Wouldn't want to roll over THAT in my sleep...

For Thursday's class we read Nicholas Carr's article, "The Net is Being Carved Up Into Information Plantations". This article was written May 2007, surprisingly, almost 4 years ago. I decided to look at the blog he keeps and he posted this interesting fact on October 1, 2010.

Touch me

OCTOBER 01, 2010

Yesterday, the NPD Group released the results of a survey of iPad owners. The most intriguing finding was that "20 percent of users’ time with the iPad was spent with it in bed." One has to wonder what other sorts of activities are being displaced by the nocturnal stroking of the iPad's highly responsive screen.

I find this fascinating. I don't have an iPad and I don't know anyone that I immediately interact with that has one but my understanding of the iPad is that it's an "on-the-go" product, one that people can substitute for a lap-top or trying to surf the internet on one's cell phone. I don't really see the "on-the-go" small, compact, light use for use in bed. Why not just use a lap-top? I know I see people on the metro every day using iPads so how much time a day are people really spending on their paper thin devices? I may sound like an old-timer when I say this but technology is taking up so much of our time, what happened to human interaction? As parents limit their children's computer, video game, and telephone usage adults need to step up and limit the amount of technology they let into their daily routine. 

Some Bing commercials... Makes you wana switch huh?

Interesting advertising concept - bad searching is contagious and a social and economic issue


Family in Car (Guest appearance from Orbit's cootie queen)
Teens' Jeans
Santa torments child (Guest appearance from Teens' Jeans!)
Raptor and parrot

No Sock-Puppets Available

This is a kind of blast from the past in this class’ material. I found this surprisingly extensive website, Muppet Wiki (logo is Kermit the Frog’s eye! Very clever…) The site is separated into 3 main muppet categories, “The Muppets”, “Sesame Street”, and “Fraggle Rock” as well as episode guides and Muppet news. There are over 22,000 pages on this Wiki as well as a “Random Puppet” button to randomly select a Muppet Wiki to share with you. At the top of the site, it says the page is sponsored by Wikia and next to that there is a button that says “Start a Wiki”. Of course, I clicked on it to see what the deal is. All that is required is a name, desired web address, category, language, and birth date. Bam. You have a Wiki. Couldn’t tell whether you have to pay for the Wiki or not, I’m sure it’s some deal like the social networking site creator we were shown in class, there’s a basic Wikia then an advanced version with more features for money.



Also, on a creepier note- the ads on the Wikia pages were all for things I’ve googled recently…



I clicked Random Muppet and got ol' Large Marvin Fraggle

"Large Marvin is the fattest Fraggle in Fraggle Rock, due to his love of snacking. He is a bit dimwitted, but is also athletic and a feared swimming opponent of Red Fraggle."

Lose, Lose Situation...

In the past year, two people I knew passed away and both of their Facebook pages were memorialized.

One of the two was a 20 year-old woman who I had only hung out with 2 or 3 times through a mutual friend when she passed away. As you know, I'm not a huge Facebook person so we hadn't yet become friends on Facebook. Her page was memorialized and since I wasn't friends with her, I couldn't search for her profile on Facebook. I wanted to look her up. See her pictures. See what people were writing to her. I wanted to appreciate a person I had enjoyed hanging out with, someone I could have become good friends with. I wanted to write something to her, let her know in some cyber phantom world that I regret us not meeting earlier. I feel like because of the way Facebook has decided to memorialize pages I'm cut out of that group.

The other person was a 20 year-old man who I had gone to elementary and middle school with but hadn't ever been extremely close to. His name was one I'll never forget, with a face to go along with it. He is someone I've grown up with although not someone I'd necessarily call a friend. We were friends on Facebook but when he passed I felt I was again, cut out of knowing the person as they were at 20 years-old. I couldn't see his interests, I couldn't see his groups, I couldn't see his photo albums. I could see the photos he was tagged in and his wall which was really nice because I was able to see what he had been up to since middle school. I was also able to write a message of thought and love to him and his family on his wall.

I understand there has to be guidelines on what happens with a memorialized Facebook page but personally in both of these instances it makes it more difficult for me to agree with them.

New blog to replace my Live Journal mess

So since I couldn't link to people's blogs on my Live Journal account, I've switched to Blogger. I like Blogger. Dr. Akhavan was right, you can create more than one blog per email address so bada-bing, bada-boom! Now please comment, classmates so I don't feel like a waste!