How has media changed the way we view our friends and peers?

The fact is that media has changed the way we view people in general.  Whether or not it has changed in a beneficial way has been a highly debated topic for several years.  The truth is that social networking sites are double edged swords.  They have many benefits such as maintaining long distance relationships with relative ease.  A good friend of mine is currently in Australia and I am able to see how she is doing and what's new in her life at her convenience.  I can leave her a message if I want to start a conversation with her or leave a "note" for her to see when she has free time.  This type of access to another person's life can be overwhelming though.  Some people may become insecure with their life because someone else is having a great time and you are not doing much at this point in your life.  Others feel that it is necessary to post every intimate detail of their life because they believe that their "friends" will consider them boring or uninteresting.  Still others are afraid that if you post something on these sites that the world will monitor and judge you.  Those people need to know that while it is true people can see everything you post, they can only see what you post.  My best piece of advice to people who feel that way is to post only stuff that you want the world to see and in addition use the security features on these sites to grant only the people you choose permission to view it.  And remember it is not required by law that you belong to a social networking site. 

   How has social networking altered your ways of interacting and engaging with others?

I quite enjoy how it has altered my ways of interacting and engaging with others.  As mentioned above it helps me to connect with friends who are traveling the world, and I can see what my friends are doing at a glance without having to pay anything or engage in small talk.  Now, don't think of me as a "Facebook stalker" I do talk with my friends and yes, believe it or not, I have friends.  I just prefer to talk to people face to face.  Many times, I will just send out a massive note to all of my friends that I want to arrange a get-together.  Social networking sites make it infinitely easier to arrange these types of events.  I use Facebook as an information tool, nothing more.  To be honest, I don't understand how people can spend their lives updating their Facebook.  Tracy Davidson from NBC 10 in Philadelphia investigated this in the news clip below.

eing an engineer I have had few classes where I researched artwork.  I never really considered artists I admire, in fact, it took me a while to come up anything at all.  Finally, it hit me.

 I loved these guys back when the original Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft were all they had to their name.  It wasn't just the game play though, the artwork behind it was amazing.  I remember when I bought Diablo, the artwork in the manual alone was amazing.  They really have some skilled artists and designers at this firm.  Atari, Bioware, EA, ID, THQ all have great games with excellent artwork but blizzard has always far surpassed them.  The websites this company generates are always one step ahead of the time, using the latest in web design technology.   These websites were what initially inspired me to get into web design.

When you saw the blizzard entertainment logo, it is likely you all most immediately thought of World of Warcraft.  Personally, I never cared much for the game and wish they would focus on the better two games, but that is for another post.  There are actually three main titles, Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft, that Blizzard is trying to develop for those of you who could care less about video games.  I wanted to talk about their websites as that is what we are here to learn about.  These websites are so far beyond the scope of this course it is ridiculous and when I tried to view the source code for Starcraft this was all I got.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="layout/frontpage.xsl"?>

<page lang="en_us" region="US">

  <frontpage/>

</page>

First look at the three websites and look around.  Check out the links, look at the header artwork, the background, etc.. The pictures below lead to the respective websites

Though my least favorite of the three as far as game play is concerned, the site for WoW it is my favorite website.  Let alone how cool the dragon looks, the fact that they animated fire coming from the building and a fiery breath for it enhances the graphic immensely.  Then comes the jagged melted iron menu bar.  Each widget is linked, pardon the pun, to each other by a iron chain.  This was most likely a result of the game Warcraft, the game WoW is based on.  The menu in the game is a series of planks connected by links which would lower with each new menu set.  Blizzard has always been very ingenuitive with their menus, be it for the web or a video game.

The last thing I would like to comment on is Blizzard's persistent attention to detail.  A lot of times you can miss something at first glance.  Take the main site for example, A picture of a Terran Soldier is the main foreground image.  You may not notice it at first but there is a reflection of his helmet's heads up display on his chin.  If you look more closely you will notice that not only is it just shimmering but it is looping a readout sequence.  Look closer still and you will notice the beams of light are reflecting off the condensing water vapor coming from his suit.  I would like to mention one final detail, as I have missed it several times and would not want you to.  On the Starcraft site, the footer image looks like an inside image of a battle cruiser's bridge.  Now, keeping your eye on the window, slowly scroll the page and you will see that the view shifts as if the ship is moving.  I love going on these websites just to play with the links and admire the website's design.  Keep looking and you will always find something you missed the last time.

Update 7-22: The starcraft website has changed! It just goes to show you how much work that Blizzard's web design team puts into their sites.  The old website, and by old I mean a month or two, has been completely redesigned.  In light of recent events you can ignore the part about the moving bridge, that was on the old site, and therefore, no longer exists.  Apologies if you missed it, enjoy the new starcraft site.

Hey, don't forget to check out their artwork!

What does it mean to be a creative cultural producer?

