So I just got home and I flipped on the t.v. while I checked my mail and stuff, only to see that MTV is having some show about the Sims and how different people use it as another life and some as an alter ego. It appears that the game has become ridiculously complex and you can now make characters that are yourself and that do whatever you want them to do, start fires, kill each other, etc. It seems a little ridiculous and yet I am finding this show extremely interesting. They are discussing how they use it as an outlet for things they would like to do but won’t or can’t, they use it to live a life that they perhaps aren’t living in actuality, for good or for bad. These kids seem to be obsessed with the game and perhaps to a sad degree. Don’t they know it is just a game and isn’t reality nor should you try to live your life solely through the game. On the flip side, however, I can’ see how it might be a uselful outlet in order to simulate behaviors and actions you may like to do but are too dangerous or would have negative consequences on your “real” life. The Sims definitely scares me and makes me a little concerned for the human population. However, I do hope to be one of the famous characters in the game some day! Haha! ; )

In reading the Starr article, two major things stuck out in my head, a. the book I read, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, in which the author, Chuck Klosterman, spends an entire chapter discussing the pop culture phenomena of the Sims and its extremely addictive and sometimes depressing qualities and b. how the start of these simulation games seemed to mirror that of the radio and the internet and almost all technologies, going from this individual use and social policy/functional use, into a medium more closely resembling entertainment. I have more thoughts than these on the article, but these are the two points that I kept thinking of while I was reading, seeing as though they seemed like some moot points, great for a blogging assignment.

I am going to try and use more paragraphs in this post since it seems the right thing to do (though I am usually a grammar/formatting rebel). I personally have only played the Sims like once and possibly SimCity a few times in junior high, most likely at the hand of my teacher or for a lack of anything better to do, but I never really enjoyed it and it was too slow and frustrating for me, ie boring. However, I do remember building a theme park, not sure if that was a Sims game or not, and I kind of found that fun. Anyway, my sister bought alot of the Sims games when they came out with the people versions, where you build a person and a family, what have you, and she would spend hours and days and weeks playing that damn game, it drove me nuts. It’s kind of what Chuck Klosterman points out in his “manifesto” that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, that if we are spending all this time living in a simulated reality, when will we and why would we be motivated to step away from our computers and “build” our own lives, families, businesses, cities, whatever? It’s a funny duality of sorts that’s fascinating and yet somewhat sad, LIVE damn it, stop pretending to live! He also talks about how he would play it to see what all the hype was about and he would spend days on it but for different reasons; he enjoyed testing the human qualities and behaviors of the Sims characters to see how really real they were, to see how well we were simulated, I suppose. Anyway, he would lock his Sim in the bathroom for hours just to see what he would do and to watch him start to go crazy. Ultimately, if I remember correctly, his goal was to get the Sims to kill themselves because he was testing to see if they were a good representation of humans and our behaviors. It was an interesting chapter and I urge everyone to read the book, it was one of my favorite books and it’s super funny and interesting. Moving along…
New paragraph, yeah for me! So the other thing I found really interesting about this article is the fact that Starr was almost getting upset about the idea that the Sims could possibly have some political agenda, which Wright, the creator of the game, seems to negate in his comments about the goals and idea behind the Sims. I also wonder if Starr doesn’t believe that people will take the Sims seriously and interpret them as real life situations to be duplicated in real society and in the real world. I feel like most people understand it as a game and observe the behavior in the program as such and nothing more. But perhaps there are simple minded people that take it to be legitimate, I suppose they are still more informed about the concepts of social policy than alot of the ignorant and, I hate to say it, stupid people in the world, even if their views, which are based upon the Sims games, tend to be a little misguided and perhaps totally skewed and incorrect. At least they have some ideas. I suppose that is a pretty bad way at looking at it, but we can’t change the world or the people in it, and so I try to make the best of bad situations, especially concerning ignorance and stupidity, in which I tend to ignore it or dismiss it. But I digress.
The Sims is indeed fascinating and the acceptance of it and other similar simulation games and programs is interesting, especially seeing where these programs originated and their original functions, such as games to simulate war for training purposes, etc. Which brings me to a quick discussion about my guy friends, who love playing these killing games and things like Call of Duty. These games are simulating war, and it is interesting and somewhat sad that we use these simulations as entertainment when they respresent such grotesque and horrible events. Anyway, perhaps I will have more to say later, but now I must go to a meeting.

