http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/how-i-became-a-foursquare-cyberstalker-20100727-10t3e.html
Foursquare - What the frick are people thinking?
Call me crazy, computer-illiterate, old-fashioned, whatever you choose, it’s probably right. But I have every right to be any number of things in the climate these days.
I am paranoid about being followed. I freak out when I get off trains. There is nothing more intimidating than the footsteps of a stranger keeping time with you as you make your way home from the train station late at night. I get chill bumps, in a bad way.
I was lying in bed the other night and convinced myself that there was someone with a limp stomping around my lounge room. As it happens, it was merely my ever increasing heart rate in my ears. Embarrassing, right?
But with Foursquare now available, this could actually happen. Granted, he (or she) probably wouldn’t stomp around my lounge room for three hours and then come and kill me. It would be pretty instant.
That’s the scary thing with all these social networking sites and their insufficient privacy settings. I could deal with Myspace, and Facebook (except when it started changing) but then Twitter came along. People were posting numerous pieces of information about themselves that they normally wouldn’t tell anyone.
A friend of mine said ‘Nobody actually reads it anyway!’ But people do. Given the right motive they will track you down and find out every little detail about you.
Which is where Foursquare comes in. “Users are encouraged to "check in" on their phone whenever they arrive at a point of interest - a shop, a cafe, a museum, a nightclub, an office - so that fellow users know where they are.” Creepy.
“Glance down at your phone and see the names of all the other users around you within a mile or so and, crucially, exactly where they are.”
Ah, no thanks.
The promise of a free beer or coffee would not persuade me to ‘check-in’ and post my whereabouts. Nothing would. Not even a million dollars.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/bp-admits-to-doctored-oil-spill-photo-20100721-10kww.html
BP - Banning Photoshop.
Why did the staff photographer feel it was necessary to fill in the blank screens? Was it merely because, as said in the article, he just wanted to ‘show off his photoshopping skills’? Or was it because there is some underlying guilt in the employees at BP who feel as though there isn’t enough being done? It was a petty way to give a sense of fulfilment. I, for one, wouldn’t have paid any mind to a couple of blank screens.
The poorly altered BP images and the furore that has followed them being identified isn’t actually about BP as a stand alone company lying to us. It is about media manipulation and just how far it can go.
The lengths that companies go to these days to ensure that the consumer sees their product as perfect is extraordinary. All these alterations are done so that we enjoy the viewing experience that much more.
I’ll tell you what I enjoy. Seeing peoples’ imperfections. There is nothing more beautiful than blemishes and flaws. Freckles on noses, pot bellies, stretch marks, the odd hair out of place, teeth that aren’t startling white. All these are such oddly endearing things to see. By seeing these things we know that even the rich and famous are flawed. But we don’t see them anymore. Skin is photoshopped to within an inch of its life, bodies are digitally nipped and tucked, and teeth are bleached to an unbelievable whiteness.
The saddest thing to come out of this whole incident (apart from the oil spill, the environmental impact and the damage to the economy) is the number of times that corporations photoshop images to mislead consumers and get away with it.
