Internet Addiction Essay.

DO WE HAVE IT BAD? INTERNET ADDICTION.

A snazzy restaurant. Great food. Lively conversation. Then, mid-sentence, you catch him steal a quick glance at his iPhone. Of course you're annoyed, what is he doing on facebook right now when he could be talking to you? What's so great about social networking anyway? And then you might think, hey, for some the internet really is an addiction.

While not being ruled as a technical psychological disorder as yet as said by Burnsten and Dombeck (2004), scientists are arguing whether or not to make internet addiction as such. Some psychologists, notably Kimberly Young, Ph.D and David Greenfield, Ph.D argue that internet addiction is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Others, John Grohol Psy.D, amongst others believe that it is neither an addiction nor a specific disorder and shouldn't be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), where all mental disorders are listed for future reference and general knowledge (APA 2000 and Grohol 2005). Some psychologists believe that there is nothing to worry about. There have however been some startling cases popping up where internet addiction has caused detrimental effects to individuals and their families that should be made note of and perhaps should lead scientists in another direction. After all, with the way society and its love of cyberspace is going, could the internet be classed as an "addictive agent" too?

Addiction, as said by Elizabeth Henderson in her book "Understanding Addiction" (2000) is said to be similar to the 'dependence' definition in the DSM-IV, in respect that due to the substance (this substance being the internet and its content) there is change in the way the brain operates. It is also confirmed by the development of tolerance and withdraw symptoms when going without the substance the victim craves, and a loss of control when going without what they desire for too long.

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), according to its lead expert Dr. Kimberly Young, who has also ironically created the website netaddiction.com, has placed internet addiction under a certain criteria. Those who feel that they meet the majority of these criteria are likely to suffer from an addiction of the cyberspace kind:

1. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (think about previous online activity or anticipate next online session)?
2. Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction?
3. Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use?
4. Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use?
5. Do you stay online longer than originally intended?
6. Have you jeopardised or risked the loss of significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet?
7. Have you lied to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet?
8. Do you use the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?

However, while these guidelines seem to be somewhat agreed upon by those who agree that there is such a thing as internet addiction, these criteria have not yet unanimously been voted as such and cannot be outlined as true criteria. For this essay however, they will be ruled as such.

One such example of internet addiction that has met the criteria outlined by Dr. Young was the story of Floridan Pam Albridge in 1997. The Umatilla woman apparently grew so addicted to being online that she forgot to pay for the bills and neglected to feed and care for her two young children. When her husband Kevin gave her the ultimatum that she choose either her family or the internet, Albridge chose the internet instead, ultimately losing custody of her children as well (Weekly World News 1998). This example holds true to Kimberly Young's study "internet addiction: the emergence of a new clinical disorder" in 1996, where it states that similar to any drug, alcohol or gambling addiction, internet addiction can in fact result in academic failure, reduced work performance, marital discord and separation, which occured in the Albridge case.

The Albridge case however is not alone and is not quite as severe as the Hacker case, also in 1997. Sandra Hacker's addiction to the internet was one of the worst recorded and probably one of the most well known. While online Hacker would allegedly lock her three children in what she called the "playroom", a room full of broken glass, debris and walls smeared with faeces. Police were horrified by their findings and were stunned for find that though the house was in disrepair, Hacker's computer area was completely immaculate and perfectly clean. (Bricking, 1997) This case too is also respective of Young's 1996 findings regarding significant impairment to family life outlined in "Psychology of computer use: XL. Addictive use of the internet: a case that breaks the stereotype".

While not quite to the extent of the previous examples, this next example of internet addiction goes to show that its not just the regular public that is suffering but celebrities as well. Diddy in February 2009 seemingly posted several "tweets" on his twitter webpage regarding details of a group orgy he was participating in for thirty-six hours (Hudson 2009). Though Diddy bowed out before completing his task, the fact that Diddy paused in his activities to post information on his twitter is indicative of the need to use the internet more to achieve satisfaction and also to the detriment of his "real life", as said on the netaddiction.com website and in O'Reilly's report "Internet addiction: a new disorder enters the medical lexicon" written in 1996.

