Legal and Ethnical Issues

Throughout history, people have been debating over the copyright usage of separate works, like books, speeches, artwork, movies, and even video games. Now, people have found a new way to keep tabs on the copyright online, even though the copyright holders are not impressed with it. In this article called 'Copyright Holders Asks Google to Take Down Their Takdown Notices', there is this site with DMCA  takedowns, which is the fastest and easiest way of having copyright holders spot their material being used illegally and have it removed from the Internet. The big problem is that this causes the opening of piracy sites and it's something that all the copyright holders like NBC, Universal and Lionsgate are not impressed about, even though they are impressed with the DMCA takedowns.

Security and Privacy

The problem with privacy and security is that there are a number of problems: pedophiles who are trying to deceive children, cyberbullying and placing up inappropriate content. In the article, 'The Conundrum of Visibility: Youth Safety and the Internet', there are a number of sexual predators, most of which are older, unattractive men, are all over the internet and trying create fake identities to deceive, lure, abduct and then rape young children who fall 'prey' to the 'predator'. Also, the internet, especially social media websites, are an easy way for people who shoot harassment at other people because of the content that they post up online. And then, people are always posting other forms of content on the Internet that is offensive, like pornography, racist and religious-presecution images. which will offend a lot of people, especially with the religious groups (the biggest one being Islam).

Creativity Part B

So, saying that I had the weekend to do some work on social media, I hopped onto Everquest II, a Dungeons-and-Dragons style MMORPG now available on Steam, a communications and marketing platform available for both the PC and Mac (and now Linux). Before I did anything with Everquest II (I got this game way before the assignment was announced), I had to go out to the local GameStop to purchase fifteen dollars worth of Station Cash (the virtual money for SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) products), and with that, I managed to purchase the anthropomorphic races of the game, which consists of the Kerra (felines), the Iksar (lizards), the Froglok (frogs obviously) and the Ratonga (rats obviously). Once I managed to get those four races (along with a few others that came with the four), I started off as a Kerra Guardian (Guardian is this game's equivalent of the Warrior/Fighter class).

Everquest II is a nice little game that you can explore a mass, medieval-style world and perform a various number of quest which include kill quests (simply kill someone), combo quests (need to reach a certain number of attacks to complete), delivery quests (or postal-delivery service as I call it), gather quests (collect a number of items), and escort quests (bring someone to a certain spot without the person being harmed). In this, many people can form groups in which they can take down certain enemies. Groups usually consist of A: a tank (a person with high defense, like a Guardian (the class that my avatar is)), B: a DPS (a person who is designed to deal high amounts of damage, like a Brigand (the game's equivalent of the Thief/Rogue class)), and C: a support (someone who can heal and support the party, like the Inquisitor (the game's equivalent of the Priest/Cleric class)).

  

Social Media

Social Media is a form of commucations that allows people to create, share and distribute ideas and information via the network, whether if it's a game, video, etc. Through this, people can show off their creativity and have people share their opinions on what you made.

A virtual world computer-generated online community in which people in the real world could create their own avatar and live the fantasy life that they always imagined. Virtual world exist in different forms, the most common being MMORPG's (a.ka. World of Warcraft (which I won't touch with a 39 and 1/2-foot pole) and Everquest II (which I do play regularly)). If I would create my own avatar in the a virtual world, I would make myself look like a anthropomorphic Siberian Husky, because of two reasons: one, I have a deep liking for anthropomorphic animals, and two, I once kept watch over a husky until my mom managed to find its owner.

World Wide Web

With the innovations of the World Wide Web, there are a number of upgrades to the Internet, but not in the way that they have it with the Internet in the show 'Futurama', even though we may be able to do that in the future. One of the many things that the World Wide Web is being augmented is the use of cloud-based email. In the article 'The Windy City Teams with Microsoft on Cloud Strategy', Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (or I think that's how it's spelled) has announced to allow 30,000 employees to work with the new Microsoft Office 365. This way, employees would be able to use a cloud-based system to enhance many features like collaboration and security.

The Cloud, or 'cloud computing' is a system in which different softwares and hardwares are delivered to different computers via the Internet. The term got it's name because the system was abstractly drawn to represent a cloud with the applications that are transferred through the Internet are contained inside this 'imaginary cloud'. Within a cloud, a number of features, including documents, videos, games, music, etc. are shared by other computers instantly as long as the computers are connected within the cloud.

Networks and Communications

In today's technology, there are advantages and disadvantages with the network and electrical communication. Let me focus on how email has these advantages/disadvantages. The advantage of having email is that it allows you to send messages to people in seconds, and you will be able to contact friends that are in another part of the world, of which it would take too long to send a letter. The disadvantage is that email accounts can leave your content open for other people to see, which may include private information, like address, phone #, zip code, etc. In an article called "New Wave of Phishing Scams Uses Facebook Info for Personalized Spam", they talk about how people are sending you random links that might cause your computer to catch a virus. The highest recommended advice I would give to prevent this. First of all, if the person who sent you the email with the link is either someone you don't know or if the link sound suspicious, do not (under any circumstances) open up the link. If you do, immediately open up a virus scanner and scan the computer to see if it caught a virus.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Matthew Niemiec. I am a college student who is going for a major in Earth Science. For most of my life, I grew up around computers to a degree where I can figure out how to work some of the programming for certain mechanics. The computer language that I am the most fluent in is HTML, which is used for designing websites. My hobbies include painting, drawing, playing video games (mainly horror, RPG's, puzzle-solving and real-time strategy (for example: League of Legends)), reading horror stories, and even going as far as doing some occasional video-game journalism, which I might post up depending on the mood that I'm in.