My Reddit Mistake

This past week, for the first time ever, I was called a spammer (cue dramatic music).

This made me sad, but it happened on Reddit, the social news website, which I had minimal experience with, so I instantly knew it was all my fault. Although I had no intentions of ever spamming anyone and I thought what I was doing was basic blogger practice, it was clear that I had made a mistake. This led to one big question:

What did I do wrong?

The short answer to this question is "Everything!!" but I can slim it down to two biggie mistakes that led me down this path. Here they are:

Mistake #1:
I Used Reddit As A Submitter Before A Reader 

Most of my social media use has started since I starting blogging, not before. I had never even heard of Reddit before I started blogging, and I didn't start using it until, one day it showed up in my traffic stats. Back in March 2011, I wrote a blog post about a non-profit grant opportunity here on Rivera Runs Through It. I was hoping to share the post with IHRF (the foundation for my rare disease) and other people who have IIH. Well, someone submitted it to Reddit. It remains, until this day, as the most popular post on this blog. I needed to know what Reddit was, so I followed the link in my traffic stats to find out.

The link took me to a page that asked me to sign up and asked me if I wanted to submit anything. I saw the power of this tool and I decided to save up only my best posts for this guy (to be honest with you, the speed with which that first post rocketed, scared the heck out of me!). A couple of times I went into the Reddit site directly to try to use it, but, with my inexperience, it overwhelmed me. 

Mistake #2:
I Used Reddit Just Like it Was StumbleUpon

All social media sites are not created equal. I know this. I swear I do... but the submission process felt  so similar! Those of you not new to Rivera Runs Through It, you know that I am a StumbleUpon gal - I know it, I love it, I use it regularly (maybe too regularly!), so, when I submitted my first link to Reddit, the process felt very similar and something I was quite comfortable with. Here is the StumbleUpon process:

1. When deciding I want SU to know I like something I found on the web, I click my thumbs up "I like it!" button
2. If no one else has ever done so (happens to me quite often), then I am asked to write a REVIEW for the site if I would like to, so other "stumblers" can see why they might like it.
3. I go on with the rest of my life. 

When I submitted a link to Reddit, I was asked first about the title and what part of Reddit I would like to submit it to, and then I was asked to write a comment if I would like to. I mistakenly interpreted this "comment" request to be the same as the "review" request and would often write it as a teaser or a "selling point" so people could see why they might want to read this post! Had I not made mistake #1 (above), this would have never ever happened.

 What have I learned?

You must know that the teacher's soul inside of me was, in fact, quite excited that I made a mistake, because without it I would not have been able to actually, finally learn about Reddit! I have decided in just the one weekend of playing since "the incident" that Reddit Rocks!!

Reddit is a community! The "comments" that I misinterpreted as reviews are actually (brace yourself people...) comments in order to engage in a discussion about the link with other "redditors." I love this! There is a main page of Reddit that has the top leading links from all of reddit, but there are also separate sections of Reddit for just plain old "funny" links or "food" links or "world news", or, honestly, almost anything you can imagine (I even found a MATH group of redditors!!!).

I am concerned I have created a whole new addiction for myself (the iPhone app has already been downloaded), but I think I have also found a fun new way to find out what's going on on the Internet. I think you should check it out to (if you haven't already), but you should do so in the right order! Go in and USE Reddit; become a redditor, join the conversations, begin some conversations and just have some fun! I highly recommend it.

Have you used Reddit before? 

Are you already a Redditor?

Have you ever misused a social media/media sharing site before?

Reddit alien image credits:
Reddit help
BloggingExperiment.com
~Lord-scarab
Reddit submission by danwin

What if I had to KEEP all of my own trash?

On December 26, 2010 we were hit with an amazing blizzard here in Staten Island. Snow came in from every direction. The winds howled, siding blew off my house, our cars were buried, the roads were blocked and my garbage was not picked up.

I understood, I mean New Jersey had declared a state of emergency, who was I to complain about garbage? It's just that it was the day after Christmas. Our trash cans were overflowing. There was wrapping paper, bows, boxes, discarded parts of assembly for Christmas toys, scraps of food from our feast, and all of the stuff from the preparation of that feast. There was no room for more garbage in any of our cans... and there was no talk of sanitation from the NYC officials as they worked overtime just to get emergency vehicles and mass transit back up and running.

