Bitcoins

Bitcoin is an online commodity based on a encryption protocol. hey are subdivided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis. They are transferred to a computer or handheld device without an intermediate financial situation. It's purpose is to serve as money, which can be accepted by certain merchants in many parts of the world. It's confusing to understand how they work. Using cash is very easy. Writing a check or using a credit card isn't too hard either. Are bitcoins the same as using a credit card? It's easy to tell how much a dollar bill is worth, but a bitcoin might have a different value. Inflation could happen with this new kind of money. I think our currency should stay the same.

A Computer That Teaches Itself

As a way to pick up the pace in research and development, military researchers are trying to find a way to program computers so they can make easier automatic tools and to have computers teach themselves. The company, DARPA, is not happy with the way machine learning is being done today. Machine learnings makes the computers like humans when it comes to decision making. Machines like that are often seen in science fiction movies. In the movies, machines with a mind of their own can take over the world. It would be intresting to have that kind of technology. If self learning computers do exist, research and development can go faster. the military can get their informaton about the enemy in time to make a move against them. Weapons can be made quicker if needed. Self learning computers can be either a good thing or the beginning of the end.

Entertaining Ads

One of the main things that Advertising does is entertains society using clients products. What makes an ad campaign memorable is to make them look entertaining and creative to audiences. Art and Video showed examples of those kind of advertisements. An example of an entertaining commercial was the Wells Rich Greene Ad of a man with glasses teaching some of the worlds worst people how to drive an automobile. The student drivers drove without paying attention to what they were doing while the drivin instructor was fearful about losing his own life in a possible accident. The accidents went from a woman making a left turn at the wrong place to a man asking to turn on the windshield wipers after crashing into a fire hydrant. Commercials like that often talk about car insurance, which is not a very interesting subject. When people have accidents, their insurance goes up. Someone that's had so many accidents gets a high deductable. In order to talk about insurance, advertisers have to make the topic interesting. Both of the incidents mentioned are funny and entertaining for the people watching the commercials. They make insurance commercials more interesting to watch and maybe gets their message out better. Commercials with the worlds worst drivers tells audiences not to be like those people. If they were showing commercials about the effects of wreckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, or showed footage of people that died in car wrecks, these messages would also tell the viewers to not end up like these people too. The main message of all is to drive carefully and that companies want to tell people that in the most memorable ways possible. Another commercial that was shown to be entertaining was the ones showing a new line of airplane flights. The sole purpose of flights are from point A to point B in a quicker way. About once per flight, the stewardess would come by with a can of soda and a ba of pretzels. During the time the commercials were, planes have just gotten out of war and flight travel was pretty dull. The airlines decided to make different color planes and the staff members and beautiful stewardesses would wear fashionable cloths. This kind of flight would give passengers a theatrical experience, which is very entertaining. A theatrical experience doesn't make the flight faster, but the passengers would feel that way when they fly on these colorful airlines. The more fun the passengers have on a flight, the quicker time will pass. When advertisers entertain their audiences, the audiences will remember their product and may consider buying them in the future. If the presentation is not presented in a way that will audiences remember it, the product may be doomed to fail on the market. The message can be reached to the audience. The advertisers just have to find a way to make that possible.

Codes of Gender

In today's world, there are codes that define people as a man or a woman. They are judged by the way that they walk, talk, act, but mostly their appearance. If people send out the wrong signals, a boy or a girl can be harrassed by other people. There was a scene in a showtime movie, The L Word, where a girl was cursed at by another girl for going into the ladies room. The other girl thought she was a boy and called her that and later on a freak. She was later harrassed by a group of people in town and was forced out of a car by one of the guys. People in the movie It's Pat don't know what to make of Pat. They don't know if she is a woman or a man. She acted awkward to other people and didn't act like either gender. The way to fit in normally is to read and give signals. Men would have to learn how to understand the masculine roles and women have to understand the feminine roles. If they can't do that, they should at least keep up the appearance of a man or woman. Appearance makes a huge difference and many people tend to judge the cover before they read the book. Learning how to send out and understand masculine/feminine signals is mainly how people get along with society

Farewell To Arms

The article Farewell To Arms discusses what could happen if people get attacked through the computer. It ranges from a hacker stealin someone's identity to a war. Computers are capable to doing a great deal of damage to someone. People are capable of creating bombs controlled by computers. People can hack into computers to find out information about their targets. Other times, people can be cyber bullied on the internet. Anyone can get access to a computer and do whatever they want on them. Computers can be just as deadly as a gun.

