Week 5

The fist half of the lecture this week looked at the history of the Internet. We learnt that the Internet started with bulletin boards acting as web sites, and telephone handsets were used to link computers. Recently I saw a Cat Stevens music video (Majikat) and was surprised to see that in 1976 "Less than one thousand people were connected to a thing called 'The Internet'."

The second half of the lecture concentrated on Virtual Reality (VR). VR uses computer technology (and interfaces) to manipulate the five senses (i.e sight, sound, taste, touch & smell) into fooling the brain to make a person think that they are in a different environment than what they actually are. The future applications of VR are interesting and something that I could explore further in my essay topic.

This weeks tutorial task was to collect photos that represent the ideas of: friends, high-tech, news, summer, unconventional and university life. I took the photos using a Fuji 9.1MP digital FinePix camera model s9500. The photograph that I have selected are as follows:

Friends - This photo was taken of the Gloria Jean's coffee shop in Surfers Paradise. It symbolises a place were friends go to meet and chat over a cup of coffee.

High-tech - The most developing technology today occurs in communications. The mobile phone tower is used to represent communication technology.

News - This photo of a community news board demonstrates how news is spread at its most basic level in a neighbourhood.

Summer - The Australian culture centres around life at beach in Summer. This photo taken at Burleigh Heads represents the typical Australian Summer.

Unconventional - The normal convention for house numbers is to be attached the right way up on a letterbox, fence, or dwelling. This house at Mermaid Beach does not follow the normal convention, and has its house numbers hanging upside down.

University life - Undergraduate courses require an enormous amount of time using a personal computer. The Internet is used to research information as well as a tool for communications between the student and the university. This photograph of a computer on the learning@griffith website portrays this.

Week 4

This weeks lecture was scheduled to be on the "History of the Internet" followed by part two of the screening of "Alphaville". Instead we had guest speakers from a Public Relations firm, one of whom is a graduate of Griffith University. She spoke about her experiences at Uni, how to network and make contacts in the real world and her daily activities in Public Relations.

Many of what was said didn't really apply to me because I'm not doing a Journalism degree. However it did give me an insight into the life of a PR person and some useful advice to keep in mind during and after Uni, such as the importance of: dressing appropriately, and how we present ourselves to others.

We did get to watch the second half of Jean-Luc Goddard's 1965 film "Alphaville" which continued on from the previous lecture. The film follows the theme of French new wave cinema (which we looked at in week 2 when we viewed Chris Marker's "La Jetee"), and also combines elements of science fiction. The film is set in a futuristic society on another planet controlled by a computer system, Alpha 60, which outlawed all human emotions and individual forms of expression.

The movie was in French with English subtitles and I didn't really like the voice of the computer Alpha 60, because of this I lost interest in the film from time to time and as a result I couldn't follow the plot. However I watched the film again in Google Video and found that it made more sense to me the second time round.

Alphaville

This weeks tutorial tasks were: search the library catalogue through the University website and find 3 academic articles which relate to the essay topic of our choice; complete a Scavenger Hunt by using a search engine other than Google; and answer a series of questions about search engines.

Normally I would use the search engine Google almost exclusively, so it was interesting to use other search engines. To complete the Scavenger Hunt I used the following search engines:

• IceRocket; http://www.icerocket.com
• A9; http://www.a9.com
• Yahoo; http://www.yahoo.com/
• Ask Jeeves; http://www.askjeeves.com/
• AllTheWeb; http://www.alltheweb.com/
• HotBot; http://www.hotbot.com/
• AltaVista; http://www.altavista.com/

Most of the search engines were similar in aspects, but I am more familiar with Google and will continue to use it more than anything else.

Scavenger Hunt

Q. What is the weight of the world's biggest pumpkin?

A. The heaviest pumpkin ever grown to date was by Ron Wallace from Rhode Island on October 7 2006 and weighed a massive 681.3 Kg. (http://www.pumpkinnook.com/giants/record.htm)

Q. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Grant Hackett?
A. The best way to contact Grant Hackett would be through his agent Lisa Stallard of International Quarterback. ph: 07 3252 2311 email:lisa@iqsport.com.au (http://www.speakerdirect.com.au/Default.aspx?)

Q. What is the length of a giraffe's tongue?
A. The average length of a giraffe's tongue is between 46cm-50cm.
(http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-giraffe.html)

Q. How would you define the word 'ontology'? In your own words what does it really mean?
A.Ontology is the philosophical study of existence. (http://epress.unu.edu.au/info_systems/mobile_devices/ch03s03.html)

Q. What was David Cronenberg's first feature film?
A. David Cronenberg's first feature film was 'Shivers' (1975). (http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/11/30/cronenberg/)

Q. When was the original 'Hacker's Manifesto' written?
A. The original 'Hacker's Manifesto' was written on January 8, 1986.(http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/hacker.htm)

Q. Why do all phone numbers in Hollywood films start with '555'?
A. The main reason most Hollywood telephone numbers begin with the prefix 555 is to prevent the accidental use of real telephone numbers as there have been many reported incidents of people calling the numbers used in films.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_telephone_number)

