Members of the University of Florida Boxing/Kickboxing Club will compete this weekend against six other Florida schools. See full article here:
http://www.alligator.org/news/campus/article_c6d73a20-3aa2-11e2-9e45-0019bb2963f4.html
Article published in the Independent Florida Alligator:
http://www.alligator.org/news/local/article_d12e86ec-391f-11e2-842a-0019bb2963f4.html
Original Article here:
If you haven’t already reposted the status update attempting to regain control of everything you’ve ever shared on Facebook – don’t. It won’t work. Accepting the terms of service upon signing up for the social networking site cannot be undone.
The status updates claim users’ copyright over the contents they’ve shared on Facebook and requires written consent from the individual user before Facebook can use the material. It has been copied and pasted so many times it’s like a newsfeed chain letter. But it is false.
The status update cites international law – the Berne Convention, though misspelled as ‘Berner,’ – and Uniform Commercial Code as protections against violating user’s privacy. But Clay Calvert, a University of Florida journalism professor and director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, and who holds a both a law degree and a doctorate in communication, said it’s not a matter of either of those, it’s a matter of contract law.
“This is much more of a symbolic protest than one that has any legal effect, despite what people would like to believe or think they know,” Calvert said.
When setting up an account with Facebook, soon-to-be users must accept the terms of service. If they actually read them, they’d know that Facebook has the right to use the information shared on the site. Facebook claims a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license” to use any intellectual property content when the user chooses certain settings.
This doesn’t mean Facebook “owns” what’s shared – but it can disclose the information, which may include users’ GPS locations, to advertisers to more effectively direct ads their way. Information associated with an account may be kept even after it is deleted.
The Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities “is our terms of service that governs our relationship with users.” A status update cannot trump the terms of service that each user agreed to when signing up for site, Calvert said. It was a choice to sign up and it is a choice to continue to use Facebook – but only under their terms.
It’s like leasing a car, Calvert said, you can’t negotiate the terms by putting a sticker on it claiming your rights after you’ve signed the contract. You’re bound to that lease.
“The big picture is that Facebook users did not realize that they were giving away their rights,” Calvert said.
Now that they’re realizing this they’re trying to get them back. But the sheer number of people who repost that status doesn’t make it enforceable. Facebook also maintains the right to update their terms of service, and to continue using Facebook is to accept the changes, according to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. But who actually reads the terms of service?
“I know that I don’t read them, ever,” said Moriah Geier, an 18-year-old UF dance freshman, not only referring to Facebook’s terms, but iTunes and any other terms
and conditions one has to accept by ‘clicking the box’ on the internet. She reads them more on paper. She saw her friends posting the copied status, but didn’t believe her rights could be changed by a status update.
This wave of statuses followed a revision this month to the data use policy, which includes the information Facebook collects and how it may use that data. A similar message spread earlier this year following Facebook becoming a publicly traded company, but that has nothing to do with users’ privacy. Facebook can change the terms if notice is provided, which is done by posting the change on the Facebook Site Governance Page, and providing an opportunity to comment.
Adjusting your privacy and application settings controls how some content and information is shared, but some information like your name, profile picture and networks will always be public.
“It’s just become our everyday way of communicating,” said Kayla Marcus, 19-year-old UF dance freshman. “We don’t realize it’s so public.”
The Navy-Marine Corps Classic held on the USS Bataan on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012, made it to halftime before it was called.
The condensation on the court caused concern for the University of Florida and Georgetown basketball players.
The condensation did not disrupt the sailors re-enlistment on the court with the secretary of the Navy during breaks in the first half, or the firework display at halftime.
Man, I’m on a roll this week!
First the Washington Times, now the Alligator.
http://www.alligator.org/news/campus/article_7fadc69e-039f-11e2-afc0-0019bb2963f4.html
Nah, I’m just getting started…
UF students(from left) Kris Munkel, Tessa Keskinen and Eva Suarez pose to have their picture taken by Cara Cooper Thursday at the Plaza of the Americas to petition for clean energy solutions as part of the “Power Vote” campaign. (Photo by Rachel Jones)
More info on the Independent Florida Alligator website.
My first photo was published nationally on the Washington Times 24/7 website on Tuesday, from the Michelle Obama event that came to the University of Florida campus Monday. You can see my photo credit here:
http://times247.com/articles/first-lady-event-denies-student-for-mccain-shirt
I didn’t write the caption for it, or the story posted there, but I did write an article on the event:
Sept. 17, 2012
GAINESVILLE – First lady Michelle Obama traveled to the University of Florida campus to speak to grassroots supporters Monday afternoon at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
Tickets became available Thursday evening and grabbed the attention of students and other Gainesville residents. The event also drew people from out of town. It was free and open to the public.
Gainesville was the first destination of two Florida cities the first lady traveled to Monday to speak. After UF, she continued on to Tallahassee.
As the line to see the first lady queued outside, supporters of Republican nominee Mitt Romney gathered by the bull gator on the corner of Stadium Road and Gale Lemerand Drive.
They held signs and shouted, “Stop the spending! Decrease the debt!”
“This is why I don’t affiliate with any party,” Marlena Kaskonrobinson said, “Because there is insanity.”
Kaskonrobinson is a freshman industrial systems engineering major at UF. She said it’s a good idea to be educated on all points of view to make an educated decision in voting, and that’s why she had a ticket to the event. She will be voting in the upcoming election.
