Indoor Snow Angels!

Perhaps you happened to see it go down, but on December 1st, 2011 around 11:15 AM, I took part in a flash mob, and it was glourious.

The general theme was snow angels, so for around 2 minutes we all simultaneously dropped to the floor (indoors, mind you), and made snow angels to the music of "Let it Snow!" And despite the fact that there was no snow to make angels in, we all became one -- putting the unique values of performance into action.

First of all, no one ever expected that during their trip through the Student Union Building that they would see an entire room full of people making snow angels, but we gave them something unique to remember and brighten their day.

Also, the flash mob is interactive -- causing our entire class and their friends to join in for a mindless activity, and perhaps pointing out the monotony in our everyday life. I also noticed people walking by who thought it was so cool that they joined in! When people are confused it seems that they look to see what others are doing and copy it!

Looking back on the experience, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would love to do more! People make videos on YouTube and post things to Twitter, but we did something in the real world! We didn't just complain about our problems on our blog, and it was refreshing. We embodied a message as a group, and no one else can replicate what we did. Ever!

Also if you missed it, here's the video of it!

Turn off my cellphone?! But...

...how will I check the nearly endless amount of notifications ranging from pointless texts from friends to an update on how my high score is doing in Family Feud & Friends, a smartphone app that I'm addicted to?

I'll be the first to admit it. I'm addicted to my smartphone, but to be honest -- should I be blamed? I first got a cell phone when I was in middle school, and at first I didn't really care much for it. To me, it was only another way for my parents to keep tabs on me, but when I reached high school my family upgraded to iPhones... this was only the beginning.

If only life were like this.

Suddenly my phone was much more than just a clunky brick that could call mom and dad. It could surf the web, send e-mails, stream video, and play thousands of games! My parents also decided to purchase unlimited texting, which they said would allow the family to communicate better. Little did they know, that I would add every friend I knew who had texting, and spend hours sending my friends pointless texts every day. It's basically changed the way I go about socializing, and even to this day, has a huge impact on my day-to-day tasks.

So, when I heard that professor wanted me to put the phone down I kind of freaked. It made me remember the one day that the power went out at my house, and, without any way to charge my phone, my iPhone died. It was like I was suddenly blind -- how would anyone be able to get a hold of me? What if my friends wanted to hang out, and they thought I was ignoring their texts? How in the world was I to watch funny YouTube videos where someone auto-tuned "Charlie Bit Me?" Despite being wary of putting my phone down, I obliged -- in the name of Science.

Usually when I go to eat at the Cub Café on campus I go to a specific cashier to check out. It sounds lame, but it's like having the same waitress you're used to wait on you at a restaurant. You come to know them, or at least get to read their name tag. You have a name to a face, and suddenly it's like they're a friend of yours. So anyway, I digress. I decided to shut off my iPhone today and actually learn something about this cashier.

As usual, I got a breakfast sandwich from the Burger Studio, and walked over to the register. I smiled and she smiled back as I set down my tray to pull out my wallet.

"Hello, how are you?" I asked.

I think she was a little surprised that I asked her a question this time, and took a moment to think of something to say in response,

"Good, the break's almost here! So I can't complain," she replied -- taking my student ID card to swipe.

"I know, I got one last test to take before I can enjoy the vacation though," I said jokingly rolling my eyes.

She laughed and swiped my card through the register and asked,

"Meal and flex?"

"Bear bucks, please."

She pressed a button, and smiled before handing back my card,

"Good luck on that test!"

I grinned and stuffed the card back into my wallet,

"Thanks, take care!"

That was it. However it was a start to kicking my addiction, and who knows? Perhaps I'll start shutting off the phone more often!

I'm no follower.

You've all heard about it -- that's right. All of you. Especially, you... And when I say you, I mean the general audience of this blog. You know who you are. What am I talking about? Am I talking about hip-hop music? No. Trendy fashion trends? No. Political analysis of developing third world countries? Absolutely... NOT.

What I am talking about, of course, is Twitter.

How many tweets does it take to make a fail whale

?

I made an account today, and at first, I got mixed feelings. Let's start off with what I didn't like, because seriously I didn't like much about it. I know a ton of people who have accounts on Twitter, but honestly, I don't want to read their every 140-character thought when I log on. When I log on to Twitter, I log out of being interested in anything. What I want to see if something. Something witty, clever, and worthwhile. Now, I know what you're gonna' say.

"Rossin, why don't you subscribe to CNN. Or Johnny Depp? They have witty, clever, worthwhile tweets everyday!"

