The New Look Daily Lukey

Welcome to the new look Daily Lukey! It thought it was about time that I changed the design of this blog so I decided that in the new year I would release the new look Daily Lukey. I really hope that you enjoy the new layout and below you will find a guide to where everything is!

This is the home page that you will be greeted with as you arrive at my blog. As you can see, there is a drop down menu at the top right of this page. You can access this drop-down menu by moving your mouse over the area. This allows you to choose some different ways of viewing the blog. Each of them is interesting in their own right and I suggest you have a play around to find the setting you have always wanted but never knew existed. Some of them also make it easier to find old posts that you can not remember the title of (making it hard to look up in the archives). However, in the top right corner you will also find a search box. Simply click on the box and type in what you want to search. Then touch 'enter' on the keyboard and away you go! You will also find all the old links to places like Facebook, Instagram and Xavier's Blog on the top bar as well, just next to the drop-down menu. If you look over to the middle-top-right part of the picture you will also see a black rectangle hovering on the side of the page. Simply highlight your cursor over any part of it and any of the following will appear;

This top button allows you to "+1" this blog on Google Plus

The next button allows you to view the top ten most-viewed posts on Daily Lukey

This allows you to watch YouTube videos without needing to leave my blog

This allows you to choose a language to translate the blog into. This way you can share a post in any language!

This allows you to access the blog archive

For all of these, all you need to do is click on the icon and you can access its feature.

You will also notice the new feature which allows you to "like" and "tweet" out your post at the click of a button! The "+1" feature to share on Google Plus is also still available as you can see. To add a comment, simply highlight your cursor over the bottom of the post and the "add a comment" section will appear. Just click on that and type in your comment!

Take some time to explore the new look Daily Lukey. See you tomorrow!

Random Thought Friday: Saturday Again!

You can tell there is a problem with the "Random Thought Friday" name when there are the same number of these posts written on a Saturday as there are on a Friday. I may as well just take out the "Fri" and replace it with something else like "Sat" or "Any". Seriously though, it is becoming an issue. It just that every Friday there seems to be some reason why I am not home enough to write these. In itself, that is weird considering I can stay up later than normal as there is no school the next day. Though I do have Piano in the morning and now with the Leaders of the Future Program I generally have something on Sunday mornings as well so basically I get no sleep in and have to go to bed early to get enough sleep to get me through the week. Wow, I am really starting off this random thought post straight away. Anyway, the next few weeks are going to be a pain mainly due to exams. However, as the exams are later than usual I can sleep in and since my brother does not go to school anymore (as he is doing VCE and their exams finish next Friday) I do not have to get up early to go with him. People do say that every cloud has its silver lining. Anyway, moving on to more random thoughts. This is a really long introduction.

Source: http://blogs.qut.edu.au/library/tag/exams/

You want to know what is really annoying? Well, as well as all the other stuff I complain about on this blog. Why do I even ask these rhetorical questions when it is not as if I have two alternate posts with a link for each answer. Hey, I should totally do that. It could be a sort of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" post except it is not really an adventure but merely an interactive post. Anyway, back to being annoyed. What I was saying before my random thoughts got in the way is how annoying it is when you are in a rush for something and you need to park but at that one moment in time there are no car parks. Does this happen to everyone else or is it just my incredibly bad luck? Granted, I am generally not the person driving and if I am I tend to stay away from busy car parks (I do not want to make the other drivers self-conscious once they see my driving skills #seatbeltssavelives) but it does happen to me a lot. Talking about hashtags, I am so behind on some of the internet trends. For ages everyone on Facebook was changing their profile pictures to giraffes. It was not until I read a news article about it that I understood that people who did this had answered incorrectly to a riddle that was circulating. Even recently there is another craze going around where everyone posts little cartoon scenes of themselves (generally with others) with a 'funny' caption underneath. It was not until I found a Facebook page full of them that I found out they were called "Bit-Strips" or something along those lines. I am so far behind on some of the internet trends it is not funny. Seriously, you guys reading this may be amused but it is not a laughing matter. Come to think of it, my mind is in a really random mood at the moment and most of what I am saying is probably sending you all on random tangents that never really had any connection in the first place. I better stop before we get to the "bad metaphor" stage.

