Author and Lecturer
A picture of me with a friend at the Word Bookstore book signing. I also read a chapter from my novel, The Counterfeit Detective, and gave a powerpoint presentation entitled: “Trademark Counterfeiting as a ‘Victimless’ crime.” I was very happy to come to this beautiful bookstore, located at 123 Newark Avenue in Jersey City. Stephen King will be coming to this bookstore in June.
I’ll be giving a presentation and doing a book signing at the Word Bookstore, located at 123 Newark Street in Jersey City, New Jersey on Wednesday, March 23rd, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
As a follow-up to my last blog on counterfeit pesticides, I suspect that counterfeits contain insecticides that have been banned, like DDT which is non-biodegradable and can wind up in the drinking water, endanger wildlife, and other serious threats. DDT was once touted as a miracle insecticide that was good for farms and the general population. Spraying was widespread, until the book Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson in 1962, exposed the dangers of DDT. Check out the Youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipbc-6IvMQI
Europol, the European Union’s police office, executed a large seizure of counterfeit pesticides in December, 2015. The operation was code named Operation Silver Axe and led to the seizure of 190 tons of illegal and counterfeit pesticides. Most of the counterfeit pesticides in the European Union are imported and account for a problem that is believed to be as high as 10% of the pesticides used in the EU.
The following link to the European Crop Protection Association(ECPA) is informative and has two videos of interest.
http://www.ecpa.eu/page/counterfeit-pesticides
“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.”
The above is included in the ‘fine print’ in the Samsung Internet SmartTV’s privacy policy. The SmartTV uses voice recognition to change channels, turn up the volume, and other cool stuff. However, users have expressed a concern about an invasion of privacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHGOEkAJsKM
But, truthfully, what sort of content is being picked up by Samsung? “Time to take out the garbage” . . . . “What’s for dinner?” That’s probably one reason why the concern over privacy has not snowballed into a legal attack. Also, most people don’t read the privacy policy statement. However, stay tuned to see what the future brings . . .