The Reasoner

Continue reading… »

Your reason for blogging can be one of the thousands of reasons out there that makes people blog or want to blog. Here are 10 very popular reasons why people blog, listed in random order.

1. You want to share your personal life.
2. You want to chronicle your personal life.
3. You want to make money.
4. You want to be part of the trend.
5. You want something to fill your time.
6. You want recognition.
7. You want to create new friendships.
8. You want to try out a new hobby.
9. You like the topic you blog about.
10. You like to write.

Why do you blog?

Based on the above information and sample reasons, why do you blog? Is there a different reason why your blog exists? If you want to blog in the future, what reason motivates you?

Please share your thoughts, stories, or any questions through your comment below. Thank you for reading! I really appreciate it. :)

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

1. To find and connect with friends or new people.
2. To see what others are doing daily.
3. To tell everyone what you are doing and thinking.
4. To share your pictures with others.
5. To see what others look like or see in their pictures.
6. To build a list of potential customers for something you want to sell.
7. To flirt with others or find someone to be romantically involved with.
8. To be a pervert.
9. To pass time daily.
10. To find others who share a common interest like religion, movie and coffee brands.

So, Why Are You on Facebook?

Based on the reasons above, can you think of the sole reason you are on Facebook? Which of the above points would never prompt you to be on Facebook?

Please share your thoughts, ideas, tips or any questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading! I really appreciate it. :) As is the usual case with me stopping writing near the end for a reason or two, I now have to stop and go check my Facebook messages.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

Many people think these two questions should decide the fate of advertisements on your site:

1. Do you want to make money through advertisements?
2. Can you technically put ads on your site?

When the answer to both of these questions is yes, many people immediately focus on putting up ads and setting up a PaypPal account to start accepting payments for ads. Because of immense importance given to those two questions, majority of the blogs online will never make any amount of money.

If you have a site and have been thinking of whether you can benefit from advertising, ask yourself the following questions first to start your planning process:

• Is the content that you’re going to be writing in demand?
• Who may be the target for your content?
• Does that target group have access to the same information [as your site] elsewhere?
• If the target group, or market, has an alternate access to the same information, are those alternate resources charging for their content, or are they providing it for free?
• Can you dedicate some amount of time or passion to this for both the short and the long run?
• How likely are you able to, with the help of available tools, make people become loyal to your new site which will have ads?
• How will your new ads affect your existing readers?
• How will your target readers respond to your new ads?

In asking these and other similar questions, you have to remember my concept of advertisements: advertisements of any kind are a form of subscription fees for content. You see an ad, and thus spend a second or two looking at it. That act of looking or spending time on an ad is a form of payment, with you taking action on such ad becoming a premium form of payment to the website which displays the ad. In contrast, a site with no advertisements can appear to be providing something that resembles a premium service; no ads of any kind, and quality content. Sites without any ads and with a money-based subscription plan appear better in the eyes of many people who avoid looking at ads on websites.

Planning to advertise requires some planning

You should find out your own target market and then decide if they’re willing to pay, either through money or through their time, to support your site. If you have a personal blog and expect people to pay money to read your posts, you should either be a known-writer or should have content that people are looking for and willing to pay you for it. If you have a corporate website with ads, then the image and brand of your site name goes down, as people assume that your company or service is not doing good and depending on external advertisements to support its finances. Some websites have focused on ads so much for revenue and stability that their brand names have become associated with the idea of advertisements. About.com is one such example.

Another thing you have to keep in mind is the quality of loyalty of your users. If you get a lot of random users, you have to build a loyal following to your site. Having your site bombarded with ads, or even having a few ads on your site that might distract your readers from your content, may scare away a few users who would have otherwise stayed longer. Thus, you have to make sure you have some kind of control over the number of ads on your site, even if some people seem to be enjoying them. Users might not visit a site again if they feel annoyed by ads, but someone who likes a site may not mind having a few ads around. In fact, people who enjoy your site would be willing to actually pay attention to the ads to see how they’re related to them solely because the ads are appearing on your site.

In the end, you can always start with something that gives everything to the reader. Slowly, and later on, you can ask the user for something in return and test their response to see if they’re willing to spend time, or actual money, for your content.

What is your view of sites having ads on them?

What do you think? Do you have ads on your site? What do you think of the idea of seeing ads on your favorite sites? Are you planning on having ads on your site? Do you think ads harm the surfing experience?

Please share your comments or experiences below. Thank you for reading! :)

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

If you observe the times when a racial slur is thrown at someone, you may notice a trend in many of such observations. A racial slur, from my observation, usually comes at 3 prime times:

1. When someone is angry. This can happen when there is an argument, or when someone ends up with something they do not want. Talking about politics, playing a game, and dealing with daily life are some of the actual times when someone is so mad that they feel inclined to actually be racist, or say a racial slur. For example, last week in a game chat room, I heard someone say “Kick the spic!” when someone, who sounded like they were of Mexican origin, suggested that the people in the game chat room play a certain map of the game instead of the one suggested by the racial slur user.
2. When someone is being funny with a crowd. The keywords “with a crowd” is very important here, as usually some people tend to use racial slurs when they feel that the company of people they are within, whether it is one person or 20 people, are enjoying their company and will consider such a racial slur as an awesome joke or labeling. If the crowd finds such a thing funny or does not point it out even casually, the person who utters the racial slur thinks that getting into a habit of using racial slur may result in more acceptance into certain areas of the society.
3. To justify something done or experienced by someone. When someone sees a justification, using their own logic, to describe a situation or the reason behind a situation, a racial slur may be used by some people to express their high emotions. Justifying the high rate of crime in certain low income areas by associating it with a racial slur seems to be a trend that many people seem to follow. For example, some people would consider it justifiable to say “Niggers!” when it comes to a TV report that talks about a violent crime committed by an African American against some other race, or “Cracker!” when there is mention of someone who is Caucasian who did something violent to the member of a minority community. The justification here, by the person who says the racial slur, is to show that the race of the person being criticized is entirely bad, and in such situations where emotions are high because of what is being justified, a racial slur will seem perfectly fine to go along with the situation in question.

   This third point is probably the most powerful moment of the utterance of a racial slur, as it justifiably, in the minds of the people who use the racial slur, associates something bad with the racial slur and the people against whom the racial slur is being used.

Why do we get offended over racial slurs?

Since many of us actually know that a racial slur exists solely to label someone as inferior or to offend them, why do we take offense when we hear racial slurs directed towards us? Imagine if no one got annoyed by a racial slur. The result may be a total elimination, or almost total elimination, of the idea of using a racial slur to describe people or offend them. The answer to the question of why we feel offended over a racial slur is, in my view, very complicated. It can, however, probably be described in one simple sentence: We simply do not like being offended by an uncontrollable method for reasons we have no control over.

