Poor internet explorer!! It’s so lame now. Here’s another example of how a certain technology can seem so new and amazing and fancy and incredible and futuristic and a mere few years later it’s just lame and retro.
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The Media’s direct impact on our society and collective psyche.
There’s no secret that the media has raised the physical expectations of women through the roof to a completely unreachable place. There have been multiple documentaries, thousands of essasys, scholarly articles or magazine articles, blog posts etc.etc.etc.etc about how the media is responsible for the rapidly dropping self-esteem of girls in society. Everywhere you look there’s half naked size 0 models showing us girls what we’ll constantly fail to strive towards.
But people neglect to remember is that men are affected as well. I mean underwear models with 48-pack and a bulge the size of a forearm are plastered 28 stories high on every second street corner. It’s known that in society, men feel the unwavering pressure to be sexy, muscly, fit and tanned to be considered desirable to women. This is why this article by the UK newspaper The Sun is so relevant, but funny.
It’s similar to the Dove Real Body Campaign (pictured below)
Although my beef with both of them is that they’re all still gorgeous girls (and gorgeous guys in the Sun article). They’re of all different colours and yes some of them are bigger than others but they’re not actually that ‘real’ looking. They’d all be considered the beautiful people of society even if they’re not stick thin.
But I guess they’re trying.
Anyway, enough of a pre-amble, this the Real Guys in Underwear ads series. It’s pretty funny and definitely makes a statement on how photoshopped and unrealistic every ad is, whether they’re of girls or boys. The perfect specimen is the foreground of underwear ads which is physically impossible to attain in real life.
WHO IS BATDAD
Keepin’ the network alive I decided to stalk Lauren’s blog coz I think she’s pretty rad.
Definitely didn’t regret that decision after finding that gem Who Is Batdad. Serious lols.
The Government tweets.
Isn’t that funny? The US Government is sending out very important information to the public via Twitter. At first it sounds kitsch and funny but on the other hand, it just shows how Twitter is far more than a social networking site for stalking your favourite celebrities and telling the world what colour dress you’ll wear today, it’s a public and very open forum where information can be passed to anyone with internet access. You can TWEET THE GOVERNMENT BACK (that’s crazy)! Twitter is like a 24/7 newspaper or public forum for the entire world. Brilliance!
But yeah, the US Government and many other Government institutions tweeted about the Government shutting down for the day. Ha ha ha ha ha but seriously. Future.
The federal government is currently shut down.
— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) October 1, 2013
The federal government is currently shut down.
— U.S. EPA (@EPA) October 1, 2013
Due to the government shutdown, we will not be tweeting or responding to any replies. We will return as soon as possible.
— U.S. National Science Foundation (@NSF) October 1, 2013
Due to the gov't shutdown, all public NASA activities/events are cancelled or postponed until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience.
— NASA (@NASA) October 1, 2013
BY THE WAY
Thank you so much to Jake Baldwin’s How To about embedding tweets. i literally would have had no idea how the flip to do that. Thank you <3
GOOGLE DOODLES – The .gif
Apparently this took this poor man over 10 hours. This is crazy. But it’s super interesting and awesome to see just how many bloody google doodles they’ve done. They’ve kept us entertained and informed for years but put all in succession together they’re an absolute work of art!
It’s funny how much they progressed as they started becoming bigger and more popular. The first few hundred are all based around the Google logo; it hardly changes at all, the lettering, font and placement stays the same par like two or three letters here and there. However as it progresses over time (which is why it’s so awesome this guy’s made a GIF out of them) you see just how intense it gets! It actually hurts your eyes a bit and gets pretty violent looking, but the latest ones are more and more abstract and bizarre and picturesque and over the top and not based on the Google letters very much at all. They’re much more artistic and impressive and sometimes you actually have to search for the letters.
Awesome work. It’s FAR too large to try and get the HTML code from (maybe I’m a noob and don’t know how to do it; i just went through Photobucket) seeing as its 1800 frames and over 15MB. WOW.
http://mos.creativebloq.com/features/2013/ibkba1zGNL8gyq.gif
Lectureee 1st October! (can’t remember what number we’re up to)
This lecture was pretty cool as it was a lot about technology and technique which i’m pretty interested by.
Before writing, you had to remember everything, it was up to the elders to remember everything. This is crazy. I remember this point relates to one Adrian made from a while ago; back before writing and reading came about, it was probably possible to know absolutely everything there was to know. These people were the elders in society. Since writing, and definitely these days with the billions of tidbits of information floating around in every field and study, it’s impossible to know everything. BUT the iphone comes pretty close which is why it’s such a success.
Apple is the largest media company , not technology company; they sell entertainment, technology, music, news etc. People who think technology doesn’t matter don’t know how to make anything digitally. This is pretty true seeing as my mum thought Facebook was a flash in the pan until she got one herself. Now she’s liking, sharing and commenting like a 17 year old!
In terms of technique vs. technology: there is a rhetoric about mastery – strange relationship where you think you’re in charge of your computer and technology; it’s a lot more sophisticated.
Does technique drive technology or does technology develop technique?
Technique is required when you have technologies so technology develops technique. For example, when the technology of writing led to the development of handwriting styles and techniques.
The end!! xoxoxoxoxo
A few clarifications
I really enjoy the readings that discuss the concept of ‘networks’. This one did this in quite a bit of depth (and length).
Firstly, it stated that it’s a mistake to give ‘the network’ a common meaning and assimilate it to the network of a train, tram or telephone ‘network’.
“Nothing is more intensely connected, more distant, more compulsory and more strategically organized than a computer network. “
The proximity point was interesting; it essentially said that one advantage with ‘the network’ is that something that is miles and miles away can be right next to you. Geographic location doesn’t even matter! This is true regarding with my post the other night about my friend whose in Paris at the moment! He’s on the other side of the globe but the network allows him to be closer to me than my sister sitting on the couch next to me.
No network is larger than the other, it can simply be longer or more intensely connected. The notion of a network dissolves the small and large scale distinctions. It also allows us to get rid of a ‘third spatial dimension’ –> the inside/outside distinctions. A network is all boundary without inside and outside.
Those are the main points that I was able to comprehend and really engage with!
Baffle fuck drink lol
via Instagram http://instagram.com/p/e7UYiFx4OS/
Thank You Adrian!
Adrian pingbacked me (is that the past tense of pingback??) and really helped me understand the notion of the ‘virtuality’ of the Network. I originally was confused because I thought Adrian meant the network was definitely not virtual, but I thought it was. This post made it clear to me that it’s mainly non-virtual although virtuality is an important concept to the network as it’s not technically ‘real!’
Thanks Adrian!
The Faces Of Facebook
The Faces Of Facebook app/website thingo. THIS IS BIZARRE. As the Network Media blog wrote on this post , this is the result of the plethora of networks and loose connections that are omitted into the internet.
There’s nothing more humbling and frightening then seeing how many billions of other people have complete online words and identities, use their laptops for hours on end and have a complete social and personal environment in the network. Not just I am doing this, not just everyone in this room, or this university, or this city… but the 1 and half BILLION people on facebook are doing this. It really makes me think about what Adrian said the other day about the carbon footprint on the internet. The network is so vast and unimaginably large. It’s full of loose ties and connections running left and right and up and down all over the virtual environment.
I can’t find myself. That’s upsetting. I’m such an insignificant dot on the Facebook population….