Unique Blog Post #4

Late last week, Jovan Belcher, an NFL linebacker who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, committed a murder-suicide. He killed his girlfriend, who he had a 3 month old girl with, and then proceeded to go to the Chiefs Stadium. While there, he confronted the head coach, GM, and linebackers coach. He thanked them all for the opportunity over the past 3 years (he was in Kansas City for 3 years) then stepped away and took his life. When watching football this past Sunday Night, Bob Costas, a long time broadcaster, discussed his "topic" of the week. This week it happened to be gun control. Here is the link to the clip with an article:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/bob-costas-advocates-gun-control-sunday-night-football-164208209--nfl.html

To me, this was taking advantage of peoples emotions. Earlier in the, in class, we saw the Budweiser commercial about all the troops coming home and how good we all felt to see that. I feel like this is the same type of thing. Millions of people are watching this game, then he says this, it sort of takes people by surprise and almost makes you want to help ban guns. This may not be the case at all, but given the circumstances of the situation and the timing, I saw it as a shot at our emotions. Whether it was or not, we will never know. 

Everything is a Remix

This video was fantastic. Before this video I never really thought of movies like this. Of course, growing up when we went to movies with our parents we were periodically told that this was a remake or based off this movie, stuff like that. I never would have imagined that almost all movies today are remixed in some way. It just seems crazy to think about. Like the video showed us, some of the greatest movies to hit the box office use scenes from other movies. For example, Star Wars had a ton of things in it that were almost exact scenes from another movie. Hard to image what it would be like had these movies not used any remixing. Almost seems impossible. Definitely an eye opener though.

Unique Blog Post 3

I found this video I thought was rather interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AFFWPkcOmE&feature=g-trend

It's about how developers have created a program that enables our virtual avatar to reproduce our emotion into the virtual world. He didn't really say what it was for, so hard telling what it would be used for. I mean most video games I know of (or play) do not involve me communicating with other people, unless through a microphone. And I do not believe this would be used for video conferencing programs such as Skype because obviously human to human is better than avatar to avatar. So I wonder what they will implement this program into? I think the idea is great and would definitely change the way we communicate in the virtual world, like he mentioned. I am just not exactly sure how. Anyone see a good use for this program that I may be missing?

Unique Blog Post 2 - Call of Duty

I was browsing the internet recently, looking at some of the information for the new Call of Duty: Blacks Ops 2 game when I came across this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/call-of-duty-black-ops-2-halo-4-set-for-a-sales-shootout/2012/11/13/b321dfd4-2d8d-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html

The article discusses revenue brought in by these two popular games over the last few years. I was honestly blown away. The first call of duty black ops brought in over 650 million dollars in just five days. To me, this was astonishing. It got me to thinking, what are we really paying for in this new video game? Sure, the campaign is different and the graphics have been altered slightly but what about this game is so different that it can generate over a half a billion dollars in revenue in 5 days? It's because it's a materialistic item. I remember growing up, always wanting the new video game. That is what they are doing here. You don't want to be the kid that doesn't have the new video game when everyone else does so you go out and buy the new one. Even though the game is not that different from the other 8 call of duties that you already own,  but you buy it anyways. It just blows my mind that we continue to do this, and I am totally guilty of this I will admit. It almost seems like manipulation. They could reprint this same game, exactly the same, just change the name and kids would still buy it. Another way they manipulate this series is through media. Here is a commerical for one of the games that came out a while ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD7WNmpKRW4

This old man basically tells us everyone is doing "it", if you know what the commercial is for, you know its playing call of duty. All the references he makes can be thought of in terms of call of duty. But even the people that do know this game know this old man could be referring about sex. I thought this commercial was wrong. It seems like they wanted to make kids laugh because they were references sex (kids laugh at sex jokes), and then it would let kids know the new game was coming out. This would lead kids to show all their friends how funny the commercial was and then all the other kids would know about the new game. Just seems like one big scheme to get the consumer to buy the next game, or just another materialistic item.

Superstorm Sandy Interactive

Recently, I have been fascinated by this Super-storm Sandy. The fact of a cold front mixing with this tropical storm/ hurricane and producing feet of snow, I thought was very interesting. I was recently looking at articles discussing this storm when I came across this article.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411491,00.asp

Inside the article there is another link, to an interactive map on google.

http://google.org/crisismap/2012-sandy

On this map you are able to check multiple things. This would be especially helpful for the people experiencing the brunt of this storm up the east coast. You are able to check hurricane evacuation routes, current conditions in specific locations, checkout videos of the storm, find emergency shelters, see where the power is out, etc. All from one site. This website is awesome because it allows people that are being affected and not being affected, interact and look at what this storm is doing in that area. I found it to be pretty fascinating. Also, in this link, there are websites getting extra attention from this.  For example, when you click on the link, you are able to check other information and maps on other websites such as ready.gov and theweatherchannel.com. It made me wonder if these websites just put the information there so people would click on their websites and get their websites more attention.Then, once you click on the websites such as twc, there are plenty more advertisements and other websites to click on. It seems to me like this Super-storm Sandy is a big way for websites and companies to get their names out there by offering information regarding the storm. It's almost as if this storm is an advertising propaganda.

Communities

After reading Steinkuehler's article, it was obvious that him and Vonnegut have different ideas of what a community is or can be. Vonnegut, firm in his belief, said that a community could only be defined as a physical space. As he put, "Electronic communities build nothing." On the other hand, there was Steinkuehler's article, and she believes in something completely opposite from Vonnegut. Steinkuehler believes that through massively multiplayer online games (MMO), a community can form.

Vonneguts article I think I would agree with more. Like Vonnegut, I believe communities must involve real life actions in a real life world. In his article he talked about going to the post office and buying a manilla envelope. Those are real life events with real life humans. Steinkuehler's article is about real people interacting in a virtual world. Sure, I think that could be considered a community just the same type of community Vonnegut talks about. As Steinkuehler put "Participation in such virtual "third places" appears particularly well suited to the bridging social capital (putnam, 2000), social relationships that, while not providing deep emotional support per se, typically function to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews". I do agree with that, however, to compare this community to the one Vonnegut discusses, a physical place, they are not the same. I get that online you meet new people and connect but you do that in real life too and you actually get to interact with these people in person; It's more humanistic.

Piano Player

1. The fictional society in the book involves big advances in technology that remove the need for a human workforce. Is our society today headed down the same path?
2. What does the title of the book mean?
3. Is technology today really helping us more than it is hurting us?