electronic voting

People are concerned with the Diebold voting machines because they are extremely easy to break into and alter/replace the memory cards that are used to count votes. The process of hacking the machines can be untraceable, which can lead to huge problems in accurate voting even if it wasn't intended. Additionally, the Diebold corporation is known for being extremely Republican, which makes people speculate whether or not they are in favor of tampering with the machines to get more votes for the Republican party.

If I were in charge of counting votes in California, I honestly wouldn't know where to start. I think that the whole issue with voting and tampering with votes could be fixed by going back to the basic deal of counting votes by hands. But since this is the 21st century and the world cant go on without computers, I would probably start off with better voting ballots- simple, easy and succinct ones that wouldn't confuse old people, or people who can't take the time to read instructions on things. I wouldn't use touch screen voting because I think thats shady, and even in the event that no one wanted to mess around with vote counts, it still seems unreliable. I would pick a company that had the least political affiliation with one side as possible for the company that would count the votes, because I think that politics can get far too scary for people to be honest with. I would have people monitor the actual voting places, since my experience with voting places is that its just a bunch of people with some political affiliation monitoring the polls, which doesn't seem fair. Basically, if there's going to be change in the world of electronic voting, I think that the people regulating the voting shouldn't be allowed to be too connected with any one political side.

digital divide

I think that with education, its hard to integrate technology without having differences between social and economic class. Some people may not have access to computers, some may have limited access, and some may have unlimited access. I think its a lot easier and convenient to have technology within the world of education, but its impossible for everyone to be expected to use computers and other technology to help with education.

With the government, I think that there are a lot of things out there that make it easy for us to be able to access information online with little to no effort. For those who don't have a computer, the internet, or don't know how to use the internet it can be a whole other story. Government run websites have a lot of useful information on them (state laws, tax information, etc.), but I honestly wouldn't know how to access that information if I didn't have a computer in front of me.
Health information and services provided through the internet is a great way to keep people informed. On the other hand, I think that it is a huge disadvantage to those who don't have access to computers when it comes to health information. When I think of the internet and health info, webMD comes to mind. On that website, you can pretty much look up information for any and all ailments one might have. Granted, the internet isn't an excuse for going to the doctors, but I think that theres a huge advantage in looking up your symptoms before you go running to the doctor.

Watching past episodes of LOST and Grey's Anatomy on abc.com is something that I definitely take for granted. This is just one of many things that the digital divide keeps from people. Though the internet is definitely a huge source of information, I think its just as much for entertainment as it is for information. Watching videos is one thing, but with a lot of the websites I frequent, there is no real-life alternative, at least that I know of. For example, I really like to look at NatalieDee comics, which I probably wouldn't be able to find outside of the internet (not to mention she probably wouldn't be heard of if it wasn't for the internet).

With many jobs today, its possible for people to work from home when they normally wouldn't be able to thanks to the internet. I think this is a huge disadvantage to people who don't have computer access because it takes a lot of job opportunity away from them. Though I don't have any personal experience, i think it would be pretty convenient to be able to work remotely from wherever you feel like. I know someone who is currently traveling the world who works part-time as a journalist, based out of Paris. He reviews shows from a special website that his company provides and writes articles about them, and then emails them to his work. Without the internet, he'd be broke and jobless traveling the world, but with the wonderful world of the internet, he can jump around the globe while still holding the same job.

Web 2.0 Lab

How To Do Things


This website is a mashup of Google Personalized Search and Netvibes. It uses guides, tutorials and widgets to help you learn how to do a variety of things from making paninis to fixing tire leaks. I think that this website is pretty useful since it has a variety of things you can learn how to do. It also has a lot of things on it that I don't know how to do, such as making Ukrainian Easter eggs, but it has a few things I do know how to do, such as using a curling iron. I think its useful since there are a lot of random things on the website that typically aren't on websites, and they are helpful to the kind of person who needs random questions answered that they wouldn't necessarily be able to be answered anywhere else. Although this is the first mashup site I went to, I think it might be my favorite one.

