Last Chance, Wrapping it All Up

     I learned so much in this class. I learned to use a lot of different Apps that allow me to create art and to share as well as attain information and ideas with the world. The World Wide Web is sort of like a playground for opportunity and I never really knew that. I was always under the impression that online Apps like website building, photo editing, and even blogs were for the tech professionals. It was cool and almost installed a bit of confidence in me when I learned that all these things were for me to use to. All these Apps are wonderful resources that, I feel, we should all feel privileged to have so readily available to us. The web allows us to connect with people, weather it be through Facebook or that we wouldn’t have had the chance to otherwise. The web allows us to gather any sort of information we want, whenever we want and I think that is truly amazing.

     One of my favorite things we’ve learned in this class, that goes along with what I’m saying, was the Ted Talk given by Kevin Kelly. He pointed out that the Internet is only 5,000 days old and that, according to his prediction of the next 5,000, Internet technology would only become a million times more advanced. It made me really think about what an exciting time this is in the world of technology. This is only the beginning. The Internet is so young and once it grows up I feel as if we will be blown away. It will be really cool to look back one day and see how far we will come although I have no idea what it will look like. Though I suppose that’s the exciting part.

      I learned that I’m not as scared and “bad” at computers like I had thought in the past. I learned that quite honestly I’ve just never token the time to learn and discover. I was a facebook girl and occasionally watched some Netflix but now I want to make videos, edit photos, and keep discovering what else the web has to offer. I’m most exciting about re-creating my blog. It’s really cool because now I know how it all works and I can actually have the confidence to go ahead and do it! I want it sort of be like a diary where I can share my experiences with people. I want to share with people in hopes that they share back with me or just read it and maybe connect in some sort of way. The possibilities are endless when it come to the web!

Life is One Great Big Re-mix

Not going to lie, I felt pretty bad for Lawrence Lessig as he tried to get across his points on Copy Right Law being out of date during his interview on the Colbert show. Colbert of course had no problem playing “devil’s advocate” because it seemed a bit ridiculous to make an issue out of but that was Lessig’s point. Lessig explained that Copy Right laws are incriminating 70 percent of teens. I’m totally apart of the 70 percent and you probably are as well. I completely agreed with Lessig as he explained that the law should be focused on more important issues. Unless someone is completely stealing my work and taking credit for it, I would want them to use it as a source of inspiration. When I took a college painting class I couldn’t help but question why we would have assignments to paint and re-create an original piece of artwork from a famous artist. I learned that we were doing this, not to steal ideas and to copy, but to honor the artist. I don’t think we should abolish the copyright laws completely but, as Lessig was getting at, rethink the strictness of them as to keep up with the current times. All the remixes that were created as spin offs of the original interview are, in my opinion, completely okay to do. They were funny and if Colbert ever tried to sue anybody under copyright laws (which legally he may be able to do, but obviously wouldn’t) it would be ridiculous. I guess that was the point of it all though. I really enjoyed watching the Ted Talk given Kirby Ferguson who fully supports remixes. He believes that “everything is a remix and that this is a better way to conceive of creativity”. He makes a great example out of the legendary Bob Dylan. He gave evidence to support that two thirds of his songs were “borrowed”. This was really eye opening to me and made me look at the bigger picture. Nobody today would look at Bob Dylan as being a thief I don’t think. I look at him as a unique individual producing music that no one could compete with people because he has his only style and his music speaks for itself. He simply gathered inspiration from previous artists he’s heard throughout the years and made it completely his own. I mean it’s okay for a painter to incorporate splatter paint into their painting without getting accused of copying the legendary Jackson Pollock. Everything has already been done already if you want to be picky about it!

