Week 9 - Tutorial Task

What opportunities can you find for political participation via the internet?

1) Sign an e-petition

I signed an e-petition on ' Support campaign to end the suffering of Gilad Shalit and his family':

On 25 June 2011, 24-year-old Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will have spent five years in captivity in an unknown location somewhere in the Gaza Strip. The Shalit family have heard nothing of him for nearly two years but despite this, they continue to hope for – at the very least – a letter from Gilad.

Thank you, Grethe
Your action was 3237

Reference: Amnesty International website 2011, viewed 28 September 2011 at http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/end-suffering-gilad-shalit-family

2) Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.

I responded to a blogg at one of Norways biggest newspapers called VG.

3) What is Barack Obama up today?
According to a website called 'Today with President Barack Obama', this is his schedule for thursday 29 September 2011:

10:00 AM	The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing Oval Office Closed Press
11:00 AM	The President delivers remarks at the "Change of Office" Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ceremony at Fort Myer. the Vice President also attends Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia
1:40 PM	The President will be interviewed live by Michael Smerconish Oval Office Closed Press
8:05 PM	The President delivers remarks at a campaign event Private Residence

(Source: http://ochairball.blogspot.com/)

Reference: 'Today with President Barack Obama - Postind daily on Obama since 2008', viewed 30 September 2011 at http://ochairball.blogspot.com/

4) What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the socalled "Clean Feed")?

The Australian Government plan to censor the internet so they can filter out a prescribed list of websites deemed prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority The goal is to ensure children are ‘protected from harmful and inappropriate online material.'
 

Reference:

Karina Travaglione, 2009. Mannkal Essay Competition, "Internet Censorship in Australia - A ‘clean-feed’?", 25 Sept 2011. Located at: http://www.mannkal.org/downloads/scholars/internet-censorship-in-australia.pdf.


5) When will the NBN get to your place? What are the benefits?
The National Broadband Network (NBN) will come to Brisbane on the second release.
 

NBN, 2011, "Our Network". Viewed 25 Sept 2011, located at: http://www.nbnco.com.au/our-network/maps/qld.html.

The benefits with NBN is that it provides better business solutions, better education, helps the medical community and provides entertainment.

Chesher, C., 2010, " Benefits of the NBN go beyond the individual". Viewed 26 Sept 2011, located at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/benefits-of-the-nbn-go-beyond-the-individual-20100812-120zv.html.

6) Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.

The local representative for Surfers Paradise in the Queensland Parliament is John-Paul Langbroek. The last time he spoke in the parliament was Thursday, 8 September 2011.
 

(Source: Brisbane Times website: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/langbroek-to-lead-lnp-20090402-9kkf.htm)

Reference:

Parlament QLD, "Explore your parlament" viewed 21 Sept 2011, located at http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/en/explore.

Week 9 - Response to Content

For my essay I have chosen topic 2: "Does the extensive use of computer/video games have an adverse impact on the health of young people. What are the most recent papers? Clarify what both sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts." Currently, without viewing any sources of information, my position in the case is that I think computer/video games affect the health of young people. The reason for this is that gamers tend to sit still for a long amount of time and therefore they are not doing that much physical activity. This might cause overweight and other sicknesses. They also tend to stay up all night gaming which affects the amount of time used to sleep, and in the end their health. In my research for this essay I hope to find evidence to prove the guilt of gaming and the bad effects of it. I think there is a lot of information out there that I can use to strengthen my position. I hope I will find some research from credible sources, like doctors, to support my opinion since this kind of information is likely to obtain more support form the audience. In the end I hope the conclusion I reach is similar to my currently opinion.

Week 8 - Tutorial Task

We finished the editing of our film this week, but do to the law of copyright we could not post it. If we had posted it on YouTube or on the blog this could caused lawsuits and other problems with the government since the film was highly illegal. As a private person you might take the risk to post it and get away with it, but since we are doing this as a assignment at Griffith University it was not an option to post it. What we did wrong was that we used pictures of two cartoon characters, Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit, which we need permission from the owners, Warner Brothers, to use. To avoid this illegal action we could have asked them for permission or used pictures of ourselves or volunteers. We also used facebook's name and logo without permission. Rather than doing this we could have invented a name and/or blurred the facebook name.


Even though the film came out illegal I learned a lot from the experience of making it. All crew members now know for sure what to do, and not, next time they are creating a movie. I will take the experience with me and use it to do it better next time.

