Reading quest 5

Under construction

Reading Quest 4

Under construction

Reading Quest 3

1. Learning to think in a Digital World
The author talks about how we are going into a digital world, and that we are thinking less and less about reading literary things and more about online things.  She also talks about the digital age is Socrates nightmare,because he believed in the spoken word.  She is worried that the digital age will reshape our brains and our relationship with reading, knowledge, and learning will be changed forever.  I believe that she is being a little over dramatic, because what we are doing online is in essence...reading. I have gained tons of knowledge from reading up stuff online, and I actually prefer reading things online rather than in a book. I have read stories online and it felt just the same in my mind than if I were to be reading a book, I think we process things the same thing, whether it be written on paper or posted online.

2. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
This chapter talks about digital natives, meaning, people who were born in the digital era and are naturally accepting of all things digital, whereas digital immigrants are those we have to learn and adapt to his new culture of the digital age.  The author explores ways that educators can appeal to today's students and that its ridiculous for them to use old methods for new technologically advanced students, he talks about turning things into video games, which he believes would get a better respond out of students, he says if kids can name 101 Pokemon and know the characteristics and history of them, they should be able to name countries and characteristics, there just needs to be a better way to teach the material and put it in a more interactive and enjoyable way to the students.

3. Usability of Websites for Teenagers
This article talks about studies to determine how a design and look and feel of a website appeals to the new digital era teenage generation.  The study was to take a poll with teenagers from USA and Australia and to ask what their favorite sites were and why.  The results didn't show a huge difference between the countries, except for the fact that Australia is in love with sports and they all went to sports websites for the most part.  The test confirmed that teens enjoy cool and colorful effects as long as it didn't interfere with the material they were looking for, so color and effects were not the deciding factor if a teen liked the site.  It found that teens dislike slow and hard to navigate websites, it also found that students dont like to read long text material online or read small fonts.

4. Do they Really Think Differently?
This article discusses that, the prior belief, that our brain structure doesn't change, morph, and evolve was an incorrect statement, there is pretty strong evidence that your thinking patterns change depending on your life experiences, also the process and strategies of thought were thought to be the same for everyone, which is also not the case.  Teachers complain that the new digital age gas short attention spans, which may not actually be the case, the digital agers crave interactivity and enjoyment in what they do.  So it might not be that they aren't able to focus, its that they dont want to focus.  The digital natives are wanting new approaches to teaching methods, which is why new methods of digital game based methods are becoming so prevalent.  Basically, digital immigrants need to stop holding onto the past and learn the new technology and adapt to this new generation.  

Unpopular culture

One thing in Popular Culture that I think has become a problem are Jelly Bracelets.  While it may seem funny that I decided to do it on Jelly Bracelets, there are some very unflattering things going on with them.  Jelly bracelets were originally just for fashionable purposes.  You could twist them together and then put them on your wrist and it would give a fashionable jewelery look.  Then it graduated into bigger gel bands, where they could stand for giving awareness to a certain charity or to give awareness to diseases like AIDS and diabetes.
  Of course though, in our sex crazed society they changed the rules on these bands, and now according to the colors of jelly bracelets you wear means you are willing to do a sexual act.  For example black=intercourse, blue=oral, gold=all of the above.  There is a site dedicated to what each band means, and if you wanted to do that with the person all you would have to do is break the bracelet. If a girl is wearing these it is basically putting yourself out there to be taken advantage of by men, and you might not even know the meaning, but there is a underground meaning to these bracelets now. Sex Bracelets

  It really is  sad when society can take something that was so innocent, and even was used to bring awareness to certain causes was corrupted by our society to mean sex.  Sex is overtaking our entire pop culture, its in everything, in the most popular shows on television, not saying sex is a bad thing, but with the rising in STD's and teenage pregnancy being ever prevalent in pop culture, where girls are getting pregnant at 16 just for a shot to be on a t.v. reality show, its ridiculous.

