Create your own Font: I really like this idea. I don't have a lot of use for it in my everyday life, but the idea is pretty cool. I think I'll definitely try to use it just for fun when I have access to a scanner. I would love to go one step further with this program and use it to recognize my handwriting as font and then I could scan any handwritten papers, etc. and have it converted to a text document. I usually prefer to hand write essays and other assignments so that would be a great feature to use this kind of technology for.
Photosketch: As with the font creator, I don't have much use for photosketch, but I think the idea is interesting. I think the program involved could have a lot of other, possibly better, uses for it because the sorting technology seems very advanced. I hope this program makes people more, rather than less skeptical about the images that are being presented to us everyday.
Augmented Earth: I'm not sure how I feel about this program yet. It seems that the technology is nothing new, it's just making it easier for surveillance purposes, which has its pros and cons. Obviously I'd rather not have everyone able to find me no matter where I am, but this is already possible with Google Earth and government/police cameras, which are becoming even more omnipresent. In fact, I think I've decided that I'd really rather not have all of this surveillance, screw Big Brother.
Music Sites: Today music is increasingly accessible because most music can be easily downloaded, and if not it can probably be streamed online somewhere. I'm not sure what this is doing to the music business, but I'm usually for art/music that is democratic and accessible to all (although I understand that money has to be made somehow, it seems that most sales are from merchandise and concert tickets today anyway, and we're not going to be able to convince people to buy CD's anymore; digital music is the future). I happen to be one of the people who gets all their music through downloading, and I use a torrent program to get all the files. If you're interested in using torrents (torrents are compressed files that are shared peer to peer and through a torrent downloading program that decompresses the files into regular music/video files) you need Vuze for mac's, and for PC's it's bittorrent or utorrent. Then you can pretty much find whatever you're looking for, music, tv shows, movies, video games, etc.
Cyberpunk/Steampunk: I'm not sure what else to say about these subcultures. I think it's interesting to see people get so involved in an aesthetic, which I can understand, I definitely love aesthetics, but I probably wouldn't ever get as particular about it. My interests are too varied to focus my attention the way these people do, but more power to them, there are certainly more destructive obsessions out there. I think the fact that they involve the word punk is very fitting. The term punk to describe the music sub-culture of the 1970's-80's came from a magazine that was created to present the sub-culture to the world and give those people involved in it a common ground and a type of validation to a group of outsiders. This idea totally applies to cyber and steampunk as minority groups who bond around common interests and aesthetics. I see that steampunk is really taking off today with the Way Station and Steampunk month, but I just hope it doesn't become another commodity the way punk did.
History of the Internet: This was a great documentary about the creation of the Internet. Today the Internet has become incredibly vast and it's easy to forget that it only began 30 or so years ago and it began as a network between two, then three, then four, and so on computers. It's incredible to see that the people working on it were mostly grad students not much older than us, with an interest in communicating through computers, so they just set out to figure out a way to do that, with almost no precedent. What they created is a phenominal feat, and probably the most important invention of the century. What may be even more important is the fact that it was designed to be ultimately democratic by not giving the authority over its expansion and access to anyone person/group/country. Without that distinction we would lose so much community and information that we now have access to through the Internet.
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I get my music via torrents too. What do you think about the idea of streaming music though? I for some reason prefer to have the files on my computer. Its more accessible that way I think.
ReplyDeleteTorrents are the best for physically having music, agreed. The only downside to torrents is that they die out after a while if it isn't popular. So if you are looking for something old and no one is hosting, you are out of luck. Doesnt happen terribly often tho. Pandora for streaming is the best in my opinion, then you look up the new songs on torrents lol
ReplyDeleteUtorrent also has a program for mac, and I'm a big fan of it. I agree with Sal that hearing music on pandora than downloading the torrent is the way to go. The other problem with torrents (other than not being able to find old songs) is that usually you can only find a full album, and that's problematic with singles, live takes, outtakes, etc.
ReplyDeleteInteresting validation of the term punk in steampunk...I agree that both sub-cultures are alike in that they function as a place for outsiders, but a significant difference is that in punk, "outsider" referred to an intentional positioning against the mainstream as a statement or manifestation of beliefs. In Steampunk, the outsider attribute is different because it refers to, like you said, interests and aesthetics that are "outside" the normal.
ReplyDeleteagainst the mainstream. describe the music sub-culture of the 1970's-80's came from a magazine that was created to present the sub-culture to the world and give those people involved in it a common ground and a type of validation to a group of outsiders. This idea totally applies to cyber and steampunk as minority groups who bond around common interests and aesthetics. I
I used to use torrent downloading as well but stopped for no apparent reason. It's definitely the easiest way to download files, but isn't it still technically "illegal"? I think it's just that you're downloading the file from many hosts/peers so it's harder to track.
ReplyDeleteGood idea about using the font software to actually recognize handwriting and be able to convert it to text. And I also find it interesting that you prefer to write, I have friends who prefer writing vs. typing depending on the assignment as well.
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a pen that they sell that recognizes and stores the information about the letters that it writes so that after your finished handwriting a document, you pug the pen into your computer and you already have the typed text document. I not sure how precise it is but its pretty cool technology.
ReplyDeleteI get all of my music from torrents. It seems so ubiquitous to me now, that I feel like its only a matter of time before record companies stop manufacturing hard copies of music and only offer downloads for sale, or even if artists release all of their music for free and change their business model to get profits primarily from concerts and sponsorships which isnt that much different that how things are in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge torrenter, but I think the key idea between these sites is that they help you find what music you'd like, and then you go download it on your own. There used to be a really fantastic site that did both, but it got shut down by the man.
ReplyDeleteAnd I totally agree that photosketch ought to make people extremely skeptical about what they see. It's creepy.
ReplyDeleteSince we are all blogging about the same stuff, I'm running out of comments. I decided to start from the bottom of the list and work my way up, since I had been writing my good comments to the beginning of the alphabet.
ReplyDeleteThat was comment 1. Comment 2 is about how I wish we could stop talking about steam punk. I'm not sure why we're obsessing about it, but it's made a valid point about how people can play with new and old media.
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ReplyDeleteI think Steam Punk runs parallel (it seems) with the anime/magna crowd because Cynthia said she saw it at a comics conference so I think it's a subculture caterering to a niche audience that most of us don't fit into.Hence the lack of disinterest from the majority of the class.
ReplyDeleteI hate writing by hand. It's odd that typing is becoming more natural to my muscle memory than handwriting. It's almost like trying to use a second language.
ReplyDeleteSeeing people not much older than us accomplish such ground-breaking things is both inspiring and intimidating. Besides talent, I think a lot of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time. Little bit of skill, whole lot of luck.
ReplyDelete