Culture Jamming - Media Release

SURFERS SAYS GOODBYE TO THE SCHOOLIES

CELEBRATIONS

School leavers of 2010 have been shocked with the announcement that the Schoolies Festival in Surfers Paradise has been cancelled this year.

The Queensland Government confirmed yesterday that the Schoolies celebration will no longer be permitted within the Surfers Paradise precinct.

Premier Anna Bligh released a statement confirming the cancellation. “Surfers Paradise will no longer be the base for a under 18’s party,” Ms Bligh said.

The cancellation of the Surfers Paradise celebration came after the Bligh Government introduced a new initiative to reduce alcohol-related violence in the Fortitude Valley area. The $4.2 million plan increases the presence of police and new banning powers mean ‘troublemakers’ will be prevented by a court order from entering the precinct.

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers, has pointed out that the government is asking existing police patrols to work overtime, rather than employing new officers. Due to this, there are not enough numbers to patrol both areas, with Surfers Paradise coming second best to the Valley.

Bligh has warned to graduates of 2010 and their guardians that any underage teens found under the influence will be escorted from Surfers Paradise at the expense of the guardian.

“Australian tax dollars will not be spent towards this plan,” Miss Bligh announced.

Week 9 - My Assignment

For my Essay I will be focusing on Question 6:


"Increasingly mobile devices are an aid to the gathering and reporting of information, both by professional journalists and “citizen journalists”. Outline the advantages and disadvantages of this sort of news gathering. How might it impact on journalistic practices and news values and ethics?"

I have chosen this question and I plan to major in journalism next year and I think I would gain using knowledge from researching and answering this question.


Luckily, I am actually quite good at writing an essay. Now I'm not saying I am a "hot-shot-essay-writer" by any means, but if I was to choose between sitting for an exam and writing a 10,000 word essay, the essay would win with flying colours. You see writing an essay gives you the chance further your knowledge and continue to research until you have the correct answer. Where sitting for an exam (when your memory resembles that of a fish aka my memory) if you do not know the answer to a question you are basically screwed and have to place all of your chances on luck.

When first begining my research I came across from interesting information in relation to the London Bombings. On the day the busy city of London stood still, it was the images sent by citizens who were affected by the attack that first indicated it was in fact, an act of terrorism.

BBC New's Website said ".. when major events occur, the public can offer us as much information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, new coverage is a partnership".

I am going to use the London bombings for the angle of my essay. Through focusing the on the advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism and focusing on the ethical side, I will hopefully be able to decide whether citizens journalists are a help or a hazard to culture of journalism.

Week 8 - Tute Task and TuteSpark

What is Cyberfunk????


Cyberfunk is a form of science fiction. It is based on the innerspace; what is happening now and portrays how the world may end up through the combination of human nature and technology and how the relationship between the two will come to be represented.


The term 'cyberfunk' was coined from the novel Cyberfunk written by Bruce Bethke in 1982. The term cyber was derived from the term cybernetics. Cybernetics is a control theory, the study of, for example, the interaction between human and machine.


Fashion of the Future: Is That Your Dress Ringing?

London Designers Create Cell Phone Dress and Other High-Tech High-Fashion Hybrids

Fashionistas of the future might be as practical as they are posh.

If fashion designers at the London-basedCuteCircuit have their way, a dress that doubles as a cell phone will hit the market next year.

The M-dress, which is CuteCircuit's latest high-tech, high-fashion hybrid, lets the wearer take calls by just lifting her wrist to her ear. The SIM card plugs into the label and the antenna is sewn into the dress' hem.

Francesca Rosella, who co-founded Cute Circuit with Ryan Genz, said the concept stemmed from her own experience.

"How many times when I have my mobile phone in my purse I can't reach it in time to answer the call?" she asked. "We thought, 'Why don't we just make a dress that is a mobile phone?'"

When the dress rings, she said, you just lift up your hand toward your ear. A sensor detects the motion and answers the call. When you're done with the call, you just lower your hand and the connection closes.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/fashion-future-dress-ringing/story?id=11448779


http://www.kheper.net/topics/cyberpunk/what_is_cyberpunk.htmhttp://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/0003637k/project/html/condef.htm

Week 7 - Lecture

My week using Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox - Created by thousands of people around the world working together to build a better Internet.