Now, if you weren't going to say that, I apologize for assuming. It will never happen again. Unless it does happen again -- I can't assume that it will or not (see what I did there?).

But, if I wanted to know what CNN was reporting about, or what Johnny Depp was thinking -- I'd look it up somewhere else! There is literally MORE than Twitter. Lots more. The internet is vast.

P.S. I liked the color scheme. Kudos Twitter.

I'm a hypocrite.

"Should we have privacy on the Internet?"

It seems like a simple question, right? A common response would be: "Yes! For God's sake, I don't want everyone to know what I'm searching!" However there's much more to this argument than what meets the eye--perhaps I should elaborate...

Even LOLCats need a little privacy.

A lot of people have a Facebook account (according to Zuckerberg over 800 million people have one), but it seems that there's a lot of buzz around privacy these days. Now people have to worry that whatever they choose to post on Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, could be viewed and shared by potential employers and even family for that matter. Not only that, but Facebook can now sell your information that you choose to share like your age, relationship status, and interests in movies & music. However, this brings me to my first point.

Mark Zuckerberg has all the right to sell this information. He's offering a free service, which you've chosen to use! Advertising brings in some revenue, but the real prize is in selling demographic information that businesses can use to hone in and reach their market. Truthfully, I don't mind that his company does this, but then again there's always a line.

Danah Boyd, an expert on new media, coined the acronym PEI (Personal Embarrassing Information), which is play on the well-known acronym PII (Personal Identifiable Information). It points out that maybe there's a difference between personal information that identifies us and personal information that is just plain embarrassing and private. Perhaps Facebook should be able to sell PII, but not PEI. Though it makes you wonder, where's the line?! Honestly, I don't think there is a line so I just follow a simple practice -- don't upload/post anything you don't want being used! It's easy, and saves you a possible headache down the road.

No one will ever understand it.

And I know that some of you are going to say, "Hey, Ross -- what if my friends upload something that I have no control over and it's about me?" I think a better question is: "Do you really want a Facebook then?" You're accepting all of the baggage that social networking carries when you have an account, and trust me -- Facebook's got a lot of baggage.

And I thought one life was enough!

So, get this. A few nights ago I downloaded the online MUD (multi-user domain) game, called "Second Life." Let's just say, it was quite the experience.

First off, I should let you know that, believe it or not, I'm a nerd. There's nothing more that I love than to jump on an online gaming platform like Xbox Live and take down some noobs (Colloquial term in nerd-speak: noob: (n.) shortened version of newbie; someone who is a novice or inexperienced). I'm also a heavy player of Minecraft, which if you've never heard of it please watch this video...

You would think that all of this would lead to me loving Second Life, but it was actually quite the opposite. Let's break down my impression to three easy to digest points:

1. What first irked me was that fact that it killed my bandwidth. It slowed my computer down to a snail's pace and simple tasks like opening my internet browser were now made cumbersome. And let's just point out that even though it hogged up all of my processing power, it delivered less than impressive graphics.
2. Glitchy! All that I wanted to do was customize my avatar to at least resemble myself, and that was impossible. I eventually gave up my futile attempts and picked a pre-made avatar that was already avaliable.
3. The whole format of the HUD (heads-up display) was confusing and complex. I'm believer in clean lines and minimalism when it comes to displaying information while I'm playing a game, and Second Life was quite the opposite. Clunky and littered with hundreds of buttons that would overwhelm any new user like myself!

*Shutters*

Though it would seem that there's a point to take home about my experience. It was interesting to see how people interacted online versus face-to-face! Truth be told, if I hadn't met most of the people I saw on Second Life before in class, I would have very different image of them. Avatars allow users to idealize their image and explore fashion that they wouldn't try out in the real world. Those funky boots that they've always wanted to try wearing are now OK online!

It's fascinating to ponder where technology will take us, and how it'll change the way we view the social experience. Perhaps one day the term, "real world" will mean something quite different than it does now!

Millions of dollars down the tube.

So, how would you react if you were told a big chunk of your taxes went into a program that was proven to fail. According to The New York Times, schools across the entire world have been investing millions of dollars into technology for the classroom. Though after review, the additional technology did not affect scores in any of the standardized tests. I find this quite humorous.

Even Pac-Man gets Facebook stalked.

I attended a high school with a one-to-one program putting a MacBook laptop to the hands of every student. Though, from my experience, this only gave kids a better way to check their Facebook, play online games, and cheat on tests. Very rarely was the laptop used as an educational tool, but definitely helped their high score on Pac-Man. It also brought many legal headaches for the school district--one of which being the famous case of the "Kutztown 13,"where students discovered the administrative password for the laptops and were eventually accused on committing "Computer trespass," a 3rd degree felony in PA (which was dropped in court).

