Reflective Meta Post

The content of my blog this semsester had been very course and personal interest related, the content ranges from youtubes to movie reviews to mma news and finishes with course content and reflections on things such as the semantic web and my semester 2 assignment. It's intended audience would really be people who are doing the course that are interested in the same things I am and this is reflected by the traffic that has been recorded by the opinion polls in my blog. these ask readers who their favorite fighter is or what their opinion is on a current movie.

I have created networked media content for both assignments linked them to this site, as well as including and adding links to other blogs and youtubes that reader may find interesting. the traffic on this blog is really limited by it's audience which would have to be doing this course or interested in my hobbies to get anything out of it. It was created to demonstrate to viewers my involvement with the course and my understanding of the topic in it.

I nominate the Semantic Web, Data Visualization and My Assignment posts as my 3 on topic blogs and hope that they show my understanding of these topics.

My Assignment

For the second assignment for this networked media unit i have decided to abandon my plan to do a data visualization as I think that I will do much better the Geo Tag assignment which requires the telling of a narrative through pictures accompanyed by text. This seems much more my style as it requires more creative work and less technical prowess with computer programs that the data visualiseation task that would probly require the use of flash and other such programes.

I have decided to create a blog that functions as a carrier of the story map that I have created it will ahve background information on main characters and places that are important to the narrative i will also try to create a story line branch to make the story even more interactive this should make it much more interesting. If possible i would also like to include a You tube that illustrates the text in one chapter so that I have come up with others way to tell the story. Having audio would also be nice, but licensing and actually finding some that can be imbedded (which has proved impossible) would have taken more time that I was allowed due top other assignments.

Web 2.0

the lecture on web 2.0 was very odd, the 2.0 web seems to be seen as very ambitious. even the choice of 2.0 refers to a great advance over 1.0 it suggests that it will be the next step in the evolution of the net, this however may not be the case. i was much more impressed by the idea of the semantic web because the web 2.0 just seams to be a shift from static to live and user generated content. it represents a more community driven and user influenced experience on the web - Wikipedia is an example of the web 2.0 where the content is user generated and monitored and updated and only the application is not manipulable. things such as blogs will also add to the web 2.0 with live real time news entering the blog sphere and causing the evolution and communication based advance of the internet.

Data visuals

The lecture on data visualization was very interesting it seems that data visualizations are as the name suggests visualisations of data, these have many advantages. one being that they are more entertaining and appealing to the viewer and thus beneficial in attaining one of the only physical scarcitys of the internet, Attention. it also can be helpful in exposing trends and patterns that are not immediatly identifyable in the raw data or numbers. they also look very cool with the data being able to take on many forms and can be used uniquely for example a band interested with global warming could have themselves appear in a music clip as animated clipings of data gathered on the crisis.

I decided against doing the data visualization assignment because for me it seems far more difficult and has less freedom that the geo0 tag assignment which is reminiscent of the wolfen Flickr Api that was shown to us in an earlier lecture.

Semantic web

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication, so this lecture on the semantic web was suggesting that the semantic web would be the evolving for of the current world wide web, making the web capable of understanding your interests and browsing habbits and being able to tailor it's searches and focus to bring you informantion and products of a similar nature. It would be able to do this by being able to gather information about information and data about data, this would result in a understanding and responsive web that could read web pages that previously are only readable by humans and then would be able to search for other simmilar sites.

the semantic web would involve publishing in machine and human readable language like Xml this is similar to OOP or object orientated programing and is the basis for the semantic web.

Movies

Eagle eye... I saw this movie last week with friends and our thoughts on this movie were mixed. a while ago I blogged about another movie I had gone to see which i was really impressed with, Taken which I have already described in previous posts is a very typical action movie however it is really entertaining and was well worth the money and time. Eagle eye however isnt as impressive, it starts with a typical action movie premise and ends up some mutated cross between I robot and paycheck. while not being spectacular it was at least entertaining and if you were really bored and had nothing better to do this movie probably would not seem so lack luster. Eagle eye was probably a 6 out of 10 and i went into it with low expectations after reading online reviews, and expecting to only be entertained for a couple of hours. Billy bob thorton acted well and so did sheia lebueff but I thought that the other acters in it were a bit average in their preformances. The ovies main fault was the ending - after taking two bullets and seemingly dieing on the floor sheia lebueffs characters through some miracle surivives and goes onto recive the gratitude of the millitary thus destroying the sacrifice for the greater good feeling that the movie strove to get from the previous 15 minutes of the film.

36 Crazyfists

One of my favoite bands 36 Crazyfists will come to sydney on febuarry 22 next year for the soundwave concert. I'm stoked about it and really keen to go, after they released the tide and it's takers I was expecting them to perhaps tour here which would of been awesome but I might of been to optermistic. Luckily i'll be able to go and see them in sydney next year with some friends as well as see other bands peforming there like billy talent.

