I recently came across this article that outlined an experiment performed by the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University.
In a nutshell, the participants were asked to watch something that mimiced loading of medical websites, and were asked questions about these sites. Thrown in for good measure were some fake popups, and the researchers were really only interested in how the participants would respond to these popups.
Now, I haven’t actually read the full experiment and its findings, so I can only go by what the article says. Apparently, the conclusion was that users are still clueless to popups because they’d click on them even when they’re fake. I’ll let you read the article yourself for the gory details.
I wonder whether the researchers considered the fact that people probably cared less about malware on public university computers, than their own. It’d be interesting to repeat the experiment, but the participants were required to view the websites on their own computer. Would they expect to see the same “idiocy” rate?
Wow I haven’t written in such a long time. Wedding stuff is going well, it’s funny how photography was the first thing we discussed! We’ve got the deposit down for the venues (St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in Parramatta, Regal Restaurant), the ‘all-important’ wedding gown (Maggie Sotero, it was on sale! $898 :D), pre-marital retreat, and I’m looking to finalise flowers, bombonniere, invites, bridesmaid dresses this month! Not to mention getting the gift registry done. It was a huge relief to find out the other day that Myer has FINALLY got their act together with the gift registry such that you don’t have to write down every single barcode manually anymore! Phew…
There have also been other things to prepare for such as for a place to live in. Hopefully when Keith’s work releases their hold on him he will have time to look into getting us a loan. But most importantly, these past few months have been a good time to think about marriage itself, and not just the wedding. The wedding is just one day and sure, it’s an important day but I believe that one should also prepare adequately for the challenges of marriage.
From doing the pre-marital marriage inventory, Keith and I have found that our ‘growth areas’ aka weaknesses are conflict resolution, communication and something else I can’t remember. It’s been really helpful to sit down and formally think through things with an older, wiser and impartial third party. I’m thankful to God that Keith and I have many strengths together: marriage expectations, relationship roles, spiritual beliefs and leisure activities. It’s going to be interesting in our next session discussing the contribution of our family of origin into our relationship.
Please pray for us as we prepare not just for our wedding, but also for a lifetime together of commitment, love and service to one another and to our Lord. Over the months God has really hit it home that I can do nothing apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. So please pray that we would love and follow Jesus and allow the richness of that to overflow into our love for one another.