Day: 07/30/2018

FACEBOOK AND WORDPRESS – A NOTIFICATION YOU SHOULD READ

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 54 Comments

First the released my data to Cambridge Analytica. That led to having my identity stolen and my computer hacked. How many new ways can they find to become worthless?

FROM WORDPRESS:

You have probably gotten the same message via email, but in case you missed it or deleted it without reading it, you might want to read it. Many of us use Facebook for publicizing our blogs. This will stop the day after tomorrow. You can return to what I used to do: copy and paste your link into Facebook, especially if you have a fair number of followers on Facebook as I do. I already disconnected it from Publicize. I’ll probably manually post pieces as I see fit. I guess we will all have to make our own choices about this.

We wanted to update you about an upcoming change Facebook is introducing to their platform, and which affects how you may share posts from your website to your Facebook account.

Starting August 1, 2018, third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles. This includes Publicize, the WordPress.​com tool that connects your site to major social media platforms (like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook).

Will this affect your ability to share content on Facebook? It depends. If you’ve connected a Facebook Profile to your site, then yes: Publicize will no longer be able to share your posts to Facebook. On the other hand, nothing will change if you keep a Facebook Page connected to your site — all your content should still appear directly on Facebook via Publicize. (Not sure what the difference is between a Page and a Profile? Here’s Facebook’s explanation.) You can review and change your social sharing settings by heading to My Site(s) → Sharing on WordPress.com.

If you’ve previously connected a Facebook Profile to your WordPress.​com site and still want your Facebook followers to see your posts, you have two options. First, you could go the manual route: once you publish a new post, copy its URL and share the link in a new Facebook post. The other option is to convert your Facebook Profile to a Page. This might not be the right solution for everyone, but it’s something to consider if your website focuses on your business, organization, or brand.

While Facebook says it is introducing this change to improve their platform and prevent the misuse of personal profiles, we believe that eliminating cross-posting from WordPress is another step back in Facebook’s support of the open web, especially since it affects people’s ability to interact with their network (unless they’re willing to pay for visibility) We know that this might cause a disruption in the way you and your Facebook followers interact, and if you’d like to share your concerns with Facebook, we urge you to head to their Help Community to speak out.

Yours,

Love The WordPress.​com Team

ROCKS AND GRAVEL – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 14 Comments

RDP # 60 – Quarry

New England was one of the first place in North America that Europeans set down roots. I’ve always wondered why. Especially in New England.

Those people were farmers and if there’s one thing you can say about this area is that it’s not great farm country. Not only is the weather awful, but there is no topsoil in most places. It’s not a bad place for orchards and dairy cattle, but everything else? It’s pretty hard to find a large, flat area with good earth.

Up the driveway, stone fence holds up the garden. Owen hauled those boulders from the middle of the woods

Between the hills, mountains, boulders, and trees, there’s almost no earth you can plow without moving a lot of rocks first. That’s from where all our stone fences emerged. They were not created to divide areas of land. The farmers just needed a place to put all the rocks.

This is also why you find rock walls in the middle of nowhere. The middle of the woods. Where the stone fences were put didn’t really have a lot to do with location, just how far they could haul that rock before they said: “Okay, this is as far as I am going!” The horses always agreed.

Eventually, someone got the bright idea to dig up the rocks and pound them into gravel. It turns out that you can never have too much gravel and sand in this world. We also have a lot of big holes in the ground that have filled up with water because no one is using them anymore.

Is there a child who, one hot summer’s day, won’t take the plunge into an old quarry? This doesn’t always work out well. Over the past few decades, cities throughout the region have been trying to fill in those holes. Too many kids diving in, hitting unexpected rocks and drowning.

Also, it would seem that diving into a quarry is the easy part. Getting out can be fraught with challenges.

Last night, my son pointed out this his house is actually built on an old gravel pit. That probably explains why they have such a nice, flat piece of ground … but also explains why the backyard is about 12 feet lower than the front yard.

New England has quarries. Lots of them. In use, out of use, full of water. That’s what you do in a land full of rocks and roots. Dig!

COMFORT LATE AND BED – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 19 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Comfortable

It is late. I am in bed. My mattress is new, but the bed is not. It is nearly 20 years old but if it is not the most comfortable bed in the world, it’s pretty close.

Tinted doll in the bedroom

The room is air-conditioned. Lightly air-conditioned. I’ve always been averse to heat but lately, I’m cold. The breeze from the fan means I put on long sleeves.

