Week 5 - Reading Response 3

The main point that Basitis is trying to get at in his article, “Skin deep: What Polls of Minorities Miss,” is how inaccurate the media's knowledge of minorities can be. He claims the reason for this is poor polling practices and the high cost associated with increasing the accuracy of these polls. With any given poll, it's important that the information gathers attempt to acquire information from as many diverse sources as possible. When dealing with the general public this is relatively easy, because you have a large pool of subjects to gather information from. However, when dealing with smaller portions of the population, things get much more difficult because as sample sizes drop, margins or error increase. The primary reason for the high cost of more accurate polls is quite simple: in order to battle these error margins, much more effort must be put forth on the part of the interviewers in order to find suitable, diverse subjects. Often times, the targets for these minority polls don't necessarily speak English as their first language, this adds additional complications to the situation, because now the surveys must be translated in order to be conducted, and then translated back to English in order to be integrated into the resulting data. Along with already being quite expensive in the first place, some pieces of information can be lost or misinterpreted when translated between languages. On top of that, statistics suggest it's best to match an interviewers race with that of the interviewee, an additional expense to surveyors.
The proposal Basitis makes is that the media and other organizations need to bring attention to these challenges at a local level. The point of this would be to inform people of the importance of gathering accurate information about various minorities' opinions on different topics to ensure a more equal understanding of the views community members do and do not share.

Week 5 - Reading Response 2

The advertisement for the “courage: the anti-drug” campaign is a proposal argument because it provides different solutions one might consider taking to solve a problem involving a friend or loved ones drug or alcohol problem. Specifically in the courage ad it is proposing that if you really care about someone, it's important to do the right thing to help them, even if it could jeopardize your relationship. In a way, all of these ads are proposal arguments in that all of them have the underlying message of “choose not to do drugs.” In the regret ad, the proposal is to think of the consequences before making a bad decision. I find the “I am” ads to be the most effective of these because they come off as much less aggressive in their messages than their alternatives. In my opinion, all of these ads wander a fine line between a well-meaning public service announcement and an ill-informing piece of modern propaganda. The “I Am” ads do a better job of avoiding this label by instead of attacking those or those close to people with problems, they praise those who choose not to do drugs. I feel this gives those ads a much more positive and thus effective message as opposed to an offensive message emphasizing feelings of fear or sadness as weapons in the war on drugs. I think it's more effective to convey a message intended to encourage good choices than a message meant to discourage bad choices. It's kind of like when you tell someone they cannot have something, it only makes them want it more.

Week 5 - Reading Response 1

In the excerpt by Deborah Tannen called “Can We Talk?” Deborah argues that there are certain communication difficulties that arise when mothers and their daughters talk. She insinuates that there is a bit of a love versus hate relationship attitude that exist in most of these relationships. One of the best and easiest to relate to examples Deborah uses when trying to illustrate these mis-communications is probably the one her book is titled after, You're Not Going to Wear That, Are You? This example describes a situation many daughters have likely experienced before; the daughter has gotten all ready to go to some sort of gathering or event, but is stopped at the door where her mother asks her this question. Only in this situation, the daughter is not a teenager, but a grown woman, so she takes offense to this comment, thinking her mother is trying to tell her what to do or just treating her like a child. Deborah explains the reason the daughter gets mad is not so much because her mother was suggesting she should wear something else, but because of a metamessage embedded into the comment. In further explanation, Deborah points out that everything anyone says has a double meaning in it. The more obvious meaning being the literal definition of the comment, where as the other meaning is a bit more discrete. She refers to this meaning as a meta-message, the reason behind what was said, or why it was even brought up in the first place. While I find the concept of the metamessage interesting and completely agree that just about every comment one makes has an underlying meaning, I would not agree that these sorts of communication difficulties are found solely in mother versus daughter relationships alone.

Norway Education Minister: there's no future in fighting P2P

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/norway-education-minister-theres-no-future-in-fighting-p2p.ars

While this article title may not grab everyone's attention equally, it does cater to a specific demographics interest quite specifically. I think the reason this article grabbed my attention is several-fold, for one, it deals with a subject I find interesting to begin with, P2P file sharing. On top of that, the argument sound's like it's for P2P file sharing, something rather uncommon to hear, especially from a source of such prestige; this fact leads me to believe that this article may have something new for me to consider. Lastly, I had the opportunity to spend some time in Norway recently, so perhaps that was also something that subconsiously pulled me to the article.