So I do this break from technology thing all the time, so being forced to sit for five minutes seemed like nothing but because I was required to do it it was actually way harder for me to do. I sat in my bedroom and set my alarm clock and closed my eyes because simply looking around is enough distraction for my crazy head. I just kept thinking about the assignment and everything I wasn’t supposed to think about. It was like I was so aware of what I was doing that it was almost painful because I wasn’t able to really relax and enjoy the free time, as I usually do on my own without being required to do so, since I was busy trying not to think, if that all makes sense. Another problem I found was that I was focusing in on the ringing in my ears from the concert I went to the night before, which was really annoying and I just want the ringing to stop! Anyway…because my eyes were closed and I just woke up not too long ago and I was cold and on my bed, I started to fall asleep, or at least I felt like I was, which was kind of weird and impractical. I wasn’t so worried about all the communications I might be missing, since I normally don’t care anyway and it was only five minutes, however, I did sometimes think of all the things that I needed to do that day and was then getting frustrated and annoyed because I felt like I was wasting my time doing nothing, which I was I suppose.

On a separate but similar note, my phone broke the other day and so I was left phoneless for more than five minutes and that was in fact excruciating because I didn’t know what was going on or what time it was, seeing as though my phone is also my watch and connection to everything having to do with time and people. Hence, I suppose the exercise seemed trivial to me because it was only five minutes and again, because I am so used to going outside and sitting, either looking at clouds or staring off into space, for an extended period of time. The one thing I did realize during this, as I experienced once before in my Buddhism class in which we spent ten minutes in class meditating, is that I cannot sit still at all, that I have absolutely no attention span or patience, and that I cannot not think of something at all times, I must always be thinking, and not just on my breathing or something like that, because, again, I have no sense of focus and I easily get bored and anxious. Such is life.

Anyway, I do think that free time away from technology and other highly involving things is important, but only when you aren’t being forced to do it since that seems to defeat the purpose of taking time out for yourself. I guess I am just a stubborn brat and really only like doing things on my own terms and in my own time; I’m so difficult!

So, not surprisingly, and like everyone else, I first put Jason Gallo’s name into the search field on google, which, in hindsight, actually seemed to yield most, if not all, the same information other searches at other sites, like dogpile, came up with. I feel like no one really wants to read over and over again about how we found that he is a Northwestern prof. and collaborates with you on the project you discussed in class regarding political blogging and Sunstein’s hypothesis about insularity, but perhaps you do. I found a short bio of him on Into The Blogosphere and also found and read different papers he had written at places like Aoir Toronto. Other places such as Web Use News yielded more pieces of information about the mysterious man, as well as a blog, My heart’s in accra about him and our fine Prof. Ester Hargittai. Overall, I think I got a pretty good idea of who this character is and what is he about and I would be confident in saying that he seems to be very involved in the researching of and understanding/explaining of the phenomenon of the blogosphere and the internet and their interaction and involvement in the political arena. We shall see…

preface: I am really upset as I am writing this blog because I am confident that I just lost my wallet which has my social security card, credit cards, checkbook, cash, id’s and everything important financially and identity wise in it. So, I’ve been dealing with that and having to worry about writing a blog seemed a little hard considering. So if this seems frazzled and incomplete it was because I was contemplating my demise and end to my identity as I imagined the scumbag who grabbed my wallet and decided to use all the wonderful jewels inside of it to rob me of money and my life. Anyway, this is about Lessig’s “Free Culture: Piracy” article, since we all know how much I love arguing about piracy to invalids who just really don’t understand, just kidding, that was that anger coming out.