It would be actually be interesting if we simply did not care about such racial slurs. The very reason they are used is because the person they are directed towards actually takes offense when hearing or encountering such names. It is probably the feeling of wanting to be human, accepted and equal, or at least one of those, that makes us want other people to not use racial slurs against us.

An example of an online Racist: Michael from Sandy Springs, Georgia, USA

You run into racist people in weird places. I run into many of them online usually, as I talk to well over a thousand different people every 2 months or so online through different channels. One of those channels is online games. I play an online game called Left 4 Dead 2. You get to play with up to 4 real human players and you can type or voice chat with them while playing. Well, one of the players I ran into and unfortunately added, a certain Michael from Sandy Springs, Georgia, ended up being a headache.

I did not find Michael an enjoyable player to play with because of him acting rude and racist towards anyone who would not play by his rules and anyone who sounded different in the voice chats. He called one person a “Nigger” and on another day a “Gook.” Those people simply quit the game after a few minutes each time, probably offended by such name-calling. And interestingly enough, “Foreigner” was what I was labeled by Michael whenever things did not go his way in the game. I deleted him from my contact list shortly afterwards, only to have him re-add me several times later on. Annoyed by seeing the multiple pop-ups of his friend request, I simply blocked him. It has been peaceful ever since.

It can sometimes be very hard to get over things for me, for I wonder about the reason why some things happen or why we act the way we do. So for me, I simply used the game example and turned it into this actual article you are reading. So Michael from Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, whoever you are or however old you are, you not only managed to annoy 3 people this week, you also gave me inspiration for this article. And you also managed to get yourself listed on Google and other places online for everyone including your family, friends, contacts and any employers to see the real you: a racist person who hates the Chinese, Blacks and people with accents by calling them “Gook“, “Nigger” and “Foreigner.” Congrats! :)

What do racial slurs achieve?

What is it about racial slurs that make their users feel inclined to use them against others? For me, it could be several things, including the following 4 reasons:

1. In situations where someone is losing an argument, using a racial slur can easily make an opponent angry. What looks better in the end: a person who lost the argument happily or a person who won the argument while being extremely upset and mad? When it comes to actual pride in the society, many people consider keeping calm and being racist as being better than being called a racial slur and losing temper in public.
2. The upbringing. Parents of many people, including the several racist people I know online and offline, raise their children teaching them that their certain race, ethnicity, color or some certain family profile is better than others. And such a feeling of superiority makes people want to express racist feelings in situations where what they have learnt from their parents is proven wrong. For every racist person you know, and that I know, chances are one or both of their parents were or are racist, or brought up their children with some incorrect racial values.
3. Culture, religion & the surroundings. For me, without a doubt, this may be the most powerful reason why people act racist or use racial slurs. Many cultural pressures actually end up creating literal racist attitudes towards other cultures. This is something that can fall outside the scope of the parents and their upbringing efforts. Many religious interpretations can also prompt people to be racist and view others as inferior. The surroundings, or the environment and the neighborhood, are also a big factor for people wanting to conform to their surrounding. Such conformity, whether it happens at the moment of being racist or after years of being used to conforming to the society, usually plays a big role in people simply playing a role in order to feel part of the crowd or to believe in something that the surrounding teaches them. Hitler is a perfect example of this last aspect. How many mini-Hitlers of our society do you have in your contact list?
4. Feeling of personal inferiority. Many people simply feel inferior or different compared to others. This “different” personal awareness actually makes them feel depressed, inferior, less appreciated or even less capable at something. The resulting emotion is usually anger when such things are realized or such emotions are encountered. Such anger results in racial slurs in order to feel better by putting someone else down based on a historically racist notion that usually offends people who may have a similar quality to the person who is being racially offended.

What do you think? What have you been called? Have you called others by any racial slurs?

In the end, a racial slur is usually defused by simply ignoring it. We have the legal rights today to be racially equal on all levels, but we do not have a society where people view everyone else as an equal. In the end, all the fighting efforts of every race in America and other countries to gain freedom, equality or other rights resulted in only one thing: legal rights. You cannot always force yourself to take action to silence anyone who calls you a racially offensive name. You can try, but in the end, if we ourselves and the society does not change by actually believing and realizing that everyone is different, we will continue to have people who continue being racist in different ways. That is exactly why there is no race or nation on earth which in some manner does not act racist to some other race or nation.

What is your view about this? Have you ever been called a racial slur? Have you called someone else such a name? What do you think of such people who call other racial slurs such names in order to annoy others or win a losing argument by annoying others?

Please share in the comments below. Thank you. :)

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

The most common reason in our society for any kind of makeup would be to enhance beauty. People use contrast colors to show specific colors of their skin, and they also highlight certain parts of their bodies in order to draw a nice, and glamorous, attention to them. Many people spend more time putting on makeup for a party than they do partying.

Another reason for wanting to enhance beauty is the idea of jealousy. Many people feel jealous when around others who wear makeup, and thus they themselves put on much more makeup, or better makeup, in order to appear more attractive. In the end, wanting to appear prettier, more beautiful, cuter, nicer or anything on the same level boils down to one thing: wanting to appear more attractive for some reason.

In today’s society, a very popular trend is to wear makeup in order to appear more attractive than other people around you, even when there is no potential mate around. Maybe it is the subconscious idea that if one appears more attractive than other others, then one would have better chances of mating in the theoretical case of having a real mate around.

Hiding Ugliness

Makeup is also used to hide ugliness, which in turn gives ugliness a bad name. Being ugly is not a crime, nor is it a bad thing. It is one of the biggest mysteries in life as to why people focus so much on saying “She/he is beautiful from within“, as if being beautiful or attractive physically in at least some inner-flesh manner is necessary in order to be accepted.

Yet, makeup is recommended so much to hide ugliness, even indirectly, that many people who think they may be a tad ugly try to soak themselves in it. In today’s society, it is the general notion to consider someone with makeup beautiful, and someone without makeup as being lazy or too simple.

One may wear makeup to hide ugliness in order to either to compete with the competition or to appear attractive to mates. It is considered a mistake in the society to go out and be proud while being ugly, while it is considered a feat to wear makeup and divert attention from ugliness to the makeup itself.

Attracting Mates

The most observable reason for putting on makeup has been to attract mates. The other two reasons of enhancing beauty or hiding ugliness usually exist in order to serve the need of wanting to attract a mate. This tradition seems like a conditional response, where even people who are married or are with an existing soulmate still put on makeup to appear attractive around new potential mates that they encounter. People put on makeup the minute they leave their homes, as if simply appearing attractive to a new mate for a theoretical mating, without the potential of gaining any new mate if one is with someone already, is still a valid reason for putting on makeup.

Putting on makeup does not mean that one is actually going to go out and find a mate. The mere idea of appearing attractive and catching the attention of a mate justifies putting on makeup for many people. Whether it is the gene pool that makes many humans act like their cave ancestors or the idea that one’s meaningless life serves a happy purpose by being liked by a potential mate, many people wear makeup simply, mainly, and only to attract mates.

