Thankfully, I am getting closer to the end of the semester everyday. It is really sad that I feel this way because I love media art and would argue that I am quite talented in that field. However, I feel no connection with any specific faculty memeber and at this point have learned only 10% compared to the 90% I taught myself. The irony is that teaching myself was relatively free while school cost me about $20,000. What I really want for $20,000 is a some sort of individual attention.

I guess I was spoiled by the other universities I attended. I am so glad I did not go to UB for my undergraduate degree.

No this is not my teaching journal. I am not the master of meat hook based corsets. Theresa came over the other day to alert me about a new online journal community. Warning, it contains nudity and theoretical violence. It is called suicidegirls.com

It is some sort of journal site that uses really attractive gothic girls bodies and their written journals to attract people to the site and raise money. This is a perfect example of globalized "blogs gone wild."

If you are looking for me I will be at UB in the CFA from 2:00-6:00PM.

One of my former students sent me the link to this site iStockPhoto.com

It is a php based database site that allows artists to upload images which then become royalty free. In return the artists receive $.10 per image that is downloaded while the site receives $.40 per image.

You cannot cash out till you make at least $100 dollars which means you have to have your images downloaded 1000 times to get $100 dollars.

I think it would be great if it was a swap place or if the precentage was higher but $.10 out of $.50 is really highway robbery. At least thats how I see it. Anyone want to start a competing site that does the opposite $.40 to the artist and $.10 to us. That is way more reasonable.

Rachel just forwarded an email fromher friend Sara, in which I saw these smiley's that I had been seeing in other places for a while. Seeing as I am a web programmer and also have some experience coding email, I noticed that the smiley images in the email were not simply links, but also carried some information on them in the form of a URL variable.

Th variable information was definitely used to identify the person whose email it was send from. The original person who signed up for the smiley service. I thought to myself, ok - so is she paying for this. What kind of service is it. So I went to the site.

In order to use the service, you simply install an explorer extension that provides a "convenient" search bar for your internet browser. This search bar, allows you to easily search. Here is the catch. Everything you search for through the search bar, is sent to their servers. Not only what you search for but information such as your IP address.

Here are some excerpts from their terrifying privacy policy:

"we may place a small text file -- called a "cookie" -- on your computer that allows us to identify your Web browser. . . a cookie does not allow us to obtain any personally identifiable information (such as your real name and address) unless you have specifically provided such information when using the Web Sites or any service of software distributed from the Web Sites.

This basically means that anything you type in is collected. Which could include information such as your name, address, credit card data, date of birth, social security number, etc.

What's even worse is that although they do not sell or rent you personal data according to their privacy policy ( I highly doubt this, wy would they collect it then) is that they do not consider your IP to be private data. I can tell you that by knowing your IP address and other sensitive data you can easily locate a person or possibly ue that information to break into their computer.

This whole privacy issue is really becomming a problem, especially on windows. My theory is never install any web browser search bars, from anyone, especially N-case or gator and thoroughly read the privacy policies that are found on the sites where these products come from.