"Fuck it, we'll do it live!" (Survey Findings)

In this blog I am going to give a run down of the survey I conducted. Unlike most of you I opted for a different approach. If any of you who followed my blog know, I didn't have a computer or internet for the first third of the class which hindered my ability to create an online survey. To combat this problem, I did a survey in my notebook/journal and had a lengthy discussion about this class and objectivity with some friends I was staying with. Now these friends are not shy to discuss anything at all and have very different views from my own in regards to news and media. Two of them are in the army national guard and one is a cop in Colonie (Albany County). They regularly watch programs I find to be jokes and are even so passionate about them they dvr them on their cable box. What are these programs you may ask? Well, they are Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly. I wouldn't be caught dead watching these shows since I think they are mostly slander, but all three of these friends take them very seriously. I asked them if they thought certain television news stations have agendas, and contrary to most people they actually felt that cnn has an agenda to hide news and that foxnews tells the truth people don't want to hear. I couldn't place my own opinion on the matter so I let them all speak their minds. One friend says he watches Glenn Beck because he is extremely honest and says what needs to be done in this country. He hates Obama and uses the classic republican excuse that he is a socialist. Further more he added that the only reason people watch cnn or similar news networks is because most of the nation consists of 'pussies' who want to hear only what they want to hear. Fox news isn't afraid to lay things on the table to present 'facts' that although they may shock and startle people. The networks shows are necessary in order for proper change to take place. One other person also said that most democrats and people in power have no real world experience and are only in offices or on tv because they are 'book smart' and that they 'have no balls'. These types of people steer the general public in the wrong way based on what they read, rather than what has been done. As stubborn as these friends can be I only listened and wrote down more statements. The cop (who is unfortunately slightly racist) also pointed out that minorities need to 'stop following Obama blindly' and look at the big picture. He stated this country and its news has lost its roots and that if codling citizens continues, revolution will take place. After the smoke settled I asked them if they thought television, radio, or print has more influence on media. They all agreed that television was the most dominant. The reasoning was that television is easier to grasp to the general public and that figures on tv have power. They have power because they are heard and seen, not just heard of. This survey/conversation turned out pretty much how I thought it would based on my knowledge of my friends. Even though I wanted to rebuttal, I never once stated my side of things which would have been much different. To me this proves that although a lot college students think that networks like foxnews are evil, a huge population thinks otherwise, which is why things in politics never get accomplished. With a giant population in the United States it is almost impossible to agree on a wide range of subjects.

Comparisons Blog

For those of you who do not know, these were the 4 news sites/blogs I reviewed over the course of this class:

http://abcnews.go.com/ (national)

http://new.northcountrynow.com/ (local)

http://blog.flickr.net/en (blog) I got hooked on flickr last semester with digital photojournalism

http://hawtymcbloggy.com/ (specialty) video game news, blog, fun

I chose these 4 sites for several reasons. I wanted great diversity in all of the sites/blogs and I also didn't want them all to be immediately recognized by everyone. They are also sites/blogs I regularly scope out, so I have background knowledge of the content, what their general purposes are and who their target audience is.

The first site; http://abcnews.go.com/ is my main news source I chose since I feel it has less of an agenda than some other news sites out there. I also chose it for its simple and effective layout. In this day and age with the internet there is no excuse for major company's of any type to have a lousy website. ABC news has a great layout where there are several options to navigate to what news you want to know about. The top navigation bar has broad categories including world news, money, health, entertainment, travel and tech. If you scroll to the bottom of the page these sections are shown again, but with mini headlines to choose from. This makes their website super easy to find whatever you want to know. Of course it also has a search option and links to their news programs on tv. Another thing major websites are doing is having quick links to social networking sites such as twitter, facebook and blogs. The simplicity of being able to link content from their site to one of your own is effortless. The actual news is solid as well. It is almost impossible to surf this page and not be satisfied with anything in the stories national or world wide. The video page also makes it easy to watch the news if one doesn't have time to read huge articles.