Lovemarks

One thing I find that I actually do really have a lovemark with is Starbucks.
Starbucks is a coffee chain originating in Seattle, Washington.  The first store opened up in 1996 and its specialty was making espresso,blended,latte,cappucino's along with sandwiches, bagels, oatmeal, salads etc..  Coffee to me, represents success.  I remember watching Smallville, and Chloe, was a journalist for the school newspaper and always had a cup of coffee in her hand, in one of those nice starbucksy type cups.  A cup of Starbucks coffee symbolizes business and success, at least in the media. In Devil Wears Prada, the editor of the big wig magazine always had her starbucks coffee in the morning fetched by her assistants. Starbucks is a very successful company and every time I think of Starbucks I get a sense of wealth, its probably because the cups of coffee are so expensive and if you buy one everyday you must come from some sort of money.  I love the environment of a Starbucks, there are lounge seating so you can sit and socialize, there are days where I would just go into Starbucks and bust out a game of Monopoly and play with some friends, they have light coffee house music playing. Even in movies, the characters just meet at Starbucks to have their meetings with friends to gossip with eachother about something that happened in the week, like in Sex and the City.
    I have always wanted to be a Barista and Starbucks just looks fun.  Another thing I love about Starbucks is that it took a stand for Marriage Equality against NOM (National Organization for Marriage) and is a huge LGBT advocate.Starbucks Supports HRC for Marriage Equality, so it makes me feel good when I know where my money is going when I buy a cup of coffee.  Its also pretty fun when your favorite Barista knows your drink order before you even get to the counter. 
One thing I can say is that I am never bored at Starbucks, even if im not feeling that particular drink they have a very fancy sounding menu with some very interesting drink titles.  I often ask what the barista's favorite drink is and try it for myself. 
Starbucks has very fond memories for me, because I usually get it with friends either in the morning or afternoon, I think it is a healthierish alternative to drinking alcohol with friends "meeting someone for coffee" has a lot more class and elegance.  You can even do your homework in a Starbucks cafe, the environment is relaxing. 
I learned alot about coffee from watching Starbucks employees make my drinks, such as knowing the difference between a cappuccino and a Latte and what an espresso actually is. 
The brand of Starbucks will definitely be a lovemark with me for awhile, it has a comfortable environment, good tasting coffee, interesting concoctions, and is a LGBT advocate so you know your money is going to a cause that you believe in.

Book Versus Movie

I have decided to do the book versus movie on "'The Hunger Games" mostly because it just came out and it is very fresh on my mind because I have enjoyed both the movie and the book. There are a few things in the book that didnt happen in the movie, I however, loved the movie and the things left out by movie to me personally aren't very huge and didnt make me not enjoy the movie unlike several other die hard hunger gamers.

1.  You don't get to see alot of Katniss's district where she lives, you dont get a sense of the people there and the place she really comes from in the movie, in the book you know she has a relationship with some of the people in the town and she trades the meat from the hunts she goes on with people.
2. She doesnt trade for the mockinjay pin, she buys it and tries to give it to her sister but her sister says "NO ITS YOURS IT WILL PROTECT YOU",  (this wasnt that huge of a change but people were up in arms.)
3. Commentary from Caeser Flickerman (the Host) describing the games and some of the events that are about to take place, happened in the movie, NOT in the book.  I for one, loved this, because the Hunger Games is essentially a post apocalyptic world reality t.v. competition show like Survivor, and the host is always giving a commentary on what happened or what will go down next time on the episode.  So to see this, it definitely gave it a more reality t.v. feel which is basically the whole idea of the first book.
4. They didnt really show how close Gale and Katniss were in the movie, they were best friends for a long time, and they have hunted together for awhile, and Gale gets really upset that Katniss and Peeta got together in the book, and in the movie it was just a slight look of shame from Gale.
 5. The eyes of the hounds at the end that hunt the reaming survivors were supposed to be the eyes of the tributes that had fallen, and in the movie they were just normal hounds and nothing was ever said about their eyes.

Overall, the movie cut out things that werent very important to the story and added things that I genuinely enjoyed and thought made it better than the book, to me I liked the movie more than the book, I always like seeing it, it was the same with me for Lord of The Rings. Unforunately, you will always have those people that say the movie ruined the book, but thats for OCD people.  :)

I personally liked the movie over the book.  Because when I was reading the book, I didn't really get the feel of what the capitol citizens were like, and what the cornucopia looked like, and other things didnt make much sense visually as to what they look like.  Honestly, I was like "They are gonna have a cornucopia like from when the pilgrims meet the indians, and sure enough thats what it was, except it was huge and metal.  Seeing it visually helped me understand the wackiness, and to to believe what I was actually reading.

