The Great Debate: PC vs Mac (not the other way around)
So I have grown up with PCs- about 4 in all. Huge behemoths of noise, towers that make third-world countries jealous, and of course Microsoft’s poor excuse for a competent OS. My most recent computer is a Dell Dimension Desktop (of Doom), which I had purchased for my college experiences … That was six years ago and somehow I haven’t ripped my brains out since then. With my working knowledge, IT Professional brother, and world of nerdy friends I have been back and forth over what to purchase from this point onward.
The Goods
Digital Citizenship: Critical Analysis
A now an essay about digital citizenship:
The interconnectivity of the digital age has transformed our social, political, and economic landscapes. We now live in an age where information is one of the hottest commodities and at almost every moment of our daily lives we are somehow connected to the internet- jacked in. We have access to great amounts of information and we can become knowledgeable about our options, thereby making more informed decisions.
Nearly every American citizen has a public and private presence on the internet either through their work or personal usage. One of the most important decisions we make in our democratic society is who we elect to represent us in our government, both on the local and federal level. The democratic republic that we live in is not a true democracy but for our population size it is a more practical choice. This process of representation is paramount to citizenship; the ability to elect others to represent us in our government is what we have come to expect by being citizens. This whole process has come unto much scrutiny in our current time as the percentage of voters is not the ideal one hundred percent as we would wish. It is understandable that this may be true because our populous country has an enormous degree of issues in debate that determine voters one way or the other, yet only a select minority reach the public through mainstream media. However many have to come to claim that through the new information age we, society, have a better ability to put all these issues up for debate. This expansion of the public sphere through the internet is a huge significance for the democratic process. It is believed that through the process of critical discussion different and better outcomes can be achieved. Through new and more open, diverse media they promote a wider variety of issues to our media-hungry nation:
“The emergence of new media technologies supports a democratic urge to allow more people to create and circulate media. Sometimes the media are designed to respond to mass media content- positively or negatively- and sometimes grassroots creativity goes place no one in the media industry could have imagined.” Jenkins, p. 258
Nintendo Wii: (B.) Critical Analysis
.jpg)
If you haven’t played with Nintendo newest video game console yet, then you must be living under a bridge, in a a cave, or without a care for fun in the world. To date it is the best-selling 7th generation video game system worldwide, toppling the technologically superior and flashy Playstation 3 (Sony) and X Box 360 (Microsoft). The Nintendo Wii is inspired after the American homophone it resembles- consider that the system is designed for multi-player play and it makes sense. The most enticing function is the motion control Wii Remote, often dubbed the “Wiimote“, which boasts three dimensional acceleration detection, Bluetooth connectivity, and an infrared sensor for pointing (a callback to the NES Zapper light gun). With a less complex remote control the system is marketed to a much broader spectrum of people including those markets that video game and system developers find hard to reach: females of all ages, middle-aged previous video game system owners, and the elderly.
Net Neutrality: (E.) Critical Analysis
“Behind every great and abusive monopoly almost always lies a network- and not only a network, a network which has been co-opted, which has been turned into a discriminatory network, and which is used to carry out and further the power of the monopoly” – Timothy Wu, Columbia Law Professor, speaking at staff briefing for the House Commerce Committee on Capital Hill on February 15th
The FCC and ISPs talk about BT while FP demands “Net Neutrality!”
Yesterday I attended the public hearing held by the FCC at Harvard Law School that was addressing allegations lodged against Comcast and other ISPs that they deliberately have (and continue) to delay and block P2P applications to and from their users, whom are paying customers. No matter if the files being shared are legal or not, these ISPs have been accused of managing their networks unfavorably to the file-sharers all across the United States.
I was invited to the event by my Professor, David Monje, whom shares a friendship, academic and otherwise, to the members of FreePress.net. From FreePress’ perspective this was billed as an attemp “To Save The Internet” as Net Neutrality is a major lobbying issue for this non-profit organization. I was really excited to be there and hear what both sides had to say.
Last.fm: (D.) Critical Analysis
last.fm the social music revolution
That is the simple motto to the bar that tops this company’s website. Last.fm is a bit difficult to explain in the age of new media: it is both a website, a separate download-able application, a plug-in for other software, and a music streaming internet service. Read the rest of this entry »
The Band That I Love: Wilco
“ELT” by Wilco is my favorite song right now and for probably the past year. Off of one of their older albums, Summerteeth, this song’s course states “Every little thing is gonna tear you apart” and for some reason it resonates with me. The song is extremely catchy and much more pop-oriented than a lot of the other folksy tunes that Jeff Tweedy and his ensemble jam out. Seriously check out this band, listen to all their albums, and tell me that Summerteeth isn’t the best.
Also check out Mermaid Avenue Volume 1, a Woody Guthrie found-lyric tribute-esque album performed by members of Wilco (primarily Tweedy) and Billy Bragg as well as a few other personnel.
Pitchforkmedia: (A.) Critical Analysis
Pitchforkmedia is a haven for those in the need of independent, popular, and otherworldly music information. This site details musicians through in-depth album reviews, often celebrity hosted interviews, and archives all its stories to allow you to become an expert on anybody. In the past few years the site has become the premiere place for audiophiles to get the stories about events in the music world, but thankfully the increase in traffic hasn’t changed the site- they steer clear of flashy, gawker-esque fanfare of lead singers with drug habits.
The main page divides the site into three columns (News, Record Reviews, and the Forkcast) with smaller delineations past the fold (Best New Music, Features, Previous Week’s News). Every page is time-stamped red with the date, if not the time, leading with the latest stories first. A dark grey, bolded text covers all the titles with a lighter grey underneath for the subtitle of every page. A cloud-like mix of blues and off-whites mixes behind all the text and pictures (one per section).
The only two advertisements on the home page and other pages are a heading banner and a side box; they mix between upcoming album releases of artists already on the site and other websites were you can download music. Pitchfork itself doesn’t propagate illegal file-sharing but rather their links for downloadable or streaming music are often from the musicians own pages, be it MySpace or something similar.
The site is very attractive because of the simple lay-out that is easy for anyone to navigate. It definitely has a core group of followers, independent music junkies, but anyone and everyone should check it out to see what Pitchfork says about a band. For once that group makes it big we will all wonder where they came from and what others said first.
