Major Argument #4 - DRAFT.

To share my digital media production, I had originally wanted to create a post on my photography page on Facebook. My photography page would have been the ideal setting because I already have over 500 followers and it would have reached a lot of people who are interested in photography, especially my photography (which I use in my production.) Having my production within my Facebook site would have been perfect, but when I went to type a “note,” however, I learned that I could only attach one picture to a note, and my production had several pictures, and relies on each of those pictures for a very functional purpose. So clearly, that wasn’t going to work.

I needed a place to house my digital media production that could hold several photos with a post, so I decided that creating a blog and posting my production as a blog post would be a fitting location.

First and foremost, I had been contemplating creating a blog for my photography for quite some time (hyperlink), but just hadn’t gotten around to it. So I decided this production would be a great starting point for me to use as the beginning of a new photography blog. It serves the purpose of introducing myself and my business to the blogging sphere by sharing my ethical beliefs on the use of photography editing programs. This can set a context for the viewers to view all my photos that I’ll post on the blog as time goes along and that context will help station me as a reliable, moral photographer who clients can trust. For logical reasons, my production serves a purpose on my blog and therefor makes the blog a fitting location.

Aside from my logistical reasons, my blog is a fitting location for other reasons as well. A blog can be considered a form of Web 2.0 because of its interactive nature. People can comment on my post, share my blog, be linked or directed to other websites, and ultimately “be in the flow” of the information my blog creates. The article, “Streams of Content, LimitedAddition: The Flow of Information through Social Media,” says, “The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere. To be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful. Living with, in, and around information.”  

For many functions on my blog, a gmail account is needed, (since Blogger is owned by Google.) My blog I created to host my production/my photography is linked to my Michigan Tech email, so any viewer can navigate from my photography blog to my blog for Digital Media class with ease. If a viewer were to find his way to my Digital Media blog, he would find insights of mine that helped create my digital media production, and would have an even further context as to how to read my production, and blog as a whole. Blogger’sTerms of Service states that, “You may need a Google account to use some of our services.” A person wouldn’t need an account to view my blog, but an account is necessary to comment on a post. Having an account gives a level of credibility to the person making the comment, because anyone can use that account to see what else that person has commented on other things.

Bloggers who read my blog will have the opportunity to interact with my website, and through their comments, can be considered editors of my blog, in the same regard that I can be considered its author. I am not creating information for the audience to just take at my word. I am, through my blog and digital media production, merely posting something that should spark discussion and/or thought, and the comments along with my production (and not the production alone) are what make my website dynamic and participatory. My blog may be a creation that I made, a “do-it-yourself” concept, but it cannot be considered a “complete” or “whole” blog unless I have audience interaction of some kind. After all, if I’m not reaching anybody through my blog, I might as well not have a blog at all. Because as Jenkins said in his article on Participatory Culture, “Do It Yourself” rarely means “Do It Alone.”

Resources so far:

Why Participatory Culture isn’t Web 2.0
Streams of Content…
Blogger’s Terms of Service
(I still need two more…)

Response to Gaming Systems

My family received our first gaming system ever three years ago for Christmas. It was a PlayStation 2. Yes. A PS2. In 2009. We were a little out of the loop. And in those three years we've owned that PS2, my whole family (my younger sister, my parents and I, combined) have probably turned the machine on forty times. If I'm being generous. So needless to say, I don't have too much of a back-history with the concept  of video-gaming.  But before we owned our PS2, I spent a great deal of time at my cousin's house, and my cousin owned every gaming system ever made to date, and nearly every game and expansion pack to go along with those systems. When I was there, I loved to waste my time creating outfits and houses for my Sims characters (I couldn't care about the characters lives, I just liked designing.) And my Zoo Tycoon amusement parks were always the most architectural and creative I could make them given the allotted budget (which was always unlimited ;)  My favorite computer game was (and still is) Diner Dash and its related spin offs. And every year for Christmas, my grandma's gift to the grandkids was a years subscription to the Disney themed role playing computer game, ToonTown. (I was a duck named Daisy and I had leveled  up to a level 130 and had defeated all the Cogs!) And, when I get the chance, I still love to play Animal Crossing on my sister's Nintendo DS.

So, clearly, my favorite games (or aspect of games) have always been the open-ended, non-stressful and non-combative games (well, except for beating those Cogs...)  for me to 1) express a need to create/invent and to 2) ultimately be myself/explore the virtual worlds/ create my digital identity!

I had never thought of gaming as a new way of teaching creativity to children, but upon reading the articles, it totally makes perfect sense, and I've noticed it play out perfectly in my life, in retrospect. 

I can't say much for the combative games, but the other kinds are an absolutely wonderful way to slowly/secretly implant a free-thinking, problem-solving, creative and expressive mind into children, all while they think they're "wasting time." 

HTML5 vs Apps

So I know literally nothing about HTML5 (or HTML at all, really) but I saw this article on Business Insider about HTML vs Apps, the future creation of those platforms, and which will be more successful, while browsing the web and recognized the concepts from class yesterday, so hopefully by next week, I'll be able to read the article and understand it!

Response to Web 2.0

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged!

Today's articles were all pretty interesting (I especially liked "Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media" and "Why Participatory Culture Is Not Web 2.0: Some Basic Distinctions.") and they seemed to wrap up what we've been talking about all semester into one concept (which is fitting, as the semester comes to a close.) Here are my notes I took while reading:

The way we view/receive news and information is switching from a model of attention to a model of distribution. Now, instead of being fed little bits of information that we were assumed to pay attention to, because there was no alternative, we have the ability to access virtually any information about any subject at any time, and it is up to us what we can pay attention to/what we ignore. Also, with this vast stockpile of information, the readers are invited and encouraged to add to the information/discussion, share the information and ultimately attract new viewers.

