This is something that I’ve always known about (and most of you), but it has come to a point that its significance has changed my actions.

If you follow the Terms of Service on Facebook, it states:

…By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

In short, they own you your work, your pictures, your information, everything. Even if you take it off and it expires they most certainly have a backup of it someplace and thus can do whatever they want with it, like sell it to marketers. I’m not saying they do, nor do I fully understand the scope of their business model, but that is something I can’t really abide by with respect to my photography.

While I love to think that my photos have some merit and are worthy of publication, even in the smallest sense, there is a possibility that they can be used without complete consent or credit.

Flickr on the other hand has incorporated the Creative Commons policy that protects me (bless the hearts of the original Flickr creators and their open source mindedness.

The message I’m getting at is that I won’t be posting any more pictures on Facebook that I have taken time to compose, process and share with my friends. If you’re really interested in what I do, you can check out my photos on Flickr and leave your comments there.

Some may think that my photos will get taken anyways because people can just right click and save to their desktop. Well that isn’t true. That’s been disabled so ha!

Finally, yes, I’m still working on getting my Europe pictures processed, and to Richard, Alex and Brolen, I am burning DVDs of all 3,300+ photos now. I can give them to you later this week over a couple drinks.

Hi, my name is Kevin. What’s yours?

As everyone and their mother knows, summer is nearing an end and I have yet to write anything about it. This will be a preamble if you will of future posts. First will be a quick brief on my travels across Western Europe, followed by my first couple of weeks at my new job, and finally to round things off, my short reflection on moving past the college years. That’s a lot to go over, and it already sounds like it could be an autobiography. Well, it probably will be, and to keep things relevant, I’ll try to anchor these stories around a central theme:

Nuances.

Good word huh? I learned that in 11th grade AP English. Drew a picture of it too to help me remember it.

So until I get off my ass, I’ll leave you with these bits of information to chew on:

Lifehacker posted my picture, along with many others, of all the shit I carry in my bag. In actuality, I carry some of what’s shown in my pockets, but who’s counting? Why? because I was really, really bored.

I will be moving to Eastlake in the following weeks with Scott’s older brother, Jeff in a great 2 bedroom condo. Everyone is welcome to come and hang out, especially when I get my hands on a Wii.

Hope everyone else is doing great, and I will try harder to get some lunches and meet ups scheduled to catch up!

Anyways, I just wanted to write to tell you all that everything is groung great and I am safe, eating 3 meals a day and walking a lot. It’s definitely a healthier routine than what I’ve been going thruogh back in the states.

I’ve taken about 600 photos so far, and you can find some of them here: http://alexkingdesign.com/europe/

I haven’t had a chance to put them on flickr or anything, but I hope you enjoz what’s up so far.  I wish I had my computer so that I can work on them, but whatever. When in Rome.

Even though it’s been great so far, there are some things that I do miss, like family and friends, but otherwise, Europe has a lot going on that I enjoy.

Anyways, hopefully you’re all doing fantastic and please tell me what’s new with you guys and any other update.

Oh yeah! I got a job. I will be starting work in Belltown (Seattle) at a great design consultancy named Artefact.  I will be employee number 12 as their User Experience Design Researcher. It’s perfect and the group is wonderful.  So hurray for disposible income!

Okay, that is all. Bye.

Since graduting from the wonderful University of Washington, everything seemed to just cruise along. I’ve moved back home over on the east side and it has been the most unmotivating experience ever. It reminded me of why I don’t live here. I don’t really do much of anything except eat, sleep and watching a ton of Food Network. Not exactly the ideal post college lifestyle. Fear not though because it really has only been a little more than 2 weeks since walking down the soggy lane where I was presented my emtpy pleather portfolio signifying the milestone of intellectual achievement, if you can call it that.

Anyways, aside from the meandering, I’ve been spending late nights as usual trying to set myself up as a competitive candidate for employment. Right before graduating, three companies reached out to me and expressed interest in my skills. Teague, a product design consulting firm was the first. The position is a Flash design prototyping position. What that means is I take pictures of what software looks like and make them interactive. Valve - as in Counter Strike and Half Life Valve - showed me around their headquarters in downtown Bellevue. I had the privilege to sit in on one of their design discussions, which was quite interesting. The position was actually one that flexed between a lot of responsibilities, but their immediate needs were in marketing and communication (web design). Last to reach out is Artefact Group. This small firm helps software comapnies like Microsoft conduct research and create prototypes of how execution should be accomplished. There are only 11 or 12 people (I was told both) and about a year old. However, the experience in the house per person is anywhere between 5 to 10 or more years. The position I would primarily be researching people and how we can integrate software into their lives without frustrating them (read: Apple).

Each place has been extremely impressive and it’s great to know that there is so much talent in Seattle. It’ll be a hard decision to make no doubt. My professor, Axel, is happy to hear that I’ll still be in town so it’s also good to know I have his support.

Wednesday I’ll be flying out to Amsterdam meeting up with Richard aka “Giggles” Paterson and two other hooligans to experience what everyone should experience, life. Ha. I just picked up the last of the supplies I needed before venturing off into manhood and I plan to keep everyone informed of the misadventures via this blog. I’ll be creating an RSS feed for those who need’em, but otherwise, this will be showing up on Facebook anyways for the majority of my readership, all -9 of you. Be sure to check up on my Flickr account too. I’m going to try to do some moderate uploading as the days pass, but not too much since I need to take more than share for the time being.

Otherwise, I will hoepfully be seeing a lot of you when I return August 5th to share forgotten stories and and photos that would make any man cry.

One final though: I miss school already, I miss the house and I can’t wait to move out into my own place.

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Here is the RSS feed to any and all entries to my time abroad: Travel Log [Yahoo Pipes]