The second news site (local) I chose was north country's own http://new.northcountrynow.com/. This site has its share of layout issues but isn't all that bad if you decide to take some time and search for what you are looking for. The layout problems I noticed are the following; there are way too many ads on the top and side of the page. I understand that St. Lawrence county may not be the richest place in the world but all the ads distract the eyes and take away from the overall experience. The site also struggles with font issues since they make headlines random colors and sometimes make a lot of them red which is a color of warning or panic when talking about news. They should stick with simple black or a soothing blue. Another issue is the way headlines and stories are found. Much of the news is just in order from when the site decided to post them, so there is a lot of vertical scrolling up and down the site to try and find exactly what you are looking for. There is a vertical navigation bar on the left side of the page but it could be bigger and look a little more professional. The way they present the headlines is actually one of the better features of the site. They have a small blurb of what the story is about, so readers can decide to read the full article or not without just basing their knowledge on headlines alone. There is a search feature which works fine and also gives you an option to search for local news outside of northcountrynow.com which is good. The main drawback to this site has to be the video section. When you click the video link all it gives you is an alphabetical list of videos with no date or preview. It is really frustrating, since I feel it should be arranged by date and topic rather than just name.

http://blog.flickr.net/en is the blog I decided to follow since I'm big into photography and flickr is a very effective tool for photographers to post pictures and share ideas. The best thing about this blog is that there is very little text. It is primarily images posted from users that fit into specific categories. This is how a photo website should look in my opinion. It is very easy to look at the blog for the day and be inspired to take photos yourself and get great ideas or think differently. When I go on their blog I am either blown away or think to myself 'wow, I wish I would have thought of that'. The benefit of this layout is that it is how visual people want there information; with visuals. I sometimes go to other photo websites with lots of articles and information but it is pictures I really want to look at. I sometimes go to flickrs blog and create my own photoshop actions based on what I see. For someone like myself who uses photoshop a lot, flickr is the perfect place to get feedback on what is and what isn't working with your own art. The people on flickr are also very nice and always willing to help someone with questions. My photostream is of course http://www.flickr.com/photos/nckf55/

My final specialty news/blog is http://hawtymcbloggy.com/. This site is primarily used for entertainment in the video game world, but also includes news on upcoming games and events. For someone looking for a timeout to work or stress, it is nice to have a place to just laugh and be entertained. Let's face it, some news can be fun! Just because this site doesn't have real world politics or talk about life issues doesn't mean it has no value. People need to be engaged by something that isn't depressing like much of the news today. I go to this site and smile. I also get useful information about things I like as hobbies rather than school or work. People watch television and movies to escape reality from time to time and I prefer to play video games. This blog keeps me wrapped up in the areas of life that aren't so serious which is great.

As far as all of these sites go, I feel that they all have specific audiences. Some are for hardcore news while others are for art or play. Just because a blog doesn't talk about Obama 24/7 does not mean it should be ignored. Of the top websites visited in the US, the only one that is primarily news is CNN.com. CNN.com barely broke the top 20 and is at number 18. Sites like youtube, facebook and wikipedia are all in the top 10. What does this say about new media journalism? It says that although most people say traditional styles are dying, many people ignore that and still get their news from other sources besides the internet.

Fall Classes

So after about a month of panic, I've finally paid my fall bill and unfortunately am only taking 9 credits this coming semester. I was hoping to graduate this fall, but 2 courses I need are on ly offered in the spring. These are the three classes I'm taking in case any of you gmmd 409 students are in the same class as I am; Visual Programing & Dev Tools (CITA 342), Digital Illustration and Typography (GMMD 395), and Experimental Digital Video (GMMD 412). I'm looking forward to the gmmd classes since they are right up my alley, but the cita class sounds like more computer programming stuff which I'm not all that familiar with. The benefit of my schedule is that it opens up time for me to look for a job and do more art in my free time. I was hoping to take a lot of photos and do illustrations this summer but things haven't panned out as planned. This New Media Journalism class is coming to and end and I kind of liked doing this blog. I don't think it will be something I will do regularly after this class is over but in the future I could see myself working on a blog that is art/photo related. I already own nickfinger.blogspot.com but it is empty. I hope to use it sometime once I have a massive portfolio and consistent work. The one thing I did notice while taking this class is that a lot of the information I get online is in fact in blog form. Much of the content online that I'm interested uses some sort of blog to present their news or media. I think it is a good format because it is so simple to follow.