Whether such an act is good or bad usually depends on the person wearing the makeup. Society, as of today, considers it a good and an acceptable trend. “Attracting mates“, and variants of that idea are, however, usually not mentioned openly in such or similar words when it comes to the topic of wearing makeup because that may openly give makeup wearers a bad reputation.

What do you think about Makeup?

So what is your opinion about makeup? Do you wear makeup? Do you know someone who does for any of the reasons listed above? In your view, does makeup exist to enhance beauty? Or does makeup allow one to hide things on their bodies that they consider ugly? Or does makeup mainly exist to help appear attractive to a potential mate?

Please share in the comments below. Thank you for reading.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

And what to write about the topic once we know the topic? The topic of making money online, for example, can be addressed in so many ways. Do we start writing about the benefits of making money online? Or do we write about the 20 different ways you can make money through blogs? Or do we write about the sinful shame that any writer should feel if he or she writes for money? Yes, the choices may seem limitless, even though the energy to instantly start focusing and writing on a single topic may seem limited. Do you overcome such a limit by turning off the monitor as David Risley suggests?

So what actually happens when we cannot write anymore? We wonder about what can be a good topic that can revolve around the topics we know. We go around other blogs, finding out what they are writing. We go to Facebook or Twitter to find out what people are liking or whining about. And we go to MySpace to see what people are venting and expressing about. And we go to BrightKite to see where people get different ideas to write something. We also ask others to suggest some ideas about what to write about. Many look for ways to be inspired to write, while many others simply write about anything, with or without inspiration among other things.

Do you start now? Or do you start later?

And in the end, when we finally have a topic, or some reason, or some thought to think about, we wonder about something: do we start writing now, or do we wait for the right moment? We also juggle the daily chores thrown at us by others and also try to focus on something other than writing, since focusing on things that can be easily accomplished on a short notice and within a short span of time may be better in our perspective. Or in our minds at least. We keep hearing from many people: “Just start writing! Let it flow! Write write write.” Many people who make money writing say that. And you wonder: “But I do not just want to write anything. I want to write something good. Something special. Something that I think is worthy, even if it is not good and special. Something that I may even think is not worthy. Something that I feel I should or should not be writing.”

And while we wonder about such things, we may start to realize that any piece of writing may have some reason or thought behind it. That all writing, including this article itself, may be the result of at least two actions: a thought or a reason, and the keystrokes [or the flow of the pen in other situations].

What do you do when you stop writing?

What do you do when you cannot continue writing a letter, e-mail, or something else? What are some ways you try to overcome the times when you want to write, but feel like you cannot? Do you ever come across situations where you want to write and you know what to write, but many reasons, like having to many things to choose from to write, make you think more and not write?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. :) I now have to stop here and go through my list of other topics to publish.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

We have pneumonia. We have aids. We have cancer. We have bird flu. We have Teletubbies flu. We have everything. Today. Right here. Right now. If you want to get infected with a disease and die soon, chances are you can find a way to make it happen within a month. Or maybe 3 months.

Mexico was the keyword in all the newspapers till yesterday. And now, United States is in the start of a growing panic mode because of the small child that died in Texas to be deemed the first death from Swine Flu in the United States. In the Middle East, Israel wants to call the flu “Mexico Flu” instead of “Swine Flu“ because the Holy Land of the Muslims & Jews do not eat pork and it is considered unhealthy for them, but that is being protested by Mexico. Korea also wants to call the flu the “Mexican Virus“, much again to the protest of the Mexican government.

Mexico has issued respirators for everyone. They look cool. I want one too please. Never before has the idea of being confronted with a virus looked so real, and so scary. Is it all a hype? Is this just like any other flu, with the only difference being that this is a new outbreak and thus the news is playing up the hype? Still, I want a cool respirator please. I will wear it everywhere. Why not? San Francisco police is said to be officially going to start having all San Francisco Police Force to wear the Swine Flu Respirators within a week. Today, supposedly, the Zodiac’s identity was revealed in San Francisco. “The Zodiac has come to San Francisco.” What a cool quote. I have a better one: Move aside, Zodiac. The flu has come to San Francisco.

The economy is bad. The feelings with the outside world are bad. Our internal systems of businesses are bad. And now, even the micro organisms hate us. Or maybe they hate each other. I am not sure. No one is sure. How must the parents of that child must be feeling today? We feel and talk about that child more because he is in America. Yes. Hundreds of Mexican deaths can all be described numerically. But this child has to be discussed in detail in order to show how serious we should be towards paying attention to the media. Or is it real? I am not sure. What was the child’s name? What kind of toys did he like? Who are his parents? Are they ok now? Did the child have any brothers or sisters? How is his overall family? Did he suffer? What did he go through? I don’t know. Does anyone care outside of the media paper and page the news was on?

Not everyone in America wakes up thinking “I want America to be the biggest super power on the planet!” Not everyone in America wakes up thinking “Hah! Those Mexicans are always dirty and thus they are getting these diseases.” No. Majority of us, the majority that is now shown on the news, wakes up thinking “Ohhhh, so sleepy, need coffee, and then need to get to work” or “Hmmm ohhhh, so hungry, need to relax and then decide what to do.” We are humans, just like you. I am human, I hope. I feel like a human, but if I am not a human, how can I be sure I am a human to feel like a human? No one knows. Though we say we are.

Many people think Americans have no emotions. Americans include citizens, visitors living here for decades, illegal immigrants living here permanently, and all the animals and Bigfoot too. All of us do have emotions. Some show it in both extreme and non-existent ways like on this site. Others do not show it, like on this site also, while some others show it all the time and with full force, also like on this site. Regardless, we are doing everything we already were before the Swine Flu entered our vocabulary with such devotion. We are still going to the movies, and we are still having ice cream. We are still tweeting, and we are still walking around in the dark looking for new hiking routes. Some of us are still idiots, while some of us are still better. Some of us are still moronically selfish and manipulative individuals, while some of us are crying and wondering daily why we are being manipulated. Still, some of us just wake up, go to work, and come home and sleep. And if you did not realize it, every mention of the term “we” in this paragraph referred to all the human beings in this world.

People I know in Europe & Middle East are being advised to not come to the United States. I agree. Don’t panic, but avoid coming if you can. I do not know what it feels like to lose a son, but I know what it feels like to lose someone young. You decide. I am going to keep on doing everything. I am going to travel, going to go around taking pictures, going to meet people, going outside, and going to live. I am also going to try to get the respirator. Maybe because it may save my life. Or maybe because it looks very nice and I want to feel a respirator once again in life, after 18 years of not wearing one. Maybe the respirators are different than gas masks. In such a case, any respirator now may be my 2nd one. Otherwise, it would be the 3rd mask on my face in my life which may stay on for a while or during an emergency. Who knows.