“The role is less and less to support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against competition.” Um, okay. Here’s why this is just an incorrect statement, piracy is simply about taking something for free when there is and should be a price to it, creativity can still thrive because it can still be built upon. I think the Vanilla Ice example is important, as far as him stealing the beat from whoever the hell the band is who’s name I can’t place right now, and how Kanye West takes bits from others songs and makes new songs, because in both examples they aren’t stealing from the artist because they are totally changing and adding to what they are taking. They (the original author) shouldn’t have rights to it, the new material that Vanilla Ice or Kanye West produce, because they still did or are making money off the original, which is totally unique and different from the new product because it’s totally been altered and is used in a new and inventive/creative way. All songs, to some extent, are takes on others songs, there is only so much variation available, only so many possibilities. The combinations of instruments and sounds and beats is not limitless, eventually, intentionally or not, something will sound like something else, especially if we are exposed to alot of things and make a collection of these things in our conscious and subconscious. We can’t be like, ” Oh, no, you can’t use the guitar as your lead or as your rhythm because I have done that in my song,” well shiat! ::sarcasm:: Furthermore, Lessig quotes Winick and expounds upon how young graphic novelists in Japan teach themselves through using/viewing others works, “‘…by going into comic books and not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them’ and building from them.” I agree that all these different alternatives and takes should be available and allowed, because it does produce and encourage creativity, which is essential, but just as the comics and comic books themselves aren’t free, neither should music, and to take it as free is stealing, unless that author/s has given you permission to do so. The disney takings don’t need to be treated as wrong, and while the original author might be upset or mad I think they would agree, if smart enough, that it was fair because it was their fault that they weren’t able to do what disney did with it, creatively, marketing wise, etc. Even I am aware of that when it comes to my music, my image, or any of my ideas, or “intellectual property.”

Lessig goes on to discuss photography and the consumers use of. Photography seems totally different from the questions at hand, and seems an unfair comparison especially since people aren’t taking pictures of pictures, which has been done and argued about before, but rather of things they want to remember. It’s not like they are taking pictures of something that relies on the value of it’s image to gain a profit, like a painting or another image. If someone takes a song just to have it and doesn’t listen to it, okay, perhaps, but you are taking the song for free to listen to it, the full intent of it’s creation, the content of it’s profitability. Not allowing people to steal music doesn’t prevent them from creating and listening/accessing music, it doesn’t stop them from creating their own of that thing, as stopping people taking pictures would have. There are things that you can’t take pictures of. The difference also is this, if I pay to go to a museum, I pay to see the things there, the artists are getting paid, even if I take a picture of it, it’s not like I can sell that picture because the value doesn’t lie within that small piece of the image, its value is elsewhere.

And hello, but what is the point of discussing the news coverage around 9.11, nobody had rights over the event or really the images around it, it wasn’t like some creative, intellectual work. This seems to have little to nothing to do with piracy and seems to go off track, despite that is does deal with the internets quick and limitless dissemination amongst the public.

Now that I have time, I have returned to this post to further discuss copyright/piracy issues in regards to Healy’s Survey Article: Digital Technology and Cultural Goods. Wow, I am really pissed off at everybody for getting so greedy and trying to get everything, like music and movies, for free by pirating, ie stealing. It has made it more difficult for people who actually play by the rules (at least in this regard) to get what they deserve in an efficient and proper manner. I buy CD’s, always have and always will because I like physically owning it and feeling free to do with it as I please, and by that I mean within the legal scope of the first sale or whatever, meaning I can play and import it on my computer, burn it on a separate mix CD for myself, put it on my iPod, put it on my second computer, play it in my car, whatever. Now because of the greedy youth, for the most part, of america and other fine places, I have to deal with regulations and copy protection bull shit put on the CDs when I buy them, often causing me to screw up my computer, not be able to use the purchased CD as I like, and as I legally should be allowed, etc etc. As Healy recognizes, “it has provided vendors with an opportunity to implement even more fine-grained licensing schemes that, at the limit, eliminate the traditional benefits of ownership associated with more tangible items.” She gets it, but I am not sure she is as frustrated by the situation as I am, and I am not so much frustrated with the policy makers and regulators as much as I am the people that drove them to it, the pirates…aaaaaarrr matey! (some childish humor to lighten the mood)

Something that also caught my attention in this article, is when Healy discusses briefly how fashion designers are aware that there design could be copied, and in only a few breathes will I argue the merit of this point. The difference between clothing design and music is that in design, there is still some good to be bought, and that is necessary, the piece of clothing itself, the design isn’t solely where the money is coming from. Also, designers make money on their name and not necessarily their product or design, so this needs to be considered too. I realize he was trying to open the dialogue to more products and goods which also need to be discussed when dealing with stealing and copyright issues, but with the limited explanation it’s hard to agree with his quick analysis in respect to something else that is effected more by the technological advances, ie the internet, such as movies and music.

