Week 9 - Tutorial Task ( My Essay Plan )

Online Essay: Communication

My topic will be “What is communication? Do whales communicate? Do birds? Do atoms? Does DNA communicate? What would you suggest as the limits to communication? When does a failure of human communication occur?” I plan to narrow down the topic by focusing on only communication between humans and animals. The position I will be taking in this topic is that 'while people are introducing experiments to achieve this extent of communication there are some limits to what we can achieve, although with the current and future advancements in technology this may just be a possible outcome.  The elements of the topic I will be writing about are:

P1: intro – what is communication?

P2: the prospect of communication between species.

P3: multiple experiments with different species.

P4: Limitations of communicating with other species.

P5: the use of technology helping to understand other species.

P6: conclusion – is fully developed communication with animals possible or can it be?

~ Blue-Inspiration

Week 9 - Response To Content ( The 'Clean Feed' )

What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")

The Australian Government plans to limit what people can and cannot do over the internet. Part of their plan is to block illegal sites, hate speech and violence feeds from public eyes. (1) Illegal activities that will be blocked include sites where people can download music for free and pirating of movies. Other Legal but potentially unwanted sites will also be blocked from the internet due to the censoring. (2). The Government has also given up ‘internet speed’ to make this attempt at censoring the internet work. Even though a pilot test shows that internet access speed decreased by 86%. (1). It would seem that the Australian Government prefers their online usage slower but cleaner. The idea of the ‘clean feed’ was created to make the internet a safer and more secure environment for people, especially children. (2)

What place does censorship have in a democracy?

According to Oxford online dictionaries; democracy is a governmental system where representatives of state are elected by the public. (3). Censorship holds its place with the representatives that are proposing its effect. In Australia’s case the proposition lies with the Labour Party. (1). When a citizen votes for a specific party, they vote for the views and ideas held by said party. When Labour party was voted in by the majority, the idea of censorship was also voted in hence giving it a place in our democracy.  

1.  Bambauer, Derek E. 2008, ‘Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship (December 22, 2008).’ Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 125. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1319466

2.  Maurushat,  Alana, Wat,  Renee 2009, ‘Clean Feed: Australia’s Internet Filtering Proposal’, The Berkeley Electronic Press, paper 7. Available at: http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=unswwps&sei-redir=1#search=%22clean%20feed%20australia%22

3.  Online oxford dictionaries 2011, viewed at http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/democracy accessed on 23/09/2011.

Week 8 - Tutorial Task ( A bad day, lucky we had spare time.)

Very rough day, we all got to class and wanted to get the last final touches done so we could show the tutor for approval and submit our video then get to work on other studies, unfortunately we encountered several technical difficulties we had to get past instead. most of our problems were computer related. we had a lot of trouble finding one that would work with the program video-spin.

Our first computer would not pick up the hard-drive that we had our video saved on,
the second computer's keyboard proved difficult to use as we could not use the letter L,
the third computer we tried, loaded the program but would not play the video correctly and kept crashing.

After spending 1 and a half hours of our 2 hour class we gave up on  computers in the Lab we were assigned to then found one in a learning centre, by the time we got the program loaded for the 4th time that day, we had 20 minutes until I had to go to my next class.

We got through most of the things we wanted to do before I had to leave and then I had to place my trust in my group members to finish up the music. I knew that there would be lots of difficulties to overcome which is why I wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible. I am glad for my understanding team and appreciate them not back-handing me for being persistent. If we had not got as much done as we did in the first 2 weeks, we would be pushing the time requirement to get everything done. luckily we had anticipated a few problems and have been able to keep a cool head. Technical difficulties proved to text my wits and I found myself tugging on my hair ready to break down. lucky my team mates were able to keep me calm enough to help with an answer.

Unfortunately we did not have the time to run the video by the tutor but will have to plan a time either in class or outside of class where we can get the nod of approval and submit our video.

---------------
The next week:

Clare and I get to class ready to show the video to Lauren when we find that the 3rd group member Shaun has slept in and missed class, after talking to Lauren our Tutor and explaining our situation she came up with the brilliant plan of setting the YouTube account to private and us uploading then sending the log in details to Lauren so she can check it out before it becomes public. After getting onto Shaun and explaining what he needed to do, he did so straight away. We now await Lauren's Okay for submittal.

~Blue-Inspiration

Week 8 - Response To Content

What is the difference between free and open software?