-Nick

(comic is from http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/ )

New Camera

I got a new camera today and am pretty psyched to use it. It is a Nikon D200 and it should be the last camera I will own for quite some time. It came with a bottom mount for extra battery use and vertical shooting which is nice. The only thing that I don't like, is the size with the mount attached but that's ok. I suppose having a flash that is actually compatible with this camera counteracts that previous negative note. No more rubber banding white paper over the light to compensate the maximum flash it always gave out. I downloaded a video guide and smart guide to get me started with the new features, but I have a feeling I will get used it quick. I've previously used the D1, and D70 which have similar layouts and menus. Apparently one of the cool features on the D200 is that a lot of old things that were only accessible through the menus are now just on dials or buttons to make it easier than constantly having to look at the mini lcd. Hopefully later this week I will take it on the road and capture some good images.

-Nick

http://ifocus.fr/annonces/images/media_0.807916001253473532.jpg

(this pictures doesn't show the bottom mount)

Gas Leak

So last night I thought my apartment had a gas leak. I was in my room playing some Halo, when I noticed a horrible smell. I walked out to the living room and something was downright putrid. I went upstairs and the odor was lingering there as well. I decided I was just freaking out and went back to internet stuff. About half an hour later I noticed the smell was still around and very strong. I didn't want to panic, but I did remember a few months ago when an old roommates mother commented how the apartment smelled like it may have a leak. So I googled what I should do and I decided to call the fire department. They immediately rushed over with a fire truck and 2 other support vehicles. I must have pissed the neighbors off pretty good since this was all at 1 am. Flashing lights, bright signal lights and a crew of firefighters outside that late on a Sunday can't be fun for anyone. After about half an hour they decided there was no leak and that it was most likely a brutal war amongst skunks. They even thought I had a skunk inside the house since the odor was that repugnant. Boy did I feel like an asshole. I suppose it is better to be safe than sorry but I really did want to bury my head in the ground. I talked to the St. Lawrence Gas official who came over and he said that about 1/3 of the gas leak calls they receive are in fact dangerous, and that I indeed did the right thing by calling. Plus he said he was on some board of directors for a program at SUNY Canton which was interesting. That was the only real highlight of yesterday. Tomorrow I'm going to start editing more pictures for a client who wants some real pizazz done to the images.

Bye for now, Nick

Oh Photoshop, When Will You Learn?

http://www.aish.com/v/is/91361839.html

I find more and more of this everyday and it really starts to eat away at me. How can legitimate news sources be doing this so abundantly. The morals of these people must not exist. It seems I'm discovering at an alarming rate that news is purely pointless BS and that it is hard to believe anything you hear on the news anymore. Hell, who knows if the BP crisis was done intentionally to avert eyes away from Obama or North Korea or something. We believe what we see but that isn't good enough. Being skeptical is how I live my life constantly and that is pretty sad. All these big cooperations (yes news networks and newpapers, etc) only care about ratings and money. They will do anything in their power to just get a reader or someone to watch a video online. At least that way the viewer gets to watch some bogus swiffer sweeper ad before the news.

You'd better get some Old Glory Insurance

That's right, robots are taking over the world and here is proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfPkHU_36Cs

This 'smart' asimo seems even a bit primitive to what I thought it would be able to do. Soon the computers vision will become much more integrated and allow it to become more receptive of people and objects. If you can program this robot to see, then showing it emotions is simply the first step of 'understanding' emotion. Also if this asimo is designed to think and make decisions, how far into the future are we just living through brainwaves and having a device do things for us. The video does mention how scientists might be able to give a non living thing an imagination. How fast would an artificial imagination grow and out think us?