I feel like I had another really good point or revelation of some sort, but as usual, I have already forgotten it and it’s never coming back, so simply pretend that I have just said something absolutely brilliant and inventive! Wow, that was great, thanks! Anyway, this article did a good job of discussing the technical problems at hand, when discussing the internet and rights as opposed to what should or shouldn’t be “right.” More clearly, I feel like what I got from this article was a further understanding of why exactly I am so mad at those pirates…because they messed everything up for everyone. A good moral to be learned: Losers never win, and thieves never prosper or something prophetic like that. You get my point, that because of advances and advantageous situations, or those that seemed so at one point, we have forced upon ourselves further regulation and limitations in the end. The easiest way is not always the best way type of deal, and there’s no such thing as free, and stuff like…oh, wait, it’s losers never prosper I think…I dunno, I’ll try one more and then I give up: if it seems to good to be true, it usually is. Aha, that works. Sweet.

p.s. My wallet was returned safe and sound, nothing lost nor gained, phew!

It seems to me, that we are all too naive and trusting when it comes to the internet and our interactions with people via the internet. I never REALLY thought about my interactions on eBay until I read the Resnick/Zeckhauser article. Perhaps I am trusting people that I necessarily shouldn’t, or wouldn’t in the real/physical world where gravity and oxygen exist. Not that I’m a frequent eBay user, since I have only bought things on two separate occasions, both of which I actively looked for and were somewhat of novelty items (sprites from Rainbow Brite [cause they rock and I love Rainbow Brite] and a Stitch backpack from Lilo & Stitch [because he is incredibly cute and goofy and kid backpacks rock]). Anyway, I’ve never sold anything on eBay, though I plan to in the future, and in the two times that I have used eBay, I’ve never provided feedback because I am far too lazy and I just don’t care, such a cruel world, I know. However, I did think a little more on this last purchase because while the seller said the backpack was brand new and I could see the pictures, they had a random mailing address and would only take a cashiers check. This all made me somewhat skeptical and a little worried that anyone could pick up my mail with the check in it and cash it, since she wanted it made to “L,” I’m assuming because she didn’t want to expose her name. Besides, who’s to say that after you send these sellers their money that they are going to even send you the merchandise (or at least the merchandise you thought you were buying)? There doesn’t really seem to be any guarantees safeguarding against this, we just seem to take to the sellers or buyers word, which I am not sure we would ever do out here in the physical marketplace. It’s a funny little system and a scary one when you/we think about it. I didn’t use the feedback of the seller to make my decision because I was preoccupied with winning the auction and getting my new stitch backpack, though I don’t think I would take the time to regardless. Besides, I’m not sure that one should even trust feedback from people who too could either be unreliable, a scam artist, or any multitude of things since we have never met them nor have any of our friends or people we have learned to trust through social/physical interaction. It all seems a little fishy. Granted, my purchases were a low risk/one time deal and I expect that most peoples’ are, so I suppose our trust is based somewhat on a low perceived risk due to the actual potential loss being so inconsiderable (is that a word, I don’t think so, but it works for what I am trying to say, so I’m using it). Overall, eBay is a nice system, because who wouldn’t want to have a garage sale that tons and tons of people from around the world can go to and buy things, or be able to find random shit that can’t be found anywhere in the retail market any longer? These are both great things, but perhaps it could lead to a society of way too trusting people. Perhaps not, but it seems that someone, at least the people participating in these buying/selling relationships, should be concerned, because you never know who you are talking to or engaging with on the internet, regardless of how much feedback one receives. Think about it in terms of a real/physical interaction, would you buy something someone showed you a picture of, giving them the money at a certain meeting point waiting there as they then run home to get the item and deliver it back to you at that meeting point. Hell no! And perhaps that would even be a safer bet since you get to see them face to face before you make your decision. As the saying goes, buyer beware.