Though, come on everyone. There's always two sides to every story, and technology isn't always a negative in education. I thoroughly use the resources providing from the internet to expand my views and attain a broader understanding of the world. If you have a question, the Internet has the answer -- though it may not be the one you want.

See, technology can be very intellectually stimulating.

The world has now been tied together and can communicate instantaneously within itself thanks to technology, and, in the case of education, has opened the door for students to a plethora of information otherwise unreachable. eBooks are now allowing students to carry an encyclopedia's worth of information in a thin and light-weight pad -- and a fraction of the cost too.

If you haven't guessed yet, I have a utopian view of technology.

I speak two languages, and HTML ain't one of them.

So, this threw me for a loop. I thought I knew something about coding in HTML, but apparently this is quite the contrary. Back in those horribly-adolescent years of junior high I taught myself a little bit of HTML here and there, and took it upon myself to build up a novice website. The coding was a joke, but it was fun to learn something that was out of the ordinary.

I tried to code again recently, and everything seemed fine at first -- however that was before I tried loading it through my web browser...

Error! Error!

All I got was a jumbled mess of back-slashes and a weird bit of code that wasn't even written in my .HTM file! No matter how hard I tried, and how many browsers I tried it on, I kept getting the same error. Trust me, I nearly slammed my head through the wall trying to make sense of the whole fiasco.


I eventually conceded defeat, and threw my laptop closed. I would live to fight another day.

For those of you that want to see the HTML monster, I'm sorry but it's an utter embarrassment -- something best left in the dark bowels of the Internet. If anything this little run-in has taught me a valuable lesson:  

If you want something done right, get others to code it.

I is so easy to insert.

I'm perfectly happy here in the walled gardens of Blogger.com where all I have to do is click a user-friendly button that inserts a pretty picture. Not a single headache here, and I even get pre-made templates to make my blog look legitimate.

It's awful to say, but I surely won't miss coding in HTML.

Google has been wiretapping?!

It's true. Google is now undergoing a federal lawsuit claiming that the company has violated the wiretap act, but hold the presses. There's much more to this story than what meets the eye, and before I commit appropriation I should clarify. [Commencing clarification protocol...]

Try picking up your date in this...

You've probably all seen or heard about Google's StreetView maps where you can actually click on a street and see a 360º view as if you were standing on the sidewalk. Though it makes you wonder how they get these pictures -- enter the most absurd-looking car ever! Google has these automobiles drive around streets across the US and snap pictures. Creepy right? Supposedly while they were collecting pictures they also were scanning for open Wi-fi signals to map out their "Wi-Fi Geo-Location" service. A new way to help users locate the closest open wireless network, though it turns out that they collected more than just that...

According to Google, the packet-sniffing software they were using also collected data about passwords, e-mails, and information about what users were downloading. They say it was just a "mistaken bit of code" that grabbed more data than expected. Google also argued that this was information anyone could collect if they had this type of software -- I don't know about you, but packet-sniffing software isn't in my Applications folder.

The judge agreed with me.

 Google is the new 'stalker kitteh.'

It makes you wonder about how far technology is reaching though. Sure, we love the newest apps on our smart phones that tell us where the closest place to dine out is, but this gadgetry comes with a price! Now companies are becoming even more evasive to find out more about the average user. What we buy. What we search. And now it would seem that they're even interested about our personal wireless networks! Where do we draw the line? That's not just a rhetorical question, it's the newest poll on my sidebar -- check it out and post your vote! Power to the people.

P.S. Happy 13th Birthday, Google!

A picture that defines me?

Hmm, so let me set this one up before I begin to ramble, because as you may have noticed, I tend to do this on a keyboard.

My fear.

My professor asked me to post a picture online that best defined me, and to tell the truth, it has been eating away at me since the project was assigned. It seemed so simple at first. All she needed was a picture, but then I started to think... What if it's stupid? What if she looks at it and thinks, "This is what he picked?" and shows everyone on campus? What if, she makes a giant billboard of it and hangs it outside my apartment?! By then I was scouring the web for something clever and witty, and no matter how many pictures I saved I ended up "trashing" them all.

I leaped onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow -- defeated. My roommate walked by my door and leaned his head in asking me what my problem was. Muffled by the pillow I managed to explain my dire situation. While he sipped his coffee he nonchalantly replied,

"Just write down everything you like and pick the best one."