Adolescents too are suffering the effects of internet addiction. The following flim clip is a video taken of a teenaged boy whose addiction to the online MMORPG game World of Warcraft (WoW) gives us an example of a violent reaction when the young man's subscription to the game is cancelled.

The clearly violent reaction to the cancellation of the game is a classic reaction similar to that of people addicted to various substances when they are not provided with the item they need, also said by Henderson. Addiction sufferers tend to lash out in fits of rage and/or violence at themselves and/or other people, though in this particular case the boy just harmed himself.

While this essay has only provided four empirical examples of internet addiction, it can be seen that issues like this are becoming more common as society spends more time online, as suggested by Mark Griffiths (2004). Like any addiction if given enough time to develop, internet addiction in this case can and has had negative effects on both the victim and the victim's families, families breaking up due to the strain and parents worrying immensely for their children. Despite what scientists argue, internet addiction is prominent in today's society, and if proper investigations were put forth in the near future scientists could develop a greater understanding of this condition that is plaguing modern society.

REFERENCES:

American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Association. Task Force on DSM-IV (2000). "Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders". American Psychiatric Association, 2000. University of Michigan.

Bricking, Tanya (1997). "Internet blamed for neglect". Sourced at: http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1997/06/16/loc_hacker.html Date accessed: 19/10/09.

Bursten, Julia & Dombeck, Mark (2005). "Introduction to net addiction". sourced at: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=3830&cn=66internet addiction date accessed: 19/10/09

Griffiths, Mark (2004). "Does internet and computer "addiction" exist? Some case study evidence." sourced from: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089%2F109493100316067 date accessed: 22/10/09/

Grohol, John (2005). "Internet Addiction Guide". Sourced at: http://psychcentral.com/netaddiction/ Date accessed: 18/10/09

Henderson, E. (2000). "Understanding addiction". Illustrated edition. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.

Hudson, Polly (2009) "P. Diddy shares FAR too much information on Twitter" sourced from: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/columnists/polly/2009/03/12/p-diddy-shares-far-too-much-information-on-twitter-115875-21192259/ date sourced: 18/10/09

Mat (2009). "Greatest Freakout Over World of Warcraft :: Mom Cancels Crazy Kid's WoW Account" sourced from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jM2BMW_WVo date sourced: 20/10/09

O'Reilly, Michael (1996). "Internet addiction: a new disorder enters the medical lexicon". Canada Medical Association Journal. June 15, 1996; 154.

Reed, Lori (2002). "Computer addiction as a gendered phenomenon". Sourced at: http://englishmatters.gmu.edu/issue6/reed/reed-body.htm. Date accessed: 20/10/09

Weekly World News (1998). "Hooked on the internet: nerdy mom loses custody of her children!" sourced from: http://books.google.com/books?id=PPEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=Pam+Albridge&source=bl&ots=iZkrRy4xqe&sig=

thAfpWmRo1tuef0cyje9x397GA8&hl=en&ei=263eSuWrIoXl8Qbj3dly&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Pam%20Albridge&f=false date accessed: 19/10/09.

Young, Kimberly S. (1996a) "Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder." University of Pittsburg. Bradford.

Young, Kimberly S. (1996b). Psychology of Computer Use: XL. Addictive Use of the Internet: A case that breaks the stereotype. Univeristy of Pittsburg. Bradford.

Young, Kimberly. (2009) Net addiction sourced from: http://www.netaddiction.com/ Date accessed: 18/10/09/

I'll Never Be An Artist, But This --

Like my title for this blog suggests, I'm not much of an artist. Sure, I can draw spirals, hearts, flowers and stars like any normal teenaged girl--not to mention the symbols for my favourite hidden ninja villages, but when it comes to the truly spiffy stuff, I fail more than my friend Maryanne does at being straight. Which is epically. (Love you, Maryman!! :D)

But yes, so my sister and I were fooling around on photobooth (a photo application on mac, just to clarify) and I decided to post one of the more stupid shots on here and then have a fiddle with an application I downloaded from apple called GIMP. It wasn't smooth sailing, let me tell you. And even then, the only thing I worked out how to do after half an hour was smudge some stuff. =_=;

Anyway.

