Damn viruses and hackers

Soooo apparently my Gmail account was hacked and went berserk sending emails. everyone now questioning me why did i send them an email about viagra. Guys it wasnt my intention, some hacker trying to ruin my life lol. Oh well no hard feelings i guess everybody out to do what they want to do

The Next New Thing

I cant think of the next fresh new thing but I know something that will be the next thing many many moons from now. Has anyone ever seen the matrix?..........That would be the final new. No one would EVER leave that virtual world, at least I know I wouldn't. I say the final new because society would crumble after this technology comes about. The idea of ditching your possibly sad, pitiful, imperfect life for one that you can script yourself, live how you want to live and even look how you want to look. Why would anyone want to disconnect!! Especially if you can defy the law of physics...........because in a virtual world gravity is nothing but a code. It may sound like i'm kidding but I am seriously sure that someone some where is currently researching this. Just need a large enough server to load this virtual world into and a giant transmitter to ur brain/spine to make the experience feel real.

Privacy & Confidentiality

It doesnt exist.....the internet has destroyed the idea of privacy. Anything you do, it will be recorded and stored, anything done will be known. It is a trade off we all have agreed to for access to the world at our fingertips. It can get creepy though, such as when people begin to stalk you. Going on a less malevolent track, Facebook just announced a change of having buttons placed in many websites throughout the web where a person can mark the page as "like. With this information, personalized ads will flood you and everyone will know exactly what you are into, not necessarily a bad thing but could get annoying. Even though this transparency in identity has led to some good things. Plenty of criminals have been caught because they have foolishly bragged about what they have done. But the whole idea of businesses looking at our profiles and deciding who to hire........thats just grimy homie.

About My Term Project

My presentation for my new media class is on video games, but not a presentation on the industry itself but a focus on one of its effects on our society. Im speaking of video game violence. There has been a lot of debate going back and forth ever since blood has been able to be digitally represented. Research aims to one answer but there is too much criticism on the research methods. As far as im concerned there is not much to worry about, i play games all my life and im yet to get into a violent rage...... i do get frustrated though. Brain washing into violent criminal and frustration are completely different things. My frustrated rage comes about from puzzle games.....they are ever so annoying.........damn you professor layton with your impossible puzzles about to make me break my DS

Advice to Baruch College

Hmm what suggestions could I possibly give this wonderful (ha!) school of mine. Well lets see, this first one is more of advice for all of CUNY. Fix Blackboard. I dont mean just fix, I mean rebuild it from the ground up. It is terrible the way it functions now, always crashing and never behaving how it should. I would also like a central system in which a professor can post if and when they will cancel a class. Also, implement a system in which students could check their financial aid online. I cant think of much since a lot of what we do is now through a computer. Possibly a system in which we can hand in all of our written work through a computer. I would save so much paper, ink and staples. Sometimes in lecture classes if one is sitting all the way in the back, the slides are a little difficult to see, so perhaps set up some sort of central network in which all the computers connect to and the professor has complete control on what the students see, almost like a monitor hijack. But also have leave some monitor space open for us so we could open Word or something and take notes as well.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds seem to be what is going to be new "it" thing when it develops to a completely immersing level. Right now it is all looking at a bright screen at 3 in the morning, clicking frantically at whatever the heck is going on. Maybe a little exaggerated but not THAT far from the truth. One that can be talked about is the game World of Warcraft (WoW for short). When you boil it down it may just be a game but the level of dedication some people put into it definitely makes it qualify as a virtual world. Let me say ahead right now that my opinion towards WoW is heavily biased, I hate that game with a burning passion of a thousand suns. People spend hours upon hours playing the game, all they do is repetitious boring stuff. Spending hours mining for in game currency, hours traveling from one destination to another for a job. Spending hours training your character to be stronger. It never ends. Its life but in a different context. Sure there is social interaction in the game, but if that is what you are looking for, then you should really try going out a bit. There is another Virtual World that is more true to that aspect. That would be Second Life. Some people consider it a game but really it has gone too far to be that. One can do anything there that can be done in real life and then some. It gives you access to do virtually anything you want in the comfort of your computer. You want massive gardens? You got massive gardens. You want to fly? Done. Want to open your own store? You can start planning today. Or as IBM has shown, you can train for your real life job in the virtual world. There is only one MASSIVE problem with the whole virtual world scene. Its not real. What I mean by that is that your brain is fully aware that it is not real. It is lights projected from a screen. At the end of the day, you were just staring at a monitor the entire day. One may feel emotional and psychological things when interacting with the virtual world but nothing physical at all. This is the next big leap the virtual world has to make. Where the only reason you know that it is a virtual world is because you consciously know you got into the machine or plugged in. Other than your prior knowledge of entering, your brain has no CLUE that it is not the real world. If you fly, you feel the wind as you zoom across a field. If you go for a swim, you feel the coldness of the water and that refreshing feeling when you do it on a hot summer day. That you feel another persons hand if you were to touch it. That virtual world is the world i would not mind exploring. I hope that the virtual world becomes like the matrix, only with more ability to manipulate and less dying.

