unkowns...

I am a big fan of music, particularly hip hop, and my friend told me about this artist, wiz khalifa,
and I had no idea who he was. So I checked him out on youtube, and he has multiple videos with over a million views. He has not even came out with an album yet, but he still have a very large following. It kind of shows how fast word can spread about a certain artist or musician. The power that youtube brings to the world is unbelievable, it can just catapult people into the mainstream. If anyone is interested, there is a link below.

wiz khalifa

another one down...

Finally classes are done, and now the finals begin. Boy do the finals ever come quick, I have 5 finals in 3 days starting Monday. I am not looking forward to that at all, but there is nothing I can do. I am thinking coffee will become my best friend.

At the conclusion of this semester comes the conclusion of our group project. I had some doubts, when I heard there was a group project, just because so many things can go wrong. Thankfully I was paired with really nice, and responsible people. We did not have any trouble with anything, and it was a good experience overall, I even learned new stuff myself. Everybody took responsibility for their own part, and everyone contributed, which was one of my concerns coming in. Thanks all my group members.

Video sharing

Video sharing has become more and more popular with the continuing development of youtube, and other websites. There are a bunch of different video sharing websites, each with different capabilities, and different advantages. By far the most popular one, everyone of us has spent hours watching videos on, is youtube. I personally think youtube is great. It allows us to see everything which in some eyes may be good or bad. If we shouldn't be seeing it, it is usually taken down very quickly, but it does more good then bad. It lets us see funny videos, stand up acts, watch music videos, but most importantly it can get crimes out in the public and criminals put away. There is a link to a story below.

link

public or private

The semester is almost done, and once again the last of the assignments being are piled up. It seems like this happens every semester. As the term nears an end I start to get lazy, and slack off, and let the assignment gather. Every year its the same too, I say I will get the assignment done early and does not happen. I should really start actually following through on what I say, its hard to maintain it though, the summer is so close. Its beautiful outside, and I do not want to be inside doing homework. Whats my excuse for the end of the fall semester? I can't think of one right now.

online shopping...

A group did a presentation on online shopping today, and I was particularly interested because online shopping is something I have always been tempted to do. There are a lot of legitimate and trustworthy sites, but unfortunately I have been too afraid too. I know there are a lot of people trying to scam and rip people off, and the thought of that has always had me unwilling to purchase goods online. There are so many possibilities that things good go wrong, the product could get damaged in shipping, something with the transaction could go wrong, or if its not what i ended up wanting will I be able to get the money back. As the presenters said said though, take precautions, keep records, and it is much more straight forward and easier than you think. I think i may give it a try and see how it goes. Here is some online shopping information from the presentation.

online shopping

editing...

Today we started our group presentations and the first group discussed photo editing, which I think is a very interesting topic. They showed us how easy they could do it, and even photo of famous dictators that were editing, and celebrity photos that had been edited as well. It got me thinking though, and how much is real in today's age, and not altered in any way. My guess is very little, and it was even illustrated by that group. They showed a dove commercial which showed a woman, then fast forwarded through all the makeup and computer altering they had done to her. The dove commercial touched on other topics but it did show us how pictures are altered. In todays age where software has advanced so much, and companies want to present us with the best looking product, they will alter images to give us that. I would be willing to guess that almost everything that is shown in magazines, and on tv are edited to show us the best. I found this video on youtube, which demonstrates some "fake" advertising on some famous tv shows. I think thats the biggest thing to, were being fooled into believing this is real. See for yourself.

link here

ur courses

We recently discussed the layout of urcourses, and the old webct. Most of the class was not happy with ur courses and I would have agree with them. I do not remember webct really because it was a while ago, but i dont remember it being like ur courses. UR courses is pretty crowed layout, and it seems like there is plenty of useless stuff that jus crowds the interface. It works though so, really the complaints are not all that important. It would be nicer if it was different but o well. Thats the problem with open sourcing software, sometimes it not dependable. There can be many different opinions of how stuff should be done, and thats the problem.

Rick Rolled..

