wk 12 makeup- Research and Collaborative

Let's see if I can knock out both of these two in one go. I found out that Digg started out being a heavier tech oriented website that originally focused on the latest computer gadgets that were coming out. The founder Kevin Rose had started off as a host on a television show called Screen Savers for Tech TV, a channel dedicated to computer related topics. I believe that this explains its mostly male demographic. When first exploring Digg, I didn't know that it had gone through such tumultuous periods with the way the voting system initially worked. It began with what was called the Tyranny of the minority which really isn't as bad as it seems, but presented an oligarchy on how information and content was published to the front page. While social circles within the Digg community worked in promoting content on the internet, it also hindered the democratic way that stories made it to the front page, creating an editorial gate that was ruled by algorithms and a select few of highly motivated sumbitters

It also never really occurred to me to use Digg as a way to get people to visit other people's websites to promote advertising. I can see this as a great way in intertwining capitalist techniques to democratic processes while educating and entertaining.
To relate these stories together, I found out that Netscape is NOT dead and is currently trying to reconfigure it's objective from news portal to content aggregate similar in fashion to Digg and Reddit! However, unlike Digg, Netscape plans to capitalize on internet traffic and social circles by paying people to find content on the internet, submit it, and then share it with their friends. This is a list from oen of the articles that I use as a resource.

One of smaller thing but no less interesting things that I have found while researching my topic about surveillance and civil liberties is that past presidents have often times revoked certain civil liberties. Throughout history and times of hardship for our country, the federal government has impinged As a matter of fact, the United States has quite a record of policies
and practices that are clearly adverse to citizens’ civil rights and
liberties. Noteworthy examples include:
• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which made it illegal to publicly
criticize the government. Resident aliens could be summarily deported
by order of the president.
• Lincoln’s suspension of
habeas corpus
and other rights, allowing, in
one instance, the arrest of several Maryland legislators, to prevent them
from voting their sentiments. Furthermore, persons suspected of
“disloyal” practices were subjected to trial and punishment under
military rather than civilian law. Northern newspapers deemed
insufficiently sympathetic to the union cause were banned from the
mails, a significant form of censorship.
• Domestic surveillance and suppression of “seditious intent” by the
War Department in 1917.
• The 1918 Sedition Act. Much like its 1798 predecessor, just about
anything deemed critical of the government was subject to criminal
proceedings. Attorney General Palmer authorized a number of
“Palmer raids” culminating in the arrest and/or summary deportation
of thousands.
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans
during World War II, an act of rights-depriving racial discrimination.
• COINTELPRO, the FBI counter-intelligence program of the 1960s
and 1970s, primarily for the purpose of disrupting Community Party
activities in the United States. Civil rights groups and anti-Vietnam
War demonstrators, however, were featured targets. Agents employed
a variety of surveillance measures. Abuses prompted the Church
Committee hearings. (Stone 2004)

There are elements of my research that I have uncovered that have troubled me. There are numerous programs that are currently implace within the United States and Europe that facilitate the breach of our privacy. One of the older programs in place is called CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act). This forced telecommunications companies to reconfigure their hardware so that law enforcement officials can tap into networks. As of this moment and as far as I know, law enforcement still needs a warrant to do any type of surveillance upon individual communications. Knowing that this technology exists however, I question the ease at which it can be abused.
Law enforcement and the government argue that they need these types of programs to better monitor criminal activity due to the incredibly fast rate that telecommunication technology is advancing. I'm beginning to understand the argument the author makes of his article when he said that this is only a supply-side approach. As shields says : The discussions assume the moral correctness of the supply-side approach, and conceptualize the problem as a technological one." Instead of handling source of the crime, they erode civil liberties to catch the crime.
There's many programs in place, and CALEA is one that has taken on an international scope.

wk 6-writing for school

Well...I suppose depending on the topic, it can be either a chore or strenuous, at least for me. I suppose I have not found any instances where writing has been pleasurable, that I felt like something HAD to be said. I've noticed that that topics are rarely set in stone and the bigger topics let the student decide. Of course there is a general direction or theme present that guides the writing that is usually relevant to the course. I try to stay relevant within my topics so I try to look for current topics that have generated a buzz within the media. I did enjoy my script writing course, but even that class become trying for me. I REALLY REALLY wanted to make myself a better writer by taking this compositional class and scriptwriting course, but I feel that writing isn't something that I would go out of my way to specialize in. I find this unfortunate because I was hoping to get more proficient in the art so I could set myself up better within my career. While I don't plan on becoming a writer within the television or film industry, I plan on eventually becoming a producer. This is not entirely problematic but it would benefit me to understand how to elucidate my ideas onto paper, so that I can then translate it to film or video. But I digress.
I DO enjoy the classes that I take, but I find the task EXTREMELY difficult to partake, as writing forces me to form my thoughts structurally. I know this is a skill that can help me in multiple aspects of communication, but I often see myself as someone who reacts spontaneously, who adapts to the situation at hand. I suppose that even if I do poorly in this class, I see it as a semi-forced way to get me to practice my writing technique. I just pray that it doesn't end up becoming a liability as I force these last blog entries.