A.J. Avriett saw the Romney supporters at the corner by the bull gator and joined them when they moved north on Gale Lemerand Drive to stand across from the long line of ticket holders awaiting entry into the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
“I don’t want to raise my kids in a socialist America. With Obamacare and the rest of his policies that’s the direction we’re heading in,” said Avriett, a freshman psychology major at UF, “You can’t spend yourself out of debt.”
Across the street, people waited in line for hours. For Cynthia Yanez, this was the second time to hear Michelle Obama speak, the first time, she said, was in 2005. Yanez teaches special education at the School for Integrated Academics and Technologies.
Inside, the seats began to fill.
Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe stepped onto the podium and encouraged the audience to register to vote.
“The President has had our backs,” Lowe said, “Now’s the time to show that we have his.”
The pastor prayed and the national anthem was sung.
Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith took the stage to speak, “Four years ago it was about the changing of the guard. Now it’s about guarding the change.”
The audience chanted, “Four more years! Four more years!”
To much applause and waving, first lady Michelle Obama finally came out to speak. She said she loved her husband because of his character. She emphasized the significance Florida holds in the outcome of this election. She spoke of the importance of young people to get out there and vote, and to encourage others to do so as well.
She mentioned how her and her husband’s student loans cost more than their mortgage, and how they couldn’t do it without financial aid.
She said she believed in a strong middle class. But what it’s all about, she said, is hope for the future.
More than once, an attendee shouted, “I love you!”
The first lady responded, “I love you, too.”
Notes from mid-second flight, somewhere over the North Atlantic, caught somewhere between no-time and all-time:
—-I saved the blond-brownie with chocolate chips that they handed out with dinner until just now. This was a bad call.
Maybe if my hunger hadn’t subsided, or if I hadn’t let the build up of looking forward to a treat before falling asleep upright with a bunch of strangers in the dark go on for so long, it wouldn’t have been such a fall from grace for the US Air food services. Okay, so they were never at “grace,” but certainly fell pretty far.
Instead of a sweet –anything–, anything I could have possibly looked forward to, I got a cookie-dough chew-square that my tongue felt must have been set to cool in a sweat-dampened sock, still scrunched and clay encrusted from the playing field at school, discarded and forgotten in the corner of the laundry room behind the washer, that none but the builder’s of the house 19 years ago had ever actually seen before.
Yes. It tasted like that.
I tucked the chew into the pocket of the seat-back in front of me, where all things like this go.
Old gum, goodnight.
___________________________
Got to admit, I’m getting nervous. Haven’t slept any this flight, ‘xcept a chunk of minutes before the first refreshments(cran-apple juice and pretzels) that came before dinner.
Okay so I had coffee after dinner — oops. But its alright. Getting things done.
Sweating my palms out with what-if wonderings of various ways I can screw up in Berlin. Or before I even make it there. What if I miss my flight from Frankfurt to Berlin? What if I can’t find the gate? Okay, I guess that one goes before the other. What if I can’t find the restroom? What if I attempt to speak German and make a total ass of myself? Why have I not learned German yet? Why was I wasting the battery life on my ipod listening to old music…
Anyway, it’ll be fine. I’ll find a sign with all the flights on it, look for the one to Berlin, see the gate number and the PEN IS SLIPPING & SLIDING BETWEEN MY FINGERS
Kind of annoying, actually…
I flew to London once, but my mother and sisters and her middle school drama classmates were with her.
–Yay one hour and 30 minutes left! They’re coming through with coffee and danishes! Yayyy…
Tomorrow’s gonna kill me..
Hallo, Berlin ich habe nicht schlafe AT ALL…
My watch still says 11:34, guess I’m losing a few hours cause the characterly azure blue of morning stands in the ovals vertical to my left and right.
I’m really getting into this book but I should really learn German. Or study my camera manual.. Oopsy..
And suddenly the planes a-buzz alight and everyone’s up! I’ve got coffee AND OJ!
I look to my left, saw the pale orange line between the lower dark blue and the above lighter blue, and I actually thought, “Does the Sun still Rise in the East?”
Not something I’m ever going to admit to again, but as this is literally the furthest I’ve ever been from everything I know(..America..the East coast) I think just this once I’ll slide it, as long as I’ve got how BRIEF that moment of questioning was(very brief, split-second, yes I know the Earth doesn’t reverse directions just because I’m on a different side of it(side? continent? — ?)
At least, I didn’t get my hopes up for the Danish. Wise, because it turned out to be a muffin top. It was warm though, in its plastic. Points.
Its blueberry, but its got a twinge of cinnamon to it. I guess that’s why the stewardess thought it was okay to call it a danish.
The cinnamon saves it though, from becoming a warm version of the what’s-inside-the-moist-sock? pastry of earlier.
Two sugars per 1/3 of a “tall” that is the entire Styrofoam cup that is the coffee.
Sometimes I drink my coffee black. Sometimes I take one sugar. You’ll want two(min.) for this.
Coffee’s gone. “Danish” gone(didn’t make it to the chewed winterfresh purgatory-slit like its predecessor — hooray!)
Why is the person in the seat behind me(and over one to the right) talking about Ground Zero? Really woman, we’re ON A PLANE.
She’s talking about how George Washington was inaugerated in the little Chapel across the street. Forgivable?
(I went there in ’05. Lots of memorabilia, firefighters’ pictures — sad.) Sad.
Way to bring me down.
I need to know what time to set my watch — the light’s all bright now, but my watch still says 12:04. Just after midnight back home.
Alright, 6:06 at destination. Watch reset. Hour more in the air. Time to crack down on dass Deutsch lernen!