Week 8 - Response to Content

What is Creative Commons?

"Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organisation that provides

free licences for creators to use when making their work available to the public. These

licences help the creator to give permission for others to use the work in advance under

certain conditions." (CCi). When someone creates something, for an expamle a journal article or a photograph, their work is automatically protected by copyright. This means that other people cannot use their work in certain ways, like copying the work or putting the work online, without their permission.

Creators who put their creations on Creative Commons use the CC licences, which allows the creator of the work to select how they want others to use the work. When a creator releases their work under a CC licence, members of the public know what they can and can’t do with the work. This means that they only need to seek the creator’s permission when they want to use the work in a way not permitted by the licence. The great thing is that all CC licences allow works to be used for educational purposes. As a result, teachers and students can freely copy, share and sometimes modify and remix a CC work without having seeking the permission of the creator (CCi).

(Source: http://www.brisbanegrammar.com/blogs/library/?tag=creative-commons)

References:
- CCi, What is Creative Commons - For teachers and students, viewed 29 September 2011 at http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/webdav/site/scwsite/shared/What_is_Creative_Commons__website_.pdf

Week 7 - Tutorial Task

This week we finished all the filming to the movie. we had some trouble with our last scene because we needed two volunteer boys to act, and we only had one. Eventually we got it all sorted out and got all the clips needed to the film. When everything was gathered we started with the cutting and editing in Sony Vegas. It took more time editing than expected so we were not able to finish the editing. The reason for the unexpected amount of time used might be that the members of the crew had none or limited experiences with the editing program. Sometimes we had to watch YouTube movies of how to use the program to find out what to do, for an example how to split the screen. We experienced some trouble when we looked for music to use as well. The songs we had thought about could not be used since it would be illegal do to the law about copyright. After searching a while we discovered a website called Creative Commons, which is a site were people put out things you can use. What is next week is to finish the editing and put the film on youtube.com

(Source: LeFemme, N 2011, Tag Archives: filming, on http://stanzavida.wordpress.com/tag/filming/

Week 7 - Response to Content

'Mankind is no island' is a film shot entirely on a cell phone, using found signage on the streets of NY and Sydney to tell a touching story from the very heart of two cities.

Week 6 - Tutorial Task

Finally time for the task about creating a short film. We started this weeks tutorial with a brainstorming to find out the theme and story for the film. It was hard to come up with something, but after a while we settled on a plan. The film will concern how programs like Facebook can be abused by creating fake profiles to deceive others.

We will primarily film all necessary material by our self with a video camera. When all the material is recorded and collected we will put it all into Sony Vegas editing program on the computer. Here we will sort and and cut all the material, then put it together to a video. When we are producing the film it is very important to respect the copyright. Elements created by others, like pictures, songs and videos, should not be used without permission from the "owner". We might have some problem here since we are going to use some pictures of some persons in our film, and because we are going to use some audios and music.

When we decided on the theme and wrote the manuscript we tried to avoid using anything that could be linked to real persons or specific situations since that could harm them and their reputation.

Week 6 - Response to Content

When was the DVD invented?

It all started in 1994 when Sony and Philips that they would cooperate in developing a new high-density medium known as Digital Video Disk (DVD). This new inventure was to be the successor to the compact disks (CD-ROM) for computers, and replace VHS tapes in the entertainment industry. In the start of year 2005 in Beverly Hills, Time Warner and Toshiba held a press conference to announce their version of the DVD. This set off the debate of the DVD and the fight of developing the best product. When comparing the two DVD versions, there were found two technical differences between the DVDs. Toshiba was double-sided with a capacity of 10 gigabytes. They also used thinner disks than Sony. This made the Toshiba disk bigger and better than Sony's DVD. During the spring of 1995, the conflict between the two developers had been fueled by Toshiba’s own development of a two-layer disc called SD (Super Density). Sony and Philips were then tightly grid locked in competition (Chapin 1999).

The first DVD players and discs were available in Japan in November 1996, in the United States in 1997, 1998 in Europe and in 1999 in Australia. By 2003 DVD sales and rentals topped those of VHS (History of DVD 2010).

(Source: http://rhetoriccamel.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html)

References:
- Chapin, R 1999, History of DVD, viewed 29 September 2011 at http://www.miqrogroove.com/writing/history-of-dvd/
- History of DVD 2010, viewed 29 September 2011 at http://didyouknow.org/dvdhistory/