It is now 2:24am. Not a single smiley in this article so far. Maybe it’s because I’m relaxed and tired at the same time. Let me go ahead and put a smiley –> :D:D:D:D:D. The World Health Organization WHO has labeled the Swine Flu a level 5, meaning it is one step short of becoming a worldwide plague in action. Level 5 means it is already on its way to becoming level 6. Let’s have 5 smileys–> :D :D :D :D :D

Forget about being associated with a certain culture or a certain country. Focus on humanity, and focus on yourself first. Wake up, and feel alive. And then feel that everything is hyped up or just an obstacle that you will either overcome or co-exist with. Not everything can be defeated. But you can try to keep on living in many weird situations.

Bird Flu. Cookie Flu. Swine Flu. Pig Flu. Mexican Flu. North American Influenza. Whatever the name may be, we keep on living. 10 years from now, articles like the Wikipedia entry on the Swine Flu will make it look like the entire world was crying and weeping on April 30th, 2009. No. 99% of us are not weeping over this flu. Our own President was getting applauds and joking around earlier today. This is just another news. The show must go on. We must go on. The difference between the show and us is, the show is there to get attention. We have to go on in order to keep on living and in order to co-exist with this new beginning.

So maybe this is how people felt in the 70′s when the previous Swine Flu outbreak was. Wikipedia article, once again, shows it as being kind of a big thing that caused millions of people’s lives to change drastically and immediately. Of course, Wikipedia also portrays the same impression about today’s 2009 Swine Flu outbreak, though I don’t notice anyone’s life changing drastically in California because of this. Has your life completely changed? Hmmmm.

The good thing is to see how your life has changed, and how the media says your life has changed. Then we can try to decide whether it is the flu that is the real outbreak, or the media. And we have the necessary power to deploy forces in any part of the world within 24 hours. But we do not have enough injections or medicine necessary to give to the entire population for the next 6 months. Brilliant! Clap with me please!

*If you’re dumb dumb and would like to be called a dumb dumb clap your hands! CLAP CLAP* – Bes

To everyone dying in all parts of the world, and their families, and their neighbors, and their friends, and their enemies, and their fellow human beings, do realize that there are others that realize what life is too. And they are living it also. And they have their own life and ideas too. Many of us have not forgotten you, nor disrespected you, on purpose. We may have our life to think about, the way you have your life to think about. We may just have other sidetracking things going on at the same time, like life itself. Even if it is at 2:42am.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

Like the stereotypical car sales men from the 90′s, many websites of today show and tell you many things to get you to create an account with them. You are even sometimes sent a “Thank you!” e-mail, making sure you feel so special that you tell your neighbors about your adventure of joining a cool website. And then it happens. After hours, days or weeks, you lose interest, or you get harassed like a bunny. You decide to cancel and delete your account. That is when you realize that breaking up from a 20-year old relationship may be easier than canceling and deleting an online account.

Many websites like PeoplePC.com seem to make you call customer support in order to cancel your account. Why do you have to call the billing department to cancel your account when you are allowed to create your account online? There can be many reasons why some websites do not close your accounts. Some websites simply do not have that functionality available on a wide-scale, while other websites want to keep the number of open accounts high in order to attract investors. Still, other websites simply focus on people creating accounts and making purchases through those accounts, and people not wanting to remain on the site anymore are not part of their focus at all. Whatever the reason, in the end, you are usually left with an online account with your name, username, password, e-mail address, home address, phone number and many other pieces of private information sitting on an information bank, probably waiting to be utilized at some future date.

Some online services which do not allow you to completely close and delete your account.

The following websites offer no way to delete your account. They do not offer any information as to how you can delete your account permanently and completely, and e-mailing their tech support does not seem to help either.

• Art .com. I e-mailed Art.com asking them to delete my account, and as a response, I got instructions on how to unsubscribe from their newsletter. Of course, I am still getting the newsletter, and also have an account there that I cannot close.
• Performancing Ads .com. There is absolutely no way to delete your account, and their help pages have no information on the words “delete“, “close” and “deactivate.“
• Oovoo .com. I e-mailed and contacted Oovoo support to delete my account and was told that the only way to do that was to:

  “go to FILE/EDIT MY OOvOO CARD/ Once there please remove any personal information, your picture (by replacing it with something else), and your email address (enter a bogus one). Please also change your display name to “inactive”. Click “Save”, and then just abandon the account. This will close it.” –according to ooVoo staff Dave.

  I realized and found out that the above comment meant that Oovoo does not allow you to completely delete and close your account and personal information. All it offers is to change some of your private information to bogus information and to simply not login. Of course, your own personal ooVoo username can never be changed and remains active forever.



• FedEx .com . FedEx allows you to create an online account to track packages, send packages and create personal and business accounts for shipping and delivery. FedEx, unlike UPS, does not offer a way to delete and close your “My FedEx” account at all, resulting in all your information stored forever on the FedEx website.
• Anthropologie.com. The famous clothing and home apparel store website does not offer any account or personal information deletion feature. All your anthropological purchases are saved forever, just like the field of anthropology would love it.



• eBay group subscriptions. If you are subscribed to any eBay group and then you delete your account, your group subscriptions can remain active. That means eBay will keep emailing you the eBay group announcements, replies, and other notifications. Contacting support will not help at all, as I have experienced so far.
• iStockPhoto .com . The famous royalty stock photo website allows you to create and account and either sell or buy pictures. It does not, however, allow you to realize that you can stop being interested in their service and can delete your online account there. You can find dozens of links telling you to buy subscriptions and pictures. You will find zero links to tell you how you can close your iStockPhoto account.



• Zooomr .com. While there is no information whatsoever as to how a Zooomr account can be completely closed, there is information on Zooomr help groups about people having their Zooomr account disabled without any explanation and Zooomr ignoring such people publicly on the discussion forums. People’s requests to have their Zooomr accounts deleted have been ignored and unanswered for months on the Zoomr groups.
• Alaska Airlines .com. Many online airlines like American, United and SouthWest allow travelers to create and manage online airline accounts related to their miles and memberships. At the same time, however, airlines like Alaska Air and Jet Blue do not allow users to delete their online airline accounts. Once again, easy to book an airline ticket and an online airline account, and very hard to cancel either.



• DeviantART .com. DeviantART does not allow you to delete your account. Just like Oovoo, you can only edit some of your existing information and replace it with bogus information. You can also manually delete all your DeviantART content. Your DeviantART account stays alive forever, however.
• PeoplePC .com. There may be reasons to believe PeoplePC tries to ignore people who want to cancel their PeoplePC account.
• Pizza Hut .com. Your hunger forces you to go online and order 2 large pizzas, 8 bread sticks, 8 spicy chicken wings and 2 large Sprites. However, when it comes to deleting your online PizzaHut.com account login and related information, neither hunger nor starvation can help you. There is no link to delete your PizzaHut.com account, and asking any Pizza Hut staff at any Pizza Hut location makes that staff member want to call the center for disease control because of your strange question.