Pixoble

Pixoble is a mashup of Flickr, Yahoo Images, Yahoo Videos, You Tube, VEOH, and Live Video, which makes it so you can search for images and videos at the same time. I think that this mashup is pretty cool because its like a mega search for media from all around. Basically, you cover all your bases at the click of your mouse, which for the lazy teenager is pretty awesome.

Mayer's Office of Theater, Film and Broadcasting

This mashup shows the locations of every movie ever set in New York City. It uees Yahoo Maps. I think that this mashup is pretty cool for a couple of reasons. First off, its a new way to use a map and integrate film into it. It shows a picture of the scene where the film was shot, for example in Central Park. I think that this is really interactive and good for knowing random movie facts. It also would be cool to look up your favorite movies and be able to go to their filming locations.

I like mashups because they make the most of the internet's abilities to give us information. they also have a funny name... its like mashed potatoes and ketchup... mash...up.

file sharing

In general, I think that downloading music is a pretty acceptable thing to do these days, although there is a lot of controversy associated with file sharing. When file sharing first became big in the public eye, it seemed a lot worse than I actually think it was/is. Here's my rundown on what I agree/disagree with in regards to file sharing, etc:

I, Cathleen Murphy, download music. In fact, I am downloading music this very second as I write my blog. I am also currently listening to music that I downloaded. Illegally. Do I feel bad? No, not really. In my opinion, if you can easily find a band or artists songs on a major downloading network such as LimeWire, BearShare or some other bit torrent program, chances are the artist isn't struggling and they don't need your money... they just want it.

In regards to struggling artists, I wouldn't try to scam them somehow so that I could get their music for free, but I guess I really cant think of any struggling artists I'm even into. If I go to a small show and really like the artist, I sometimes will buy something to support the artist, if I have any money. But I guess in regards to going to shows and supporting and artist, I think that simply going to concerts is a good thing. It gives the artist money from the ticket sales, and gives you an experience that you can't recreate via downloading.

Shoplifting from a music store probably isn't that good of an idea because I can only assume that you would get caught, seeing as how every CD has one of those little magnet alarm things in it. Also, at places like Amoeba, they're really really really strict about loss prevention. I don't really think that stealing a physical CD/record/cassette is the same as file sharing because a CD is a thing that has physical value, and a file is essentially worthless because you can easily generate another one, or copy one and it will be the same. With a CD, it probably wouldn't make a difference to the artist selling the CD because the store bought it already, so the only one you're stealing from is the store itself.

media wars: analog vs. digital

Growing up, I don't think I really cared what the quality of my music was like, just that I could listen to my favorite Mariah Carey tape over and over and over on my Sony Walkman. I was such an 8-year old. The images on my computer when playing computer games were the best I'd ever seen, and photographs were only blurry if you moved the camera while taking the shot, not if you resized the image correctly on the computer. I would listen to records as a child, but they were really tedious to listen to because I didn't know how to work the record player. "Annie" on vinyl was pretty badass, though. Overall, I think that the change from analog to digital has made my life easier, but at a certain cost.

Digital images are something that I believe both are good and evil. When digital cameras first came out, my Dad bought our very first family digital camera. It weighed a ton and was pretty basic. It zoomed in and out very little, had a flash, and a tiny screen that took what seemed forever to load the images onto. It made our life pretty easy because now more pictures could be taken, and they were free to develop. A big problem with my family was taking rolls of pictures and then leaving them for months (if not years) to be developed. It was really easy to just dump the images onto your computer and then decide which ones to print out or delete. The problem I see with this now is that once your computer crashes, you lose your memory card, or you stop using one computer for another and don't transfer image files, those pictures are lost forever. There is no negative and not necessarily a print of the picture. Additionally, a lot of times picture sizes can get messed up and you end up with pixelated images because of problems associated with your computer. With a negative there is a greater chance of you having crisp pictures at whatever size you want to print them with. Also, it may be easier to get cool effects on your computer for your pictures, but you can't use a fish eye camera, a split view camera or a polariod camera and get a digital image for it. Basically, I think that digital images are really convenient if you provide the right backup for the images in the event of a hard drive crash, but in the end old school photographs will always be cooler than and image a computer generated.

