Everyone had a BIG Brother!

I have heard many times big brother is watching or being taught that someone is always watching or listening. Everywhere we go we are on camera, ATM, banks, when we go shopping, parking lots, airports, subways. Every step we take we are probably under a careful watch. This article I read from the USA Today that talked how big brother is always there. The article starts with this creepy fact 

"They are in laptop webcams, video-game motion sensors, smartphone cameras, utility meters, passports and employee ID cards. Step out your front door and you could be captured in a high-resolution photograph taken from the air or street by Google orMicrosoft, as they update their respective mapping services. Drive down a city thoroughfare, cross a toll bridge, or park at certain shopping malls and your license plate will be recorded and time-stamped." 

We caring around things that allow us to be pinpointed. Some households even have onstar witch allows someone in an office across the US to turn on off your car, unlock it and even shut it off. Its creepy how at any given time we can be watched. We see in movies how they can find people in the middle of know where from outer space. We carry phones that have mini gps in them, our phones pin off towers so we can be pinpointed on a map. Our phone calls can be monitored at anytime, if we say a code word. The article also shares how posting pictures of your car on facebook can really disclose where you live. 

Last summer, industrial designer Adam Savage, co-host of the TV show MythBusters, used his iPhone to snap a photo of his Toyota Land Cruiser parked in front of his house, then posted it on Twitter. In doing so, Savage, in effect, publicly disclosed where he lives

Oh and Facebook taging a photo allows your picture to be shared and stored for anyone to see

Once you are tagged in a photo, that photo could be used to search for matches across the entire Internet, or in private databases, including those fed by surveillance cameras. "They almost certainly have the technical capability to do it," Russell says.

Just the feeling that someone could be watching is a little unsettling. Yes I'm sure this could be a little far fetched but it is very plausible.   


So just remember someone is always watching ;)

Choice #3

Choose and write about 4 advertisements that would be featured on your Feed. Link these advertisements in your blog. Write a paragraph about each one. 


Espn / SI
If I had a Feed I'm sure it would be throwing out all sorts of Espn and SI feeds. I love sports and Espn is already my computer homepage so its only fitting to be fixture in my feed. I would expect ads for their magazine and get options they have if your a plus member. I already get emails now but the feed would personalized these ads. Maybe for fantasy football leagues, discounted sports tickets, and magazines. Also knowing I love sport and that I like to purchase sports hats, jerseys, and other collectible things I would get redirected to relevant sites.


VWVortex / Mitsubishi


I love my car and when I'm home I'm usually around other people who modify their cars either  in a garage   or driving to the beach for a car show. I feel looking into my purchase history they would show me car part ads. Recently I decided to I wanted something new and different. Being at school my VW wasn't a reliable car to take me to and from school.  I've been doing my research on a new Mitsubishi Lancer. This is my practical dream car. I feel the feed would recognize the change in cars and find me ways to personalize my lancer knowing this allows me to socialize with my friends and enjoy myself.


Netflix


I love Netflix plain and simple. I love watching movies and TV shows to relax. That happiness you get when you find a movie or show you watched when you where younger but forgot about. Netflix already has a what we recommended for you option but with the feed it would understand me better and search for things I might have lost in my memory. I love comic book movies and there are so many so my feed could keep me updated on new releases and when newer movies are being made.


Under Armour


I wear UA all the time. Playing on travel sports team we were always given under armour gears for when we played but also for everyday life style. I'm a believer in UA and I love how the product works. I will continue to buy UA so I feel the feed would recognize this and cut out the other brands I don't really like. New releases and closeout sales would also be sent to me. Like in Feed when they would get stuff for the abercrombie and fitch like store.


I feel the feed takes all the email and stuff we get now and takes out the spam and junk products. The feed reconizes  what makes you happy or satisfied and would capitalize on this. We tend to get frusterated when we get junk mail or realize we miss a sale because we didnt see out mail. The feed is just there always giving you more and more options.

