Wikipedia Experiment

I attended Cherry Creek High School. For my edit I went to my high schools wikipedia page and added myself to the list successful individuals who have graduated from Creek. I wonder how long it will take for them to take this off.

GigaPan ("Hybrid" Art)

  http://www.gigapan.org/

             Hybrid art is a contemporary art movement in which artist work with frontier areas of science and emerging technologies. During my numerous art classes my understanding of hybrid art was the process of combining two different mediums to create one piece of art. I learned about the traditional forms of hybrid art but in the 21^st century technology has presented itself in art. Technology has transformed they way we view and explore art. Artist now undertake research projects, view results in a new way, and use these results to evaluate the social implications. Today’s artists are free to make art with whatever material or technique they can imagine. This freedom creates new opportunities to express ideas and concepts. It also opens up a number of challenges, choices, and decisions for artists

            The GigaPan is a piece of art that can only live on the computer. It cannot be displayed in a museum or over the mantel. To appreciate the beauty and creativity of the GigaPan you must see and interact with it online. This breaking edge technology of photograph mixed with the controls of the computer form to generate the largest projection of the world.

            First we need to fully understand the concept of the GigaPan. GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan will help bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. They believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's worlds can be a transforming experience.

            GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gig pixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gig pixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gig pixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas.

            The Gigapan process engages with the user in four steps. First you can search and explore all the panoramas that are available on the site. Exploring the scenes that others have posted and discovering what they found. The second step is to start creating your own content for the site. You will be included into the community of GigaPan. The third step is to create your own Gigapan creation. There are special GigaPan robotic cameras but apparently the use of a high-quality digital camera will do. The process is really taking hundreds of pictures and stitching them together to create one large image. The last step is to share your creation.

            While exploring the site I found one very interesting GigaPan. Created by Davis Bergman is a large photo of President Obama’s Inaugural Address. Bergman photo description is “I made this Gigapan image from the north press platform during President Obama's inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2009. It's made up of 220 images and the final image size is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 mega pixels.” This amazing picture gets more interesting when you and able to zoom in on any area of the picture and get a clear picture of the President speaking. You can zoom in and out of the picture and explore the details of the scene. Each artist can select a few zoomed in images that they would like the view to investigate. In this example, there is a picture of a man taking a picture of the president, or a picture of a man that looks like a version of Frankinstein. The pictures can entertain the viewer for hours, but also allows the viewer to discover the world though the GigaPan.

            All in all, the GigaPan is current example of hybrid art. These interesting picture allow the viewer to play with the image and see all the pieces of the art up close. The GigaPan truly allows the viewer and artist to explore the world and see the things that aren’t possible with the human eye or without the tool of the Internet.

Hacker, Crackers, and Open Source (Presentation)

The Hackers Work Ethic 

Summary:

• “The hacker finds programming intrinsically interesting, exiting, and joyous.”
• “Hackers program because programming challenges are intrinsic interest to them. Problems related to programming arouse curiosity in the hacker and make him eager to learn more.” 
• Hacker Life-style: “Hackers can do almost anything and be a hacker. You can be a hacker carpenter. It’s not necessarilty high tech. I think it has to do with craftsmanship and caring about what you’re doing.” 
• “Flesh-life”: Outside of their jobs they continue their joyfulness
• Example: riding naked on horseback 
• People once believed that technological advances would somehow make our lives less work centered. But in reality “work is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the nucleus of people’s life.” 
• Before the protestant ethics: 
• The answer to the purpose of life was Sunday
• Viewed work as punishment
• Believed that in Hell you had to complete useless work
• Protestant ethics: " It is an obligation which the individual is supposed to feel and does feel towards the content of his professional activity, no matter whether it appears on the surface as a utilization of his personal powers, or only of his material possessions.”
• Turned work into a blessing not a punishment
• Himenan believes that the hackers work ethics resembles more pre-protestant work ethic "hackers want to realize their passions, and they are ready to accept that the pursuit even of interesting tasks may not always be unmitigated bliss."
• Hackers realize that all of the job might not be joyful but it is necessary. Even though its not all perfect hacking is still their passion.  

May The Source Be With You

Summary:

• “We live in a world with ‘free’ content, and this freedom is not an imperfection.” Listening to music, watching movies, and telling jokes all without the permission of the directors.
• Monopolies are copyrighting for the sake of their own interest and not for the good of society. “Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good-for society, and not just for a monopoly holders.” 
•  Lawrence Lessig’s believes that dated codes should be free to the public. While the public is able to freely view other sources it is illegally to access source codes.
• The Open Source Movement is comprised of individuals who believe that software should be produced altruistically. Is approach to software development allows anyone to obtain and modify open source codes. 
• Lessig is proposing that Congress creates an incentive for companies to donate their codes to conservancy, so that others can use the outdated codes to produce an updated version.
• “The consequence of this enclosure is a stifling of creativity and innovation.”  

Discussion

• Is using material created by other producers considered theft? 
• Do you agree with Lessig and the Open Source Movement?
• If hackers didn’t exist do you think that technology would be as advanced as it is today?

Websites that Change the Way We Communicate

Perez Hilton

Website:

http://perezhilton.com/

JStor:

http://content.ebscohost.com/pdf9/pdf/2008/SPH/01Sep08/34392078.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=34392078&S=R&D=ufh&EbscoContent=dGJyMNXb4kSep7E4zdnyOLCmr0iep7VSsqq4Sq6WxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGutk6uqbFQuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA

New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/fashion/29perez.html

Four Square:

Website:

http://foursquare.com/

New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/technology/internet/19foursquare.html

Myspace:

Website:

http://www.myspace.com/

Business Week:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_50/b3963001.htm

Mad Men illusion

my 1st post...

Even though this blog is an assignment for my Digital Media class I have been secretly looking for an excuse to get a blog. I'm excited to see the other ways in which this class will expand my media boundaries. As a newly admitted advertising student, I feel a little behind the curve with my media knowledge. I am hopeless when it comes to computers and I only know the basics so hopefully my lack of computer knowledge will not put me behind. I want to come out of this class being able to understand media and how it effects us now and in the future. Well I off to bed, better get my sleep for some Digital Media in the morning!