What a great night for my favorite sports teams (Go my favorite sporting team, score a goal, point unit, basket!)

Baseball season is now in full swing. The Oakland Athletics opened their season with a series against the Seattle Mariners. Opening day they lost 5 to 3. Last night was much better with the A's winning in extra innings 2 to 1.

Also, the Utah Jazz who are in a very tight Western Conference race (four teams including the Jazz had a 50-27 record going into last night) got a huge win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime. D Will had 42 points a 10 assists with the game winning shot.

Too bad I was stuck in the University Reserve Multimedia lab all night and didn't get to watch either game or even get to catch SportsCenter highlights. However, thanks goes out to ESPN for giving me score updates on my Blackberry.

It looks like I haven't written anything on this blog for almost three years. I started this blog as part of my online journalism class and when the class ended I stopped with this blog. For some reason or another I've decided I'm not sure really sure where I want to take this blog. I think it just be a plethora of thoughts. I don't do well with the idea of specialization. I like way too many things to specialize. So unless something changes that's how it's going to be.

Facebook, the ever so popular social networking site, which is known for its ease to find out what your friends are up to recently came under fire by its users again. This time Facebook is being criticized by users for its new feature, called Beacon posts where users visit on the web and do online shopping.

Annie Kadala, a 23-year old student at the University of North Carolina in an interview with the New York Times said, “Just because I use a Web site, doesn’t mean I want to tell my friends about it.”

According to Lousie Story and Brad Stone of the New York Times, in the last 10 days, more than 50,000 Facebook members have signed a petition objecting to the new program.

Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research said, “Beacon crosses the line to being Big Brother.”

"Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority," said Story and Stone. "With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages."

Battle for speed

As of now telephone and cable companies have been neutral with their service to online companies, but this may not be the case soon. Groups have been lobbying to create a hierarchy system similar to the airplane seating system. The more a company pays the higher up they will be and the faster a user will be able to use that companies material.

On the other side, companies like Yahoo and Amazon have been lobbying to have a "network neutrality" law and regulations to be written up. Both sides have their reasons. Telephone companies say the priority system would create more competition, which in turn would lower prices for telephone and television services. They say they aren't getting very little for their services.

"They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. . . . They use my lines for free -- and that's bull," said AT&T Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr . "For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!''

Online companies defend their side stating the internet has always been a neutral venue.

"If carriers are able to control what consumers do on the Internet, that threatens the model of Internet communications that has been wildly successful," said Alan Davidson, Washington policy counsel for Google.

The other side of Google

Everyone loves the convenience of search engines. You can search for anything imaginable and collect information you are interested in. However, not many people know how much information search engines are collecting on the people using their services. "It's only a matter of time before other attorneys realize that a person's entire search history is available for the asking, and the subpoenas begin to fly," said CNet News staff writer Declan McCullagh. As of now there is nothing preventing a search engine from collecting information from its users since the last legislation, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed in 1986, before search engines were in existence. Search engines are free to collect and retain information and attorneys have few obstacles preventing them from obtaining that information said McCullagh.

Another very funny man, Dana Carvey. Here he is talking about politics on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag

Here are some more terms used in the conversational world of the web. They are spoof, spam, lurk and lag. In her paper "Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual Realities" Lee-Ellen Marvin describes these saying, " briefly, "spoof" is unattributed communication, "spam" is an excess of communication, "lurk" is a refusal to communicate, and "lag" is a mechanical delay of communication. These expressions are used as verbs ("He spoofed! And then I was lagging.") or as nouns ("I was hit with lots of spam and there was a lurker in our midst.") There are no positive expressions in the jargon which correlate with these negative terms. The observed use of these expressions shows that they are not only used to describe technical problems but are regularly used to metaphorically describe social, cognitive, and emotional experiences."

The web has created a whole new vocabulary for people to learn