I had to keep my trash. So did everyone else. And then we all kept adding to it.

I had already been thinking a lot about how to lead a less wasteful life, how to be kinder to my Mother Earth, but this situation made me realize how fast our trash builds up. I started to think about and learn new ways to slow this all down.

Here are some of the things we can all do to reduce our trash:

1. Composting. I started this in March when I challenged myself and others to "Do Something" for the entire moth of March thanks to "Do Something Day" March 4th. This is the easiest thing to do if you have a backyard, and is even possible if you live in an apartment (I was surprised by this!). Even if you don't want to keep your own compost, there are plenty of farmers' markets and community organizations looking for contributions of food scraps for their own compost heap - see if you can find one!
2. Donating. I actually have a pickup scheduled for tomorrow. This is just about the best feeling ever! Knowing that your stuff may get a second life with new owners? Awesome. Here in the US, I call the Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK) if I have a furniture donation and I go to www.vva.org if I have household items or clothing to donate.
3. Yard Sales. Yes, these are a big pain in the butt, however, you would be surprised how much of that stuff you were just going to throw away, someone else is willing to pay for! Reduce your prices as the day goes on, remember - you were going to throw this stuff away, so , really, who cares if you give it away by sundown?? 
4. Go Retro. Enough with these new-fangled cleaning items like the "Swiffer" or those handy-dandy "clorox wipes" - have you ever thought about how much extra trash that causes? Why not switch back to a mop that you can wash and reuse, and cleaning rags that have the same fabulous feature?!
5. Shopping & Packaging.  First, let's think about food shopping: composting can take care of the food scraps, but what about packaging? Un-packaged food is better for you and the planet. I spend nearly all winter blogging about healthier food choices on the Searching for Sustenance blog. In terms of all of our shopping - what bags are we using, what packaging are we accepting from distributors, in short, how much trash are we actually paying for?

My husband and I talked about this after going on a mini shopping spree at some outlet stores. I asked him (as we were both bagged down with new purchases), "Now, really... how would this have gone differently if we had to keep our own trash?"  We agreed we would have brought or bought reusable bags for the trip. We also said we would have made a stink in each of the stores about all of the labels all over the clothing and the use of plastic that had no chance of ever biodegrading.

And then I thought about it for a moment...

Why aren't we doing that?

Let's face it, we already all keep our own trash. It just might not be in our own backyard (YET).

Here's the deal - I grew up next to a full-blown New York City landfill. For a large part of my life I felt like my garbage was being stored in my backyard. Now I just feel horrible that it's being shipped off to someone else's! I've always heard of the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, but it is one thing to know it and to live it. Those three Rs are in exactly the right order of preference, so if you're doing them backwards (like I tend to do), then you've got it all wrong.

First Priority: Reduce

Second Priority: Reuse

And if you still have stuff left over after that, THEN

Third Priority: Recycle

 

If you need some more convincing, or if you think it's not that big of a deal until it is in your backyard, then I invite you to do two things:

1. Check out Chris Jordan's fantastic photography with a message on his website and be sure to read the picture captions,and
2. see the Earth's Eighth Continent:

There's not much more I can add to that. That's our Earth... we are already keeping our trash. Let's do something about it!

This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted right here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented, and, if we so choose, we respond to the query. (If you have a What IF? question you would like to submit as a possible future prompt, please do so in the Rivera Runs Through It Community What If discussion.) This week's "What if?" was What if you had to KEEP all of your own trash? Follow this LINK to see what others had to say.

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

The following post is taken directly from one of my hand-printed Reader's Journal. I will be sharing these reflections each week on the Rivera Runs Through It blog. The date at the end of each post is the date of the original writing, which is typically the date I completed the book. The reflections are short, but represent my initial reactions to a book, a brief summary of the book or the questions it raised for me at the time. I hope you enjoy this segment in my blog and feel free to comment on what you read here.

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

An absolutely breath-taking novel. A very interesting read from the start since DeBernières explores a different writing style for each chapter - absolutely amazing! I needed a dictionary by DeBernières had such an excellent hold of the English language. The story is romantic, tragic and historically set on an island in Greece during WWII. Every character and story introduced was fully explored and has become real. Movie comes out tomorrow! I can't wait - although I know it can't ever reach these expectations!