Differences between book and movie

Pop Music Website Analysis

I decided to look at Lady Gaga's website for this analysis.  Lady Gaga has taken the world by storm extremely quickly.  She is most known for outlandish costumes and over the top personality on stage as well as controversial political views and unfiltered dialogue.  The first page of the Lady Gaga official site says is called Haus, which is what she calls her whole show "The Haus of Gaga"  This first page has her twitter feed, which is very smart of her.  Tons of people are fascinated with her and want to know what is going on with her almost every second, which her twitter feed gives you a glimpse of what she is doing and she is pretty personable with her fans on there and shows pictures of her behind the scenes quite often.  Next tab is info, telling all the information about Gaga from magazines and if she was nominated for any awards,  a thing called "gaga" vision which is a documentary she did on herself behind the scenes on touring, and a link called pictures which has all the pictures of Gaga, from all of her album covers, to her on television shows such as american idol, etc..picture stills of her in concert, and pictures of her at red carpet events and award shows.
  Next tabs under info has her music, her bio, her videos, and basically all the information about Gaga that is currently available.  Next tab is Events which tells you where she will be going, which you can see if you look she is currently in tour overseas doing Korea and Hong Kong.  Next tab is Shop which has all merchandise she has out, which is quite a bit, there are pages and pages of the stuff.  Next tab is lyrics, pretty self explanatory, and then chat, which is quite interesting, all her fans can just join the chat and talk all things Gaga.  I was honestly expecting the site to be a little more than it is, its mostly black and white, it does look elegant and classy but nothing that you would expect out of gaga, its basically one of her album covers in the background which is black and white, the font is very bland and bold.  One thing that is really good is that it doesn't look really cluttered and its easy to navigate and easy to read all the information is easy to sort through.
  While the personality and craziness of Gaga in person doesn't reflect how her website is, the website is still very informative, easy to navigate and shows all the aspects and everything one would need to know about the pop diva of Gaga.  From her twitter page if you dont follow her, to gagavision, to her tour dates,  to all the pictures she has taken and found worthy of posting on her page, and finally her store where you can take Gaga anywhere with you. :)

Magazine Audience

The magazine I chose to do Magazine Audience on is Teen Vogue. I decided to do it on a magazine that I have never read before ( I swear) so I could do an accurate analysis without any biases.
 Teen vogue focuses on celebrities, fashion, and alot of things for teen girls.  First things first, you look at the cover and it has Katy Perry with blue hair, with big bold words saying COOL and STYLE.  This definitely tells you the magazine is going to be about fashion and how to dress in modern day style for teens. Most of the ads in the magazine are wanting you to buy makeup, nail polish, etc.. Every model in the book is very thin unfortunately, basically telling the masses you need to be slim to be fashionable and "in" style.  There is alot of teenage girl advice and statistics about teenage pregnancies and dangers of tanning beds, they however, are very small articles and every other page is a model promoting a perfume or some kind of fashion.
One thing I found really funny was that one of the articles talked about the dangers of tanning indoors or even outdoors, and it said if you want to look tan "LIKE OUR MODELS" in this book, then be like them and use tanning and bronzing oils and fake it.  Then, conveniently on the next page it tells you what products to use to get the fake tan that you have always wanted without burning in the sun. Then, also conveniently, on the next page is a big picture of Miranda Cosgrove, and below it says "Miranda Cosgrove's idea of perfect skin? one thats never seen the tanning bed" then below her picture are links to places to get spray tanning and other sun lotion products on a website.
 The book is basically trying to get you to buy the fashionable items so you will look "in" style, though some of them look pretty ridiculous.  The book uses colorful words and bright colors to attract you to the style, because your eye goes to bright things not dull boring long pages full of words.  The book also uses celebrities to help sell the products, because who doesn't want to be as successful as a celebrity? and if they use the product it can't be all that bad can it, who knows if you start using it maybe you could even be a celebrity.
Basically, if I was a teenage girl with tons of money to spend on fashion, this book would be great for me, not only does it give you some celebrity interviews and other tid bits of information about the teenage world, but it gives you teenage fashion forward clothing items on skinny perfect models and tells you where you can buy them, and who knows, maybe one day you will be on the cover of Teen Vogue, or at least one of the many many models within the pages of the book.

