This Is What I Think...

Here are the ten blog posts I have chosen to be assessed for my course blog grade:

1. Social Networking
I chose this blog post because it represents my thinking about social networking and what a waste of time it is. There are almost no personal benefits to people and so many detractors that affect society.

2. Saint By Ted Dekker
I chose this post because I think it is a really interesting and insightful look into the book.

3. Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy
This post is worth being in my top ten because it is a quality book review.

4. Ted Dekker's Showdown
I thought that this was worth posting because of the interesting nature of good vs. evil and because it is an interesting book review.

5. Internet in my Lifetime
I chose this post because it is a nostalgic and interesting blog post about how the internet has changed in my short lifetime.

6. Is the PS3 Worth It?
I chose this post because it is a type of product review and also an interesting note on my thoughts about the PS3.

7. Acer Netbook
I thought this this was a helpful and interesting product review and comparison.

8. Gothic Novels
I chose this post because of the introspective nature and the way that I wrote about what I thought about Gothic Novels.

9. The Web Among Us
This post was chosen because it encompasses what is going on in the journalism world compared with blogging. It also expresses my view of blogging.

10. Ruth
This blog showed my frustration about the novel I was reading. It's an interesting post.

Personally, I don't use any of the online social networking sites. I don't have a facebook, myspace, twitter, or any other type of account whatsoever. I think it is a waste of time. All the people that I want to keep in contact with, I just do it in person, on the phone, and through e-mail. I don't feel any need to extend my "friendships" to anyone that I don't care to associate with often.

I understand why people would want to do this kind of stuff though. For one thing, everyone has a facebook account nowadays and people find it strange if you don't. For lots of people, it is the natural way to follow up on people and contact them easily.

Although I don't see any benefit to society and relationships through the use of these social networking sites, I don't believe that they are changing the society. I think that people cling to these things because it is what they want. If people didn't want this, there would be no myspace. People are changing, and markets change to adhere and make money. Our culture is changing the web, the web and networking sites only exacerbates the problem.

Wooh! What a ride. This book kept me on my toes the entire time.

Intro:
Carl Strople awakes lying on a bed, he and his wife strapped down next to each other. A man comes in, shoots his wife in the leg and tells him he has to kill two people in the next hour to keep his wife and son alive.

And it never becomes less exciting. Ted Dekker has an incredible talent in writing suspense to keep you reading every chapter.

This novel struggles with identity. Carl doesn't know who he is or exactly how he got to where is is. As his struggle to find who he is evolves, the story becomes more and more interesting, insightful, and in-depth.

If you read the first chapter of this book and can decide not to read the rest, I would be extremely taken aback.

I think the most important thing for a website to be appealing is the visual aspect. One thing that always stands out to me is the heading graphic of the website.

Having an interesting and appealing header for the website pulls the browser in and grabs their attention.

The second-most important thing that I think makes a good website is the organization. Nobody likes cluttered links and hard-to-find pages of a website. We've all been to a website in which we know something is there, but we just can't find it.

Also, if website is to long, the reader will never go down to the bottom, so any links or material that is located beneath the initial scroll of the page is pretty much useless.

Simple changes to the website can add a lot to it.

Ted Dekker's novel Showdown was a splendid read. It kept me enthralled the entire time. The exciting dichotomy of good vs. evil is played out in this book. The only thing is, throughout most of the novel, you don't know who is the bad guys are or who the good guys are, or even if there are any good or bad guys.

Evil is delved into with surprising ferocity. Throughout some of the book, the conventional idea of evil is challenged.

Evil is looked at as a possibility of love. In the end, everything becomes clear, but it is very interesting to play the ideas in your head.

Anybody that is interested in good and evil and the power that each side can bring to the table will enjoy this book very much.

I have recently finished Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy and have been amazed. The plot line that he moves forward quickly is extremely interesting and suspenseful. The characters are extremely well done and it is a page-turner.

Probably the greatest thing about this book is what I learned. It honestly changed the way I think about the world, but mostly changed the way that I think about writing.

The Biblical parallels that he drew were so amazing and so cleverly done that when I finally realized what it was supposed to be, I was amazed that I didn't notice before and pleasantly surprised that I didn't notice before.

I would recommend these books to anyone that enjoys an exciting thriller. This are, in my opinion, the greatest Christian novels that I have ever read.

