The Final Project

Wholly Cow (I used to work there) I am so frackin' excited about this project! Alright, so here's how it goes. I currently have an uncounted amount of hours put into writing html code, and make a CSS. At least twenty but much further beyond than that. I have 20 note card sized notes on what I need to remember to do, add, delete, ask about, and design ideas for page layouts and my logo. 10 lists, 1 for every genre, of titles to get started with to read, watch, and review. I know I mentioned I wouldn't get the "real" URL until I had content but I got a bit excited, not to mention ahead of myself and you can visit my page at www.twentyfourpages.com. (Note: this is still just frame work of what can be expected, there are a bunch of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors, but honestly I have a .com and that is the shit)

After a few minutes of staring at my web page dashboard, it wasn't hard to figure out what went where and how, a really bad youtube video also helped, kind of. After I get content on the page, at least one review for each category, I will be setting up e-mail for the site, and creating a facebook page. A facbook page will serve three functions. The first advertisement. I wont be paying for ad space, but hopefully the handful of friends that are interested in what I do will like the page and their friends will see it and like it and so on and so forth. The second, a discussion forum about the various articles. Even though the web hosting site I chose (iPage) offers easy, non-html, ways to build a site and create discussion forums, I really don't have the time to be my own administrator, and deal with trolling. Spammers and trolls can be reported by anyone who has my back, and delt with by the people who are paid to do so. Granted, this is not a long term idea, just until I have time to figure everything out on my own. the third, a way to keep people updated on the going-ons of the site. This is where I might finally have use for facebook's timeline function. Noting the first posted review the 25th, 50th, 100th. When changes will be made. Introducing a new reviewer. All the little milestones that don't need a permanent place on the site itself.

My first review will be posted by 4/25/12 afternoon at the absolute latest. I'm doing "Where the Wild Things Are." It was a quick read and I picked up the movie for five bucks. I have a reviewer lined up to do "Fight Club" something I'm hoping he can have done before the project is due. Also, being posted will be reviewer bios, links to the author, and hopefully the links to the fun stuff.

Stuff to come, probably after the project is "turned in:"

~Project Northwoods by Jonathan Bruce: The first ten pages of his awesome book with the ability to purchase an electronic copy if you just have to read the rest (and you will). Plus other interesting stuff.
~Kim Ziegler Designs: She is responsible for my logo and the graphics to come, so she gets special note.
~ Advertisements: to offset web hosting, logo/graphic design, product development (buttons, stickers, t-shirts, tote bags) copyright and security costs. Plus, possibly a monetary offer to those contributing to the site.
~Twitter: Maybe, this is a big maybe, not a fan but I can see the potential readers it could bring to the site.

DIY Prezi

http://prezi.com/pv7eka2e6lbl/edit/#5

here's hoping this works.

DIY - What's it about

DIY means just what it stands for: Do It Yourself. This is not for menial chores. Taking out the trash, instead of having the boyfriend do it, or cleaning the bathroom instead of paying a cleaning service. DIY is in regards to an education. Maybe it is an education in a particular craft or skill: fine tuning how to build a canoe; coming together to crochet/sew/knit for the purpose of sharing a message; planting your own garden, and being just slightly less reliant on “the man,” and helping your neighbors to be less reliant too. Maybe it is an education on education: teaching yourself a new language, physics, algebra, politics, anything, that is outside the classroom and done with your own interest and motivation. Maybe even in a classroom, but not degree oriented.
       
DIY, especially when paired with the word craft, seems like a hippie term in this age; tie died t-shirts, hemp jewelry, hand carved incense burners, but it really does encompass more than the handy crafts of our grandparents time. It moves beyond the field of handy craft, and into digital craft: graphics, web sites, sound bites, movie clips, art! All of these, the handy crafts and digital crafts alike, take knowledge gained through various sources. They take the oration of generations past, reading different print media, watching demonstrations -live or filmed- and hands on experience.

DIY has caused evaluation. Progress. Each new person improving upon it, little bit, by little bit. Quilts used to be an article for warmth, now they show support for our soldiers, and raise money for AIDS research.  Crocheting, another skill used for warmth (sweaters, scarves, afghans, booties...) can now bring an audience’s attention (unwillingly) to the hidden dangers of war, of land mines. The same can be said for digital photography and some image editing (photoshop/gimp). Take a look at www.thetutuproject.com. Some guy, in a tutu, with his camera, raising money for breast cancer patients. Not only does he himself dress up in the tutu, he is the camera man, he is going to be his own publisher, and not for his own financial gain, but for better health care for breast cancer patients, and to help ease the pain of his wife with laughter.