I’ve taken my sleepy medications and my eyes are closing. It doesn’t get better than this.

See you all in the morning.

EXPECTATIONS AND THE LACK THEREOF – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 8 Comments

Everything is weird.

The weather is weird. The government is even weirder. Maybe our government is the weirdest of all. Between one thing and another, I feel like I’m living on a different planet. I have no idea what to expect — in the most literal sense. If rain is predicted, I don’t know if it will actually rain. It might be cloudy and then again, the sun might shine. If they tell me it’s going to cool down, it might be swelteringly hot.

Or not.

Yeah, whatever. At least we got the hell out of 2018. – The New Yorker

Maybe I am living on a different planet. Maybe the reason I don’t know what to expect in these surreal circumstances is that I’m still expecting stuff.  I expect the news to be true and weather maps to actually show real weather. It’s as if the weather is lying too.

The president lies. He says the media lies. I know the media is not lying, but apparently, the climate is lying.

How can the weather lie?

Is that what climate change is about? That we have no idea what to expect and the maps don’t mean what they seem to mean. It’s all a jumble.

Nothing means what it should mean and I think my next move is to stop expecting. Anything. Give up all expectations. Whatever happens, happens.

That’s downright zen of me, isn’t it?

NEGLECTED – THE SAD TALE OF OUR USED-TO-WAS-GARDENS – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 10 Comments

A Photo a Week Challenge: Neglected

Once upon a time, we had hedges and a garden. Now we have a wild place with wild and running-amok flowers … and the forsythia hedge from hell which is planning to overrun the house. It might just succeed this time!

An attempt at taming

Photo: Garry Armstrong

You can see that not only is the hedge enormous — 10 to 12 feet tall — but it too is being overrun by wild grape vines.

And the shed is about to fall down …

Overall, I think the house is getting serious about falling down, too. But not this week. Just … eventually.

You think the plants are a little out of control?

YOU ONLY CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE READY – BY ELLIN CURLEY

/ Ellin Curley / 7 Comments

A good friend finalized her divorce after 30 years of marriage. She has started a new life and is happier than ever.

I’ve rarely seen such a dramatic transformation in a person in such a short time. We’ve known her for 14 years and we’ve never seen this relaxed and happy version of her. She has changed physically too. She lost 25 pounds, changed her hair and looks like a different person. She has an inner glow about her. Her inner happiness and self-confidence shows. She’s not depressed, angry, or feeling bad about herself. The marriage was weighing her down.

I tried to get her to see the toxic nature of the marriage three years ago. She admitted that there was little left in her relationship except anger and resentment. They led separate lives with little positive communication and no love. He refused to acknowledge his contribution to the problems. He also refused counseling and showed no interest in changing in any way.

The one thing she had left in the marriage was hope. She still, somehow, believed it could work. She was not ready to pull the plug. Now she looks back and wonders why she couldn’t see the writing on the wall, those giant, black letters screaming “It’s over! Get out!”

She wasn’t ready to see it.

I had the same experience with my son. Tom and I saw that it was time to end his severely dysfunctional and destructive marriage years before he was ready to accept the inevitable. He too had a major transformation when he left the negative relationship. He became more relaxed. He seemed lighter, more positive. He laughed more and looked like he had shed a giant weight off his back and heart.

But he could not end his seven-year marriage – until he was ready.

Something happens inside of us when we are suddenly receptive to change. A light goes on or a switch is turned somewhere in our psyches. Suddenly, things gel. We see things differently. The blinders are gone and so is the hope. People cling to the familiar. We, as a species, hate and fear major changes in our lives. And divorce is one of the biggest and most difficult.

Sometimes with divorce, people can’t see past the pain and hassle of the separation and divorce process. They can’t focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. Many people can’t even see the light. They don’t believe they’ll have a better life on their own. All they see is how they are feeling at that moment — lonely and heartbroken.

It takes people time to prepare for change. It can’t be rushed. I never pushed my son or my friend. I supported them through endless decisions to just give it “a little more time.” I led them to the water to see if they were ready to drink. When they weren’t, I backed off. That’s why I could be part of the divorce celebrations when they finally came.

I have to admit, my life is better now that both my son and my friend are divorced and happy. We wanted these divorces to happen, for personal, selfish reasons as well as for altruistic ones. So even if you desperately see that someone needs to end a relationship – shut up.

They will let you know when they are ready.