Commercials

Some commercials are so effective or even just plain amusing that they can draw a lot of attention. Advertisements can inspire many feelings in the viewer, and the idea of the ad is to appeal to what the viewer wants. In the facts that we find commercials amusing and appealing, people like me get our favorite commercials, and use convenient resources such as Youtube to find these again and watch them. It amazes me how an ad can stick in my mind for so long, even if I'm not a fan of what it's advertising.




... And I don't even like soccer. But this commercial had me so interested throughout the entire time, it almost made me want to watch FIFA. I have never once sat in front of a tv and decided to watch soccer, but that made me want to.

Some commercials are just plain amusing and they stick to you in that way and for no other reason.



The point is that the media has power. Marketing and sales are enticing people who may not have been normally enticed with their products or events. Although we have our own minds, we have to still watch ourselves and stop ourselves from impulses. Commercials can inspire us to do things we normally wouldn't, but as an individual we should still stop and think, what are we doing? In our society today it's all about "me" and "I" and what we want NOW. Sometimes taking a moment and thinking of the validity of what we are seeing makes more sense than going off of impulses brought on by advertisements.

NFL Draft

Although I don't know about football enough for the draft to be all that exciting for me, it was obvious that it was very important to a lot of people. ESPN broadcast the draft for 3 days. The first round of course was the most exciting, because that's where all of the REALLY good players were drafted. Friday night my boyfriend and his friends were glued to the tv, guessing who would be picked by who and when.

And I'm sure they weren't the only ones. Those who could not be at home or had to leave the couch had the option to watch it live on their phone. Others without tv or cable access had the draft live online.

Technology allows for so much for those of us with access to it. Even for those who missed the draft, there was a recap. And even for those who missed THAT, all one has to do is search the 2010 NFL Draft on a search site like Google, and reviews, clips, and commentary are available at the click of a mouse to see.

Facebook again

I realize that this setting has been out for quite some time, but I had never used it. On facebook, there is the option to change what language you view it in. Aside from the normal English, Spanish, and French, there are many more languages to set it to. Real languages... and then some not so real languages. I could have changed mine to Upside Down English, but I came to the decision of English (Pirate).

"Parlay"- chat
"32 shots of rum ago"- 32 minutes ago
all sorts of terms are changed to be "pirate."

With applications, groups, pages, friends, photos, and videos being added every day, it's hard to see how facebook will ever get boring. Nothing to do? Go on facebook. Check status updates. Share videos and pictures. There are so many things to do with it and new things keep you coming back. In our generation we love the instant messaging and updating and constantly knowing everyone elses business. It's crazy, but we love it. We even "weigh in" (comment) on other's activities.

Without technology

As our assignment for class, we were to go about 48 hours without our laptops. A near impossible task. I shut off my laptop once I had gotten a couple of things emailed to myself. After my classes I went back to my room and took a nap. I wasn't sure what to do when I woke up. Normally my laptop would be on, playing music and facebook would be up, but likely untouched. I had no music to listen to with my laptop off, and no facebook to visit.

I was so unmotivated to do anything. In order to do any of my assignments I would have had to go to the library. My rough draft needed to get done and printed, so I finally decided to walk over to the library and get some work done.

I didn't last the night. I wanted my music and felt no need to deprive myself any longer.

I learned from this experience that many people who do not have such ease of access with a laptop don't have ease of access to a lot of useful things. They can't constantly check e-mails and stay up to date with their friends as easily. For schoolwork they need to go to public libraries with limited access and times. Luckily for people on our campus, the library is open until 2am on Sunday through Thursday, and there is usually always a computer or laptop ready for use. For others off of our campus and in less privileged areas, they have less ability to do homework on their own time.

Family Guy

I was sitting around watching family guy, when I suddenly incorporated things I had learned in class. Crazy how that works. But I was watching an episode and noticed it was on Fox. We had watched in class a video about Fox News' consistant conservative bias, I believe it was called "Outfoxed". I went to confirm on the "Who Owns What" website we were shown in class that Fox News and Fox entertainment were owned by the same company, News Corporation.

Fox News is clearly biased after having seen that video. One would think that all aspects of news and shows played on their channel would reflect thier conservative views. But not Family Guy. That floored me. The fact that they allow repeated shots at the conservative and republican parties to be dished out in the show. Small things are distributed in many episodes, such as this episode where Stewie, Brian, and Quagmeyer travel back in time and are in Berlin. Stewie finds on his stolen Nazi uniform a familiar button...


There are many other examples in episodes throughout the series. One I can't find online right now but remember Brian's quote well: "Oh look, a conservative. A fat man riding a donkey who's afraid of change." The show blatantly puts down conservatives and throws its own opinions to the public, which contradict severely the views of the Fox News Network.

Skinput

The idea of being able to use your arm as a touch screen for your phone or ipod is an intriguing idea. But I wonder how much use it can really have. The article on BBC News "Sensors Turn Skin into Gadget Control Pad" explains how the arm's skin can work as an input system, and the possible future uses for it. There is even a video to demonstrate it.

