I just read an article that says that talks about a creations by Sony called the Sony Reader and it's basically an ipod for books. Have we really become that into technology that we need to digitize our books so that we can read it on a screen? I'm sorry but in the first place I don't see many people walking around with so many books that they need to put them all on a digital device so they can read them from a screen. Seriously, when did reading a book become old technology? I don't know about the rest of you but I would rather read a book than sit in front of a screen and have my eyes hurt (even if they made the screen easier to read) because no one needs to spend $350 on a device because they're too lazy to carry a book. I can hardly make it through reading a newspaper article online and someone expects me to be able to read an entire book, I don't think so.

Time magazine has an interesting article called "Who's Really Participating in Web 2.0" which gives some intersting facts and statistics about who is uploading on the web with information on the sex and age of those uploading the most. Even though more people are blogging and uploading and so forth than ever before it is still a small percentage compared to those that are considered "passive visits." For example, of all the visits to youtube only .5% of those visits are for uploading. Another interesting fact is that of those people actually uploading about 76% of them are male while the actual visitors to the site are 50% male and 50% female. In addition to the gap between the sexes of who is uploading and who is just visiting, there is a gap between generations in who is uploading. For example, 42% of the peple that visit Wikipedia are under 35 while 82% of those adding to the site are over 35. Anyway for more info check out the article those are just some examples.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1614751,00.html

I would have to say that after spending a ton of time using flash, I've come to the conclusion that it is one of the most frustrating and difficult programs but also the coolest. When I started to catch on to what I had to do it was a lot easier but things can quickly get screwed up if you don't know what you're doing. I think it's a really cool program and good one to learn but when you have a lot of time to play around with it. The most frustrating part is definitely the tweens; sometimes they just do not want to snap to the path and do what you tell it to do. When they do work, however, it is one of the neatest things. To sum things up: my final project was difficult and frustrating to do but when I finally understood what I was doing it was pretty fun. I would use it again when I have more time to devote to it.

Poem

I recently wrote a poem in response to recent events.

C is for carrying the knowledge.
O is for organizing data.
M is for mathmatical equations.
P is for practical solutions to everyday problems that are recent.
U is for unitarians.
T is for tracking down information quickly.
E is for entertainment and keeping up with what is recent.
R is for recent events....

let me know what you guys think.

Something to chew on

As technology becomes less and less expensive...will it become disposible? What does this mean for our mother earth???!! My 25 dollar dvd player from k mart just stopped working and i plan on throwing it out as will anyone who bought the same dvd player a year ago. I don't feel cheated as I got my money's worth of dvd watching for the money spent. I figure that each time I watched a movie it approximately cost me 17.5 cents. I came to this conclusion using the simple math equation of number of movies watched divided by the cost of the dvd player (again, $25). How can this be prevented? Up the quality of the product and therefore the cost so that people don't need to replace aged technology every couple of months?
How do you feel about this potential crisis?
thx.

New road rules

I went home on Friday afternoon and had the opportunity to watch the new road rules they have on MTV right now. It is ridiculous. I must have missed the first two hour episode dedicated to explaining the process they use now to trade out members of the road rules team so I had no idea what was going on. Now there are two teams.. one of viewers from home or something and then people that used to be on the show... and they blog and viewers at home can vote them into fighting with each other to stay on the RV. Anyway it seems to be a failed attempt at trying to engage the viewer so much that they, as a whole, seem to have control of what they are watching. I don't like that and don't find it entertaining. I don't want to vote for people. I don't care what they have to blog about. I don't need to know how other viewers feel about the people on road rule's interactions. There seems to be a large strain to use every form of media possible so that everyone can find a way to be involved in this show. You can probably watch extra footage on your ipod. I remember the old road rules when no one got voted off or put into challenges.. they just rode around in an RV and had to cross suspension bridges made of rope occasionally to earn money or jet skis. They didn't have the privilege of a sidekick. They were real. Really real.