Times are changing: The Facebook Generation

After reading the article “The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500” written by Gary Himmel, I wanted to cry. I mean, yah, I’m sort of exaggerating but this article definitely intimidated me as it seems as though this generation, my generation, has a lot of high expectations to attain in the working world today. The article outlines what Himmel describes as “Internet-derived expectations’ that every business will hold to if they want to “make it”. He explains all the “main characteristics of online life” that divides the former fortune 500 generation from the Facebook generation. At first I really thought that I’d hate everything on the list but turns out the norms of the web world are very exciting and nothing is really black and white. The charecteristics are exciting and out of the box. They’re much less boring then the Fortune 500 generation seems to be. Here are the 12 different characteristics: 1. “All ideas compete on an equal footing”- all ideas on the web are fair game. Ideas get a chance versus ideas either getting shot down or accepted right on the spot. 2. “Contribution counts for more than credentials.”- the web is more focused on content verus your accidemic acheivements. 3. “Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed”- Authority on the web is gained by how powerful your presence is there not because somebody appointed you that particular job. 4. “Leaders serve rather than preside”- Leaders are forced to naturally have a good balance. They are not the dominant leader, no one on the web can be. You have to rope in followers by serving them in a humble way. 5. “Tasks are chosen, not assigned”- You choose what you want to work on. What you want to contribute to and be apart of or what you want to skip out on. There is a sense of freedom where you can focus in on what you want. 6. “Groups are self defining and self organizing”- you can choose who you want to communicate and make connections with. 7. “Resources get attracted, not allocated”- you don’t waste your time on projects that aren’t fun and alluring in the web world. 8. “Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it”- you share your ideas and get them out their before someone else does instead of keeping information to yourself. 9. “Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed”- good ideas will reveal themselves to be good all on their own through easily gaining a following. Good ideas speak for themselves in a way. 10. “Users can veto most policy decisions” – the users have a big say so keep them happy even though you built whatever it is they have a big say about. 11. “Intrinsic rewards matter most”- you can contibutue to society in a big and rewarding way on the web. 12. “Hackers are heroes”- a rebelous sort of fame in the web world. I think this all means that the Facebook Generation needs to be an active part of the online world in one way or another. We all need to contribute to the web in one way or another whether it be big or small. The world is changing and the web is broadening life and breaking barriers between the cubicle and the real world. It's an exciting time.

Long Tail

I thought it was really interesting when Chris Anderson described himself as being in the “forecasting” business as he was explaining how Internet trends work. He explained that all important technology goes through four different phases; “critical price” then “critical mass” then “another technology” and then “free”. You can understand this as sort of a timeline for technology. He explains all of this by relating it to the life of a DVD, which follows these exact phases. Basically the DVD started out super expensive and in the end, after the technology advanced, it pretty much became free. I think it’s sort of the same with music downloading and purchasing music. I remember about 6 or 7 years ago when it seemed as if everyone I knew was buying songs for a dollar a pop and now it just seems as if everyone is either downloading music for free simply because they can get away with it. Everyone (not just computer savvy hackers like it seemed to be in the past) these days seem to know how to download free music. In the life of ITunes I would say that the “another technology” phase would be when Pandora and Spotify were created. This whole long tail thing makes me really wonder what sort of technology is in the early phase of “critical price” and what its future holds.

Podcasting for Dummies

Tee Morris talks about "Podcasting on a budget" on the iTunes podcast series "Podcasting for Dummies". He recommends that people use Adudecity.sourceforge.net where you can download a program in order to allow you to creat a podcast using just your computer without having to buy anything fancy. Podcasting on a budget is simply recording your voice whether your using a microphone to connect to your computer or you can just use the built in microphone on your computer without having to own anything “high end” and expensive. He explained that you aren’t supposed to edit a podcast which I was really surprised by. The true meaning of a podcast really clicked for me when Morris explained that a podcast is meant to get across to the audience what you can't quite get across through text alone. This was the most important thing I learned and definitely the most helpful. I'm a writer, well at times I think I am, and the times I feel confident in my writing ability are the times when I know that I am clearly expressing emotions through the words I choose to use as if they are alive and jumping off the page. Podcasts seem really cool to me just simply because I think it would be awesome to be able to empathize certain words and really get a certain point across to the audience.

On the go vlog :)

FISH TAIL VLOG :)

"Presentation Magic" (I love Ted Talks!)

     I really enjoyed the Ted talk video featuring speaker Hans Rosling.  Hans spoke with such passion and everything he said made a whole lot of sense.  I’m starting to become addicted to Ted Talks because all the speakers are such passionate experts in their fields.  It makes me believe that being a genius has a hell of a lot to do with passion.  Rosling first explained that there are 8 brilliant development goals founded by the UN.  These goals are all backed up by statistics and basically common sense as to what basic things need to change in order for a country to be both happy and healthy.  Rosling is so passionate about the goals because they really seem to get to the root of the problem unlike “political talking” which he clearly views as a bad thing.  I mean, you know what they say, talk is cheap.  There’s been so many times where I just clicked off the news because of political figures in our country giving people false hope that the world will magically be okay once they get a bill passed or a new law approved.  I don’t mean to be cynical but I guess I’m just a realist on the matter.  Rosling tries to prove that there are different ideas on how we can fix these worldly problems.  He backed up these ideas with the help of a presentation he created using organized research without compromising his passion on the subject.

