Porn Performers in the Library

We’ve heard plenty about Library Patrons watching Porn on Library Computers, but I want to talk about some Library Patrons bringing their own laptops and webcams into the Library and performing Lewd & Lascivious Acts in public for money.

Let’s start with a little education for those that don’t know. There are people out there that get paid to perform sex acts on camera for a watching audience. One of those websites is MyFreeCams.com. While the site is Free, the camgirls require “tokens” to perform their act.

Twice in June I learned there were camgirls from the MyFreeCams site performing their act in public in a Library. I had discussed this with a friend and thought that Twitter might be a good way to get the word out to Librarians at that Library so the performance could be halted and the camgirl arrested. When I heard, I went to the site and waited until I could get a screen shot that captured the Library rather than the girl. I then posted that picture (they are below) to Twitter hoping the message would get passed around. In both cases, I was able to provide a general geographic area, but couldn’t even specify city. That meant calling any Library was out. There’s just too many in any given region to call them all. I thought Twitter would be more effective because staff would recognize their own Library. Unfortunately, I got no response.

I hate to make anyone’s job harder and require more frequent walks through the Library, but I think the only way to stop this action is to catch them in the act. If these camgirls made money with these shows, I have to assume they’ll do it again. 

Do you recognize either of these Libraries? 

Can you think of a better method to get the word out to Library Staff?

 On Jun 8^th, this camgirl was performing at a Library somewhere in New York (state not city). I suspect it is a University Library since they have a lot of long tables and lamps. There was a person sitting at the far left of that first table who didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

On Jun 28^th, this camgirl was performing from a Library in the Pasadena CA area. The light blue color of the columns and the presence of those columns should be recognizable to that Library’s staff and patrons. Also, this is the second floor or higher as that is a railing in the background












Addendum added on 07/13/12. More pictures of CameronKnight. She was at it again on 07/12. Since the purpose is still to identify the Library, I have obscured her face and breasts. In the top shot, that is her dress around her neck. This Library has lights in the stacks that are on timer switches or motion detectors.

An Open Apology for Twitter Behavior Unbecoming

This post has been percolating a week and I’m still not sure where it is going. I want to start with the meat of the matter. I want to apologize to anyone on Twitter who has interpreted any of my tweets to be rude, inappropriate, or creepy. Those are the words that have been directed at me, so that’s what I’m going to say although I must admit that Creepy bothers me the most.

The backstory: I’ve been active on Twitter about 18 months now. I’ve made some great connections and recieved some outstanding opportunities from connections made on Twitter. This story is unfortunately about the opposite side of the equation. 

Sometime in the past month, I’d discovered someone missing from my timeline. We all know that Twitter occasionally unfollows people for us. So I tried following her but the program said I was blocked. I’ve also experienced that before where I was blocked by accident, so I sent a message from another account asking about it. She never answered and that account was blocked.  At that point it was obvious to a blind man that I'd done something that makes her not want to have any connection to me. Unfortunately, I had no idea what. I tried to shrug it off. I even solicited advice from Twitter and they all told me to ignore it and press on. I tried, I really did, but for some reason, I couldn’t accept the situation as it was. This is someone I thought of as a friend. I’d never met her in person, but we’d had a lot of good interactions. In 20/20 hindsight, I’m glad I asked even if I don’t like the answer. 

Knowing the person wasn’t going to see a tweet from me, I found an email address from earlier interactions and sent a request to find out what I had done wrong? Here’s a portion of the request:

…I don't want to argue or bring drama into your life. I just know that we have had many friendly conversations. I assume whatever I did wrong is something I can apologize for or correct. I also know I can never correct the behavior if I don't know what I did wrong.

I’m not sure how she would feel about me quoting her response, so I’m going to paraphrase it:

During the past few months, you’ve sent some inappropriate and/or sexual tweets to me or others in conversations I was watching. It wasn’t all the time, but enough that I noticed. I didn’t think you meant them in a hurtful way, but it finally got to the point where I couldn’t handle following you anymore. I didn’t think we were close enough friends to confront you about it. To a certain extent, I think it may be generational. I did the easiest thing which was to block you. I really wasn’t sure about answering this query, but there have been times we did get along on Twitter so out of respect for those times I responded. Now, I must insist you leave me alone.