Now do you see why I need this weekly post so badly? See you tomorrow!

Social Interactions 2.0

Before I begin I just want to take a moment to explain to you that this post goes hand-in-hand with tomorrow's post which I am also writing straight after this one. You may notice some points in here that will lead on to tomorrow's post but tomorrow's post is not going to be entirely the same as today as it will focus on just one aspect of what I am going to talk about and discuss the wider impacts it has. But, you will just have to wait until tomorrow night (at 6pm AEST) to see what I am talking about. Social Interaction has updated in our modern society. What was once considered social a few decades ago is completely different to the modern conception of the idea. Technology like smartphones and sites like Facebook and Twitter have been some of the main causes for this update. Social interaction is adapting and we have just got to get with the times.

Source: http://instagram.heroku.com/users/gekkolife#p535214164077054847_490341153

No longer is the nightly phone call to friends normal, in fact it is nearly unheard of. I know a few people who find it weird when their friends call them. They find it easier to talk on Facebook or texting using their smartphones. This new age of technology has created a generation of people with social anxiety. There are more people now than ever before who find it easier to talk to people using Facebook or texting as they do not have to deal with any social awkwardness that can come with a face-to-face conversation. Of course, I am not saying this is an entirely bad thing, in fact it is improving social interaction in some ways. For one, people find it easier than ever before to communicate with people from far away and receive near-instant responses. It has also made it easier for people with social anxiety to communicate with others. It has also made it so much easier to catch up with people as people's lives are basically on sites like Facebook and Twitter. One look at a person's "wall" on Facebook can tell you so much about them and what they have been doing recently. You can see their likes, statuses, friends, information and relationship status. Of course, with nearly every positive there is a negative and this is no exception. People are losing their ability to communicate with people in person and so when it comes to times where they need to talk to someone face-to-face they lack the basic manners that you gain from experience. They miss out on all the social cues as they spend their lives in the digital world where you need to say what you are feeling as, unless you are Face-Timing, you cannot see the other person's face. Social interactions have indeed changed over the years, we have updated to version 2.0.

Check out tomorrow's post for a further look at one of my points and the inspiration behind these posts. See you tomorrow!

Problems

We live in a world where problems are everywhere. Such a change would require an equivalent adjustment but in our case society has just moved on and let these problems fester so that we become a generation of complainers. We have so many problems that we even have categories for them. Oh, there are so many categories. You have the ordinary relationship problems (self-explanatory) and health problems but then you have the more interesting ones which I will go into more depth later. We have had to create new categories that, just years before, could never have existed. In this way we are our own worst enemies and should tackle our problems head on instead of letting them get to us enough that we feel the need to categorise them.

Source: http://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=problems

We have people problems which come from our unstoppable need to be better than others. We have relationship problems, more commonly referred to as Taylor Swift Problems, which come in the form of boyfriends/girlfriends breaking up and, in the case of Taylor Swift, write endless songs about it. You see, we do not hold grudges. Then we come to the places where these problems are played out, our social media sites. We have Facebook problems with so much to do yet nothing that will not destroy a few brain cells. We have Twitter problems for those who read through every tweet in their feed. We have Instagram problems for people with too much photos and not enough followers. Do not even get me started on YouTube problems because that is a whole other post. Actually, come to think of it, it probably will be a whole other post (be looking out for that sometime in the distant future). Then there are all the other sites on the dark side of the internet. Yes, I am referring to CoolVid and LinkedIn, do not think I would not go there because I just did. Nothing is off limits in this post (well, many things are but). Then you have school problems for people who do not pay attention and wonder why their marks never improve. This is generally accompanied by parent problems when they find out what is going on. So, as you can see, our modern society has created so many new and 'interesting' (think of a horrible antonym) problems that we have felt the need to categorise them.

It is only through problems that we will grow but at this point, I think we are pretty much on a plateau. See you tomorrow!

