Aliens in Essex

Title: The Only Milky Way Is Essex UFO spotted in Essex

Subject: Boy spots UFO

Web Address: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4347586/The-Only-Milky-Way-Is-Essex.html

Date: May 31

Author: Stephen Moyes

Summary:

An eleven-year-old boy in Loughton photographed what appeared to be an UFO. His father called the police to investigate the object. A neighbour said: ”“It was spooky. When a plane came near it vanished in a flash.” The cops said they believed the object was a weather balloon. Essex has been a hotbed of recent UFO activity. UFO hunter Andy Mannion said more than 20 sightings were reported in Essex and London in May alone. However he said this is a “particularly interesting” sighting. Locals dubbed the incident ‘The Only Milky Way is Essex’.

Reaction:

I do not believe in UFOs. Well, I obviously believe some flying objects have not been identified yet, but I think all these UFO sightings have reasonable explanations. People want to see aliens, little green men in huge disk shaped flying machines. But they have never been seen, so I am sceptical whenever one of these ‘sightings’ come up. It also does not really come across as very sturdy parenting to me, to just assume your son has seen a UFO and start calling cops whenever your eleven year old imagines things. 

Help! The Internet knows me!

Title: Me and my data: how much do the internet giants really know

Subject: The amount of information Internet giant have on you.

Web Address: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/22/me-and-my-data-internet-giants

Date: April 22

Author: James Ball

Summary:

James Ball wanted to figure out how much the Internet giants knew about him (especially Facebook and Google). In the EU there is a law, which states that citizens can request all their data, but in the US there is no such law. Google saves all the data on whom you are e-mailing, what kind of documents you open and the chat conversations you have. It also saves the viewing history on Youtube and your search entries in Google itself (including Google Maps). Facebook saves everything; obviously anything ever posted, but also all the events you have been to (and when and where they were).

Reaction:

This comes as no surprise for me. As long as the Internet has existed websites have saved information about you. They did this sometimes for your convenience and sometimes for their own. Nothing has changed since then, but the amount of time we spent online. However, it is still your own decision. You do not have to use Google or Facebook, you can still be anonymous in some dark corners of the internet. If you decide to use the Internet Giants a lack of privacy is what you get. There are still enough people who do not use the Internet at all and are still very happy. So either change something about you or about the websites you visit or simply stop whining.