Many thanks

Thank you to everyone who sent me their blog links. I owe you all big time.

LATFH

http://www.latfh.com/



Look at the F**king Hipster is one of my favourite websites at the moment. While it is highly offensive and makes you feel like a horrible person for finding it so hilarious, it shows how modern technology has invaded on people’s privacy. It is my true belief that camera phones were invented for this website and this website only.

It's good to be back.

A failure in my Internet connection has reduced my blogging abilities significantly. However I am back and ready to catch up on everything I have missed in the last week or two.

Seven years on...

I was recently notified on my hotmail account that it had been my seventh year of use. A sense of nostalgia came over me as I reminisced about how naive and sheltered from the Internet I was at that stage. For the first six months I recall I only had one online friend. This is quite remarkable when considering that I now have hundreds of friends on my various social networking accounts. Of course it wouldn't be long until I discovered the online accounts of my friends and I have continued to communicate with them through this medium ever since. While this was all well and good, the Internet never really interested me until I became aware of the direct access to music and other forms of media.

While the rise of Myspace and now Facebook are pivotal moments for many web users, I found that Myspace in particular to be highly instrumental in allowing me access to all kinds of free and instant music. It is very rare these days to find a band without a Myspace page. Therefore allowing me access to almost any artist I desire. I am obviously not alone in thinking this. Myspace changed the way in which music was released, causing record labels to reasses their stategies in order to compete. This medium has given artists the freedom that had never existed before and the people at Myspace must be congradulated for this.

Of course all good things come to an end and Myspace has certainly lost its monopoly over the social networking market. It seems apparent that most people are now Facebook junkies, leaving Myspace to seem boring and outdated. I hopeful that Facebook will eventually allow for music playing applications on their site but only time will tell.

While I am a semi-regular user of Facebook, I find that I now have a strong interest in personal/professional blogs. Many of these keep me updated with the activities of certain entities and allow me to stay informed about all things new that take my interest.

Tutorial-Week 3

Perhaps not the most educational video to be posted for this class but it is certainly an interesting thought. With developments in communication moving so rapidly, it seems possible that something this ridiculous is in our future. Personally I will stick to my hand held.

Video killed the radio star

I have always found it interesting that 'Video killed the radio star' by the Buggles was the first track ever played on the US version of MTV. Of course video would kill the radio star and MTV would go on to dominate commercial music for the next decade or so but it has certainly lost its grip on things. Not being a fan of too much top 40 music, I have never really followed MTV. Despite this, it has come to my attention that MTV doesn't actually play music anymore. It seems apparent that MTV has moved away from playing poorly written generic pop music to playing poorly written generic television shows. How ironic.

Lecture 2 - A Short History of Computing and the Internet

It seems apparent to me that the history of computing and the Internet could have an entire course dedicated to it. Fortunately, the kind people at the Humanities school in Griffith University decided to only spend one week on the topic for this subject and for that I am grateful. It's not that this topic disinterests me as such, but more that it I find it somewhat difficult to grasp it in its entirety, often leaving me bewildered. Notwithstanding this fact, I have tried my very best to summarise the information that was put in front of me in yesterday's New Communication Technologies lecture and my summary is as follows:

The first computer like inventions stem from a variety of calculating devices which originated in the 19th century. The most prominent of these was Charles Babbage's difference engine. Babbage would then go on to complete the structures of the modern computer but sadly pass away before its completion. Babbage's work would also inspire Ada Byron who would go on help Babbage in his later life and also create the first computer program later in her own life.

Future developments on the modern computer would continue into the twentieth century with the work of Alan Turing who was prominent in the creation of a code breaking device used in World War II. This is now considered the first modern computer.

Despite this groundbreaking development, it was not until the 1950’s that IBM began to manufacture computers for commercial use. At this time computers were extremely large and expensive, only allowing for predominant government usage. It was not until 1975 that the first PC was built. Also around this time, a young Bill Gates started writing BASIC and set up Microsoft. Interestingly, the first developments on the internet began before this in the 1960’s when the US military were developing cold war strategies.

Shortly after this, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak teamed up to create the computing company Apple. Together they created the first self contained PC and would soon control a vast majority of the computing market. Around this time IBM teamed up Microsoft and entered the PC market, eventually overtaking Apple as the forerunners in the PC market.
The 1990’s saw the rise of the World Wide Web which has gone on to be the main focus of computing from this point on.

Cocaine Jesus

Tex Perkins' wife served me coffee once. What a life I lead.