Have You Ever Been This Addicted to Your Computer?
I love my computer. I love playing games on it. I love surfing the internet. I use my laptop more than I prefer to admit. However, these people seem to have serious computer addictions (click photo to view full web page).
These photos show extreme cases of addiction, like using a laptop while on the toilet, but we all know people who act this way. People have gotten so used to using technology that we tend to use it more than necessary. My mother likes to use her cell phone to access Facebook while she’s driving. Although funny, these images show how social media can be dangerous and addictive.
The goal for many social media sites seem to be the same. Sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit are all for sharing information, images, and videos about whatever you want to. However, if you’re somebody who uses several different social networks, you’ll notice that they are not at all the same.
This image accurately compares social media sites to the high school stereotypes. In the past, I have used Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, Formspring, Facebook, Reddit, Wikipedia, Tumblr (obviously), and StumbleUpon. As a person who had a Myspace account, and then switched to using Facebook as my main social media site, I could tell a difference in the content that I see on both of these sites. Instagram and Flickr are both used primarily for sharing photographs, but people on Instagram are “liked” and “followed” for amateur pictures of sunflowers in a meadow, while people on Flickr only receive comments if their photographs have been carefully planned out, practiced, and
I stumbled upon PES’ YouTube channel over a year ago, while there were only a few videos uploaded. PES is an independent film maker who typically makes short, silly stop motion films from everyday objects found around the house. Since then, he has been noticed by many people and has even done a few videos for companies like CoinStar and Bacardi.
This is one of his most recent videos. It’s short and quirky, about a man making guacamole, and using abstract objects like a grenade as a guacamole and a baseball as an onion.
The sound effects also really add to the artistic value of the film, since there is no background music, only diegetic sounds like squishing, crumpling, and cutting sounds that you would hear if you were making guacamole yourself.
PES’ videos are always impressive, between using unusual objects and getting a clear, fluid video even though it is all done in stop motion. I recommend looking at other videos on his YouTube channel if you enjoy small film projects.
Most sequels are produced two to four years after a video game is released. However, this one took a full twelve years to develop and release. Diablo 3 is an online action/role-playing game set in a fantasy world, full of angels and demons. I actually have a friend who had taken two days of vacation time from work to play Diablo when the game came out. He was so excited, and had purchased piles of potato chips and grape soda in preparation for the release of the long-awaited game… Only to find out that the servers had crashed.
Many players received the dread Error 37, telling them that the game’s servers were too busy to run properly, and they could play at a later time. But for people who had been waiting twelve years, being told to wait even longer was horribly frustrating. Beyond wasting time, people who purchased Diablo 3 feel that they wasted their money as well. Diablo 3 sales broke records for PC sales - selling over 3.5 million units in under 24 hours.
Dubstep is probably the biggest fad in music that I’ve noticed in a long time. At first, it’s loud, annoying, and makes no sense. There’s no message in the song, it’s mostly just a mess of bangs, drops, and wubwubwubs. A lot of my friends listen to dubstep, though, and I’ve gotten used to it and even enjoy some songs. This video shows kids listening to a song by the most well-known dubstep artist, Skrillex, and their reactions to this “strange music”.
It was interesting to see what children think about it. One kid described the song Bangarang as “robot music”. A few kids did enjoy the song, and said made them feel crazy and excited but others prefer traditional songs. “I think he should be more like Elton John”, was how one boy reacted.
Let me start out by saying this; I hate fan-made videos.
Most fan-made films are low budget, short, unimpressive, and lead to an overall feeling that I’ve wasted my time after I’ve finished them. But this video is absolutely brilliant.
It is a seven minute film based on a favorite game of mine, Portal, and follows a woman who wakes up in a dark, concrete room with no memory of how she got there. The woman spends days locked in the room, eating, sleeping, and trying to find her way out, until she discovers the iconic portal gun. The woman manages to escape the mysterious enclosure, only to find that the entire scene was a test and she is still trapped.
As a person who has played and loved Portal, I feel that the setting perfectly represents the setting of Portal. The background music (which was created by the same man who wrote the score for Inception, Mike Zarin) really enhances the mood of the film. Portal: No Escape is probably the closest to an official Portal film as there will be, however, if this video were extended and turned into a full-length film, it would be absolutely brilliant.
The greatest thing about the media is the way it shares information. My mom always tells me how when she was a kid, she had to wait for the Weather Man to come on TV to find out if school was cancelled or not, and how I have it so easy. I can just look it up on my school’s website in the mornings (although that rarely happens in Germany).
It seems that different types of media focus on different topics, though. Sure, you can find TV programs, magazines, and websites all about the same thing, but it feels like some topics are discussed more on one than another. This article explains just that, but in better words.
