Warning: This post WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven’t watched Lost yet, you will be spoiled!

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Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin…wow…has their even been a double act with less combined stage presence? Their opening duologue was almost painful, and despite them loosening up as the evening went on, it was all a little too little too late. I wish Robert Downey Jr. - who was funny as always - or Neil Patrick Harris - saviour of the Emmys - had stepped in to host, as I feel they could have carried the show a whole lot better.

The rhythmic dancing for the Original Scores award: Not feeling that either. It felt contrived, looked silly, and honestly, it looked like we were watching the rehearsal not the main event, because it was just really sloppy.

The one upside: Ben Stiller’s brilliantly funny Avatar sketch. But even that would have been funnier if Sacha Baron Cohen, who wrote the sketch (or a similar one anyway) had performed it, rather than being pulled from the ceremony the day before, and Stiller stepping in.

As far as the awards: Mo’Nique, Christoph Waltz, these were sure things. Avatar being bested by Hurt Locker, this was also a pretty sure thing by the end of the Oscar build up.

I sat there watching, hoping for a curve ball. Hoping for Carey Mulligan to take Actress, or for Quentin Tarantino to take Director, but nope, Sandra Bullock and Kathryn Bigelow stepped in, just as they were always going to.

I’m not saying that the most deserving candidates didn’t win, because in the long run, they probably did, it just didn’t make for compelling television - the Sean Penn not Mickey Rourke incident for example added a layer of interest to last year, whereas this year was totally by the book.

If this is the greatest showcase modern Hollywood can manage, it honestly felt like it was thrown together in one afternoon. Very very disappointing. Try harder next year.

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P.S. Check out the exclusive pictures we put up earlier today of Naveen Andrews on the Red Carpet for Sunset on the Beach.

Warning: This post WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven’t watched Lost yet, you will be spoiled!

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Check back later tonight for our discussion on tonight’s brand new episode of Lost, titled “Sundown.”

Editor’s Note: We don’t mind anyone using these pictures as long as you please link back to YuBlog.org and give the image credit to Cesar Altamirano of onigun.com.

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You’ve probably heard about privacy in the news or about Google Buzz sharing your information with other people or Facebook policies.  You’ve probably heard someone say, ”My information’s not safe” or about a mother that thinks her children are being stalked, etc…

I’ll bite the bullet on this one and probably get a lot of negative feed back, but I think that it’s necessary to share my opinion on the Internet regarding privacy.  Quite simply, I think you and I have none…sort of.

If you’re reading this, chances are (like me) you have several accounts from Facebook to Gmail and your reach might go all the way to MySpace or Friendster. You may have a YouTube account, a couple of credit cards, a mortgage or rent, signed up with several websites and chances are, you have your private information out there on some government website where any set of prying eyes can take a peak at it.

But if you take all of the Internet away and reverse time back to 1990, your information was being passed around, checked, and looked at.  All of this information was accessible before the Internet existed.

Your Information Before the Internet.

So where was all our information stored before the Internet?  Files, buildings, and on real paper with the companies that held onto that paper.  The phone company knew your phone number.  The utility company knew your address, and so on.  If you had a business, you could probably file some tax form and get SSN of an employee that you wanted to hire (or anyone else), and so on.  Remember phone books?  They had your number in there.

The point is your information was always available to someone who wanted to get it.  It was never ‘harder’ or more difficult.  It was the sign of the times.  A bad guy could have simply gotten your information without the Internet.

Your Information on the Internet.

I pay all my bills online, check my accounts, and enter in my SSN on secure sites because that’s the nature of the world I live in.  I fully accept that if someone wants to take or steal my information or find out where I live or figure out what my favorite food is someone WILL find it.  I don’t try to fool myself.

Even though I take precautions in not giving out any of my sensitive information on the Internet, there are those companies that have that information legitimately.  While there are security measures put in place with those legitimate companies, a bad guy can get your information with or without the Internet.

Project Google Maps in Europe or England provoked controversy over the Google vehicle taking pictures of people’s neighborhoods and of their home.  Those neighbors claimed that it would allow thieves to search the Internet and use Google maps to plan and rob their home or to see what kind of “stuff” they had.

Any robber can easy get into a car, drive to your home and take a picture for later use.  They can copy down your license plate, follow you to your home or even wait at a school to watch you pick up your kids.  No one is safe and someone is always watching.

There is this ‘illusion’ that the Internet has made it super easy to find all the information you want online.  Since it has tons and tons of information being added to it everyday, I think the Internet doesn’t make it easier for a criminal to get your information.  I think that it actually makes it more difficult.

Your Information is Safe, but Not in the Way You Think it is.

The first thing you think about is, “I don’t want my information out there for people to look at.”

When I first joined Facebook, I put my phone number on my Facebook page.  It was up there for a year and I just got one call… well… it was actually a text which I found very entertaining.  Since then, I’ve taken my phone number down.

I’ve uploaded pictures, done some blogs, and just been happy as can be showing my friends where I’ve been the last couple of weeks.  I’ve uploaded some videos on Lost in Hawaii and some stuff that I’ve done for little indecent projects.  I even posted this article on Yublog.

Now think about the 2-3 billion people that are on the internet.  How many of them are uploading their information?

To give you an idea, Google processes about 20 petabytes of information in one day.  That’s 20,000 terabytes of data. Youtube gets 20+ hours of video content uploaded every minute.

To put this into a better perspective, if you were to print out the entire Internet on standard 11 x 8.5in sheets of paper, you can create 12 piles.  Each pile wold stretch from the our Sun to the (former) planet Pluto.

