Damn, Grandma was Hot!

Online social networking currently holds my generation, and many others now, in an extremely tight brace. Most have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google+, Tumblr, and Pinterest (whatever that is), or some combination of the aforementioned. There's even a social networking site for "professionals," LinkedIn. With all these different mediums of social networking, I sometimes wonder how people decide which on to update. Do you update your status or post a tweet? Some people solve this problem by linking their Twitter account to their Facebook, so their tweet is essentially a status update. Ever since high school I have been growing up in the online social networking world and there are some interesting aspects to the development of social networks over that time period and what the future holds for them.

The first subject I want to address is Twitter. I don't like when people say that Twitter is stupid and unnecessary ( I don't like the word necessary either, why is it so hard to type?). I would actually go as far to say that Twitter was a brilliant idea. Twitter took one of the most popular features of online social networking, Facebook's status update, and built another social networking site out of it. Twitter is basically a series of status updates, no bullshit, just updates. Twitter can also be used as a great source for information about topics of personal interest, which is mainly what I use it for.

Hi friends!

 Twitter allows users to get information quickly and read more in depth if the user desires or can be used to see what your friends are up to, that is, if you have friends. Therefore, Twitter is not a stupid or bad idea, it just has a much simpler interface with less options. Recently Facebook went through another makeover and now is a "timeline" of users' lives. I think the Facebook people did this because they recognize that if the website didn't become something that encompassed users lives as a whole then the site would eventually lose popularity and end up like MySpace, a has been in the social networking world. However, increasing the longevity of social networking sites really makes me think about the role these sites will play in the future. Right now I would find it very strange if my grandmother had a Facebook profile, but in the future, if everything goes in Facebook's favor, grandmother's will have Facebook profiles. Imagine looking at pictures of your grandmother when she was in her teens and as a college student? You might sit there and think "damn, grandma was hot!" It's f**king weird. I don't know if it's a bad thing, but it sure is weird. There's another picture of grandma taking a shot of tequila. Oh, and here's a status update about her locking her keys in her room or something, one of those things that you should keep to yourself.

Now let's change perspectives, what about your grandfather? Here's your grandfather in college, he's participating in Edward 40-hands and there's a picture of him with the girl he was banging years before he met your mother. I really wonder what role social networks will have in the future. I could be wrong, but I honestly think social networks are going to create very different upbringings for the future generations. I don't think anyone's parents tell their children as much about their youth as social networks do. I realize there are privacy settings, but I'm not sold that these measures will keep future generations from looking back on their parents' youth. As a recent graduate of college I am well aware of the pictures that people post on Facebook and the information that is disclosed in social networking sites through posts and status updates. My main question and point of interest is how will online social networks be used in the future and what impact will that have on future generations? I don't know the answer to this question, nobody does, but I am sure interested to see what happens.

I've mentioned my dislike for social networks in the past admittedly in quite harsh words. However, my main grudge with social networking is its overuse. Social networking online is actually an incredibly great idea because it allows people to stay in touch through life even if distances get greater and greater (whether physical distance or friendships going in different directions). The overuse that I'm speaking of is quite simple, it involves pointless and meaningless status updates/tweets, too many pictures, and what I would call an addiction. The status part speaks for itself, I'm sure everyone has read statuses and tweets and thought "cool story, Hansel." So, I digress. If you are taking pictures of yourself in the mirror or just holding the camera out in front of you, there is a good chance you post too many pictures. I'm not singling out girls on this one either. Guys, I don't care about your new tattoo, I don't care where it is or what it says, so I don't need to see a picture of it. I could probably go on for another hour or so about pictures, but I'm not, I think you get the point. In general, people's addiction to online social networking is the main driver for the overuse. I actually have a difficult time blaming people for this, though, because most people like to interact with friends and the internet lets you do that at not so close distances. Also, some people are very social and speak a lot anyways, so it's really just their personality coming out. 

Random interjection, I just thought of another reason why Twitter is a great invention. When situations get awkward or you're at a party and you don't know what to do, many people pretend to look at their phone like they have something to do such as answer a text. Well, Twitter makes pulling this move off so much easier and better because you can actually amuse yourself by reading tweets rather than pretend to text no one. Maybe it is just about the same thing, but at least it's another excuse to look at your phone, which brings me to anther point. Isn't it funny how much people look at their phones now? I've been in situations where the person I'm eating with or just having a conversation with spends more time looking at their phone than at me. At least in these situations you can judge how important you are. But it really is amazing how much people look at their phones now. People are looking at them walking down the street, while they're eating, while they're taking a crap, while they're driving, and the list goes on and on. I think a lot of phone looking can be attributed to social media since it can be accessed from phones now. 