Week #4 - Reading Responce: Question 3, pg. 1078

In my opinion, most of the images depicted here predominately represent a spread of capitalism more than that of democracy, although I would consider democracy a primary catalyst for this spread. Moreover I would consider this a spread of commercial capitalism, rather than simply the spread of capitalistic ideals and values. I say commercial capitalism because almost all of these pictures show the logos of multimillion dollar corporate giants. To me, this is the worst kind of capitalism and exactly what is ruining it's image these days. In my eyes, capitalism is meant to help an entrepreneur who comes up with a useful product or service that they can provide in their area; whereas the goals of these market hogging monsters stray quite far from these original ideals. Even though many of these companies started out as small time businesses just trying to make a good product, the name of the game has changed to making the biggest, most popular product while generating as much profit as possible by forcing their logos and advertisements into every nook and cranny of society. While many think this is what makes capitalism so wonderful, they fail to think of all the little guys that these larger companies eventually end up snuffing or buying out. Some of the pictures do not speak this message so loudly though, instead just illustrating the influence some of our cultural icons can have on people when it comes to advertising, such as the photo with snoopy on the billboard.

Essay #1 - Final Draft - Corporate vs. Custom

Dell, HP, Alienware. These are typically the first companies that come to mind when someone thinks about buying a new computer. However, more people are starting to visit local computer shops in search of better deals and products than these bigger companies offer. Some have friends or acquaintances assemble their computers for them at a fraction of the cost. Although many consumers tend to prefer brand name computers that come ready to use out of the box, these can often times be a poor alternative to custom building it themselves or having it done locally because brand name computers are more expensive piece per piece, are bundled with unneeded software, and are often times difficult or impossible to upgrade without assistance from the manufacture.

Because the first thing a person is usually concerned with when buying a new computer is their price range, it is helpful to know how one is going to get the most bang out of his or her buck. Contrary to what many well known computer companies may want the public to believe, their prices are not always the best. In fact, it does not take a lot of shopping around to realize that an already assembled rig is worth quite a considerable amount more than the sum of it's pieces. What does take a little bit of shopping around to realize is that it is much cheaper to get those pieces assembled locally, by an acquaintance, or by oneself - if one is the do-it-yourself type.

The next thing a person cares about when thinking about their computer is how nice it is. Although, how nice the computer is does not mean how expensive the parts in it are, but also how well it performs. One thing that may stand out about many custom built computers is how much faster they are, even when doing something like booting to the desktop or launching a program. The reason most name brand computers run slower is because they, by default, have multitudes of software running in the background performing various task, checking for updates whenever one turn on his computer, or providing one easier but redundant access to various key sections and functions on his or her computer. A custom built rig, on the other hand, will usually have little to no pre-installed software to speak of and will run clean as a whistle as long as it remains uncompromised. About the only drawback of a custom computer is that they require one to be a little more self sufficient. For instance, learning what a “driver” is and how to download and install basic programs is a must. If one goes a step further and learns how to back-up files, format, and install an operating system, then he or she will never have to worry about having a dead computer, unless it physically breaks.

Many people hope that when they invest their money into something, their money is going to go as far as it possibly can. For a computer, a long term investment basically means it must be easily upgradeable. One problem with many name brand model computers is the lack of options one has when it comes to making changes. If the computer is no longer under warranty, one probably would not find much of a challenge adding more RAM or a new graphics card. However, if the warranty is still in place, the customer would likely have to go with the manufacturer's parts and send it back to them in order to have them installed. The wonders of having a custom assembled computer are that one is never stuck with any specific configuration, it can still be upgraded just as easily as the day it was built. Even in a worse case scenario where almost everything needs to be replaced, one can at least be comforted that his or her tower may remain useful for future builds, as well as likely a few other parts. In the case of name brand computers, seldom is a tower a desirable piece to hold on to when the rest of the computer has become obsolete.

Overall, custom computers project a much more personal feel to their owners than one that is merely a duplicate of thousands of others who just came off the assembly line. Actually being able to select all of ones own parts and tower alone is cool, but what is really nice is that which comes after it is turned on. Even though some of the details may seem daunting at first, especially for those attempting to be as self sufficient as possible, the pay offs are that of a faster computer that costs less money and a computer that one understands more thoroughly and can therefore use more efficiently. Both booting to the desktop in under a minute and never having to ask the question, “What's this little icon down in the corner doing?” are dreams few have yet to realize. The price is right and it is nice to know if one ever wants to re-customize anything about the computer, he or she can.

