Category Archives: Uncategorized

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Social Media. It’s a catch phrase that used to carry with it so much promise. You could keep up to date with friends across the world from the comfort of your home and in your own time. Then came the social games, which offered the chance to play games with all your online friends and gain in-game rewards for the amount of people you had attached to your “friends” list. Then came the gamification of knowledge, with its badges of honour for depth of knowledge as awarded by your peers. Then … Then came this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D5fB5d2mqnc

Now, at first I suspected it was a parody, or a prank being played by a group of hilarious friends… Not so. I went to the website and had a look around.

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Looks fairly innocent, right? Well, let’s look further…

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Ummmmm… So, you’re just the platform on which this craziness can occur, but you accept no responsibility if anyone gets hurt, or if anything illegal happens.

THAT’S MADNESS!!!

See, this is the fundamental flaw that most people seem to not realise about the interwebs. All that stuff we skip past called the Terms Of Service? Yeah, that actually is just a document (for the most part) about how we, the user, accepts all responsibility for the stuff we do through these various services, but that the services themselves accept no responsibility for … well … much at all really.

Service outages? Not their problem.

Damage occurring from use of service? Not their problem.

Illegal activity performed on their service? Not their problem.

Making sure that all challenges are sane, safe and not illegal? Completely the user’s problem! Because we users have been so good in the past at keeping that in mind when doing stupid things on the intertubes.

I think this situation deserves:

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Now, I know that writing about this will provide the site with a multitude of hits, which is exactly what it wants in order to justify its existence. The reason I’m writing, rather than ignoring, is that people I know will sign up to this stupidity and then I’ll be forced to hear about it more… Also, people will sign up without reading the ToS (because that’s what we all do) and will get hurt, try to sue and be slapped in the face with the stupid fish.

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2012 – An Overview.

So, it’s the last day of 2012. We survived… Maybe. Perth certainly currently feels like it’s currently undergoing the fiery rage of the times of revelation.

The year coming it a close brings with it reflection on the year that was. It certainly has been a full and varied one.

This was my second year of full time university study. Not bad for someone who never thought they’d get through the first year. I very nearly have given up a few times, I don’t mind telling you. I suspect there are many who, in my situation would have so I have to pat myself in the back for powering through it all.

I have had trials and tribulations.2013
I traveled.
I attended a conference as a blogger.
I got myself a new job.
I got myself a new position in the same company that didn’t previously exist.
I have made friends.
I have realised I have more strength in my pinky toe than some have in their entire body.
I injured myself badly.
I learned some mad new skills.

It’s been a busy busy year.

I am ready for 2013. It’s going to be hard.

I’ll be taking on more study than is probably sensible. That alone scares me sober. Still, I’ll take each day as it comes.

I am not doing a new year’s resolution. I think it’s silly to need a specific day to make a promise to myself. Instead I am going to continue in my own way to make myself as good a version of me as I can be. Can’t ask much more of myself than that.

Thank you to everyone who has been following this blog through the year. How are you seeing in 2013, and if you have decided to make a New Years resolution, what is it and why?

Cheers!