The Lack of an Entry: Crime is Scary

I was planning on writing a blog entry about computer crimes. You know, the usual: illegal porn, identity theft, soliciting. The thing is... there's some research involved that I'm legitimately afraid to do. I just keep thinking: what if my searches get picked up on some crime scan? what if i end up accidentally on an illegal site? It's all research until I follow that one bad link.

The fact that you can get arrested for an action done on the internet is still kind of mind boggling. For some crimes, its understandable. For things like identity theft and kidnapping, the internet is just a vessel. The crime is committed in real life. But what about things like inappropriate postings or cyber stalking? What's the protocol? How do you know when you've done something that crosses some invisible line?

The invisible lines are what scares me. Ignorance is no excuse, right? There are things done online every day, by millions of kids, that could probably get us arrested. Illegal fileshares like Limewire and Kazaa are rampant. We lie about our age all the time to access websites and offers. When does it become more serious than just some normal misdemeanor? I'd rather not find out. Therefore, this entry is the lack of an entry. I crave the knowledge, but am afraid of what it might turn up. I'm sorry.

I can haz macro?

I decided to make some macros of my own. ^_^

Laptop vs. Desktop: The End of the Bulky and Stationary

There's a reason that this picture just doesn't look right. Who has the strength or capacity to turn a mammoth computer into a portable friend? No one. Computers once tied us in place with their heavy CPU's and giant monitors. And therefore, the laptop was born.

Laptops have become a beautiful part of our culture. Teenagers tote them to coffeeshops, college students use them in class, adults can work at home using the same tools they did when they were at their jobs. The revolutionary idea of portability changed our world forever...as well as our wallets.

A nice laptop is a luxury. Popular ones can go anywhere from 700 to 1500 dollars. A very basic one will have you shelling out at least 350 or so. The extremely popular MacBook is 1300. They grow smaller and smaller and still have more and more capacity. Just like every other gadget out there. iPods have more room than some computers and you can hold them in the palm of your hand. And the thinner they get, the better they are and the more money you have to shell out to have one. Our new motto has become in America: smaller is better!

Which is why the desktop is beginning its slow procession towards death. It's clunky, outdated appearance and performance just doesn't suit us any longer. But it's price might. Take this: a pretty nice Apple desktop, including keyboard and mouse, will only set you back 150 bucks. It's got 10 GB internal drive and a 56k modem. It ain't the ritz, but it'll get you from a to b.

But as soon as the laptop emerged it began its takeover. In 2005, 54% of PC users had a laptop. Over the past few years the laptop has revolutionized how we do business, how we connect to each other, how we work. The laptop has unplugged us and allowed our virtual worlds to move freely. With the invention and utilization of wi-fi and long lasting batteries, we can constantly be on the move and still be plugged in...but is that such a good thing?

Laptops have made it easier for us to connect to the internet anywhere. So now, instead of having a reserved computer time, or even a place, we're always online. In places that were once social, we are drawing ourselves away. Kids use laptops in class and surf the internet. College students are more often on Facebook than writing notes for class. Their convenience and power are tempting, but in this laptop takeover, what are we losing?

The real question is: what have we already lost?

Technology + A Need for Convenience = Easy Food

Online shopping is not something new. It's become common practice to order anything you can find online: clothing, gadgets, cheese sandwhiches that look like the virgin mary, ect. In this process, you usually get your item a few days later in all its shipped and handled glory. But now, as technology progresses, you can get your favorite food items fast and easy by ordering online.

Now, this isn't a very common practice. The idea of getting food online is still a little wacky unless you're ordering a gift basket. Right? Then why is there an entire section of Amazon (my favorite internet mall) devoted to grocery? This isn't just gift baskets. There's everything from cereal and coffee to a can of kipper snacks and boxed milk. The question of why order things online has always been there. Most of the time, its because you're looking for something uncommon online, something that would be very difficult to find in a real store. But we're talking food here. Unless you're ordering canned alligator or something, I really don't see the point in having to find it online. Is the grocery store such a confusing madhouse that you have to have an easy to use search box, pretty picture, product review, and price comparison to get your bag of cheesey poofs?

But that's grocery. Let's take a look at classic, speedy delivery, such as what you get with pizza and chinese takeout. The best general site I could find was campusfood.com, catering to those hungry, lazy college students. You just go online, enter your location, and are supplied with a list of local restaraunts ready to deliver your cookies, onion fries, hot wings, lo mein, and/or pizza within an hour or so. You can even text message your order! Example: let's say you're down in Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama, and you decide to order some food online. You can find the pizza place listed in your area, and specifically order a hoagie with lettuce, tomato, but no peppers, and have a small pizza with the left half green olives and the right half black olives. Which makes me wonder... are they really going to honor that? I mean, who cares which half your dang olives are on? The pizza's a circle, just flip it over!

So I found an experiment on a blog about this very thing. In this experiment, two pizzas were carefully planned out and ordered off of the Domino's website. Were they honored? Read to find out.

I guess my big question is: does ordering food online go too far? Have we slipped so far into the black hole of the internet that we can't even go to the grocery store? We can't even pick up a phone to order anymore. And why do we need our pizza toppings so perfectly distributed?

White Teeth: Digital Age?

Go FutureMouse! Next up: FutureNovel!

To me, reading White Teeth felt like flipping through the TV channels and researching every show online simultaneously. White Teeth can be seen as a Digital Age novel, in my opinion, because of its spastic storyline, excessive multitude of characters, and its basic randomness. It satisfies the Digital Age's rampant ADD, running a story until its just about to bore you to death then switching pace, switching characters, throwing something new and exciting in. The novel was dense, but in a very different sense than Ivanhoe or something. It flashed its plot like pixels across a screen, information being lapped up and stored and filling us to the brim.

Then, of course, there's always FutureMouse. Everything from this genetic marvel's tail to his whiskers is Digital Age. Our fascination with genetics and playing God is emphasized in Marcus's big project. And the issues with these things are brought up by illustrating Millat and Joseph's problems with it. On Millat's side, there's the issue of creation: can and should we play God? And on Joseph's: should we really exploit innocent creatures in order to further our understanding?

Okay, this really excited me. As I was searching for something on Google, I stumbled upon this: White Teeth was turned into a four-part television show! Who votes that we should watch it in class? *raises hand*

Inventions: The Speed of Technology

• Today in the mail I received my new issue of Time, and on the front was a lovely rendition of the iPhone promoting the "Best Inventions of 2007". Needless to say-- I was quite excited. Here's a link to the online-version of the article.

• It amazes me how fast technology is moving. I mean, bendable computer screens? Processors that are measured in nanometers? A machine that can convert blood types? Ideas are being churned out at top speed, with astonishing creativity, design,and often practicality. (Often being the most important word: advertised near the feature article in Time was a toothbrush that tells you how to brush. Since when do we need that?) I think The World is Flat is right: right brain thinking is essential these days. With so many new, innovative ideas, you have to be extremely creative to be successful.

• As technology grows and speeds up exponentially... I wonder how this is going to affect us. It's been said that new proffessions will emerge faster than we can learn about them. I think our problem is that our carraige is edging up on our horse (to use an ancient metaphor) Pretty soon, the speed of technology and design will get so fast that the consumer, the inventor, and the big companies will barely be able to keep up.

• So how do we fix this? Which is the better solution: to slow down the carraige, or speed up the horse?