Instagram and Lady Gaga

So big news everybody. Well, maybe not big news for you but for me it is yet another large, if not incredibly late, step into the world of modern technology. As you guys may know I have a Personal Facebook Account and a Facebook Page (link on right to page) for this Blog as well as a Twitter account which I tweet out all my posts (except the ones I do so late that I fall asleep just after posting them). Well now, as you may have already guessed if you actually read the title, I have added Instagram to my social media repertoire. The link to this I have added to the others on the right side of the page. Otherwise you can just click here or follow @dailylukey on Instagram. Here I will be posting pictures of stuff throughout my day as well as sneak peeks of blog posts, updates for this blog as well as some of the pictures I liked but could not fit in this blog. This may not seem as big a news to you as I make it out to be but trust me, for me it is huge. Do you know I actually have Tumblr? Truth is, neither did I until two days ago when I received an email about my account. I must have forgotten I made one, woopsies.

Source: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2012/10/10/why-instagram-will-be-the-next-big-social-media-platform/

In other news Lady Gaga recently released a new song from her upcoming album "ArtPop" which hits stores on the 11th of November (yep, 11/11). The new song, Applause, was released yesterday (13th of August) and you can listen to it by clicking on the video below. Gaga was forced to release this song a week earlier than anticipated due to hackers leaking a low-level quality of it the night before. After just over a day of release it has already over 5 million views on the YouTube Vevo channel it was released on. The song certainly returns to more of her electro-type songs and personally, I love it along with little monsters (what Lady Gaga calls her fans) everywhere. Don't let the video thumbnail let you off listening to the song, just enjoy the sounds of Applause. Enjoy!




Don't forget to follow @dailylukey on Instagram, see you tomorrow!

Inspiration

It can be really hard to find inspiration for these posts sometimes. You may have noticed that a lot of the time I refer to social media like Facebook or Twitter. This is because I sometimes scroll through my Twitter feed and Facebook News Feed to find something to write about. In this way, Social Media is a great resource for this blog (also helps me get it out there). So sometimes I scroll through and I might see someone say something that annoys me because everyone else says it or it is stupid. From here I think of a way I could write a post about it. If I think of something I start but if I can not I just keep scrolling. So you see finding inspiration for these posts is a little harder than you may think (especially since this is the 134th post on this blog and I do not double-up on topics (excluding Daily Updates, Random Questions, or Posts that come in parts). Scrolling through my news feed just over a month ago I found an inspirational picture of a blind guy I was always trying to insert somewhere but I just never really found a place for it, until now. So, before I continue be sure to read the picture below (yes, I said read).

Image Source: https://www.facebook.com/SeemoreSkinnerr

It is just a really inspirational interview (I think that is what is happening) that makes you reflect on human nature and the way we judge other people. Here we have a blind person who looks on the bright-side of life and sees the best in people as he can not see them for what they actually are. He can not judge a book by its cover as he can not see the book to begin with. Despite how hard it must be to have no sight in both eyes (I was just trying to stretch out the term 'Blind') he does not let this stop him from enjoying life. It is just one of the inspirational posts I wanted to write about but, until now, never had the chance. This picture is inspirational for all the right reasons for once which is a good thing and is actually pretty exciting to still be able to write posts that restore our faith in humanity rather than focusing on the negatives because, as a society, we see what is bad and rarely what is good. I do enjoy writing these posts from a positive source as it means I get to focus on the positive side of the world rather than the negative. So inspiration is hard to find but once it is found it is quite the topic to write about.

He may be blind but he sees better than most, see you tomorrow!

Way Too Much Information!

We all know someone who over shares everything. We may not always know them in person but we may know them via the internet through sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Sometimes this over-sharing can be annoying while sometimes it can just be plain interesting (for those of us who are sticky beaks). Don't try to deny it, you can hang on the words of an over-sharer. Sometimes we can even go through phases where we share so much and we look back at it later and think "Why did I post that?" Over-sharing can be unhealthy but it can also be a good thing as it can help people get to know you as well as see signs of potentially dangerous or antisocial behaviour. An over-sharer can either be their worst enemy or their greatest companion.