The Downfall of Christopher Dorner (1979-2013)

Last week, a nationwide manhunt came to a violent end. Christopher Dorner was killed during a standoff with the police. He was wanted in two states and Mexico on murder charges. Christopher Dorner was born in New York on June 4th, 1979. He had worked as a LAPD police officer and later a U.S. Navy reservist. He was honorably discharged from the Navy on February 1st, but his career as a police officer ended with him getting fired. Excessive force was problably the reason for his termination. Dorner published a manifesto on his facebook page afterwards, a red flag indicated that he get violent. He was charged in connection with a series of shooting attacks on police officers and their families from February 3 to 12 that left four people dead. The victims were all police officers. The police eventually caught up with him and the standoff ended with a single "self-inflicted" gunshot wound to the head on February 12, 2013. The group Anonymous defended Dorner. They recognized that his manifesto was caused by the way he might have been treated in the LAPD. It's okay to feel sorry for the guy, but defending him is a different story. There is no excuse for going on a killing spree. Work places should be careful about how they treat employees. It's unpredictable about what people are capable of.

Free Wi-Fi For All, Good or Bad?

The article "Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks" discusses plans about setting up free WiFi services across the country. Many people are busy and always on the go. They are looking for places that have free WiFi services to help them do things from important assignments for school or work to just goofing off to pass the time away. Having free internet service would be a step forward in internet communication. We live in a time period where we use the internet do many of our day to day tasks. Not every place lets you use WiFi for free. Alot of people don't want to spend the extra money. Having free WiFi service would also help people save money when they do what they have to do on the internet. Having free internet service can also prove to be a bad idea. The article‘Six Strikes’ discusses a plan to stop internet piracy. Internet pirates are known for stealing someone elses WiFi service and the victims are left holding the bag when the consequences come into play. It almost sounds like a someone stealing their neighbors cable. The RIAA cracks down on those kinds of acts. Having free WiFi service may increase the chances of piracy. That would be a step backwards for internet communication. People out in public places should be the lookout for this kind of act and people at home don't have to worry too much.

The Century of the Self.

The first part of The Century of the Self talks about Edward Bernays (1891-1995). He was an early pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda. He was a one time press agent for "The Worlds Greatest Tenor", Enrico Caruso, and accompanied President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War 1 early in his career. When Bernays died at the age of 103, he became known as the "father of the public relations". The interesting thing about this first segment of "The Century of the Self" is how Bernays said that the need for certain products is all part of an unconscious desire within the human mind. Bernays was the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, a legendary psychologist who thought that actions were sexually motivated. Edward Bernays used his uncle's life work of "psychoanalysis" to help explain why people buy certain products. When advertisers sell products like Coca Cola or cigarettes, they want to make their product look appealing to the public. Within the minds of human beings, there is some part of them that wants this product that will make look appealing. Bernays wanted to make smoking look appealing to women, which proved to be his most dramatic experiment. Before his time, smoking was usually a man's thing and women smoking anything was considered to be strictly taboo. Smoking was a sign of masculine power. A woman smoking would show her independence and is up to challenging the power of the man. Bernays had setup an event where the women would smoke their cigarettes in public on que. It caught alot of attention from newspaper reporters and smoking became a sensation for women. There was also a great increase in the sales of cigarettes because women started to smoke in public. Movie stars like Lucille Ball and Lana Turner often smoked on screen to look glamourous to their fans. Bernays knew how to reach that part of the mind that tells people that this product is appealing. It was interesting to see how he made smoking acceptable for women. Bernays' life work was just as incredible as his uncle's. Without Bernays, the term "public relations" may never have been used.

Computers In The Future

Computers are what people all over the world use. There are desktop computers, laptops, and hand held devices that allow the users to surf the internet with. I predict that in the future, computers will stay the way that are today. In science fiction movies, people use computers and machines to do just about everything. Those movies often have robots, teleportation devices, or other things along that nature. That does sound pretty cool if life can be like a science fiction movie. Science fiction movies are great to watch during your spare time. I do see that there will be some changes and upgrades to our computer technology. As far as science fiction computer technology, it will not happen.