• Buy.com . Like many other websites, Buy.com makes it extremely easy to sign up for an account. However, there is absolutely no information whatsoever as to how you can delete all your personal information from their site, and how can you can permanently close your account.

Above are some of the thousands of online websites and services which do not allow you to delete your online account with them easily, or at all.

Would you like the ability to delete your online accounts on different websites?

Searching online can help figure out whether others online have instructions to help delete different online accounts. So why do these websites themselves do not allow you to easily close your account? Should not the happiness and convenience of a potential client or even a visitor be kept in mind, even when they are leaving you? Should not the idea of being able to close an account be as easy as opening an account?

Please let me and others know what you think by sharing in the comments below.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you, and I hope you can get your unwanted online account deleted. :) As for me, I am off to e-mail the wonderful Orbitz and Priceline people to see if I can beg them to close my accounts.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

At its core, every suicide attempt usually tries to serve one purpose: to end one’s own life. In our societies, while ending someone else’s life is legal, allowed and even promoted as a preference in many situations, ending our own life is usually frowned upon and considered an abnormal behavior. At the same time, however, it seems that we try to react differently to a famous, rich person trying to commit suicide, compared to the way we would react finding out that our poor neighbor or classmate attempted suicide.

When your friend, an online person or your neighbor talks about wanting to commit suicide, you may immediately assume that they are having a psychological and nervous breakdown. However, when someone like Megan Fox talks about suicide and mental insecurities, we usually start sympathizing and even start wanting to associate ourselves more with such a person. Mischa Barton was forced into suicide watch recently, by her friends. Would you, now, start treating Mischa differently and think she is 100% psychotic? How about the idea that Lady Gaga is “romanticizing suicide” and that she is trying to show suicide as being kind of “artsy”? Would you look at suicide in a different light when such media celebrities are involved?

Why is it that a non-celebrity cannot walk around a party, head up high, after an attempted suicide, but we glorify, praise and pay to watch celebrities walk around with heads up high after their attempted suicide? Online, we run into similar issues, regardless of the celebrity or non-celebrity status. Recently, I posted an article called “Thought: I want to commit online suicide.” Because of that, I received numerous phone calls and texts in the offline, real world. Among the many interesting reactions, one business associate asked me “Would this affect your work or our project time line in any manner?” All of that made me realize even more as to how everyone focuses on the negative reaction people should have to suicide, instead of the actual reaction one may feel without considering the society rules and norms into the actual feelings. What is it about the concept of suicide that, when presented, results in almost similar reactions depending on the venues and people it involves?

Could it be that we usually follow the stereotypical society trends when dealing with topics like suicide and celebrities? Could it be that because of our affiliation with wanting to be normal in the society, the stereotypical trait of worshiping celebrities takes priority over the idea of hating the concept of wanting to attempt suicide?

Random List Of Celebrities You May Worship Who Attempted Suicide

It may be easy to overlook the fact that someone not famous may have a character outside of their suicidal interests, the same way we may tend to overlook the fact that a celebrity tried to commit suicide. Similarly, we may simply overlook that someone may have tried to commit suicide and may have nothing going on in their life, but that they may believe certain reasons for such trends in their life to be true for their case.

To help understand how we may allow the celebrity status of a person overshadow the fact that they tried to commit suicide, I present to you the following random list of famous people who have attempted suicide in the past:

• Owen Wilson. Tried by slashing wrists in 2007.
• Princess Diana
• Halle Berry. Tried by gasing herself in 1996.
• Elizabeth Taylor.
• Drew Barrymore. Tried by slashing her wrist at age 14 in 1989.
• Gary Coleman.
• Mike Tyson
• Donna Summer
• Drew Carey. Tried twice, by drug overdose in 1976 and 1978.
• Eminem
• Peter Fonda
• Billy Joel. Tried by drinking furniture polish in 1970.
• Jennifer O’Neil
• Elton John
• Johnny Cash. Tried by drug overdose in 1968.
• Charlie Parker
• Michael Jackson
• Vanilla Ice. Threatened suicide while on a 911 call in 2008.
• Britney Spears
• Jean Wallace. Tried twice by sleeping pills in 1946 and with a knife in 1949.

Because of the fact that the people above have attempted suicide in the past, do you respect them less now? Do you respect them more because of their suicide attempts? Will your attitude towards any of the above people now change in any manner, because of finding out or knowing that they once tried to end their life?

Are you more sympathetic towards suicide attempts made by celebrities compared to suicidal attempts made by non-celebrities?

Do you look at celebrities attempting suicide with a forgiving character? Would you treat a neighbor or a family member, if they are non-celebrities and tried to commit suicide, the same way you would treat Owen Wilson? Would you not care about your wife or husband trying suicide, the same way you and many people may not care about Halle Berry or Johnny Cash attempting suicide?

What is your view on this matter? Can you think of other celebrities who have attempted suicide? Do you know someone who attempted suicide? Have you thought of committing suicide yourself before and faced any of the stereotypes or trends mentioned above?

What do you think?

Do the trends and actual behavior of sympathizing with celebrities who attempted suicide tell us that it may simply be the society values and stereotypes that cause us to look at the concept of suicide with our eyes closed? If we can overlook the fact that a human being tried to commit suicide because that human being was and is a celebrity, does that mean we can come up with other qualities or labels, or trends and observations, including a change in our own thinking, that can allow us to respect and treat everyone who attempted suicide the way we would want to respect and treat everyone who has not attempted suicide?

Please let me know what you think in the comments below. Thank you for reading. :) I really appreciate it.

« Show less..

Poll for you and your future and existing job:

Continue reading… »

Does social network profiling result in discrimination and prejudice?

It is interesting to see that more and more companies are starting to think that your behavior outside of the workplace is an important factor to consider when figuring out whether or not you are useful to the company and your job. My question is: What does the non-work online life of anyone have to do with the work life? Employers should only care about something that affects the workplace or the job at hand by following the golden rule: mind your own business.

Can employers and interviewers use the social profiles of job applicants and employees as a way to base biased decisions against the stereotypically-stereotyped people, like homosexuals, females, minorities, politically minded, certain races, and more?

Employers should not care about the online social activities of employees outside of the workplace.

Employers have to learn how not to judge an employee because of a social online account not related to work. Employers also have to come up with better ways to analyze candidates than to use online posts of employees and candidates as one of the main deciding factors. Many times, if not most, using MySpace or social profiles as a way to “weed out” candidates is a cheaper and faster way for interviewers and others to not do the extra work of figuring out who is a good applicant for the job at hand.

According to a CareerBuilder survey in June of 2009, “Forty-five Percent of Employers use social networking sites to research job candidates. Jennifer Van Grove on Mashables says “Though this may seem as a big downer for those of us who are oversharers, the reality is that there’s still opportunity to use your social presence to land that job.”