The same warning should also be given for those members of online communities like Friendster, myspace, Facebook, etc. As I have blogged about previously, I myself had to deal with some issues of fraud and stolen identity, in which someone was using pictures of me and saying it was them. Anyway, that isn’t really as much of what the article was talking about and so I don’t feel like going down that road with this, but moving along…I think it is interesting/amusing/disconcerting that so many people these days have turned to the internet to find sex/love/a husband/a wife/a threesome/… even if you go to places like craigslist, they have ads for women seeking men and men seeking women, what have you. It’s kind of sad, but at the same time, it does seem to make sense since it is probably the best way to find the most amount of people in a very specific way, searching for your “perfect match,” if he or she even exists. The net gives us the opportunity to come into contact with people around the globe that could be our sole mate that we might not have met if it weren’t for the boundaries that the internet allowed(s) us to overcome. And while it seems more efficient than going from bar to bar in search of that perfect someone, trying to yell over the music in order to get to know him/her and see if they are right for you, it also seems a tad more dangerous/risky because, while you don’t know the people you meet at the bar, you at least get a sense of whether or not they are safe or who they say they are, at least a bit more than you can on the internet. Besides, at least you are meeting them in an environment where others are around and the potential for abduction or whatever is decreased, kind of. I suppose this is a little off track in respect to what Boyd was discussing in his (her?) article, so let’s continue on.

The Boyd article discussed Friendster, an internet community seeking to bring people together with the intended aim of dating. Online dating seems sort of like a mail order bride, but perhaps a step above. I don’t know that I specifically go to these websites, like Facebook and myspace, in search of a boyfriend or a hookup or whatever, as the article suggests these websites are intended for. Sure, I go to make “friends,” and pretend to like or be close to people from my class, those I met once at a party, so on and so forth, but as far as actively searching for strangers that could potentially be right for me, I’m not so sure. However, I have gone on a date with someone I started talking to on myspace, even though that wasn’t my original intention for talking to him or even for being a member of the site. Apparently, there are tons of people that do date through myspace and use these websites for that one specific goal, which is interesting to me, and somewhat absurd. It feels like pretty soon we will be able to do everything on the internet and I am not so sure I like the prospect of “never having to leave home,” as convenient as that all sounds. Perhaps in the future our relationships and marriages will all be virtual and internet bred as well. But perhaps I am being a tad bit presumptuous and silly, as is often the case. But my point is the same, internet dating someone seems unnatural, though I am not sure it’s altogether a bad idea. At any rate, I guess I feel more comfortable with the fact that I don’t use such sites in an attempt to find people to date or hookup with, but just allow it to happen if it happens, maybe because I don’t want to admit to myself that I too have resorted, sort of, to internet dating. I rue the day.

So I just got done reading the Mosserberg article, or whatever the name of the author was, and I was totally put off by it from the beginning. Sure it was about computer literacy and so it should stay on topic, but at the beginning of the article the author talks about the divide and problems of literacy in general and then goes onto say how it’s a big problem when discussing technology. Um, hello, does anyone see the problem here…I think we should be more concerned with the general fact that illiteracy is so high rather than how it operates alongside technology. I’m sorry, but I think that the article felt a little lofty considering that computers and the internet are probably not, should not, be our primary concern when discussing peoples who are illiterate and that uneducated. This just really struck me and left a bad taste in my mouth for the remainder of the article. Sure, the internet is very useful, and I do see how alot of things that once were available in several different mediums (like the northwestern bill paying) have now leaned towards internet access only and how this could be a problem for people who are illiterate and undereducated, but um, yeah, I think the illiterate and undereducated part is a bigger problem in general and in LIFE, not just when dealing with the net. Screw the net, someone could probably exist just fine without it, I’m more concerned with that same person being able to make any money or understand enough about economics to take that same money and buy groceries or simply not kill themselves by eating something poisonous or doing something dangerous becuase they can’t read or understand the warnings telling them not to. Perhaps I am rambling, but it is because this really aggravated me and I am finding it hard to say, in words, exactly why, but hopefully you get my drift. Stranger yet is that the author kind of almost gets back to the problem at large at the end, “the implications of a skills divide lie at the heart of the policy problem - do individuals have the skills they need to participate fully in society, particularly in the economic and political arenas?” Um, excuse me, I wasn’t aware that involvement in society and these arenas was strictly related to the internet. Again, there is a bigger problem here and reading about the problems implications according to the internet and technology just frustrated me because it seems to simplify and undermine the hugeness of the actual problem.

