Tutorial task week 9

-This is the e-petition that I signed. I signed it because I love animals, and I don't want them to be hurt, even though they're dingoes.

- I responded to Blitzer's blog: Clinton on economy, GOP candidates on CNN.com. http://situationroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/20/blitzers-blog-clinton-on-economy-gop-candidates/?hpt=sr_mid, viewed 20 September 2011.

- Barack Obama is delivering a statement announcing his Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction, in the Rose Garden of the White House.

Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/19/president-obama-washington-has-live-within-its-means, viewed 20 September 2011.
I chose to reach Barack Obama through his twitter account.

- Clean Feed:
The Australian government wants to make the internet a safer place. They made a promise called Cyber-Safety, known as Clean Feed, that is a national internet filter. They legally mandate Internet Service Providers such as Optus, Telstra and iiNet to implement technical means to filter out certain websites. They will focus on sites containing images of child abuse, and especially child pornography.

I found this in a text file while searching for clean feed australia on google.






- My belief is that you should have as little censorship as possible in a democracy. I've been raised to make up my own opinons and to hear all sides of a story before I make up my mind. Censorship can put a stop to the freedom of speech. In a democracy the public sphere is extremly important, and everyone should be heard without any limits. With that said, I also believe that it's imporant to censor the statements and content that crosses certain lines. I don't think you should hurt someones reputation if you don't have any particulary good reasons for it. You should treat everyone with equal respect and not say anything that defames anyone. The censorship in a democracy should almost be non-existent, so as many as possible can speak and be heard in the public sphere.

- The NBN will reach my place in the second release.

I found these benefits on the NBN site:
Better business solutions
Transforming the way Australians can do business by: • Increasing productivity and reducing the time wasted
waiting for information to be downloaded.
• Providing better workplace flexibility – greater opportunity to work from home with fast, efficient access to information.
• Opening new and distant markets through high-speed interaction with customers.
• Lowering work expenses – instead of work-related travel, broadband offers reliable, real-time alternatives, such as web-conferencing.
• Offering superfast access to market information. From financial markets to agribusiness, the network will allow you to access superfast information to enhance your business performance.
A better education for a brighter future
Helping Australia be a global leader in 21st century educational innovation by:
• Improving the ability of our schools to access information, collaborate and communicate with each other.
• Supporting new learning and teaching practices, such as virtual classrooms, video and audio streaming and high definition video conferencing.
• Preparing students for future education, training and life in an increasingly digital world.
• Providing teachers, parents and schools with rapid access to data.
improved medical technology
Assisting the medical community in a variety of ways by:
• Narrowing the medical gap between urban and rural
Australians and expanding access to care through the use of telemedicine for clinical care programs.
• Improving the quality of care for Australians by linking patients and practitioners to top specialists through real-time internet consultations.
• Bringing more care into the home through remote monitoring.
• Addressing current health shortages through internet- based care that connects doctors to communities where medical resources are in short supply.

Endless entertainment
Allowing you to watch, listen to or play what you want, when you want. Download an album in seconds and a movie in minutes. Spend less time waiting and more time enjoying.
The NBN aims to enable speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second to 90 per cent of Australian premises and up to 12 Megabits per second to the remaining 10 per cent. These speeds are of course dependent on factors such as the retail package you choose from your retail service provider and your chosen hardware and premises connection.
Source:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/our-network/maps.html, viewed 19 September 2011.

Then go to this link to se the benefits:

- Since I'm not from Australia I don't know anything about Australian politics or who's representing which part of an area. I'm from Norway and there we have something called "kommunevalg" where we choose our local representatives that decides everything within a certain area. My area is called Frogn and the local representative is Rita Hirsum Lystad. The federal representative is Jens Stoltenberg, our primeminister. They are both from the same party, but that is just an coincidence.

- I live in Surfers Paradise and the local representative in the Queensland Parliament is John-Paul Langbroek.The last time he spoke in the parliament was Thursday, 8 September 2011.
I figured that out by searching for Langbroek + parliament here:

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/global/search/, viewed 19 September 2011.

- I sent Langbroek an e-mail.

I chose to not say anything about the actual content since I don't know any background information, and can't really say my opinion about anything. But I though I would give him an encouraging mail to make him happy. He seemed like a good politican and I wanted to give him my support.

I found his e-mail here:

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/current/list/bio?member=Langbroek+John-Paul

Essay preparation

Essay plan:

I have chosen essay topic nr. 2: Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people. What are the most recent papers? Clarify what both sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based.

