Reference List

1994,Charles Babbage, Viewed 22^nd October 2010, <http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Babbage.html>

American Mathematical Society, Turing Machines, accessed 22^nd October, 2010 <http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-turing>

BBC History, Alan Turing 1912-195 4, Viewed 22^nd October 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/turing_alan.shtml

Copeland, J, Proudfoot, D, 1999 , Alan Turing’s Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science, Scientific American, issue 103

Epstein, R, Roberts, G, Beber, G, 2009, Philosophical and Methodological issues in the Qeust for the Thinking Computer, Part I, pg 23-65, Springer Science and Business Media, New York

Exsteen ,F 2004, Portrait de Femme: Ada Augusta Byron King Countess of Lovelace

Mathematician 1815 (England)-1852 (England), The Cerebrals Onlin e Journal, Issue # 17 page 25-29

 Formilab, The analytical Engine, Accessed 22^nd October 2010, http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/

Philosophical Magazine Series 3, Volume 1, Issue 3, pages 208 – 213

The Alan Turing homepage, Who was Alan Turing? ,Accessed 22^nd October 2010 <http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/>

Wilkes, M, 2000,  IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol.22, issue 4

New Communication essay

For the essay I chose question one:
Discuss the impact of TWO of the following figures on the development of digital technologies and digital culture: Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, William Gibson, Kevin Mitnick, Alan Turing, Ray Kurzweil, J.C.R. Licklider, Douglas Engelbart

and the two subjects I chose were Charles Babbage

 and Alan Turing.

We live in a world absolutely dominated by digital technologies that without which we would not be able to function. In fact it is extremely difficult to imagine a world without mobile phones, computers and the like. Computers in particular have gone from almost an impossible dream to an ordinary household object for even a lower-middle class family. In fact nowadays we use computers for almost everything including warfare, business and even recreation, things have definitely gone beyond even the dreams of the men who first conceived the idea in the first place. The birth of the idea computer can be traced back as far as the earliest calculatingtechnologies

but the idea for the modern computer we know today can be attributed to a number of great men but the two that this essay will be focusing on in particular are Charles Babbage http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Babbage.html accessed 22nd October) and Alan Turing. (http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/ accessed 22nd October)

Charles Babbage himself is known as ‘The Father of The Computer’ (picture) and is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer while Alan Turing (picture) helped to formulize the algorithm  and computation with his ‘Turing machine’ and he was also highly influential in all aspects of computer science. Each man definitely played a vital role in creating one of the most important digital technologies we use today.

Computers have definitely come a long way from their original designs, in fact even the original designers and idealists would never have imagined just how far their ideas could be taken. You only have to look at how important the computers are in our lives to see that both Charles Babbage and Alan Turing have both had a profound effect on our society and the modern digital culture.  With both the analytical engine (http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/AccessedAccessed 22^nd October)

 and the Turing machine(Copland, Proudfoot, 1999 pg 99)

 we see the early beginnings of the original computers that we know and use today.Charles Babbage was born in England in the city of London on December 26 1791, and was lucky enough to be born into a privileged family in which his father prioritised his education. (http://www.charlesbabbage.net/, accessed 22^nd October 2010) It was in 1812 while studying at Cambridge university that Babbage was focusing on the idea of creating a way to automatically calculate  math tables so that the flaws of a human being manually calculating them could be reconciled. This led the beginning of his work on one of the earliest prototypes of the ‘difference engine’ (picture)  in 1822 which would take him 12 years to work on and while he didn’t complete it he laid the foundations for others. The difference engine was essentially one of the earliest forms of an automated calculator, though it could only perform ‘polynomial calculations’ which though quite basic by today’s standards was positively revolutionary back then.(http://www.charlesbabbage.net/, accessed 22^nd October 2010). In 1839 Babbage would resign from his role as a professor at Cambridge university so that he could devote his full attention to his most visionary invention ‘the analytical engine’. (http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/ Accessed 22^nd October )  The analytical engine has many of the basic functions of a computer and the idea was conceived in the 19^th century, and while Babbage would not build the machine he would draw up the plans for the completely automatic calculator which was able to perform many equations. (Wilkes M, 200 pp 4-5)