List of Most Expensive Films Ever

While making my short film for emac, I began to have a better apprecation for how much time and money film-makers put into their work. With actors, props. effects, editing, equipment, and not to mention PR and profit, we're looking at a ton of money. Thats when I came to the conclusion, I probably would never want to become a film maker. At that moment, I stumbled upon the new Spider Man 3 trailer and thought about how much money it must have cost to make the film. And thats when I learned the following: Spider Man cost $250,000,000 to produce; the most expensive film ever!

And not far behind X-Men: The Last Stand ($210,000,000)
King Kong ($207,000,000),
Superman Returns ($204,000,000),
Titanic ($200,000,000),
Spider-Man 2 ($200,000,000),
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ($180,000,000),
Troy ($175,000,000),
Waterworld ($175,000,000),
and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine ($175,000,000).

If you want to see the complete list go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films

List of Longest Films by Ever Made

While making my emac video, I also discovered how much time it takes to film and edit just a little piece of footage. As I said earlier, I have a higher appreication for film-makers and editers for the amount of money and time spent of full-length productions. I, myself do not have it in me to create something on that level. But on that note, I thought I'd be fun to look up the longest films ever made...
Here are a few of them but if you wanna see the entire list go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_films_by_running_time

The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple 1620 min (27 hr).
Die Zweite Heimat - Chronik Einer Jugend 1532 min (25 hr).
Grandmother Martha 1452 min (24 hr).
Berlin Alexanderplatz 931 min (15 hr).
Heimat - Eine Deutsche Chronik 924 min (15 hr).

I don't know if any of you have seen the movie Children of Men, I haven't yet, but I heard that a critic called it the "Blade Runner of the 21st century," so I was wondering if any of you could give any comments on that. The critic that said it was Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times. He said "The best science fiction talks about the future to talk about the now, and "Children of Men" very much belongs in that class. Made with palpable energy, intensity and excitement, it compellingly creates a world gone mad that is uncomfortably close to the one we live in. It is a "Blade Runner" for the 21st century, a worthy successor to that epic of dystopian decay." That is only an excerpt of his review, you can see the rest at http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-children22dec22,0,6890626.story. Basically the plot is that it's 2027, set in Britain, and the human race has been infertile for 18 years. Britain is the only place in the world that is still holding on. The movie is based on a book by P.D. James. She summed up the plot of the book with one question "If there were no future, how would we behave?" So anyway I thought it was interesting since we watched Blade Runner in the beginning of the semester.

Hey just wanted to let you guys know about an art blog specifically for baltimore. The address is bmoreart.blogspot.com. People post things about different exhibitions going on in the area and it's a recent blog site. Look it up...it includes a lot of mica stuff such as the MFA thesis shows and a secret gallery in the bank building. It has stuff about galleries in the area and d.c. as well. I thought it would be a good site for us to know about so check it out.

TIME: 50 Coolest Website

After completeing my website this week, I have so much appreciation for how much work it takes to make one and for the people that design and build them. Therefore, I thought it might be fun to look up some of the best sites. TIME Magazine did an article in 2005 on the top 50 coolest website. So, I thought I'd pass them along and compare yours with the best of the best. Its also interesting to compare how the trends have changed from 2005 to present. For example, is Facebook now a better site than MySpace. I guess it doesn't matter but its interesting to consider content now plays just an important role as its visual display.

http://www.time.com/time/2005/websites/

powerpoint

i dont really have that big of a problem with powerpoint, i never really thought it was that horrible. After the class discussion, i was surprised to find that so many people had so much hatred for this program. I feel pretty indifferent towards it. I dont see why it's so horrible to use it as a tool for lectures- my modernism and after teacher always uses it for her lectures, and i think that usually works out pretty well. But maybe I'm just missing out on something. I dont know.

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Powerpoint Essay

When I first read this essay, I felt that it focused only on bashing powerpoint. After our class discussion, however, I came to the conclusion that it isn't powerpoint that it was bashing, but a certain method of using the program. I was able to relate to the author's distaste for powerpoint because of my own experiences with it. After being forced to sit through countless powerpoint presentations in high school, and also having to create countless presentations, it was a relief to hear that I am not the only person to loathe the program.