Assignment

It's time to start thinking about our next assignment, which is incredibly painful because between this one and the animation one for visual narrative I can see my self spending a lot of nights in the mac lab. I'm not a huge fan of coming in after uni and working on my assignments but at least these assignments may be less annoying then the last ones which were fairly complicated and required a fair bit of attention to detail. This net media assignment looks complicated but once you understand it and start it, it will probably turn out to be much easier than first expected. The you tube choice seems interesting but there is a lot of work behind it first you'll have to write what your going to do and then edit it and deal with issues like renting camera's and thinking up idea's as well as making sure it works once uploaded.

T.U.F

To determine who would replace jesse taylor in the final after amir defeated Cb dollaway in the semifinal bout (armbar) both tim credure and Cb dollaway were given the chance to face each other to determine who would get the final shot. Cb defeated tim credure and moved on to face amir (again) in the final.

Amir defeated Cb again to become the ultimate fighter season 7 and gain the 6 figure contract just hours ago on fox. with the armbar again acting as kryptonite for a dissapointed and angry Cb dollaway who mistakenly tapped out before actully being submited by the move. after causing a commotion after causing the match to be stoped (with his accidental tapout) he accepted defeat realising his hand had flinched and inadvertantly cost him the match.

T.U.F

Series 7 of the ultimate fighter was rocked when jesse taylor a.k.a JT money was kicked off the show by dana white after winning his way into the ultimate fighter finale. After deafeating tim creduer (with ease) jesse taylor was set to face the winner of the amir vs cb bout taking place the next week however after going out on the town and having a little to much to drink jesse taylor reportedly harrased women, broke limosine windows and tuanted security guards saying that he was a ufc fighter and would easily beat them down.

the only time in T.U.F history where a semifinal competitor has been kicked of the show after it had ended and before the finnale occured, it's shocking to see who now will take his place in the T.U.F final.

Assignment

This week I have finally decided on what to do about my networked media assignment, I have decided to make a online blog - exhibition of photo's of mine. I chose to do this as i already know how to operate flicker and have posted photos there in the past.

hopefully I will be able to do a good job of this assignment and get a good mark I'm not sure about much of the details yet but it should be fairly easy once i get going.

OMG

This disturbing video is a must watch I was shown this 2 days ago and thought i had to post it, watch it and I defy you to not be shocked. this is from you tube and courtesy of Lexgyoyo.

The strangers

Last week i went and saw the new horror movie The Strangers! it was pretty good, it's one of those rare movies that sticks to old school horror staples and does them well to make a good air of tension and set a dark mood. by keeping the plot believable it makes the movie much more intense with two really good things in particular. The first being the soundtrack which comes from an old vynal record player in the living room of the house which during the movie plays through different songs and at it's best point actually gets caught in a loop re playing the same part of one song for a good 4-5 minutes in the background creating a really creepy atmosphere.

and the second being the old pull back the curtains to see the scary stalker facing you though the glass which was done perfectly to leave you convinced that by the time she looks through the sliding door he will be gone, content to play mind games for a while longer. this isnt the case and results in a shocking scene.

this was a good movie and is well worth the cost to go and see it.

UFC 87

UFC 87 was not the main event I expected! after gathering with friends to see Rodger Huerta lose to Kenny Florian I was in a state of shock, not only should Florian been defeated but, should also be at this very moment undergoing re-constructive surgery for the sever beating Huerta was expected to deliver. However Kenny Florian did come out victorious much to my dismay and now seems to be in a good position for a shot at the lightweight title held by BJ Pen.

Brock Lesnar Dominated Heath Herring in the Co-main event match, punching heath Herring off the planet in the first round and then controlling him for the rest of the match to win on points by a fair margin.

And in unsurprising news George St.Pierre retained the welterweight title against Jon Fitch in a fight that seemed to be more like a training session than and actual title defense. by the second round it was clear that GSP was in total control and happy just to win on points (by a large Margin) rather than try to get a knockout or submission victory.

Week Post 3

This week I worked on adding lists to websites I often visit because hopefully they will be helpful for others wanting to know more about these things. I added a picture and another blog i read on the internet that has opinions and interviews with UFC fighters which are really interesting if you're a fan. I also created a Bloglines account. A movie i suggest everyone look into and one that I will see shortly is Taken ,out on august 14, is you're bad guy's take daughter, fathers seeks revenge and bad guy's die kind of flick. it still looks like it could be quite a good movie despite the simple plot. I have a link that will take you to Ign Movies where you can find out more.

Phobia

Awesome head kick

I saw this kick a while ago but now that I'm hosting this blog I thought posting it would be a good idea. this kick delivered by Michael Gonzaga to Mirko Cro-Cop is one of the most brutal strikes i've seen in the UFC.

Follow this link to see this brutal kick on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcnQJJxrgU&NR=1

Second Post

So far i have added a link to the UFC homepage because I am a fan of the sport, shortly i will try to figure out how to add links to diffrent blogs on the same toppic. i have added two links to other blogs that are run by people in my class so hopefully i will be able to add more as i find ones that are interesting and worth having a look at.

My first blog!

I chose blogger because it was one the most user friendly and visually appealing blog creator systems i came across. it looked like it would start me off with a fairly good looking blog as it already had some interesting templates and and allowed me to start with a basic outline that i could add to as i got better with the software.