Although Skinput seems like an interesting innovation, I'm not sure I understand how useful it is. It requires a small projector for the display, and all I can think of is how is that more convenient than pulling the actual phone or ipod out of your pocket to change the song. It may feel more interactive to the user, but seems a little pointless. I think that the idea can be developed into more useful gadgets and should be pursued, but in the way that Mr. Harrison describes it possibly being used, it does not seem worth the investment to me.

Epolitics

How can something so simple as a blog completely change the outcome of elections and the directions that politics take?

When thinking about it, all a blog is is the expression of a person's views, opinions, and analysis', which is viewable by many people. What really makes it so different from years before blogs were around? The difference seems to be in the fact that it's not just journalists and news reporters who can influence larger groups of people, but now any common person can reach the computers of others and get their opinion read and possibly shared. As we've seen, blogging has created movements and has even taken candidates out of electoral races.

There are blogs for both left and right wing's, such as Little Green Footballs and the Daily Kos. Both stay updated and constantly comment on recent news and events. Being online, these blogs are easily accessed and shared between people.

Oh to be phoneless

I don't know what I would do without my phone. All I know is I never want to have to find out. The cell phone is there for so many purposes, and even my basic functioning one has its obvious advantages.

Without texting, what would I do when I'm bored? How could I contact people without calling them on my cell? ...Despite the fact that half the people I call live in THE SAME building as I do... that's besides the point.

It's there for those awkward situations when you see someone you know but don't want to talk to... just look like you're sending a very concentrated text, or your phone just rang and you can't talk to them now. Hey, that's life.

It's there for you when you're bored and don't know what to do. Just text someone and see what's going on. BAM! You've got something to do.

It's there for you when someone else needs you. In all honesty, life without a phone would be a sad one. Maybe one kind of like this...

Al Quaida

It legitimately aggravates me to know that Al Quaida may not even exist today if it were not for the internet. It is another remider that with all of this convenience of technology, there also comes the bad things such as this.

Although hate groups and even these terrorist supporters may be allowed to be online, it's hard to draw the line of where responsibilty lies when actions result from hate on the web. This is one thing that will need to be sorted out in the future because until then these hate websites may grow and spread, and do resullt in lone wolf reactions. Acts of violence are carried out because of these websites, or at least that's what I believe. It disgusts me to know that people have died because of orders made online from some unknown source, or even from the Al Quaida media mysteriously posting "educational" videos on the web.

Seeing Temple Grandin and her abilities surprised me. I have worked with people with Autism working for the Fox Valley Special Recreation Association. Knowing that she had autism and was probably similar to the children I had worked with, it's amazing to see how far she's come and gives hope for these children.

With the children I've worked with, they are all wonderful and special in their own way, and I can see how Temple may have been this same way. She shows how these children are intellegent, and explains how as a child she had fixations and her symptoms of autism.

In the BBC documentary, "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow," her abilities and acheivements are laid out to amaze the viewer in the accomplishments of this intelligent yet autistic woman.

Hate.com

At Aurora University all I seem to be able to see is diversity and coexistance. It seems like all of our different ethnicities mesh well and most people here seem to have friends of other races. Personally I am even dating a guy of a different race. All of these things make me feel pretty good about my generation and it's acceptance of equality and diversity.

Unfortunately, when we log onto the web, there are places to easily access that spread hate and anger. It makes me sick to know that some people are so extreme in their hate to want to extinguish other races such as Hitler tried to do. The documentary we were watching in class hit home with these ideas, showing us websites like Stormfront, and how even the creator's young son created a Stormfront website for kids. It's sad to see such hate ingrained into a young mind. It's also upsetting to see how these websites can go from being just freedom of speech to leading to violence. The documentary showed us how when a white supremesist leader was denied his law license, his followers acted on it by targeting and killing minorities.

Despite these hate sites, I still have faith in my generation to get over racial differences, or at least keep advancing it for other generations to wholly accept someday.

Super Bowl Ads

It's amazing to think of how much money is put into advertising, and then to see the results of billions of dollars spent to create and run an ad during the Superbowl.

This year I suppose there were a few good ones. Doritos always has good ones of course: This one in particular cracked me up



Many of them were seemingly unrelated to the product they were advertising, and wasted a minute of your life just barely getting some sort of a point across, such as Budweiser's


Despite these one's I'm pretty sure my favorite has to be the Careerbuilder one. I understand what it's trying to say, and it gets its ideas across in a personable and funny way that kind of reminds me of the tv show The Office

Music Online

I would definitely have to say that the internet has improved my music listening abilities by quite a bit, and I'd like to say thank you :) Thank you Pandora, Playlist, and Youtube, you give me great auditory pleasure, and are nearly always on when I'm on my computer.
I love playlist.com because it seems to have any song I ever want to listen to, and lets me build my own playlist to listen to anytime I want for free. I can mix up my music and have a personalized playlist, and because it's online I don't have to purchase each song to listen.
On the other hand, Pandora is always there for me when maybe I'm not sure exactly what I want to listen to. Or in the event that I want to hear some new things, but I don't know what. On this website I can put in any band, song, or genre that I want to hear, and it will play me songs from those. I can rate the songs that are played on the "radio," by "liking" or "disliking" each song, and from there, it automatically plays more things like the songs I liked. The radio station becomes personalized to what I like, but also plays things that I've maybe never heard, but might like according to my previous suggestions. For me it's a great way to find new songs, but also listen to a consistant stream of ones that I enjoy!