We discussed the rick rolled fad last week and our teacher came back monday with the knowledge of what it actually was. I remember when it first start happening, and i should have known better. I would be on some message board, and somebody would be like watch this crazy video, and of course its rick rolled. Im surprised that nobody has yet used it publicly. Somebody in class said that it would be a good idea for a commercial, and I totally agree. For example if a pepsi commercial starts then in the middle it jus rick rolled that would be hilarious. That would definitely help I bet. I think companies should really try to use really popular videos like this and fads that happen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

group work...

Im sure when we all heard there was a group project, im sure none of us were too pleased, but so far no problems. There is always that concern going into the project, you do not want to get stuck with a slacker, or somebody who does not pull there weight. Thankfully I have been put together with 3 responsible people, and everything is going good so far. Hopefully it continues that way, and everything goes great. Good luck to the rest of the class.

mash up link

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001612.html

mash ups...

Mash ups, combining elements of different works, are very common these days. There are mash ups of everything.You see mash ups of pictures, music, and we discussed recently in class literary mash ups. I know some people are against mash ups, and feel that its just plagerism. Some people feel that instead of copying other peopls work, come up with your own. Doing a mash up, takes some creativity. For the most part these mash ups are good too. Pictures are interesting, and musical mash ups can create amazing song from an old classic. A xbox 360, DJ hero, features a number of different musical mash ups. It features the artists from the present like jay z, and people from the past like Rick James. I really enjoy mash ups, its something new and creative, and funny.

so it is legal...

For the longest time I always thought downloading movies, and music, and ect. was illegal, but apparently it is not. Apparently it is legal to download for your own personal use, but you cant upload for the other people. It does not really change anything for me, because i use torrents and i upload as I download too, but I just found it interesting.

olympics...

As everyone knows the olympics are in full swing. I havent been watching them too much, but its been on my tv from time to time. So far it seems to have been a dissapointment. First it was the horrible accident on the luge track. The track had already been discussed as being too fast, but even after the complaints it remained unchanged. Although the track was dangerous, you cannot blame it all on the track. The luger was young and inexpirienced, and it takes years to become good, the majority of the better lugers are near there thirties. In addition to him being so young he even called his father the day before the race and told him he was terrified of the track.

http://s.foxsports.com/olympics/story/luger-told-father-track-'terrified'-him

They shortened the track after the accident, and made some changes. I just wish they would have put some kind of netting or plexi glass around the corner instead of having wide open area and metal beams right there. That in my mind was really dumb. You have to prepare for the worst, especially around a corner going 140 km/hr. In addition to that horrible crach there have been other mishaps as well. The open ceremony where one of the beams wouldnt raise, and also the ice machine stopped working so they had to post pone speed skating for a couple hours too. Hopefully Canada starts picking it up, and these games can become what there all about, the athletes.

so far..

After the first midterm I figured I would post my thoughts on the course so far, before I fall into a deep sleep over the break. I didn't quite know what to expect when this class began, I figured it would be about ethics of doing stuff online, and the dangers of it. Sometimes the class can be a little slow, but for the most part we discuss interesting and thought provoking topics. Its good we discuss topics that are relevant too. We will discuss whatever we are supposed to, but then we will relate it to something that just happened, and which I think is really good. There is usually interesting links for each class to, its good to have a laugh at 830. Overall I have enjoyed it so far, and hopefully it continues.

thank goodness for youtube, funny clips like the one below are good for a giggle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZpll4JDPGo&feature=related

your not old enough yet..

Im sure all of us have heard that from a parent more than a few times in our life. Weather its wanting to play with our elder siblings, or wanting to watch that r rated movie. We have all been through this, but im sure we have all lied about our age to do something that we were not "old enough" to do. The main thing, though is that it did nothing to hurt us, or anyone else. There is all this talk of restrictions on the internet, which we discussed in class, and putting restrictions on our childrens internet access. Im okay with monitoring like what sites they go on, but restricting access to some sites is too far. I know the internet is a dangerous place, but I think if there old enough to find whatever there looking for on the internet, they understand for the most part the dangers of it. There is no need to restrict access to your children unless something drastic happens.