Image Source: http://performancing.com/oversharing-vs-undersharing-in-social-media/

Sometimes you just go on Facebook and want to shout at an over-sharer because you see a post you either a) have no idea what it means, or b) was so stupid you wish you had no idea what it means. Sometimes I get so frustrated I have to just quickly scroll or exit the tab so as not to act rashly. However, some people make a living out of over-sharing. Video bloggers (vloggers) on YouTube make a lot of money as their channels grow in popularity. They basically carry a camera around with them all day and record the more interesting parts of the day. Personally, I enjoy watching it but I would never be able to do it myself as I need my privacy people. Please, do not get in the way of me and my privacy time. I just could not do that as I would feel it is invading my privacy as well as the privacy of those who are with me. I do not want my life put up on YouTube for everyone to see and I am pretty sure none of my friends do either. Then you have the people you meet at parties or school who, before you even tell them your name, have given you a 'brief' run-down of their lives from conception (yes conception, not birth) to where they are at the present. Sometimes all I wanted to say was hello or just be polite. Also, it is not as if I am suddenly going to spill the beans on every little secret in my life (and I have a few) just because someone else did, that is not how I roll. How I roll? Did I seriously just type that? Anyway, as always I love to hear from you guys and ALWAYS reply to your messages which you can send via the contact form to the right or by commenting on this post.

Also, tomorrow I won two double passes (through Mix 101.1 [thank you so much to them by the way]) to the screening of The Way Way Back with Toni Collette and Steve Carell. It comes out August 1st and so tomorrow, after the screening, I will be posting my review of it. It looks really good and I thank Mix 101.1 for actually picking my entry to win. All I had to do was (in 50 words or less) say what my favourite holiday experience was and why. I did not expect to win it and only entered because I was bored. I was very surprised to receive the tickets in the mail yesterday but I guess now you guys get the low-down (wow, again with the weird words) on this awesome new movie.

You will never get anything or go anywhere if you do not even try, see you tomorrow!

Annoying Things on Facebook

Facebook is one of those Social Media sites that allows for many people to post whatever they like, when they like and do what they like within reason. When this happens there are bound to be some annoyances circulating around. Add to that the millions of pages on Facebook and it just gets worse. Some times I go through my news feed and get so annoyed I just stop and leave Facebook. The worst part is that once one page posts a picture you check back later and every other page has either shared the photo or posted it themselves. That means if one annoying thing is posted by a page you can usually count on it circulating for the next few hours on all the different Facebook.

Image Source:

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/06/14/facebok-rss-reader-to-replace-google-reader-rumor/

One of the most annoying things I see on Facebook are those photos that pages post that have "like for...", "Comment for...", "Share for...." and "Ignore for..." where all the good ones are where you have to do something but where you do not have to do something it means you are doing something bad like killing someone, worshiping the devil or being a criminal/racist etcetera. It just really annoys me and sometimes there are even pages that are literally "like if you are Australian, ignore if you don't deserve to be one". I mean, come on! Why not make it any more obvious you are fishing for attention and it really is very annoying. Then there are those posts that are "Tag someone who..." and then goes on to say "is hot" or "thinks they are top dog" or something else and are accompanied with a picture relating to whatever they are. At first it was alright and they had some pretty good stuff that would make a person feel good. However, this just went on for so long that they soon became things no person would wish upon any of the their friends and only their darkest enemies. Now it is just really annoying and I just can not stand them anymore. Do not think I had forgotten about the people. Some pages also post some pictures with a mathematical equation on it that requires the use of order of operations to solve correctly and people continue getting the wrong answers, even when they are given just two answers to choose from. Then when people point out the order of operations they still get it wrong. I saw one person calling everyone else idiots because order of operations clearly meant solving the equation from the left. The worst part is most of the people getting the questions wrong are those above school age which is just incredibly annoying when they call everyone else idiots. Again, I am going to have to stop this post before this blog becomes one where you have to confirm you are over 18 before you can enter.