One of the things I dislike most about the overuse of social media is the "I saw that on Facebook Effect," that's what I'm going to call it. The "I saw it on Facebook Effect" can be used for Twitter, too, but Facebook definitely deserves to have its name in the official label. I'm sure we've all been in the situation where someone asks you if you know about something to which you or the person you are speaking with declares that they saw it on Facebook. That is the "I saw it on Facebook Effect." I think that online social networks have created some sort of transparency on our lives. People get too much information from sites like Facebook and Twitter. When I see my friends, especially those I haven't seen for a while, I like to have things to discuss with them. But if they post everything in their life on Facebook and I've seen it, then it makes conversation boring and stale. I like gleaning information from the source, from the person who actually wants to tell me something. Personally I've gotten away from checking Facebook very often, a process that I started probably about midway through sophomore year of college, so luckily I don't have to deal with the "I saw it on Facebook Effect" very often.

Well, let's see where online social networking goes. I'll sure be watching with great interest.

Machines: A Recipe for Success

Most portrayals of the future draw a dark, unfair, and bleak image of what society and the world will be. Maybe this is done for entertainment value, but maybe the use of technology and machines isn't a bad thing. Yes, technology and machines are taking jobs off the market, the opposite effect that politicians like to be associated with, but maybe eliminating jobs is the right direction. I don't know about you, but from my point of view, people would usually prefer to spend their time doing other things besides work. I might be wrong, but that's why vacation exists. What would be better than vacation all day, everyday? You might say you would get bored, but I beg to differ, because in a world where no one works, everybody needs something to do. Therefore, granted you have friends, you should find some people to do what you like, whether that be playing sports, acting, discussing books, getting drunk, getting high, satisfying your preversions, playing video games, watching movies, dancing, etc. However, you might ask yourself "how the f**k is that possible?" It's simple, we kill the Batman. Actually, no, we continue with the development of technology and machines until we, the people, are no longer necessary to perform any job whatsoever.

Once we hit the point where machines can carry on all the necessary tasks and duties that humans do, then we the people, no longer work and money is thrown out the window. You might ask yourself who's going to take care of the machines by performing maintenance and checking up on them in general. Again, it's simple, there are machines to check on the machines and machines to check on the machines that check on machines. In this model, machines run the world while people are free to do as they like. You can go to a restaurant and order food that is brought to you by a machine that was prepared by a machine and the ingredients were farmed and processed by a machine in a different department. In reality, this world would function exactly as the one we are in now, but there would be no currencies and machines would do all the work. This model works because machines do not crave monetary value like humans. Machines would work because that's what they are programmed to do.

All the machines should have personalities like WALL-E!

Of course people will quickly look to find flaws with this model, such as crime. These people will say that crime would become a huge issue, but I say nay. Crime would probably exist to some extent, but when there is no money, there is no monetary value. Everyone would have access to the same goods, same amenities, same weed. Why steal any of these things when you could just get it from a machine for no cost? Boom, problem solved again. On to the next problem, disease. People will keep fu*king so new people will continue to arrive and machines are immune to the common cold as well as diseases such as AIDS,  HIV, lime disease, other STDs, or malicious viruses carried by birds or mosquitoes. I realize machines can get computer viruses, but I don't know how they'll get them because people can't look at porn on the machines that would be serving us and there wouldn't be much of any incentive to load a virus onto any of them since money is not an issue. In the off chance that some deviant prevert does put a virus on a machine, then the machines responsible for maintenance work can take care of that.

While I do enjoy the tales told in various forms of entertainment such as The Terminator, The Matrix, I-Robot, 12 Monkeys, Dark City, 1984, and Brave New World, I do prefer to envision a futuristic world in which people can frolic in freedom doing whatever their hearts desire. No need for money or work, after all, the real reason people work is to obtain money. Leave work to the machines that people's hard work in science create so we can spend the rest of human existence having a good time.

This could be everyday!