Wk2Respond -Purcell Gates

Time for an army story. When I was doing basic training in Kentucky, we had a fellow soldier who had the oddest accent. Initially I thought he was from Australia and I believe the whole company believed it too. It comes to find out he was from West Virginia Appalachian area. It did not have a southern drawl, but it he did extend the pronunciations of his vowels when he talked. As Purcell Gates said, I think that the accent is due to the high level of isolation.
I also think it is this isolation that often fed to the many stereotypes about the Jenny and her fellow population. Humans too often ridicule customs that they don't understand, and given their accent, left them open for abuse.
In the section "Literacy Objects do not equal use", it talks about how Jenny has books within the house, but she doesn't use them for their purpose. Even before that Big Donny has apaper and pencil, but only uses them to draw and to give as gifts. Purcell_gates talks about how Jenny would pull down the books and "read" stories from them to her children. I'm wondering if the children actually wanted to be read to, or if they just wanted a story to be told. I find it interesting that they use the Bible and story books and pen and paper as "tools" in which the bible story is referenced when morality issues came up, and they used the pictures within the storybooks as inspiration to tell stories. I do find it quite odd within an illterate family, that children would asked to be read story from a book. How did they come up with that concept unless they had seen it somwwwhere else? How did they know that books were to be read to somebody and not to themselves? I wonder if the parents had seen them tell a story and then asked the children if they wanted a story read to them.

Make-up-Spring Break-Wk8

So I'm kinda in a rut, a pickle one might say. I have a ton of work to make up, to at least make a D in the compositional writing class, I'll be honest, with you, it's probably not going to happen. So this is the long list of many posts that I will be starting to try to work my grade up. Since spring break has already happened, I think it would be best if i reflect on what I did do and what I didn't do. I knew that I planned on staying around, due to having too much work to catch up(surprise surprise!!). My mother came and visited for the week and she spent time mostly relaxing. I had a project in a production class that I had to get to and that took up a lot of my time trying to figure out how stumble through the program. It ended up going smoothly enough and then I handed over the project to the editor to place the footage in it's order so that we had a story that was cohesive and made sense. I believe it was the film from the night shoot that was insanely cold. I also had to try to work on a cutout project for my animation class. I held that off until the last of the week as that would probably take up more of the time i wanted to spend with my mother. I think I did a bad clip with keifer sutherland in jail and him getting beat up. pretty ridiculous stuff.

Wait...This is the last blog?

Well, not for me, I think I have some making up to do. So we have to discuss issues we had about the class presentations? Here's an issue, I believe memorial union erected and dedicated for the soldiers. There's an issue. No, I think I understand the purpose of the topic... Okay, i got it. College library: I always try to stay away from unless I absolutely have to use it or am wasting time. If I have to write a paper or study(which is rarely) I can't go to College. There's too many distractions going, and I can't concentrate on things that I need to do. I used it for it's editing suites and because it's 24 hours. Ebling library is great, and I would go there all the time if it was closer. They also have editing suites so that I can do my video projects. It's just a great looking library, and goes on my list of inanimate objects I would make love to(along with Great Dane's pool tables).
I really can't imagine going to lakeside lounge to do anything except for group work, and even then i've only been twice. Once was meeting friends and we definitely did not study there and the second was to do some pre production talking for a film. I really wish i could explore all the libraries before I left(and buildings) just to say I did it, but i'm not relaly that big of a nerd. I feel that the good thing about having so many libraries are the different resources each one offers. I would estimate that I spend most of my time at memorial and the Cimc, which is the teacher's education library.
Sooooo...free post. i'm skipping mifflin, but I'm okay with that, I've never really been a huge fan of mass drunk outtings. For the most part I don't go full force because I'm usually writing papers or some other project that i've put to the last minute.
I went to the hoofer's sailing club meeting last night, and I really want to join. It's kinda expensive, and a membership doesn't even get you in with the other clubs. Bullshit. I'll probably od it anyways when I get some cash though. It'll be a great way to kill off a some lazy time during the summer. I just hope I don't end up being a yuppy wearing nautica clothes.