I definitely think that the internet is making us stupider as a whole. It is absolutely obvious that the internet is a wealth of information that has never been seen before, and it is growing each day. No one can deny that we have more information available at the click of a mouse than we could ever use. The reason that I think that it is making us stupider is because it is definitely making us lazier.

When we can just go look something up on wikipedia, there is no reason to really learn the material, especially if the information needed is only for the short term. It's so easy to get the information that we don't actually have to learn anything. The internet may be getting "smarter" but we humans are not. Learning is pain, and without pain, there can be no learning. Relying upon the internet for quick and easy information makes us less reliant upon our own brain.

It is very hard to make a website that holds people's attention. I have been laboring over a website for the MMORPG that I am designing with the help of a few friends. It is called Islands of Ansual. It is extremely hard to keep people's attention and also include all the information that is needed. It seems like an either/or situation that just cannot be won. Should I put a picture here? How big should the font be? It is excruciating. The list of the top ten things that are needed for a successful website is very true. If those things can be accomplished, the website will be successful.

As for zines, I have been looking into submitting a sci-fi story to a zine, but have not had much luck. Many of the zines I have been looking into have not done any publishing in years. Does anybody else have this problem? There must be some out there that are willing to look at my work and put it online, but it is hard to find.

I have recently had the privilege of testing an Acer Netbook. I have to say that I m impressed. It only weighs about 2 pounds, for one thing, and as a student, this is very important. When I take my 15.4" Dell Inspiron to school, if I have to walk any more than a hundred feet, I feel my back whining constantly. "Why are we still walking? You stuffed all this weight onto me just for school?" Looking around to make sure no one is within hearing distance, I say, "Just deal with it, ok! There are no other options!"

But there is another option. People may complain about how much power the Netbook has, but at 1.6 ghz and 1gb of memory, it really can get its job done. Another huge bonus that comes along with this laptop is that it is only about $300 depending on which one is bought, with the larger 10" screen costing closer to $350.

I am extremely tempted to buy one, even though I already have a nice laptop, because it can be taken anywhere so easily. I would use it to write wherever and whenever I wanted to. Other laptops are large and clunky in comparison. If you are looking for a smaller laptop that can get the job done, and all with a great price, the Acer Netbook is for you.

When was the last time you searched something on the internet and the information you were looking for led you straight to someone's personal blog. I have done this many times and am amazed at how much information is located on the average Joe's (no pun intended) personal blog.

Technology and the web has changed our lives. We have become frighteningly reliant upon it and everyone struggles to keep up with the everchanging forms of communication. One day it is Myspace, the next it is Facebook, and then Twitter, and so on. It never ends. People can now publish books online almost easier than printing it out with their own printer. It's just amaqzing.

Books are things that have changed dramatically. Many books are now becoming available for online download. More and more books are free on different websites, and Google has been working on a project with major libraries around the world to digitalize every book they can find. Nothing can beat good ol' paper though.

Newspapers have been hit hard. It used to be that Creative Writing Majors switched to Journalism because there was no hope for them otherwise. Now, Journalism Majors are switching to Creative Writing because there is no hope for them in Newspapers. Many papers are going out of business. Others are shrinking with every release, alog with their subscriptions. people do not read the newspaper anymore because it is available online, with multiple viewpoints and commentary so that the information can be cross-examined to be more accurate.

The web is a wonderful and scary thing. What is coming next?

In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, the published ending is a joke. The entire book is a melancholy look at different aspects of humanity and how people hurt each other constantly. To end the book with even slight hope colors the ending different than the rest of the book. Also, the fact that he only changed the ending because one of his peers told him that he couldn't end the novel that way is stupid. Dickens should have stuck with his original ending.

How believable is it that after everything that has happened, Pip and Estella might finally be together. No, the entire point of the book is that the great expectations that Pip has are all dashed to pieces. He may learn things throughout the course of the book, but the great things that he wanted never came to being. Having the hope of Pip and Estella coming together is a sacreligious ending to a melancholy novel.

