3-hour video on 2015 survey:
blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2015/10/13/americas-top-fears-2015/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9X_Ko3dwQ
Example articles on Chapman University survey:
time.com/4073702/heres-what-americans-are-most-afraid-of/
www.cbsnews.com/media/things-americans-fear-most-2015/
Chapman University report on why people are afraid:
blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2014/10/21/fear-factors-why-are-people-afraid/
Gallup’s 2015 survey: www.gallup.com/poll/185720/half-continue-say-gov-immediate-threat.aspx
Gallup’s 2013 survey: www.gallup.com/poll/166535/record-high-say-big-government-greatest-threat.aspx

Facebook Comments Addendum

You read last Friday’s blog post, Facebook Comments Matter, right? You saw research that found Facebook comments by anyone influence perceptions of a political candidate. If that wasn’t enough to raise your concerns about our fellow voters, last July, the Pew Research Center released a study report that gives even more weight to Facebook comments.

Social media can be overwhelming.
(multiple websites)

Pew Research Center Survey

The center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, conducted a survey of 2,035 U.S. adults to gauge the use of social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter, as sources of news about everything but family and friends.

The primary finding for Facebook was that 63% of users get news via the Facebook site. That translates to some 41% of all U.S. adults, Facebook users and non-users! It’s also an increase of 16% since 2013, when a similar survey was conducted, and the increase cuts across gender, race, age, education and household income.

Now get this: 32% of Facebook users post items about politics and government, 28% comment on such posts and 43% “like” such posts. And that’s just Facebook.

I think the numbers help explain how, last summer, 15-year old Brady Olson could launch a social media campaign that got an invented presidential candidate, Deez Nuts, on the ballot in 30 states. Less than a month after filing, Mr. Nuts was polling 7% to 9% in Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina.

Filing for Candidacy

By the way, if you ever have any interest in filing as a presidential candidate and aren’t ready to hire Mr. Olson, you only have to submit a Statement of Candidacy Form 2 to the Federal Election Committee. There’s no fee.

When I looked, there were 1,217 Presidential Form 2 filers for the 2016 election. (That’s almost triple the number in 2012.) Donald Trump was number 1,108 on the alphabetical list of this election’s filers. Number 1 on the list was Dot Com A WandrLustr. Mr. A WandrLustr is affiliated with the Prohibition Party, which probably won’t do well even in Connecticut, his home state. 

Donald Trump’s FEC Form 2 Statement of Candidacy. (from www.fec.gov/fecviewer/CandidateCommitteeDetail.do?candidateCommitteeId=P80001571&tabIndex=3)

 P.S.

Pew Research Center survey: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/14/5-key-takeaways-about-twitter-facebook-and-news-use/
Deez Nuts website and example article on Brady Olson’s campaign:
www.elect-deez-nuts.com/
www.wcnc.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/08/26/meet-presidential-candidate-deez-nutz/32444621/
Information about FEC registration and reporting forms:
www.fec.gov/info/forms.shtml
FEC’s 2016 Presidential Form 2 filers:
www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2nm.shtml

Facebook Comments Matter

Welcome back. I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping to get your opinion.

Do you use Facebook? Do you ever give or receive comments? Well, University of Delaware researchers found that comments on the Facebook Page of a political candidate influenced users’ perception of the candidate even if the users didn’t know the person who commented.

Facebook like, comment or
share. (Multiple websites)

Facebook Friends’ Influence

I suppose it’s not surprising. Though it’s not quite the same, not too many years ago researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Facebook demonstrated that Facebook users could influence friends to vote.

You might remember that study. The researchers randomly assigned all U.S. Facebook users over age 18 to one of three groups. On the day of the 2010 congressional elections, they sent an informational message to users in one group and a social message to users in the second group. Users in the third group were not sent any message.

The informational message encouraged the users to vote, gave a link to information on local polling places and offered an “I voted” button with a counter of those who clicked it.

The social message was the same as the informational message, with the addition of profile photographs of as many as six of the recipients’ Facebook friends who had clicked the “I voted” button.

Based on the online behavior and publicly available voting records, the researchers found no difference between Facebook users who received the information message and those who received no message. But users who received the social message that featured friends were 2% more likely to click the “I voted” button, 0.3% more likely to check the polling place link and 0.4% more likely to vote.