Walk on the Wild Side

 I decided to do my Walk on the Wild side project on the "diet/obesity conspiracy."  this is actually something true and dear to my heart because I used to weigh 352 lbs. and I lost 150 lbs.  I, did do this on a fad diet called "Ideal Protein" and gained about 20 back in a 2 years, which I dont think is horrible, but fad diets are mostly about getting the weight off fast and quick rather than for long term sustainability.
  The conspiracy is basically that the government wants us to be fat, they spend tons of money advertising on the internet,newspaper,magazine,television all these deals on food and fast food.  All of which is extremely processed and sugar overloaded and horrible for our health.  The government is all about making money (according to this conspiracy ;) ) The government and the media has us all feeling like we need to be in super thin shape, athletic bodies with toned muscles.  Because in our society, thin and lean is hot and sexy, yet, most of the food in our stores and in the driveway are things that would completely lead our bodies in the other direction and make us fat extremely quick. 
One thing that is believed in helping make us obese is the tons of sugar and High Fructose Corn syrup in the processed foods which is extremely harmful for our bodies.   There are studies on High Fructose Corn syrup which are explaining the dangers it has to our bodies.  HFCS may have mercury in it according to Roger Drummer, a certified nutritionist who made a video on the subject of high fructose corn syrup.  The government knows that we want our food and products and we want it fast, so it produces these shortcuts to put into our food to make it faster, but it is killing us from the inside out.
The flipside to this, is another government scheme which are commercials and products about health supplements and other things you can take in order to lose the weight you need fast and healthily.
A few of these products are one that I have seen on tv called "sensa" it is this powder you sprinkle over whatever you eat and you will gradually lose weight, and it doesnt matter what you eat! Keep eating all those high calorie foods that you love, this sprinkle will negate everything!  Critically thinking, that doesn't make much sense to me.  Another one which was featured on the Dr. Oz show are Raspberry Ketones, it is basically a pill with extreme amounts of the chemical that makes raspberries their red color.  The only test they did with this product was on mice, there was no human trials of this, but in the mice, it stopped the mouse from gaining weight and shrank the fat cells.  The government makes tons of money by overweight people, who eat fast food or most products from the grocery store and want to lose weight, because either their doctors tell them they need to lose weight or they saw a tv show and they want to look like the main girl who gets her man in the end. 
Michelle Obama even created an initiative for "lets move!" and made a big garden at the white house to make everything pretty and frilly.  However, the government is still spending TONS of money to get the crops and to make and create high fructose corn syrup.
http://www.grahamsgut.com/the-obesity-conspiracy
This site had a article from the Huffington post, it definitely made sense to me.  It breaks down the reason we are fat and the top 5 things we consume that are sources of our obesity for the most part which were desserts, bread, chicken and mixed chicken dishes, soda, and alcohol.  It doesn't really scream about the conspiracy theiry but it breaks down what we eat, that the government has a part in making, which is making us obese.

All in all, the government wants money, it makes us fat, it helps us lose weight, and then it helps make us fat again with all the temptations, while under the guise the entire time that it wants everyone in the world to be thin and healthy.  Being one of the people affected by this and overcame it, it definitely opened my eyes to this conspiracy, it would make sense to me that this is really happening because its a huge money maker and it would be smart because alot of people are naive.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/04/how-the-us-government-contributes-to-the-obesity-epidemic.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories#Diet
http://www.grahamsgut.com/the-obesity-conspiracy
dangerous high fructose corn syrup
Sensa commercial
raspberry ketones dr oz

Be a Skeptic

I have decided to do my Be a Skeptic on Penn and Teller.  I actually really enjoy this show, I like that Penn has no holds barred on what he says and I am a huge fan of his because he is currently in Celebrity Apprentice and my dad actually helped him when he was building his house in Las Vegas.  I remember a long time ago that Penn and Teller used to debunk and basically show you how all their magic tricks were done and that it wasn't real and we shouldn't believe in the bullshit when it was all an optical illusion.
The aim and purpose of the show is exactly what you said "Critical thinking"  it is amazing what bullshit is out there if you would just take the time and actually understand what it is that you are reading and comprehend.  Most people in society today just accept what someone says as fact, such as organic food tastes much better, when in this show they tested this theory and made people eat the same exact non organic food with blindfolds on, told them that one was organic and made them pick which one was organic, and the truth was, they were both non-organic, and I believe he told the people and they were shocked and felt stupid.  I honestly do believe if you take some of these things that society is just automatically accepting as truth and do simple tests like these you can debunk alot of stuff.  Im glad there is a show like Penn and Teller because they aren't going to sugarcoat anything or how they feel.