My response (in part):

As you surmised, I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. So I am sorry for that.
Frankly I wish you would have said something before it got this far. Yes, this is a learning experience for me. Messages that sound ok in my voice, don't carry as well in text. 

That was a tough day for me. In many ways I was more confused not less. I’d always thought of my tweets as light-hearted and funny. Yes, some of the tweets had sexual overtures, but they were meant to be funny. I’m a 50 year old, married man; I’m not flirting with anyone.

This is a new means of communication for me. I’ve been sending emails & posting on various forums for a long time. But Text messages and short-form character limited chat is new to me. I thought I was identifying jokes appropriately with emoticons and/or LoL. ROTFL, etc. As most children do, I learned by mimicking those around me.

After the exchange above, I actually tweeted a question to see who else may have felt the same way. One person was brave enough to speak up. Since those tweets are in the public record, I’m going to quote them here. My messages start with J:; their messages with X: (for no reason other than to be random).

X: Personally I find your random sexual overtones in conversations not involving you highly inappropriate, creepy, and a titch crazy.

J: I got a ? about "conversations not involving you." We're all posting in the clear here. How do you tell you're not wanted?

X: It is NEVER, EVER okay to make sexual innuendoes / allusions to any one if the conversation is not directed SPECIFICALLY at you.

X: You may think you're flirting, but many of us feel like you're being predatorily and creepy.

J: I'd like to talk more in a longer form. Please email me an example 7shore on gmail. I don't want anybody to be upset w me.

X: No, I'm not emailing you. I'll put it in this context: You're at a bar. You two two girls having a conversation. You eavesdrop.

X: You jump in the conversation and input something wholly inappropriate and unwarranted. They would tell you to feck off.

X: You ask Y U NO TALK TO ME? It's because you don't sound like a flirty, fun having guy, you sound like a sexual predator.

I still wish she was willing to converse in a longer form. I understand her analogy, but I cannot for the life of me recall a single incidence that seems anything like that scenario. I looked back over one month's tweets and didn't find an example.

I’m still uncertain about how an open Twitter conversation becomes a private event I’m eavesdropping on. As I said, I’m mimicking what I’ve seen. Plenty of conversations start back & forth between 2 people, and then a 3^rd or 4^th join in and you see tweets running out of space because of all the twitter handles included to keep everyone in.

As I tweeted in response to another question: Because we're all screaming in the parking lot, it is easy for someone (especially me) to butt in where they're not wanted.

I don’t remember ever being the first to bring sexual innuendo into a conversation. I still don’t know why some people took my messages as creepy. 

Here’s what I learned that day and what I decided to do about it:
Some people use Twitter for professional connections. Others chat like they're hanging at the corner bar chatting with the guys. I've been both. I want to continue to be both, but I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by my actions. So I split into two accounts. One for just Librarians; a professional account for professional conversations. The other for everyone in which I’m free to make jokes with a sexual aspect if I want to. 

Please highlight that aspect. I’m here to joke. That’s my personality. . I like to chat, banter, & party, but it isn't right for everyone and it isn't right with everyone. I do answer serious questions with serious answers, but I also love to joke around. If I can make a smart-alec, sarcastic response, I will.

I thank those who responded with direct concrete answers and I apologize to everyone I may have offended. It was purely unintentional. 

I really wish this had been handled before it got out of control. I wish someone had responded to one of those tweets with “I really don’t think that is an appropriate response to this conversation.” I got plenty of feedback in the line of LoL or ;-), or HaHa. Priceless. Responses that told me the joke had worked. As a comic, I can tell when the audience is going against me and I can change the direction. On Twitter, I only ever got positive response not negative. Communicating with people is the only way to learn. I hope should this come up for you, you'll share your point of view. Everyone won't listen, but those that do will learn something about themselves.

I’ve been appropriately chastised and I have changed my direction. I will be more sensitive in the future and resist the urge to respond immediately with a joke unless I’m 100% sure that it will be appreciated.

I wish anyone that can explain why I was taken as creepy could provide a concrete example. Also because this post won’t be seen by the people that I really need to apologize, I’d like you to advertize it widely.

Apologies again to anyone I may have offended. I assure you it was not my intention.

