I’ve spent the past few weeks listening to dozens of people complain about the decline in privacy online. From Facebook and MySpace letting the government snoop on people’s profiles, to the idea of a National ID Card, people stir up a storm every time they discover some minute way the government can peek at their private lives. Facebook groups pop up, calling for petitions (haha, online petitions…) to stop the snooping. Most recently, this issue has come up in the media with MoveOn.org criticizing Facebook for targeting ads based on information in individual users profiles.

My question: why are we making such a big deal over this?

The same questions were raised when Gmail targeted their AdSense ads from keywords in a users’ inbox. Oh no. The same thing happens when a company targets certain magazines, and thus certain audiences, to advertise in. The real issue lies in people putting the supposidely super-private information (like what bands they like…) on the internet in the first place. Giving advertisors [in effect, anonymous] information on Facebook users isn’t making anyone’s life any less secure than it already was.

I’ve written about this before - how new forms of sponsorship and advertising are at the backbone of the current technology revolution. Without targeted advertising and exclusive sponsorships, ad revenue would plummet and organizations like Facebook would be unable to provide their services free of charge. If we don’t want the internet to come to a standstill, we have to be open to new forms of advertising. Sure, no one may particularly enjoy the main character of a television show pointing the logo side of a product towards the camera, but we got used to it. We’ll get used to this, too.

First I should say that I hope I don’t get in trouble for this. My teachers have been known to stumble upon my blog every now and again…

I am sick and tired of teachers who don’t fully understand what they want kids to get out of the work they assign, and thus don’t assign grades based on those expectations. They’ll grade according to one set of expectations about an assignment, while the explicitly stated reason for the work is entirely different.

Example: Reading quizzes. Reason given for them: To ensure the student has read the book. Actually tested: Student’s retention of certain facts about the book which may or may not have been considered “important plot elements” in the opinion of the student. The teacher doesn’t realize that they aren’t testing what they want to, and in the process are giving students faulty information about what to study.

But my big complaint is with how my Calculus homework is handled. We get a set of homework on day 1, go over it in class on day 2, and it’s due on day 3 (and will be graded for correctness). The logic used here is that, if we go over it all in class, you can simply wright down the correct work, and you’ll get a perfect score on the homework. But if you wright down everything that’s going on on the board, that takes your full attention - you end up simply blindly copying down work without any chance to think about what’s going on. Excuse me for trying to use my time in class to actually understand the material we’re covering… If I just copy down the work, I’m not going to be able understand it later, and I won’t get anything out of it.

If a grade is based off attempt and not correctness, more effort can be put into the actual understanding of the material. Let quizzes and tests be judged with the red pen. Effort should still count for something, and homework’s the perfect place for that.

Honestly, I’ve never quite understood the High School Musical phenomenon. My friends have watched it, even my sister finally broke down and took the DVD to college with her. It’s ridiculous! Very few self-imitating movies are good, and this one premiered on Disney Channel with teenage actors… Really, now. There must be some better entertainment that you guys can find.

Also, this whole thing about Zac Efron being gay… Yes, just because he’s dating a girl doesn’t make him straight, but I don’t think having really nice, highlighted hair makes you gay, either.

*smacks himself for actually talking about Zac Efron in a blog post*

Speaking of better entertainment you can find online, take a look at this clip from the Teen Choice Awards from last night (no, I didn’t watch them):

So I was planning on writing about a CD that came out today by Darren Hayes (formerly of 90s pop band Savage Garden - don’t you dare laugh): “This Delicate Thing We’ve Made”. I’ve been waiting for it to come out for months now - I have kind of an emotional attachment to his music, since I discovered it pretty much at the same time that I came out to myself last year (and he’s gay too). I actually went to four different stores today before I found one that had it.

But in a classic example of how the involvement of a celebrity blows everything out of proportion, Hayes has been arrested on charges of racially abusing a waiter at a Thai restaurant. So naturally, the press is all over it, ironically overshadowing the release of his album (which is incredibly, may I add) tenfold. This is so ridiculous. Does anyone think a misunderstanding like this would have resulted in an arrest if he hadn’t been the “former celebrity” every news outlet is quoting him as? So now an [at least in my opinion] innocent man gets pegged as a racist because probably rubbed the waiter the wrong way. And it sticks to everyone’s memory because he’s famous.

This wasn’t very coherent, but seriously people - the media has better things to cover and the public has better things to worry about than a minor incident like this. All that comes out of it is pain.

(I don’t really consider myself a “fan” of anyone except Darren Hayes, so obviously I’m a bit biased here)

I’ve been fiddling around with website development for about seven years now, and I’ve picked up a few skills along the way. For instance, in a situation where a sane person would call tech support and try to explain their problem to a condescending man in some HQ, I prefer to stick it out and spend however long it takes to solve a problem myself. Foolish in some cases, but extremely helpful in learning the tricks of the trade.

There are some battles, however, that simply cannot be won.

I spent a good six hours today (my first day back from Governor’s School, at that) designing and implementing a new website for Charlottesville High School’s Theatre Department. I’ve been putting off installing a content management system on that thing for months now, and if I don’t do it, there’s no way the site will get updated once I’ve left for college. You may remember I tried to do this very thing two months ago, but hit a brick wall when I learned that Charlottesville City Schools don’t support MySQL. So this time, I decided to just host the MySQL database on my own server, while keeping the actual pages on the schools’ (CCS has some sort of obsession with keeping all their pages hosted locally…). So there I was, for a good six hours, creating banners and modifying templates, chmod-ing and remapping directories, when I realize that the server simply can’t handle WordPress; it’s useless for me to try.

Thus, in my signature rash act of fingers on the keyboard, I decided to completely ignore the CCS Webmaster’s requirement that all sites be hosted locally. I went out, registered a domain, and realized that I could save myself hours and hours of trouble just by hosting the site myself. WordPress will work, my scripts will work - it’s a winning situation.

The way I see it, kids had to host class webpages themselves in the 90s when their school’s didn’t have websites (a.k.a. didn’t have the resources to handle the website the student has created). I see myself in a similar situation. The Charlottesville City Schools are unable to handle the website I want to give to the CHS Theatre Community, so I’m taking things into my own hands. Forget regulations, forget the Webmaster. This is my website, and I’m going to create it the way I want.