Energy Savvy Tweeting

I have never been or started to become accustomed to using blogging sites or Twitter for that matter simply because I have not seen the usefulness in them. So I decided for this week’s article choice, I wanted to find one on Twitter. I thought this article from Wired.com has given me a possibly new interest for Twitter. The Home Tweet Home: Energy-Savvy House Broadcasts on Twitter article is about people tweeting about their energy improvements made to their homes. I think this is a wonderful use of Twitter as it is like an informational manual on energy saving home improvements. Many people don’t opt for energy home improvements because of the belief that it’s costly or difficult to complete. However there are several different things you can do in your home everyday to help reduce energy consumption. Some people just need to be shown how. The tweeters tweet about energy usage to how much energy solar panels generate. I think this is a great way for people to become aware of how efficient certain energy improvements benefit you and the environment.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/online-homes-br/

WWW

The World Wide Web article was somewhat boring. I have to first start out by saying that computer technology is not one of my strengths. Reading through the beginning of this article I felt even more inclined to not read. My husband is an IT engineer and when he talks about work or what he does I find myself rolling my eyes. However I do respect how computer systems were made to function. It takes several intelligent people to come up with the concepts of vast computer programs for our use. What I did find interesting was how everything has a specific code. HTML, HTTP, URL and so forth. The way each code is entered will transport information onto the computer for others to see. It reminds me of when I started to use MySpace. I would enter certain codes in certain domains so that I could either post pictures or music to my wall. Doing the code myself was tedious work. Also it’s interesting that no matter what is posted on the internet (i.e. commercials, music, pictures, ads) it all has a code. If that code is not properly entered it won’t appear. Thank goodness I don’t work with computers.

Death of Kaycee

I thought this article stood out particularly because it speaks heavily about rhetoric. Rhetoric is defined as an influence of meaning in any given situation. I’m currently also taking a rhetorical criticism class which I take much interest in. After reading through this piece, I grasped a real sense of “meaning” and how the meaning of Kaycee affected so many people involved. Yes I thought that Debbie may have been a bit insensitive to other people’s reactions, but then again this is an exact example of rhetoric. Debbie fabricated a completely fictional story to influence the perceptions of others-and she did it quite successfully. However, was it not the purpose of her hoax? I understand how the other individuals who participated in the Kaycee online community felt betrayed, but in hindsight they were portraying any normal feelings a human would feel about a situation such as Kaycee’s. Perhaps not the best way to stir the pot, but it certainly did.

Getting Paid to Blog

Since this class is mostly investing its time blogging on blogspot, I found this article to be quite interesting and maybe useful for those who might pursue a career blogging. In this article I read on Wired.com How to Almost Live on Blogging by Joanna Glasner was an interview with Harold Davis and author and operator of a blog called Googleplex. He apparently makes money off of writing books and blogs. He talks about how people can make decent to substantial means of money by blogging. I would have never thought that blogging could be so lucrative as to make a living from, but for quite a few it is very possible. Davis noted that a page of blogging can get an average of $10 a year. However in order to gain that much you need to have a good and consistent following. The concept for me sounds good enough for maybe anybody to try. If you could sit behind your computer for a few hours a day writing about your interests, life experiences, or educational resources and get money for it, why not?

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70161

blogging and privacy

Privacy is definitely a big issue for me. I particularly liked the blogging article because it doesn’t just tackle the issue of privacy on-line, but it starts out with different objectives of privacy. Privacy is basically what we like to make private and what we believe should be private for different reasons. The self-reflexive identity and privacy objective was something that I could closely relate with because I like the notion of the “self”. Slef identity is key to one’s own personality and how they portray themselves. In that sense we are allowing people to know certain aspects of ourselves while at the same time keeping other things private. Further into the article it talks about forming relationships through blogging-romantic and platonic. Personally I don’t think I could form any sort of relationship solely from blogging. One main reason I couldn’t is because I don’t consider blogging apart of my communication practice and it wouldn’t benefit me in any way. Another reason is because I find it to be impersonal. But I did enjoy reading this article and found it interesting to see a different side to interpersonal communication through blogging.

The end of books

In all honesty, this piece was difficult to wrap my head around. I understand that it’s about the evolution of writing and how people comprehend writings-whether it’s on paper or on another form of technology. At first reading through this article, I envisioned how books are almost no longer needed. We have several mediums to read from including off of a computer. Nowadays there are e-books or the Kindle which are books read through software applications. These are now becoming the “normal” forms of reading. I still like to indulge in the old way of consuming text which is from a book-however I am becoming accustomed to reading on-line also. So I suppose the writing is true that “The emphasis of a hypertext should be the degree to which the reader is given power, not to read, but to organize the texts made available…” and texts are made available everywhere-not just through books.

Pesronal Dynamic Media-Netbook?

The Personal Dynamic Media article was one of the writing pieces that really stood out and grabbed my attention. For one reason is because it was about a former writing piece that foretold what the future of technology might be and it was a true depiction. It gave me an eerie feeling to read on to see how accurate Kay and Goldberg came to writing about the Dynabook. I felt like they took a step into the future and brought the past back with them. Their term for their idea of the Dynabook would essentially be the size of a notebook-they were extremely accurate. I’m sure over the past two decades their ideas evolved and transformed into what we have today-netbooks! I love my netbook and love how it’s conveniently sized to take anywhere-especially to school. They were also right on the money that these “dynabooks” would be used for personal needs and education because that is exactly the reason why I have one. This made me think of how we can envision something, write about it, and quite possibly one day it may come true. In Kay and Goldberg’s case it did.

Navigating Technomedia

Navigating Technomedia reminds me over and over again how technology takes over our modern living culture. Technology has changed the way we live and choose to live in many different arenas. There is an abundance of gaming systems, computer programs, and cell phones to choose from. I remember when the first Playstation came out and how that it was the best gaming system out there. Now there is the newest computer, newest cell phone, or newest game console. Honestly, can technology keep continuing to improve over time? I always wonder if there will ever be a point where technology stops. Technology is so unique that it has now developed its own culture. I look at fashion and how it evolves but also repeats the past by incorporating old fads with the new. Just like the cell phone-they started out big, then small, and now they are bigger again. This article simply reiterates how technology advances, in turn makes me think of how technology continues to evolve.