Before -- Note the manky school uniform worn by my sister on the right.

After -- Note that my sister is no longer wearing her uniform, and the photo looks almost like a crappy painting. With a shoddy love heart on there--coz I love my sister. ;)

Yeah. My blog doesn't shine. You don't have to tell me.

This Is The Only Time I'll Be Annoyed With Apple.

I suppose this is really annoying because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. So I'm apparently supposed to download some freeware applications from the website that was mentioned in the lecture ages ago in Week 7, but here's my problem: I'm not sure if they'll work. I'm apple all the way here at home (not a PC in sight), so given portableapps.com/ is for PCs, and I only have apple computers in my house I should've known I'd hit a slight snag.

So what I did instead was download some Widgets, which I suppose is the apple equivalent to some applications that you could find for the PC and yeah, I tried them out and here's my views:

Facebook: Meeh, not bad. It gives you little alerts every 30 seconds according to my little index thingy, and it tells you if you've got any friend alerts, wallpost alerts, messages, nudges, event alerts, that kind of thing. I suppose it would be useful if I were really facebook savvy.

ILoveLamp: If you like pretty colours, then you're gonna love this. A pretty stupid application if you ask me--all it is is a lava lamp. You can though, pick the colours. Orange is my favourite colour, hence why that's my new lamp.

Horoscope: So I can see how my lucky stars are going today. So today I need to watch my diet. ...The horoscope is calling me fat? :o

Clickomania: If you're ever bored, yup, I think you should get this. Your task is to get rid of all the tiles and stuff, making sure you don't leave any behind. Think it's simple? Its not. Not at all.

But yeah, I never realised just how much CRAP is online--theres stuff from art tools, to currency exchange, to font finders and even silly little lava lamps. Do we really need all this stuff?

Oh, Baby Give Me One More Chance -- To Play With Your Kids.

So ladies and germs (oh how old is that saying? Jeez.), the task for week 5 was to create a googlemap, have some fun on the site sketchcast.com and then do something on the personas website.

Now, surprisingly enough, I kind of enjoyed myself doing these little tasks. Well, maybe the first one. The other two got annoying. Fast.

Googlemap:

Now, when a girl is bored on a Friday night with only her pet pug as company and listening to Michael Jackson music on itunes, she tends to come up with stupid ideas. So naturally, my googlemap was of "Michael Jackson Sightings". Take a gander:

View Wacko Jacko Sightings. in a larger map :]

Sketchcast:

Not all that fun when you make one stupid mistake and then have to delete the whole thing and start again. What makes it worse? My stupid mistakes kept showing up again--even though I deleted them. Heh. Of course.

But here's my final cut.

FML.

Personas:

The personas website. I'm actually a little cut.

Apparently "Danielle Storey" had "no digital traces found".

You'd think a name as common as "Danielle Storey" would bring up a shitload of different queries, right? Come on, I looked my name up on facebook and apparently there's forty-frickin'-eight of me all over the world--you'd think at least one of us would achieve something worthwhile in their miserable lives, right?!

Well apparently not.

I'm kinda embarrassed to be me right now. >_<

So, Your Student's a Retard.

" procrastinate |prəˈkrastəˌnāt; prō-|

verb [ intrans. ]

delay or postpone action; put off doing something : it won't be this price for long, so don't procrastinate. "

That definition right there in awesome orange?

That's me.

Surprising stuff, right?

No. Not really. :]

...There's really no need for that look, you know. I know I'm not alone in the world.

There are lots of frickin' idiots out there like me.

But yes, instead of doing all this stuff weeks ago to prevent it building up and biting me in the ass like it has right now (by being a good studious student really--I make it look harder than it actually is, eh), I instead chose to waste away my evenings reading Japanese comics, chatting to friends on facebook (ugh--I don't even know why I bother) / msn, and reading fanfiction than doing my schoolwork. (Would you call it schoolwork? Or uniwork? Heh, schoolwork sounds better.) Tsk, tsk, I'm an awful student.

But!

