Assignment 7

I started off making the image smaller and then played with the saturation. I dropped the reds down, increased the blue, and then put the master saturation up high.

I duplicated the image, blurred the top and then erased over myself with a low hardness to create the emphasis.


Dropped the image size down, duplicated the layer, desaturated the image and then went through with the eraser. My hardenss was low on the shirt and 100% on the eyes. The eyes didn't turn out like I wanted but it needed more color than just the red shirt.

Reading 4: The Virtual Lives

As someone who's never taken the dive into second life I find the entire idea absurd. Here I read about people meeting in virtual coffee shops, having virtual conversations, going to virtual parties and I can help but as myself the obvious question. Why?

Why not physically leave your house, meet at physical coffee shops, have physical conversation and go physically to parties?

It's too simple to merely dismiss it that way. There are people that spend their time (and money) investing in this virtual world. I guess the appeal of an alternate (second?) life could be a draw, to be anyone, to go anywhere, to do anything.

But that immediately brings back, because when push comes to shove you weren't anyone, you went nowhere and did nothing.

I find it interesting in the first article that the Author concludes by talking about logging off and eating dinner with his wife. He could have left it at the virtual cocktail party, typed a period, and closed his laptop, but he chose to add an extra paragraph about returning to the real world, cooking dinner and spending the evening with the woman he loves.

No second life could, or should, ever take the place of your first.

With anonymity comes the moral hazard. The author of the second article talks about the surreality of his surroundings, going to strip clubs, and on more than one occasion having to turn his avatar's virtual eyes away.

The virtual world, in my opinion, incorporates most of the bad and none of the good of real life. There are no smells, tastes, or sensations other than what can be stimulated by sight and sound, transmitted through miles of wire in Ones and Zeros.

I think I'll stay in the real world.

Assignment 6

Reading 3: Nobody Knows You're a Dog

I've been reading a lot of articles lately that talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of internet communication. On one hand the internet has the ability to bring like minds together from the far reaches treat topics of interest. On the other, people seem to check their manners at the door when they enter into a conversation saying things that they would never dare, nor probably want to, say to a persons face.

Leaving aside the elephant in the room issue of internet predators masquerading about online and other morality-issue problems, there is a breakdown of human communication when online, nobody really knows that you're a dog.

The slightest dissagrement in the blogosphere will unleash a hailstorm of insults and profanity that would never be said in actual conversation. Neighborhood watch PTA member mothers of three will curse heritage and class when their opinion on the latest installment of the Twilight series clashes with another user's.

Then of course there is the complete fabrication of identity. People who create a persona for the mere entertainment of living the virtual world in someone else's shoes.

"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

In my opinion, on the internet EVERYONE is a dog.

Reading 2: Google, Tug-of-war and Branding

In the "tug-of-war" article the writers make particular note of Edward E. Whitacre's comments about the internet companies "bull___." I tend to agree with him.

While his tact may have been off he makes a good point. For years the internet companies have been benefitting from the phone line labor and maintenance, putting the burden of speed on them and usurping their bandwidth.

Immediately when you talk about charging the internet companies there is a public uproar. Charging them means charging us. I'm a poor college student and I love things being as cheap as possible, but I can't ignore the fact that the phone companies are being run up the wall

As for the article about developing a brand image; I agree that with the ease of internet information there is a growing trend of individualism, but mostly in the area of opinion writing and maybe features. I only notice the by-line of maybe one-tenth of the news articles I read.

Reading 1:Ettiquete

While the writers for "Netiquette" were more colorful in their presentation, both sites essentially said the golden rule: treat others how you would want to be treated.
Emailreplies.com offered more detailed information-recalls, cc's and Bcc's, font and text formating etc.-but essentially e-mail etiquette comes down to common sense. Be polite, be professional, and be considerate.

One point that Netiquette brought up is that e-mail and internet correspondence is becoming increasingly impersonal. Networkers are too used to dealing with lit screens instead of human faces, and using BTW's and LOL's instead of English. Our vernacular is actually changing to incorporate internet slang into daily speech, which I find disgusting.

I do dissagree with emailreplies recomendation of leaving the conversation thread. Obviously there are some cases where you would want the conversation history, but for the most part e-mail programs, gmail for example, thread the conversation automatically; leaving past correspondence in the body of the text only serves to clutter up the space and sometimes bury the information. A good subject line should serve to remind what the content is about, instead of 40 lines of past-sent typeface.

Moral of the story, check what you're writing, check who you're sending it to, and try to be as informative and brief as possible.