Waking Up with the Internet

I don't know how exactly healthy it is, but I often wake up and get online. However, today, in an attempt to be a better person, I searched the Web for ways to wake up well.

I came across this article: "10 Morning Habits to Build Your Day Upon". I encourages you to get your day started by thinking positively and waking up early.

I don't know about waking up early, but I could give it a shot.

Aside from ways to wake up to a wonderful day, I want to point out the glory of a site like PickTheBrain.com. Websites like this not only encourage people to better themselves, but they provide information to help. 

If you think of the Internet as a boundless, source of information regarding everything humans can wonder about - as I do - then there is no reason we all can't become the awesome person we think, wish, or believe we can be!

I hope to become a modern woman, skilled in Krav Maga and Yoga, with a large vocabulary and many creative works. As I see it now, all I need is a couple of Google searches and YouTube, and all my dreams will come true!

I am woman; hear me roar!

Perhaps, I'm putting things too simply...

The Scary Neighborhoods of the Internet

I'm a proud Detroiter! I was born and raised in Motor City, and, when people bring up my hometown, I tend to think of this:

While most outsiders tend to think of this:

Detroit, over the years, has earned itself a bad reputation. However, it's safe to say that every city has a "not-so-nice" area. If we think of the Internet as a place - as I often do - we know there are areas there that we don't feel so comfortable visiting...

I wonder how many free laptops we've all missed out on.

But what tells us that the street the GPS is leading us down may not be the safest? How do we know that www.facebooook.com is a virus site? Why do we think that flashy ad that shouts "Congratuations! You've won!" will kill our computer? We have no proof until we do these things, right?

It's all based on the appearance! Just as a neighborhood with abandoned, burned down houses signifies danger, so does a website with flashing ads with unlikely claims and/or a sketchy url. I recently read a Cracked article about some official websites that have poor designs, and it made me think about how web design can have an effect on the general feel of the website. For example...

I love anime! I especially love English-dubbed anime, and I found a website that offered some of my favorite shows in English. McAfee tells me all the links are okay, and (I double checked) Google agrees, but the design of the website looks a little iffy.

It still has pop-ups (an Internet sin at this point), there are some redundancies regarding navigation, and there is little consistency when it comes to which players you watch the shows on because it sometimes involves third-party websites. (I wish they'd let me fix it or at least offer some reassurance...)

Traits like this lead savvy web surfers to shy away from this potential dangerous area, but it very well may be simply poorly designed! (Granted, the aforementioned website may be foreign, so I'm unsure of the design heuristics on different parts of the globe.) Much like the websites in the Cracked article, harmlessly legit websites may drive away traffic due to their hideous, dubious-looking designs. 

This makes me reconsider clicking away from "ugly" websites. I tend to think: "Well, if x other people are using it daily, then it can't be so bad, right?" Perhaps that's not a safe assumption. Although, a moral worth taking from this post is how important design is to even the most useful websites.

After all, what's the use of a remarkable, world-saving website, when it has pop-ups?

500 Days of (Virtual) Summer

Bored and online, I came across the most entertaining article on Gizmodo! It describes this online "romance" service called GirlfriendHire. GirlfriendHire allows you to have fake relationships with virtual "women" - the female-ness of these "women" are obviously questionable, but who cares. You'll never meet them anyway.

Sure, she probably really looks like Zach Galifianakis, but the jerks from high school are seeing Adriana Lima.

For $5, you can have some virtual woman posing as your girlfriend on sites like Facebook to (a) not feel so lonely and unloved, (b) prove to people you are not lonely and unloved, or (c) shamelessly waste $5.


I'm not against it at all! The idea of a strictly-Facebook relationship intrigues me, and it makes me wonder about some of my Facebook friends. (You know, the ones who are "In A Relationship", but have no pictures to prove it...)


From a social media standpoint, though, I have to consider the cons of this arrangement. Apparently, the site's owner admits to spam and fraud occurring on the website. For the article, he recommended"sorting the girl list by rating to put those with good feedback at the top". Mmm...sounds like a reputation system.  


But what does that mean then? Think of a list similar to the Digg homepage where the highly voted fake girlfriends are listed from most popular to least popular. What's stopping everyone from choosing girl number one?

"We can't all have Ashley!" 

Perhaps an explicit ranking system (e.g. one-star to five-star) would be better. The mediocre ladies will get no love, but at least they can get looks, right? I just wonder if this kind of reputation system will - similar to what Facebook has done to the word "friend" - have an effect on how women are viewed in the real world...




Perhaps there should simply be a way to flag spam or scam accounts and let the legit accounts be. Nevertheless, I think GirlfriendHire has the potential to be a great service. Whether you're lonely, looking to brag, or just have money to burn, your $5 is going toward supporting an innovative way for a lady - or deceptive man - to earn money.