Granted DIY is more than an awareness movement. It is fun, too. How about Jon Lajoie or Jonathan Coultan, these two are self made “rock stars” using a video camera and the internet (also some musical instruments/computer generated music)    Have you heard about fan fiction? Writers can DIY (well, Do It Themselves) their favorite characters. They can rewrite the story they were in, or make up a new story, they do not even have to write it, they can animate it, or film it live action. With the internet not only are they read/seen by those closest to them and a few outliers, but anyone across the globe can read their work or watch their videos. This causes a fan base, or an ignition of ingenuity for someone to Do It Themselves, and take it a step further, making our options for entertainment (both poor and extremely entertaining) increase exponentially. Also, increasing our sources of information (what works, and what not so much) and inspiration.

DIY is learning, and improving upon what you learn. Passing it on to anyone with interest, and being part of a global community, with very little effort, and larger impact than one could imagine.

amature media and lessing

These two web sites are great pair. You have Mimi Ito who glorifies the amateur media network and praises that amateur doesn't mean what it used to, that this new amateurism is leading to a more professionalism in the amateur market. Then there is Lessing who also sees the how people are taking 'professional works' and acclimating them to their own uses, sometime unintentionally, but makes the audience aware of the legalities or illegalities behind this new media.

“People  are going to be forced— lawyers and . . . older politicians —to facethis reality: that everyone is making this music and that most musicis derived from previous ideas. And that almost all pop music ismade from other people’s source material. And that it’s not a badthing. It doesn’t mean you can’t make original content.”All it means—today, at least—is that you can’t make this con-tent legally. “Permission is vital, legally,” even if today it is impos-sible to obtain."

  

Notice how I can't even pull text from his own page without iot being scewed and fucking up my code. There are spaces here I promis. I 'll have to come back to this

Before I Even Get Started.

I love Jonathan Coulton, thoough The Presidents is my all time favorite (it would be nice if he'd update it with every election, he stopped at Bush)

Wiener and McCollough

It is interesting how Wiener deconstructs the machine and illustrates its more human like qualities, and than addresses how humans beings are being treated like cold, lifeless machinery. It is also interesting to see this exploitation of people, whether for 20 cents or 20 dollars an hour, as a degrading lifestyle and that it is morally unjust to life (liberty and the pursuit of happiness) The over arching idea seems to be that there is more value in the machinery then those that create it, maintain it, and operate it. Yet, these machines where created by people using basic messaging systems that people use, and that at the end of the day the value should be in the people that are actually experiencing the physical and emotional toll of the experience. Wiener does a fantastic job at conveying the idea that messages are not just from person to person, but animal to person, person to animal, person to machine, machine to person, machine to machine, and alludes that this is not the end of sender and recipient combinations. He hammers home this idea without being redundant or boring, bringing in enough detail to sell his point on each variation but leaving out enough for further exploring later in the book.

As for in class discussion there really are not questions or anything that needs more in depth conversation, author note will be posted later.

Moving on to McCollough.

"While computers might seem to increase the mediation between the hand of the maker and the final product, McCollough pointed to the increasing tactility of digital design processes and predicted that this would only on crease in years to come." (Into to chapter) 
He was right. You can draw/paint with your fingers on several applications for apple. What doesn't have a touch screen these days? I can even go to target and they have a touch screen directory to their video games and systems. And even though the design process for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move, or X Box Kinect, might not have been tactile, their digital uses all are.

Out of time, be back later.

Notes on weaving digitial

"Weaving is digital, in the sense that it relies on digits -- on fingers -- for its production. Digits, understood in this way, tend to emphasise the sensory, and more particularly, the tactile aspects both of technology and of culture per se. Thus, the digital involves a palpable relationality between producer, product, and culture. Digits imply a connection- a tactile, lived connection - to a wide array of cultural meanings, woven by the community as a whole, and handed from one generation to the next."

This passage best describes the link of digital and hand made items in DIY culture. It implies that they are one in the same. How do you not feel the key board as you are typing on html code? the camera as you adjust to snap another picture? the video camera when shooting a movie? the mouse as you manipulate your work in the various computer programs? And all of this is done with your fingers, by extension your palms, wrists, forearms, elbows shoulders and the rest of you. Digital craft is hand made. Even if you remove the tactile feeling of a project there is still the emotional behind it. The rage, joy, exhaustion, validation, and so on. All the same emotions that go into the hours of crocheting a scarf, knitting a sweater, carving a kayak, sewing a dress, are weaving and stringing together necklaces. Digital craft is not that far from hand made craft, just that the 'technology' of the two are different. The people are the same. The feelings are the same. 

[Notes on authors will be posted after class]