Background online profiling can be the same as stalking

Snooping around to check an existing or prospect employee’s private or online life, which may have nothing to do with one’s work, is the same as stalking employees or prying into places which should not be used for judging the professional working ability of someone.

This may mean that the act of checking the social profiles may be considered bad in more than just the “unethical” banner, like considering it stalking. One example is an employer cyberstalking his restaurant employee in a private discussion group on MySpace, built solely to vent and share the personal frustrations at work, and then using her private posts as a basis for firing her.

Employers are also known to create fake accounts just to find out more information about private accounts of workers. BBC has a story of a woman recently fired because of being on Facebook through her iPhone while resting in bed, after she had taken a day off from work for being sick. She says that one of her mysterious Facebook friends online was probably one of her co-workers or boss, who mysteriously vanished from her Facebook friends list after she got fired. While there is a lot of focus on the general media advising the general public to either not post many things online or to protect such online postings further, there has been a slow increase in the amount of attention people are giving to the idea of suing employers for discriminating against and stalking the online profiles of potential and existing employees.

The same way following a person to bars, the public park, library, movie theaters and other places is a form of stalking and does not contribute in any significant manner, in many cases, to the value and integrity of an employee, should employers snoop around the online public profiles of job applicants and existing employees, when such profiles are not related in any manner to the employer or a job?

Censorship is the main reason many employers check employee’s social profiles

One of the reasons employers monitor their worker’s profiles is because of censorship: many employers do not want their employees to say anything bad about the company outside of the workplace, as BBC Video reports in the case of 16 year old Kimberley, who got fired by Ivell Marketting & Logistics for saying on facebook “ma job it poingLESS” to her friends. Kimberley’s co-workers had forwarded Kimberley’s Facebook status updates to their boss.

Also, companies seem to be taking extreme action even if someone voices a strong disapproval of the company actions. A very good example of this is Dan Leone and his facebook account. Dan Leone was fired from his job as a game-day employee for voicing his disapproval of the team on his Facebook account. No one sat down with Dan, and he was not offered a chance to express his side of the story and the situation. It should be known that the thousands of Eagles fans voiced the same exact opinion that Dan did. The only difference was that Dan was working for the very organization that he voiced an opinion against.

Another example, as reported by CNN, is of anonymous bloggers being fired by their companies and employers for having blogs and for posting opinions on them. Also, CNN itself has fired senior producer Chef Pazienza for having his own opinionated blog under his own name while working for CNN and not adhering to CNN’s journalism standards. It should be noted that Chef’s blog is personal, and was not in any manner related or competing with the “journalism” offered by CNN.

What logic is used to consider unrelated online activities as being 100% related to work performance?

My question to all the employers and other people suggesting that people should be careful in their online activities because of the impact of such online details over one’s job: Why? Why should one be scared to post stuff online? What about in countries, like in Europe, where smoking a joint or eating hash cookies, is legal? Would posting pictures of someone smoking hash in Europe get them into trouble in Florida?

What logic and reason, including any logical connection, exists between posting a picture of yourself smoking a joint, and with your actual job performance? Why should an outside bias against any action be allowed to affect our image of someone’s working professional life and qualities, when the two have not intersected so far? Should employers and interviewers allow their own personal judgment and any opinion of things like smoking a joint, affect and cloud their judgment over completely unrelated things like a job performance?

Overall, the very question of whether or not employers should look at such profiles, when they are unrelated to the work at hand, should be brought up in order to make sure that the unrelated activities of people do not affect their job prospects because of the employers putting unnecessary emphasis on such online profiles.

Random examples of online social profiling resulting in bias and prejudice

Different things that are used to form biased judgments about someone’s working abilities can include the following.

• A person cannot drink on a job but drinks every night at home and at parties and gets wasted. Is that a disqualifier for an existing job? Will religious or other interviewers who are opposed to drinking count this into their final interview decision, yet still say that the online profile of the applicant does not play a “significant” role in the hiring process?
• A person goes around smoking marijuana in Europe but has a perfect job and professional record around their city of work. Should they be disqualified by someone who is against illegal drugs in America?
• A person has had more than one abortion and posts publicly about it on her blog. Would a pro-life interviewer have any interest in checking our her blog when the job may be about something like computer hardware repairs?
• Would a “hard core republican” have his chances of employment at a “hard core democrat” management corporation ruined because of his pro-republication status messages on twitter?

Such points and interests can give interviewers prejudice, since such points are usually pursued by employers and interviewers for no reason other than to find out anything bad that the employer or the interviewer may not agree personally outside of the workplace. Employers and interviewers usually say that they do not use online social profiles as an important element in deciding whether or not someone should be an employee. My question to employers and interviewers: If online social profiles do not affect your judgment in a hiring process, as you, the employer and the interviewer claim so many times, why do you check out the social profiles of people in order to find out qualities, like what a person does at 11pm, which has nothing to do with what a person may do between the stereotypical hours of 9am and 5pm?

Many employers are spending heavy resources on finding out what kind of MySpace and Facebook pictures job applicants and existing employees have on their MySpace and Facebook profiles, instead of interacting with those people directly to find out what kind of job qualities and skills they have.

Is checking an employee’s or potential job applicant’s online social accounts, if those accounts are not related to work, the same as stalking and cyber-stalking someone? Many entities think that spying on people is an acceptable behavior. An example of this on a massive government level is the case of the city of Bozeman in Montana asking all existing and prospect employees to hand over their usernames and passwords to their Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking accounts. A Millersville University teacher Stacy Snyder was denied a teaching credential because of her online MySpace picture, shown to the right, which shows her drinking beer with a pirate cap on.

A so-called conservative interviewer could disqualify a job applicant who drinks heavily every other night and posts the pictures on MySpace, while a very so-called liberal interviewer could then disqualify a job applicant who preaches about religion a lot through their blog. A Christian employer could deny a job to a Muslim job applicant who talks openly about the war in Iraq on Twitter, while a Muslim employer could deny a job to a Jewish job applicant who talks openly about Palestine and Israel on their Facebook. A gay interviewer could deny a job to someone who is against same-sex marriages through their Facebook groups, while a religious man-to-woman-only-marriages employer could be harsh on a gay job applicant who runs and promotes pro-same-sex-marriage groups on MySpace. A white interviewer could ignore a black job applicant who runs pro-affirmative-action groups on Xanga, while a black employer could deny a promotion to a white or a non-black person who runs anti-Obama groups on LiveJournal. In all these and other cases, a stereotypical person could easily use the non-work related online social profile activity trait of a worker as a way to affect the work-related progress of that worker in a completely unrelated real of someone’s life.