Roughly forty years after the death of Babbage in 1871 another man was born. That man was Alan Turing and while most of Babbage’s contribution to modern digital technology was theorised Turing’s was more practical as he designed programs for computers and came up with many concepts and ideas for the artificial intelligences. One such concept was the Turing test in which he designed a set of rules which would be used to classify what constitutes an artificial intelligence. Turing was even able to create an artificial intelligence capable of playing chess that was unfortunately too advanced to be tested properly on the computers that were available but the design was still very advanced in its day. (Epstein, Roberts, Beber, 2009 pp 23-65)  (Copland, Proudfoot, 1999 pg 99) Turing was also responsible for creating the ‘Turing Machine’ which at the most basic level had all the functions of a modern day computer as you could input instructions and it will process a constantly looping piece of tape accordingly (Weintraub, http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-turing accessed 22nd October 2010). Thanks to Turing efforts we saw the basis of many of the ideas of the artificial intelligence that is quite common today as well as a machine that was capable of producing computer like functions. Turing died under very unfortunate circumstances in 1954 at only 42 which is truly a shame as he could have accomplished so much more. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/turing_alan.shtml

It is quite easy to take for granted things which we have readily available to us today without thinking that when men like Babbage and Turing were working with them they were starting from near scratch and still they both were able to design concepts and machines capable of automatic functions such as computers. Babbage’s work and Turing’s both have that one important detail in common they were trying to create works capable of performing designated tasks automatically which in modern times is how almost all electronics work and without men like these almost everything in the digital age would not exist or would at least be far more difficult to use so it is clear to see that both had a massive impact on modern digital technology.

Week 10

This we went back to more general aspects of the internet such as privacy and filtering and such as well as the censorship in countries such as China. We focused in depth on the metters of privacy and why it is important.

Overall I rate this subject quite well. I enjoyed the tutorial's and while at times some of the content wasn't interesting to me I found that even with boring subjects working on tutespark was alot better than in any of my other subjects. Activities like the treasure hunt were informative and fun but I most enjoyed the culture jam taking the photos and shopping them was very fun and I liked the way it all worked.

My god the creative commons was amazingly boring however I can see why it was important that we learn about it but it just did not interest me. On a lighter note the cyber-punk content was interesting and surprisingly relevant.

The use of tutespark and the blog were great ways to work and it was good to be able to do alot of the work from home during my own time and because of it I enjoyed New Communications very much.

Week 9

The lecture content for week nine was probably the most interesting of all of them as we continued to look into the idea of cyber-punk and it cultural significance and relation to our current state of technology. I was very interested in the whole cyberpunk idea and it was definetely entertaining compared to things like creative commons.

For my essay the topic I will choose will be the first in which I will choose two out of a list of figures who had major roles in the development of digital technologies I chose William Gibson and Charles Babbage and will discuss the impact they had in the essay. I chose this topic becaue I have an interest in history and it should be easy to gather research on the subjects and I think it should be easy to write a large essay on the topic as there are a number of different ways to approach it. I will use online articles and journals to research the topic and hope that a relative number of sources are available.

Tutespark: Culture Jam

For our culture jam we decided to take advantage of the inspirationally intended nike slogan 'Just do it' and used it to make a statement about the use of sweatshops and child labour in east Asia by the nike corperation. In these modern days it was quite easy to doctor our jam onto a billboard with ease and are quite certain our message would get across to the mainstream media to it's controversial nature.

We also placed our jam onto another billboard for the same effect.

While both these methods would be very effective we also decided to try and spread the message across the internet and found the easiest way to do that would be to create a page on facebook as millions use the site in modern times and it would be possible for the message to be seen by every single user and many different organisations.

I think combined these methods would allow our message to get across.