While those numbers may not impress, when the researchers added the number of friends contacted by recipients of the social message, the numbers jumped. For every direct recipient of the social message, four people were indirectly influenced to vote.

Effects of Strangers’ Comments

In contrast to the earlier study, which tapped over 60 million Facebook users, the recent study ended up with 183 users, all from Delaware. For this study, the researchers prepared a Facebook Page to promote a fictitious political candidate whose profile offered only general and nonpartisan information.

They then sent an online survey to a test group, requesting the recipients’ impressions of the candidate. Some recipients of the survey saw the candidate’s Facebook Page with two positive comments; others saw the page with two negative comments.

The study found that Facebook users who viewed the candidate’s page with positive comments or “likes” had a more favorable perception of the candidate; they were more likely to support him. Facebook users who viewed the page with negative comments had more unfavorable perceptions of the candidate.

Of particular interest is that the candidate’s replies to either positive or negative comments did not change how he was perceived. Facebook users judged the candidate’s comments to be less trustworthy than those of unknown yet presumed peers.

Wrap Up

The researchers acknowledge that being asked to view the Facebook Page of a candidate whom you’ve never heard of is very different from what occurs in an actual campaign. Still, they deem their findings to be instructive and a basis for further research.

What do you think? Maybe it’s just me whose acquaintances and Facebook friends scale from socially and politically liberal to conservative. At my level of political awareness and I suppose my age, I can’t imagine being influenced by their Facebook likes, comments, or shared posts, much less by comments from people I don’t know. Can you?

Again, thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

University of Delaware study in the Journal of Experimental Political Science and article on study on Science Daily website:
journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9817041&fileId=S2052263014000293
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924184948.htm
University of California, San Diego study in Nature journal and articles on study on both Nature and Live Science websites:
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html
www.nature.com/news/facebook-experiment-boosts-us-voter-turnout-1.11401
www.livescience.com/23127-facebook-friends-influence-voter-turnout.html

Whistling Addendum

My grandmother.

Seeing the older men and women whistling Turkish and Sylbo in the videos listed in last Friday’s blog post (Speaking in Whistles) reminded me of my grandmother. As I wrote some time ago, that warm, elegant, soft-spoken little woman taught me how to whistle loudly with two fingers (Music Time--The Background).

If you missed last Friday's videos, here’s a sample of my reminders: 

Woman whistling Turkish with one finger, right hand. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQf38Ybo1IY)

Woman whistling Turkish with one finger, left hand. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQf38Ybo1IY)

Woman whistling Sylbo, no fingers. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEmSb0cKBg)

Woman whistling Sylbo, one finger. OK, she’s young, but this video wasn’t listed in last Friday’s blog post. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PyNuOJaDCs)

Nowadays, given the Internet, you don’t need a grandmother to teach you to whistle loudly. As you’d expect, there are a variety of instructional videos. Although my grandmother taught me to use one finger from each hand, I soon advanced to using two fingers from one hand (fingers shaped in an OK sign), as shown here: 

Whistling with two fingers, one hand. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Oz_ELAjNg)

Like the young woman in this video, I place my fingers atop my tongue. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Oz_ELAjNg)

I mention placing my fingers on top of my tongue, because I was astonished to see that nearly every video teaches fingers should be placed beneath the tongue, whether using fingers from one or two hands.

This video, like most, places fingers beneath the tongue. Unlike most, the whistler uses two fingers from each hand, which seems a bit much. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYpmyE1fliE)

If you’d like to pursue this further, wikiHow is a good starting point (despite the recommended finger-tongue position).

Graphic from Wikihow instructions on whistling. (www.wikihow.com/Whistle-With-Your-Fingers)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my brother, like countless others, learned to whistle loudly without the aid of fingers. I didn’t even glance at instructional videos of that technique, but obviously, whistling loudly, hands free, without fingers in one’s mouth has advantages in addition to being more hygienic. If I were starting over, I’d take that route.

Speaking in Whistles

Welcome back. I missed another one, whistling languages. Fortunately a friend heard about them on NPR last month and mentioned it to me. When I searched, I found the topic was in the news a month or so before the NPR story but that the topic was well documented years ago.