I am here right now...so I think I'm making up for my stupidity by totally wasting away my Friday night. Like a good idiot. ...Not that I'll learn my lesson, because I wouldn't be all that surprised if I did it again.... -cough-

Anyway, so the next few blogs will be "what Danielle should've done forever ago if she wasn't a complete retard". (Even though said blogs will be above this post...unless you also start to read this from the bottom? Heh.)

Enjoy.

x.

Runners, Toads && TV Stars-- This Is What Politics Is About.

This tute was once again kinda like a treasure hunt, so here I am to tick off all the crap I was 'sposed to do today. :)

- sign an e-petition

So I signed a petition for Ya Mum jokes on petitionspot.com. I hate haters. Ya Mum jokes are great...when used appropriately of course. ;)

- what is barak obama up to today?

Naturally, I twittered it. Only the cool politicians have a twitter--and Obama doesn't look like the Milky Bar Kid like our beloved prime minister.

So, like Simon Says, Barak says today that everybody can help the Yanks out by helping to pass a health reform during our lunch break. Too bad it's past lunch now and too bad I'm Australian or I might've bothered to help him out....oh, such a shame. Really.

- find out who the local, state and federal representatives are:

Now, I hate politicians. I hate voting. It's a huge waste of my day (or it will be, when I eventually have to vote for something), I already know the government's going down the toilet and I honestly don't give a rat's ass--though, I'm somewhat smart enough to know that who is running our country is somewhat important. And do you have any idea how frickin' vague that question is? So I'm just gonna go for our most obvious answers:

Local: Ron Clarkie is the dude who (literally) runs our coast. Did you know he was an Olympic Runner once? Naturally I laughed my ass off. Here he is, looking funky fresh~~

State: With the evil looking eyebrows and the face that reminds me of a toad, Anna Bligh. Here she is wearing a cowboy hat.

Federal: The Milky Bar Kid himself: Kevin'07Rudd. Seriously, doesn't he look just like him??

Gosh, he was a spaceman, a cowboy, sheriff--I'm a proud Australian today. :)

- respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.

Now, define "major news". Because I can't be bothered to find some real, hard hitting news (that crap's depressing, yo!), I thought I'd see what the goss was instead on perezhilton.com~~because really, what news is greater than celebrity news?

So after creating an account (oh, what I do for this class--I'm show.me.the.stars btw, how about you? XD) the first newsline I saw was about Madonna's new song. Yes, this is important news. Did you see Madonna on the VMAs this week? Michael Jackson is DEAD--I don't care about your life growing up in a family of eight living out in the ghettos like some white trailer trash!! Gosh! Even still, the song isn't that bad...I guess. If you're into Britney Spears, old hags and all that general crap.

So here's what I said: "eh, she sounds like britney, but knowing her this'll probably be a hit in the clubs." An amazing comment, right? But hey, I wasn't hating on her! I'm a good person. Somewhat. ... But apparently you can find my comment in about an hour or so...so find me there? I hope.

- look up the queensland or australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament:

So I did and like four files came up on the Queensland Legislative Assembly website which is found here and I came up with...diddly squat. The files that did come up only have him mentioned briefly and the bloke didn't talk at all!! ...And this guy's our representative?? I think we need a new mayor~~

- let your local member know what you think about their last speech:

And because I couldn't find a speech with Ronnie talking I couldn't do this task. Oh no!

And finally, the last task of this tutorial is as follows:

- read the lecture and the readings, pursue a couple of the topics you find most interesting and then post your blog with your well-considered thoughts about the theory and practice of politics.

Now, as I said already, I hate politics. I don't find it interesting and this country's almost down the toilet anyway--we're run by the frickin' Milky Bar Kid for chrissakes!! Sure, he encourages morbid obesity and all the unfortunate perks of being fat and all that jazz, but yeah, I really don't care. (I'm not fat, thanks.) ...But I do thank him immensely for that government bonus early this year, it bought me my beloved laptop.

Thank you, MBK, thank you.

As for "Clean Feed"--honestly, I'm not so sure. Like, it's great that you can get rid of all that monkey porn, vids of animals being stomped with high heels and stuff away from innocent little children's eyes but for the sake of our internet speed...? I'm selfish. I dunno what to say.

