I find Miller’s article, “The Dark Night of the Soul” to be simply incredibly depressing, but not only that, but overblown as well. Is Miller suggesting that reading and writing are supposed to stop people from committing atrocities like 9/11 and Columbine? And even so, these two tragedies are so incredibly different in every scope, it’s difficult to think that one cure could solve both of them. One involves the destruction of two gigantic buildings, the deaths of thousands, and one is in a school, by two socially inadequate and fed-up kids took out their teachers and fellow students. 9/11 revolves around religion, extremism, and government culture – Columbine is about bullying and the breaking point.
As a writer and a realist, I find it an absurd belief to think that reading and writing would stop tragedies like this. Reading and writing are mean to cultivate intelligence, imagination and originality, and all of those things can be used for good or bad, and are unfortunately not exclusively tools of good people. I think Miller fails to recognize that reading and writing are objective skills, and that they can be used for anything. In my opinion, if Miller thinks reading and/or writing could stop any of these tragedies, he is totally, sorely wrong.

tree falls in woods. sound?

After I read Howard’s article on internet plagarism, I found myself thinking back to “the Machine is us/ing us” video. In the end of the video, it typed out that “we’ll need to rethink copyright” and that is one of the many ideas Howard suggests. Though I find his article a little jumbled and packed with a lot of thoughts in not a lot of text, this was one I found the most interesting. In this internet age, people have access to more information then ever before, quicker, and more conveniently. Conventional idea of copyright and originality seem to fail slightly in the wake of an internet that everyone can edit. Think about wikipedia. Anyone can edit and write in it, and it is clear that thousands of people have put hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of work into, yet they take no credit and demand no copyright money. In fact, they leave anyone open to add or change their information at will. I think Wikipedia is the first example of an internet-adapted world, where text is shared, rather then enviously hoarded with ideas such as ‘copyrighting.’ Howard also mentions the internet has sped up and increased the amount of intertextuality that happens in the world, and I think this is completely true as well. And with this increase of intertextuality comes the erosion of the concept of personal holdings on any piece or idea. As Howard suggests, plagarism may be easier or harder – most certainly more expensive, if one 6-page paper costs $68 – but in this day and age, it is more different then anything else. And I think the concept of plagarism and copyright will have to be rethought to adapt to the way our culture takes, gives, and edits at will where the internet is concerned.

Do students these days plagiarism more then they used do? Who knows?

Visual Rhetoric

The article was interesting to read. The value of words is taken to a greater level , when infused with imagery. The message has a larger imprint on the human mind, when a visual display is tied to the presented text .Applying text to a image allows one to ponder the greater possibility of a picture`s meaning. The simple image alone could only be viewed on face value. Like the painting of the pipe for example, it would be seen for what it appears to be and nothing else if it were not for the riddle placed at the bottom. The bonding of text and image provides a intellectual challenge. The word applies to other objects, beside what is shown in the picture. It causes one to ponder the relationship between text and it`s visual interpretations.

A WINNAR IZ MEEEEEE

my next post in the morning will be internet plagarism, I promise. for now, i’d just like to tell everyone i did complete my goal of 50,000 words this month, making me a winner of 2007’s NaNoWriMo, and this is a huge accomplishment fo rme, and i feel a awesome.

however, my novel is not yet finished. heh.

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Internet Plagiarism

After reading the article on internet plagiarism, I agree with most of the authors discussed in the article, that because of the accessibility due to the internet, plagiarism has increased. The internet has become the main source for obtaining research or information for most students, and its is so easy to just copy and paste right from the source. However, because plagiarism has increased, I feel that there has been more of an effort in trying to prevent plagiarism as much as possible. Mainly, I’m referring to the websites dedicated to detecting a plagiarized paper. I think people are becoming more aware of this issue of plagiarism that the internet has made more common.

The Legend of Zelda art

Here are some images, which I found to be very interesting. Video game art is not taken very seriously . There are very few art books out there , which offer character paintings or conceptual design work. It`s quite a shame, since the drawings and paintings are lovely. Most of the images out there are basically fan art. I believe these images are actually official art work. Anyway, here are the pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

Itext, or as I call it, Confusitronweb

So I just finished that article on Itext, and I have absolutely no idea what it was about. I get the stuff about plagiarism, but this term means nothing to me. Do they mean intertexuality? I saw that in there a lot. But what specifically is this Itext “phenomenon?” I think something of such magnitude (This Howard fellow made Itext sound earth shattering) would be all over the place, news, internet, TV. It just didn’t do anything for me.

Let me tell you though, next time an earthquake hits Glassboro, I’m blaming Itext.

You tube video

Since we have been discussing video clips in class, I thought I would share some of my favorites. Hopefully, you will find it to be somewhat interesting. Here is a link to a very impressive Legend of Zelda fan trailer . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB89-9X6YS0&feature=related

Awesome

Okay, so the technology sucks now…but just think someday of the efficiency with which future robotic soldiers could prance.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/11/27/yeates.ut.robo.soldier.ksl

Warwick Goble

I stumbled upon this artist`s work ,while doing some online research. The pieces were really amazing. All the artwork is inspired by popular myths and fairytales . However, I`m not sure about the paintings time period. I don`t have very much background information on this artist. Here is a sample of one of my favorites.