According to the article “Googling your Nanny” on Care.com, in which caretakers were asked if they were comfortable having their non-work related MySpace, Facebook and other online accounts researched by parents who wanted a caretaker, people like Erika W. said “I think it’s a great idea because then parents will know if their babysitter is honest and responsible! I’m a great babysitter, so please come check out my profile!” while people like Dawn said “MySpace and Facebook are about friends and child care is about work. Obviously at your job you’re going to be professional and attentive to the children…The things I do in my personal life have no reflection on the things in my professional life. ”

What Jason Falls thinks about online profiles, employers and employees

Here is a very interesting presentation Jason Falls about your online social accounts, and how they are visible to employers,.

Employers should pay heed to employees directly, and not the online social stereotypes

Employers and interviewers should stop using social profiles and non-work related habits of people as one of the main ways to figure out whether or not an employee is fit for a job. Employers and interviewers should actually be fired for relying too much on online social profiles instead of their own offline abilities to figure out whether or not an employee will do good at work, and whether or not the actual work, educational and other skills of the employee would help the company and employer in question.

Val Calvert says “You wouldn’t air your dirty laundry in the backyard, so why would you air your dirty laundry on MySpace?” My question: how are those two things related? MySpace is a personal profile for many, and if someone wants to post something personal about themselves online, why should an outside employer, who is not part of the personal life and only part of the professional life, decide to use that information to form judgments about the working qualities of an employee or an applicant? Also, Jason Falls considers people who smoke joints in their pictures to not have a job soon. That is a very important thing to consider, because of the stereotypical trend in the business world where employers and interviewers assume that the online life of a person should greatly help in deducing whether or not a job applicant or employer is a good candidate for the future.

Kit Eaton at Fast Company talks about the unjust horrors of not censoring your Facebook page from your future and current employers. Of course, more and more companies have already been firing people because of social media, as mentioned before by Doug Caverly of WebProNews. Mark Glover of The Sacramento Bee says that employers must set up online social networking ground rules for employees to follow.

My question to everyone who wants employees to hide and change their life habits online solely because of upsetting an employer: If something is online and accessible, like the social profiles of job applicants, should employers simply take such information and use it as an element in their analysis of the prospect employee?

The online activities of employees, if not related to actual work, should be ignored by employers.

The act of expressing ourselves online is being used against us by entities which would prefer us to express things they want to express in order to promote their image and business in the personal lives of people, outside of the workplace. That is prejudice and unjust bias, similar to what many entities experience because of their background culture, race, color, religion, political views, gender, sex, and age. To put it simply: the idea of being able to express ourselves, using the online world, is being discriminated against and targeted heavily.

Do you think it is important to put emphasis on the social profile and online activities of a job applicant? Does the “Getting wasted Friday night & barfing all over the car” picture of a job applicant affect their performance at work? Should a company really require you and other employees to exhibit a typical “professional” attitude throughout your life, outside of the workplace? Are employers and interviewers putting too much emphasis on the public image of their employees than the job performance and potential of those employees? Is such a trend, of heavily factoring in the social profiles of job applicants into the interview process, a sign of the non-adapting nature of corporations and workers who want to hire drones that exhibit a workplace attitude 24 hours a day? Are interviewers and employers discriminating and being unethical when searching out and profiling your online social profiles?

Just because you are an employee of a company, it is not a stated fact, nor should it be a requirement, to never have feelings or judgments against the company you work for. Businesses should not ask for blind patriotism, nor should employers enforce a robotic environment where any emotion that the company, as a money making machine does not share, results in the termination of such emotion holders.

Have you ever been asked or told by an interview or an employer about anything related to your social profiles? Have you ever had your social profile researched and viewed by employers, interviewers or co-workers and then brought to your attention?

Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Now I must go and try to take a few pictures of some toys so that I can post them online to share with everyone in the professional and non-professional world.

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

What happens when you stop going online? Your online status accounts on Facebook, Twitter, BrightKite and other places will look like they have not been updated in a while. Your e-mail accounts may start bouncing, because some free e-mail accounts deactivate if you have not logged in for 3 months. If you have your own website and an e-mail account related to that website, your website may go offline within 2 months due to non-payment of the monthly hosting fees. That can be a big clue that you are either going offline, or that you are really going offline. A lot of people then may start assuming that either you have changed your domain name, or that you have decided to take a break from the online world. Some people may immediately start wondering if you have also decided to take a break from the offline world.

Do you have a backup plan?

In cases of death, or in cases of not being able to go online anymore, some people may be inclined by the idea of coming up with a backup plan to have their online accounts taken care of. Do you have a backup online plan that deals with the fate of your online accounts in case you die? Would you want someone specific to get access to all your passwords and accounts so that they can continue your posting frenzy? Is there any entity out there that you would want to go online to tell the rest of the world that the amazing you has passed away? Who would take care of your online accounts? Who will voluntary take care of them?

Online services to share your secrets, with your approval, after you die

A service called Death Switch aims to help you with this exact backup plan. After you sign up with them, you will tell Death Switch what kind of an e-mail and what attachments to e-mail if you die or go missing. The service sends you e-mails on a regular basis which you have to check and click links within. If you stop clicking the links in those e-mails, for reasons like death or boredom, the service will eventually send your super secret e-mail, that you dictated when signing up for the service, to the people of your choice. Such an e-mail can contain secrets, long lost thoughts, and even the picture of the real Zodiac. Legacy Locker, Great Good Bye and Vital Lock are other such services that offer either service plans, to meet the needs of ever dying soul that wishes to transmit information from beyond the grave, like Sadako.

One sole use of the services like Death Switch and Legacy Locker could indeed be to share your passwords with someone, because, as Elinor Mills for Cnet reported, not sharing passwords can result in more headache than many people realize after they die. While the analysis of the overall “If I die what will happen to my twitter account?” thought and reviews of services like Legacy Locker are interesting, it is even more interesting to question if we should actually care about the online world in case of our deaths or amazing disappearance.

Are automated notify-after-your-death services necessary in your life?

However, since such services are automated, what if you simply go on a vacation without remembering that you have to click on the verification links? What if you lose all your passwords in a laptop fire? Regardless, any form of a backup plan that involves sending messages to specific people in case of your disappearance, or online inactivity can result in your “Yes, I am gay!!!“, “You SUCK as a boss you $^#*@(@& @)@*@* – I hope you rot in hell & I &*( on your corpse from heaven!!“, and “I married you to be close to your older brother….” e-mails will surely reach the shining and living e-mail inboxes of your parents, your boss and your spouse. And they may indeed make your life more amazingly complex if you were on vacation and forgot about clicking the verification links from the above services.

What Ryanne Lai shows happens to your e-mails after you die

Here is a nice presentation by Ryanne Lai as to what happens to something like your e-mails after you die:

What happens to your online things in case you do not take care of them?

The idea of figuring out what to do with something like a website and an e-mail account has been around for a while. Dylon Boyd from Eroi.com has already asked “What the heck happens to your email accounts when you die?” MSNBC has asked the question “After your death, how will the information be located?”

