Memes

In the last couple of years there has been a growing trend to take a picture of someone on the internet and Photoshop it so that the words on the picture seem to be an idea of the person portrayed.  The trend grew to include several viral videos that people now call memes.  To the best of my knowledge the whole phenomenon began with planking which is when you lay on your face like a board in so situation and have your friends take a picture so you can put it up on Facebook.  It grew to be a pandemic to the point that the national news outlets would talk about planking.  It turned to rick rolling like the video above shows someone being rick rolled.  Memes then became several different things and lately we have seen the rise of Tebowing, Bradying, Flaccoing and Te'oing, not to mention the Harlem Shake, several prank videos and all other forms of memes.  The memes do show some connection to the person that made them though.  The creator made something that they thought to be funny and sent it out to be shared with the world.  And really isn't that what the internet is for at this point.

iDisorders

Dr Larry Rosen was a very interesting person as were the ideas that he brought along with him for his talk last night.  The thought of my use of technology being a predictor for various emotional and personality disorders to be a fascinating concept.  I understand how posts on Facebook could reveal things like depression but to actually see that Facebook use can be a predictor for depression and a myriad of other things is shocking.  The basic concept is that Facebook use can be seen to be a good predictor for these disorders.  The idea is interesting in the fact that media that almost everyone uses almost everyday can be seen as a way to predict several psychological disorders so its possible that all these disorders are on the rise in society but a more interesting way to see it is that society is shifting more toward a society that would make it more out of place to not have these disorders.  This wasn't an idea that was covered in Dr Rosen's lecture but in my thoughts between then and now I have thought about this possibility and find it to be a crazy idea that we could become a mad, mad, mad world.

The Facebook Experience

For the past few years, I have had a Facebook profile.  This profile has allowed my to connect with my friends via the chat function on the site.  A profile that has let me keep up with my high school classmates.  This ability to keep up with those people is what really attracted me to the site and inspired me to create a profile.
The major problem with my Facebook profile is that every time I log on my news feed is filled with people just complaining about how their day went so wrong and how their life is so bad.  This is the part of Facebook that annoys me to no end.  I am by no means a public person and prefer to keep my emotions inside instead of taking to the internet to vent all my frustrations.  This is what really puts me off with Facebook but at the same time is nice to know that at any time when life is too frustrating that I can just let it out on Facebook.  That's the best part of the Facebook Experience.

Google Glasses

The Google Glasses Project is an idea brought forward by Google to have basically a Google-powered computer as your glasses and instead of having a computer screen that you look at when you get home you have a screen that you see through and take with you everywhere that you go.  The idea being that the technology is moving in a way that the personal computer is obsolete, and so is the iPad and everything else and that we are moving toward these newer, more mobile versions of computers that you talk to in order to complete all your tasks.  This is an idea that Steve Jobs might have had of the future where people walk around with this computer on their face that tells them everything that they need to know about the world around them.  I think that we are still years away from a perfect model for the end goal of the project but it has shown to be something that Google seems to think is worth pursuing.  Even if not fully prepared to be released to the public there have been demonstrations given at Google events as recently as last year at their Google I/O event.

I do think that Google Glasses can be a great idea for the right reasons in the hands of a responsible individual but at the same time I also feel that this could be a big step backwards for everyone as it could completely remove the organic community aspect from modern life.  A person using Facebook and other social media sites have created a community that they can control and have basically removed the organic community that surrounds them until they are forced to interact with these people, but with Google Glasses a person could remove even that inconvenience from their life and make it so they never are part of the organic community that they belong to.  

Ten Things We Know To Be True

In observance of #1, you can see a very therapeutic approach to religion.  Oprah Winfrey and her guest for her life class can be heard to have a similar view to religion.  The view of it's all about the user is somewhat flipped from the view we see in the clip above, but the idea is there that if you focus on the individual first then you can work from there to make the peripheral matters happen effectively.  In this way the individual doesn't get burned out or bogged down from all the crap in the world around them.  In this kind of system it is not about how people can influence me, instead that notion is flipped on its head and can be seen as how can I influence others.  I know the idea is always to be how can I affect others but most of the time it plays out that we run ourselves ragged trying to keep up with others and we even fail at that and wind up flat on our faces without much prospect for happiness.  I like this idea of everything is there to serve you in this world of  rushing to get everywhere at once and it's nice to see that there is something out there that is focused so much on you, the user.  In fact if you wanted to you can see the first thing on the list can be seen as a complement to this idea of putting the self first in this world of technology.  It's a service that puts the user in charge and makes sure that the user comes first.  This idea gets lost on a lot of people, just like the meaning behind that song by Midnight Oil.

Apple iPad

I will say that I'm not an Apple person in the slightest, but I have to admit that using the iPad the other day was very surprising.  I hadn't expected to find the iPad that personal or easy to use but I do have to admit that the ease of using the iPad coupled with the personalization that you can have with an iPad was very surprising to me.  I will also say that the design of it makes you want to just scoop it up off the table or desk or whatever before you bolt off to class or wherever.  It makes it simple to understand how it has been outselling the iPhone ever since it was released, as it is easy to use and just the aesthetic of it makes you want   to hold it.  The iPad seems to be something simple enough that anyone could use, and when combined with the vast personalization options that you get it makes a great deal of sense that the iPad is so popular.  I have to admit that when I heard we were going to be looking at the iPad in class this week I was kind of bored by it, just in a way that we get to use bad technology, but I have to say that personally I was blown away by it.  You can do anything to make it uniquely you, there are even apps to help you make the shelves on the home screen the way you want.  I was amazed by the ease of use and responsiveness of it was a nice surprise.  I have to say that at first I was just bored with it but I have to say that the iPad has really caught my fancy and is quite the machine.

iPad and Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs saw the iPhone as a big step forward for Apple but he wanted more, a lot more.  He wanted to create a device that could replace the personal computer, a device he helped create and revolutionize, and instead put in place one of these. iPad keynote speech He wanted to create a device that could do several tasks better than a laptop could and as you can see he had some mighty high goals to reach if he wanted a better device to browse the internet with or compose an email than a laptop.  He wanted a device that could play music better than the iPhone.  These are high goals for the iPad to try to live up to.  As far as working with ebooks and as a video player it hits the mark 100%, because you don't have all those programs going on that can interrupt your video while you watch it and as an ereader nothing beats being able to touch the screen and turn the page yourself.  The belief that you can replace a laptop with an iPad falls short in reality, because the touch screen that makes a great ereader makes it difficult to type on the virtual keyboard and you must proof read constantly.  The idea is hard to contend with though as Apple sold several iPads and have gone on to release two more iterations thus far.