We are all artists

Tim Owen's talk titled We Are All Artists was very interesting and in some ways inspiring for some people (more specifically on ds106). He gives points such as creativity takes everyday practice and that creativity is not inherited. Although I have read a few posts from other people who disagree with this, I don't necessarily think it's that big of an argument.

He suggests that ds106 is a community that fuels a creative environment for everyone. Although I agree with this, I can't say that I'm too comfortable with his explanation that being uncomfortable helps people to be more creative. Mostly because people by nature or people in general have the basic flight or fight response. When in a situation where they are uncomfortable they will try to remove the thing that is making them uncomfortable. Or, try to create a way to get around being uncomfortable. Tim also suggests that the things that are the most creative are the things that make you think out side of the box to solve creative problems which I do agree with.

(I guess that what this has to do with computer science is that you use the computer to do the art work.)

I do however agree on finding inspiration around you. I do this a lot for my inspiration in writing. 

Digital Storytelling!! Using the Web

Image: Tim Berners-Lee: The World Wide Web - Opportunity, Challenge, Responsibility by Fräulein Schiller through CC Licensing
The gist of what Digital Storytelling means for our new class project, ds106 is the usage of digital tools to tell our own real life story. I have seen and read some other work by others who are part of the ds106 community and it seems that their topics can be about anything as long as it follows the requirements of the assignment given. It reminds me of Dailyshoot--DERP--which is probably why it is called "ds106".
Although I really enjoy seeing other's designs in the Design category in ds106, I think that the Web category is really practical and probably the easiest to understand.

Using the Web can be a fun and easy way to tell a real life story.



Like this video above, you see different people with different stories. We have the capacity to make a difference in other people's lives by sharing our own experiences through the internet. I really like this suggestion for Web Assignments. As it says, "Yes, I know that these are, technically, videos but the point is that they are using a functional web tool (the search engine) to actually enact a narrative. Video is just the means of capturing the narrative."

Here is a blog of creating a literal real life story using the internet. :)

And this one is great! The author gives a wonderful explanation and interesting usage of  The Wayback Machine!

Pear Soup

This has nothing to do with CIS class but, i needed somewhere concrete where I could put up my recipe for Pear Soup! I was just hungry and didn't really have anything to cook so I made this out of the things that I had at home :P

Anyway,  I Googled "pear soup" after I had already made it just to see if there is such a thing as Pear Soup and apparently there is! And from what I can guess is that Pear Soup is originally from the UK. Of course had I known this, I would have tried to make it the standard way but I was already done cooking it before I checked.

So, there are no specific steps I think because in any order it would have come out the same. But here are the ingredients:
1 can coconut milk
half can of water
2 tea spoon dill weed
1 tablespoon chilli powder
1 whole onion
1 dash of Cummin
1 dash of Salt and Pepper
1 1/2 tablespoon of Sugar
1/2 pear wedged
Sliced ginger

I cooked the onions and  pear in a frying pan with a bit of oil and chilli powder. Once the onions were golden, I put them in side the pot with the coconut milk, water and ginger. As the soup was boiling, I added the rest of the spices :)

Pop-Culture: Gossip and Media

Connection #ds674, a photo by hughes_tuj on Flickr.    

Tumbler, Twitter, Facebook and etc...any type of networking website could be a tool to get gossip around the world. The dictionaries are used when slang comes up and the person does not know what it means. The most basic form of gossip and media get to the public by magazines, newspapers, tabloids, advertisement, and TV. 

Youtube could be used to do anything. It could be used to make fun of artists, and TV shows such as Family Guy or Saturday Night Live especially make fun of celebrities. And those who want to be like celebrities who are made fun of, are made fun of themselves. Rebecca Black has been big news...although at first people were hating on her and now people are feeling sorry for her. In my own opinion...gossip is usually negative and the media seems to just make gossip stronger or in another sense gives gossip its push that it needs to make it into the pop culture of today...I honestly don't understand what makes people want to gossip so much about celebrities etc.

On the other hand, I can understand why some people would like to gossip online. There are websites such as 2chan and 4chan which are websites where people can freely express their opinions without ANY restrictions. I guess that since it is on the internet then they don't have to state their name or show their faces, so it's a whole different world of absolute freedom for those people. I think it's great for them!

• So most of the media gossip covers big events and/or celebrities. For example the Royal Wedding of William and Catherine was a major event but it also spurred up a lot of gossip.

Internet

Internet, a photo by hughes_tuj on Flickr.

One of our readings for class was The History of the Internet in a nutshell. We haven't discussed much about this reading in class yet, but I suppose that we will get to it very soon. This reading is quite interesting and gives bullet point facts on a timeline about the Internet.

The Internet has progressed so much within such a small amount of time. And with the Internet growing at such a fast pace, so has the media. Pop culture (Popular Culture) has so much variety nowadays because of how fast the media is able to collect so much information. Pop Culture is basically everything that the media and popular celebrities consider to be new trends of that time of year. What I mean by that is, last century's pop culture is different from this century and so on.

For example in the 70's Bob Marley was considered as part of Pop Culture. However nowadays not many people know him unless they grew up in the 70's. Of course though, people don't really follow what the media says...but if the media had certain popular celebrity faces on their ads or music videos, then it is easier for people to follow. And when people follow up on which celebrity does what to their hair, for example, that is what is considered as pop culture. And with the power of the Internet, pop culture is even more accessible.

Flying pigs in the Future?

Flying pig, a photo by hughes_tuj on Flickr.

Hello World! This is my very first blog post! I have decided that since this post is the first one, then like everything else, I would like to start it off with baby steps. In class, we had a very interesting yet difficult reading which was Vannevar Bush's "As we may think". And I say difficult as in the language and vocabulary was a bit of a challenge. I beleive it was a challenge because of the era it was in, which is 1945. And that is about 2 generations apart from the college students of 2011. In class we hit so many different points. We talked about the stone Adze, Selection by association, Index, Ratheon, The era during 1945, Dwight Eisenhower,

 Military Industrial Complex, Ted Nelson, Doug Engelbart, the Memmex or the theory to the modern day computer.

I feel that we got to so many points...But out of all those points this is one point that I could discuss more about and fully understand:

Communication Loss and Limits

It was about how we have done so much research, but yet for example, "Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential." (pg.4)

So to explain, out of all the time that Mendel put into his research, it was lost for a good amount of time because no one could further his research. And even though we have a record, the publication is far beyond their present day knowledge of research to put it into good use. I believe some people could comprehend or relate to that....

I mean sure we could want flying cars or hey, it might be interesting to see a flying pig just to prove some people wrong :D But our imagination can only be put into reality depending on what is provided now, through research. But not only research, because we also need tools. The tools that we need though, have not been invented yet. So maybe 40 years from now we might see flying pigs ;)