Urban myths

Out there on the net, there are a number of stories going around, usually about why something or other is the way it is. An example is an e-mail I got recently, containing a story which says that railroad track gauge in the U. S. is what it is because Americans borrowed it from the British who got it from....and they got it from.... and eventually, we end up with the track width of Roman chariots, which were as wide as the combined backsides of two Roman horses hitched together. In other words, our trains run on tracks that are as wide as two horses' a(....)s. Well, lately when I get these things, I go directly to snopes.com, a website that has people who do research and try to find out if these stories are true.
Highly recommended.

This story is not true, as best snopes.com could find out.

If somebody sent you the one about the pictures of Pearl Harbor found just recently in a Brownie camera that had not been opened since 1941, well, that one is not true, either. Too good to be true, actually. The pictures came from U. S. Navy archives, and had been published before they started making the rounds of the internet.

FYI- another urban myth is that Snopes is an investigative resource with no political affiliation/stance and is made up of a staff of experienced investigators that can be trusted. Fact is Snopes is s husband and wife team that filters "truth" through their own strongly nnalert views and accepts submissions of truth from a variety of unvetted sources as long as it agrees with their understanding of things.

They can be trusted about as far as Wikipedia.

Bingo!

There are other much more reliable fact checking sites on the internet.

Dean

snoops can be trusted about as far as a politician or lawyer can.

Name one.

And they are???

Surely you'll clue us in.

Paul

I"m not commenting on the RR track story, but the Pearl Harbor box camera story is a myth. I used to have a U.S. Navy photo publication which showed several of the photographs claimed to be never seen before. I also don"t have much faith in SNOPES.
C.L.

(quoted from post at 10:02:40 02/20/11) FYI- another urban myth is that Snopes is an investigative resource with no political affiliation/stance and is made up of a staff of experienced investigators that can be trusted. Fact is Snopes is s husband and wife team that filters "truth" through their own strongly nnalert views and accepts submissions of truth from a variety of unvetted sources as long as it agrees with their understanding of things.

They can be trusted about as far as Wikipedia.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Here's one Spook.

Click the Search block at the top.
Poke here

Snoops and politicians are one and the same. Snoops is made up of a bunch of democratic activist.
Frank

This was sent to me, maybe some of the computer guru's can tell if it is true or not

E-Mail Tracker Programs -- very interesting and a must read!

The man that sent this information is a computer tech. He spends a lot of time clearing the junk off computers for people and listens to complaints about speed. All forwards are not bad, just some. Be sure you read the very last paragraph.
_________________________________________
He wrote:


VERY IMPORTANT!!
1) Any time you see an email that says "forward this on to "10" (or however many) of your friends", "sign this petition", or "you"ll get bad luck" or "you"ll get good luck" or "you"ll see something funny on your screen after you send it" or whatever --- it almost always has an email tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and emails of those folks you forward to. The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of "active" email addresses to use in SPAM emails or sell to other spammers. Even when you get emails that demand you send the email on if you"re not ashamed of God/Jesus --- that is email tracking, and they are playing on our conscience. These people don"t care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them. Also, emails that talk about a missing child or a child with an incurable disease "how would you feel if that was your child" --- email tracking. Ignore them and don"t participate!


2) Almost all emails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of email is, is a way to get names and "cookie" tracking information for telemarketers and spammers -- to validate active email accounts for their own profitable purposes.


You can do your Friends and Family members a GREAT favor by sending this information to them. You will be providing a service to your friends. And you will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam emails in the future!

Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listing regardless how inviting they might sound! Or make you feel guilty if you don"t! It"s all about getting email addresses and nothing more.


You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT!


Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later and very possibly a virus attached! Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let"s not make it easy for them!

ALSO: Email petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress of any other organization - i.e. social security, etc. To be acceptable, petitions must have a "signed signature" and full address of the person signing the petition, so this is a waste of time and you are just helping the email trackers.

That is simply a propaganda site.

You want urban myths? How about throwing rice at weddings will cause birds to explode. Then there's cow tipping,Y2K,global warming.........

I don't know where all my sister goes on the 'Net, and I don't need to. She's an independent widow, so she can do what ever the heck she wants to.

However, on a average I get about a half dozen per week of those emails from her, the kind that promise all sorts of negativity in your life if you don't immediately forward them to 20 people within 10 seconds.

I automatically delete them and forget about them. The down side is, some of them contain so many animations and other junk they take forever to download, even with wireless Internet, and bolix up access to legit emails.

Fact or fiction.

My favorite snopes picture is in the link, below. Warning, not for the faint of heart, or weak minded, it is a particularly gruesome proof that crime does not pay:
open at your own risk

Breakthechain.org is another site...