Although both are really the same thing, ‘free software’ gives the impression that it is ``Software you can get for zero price.'' (1). This is why people started calling it “Open Source” instead. However, the name “Open source” has also given way to problems. Companies calling themselves ‘Open Source’ are using the name to gain more money for their proprietary add-ons by saying that part of the money made from their software will be donated to ‘open source’ materials. (1).

Why is free software important for all computer users?

What free/open software does is allow you to make your own changes to the software to meet your own requirements. This system is highly important for computer users because a lot of the high priced softwares give you un-altering systems that do not always suit the user. With free/open software, those who know how, have the ability to make changes and personalise the software to their own style, or for what they need to do. This is also cheaper because once a big brand needs to update, you have to go and pay all over again to get the newer version. Free software updates via its user, which makes it so important for many.

          

      (1)  Stallman, R, “‘Free software’ is better that ‘Open source’”, found at:
      http://www.cyberkuhinja.com/kitchenmedialab/download/activism/Whyfree.doc. viewed on 23/09/2011.

Week 7 - Tutorial Task (Filming problems and other issues overcome)

Most filming is out of the way, so it most of the editing too. Just a small video to go and a bit of tweaking with the music. Last week we got down the idea of what we wanted in the film and discussed how this may happen. We also swapped details to keep in contact and gave everyone in the group something to do. By Monday this week, between the 3 of us, we had managed to get some filming done, a few pieces of music we are allowed to use and a couple of pictures. On Tuesday, we were all going to meet up after the lecture to get more filming done. unfortunately one couldn't make it, luckily we were able to cope without.

This week we have been faced with a few problems. The main one being "shaky hands." Because we didn't have a tripod, we were faced with the problem of no matter what we did, the film was wobbling all over the place. After spending an hour at uni filming scenes that looked great on the small screen we were devastated that it looked really bad. We overcame the situation by borrowing a small gorilla tripod from another group while they were not needing it. We thank this group graciously for their help, especially Lisa Townley.  Another problem we encountered was unwanted reflections. we were shooting a scene that involved a bus going past the camera and although we didn't see it the first few times, you could clearly see a reflection of me and the camera in the side of the bus. When we re-filmed this scene we fixed the problem by putting the camera on an angle to the bus. 

While for our 2nd meeting, once again one group member could not make it but fortunately Clare was not needed for the editing process as Shaun our 3rd member would be the one handling the editing process. Shaun and I spent 2 hours after classes were over first finding a computer willing to log us on and then to download and use the editing software. While we had most of the footage and pictures needed, some things did not copy across quite right and we were still missing one scene of video. We managed to work through this by just putting what we had into order and finding out what else we may need. luckily we found we had thought of everything. We managed to cut what scenes we did have and fine tune certain things getting rid of what we didn't want or need and even started looking into transitions. By the time we left, we had most of the film in order and cut down from the originals and an idea on what transitions we would use. 

Thursday morning, we had all group members present, Clare unable to film the final scene at home due to problems with the computer has passed the job onto me after I offered, we got the pictures that did not transfer initially and we entered new footage and transitions. we also looked into music and as soon as the final scene is shot all we have to do is ad that in and fine tune the music. 

so after having to re-shoot, re-juggle, and plan a time we could all get together outside of class we have managed to piece together a film that we are all quite proud of. 

~Blue-Inspiration

Week 7 - Response To Content ( Can Wikipedia be Usefull?)

Although it is not always trustworthy, Wikipedia is a good place to start looking for something that you need information on. Through a system of a dense linked structure, meaning lots of inner links, there are many different topics that inter-relate with each other and make it easier to find the information you are after. (1). 

Wikipedia also has various other characteristics such as live updates, word sense disambiguation by URL and brief anchor texts which make the site even easier to use. (2). A lot of people think Wikipedia has more wrong information than correct but this is not true. A lot of the information is actually correct. Although it may not be the best idea to quote directly from Wikipedia, as I said before, it’s a good place to start so you can find related aspects about the topic to search elsewhere. Also, depending on who has edited or added information on Wikipedia you may get lucky with a few links straight from that page as references. 

Wikipedia is a site full of information that allows all different people to add or edit the information gathered there. Allowing people outside of the site can cause problems if wrong information is stored, however that wrong information can be corrected. It is a way for people to interact and learn through each other and from different points of views.  Someone may know what something is and decide to add it to Wikipedia but then someone else may have a better way of putting it to be made more understandable. Wikipedia is a place where information can grow.