Within this "model of distribution" are four concepts that look at why certain people take in the information they do:
1. Democratization - how is content distributed among all viewers? (people are attracted to things in their language, therefor Chinese written e-documents will eventually be the most viewed - theoretically.)
2. Stimulation - attention to educational/informational info isn't always as attractive as "pointless", fun, mindless information. (Note: Can be addictive and harmful to a person's well-being if not allotted for in moderation. A balance is needed.)
3. Homophily- people naturally want to connect with people similar to them. This can be great for the furthering of knowledge on topics among people with similar interests. This can become dangerous when used in a bigoted, prejudiced way of segregation on the web. It can be easy to ignore the facts/opinions we don't want to hear and the fact that the web allows for both opinions to be voiced and yet ignored can enforce social divides and leave little room for open-minded discussion
4. Power - access alone is power. The view holds the power to command attention to himself, influence other's opinions, and to traffic information. We also give power to companies/people when we give our attention to them (marking them as worthy)

Within this Web 2.0 model of information distribution, the viewer is invited to take part in the making and sharing process of information. As quoted in Why Participatory Culture Is Not Web 2.0..., 

“The latest evolution of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people. New kinds of online resources– such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities– have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways. Indeed, the Web 2.0 is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for supporting multiple modes of learning.”

Peer Reviews - Day 2

Julia

Argument: Astrology is disproved by science

Strength: Background/color setup is nice and fits subject ; pages appear to be easy to navigate

Improve: Looks like a lot of paraphrasing of a scientific article, is there other info that you can add that people not interesting in facts may want to read? Perhaps quick bullet points instead of paragraphs? Pictures?

Some headers are center-aligned, some are left-aligned

(Is the production meant to show a bias of why its harmful, to show both sides of the story, or to be un-biased entirely and just show introductory facts?) -- I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, I'm not sure. Just make your point clear.

Olive

Argument: To show scenic/historical landmarks worth seeing in each state? To encourage travel

Strength: Very interesting, so much to look at!

Improve: Add border, maybe make California/Florida pictures not tilted -- I feel like Disney castles could be straight up (not angled) and would still be grand enough to take up the whole state and be recognizable, Give UP a different picture than Lower Michigan

Kim

Argument: For people to buy UP Unique Creation goods

Strength: well put together website

Improve: Like the links at the top of the page for navigation (strength), but with that, is the same necessary at the bottom of the page as well?

subheader "Local loves, now available to the public" could be worded better to be explicit

I think "about us" and "contact" tabs should be together, so the order of tabs reads "home, products, ordering, about us, contact" - seems to emphasize products and gives the tabs a better flow

Caitlin 

Argument: Politicians portray themselves in a specific physical manner as well as socially; body language/how presented is a subconscious of how we perceive people

Strength: Interesting insights, is non-biased to a political party. Like the "did you know..." under each subheader, very uniform. Organized

Improve: Where are these quotes from? Sources? (are they all from the same source?)
 Don't know the necessity of the "shoulds..."  are these your opinions?
hard to tell the difference between your opinions and the facts, break that up
why the circles around the faces?
flags need to be moved (also need to be made uniform size with each other)

Courtney

Argument: For people to take part in NaNoWriMo

Strength: For a writing activity, I love the use of whitespace/short sentences! The "incomplete-ness" has a certain appeal to it. Very nice mix of fonts,  typogoraphy is very well put together/appealing. Posters build on each other.

Improve: In the blue fonts, either use all lower-caps, or use proper capitalization, keep it uniform

Devin

Argument: To show how the truth behind how much money we spend on a dining hall meal compared to what we get for that money ; its better to eat off campus if you want to save money ; do we pay for convenience

Strength: nice comparative format, explains how to get the most of your food, survey was a beneficial addition, tumblr reaches  college-age demographic

Improve: for the pictures of food from tech, explain them like you did the culvers pics, don't know what that link is in your second posting ; don't know how tumblr works, but could you take off the timestamp on the posts?

Next

Argument: Create blog for sister?

Strength: Black is nice contrast from green, shows personality,

Improve: Change font, make side "about me" section wider or move to a different spot. What is the point of the blog? White title is hard to read

Also, the background is calming and relaxing, and so are the descriptions in the "about me", but the word "effervescence" is bubbly and exciting - don't know if those two descriptors match up with each other

Jane

Argument: we as a tech-savvy generation have a different mentality about ourselves/others/our relationships with others and we need to be aware of that when we interact with other generations

Strength: nice layout, nice background/text, text had enough time to read, good idea for a video, text movement was nice/moved movie along, easily relatable

Improve: Maybe add image to break up text towards end

Jana

Argument: for people to go to that landscaping service

Strength: love the handmade touches

Improve: "premier in lawn and garden care" text doesn't fit the organic flow of the image ; is there color in the grass? add color elsewhere for color advertisement or keep black and white for newspaper

Peer Reviews

Sarah

Major Argument: Provide publicity for Vocal Achord

Strength: Logos says name of group and both logos imply musical interest (clef signs and bar staffs) ; fonts imply whimsy

Develop: Perhaps give a sub-header under the logo saying "Michigan Tech A Capella" or something ; color for contrast

Charlie

Major Argument: Provide publicity/history/advertisement for Club Indigo - Why you should go

Strength: PP can hold its own, provides all the answers to questions people may have, is persuasive/informative ; I like that the font/background portray a 1920's feel, similar to the Calumet Theater.

Develop: Still needs photos, slides broken up

Steven

Major Argument: Don't pirate music

Strength: Very aesthetically attractive infographic, use of color emphasizes stats

Develop: only three statistics, maybe add more (i'm assuming you will because there's empty space at the bottom)

Where it says "the cost: 12.5 billion - annually to the us economy" does that mean money taken from the us economy? that line isn't clear

I'm not sure of the staggered lines in the "when caught pirating", I'd consider making those all aligned (or at least staggered at an even rate)

Cassandra

Major Argument: Join Greek Life at Tech for their leadership roles

Strength: Presentation has a nice flow, color gives contrast is easy to read

Develop: Some slides are too long to read in the time given ; the font is very "childish" (not in a demeaning way, but because it's handwritten) and I'm not sure if it implies the leadership position you're arguing for. Perhaps there's a different "fun" font that shows the lighthearted side of Greek Life without compromising your respectability of professionalism/leadership?

Challenges

My project is coming along really nicely, and I'm learning more about photo manipulation as I go along, but here are some challenges I've come across during my project so far:

The editing is taking longer than I expected. I had hopes of creating three different photo before/after series, I'm putting the final touches on the first one when I'm in the lab today, and then I'll begin my second one. Depending on how long my second series takes, I might have to cut it down and leave it with the two.

