A local high school recently blocked the popular location-based social networking site Foursquare and both students using the service. The students claim that they had just recently signed up for Foursquare and were only blocked after using it on school computers for about 5 days or so. Many other ventures the students had taken were soon blocked by the on-campus technical staff. The students are up in arms over the lack of ability to now check in at school.
The EPHS Mayor is currently unavailable for comments.
My name is Joseph McBrayer. My goal: top result in Google search, but this web log is just a personal account of my current interests and activities.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Privacy in the Digital Age: Is it worth it?
We're all afraid that someone might find out what we're doing. What are you doing? Well, that's the question, isn't it? With so many places where we can update our "status," nothing is really kept private anymore. Although, we have very specific settings where we can allow only specific people to see, so in a sense, we can create somewhat of a false status. Not many people are brutally honest about what is going on in their life currently; that is just human nature. It seems like the more outlets we have to give out personal information in a novel and trendy fashion, the more likely we are to almost beg for everything to be labelled TMI. Now, I've been a frequent user of twitter since April of 2009 and just signed up for foursquare. Those who are without sin...
Now, the point was recently raised that it may be good for all of our personal information to be out there and accessible. If someone suddenly becomes ill without a hint of notice, wouldn't it be useful to know exactly what the patient was doing the past 24 hours? Google has already indexed the internet; it would be nice for someone to index our lives. I know that not everyone trusts Google as much as a lot of people (myself included) do, so who should get the power? Google is one of a few companies that has shown itself to be trustworthy, but not everyone wants their entire life to be in the hands of a powerful corporation. For all records to be kept up-to-date, they would need to be able to sync with some sort of cloud server, which would have to be moderated meaning that your information would be visible to that person. It would also need to be able to sync with every sort of social media site out there to index our lives completely. Who needs a crummy photo album? In theory, you could set up your own server, have a document or set of documents with all of your records kept safely and privately and update them from the server as frequently as possible, but most people won't even keep track of a dietary journal unless absolutely necessary.
The problem is that people are afraid of someone knowing what they are up to. If you are really worried about what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't be doing it to begin with. Then again, there are a lot of creeps hanging out on the internet waiting for someone to slip up and give out their location, but maybe it's worth giving up a little privacy so that our physicians can figure out our mystery illness. If there were a safe and easy enough way to keep track of our entire lives, it could change the world. This is just the first stop on the way to tweeting toilets.
Now, the point was recently raised that it may be good for all of our personal information to be out there and accessible. If someone suddenly becomes ill without a hint of notice, wouldn't it be useful to know exactly what the patient was doing the past 24 hours? Google has already indexed the internet; it would be nice for someone to index our lives. I know that not everyone trusts Google as much as a lot of people (myself included) do, so who should get the power? Google is one of a few companies that has shown itself to be trustworthy, but not everyone wants their entire life to be in the hands of a powerful corporation. For all records to be kept up-to-date, they would need to be able to sync with some sort of cloud server, which would have to be moderated meaning that your information would be visible to that person. It would also need to be able to sync with every sort of social media site out there to index our lives completely. Who needs a crummy photo album? In theory, you could set up your own server, have a document or set of documents with all of your records kept safely and privately and update them from the server as frequently as possible, but most people won't even keep track of a dietary journal unless absolutely necessary.
The problem is that people are afraid of someone knowing what they are up to. If you are really worried about what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't be doing it to begin with. Then again, there are a lot of creeps hanging out on the internet waiting for someone to slip up and give out their location, but maybe it's worth giving up a little privacy so that our physicians can figure out our mystery illness. If there were a safe and easy enough way to keep track of our entire lives, it could change the world. This is just the first stop on the way to tweeting toilets.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Listia: My Latest Addiction
Now, this may set off your spam filters, but lend me your ear. Listia is an infant website that is getting to its feet as quickly as possible. The thought behind it is somewhere between ebay and Craig's List. The idea is that you post things that you no longer need, and may not hold much value, but does not need to be in the garbage.
Say you have an old baseball card that was not the best card from the day, but has some value to a collector somewhere. You can post that single card on Listia, and hope for bids to start pouring in, but don't get greedy.
The bidding is done through credits won from auctions you've listed. If you sign up and list an item, you'll get $50 worth of credits (500), and if you sign up with this link , you'll get an extra 50 credits.
It is still spreading across the country, but there are plenty of auctions to catch your fancy, and I recommend that you have a PayPal account for transferring shipping payments.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Delayed Love?
Saturday, July 11, 2009
New LBP DLC
Sunday, June 28, 2009
''wash your hands''
This raises some questions. I mean, what is this purpose of theses quotations? Is this someone's catchphrase and I didn't catch it? Maybe this particular food establishment has secret meetings to define the meaning of ''washing hands.'' Maybe it's some sort of euphemism. I don't know for what, though. Any thoughts, interwebs?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
In Remebrance of Michael
For those of you who haven't heard the terrible news; a legend has passed on. Michael started performing with his family at a very young age, and his career skyrocketed. He went on to gain worldwide attention as part of the Jackson 5, and after that, continued to be a successful solo artist. His death was unexpected and word is that cardiac arrest was the main offender. He was known for his fancy footwork and memorable singing voice. An inspiration in both dance and voice performance. He will not be forgotten. Michael Jackson: A legend.
oh yeah, Farrah Fawcett died today.
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