Steve Jobs

The late Steve Jobs was one of the major forces behind Apple. The article about Apple has talks about copyright, patents, and mobile technology. Copyright is ownership of a product. If another company steals some content from Apple, they could get sued for it. Patents are the rights a company or organization has. The mobile market is always changing and growing. The mobile market large enough for more than one company to exist inside. Is it right that Apple can sue for the shape of a phone just because they were quicker to apply for a patent? Apple can sue another company if they feel like they have stolen their somehow. If the competition showed that they were able to apply for the patent quicker, then it's wrong to sue them. It shows that they came up with the idea first and got the rights for that particular idea.

Superbowl Commercial

One of the most exciting times of the year is the annual Superbowl. Many people watch and cheer for their favorite teams to win the biggest football game of the year. The Superbowl is scheduled to take place on February 3, 2013 this year. During the Superbowl, there are some new commercials for different products. They are usually funny commercials that often get alot of attention from Superbowl fans. One of the commercials I recently watched was for the 2013 Volkswagon. In the commerical, they start off by showing a sad girl thinking about cats, an screaming pollitican, two bickering people on a baseball field, a fat guy beating his video game system with a guitar, a fustrated golfer, am angry baseball player throwing the plate, a man calling someone a jackass, and two fighting mascot. Jimmy Cliff, a famous Jamaican singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, brings all of these people and more out into a beautiful meadow to sing. Jimmy Cliff is best known for singing songs like "The Harder They Come", "Sitting In Limbo", "You Can Get It If You Want To Come", and "Many Rivers To Cross". Everyone in the meadow claps their hands and sings "Will Make You Happy". Superbowl gameday is supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year. Everyone can forget about their fustrations to give their full attention to the upcoming football game. The people of the 2013 Volkswagon didn't look like they were trying to sell their cars in the making of this commercial. People selling cars often show people giving their products a testdrive on commericals to show how they run. Nothing about the Volkswagon wasn't even mentioned except at the end where they showed that they made the commercial. A volkswagon wasn't seen anywhere in the commercial They were just trying to help promote the Superbowl and to show how happy a time the Superbowl really is.

Hermaneutics

Hermaneutics is the art and science of text interpretation. It was a practice used for interpretating the bible, but it's used in communications as well. There are 4 types of hermaneutics that deal with the bible. There is literal, moral, allegorical , and anagogical or mystical. Natural, Normative, Scientific, Philosophical, and Depth Hermaneutics deal with communications. Natural Hermaneutics is the spontaneous, everyday, usually unreflective interpreting we do when intersubjective understanding breaks down. The local news tells us about the events of everyday. We get an understanding about what happens around us by the news. Normative Hermaneutics is the art of text interpretation as a deliberate discipline by a specialist caste. Judge Judy is an example of this. Lawyers, Judges, and Priests are part of this type of hermaneutics. Scientific Hermaneutics is the foundational discipline of the human or historical sciences. The History and Discovery Channels often explain these concepts. They talk about the history of the world. Philisophical Hermaneutics is a general philosophy of existence. Interpreting is less what we do and more what we are interpreters. Joel Osteen is an example of this. He preaches about the meaning of life. It's really hard to tell what the meaning of life really is. It takes a great deal of thought to know the meaning of life for each person. Depth Hermaneutic is suspicion. It's looking for the deeper meaning behind something. A crime investigation show is an example of this. They go over some of most shocking murders done by people like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Gary Ridgeway, Charles Manson and other deadly killers. They discuss how these killers caused suspicion to authorities and their motive for their crimes

The Tragic Demise of Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz, an Internet freedom activist, was found dead in his apartment on Friday January 11, 2013. His body was discovered by his girlfriend. The cause of his death was suicide by hanging. He was only 26 years old. Aaron Swartz was born on November 8th, 1986 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Susan and Robert Swartz. His father founded a software company and Aaron took interest in the internet at a young age. Swartz was the winner of the ArsDigital Prize at the age of 13. He was also a volunteer editor for Wikipedia. Swartz was known as one of the co-founders of Reditt.com. In 2009, Swartz was acussed of downloading 20% of PACER's database to the public. The FBI investigated him but no charges were filed against him. JSTOR pressed charges of their own against Swartz in July 2011. He was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer. Before the death of Aaron Swartz, JSTOR announced that they would make "more than 4.5 million articles" available to the public for free, but capped at three articles every two weeks. He was still going to be prosecuted in spite of this announcement. If convicted, Swartz would have had to pay 1 million dollars in fine and serve 35 years in prison. Due to him being an activist, Swartz fought for internet freedom. He wanted information on the internet to be free to the general public. The thoughts of prison and the fine caused him to take his own life. With net neutrality, Everything on the Internet should be open to the public. The pulic has the right to know what's going on. If people don't want the public to see certain things, they should not put them on the internet where hackers might get them. Efforts made to make any information pulic should still happen. It might get rid of hacking problems. The inequality between current laws and abilities with technology is something to be concerned about. Technology changes over the years and people develop new abilities with them. If people are able to do certain things with technology, they could get into trouble without knowing it. The laws and technical abilities should be equal to one another