I will start the essay with an introduction about how many young people who play video games in today's society, if I can find the right statistics. I will then tell a little about when and why the concerns occured. (100-150 words)
In paragraph two I will present one side of the case, those who believe that it has an negative effect. I will present the different arguments I find most interesting and realistic. (250-350 words)

In the third paragraph I will present the arguments to those who do not think video games are damaging. (250-350 words)

In my conclusion I will compare the two sides, and at last present my opinion based on my research. (150-200 words)

Expanding on the lecture - Week 8

Free software is based on an ideology that everyone can use, share, modify, study and improve software. It’s based on the belief that we should share our knowledge with each other and everyone should be able to contribute. If you use proprietary software you are denied these freedoms, and you will be punished with a fine or jail time if you break the license agreement. You can even be punished if you copy the program to another computer in your own home.

The reason why free software is important to all computer users is that everyone should have the opportunity to live in a free society where we can help each other and contribute to improve the life quality of others. Everyone should have the chance to be able to do what they want with what possess, without being restricted by someone who doesn’t believe in the benefits of collaborates. If the possibility to improve the software is limited to the employers of a corporation, you will miss out of other contributors that may have something better to add. Why should you pay a lot of money for software with rules and limits, when you can freely use software any way you want without paying a fortune? It’s just a basic question about the liberties in life, and that you should be aware of all the available options before you settle down with something just because it’s more famous.

Resources:
Lee, M 2011, What is free software and why is it so important for society?, Free Software Foundation, viewed 16 September 2011, <http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software>

GNU, The Free Software Definition 2011, viewed 16 September 2011, <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>

Tutorial task week 8 - Audio-visual production

We finally finished our audio-visual production product. We edited it in Imovie, and downloaded a song from jamendo.com that we found on jamendo.com through Creative Commons. The editing went really well, and it turned out exactly as we pictured it would be. The reason why we put the song on was that the chat part on Facebook would be boring to watch without music, and we thought the music gave the movie a nice ending.

We used old-movie-effect on the first scene, and slow motion effect on the last scene. That worked out really well and we thought it improved the film. When we found out that we wanted to add music we searched the music we found on CC, and tried to found a happy song. We had to listed to a few songs, but it didn't take much time before we found the one we used.

We created our own youtube-account, and it was really easy and quick to just upload it on youtube.com. We own the rights to the movie since we produced it all by our selves, but we do not own the rights to the song we used. Since we are not using it for commercial purposes and we achknowlegded the artist of the song in both the video and in the description on youtube, we can not be accused for copyright infringments.

We chose to use the names Romeo and Juliet to let the viewers easily understand that the movie was about two lovers when we didn't have any sound. We don't think that can cause copyright infringements, since we didn't intend to steal the names and to copy the famous story. By obtaining a license from Creative Commons, we are able to “share, reuse and remix their material, legally” (Creative Commons Australia).

NCT - Romeo and Juliet.mov by Nillie, Catherine, Helga is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.

Based on a work at techknowworld.tumblr.com



Here is our final product:


Created by: Nilushi Warusevitane, Cathrine Tallulah Magelie Smith and Helga Woll Lunder.
Music: So Happy- Bert Jerrad. Taken from jamendo.com.

Source:
Creative Commons Australia, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence, viewed on 20 September 2011, <http://creativecommons.org.au/about>

Expanding on the lecture - week 7

In the lecture we talked about how the internet has developed citizen journalism, and how everyone can be a journalist these days. If you are present to an important event you have the possibility to report the information, pictures, sounds, movies you obtain. You can either post this on e.g. your blog, Twitter, Facebook or send it to a real media channel. Because of citizen journalism people hear and see the latest news often while it happens or straight afterwards. Even though this is a positive development, the issue if citizen journalism is the end of traditional journalism has occurred.

Bentley, C H (2011 p. 103) claims that citizen journalism is no more a replacement for professional journalism than teabags are a replacement for water. Both can stand comfortably alone, but when combined they produce something quite wonderful. I could not agree more. I think citizen journalism and traditional journalism help and complete each other, and will not obliterate one another. Citizen journalists are not trying to steal someone’s job, they just want the world to see what they have to say or show about a specific theme, a recent experience or just an ignored issue. The professional journalist on the other hand seeks information about an issue and has heaps of new resources because of citizen journalists. I’ve learned that sharing is caring.

Resource:
Bentley, C H 2011, Citizen journalism: Back to the future, Geopolitics, History and International Relations, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 103-118, viewed on 8 September 2011, via ProQuest Database, http://search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/docview/887545817.

Tutorial task week 7 - making video

In tutorial week 7 we filmed all our scenes for our movie. We made up our own story and shot the scenes ourselves so we would not have any copyright problems. We filmed with my Canon digital camera. In the first scene we used the color effect sepia to get an older look. Then we used normal black and white in the second scene, and regular colors in the last scene. I think that worked great, and was a clever way to seperate the scenes. When we filmed the Facebook-chat we had to use Word to get the names right and to get the chat big enough.

The most difficult part was to figure out how we should organise the scenes to get out the message that we wanted. It was particulary hard when we shot the scenes without sound. We shot the scenes we were uncertain about several times and tried out different things like angel, situation etc. so we could pick the best outcome.