            So what does it mean to be a creative cultural producer? Well, starting with the obvious it is someone who creates creative culture, but what is creative culture?  The answer is all around you.  You see it on your screen as you read this.  It's on the bottle of Deer Park on my desk as I am writing this.  Every time you see a billboard when you are driving, when you turn on your radio, when you look at your phone you are looking at creative culture.  It is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior focused around visual and auditory stimuli.  Creative culture producers are what we are learning to become by taking this class. 

What is visual culture? 

Visual culture is the complement to audio/music culture.  Think of it this way, this is a member of the Red Swastika society.  This was a Buddhist/Daoist volunteer organization similar to that of the red cross. It ran poorhouses and soup kitchens, as well as modern hospitals and other relief works.  In his culture he was depicted as a charitable man who volunteered his time to help those in need.  Imagine seeing him walking down the street today, if he wore this in our culture.  Our knowledge of Nazi Germany's atrocious behavior scared this symbol and led to  the belief that the swastika is a sign of genocide and global conquest.   This may be an extreme example, but it proves my point that even a simple geometric shape can conjure up different emotions based on the culture in which it is viewed.

What are some of artistic designer's roles/responsibilities in a digital media culture?

            An artistic designer, be it for a magazine, website, or even a manufacturing company has a responsibility to communicate information about their products in a way that addresses the culture of potential clients.  Consider this, there are two ways to make banana pudding, you can chill it in the fridge or bake it.  However, the recipe on the back of the Vanilla Wafers box for banana pudding features a baked recipe for the dessert.  This is because in the culture of the American south banana pudding is baked and in the north people are used to chilling the dessert.  It is the same concept of people in the west calling pop while here in Philadelphia we call it a soda.  Anyway, Nabisco, the manufactures of Vanilla Wafers, noted that the majority of Vanilla Wafers were sold to consumers in the south so a recipe conforming to their culture was chosen to be put on the box.  It is the designer who must make the label appealing to the intended audience so they will buy Vanilla Wafers and not Teddy Grams.

I found a clip of Alton Brown's Good Eats that tells a bit more of the history behind what I was just explaining about the Vanilla Wafers box.

(I know it gets a little corney but the history is accurate)

 What's your take on contemporary art and design media practice?

Design media practice is invaluable even to engineers like me.  Employees of every profession are being expected to present information in creative ways.  If you think about it, 10-15 years ago PowerPoint presentations were rare, appearing mostly in business meetings and created by designers dedicated to making PowerPoints.  Companies soon grew tired of paying extra just to make creative presentations.  It changed how they hired people.   People who knew how to make effective presentations were preferred to people who didn't.  Today, it is just as important; honing your media design skills through practice will lead to more effective communication of your ideas which is imperative in the industrial world.

  As for contemporary art, I have mixed feelings.  In my first post, I included a quote of my favorite artist M.C. Escher which I feel best sums up my feelings for contemporary art.

  "To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed by the concept of 'art'. What one person considers to be 'art' is often not 'art' to another. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly' are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art."

Technology has played a large part in the development of authoring and publishing.  Since the first book, The diamond sutra, was written c. 808 AD.  This was printed with wood blocks on paper; a long way from our high speed newspaper printing presses.  It wasn't until 1440 until the next major breakthrough in printing technology occurred, when Johann Gutenberg invented "movable type".  Then, in 1796, Lithography was developed and used mainly for theatrical works.

 The first "high speed" printer was created for the UNIVAC computer in 1953; though it wasn't until 1969 that laser printing was developed and used with personal computers.  So, why the history lesson on printers?  It reinforces my point that the ease of publishing and authoring is based on the ease of printing your material.  Before wood block printing everything had to be written out by hand, leaving only the precious few educated in script to copy down what they saw fit to copy.  Through the centuries, all that was necessary to publish your work was a manuscript and a few pieces of silver.  By the late twentieth century, all you needed was a personal computer and a printer and you could print 100 pages of the digits of pi in a matter of minutes. 

Now you can author and publish anything you wish and people anywhere on the globe can read it the second you post it on the web.  In the future there will be more compact and versatile devices allowing anyone to post anything from anywhere in the world in an instant.

For more information on how printing changed the ease of publishing material, check out the Wikipedia page on The History of Printing and the significant publishing achievements timeline.

Like all of you I had to make a faux website and I think mine turned out pretty cool.  I tried to make it like a real company website.  Also i choose Light Sabres because well first, I am a nerd but secondly, this item in general has a lot of material available which would allow me the best chance of recreating the atmosphere i needed to present this futuristic website. enjoy!

Happy 4th of July!  I know its two days past but I wasn't about to do any work on our country's birthday, let alone on a Sunday.  I hope everyone had a fun time on the fourth and got to shoot off some pyrotechnics of their own.  I went to see a fireworks display in, Cherry Hill, a town near where my mom lives.  I shot a few pictures of fireworks while lying on the baseball field of the local high school.  It is surprisingly difficult to take a good picture of an explosion in the sky.  I have embedded my favorite one in this post.