Penn and Teller go after a wide variety of topics, including; psychics, conspiracy theories, alternative medicine, organic food, the bible, vaccinations, etc...They go after each topic first discussing what exactly the topic is, and what the beliefs are of a certain topic, the one I am currently watching is about the Bible.  They tell you a very general overview of the bible and that people just take it as fact when it is actually alot of fiction, and he says that he is going to go through and debunk tons of stuff in the bible, so he states the problem and then what he is going to do and how he is going to back up his claim that it is fiction.

In this episode, the first thing that he does is have a camera crew go out on Hollywood Boulevard and ask people if they think that the bible is factual or not, and some people actually believe that it is complete fact, not saying that they aren't correct or anything, but I do find it funny that he is asking people on Hollywood Boulevard which is full of crazy people haha, so he can probably get alot of interesting responses based on the places he interviews people.
The next thing he does is bring in "experts" people that are history and archaeology professors to give their take on if they think the bible is fact or fiction, and the consensus so far is that the stories in the bible don't match up to historical documents.  One thing I did find interesting was that on some of the concepts, the two "experts" has opposing theories on certain things, which showed you both sides of the spectrum, therefore you can choose which one you personally believed more and you aren't just lead around to believe in one certain thing like a blind man.
They definitely do all this debunking in an extremely funny and interesting manner, which is probably to keep the audiences attention.  The next thing they did was use something modern, such as the Elvis conspiracy that he isn't really dead and that he had his own recipe for fried chicken that, is completely different in two books, and they ask how screwed up would this recipe get in 2000 years comparing it to the bible.  Throughout the entire episode he keeps throwing up one liners about Elvis which was pretty funny.
Penn also tells you to get your OWN bible out, so that you know they arent making this shit up and to read along with them, this definitely gives you a sense of them knowing what they are talking about, and also that they believe in themselves enough to get you, the viewer, actively involved.
The rest of the episode is them breaking down certain stories in the bible such as noah,moses and the red sea, jesus, etcc..at the end of the episode Penn tells you to not just take their word for it, and for you to actually go out and read the bible yourself and get your own take on it, I think that is a very classy ending and doesnt just make it seem like their opinion is the only right one.

Bible Episode
Penn and Teller Bullshit!

Move poster Comparison

I decided to do my movie poster comparison blog on my absolute favorite horror movie of ALL TIME!  Halloween!  If you look at the first movie, it shows the man holding the knife and it looks like he is part of the pumpkin, which is very clever.  It screams out Halloween, and it says "The night he came home" Who came home?! Must be the guy with the knife!   It is very plain looking, it definitely screams HALLOWEEN because what is more symbolic of halloween then a big ol pumpkin?  The original poster lets you know that is must be a slasher film, set around halloween time, but that is about it, you have no idea what the killer would look like, just that he uses a knife.  If you watch the movie you mostly just catch glimpses of the killer in the shadows, and you even get to see through his point of view in the beginning.  This poster keeps the mystery and kept you on your toes while watching the movie.  Also the ominous "The night HE came home." gives a what the heck feeling?
Original Halloween

The second poster, there is SO much going on!  there are movie stills within the mask.  This poster, you cant really even see anything that is symbolic of the holiday Halloween except that he is holding a mask.  The sequel poster goes RIGHT to the punch and reveals what the killer looks like. It assumes you already saw the originals and so it isn't going to be ominous and not show the killers masked face.  There is so much going on in this poster that you could sit there for a whole minute just looking at those pictures in Michael Myer's mask.  I personally enjoy the second poster, it looks like alot more work went into it and you can tell that technology has got tons better than the first poster.  The one complaint I have is, not everyone has seen the original Halloween, so automatically spilling the beans on the killer sucks.  If you were a fan of the original it was probably irksome seeing Michael Myers with long hair, I don't know why but I just had to roll my eyes when Rob Zombie had to completely change what Michael looked like and make him out to be a homeless looking rocker. "Evil has a destiny" definitely tells you the story will be about him, and not the helpless people he slaughters.

Halloween Remake

I know that back when the original was made, there wasn't many if any slasher films out there.  Halloween was one of a kind, they liked keeping you in suspense and it wasn't bloody and grotesque like today's horror films.  While the first one looks creepy, the second one definitely intrigues you more, it shows you the mask, and the killer is the centerfold of the whole poster.  It basically tells you the whole movie is going to be about him.  In today's horror movies we want more blood, more action, more brutal killing scenes.  Some of the suspense is lost unfortunately when they get right into the killing moments, but everyone just wants to get to the good part as quickly as possible.

Advertising map

http://ychumanities.net/hum101/2012/02/28/prescott-valley-campus-advertising-map/