Considering the relatively short peroid which we had to create our culture jam I think it is definetely something I could accomplish and with the many freely available ways that we can spread information nowadays and with the media's increased focus on the internet I think our culture jame could definetely get noticed with enough time and effort.

Week 8

Week 8 lecture content focused on virtual philosophy and the idea of questioning what exactly is real and whether what we can sense is actually what is around us or just the creation of our minds. Personally I always viewed the people who saw the world this way as kind of nutjobs but the lecture managed to rationalise things a bit more reasonably. In paticular I found Plato's 'men in the cave' idea interesting as it showed that people had been thinking along these lines for quite some time.

For the tutespark task I chose the cyber punk theme

Ubiquitous Access to information: Cyberpunk often deals with the continual spread and access to information. Hacker themes and ever-connecting internets are common. Additionally, the connection of humans to this omnipresent information stream leads to the blurring of the virtual with the real

And the piece of fiction I chose was the cyber-punk anime Ghost in the shell Stand-alone-complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex, which is about a future in which many human beings have fused with machines and it focuses on themes of what makes someone truly human. But also a main focus is that if mankind did infuse everything with machines then would that allow hackers far greater potential to commit crimes. I also found this news story relating to cyber crime. http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Cyber+crime+target+social+networks+utilities+Report/3637239/story.html (accessed 8th October 2010)

With the world constantly becoming more and more connected to technology we have seen the advent of cyber crime and the more technology crosses into everyday life the greater the potential for the crimes that can be commited. For example studies conducted at Georgia Tech University has reported that soon the ability for cyber hackers to affect physical entities such as hospitals will be a very real problem.

This could lead to undoubtably horrific consequences and if the ability to commit these crimes is available to any petty hackers then we could see groups and orgnaisations arise for the sole purpose of commiting cyber terrorism and even leading the entire world into ruin once it becomes connected enough. This whole situation would make cyber-punk fiction such as Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex eerily prophetic as we see a new breed of terrorist arise with a far greater ability to cause damage and even on a global scale.

While it would be counter-productive to halt the progress of technology the solution to this problem simply to make sure with increased technological assymilation we have to greatly increase the security measures protecting it lest we all end up in a dynastopian future as predicted by Ghost in the Shell.

Week 7

Week 7 lecture content focused on free culture and free society and in paticular aspects such as free and open source software. We looked at the organisation 'Creative Commons' which promotes flexible copyright conditions allowing any 'creators' to make works available on reasonable grounds. This in turn means that the creators can create a 'public good' such as freely accessable content. I can definetely support organisations like creative commons as they provide both the creators and the public with benifits.

There is alot of good free content our there and one of the examples we looked at was the free software foundation which wanted to create software which could be exchanged and added to freely like it was originally before propietary software came along.

We also looked at the differences between propiertary and open-source software, with the main one being hte availability of the source code. While I am not too amazing with the really complicated technological stuff I still found it pretty interesting to see that there were heaps of useful and very popular programs that were created open source and free for the public.

In the tutorial task we had too answer these seven questions.

Q1:  What is creative commons and how could this licensing framework be relevant to your own experience at university?
A. Creative Commons is a non-profit organistation that gives the free licenses and tools needed for copyright users to be able to share and remix their material legally. This could be very helpful to my experience at university as it enables me to share and use the material that the copyright users create for free as they do not need to charge for the use it. And also if I ever needed to license my own material later down the track I would definetely take this route.
http://creativecommons.org.au/about (accessed 8th October 2010)

2. Find 3 examples of works created by creative commons and embed them in your blog.
 The first example I found was Yoko Ono's track "The sun is down" which has had stems released under the CC Attribution Non-Commerical license.  It has been released to the public to be remixed at will with the ten best remixes recieving prizes.
http://creativecommons.org/audio/ (accessed 8th October 2010)

Two more examples which can be seen in this video (http://creativecommons.org/videos/reticulum-rex, accessed 8th October 2010) are the free sale and download of Cory Doctorow's novel 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom', and educational facilities like MIT who used Creative Common's to make their coursework available for free online download.

