Facebook – Part II

Remember in my last post, when I politely asked facebook to stop changing itself?
Well, it’s changing again.

On a ripoff of Yahoo! Answers, Facebook has launched their own Q&A service, Facebook Questions.  Whether or not it will reach the extreme popularity of Y!A remains unknown, but with the over 500,000,000 facebook users, it will become big

They’re also changing how you update your status.  Instead of having that handy box where you can just type and go, you’ll have a “bar menu” where they organize (and in turn, make it more confusing) a bunch of options, including updating your status.

Must they make absolutely everything hard?

In other facebook news, the facebook “data hoarder” spoke on his intentions of releasing 100,000,000 people’s profiles, usernames, and full names.  Fortunately, all these were publicly available anyway, but it still added controversy to the social networking service already in trouble with privacy.  Ron Bowes, the leaker, did it to help him in developing a security tool (Ironic, right?) and proceeded to release it, thinking the public would love it.

They did.  It’s available here.

Once again, good job facebook.  You’ve successfully created a social networking site we all are going to use and hate at the same time.

Facebook – What it needs

Ask anybody who has used facebook for more than a couple of years, and they’ll tell you that it sucks now.

Yet, pretty soon, facebook users will surpass people who own computers.  (Wait, what?).  Half a billion people are on facebook.  If it was a country, it would rank third in population (behind China and India, in which the populations are above one billion).  And it continues to grow (even though we all hate it).  Why is this? Because we’re forced to.  Who’s on myspace anymore?  If we want to have a social network, the monopolizing facebook is where everyone’s at.

So, what could facebook do better?

1) Privacy.  Facebook hit the news earlier this month because of its continued privacy changes, which was exposing more of its users more than they wanted.  Now, we have to check every couple of weeks to make sure our privacy is kept because we never know when it will be reset again.

2) Applications.  How many emails do I get because someone posted on my wall that “they found my backpack” or that they “want an egg” or something of that matter?  Facebook almost forces its users to use the applications because of how much they let them bug us.  It’s annoying and frustrating.  All my profile is now is application posts.   No matter what I do, they come back.

3) Another application note – The people who fall for application use then get addicted so much that it takes over our life.  Parents would forget their children for Farmville.  Work productivity goes down because of Mafia Wars.  Etc, etc.  It’s the new generation of laziness and distractions.

4) STOP WITH THE FREAKING CHANGES!  Facebook is a lot different than what it was a few years ago, and not in a good way.  Facebook changes their entire interface every 3-6 months, which is more than annoying.  The more confusing interface leaves us having to relearn how to use it.  Then we do it over.  And over.  And over.

5) Tags.  Tags are a great idea, but there should be a permission system to tag someone.  You decide to have fun at a college game and go streaking, with no intention to put it on Facebook.  Then some jerk decides to post it and tag you anyway.  Then you’re employer sees it.  You are looking for a new job.   Not that I’d go streaking, but I’d like to be able to control the pictures of me being posted on the internet a bit more than Facebook allows.

I’d enjoy facebook a lot more with these changes.  But in the meantime, I will continue signing on, posting, looking at pictures, stalking other people’s profiles, and continue to hate every minute of it.

This is what I think of the Gators

Found a Gator’s pen in the house.  Smashy smashy!

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BP Disaster – What we really need to watch for

I’ve been avoiding blogging about the big topics, but this is important.

Something may be happening under the Gulf of Mexico that may make the oil spill seem as important as spilled milk.

A year ago, BP was warned that the location of the Deepwater Horizon rig was dangerous because of a pocket of methane gas under the Gulf of Mexico.  These warnings were ignored.  This methane bubble expanded through the pipes of the rig, setting off the famous explosion and subsequent oil spill.

But the methane is still there.  The drilling and explosion may have set a chain of events that could release the bubble prematurely.  How do we know this?

The sea floor has risen over 100 feet.  Cracks, releasing methane, have appeared near the site of the oil gusher.  The methane content of the waters are over 1,000,000 times the norm.  The gusher itself is gushing 40% methane, instead of the normal 5%.

So what will this do?  The theories range from an doomsday mass extinction not seen since the Permian-Triassic extinction event to mega-tsunamis raging the gulf states, affecting every state and Mexico.

The Tsunami theory is the most plausible.  These tsunamis will contain chemicals and oil.  The methane gas could go over the land and make the air unbreathable.  The Gulf and its surrounding coastline would become a dead zone.  The United States would economically go from the most powerful country in the world to a country in desperate need of relief.

I normally don’t believe in the doomsday scenarios (2012 is a stupid idea).  But this has a lot of evidence and merit.

So when will it happen?  It was supposed to happen in a couple million years.  Now that BP has sped things up?  4 to 6 months.

The state that will be in the most danger is Florida, with most of it at or below sea level.