It was really hard to figure out so many scenes and lines in that short amount of time, but at least we got finished and are ready to edit the movie next tutorial. When we were supposed to upload the films from my  camera we ran into some troubles. My wire did not fit my camera, and neither the school computer or Cathrine's computer had a memory card access. I just have to upload the film to my computer, and bring them on a USB-stick to the next tutorial where we will edit the movie in imovie.

Expanding on the lecture week 6

Hollywood and film making has always changed and adapted when new technology has occurred. Now internet is the newest threat with pirate download and free online-streaming. The internet differences itself from the other technologies because it’s impossible to control since it’s so interactive and suddenly everyone can become a salesman or a buyer. Downloading will possibly kill Hollywood eventually, if the movie industry doesn’t turn the tables and create new opportunities for themselves.

As the authors of “The changing digital content landscape: An evaluation of e-business model development in European online news and music” says, young people has grown up with the opportunity to download everything, and are not willing to pay a lot of money for something they can get for free. The authors ask: “Why not encourage these users to start accessing paid content?” (Swatman, Krueger & van der Beek 2006). As we discussed in class a lot of people would download movies from the internet for a certain amount of money if they were guaranteed great quality. If there was a website that everyone could easily access and the download went quickly, I definitely think people would use it instead. It often takes a huge effort to search the internet to find the right movie, in the right quality, from the right site, and you often feel a lot better when you know your download is legal.
Hollywood and the film industry has the possibility to create a new business, it just seems like they need someone to show them the way.

Resource:
Swatman, P, Krueger, C & van der Beek, K 2006, The changing digital content landscape: An evaluation of e-business model development in European online news and music, Internet Research, vol. 16, no. 2, pp 53-80, viewed 31 August 2011, via ProQuest Database, <http://search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/pqrl/docview/219843713/13185191FE2102DC2E5/11?accountid=14543>

Week 6 - tutorial task: Make a movie

My group is Cathrine, Nillie and me. We decided to make a movie that shows the timeline for movie development. We will start with a clip of an image/video in black and white without sound, and probably use an old-movie-effect aswell.

Our story begins with a boy, writing a letter for a girl he likes, asking her to meet him. The letter gets blown away by the wind, and the girl never gets the letter.

The next scene is in black and white, with sound. The girl tries to call the boy, but there is a bad connection. The call gets interrupted.

The last scene is with sound and color. The two persons are now logged on facebook. They talk to each other at the facebook chat, and finally manage to meet up, thanks to new communication technology.

We decided to record the video with my compact digital camera. It's really easy to record the video and just add it to the computer trough a wire or by inserting the memory card. We will use Imovie to edit the movie, since that's an easy program to use with the effects we need. 

Expanding on the lecture week 5

In the lecture we got introduced to the paradigm in motion. The paradigm consists of three acts. During the lecture we were supposed to focus on the first act when we were shown the beginning of the movie “Rubber”. The first act should answer the three questions: who the lead character is, what the movie is about and where the movie is set.
The first thing we see is that the movie is set in a deserted place. It takes some time, but we then get to know the lead character, a tire. At first we get sympathy for the tire because it seems weak and unstable and is all alone in the desert. The tire off course cannot speak, so we only get our impression of its personality out of its actions. As is says in Exploring the Meaning of Movies, dramatic action is not so much as what is said, but what is not said… By reading between the lines or watching the actions of a character, we are able to understand their point of view.

That is what the movie is about: Understanding the life of the tire and make up our opinions by its actions and behavior. Even though the tire is all alone, it meets different obstacles on its way, and how the tire responds to these elements makes the plot. The tire early discovers that it has the ability to destroy the things on its way. The tire learn that it can blast bigger and bigger things, and we get the feeling that it gets better self-esteem as his explosion objects increase. With the lack of anyone else being in on the tire’s level, its life gets meaning from destroying things.

A plot point is defined in Syd Field's Paradigm Worksheet as: any incident, episode or event that hooks into the action and spins it around into another direction. I believe that the first plot point is when the tire kills the rabbit. This is the first time it kills something that was actually alive and the music that gets played and the happiness it shows afterwards underline that this is a turning point in the movie. If the tire can kill something living and be satisfied afterwards, it’s capable to do a lot of damage. It gets a whole new personality and seems a lot scarier than before.

Resources:

Syd Field - the paradigm worksheet, viewed August 25 2011, http://www.sydfield.com/featured_theparadigmworksheet.htm.

Exploring the Meaning of Movies, viewed August 25 2011, http://www.theclapperboard.com/view_posting.php?posting_id=129.

Tutorial task, week 2

An interesting and useful application I found was called "How to make powerful connections through social media": http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/01/how-to-make-powerful-connections.html
I think this link can be educational and useful to everyone that uses the web. Almost everyone I know have a facebook- and twitter-account, and we spend so much time online that we can at least to something useful with our sparetime. Twitter is especially good when it comes to making connections and to keep up with what's happening around us.