3. Find an academic article which discusses creative commons using a database or online journal. Provide a link to and a summary of the article.

I found this article online http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=michael_carroll (accessed 8th October 2010)

The article discussed the use of creative commons licenses as intermediaries and the new intermediary roles offered thanks to creative commons in education and publishing ect.

4. Have a look at Portable Apps (a pc based application) – provide a brief description of what it is and how you think this is useful.
A portable app is a computer program which can be carried on any electronic device with any windows computer. It doesn't leave any personal files on a computer meaning it is perfect for use on the go. This would mean that the portable apps are perfect for use on a computer other than your own.

Tutespark task:
For the sake of the tutespark task I downloaded mozilla firefox and it has definetly changed things for the better. This free software is alot faster and more accessable than the internet explorer. Plus the sheer amount of customisation firefox allows makes the web browser look alot better than the boring old explorer.  The anti-malware and anti-fishing software is also a great feature to protect your computer.

Week 6!

Week 6 lecture content discussed the advent of new and social media and the role it plays in modern day society. It focused in depth on technology and media and how they have combined during the internet age into a new form. The creation of the web 2.0 was also discussed particularly how it emphasises user generated content.

The internet has taken foward steps and now many of the most frequented websites run solely on user generated content whether that be pictures, stories or videos. But many of the sites which you may place your own content on will usually have a terms and conditions page for when you sign on stating that they may use/distribute your content at will. So basically the information you put onto a website is technically still owned by you in most cases but the website has the right to copy and distribute your content if it wants. Becasue of this it is definetely pretty important to ready the terms and conditions of any website your provided personal content for if you care about that kind of thing and wish to maintain your privacy.

http://www.labnol.org/internet/favorites/user-generated-content-and-terms-of-service-who-owns-your-stuff/1303/ (accessed 7th October 2010)

Week 5. Culture Jamming group task.

The group that I am in for the culture jamming assignment consists of myself and Alex Smith.

Our plan is basically to create a culture jam about the Nike ad 'Just do it' and making a statement about their use of child labor.

Basically we assume that as long as we can get the culture jam out to a mass audience then it would be picked up by the media due to the controversial aspect of it. We are planning on creating facebook groups and writing on I-report to bring the issue to light.

We are going to try to create one or two photo ads and a video add to parody the nike advertisments in a way that brings to light their use of illegal foreign sweatshops and child labour to create their products. We will also hopefully put together a news story to show the culture jam on. We think that with all these factors it is definetely possible that we would be noticed by the mainstream media. And if not...we will vandalise some billboards or something.

Week five: Consumption and Productiong and Culture Jamming.

Week fives content discussed the theory that we are at essence consumers of content which while definetely true was an interesting way to look at things I found.

We looked at all the different outlets that provided us this content (I.e small screen, big screen) as well as the different people/institutions that provided content to the consumers. Of note was the dramatic way digital media has effected how we consume our content and I agree that it has changed things drastically as we now can acess most any content we want at anytime. \

We were also asked to engage with the term culture jam

According to definition website http://dictionary.babylon.com/culture%20jamming/ (accessed 3rd September 2010) Is the "act of transforming mass media to produce a commentary on itself." This seemed fairly self explanitory to me so basically you would change a form of media to show it in a different angle here are some examples.

The first example of culture jamming according to the website http://www2.inow.com/~sam/cultjam2.html)  (Accessed 3nd September 2010) was the work of the Billboard Liberation front a group who would alter and change the message given by billboards.

This is an example of their work which points out that McDonnells injects their cows  with growth hormones.

Another example of culture jamming which forced the defense media to withdraw all advertsing campaigns from student locations was seen with this parody of a defense add basically labeling soldiers as tools of the government fighting pointless wars.

While I disagree with the message it certainly was effective.

