Week 3, Task 7, Anything Technology-Related

The Flip-Side:

The previous three days had been gloomy and chilly and many families were eager to fully enjoy their vacation at the beach. Kids were splashing in the ocean, sunbathers lapped up the sunshine, and various athletic individuals were surfing, running or attempting beach volleyball. In stark contrast a family, moving silently in disbelief while simultaneously wrapping themselves in hope, were positioning themselves on the beach in front of their hotel. A crowd of on-lookers surrounded them.

Hours earlier their youngest son, only 8, was in the water and in distress. He had been pulled into a rip-tide and was futilely trying to fight against it's pull. His older brother, age 19, had realized his brother's dilemma and had jumped into the ocean to save him. The older brother, through sheer strength of will and body, had managed to get his younger brother safely out of the rip-tide's tenacious grasp. The oldest boy was not so lucky.

The family sat silently on the beach and waited. Their older son knew how to conduct himself when pulled into a rip-tide. He had only battled the strong current to save his younger brother who was not so knowledgeable. The parents were sure, that at any minute, the beach patrol would tell them that their brave son had finally made it ashore. In the mean time, the EMS was checking to make sure the 8-year-old boy was OK.

What were the onlookers doing? Surely they were providing words of encouragement, or even helping to look for the young man. No. They were taking pictures and videos. Why? Because our culture of technology has turned everyone into a reporter. Why be concerned for your fellow man when you could exploit him? This is the flip-side of technology.

YouTube, MetaCafe and other such websites are creating a potentially toxic technology backlash. Don't get me wrong, there are positive outcomes to the YouTube craze. Young, talented movie makers can be discovered through YouTube. Up and coming musicians can get recognition and publicity through YouTube. Injustices such as the Rodney King beatings can be exposed through You Tube. However, there is a lot of bad that is let in with the good.

We live in an era of shock value. Bad news or gossip always travels faster than it's good counterpart. We are fascinated by "reality TV" and the "reality" shows that are successful are the ones with plenty of drama and strife. We desensitize ourselves to other's plights. Is this why when we see a family devastated by a tragic twist of fate, we want to document it for all to see? Do we take a picture or video so we can view the events on a screen because then it's not actually happening? I don't know. I do know that 20 years ago on-lookers may have gawked, and they probably would have gossiped, but they wouldn't have documented it for the purposes of exploiting it on the Internet. With the good comes the bad. Beware.

The older brother did not survive.

Week 3, Task 6 - Flickr Mash-ups & Third Party Sites

So I "surfed" through the mash-ups and 3rd party tools. Some of the mash-ups were not impressive but I did find a couple quite interesting. I think my favorite was the flickr graph. It is a website-specific twist on 6-degrees of separation. You register and then it connects you to anyone who posts comments or communicates with you on flickr.com. Then you can visualize how people you connect with actually connect you to others, etc. I wonder if Keven Bacon uses flickr.com? *giggle*

I also liked the quirky sense of humor. The top of the page has the quote "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." - Paul Erdos. You gotta love geek humor. :o)

Continuing on now........

Week 3, Task 5, Exercise B: Explore Flickr

Techniques to Success Originally uploaded by Salt Air ---that's me. :o)

A great Russian student at our library let me take this. Our library branch is located at the beach and we have a HUGE influx of Eastern European and Russian students who come and work here in the summer. They tend to descend upon the library to use the free Internet access (we average an hour to an hour and a half wait!) and I wanted to somehow capture an element of this. I thought a picture of all the kids waiting would be too "blah". I like this picture because it shows his culture (the Cyrillic language) but it also shows our cultural influence (note the hair).

For those who are curious, his shirt reads "Techniques to Success".

OK- on to the next part.......

Week 3, Task 5, Exercise A: Explore Flickr

I Love Flickr! I'm a huge photog fan and I could spend 3 weeks on this task alone! I had a really hard time picking just one picture. This picture is by screen name Crazybobbles (he didn't give a real name in his profile):

Mr Fly Originally uploaded by crazybobbles

I love this picture because it brings my favorite photo elements together: macro photography and black and white photography (I think it was taken in color but I feel it reads as black and white). Macro photography, for the unfamiliar, are extremely close-up pictures. I love both these styles of photography because I think they force people to see the world differently, through a different lens if you will (the pun is always intended). Macro photography and black and white photography emphasize certain elements of an object such as texture and form. Color photography (in my opinion) is best at capturing movement and well, color. :o)

I loved this task. It was a little frustrating at 1st trying to figure out which blog service we had (I used the about key here - found out we were the blogger blog and went from there). Once it was hooked up though it was cake to get the picture here.

One more note on the picture above. I'm not a huge fly fan but the amount of patience (stubborness?) and luck it must have taken crazybobbles to capture that picture is astounding!

I know we are only required to do either A or B but I think I would like to try both. So, on to task B...........

Week 2, Task 4: Registering your blog and tracking your progress

Well I screwed up this one! :o) Patience has never been one of my outstanding virtues. I jumped ahead of the game and tried to register an invalid address as my blog address. When I tried to register the appropriate address the system wouldn't let me. :o( Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of our rock star liaison (Jen) and she cleared it up for me (Yea!).

I printed out the 23 Things Tracking Log and started tracking my progress. I learned something new! I didn't realize that you could click on the date and establish a link for each specific blog post. The knowledge base is starting to expand.................

Week 2, Task 3: Setting up your blog

Howdy folks!

I like this weeks 1st task. I like doing creative or artsy/crafty stuff. Plus, who doesn't love talking about themselves! I'm a narcissist, what can I say. It tends to be a Leo trait!

So setting up the blog was pretty straight forward. I have a profile on MySpace so this was not a new thing for me. It took a little time maneuvering around and learning the lay of the land. I find that it is quite a suitable site for what we are using it for. MySpace has more bells and whistles (and useless crude) and since it is so popular with the kidz you can download a thousand different wallpapers and templates for your profile. I like this blog site because thus far is it more subdued. More appropriate for work I think. OK, I've rambled enough................on to the next task..................

PS -for anyone who is interested (and over the age of 30) there are adults on MySpace. They are mostly located on the West Coast. I find the East Coast tends to be mainly kids. There are some interesting folks on it. Also, it is great resource for music, art, etc. and finding folks with similar interests. Just a thought, for any of you blog newbies who want to delve into the process further.