I'm not a music elitist by any means, but I think that the sound quality of a record is much better than that of a cassette tape or CD. Its really easy to make a playlist on iTunes of all of your favorite songs, or to download the new cool song everyone's listening to, but its not the same as listening to an album all the way through. In today's world, its perfectly acceptable to only listen to or download one song by an artist. I think that ten years ago it was much more common to listen to a complete album at a time and really learn to appreciate all of the works of an artist, rather than the new hit on the radio. I really don't know the history of vinyl, but I know a lot of people who are really passionate about music and who have incredible vinyl collections. You can't burn a record, and you can't really fast forward or rewind all that easily, so I definitely can see how people have a better connection to their music when its on vinyl. In regards to being able to mix music on the computer, I think that its a great thing for people to be able to do. I really don't know much about recording music, but I think that it puts people at a creative advantage to be able to mix music in their home, rather than paying thousands of dollars to go to a recording studio. As far as the quality goes, I think that in this day and age its easy to get the same quality if you have the right recording equipment, and from there you can mix and record just as well as you would be able to at a studio... okay, maybe a little lesser quality, but to me its all the same.

I think that digitally enhanced things are kind of lame, but at times they can be pretty sweet. I'm an art history major, and a lot of times in class we look at future projects of architects' new buildings. Because of digital imaging, we get to see what the building will look like, which is a great thing for people to be able to see. At the same time, though, the pictures always look futuristic and almost kind of glittery because they were obviously done on a computer. A lot of movies are enhanced digitally which I think can be entertaining and innovative, but its also not real, which I think people should keep in mind when watching them.

I think that one of the major problems with digital media is that its very much so based on technology rather than what it was initially based on. Now a computer captures the images from a digital camera rather than actually setting up a camera to focus, flash and take the photograph. It can all be done with the click of a button. Movies are made with green screens and computers rather than with a video camera and a set. Musicians sample tracks and mix other musicians songs rather than creating the music by themselves. While all of the things I talked about are innovative, new, and most importantly, socially acceptable in the 21st century, I think that people need to realize that not everything can and should be created on the computer. Quality does go down on most of the aspects of media, but at the same time what they're creating isn't really being created by themselves; a computer is doing all the work for them.

e-waste

I had never really heard about recycling electronics until this Christmas when my sister was persistent about getting a recycled digital camera. I wasn't sure why she wanted one, since getting a brand new camera (rather than a refurbished one) was less expensive, but she brought up the point that the refurbished camera wouldn't end up in a landfill. I remember in my elementary school there was a collection for old ink cartridges, VHS tapes and batteries. Though there were bigger electronics out there at that point, I think that this was the beginning of electronics recycling for my generation.

I think its pretty disgusting that corporations ship their unwanted, toxic junk to poor countries. They just seem to dump their unwanted electronics and leave them for less powerful countries to deal with. From this, not only are environmental hazards faced, but health problems are arising because of people picking through scraps of electronics and burning them. Just breathing the air around these e-waste dumps is bad, but physical contact probably has to be much worse. I'm really not sure what I can further do to recycle my old electronics. My family is pretty good about recyling old cell phones or donating them to charities, and my parents go to special places to drop off old computers, etc. I think that it would be interesting for electronic companies and cell phone providers to give customers an incentive to recycle/dispose properly of their old cell phones rather than dumping them in the garbage. Maybe a discount on their new electronic, or something small that would encourage people to be more conscious about what they're doing to the earth. The Salon article said that only 10% of electronics in our country are recycled, which is pretty sad. I think that there could be a great impact on e-waste problems if that percent doubled or tripled, at least. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty surprised that USF doesn't have a program that addresses e-waste, since our school is really big on recycling/composting, though they really only target traditionally recycled materials (paper, plastic, glass). But maybe there is something like this going on that I'm unaware of. In the end, I think that everyones small steps towards becoming more aware and active about recycling electronics would/will be very beneficial to the environment and the people who are currently being affected by this growing problem.

binary code!

1a. 11
b. 42
c. 31
d. 18

2a. 11111
b. 1100011
c. 111
d. 110011