     He first presented the main focus of the presentation in a way that sucked viewers in.  He had a hook.   He definitely hooked me in.  Maybe the audience initially didn’t really care about what the subject was but I think Rosling used his passion and confident opinion in order to make people interested.  He then supported his subject by using slides with data and graphs which we’ve learned this week is just PROOF when it comes to a good presentation.  We should keep the proof on the slides, like Rosling so nicely did.  If the graph had colors, he explained the colors.  He used his slides as being the back drop of the presentation rather the main focus.  His slides help compare, contrast, and tell an over all story.  His words were the main focus but at the same time his words would have meant nothing without the slides.  Good presentations need to have this sort of balance.  He explained hard statistics with the graphs.  He added symbols to these graphs as he was explaining the trends versus all at once.  Sometimes people see something like a graph on the presentation and its like "BAM" okay wow that’s confusing and then they just kind of drone off into space because they are no longer engaged.  I’m not speaking from experience or anything ;)  His animations were also used to help the audience understand his main point.  The animations were cool because they were used in a really effective way versus his animations only being cool because they were pretty and tech savvy.  

     He kept to the point without being boring.  I loved this talk, not only because I agreed with him, but mostly because of his passion.  He wanted people to understand what he was passionate about so he found the wisdom and inner genius to make it happen which resulted in the production of a great presentation.  He ends with a great conclusion too, one that makes you think which is the absolute key to a great presentation.  He summarizes the key notes of the presentation and than uses those key notes to branch out into bigger ideas.  A good presentation seems to follow the outline of a good research paper!  A presentation is just much more creative and fun :)

"Kindle me a Story"

     I never really understood the Kindle.  I mean its great and everything, sure, but what about reading a book?  There’s something magical about flipping through pages and holding the words between the palms of your hand.  Something more tangible about it.  It’s almost like staring at a screen rather then paper lack a bit of authenticity.  Paper reading seems to be going out of style.  I mean look at the newspaper.  People aren’t buying it because they can read it online through wonderful agate news sites.  The newspaper will never go completely out of style I don’t think; I mean its famous right?  I mean yah the kindle may save paper but I hope we aren’t entering an age where written text will be left behind in some sort of sacred dust.

     The first time I heard a book on tape I thought I was going to loose it.  I felt like it was equivalent to watching a movie.  I mean reading is brain exercise, that’s why some people just hate it.  I think reading is a really personal experience because what I get out of a book will be something totally different than what you get from reading the same book.   I’ve always felt this way so I really felt called to research more about the lawsuit over the Amazon Kindle 2.  According to an article, written by Jay Rivera, the Authors Guild put up quite the fight against voice recorded book “performances” claiming that they went against the copy right laws.  The Author’s Guild, partially the director Paul Aiken, claims that the voice recordings are “derivative works” which breaks the copyright laws.  Derivative works are basically re-makes of the original concept.  He claims “that allowing Kindle to use the audio feature without paying the copyright holders would be a legal violation.”  I get that but I mean I think this whole thing is much more over money than it is about protecting the authenticity of books.

     I think it’s a bit extreme to create lawsuits over such broad things like this.  I mean everyone has there own personal opinion which is why there are so many copy right lawsuits and just plain old law suits in general.  If it were up to me I would pass a law that would make it possible for each author to personally make up their own mind in regard to their original works.  If I were an author I wouldn’t want my book to become a book on tape because I would, personally, feel that it would be a derivative work of my original book.  Some books are meant for personal interpretation that you can’t gain from listening to a robotic voice over.  Some books you can though.  I get both points of view on the matter but I’ve decided that you can’t win when it comes to politics!  At the end of the day is it worth the legal battle… I don't know…

What would Obama do? Lawyers and politics should not be mixed with the message of hope and art.

Back in 2008 when this poster came out I had very little interest and knowledge when it came to politics.  I was only 14 and I had no clue who was running for president.  I boycotted politics all together for a lot of my teenage years (until I was 18 and brainwashed into voting for Romney...lets just say ignorance is not bliss).  Anyway, my point is that although I was blind and non-existent in the world of governmental politics, I did see one thing.  I saw, just like most people in the world, this poster.  I saw a poster of a black man with a message that promised hope for our country.  It popped.  It grabbed our attention.  When I saw this poster I thought that Obama was a creative, bright, and brilliant man who knew how to campaign for himself.  Based on this poster alone.

Little did I know that some dude just grabbed an image of Obama off Google Images and edited it and then BAM became famous.  Well I guess actually not famous really, I mean have you ever heard the name Shepard Fairey?  It's not like he made millions off this poster.  Here was a guy who clearly supported Obama in the Campaign and just wanted to show his support through being creative and promoting Obama's plans for the future: Obamas plans for change which reflected the word "hope" to the American people.  Making someone, like me, see this and think "hmmm a picture of a man running for president and the word hope??"  It grabbed my attention and made me think.