Dated: 08/16/01

Do you enjoy reading books before their movie adaptation comes out, or waiting until after?
 How do you feel about books where you have to look up lots of words just to keep up with the story?

What if #2

This post is an invitation to you to think about the word in the middle of life: IF (L-IF-E). Each week the Rivera Runs Through It blog will present a different "What If...?" question for you to explore. Some will be serious, some will be silly, some might be political, religious or historical.

You can either write a response of your own, or just tune in to see what everyone else has to say about it. At the bottom of this post will be a place for you to link up your own post about the question, so feel free to share. If you have arrived at this post and the inlinkz tool is closed, or you don't have a blog, then please leave your response (or link) in the comment section below using DISQUS.

***If you have a What IF? question you would like to submit as a possible future prompt, please do so in the Rivera Runs Through It Community What If discussion.***

Happy pondering to everyone...

What IF #2:

What if you had to KEEP all of your trash?

Thanks to our respective sanitation departments, most of us get to bundle up all of our trash, toss it on the curb, in a dumpster, or down a shoot and never, ever worry about it ever again. As a native Staten Islander, born in the seventies and child of eighties and nineties, I think it is safe to say that I had a little more exposure to trash than the average citizen. You see, I live less than one mile from the Fresh Kills Landfill (now closed, thankfully) which was, at one time, the primary resting space of New York City's trash and once even laid claim to the title of "largest landfill on Earth."

Trash builds up quickly. It smells. It's messy. It attracts all types of animals. It doesn't always break down as quickly as we would like...

So what if the nice men and women in the sanitation trucks never came? (I happened to be visiting Naples, Italy on my honeymoon in the midst of a sanitation strike, so some readers may have a real life experience with this to refer back to while writing this.)What if there was no landfill? What if society decided the only way to fairly deal with trash was to make each citizen responsible for their own? How long would it take before you were overcome with trash?

For readers without a blog of their own, I'd love to see your response here in the comments section. If you have a blog, use the in linkz tool below to write your post and link it up!

My July in Review: Movies

This July was a HUGE movie month for me. It seemed to carry the bulk of the summer blockbuster films and, thanks to my discounted tickets from CostCo and membership in the Regal Crown club, I was lucky enough to see my movies without breaking the bank! I got so used to the fast pace of new, exciting movie releases that I think I am about to go through some withdrawal! Without any further adieu, I present you with my July movies, and my brief thoughts about them:

Transformers Dark of the Moon

I am a sucker for what my husband and I call the "summer blockbuster movie" - you know the one with lots of promos, lots of action, and, usually, a huge budget. I also am a huge fan of re-imaginations of the pop culture from my childhood. It is for this reason that the Transformers movie was high on my list of 'must-sees" for the summer. I had loved the first two Transformers films, so I entered the movie with high expectations of having a good time. A couple of days before going to the movie my husband and I had both (separately) found out that this movie was one of the few where 3D would actually be worth while, so we also decided to forgo the extra finds to see it that way. With the added cost, Transformers had just a little more to prove to me now.

As the movie began, in a scene in space, I was overjoyed that we had gone for the 3D version - it was beautiful! I really did love this movie. I thought rewriting the international race to the moon from the 1960s was a fun move. The effects and action throughout the movie were exhilarating - delivering what I was used to from the first two movies, and then going even further. The final battle scene in Chicago was amazing and, again, I do think the 3D was worthwhile. As it stands, right now this may be my favorite movie of this summer, competing only with the next movie I saw this month.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Oh! How I love my Harry! Not only had I been anticipating this movie since the last was made, I have been anticipating this movie sine the weekend of July 21, 2007, when I finished the book. My midnight ticket was purchased a month in advance and my t-shirt(s) and earrings were ready! I have already written two different posts about my experience going to see this movie and my reaction as a readers seeing the movie. I think, in the end, reading both of those, one might come away with the perspective that I did not like the movie. I was so stuck on the point of expressing my disappointment as a reader dealing with the holes in a movie interpretation, that I don't think I added enough about how much I enjoyed the movie.