Citizen journalists may be bigger than anyone ever thought possible. If anything interesting happens, it is probably on somebodies blog somewhere. And using search engines such as Google, duh, enables people to find this information that otherwise would be lost in the crevices of the internet. In fact, citizen bloggers may even have a hand in the recent bringing down of newspapers. Newspaper subscriptions around the country are being canceled while the newspapers themselves become smaller and smaller. Citizen journalists provide a very useful service at a very reasonable price, free. There are not enough Journalists to be everywhere at once, but bloggers can be, and they are. Citizen journalists may very well put real Journalists out of a job, but by providing the same service at a better rate.

Now, understandably, not all citizen journalists are going to be quite up to par in terms of writing the things that they see, but most of them can be trusted to be honest about what they have seen, at least as honest as the Journalists. In a way, it will be like Wikipedia news, there will be much more information available, and it is usually accurate, but there will always be crazy people that write things that never should have been written. But overall, I think it is a service that people will find very helpful and informative.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is due to come out in the relatively distant future, but it will only be available on the PS3. I love the KH series and am not sure if I can tear myself away from it, but I hope the price of the PS3 is reduced soon because there is no way I can afford to buy a PS3, especially only for one game. The PS3 runs for about $399, give or take fifty bucks depending on if you get it used or with a larger hard drive. It all comes down to this: Is the game worth it?



My mind screams "yes" as my wallet screams "no"! Kingdom Hearts is a creative and engaging series and I fell in love with the first two games. There is no doubt in my mind that I will eventually buy this game, but how long will I have to wait. If the PS3 remains at its current price, that will not be all that I have to pay for. The game will still be fifty dollars when it comes out. I don't know about you, but I almost never pay that much for a game. Wait a few years and it will be dropped to twenty dollars. With most games I can wait that long, but I really don't think I can with Kingdom Hearts 3. I guess I must pray that the price changes before the game is released, or else I may have to wait for my beloved game longer than I would like.

I was impressed by Red's last cd, End of Silence, but I was incredibly impressed with their new release, especially their new music video, Death of Me. At first, Red struck me as an incredibly creative band that would soon become widely popular. Now I see that Red is just plain going to take over. The stringed instruments and egyptian-like counter-melodies bring to the front this band's awesome talent, especially for song-writing.

The video, Death of me, captured my interest right from the get-go. I probably watched it ten times in a row. The video focuses upon a man running away from himself, signifying an addiction that he cannot control. Just go watch it. It's really good.

As a blogger, I don't really see myself as democratizing information on the internet. I just write about the things that I like to write about, which may change sporadically and without warning. At the moment, my thoughts are absorbed in the classes that I am taking, particularly my victorian novel class, which can be seen through several of my recent posts. Democratizing the information on the internet sounds too ominous! If I'm not even sure that more than five people even read my blogs, how the heck can I be democratizing information?

But I guess I shouldn't downplay my role as a blogger. I mean, what is the average number of people that follow a blog anyway? Many people could be reading my blog and enjoying my rambling, and I wouldn't even know it. (But after reading this blog, they may not.) Who am I to question my role as a blogger. I am participating in something musch larger than myself and should not diminish the role that i have in preserving it. I should participate in the democratization of information on the internet, if not the sake for something larger than myself.

When I was young, I was enamored with the internet. I remember my dad connecting through the modem, strange sounds accompanying the connection. I wish connecting to the internet still made those sounds. Of course, now with cable internet being the standard at which all real Americans follow, there is no real reason except for a nostalgic feeling.
In my lifetime, the internet has gone from being nearly nonexistent, to absolutely necessary in weekly life, if not everyday. When I was young, 56k modems were standard, if you had the internet at all. Now, if I have to use a friend's computer that uses DSL, i feel as if everything is dragging slowly.




The internet used to be used mainly for email but is now used for everything from shopping and entertainment, to research and reading. I remember trying to play Runescape on an old 100MHz computer with a 56k internet connection. It was definitely not a fun experience. Now, if a computer cannot run a game like Runescape because of the internet connection, I would think something didn't work, either with the computer or the game, instead of blaming it upon just the slow connections and computer speed. We now live in a world of high expectations in which the internet is necessary, and if it's slow or the computer is not working, people get mad. We now rely upon the internet more than we know.