Blogs, which tend to be operated by a single person or small group, tend to lean on political problems. According to New Media Index, the most popular and most visited blog stories were about controversial political topics: abortion, health care, gay rights, sexual education, and terrorism.
Newspapers, on the other hand, like to lean more towards economics. They sell stories about the economy, the Haiti earthquake, Toyota recall, and President Obama.
Meanwhile, on the popular social networking site, Twitter, the top stories revolve around gay rights (that seems to be present in all three of these, actually) and new technology, like iPods, new softwares, Toyota, and Twitter itself.
The media likes to cater to the most popular audience enjoying it, so it seems fitting that different media forms talk about different topics. Twitter is mainly used by teens and young adults, who would be more interested in the exclusive iPhone 4S than they would about the stock market, a topic that would be important to a much older generation. This allows the whole media business to accomplish their goal: informing people while making money.
22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, 2 ladders, and 288,000 jelly beans. Two hundred and eighty-eight thousand jelly beans were used to make this music video.
Kina Grannis is a YouTube-born star. I remember finding her when she wasn’t popular (she had a couple hundred video views, but nothing special), although now she has over 450,000 YouTube subscribers. In today’s current society, it’s not unusual for a celebrity to originate from the ‘net, but what is unusual is Kina’s attitude towards her celebrity status. When offered a record label, she declined. She wanted to perform her own songs, instead of following a record company’s guidelines. Despite her rejection, she’s producing her own songs and making money via iTunes and her fans.
This is one of her most recent hits, Into Your Arms.
I think one of the reasons Kina Grannis rose to fame so quickly is her individuality. It’s a quality that a lot of current celebrities lack. Ms. Grannis is proof that, contrary to popular belief, a music video doesn’t need to have half-naked, promiscuous dancing and close contact to be a hit. A little dedication and originality does the trick.
I once read a book titled, “How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World”. The book focused on leading a classy, elegant lifestyle in a less-than-glamorous society full of smoking, sexting, and sleeping around. Although promiscuity has been around for years and years, it seems that with the rise of technology, people’s attitudes towards sex have changed.
This article centers on a young woman of 24 years, who claims to have slept with over 40 men she found on the Internet. She said it was to boost her self esteem and that it was easy to find people on the web.
The article also discusses a survey done by the University of Plymouth about young adults, the Internet, and sexual relations. Over 850 people between 16 - 24 years old participated. The results were honestly shocking.
One in 10 people said they had met somebody online for sex.50% said they’ve had online sex using a webcam. Only two-thirds of the people who had webcam sex actually knew the person they were showing their body to!
Of course, it makes sense. If a person is looking for a quick, easy, no-strings-attached lay, it’s easy to find willing partners online, rather than out in town. But there is also the issue of pregnancy, diseases, and risky infections that comes with anonymous sex. Sometimes, the meet up can go from ‘harmless, casual sex’ to very violent assaults, and even murder. Articles like these remind - not just young, but a variety of ages - that the Internet can be a very dangerous place.
Unlike most people, I actually watched this movie trailer after seeing the movie. My mother originally introduced me to this movie three years ago, and it is, to this day, the most brilliant film I’ve ever seen. I was obsessed with it, researching reviews on Amazon, fan-made sites, and looking up the trailers and clips on YouTube. I just had to see more.
The trailer for Hard Candy is almost as brilliant as the movie. It does everything a good trailer should do; it introduces believable characters, establishes the genre of the film, and makes the viewer want to see more.
The initial scene (which is also the first scene in the movie) is of two people chatting about hooking up, which builds up some tension. What is really shocking, though, is when the characters are actually introduced… And the nearly 20 year age difference between them. Jeff appears to be an attractive, studious man, as he enters the room sporting glasses, a business suit, and grown out stubble. Haley, on the other hand, is just a teenager. Short, skinny, and conservatively-dressed, she doesn’t appear to be the provocative type. They soon go back to Jeff’s house, and the real problems begin.
From the blood red of Haley’s hoodie (perhaps alluding to the Little Red Riding Hood?) to the deep, dramatic background music and heavy breathing, the trailer has clearly established that the film will be a thriller.
“This is officially sick.”
Ellen Page’s words have a haunting tone to them, and the rest of the trailer is show in brief flashes. The original predator, Jeff is seen tied to a chair, screaming, “Please, I’m begging you, let me go!”, running through his apartment, and being chased by Haley. In some flashes, a gun, knives, and the words, “Shoot myself” can be seen. The quick-paced action of the trailer is appealing as it leads audience to ask the same question Jeff does: “Who are you?”.