But when one really thinks about it--who really has the right to say what's appropriate and what isn't? I'm pretty sure Australia is a democracy, and Hell, if people start telling us what we can and can't do we'll be like China or something. Screw that!

So no, I don't really agree with it--if you really wanna monitor what your kids are looking at online, well watch them while they're on the computer, stupid!

The Three Wise Men. . .Films

Sooooo, the task for week 5/6 was to find three internet delivered short films (max 10mins) and imbed or upload into a new post. And "just providing the link wont suffice." Oh ho.

Hmmm, so naturally, this required a lot of thought.

And racking my brains, the first thought that came to mind was for some reason the Harry Potter series. If you don't know who Harry Potter is, well...I honestly have no idea what to say other than "where the hell have you been for the past ten years? Jesus Christ.". But anyway, the Harry Potter series has spurned a whole crap load of merchandise from the pointy hats from the $2 store to games on your PS3, has years worth of horrific fanfiction that you'd rather gouge your own eyes out with a spork than read and of course some truly disturbing and epic short films. So, when I thought of Harry Potter I thought of the classic Potter Puppet Pals series.

"Wizard Swears" arguably the most popular episode of the Potter Puppet Pals series and has had over 14 million hits on youtube, has spurned its own t-shirt line, cups and backpacks, has won several comedic awards and is naturally one of the greatest Harry Potter spoofs ever created. It's funny what a little jab at a can do, huh?

The Potter Puppet Pals creator Neil Cicierega has also due to the series "invented" the term "animutation" which of course is a web-based computer animation, typically created in Adobe Flash that is made of unpredictable montages of pop-culture references set to music and in a language foreign to the intended viewers, at least according to wikipedia, our favourite encyclopedia website. :)

And so wracking my brains again, and for some reason feeling rather geeky, I came up with the classic Twilight With Cheeseburgers. Anything that mocks the worst book series that somehow made it in the bestsellers in my eyes deserves a medal. Seriously.

Now, while this was professionally made as it featured on the monthly sketch show called "The Midnight Show", if not for youtube I never would've heard of this clip and it wouldn't have ever likely to have been as famous as it has been, it too thanks to youtube being viewed millions upon millions of times.

...And watching this clip makes me rather hungry... Goddammit.

Randomly deciding on my final "film", though this is more of a mockumetary, is the dude MyChonny on youtube, which goes to show that random films about nothing in particular can get you famous.

Now, once again, without youtube, MyChonny would probably never be as well-recognised as he is today--which goes to show that the internet has most definitely changed the world.

...Ohh, what a sappy way to end this post.

I deserve to be shot.

My Big, Fat Information-Filled Blog.

Sooo, tonight by chance I took a look at the "marking criteria" on that place with all the important stuff on it (that being right here) and it turns out I haven't quite completed all the criteria for the end of week five. So, I decided that because I have nothing better to do this Sunday evening I thought I'd try and type up the stuff I missed, and here we go~~

1. Okay, so while I'm pretty sure I've completed the convergence stuff properly, it turns out that I haven't really added two youtube videos. So what I've decided to do is add another youtube vid to this blog, this video about something that has apparently been "converged"...or whatever.

Soo, do you have an annoying child who doesn't know when enough is enough? Do you go through several rolls of toilet paper each week due to your child's incompetence? Do you sometimes get diarreha? Yes? No? Curious regardless? Look no farther and watch this:

An auto toilet dispenser.

A wonderful and unique way to cut the cost of your toilet paper down each week. ...Though mind you, it'd probably just be easier to rip the paper off yourself. It'd be much quicker and save you a lot of money. ...But that's just my thoughts here.

2. So I haven't written timelines for the history of the internet or computers themselves. ...And given that this is a class written about technologies....I suppose I should be strung up for it. Or drowned in a shallow bathtub. Or some other creative way of dying or something. While I'm friends with a History-Geek, learning about the fascinating (note the sarcasm) stories of my forefathers hasn't ever entertained me much. Even if the history is about the most awesome inventions evarrrr.

Anyway.

Computers.

They've been around longer than I thought they have been. Like, when I was a little kid (so the early 1990's) I remember my family having a computer...sure, it broke it somehow, but yeah, computers haven't really been cool since the late 90's when the world wide web was available to every man and his dog. ...Well, every man and his dog who can afford it, that is.

