Map lovers have a new treasure trove of international maps to look through, thanks to the CIA. The agency just released an archive of its formerly classified intelligence maps dating back to the 1940s, as National Geographic reports.
The maps—organized by decade on the CIA Cartography Center’s Flickr—chart international conflicts from a U.S. intelligence perspective, covering topics important to high-level government officials at the time, including maps of German dialects and the Russian front during World War II, missile activity in Cuba just a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, and Baghdad in 2003.
“The mission of the Cartography Center is to provide a full range of maps, geographic analysis, and research in support of the Agency, the White House, senior policymakers, and the [Intelligence Community] at large,” the center explains on its Flickr page. “Since 1941, the Cartography Center maps have told the stories of post-WWII reconstruction, the Suez crisis, the Cuban Missile crisis, the Falklands War, and many other important events in history.”
White House photo by Eric Draper
The release is a celebration of the Cartography Center’s 75th birthday. The albums also feature a few photos of presidents being briefed by intelligence officials using the maps, like a map of Afghanistan used to brief President George W. Bush at Camp David in 2001 after the September 11 attacks.
Holiday shopping season is in full swing, and not surprisingly, Amazon.com is a popular destination. But if you’re one of the millions of people to recently order an item from the e-commerce giant (or you’re still browsing around for present ideas), be aware of a sneaky new phishing scam. As Inc. reports, both Amazon Prime members and regular customers have reported receiving fake (yet very official-looking) emails that appear to come from Amazon asking them to re-enter their credit card information.
The email’s subject line says, “Your Amazon.com order cannot be shipped.” According to AARP’s blog, the full message reads:
Hello,There was a problem processing your order. You will not be able to access your account or place orders with us until we confirm your information.click here to confirm your account. We ask that you not open new accounts as any order you place may be delayed.
For more details, read our Amazon Prime Terms & Conditions.
Recipients who follow the email’s instructions and click on the link are taken to a convincing “Amazon” page. There, they are invited to input their names, address, and credit card info (including the expiration and CVV security code). Once they hit Save & Continue, they’re automatically guided to the real Amazon website.
Hopefully you’re now on high-alert, and you won’t fall for this scheme. But, as AARP reminds us, you should never click on an embedded link in an email from Amazon (or, for that matter, any other company). Instead, check to see whether the items mentioned in the email are ones you’ve actually purchased (you can head to Amazon’s “Your Orders” section to jog your memory if need be), be suspicious of typos and spelling mistakes, and hover your cursor over any URLs provided and the sender’s email address to take a close look—phishing scams will notoriously use URLs similar to the real deal.
If you do recognize an Amazon email as fake, don’t just ignore it. The New York Times recommends reporting to them by forwarding the whole message as an attachment to stop-spoofing@amazon.com. And since phishing schemes are likely to continue (and even grow) in the weeks leading up to Christmas and Hanukkah, check out Amazon’s list of tips for avoiding payment fraud.
A German landlord evicted a tenant after they spread Surströmming (fermented fish) brine on the stairs. The tenant sued, but the court ruled in favor of the landlord when he opened a can of Surströmming in the courtroom. Here is the recent video of some guys tasting Surströmming. 10
What is the trendiest baby name in American history? Jayden? Madison? Khaleesi?
The answer might not sound so trendy to you: Linda.
Quantifying trendiness is tricky, since there’s no universally accepted way to calculate how much of a fad a name was. But according to researcher David Taylor, Linda may very well be the trendiest name ever. Taylor devised a metric for trendiness that takes into account overall popularity as well as steepness of a name’s rise and fall. So while Mary was very, very popular, it was popular over a long time period, and therefore not trendy. And while Deneen had a huge quick spike in popularity over a few years in the 1960s, it never accounted for a very high percentage of names even at its peak.
In 2015, just .022 percent of all female births in the U.S. were Lindas. But in 1947, it had the largest yearly rise ever, accounting for 5.48 percent of all baby girls’ names. This sudden meteoric rise was due to the wild success of one hit single: a 1946 Jack Lawrence song named, appropriately, “Linda.”
“Linda” was written in 1942, but only released in 1946, later nearing the top of the Billboard Juke Box Record Plays charts in 1947. The song was written about then-1-year-old Linda Louise Eastman, later known as Linda McCartney.
Linda peaked in popularity as a baby name a year later in 1948, and it would remain in the top 5 names for girls through 1963. However, by 1954, Linda had already declined to be around half as popular as it was at its peak, having been overtaken at number 1 by Mary, the name it had replaced at the top.
For the historically curious, it can be a fun exercise to go through baby name fads to try and discover what led to a name’s rise in popularity. Another high profile example from pop culture is the name Shirley, spurred on by the child actress Shirley Temple. Shirley peaked as a baby name in 1935. Like Linda, it didn’t take long for it to decline in popularity.
Going by Taylor’s metric, all but one of the top 10 trendiest names of all time were girl’s names. The only top 10 name from male births is Dewey, with peak years at the end of the 19th century. By whatever measure, it does seem to be the case that popular names given to female babies tend to be more ephemeral. A recent compilation of 30 baby name fads by MooseRoots was also mainly names given to girls.
According to a 2009 PNAS study by marketing professor Jonah Berger, this rise-and-fall behavior may actually be the norm and not the exception: “Most names show a period of almost consistent increase in popularity, followed by a decline that leads to abandonment.” Berger’s analysis found that what made names differ is “how quickly their popularity rises and declines.” Berger examined rates of rise and decline, and found that names which became popular faster tended to be abandoned faster as well. Berger also surveyed expectant parents on their attitudes about baby names. Names that gained quick popularity tended to give parents pause. They were “seen as more likely to be short-lived fads,” thereby making parents less likely to adopt them.
Will there be another name like Linda? No and yes. The days when any one name could achieve 5 percent popularity for baby girls seem to be long gone. Top names for girls now hover at around 1 percent, indicative of a much greater overall diversity—and a hesitation to get on a really popular naming bandwagon.
But will parents seek out new names en masse only for those to fall out of favor shortly thereafter? Absolutely. Just as Britney and Miley have declined in recent years, so now Arya and Aria are seeing a bit of Game of Thrones-fueled growth (helped along by the show Pretty Little Liars). What new name will emerge from 2016? Don’t be surprised if a good amount of parents watching Stranger Things this year decide to name their baby girls Eleven.