No Rules

In reading the article No Rules: Internet Security a Hobbesian State of Nature, it seems to throw into perspective exactly how serious hacking is and can be. We've seen examples in class of what a lack of security or just a very smart hacker has done to companies like AT&T, and now we even see recently attacks on Google and Twitter.
The article gives the results of a study funded by McAfee, showing the very real scale of attacts that major enterprises face online. Of those surveyed, "54 percent... experienced 'large scale denial of service attacks by a high level adversary like organized crime, terrorists, or nation-state.'" This statement shocked me, but thinking on it, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise because of such recent events like the attacks on Google. But in my head it is such a large business that I feel like it should be well protected, and it just seems invincible to me. But suffering such a large attack shows that maybe we all need to check those invisible walls that help keep out hackers.

DANE COOK!

I am a Dane Cook fan, no doubt. He is a comedian that cracks me up and I would love to see live. I became a fan of his page on facebook, so I get updates on what's going on with him. Conveniently while I was online on saturday, just about the coolest thing happened. He broadcast himself live, making an announcement that he's going to be putting down the mic for a little while, but will be back, so not to worry.
It was just so intersting to watch him live, even though he is so far away in Mexico. Watching him on my computer, basically having a live conversation with the audience, just made my day and made me feel like he was talking directly to me. He would answer questions that fans would post for him, and it was just so real and exciting to see him in such a new way. Yet one more reason I am thankful for facebook :)

Even though he's got some offensive language to some people, he still sends me to the floor laughing.

Hulu charging?

I don't think it should be a big deal for Hulu to start charging for using the site or even watching certain episodes. The facts are that right now people have things like TiVo and DVR to record shows anyways. People pay to record their shows and movies on the TV, why would those without a recording system not be willing to pay?
Hulu has a lot of good shows on it, and I think that people would be willing to pay a small fee for the use of it. Hulu is used for the episodes people that cannot record TV miss. It doesn't seem like something used to watch every episode of a show, and those that want that one episode might not mind paying a little bit for it. It only makes sense to me.

I met Marko

I am absolutely blown away by this article and video from CNET News.com. It is ridiculous. It makes me feel like such an underachiever. I read the article about this boy named Marko, who is only 9 years old and working as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

He looks just like any other little 9 year old boy might, but is so very much different. It's crazy knowing that he teaches even 8-11 year olds computer basics. I'm baffled that this child has jobs many people much older than me would have trouble attaining. I can't imagine working or being taught by a child that even now is only half of my age, let alone being shown up by him. It's amazing he can do all he does.

Week1- 1

I had realized that time online has increased over the years, but it was interesting to read about how the use is distributed among age groups and how social networking sites that I use have been used to keep updated about world events even.

In the online article "The Rumors Are True" by Robin Wauters, the author shows data that puts perspective on the age group of the most frequent online users. I figured that with all of the social networking websites and helpful aspects for school that the internet offers, college students my age might be the most frequent users. Interestingly enough that is not the case. The fact of the matter is that adults aged 30-39 use it the most. I was surprised, but thinking about it, it makes sense. In my realm of use there are facebook and homework to use online. For others possibly in that age group there are more things that the internet has to offer such as online subscriptions, shows, music, and business. These things could easily account for those extra hours that that age group picks up.

The second thing I found interesting from this weeks readings was the way that social networking updates have been used to keep the world updated on events, politics, and natural disasters. The online article "2009: Year of the Social Network" by Sharon Gaudon, reviews the use of social networks and how they have been found to be useful and not just "posts with reams and reams of drivel." The most recent example has been shown in how Twitter has been used to keep the world updated of the disaster in Haiti, and also to promote donations for it.

Week 2-1

The readings for this week gave me more perspective and understanding of just how far the internet has come. Reading the short article by Xeni Jardin called "Happy 40th Birthday, Internet", I was able to see how small scale our great internet once was. Going from only typing "LO" to another computer, to being able to send long e-mails, sharing files, updating news, and all sorts of other things are amazing breakthroughs we've seen in the past 40 years of the internet.

Even the ereading we had called "The Network is the Message", by Castells, emphasized the global scale the internet reaches across. The internet is like a completely new place to be explored and understand its limits and abilities, which the author calls "the Internet Galaxy." The internet allows now for so many different applications: social, political, recreational, and many other activites.