I was going to do a post on ants, really. They have been everywhere this year, as have rabbits and skunks. Hmm maybe the skunks are because there are a lot of ants. But that isn’t what I am going to talk about.

The Globe and Mail this morning had an interesting article by Benjamin Perrin –  “I tweeted about Harper. Then the Twitter bots attacked”. The gist of the article is that bots were used to attack him for a tweet, a quite mild tweet, he did. My first reaction is that once more the dark side of the internet had made itself known. But I, trying to be an informed reader, looked up about bots and realised that, as usual with the internet, bots can be both benign and nasty. http://qz.com/572763/the-best-twitter-bots-of-2015/ has a list of twitter bots which sound really interesting and funny. They are so innocuous and yet lighthearted and fun that I am tempted to follow one or two of them. Perrin’s point, though, is well made. There are bots out there which people can use to indiscriminately attack any one, either through personal targeted abuse or based on keywords the user has selected. As with anything, it is the user which makes something bad and can ruin it for others. (This of course is an opportunity to mutter about guns and how stupid it is not to have some control on them because there are people out there who ought not to have them, BUT I would then be digressing).

When Perrin informed Twitter, they reacted appropriately, ‘vapourising the tweets’.  This form of cyber bullying is not just about twitter, or Facebook or Instagram, it will happen wherever people congregate.  Anonymity on the internet makes it easier for the bully to swagger his/her way through someone else’s life. Perrin’s point about the victim of the attack may not be someone who can discern that it is an automated attack and the world is not attacking them, only a few, count 1, nasty person, is important. There have been a few high profile cases of teenage suicide because of cyber bullying. Which means we really need to teach everyone, children and adults, how to be informed, sceptical users of everything internet based. That will make it harder for that nasty underbelly of the internet to be effective, not impossible, just more difficult.

We’ve been away for a few weeks. The middle daughter graduated with a PhD in psychology and my husband,  her youngest sister and me went to the ceremony. Her older sister, unfortunately, had to work (or fortunately as she is employed).  The middle daughter has been attending Swansea University in Wales so we went to Edinburgh before the ceremony. Well, we landed in Edinburgh and then went south. Our intent was to get to Vindalanda and Hadrians Wall. What was supposed to be a 2 hour trip took a day. Not because there was a problem but because we were fluted off the highway to look at a bridge – not just any bridge but 3 bridges one next to the other – a 19th century bridge, a 18th (or it might have been a 17th) century bridge and a 20th century bridge.

A roman fort also was at this spot and there was a bridge across the river at that time as well. There was also a ford near here. There is no need for bridges or fords unless people need to cross. What was here that people wanted? Was it just a way point to someplace else? I look around and all I see are fields. It probably hasn’t changed much since the Romans built an amphitheatre overlooking this river and people are still crossing this river.

Going where? Coming from where?

The more things change, the more they remain the same.