I'm not really sure how I want to host my presentation. The photo series' are either going to be displayed as well, a series (with one photo at a time), and I'm also contemplating turning them GIF's, so after my presentation, they can be housed as a picture family together. But, since my digital media artifacts are pictures, I'm not sure how I want to present them. Most people are putting together websites, and I thought about making a tumblr with my photos, but I feel that if I made a webpage, it would need a lot more substance than what I have. Maybe a solid powerpoint is all I need.

(Just kidding, as I was writing that paragraph, I decided I'm going to make a tumblr page as planned, but then just make one really long essay-like entry. I had previously worried about the fact that I was going to need to create several, if not dozens, of tumblr entries, and I was struggling with how to present my info in any particular order in that fashion, but if I just put it as one long post, It'll be a great host for my argument.)

Design Plan

Statement of Purpose: I would like to show how skewed photos can become from when they were originally taken, through forms of editing and manipulation, and to show how these altered photos can create a "hyerreality" for people (namely young women) to base their realities in and around.

Audience: Anyone who doesn't know what drastic edits can be placed onto a photo to alter it, especially high school/ college age women who value personal beauty as self-worth.

Exigency: There exists this notion that the only way to be beautiful is to be skinny and flawless, as seen in celebrity photographs and magazines. In reality, there isn't a person who actually looks like the photos, those photos have been doctored and altered to the point where the model can sometimes become unrecognizable. However, people who take in these doctored photographs don't know they are altered and base their own beauty on the altered, unrealistic and often unattainable appearances of the models.

Audience's "fitting response"/ Potential Change: I would like to see the audience realize how "fake" these photos are; and to be able to recognize and separate the hyperreality of doctored images from our actual reality.

Strategies: Right now, through finding before/after pictures of celebrities, finding statistics on alteration, and showing some before/after photos that I will be creating.

Medium: I will be setting up a blog that I can post onto in a "timeline" like manner, with my postings in order of my arrangement.

Statement of Purpose

For my rhetorical argument for major assignment 3, I will be discussing the cons of use of Photoshop and image manipulation and how the photos can become a hyperreality to the audience of my fellow digital media students who may or may not know the extensive effects that can be placed onto an image, through the use of before and after photos of photos that have been edited.


^^ I think all we have to write is our statement of purpose, so I hope I don't have to say more! :)

Response to Wysocki- Lynch

After already doing 3 hours of homework tonight before even getting to reading today's article, I was in no mindset to read 30+ pages to blog on, so I will admit I skimmed. The article seemed fairly easy to digest though, so I'm glad I wasn't stuck reading Baudrillard on a stressful, homework-filled night like tonight ;)

This reading speaks of how easily an argument can crumble if one of many components isn't well built. A solid statement of purpose is key to building the context of the argument. Also, the audience must be remembered when deciding on your medium for your argument. Also, when formulating an argument, consider specific strategies, orders for your different points to go in, and above all, test your argument to see if its as practical as it is theoretically.

Response to Copyright Issues

So all four of the websites we had to read seemed eerily related to my first Major Argument assignment. (I guess I had a clue about what I was talking about all along ;)

With this new wave of hands-on, shareable technology, us Digital Natives have a new, interactive relationship with the internet. The new generation of internet is meant to be shared, reworked and republished.

Here's what a musician in the digital age has to say about reworking music:

(Upon trying, the "insert video" option on Blogger only allows youtube videos, and the "embed" option from the website with the video only gave me code when I tried to post my blog, so I've updated to include the link to the website that includes the video here. 

One of my good friends from back at home is going to college for Musical Production and he has an incredible talent for taking popular songs and remixing them. In fact, that is a common practice now -- some major label recording artists endorse remixed versions of their songs and host contests to see who can be most creative remixing an already published, copyright songs. Lawyers, corporations and people who don't understand this new interactive form of media seem to think that doing anything with a song that isn't used with "permission" is illegal. Speaking on the subject is Copyright and Internet Lawyer and Harvard Professor Larry Lessig who explains the fragile line of reworking and editing copyrighted works for creative purposes:

(Again, the posting the video within the blog didn't want to cooperate, so here's the link to the source.)

Response to "The Rhetorical Situation"

Phew! This was a long read, and I did have to read it out loud to myself. (If a piece is particularly wordy, I force myself to read it out lout that way I can't skim over it as a result of boredom.) While I did have to force myself to pay attention and interpret the information every so often, I do think I understand the piece. (I mean, we'll see tomorrow for sure, but let me see what I can do right now.)

A rhetorical situation is a man-made situation that requires man-made change (or if not change, at least requires to be addressed) through the use of rhetorical discourse (or speech.) An extingence is the topic of conversation. The obstacle or even that needs to be address or changed. (An exstingence must be realistic - as opposed to fictitious, - and an exstingence maybe be short- or long-lived. An exsitngence may change and evolve over time, may die out entirely, or may live on forever.)  The audience of a rhetorical discourse must be a mediator of change, or the people being spoken to must be capable of being influenced. Someone who opposes the viewpoint of the exstingence would not be a rhetorical audience. Typically, it is a constraint of the exstingence that holds an audience back from becoming a rhetorical audience. A constraint is something that holds the audience in opposition (a religion, personal belief or attitude, background, facts, tradition, interests and motives, and so on...) A constraint is also something that can influence how the rhetor gives his discourse. For example, a religious background can influence how a speech is written and presented by the rhetor, and a religious background can also influence how that same speech is interpreted.

A fast example that just popped into my head: an episode of the TV show, Intervention.

Exstingence: A family member has a drug addiction problem and that needs to be addressed and/or changed.
-- This is a rhetorical exstingence because it is a man-made situation not naturally occurring (like a natural disaster) and because it requires man-made change (as opposed to natural fixation.) The exstingence of a drug problem may evolve to address ever-changing severity, or the changing drug of choice. While the exstingence may evolve, the need for a resolution remains the same.

Audience: The rhetorical audience in this situation would be the family staging the intervention, and in only certain instances include the person with the substance abuse issue.
-- This is a rhetorical audience because the family staging the intervention would be mediators of change. The family members are trying to initiate the change.
-- In some instances, if the abuser approaches their abuse with ignorance or denial, they would not be capable of being influenced into change. In other instances, the abuser might be open to change, and in that case would be a rhetorical audience member.