At the moment, I am reading a Victorian novel entitled Ruth that is, in my opinion, a very annoying and boring book. The main character of the book is a fallen woman, a woman that had sex before marriage, who is only sixteen years old, fifteen at the very beginning. Not unlike The Scarlet Letter, this book seems to be heading in the direction of revolving around the effects of bearing an illegitimate child. What makes this book so annoying is the main character. Ruth not only takes extra blame upon herself, while excusing the man that coerced her into such an action, but she cries constantly. I'm not sure how much more crying I can really take. She cries about this, and then she cries about that, and then she cries when the sun is shining because she feels she doesn't deserve it. You get the idea.

Although the book is annoying, it is sharply pointed in what it tries to accomplish. At the time of its publishing, fallen women were looked down upon as the lowest of the low, with blame resting solely upon their shoulders and the weight of society crushing them. I am interested in how this book will turn out, meaning that I want to know the moral conclusion that is drawn about fallen women in the Victorian Period, but I still have to get past the annoying thoughts and actions of the main character. I hope it can be accomplished.

For some reason, Gothic Novels are extremely appealing to me. There must be some reason for the infatuation I have with books involving dark and brooding characters that usually die in the end. I have recently finished reading Wuthering Heights and was thoroughly surprised to be engaged throughout the entire book. Heathcliff is, in my opinion, the most cruel and vengeful character ever to be brought to life in words. All of his actions were done in revenge. And yet there is something strangely interesting about him. Is it that I, the reader, want to know his true motives? Is it that I already know his true motives and want to see how they play out?

Are Gothic Novels this appealing to anyone else? Wuthering Heights is a Gothic Romance and yet it still appeals to me, despite my contempt for anything sappy. Of course, there is little romantic talk within the novel, rather it deals with violence and revenge stemming from the love that remained unconsummated in marriage. But what about Gothic Novels appeals to people. It can be plainly seen that it is a genre that is widely popular, especially in movies. Many horror and suspense films would fall under the category of "Gothic." Do people enjoy delving into the blackness of people's souls and seeing what comes out? Deep down we are aware that people really can sink so low as to be barely recognized as human. Gothic productions may just be another way of looking into human nature and all its intricacies, and yet it is enjoyable for all its deficiencies.

Technology certainly advanced quickly in the last few decades. Whereas the internet was nearly useless only fifteen years ago, nearly every person in America uses it their everyday lives. I'm not sure that anyone could have predicted what they were inventing when they first started networking military computers, but it certainly has changed the world. What would life be like today without the internet? No online classes, no email, no facebook, no myspace. Many people would be lost. For some, browsing the internet and communication through the internet is their life, and without it they wouldn't know what to do. How much more so will it be in fifteen years, twenty years, fifty years from now? We may have stumbled into something that will become as necessary to every person as air-conditioning in Arizona.

It does seem that the trend that information is following is moving towards purely digital information. Textbooks and regular books can now be bought and read online, with every one of them safely stored and accessible by any computer with an internet connection. Even books on tape and cd have gone out of date, surrendering to mp3 downloads of your favorite book.
Looking at how far digital media has come, is it really possible to go much further? Once all information is digital and accessible by internet, what next will become digital? Will buildings, besides housing, become obsolete? Libraries buildings certainly will, even in the near future. With communication entering the video chat realm of instant communication, it seems that going to a workplace in which physical human interaction may become unnecessary and costly. It could quite possibly be that this, the new digital world, might overthrow and destroy that, the old world of physical information.

Over ten years ago, the internet was proclaimed a new world. Never before has information and opinion been so plentiful, available, and easy to enlarge. In John Perry Barlow's “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” a sense of anarchy that contains a true freedom is attributed to be found in the internet. At the time of its publishing, its easy to see how that idea is appealing. For the most part, a true anarchy has not been created, but in some ways, it has. Information on the internet has become too large and extensive for any government to control. There are rules and restrictions, but enforcement is very limited.
In John Whalen's “The Mayhem is the Message,” cultural jammers have just received a new tool, the internet. Never before had such a tool been utilized in this way. Today, spammers are common and any e-mail account that doesn't have a spam filter is considered useless. The expression of a want of anarchy is not a new thing that arose with the internet. There has always been people in every nation that attempt to disrupt the government and create anarchy. The only thing is that it may not be possible for any government to ever control the internet, which means that in the world of cyberspace, there is anarchy. So far, the internet has served its purpose well, but what happens when the world becomes dependent upon it completely? Will a new world of anarchy arise?