The third example of culture jamming was also from http://www.cultcase.com/2008/01/two-edged-media-sword-10-examples-of.html (Accessed 3rd September 2010) and showed a parody of the advertisments for the hummer saying that is used oil that men were dying for.

so the term culture jamming should definetely be understood through these examples.

Week four : Short Films

Having to find three short films I immediatly decided to go to youtube and have a look at what was avaiblable.

The first I came across was a short online film called 'Black Button' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrKnhOJ-R80

It is about a man waking up after an accident and he is presented with the choice of pushing a black button to get $10,000,000 of course the downside is one person on earth will die if he presses it. It is a pretty cool premise naturally focusing on the choices we have to make and the idea of temptation and greed. I found the acting wasn't amazing on the waking man's part, but the man who is providing him with the choice plays the role of diving like being with no morals good or bad. Of course the movie has an ironic twist ending like many dramatic short films and I'd say te twist was pretty good if not a little predictable but it covers the theme of an afterlife quite well.

The second short film was titled Fallen Angel and was an animated film about the end of civilisation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbr-yajq1ao

It covers a girl walking through a bleak destroyed city with her inner monologue talking about 'everything taken from her'. We then see numerous scenes depicting how the world ends with battles and riots before eventually nuclear weapons are deployed. Eventually we see the girl before the war started and how the changes came suddenly and affected her. She travels around while her town is attacked trying to survive. The film definetely gives a survival theme and has a very thinly veiled anti-war message. The animation is very good and the music is incredibly simply but used to great effect.

The third short film was called Vrienden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ZmJel27I And was a comedic short film about two neighbours trying to make each others lives hell.

Straight away we see one of the men walk outside to his car which has been messed with in many different ways and the way he just casually fixes thinsg shows that clearly these to have been doing this for some time. The two men try to anooy each other in various ways throughput the piece including bricking one of their doorways up and one accidentally drills the other in the eye. The humor of this piece is mostly quite subtle and the oure unexplained hate between the two is a source of hilarity. I liked this piece it wasn't that funny but it was still very enjoyable.

As for the week four lecture content we discussed the in depth history of film and how it has evolved from the silent era when black and white talkies were the height of film technology to the eventaul first broad band movie release of 2007. We talked about many of the way the web could become a tool in filmmaking and how short films really flourish due to the intrnet. I agree that one of the problems with film on the internet as there is nothing to stop the poor films being made and distributed as there isn't any kind of quality threshold.

It also interested me that there were numerous examples of filmakers who had actually made their name with online films such as '405' and 'George Lucas in Love.'

I also agree that as of now the internet is not a good medium for feature films though it is definetely a great place for the creation of short films.

Week four

Week four discussed the beginning of the sensation which is online film or video.

We were given a number of questions to answer with regards to short films online

1. Where and when did useable online video start?
According to the website http://dembot.com/post/310798115/a-decade-in-history-of-online-video  (accessed 2 September 2010) online video was around but lacked any real viewers until about 2004 when a number of online video's such as Howard Dean's political campaign took the online world by storm. It seems to make the point that online video's were not popular at all untill 2004 when groups starting gathering together and creating large scale online video websites.

As internet connections increased and networks became stronger online videos became more common and in April of 2005 youtube posted it's first video and so began what is probably the most popular online video site on the internet.

2.
What recent innovations are being used to lure us in the movies?


What are they luring us from?

Innovations to lure us to movies come in all shapes and forms such as online campaigns and advertisements to build up excitment for a movie via little games or trailers.

Movie makers are attempting to lure us outside and to the cinema's as this day and age there is the possibility of downloading and watching films online and due to all the piracy ect this can really cost the movie companies alot of their wealth.

Question 3. Are short films still being made? Why? Who pays for them to be made?
Short films are still being made evidence is shown with all of the dedicated festivals and groups who continue to create and distribute the short films http://www.aussieshortfilms.com/ (Accessed 2nd September 2010) (www.tropfest.com/) Short films still gather interest because of their more artistic and refined focus on specific themes rather than genres like mainstream movies. A large part of the reason short films will probably always be available is websites like youtube allow people to demonstrate their filmaking and present the finished products to a large audience.

