1.23.1 📸 Online Privacy, Toast Hoax History, Arrays, Early Photography

Welcome to this week's Wednesday email. Did you know ancient Romans toasted their bread? They picked up the habit from the Egyptians. They spread toast all the way to Britain. Then the invention of toasters became a modern Wikipedia hoax, seriously. I also have links to explore how maintain some privacy online. And another in a series about common elements in programming languages and the first woman to be photographed. We get started with a fun Dad joke...

Data Privacy

Now that the school year is underway, I want to share a fifth and final topic that might be useful to think about: How do you protect your privacy online?

Privacy online is hit or miss. It’s especially important for kids to know how to protect themselves. But adults too can do a few basic things. And privacy goes well beyond clicking the Reject All Cookies link on every website. Or installing a parental control app on your kids devices.

For example, kids and adults should not create usernames that identify a person or their location, age, and gender. Kids should only share passwords with their parents. I also never use my Gmail or Facebook logins to use different services. It would allow Google or Facebook to track my activity outside their services.

Beyond usernames and passwords, use a web browser that disables tracking codes. The Firefox Focus and DuckDuckGo web browsers disable tracking code that maps your online activity to past activity. Also look at the privacy settings for software applications. And look up the privacy data on the Apple Store and Google Play before downloading an app.

Also, seriously consider using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. They route your internet traffic through servers that do not log data. They also hide your actual location. VPNs can be a hassle at times. A website may not work with visitors from outside of a country, for example. And not all VPNs are privacy focused. But the right VPN provides another layer of privacy. I use Proton, a Swiss company which is subject to Swiss privacy laws. European privacy laws tend to be more strict and accountable than in the United States. Their software includes an ad blocker.

Online privacy also is a chance to engage kids in conversation. It should be more teaching them about what being online is like, the benefits and risks. And letting them share their reasons to be online: What do they enjoy? What worries them? Discussing online privacy can be a healthy part of their personal growth if adults talk with them rather than at them.

There’s a ton of information online, as you might guess. These links I found worth exploring how to maintain privacy online.

Talking to your child about online safety
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/talking-child-online-safety/

Teaching Kids to Protect Their Data and Privacy Online
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/teaching-kids-to-protect-their-data-and-privacy-online

What Are the Best Privacy Settings for My Kid's Apps and Devices?
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/what-are-the-best-privacy-settings-for-my-kids-apps-and-devices

Internet Safety Tips for Kids and Teens
https://www.nationalcac.org/internet-safety-tips/

Data Privacy for Children: What Parents Need to Know
https://saferkidsonline.eset.com/en-us/article/data-privacy-for-children-what-parents-need-to-know

Children’s Privacy
https://epic.org/issues/data-protection/childrens-privacy/

Firefox Focus (Mobile App)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/focus/

DuckDuckGo Browser and Browser Extension
https://duckduckgo.com/

Proton VPN
https://proton.me/

The Best Parental Control Software for 2024
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-parental-control-software

Kids Deserve Privacy Online. They’re Not Getting It.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/kids-online-data-privacy-tracking-apps/675320/

The Toaster Hoax

Have you ever wondered who created something first? Take the toaster. What is it about toasted bread that people like enough to create a toaster?

Would you believe me if I said the Latin word tostum translates to toast in English? That would mean the ancient Romans toasted their bread. You know, 2000 years ago. As one source puts it, “As the Romans traveled throughout Europe vanquishing their foes in early times, it’s said that they took their toasted bread right along with them. The British developed a fondness for the Romans' toast and introduced it in the Americas when they crossed the ocean.”

Don’t believe everything you read online, however. We cannot verify whether or not the Romans toasted their bread. But it’s possible. What we do know is that Allan MacMasters didn’t invent the toaster.

In 2012, two college students in the UK listened to a lecture about how the professor had edited a Wikipedia article about the history of toasters. Her edit claimed that she invented the toaster. The college students being college students, they visited the Wikipedia page and promptly edited the page to claim that Alan MacMasters invented the toaster in 1893. They claimed MacMasters was working on creating lights for the London underground trains and realized the technology could brown toast.

Not satisfied with a fun editing job, the students managed to get legitimate publications to link to their article. And they created a profile page for Alan MacMasters complete with a doctored photo. It wasn’t until 10 years later that a 15 year old wondered if the MacMasters photo from 1893 was fabricated. It was. That led to a lot of apologies, jokes, and attaboys. It’s called the Toaster Hoax.