If Facebook is getting to you just change to a different website, see you tomorrow!

Twitter

Can I just comment on how much Twitter has progressed over the years? Well, obviously since this is my blog I can write what I want within the bounds of common decency so ignore that question and this sentence. What I am trying to say is that Twitter is quickly becoming the new Facebook in terms of silly status updates, or 'tweets' as the twitter people say. No longer are people going to Facebook to write short, meaningless posts about nothing. Now they all flock to Twitter where they can hash-tag (#) and @ people as much as they want. Obviously even Facebook have noticed as they have added the new hash-tag feature. Basically, for all of you who do not know, Facebook updated with a new feature of using hash-tags like they do on Twitter. So you can see I am not just making up random opinions and events like yesterday.

Image Source:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/the-man-who-wants-to-get-kicked-off-twitter-spammer-or-innovator/

I mean I go on Twitter every so often on the iPad and when I share my posts on Twitter I always do a quick scroll through my feed. I generally come across a number of tweets that just make me want to ask "why?" Why would someone tweet something as ordinary as "gotta buy some milk" or "in traffic". Of course, there are the users who tweet links to charities, causes or blogs (the latter including me) among other things that I do not really care about but it is nice to know people are more than just superficial. The worst part is that we, as a society, eat into that sort of stuff. I mean a tweet I saw that literally said "need some more milk #notetoself" had more favorites and re-tweets (who would re-tweet that?) than a post about a cause/charity which was right below it. Even yesterday our Prime Minister (of Australia if your new or not local) Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) tweeted a picture of himself after he cut himself shaving. First of all, this somehow made every news bulletin that day (even when I was at the dentist I saw it on the Television). I know, our Prime Minister cutting himself shaving is a hard-hitting news story but did it really need that much attention? Second of all, and following on from before, my Mum since told me "Oh, you Rudd yourself. Be careful" After I cut myself shaving because Dad freaked me out (thanks a lot). At first I was a little shocked that our Prime Minister's name had already become a verb (for cutting yourself shaving no less) after one day and one tweet. Do you see what I mean now? Before Twitter this would have happened on Facebook but since Twitter is the new Facebook (in some respects) this has become a growing concern.

Be careful what you tweet or it might come back to haunt you, see you tomorrow!

The Social Network Population

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have changed us. They have made us into all we try not to be. However hard we try to ignore this fact it is true. I was skimming through my news feed on Facebook and what I saw inspired me to write this post. It will not be as long as usual as I am writing this on my phone and it is hard to gauge how much I've done so far.

Just through a quick skim of a few posts I feel as though I have lost a few IQ points. There are so many ignorant and pointless posts on sites like Facebook that it really annoys me. First you have the idiots that make status updates asking people to comment their phone numbers. Then you have the even dumber people who actually do comment their phone numbers. The first thing we all learn about cyber safety is that you never ever give away your phone number online. The annoying thing is these are the same people who later make statuses about people who do unsafe things online. Then you have those who make giant stereotypical and judgemental posts based on one bad experience. These are the idiots who say "all guys are jerks" or something just because someone broke up with them or annoyed them. It really annoys me because how dare someone make assumptions about me based on someone else. I am not them, I am me. It just really pisses me off. So as you can see, Social Networks change people.

Don't be an idiot on Facebook, see you tomorrow!

Privacy

Whatever happened to privacy? It is a seemingly lost right in our society. The online world makes it nearly impossible to have any privacy. Then there are the people who seem to have just given up on trying to maintain privacy and have just left their lives bare for everyone to see. Likewise there are people who go out of their way to invade someone else's piracy. It seems our world is full of these people so where does the future of privacy actually lead?

