Chris Nolan Presentation

Chris Nolan is the Assistant University Librarian. He came to our class to inform us on many of our favorite search engines, and specifically, Google. Mister Nolan gave the statistic that an astounding, 66.4% of internet users primarily use Google as their search engine of choice. Google brings in an astounding 40 billion dollars a year as a company, 90% of that revenue comes from ads alone. Despite its popularity, it turns out that not everything exists on Google, the search engine doesn't have access to all databases, so just because something can't be found on Google, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In a surprising revelation we learned that each users individual search results go through what can be called a "filter bubble." Essentially the "filter bubble" has remembered other items that you have been interested in and shows you results that it thinks are going to to interest you. Google has a very complex algorithm to give you the results that end up appearing on the screen, and sometimes doesn't work perfectly, for example, scholarly items are listed later which might give the impression that they might not exist. Chris showed us a really interesting video on the search bubble we encounter everyday, the link is http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html.

PowerPoint

When I think back to the worst presentations I have been forced to sit through. Everyone one of them had PowerPoint in common. There is almost no way to make PPT presentations interesting. By far the worst thing about PPT is that when people present using it, they usually have made little to know preparations on what they will say in their presentation and instead rely on the PowerPoint to do the work for them. Probably 90% of PPT presentations feature the presenter reading their slides to the audience. Often presenters insist on putting way to much information in each slide, the slides are meant to show bullet points, not essays. My AP US GOV teacher was a huge fan of PPT, everyday we did the same thing, sit down, turn off the lights and look at slides. Needless to say, there was a large amount of sleeping in that class. I'm sure there are some people that can use PPT effectively, I am yet to meet them, overall I wholeheartedly believe PPT to be the most useless and least interesting tool for presenting.

True Lies

Ms. Salvo makes some very valid arguments about photo manipulation and how image editing software has changed how much people can really trust what they are seeing. Her argument about the tulip field is an interesting contradiction to how most people view image editing. When I personally think of photo editing I image someone using Photoshop to literally change what is seen. However, her tulip argument is that just by changing what the beholder focuses on, the photo has been edited. This is an interesting thought because by just changing the focus, the photos impact is completely changed. I find ethics in general to be an almost impossible subject to address since they can be different for every person. I have mixed feelings regarding photo manipulation, it does seem dishonest to edit a photo but at the same time if a photographer wants to give a photo a "feel" that the true image just doesn't show, than I understand how editing the photo is useful.

CLT visit

Our visit to the CLT was really interesting. I could definitely see myself using for classes or even for a job interview. The CLT would be really useful for making video projects or really for any class that uses visuals. I had never been there before and was actually looking for a place where I could scan papers. I had heard the acronym "CLT" before didn't know what it meant. The 3D printer was cool, i hope to have something printed in my four years here. The programs that were presented to us were interesting, I didn't know we had access to that many programs just for being students. Really useful trip!!

The Ethics of Photojournalism

This is a photo of a British soldier in Basra. This photo appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in April 2003. The photographer used a composite of two photos to make the photo better. The photographer was fired after the news that the photo was manipulated surfaced. 

I chose this video because it really exemplified how quickly photos can be edited. The ending product is really cool looking as well.