On a personal note, circa 2010, I expanded a serious Wikipedia stub on the topic of editorial processes. There were layers of editing by Wikipedia I had to get past. Including robots. I’m surprised the Toaster Hoax was possible. The View History link on Wikipedia articles also shows the full history for each page.

Alan MacMasters Hoax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan\_MacMasters_hoax

Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed
https://www.bbc.com/news/the-reporters-63622746

The History of toasters: the evolution of appliances created to toast bread
https://www.johndesmond.com/blog/products/the-history-of-toasters/

The History of Making Toast
https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/history-making-toast

The History of Toasters, From Roman Times to Today
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-your-toaster-4076981

Elements of Coding: Arrays, Lists, and Dictionaries, Oh My...

This is the fourth in a series about common elements across programming languages. Once you learn one language, identifying these elements is a way to learn new languages quickly. Plus, you'll get a deeper understanding about the problems languages have to solve. And the trade offs languages make. Last week explored how code is organized into functions. This week is about how languages organize and store data with arrays, lists, and dictionaries.

There are different ways that languages store data to iterate through. Imagine playing a video game and keeping track of the prizes you win, as well as their value. Each prize might be thumbnail image, a name, and other details. Each prize has details to organize.

Which method to use to store data depends on what you’re doing. The options are arrays, lists, and dictionaries. Each organizes data in different ways. Each piece of data has an identifier. No surprise, some identifiers are easier to use than others. You also need to take memory into account when storing data. And last but not least, the type of data stored matters. In Python, for example, an array can store only one type of data while a list can store multiple data types in one list. That matters if you’re storing text and images for each video game prize.

In Python, dictionaries store data in a key/value pair format. For example, "prize" : "30" where prize is the key and the value is 30. Arrays and lists use indexes. It’s apparently faster to retrieve data from a Python dictionary than an array or list. And a dictionary can resize more flexibly when data is added or removed. Arrays are comparatively inflexible.

When you learn a new language, pay attention to this data storage problem. And to nuances like what data types can be stored, how data is organized (indexes? key/value?), and other details. For example, the Lua language has dictionaries but they’re called tables. Every language has documentation. And it’s fairly easy to find these details.

With the links below, the W3Schools site has brief tutorials and Try It Yourself features to give you an idea of the differences between a few languages. There's a ton of information online. But the best way to learn is to work on a project and then investigate how to do things, in this case, store data.

What is the Difference Between Arrays, Lists, and Dictionaries in Python?
https://hackernoon.com/what-is-the-difference-between-arrays-lists-and-dictionaries-in-python

Python
https://www.python.org/
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_arrays.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_lists.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_dictionaries.asp

Lua
https://www.lua.org/

Java
https://dev.java
https://www.w3schools.com/java/java_arrays.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/java/java_arraylist.asp

JavaScript
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Language_overview
https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_arrays.asp

Dorothy Draper

This portrait, a daguerreotype, is the earliest known photograph of a woman. She had to sit for 65 seconds without blinking. And to get enough contrast to show up in the photograph, enough shades from white to black, her face was dusted with white baking flour. The photograph was taken in 1839 or more likely 1840. The woman, Dorothy Draper, sat for the photo taken by her brother, John William Draper. At the time, her brother was a chemist who taught at New York University.

Her story also is a wonderful brother sister story. Born in England, the entire Draper family moved to Virginia after their father’s death in 1829. Her brother sought a teaching job in Virginia. However, the job had been filled by the time the Draper family arrived. John Draper then set up shop as a chemist while his sister paid the bills by teaching painting and drawing. Eventually, her brother got the teaching position in New York City and the family moved north. Throughout Dorothy Draper’s life, she helped her brother with his scientific work while also doing artwork. And we only know of her because of this photo.

Dorothy Catherine Draper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Catherine_Draper

Portrait of Dorothy Catherine Draper
https://www.si.edu/object/nmah_834690

This Week

Our Sunday email this week will have links. AI companies are training their software using photos of kids. Photos that parents have taken steps to protect. And links to a Japanese paper computer, how the sun's magnetic field is flipping, and more. Plus a great story about an ancient Egyptian seaport that rivaled the Silk Road. The port connected the Mediterranean world by sea to India, Arabia, and China. Oh, and is an AI boss better than a real boss? Find out in the email this Sunday.