Week #4 - Grammar Girl

I have to admit, I catch myself leaving random words out of my writings all the time. Normally it happens when I'm on a roll too, so I don't get a chance to notice; however, I usually reread what I'm writing while I'm writing it and tend to catch those errors then. My biggest downfall for a long time was my horrible spelling, but luckily spell check has kind of solved that problem. Grammar girl presents some interesting tips for improving ones ability to proofread. The one I probably use most often would likely be her second suggestion, to read it out loud. Although giving it some time seems to always work best, because I've found that if something is too fresh in my mind, even when reading it out loud, I might add words I meant to type, but are not actually there. I tested out her first idea, starting with the last sentence and working your way backwards through the writings on my first blog entry. I did not come across and spots where I was missing a word or any obvious punctuation, however I did notice some of the sentences probably could have been worded better. Yet, that could be because it's been awhile since I wrote that entry too, so I guess that's more support for the 'give it time' method.

Essay #1 Rough Draft - Corporate Vs. Custom

Corporate versus Custom
Although people tend to prefer brand name computers that come ready to use out of the box, they are often times a poor alternative to having a computer custom built because brand name computers are over priced, bundled with unneeded software, and cannot be serviced or upgraded by anyone other than the manufacturer. Most of these companies boast about their high customer service ratings and quality control standards even though many of these services are typically equal or even sub-par compared to those one might find locally. On top of all that, they draw business away from local competitors, intern causing the community to lose money.
Big name computer companies like to make their customers feel like they're saving money, so they've come up with some pretty neat tricks to make it seem like their making us do just that. Their first trick is to tell us how much money we could be spending. This is evident, because often times they make sure the first thing a customer sees on their website is an advertisement for the biggest, best, and most expensive computer they have to offer. It's huge, colorful, and impressive. It's also cutting-edge and enticing, but unfortunately, still very expensive. If all goes well though, that enticing part will stick, like a nail, right in the center of our CPU. The next thing they'll have us notice is everything else. Specifically, how affordable everything else is, especially when compared to that first rig. However, if were lucky, we'll realize that that nail was little more than a pointy piece of hot air, and that these “affordable prices,” really are only affordable when compared to that first rig, and nothing else. It doesn't take much research to notice that we're paying quite a hefty fee on top of each individual part's base value just to have it installed. In reality these twenty to fifty percent mark ups are paying for assembly cost and other expenses, not to mention your “free limited warranty,” so most of it's going to a reasonable cause, especially if something breaks immediately. However, in the long run, the fact of the matter remains that the majority of ones investment in a name brand computer resides primarily in the warranty, not in the hardware itself. In many cases involving custom built computers though, you pay the actual price of the parts plus shipping. Assembly labor and other fees are figured in separately that way the customer knows exactly what they are paying for, instead of leaving it up to the company to balance all expenses fairly behind the scenes.
Of all the annoying details that come attached to buying a brand name computer, the worst of which has to do with all that “useful” bundled software they come with. There's nothing like spending over a thousand dollars on a new toy only to have to wade though hundreds of trials, promos, and advertisements before one can even locate their desktop. Not to mention all the proprietary software and services typically involved with brand names that have to be learned before one can even start to do what they want with their computer. This is probably one of the best things about a custom built computer, is how clean it feels when first turned on. It's so fast and so fresh. There is nothing on the computer. No pop-ups, no trials. You're free to make your own mess from the start, instead of cleaning up someone else's from the start.
Then there is one of the most important things a computer owner can do to improve the lifespan and performance of their system, and that is to perform routine maintenance on it. Usually all that one needs to concern themselves with is keeping their computer case dust free, but warranties typically disallow access to the interior of the case, hindering ones ability to keep it clean. This is more of an annoyance than anything else though, as there is always the option to send the computer back to the manufacturer whenever it needs dusting or a little upgrade now and again, as long as the owner is prepared to pay a little extra for the “convenience” if it wasn't specifically in the warranty. Unfortunately, if this is the path chosen, a week is almost always the minimum time one should expect to be without their computers, whereas if the computer was built locally, a simple house call can be all it takes, or at most a couple of days in the shop.
Basically what it comes down to is a question of what one really wants out of a computer. Is customization a priority? For many it is not, while others just hate the idea of being locked out of something they own. If this is the case, local and custom is probably the way to go. However, maybe just minimal down time is all that is of concern, in which case perhaps the corporate approach with all their warranties would be a better decision. Hopefully though, it's mostly a question of how important it is to one to spend locally instead of abroad.