My History with eBooks

I’ve been in a lot of Twitter discussions on eBooks, but I have a history with eBooks that simply doesn’t fit in 140 characters. Every book I’ve read for pleasure since 1999 has been read in a digital form. It started when I bought a Handspring Visor in 1999. For those unfamiliar, it was a Palm operating system handheld device like the Palm Pilot, but not as expensive. There weren’t many places (if any) to buy eBooks back then, but there were newsgroups dedicated to digitizing books. Groups like alt.rec.books, alt.rec.e-book, etc. There was also software like Newsbot that would download the files from the newsgroup and put all of the parts together into a book. Files came in lots of different formats, but there were converters and eReader programs that could handle them. My preferred reader was iSilo (still available at http://www.isilo.com/) 

I built up quite a large library. I had so many files that I could never keep up with weeding the duplicate copies of the same works. They did come in very handy for answering questions on the Stumpers listserv. I can remember a question about the first Bond book to use “Bond, James Bond” including a request for citation of page number. I searched all of the Bond books and found it. I quoted the section, but had to say it is on a page 37% into the book, since I didn’t have any page numbers. Someone got the book, saw 697 pages, did the math, turned to the page and was able to give a definite citation with page number.

There was another Stumpers question that I answered with a quote from my eBook, but one of the names was misspelled. Someone on the listserv responded with ‘that’s a horrible typo for a commercial product’ and I said, “Who said it was a commercial product?” 

That’s the part that will probably upset the most readers. These were books that were still in copyright that someone was scanning and OCRing. Just like folks were doing for Project Gutenberg, they were scanning their own books and posting them anonymously to newsgroups. 

The rest of the history is a little fuzzier. I know I eventually moved on to a Dell Axim which was a Windows Mobile OS handheld. The screen was better and in full color, but the reader and book source was still the same. Then came the iPhone and for the first time I was able to merge my handheld with my cell phone. At the same time, Nook and Kindle apps made buying eBooks a reasonable, efficient, & cheep option.

I’m still looking for a Library based lending service for eBooks that is simple and easy with lots of digital books. I’ve looked at Overdrive through the Maryland Library System, but the selection just isn’t there yet. I now have both an iPhone (version 4 at this writing) and an iPad (version 1). (We bought my wife the iPad 2 and I got the old version 1 as a hand me down.) I use the iPad only at home since it is wifi only, not 3G. I do love features in readers like Nook that open the book to the page I last read even when I change device. I always wondered why that was pushed as a feature, until I became someone that changes devices. I just didn’t think there were that many people doing that.

So now you know why I say I’m an expert eBook reader and incidentally some of the backstory of how we all got to be here today. I apologize to any author who didn’t get paid for the books I read. I would have paid you, but the means weren’t there.

Can't we compromise anymore?

I am 50 yrs old, an Air Force veteran, a Government employee and registered as a Republican. If it was an option, that might be Tea Party. Many of you have just decided not to read the rest of this post, and that is the root of the problem.

My parents were Democrats and I declared myself as a Democrat until I got out of the Air Force. I changed because I kept seeing the Dems throw money at a problem, while the Reps seemed to have realistic solutions. I realize you and I may not see things the same way. That's OK with me; is it OK with you???

My Brother-in-Law teaches High School Civics in VA. He was one of the Electors (i.e. on the College of Electors) in the last presidential election. He admits to being a Yellow Dog Democrat. Defined as: If the Democratic Party put a yellow dog on the ballot, I would vote for it. 

I don't talk politics with that BiL because it doesn't matter. His mind is already made up, so any discussion can only fail. He's 60 and beyond changing. I recognize that, he recognizes that, and it is OK.

What about you? Is your mind still open to the possibilities? It seems to me that too many of our elected officials do not have open minds anymore. They are stuck toeing the party line and yes, they would vote for that yellow dog if that’s their party’s candidate. Unfortunately, we all suffer for their closed mindedness.

The recent problems with debt management had less to do with the conflict between increasing revenue vs. increasing the national debt and more to do with the inability to compromise. S&P didn’t lower our bond rating because we’re 15 trillion dollars in debt. They’re OK with that as long as we’re still paying our debts. The problem was the inability of Congress to resolve the discussion and actually agree to an answer.

Somehow the rest of us adults have identified compromise as a necessary component of human interaction. 
“What are we doing for dinner?” 
“I’m in the mood for Chinese.” 
“I was thinking about Italian.” 
“OK, let’s do Italian tonight and we’ll do Chinese tomorrow.”


What is wrong with Congress that they haven’t figured this out?