text education

There was a website mentioned in class, textEd.ca. It teaches all things texting. First I thought it seemed kind of stupid, and silly. I went and visited the sight, and at first glance my feelings didnt change. There was a dictionary of abbreviated sayings or words for texting, a top 10 what you would respond to these texts, but then there was more then enough articles promoting safe texting. There was a"textual relations" area that discussed about healthy, and unhealthy relationships, and how to deal with harrassment over texting. There was a section with "guidlines to safe texting". There was also a section called "ichoose", which discussed all of the above, and how to be in control if your texting. Ill admit this website seemed pretty stupid, and its obviously not for the more mature crowd, but for a young person with a cellphone, which im sure there are plenty of, it promotes smart texting, and safe texting, and that can only help.

http://www.texted.ca/app/en/

SOS

The past week as we all know there was a snowday, and of course there was confusion. Personally my car wasnt going anywhere in the snow, and my dad was chauffeurring everybody in my family around in his truck. He was taking me to school, and halfway there we hear on the radio classes are cancelled. Now we didn't know if this was true. So anyways my dad dropped me off at school and told me to text him if classes were cancelled. I get to school and get a few texts, and not till 9:00 a little text at the top of the U of R website says that classes are cancelled. The university did a horrible job of letting students know school was cancelled. We talked in class about the ways to improve this, and a lot of suggestions came up. There was talk about texts, automated calling, and others. Im guessing the school made the decision to cancel classes kind of late, but even that I think calling would just take too much time, and text would cause all sorts other stuff. The best way, and what would make most sense would be to email, and post it on the website. The fact that it was not even posted on the website till after the first classes started, is ridiculous. I think all of us were unprepared, especially the school, but hopefully there is another snow day so the school can show us an improved way telling us that classes are cancelled.

glitches

Are they fair, is it cheap to use glitches when gaming online? Personally I think its the cheapest thing to do, thats not how the games supposed to be played so dont cheat. Playing call of duty modern warfare 2 was frusterating for a while to say the least. People running around with a javeline, getting more than a few care packages, those overpowered 1887's with incredible range. I stopped playing for a while till they came out with a patch, but still it was pretty stupid playing with 14 year old kids manipulating the game. I know some people say its in the game, you might as well use it, but not when you have to hold x, switch grenades, then throw a knife, the game is not supposed to be manipulated like that. But everyone has their own opinion, and think of things differently, so is using glitches online cheap or fair play?

team COCO

It was mentioned briefly in class the other day, and let me say conan is getting screwed! I don't even think that Jay Leno realizes how much of an idiot he is making himself look like. It has been a dream of Conan's to host late night, and since Leno sucks NBC decides there gonna bump Conan to 12, which as letterman pointed out is not the tonight show, its the tomorrow show. Conan is right for not wanting to follow leno. Leno has said he is going back to host the tonight show, and conan will be going most likely to fox, and take all of his viewers with him. NBC messed up big time, and should have just dumped leno. Conan earned the right to be the host, and I think more and more people are starting to realize that Leno is not funny. I cant wait to see Leno just get destroyed by whichever network Conan goes to! It is refreshing to see the support Conan has recieved from all the other latenight hosts though. Enjoy! I love how Leno got trashed on his own show! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axwO6BkCtIo

the information age

Is facebook, twitter, or myspace, really that usefull or enjoyable, that billions of people need to use it everyday? Some people shape their lives around facebook. They feel as if joining a group means something, it makes them a better person if they join a group about not killing dolphins, and really joining a group on facebook means absolutely nothing. Instead of joining all the stupid groups you can find on facebook, you could be doing something meaninfull. But aside from negatives, there are some positives.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/HaitiEarthquake/hope-support-haiti-click/story?id=9554022

Facebook does provide some usefull information, and because it is used so often it is a great thing we have social sites like these. Facebook and twitter allowed family members from haiti to contact each other through facebook, and twitter to let them know they were all right, in addition to providing information about how they can help what happened in haiti as shown in the link above. As stupid as some of the stuff is on this sites and how annoying they are sometimes, we need them and its very important in getting information out.