substitute

Seattle residents: Please blow up KING-TV and everyone quoted in this article. Thanks. Courtesy do_not_lick:

The secret online code that keeps parents in the dark

10:50 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 10, 2006

LORI MATSUKAWA / KING 5 News

Sixteen-year-old Niles Jeran uses “leet speak,” an online lingo system that’s popular with kids. His friends use it too.

"I can see why parents would be worried just because it could, it can lead to danger," he said.

“LOL” for “laughing out loud” and “TTYL” for “talk to ya later” sound innocent enough, but if you look behind some other acronyms, there could be something sinister.

"I can see why parents would be worried just because it could, it can lead to danger," said Jeran.

Here's why they're worried:

- “KPC“ means “keeping parents clueless.”

- “POS” means “parent over the shoulder.”

- “GYPO” means “get your pants off.”

- "TDTM" means “talk dirty to me.”

"If you see that on your child's screen they're talking to somebody they shouldn't be," said Al Kush of Seattle-based WiredSafety.org, an Internet safety Web site for parents and teens.
Resources

Wiredsafety.org

Teenangels.org

NetLingo Internet dictionary

NoSlang.com

Parentsedge.com

He says some leet speak is harmless, but some like TDTM is a red flag.

"That could be the first step towards blackmailing to get a kid to perform sex acts,” he said.

"NIFOC is one of the terms they will sometimes use and it means ‘naked in front of computer,’" said Kush.

And leet speak gets even sneakier. Some words replace letters with numbers and symbols.

"There are too many predators out there that could endanger their kids' lives or could sexualize them too early by sending unwanted messages and pictures and things like that and Leet speak is just a gateway to all of that,” said family therapist Barbara Melton.

Some counselors even specialize in internet issues like this.

Susan Shankle counseled one family whose young daughter started a steamy online affair right in front of them.

"While the mom was cooking dinner and the dad was watching television, the daughter, who was 11 at the time, was carrying on this conversation with this older man," she said.

And her parents constantly checked the messages, too.

There is a way to learn the lingo, and that’s by going online yourself. There are Web sites with online dictionaries and translators to help, like Teenangels.org or Netlingo.com.

Wiredsafety.org operates the Teenangels.org site. There, they offer a chat translator to help parents learn the lingo.

Wiredsafety says some parental control software may also help.

http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/news/bended-enzo-roundup-156178.php

To summarize:

1. Don't drive drunk.
   
   
2. Don't drive 150 mph on PCH.
   
   
3. Particularly, do not drive your $1 million Ferrari Enzo drunk on PCH, although that derives from 1 and 2 above.
   
   
4. When you are the registered owner of the car which you have crashed drunk at 150 mph, it does not do any good to switch seats and say the driver ran away. This is especially true if you are the registered owner of the vehicle and your blood is all over the airbag.
   
   
5. Do not be a current or former exec of Gizmondo, even if you have not made any of the above mistakes.

Suspicious lamp prompts evacuation
A Huntington Beach homeowner saw the object in a garage.

By RYAN HAMMILL
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH — A report of a suspicious lamp in a garage led to a neighborhood evacaution today before the Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad determined that the object was harmless.

A Mangrum Drive homeowner called Huntinton Beach police about 3 p.m. after seeing wires protruding from the base and an unfamiliar light bulb, Sgt. Dave Bunetta said.

Police officers visually inspected the lamp before calling the bomb squad and the Huntington Beach Fire Department’s hazardous material unit, Bunetta said.

Residents within 300 feet of the house were evacuated for about 3½ hours during the investigation.

The house is next door to a home day care, which also was evacuated, and two blocks from Marina High School.