Back to normal

Free, Free at last....So today I was allowed to use technology again and I made up for not having it. It was nice having quite time but I love listening to music a lot more. I found I work better when I had my music on while doing homework, I got done a lot quicker. I got a kick out of some of the text I got. When I turned my phone on I had to wait a good 10 min to allow all the miss text to load. Between my friends and sports scores I had a ton of texts. Most of my messages where my friends asking if I was mad at them or asking if I died. This week it was nice just getting away from the fast paced world but it the little things that keep me motivated. I enjoy myself when I get to watch TV or play ps3 with my friends. The last week it was more work because I had a hard time keeping busy while at school. I fell I'll use technology less because I know I don't need it. I will however be glad to be able to surf the web, play games and what not in between classes on my Ipod. I  also never realize how much I take my cell for granite, being able to communicate when to meet or hang out is a lot harder when you don't have a phone. For my friends around campus I could walk to but when I was going away this weekend I was lost! I don't really see how we could be productive if cell phones when down for a long period of time. I also missed what was going on in the world. The entire Egypt thing I was in the dark on and even on a local note I didn't know what was going on!  Overall I love technology, I dont feel I would continue this challenge or try it again unless I really had too.  To everyone who is finished congrats and enjoy..to the ones with more time to go good luck 30pts is a lot...and for those who didnt even try..shame on you ;p!

The All American Child!

Almost 5 day

So this challenge seems to get easier and easier for me. I figured I could do a few days without technology here in Ship but I knew if I wanted to go all week I had to get away. I was lucky that a friend of mine wanted to get away too and go to the cabin. The cabin has no electricity just oil lamps so that made it easy. Getting away and just hike, fish, and take pic how beautiful the woods are in the winter. We were also blessed with warmer weather. However we usually use a gps to get us there and home so not having it with us was a challenge. We both figured we would wing it and just try. This was the first time I wished to have my gps because we took an extra hour trying to find it. Driving without music was also tough, when you don't have the music you realize how boring car rides can be. It was a nice get away for school. Overall the past week I used my mind alot. I sat down and really read 2 books which I don't think I've ever done in a week. I'm ahead in all my classes and I'm really well rested. Since I don't have a TV to watch I fall a sleep alot earlier. I'm ready to get back and watch tv and catch up with my friends but I will always love nature. I dont feel I've abused technology but it does make life easier

Feb 8 the start of very long days

So I decided that I would accept the 7day no technology challenge. I didn't feel like it would be too difficult. I figured no phone, no TV, no ipod no real problem. Oh boy was I wrong. It didn't really hit me until the second day. The first day I caught up on homework, I read Feed, studied for 2 exams and started to do more school work. The second day I realized I took out most of my homework, my brain was tired and didn't want to really do any more work. I tried to go work out but after 20 min I couldn't take it anymore. I am so use to music to keep me pumped and focused I was use to that background noise. Going to bed was also rough, I sleep with my ipod on every night so I never really had a full silent night. Another thing about not having my ipod was my life is in there, all of my appointment time, when homework is due and also games to pass time before classes. I forgot to do a homework assignment because I was so use to getting a notification. My cell wasn't much of a problem, I've gone weeks at a time not having it when I left it at home. I don't use an alarm clock so I still woke up on time. I feel that I went to bed early because I was just so bored. This weekend shouldn't be too bad because I'm going to the cabin with a few friends but I have no clue how I'm going to get ahold of them so they can pick me up. I defiantly didn't think everything through before I took this challenge. I'm a very clean person so I just see all my dirty wash just growing. I feel that if I was camping I would be fine but being at school in Ship is rough. I feel the environment is the most challenging thing.

I've been putting off writing this because I knew I wanted to save it for when I felt withdrawal. It is very tempting not to open up a new tab and just surf the web, but I made it this far so I cant give up

