In Daily on
19 December 2009 tagged Facebook, privacy with no comments
Over the last week or so, Facebook has decided to once again do something that will change things for their users and caused a mighty uproar. This time, it isn’t something like changing the page layout or adding a completely useless feed that nobody on the planet actually uses (sorry news feed) – it’s privacy. The goodly folks over at Facebook decided that they needed to refine their privacy settings for the entire site, ultimately making more information public.
Cue feces colliding with rotating cooling device.
What I’ve found most interesting about this entire saga isn’t that Facebook would do something like this without consulting users first (first because it is a free site and second because they really don’t give a damn), it’s the righteous indignation that most people have felt over the entire change. I felt it, and I’m sure at some point, you did too. “How dare they allow the rest of the world to see what I look like and whether or not I’m a fan of Argentinian yak farming? Harumph.” I’m not saying that’s wrong… just silly and a tad interesting.
Considering that the entire premise of Facebook is inherently voyeuristic, allowing me to get a peek into the lives of anyone whom I’ve friended, and also at the same time exhibitionistic, where I can share waaaaaaaaay too much information about myself with the same people, privacy seems a bit of an odd notion, no? I mean, when you have people out there ending relationships simply by changing their status, haven’t we crossed some sort of line where public and private have not only intersected, but violently crashed?
I think we all have some basic need for acceptance and also to gain others attention – and a social networking site like Facebook allows us to do it all from the privacy of our homes without having to actually put forth a lot of effort. It also makes the entire venture very dangerous. Which is why that dying trait of common sense is so important. Not posting things that’ll get you fired, divorced, or arrested – things like that. Or maybe you shouldn’t be out there fishing for sympathy/compliments by posting an intentionally vague status and waiting for lurking friends to cheer you up. Going one step further, perhaps sharing the innermost thoughts of your soul isn’t the best idea after six glasses of wine. These are things that shouldn’t require a privacy setting on a website because it should be inside of us all.
In Stupidity on
12 December 2009 tagged Jersey Shore, MTV with no comments
There’s a new show called Jersey Shore on MTV that’s drawing a bit of flack, perhaps you’ve heard of it? The show follows six people who apparently have the combined IQ of a lukewarm piece of leftover meatloaf as they party it up on the Jersey shore. Now, what differentiates this piece of mind-wasting reality television from all of the other crud that currently occupies the airwaves at MTV, further making the name of the channel irrelevant? From what I can tell (having never seen the show), it’s that all of the characters are Italian and plays up just about every stereotype imaginable. However, that won’t be the reason I wouldn’t be caught dead watching this turd – no, no, no.
“The Italian, whatever, national, whatever their organization is, they don’t understand that ‘guidos’ and ‘guidettes’ are good-looking people that, you know, like to make a scene and be center of attention and just take care of themselves,” she said on The Wendy Williams Show Friday (check your local listings). “They are old-fashioned. They don’t know that; they think it’s offensive, because maybe in their time it was offensive, but now it’s kind of a compliment. So they don’t understand that and that is what we are trying to say. They are way overreacting to the show. We’re 22 to 29 just having fun at the shore. They are just taking it way out of proportion.”
That was an actual quote from one of the characters on the show, named Snookie, and it damn near made my head explode. I’ll forgive the tragic nickname, but the offenses against the English language are a bit harder to swallow. My first thought after reading that jumble of crud was whether or not the person who transcribed it immediately went on a three day bender or just went insane.
In Poetry on
7 December 2009 tagged poem, they don't know with no comments
questions and answers are easy to come by,
it’s simply a matter of finding the proper ones
to ask and believe.
too many times, the world at large is led by
the world at small – special interests that actually
aren’t all that interested in anything
but the status quo and a quick buck.
but the evening goes past and the days
wander into something like evening
(but not quite) and the poets fashion words
from stone and air only to sit dejected
as yet another pop song without meaning
is heard by more ears than eyes will
ever see their words.
nobody knows the right answers and the questions
to conjure them forth – I don’t, you don’t,
and nobody else does either.
In Sports Desk on
29 November 2009 tagged football, Microsoft sucks with no comments
Here it is past 9:00 pm on a Sunday and I’ve managed to watch perhaps 30 seconds of football today. For some people, that might not mean much when their favorite team isn’t playing that day, but not me. I’ve been lucky enough to have pigskin spliced and grafted directly into (and onto I suppose) my DNA. Without breaking a sweat, I’m quite capable of watching both the 1 pm and 4 pm games, taking a quick breather, and then sitting down for the 8:30 pm game as well. It’s a sickness, but one I can live with.
Tonight, I’ve been shunned from my own living room – but no big deal right? NBC is goodly enough to stream their games online for just such an occasion, right? So I’ll just pull that sucker up and get to watchin…. what the hell is this? I need to install Silverlight to watch this? Okay, fair enough. Let’s see – jump through this hoop, download this, zip through all the customary buttons, restart the browser, head back over to NBC Sports and…. install Silverlight? Isn’t that what I just did?
Yeah, it’s been that kinda night. Checked out the deal with Mozilla and handily enough, I can check to see if everything is running kosher by going to this page Microsoft has set up. Guess what? Somehow, even though I’d just installed Silverlight about 60 seconds ago, the version was out of date. So I updated… and it still doesn’t work.
This, folks, is why I run with a Mac.