So today I learned that I have been the victim of identify theft…well, sort of. I am a member on my space, I am actually three members I think, seeing as though I have so many alter egos and so many separate agendas (that sounds creepy, but it’s not, it’s more like business vs. pleasure), and I just received a friend request from someone who had a picture of me in their comment section. This was a little weird, even considering the rest of my life, and so I clicked it to figure out what the hell it was all about. It appears that some chic has decided that it would be okay to use her personality but use all of my pictures. So, apparently she wants to look like me, which I understand completely, I would want to look like me too, but this kind of creeped me out. Now, she not only just had her main picture as me, nor does this seem like some simple side project as a joke, no, no, she has apparently been “me” for some time now and has managed to find pictures of me that aren’t even posted anywhere, which leads me to believe that she’s stalking me, cyberspace wise that is. She (or he for all I know) has a picture that my friend emailed me but never posted anywhere on the web, which, I think, means that they would’ve had to have actively looked for it. So, either they know me and knew who I was so they just looked for me everywhere, or they just found me and then looked for more of me. It’s flattering, in some weird way, but creepy at the same time because all of her friends are commenting on her pictures, my pictures, and saying how pretty I am or whatever, but they say it like they know her. Even stranger yet, it says in her profile that she is hispanic, I don’t look at all hispanic, you think someone would catch on. AND she isn’t even using quality pics, like she was smart enough to find me but isn’t smart enough to download and use the actual large photos rather than using the thumbnails and blowing them up, causing them to pixelate beyond belief. I am going to leave it alone for a while longer, as I think it is funny and very pertinent to this class, and then I am going to tell the webmaster of myspace that someone is doing it, because who wants other people thinking you are someone else, even if you never meet them. It’s like I am fighting to be me with me, it’s so weird, I don’t even know how to explain it. Oh the internet, what a strange and funny tool.

Yeah for learning! After reading the spam article, who’s name and author I already forget, I feel jubilant that school has taught me something, which it so often fails to do. I never understood why I would get email that was close to my northwestern email address but was never totally correct. I knew it was spam of some sort, but I didn’t know it was this brute force tactic. One question remains for me, though, does someone physically sit at a computer and try all those different possible email addresses or do they simply design programs to do it for them. I am sure it has to be the latter, but you never know. Also, I know understand why Prof. Hargittai write out her email address on our syllabus, I always found that funny and never understood it, but now it makes perfect sense, it’s the human spoken way of writing it, or whatever they called it, I already forgot that too. I think I am going to go make those types of changes myself, seeing as though my email address is posted in several different locations on the open web. As far as companies and such that ask for an email address and provide you with an opt out from email option, I find it reassuring to know that they mostly respect that, unless, of course, you momentarily say they can and then try and change it. I had always been skeptical about giving my email address to things that required it for sign ups and such. It’s also good to know that my use of different email addresses for different purposes is helpful in preventing me from getting spam, and as much as I love offers for porn and penis enlarging devices and technologies, my mailbox doesn’t appreciate it. Anyway, I thought this was one of the more interesting and helpful articles we have read thus far, because I learned things I didn’t know and it has already become useful in my everyday (cyberspace) life.