Why the renewed interest? The reports were triggered by the publication of a new study that's definitely interesting. Still, I suspect the real reason for media attention is the topic itself. It’s fascinating. 

Whistling Languages

A whistling language is just that--a spoken language in a different form, whistling. It’s like writing in addition to speaking. 

Whistling Sylbo, La Gomera,
Canary Islands. (multiple websites)

Though relatively rare and in some cases gone or dying out, whistling languages are encountered globally--Alaska, Mexico, Brazil, China, Turkey, France, Ethiopia, Canary Islands, Oceania and elsewhere. They arose primarily for communicating over long distances or because of terrain or other causes of isolation, such as dense forest.

They’re most common in tonal languages, which cover some 70% of world languages. Whistled tonal languages rely primarily on whistle tone, length, and stress; segmental distinctions of the spoken language are mostly lost. In contrast, whistled atonal languages rely more on articulatory features of speech. Variations in whistle pitch represent variations in timbre, and certain consonants can be pronounced to modify the sound.

Whether emulating a tonal or atonal language, all whistled languages convey speech information by varying the frequency of a simple waveform as a function of time, generally with minimal dynamic variations.

Whistling Languages and Brain Hemispheres

The research that generated attention was conducted by investigators from Germany’s Ruhr University Bochum and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Bonn.

Earlier research has shown that the brain’s left hemisphere normally handles language processing, including atonal and tonal languages, click consonants, writing and sign languages. The brain’s right hemisphere is specialized to address acoustic properties--spectral cues, pitch, melodic lines, stress and intonation pattern cues. This latest research sought to determine how left and right hemisphere superiorities might change with a whistling language.

The investigators focused on whistled Turkish, which uses the full lexical and syntactic information of spoken Turkish. They tested the comprehension of identical information, spoken versus whistled, with whistle-speakers of Northeast Turkey. This was done by delivering speech sounds through headphones to the test participants’ left or right ears.

Overall, the participants reported more often perceiving spoken syllables when presented to the right ear (left hemisphere), yet they heard whistled sounds equally well on both sides. In essence, the study showed that whistled Turkish relies on a balanced contribution of the hemispheres; the left because whistled Turkish is indeed a language, the right because understanding a whistled language requires auditory specializations.

Wrap Up

Although whistling languages were new to me, there’s a wide assortment of reference material--research papers, popular articles, textbooks and videos. Whistling languages might well be pre-historic and were apparently mentioned in 16th century literature if not earlier.

Learning whistling Sylbo, La Gomera,
Canary Islands. (multiple websites)

I should note that, although the research reviewed here was on whistling Turkish, whistling Sylbo (or Silbo), the whistled language of the Canary Island La Gomera, was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. Sylbo is reportedly the only whistled language that is fully developed and practiced by a large community (more than 22,000 inhabitants). It has been taught in schools since 1999 and is understood by almost all islanders.

So, what do you think? Was the media attention due to the topic or the research? Either way, I hope you found the post interesting. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Whistled Turkish study in Current Biology journal:
www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2815%2900794-0
NPR and other selected articles on whistled Turkish study:
www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/09/26/443434027/in-a-turkish-village-a-conversation-with-whistles-not-words
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150817131955.htm
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3201530/Listen-Turkish-whistling-language-scientists-say-unique-uses-sides-brain.html
www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-whistled-language-of-northern-turkey
Example YouTube videos:
Whistling Languages in Kuskoy, Turkey, 5:19 min, from the Deutsche Welle’s former European Journal; uploaded on 29 Jul 2010: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQf38Ybo1IY
The Last Speakers of the Lost Whistling Language, Sylbo (La Gomera, Spanish Canary Islands), 4:20 min, from Time; published on 21 May 2013: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0CIRCjoICA
Whistled language of the island of La Gomera (Canary Islands), the Silbo Gomero, 10:20 min, from UNESCO; uploaded on 25 Sep 2009: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgEmSb0cKBg
Monograph: Whistled Languages: A Worldwide Inquiry on Human Whistled Speech, 2015th Edition: link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-662-45837-2
Wikipedia background on whistled languages (see citations):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language
Reference which notes a possible pre-historic origin and mention in 16th century literature: silbo-gomero.com/Compilation/CompilationPreface.html
UNESCO inscription of whistled Silbo Gomero:
www.unesco.org/culture/ich/RL/00172