So let's be brief.

The Mr. Main Man when it comes to computers was a Pom called Alan Turing who was born long before my grandparents were even considered, that being 1912. This dude did most of the serious work when it come to the development of the computer, but computers weren't really anything big till the 1950's. Which, in the 1950's they were this big hunk of crap that the military used to hide research on aliens, Santa Claus and Jesus and stuff. Oh, and they were produced by the IBM.

Continuing on, nothing much happened till the 1970's when the first PC (Personal Computer -- oh creative!!) was released...and after that, all hell broke loose. Soon after that brought on the pure win that is Apple, crappy Microsoft and all the other systems that I can't be bothered mentioning...'coz we all know that Apple is the most superior model here. But yeah, each system has its similarities and differences (though apple is the best to me but people who are inferior like to argue with me), but let's move on and discuss the internet. (http://nct09-gc.blogspot.com/)

So when it comes to the net, you'd be surprised about how much stuff and years went into creating it. Mind you, when you think about it, the net isn't really all that simple. But because I don't want to waste even more of my life typing up this huge-ass timeline, I searched around a little and found a picture of what happened instead. :D

(http://depts.alverno.edu/cil/mod1/webtutorial/internetstart.html)

And finally task 3 that I have yet to complete was to watch a movie and talk about different screen shots that were used and stuff. Okay, so the last film I saw was My Sister's Keeper which if you were human was a real tear-jerker.

So of course, it being a drama there were all types of camera angles used to convey the mood, display the scenes and all that kind of stuff, but the task here was to discuss the Who, When, Where, Why and How of cinematography. So let's get started.

Who/Why: Pretty simple. Yes, Close-Ups (where an image is zoomed in) were used quite a lot throughout the film and it gave us a more detailed view of the character(s) so you can get a feel of their emotions, physical looks, their actions and subsequent reactions, ect. Here I have is a picture of the Fitzgerald Siblings--Kate in the middle is obviously our cancer victim--and the three look pretty happy.

Where/When: "long shots" (shots where larger things all fit in a single shot) were generally used to show the different areas wherein scenes took place. The film had many different settings, though I will use this picture of the Fitzgerald family at the beach:

Long Shots, Medium Shots (a shot less large than a long shot) were also used to show the events that take place at the end of the film (I'm not going to spoil it!), which also explained how and why certain things happened, though the voice-overs naturally helped as well. Flashbacks were also used through long shots and its smaller versions as well to set the time where the scenes took place also.

But yeah, so I think I've covered pretty much everything.

I pity the poor soul who has to bunker down and read this. I sure as hell wouldn't.

Have a good one.

Scavenger Hunt (oh yeeeeeerrr)

Okay, so this week's wonderful tutorial task (whooo T T) is to find some crap on a list without using google and avoiding wikipedia...easy enough stuff, right? Not.

1. What is the height of the world's biggest tree? How long did it take to grow?

-- So apparently the world's tallest tree is a Coast Redwood by the name of Hyperion (oooh, sounds otherworldly like something outta a science fiction, huh?) standing at a whopping 115.5 metres tall. Wow. As for how long its been growing, Hyperion has been growing for around about 600 years now, which apparently is roughly 20 human years in tree, which I can't help but admit is freaking amazing. Not bad eh?

2. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Madonna?

-- Not that I would ever want to willing call her, one would gather that the best way to contact Madonna would be by using a phone. Or emailing. Or even sending a letter. ...Quickest definitely being to give her a quick phonecall, if you don't mind punching in all those extra numbers. As to how you're gonna do it? No idea. But here's another Madonna, I'm sure she'll like it if you flick a comment her way: Madonna. She lives in Vegas, isn't that great? :D

3. What is the age of the oldest ever captive elephant? Is this older than the average wild age?

-- Given that this is the last one I had to search for (meh, saved the most boring one till last), I asked a friend. Apparently the the world's oldest elephant in captivity was 86. Good God, I'd rather be long dead. But yeah, here's a link to stuff about elephants anyway, the info is probably in there.

