Elegant Organization

Jarvis's reading touched on the idea of "Elegant Organization," that is that we ought to create things that solve needs. It seems like a simple concept, but I think a lot of people that try to invent the "next big thing" forget this basic idea. Take a look at the television show "American Inventor," it's a reality show based on being a self made inventor and getting the funding for it. It seems like a lot of American's want to get rich quick, without putting in the work to do so. They hear stories about someone who created an app or a tiny invention and think, "hey, I can do that!"

The idea of elegant organization is so important. Why waste time building and creating something that may not be useful, when you can collaborate and build with others? The internet is one of the most distracting and disrupting things we have towards organization and that, Jarvis claims, is where the key lies. Creating a website or an app or social media site...whatever, that will create some sort of organization to the confusing mess that is the internet is what innovators need to focus on.

I think the website Reddit is one of the least elegant social media websites. It's interesting that on websites such as Facebook they get updates to how they look every few months. Reddit stays pretty much the same though. I think if someone created a website similar to Reddit, but took into mind the "elegant organization" concept, it could be very popular. In this day and age where new apps and social media platforms are constantly being created, it's important to create something both visually appealing and also something that fills a void and need that another website/app seems to neglect.

Websites are constantly updating their appearance to be more cutting edge, user friendly, and eye catching. There is a time portal like website called Wayback Machine where you can see how, for example, CNN.com's front webpage looked on a certain date in the past. It's really interesting to see how websites have evolved to become more elegantly organized.

The Deep Web

Over Thanksgiving break as I was sitting in the auto-repair shop, (curse you Jeeps for being so cute yet so prone to issues) I decided to forego my anger of being forced to endure the remaining 3 hours in the shop and read look over the magazines on the table. I decided to go against "O: The Opera Magazine" and the always riveting "People," and instead "Time" caught my eye. I'd been a weekly reader from ages 14-18-- when the subscription wasn't on my dime, but since coming to college 2 years earlier, I hadn't had a chance to read many issues. The cover is what first appealed to me. The cover read "The Secret Web" and the byline said "Where Drugs, Porn, and Murder Hide Online." Due to my unhealthy addiction with Investigation Discovery, this skeezy headline begged me to read on.

As I continued to read, I was captivated. The story unraveled like a $3 mystery novel on sale at Barnes & Noble, and yet it was all true. Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the whole operation looked no different than many of the male students I pass by on campus daily. And yet, he had headed a multi-million dollar operation, The Silk Road. My naivety surprised me. How could there have been an underground website that sold drugs and prostitutes (among other taboos), and the government had such a difficult time finding out who was behind it? How did I never know about this?

Reading this article this past year, and re-reading it really opened my eyes. It's interesting that there really are many dark things going on "underground" on the internet, some things even headed by the "good-guys," that I have no idea about. It's really important to stay current and be progressive about the things going on around you, even if that's just reading the online news every day. Not being informed on issues that will affect you, when you have the resources readily available isn't being naive, it's  being ignorant.