Short films seem to be funded privately by different companies such as Metro screen who fund short films to find breakout directors. http://www.metroscreen.org.au/breakout.htm

Question 4. Define the term viral with relation to movies.

Viral video's are defined as video's which gain popularity by being spread over the internet. So naturally a viral movie is one which has been shared online and quickly become popular.

Question 5. Online video distribution isn't limited to the short film format. We are now starting to see television styled shows made solely for internet release (webisodes). Find an example of this style of content and discuss how viewing television content in this way can positively and negatively affect the viewer's experience.

A good example of the idea of webisodes is the office comdedy series 'Back on Topps' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWlL9R6Q_OU Back on Topps began as a completely online webseries and like many others is humerous rather than dramatic or serious.

The advantage of such webseries is that they can usually be viewed for free and are by far more easily accessable than say going to the movies. It has an advantage over most t.v shows as you can choose when to watch these webseries and they are usually not inerupted by more than one advertisement (Usually placed at the begining)

Of course it is disadvantagous as there is very little if any atmpsphere when watching an online webseries and unless you have a very large computer monitor you won't get to experience the same quality and picture size and you would say at a movie or on a good tv. Also watching shows/movies online is far less social than doing so with friends out at a movie or on tv.





As for three short films that are being distributed online I looked on http://www.youtube.com/ (2nd September 2010) and found that

Week 3 and The Treasure Hunt

Week three content was a discussion on as well as a short history of computing and the internet. The content looked at computing in depth as well as the internet and it's functions. I was interested to see that computers all began with simple adding machines. It also stated that IBM first commercially introduced computers in the 1950's. It then described how the different large computing companies (IBM Apple ect) started and slowly evolved. This was all information that I was previously unaware of. Also of note was the creation of the internet and how it works. It was interesting to know that the RAND corperation originally came up with the idea.


 1. What is the weight of the world's biggest machine? How much did it cost to build?


First up I had to search for the world's biggest machine and seeing as it was just announced in class I came to the conclusion that it was the Hadron Collider. Still I don't know how much the massive thing costs so I will use Yahoo to search it out. I decided to use the first site the engine gave me as it seemed pretty literal.

http://www.hadron.com.au/ (Accessed 11th August 2010)

According to this site the estimated cost of the machine was 64 billion Euro's.

Which according to

http://auspost.com.au/travelmoney/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Travel_Money (11th August, 2010)...actually wait that site sucks

http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html (11th August, 2010)

Is about 92.5 Billion Australian dollars. Here is a picture for your viewing pleasure

 (Picture From http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/15/large_hadron_collider_cern_2.jpg)

2.What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Ozzy Osborne?
Okay so I thought my celebrity stalking days were over but apparently every time I think I am out something pulls me back in.

Well that was disturbingly easy but apparently the website
http://famous-relationships.topsynergy.com/Ozzy_Osbourne/Contact.asp (11th August 2010)
Says that he can be contacted through his  agent Sharon Osborn and her phone number given was 310-859-7761which is an American number. I don't really know how reliable this all is but honestly how many academic sources will tell me how to stalk celebrities anyways.

3. When and what  was the first example of global digital communication.

First of all to answer this question I decided to get a defintion of the word digital to make sure I could find the right subject. Using the yahoo search engine I typed 'Digital dictionary' and a few sites came up which took things too literally and actually gave me digitised dictionaries but eventually I came to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital (2nd September 2010) the useful definitions came out to basically

An audio method of recording in which flutter is reduced and backround noise is reduced.