4. How would you define the word "glycomics"? In your own words, what does it really mean? What does the term "seagull manager" refer to?

-- According to the Griffith Uni (I know, right?) website, glycomics is a pretty fancy chemical way of talking about sugar, or other things that are sweet and stuff. The griffith site has a whole load of crap ranting on using words I couldn't dream of understanding, but from what I could gather, its a science, people run tests on it and there are apparently 9 common sugars. Fascinating. Truly fascinating. . . .

As for a "seagull manager", by using my own amazing brain skills I'd deduce (yeah, a smart word right there) that a seagull manager would be a dude who spends his time watching seagulls fly out to the ocean to die (The Simpsons is a rather educational show, you know.), but apparently they fail even more in life than I originally thought they did. Using the Urban Dictionary, a seagull manager is a boss who hovers around the office, steals the awesome ideas you come up with while shitting on everything else. Nice definition, guys.

5. What was David Cronenberg's most recent feature film? Which of his films had 'Blondie' in it?

-- This whacked-out fella's most recent film is "Spider" (2002) according to the gore-loving website debased. As for Blondie's feature, you can find it in the film "Videodrome" released back in 1983.

6. When was the original "Hackers" released?

-- According to the imbd website, Hackers was released back in 1995.

7. Why do phone numbers in Hollywood flicks start with a "555"?

-- Haha, now this one just goes to show how stupid some Yanks can be. Hollywood films use the numbers "555" at the beginning of their phone numbers so people don't call up their favourite film characters, like God from Bruce Almighty, or the GhostBusters. 'Coz yeah, movies are totally real and if you dial that number you really will find God on the other line! Jesus. Oh yeah, I found this out here.

8. What is the cheapest form of travel from the Gold Coast to Cairns?

-- Cheapest form of travel for sure would be to somehow fall in a toxic vat of waste (or Chemical "X" or something equally gross) and gain the ability to fly. Like Superman. Or be able to walk on water like ninjas and Jesus. But if you somehow can't find that, just knock out a kid on a bike and steal that.

9. What song was the top of the Oz Pop Charts this week in 1970?

-- Okay, so its a bit of an odd title, but by Creedence Clearwater Revival, the song top of the charts this week back in the 70's was "Around the Bend / Run Through the Jungle". This interesting little tidbit can be found on the australianmusichistory website.

10. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?

-- Not that I have any idea who this dude is, but Stephen Stockwell plays the keyboard and sings in the band "The Black Assassins". Oooohhh, creative title.

And yes, that was our 10 tasks (wow, T T again!!) for this tutorial, so I'm done for today.

x.

The Language Of The Screen.

Sounds like a truly fascinating title for this week's blog, huh?

But anyway, so for this weeks lecture/tute thingy we discussed screen terms (and some other stuff too...but the lecture was 8 in the morning, so I can't be asked to remember everything now), and so yeah, the task for the week to eventually earn me my passing grade is to explain some definitions--some truly thrilling stuff right?

VLS/WS: VLS/WS is a wide shot, which pretty much where something takes up the whole frame. And so here I have a traino.


LS: LS or "long shot" is a shot in which a large figure (like a human body) fits easily within the shot. And 'coz I'm all for dramatics I've got an example of some dudes on a trip somewhere in Jakarta.


MLS: MLS or "medium long shot" is a shot in which a largish object (the human body from the lower leg up) fits easily within the frame. But because I'm going for a more interesting theme here, I've got a hospital. With colours. Oh yeah.



MS: MS or "medium shot" in which a averageish sized thing (like the top half of a human) fits in the frame. And so here I have a loner in the dark.



MCU: MCU or "medium close up" is a shot halfway between a mid shot and a close up. This shot shows the face more clearly, without getting uncomfortably close. But here's a tranny.



CU: CU or naturally a "close up" is a shot where a small object (like a head) is zoomed in to fit in the frame. Here's a monkey. Isn't he adorable?


BCU: BCU or a "big close up" is a another zooming shot, where a smaller object is made larger. I like animals. So what.



ECU: ECU or "extreme close up" is a shot where a tiny object (again) is zoomed enough so that fits in the frame. So here I have some leggo men. Aren't they awesome?