Now comes a very important question. What happens to your Facebook account after you die? What happens to your MySpace, Twitter and Flickr accounts? What happens to your ICQ and AIM accounts? What happens to your Yahoo Mail and Hotmail e-mail accounts? What do you think will happen to them, and what would you like to happen to them? If you do not have a backup plan, will you be able to let someone know about your online accounts, if you wish, right before your death bed, or the ambulance bed? Even more interesting, what happens to your computer after your death?

Can you be an Online Account Donor?

Like Organ donors, would you be willing to donate your online account to a worthy cause? Would you give your MySpace account to your friend, or the Red Cross if they could use it to promote their services? Would you want anyone else to have your online account once you die? Would you donate your online account, whether it be your e-mail or your Facebook account, to a relative, a company, a friend, a neighbor, or a randomly stranger on the first bus that passes your house after 48 hours of your death, picked randomly by a lottery number? Would you be willing to carry around a government-issued, or a self-printed picture id, with the words “Bes The Online Account Donor – details on my MySpace & Facebook profile!” card? Would you like to an an Online Account Donor? You would, of course, have the choice of donating all of parts of your online accounts, like donating your Facebook photos area to someone, and your notes area to someone else. Theoretically, of course.

Should you have a backup plan?

Now comes the real question from my thought. Is there any need for you to let anyone online know that you are dead? Do people want to go on their Twitter accounts and see “Hey, this is Kylie’s friend. He r died! I r za new acount ownar! add meee biatches! :D xoxo“? Do people want to get up at 2am and check their Facebook friends feed to read “Phil has died“, with a way to give a thumbs up vote to that news entry and a way to remove the dead Phil from your living friends list? Heather Spencer, from the OK Gazette, says that “closing out your Facebook, blog and Twitter accounts must be added to the list” of things the family and friends of a deceased person must address. If any of such family members or friends do decide to close your account, should they let everyone else know that you are dead?

We can compare this briefly to your offline ideas of death, if you have any. Do you have an offline will? Now, regardless of the answer to that question, would you like to have an online will? Do you have any messages to share with others once you die? Should you have any will or directions for anyone to have your passwords transferred to someone after your death? Any messages to be posted on your site? Should you have such plans?

If you die, will anyone online find out about it? If you die, what will happen to your online accounts?

So we are now at the main big question. If you die, what will happen to your online accounts? Is that something you should think about? Is it something that you think may be something important to consider? Or do you think letting online people know about your death is not important? Do you think it is not important to have your online accounts taken care of after your death? If you die, what will happen to your online life? What happens to your emails, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, pictures, writings, any online earnings or files, etc? Would anyone online find out about your death?

One thing is for sure: If you die, your online accounts will surely find out about it through inactivity and the absence of love or abuse. Ohhh, the trauma for your online accounts! :(

Please let me know what you think, or if you have any questions, comments, or anything else on your mind, you can share them by leaving a comment below. I now have to go and see where the offline world takes me.

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. :)

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

Do we act like tourists in the online world?

In the online world, many people know what e-mail is, so the concept of talking about basic e-mail technologies is very simple and normal for many people. What if, however, we run into someone online who does not know anything about e-mails? Will we treat them as a tourist? Will we treat them as being someone who do not know common things? Does the concept of not knowing something mean that we need to learn it completely, or does it mean that we can act like tourists? Is it possible for us to behave in some specific manner online that can create an impression that we are outsiders, that we do not belong there?

What if we did not know about some online website or medium, like Facebook, that millions of other people know about? How do we go about interacting with new online technologies and topics that others may be very familiar with, yet we ourselves may have no prior knowledge about? Do we all simply head for the “Help” section on new websites and issues, or do we act like the stereotypical tourists and ask for help? Do we act differently, going through pages that only a newcomer would go through, or do we browse new websites very comfortably like any “regular“?

Do you do things online that offline tourists do in new places?

Do we have any online equivalents of having flash cameras? Do we have any online equivalents of carrying a big map around with us? Do any of us have any online equivalent of the stereotypical tourist habit of having a small backpack or a fanny pack around our waists? Do we notice ourselves doing things online that catch the attention of others in a manner that embarrasses us because such attention shows that we may not know something that others, the locals, do? Do such and similar behaviors online make us a tourist?

Do you act like a tourist online? Do you act like a local who knows things? Is it possible to act like a tourist online?

Please let me know what you think. I now have to go and see if I can act like a tourist on Facebook before I head off to Burger King drive-thru and order some special burgers with extra napkins. Just like a tourist.

« Show less..

Continue reading… »

I am thinking of the idea of deleting all of my online identities everywhere, delete all my posts, all of my websites, pictures, social networking accounts, wipe off as much information about me as possible, leave whatever I cannot touch out there for everyone to see, delete my e-mail accounts also, and go offline. I am thinking about the idea of commiting the online form of a suicide and going completely offline.

The online world is not a real world.

One of the main reasons majority of the people are online these days is because of the media coverage. Not a day will go by this year that a news channel will not think of Twitter. Not a day goes by now that millions of people in California alone do not think of logging into Facebook to poke someone. MySpace is thought of every minute in millions of people’s hearts. Text messages these days are slowing getting conquered by mobile notifications from social networking sites. Would leaving all of these be a bad thing? It, however, does not matter whether or not it would be a bad thing in the eyes of those who rate such a decision. No need to check anything online.

Being completely offline means less clutter.

It would be very good to be completely offline. No e-mails. There are phone calls and text messages. There are letters too. No more social networking on Facebook or Myspace. Time to socialize in person at different places and also the same place. No more hanging on to bright kite to spot whales and harpoon them. Time to go out and hunt in person. If you feel like you have been online longer than most others and have done online things other would only imagine, what does it matter if others think leaving the online world completely is a weird choice? The offline world offers so many goods and evils, that they can only be matched online by typing “OMG look at this video” or “I did this…” Time to actually do it offline instead of also talking about it online?

Being online means more stereotypical trends and people.

It is becoming very easy for people to forget that they go online by doing things offline. Does not matter. Slowly, the fun and excitement in “OMG I SIGNED UP FOR THIS NEW WEBSITE ITS RAD DAAAAMN!” sounds and feels so lame, that sometimes hearing such and similar online statements from people via e-mail or instant messages results in the offline world of boredom to seem like a better choice. Body language, misinterpretations, fake messages, fake affection and caring, and many other things are so easy to type out and show in the online world, that every day some other idiot emotions keeps flying in everyone’s direction. And if more people talk about it, it becomes the trend.

Been online for so long and so deep, being 100% offline sounds ecstatic!

I went online because I was curious at the same time. It would be awesome to commit online suicide because of being bored at the same time too.

What do you think? Now I must go offline now and try to eat, play, drink, work, and jump around. All offline, of course.

Thank you for reading.

« Show less..