With this is mind I was told by the website (whihc I found by typing history of digital communication into yahoo)  http://www.scribd.com/doc/35872793/Why-Digital (accessed 2nd September 2010)  that the telegraph was the first  form of large scale digital communication to find out when it was used globally I typed 'global telegraph'into yahoo and found that the first instance of electomagentic global telegraphing started in about 1865 telegraph messages went global thanks to submarine cables. This was thanks to the website http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/catapult/indepth/telegraph.htm (accessed 2nd September 2010)

 4. What is the cheapest form of travel from the Gold Coast to Melbourne?
This one seemed like less of a challenge and I decided to go the easy route by typing 'cheap flights gold caost melbourne' into yahoo.

aftter finding the site http://www.webjet.com.au/flights/business-melbourne/gold-coast/ (Accessed september 2nd 2010)  I realised that I was getting nowhere here and had to look elsewere.

The website http://flightstomelbourne.net.au/flights/domestic/OOL/Gold-Coast/to/MLB/Melbourne-All-Airports was alot more helpful and I was able to find that I could get a flight from gold coast to melbourne on a number of flight services for only $59.

5. Who is Hatsune Miku? What company does she belong to? What is her Birthday?

This was a little confusing as I had  never heard of Hatsune Miku and was under the impression she would be a real person...

... So naturally I was a little surprised to see an anime character come up instead. Just by looking at some of the sites availalbe it came to my attention that she was a virtual music idol. I eventaully came to a 'fansite' called http://www.mikufan.com/ (Accessed September 2nd 2010) according to the site she was developed by Crypton media.

I just typed Hatsune Miku birthday into yahoo to get her birthdate which was the 31st of August according to the website http://anime-baka.blogspot.com/2008/08/happy-birthday-hatsune-miku.html (accessed 2nd September 2010)

6. Find a live Webcam in Antartica. Find a place to stay in antartica.

Well I hoped this one would be quite straightfoward and so I optimistically typed 'Antartica Webcam' into yahoo and hoped for a good result.
And I got the result I needed from the website http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/mawson (accessed 2nd September 2010) which showed webcam footage from Mawson Station in Antartica and the live webcame would update pictures every ten minutes.

All I could find that was even close to a place to stay in Antarctica were the cruises that travel through the forzen land.  Hapag-LLoyd Cruises came up on the website http://www.travel-antarctica.com/ (Accessed 2nd September 2010) with large cruises being banned from Antartica in 2011 this seems like the best choice as they will not be effected.

7. What song was top of the Australian pop charts this week in 1980?

Having little knowledge of the 80's music scene I would definetely have to check this on out on reliable old yahoo. I typed in 'Australian music charts September 1980  to see what would come up. Very little did... So I decided to take some advice from ask.com...after a long time of searching I finally found (http://80music.about.com/od/80smusic12/tp/topsongsof1980.htm, accessed 2nd September 2010) that the Blondie song 'Call Me' Was the number one song for all of 1980 and that is the best I could do.

8. How would you define the term 'nano technology'? In your own words, what does it really mean?

Nano technology has always seemed to me like it would mean say tiny robots ect so to define the term myself I decided to look of the definition of the term 'nano' on yahoo.com

The website http://www.mondofacto.com/facts/dictionary?nano- (accessed 2nd September 2010) gave definitions stating nano meant "Something small" or as a prefix meaning one-billionth. So basically I would assume that nano-technology would be exteremely tiny tiny pices of technology and to make sure I checked by typing nano-technology into my trusty search engine to see what would come up. The website http://www.answers.com/topic/nanotechnology (Accessed 2nd September 2010) gave a definition basically stating that nano-technology was technology that was created from atoms and molecules.

9. What sort of camera is used for google street-view?

I don't really look at google street view so I had absolutely no idea how it worked or what kind of camera was used  so...yahoo will come in handy once again.  The camera used  for google street view is the IMC or Immersive Media Camera. It is mounted on cars and sent around the streets. Here is a photo. from the site I got the info http://google.about.com/od/experimentalgoogletools/ig/SIGGRAPH-2007/Immersive-Media-Camera.htm (Accessed 2nd September 2010)

Question 10. Translate these questions into Klingon.