PP

While reading The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint I found that the most interesting part was on the first page when the author includes the anecdote of the man turning off the projector in order to force the presenter to talk about his business without the crutch of his PowerPoint presentation. This reminded me of the artist Wynne Greenwood who would interact with multiple pre-recorded projections of herself. When she would choose to directly interact with the audience without having a dialog amongst her projections she would say "Hey, could you pause that for a second". She did this so that the viewer would have a chance to realize what reality was. The images would become so real to the person they would forget that every action between the artist and the projections had been predetermined and rehearsed. The pausing of the projections brought the audience back to the fact that she was presentation... not the projections. She was saying everything even though the projected characters were taking different stances in the discussions they had.... she we was the projections. I thought about that a lot.

I agree that the world has become overly time efficient with such things as faster internet, gadgets to make everything easier and shorthand.. I believe the author has the same opinion but then he goes on to use "PP" as an abbreviation of PowerPoint throughout the writing. He urges the reader to present facts in full statements but I feel most people who use PowerPoint as a tool do use full sentences as they speak on the topic. The slides are used as a visual example of the potential notes the audience may choose to jot down as they listen to the speaker. I see nothing wrong with that.

powerpoint

This article made a lot of sense, and I'm also really happy we weren't asked to make a power point presentation after or before reading it. It is interesting, though, to think about the way we porobably would have utilized power point if we were asked to use it for an assignment. Although this may not be ur presentation method of choice becausewe are so used to using our creativity, I'm sure there would be a lot of the random bullets, changing fonts, and the use of lists simply because power point seems to bind the presenter to show evidence in those limited ways. It seems important that presentations find a better tool for showing evidence, but is that possible? We already have things like photoshop, illustrator, and web browsers but none are nearly as user friendly as power point. Presenters also have the very effective tool of talking which often seems the best way to communicate, yet so many companies stress the power point aspect. This could mean people are lazy in construcitng presentations, or maybe businesses don't trust their people to pull off a presentation and think they need a slideshow to talk beside. It seems businesses are going to have to dig deeper tof ind better ways to create presentations rather than relying on power point or any other program to do thier job.

Why did power point come to be this standard of a presentation? Is it because it is the most accessable tool dedicated to showing evidnece. If it weren't created would businesses have better marketing strategies all together without ever being introduced to the terrible formatted power point presentation.

Okay, so I was pretty sure that I was going to hate this reading. I mean, its about PowerPoint, but overall it wasnt bad at all. It raised a lot of interesting points that I had never stopped to consider. For example, I have has to bs my way through so many pwoerpoints in school, especially in high school, and I never once stoped to think about how much information I was glazing over instead worrying about wether to left or right justify, knowing all along that as long as it looks nice the information doesnt have to be quite as important. I really liked the suestion that on days in school when kids would be presenting powerpoints that they go to the Exploraorium instead, it makes so much more sense, especailly since I cant, off the top of my head, recall anything that I have ever learned in a power point presentation.
Some of the other questions that I was left with:

What would happen if we spoke in the same tounge as PP, in the reading it mentions that it would be "unwise and arragoant" but, I think that it would be more than that, because if people spoke in a simplified hierarchical bullet list there would be a huge shift in how much information was transfered.
also
The idea that the "more intense the detail the greater the clarity and understanding." I agree that for the most part it is better to have a detailed approach, but in a society where information overload is such problem allready can there be such a thing as too much?
also
What are peoples favorite PP effects? I think mine has to be the typewriter sound as it individually places each letter on the screen, for sheer entertainment value it wins.

Microsoft Poked Me in the Eye

I've always thought there was something fishy about PowerPoint—even Microsoft products in general. Now I've got something to back me up.

I loved Tufte's essay. Period. I find it maddening that people could still use PowerPoint as a credible tool to convey information. It's a format that naturally condenses things (in the vein of Campbell's Condensed Soup) and fills the space with clip art and pixel fades. Thank you that someone finally said this! It must be some sort of hegemonic monopology that causes corporations—even government institutions like NASA—to believe that bullet-point culture is a good thing.

