Final -The Aspects of the Internet

              I think the best aspect of the Internet is that everyone could have chance to express and show his or her talent to others. The development of the internet created new pop culture, video sharing sites like YouTube. Such a video sharing site enables its users to show their talent to numerous audiences all over the world. YouTube has become the best place to dig up new comers. I introduced two artists in the former posting: Nick Pitera (link to his channel) and Two Chellos (link). Both of them had gotten the chance to be professional through their videos on YouTube. Not only amateurs but also professionals enjoy these social networking sites. In NicoNico Video many professional artists post their videos. For instance, Japanese traditional instrumental players such as Nami Kineie and Toshiya Mizukawa (both are Japanese sites.) voluntarily show their performance. They play a popular game song with the traditional instruments like a Japanese bamboo flute, samisen, and so on. (link to YouTube ver.)Their purpose is to make these instruments familiar to young people. This video made seven hundred thousand hits in the short period and attracted many young people on NicoNico Video. These examples show that video sharing sites provide many users of the places to flourish and broaden one’s world.

              On the other hand, the Internet also has the worst aspect. Although social networking sites like Twitter are useful to get information and communicate with others, they could spread malicious thoughts of its users. Especially, Twitter has been called as “a fool detector” among Japanese Internet users because some stupid users tweet malicious words and even expose crimes that they had committed. According to “Gilbert Gottfried Fired Over Japan Jokes on Twitter,” a comedian Gilbert Gottfried was dismissed from Aflac because of making some jokes about 3.11 earthquake in Japan. Gottfried did a voice actor of Aflac duck. Although his offensive tweets had been deleted soon, they included these lines:

• Japan called me. They said ‘maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they’re all sinking.’”
• “I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said ‘is there a school in this area.’ She said ‘not now, but just wait.’”

It is hard to understand his motives. Furthermore, a MR of Nippon Shinyaku Co. professed to mix Halcyon (a sleeping pill) into alcohol of her colleague on Twitter. (link to the article <Japanese>) After the company confirmed the fact, they apologized and announced that they would dispose of her rigidly. She had created her Twitter account with her real name and revealed company name that she belonged to. Her behavior destroyed not only her future but also the credibility of the company. I do not think that social networking sites themselves are not malicious. However, these offensive and criminal tweets would surely hurt one’s mind and dull a sense of crisis for crime. They also would effect on adolescent Internet users.

The Internet has both positive and negative aspects. However, it is depending on individual users if these aspects have power on others. We should understand the nfluence of Internet and how to control it appropriately.

Colorize your world

Colorize your world!

Original:

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This is a photo that I took in America. I changed its color to monochrome.
Wow, it looks like an old photo.

The Four Icon Challenge!

I drew some symboles of a famous movie. Can you guess what movie is this?
I think many of you cannot guess what  the lower right one is because of my bad drawing...
Though I tried to draw a huge chandelier, it was so difficult for me!

I used paint only.

Malware

In class, we were learning about Malware. So I explain it briefly. Malware stands for malicious software that is programmed to do abusive behaviors such as stealing information, gaining unauthorized access to the resource and something like that. As the internet has developed, Malware also becomes various. I guess many people regard computer virus as most part of Malware, yet actually the computer virus is one of the types of Malware.

Although everyone in CIS class cannot believe, some people with poor knowledge about computers believe that human beings can be infected with computer virus.  In 2007 April, a rumor that people can catch deadly virus through cell phones by answering call spread in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The people got into a panic. Therefore, finally the government announced that cell phones were totally safe and blamed local Taliban for telling scary rumor.

Here is the link to the news: Mobile Phone Virus Scare Jumps from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

However, some malicious people actually upload music file or flash by professing that “these files might cause lunacy” or “they make you commit suicide.”

It is clear that computer never become malicious by itself. Always people’s malicious mind is first.



Question for the final

What are the possible factors which might threaten your identity and privacy online? Name at least three and write possible reacts to them in order to protect yourself.