Capital idea! I shooed him off, and began to pencil down a laundry list of things I liked. Everything from film making to drawing, and even string cheese made it onto my list (...my favorite snack, don't judge). I then began the painstaking process of crossing off the ones that didn't think make the cut until I was left with one word. Ladies and gentlemen, the word was: comics.

And if you ask anyone, hands down, my favorite comic is 'Scott Pilgrim.' It is the holiest of comics in my mind, and still makes me 'LOL' when I read it. So, I chose this page out of this priceless relic to define me.

I was going to actually post it here, but thought it was best to hyperlink as I did above. The dynamic style it's drawn in, the nerdy humor, everything about it makes me smile. The character "Scott Pilgrim" expresses my online persona to the letter -- a quirky kid who's not afraid to be the nerd he is! Hence, my blog.

I also enjoy drawing, and if you're lucky maybe I'll post some of it... including my self-portrait done in the 'Scott Pilgrim' style. Cheers!

Anthropomorphize... More than just a word to fail spelling bee contestants.

We all find ourselves committing this -- anthropomorphism -- though few of us even realize how often. Now you may already be confused so let me set up a hypothetical for you. You're driving in your car to work or class when suddenly you realize that the gas gauge is nearly running on "E." You rub the dashboard to comfort your ailing automobile telling it,

"Come on baby, you're almost there. Just a few more miles."

Voilà, Anthropomorphism! Taking an inanimate object and reacting to it as though it has human qualities. Here's another example: You're trying to write your blog post for a class at the last minute, and just when you reach the last sentence, the computer FREEZES! In sudden horror, you smack the computer upside the CPU and shout,

"No! Come on -- don't do this to me! We almost made it!"

We like to have a relationship with things like computers, televisions, and automobiles because they react as if they were human. As an article titled Reeves & Nass points out, we tend to personalize these objects because they respond back to us. You push the gas pedal and the car reacts by moving faster. We type out a sentence on the keyboard and the computer reflects what we typed. It's a game of input and output, and if you look at the concept of a conversation to another human-being, it's the same game.

"Cybernetics?" Why am I eating dinner with this guy?

There's a name for this system of inputs and outputs -- cybernetics. Sounds fancy, but believe me. It's quite a simple concept that can closely tie into anthropomorphism. It looks at technology (mechanical or electrical) and maps it out as a machine that takes what you put in and gives you something back. Now that you have a definition feel free to use it at dinner. You're sure to impress everyone with your expert jargon... (I wish sarcasm came across better over the Internet.)

Another point made in the article is that human-beings automatically respond to these things as real, because for nearly 200,000 years Homo sapiens have been taught to separate objects based on how they respond to our presence. If your iPod, iTunes, or Pandora radio account plays music generated around your own taste then we as humans believe, for a split second, that it must KNOW us. Creepy as that may sound, but we like it. We like the thought that our world is personalized especially for us -- As Reeves & Nass puts it so eloquently, "we like special treatment."

However there is one thing we must note. We can't always respond to a computer as a human being. It has become commonplace that people can say whatever they want on the Internet because of anonymity, but we have to observe and display "computer politeness." The Internet is as much of an social experience as going out into the public and communicating with people face-to-face, and I think people forget that sometimes. There's etiquette to follow: "Hello's," "Goodbyes," "Thank-you's." Be a proper gentleman and lady when you're surfing the web and posting your thoughts for everyone to see.

So, without further adieu, I bid you all farewell. Heed my words, and use the tools given to us with care. Adios!

If I had the chance to go to Mars, would I?

Since I feel it's unfair to ask questions without supplying your own response, here is my thoughts on today's poll.

At first, it seems like an easy question--right? Who hasn't ever wanted to go to space? As a child, you look up at the moon and think: "It would be awesome to walk there!" But then I got to thinking. The moon is one thing, but Mars? That's like, hundreds of thousands of miles further into space (See Figure A).

Fig. A

Sure, it'd be a thrill of a lifetime, but perhaps I'm best Earth-bound. If a silly thing like a roller-coaster freaks me out, then who's to say that when we're on our outward trip to Mars that we don't run into a major failure? I'd crumble under the pressure I'm sure, and jeopardize the entire mission. Why should I ruin our chances of landing there, and solving scientific mysteries that could revolutionize the way we perceive space as we know it.

That would be unfair to the kind people of Earth. And truth be told, I don't want my name spread across any future history textbooks labeled as:

"THAT KID WHO RUINED EXPEDITION MARS"

Not good press.