The second part of the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows movie put a perfect end to the Potter film legacy. The characters have all grown up, become more independent and chosen their sides in a battle for their world. The effects, the creatures, the setting and even, at times, the music allow me to forget that this world doesn't exist and sweeps me away on a fantastic ride of adventure, horror and heroism. Of all of the movies I have seen this summer, I know this is the one which I will re-watch more than any of the others.

Captain America The First Avenger

Being married to a fully certified "comic book guy," it kind of went without saying that we would be at the opening night for this one. As we have been seeing each Avenger-associated movie so far with little to no disappointments it is safe to say our expectations were pretty high. I, personally, knew only of generalities of the Captain America story, so I went into this movie to learn about his origin as well as being entertained. My husband, on the other hand, was looking for entertainment, without too many insults to the original story.
We both came out of this movie very happy. This was a really good movie! When we first emerged from the theater we had mumblings of, "Yes, yes, I enjoyed it," and, "It was good." As we drove home, and talked in more depth about various story points and the technique used to incorporate the costume, the nemesis, and the character of Steve Rogers we discovered that Captain America The First Avenger was, in fact, a very good movie. We began to discuss how our expectations are getting completely blown out of the water with extravagant movies and TV shows and how, if we are not careful, we do not give credit to some truly deserving films!

Horrible Bosses

I think I was sold on this movie after seeing one preview. I have been lucky enough in life never to have had a horrible boss, but I knew, after seeing the all-star cast that this movie was going to be a laugh-riot! In a sea of special effects, 3D and elaborate tales of magic, aliens, and war, here was a plain-old movie about people. No effects needed - just great writing, timing and a ridiculous scenario where three average guys simply can't take it anymore.

It was really refreshing to go see a "normal" movie in the middle of all of the summer mayhem. I kept missing them this summer (I somehow completely missed Tom Hanks' movie!!) and forgot how much fun it is to see a genuinely good  movie in the theater. Due to the cost of movies these days we often make the decision  on what we should spend our money on by which of these "needs" a big screen - therefore given high-effects and 3D films a distinct advantage - forgetting that going to the theater is  not just about seeing  the movie, but experiencing it in the theater (who doesn't love a comedy with a crowd to laugh along with?!).

Cowboys & Aliens

Jon Favreau. That's it. That is the singular reason I went to see this movie. Don't get me wrong, I love Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig is not that bad either, but it was Jon Favreau, alone, that drew me into this film. You see, when I first saw Swingers and realized this guy had to do with some of the behind the scenes action (he wrote it), I was instantly curious. Then there was Elf, Zathura and Iron Man, all movies he directed that I loved. Next on his list? Some movie called Cowboys & Aliens. OK, I'll be there.

Then I went to the movie. It was OK. It wasn't horrible... it wasn't great, and it was missing something for me. It took me a little while to pin it down, but, ultimately I did. This was an OK alien movie - you know the kind: aliens are on Earth they want us, or the Earth; they've been attacking us without anyone realizing it; now that we've figured them out, we have to fight back... somehow. This movie was one of those movies, set in the Old West. When I initially heard the title "Cowboys & Aliens" I was intrigued because there is such a dichotomy between those two groups - cowboys are low tech, they live off the land and fight their battles face to face, in the dirt while aliens are typically high tech, living in space and usually fight their battles from a far away ship that shoots lasers or something else in very clean, sparse, sterile environments. I was expecting the polar opposites of these two groups to be explored. I was expecting to answer the question of "Who would win in a battle: cowboys or aliens?" But neither hope could be realized as one cowboy had the unfair advantage of some alien-tech attached to him arm. It never really was cowboys versus aliens, it was, instead, guy with alien-tech and his cowboy buddies versus aliens. With all of this said, I imagine this worked/works really well as a comic book, with tons of issues and time to explore both the cowboys and the aliens, but, as a one-shot movie, I felt it needed more.



There were so many movies released this July that even with seeing all of these, I still missed a whole bunch I wanted to see. I don't know if I'll see them all in the theater, but I'll keep trying. Looking forward to August releases, along it is not quite as jam-packed as July was, there are still lots of movies to keep me entertained!

What was your favorite July movie?

What movie did I miss that you need to tell me about?

What movie(s) are you looking forward to next?

Related Post:

• My June in Review: Movies