The online world makes privacy a near-impossible thing in today's society. Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter allow us to put our lives online for everyone to see. The worst part is we do not even have a qualm about what we are doing until it is too late and you wish you never posted or tweeted something. We are so worried about our privacy yet when it comes to Facebook and Twitter people just lose caution and post what they think, without thinking. Then there are the sites like YouTube where 'Vloggers' [video bloggers] and other YouTubers put their thoughts and their lives in video. The worse part is that their viewers  still demand more from them. If you go through a video on YouTube about a 'vlogger' there are always heaps of comments from people asking very personal questions, or making horrible judgements. The worst part is that these are the people who, in other videos, get all touchy when other people do the same thing. No matter how much of our life we want
to control there are always those around us who want to control so much more.

Then there are also those around us, like celebrities, who live their lives in the public eye. I am not talking about all celebrities, only the ones who go as far as to tell people their every move. These are the celebrities who tweet everything, even the things we do not even want to know. Just recently, there was a celebrity wedding, I will not mention who, who sold out all photography rights to a magazine for $350,000 which is obviously a lot. That would pay for a normal wedding as well as the honeymoon and a deposit on a house. It is insane that out privacy has become a commodity to be sold yet is not uncommon. I really hope our lives do not become revolved around a lack of privacy. I pity the people having to live in such a world.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow.

Internet Censorship is Wrong

Imagine a world where sites like YouTube and Facebook did not exist. A world where one could not share their thoughts through the click of a mouse, or the touch of a button. This is a world where everything online is censored and the only way to share what you’re really thinking is through word of mouth. We should not be controlling what is posted online. If we do what are we really losing? Culture? Social networks? Jobs?

We live in an age where the online world has become part of our global culture and ingrained into our everyday lives. We can see our culture everyday online; YouTube is a prime example. There are over half a billion channels on YouTube with over 70 hours of video uploaded every minute and it is available in over 60 languages. All the users and videos from all over the world create a vibrant global culture online. The censoring of this site and those like it would mean censoring of the global culture.

What democratic country censors a culture? Such an abhorrent act seems impossible of the western world yet if we were to regulate what people post online this would become a reality. We would lose our global culture due to the possibility of causing offence or alienation. Our Internet would be reduced to something devoid of entertainment. The internet would be the laughing stock of the modern world and our global culture would be lost forever. What do we really stand to lose when we control what is posted online?

The beginning of the control of what is posted online marks the end of Social Networks as we know them.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter would cease to exist. The sheer task of censoring the billion monthly active users on Facebook would mean it would take days for a post to actually go out to friends. People are not going to wait days to tell people what is happening right now. They will begin to stop using these sites and the companies like Facebook and Twitter will not be able to keep up with running costs and will have to shut down. Thousands of jobs would be lost for what?

What do we really stand to gain through controlling what is posted online? Is this insignificant gain important enough to cost thousands their jobs? Can we really bare the guilt associated with mass job loss just to protect our feelings? Thousands of people will have to go home one night and have to explain to their families why they will be no longer working. Thousands of families will struggle to make ends meet. Thousands of relationships will be put under stress, hundreds doomed to end. These jobs not only include the companies like Twitter and Facebook but also the local petrol station and café which rely on the workers coming in for breaks or to refill their cars on the way home from work. What about the local shopping centre that will lose customers? What about the children who will grow up in strained families where tension is always waiting around the corner? How will they cope when their families can no longer afford to pay for their school, hobbies or interests? How is a five or eight year old going to understand why they cannot have what their friends have and the concepts of unemployment? Controlling what is posted online will lead to pointless loss of jobs and will cause an emotional ripple effect.

The censoring of what is posted online will become one of the modern tragedies of our time. If we let this happen what do we stand to lose? Our global culture is surely doomed for extinction and the internet would be set to become the laughing stock of our generation. Then there are the social media networks that would no longer exist and the jobs they caused becoming redundant. Our entire economy would suffer just to protect our fragile feelings. Thousands of families will stand to lose so much more than their feelings if we begin to monitor what is posted online. We should not monitor what is posted online because we stand to lose so much more than hurt feelings if we do.

Image Source: http://www.israeltrade.org.au/israel-eyes-next-generation-internet/

The above was my speech for an oral presentation on the prompt "should we be allowed to post whatever we want online?" I presented this speech yesterday in English. 

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!