You would think they'd stop before they'd send away $25,000 or more, but...

The problem, once you've fallen for the Nigerian scammers, is that it can be hard to admit you've been scammed and have lost money. You can either admit that and realize you were an idiot, or keep believing that this $1,000 you're sending will finally unlock those millions that are "obviously" coming your way. The deeper these people fall for these scams, the harder it can be to admit that it was a scam and that there never were millions coming to you. So they keep going deeper and deeper in the vain hope that they will finally reach their payday.

They called my father and he almost fell for it. He got wise and called me when they said they were going to have him install software so they could remote in. He had just enough sense to know NOT to do that without asking me. He had told me a similar thing. It sounded fishy, but he was having trouble with Microsoft Office and so thought maybe this was related to it. When my response was "Hang up!", he actually argued with me "But what if they are legitimate?" Finally, he accepted that it was a scam and hung up. Luckily, he's not the type to fall for something twice so when they called him back, all they got from him was a verbal tirade from him followed by a hang-up.

Now my wife's grandmother is another story. No matter how many times we tell her "don't do X", she keeps falling for this stuff.

We use Google Voice for our "home" phone number. When a call comes in, it rings our phones and we have the option to answer or send it to voicemail (where we can listen in and answer at any point). The exception to this is that we can mark a number as "spam." If we do this, they get a "This number is no longer in service" message and our phone doesn't ring. Double benefit in that we don't get harassed by them and they might just take us off their list for having a non-working number.

My boys will often fight (as siblings do). They're not subtle, but one kid will sometimes do something that annoys the other. The second retaliates with a punch or a kick which I see. The second gets in trouble while the first might get off. I don't punish based on "he did X and that's why I hit him" because that's just an open license to have one kid punch the other kid and then make up a reason to get the other kid in trouble. I'll always tell the puncher/kicker, "if you came to me to let me know what he did, he would have gotten in trouble. Instead, by doing this, you're the one in trouble."

My hope is that my boys learn this lesson before they grow up. If they do, they'll be ahead of this guy (assuming he was harassed).

If he spent 10 years doing this, had a mysterious change of heart, and apologized it would be one thing.

Spending 10 years doing this and apologizing once you've been arrested and are facing charges, though, is something entirely different.

I get this feeling when you hear about those kids who were bullied until they snapped and went on a killing spree. I was tormented all through high school (before that too, but by a different group of people). One of the things they would do is arrive at my class before me and block the door to the classroom. They weren't in my class and they'd let everyone else through, but when I tried to get in, they'd close ranks so I couldn't get by as they hurled insults. One day, I literally saw red. And I'm not (mis)using "literally" in the "I don't mean 'literally' but I want to emphasize my point" sense. Everything turned a shade of red and I found myself focusing on the nearest of the bullies. Luckily, at that moment, my teacher arrived and broke up the bullies, thus letting me into the class.

That said, though I wished them ill fortune - I imagined going to our reunion to find their lives were miserable and mine was awesome - I never took any active revenge. (I didn't even go to my high school reunion as I realized just how little I cared about even seeing them. They just don't matter to me - even enough to hope they're doing poorly.)

He said he was sorry only after he was caught and brought up on charges. This is basically "death bed confession sorry" where you do a bunch of bad things, say you're sorry at the end, and assume that you're now fine. My young kids try this all the time ("You hit your brother." "Sorry! Now give me another chance?") and it doesn't work for them. They have the excuse that they're kids (who tend to test the limits of acceptable behavior in an attempt to see what they can and can't do). He has no such excuse.

I'd add frozen veggies into there too. They have all of the advantages of fresh with a lower risk of spoilage.

Canned veggies, though, should be your last resort. Only use those when no other veggies are available.

You're not reading research. You're reading news articles. There are unscrupulous "journalists" out there that spend all day scanning research journals for studies they can turn into shocking stories to get clicks.

Journalists are at fault, but they're not the only ones. See PHD Comics.

The research might have said "people who wear tight pants have a 1.2% greater risk of cancer given this study and these error parameters." After the study passed through the various layers of reporting, though, it turned into JEANS CAUSE CANCER!!!!!

I seem to cause high blood pressure in my wife. Especially when I have my blood pressure taken and it is insanely low. I have the blood pressure of a marathon runner. Not the rest of the body, mind you. Just the blood pressure.

A contract is one thing, having a line buried in your website's Terms of Use that states "By using this website you agree to not post any bad reviews about us anywhere" is another thing. In the case of the former, it's an agreement entered into by two parties where both had the opportunity to review the terms of the contract. In the case of the latter, it is a weak attempt to silence disgruntled customers. (See the KlearGear case posted above.)

This lead me to wonder what the term would be for people who post bad reviews of a company/product for the purposes of helping that company/product's competitor. For example, if LG paid people to post horrible reviews about the new Samsung phone. Obviously, they are not shills, but there doesn't seem to be an exact term for these people.

This Wikipedia section discusses it and they suggest either "false flag" (though that's more military-related) or "straw man." In the case of the latter, it references misrepresenting an opponent's argument, easily refuting the misrepresented argument, and then using that to "prove" you are right. These fake bad reviews allow you to misrepresent how good a competitor's product/service is, thus "proving" that yours is better.

Does anyone know if there actually is a term that I just didn't find in my admittedly quick Googling?

A lot of times, I find bad reviews to be uninformative. You often get a mix of people who don't seem able to articulate WHY they are giving a bad review, just that it is bad ("WORST. ITEM. EVAH!!!111!!!!") and people who refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for poor performance being due to their own mistakes (e.g. a product that says it requires X with a 1 star review that says "After ordering this product, I tried for 2 HOURS to get it to work. Finally, I called Customer Service and they said it needs X to work. What a scam!!!").

I tend to find the overall pattern of reviews more informative. If 85% of the reviews are 4 or 5 stars, 10% are 3 stars, and 5% are 1 or 2 stars, then the product is likely to be good. If 50% are 4 or 5 stars, 20% are 3 stars, and 30% are 1 or 2 stars, I'd shy away from buying the product.

I was tempted into doing this a couple of times. (Stopped at a red light. Hear a notification come in. Think "well, I'm stopped, I can check it.") The times I did it, I felt extremely unsafe. Now, I have a pattern lock on my phone. Not only is it increased security from "swipe to open", but it makes it much harder to casually try to open your phone while stopped at a light. The increased difficulty in checking the messages helps reduce the temptation and makes it less likely that I'll listen to the "you can do it this time and still be safe" voice in my head.

What I don't understand is the violent response some people have. Either actual (Person wearing Google Glass has them ripped off their face) or online comments ("If I ever see someone with Google Glass, I'll punch them in the face!"). Replace "Google Glass" with "Smartphone in a shirt pocket" and it would seem totally ridiculous. (e.g. Punching someone because they have a smartphone in their shirt pocket.) However, some people seem to think that, once Google Glass is involved, all social conventions go out the window.