The Persuaders

For my Adverstising class, our first video we watched was The Persuaders. The section of the video we watched was on advertising, how it works, how much of it they show to the public, and the success behind them. What I found interesting about the advertising is how fast advertisments can spread across to many different parts of the country. They talk about this at the beginning of the video. Advertising is compared to an infestation of roaches. They clutter up and take up so much space. Big cities have some sort of advertisment on any available space companies can find. Like roaches, advertisments are hard to get rid of because they keep on coming. You can spray them as much as you want, but they grow immune to any kind of harm because there is more of them. Charles Bronson's character, Paul Kersey, in Death Wish compared criminals to roaches as well. There is too many of them in the world too. Ads cannot just stop their operations or else they can go out of business. Part of the success of a company and their product is how much advertising they use to promote it. The companies that make them want the public to remember their product by bombarding them with their ads. Examples of the advertisments used in the video are Song Airlines and Sex and the City. The people that created these things want the public to know about them and to get into them. Companies often have to compete with other companies when they're selling the same thing. Like most rivals, they want to out do each other. They often try to get more advertisement spaces than the other one. Some companies have more money to spend than their rivals. They can advertise their product more so they can can make more money. The companies' need to make money and outdo rivals is the main reasons why the publie is bombarded with ads, which spread like roaches.

COMM 403 Blog 1: What's In It for Me?

This post talks about the syllabus of Dr. Kevin Williams' Comm 403 Media Studies class. This class offers students a further understanding of our media. Chapter 1 of the syllabus explains the ropes of the course. It tells us what we need to do to succeed in class. One example of this would be not missing more than 5 days of class. The Syllabus tells what's needed for an A or a passing grade. It also tells you how to get in touch with the teacher if questions need to be answered or if anything should come up. I personally plan to use the syllabus to help me pass this course. Chapter 3 talks about Critical Thinking and New Technology. The article was done by Jason McKahan, one of the communications professors and composer of the critical thinking plan for the Communications Department. Critical thinking is mainly defined as “the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” The Communications Department holds this concept with high regards. Learning about critical thinking is highly encouraged. I took a Critical Thinking class at Blue Ridge CTC and found it very useful. Chapter 4 deals with Vision, Mission, and Values. Everyone has different kinds of vision, missions, and values. The Communications Department has a vision of preparing students for employment at all levels of media. It's main mission is to help educate students for employment in media. Their values are to educate students, creating a professional college enviroment, be responsive to stake-holders, and enhance department's reputation. My vision is success and achieving it is my mission. My values are to take my work seriously. I believe taking my work seriously will eventually pay off. Chapter 5 talks about LEAP. There are four principles on LEAP. (1) Creative thinking is the capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterized by a high degree of innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking. (2) Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events. (3)Oral communication is a presentation designed to increase knowledge., to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. (4) Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. I believe LEAP is a way of increasing our knowledge for the real world.

Geico Commercials

One of my favorite advertising campaigns would be the commericals for Geico. Geico is one of the largest car insurance companies in the country. Their main slogan is "Geico, 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance". The reason why I like these commercials is because they are funny and they make their product look an easy thing to sign up for. Over the years, Geico had the talking gecko as the mascot for the company. Mascots help make a company stand out from their competition They also used celebrities, cavemen, a pig, a stack of money with google eyes, and that guy that asks "Can switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance?". Car insurance is not the most the exciting thing in the world to advertise. The company makes the commercials funny to get people interested. If the commercials were as boring as the product itself, the public wouldn't be interested in the deals they might have. Geico show funny commercials of how their car insurance deals work and how easy it can happen. That why I personally enjoy watching these commercials for Geico.