Google map story

Google Map Story 

This Google Map shows a location of my favorite soup curry shop, Shanti.

Shanti in Ikebukuro is located to C2 and C3 exits of Tokyo Metro.

One of my friends told me about the shop. The curries are so good! I sometimes go there with my boyfriend. The picture on the left side is the chicken leg curry. It looks so nice doesn’t it? It is my best favorite menu in this shop.

But unfortunately, they have raised the price of curries with chicken legs since the end of October. That is because it has been getting difficult to import American chicken legs with low price. I was sad when I heard this news. But they have other delicious curries as well! So if you have a chance to visit Ikebukuro, you should visit Shanti!

  

Jin-chaaaaan!

Wait, where'd that guy come from?

Can you find a stranger in this photo? The picture is from one scene of the movie "Armageddon."


Here is one more.

This one is more clear than the formar one. Now you can find a man with an astonished expression.


May be many of you do not know him. He is one of my favorite comedians Jin Katagiri.






I took his picture from the video on YouTube by taking a screen shot. The scenes from Armageddon were taken by the same way. Then, I edited them with Photoshop Elements.

Audreys

ds106 assignment on Triple Trolling.

Image: Audrey (Japanese comedians)
Quate: Audrey Hepburn
Signiture: Audrey Wells

I put triple Audreys in a picture together. The man on the right side looks boastful but he is not actually. The comedian Audrey got popular very quickly because they came in the second at Manzai 1 (M1) grand prix in 2008.  They have appeared on the TV shows every day since the success of M1. Audrey became one of the most popular comedians in Japan. But they did not change their style and have been trying to keep themselves as their ideal comedians. Audrey is modest as a comedian and it is a key of thier popularity.So I think the quote from Audrey Hepburn would fit to them. The signature Audrey is from Audrey Wells who is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer.

Timmmmyboy

Timmmmyboy http://www.timmmmyboy.com/2011/02/we-are-all-artists/

In a lecture, Tim Owen is talking about his own idea about being an artist.
He believes everyone could be an artist and many of them do not realize this fact.

The environment around us is full of artistic things. He mentions "creativity is not inheritance."His main idea is that we can learn how to create. According to Timmy, ds106 provides us the opportunities to improve our creativity through various assignments.

I like Tim’s idea. Everything could be an art, and everyone has an ability to create.

Tim says "people are more creative when they are hungry." This phrase reminds me the phrase from Steve Jobs: "stay hungry, stay foolish."

It is true that satisfied people hardly create something new. The people with great creativity and the artists whom Tim is talking about are always looking for new ideas like Steve jobs. Therefore, I want to stay myself hungry in order to be sensitive to things around me.

Midterm Exam

CIS class is now focusing on Degital Story telling.


Image: Anti Tennis by cogdog through CC liscening.

The phote above is the example of  a Cropped Photo story. The purpose of this assignment is to change, alter and enhance  the original sign and then create the cropped meaning.

This sign origibnally says "No Canada Tennis Parking." The author gets rid of the word "Parking" and he makes it anti tennis sign in Canada.

http://ds106.us/2011/06/24/triple-troll-attack-go/

Another assignment is to put triple different things together in a photo.

This photo above is by Darth Ba'al. He put a line from Star Wars, a character' name from Harry Potter, and an actor from Star Trek.

This is the video of Star Wars from YouTube.

Practice

Practice:

Image: Ella the Snow Dog by  jpctalbot through CC licensing.

FANS

As I explained in last post, the development of the internet created new pop culture, video sharing. YouTube and ニコニコ動画 would be the pioneers of this field. These video sharing sites have provided many people with the place to show their talents to a lot of audience all over the world. Therefore, especially YouTube has become the good place to dig up new talents who used to be an amateur. Furthermore, most these newcomers gained their fame by covering famous songs. It means that fans become professional through social media.