Forecasting Addendum

After the recent weeks of blog post topics, I thought you might like a nice relaxing addendum to last Friday’s blog post, Trust in Forecasts. I’m not much for quotations that aspire to inspire, but I do appreciate those that offer insight, such as today’s quotations on forecasting the future. Although borrowing and paraphrasing should be expected, I’ve shown attributions, without doing any sourcing myself. (All photos are from multiple websites.)

Quotations on the Difficulty of Forecasting the Future
 

Statue of Lao Tzu, located
north of Quanzhou, China,
at base of Mount Qingyuan

 "Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge." Lao Tzu (aka, Laozi), Chinese poet, 6th century B.C., and reputed founder of Taoism.

 

 

Niels Bohr

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics.
 

Paul Samuelson

"Wall Street indices predicted nine out of the last five recessions." Paul A. Samuelson, economist.


 

 

Edgar R. Fiedler

"He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass." Edgar R. Fiedler, economist, U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.




"Forecasting is the art of saying what will happen, and then explaining why it didn't." Anonymous.


 Quotations on Accepting the Future

Albert Einstein

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” Albert Einstein, Nobel laureate in physics.


 

Abraham Lincoln

“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.” Abraham Lincoln, US president.

 

Charles F. Kettering

“I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.” Charles F. Kettering, inventor, engineer, businessman (also George Burns, comedian).
 



Quotations on Influencing the Future
 

Deepak Chopra

“When you make a choice, you change the future.” Deepak Chopra, author and public speaker.


 

Haruki Murakami

“You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.” Haruki Murakami, author.

Yogi Berra’s Quotations about the Future
(In memory of the Hall of Fame baseball player, whose New York Yankees beat my Brooklyn Dodgers too many times.)

Yogi Berra

“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” (Do you think Yogi borrowed this from Niels Bohr, above?)

“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” 
 
P.S.

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/future
www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/79014.Yogi_Berra
thinkexist.com/quotations/future/
www1.secam.ex.ac.uk/famous-forecasting-quotes.dhtml or www.met.reading.ac.uk/Research/cag-old/forecasting/quotes.html

Trust in Forecasts

Welcome back. Play along with me. Pick a sport. Tomorrow is opening day. Joe and Frank, two sports gurus are on TV, forecasting the winners. You’re not up on the teams or on Joe and Frank.

Joe says there’s a 70% chance that Team A will beat Team B. Frank says there’s a 30% chance that Team A will win.

Questions: Which forecast is more accurate? Which guru would you trust more? Hint: All else being equal, based on the higher and lower predictions, more people would lean toward Team A winning. At least that’s what a recent study by researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of South Carolina demonstrated.

You can always trust Magic 8 Ball
forecasts. (multiple websites)

Prediction Levels Affect Inferences

The researchers conducted eight experiments, each testing the reactions of large groups of participants to forecasted occurrences of 70% versus 30%.

The experiments included a basketball team winning or losing; the success of stock market investments (an initial public offering, a stock’s price); predictions of a book being published, when the predictions are presented numerically, pictorially (pie chart) and verbally (“very” or “less likely”/”unlikely” to be published); other formats (frequencies and point spreads); and a case when benchmarks exist.

In nearly every case, the researchers found that, when forecasts are higher (70% rather than 30%), test participants inferred that the forecaster had conducted more in-depth analyses, was more confident about the prediction and was more trustworthy. They also judged the prediction to be more accurate.

In essence, participants evaluated the forecasts based only on the event occurring, e.g., team A winning, not its complement, team A losing. A lower forecast was thus interpreted erroneously as the 30% forecaster being less confident in the prediction of team A winning, instead of being more confident in team A losing.

For the experiment that tested reactions when benchmarks exist, the benchmark used was a high expectation that the likelihood of an event occurring should be 25%. Participants judged a slightly higher prediction (30%) to be more accurate than a slightly lower prediction (20%); however, a much higher prediction (70%) reduced their evaluation of accuracy.  