Well it wouldn't be a series of questions unless I got to translate them into to klingon...hmmmm Yahoo Klingon translator I think.

http://www.mrklingon.org/ (Accessed September 2nd 2010) Had a very sophisticated Klingon translater so let's go

Question 1:What is the weight of the world's biggest machine? How much did it cost to build?
[Question] nuq 'oH [the] [weight] vo' [the] qo' [biggest] [machine] chay' 'ar ta'ta' 'oH [cost] Daq chen

Question 2: What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Ozzy Osborne?

[Question] nuq 'oH [the] [best] [way] [quickest] HochHom [reliable] Daq [contact] [Ozzy] [Osborne]

Question 3: When and what was the first example of global digital communication.
[Question] ghorgh 'ej nuq ghaHta' [the] wa'DIch [example] vo' [global] [digital] [communication]

Question 4: What is the cheapest form of travel from the Gold Coast to Melbourne?
[Question] nuq 'oH [the] [cheapest] [form] vo' [travel] vo' [the] SuD baS [Coast] Daq [Melbourne]

Question 5: Who is Hatsune Miku? What company does she belong to? What is her Birthday?
[Question] 'Iv 'oH [Hatsune] [Miku] nuq [company] ta'taH ghaH [belong] Daq nuq 'oH Daj qoS

Question 6: Find a live Webcam in Antartica. Find a place to stay in antartica.
[Question] tu' [a] yIn [Webcam] Daq [Antartica] tu' [a] Daq Daq [stay] Daq [antartica]

Question 7. What song was top of the Australian pop charts this week in 1980?
[Question] nuq bom ghaHta' [top] vo' [the] [Australian] [pop] [charts] vam [week] Daq

Question 8: How would you define the term 'nano technology'? In your own words, what does it really mean?
[Question] chay' [would] SoH [define] [the] [term] ['nano] [technology'] Daq lIj ghaj mu'mey nuq ta'taH 'oH [really] [mean]

Question 9: What sort of camera is used for google street-view?
[Question] nuq [sort] vo' [camera] 'oH [used] vaD [google] [street-view]

And there we have it...it's a wonder why this language hasn't taken off in mainstream society....

Also we needed to find three devices that were digital but not electronic. And in the tutorial we all put our minds together and decided one

1.Musical instruments.
2.The chinese Abacus (A calculator which uses beads.)
3.A sun dial (A clock which tells the time via it's shadow.

Week 2: This Years Box Office Smash!

The second week of content we looked at the language of the cinema. We looked at and leanred the different shots and shot sizes to help with our tute task in which we would create a still movie. I already knew most of the shot sizes but the connection with the "who, what, when ,where ect" was very interesting and quite helpful.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4kGsXg0yjjg&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4kGsXg0yjjg&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

This was a pretty awesome little project and by my count the second you tube video staring myself. I have a feeling I will become an internet sensation any day soon. But honestly it was enjoyable and we tried to vary the shots a fair bit. Mostly we were happy with how well the narrative came together considering we came up with the idea in about 5 minutes. towards the end you can see we started experimenting with the shots a little bit and we think it came off well. So yeah overall I liked the little still movie we came up with considering the time and budget (An i-phone) we had available.

First Ever post

So uh hey my name is Fin I'm 18 and am currently doing a bachelor of arts at Griffith university. I am yet to pick a major and while I was originally planning on journalism I am now not so sure. This is pretty much the first time I have even thought about writing a blog but it seems like it shouldn't be too much trouble and plus I have some pretty damn interesting thoughts at time.


Anyways New communications seems like it'll be a fun subject and this tutespark is really much  easier to work with than the other stuff so yeah that's good. It's nice to have all the information we need at one spot and the gmail account is a lot easier to go through than looking through learning@griffith.

The first week the lecture content discussed the overall definitions of numerous themes that we would look at in the subject like communication and technology. We also discussed the different forms of old and new technologies and how they differed. Naturally this first week was fairly basic and just an introduction though it did give a more interesting and in depth view of communication tech.