I am taking a hiatus for the remainder of the summer to finish some hulking, be-fanged programming projects. Once those are complete, I am going to “take off the training wheels” on erelevant–redesign and revision it around a broader central theme. It will be less personal, less inflammatory and more topical and content-oriented. See you [...]
When Time magazine named “You” as its person of the year in 2006, it was a ham-handed attempt to salute “user-generated content” as the driving force behind Web 2.0. Last year MySpace and YouTube commanded $580 million and $1.6 billion, respectively, because regular folks participate in the grand techno-democratic experiment, baring their souls to the [...]
By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer NEW YORK Feb 27, 2007 (AP)— Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. “We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and [...]
Friday Reports give a rundown of what I did over the week. It’s a window into the process here at WWC as well as a way for me to keep some records. Latest Bookmarks The biggest development this week was the addition of the Podcast Crew as a subdivision of the Web Crew. Discussion started [...]
VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT Warren Wilson College invites applications for the position of Vice President for Advancement, with a starting date of July 1, 2007. Position Summary: Reporting to the President, the Vice President for Advancement leads an aggressive fundraising/development operation and supervises the Office of College Relations. She or he must have the qualities [...]
When Education Secretary Margaret Spellings made a speech and report outlining her vision for higher education last fall, I went on a little blogging rage rampage. Have a look: Big Brother Goes to College Margaret Spellings’ Plan for Higher Ed: Standardizing College, Putting Salary Outcomes on a Pedestal Margaret Spellings’ Plan is Fraught with Contradictions [...]
After nearly 6 months, 70 blog entries, and 95 legitimate comments, I’m pleased to anounce that erelevant has garnered a truly amazing 5,000 spam comments. It’s nice to know that I will always have such an incredible selection of sources for various prescription drugs, organ enlargement procedures, loans, stock tips, and even high quality computer [...]
Friday Reports give a rundown of what I did over the week. It’s a window into the process here at WWC as well as a way for me to keep some records. Latest Bookmarks I did not consider this week particularly productive. At work, the upcoming Presidential Inauguration and several tangential political issues related to [...]
The Savanah College of Art and Design has launched a new video viral campaign called SCAD shorts. The idea is that you watch a short, creepy-goofy video and then guess it’s four-word name. The words begin with the letters of the college’s abbreviation S, C, A, and D. If you guess the name correctly, you [...]
There is an argument made against privacy that says someone who isn’t engaged in criminal behavior has nothing to hide. This method of thinking allowed the US government to slowly sap away our civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks–many have just accepted that trading privacy for security is acceptable and used the “nothing to hide” argument to rationalize what was, essentially, a decision based on fear. However, limiting the government’s ability to intrude in our private lives is easy compared with attempting to control how personal information spreads on the internet via gossip. Rather than spies or wiretaps, gossip is often gathered by those we trust and spread online by people who don’t understand or appreciate the potential for the damage it can do. In reality, privacy is about much more than concealing wrongdoing.
Internet-based abuse (‘cyberbullying’) and privacy / relationship issues are still massively misunderstood. The complexities of online sociality are probably the biggest ‘generational divide’ between modern teens and adults. To help put it in perspective a bit, here are some numbers…