Constraints: Would include anything influencing any audience members to feel the way they do.
-- These might include religious beliefs, personal attitudes and backgrounds, facts or motives.
-- These can relate to both why the audience members might want to initiate change (how the rhetor uses constraints to influence the discourse) and to why the opposition is not open to change.

A rhetorical discourse is more than just persuasion, because in fact, everything is persuasive, as Bitzer argued.

Lack of Phone Access in the UP

Lack of Phone Access in the UP

The UP, and Houghton in particular, is a diverse area. For being in “the middle of nowhere,” as far as location is concerned, the area has plenty of “outsiders” and has a constant flow of traveler traffic. From students who move here to go to school (like me,) to people visiting us students, to vacationers here for the scenery, the population is consistently made of various groups of people originating from various places. According to Detroit Free Press, approximately 20% of Michigan Tech attendees originate from out of state, and consequently, many of us students have cell phone plans from companies that don’t service the UP.  While this also has to do with a tower/signal issue, I’m mostly concerned with the lack of phone stores in the area for us students with non-Michigan serving phones, and the problems that result from that. The lack of cellphone stores in the UP leads to a lack of access of technical help and resources.

The definition of access is quite simply just having connection. (Blackmon) While phones from US Cellular and Cellcom, (the two most popular Wisconsin-based cell phone companies) do transmit signal to the UP (barely,) the lack of stores in Upper Michigan and resources to go to for technical help limits our phone access dramatically.  For example, around the second week of school this year, the USB port in my HTC Merge smartphone broke. With my USB port cracked and not recognizing anything plugged into it, I wasn’t able to charge my phone; the only solution to have my phone repaired was to have it analyzed, and then either sent in for repairs or to be replaced. “No big deal,” I figured, I’ll just bring it into the nearest US Cellular store. It turns out, according to US Cellular’s Location Finder, the nearest store is 210 miles away, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That clearly wasn’t a trip I could just make one night after class. I also researched to see if I could find an external battery charger for my phone, to bypass the USB port; but the HTC Merge is a phone made specifically for US Cellular, so parts for that phone are only sold in stores. So, for the next three weeks, until I was able to travel home for the weekend, I had to live almost cellphone-less. I say almost because I could ration out my battery power over the course of the weeks, but anyone who has a smartphone knows that a battery doesn’t last more than a few hours, so essentially; I was left without access. And if the same would have happened to someone with a Cellcom plan, they would have been slightly better off, only having to drive a quick jaunt of 93 miles to reach their store location, (one way of course.) (Cellcom)

When I interviewed a friend at Tech who has a plan with Cellcom, he said, “It becomes very inconvenient when I have questions about my phone. Trying to troubleshoot a problem with someone over the phone is so much more difficult than if I was able to walk into a store, where the associate could see and work with my phone in person, rather than trying to give me step-by-step instructions over the phone so I can try to fix my phone myself.” Technical problems happen all the time, especially on pieces of metal that are designed to be short-lived. It’s as if phones these days are designed to fall apart after a certain amount of time. So it becomes very problematic when people with technical problems or questions have nowhere to go for help.

If there is a “plus side” to be considered, the majority of people who move up here for long periods of time with an out-of-state provider are tech-savvy young adults. So at least we can be considered “Digital Natives” and can do a great deal of problem-shooting ourselves with minor issues on our phones, since we are characteristically fluent in the ways that our phones are set up. (Palfrey Gasser) However, if for some reason afamily with older “Digital Settlers” or “Digital Immigrants,” who didn’t have quite the versed know-how in how to deal with ever-changing forms of technology, had moved up to the UP and didn’t switch providers to someone who has a location in the area, they would have no place to go to ask an assistant for help when they needed it.

But, no matter how tech-savvy a person is, if a phone is broken, a trip to the store is pretty much the only solution. Calling an IT help number and having the phone shipped to them to inspect is an option, but it is a long, expensive, and equally limiting option.

Also, when the nearest phone store to Houghton is around a hundred miles away, the phone company assumes that the users don’t leave the radius made by the stores. I do receive nationwide signal, but as soon as I leave the Green Bay area, I’m instantly roaming. Roaming can drain a battery from looking for a nearer tower and can slow loading and downloading times. And, if my family didn’t have a nationwide plan, having a roaming phone could rack up fees for my phone very fast. For some people who rely heavily on their phones for minutely updates or impromptu business information, having a roaming phone could be a deterrent from traveling away from home.

Living almost 300 miles away from home and on my own, having a cellphone is essential. I use my phone for calling my parents back at home. I use my phone for checking my emails and newsfeeds between classes. I use my phone for looking up information during class. I use my phone as a security system through the school. Without a working phone, all these daily tasks were revoked from me, and with a phone that only works when the roaming signal lets it, these access-privileges are only conditional. When my access is limited or removed completely, I’m not able to function to my full capacity.

Clearly, there is an easy solution to this problem of lack-of-access. The expansion of a company to offer services closer to the UP area would be expensive, but might be worth their while considering how many Wisconsin students attend school up here and how many visitors the area draws. Access to a fast, reliable, working phone, and access to help when that phone breaks should not be a privilege, it should be a right.

Works Cited

Blackmon, Samantha. "(Cyber)Conspiracy Theories? African-American Students In The Computerized Writing Environment." Labor, writing technologies, and the shaping of composition in the academy. Cresskill: Hampton Press, 2007.

"Find A Location." Cellcom - Clearly the Best. New Cell, Inc. , 2012. Web. 13 Oct 2012. <http://www.cellcom.com/location.html>.

Jesse, David. "Michigan Colleges Go Out of State For Students." Detroit Free Press. (2012).

Levande, Justin. Personal Interview. 12 10 2012.

Palfrey, John, and Urs Gasser. Born Digital. New York: Basic Books, 2008. 1-15.

 "Store Locator." US Cellular: Hello Better. US Cellular, 2012. Web. 13 Oct 2012. <http://www.uscellular.com/storefinder/index.html>.

Response to "Literacy and Computer Literacy..."