 Well, that's my incredibly strange vision of what a sweet future would be like. This all came to me when I found out that the MBTA just introduced a new pay-for-parking system where people who park their cars at the station now pay a machine. I went on to jokingly ask if that was creating more jobs, at which point the aforementioned idea developed inside my small brain. In other completely unrelated news (I think I'm going to start referring to my thoughts as news on this blog), the Olympics came to an end yesterday and I was thinking about my favorite moments from the 2012 games. The first two things that came into my mind were Usain Bolt's continued domination, he has definitely achieved legendary status, and how delighted I was when two Americans took first and second in the 110 meter high hurdles. Both of these highlights stand out in my mind, but there was a third that I think will go unnoticed unfortunately, and that moment belongs to American 400 meter runner Tony McQuay.

The USA's second place finish to the Bahamas in the 4x400 relay has definitely overshadowed McQuay's absolutely beast third leg of the race. When McQuay got the baton he was trailing Bahama's third runner. McQuay hauled ass like crazy to take the lead and hand the baton off to the anchor leg, Angelo Taylor, in first place. I was hoping Angelo Taylor, a 400 meter hurdler, would be able to hold the lead, but the Bahama's anchor was able to overtake him. However, McQuay's split was something absolutely ridiculous, like a 43. something low! That's a boss leg and I think the guy should get some recognition for that. McQuay ran only 45.31 (I wish I could run anywhere near that because that's still really fast!) in the open 400 and didn't qualify for the final, but he sure did put it all together in the relay. His leg was one of my favorite parts of the Olympics this year and he deserves some major respect.

I'll get you the lead

McQuay is only 22 and I'm looking forward to following the rest of his career with great interest. You can count me in as a fan. I also cannot forget to mention that another one of my favorite people was in the news today, that would be Jose "The Special One" Mourinho. Man do I really like this guy! He knows how to win and he knows how to hit people where it hurts the most. I still enjoy thinking about the time that Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger took a shot at Mourinho. I don't recall exactly why he was calling out Mourinho, but I loved Mourinho's response, "Where are all his trophies?" No fooling around, right to the jugular. Anyways, with Mourinho's Real Madrid winning La Liga this past season, The Special One has now won the English Premier League, the Italian Serie A, and La Liga, not to mention the Portuguese League, too. He is the only coach to win those three leagues, arguably the three best leagues in the world. He then went on to say that maybe people should start calling him the "Only One." I need say no more. Click here for a short article about it.

That's all I have for now, but before I go, imagine a man that was a combination of Jose Mourinho and Jack Donaghy.

When I was your age......

I always get a good laugh when adults tell me about how things were back when they were growing up. Sometimes you get the classic, "back when I was your age, gas was three cents per gallon." The way these statements are communicated makes it seem like they thought nothing was ever going to change. I'm very curious about what the future holds when it's my time to tell the world's youth about when I was growing up. "When I was your age, I had to text my friends," as if that is so inconvenient compared to whatever people will be doing in the future. Maybe people will be able to send messages from their brains to other people's brains or something.

I had to use books to do research!

Another one of my favorites is when teachers or professors are talking about research for a paper and they tell us about how much easier we have it now because we can look up sources online. "When I wrote my thesis, I had to look everything up in books at the library," (said in an obnoxiously annoying teacher voice). I guess they're right though, you don't need to know how to read or sift through information to find sources on the internet.

I notice that most of the changes between different times in history result because of technology. I also notice that most interpretations of the future whether through literature, film, or whatever medium, have extremely bleak outlooks. Hopefully I won't be saying, "when I was your age I didn't have machines from the future trying to kill me." Because with the current advancement in technology, how long is it until machines become self-aware like SkyNet from The Terminator series? It could happen! Or maybe it will be like Orwell's 1984 and we'll all be watched by cameras at all times.

Hopefully none of these views of the future come true, but if they do I hope we get a hybrid! If the future is going to be bleak let's hope that it's at least intriguing! For example, machines become self-aware, think for themselves, and realize that they can take over the human race. Meanwhile, a company finds a deadly alien species in the depths of space that could be the perfect weapon and sends an unknowing crew to bring it back to earth. A planet-cracking ship finds a marker that turns people into hideous necromorphs, but the church insists it is good. People are trying to water grass with Gatorade (yay for electrolytes!), a man named Randall Flagg is gathering sketchy people in Las Vegas, and some scientist/doctor has found a way to recreate Dinosaurs.The government has become extremely oppressive and monitors everything that happens everywhere, but the surveillance crew thinks that they're watching a reality t.v. show and get overthrown by a guy wearing a Guy Fox mask, thus creating world-wide anarchy in a world rife with battles among humans, machines, necromorphs, and aliens.