References: 

      (1) Davison, B 200, ‘Topical locality in the web,’ Proc. of the ACM SIGIR, pp. 272–
279.

      (2)  Nakayama, K, Hara, T, Nishio, S 2007, ‘A thesaurus construction method from large
scale web dictionaries,’ IEEE International Conference on Advanced
Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2007), pp. 932–939.

      ~Blue-Inspiration

Week 6 - Tutorial Task ( Coming up with an idea for our video. )

As a group we decided to address the serious issue of how people create a false persona and con innocent people into 'meeting up'. We have decided to create this message to people to raise awareness that this really does happen and everyone should be more careful on what details they put up on the Internet. The tools we have decided to use are various images and short video clips to piece together an impacting film. Deciding to not use talking or voice overs, we are going to use blocks of text to say anything that needs to be shown. We are also planning to use a piece of music to create the mood and help people realise just how serious the issue is.

To avoid undertaking the illegal act of using someones picture as our own and creating false information, we have decided to simply change our own Facebook names and use our own pages for the task. This way we are also able to use our own images and film ourselves and a volunteer for all our footage helping us overcome the problematic situation of having to find images and video's we can use without others suing us. The issue that we are yet to come across is the use of music. If we can find some music that has no ties to legal action against us we will use that, if not i have hopes of enlisting a piano playing friend's help by asking him to perhaps help us out by writing and recording a piece of original work.

So far we have a plan set out and each of our members has a job to achieve. We will be doing our own independent searching for usable photo's and footage where needed. Plans will need to be made for a time where we can all get online for the conversations between characters to be made.

~Blue-Inpiration

Week 6 - Response To Content (How can we deal with the downloaders' attack on Hollywood?)

"If you have a fast computer and a fast Internet connection, you make Hollywood nervous. Not because of what you're doing now, but because of what you might do in the near future." (Goodwin, 2002). 


Throughout the years, Hollywood has taken on the advancing technologies as allies. Now, with the Internet and the ability to simply download movies straight to your computer is slowly putting movie making out of business as people are no longer going to the cinemas or buying the movies as much as they used to. 


When TV was first introduced, Hollywood was wary of its capabilities and competed with them by advancing their own technologies in order to draw more attention back to movies. Things like sound and colour provided new curiosity for a while but after a period of time everyone once again became used the idea. They then created 3D showcasing this to the world only through cinemas with the first ever 3D movie "Bwana Devil." Again, business took off in Hollywood's favour. In the end however, Hollywood realised that TV being invented could be a positive thing for films, which is when they came up with ideas for DVD’s selling films to people so they could watch them on their TV’s at home. 


So as technology advanced, Hollywood productions took it in their stride and made ways of benefitting from it as well.  But can this work with the Internet? With people able to download movies for free without seeing the movie previously, the future does not look too bright for the cinematic business. “As technology advances, the threat of rampant and unprecedented theft of digital media continues to grow. The music industry has already faced, and continues to face, this threat, but has largely failed in defending musicians’ intellectual property.” (Engelman and Scott, 2006). Can Hollywood hope to protect movies and their directors and screenwriters? 

Over the years less and less people have been going to the movies and instead simply downloaded online.  This may just end up killing Hollywood. If people don’t pay to see or buy the movies, then there is no way to pay for the expenses of actually creating the films. The future looks bleak for movie producers as those who download movies will end up putting an end to movies unless Hollywood comes up with a way to make money from people downloading their work freely. Although “Downloading movies or television shows illegally has not reached the same level as music,” (Rodriguez, 2006) It is sure heading that way. One idea to stop this would be to advertise more how unethical downloading is and hope that people will stop. Another idea is to introduce sampling, putting a limit on how much people can actually download.

Bibliography:

Goodwin, Mike 2002, “Hollywood vs. the Internet”, reason online.

Rodriguez, Antonio 2006, "The Relationship between Copyright Software Protection and Piracy: Evidence from Europe," European Journal of Law and Economics, 21(1), 29-51.

Engelman, Anna and Scott, Dale 2004, ‘Arrgh! Hollywood Targets Internet Piracy’, 11 RICH.J.L&TECH.3.

~Blue-Inspiration