So it seems appropriate to say that life and the internet suck and that amongst the list of things that we can always rely on right next to taxes and death is inequality and lack of control. But I suppose we all already knew this even before Lessig, Norris, or Introna and Nissenbaum pointed it out. It seems we have Lessig telling us that regardless of what we seem to believe and despite how things may seem to be, essentially, something is always going to be bigger than us, controlling us, life, the internet, it’s all the same. Besides, even if we could control the internet and its “free” nature, we still would have no control over whether or not anyone ever found what we had to say with our freedom because Introna and Nissenbaum have made it quite clear that our websites will never be seen or found and will simply remain deep down in the dark depths of the net. Wonderful. And as if that wasn’t enough, as we can see in the Norris article, for alot of people it doesn’t even matter because they don’t even have access to the internet or a cool blog or search engines or anything, so they could give two shits about what Lessig or Introna and Nissenbaum have to say. Right on! Wow, my mood isn’t rubbing off on this blog at all! ; ) ::rolls eyes::

But seriously, or as serious as I can ever pretend to be, I was very annoyed to learn about the ins and outs of search engines and just how much like everything else in life and business they are. It’s just frustrating that it seems everything is so political or somewhat corrupt, and apparently the internet isn’t void of that. Everything seems so illegitimate, between radio stations being paid, some might say bribed, to play certain artists and certain songs, and now the internet running the same sort of operation for positions in search engines, it simply makes me more jaded and bitter, which is somewhat hard to do. I am only joking, kind of. Anyway, moving right along…it made me think about my old web site, which I had someone make for me, and I remember the web designer saying he was going to put a bunch of random key words underneath and behind everything so that I would get pulled up more frequently in search engines. I suppose this would have been the second type the article talked about, the automatic harvesting type. Anyway, I remember him saying he put words like naked girls, porn, britney spears, hot and anything else he could think of that people, mostly guys, would be most likely to search for on the internet. This amused me back then, but it now makes a lot of sense, and it’s something I didn’t do when I made my new website. Regardless, as I was reading the article, I wanted to sort of go and test it out to see where I would show up, so I went and googled my name only to find out that I wasn’t even in the top three pages, and that in order to pull up my website I had to type in the actual keyword in the URL, which is one additional word and my name. Apparently, I am going to have to go do some playing around in the code of my website to try and make it show up on the pages sooner, or at all.

Another thing about search engines — I guess I don’t really see how it should, or could be, any different than any other market force in America, or any where else for that matter; inequality is as bred into us and the system as anything else possibly could be. And while I would love to imagine that one day everyone and everything will be fair and equal and we shall all get what we deserve, this idea simply can’t hold up to the overwhelming amount of evidence that I see to the contrary. So, I guess we are stuck with this unfairness, the only thing we can do is, like they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” so that’s what we will all have to do, either that or deal with it I suppose. Who knew such a false reality, such as the internet, could take on so many of the negative characteristics of this “real”ity? It seems to be inherit in life. Likewise, I am not sure that freedom, of speech of protection of whatever, can ever completely be protected, from the government or from ourselves. That being said, while it is somewhat sad, it only seems natural that the internet too will become another commercialized media run and controlled by big corporations and/or the government, some believers in conspiracies might say they are one and the same, but that seems a conversation for another time and place and without me in it. Regardless, it seems there will always be someone bigger over us, whether it is someone in a search engine that has more inbound links, pays more to the company to get on the page, or if it is the government taking control of and regulating the internet all together. I guess we just have to buck up…or start a revolution of sorts.

For one more final bit of unfairness and unconcern (it is a word, I looked it up), I will take one second to comment on the other articles. As far as this whole analysis and statistics given on how most of the internet usage is in countries with higher GDP’s and a better economic system, what have you…wow, no way, people don’t use the internet in Africa as much as they do in North America, who would have thought that would ever be the case? Doesn’t it seem all too obvious that the rich are better off than the poor, it’s damn right synonymous. I guess I should behave, I swear I am trying, but it’s been a really long day at work, yes on a sunday, caddying is so much fun. Anyway, the other two articles, the Norris one and the DiMaggio/Celeste one, while the Norris one was slightly more interesting and the facts and statistics seemed a bit more fascinating, both seemed somewhat obvious even though they tried their damnedest to sound as if they were anything but. Because I don’t find either all that compelling or of any GREAT significance, though I see that they hold some and others might argue much more, my tendency is just to leave my comments regarding them at that, especially considering the type of bitter, jaded mood I am in. This is becoming more and more like a real blog everyday, with the little bit of attitude and diary-esqueness it is starting to portray. How exciting!