I feel like this article didn't say anything new. I'm not saying it's bad, just that I feel like I've heard everything in it before.  I've heard all of the thesises before, either in Digital Media or in Communication and Culture and the info behind the thesises are all common-sense (meaning I didn't read anything completely unique or find anything that struck me as "new" info). This article just seems like a fine collection and summation of all the definitions of literacy that I've already seen. While I'm anxious for class tomorrow to discuss this piece (because I'm not sure exactly what we'll talk about, maybe I'll find a new insight on it,) I'm glad I have this summation of definitions. It sure is going to come in handy for quotes when I have to write my paper this week!

Response to "(Cyber) Conspiracy Theories"

Okay, I'm only half way through the second page and I need to stop for a second. In order to become a cyber human, you need to become  raceless, genderless, and free of ethnicity and any socioeconomic status? First off, not only is that completely impossible (unless you are in some weird asexual, a-ethnic cult) but it's also just completely irrational. I understand the concept of removing prior experience, and placing people as equals, but that doesn't mean we need to be the same. Aren't there always several pathways that lead  to the same point? So theoretically, a low-income black person could have been raised and given the same education and hired into the same job position as a high-class white person.

To become part of the digital society, it is completely absurd that all differing factors need to be removed. If we removed what makes individuals, well, individual... then what's the point of any civilization at all. There's no discussion or development to be had or made if there's no room for differing opinions. While the information we use digitally can be cloned, this in no way means the users of the media need to be cloned as well.

(Also, what makes digital society different than real society? Why do cyber-humans have to be clones in the digital sphere but diversity is okay in real life?)

Okay, rant done. Now time to read the rest of the article and hopefully let the article sort itself out. Be back later with more insights.

----------------

Now that I've read the article and understand why the gap in digital literacy and comfort-ability is where it's at for whites and minorities, I'm confused as to why there's not a whole lot of progress to try and mend the gap. The minorities are expected to be able to pick up and function at a level comparable to someone who's been raised with technology and uses it as if its second nature, when clearly, for the minorities, its a foreign concept. There sees to be very little work done to bring minorities up to speed, however. Maybe it's for fear of coming off racist or judgmental, but the gap seems to be ignored. I'm reminded of the Apple commercials for the iPad

This digital media artifact is meant to be used as for learning and business work, but the commercial only shows white hands. They don't even pretend to be demographically aimed at a variety of races. The gap will never be mended if no one's willing to mend it. It makes my pessimistic brain wonder if at the heart of corporations, the gap is ever meant to be mended...

New Form of Warfare

So the article as a whole isn't what I'm concerned about, because I'm not into politics too much, but just read the first few lines. 

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian authorities on Thursday sent text messages over cell phones nationwide with a message for rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime: "Game over."

The messages signed by the Syrian Arab Army also urged the rebels to surrender their weapons and warned the countdown to evict foreign fighters has begun. The texts appear to be part of the regime's psychological battle against the rebels, but are highly unlikely to have any effect on fighters intent on toppling Assad.

Syrians say they began receiving the messages a day after rebels bombed a military command center in Damascus — a major security breach of the heavily guarded capital that highlighted the regime's growing vulnerability in the face of a rebellion growing in confidence and capabilities.

People with cellular subscriptions received the messages while those with prepaid phones did not, residents in the Syrian capital said. (The whole article can be found here.)

The fact that we are using cell phones as a form of  psychological, guerrilla warfare is so fascinating. Pretty soon, war will no longer entail guns and bombs, it will just be passive-aggressive text messages from one side to another. 

Response to "Born Digital"

The description between the generation gap of the digital natives, digital immigrants and digital settlers couldn't have been more true. I spent the whole time reading this article laughing my butt off. I would like to say that I have a fairly decent understanding of how digital media works. My mom on the other hand though couldn't be further opposite. When she got her first smart phone, she affectionately called it her "genius phone" because of its capabilities. And one year, her New Year's Resolution was to create a Facebook page. In May she finally figured out how to get onto the website that is so difficultly named "www.facebook.com" For the new six months, I had to teach and reteach her her password, where the status bar was, and that someones wall was different from a personal message.

My grandpa, on the other hand, learned how to navigate Facebook too quickly. My grandpa has over 2,000 Facebook friends, only knowing about 5% of them personally. For example, I have a cousin (on my other side of the family, mind you) who lives in California. My cousin has a girlfriend who my family has never met, yet Grandpa added her on Facebook the day they became "Facebook Official." ... Yup, he's that guy. He has no sense of boundaries when it comes to Facebook either. Now that he's retired, he spends all day on Facebook, and takes up 98% of most people's newsfeeds by sharing literally every picture he sees,  commenting on them, and posting the exact same status every night (which reads "Great day with My facebook friends, good Night and God Bless.) And yes,  that horrible capitalization is a direct quote. When introducing myself to people around town, I have to constantly answer to the question, "Are you related to Ken LeGreve... you know, the Facebook one?" And my response is always, "I wish I could say no." A vast majority of the people my grandpa adds end up blocking him (and I will admit, I've even blocked my own bloodline as well) because when I tried to simply delete him, he re-added me within 10 minutes. I don't know how he noticed one friend out of 2,000 had disappeared so fast, but it's just too much.

It is so fair to say that different generations interact with digital medias differently. And while some people say that the internet needs to have a minimum age of use, it's probably equally fair to say that there should be a maximum age of use as well ;)

Digital Media Analysis: Is Online Sharing Legal?

     Pinterest is a form of digital media (which I will defend throughout the paper,) and is a new, emerging, and interactive social media outlet. The purpose of Pinterest is to give its users a format to find and share information. The intended use of Pinterest is for items, or “pins,” as they are called, to be shared or “repinned.” In fact, that’s how I came to know about the website. I was sharing interesting links on my Facebook profile when one of my friends introduced me to Pinterest, so I wouldn’t need Facebook as a middle-man to relay the information I found on another site. Pinterest functions by having users import information from an outside source (a newspaper/cooking recipe website/etc.) and then once it’s on Pinterest, the link spreads virally throughout the website internally, but I’ll explain that more in detail later. The main flaw with Pinterest is that while it is a sharing website, it is currently illegal to share information without consent from the owner of the link, which then in part makes the whole website illegal. Pinterest shows how current copyright laws are outdated with new forms of social interaction.