There isn’t much we can do about this but to prepare to evacuate at moments notice.  Keep a 72 hour food emergency kit for your family.  Be ready to pack up and get as North as possible.

I’m not saying this will happen, but it is a clear possibility.  Be prepared.

The Last Shuttle Tank

After 37 years and 134 missions, the Space Shuttle will retire, effectively marking the end of US manned space travel for the foreseeable  future.

We were reminded of this when the last external fuel tank started its journey from the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to NASA in Cape Canaveral.

Many workers there, some that have been there all 37 years of the program waved a tearful goodbye to the tank.

This tank will be used in the last mission of the shuttle, STS-134 using the shuttle Endeavor.

This marks NASA’s last manned flight planned.

Let that sink in.

A Brief History of US’s manned flights: From Mercury to Skylab

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is under the Executive Branch of the US Government, and was responsible for the civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace program, established on July 29th, 1958.

Project Mercury, conducted in the height between NASA and the Soviet Union’s space agency, was the first manned program conducted by NASA.  During this program, Alan Shepard became the first American in space on Freedom 7, and John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on Friendship 7.

Project Gemini focused on experiments and techniques for the lunar missions.  There were ten missions in this program, which included the first spacewalks and orbital maneuvers.

The Apollo program marked a milestone in the history of space flight: the landing on the moon, with Apollo 11.  This was the first time a human would step on an extra planetary object.  There would be five more Apollo missions that would land on the moon, ending with Apollo 17.

Skylab, launched in 1973, was the first space station to reach orbit.  It fell out of orbit in 1979.

The Space Shuttle and the International Space Station

The Space Shuttle became the main NASA focus in the late seventies and the eighties.  It was the first relaunchable spacecraft ever made.  The first shuttle to launch was Columbia on April 12th, 1981.

But, in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff, grounding the Shuttle for almost three years.  But, on September 29th, 1988, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off safely with a crew of five.

In 1995, Russia and America cooperated when a Shuttle docked with a Russian Craft.  This cooperation would evolve into the building of the International Space Station, which the Space Shuttle was an integral part.

Another disaster took place on February 1st, 2003, when the first Space Shuttle launched, Space Shuttle Colombia, broke off just prior to its scheduled landing.  The remaining three shuttles, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor, were grounded, suspending the construction of the ISS, until 2005 when Discovery lifted off on July 26th.  It returned safely.  A memorial to Columbia was placed on Mars by the rover Spirit.

The remaining three shuttles would lift off until their retirement later this year.

There are two missions left in our space program.

A Different Way to Buy a Home

Currently, I work for a real estate listing service, foreclosure.com.  (I’m in the marketing department, if you’re curious).  Through my experience with the company, I learned a heck of a lot about a different realm of real estate: foreclosure real estate.  Here, you buy out someone’s foreclosure or bank owned properties, and can possibly save on home value.

There are a bunch of different factors involved, though.  The first thing is to question the morality of the issue.  Is it really moral to buy out someone’s home without their permission, when they are going through the horrors of foreclosure?  In reality, if you don’t buy off of an auction (which is NOT recommended – I’ll explain later), the homeowner will already be out of the house by the time you pay the bank for it.  Remember, these people defaulted on their mortgage payments, or a loan for the house.  They mostly just got a house they couldn’t afford.

The morals of it sit with each person, but not buying the house will not prevent it from going under foreclosure.  Houses under foreclosure are vacated anyway, and if it has no occupant to keep up with it, it will become an unoccupied, run down mess that can be a real eyesore in the neighborhood.

Otherwise, it does sound too good to be true.  Save money easily on a house, right?  Scratch the easy.  Buying out foreclosure can be a real headache, depending on what type of foreclosure (Preforeclosure, foreclosure, REO, short sale, etc.) it is in.  What you do want to avoid, though, is the courthouse auction.  Generally, the homeowners are still in the house in this period and are sometimes known to vandalize their own house.  The bank will not help with repairs, so you will be paying to repair a house the previous owners can leave in shambles.  Also, these auctions require an up front full payment, sometimes cash only, which can be tough on a home buyer/investor.

If you want to deal with the owner, look at short sales.  These are deals that a homeowner can make with the bank to sell their house before it goes under foreclosure.  You can find a great deal here, and barring the homeowner backing out, can be easier.  Otherwise, look for HUD or REO (Bank owned) properties in which the homeowner is already vacated.  The bank will fund repairs, and since most banks are not interested in real estate, will sell for less than market price.

This can be a headache to buy, but can be worth the money saved in the end.

The First Post

Hi!  I’m James, the rambling college student.  You’ll find out more about me in future posts and maybe an about page, but I’ll add a quick summary.

This blog will be about anything and everything I feel like mentioning, including my religion (I’m a very proud Christian), the world, sports, music, movies, physics (my major) and life in general.

So keep up, pay attention, and enjoy the ramblings.