MT Census Inforgraphic

I found this picture:

And added this:

FACEBOOK and Other Machines

When I read the Begos article about Facebook users banned from certain pages, it reminded me of several issues I've had with Facebook in the past.

Last year, my roommate began a Facebook page titled: "Nobody likes Seth Grossman" it was self-explanatory and was an instant hit among my friends or people I assumed were my friends. After they had their laughs, I reported the group to Facebook as a form of harassment. It was a simple checked box and nothing more yet Facebook took the threat seriously, removed the group ad issued a warning to my roommate. A few months later my roommate posted an unflattering picture of me on his profile. Once again, I untagged myself and reported the picture. This time Facebook banned my roommate from the site for a week. I found it shocking that he was actually banned for sarcastic harassment and was curious as to what level of sarcastic harassment would get him banned. The sadness of the whole situation is that even if an actual predator on Facebook is banned permanently, Facebook can't stop that person from making another profile.

I bring this story up for two reasons. One, Facebook can't keep up with it's users intentions and their responses tend to be a form of overkill or complete ignorance. Two, anonymity and dishonesty are rampant through Facebook as evidenced by my roommate's fake fan page. As writers, we should be more aware of the author and not just take their status on face value alone. Anyone can post a pretty picture of a seemingly friendly person. Flash forward six months later and that pretty person is commenting on your profile pic. Flash forward another six months and that pretty person is stating facts about tanning on their status that you later quote to your friends. Little do you know that pretty person is just a fictional character generating pro-tanning propaganda for HIS job. I say 'his' because it's almost always a guy flirting with you via email. Trust me.

In the Bunz article, the question, "Should it be made transparent if a text is written by a human or an algorithm?" is a no-brainer. If we can't distinguish human writing from computer writing, we have FAILED as a society. Mad Libs is funny because it's disjointed and very unhuman-like. I'd like to think that audiences prefer and recognize 'soulful writing', if you will. The example that the article gave was a sports synopsis. It sounded so generic that the information given seemed worthless. If the content is drivel then the author, or in this case the algorithm, has failed.

I sincerely hope writing can never be perfected into a formula....

P.S.

Here's a skit from Chappelle's Show regarding the internet. It's almost 10 years old, but still relevant as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U7HztvetQk

Porter Article

The Kent State example in Porter's piece really spoke to me. It irritates the hell out of me when American deaths are emphasized in Middle Eastern terrorist bombings or, just the other day, when a veteran was injured in the Occupy Oakland riots, the media made a big fuss about it. I think American and veteran affairs are important, but in those situations they are trees in a forest of issues. Porter explains the choice of words in the Kent State article as a product of a discourse between writers and readers. In other words, the New York Times journalist chose to emphasize women's deaths because those are the types of details the majority of the readers are looking for. Apparently, I don't fit in to the mainstream discourse community, but that of the Onion and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

I say that, and yet I wonder if there is a sizable portion of silent readers that have no discernible influence on the media. You could call them the "apathetic silent majority" or something. There seems to be people really immersed into the "fox news discourse" and the "generic left wing discourse", but there still seems to be a lot of people that enjoy neither. Where are the writers for these readers? Are neutral news outlets non-existent because neutral readers wouldn't buy newspapers anyway? Is that why the Daily Show and the Onion are only popular in free formats on the internet and late hours of the night?

Assignment 2

I visited this small mountain village in Chefchaouen, Morocco last spring. The town had some of the most beautiful blue-dyed buildings that I had ever seen. In this picture, I messed with the hues a bit and added the phrase, "What color will you choose when you pick up your brush?" as kind of a choose-your-own-adventure theme. Hope you guys like it.

Computer Simulation, So What?

Wolf's computer simulation article was published in 1999 and although it summarizes computer imaging and simulation, I don't truly see the relevance. Maybe, I didn't take a long enough look at the article, but I honestly don't see how a simulation will ever trump the real. For example, video game creators can make the most realistic Call of Duty ever in the history of video games and yet anyone with half a brain will realize its not the same thing as real life. Not even close. Now many simulations are more advanced than Call of Duty, but any of those simulations will be taken with a grain of salt.

I just didn't get it.

My Research Project

For the past week, I was up in the air on what I should do my project on. Nothing seemed to excite me, so I thought about what my personal interests were. I enjoy sports quite a bit and there are days when I wonder if I should have majored in journalism to become a sports writer. But then I thought back to what we have been reading in class and how the world of writing in the digital age is a new frontier on several fronts.

For one thing, I don't even get my sports fix from the newspaper. I go to ESPN.com and Grantland.com, both of which are sports analysis sites. Grantland is a site that was created this past June by a popular ESPN writer, Bill Simmons. I am a fan of Simmons' columns and podcasts that approach sports in a very anecdotal way.

Grantland is staffed by professional writers as well as some of Simmons' friends with far less sports writing experience. The main reason they are writers on the site is because they replicate Simmons' style of writing in unique ways. Of those with less experience, one writer has a weekly NFL column called the 'Bad Quarterback League' (BQBL). It highlights stats of the NFL similar to traditional fantasy football, only it highlights the players with the worst stats of the week.

At the end of last week's column, the writer posted an OPEN INVITATION for readers to submit comments or analysis of their own:

Write To Us/For Us

We are so distraught/excited about the end of Tebow Watch that we have decided to replace it with BQBL reader e-mails. Send your thoughts/reactions/analysis/insults/curses toTriangle@grantland.com and we’ll publish some in next week’s scorecard.

For my project I plan to submit entries until I get them published. I also intend to create a multimedia form of analysis that will be entertaining enough for the Grantland editors to publish as well. My question is: How can a writer replicate the voice of an already established writer and yet create a unique idea that is publishable alongside the original writer?

This is an ambitious project, but I believe I can document the process, refer to the readings, and tie it into one large mindf**k that will make you jealous for not coming up with it.

Attennn-SHUN

There are several things I'm addicted to in life: competition, mountains, lakes, cheese, girls, and sports. For the sake of brevity, I'll focus on my addiction to sports. The major sports conglomerate, ESPN, has me addicted in almost every media mode imaginable. I watch their cable news channel to get the latest highlights and commentary. I listen to their podcasts in my car and on long runs via Ipod to get even more analysis. And if that wasn't enough, I check ESPN.com for any potential gap left in sports knowledge.

Some of you may be asking: "What if you wanted to check ESPN on your smart phone?" Don't worry! ESPN mobile customizes webpages for smaller phone screens. They have me connected via every port and sensory my body can take.

No other sports channel/company/network can match ESPN. That's why it's my drug of choice. I've even been to the ESPN zone which is a sports bar/arcade/man cave. ESPN has coined the phrase 'Gameday' as part of their coverage of college football on Saturdays. The network has a traveling bus that goes to various college campuses and students refer to the anchors coming to their campus as, 'gameday is coming'. And people that watch college football understand this phrase.

That is the type of 'blanket coverage' that can grasp the attention of a short-attention-spanned audience. It's a method of finding potential sensory gaps and filling them as full and as quickly as possible.