Excel So Far

I haven't used excel very much in the past, so almost everything we've learned in class so far has been new and useful information. I was really surprised that the program is so smart and can predict what you want in columns from one small piece of information. I was also surprised how much editing you can do to make an excel document look nicer, with borders and colors. The coolest part of excel so far is the way you can use it to put information into a word document, like we did in class to make party invitations. I think that in the future when I do research or statistics class, being able to use the formulas in excel will be very helpful. It is a very easy program to use once you know some of the basics, and I'm glad I have this knowledge under my belt for the future.

I chose this picture of Martha Stewart (her head at least) because I didn't realize that magazines actually switched out people's entire bodies to make them look better. This photo appeared on the cover of Newsweek in 2006. Instead of the usual touch up of most magazine photos, Newsweek switched out Martha Stewarts entire body and replaced it with a model's. I think this is very harmful because it misrepresents what Stewart really looks like. Most models are skinnier than 98% of the population, according to a survey done by the U.S. in 2008. If magazines like Newsweek make everyone look like a model, the rest of the population will get the impression that the impossibly thin figures of a model are expected from everyone, even someone like Martha Stewart.



This video is really surprising becuase it shows how much a photo can be changed on a computer. I also like that it starts out looking unfamiliar and becomes an image we've all seen before. The message of this video is that anyone can look a certain way no matter how unrealistic it is...if you have good photoshop skills.

Ethics of Facebook

In today’s world, one in five relationships start online, college students have hundreds of ‘friends’ on facebook, and google is the go-to source for information. We live in the age of the internet. There are many benefits to this online lifestyle. Faster acccess to information, and easier communication between you and your long distance friends, to name a few. What people don’t realize, however, is that unlike Las Vegas, what happens on the internet does not stay there. For example, pictures, chats, and status updates that a person puts on their facebook may disappear, but facebook saves everything you ever do on facebook. Not only that, but facebook has a right to look at that information at any time1. What seems like a private chat with your friends may not actually be so private. Taking it at step further, consider your pictures you put online. Even after you delete a picture from facebook, a quick search on a search engine can find that picture of you years later. It can be described as a ‘internet tattoo’ that you cannot hide. In past years, this has become a big issue for employers, employees, and job huntering students1. Consider how often you look someone up on facebook you’re curious about. You want to know more about a new friend you made, so you look them up on facebook and try to determine their favorite type of movie, what high school they went to, and what sports they play. Why can’t your employers do the same? It is very common for many employers to look up their candidates on facebook or online in general and snoop around for information. If you’ve ever put an inappropriate or less than professional picture online, count on it being seen. This is true whether or not you have strict privacy settings on your social networking site. There are programs that businesses pay a fine to use that can get past security settings on your facebook or myspace (does anyone have myspace anymore?). So when you think you are protecting yourself by making your profile private, you are mistaken. Furthermore, facebook is allowed to pull up years of history and find deleted pictures that you thought you got rid of1.
In the case study I looked at for class, a student lost a potential job because the business he applied to looked him up on facebook and found pictures the student did not know existed. Although he himself did not make the mistake of posting the pictures of himself, his friend did without asking permission. Here is the catch: as long as you are at someone else’s house or in public, you’re picture can be taken for non commerical uses (like a facebook). Although it was unthoughtful and most definitely unethical of his friend to post those pictures without asking, it is not illegal. However, it is an issue of ethics. When you take a picture of someone else that is not flattering, it may be rude to post it, but not unethical. However, posting a picture of a friend doing something either illegal or at least unprofessional, something that could get them in trouble and damage their image, it is unethical.
Can the student do anythin about it? No. Should he have been drinking with a bad friend in a public place in a way that was obviously not impressive to the business he applied to? No. A picture of someone holding an alcoholic drink is one thing, but these pictures obviously captured more than a small drink with friends if they were enough to persuade the business not to hire the student. In that case, the student has to own up to his own actions. He was drinking and partying in a bad way, and whether or not the actions that got him caught were ethical, he still has to be responsible for his own choice to drink in the first place. What we do in front of a camera is what gets us in trouble, not where the pictures end up later.
Clark, Amy. "Employers Look at Facebook, Too." CBS n. pag. Web. 15 Feb 2011. .

Copyright

On Tuesday, we learned about copyright laws in the United States from Jason Hardin. He started his discussion by talking about the history of copyright. The copyright law goes all the way back to the U.S. constitution, and it is mentioned in Article 17 of the U.S. Code. This was added to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity among citizens. This way, someone is motivated to invent their own product because they know they will be a able to profit off of it. Over the years, there has been surprisingly little change to the copyright laws. Around the 1930's to 40's (he didn't say which exactly) the law was changed to increase the time of copyright so it applied for the life of the author plus 70 years. This amendment has been called the 'Mickey Mouse Protection Act' because it allowed Disney to hold on to its copyrights for a little longer. Nowadays, if a student at Trinity is caught illegally downloading something, most companies are nice enough to send a takedown notice, pinpointing the exact act of copyright infringement and politely asking for the student to take any violating software off their computer. However, the company is not obligated to do this. They could sue the student without any warning. From their perspective, I'm sure it seems fair to sue a student right away, as Jason Hardin told us has happened before. For students, however, it would seem very harsh to get sued for a large amount of money for songs that may have been worth very little to begin with (like old Gene Autry songs). I believe that making an example of a student is unnecessary and is actually just a way for these companies to get money. Nobody who is illegally downloading is going to think about a case that was settled out of court and decide against downloading whatever it is they wanted. I believe that take down notices are fair and all that is necessary to control the problem. Suing a student for their first offense seems, in my opinion, unfair.


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