Week #3 Response

In the essay, Shitty First Drafts, by Anne Lamott, she points out that in the world of writing, there is no such thing as a perfect first draft. It takes time, patience, dedication, and above all else, drafts. Sometimes lots of them, and sometimes some pretty shitty ones at that. However, she comforts us that this is the way it is for everyone. There isn't a soul in the world who can just sit down and write a masterpiece, let alone anyone who can even sit down and just start writing quality, final draft material right away. Even our favorite and the most renowned authors suffer from writers block now and again. People have strategies and steps for getting their words out onto paper, whether it's brainstorming and gathering thoughts, or just writing constantly until the levies of ones mind gives way, the trick is to just do it. Anne suggest that often times one of the most powerful things that holds us back is fear. Fear of judgment, fear of what others might think of our unpolished and raw work, sometimes even fear of what we ourselves will think of our work. She encourages us to let go of such silly concerns. After all, there is a reason they call it a rough draft, they were never intended to be smooth. She places great emphases on the importance of a robust first draft, shitty or not. We must understand that they are merely the foundation for what is to follow, but only that. We mustn't linger on the details of them, for there will be plenty of time to revise and redraft those in the future.

Week #2 Response

The main point that Sea is trying to get at is a problem feminist have been trying to make society aware of for some time now. It has to do mainly with the unparalleled influence the media can have on the public, and their lack of concern to take responsibility for it. Sea's article specifically focuses on the media's portrayal of the typical man versus what a “real man” should be. In most of the cases presented, the lesser male is portrayed either as being “too” feminine or just plain stupid, where-as the greater portrayal is that of a tough, determined guy with a big truck. More often than not, these portrayals happen within beer and American truck commercials, but occasionally the use of these stereotypes can be found within all genre's of advertisement. His claim is that this is all part of a “metrosexual back-lash,” a reaction contained within the media resulting from a recent rise in men's fashion advertisement, which tends to feature much more averagely built, effeminate males. His concern is that if all these stereotypes continue to be used unchallenged and unchecked, that they may permeate society, causing men to believe that it is acceptable and even expected for them to act inappropriately as well as encourage them to assert their dominance over women. In his closing however, he points out that it is more likely that men will become tired of being mocked by these stereotypes, rendering these forms of advertisement ineffective and hopefully delivering the message that it is the commercial writers who are being inappropriate.

Not Predictably Unpredictable - Ungraded Writing Assignment

Typically, I have a fairly predictable schedule. Unfortunately, it's usually the predictably unpredictable kind of predictable. The worst kind of predictable. I'm used to taking things as they come, ready for everything to change at a moments notice. It's made me a very adaptable person, however has not provided me with much of an opportunity to hone my organizational skills. Schedules are something I'm aware of, but the practice of adhering to one for an extended period of time is a little more foreign to me. It's apparent to me that these are some things I'm going to have to work on if I'm going to succeed this semester. Luckily, deadlines are something I do understand, which should work well to my advantage.

The reason for all these habits is mainly due to the nature of my job. Fortunately, the economy has not been doing too well, so I doubt I will have to worry about being over-burdened with hours and obligations this semester. I've been looking forward to going back to school for a long time. Initially I only planned on taking a year off of school to give myself time to recover from my 'senioritis'. However, real life was quick to let me know that dedication wasn't the only ingredient required for a successful college experience, the other was money. I personally wasn't too keen on the idea of going into debt before I had even declared a major, so I decided I would take it slow and only do a few classes at a time until I had saved up enough to go back full time.

This brings us to now, or pretty much now, minus the full time part. Much to my dismay, it came to my attention that this class is pretty much a requirement for every other class I want to take. So I'm actually only taking this class and library sciences this semester instead, but I'm looking at the bright side of it. Coupled with minimal distraction from my workplace and a sufficient supply of money to get me by untill summer, this should make for a rather relaxed semester with little to keep me from getting my work done.