Last fall I went on a camping trip with a bunch of my friends, there were about 10 of us.  We hiked the 27 mile Old Logger's Trail in Oil Creek, PA.  A satellite image of Pennsylvania, with Oil Creek's location marked, is provided above.

A select few of us decided to jump in a small stream near our campsite at 6:00AM.  It was hard enough waking up at 6AM let alone jumping in the ice cold mountain run off.  In the picture shown I am the one climbing down the rock and my friend Ben is the tense looking one next to my girlfriend, Molly.

One of the advantages of hiking up the mountains in State College are the vistas or look out points you encounter.  Above is a panoramic shot of one overlooking State College.  If you look carefully, you can see some familiar land marks.  If you have never been to state college the Bryce Jordan center and Beaver stadium are near the center of the picture.

I spent a few hours searching the internet for blogs that really caught my eye.  I got a bunch of sites in five categories I am interested in: Chemical Engineering, photography, music, bass guitar, and computers.  from the pile of web pages I read a few of the posts, checked out the author, and narrowed it down to one from each category.  Check out my top 5 blogs.

1. Chemical Engineering World

  http://chem-eng.blogspot.com/

As mentioned in my introduction I am a fifth year chemical engineer.  I chose this blog because it tracks the life of a chemical engineer.  His posts are not strictly vacuum pumps and butterfly valves though, sometimes he posts stuff about neat, new green technology.  (seen at the bottom of the screen clipping) It is a shame though, that he doesn't reread his posts to check for simple grammatical errors.

2. Dave Fry's Picture of the Day

 http://picture-of-the-day.com/

Photography is rapidly becoming one of my favorite hobbies.  I found this blog neat because it not only has pretty cool pictures but they are from an amateur.  Dave, the author, just takes pictures and posts one on his blog each day.  They also talks about it a bit and includes the settings he used to get the desired effect.  The Blog is very well done, I honestly cannot think of anything to suggest for this blog.  See for your self!

3. Foo Fighters News

  http://www.foofighters.com/us/news

Foo Fighters is my favorite band.  This is the news tab on their website but is maintained like a blog and is by definition a blog.  This is where I get upcoming concert information and other neat tidbits about the band.  I like the format of the blog, however, it seems too commercialized.  I understand though, this band is constantly recording new material and playing concerts.

4. Jason Heath's double bass

http://doublebassblog.org/

I am not a classically trained bassist, in fact I am not a trained bassist at all.  However, over the years I have gotten pretty good just playing my electric Fender jazz bass.  This blog is written by a double bass, the big orchestra bass, player and though his instrument is radically different from mine, it is still neat to read his stories.  I bit of advice for Jason, place the sponsors/advertisements on the left side and the navigational widgets on the right, as they get lost in the cloud of ads.

5. Tom's Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/review/

I will be the first one to admit I am a computer geek, I love messing around with computers.  I built two and have a touch screen laptop.  When it is time to upgrade to the latest and greatest technology I go to this blog to see if it's worth the green.  Though unorthodox, this is a blog by definition.  They have multiple experienced reviewers writing multiple blogs making it easy to find the blog you need on the site.  Not all the time, but sometimes, the links provided lead to a dead end.  The site is just so massive, I suggest hiring some more people to maintain the site.

Okay, let's start with something funny to help us forget were are taking summer classes.

Next is something I find unreal and memorizing at the same time

--Video links check--

Picture one is a picture I took during a thunderstorm . . . love Thunderstorms.

Picture two is a prime example of nature being the purest form of art

(the tree is called  aloe bainesii)

Picture three is a picture of my girlfriend bouldering at a gym we like to go to in Mechanicsburg.

--Picture links check, check, and check--

I never know what to say for these introductions.  Some of the best creative minds I have ever known have said " just start writing and it will come to you".  Sometimes I find myself gazing into my blinking cursor with nothing written on the screen.  The truth is I'm a 5th year chemical engineer, who has somehow been stricken with this overwhelming desire to create.  I love music, photography, writing and drawing.  I live right outside of Philadelphia, PA but definitely wish I lived there.  I am a self taught bassist and love to play Chili peppers, Metallica, and Foo Fighters.  It may come to no surprise to any of you that my favorite artist is M.C. Escher.  I think it is only fitting that I mention my favorite artist as this is an art class.  I have been interested in web design ever since my first engineering course where we learned basic HTML coding.  I have worked on several websites since using embedded flash, creating basic website widgets using my limited HTML coding knowledge.  I have had Dreamweaver for a while but have had a lot of trouble learning how to successfully incorporate CSS files into my website.  I am really excited to be learning how to use this program in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop. 

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed by the concept of 'art'. What one person considers to be 'art' is often not 'art' to another. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly' are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art.

-M.C. Escher