How many PowerPoint slides have you presented?  How many statistics have you used (or abused)?

Recently, I received some fun suggestions from Jasmine Dyoco from EducatorLabs via the Feedback page on this site. Intrigued by some of the Space Travel posts on this blog, she suggested a number of great links to educational sites related to Space and science:

• Astronomy Books for Adults
• Aerospace History: the Space Shuttle
• The Moon: A Resource Guide
• The Exploratorium Observatory
• Online Physics Calculators

I was impressed by the Vision of EducatorLabs:

EducatorLabs is comprised of school librarians and media/market research specialists who work as curators and conservators of the scholastic web. In previous decades, our resource collections were finite and we knew our card catalog backwards and forwards; nowadays, modern technology provides us with a seemingly infinite inventory of educational resources. Unfortunately, there simply are no comprehensive card catalogs for the internet and, sadly, many untapped resources go undiscovered by most teachers.

Naturally, we feel compelled to bridge the gap. Our mission is to assist educators, for whom time is a precious commodity, in discovering valuable resources of substance for classroom use. We also seek to strengthen connections among the educational web by acting as courier: because of our high standards, our approach is grassroots and hands-on in nature.

As a father of six children, all of whom graduated from public schools in Mesa, AZ, I have deep respect for dedicated educators who go above and beyond their “job descriptions” to offer students outstanding educational experience. And now, as my grandchildren are growing up, I am so grateful for teachers and schools that are willing to go the extra mile to help young minds learn and grow and spread their wings of discovery!

Thank you, Jasmine!

Back in May, I wrote a couple of posts about Illicit Internet bots:

• Turing Test (Reversed)
• Bots Generate a Majority of Internet Traffic 

I recently read a short, but interesting report on “Scraping,” a process of using bots and similar tools to steal information. The Scraping Threat Report 2015  published by ScrapeSentry. This reports includes this definition:

Scraping (also known as web scraping, screen scraping or data scraping) is when large amounts of data from a web site is copied manually or with a script or program. Malicious scraping is the systematic theft of intellectual property in the form of data accessible on a web site.

This theft of intellectual property can be very damaging to businesses. If, for example, a scraper can download airline fares from a legitimate site through illicit means, the stolen data can be exploited to fuel unfair business practices.

Some interesting statistics:

• 17 % increase in scraping attacks in 2014
• 22 % of all site visitors are considered to be scrapers
• 49 % of the total scraping traffic originates from the US, but the ratio of total traffic to scraper traffic is worst from traffic originating in China.
• China accounts for 1.40 % of the total traffic but 17.13 % of the scraper traffic.
• Companies in the travel industry remain top targets for scrapers, closely followed by Online Directories and Online Classifieds.

• Amateur Scrapers: These scrapers utilize a small number of IP addresses and user agent strings, and are blatantly visible in traffic logs.
• Professional Scrapers: These scrapers are much more elusive, and usually redistribute what they scrape to other companies for a profit.
• Advanced Scrapers: These scrapers are extremely dedicated and have a wide range of IP addresses. They change their browsing tactics and user-agents moments after a block.

In short, if you are an Internet user, these scrapers are generating so much traffic that they are undoubtedly impacting the performance of websites you visit. If you are website operator and your website contains any type of information that could exploited for nefarious purposes, scrapers probably have already penetrated your defenses or at least have you in their bomb sights.

Submitting expense reports is one of the seemingly never-ending exercises I have had to endure in over three decades of professional travel. But last week I saw a copy of the coolest travel expense report I have ever seen.

Col. Buzz Aldrin submitted an expense report requesting reimbursement for $33.31 to cover personal expenses for his Apollo 11 trip to the moon!

Enjoy!