The End...

Well it was a good run last year, but during this school year I've decided to head another direction. SpeakGood is officially dead.

Please check out my new site, www.college-computing.com. It is a computer blog/tutorial/review site geared towards the college student.

Thanks for all of your support.

Facebook as a news source

If you are a Facebook user, you definitely have to "appreciate" the fact that whatever happens on your profile qualifies as news and is treated as such.

Case in point, have you ever noticed the number of responses that occur when a relationship that was on Facebook ends? It can be rather overwhelming. Or when it's somebody's birthday, that's a sight to see. On my birthday for instance, I had over 70 people post on my wall for no other reason than to say the obvious.

I'm not saying that it is bad that Facebook is taking over the lives of millions of people throughout the world. But in the bigger picture it is getting to be more and more pathetic that this is how we gather news about our friends.

I'm sure everyone who reads this has "Facebook stalked" someone. We all do. We want to know if you're single, who your friends are, and what you say to other people. After all, Facebook is the all-knowing and all-powerful website on the Internet.

Nick triumphantly walked into our room after class today with a great idea. Someone who is a devout Christian or Liberal or Republican, etc. should change their profile to say they are Atheist or Communist. Or better yet, perhaps switch your gender preferences around. Give the experiment 48 hours or so to cycle through Facebook and gather your results. I bet you'll get some interesting posts on your wall.

My point is that Facebook is not and should not be the final tell all for everything that happens in someone's life. We survived forever without it; let's not let it become the sole source for everything news.

King of the World more than just a sports book

Hand me a sports themed book and I'm sold. I love pretty much every sports book I have ever read and I was ecstatic when I was assigned to read King of the World by David Remnick, a book that chronicles the life of boxing god Muhammad Ali.

King of the World surely didn't disappoint. In fact, it far exceeded my expectations. As the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover. I went into the book expecting a history of Ali; instead I got so much more.

Sure, the book covers boxing history. It covers the heavyweights that came before Ali and the situations surrounding them. Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, it's all there. The first half of the book is more dedicated to them than it is to Ali.

Ali's prestigious career is covered as well. However, what I was impressed with was the amount of Ali's background that was provided.

Muhammad Ali was a person you either loved or hated. He had an extremely controversial attitude and his conversion to Islam was even more so. What I really enjoyed about the book was the depictions of Ali's relationships: first with Malcolm X and then with Elijah Muhammed.

I may have learned more about Islam from this book than any where else. Not only that, I got to enjoy reading about the early history of Cassius Clay (Ali's birth name) and his road to heavyweight supremacy.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun and informative read.