Monte

The school semester is coming to a close, and projects at work are beginning to pile up. I can see the due dates quickly approaching all at once. Next week I have two exams, one paper due, three Website mockups to design, two Websites to get up and running, and not to mention Christmas is right around the corner, and I have neither the time nor the funds to deal with it.

I visited MySpace this evening, a place I rarely visit and try hard to avoid entirely—as a Web designer, I’m obligated not to support such crudely designed social networking sites. Actually, I quite admire Facebook. I’m not sure what the hub-bub was all about when they released the News Feed feature. It basically aggregates all of your friends’ activities into a sweet little list. Users were outraged when it was released citing it was breach of privacy; however, the information that the feed contains is all public knowledge anyway; If you took the time to actually dig for the information on your own, you could find it. And besides, who cares if Mary Margaratz didn’t add Joe Bunda to her friends list? I’m sure Joe would have realized Mary isn’t her friend two months later when she’s still not on his friends list. If you ask me, I think many of the privacy concerns on the Net are silly. Like the hoopla with the iTunes mini store. Users had their panties in a twist when they updated to the latest version of iTunes and discovered that the application was giving them music recommendations based on their existing music libraries. Who cares? Almost all online stores keep track of your purchases for the purpose of recommending other products. And does it matter whether Apple knows you’re a fan of Hootie and the Blowfish?

If privacy is such a big concern, people shouldn’t bother going online, period. The uncomfortable truth is that all of your online activity is logged by your ISP whether you like it or not, and these records are kept anywhere from two months to two years. Currently, the government is trying to pass legislation which would force ISPs to keep these logs for a minimum of six years. They’re also trying to make it easier to subpoena this information.

Anyway, back to what I was originally saying. I visited MySpace this evening and saw a new message in my inbox. It was from an old friend from elementary school, Ashley Mason. She was the first girl I ever had a crush on. Yes, I remember it well. She was beautiful, all smiles, a gorgeous eyes and a contagious laugh. I’d stare at her all day in class. Then at recess, we’d play tag, and I’d try to make her laugh. But then Brandon came along, and the two of them “went out,” as if that means much when you’re 10 years old. Actually, I had a bit of a crush on this Brandon fellow, too, although I’m not sure I was really aware of it at the time.

Chatting with Ashley this evening made me realize how much things have changed. Life seemed so very innocent and safe back then. I’m not sure if that was because we lived in a small town, or if it was simply the nature of being young. I use to think that Brooklyn was innocent and safe, too. Now that I’m a young adult, I obviously see how distorted my perception of reality was. You could argue that life is happier when you’re young, and you’d be right, but you could also argue that knowledge and wisdom are more valuable than innocence, although that wouldn’t exactly guarantee you a happy life.