The Shepard Fairey Poster taken from google images

After reading this article (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090125/1907073531.shtml)  I was stoked to hear that Fairey didn't get in trouble over this picture in terms of Copy Right Law and plagiarism because the original photographer gave him a pat on the back for it.  He showed his support by saying, "I know artists like to look at things; they see things and they make stuff. It's a really cool piece of work."  I completely agree.  Fairey just got inspired by the photograph as well as the words from the mouth of Obama (You can't copy right words, am I wrong?? probably...) and used that inspiration to create the most famous campaign poster of 2008.

The Associated Press (the company who owns the picture, and seemingly the photographer) did end up suing Fairey, specifically his OBEY clothing company, for selling posters and clothing with the image. I think this is a perfect case where creative common laws should be used.  It would have saved a lot of trouble for Fairey and saved a lot of money for the Associated Press but it's not like they care about that.  I wouldn't expect the Associated Press to partake in having creative common laws over their photographs but I don't know.  The Associated Press stated that they will "continue to celebrate the outstanding work of its award-winning photographers and use revenue from the licensing of those photos to support its mission as the essential provider of news and photography from around the world."  http://www.obeygiant.com/headlines/the-associated-press-case-update

I interpret this statement of them having no interest in partaking in the creative common laws because they don't want THEIR work to be interpreted any other way than THEIR original intent of the photograph.  I admire Fairey and support his mission in regards to his sticker campaign, art, and his view on society.  He wants to break barriers.  :)

Week 5- iPhones Instead Of Digital Cameras.

     I guess I’ve always called myself an iPhone photographer.  I just never knew that it was actually a “thing”.  Growing up, I had always saved all my coins for more expensive things versus frequent stops to the candy shop.  I splurged on a computer once, a nice compact little SONY one as well as digital cameras that are now going out of style.  Probably because of iPhones.  I was always kind of a weird kid, my mom just called it perceptive.  I wanted a camera to take snap shots of everything because I knew someday soon I would look back on my early childhood and think “damn, those were the days, not a worry in the world….”  I would take video recording of my great aunt Martha, literally asking her questions about life.  She was at the end of a very long and beautiful life.  She never married and lived in a glamorous New York City apartment all her life so I guess I was just interested.  Looking back she probably thought it was strangely humorous that a 12 year old holding a machine a foot away from her face always proclaiming “wait, no, don’t answer yet!  I havn’t pushed record!” 

     As the years passed and I was a junior in high school I was introduced to the iPhone and didn’t really get all the hype.  Probably because I lived in Elmore where there was no cell service and no wifi.  My iPhone was just a fancy means of basic communication until I started to discover free apps like instagram.  This is when I probably first started to believe that I was an IPhone photographer, when I discovered instagram.  I’m still sort of obsessed with Instagram.  I love all the different filters and how you can boost a photo and choose a border.  I can’t really afford to have an iPhone but I still choose to keep it because I feel like my pictures look great and I’ve never lost the little girl who feels like they need to capture everything through some sort of lens.  My iPhone is just the most convenient lens I’ve found and its awesome that the convenience doesn’t comprise the quality of a shot!  

This week I was really intrigued and interested in the article Lisa shared about the women who compose short novels via their iPhones.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/22/081222fa_fact_goodyear?currentPage=all 

     I use the "note" section of my iPhone to write down intense thoughts that I have in the moment when I don't have a journal handy.  I have notes on my iPhone that date back to 2012 around the time my dad died.  I love reading them because it brings me back to the moment I wrote the note.  Raw emotions that I had to let out via my iPhone.  Maybe one day I'll write a book based off the notes of my own iPhone.  My own little short novel :)

Week 4- MagnatuNe ~ "we are not evil"

John Buckman created this awesome music sharing site called Magnatune that basically allows the average Joe to share his music and talent with the world.  Joe might have limited resources, like low money funds and not knowing any big shots in the music biz, but what he does have is raw musical talent that should be shared with the world.  Sometimes I get annoyed at the money making cooperate feel of the music industry in terms of labels and record deals because it seems like passion and raw talent are no longer the target points.  Money is.  The average Joe would never have the means to compete with stars like Miley Cyrus EVEN IF the average listener would much rather listen to the raw talent of Joe versus the ludicrous and raunchy lyrics of Miley.