I spent the last week using Firefox to access the internet on my laptop. Luckily, my laptop already had Firefox downloaded so it was ready to use. At first, it was just hard getting out of the habit of clicking internet explorer when accessing the net. I found Firefox to be a user-friendly. I use a wireless system at home and I found Firefox would load much faster than explorer and at times when access was denied to the net through explorer, Firefox would still upload. The layout of Mozilla is simplistic which makes it easier to use. One other beneficial aspect to Firefox was the fact that it saved the last website you were on, which is really good when you need to come back to a site.

Mozilla Firefox was an experimental branch of the Mozilla project created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross. The first release of Firefox, Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. This was following by Firebox 1.5 later released in November 29 2005. Version 2.0 released on October 24 2006, Firebox 3.0 on June 17 2008. Version 3.5 was released and June 30, 2009 and the Version 3.6 (which we have today) was released on January 21, 2010.

While researching the differences between using Mozilla Firefox and the ever-so-popular Internet Explorer I found a website (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-reasons-why-firefox-is-safer-than-internet-explorer/) which outlined a few reasons as to why Mozilla is a safer program to use. Updates on Mozilla are releases immediately, not on a monthly schedule, and clock in at fewer than 10 MB. Users are notified automatically and prompted to install the update with a single click. The update process doesn’t take more than a minute on a modern computer. Since Firefox is open source, anyone can look at the source code, anyone can spot a problem and contribute a fix.

If you are interested in other ways that Firefox is a safer alternative, the website attached outlines numerous reasons.

WEEK 7

1. What is creative commons and how could this licensing framework be relevant to your own experience at university?

Launched in 2003, Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of reasonable copyright. It does this by making licenses and tools freely available to share, reuses, repurpose and remix. Creative Commons does not mean that a person is giving up their rights to the license, it just allows a more liberal use of the material. Creative commons is not an alternative to copyright it works alongside copyright.

A Creative Commons license allows a user to choose how others use their work. By using a Creative Commons license a user keeps their copyright but it allows others to copy and distribute your work provided the user gives credit and uses the material on the conditions the user specifies. For online work you can select a license that generate “Some Rights Reserve” or a “No Rights Reserved” button and statement for your published work.

http://creativecommons.org.au/content/whatiscc1.pdf

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/6/62/Creativecommons-informational-flyer_eng.pdf

2. Find 3 examples of works created by creative commons and embed them in your blog.

Film "Big Buck Bunny", was one of a short computer animated film that both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative common Attribution License.

Blogger.com – this website that I am currently writing on exists because of Creative Common Licenses.

Photo sharing social media site Flickr encourages the use of the Creative Commons licensing framework. The work a user uploads onto Flickr is listed under a catergory of which the user decideds. The catergories are as follows:

Attribution means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike means:
You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

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.

http://proquest.umi.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/pqdweb?index=2&did=1878390111&SrchMode=1&sid=7&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=
309&VName=PQD&TS=1283836310&clientId=13713

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 software program that can be accessed and run independently without the use and support of a pre-installed file or program. Portable apps are commonly used by removable devices ie. USB, floppy disk, CD. Portable apps can be used on any computer of which it is compatible.

I personal think portable apps are one of the best things ever invented. I even have a USB on my key ring as I depend on mine so regularly. Working between the home computer, my laptop, work computer and university computers and I am constantly saving and moving my assignments. I love the fact that I don't have to worry that it won't be compatible or I won't be able to access my documents.

WEEK 6

In this week's lecture we discussed the evolution of Web.2.0. During this discussion the question arose of who owns the content you put on the internet. Personally I have never thought about it before and to be perfectly honest I never really cared. My entire life is plastered on Facebook. My page is saturated with photos, events, comments and discussions for the world to see. Even though my page is set to private, after diving into the concept of privacy on the internet I have quickly learnt that my information really isn't that private.

In 2009 online suspicion arose when Facebook updated its terms and deleted a provision which stated that “users could remove their content at any time at which time the license would expire”. It also added a new section that explained that Facebook would retain user's content and licenses after an account was terminated. The change to the terms went unnoticed until a blog columnist shone light on the changes and interpreted them to mean “anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.”

As you can imagine this post attracted a great deal of attention, being as Facebook is widely used by millions around the world. It drew the question of who actually owns the information a person uploads on these social-networking websites. Even when Mark Zuckerberg released on his blog “that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant” it still makes you wonder who can access your information.

The Terms of Service of Facebook state:-

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

So basically, anything you upload, write, comment or now even delete is the property of Facebook. So basically my entire existence is owned by the Mulit-million dollar corporation - GREAT (insert sarcasim here)!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php


Who has the right to use your creations?