The thing is, your information ‘IS’ out there.  Someone would have to search through all that paper and all that information just to find something on you.  That’s just something that nobody wants to do.

Why Your Privacy is the Fact of Illusion.

Ok, now this part, I’m really gonna take the bullet to the heart.  I’m going to argue that you really don’t have any privacy and there’s really no way that you can fully be private unless you live in isolation cut off from the rest of the world.  But if you’re reading this, well I think that you’ve probably ‘in the know’ and keep up to date with current events.

I get up in the morning, brush my teeth and put one some clothes.  I go out to my car and there’s people who are around my condo.  I say “Good morning,” check my email messages on my phone, wave to some stranger and get into work.

Work has cameras, security, people, and stuff… we go to lunch and the guy runs my credit card.  I check my accounts online.  Well, by the time I get back to my condo, I’ve must have given out my information all over the place.

In a normal day, you’ll probably see other people.  Wherever you you go during the normal course of a day, they’ll be other people.  You may buy some clothes, get a drink at the bar, walk around a busy mall or Walmart and see yourself on the video screen. If you’re in a bank, you’re on video.

By just doing normal day things, you’re already around and recorded.  Someone can go back and track your steps from where you were that day.  Privacy doesn’t end in your home.  Ever get a door to door sales man to knock at your door?  You have Internet there, cable TV, your cell phone.  Your neighbors that know you’re home or not.

I’m not pointing out these things to scare you or make you board up your house and never look outside ever again.  The fact is, we live in a world that is constantly dynamic and changing within the social network medium.  Everyday new information is presented to us and we get bored with the old.  The day to day routine that you do is done by millions of other people.

They go to the malls, they go to the banks, and they also shop at Walmart.  The information that’s collected on you gets thrown in the wash and the time it take to sift through all that data is going to be a head ache for anyone.

Really, Your Privacy Does Exist.

Try this experiment:

-On a busy night (Friday or Saturday) go out to the local bar, whichever place you know that gets a lot of people.  Get there really early and grab a seat at the bar, preferably where there’s a lot of ‘foot traffic’. (Like the place where everyone orders a drink.)

-Now, sit there for the entire night until the bar closes and you’re the last one to leave. You also can’t talk to anyone. And just see what happens.

One of the things that I’ve learned from doing this is that nobody cares about you. I know it’s a harsh statement, I know, I know… (there are those people who really care about you though, family, close friends, etc..).  But in general, no one cares that you’re sitting at the bar, they are all concerned with themselves and their own goals.

I think it’s the same with everyone.  You have your own goals and things that you want to do, that’s cool with me. Go do them!  I want you to do your thing because its what you want to do. I think the main reason privacy exists is because the people in this world are more concerned with themselves rather than with others.

“I have to eat, sleep, pay my bills, pick up the kids, go to work, etc….” There are those times where I would like to help out the homeless or drop a dollar in the bucket for the Haiti relief fund.  I would give a ride to a stranger because he/she needed to get to a place.  I can be a good Samaritan, so can you, but at the end of the day, you take priority (and your love ones, family, pet hamster, etc…).

To Sum it All Up:

I check all my stuff online, and I’m totally comfortable with having my information out there in 1’s and 0’s land.  I’m comfortable with this because nobody really cares about what I’m doing or where I’m going or who I’m doing it with.

However, your privacy does matter on multiple levels. As a community, as neighbors, as users on a forum, as contributors to stocks, or how we’re involved at work, our privacy levels vary depending on our social network.

I love eating Cheetos and drinking Samul Adams. That’s a little privacy thing that I’m willing to admit and be cool with it.  Like, i’m not going to tell you that my password is fyp7543 and that I go to www.weirdstuffinabag.com… oh wait…. Crap!!!

(It’s not really my password, and I didn’t check the site, lol :P)

To Sum it All Up Again:

Every day we’re out and about, running around and doing errands so that other people in the world would benefit us.  That’s how we ‘as a human culture’ work.

Our world is built on our social network. From tribes, to towns, to cities, we’re constantly in the social mix in order to get ahead in our lives, stay in contacts with relatives or friends, to do what we want, or to make friends with people that can help us attain our goals.

In the end, your privacy will always exist.  But it has always existed in collaboration with your social network.  The big corporations store millions and millions of users and people, it’s just too much for one person or even one company to handle. Your privacy is in fact, safe.
 
Associated Links:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/100226-144308
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

http://www.newsfactor.com/fullpage/fullpage.xhtml?dest=%2Fnews%2FEU-Orders-Street-View-Images-Deleted%2Fstory.xhtml%3Fstory_id%3D122007YNHFGU

http://www.websearchguide.ca/netblog/archives/005907.html

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/why-data-center-efficiency-matters-because-the-internet-is-this-big.php

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If you want to participate in our discussion about “Lighthouse” then click here!

Editor’s Note: We don’t mind anyone using these pictures as long as you please link back to YuBlog.org and give the image credit to Cesar Altamirano of onigun.com.

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If you want to participate in our discussion about “Lighthouse” then click here!

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It’s time to share our questions, comments, and theories about this week’s episode of Lost, called “Lighthouse”.  Will this episode shed more light on the “Sickness,” where Claire has been and what’s happening with Sayid?  What about our newfound knowledge about “the numbers”?

Warning: This post WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven’t watched Lost yet, you will be spoiled!

[Editor's note: Due to some Internet troubles at work today, I was unable to upload the pictures of Matthew Fox from Sunset on the Beach.  My apologies!  They are all ready and set to go up tomorrow (Wednesday Feb. 24) morning, so please check back then!]

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