Average Joe isn't rich, he has 3 kids to feed and only has the time as well as the means to send his music to sites like Magnatune because this site is "not evil" and believes that "musicians should keep the rights to their music"and still make some money off of it.  Magnatune is so great because it allows people like Joe to share the music they create without having to deal with the music politics of copy right laws or without having to sign away the rights to their music over to be a record company.  According to Buckman, the music industry in the US is worth about 12 billion dollars.  8 Billion of that is used on licensing music (copy right laws) in lawyer offices.  Wow.

Basically, Magnatune and the Artist have an understanding that their music is free to the public and theirs to use.  Buckman explains that "as long as you don't make money off of it, you're just marketing for us".  Buckman chooses 3 percent of the best music he receives from self made music artists and he makes his money by charging users 15 dollars a month.  Buckman gives half of that money to the artist.  Before checking out the sight (which is beautifully designed) and listing to the interview (rules-for-the-revolution) I was a bit iffy.  Why should I pay 15 dollars a month when I can download "hit" songs from youtube to my iTunes for free?  Then it hit me.  I think that Magnatune is a part of the "fair trade" movement, just on a smaller and much more local scale.

fair trade

noun

1.

  

trade in which fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries.

John Buckman seems to be a smart and ethically aware business man.  I was curious to find out more about him which led me to the discovery of his blog.  I learned that him and his girlfriend recently got mushroom poisoning and were violently ill for two weeks....humorous and informative blog for sure!

http://blogs.magnatune.com/

The Internet is 5,000 days old... *SIGH*

Kevin Kelly made me think…

When he said we aren't amazed I literally looked at the screen and started to shake my head profusely.  I was watching in BoCo café (I work here) eating food.  I wanted to point to the kid whipping out his iPhone 5 and using his parents platinum credit card to pay for his breakfast via an ipad (I talked about during my last post) and declare “OMG you Aren’t amazed, are you?  Keven’s right you aren’t and you should be!”  I mean come on who am I to judge? Maybe deep down inside he was amazed… buuuut then again he was probably too dazed by the cloud to really even know or care or both.

I had to stop watching the Ted talk and write.  I think I’m starting to slowly figure out how I want to live my life.  I used to always be such a hippie.  Being a hippy was always smoking weed and being all earthy, I gave up drugs but yet I still feel like I'm fighting.  I was a rebel fighting for a cause, that cause I’m only now starting to figure out what the hell exactly means.  I always thought I was supposed to be born in the 60s because they actually had a clear reason why they revolted against society.  There was this huge counter culture of people who rebelled against society for legit reasons.  They took it too far with the whole phyco-delic drug thing but I mean they were just testing the boundaries of what was right and what wasn’t.  They became rebels of this wonderful army fighting for peace, love, and harmony for all people under this one nation that was founded on the grounds of Christianity.  One nation under God, something I believe we should have never left behind BUT how in the world would we have managed to take it with us?  There were these confused people who ended up burning the bible because the people on the opposite end of the spectrum were even more confused and manipulated the word of the bible into being a set of rules that turned out to be impossible for people to uphold, thus making Christianity a disgusting turn off to anyone with a creative soul that felt as if their individual creativity and inter most desires and passions were a work of the devil and something to be ashamed of.  The bible was taken so strictly, rigidly, and so black and white when it was never meant to be that way.  My god would never want people to turn to drugs and become perma-trips which is what happened to some people of the 60s BUT EVEN MORE SO he would not want people calling themselves Christians if they twisted the bible into thinking that woman's rights, the curiosity of sexuality, and spirituality through yoga and anything “new age” was surely going to give you a ticket straight to hell….

I think this relates to a lot of today's problems.  Why young kids are becoming drug addicts and developing drinking problems and all that.  There is such a HUGE generation gap between older people and younger people and so much misunderstanding.  We are the technology generation going through a revolt of our own.  The counter-culture back then (hippies in revolt) looks so damn simple compared to today's counter-culture.  There’s nothing wrong with technology, it’s a wonderful thing but I feel like my generation is so “stuck in the cloud” that it might be hurting us more than benefiting us.  We know more about about our iPhone and who Siri is than we know about own selves. 

I just couldn't believe it when Kevin stated that "First, that basically what this machine is doing is embodying. We're giving it a body. And that's what we're going to do in the next 5,000 days -- we're going to give this machine a body. And the second thing is, we're going to restructure its architecture. And thirdly, we're going to become completely codependent upon it."  He went on to explain that soon we won't even have to remember our own phone numbers, we can just google it.  So does this mean the extinction of human memory is soon to come?  I mean I don't know...

BASICALLY YOUNG PEOPLE NEED MORE SPIRITUALITY (which is a journey, by no means am I preaching) AND TO PLAY IN THE DIRT...

I'll be back later to edit this, I understand it is a bit of a rant and should be a bit more organized and factual :)