Mother Nature

My favorite quote was "I went to the woods because I wished to life deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."  Henry David Thoreau
 Growing up I was always outside. My father made sure that I was involved with nature. We would go hiking, fishing, camping, we even did boy scouts together. When I was younger I loved being out side because I wasn't so consumed by technology. When I got to my teen years I wasn't worried about being outside, I was use to playing sports and that was good enough for me. I could care less to go camping or fishing because it felt like a choir, I would rather send my time inside playing video games or swimming in our personal pool. I think things really changed for me my senor year of high school. The yearly camping trips ended a few years in advance but I felt bored with my life. I decided that I needed to reconnect with something I once had. That summer I had the time of my life. A friend and I roughed it out for 3 weeks, no  electricity, no running water. We stayed in an old family cabin of his family that needed some work while we were there. We took a bin of food, pots and pans and clothes for everything else we just winged it. The first couple of days we did more sight seeing than anything else not really worrying about survival. towards the end of the first week we saw our food dropping quick and if it rained we were screwed. I quickly realized that I lost my way with nature, even though for so many years I was out in nature I realized that technology handicapped me. After awhile natural human instincts kicked in but I realized what I allowed happen was wrong. From the point I tried to become one with nature again and I wouldn't allow myself to slip away like I did. That summer I felt rejuvenated it felt good being able to survive on your own and get away from the fast paced world. Today some of my most treasured visual memories was how beautiful things were, how red the sky got at night fall, how beautiful a full night sky was. I'm glad my father took me camping and things because there are so many other children that never get to see nature. I could not imagine living in a world like feed where you live in your own little world. Earth is a huge wonder and there is so much to be seen. You never know what lies under every unturned rock.

The Dumbest Generation or The Hope of Tomorrow?

Mr Mark Bauerlein calls my generation the dumbest in his book. Even though that is his opinion and his goal is to stir up a debate but i don't agree with everything Mr. Bauerlein says. Bauerlein starts out strong with two examples that left me baffled. "Two thirds of high-school seniors in 2006 couldn't explain an old photo of a sign over a theater door reading COLORED ENTRANCE." This was disturbing and I have no excuse for this. There are few if any events in American history than the Cival Rights Movement and not to remember this is just being lazy. Another painful truth is in 2001, 52 percent identified Germany, Japan or Italy, not the Soviet Union, as America's World War II ally." WW2 along with the Civil Rights have not occurred that long ago. Many peoples grandfathers were in WW2 so there is even a connection there. Where I start to disagree with Bauerlein is when he says we dont know clasical music and different art. To me just because something was deemed classical by someone of the past doesnt mean that it is important today. Saying we are the laziest also isn't a fair description. The generation before us failed us. That generation was the ones who created the technology and was in charge of our education. We were raised in a education system that was set up to fail. State mandated test were the down fall of my generation. We were tough the basic in a way that wasn't interesting to us. Books were forced onto us and told we had to do this for a test. Nothing was to be fun. We found our escapes in video games and TV. I feel that basic education students are lazy some what. While I was in high school I was apart of a graduation project with one of my teachers. Our basic goal was to set up 2 different science honor class. One class we deemed the fun class, more hands on experiments while the others was the normal basic hw, test/exams and worksheets. We found that students did well when they had fun and didn't feel like we needed to cram everything for an exam. We tested the same people with the same final exam again and the students in the fun class retained more information. When I presented my finding with 3 school staff I was asked why I felt this happened. I felt we just dump and cram, we are so worried about passing and don't really learn. When I look back at my past schooling the only things that i remember the most is when I was challenged outside the box. I feel my generation is smarter than what we are given credit for. We mastered what we were asked to do. We weren't asked to learn we were asked to perform at the highest level. We are able to get any answers we might not be able to recall faster than any other generation. We mastered the technology that we are presented with and we  use our computers like like past generation used a dictionary.

My generation has also been told you have to master one aspect and be better than anyone else to make sure you get a job. The competitive world we live in makes us pick one topic and master it and not be okay in every factor. So I do not feel that my generation is the laziest or the dumbest i feel we are a product of the system we grew up in. If anyone is dumb or lazy its the past generation that established it. 

David( The "Dumb" generation) vs Goliath(the problems from the past generations) 2011edition

As a last note this "Dumb" Generation was left having to deal with many major problems left over. We have to fix the economy, rebuild American, and fix social security. With some of these problems known I wonder why      would establishing a dumb generation be okay. My generation will solve some of these problems and I'm sure we will create a few more problems, but I feel Mr. Bauerlein doesn't want us to be content with our lives and to create and strive for more/better!