Well, you can usually trust Magic 8
Ball forecasts. (multiple websites)

 Wrap Up

The experiments ruled out certain alternative explanations and demonstrated both the independence of prediction format and the robustness of the effects. Nevertheless, I would be curious to learn more about the test participants than their age and gender.

Perhaps I’m just reflecting my own reaction to the test forecasts, but I would expect anyone who has taken courses in, or dealt with, statistics or probability to treat such forecasts more objectively. I believe this supports areas the researchers suggested for further study.

So. Have you changed your thoughts about Joe and Frank and whether team A or B will win tomorrow? It should be a good game. Thanks for stopping by today.

P.S.

Paper on forecasting study in Journal of Marketing Research and article on Science Daily website:
journals.ama.org/doi/10.1509/jmr.12.0526
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812131916.htm

Web Addresses Addendum

Once again, I spent more time on an addendum than on the main blog post, last Friday's New Web Addresses. First I thought I would compose a list of amusing domain names using new web address endings. After starting, I realized that I had already provided enough for you to amuse yourself better than I could.

Then I considered expanding on expired domain names, summarizing how thousands of domain names expire every day and are eventually offered for sale. After plowing through different sources, I decided there would be little interest--unless, of course, someone wanted to buy this blog’s domain name. (Contact me directly.)

And then I came across a book and articles on domain names that could be read differently than intended, such as a travel website www.choosespain.com, which might be read “chooses pain.” All the domain names were old, and most of those I checked were either gone or changed and of a sexual nature. (Search for slurls if you like that sort of thing.)

Finally, while getting the trash and recycling containers ready for pick up, I was enwrapped in spider webs. Webs. That’s it! The topic for an addendum on web addresses.

Identifying Spiders by their Web (Addresses)

As spider taxonomy goes, over 40,000 species have been identified and discoveries continue. All spiders produce silk, yet not all construct webs. Of those that do, certain taxonomic families are associated with certain types of webs. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these. 

Orb webs are generally associated with spiders in the Araneoidea superfamily, particularly those in the Araneidae and Tetragnathidae families, but there are orb-weaver spiders in the Uloboridae superfamily whose webs are quite different. (Photo from smithsonianscience.si.edu)

A triangle spider web built by Hyptiotes paradoxus of the Uloboridae family (Uloboridae superfamily) is an example of a reduced orb web. (Photo from www.flickr.com/photos/myriorama/8142595190)

Funnel webs are generally associated with the Agelenidae family of spiders, yet there are funnel-web tarantula, which fall under an entirely different superfamily. (Photo from fireflyforest.net/firefly/2008/05/12/funnel-web-spider/)

“Funnel” and “tube” (or “tunnel”) denote different shapes; there are webs so labeled and spiders associated with each. Though funnel and tube webs appear similar at their openings, this web appears to extend up the tree and is likely tubular. The habitat of Europe’s tube web spider Segestria florentina is often a building crack. (Photo from tjsgardendotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/web-tunnel.jpg)

Sheet webs are associated with the Linyphiidae or Hahniidae spider families. While all Linyphiidae webs are interwoven sheets, the shapes vary with the species--platforms, bowls, domes. (Photo from btweenblinks.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/p1030235-e1389481419950.jpg)

This photo isn’t upside down. It’s a dome or tent spider web built by the species Prolinyphia marginata, also known as Neriene radiate, of the Linyphiidae family. (Photo from www.asergeev.com/pictures/k/Spider_web.htm)

Tangled webs are shapeless jumbles of fibers generally associated with spiders of the Theridiidae family, but also with spiders of the Amaurobiidae, Nesticidae and Linyphiidae families. (Photo from blogbydonna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SpiderWeb3.jpg)

Cobwebs are a version of the tangled spider web. Spiders of the Theridiidae family are also known as tangle-web, cobweb and comb-footed spiders. (Photo from multiple websites)

Mesh spider webs are another version of tangled webs, being similar to but more organized than cobwebs. They’re associated with spiders of the dictynidae family. (Photo from sense-of-place-concord.blogspot.com/2015/08/dawn-to-dusk-summer-at-great-meadows-nwr.html)

