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/