I would like to introduce two examples of fans on YouTube.

The first one is Nick Pitera. Nick is a bif fan of Disney films, so he has posted many cover songs of the Film on YouTube since 2006. After graduating University, he is working at Pixer now. I put the most famous his video, the cover of “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin.

If you are interesting in him, you can see more video from his channel!
By the way, he is also famous in Japan. His jaw line is kind of charming, so some Japanese fans call him “アゴジン.” (アゴ means jaw in Japanese and it puns Aladdin.)

The second example is 2CELLOS.

2CELLOS are Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser. They are from Croatia. The two were discovered after uploading a music video of their cello-only cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" to YouTube. Their video made over 5 million hits in less than 3 months on YouTube. This achievement let them to sign to Sony Masterworks, and then made debut in 2011.

The development of the internet has created new pop culture, video sharing and given meny people places to flourish.This movement would get a boundary between professional and amateur more ambiguous than before. Video sharing sites are not only pop culture but also the place to influence one's future.

POP CULTURE

Pop culture (popular culture) is defined as youth culture that is loved by the mainstream. In Japan, pop culture tends to mean animation, games, and comics. Antonym for pop culture would be high culture which includes classic music, art, and something requires education in order to understand them.

Formerly, high culture used to be for only bourgeoisies or nobility who had a good education. For example, you needed knowledge of sonata form to enjoy classic music. Contrary to high culture, everybody could enjoy pop culture without education or particular knowledge. However, in 20^th century, as the people have begun to have power, the definition of culture also changed. The number of the people with education increased, and then high culture gradually opened to the public. In addition, the development of mass media or technology of mass production made high culture more familiar to the people than before. We can see the famous paintings through the posters, and CDs, TVs, and radios provide us opportunities to listen music. High culture has assimilated to pop culture like.

The development of the Internet is also a key factor to connect the people with high culture, and also they create new pop culture. You Tube and ニコニコ動画 developed the concept of video sharing.

Social Networks

What is social network? If I ask so, many people would think of facebook, twitter, or mixi. Social network basically is defined as the communication service that helps people to communicate each other through the internet. Actually, I am a facebook user and enjoying my friend’s posting and photos. Let me focus on facebook and explain its history briefly.

According to “The History of the Internet a Nutshell,” facebook was launched in 2004 mainly by Mark Elliot Zuckerberg. At the first time it was targeting to college students, and then it was opened to the public in 2006. Facebook has more than 750 million active users now.

Then, let’s focus how facebook is different from other social networks.  

First, how facebook is different from twitter? For instance, although facebook users become “friend” with each other’s permission, in twitter people can connect other users one-sidedly. It means that we can follow other’s twittering without permission. Therefore, users would connect to even a passer-by if the person twitters interesting information for him. This characteristic suggests that twitter fits to provide information rather than communicating. How about mixi and facebook? Facebook and mixi have many similarities, yet one of big differences between them could be that facebook requests its users to use their real names. The system with real names enables its users to bring their real community to social network as it is. Therefore, the services provided by facebook are more realted to user’s daily life than that of mixi. I do not mean that real name system is superior to the anonymous one.  However, it is clear that  facebook meets needs of many people in term of communicating ;therefore, it has been able to succeed as one distinguished social network.

 I put one link about the conflict about the right to remain anonymous on the internet in Japan.

http://seetell.jp/en/18117

This article provides you an opportunity to think about privacy on the internet.

           

The guy who had created hypertext

Ted Nilson is one of an American sociologist, a thinker, and a pioneer of communication engineering. He is famous for creating the concepts of hypertext  and  hypermedia. He believes that  a user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within 10 seconds. This tought is his motto. Nilson also works on Project Xanadu.This project was the first project for hypertext whose purpose was improvement of World Wide Web.

http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=6681

This website briefly explains about Ted Nelson and his projects.

In this video, Ted Nelson is talking about today's  software and his own view of it.

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