So now for some references:

Our Traino: http://cyberaddict.deviantart.com/art/wide-platform-350333

Dudes in Jakarta: http://agie.deviantart.com/art/Four-Men-in-Long-Journey-28966257

The Hospital: http://hairyrob.deviantart.com/art/Hospital-Long-Lens-49252476

The Loner: http://PheebsYeahBaby.deviantart.com/art/Medium-Format-124263329

The Tranny: http://FRSickly.deviantart.com/art/D-Spoon-18-121394965

The Monkey: http://billyunderscorebwa.deviantart.com/art/Up-Close-and-Adorable-119511961

The Cat: http://ajuse.deviantart.com/art/the-close-up-61359424

The Leggos: http://Donny-B.deviantart.com/art/Group-Shot-01-113906725

And the rest: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/medium-closeup.html
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/wide-shot.html
http://www.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/filmterms.htm
http://ncowie.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/film-terminology-for-visual-texts/

And so I'm done. :)

Wk 2 -- Tute 2 : Convergence Baby~

Convergence. Like peanut butter and jam on a sandwich (for lack of any more creative ideas), according to the Princeton website, convergence simply put is “two or more things coming together”.

Technological Convergence, now, to get into the nitty-gritty (and boy don’t we love that? =D) is as said by the great wiseGEEK to be “the trend of technologies merging into new technologies that bring together a myriad of media”…though not quite in those words.

A great example of an awesome combination of two of my most favourite technologies coming together (it’s beautiful stuff, truly.) is the oddly fantastic (and drumrolls please~) and most assuredly useful (though not really.) internet fridge.



Now, by just taking a look at this wonderful piece of awesome, at a whopping $15,000, the internet fridge does what its name suggests: cools your booze and freezes your icecream all the while allowing you access to the wonderful thing that is the world wide web. ☺

Another example, a real fan favourite is the rather impressive iphone.


A combination of three devices in one, those of course being internet access and an ipod combined into a pretty stiffy mobile phone (the phone itself being device number three~), iphones have pretty much revolutionized the technological world, and like having a Chihuahua in your massive, oversized purse as a socialite, to be without an iphone … gosh, it’s complete social suicide!

Something that’s just a little odd now, laser scissors.


Want the perfect line but you’re just not capable of cutting straight? Look no further and get yourself a pair of laser scissors. ‘Coz sure, cutting in a straight line is so hard.

One more example (‘coz four is the required number after all~), we have the rather adorable climbing light.


Another oddity that pretty much explains itself: a cute ass little lightbulb that climbs a wall. Really, isn’t it cute? =D

Heeeerreeeee’s Barney:





So yeah, society has told us that sometimes it's okay to combine things to make one awesome piece of technology because hey, we're all lazy people.

Apparently . .

Blogs aren't dead?

That's news to me 'coz all it is these days is twitter, myspace and facebook--who needs to read about friends and randoms who are apparently "friends" spilling their guts about how much life sucks and how much of a scrag so and so is when all you have to do now is check a status and you can read it in 150 characters or less?

Sure, the internet's a great place to stalk a dude, but even then people don't want to read all the time. :)

Anyway, as part of assessment, this lovely little blog right here has been created to inform everyone who can be bothered to read this (I really am surprised you made it this far) about all the happenings taking place in the lectures and tutes of 1501HUM, and yeah, enjoy?

So to get us all started, this weeks lecture (yay!), was basically just going over the course outline and explaining which forms of communication are old and which are new and why that is and stuff. Pretty simple right?

Apparently (though this doesn't surprise me all that much) letters, phonecalls and tvs have been booted to replace the more awesome (oh, what would I do without you?) broadband internet and all the cute, wonderful things (myspace, facebook, IM and twitter) that come with it...not that I'm complaining. Really.

And so because everybody is all "social networking, yay!" we're actually becoming a lot less social and just that more stupid as sooner rather than later a "be right back" will be replaced with a "BRB" and we'll all lose the ability to spell.

But yeah, given my time is almost off I'm gonna cut my mini-rant off here, I'm hungry and I want some pretzels.

x.