Social Networking

Social networking technologies have a wide array of uses. There most obvious use is that of an interpersonal nature. Its a great way to keep in contact with many people quickly and efficiently. The person doesnt have to be immediately available and they can respond when they have the time. It can be used to organize events and to quickly deliver information to people. The corporate world has also thought of ways to use social networking. As seen in the CNET article "AT&T Uses Twitter During a Service Outage" When service was unexpectedly cut from certain parts of California, At&t decided that the best way to keep all of their customers updated on the situation was to use their corporate twitter account and post all of the info in the situation. But that of course is just one corporate use. Not only can it be used to keep the people updated when a problem arises, corporations have developed ways of using social networking to make money. All the games on Facebook are a perfect example. All of these games are indeed free to play but not only do they tend to have advertising, all of these games have way of a player using real world money to purchase things for the game. Things such as exclusive items and other such advantages. The only problem I see with this is that I feel that soon enough I am going to be asked to spend my money no matter where i go online. Sites that were once dedicated to keeping in touch with those a bit too far to reach are becoming ways for the media to brainwash you and kindly ask for your money. Maybe not directly but of course, the name is pushed enough and next thing you know they are taking all your money. Corporate always finds a way to put its greedy hands in anything new and innovative that comes out, because really that is their job. The only thing I could think is using these services for good, but that is already being done. What I see is that as the younger generations take charge, they will bring more of this new media into light and incorporate it into every aspect of anything done. So we would see fund raisers being organized in a much larger scale, rallies and protests could reach potentially millions of people in minutes. I see it quite possible for revolutions to be launched from the click of a button. Sounds ludicrous now but I would not underestimate the power of Social Networking and at the very least it is plausible

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and wikis have similarities and many differences. They are both created by users. They both can be viewed by anyone who is interested. They do have plenty of differences though. A blog is created by one user and that person puts in there whatever it is they want. Then other people can read it and post their comments on whatever was posted. A wiki is less personal. A wiki is less opinion and there is nowhere to comment. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone but it is a bit more controlled. As the CNN article "Wikipedia: No longer the Wild West?" stated, Wikipedia has decided to get volunteer editors who would double check select articles on people who are still alive to verify the accuracy of the information. Blogs do have their uses for collaboration. If one person has a blog about a specific topic, another person could have a blog about something similar and they could get together, through their blogs, and do things together. An example that comes to mind is in the collaboration of music writing. People can fuse their creativity together. In trying to think of a use for wikis, this has probably been done but maybe if a group has a research project that needs to be done everyone could collaborate and build the project on the wiki. Everyone can see what has been done and they could plan accordingly for what is needed. If anyone notices a mistake they themselves can fix it. Blogs and wikis may have their uses but they are equally important.

Old Vs. New

I have a hard time describing what new media is compared to the old but I can definitely identify them. Old media tends to to be static, it is what it is and you get what you are served. New media is more than that. To put it simply, to me it means the next step of our means of delivering content to the world. For example, back in the day a book would be the way to deliver your creativity to others. Now we dont even need a physical hard copy, we can just download it into an e-reader and have a bookshelf's worth of literature in our bag. Communicating with others has also taken massive leaps. Before, one would have to hand write a note and give it to a messenger and he would carry this note to the person in needs to be delivered. This was then upgraded to the postal service which was essentially the same thing but with a better and more efficient system. Then we got the telegram, the next step. A message could now be sent over wires from one location to the other and the other person just had to go to the place where the message arrived and get it. Then came the telephone, which made a direct link between people and they could transmit their voice to each other. Fast forward to now and we get what we are calling new media. We can send messages to as many people as we want very quickly thanks to the technology available to us now. E-mails can be sent to people instantly, massive texts can be sent from your mobile phone so one doesnt even need to be home to send a message to someone. Then you can step into the magical realm of social networks. There one can connect with virtually everyone you know talk to them instantly if they are logged in, send everyone a little message, organize events and even meet new people. Dont know how accurate this is but to me new media is that which takes us a step further as a society, that which transforms forever the way we do things, let it be communicating our thoughts, ideas, and creativity to another or to the world. New media is always fresh. Old media is just there, it is what it is.

Project Description

For my project for my New Media course I have decided on "Impact of Video Games on Violence and Criminal Activity." There have been many claims recently that violence and criminal activity in video games is a cause for real world violence, I don't buy it. From what I have seen these claims are made by people who do not have an understanding of how games work and are just judging video game media from the outside and not really trying to see it for what it is truly worth. For this topic I plan on gathering information on court cases in which the defendant has blamed violent video games for his/her violent action. I also intend on gathering information on people who stand on both sides of the debate to compare their opposing views. Finally I will look into whatever research has been done to prove or disprove the claim.

What is New Media??

New Media is taking this world by storm. It is quickly replacing all that is old. But, understanding new media is a little difficult since it is a very broad thing. There are so many technologies that are an important part to what is new media. New media can be found mostly on computers and on the cellphones of today and other sorts of gadgets. What really sets new media apart from anything else though is this magical place called the internet. It is such a powerful and the driving force of new media. It is what made all these connections possible, it is what lets us interact in ways no one would have even been able to imagine 40 to 50 years ago. New media is replacing the old because it offers so many new opportunities. One great example is this fad of e-Readers. The old ways were to buy a book, read it, and put it away. Now, with these amazing little devices, one can connect to the internet and browse for the desired book, read it, save your progress, and once you are done with it you can store it in the device. As much as I hate to admit it Tweets are an excellent example. It is the best way to stay completely connected with others by posting short simple updates, people can stay in touch. Wikipedia has changed how a person can gather trivial knowledge forever. For the most part Wikipedia can be relied upon for information about anything. If you want to know anything about something, wikipedia is the first place to look. Who in their right mind would buy a giant collection of encyclopedias which will eventually become outdated when wiki is free and constantly updated at all times? New media is an amazing thing, one may think that what we consider new media will be old eventually but truly the concept of new media I believe is that which is fresh and innovative the new media of today will not be the same as the new media of 20 years from now, but I am sure it will be just as amazing.

just to show how dead books are:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html