This is what Pinterest looks like:

Pinterest is a lot like a virtual magazine and a lot like an online tack board. Imagine flipping through a magazine, seeing an article that is interesting to you, cutting it out, and “pinning” it to your tack board to someday return to, to find again. Pinterest is a website that hosts a variety of interesting objects, be it pictures, recipes, blog articles, clothes sold on online companies or anything else imaginable. When the user finds something that they find interesting, they click on the item and then the “repin” button and that “pins” that item onto a virtual “board.” A board can be categorized as vaguely or as descriptive as the pinner chooses, much like a magazine cutter could leave her articles scattered on her bedroom floor, or could be categorized into a filing system.

Manovich’s definition of modularity is that it is “The fractal structure of new media… elements are assembled into larger-scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identities,” (Manovich 30). That relates to Pinterest because a user can have a screen of multiple boards, and each board consists of numerous individual pins- a much like several tiny squares fitting into one bigger box, and several boxes fitting into a larger box.

Now, to find items to pin, the user can scroll through a newsfeed of posts that have recently been “repinned” by people who the user chooses to follow - much like the newsfeed of information in Facebook. Or, if the user is looking for something specific, she can click on an organizational button to limit her search. For example, let’s say a Pinner is looking for wedding inspiration, (which is a commonly pinned genre.) She would click on the “Weddings and Events” button and that would bring her to a newsfeed containing every pin within the website that has been pinned to a board that has been labeled as a wedding board.

Pinterest can digitally “read” what genre a board falls under (because of the numeric coding associated with how a Pinner “tags” a post,) and then sorts all boards of the same kind together.  The automation of this process also defines Pinterest as a digital media artifact because the numeric coding of tags and the modular sorting of boards lead to a computerized, completely automatic sorting process (Manovich 32).

So, the items we pin can be from someone we know personally, if found in our newsfeed, or we could repin an item that originated from a complete stranger on the other side of the world. There are numerous ways to find the same link, too. Because once a link has been repinned, it is now on both the user’s board, and also the board from which the user found the link. In essence, the link multiplies with every share. And with every share, the user has the ability to change the caption of the link. So, the link now exists on the website under a different tag as well. Consequently, now a link could be found on several hundred thousand people’s newsfeeds, and potentially under a different tag. Because of this, there becomes an infinite amount of ways to find a pin. Now, Manovich’s idea of digital media variability is expressed, because he says, “A new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite ways” (Manovich 36). A pin multiplies every time it is repinned, it does not just exist on Pinterest once, but now each link exists several hundred thousand times, in several hundred thousand individual locations, in potentially several hundred thousand formats. 

Pinning a pin would be pointless if the links were merely pictures and lead to nowhere. Pinterest is not an online cloud of saved .jpg’s.  The point of Pinterest is to link us to other sites. A picture of a piece of pie, when clicked, links you to the website that hosts the recipe for that pie. A picture of a headline of a blog will bring you to the actual blog where the article was posted, for the user to read. A picture might link to a tumblr or flickr site. Or a clothing store could post a picture of a shirt, so when clicked on, the user would be directed back to the store’s website where they could find the shirt to buy. Anything from anywhere on the web can be added to Pinterest, categorized for someone to find and be interested in, and be then linked back to the original host site. It’s almost like a Google search, except you don’t have to know what you’re looking for.  

In fact, it’s almost like the memex that Bush mentions in his article, “As We MayThink.” It’s a way to store tons of digital information in one place, categorized and sorted together, to be referenced when needed.

It’s as though Pinterest is a hyerreality (Baudrillard) of the internet, within the internet. The whole internet (theoretically) is stored within Pinterest, (or at least could be,) and the posts that people pin give an indication of how people want to live their lives. Pinterest has a demographic of upper-middle class white females between the ages of 15-35. So, according to Pinterest, important things in life are hair, makeup and clothing styles, foods to try, popular wedding and home décor trends, and pop culture. Commonly pinned things become viral, and unpopular topics fade off into the hidden corners of the internet, to be rarely seen or pinned again.

Now that we know how Pinterest functions, we can talk about the flaws of its system. The biggest issue with Pinterest has to do with copyrights.

Having the interconnectivity with every person who shares the same interest as us, and every website on the internet, is both a blessing and a curse. While the point of Pinterest is to share information, and people post things onto Pinterest so it can be shared, copyright laws say that Pinterest users technically aren’t allowed to share anything that they don’t have specifically granted permission for. … So, unless you are able to track the link’s origin (which you may or may not be able to do because of the tagging system,) and unless you are granted specific permission from the creator, pinning a post on Pinterest is illegal.

Sometime last year, a stipulation in Pinterest’s legal section said, ““You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Cold Brew Labs’ use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site, Application and the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.” 

A Pinterest-loving lawyer was one of the first people to find this clause within the website and after that, the questionable legality of Pinterest went viral.

The point of Pinterest is to find and share information, and for that information to then be found again. Information is meant to go viral. Companies and blog writers want their work to be shared as a way of free promotion. But giving each person (potentially millions) granted permission to share the site

According to The Daily Dot, Pinterest workers have since told the Wall Street Journal that this is just merely a case of the law being behind technology, since all major websites need to have a section on copyrights, just to cover their asses in the case that someone tries to pull someone else’s website off as their own. Sharing, spreading, and repining a link to the website, with credit to the rightful owner, is in fact perfectly fine, even if the owner doesn’t express permission for the link to be shared.

There are millions of sharing sites on the internet besides Pinterest. Sites like 9GAG or The Berry or StumbleUpon are sharing sites. Anything with a URL can be linked and shared onto virtually any website. The new wave of social interaction is no longer “Hey, come to my house and look at this link I found!” but rather now, “Hey, look at this link I sent you!”

It all boils down to a question: should media on the internet allowed to be shared and linked? After all, it wouldn’t be published on the internet if the maker didn’t want people to find it, right? And how could a company ever turn down free promotion to its website? Most importantly, if a person isn’t illegally, calling someone else’s work his own, what is the issue with giving the website’s link to someone else?

The ideas of copyrights, sharing and ownership within digital media are all very interesting (albeit confusing,) and Pinterest is a fine example of this. Pinterest, a new and digital media, speaks of the new and ever-changing world we live in. And I bet, copyright laws soon will be changing to match the viral, share-able virtual world we live in.