I really don't have many questions. Frankly, I've never liked Power Point. I've used Power Point, and I don't like it. I've been forced to use Power Point, and still I don't like it. When you get down to it, it's just cheesy, and the cheeseness usually outweighs the content even if you try to make an informative "presentation". It's amazing that some people—some people in Boeing, for example could think that a "presentation" literally means "Powerpoint slideshow."

Now, I don't think what Tufte is saying is that PowerPoint caused the Columbia accident. First of all, right out, he didn't say that. That's an extrapolation. What he is saying, however, is that bad ways of conveying information are… well… bad ways of conveying information. And as far as he is concerned, PowerPoint is a bad way for expressing the complex ideas of rocket science (ex: you're a rocket scientist. You deal with really big numbers in your craft—exponents. Problem: PowerPoint doesn't have a way of showing exponents. So you have to resort to 10^10 to convey 10 to the tenth power. Multiple layers of these examples and you get jargon. Multiple layers of jargon and your information gets mangled—it becomes indecipherable.) So, for the rocket scientist, use a program that has exponents as a feature (like Word, but Word has its own issues…) and can accurately portray your complex data.

I agreed with his main points that the overall format of a slideshow in-itself has to condense information to be anything worth doing, and I found his humor in the essay (especially the front cover) to be especially delightful. I agree with the point that a basic slideshow, made entirely of illustrations, for example, is fine. Powerpoint can do that, sure. But so can any other Piece Of Software. It seems that the only reason we settle for this is because we don't have or don't know of anything better.

The only questions I have then is…

1. Why do we still use PP?

2. What point is there in using something that is ungainly and unsuitable for conveying even basic information (beyond the level of the six-year-old)?

I think there is only one answer…

Bill Gates is the Antichrist!

3 ways Power Point can be used well...

According to the required reading, I felt the author wasn't so much saying Power Point was a bad medium, but the way in which its used can relfect negatively on its audience. Therefore, I've been trying to think of ways where Power Point is a good tool of presenting information. This is what I cam up with:

1. Digital Images- In the current art world, digital images are become the typical way to submit one's work for scholarships, grants, competitions, galleries. I think if one's work is good, it'll come across just fine in Powe Point.

2. Add campaigns- Well, the point of an add is the influence one to buy the product. Using a power point, can help the customer see what he or she is buying through visuals, exemplars, and facts. The adverister also must use other means besides Power Point, such as handouts and a good preach to sell the product.

3. Other- Really I think any kind of information can be presented successful via Power Point, however, it should only be used as a tool to enchance the presentation, not be the presentation.

Powerpoint Questions...

In our generation, information is thrown at us, to the point and simple. Do we, the millennium generation really care to think critically about the information/educate given to us? Do we confuse learning and absorbing information as the same thing?

Is the issue at hand Power Point, or our cultures lack of creativity and that it is a good form just used too much in a monotonous manner?

Would Tufte agree with getting rid of PowerPoint altogether even when it can be helpful for shows with images especially(relating it back to MICA) with scholarship reviews of portfolios?

Why does Tufte blame some of the wording on PowerPoint when people creating the PP are responsible for what they put on the slides?


Although Tufte makes some interesting points about PP and the ineffectiveness of it, I don't agree with some of his thinking. PP sould be used not by itself but with reports as well. I think PP can be helpful if the point of the presentation is a summary of points especially with images. I know that with my personal experience PP has been helpful when I need to present a presentation with images in such classes as art matters and phenomenon of color. I think Tufte goes a little far in his bashing of PP when he relates the structure of PP to other structures such as Stalin. Stalin?! I mean I don't think PP is that bad where it's dictating a country and killing people, that's a little ridiculous. And as for his point about children in school only doing PP and not knowing how to do a real report, well it's up to the teacher to be responsible for making the children do a report as well, that's not PP's fault. The purpose of PP is not to replace a real report and if people are substituting that for a real report that is their fault, not PP's. I don't think it's plausible to base the Columbia accident on PP, that is an engineers fault and the creators of that slideshow for giving conflicting views on the reason for the accident. I think Tufte could have made his points much more consicely than he did. He repeated himself often, saying the same points over and over. All in all Tufte had some good points but he was a little dramatic in his hate for PP that I don't think is reasonable.