Free Posts

I guess I'm just going to keep myself here until...I knock out an easy free post...We shall see. So everyone's talking about the end of semester or this summer, I guess it would be pretty easy to talk about my upcoming plans, but...what fun is that? Let's make this late sunday night as painful as possible. Perhaps, as reactionary post, I can talk about a quick topic that was brought up at dinner tonight. The girl was one I just met and she was not originally from the area. She moved here roughly 3 years ago and I asked her what she thought of the place, ya know, just bullshit small talk to see if there was any way to segue into some other conversation. She said that she can reflect upon Madison as having good traits and bad traits. I told her I agreed for the most part, but I always try to make the best out of any situation(I just like to have that positive attitude). So maybe as my last year here in Madison, I'll talk about what I like and don't like about Madison. First off, I'll go with the obvious thing; I like the snow. That's right, I LOVE the snow and I wish there was more of it. I love snowboarding and I love my truck in snow. The cold weather doesn't bother me, and I'm from Texas(Represent!). But perhaps it's because I haven't had it for 20 years like the rest of the residents. I think the only thing that pissed me off about it this past season is that we had an awesome snow, and then it melted, and then it was fuckin' cold and it snowed. If it's going to snow, it has to be enough to do something with, otherwise, it's just annoying and it pisses me off. Oh yeah, one thing I don't like about the cold weather, women bundle up too much and don't show off enough skin.
One thing I don't like and kinda scares me is that I seen that Wisconsin and the midwest were ranked the highest for DD. I like partying as much as the next person, but I've never seen alcholism as prevalent. State street really is ridiculous, and the sheer amount of bars just makes it seem that the only thing to do on campus is to hit them up. Unfortunately, I think that peer pressure has had an effect on me, which causes concern. On a side note, who the FUCK stops selling alcohol after 9 O'clock?!?!?!
I like how utterly huge the campus is and there are a million different clubs and organization and resources to use at your disposal. I can't say how it compares to other schools, but I am constantly finding new elements to the campus all the time.
I don't like our Communication Arts Department. I can only blame myself for this one though. When I decided to transfer here, I didn't do any research. I just got caught up on the sheer awesomeness of coming to this school. I thought it having a Radio Television and Film major was exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn't know it was a theory based department and there was very little in terms of production. Don't get me wrong, my instructors are pretty awesome, but I can only write so many papers on the importance of Soviety Montage. Soviet Montage fuckin sucks. If anybody reading this has any inclination to take a Radio television Film class and is thinking of taking it over Soviet Montage, do yourself a favor, and stab your eyes with something blunt. The resources in the Comm Arts department sucks and there is nowhere near enough production classes to accomodate everyone. I'm not saying theory isn't important, but it should NEVER be the basis of a department. There is no use to it, unless you're going into academia. All it is good for is to supplement practical work.
Okay, I could rant 4 free posts about the department, but I should move on.
I love that Madison is a liberal school. It definetely adds a fresh perspective from what I'm used to and has focused certain aspects of my philosphy and values.
I hate that Madison is a liberal school. Too much of a good thing. Same follows with this topic. I'm not PC all the time and I don't want somebody harping on me because I could give two shits about monkeys getting tested on. No, I don't want to save the environment. Guns are fun. No, I don't want to support your cause...
I eat meat.
hmmm...this could be an ongoing list, and who ever wants to add one to anyside should feel free.

It's hard to keep up with these blogs...

When you're so far behind? So I'm so far behind, that I could probably pick one, and call it a free post? or is it possible to pertain a blog that had nothing to do with that week and call it a future free blog? anyways, out of ALL the blogs I have yet to do, which should I choose? How should I choose it? Oh well, how about "What is writing?" for 200, Alex.

Jesus! This is a pretty complex question. I would say in a nutshell that writing is the formation of symbols to express thoughts. I am going to say that writing entails of composing thoughts into expressions that others can recognize. This would be an agreed upon formation of symbols that a society would use to keep records. The symbols would in some way correlate to the spoken language. I don't see writing existing without a language.
It's hard for me to decide if ancient caveman drawings count as a form or writing, but I believe they are not because they are considered representations. Does one consider heiroglyphics a form of writing or is someother type of way of communication. Binary code is considered the language of computers, and computers do "write" information to CD's and DVD's, but we are called the authors. We have programming code, and we type up actions that we want to execute with it, but is it considered writing? We probably agree on that the action of typing is considered writing, but I have a hard time delineating where the boundaries are. Is it the function of the process? Or is it the purpose of the process? Blah, too late for posts like this...