Works Cited

Bush, Vannevar. "As We May Think." Atlantic Magazine . 07 1945: Web. 26 Sep. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/>.

Baudrillard, Jean. “Simularca and Simulations.” Selected Writings. Stanford University Press, (1998):  166-184.

Kowalski, Kristen. "Why I Tearfully Deleted My Pinterest Inspiration Boards." DDK Portaits. ddkportaits.com, 24 02 2012. Web. Web. 25 Sep. 2012. <http://ddkportraits.com/2012/02/why-i-tearfully-deleted-my-pinterest-inspiration-boards/>.

Manovich, Lev. "What is New Media?." Language of New Media. (2002): 19-63.

Orsini, Lauren Rae. "Pinterest Addresses Copyright Concerns." Daily Dot. (2012): n. page. Web. 25 Sep. 2012. <http://www.dailydot.com/business/pinterest-copyright-infringementlegality-statement/>.

"Pinterest/Copyright and Trademark." Pinterest. Pinterest, 06 04 12. Web. 25 Sep 2012. <http://pinterest.com/about/copyright/>.

Response to The Medium is the Massage

I love typography. I love designing it, I love looking at it, and with this book, I learned that I love to read it. I like the way it clicks with my artsy brain. The photos, the inverted/repeated/upside down/ italicized words and the seemingly unrelated photos, my brain understands that. Sometimes I can read a picture better than I can read words.

Which is (not so) ironic, because one of McLuhan's points in The Medium is the Massage is how different mediums effect us differently. A book reads different than a picture book reads different than an audio book reads different from a pdf of a book. For me, I've found that I people become rushed and revert to "skimming" an article when reading online, which is why I always print my pdf's out and read them as if they are a book, because I relate that to "scholarly learning time" and don't rush myself the way I would rush down my Facebook newsfeed.

I do think it's funny how he writes his ideas on modern technology, (which is fast, expansive and all-inclusive,) through the form of a book, which private, isolated, and and individualized. (Yes, I realize the book was written 1967.) I'm curious as to what he'd said about technology and the internet in today's lifestyle. What would he say about Facebook profiles? - talk about public! Or how governments, schools and newspapers have gone digital, the way information is relayed through those sources is completely different from 40, let alone 4 years ago. The internet changes everyday, and the way we interact with it is changing everyday as well. Companies just can't keep up. As McLuhan said, "They're doing today's job with yesterday's technology."

Response to "Simulacra and Simulation"

Okay, I'll be honest. My mind feels like mushy Jell-O right now and I'm not sure of too much Baudrillard said in his article here. The Disneyland example, however, turned my previously liquid Jell-O into halfway solid Jell-O, partly refrigerated but not quite fully solid yet.

Here's what I think I understand: (And the only reason why I'm typing it all out, and not quite interpreting it all yet is because I'm hoping by writing it out, it will make more sense in my mind.)
1. A hyperreal isn't a representation, mimic, or opposite of the reality - it's more of a simulation of the reality... but it's different from it, because it's not the same. So, like a fake real. (I'm imaging the Matrix movies with this.)
2. In a hyperreal, the reality has been replaced with symbols and signs. Like if all of our stop signs were magically replaced with red octagons, we'd probably still stop at most busy intersections. (I also feel smart because I'm learning about symbols and signs in Culture and Communication right now, so I have a very remedial understanding of semiotics!)
3. There are phases which the symbols go through, which Baudrillard called the "precession of simulacra," where within each phase, the symbols get more and more "simulated." The order goes: faithful copy, perverted copy (we think it's a fake copy), pretends to be a faithful copy but really has no copy (first hidden simulation), everything is completely simulated. 

So, right now, I'm trying to compare The Maxtrix (which I read was very influenced by Baudrillard's thought process) to the example of Disneyland. I can see the Matrix example very clear, the computer program world is the simulated world that people have lived in their whole lives and believe is real, and the world that is actually real, has become cumbersome and a complete wasteland. The real and the hyperreal are completely different - so different that they aren't even contrasts of each other, they are in fact two completely separate worlds. People however, don't realize that they aren't living in the "real" world. The hyperreal conceals that the real world is no longer the "real" world.  

When I think of Disney, I think of how I know everything there is fake. Most of the buildings are merely cardboard cutouts and those cardboard cutouts aren't even to scale. They're cut and lined up to make us think that the world goes on forever, when in reality, it's only a few acres. What makes this a hyperreal, however, is the fact that Disney survives on the fact that it goes on as if those lies are real. They want us to think that we're in a dreamland, and life there is scripted and "roboticized", but of course, that script and those robots would never be admitted. (I think of the difference between Disney jungles where the animals are friendly and out in the open, compared to a real jungle, where if you were as close to an animal as Disney would suggest, you would have been dead for three minutes already.) Which leads us to question, are the animals real and tamed to the point that they're no longer a real representation of themselves, or are they completely robotic, which also isn't a proper representation of itself either. The point of it all isn't to have us question the differences though, it's to mindlessly believe that they fake lion is real. We're not supposed to know the difference. 

The examples are now pretty solid in my mind, and of the info I think I know, I think I know fairly well. But I am looking forward to class tomorrow to solidify everything else Baudrillard said. The examples, solid. Baudrillard as a whole, still a little mushy.

Interest vs. Internet... in Youtube Form

So, similar to the way that a program "scans and doesn't read" a scanned digitized file, is the way that Youtube makes it's captions for it's videos. It merely only guesses what the video is saying.

For a quick laugh, watch this Rhett and Link video where they mess with Youtube's failed caption-rendering program.

Response to "Always Already New"

Only less than two pages into this article, I just had to laugh. Giltleman says that "the internet is wrong about it's own history," when she's referring to a mishap in a program that read a few scanned documents wrong translating the word "interest" into "internet". That reminds me of this "quote" that's been floating around the internet for a few years now...