The nursery web spider, Pisaurina mira, carries her eggs in a sac and builds a web just before they hatch. Although there are "sac" spiders that construct silken tubes or sacs in protected areas, they don’t build webs. (Photo from www.projectnoah.org/spottings/8152819)

And then there are lots of spider webs that seem rather unique, such as this one--or are there two?--observed in New Zealand. (Photo from bestkindoflost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Spider-web-2-copy.jpg)

P.S.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_taxonomy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_web
www.spiderzrule.com/spiderweb.htm
animals.mom.me/identify-spider-pattern-8791.html
www.pestproducts.com/spider-webs.htm
animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/spider

New Web Addresses

Welcome back. Tell me. Would you be more inclined to click on this blog’s web address, its URL, if instead of being www.Retired--NowWhat.com and ending in .com, it ended in .blog or .club or .fyi? Or how about www.Retired--NowWhat.exposed? There are a boatload of new endings. Some are very cool, including .cool. 

Some of the new domain endings. (From
 www.forbes.com but on multiple websites)

Come to think of it, you might want to grab or sign up for an address with one of the new endings. You could certainly find uses other than blogging. I’ll get to that, but let me continue with the blog’s web address.

Blog Address History

When I started this blog in 2011, I picked the blog’s name, Retired--Now What?, and that was that. The blog web address was fixed. The domain name, which is everything after the www., was predetermined by the account holder and that included the ending, the generic top-level domain, which was .com.

Though I later switched to the blog’s current web address, whose domain name is shorter than the original, the only choice was to stay with .com.

Then, about 18 months ago, the blog’s domain name expired due to my oversight. I had to reclaim it from another account holder, and I was offered the opportunity to change the ending to .net or .org. I also learned that all sorts of new endings, new generic top-level domains, were coming. They’ve arrived.

New Generic Top-Level Domains

Today there are several hundred endings which you can buy or register for as part of a domain name, presuming the domain name isn’t already taken. If that’s not enough, there will be many more; expect about a 1000 this year. 

One website categorizes the current endings under 19 headings. Here’s a sample with examples of new endings: Arts and Entertainment (.actor, .art, .band, .photography), Education (.mba, .phd, .science), Food and Drink (.catering, .cooking, .recipes, .wine), Identity and Lifestyle (.bio, .black, .ceo, .republican), Interests (from .active and .app to .yoga and, in Chinese, .gossip), Money and Finance (.broker, .cpa, .gold, .rich), Novelty (.best, .fun, .wow), Sports (all the majors) and, of course, Adult (.adult, .porn, .sex).

There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the benefits of having a more focused web address. Are the benefits less than they seem? At least initially, business and trade associations thought the proliferation of endings was unnecessary, confusing and costly. Further, not all browsers and applications are ready to recognize the new endings; extra steps may be needed. Probably the pivotal question is if domain names are at all important. People increasing rely on social media or aggregators to round up the content they see.

Wrap Up

Beyond blogging, I see this as The Moment for anyone who wishes to stand out, to be noticed, to be distinct, whether it’s through a personal website, résumé, social media account or email address.

Imagine having a domain name that consists of your name or expertise with the ending .expert, .guru or .vip. Or how about integrating the ending with what’s before the ending: NoPain.dentist, IPlay.guitars, IAmThe.one? If your surname happens to be one of the endings--black, coffee, glass, gold, green, irish--you could add your first name and…well, there so many possibilities. I should forget the blog and sell web domains.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Background and example articles on new generic top-level domains:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain#New_top-level_domains
iwantmyname.com/blog/2015/06/how-to-pick-the-right-domain-extension.html
www.inc.com/peter-roesler/will-new-top-level-domains-matter-in-2015.html
name.kitchen/stand-out-from-the-crowd-a-new-way-to-get-creative-with-your-online-resume/
Lists of generic top-level domains:
iwantmyname.com/domains/new-gtld-domain-extensions
www.newtldlist.com/
Example web domain sellers offering new generic top-level domains:
www.godaddy.com/tlds/gtld.aspx
www.enom.com/tld-queue/pages/watchlist.aspx#q=watchlist|pre-registration
www.hover.com/