And speaking of Abraham Lincoln... (insert awkward transition here.) Gitleman contrasts the documentation of history before and after the invention and popularization of the internet. Before the web, history was a record of the past. When newspapers were delivered, the "breaking news" featured within them was already days, if not weeks old, depending on if we're taking about pre- or post- Pony Express ;) Now, "breaking news," is just that. I can look up an article on an event merely seconds after it occurs. There really is no "history" to document, after all, the event could still happening while the article hits the newsstands (and by before it hits the newsstands, I mean before the post is published onto a website.) History, in modern terms, takes place in the now. History is no longer the periodic documentation of the past, history is the constant tracking of the present. And as far as digitization of history goes, it's hard to view timelines. Digital articles can be altered, moved to different websites, and all together deleted. After all, it's said that the average lifespan of a webpage is somewhere between 40-70 days.

Even in the internet's infancy, critics talked about the hard to call line between "the true and the false, the important and the trivial, the enduring and the ephemeral." (Well, I guess my addition of the picture of Lincoln wasn't too far fetched as far as where this post is going... this is a happy coincidence!)  The article even continues to talk about how is possible to cite an article off the internet, and your brain can be filled with complete BS. It is possible to find a website with literally anything on the internet. If you wanted to find a website on how to properly elect an octopus into office, I'm sure it wouldn't be too far of a search before an article was found.

The web offers plenty of uncertainties within citations. Citing a book induces no fear because even if a book is 50 years old, unless every copy of the book was burned in a horrible fire, it would be possible to track it down. Now, people run the risk of citing a website that will someday expire. In a digital world that is meant to keep everything accessible at all times, things sure are tricky to find.

Case in point: The internet is sketchy as hell.

Response to "As We May Think"

Ever since the beginning of civilization, people have worked to make their own lives easier. In essence, they worked hard so they never had to work hard again. To solve problems that in their own time were difficult, (but in hindsight are now considered relatively easy,) things like the abacus were created. The abacus made a mathematician's job incredibly easier, but the mathematician still had work to do. (Also, isn't it funny to think that at one point a "mathematician" was considered anyone who could at 2+2 with the help of beads?) And over time, the abacus turned into the calculator turned into the basic computer turned into a machine that can essentially think for us. Now, a mathematician is no longer someone who knows how to compute incredibly hard equations by hand, with a little assistance of an invention to keep his math straight; a "mathematician" is a computer who can do equations that are monumentally harder than any human could ever compute within milliseconds, all with a little help of a human controller, who's sole function is to enter the equation and press a big red button that says, "solve."

As Vannevar Bush said in the essay "As We May Think,"

"A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily preform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is promarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgement in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs."

Technology has made our lives too easy. No longer do we ask ourselves, "How do I solve this?" but rather, "Which program is best at solving this for me?" Soon, our whole lives will revolve around technology (more than they already do, we still do use our brains for some things,) and that concept scares the crap out of me. But then again, maybe that's because I just recently watched The Matrix movies and have a deep fear of a computer system trying to beat me up. Or maybe its because I learned they are no longer teaching cursive in schools, because it is now outdated and won't be a necessary tool for budding adults to need to know. Or maybe because of the fact that over 60% of children who are now kindergarten students, when they complete college, will hold a job that currently does not even exist. (I paraphrased that statistic and am hoping the percentage is correct.)

The idea that computers are taking over our society reminds me of both the giant brains in the episode of Futurama that try to kill the world with knowledge, and the lethargic, lazy, don't-know-how-to-do-anything-for-themselves society from the movie Wall-E. When will the line between whether humans control computers or whether computers control humans be crossed? Perhaps it already has...

Response to "Why I Blog"

In the essay, "Why I Blog", author (or blogger, so to speak,) Andrew Sullivan talks about the contrasts between writing published journals and writing a blog entry. Blogs are "spontaneous expressions of instant thought," where journal articles are rehearsed, reviewed and re-edited, (because you can never edit just once.) Blogs are "colloquial" and "unfinished," where articles are professional and polished. Blogs are "personal" to the author, who often fills his posts with emotional opinions about topics. Readers come to know the author quite deeply -- and often relate to the author on a friendly, equal level, where columnists are removed from their work, hiding any personal bias and sometimes not even signing their names.

The ironic thing about the contrast between those two styles of writing, is that while I'm sitting here typing my response, I find myself pausing, thinking, contemplating, deleting, rewording, deleting again, and carefully picking the words I keep. Which, according to Mr. Sullivan, or Andrew (depending on if I'm referring to him as the columnist or the blogger, respectively,) is the exact opposite of what a blog should be. If I were to write this response in "proper blog manner," it would be filled with intense emotional appeals, relateable humorous anecdotes, a few spelling errors (from typing so fervently,) and ultimately, it would be left without a conclusion. And for two reasons: first, a blog is a "draft" of sorts. The author hasn't had time to revise his or her work, and perhaps, never will.  After all, a blog entry is a snapshot in time, showing exactly how the author feels about a subject, and perhaps the author hasn't quite finished his ponderings yet, and the conclusion is to be posted in a different entry. And also, a post might be conclusion-less because as Andrew has pointed out, a blog post is merely the start of a conversation, or the budding of an opinion; it is not the end-all of all knowledge. Perhaps, the blogger is waiting to finish his thoughts, and is opening his post up for discussion among his followers. Maybe one of his followers holds the answer to the blogger's ponderable question that the author would have never thought of by himself.

To keep this post in non-blog fashion, I end with a conclusion: I hope I can learn to blog properly. Emotionally. Opinionated. I hope I can learn to read an article and know instantly how I feel about it, with little time wasted to discover my thoughts, hidden away. My high school English teacher always pleaded to my class, "Tell me you love this book or tell me you hate this book, but never tell me you don't know how you feel." I hope I can learn to know how I feel. I also hope to learn to let others influence how I feel, much like a reader responding to a blog post, I hope to let my peers challenge my views and in that, push me to see what my views actually are.

So, here's to a new year, a new way of learning. And here's to blogging.

Welcome!

As I sat at my desk trying to think of a half-way decent name for this blog that has been inherently thrust upon me, I hit a mental block. Yes, a block before I even started. Every name I came up with was either very, very lame, or very, very cheesy. (Or already taken, but that's besides the point.) As I complained my naming woes to my hallmates, one of them suggested, "Why don't you just call it "Lame and Cheesy?" ... And thus my blog was born.

So, here begins the digital documenting of small insights into the brain of a first year Communication, Culture, and Media major. Considering I'm a female art student surrounded by a sea of male engineers, hopefully my writings will be far more insightful and far less cheesy than the title of my blog.