Q. What is the cheapest form of travel from Crete to Rhodes?
A. The cheapest form of travel between Crete and Rhodes is ferry.
(http://www.greektravel.com/islands.htm)

Q. What song was top of the Australian Pop Charts this week in 1965?
A. The song top of the Australian Pop Charts was "I'll Never Find Another You" by The Seekers.
(http://www.onmc.iinet.net.au/topspot/1965.htm)

Q. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?
A. The Brisbane band that has Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals is The Black Assassins.
(http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/toxicoh/blackas.htm)

Search engines:

Q. What is a search engine?
A. A search engine is a program that searches web pages for documents and provides a list of the documents where the keywords can be found. (smartbizconnection.com/advertising_glossary_index.htm)

Q. How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the Internet?
A. Search engines rank sites based on the number of times the key word appears in a text or heading, and the number of other sites they are linked to.
(http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/misc/searchworks.html)

Q. Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?
A. The order of the search results is determined by a ranking algorithm which looks at where the keywords are placed in a text, i.e. A website with the keyword in a heading is ranked higher than if the keyword was found in the body of a text.
(http://www.pandia.com/marketing101/index.html)

Q. What are some of your favourite search engines? Why do you like one more than others?
A. My favourite search engine is Google, mainly because I am more familiar with it than others. I find it easy to use and can generally find what I am looking for in the first few pages.

Q. Can you find some current news stories about search engines?
A. The following websites contain news articles related to search engines:

• http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1854.php
• http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1736454.ece
• http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=6306
• http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/C65F6EA7852E002DCC2572CF00212836

Week 3

This week's lecture focused on the history of the computer and the tutorial task was to talk about personal experiences with communication technologies. It was interesting to see how the computer developed. I didn't know that Englishman Charles Babbage invented the first computer in the 19th century, or how another Englishman, Alan Turing, developed it further as a tool to be used to break German "Enigma" codes during World War II.

While I am aware that Apple Computers and Microsoft are the biggest companies producing computers and software, I wasn't aware of how these companies started, or that Bill Gates's success came from selling and operating system to IBM at $50 per computer.

Today almost every home has a personal computer and it has become an almost necessary element in every day life. I have had a PC for at least 15 years and have been connected to the Internet for over 5 years. I use the Internet mainly as a "library" for research of school assignments and would not have been able to complete High school without it. Today I find that I am using it more of a way of communicating, particularly with the university.

The two main communication devices I use are mobile-phone text messaging and the Internet. I have only accessed the Internet to communicate with relatives and friends by using MSN Messenger and sending emails. I have never talked to people that I didn't know through chat rooms due to the obvious dangers associated with talking to and meeting with strangers. While the Internet is a convenient way to communicate with others I prefer to talk with my friends in person where I can see them face to face (but of course we all text each other to arrange when and where to meet).

Week 2

This weeks lecture focused on how broadcast media forms (i.e. newspapers, radio and television) rapidly expanded during the twentieth century. Which lead to theoretical studies in media such as: Communication Studies (USA) which looked at how public opinions and perceptions could be shaped by media reporting; Media Studies (UK) that demonstrates how audiences can interpret the message of a text differently from how the reporter intended; and Culture Studies (Europe) which argues that filmmakers produce images that are realistic in order to position the the viewer to accept the ideologies present in the film. Finally there was a discussion in new wave cinema that uses inexpensive methods such as using hand held cameras (camcorders) to tell a complex story.

During the lecture Chris Marker's 1962 science fiction movie "La Jetee" was shown. The short film (27 min) is created entirely through a montage of black and white still photographic images with the exception of one motion picture shot. There is no spoken dialogue between characters, leaving the story to be told through the use of narration (French with English subtitles).

The film is set in Paris, France after the breakout of World War III which has left the surface of the Earth radioactive forcing the survivors to live underground. The prisoners are subjected to a series of experiments by scientists which lead to either their madness or death.

The story revolves mainly around a male prisoner who is chosen for a time travel experiment in which he is to journey into another time to collect supplies such as food and medicine which would help to ensure the survival of the human race.

The man's recurring memory from his childhood, is of a woman during a disturbing event at an airport terminal where a man dies. This makes him the obvious candidate for the experiment. Because the effects of living in another time would be too much on the human mind however it is explained in the film that "If they were able to conceive or dream another time, perhaps they would be able able to live in it." During the film the man travels backwards and forwards in time where he meets the woman of his childhood memory. Eventually it is revealed that his memory of witnessing a man die as a child is actually the moment of his own death.

Through a Google search I was able to watch the movie again, but this time narrated in English. Click here to watch the full length version of "La Jetee" in English without subtitles.

On the weekend I hired out Terry Gilliam's 1995 film "12 Monkeys" which follows an almost identical plot to "La Jetee" with a boy witnessing the death of his future self at an airport. The major difference being that in "12 Monkeys" the man only time travelled from the present to the past, whereas in "La Jetee" the man time travels into the future as well as the past where he receives help to rebuild civilization.

After viewing both movies I found it interesting that a film such as "La Jetee" which used very simple production techniques to create the story was able to explore a more complex storyline than the major Hollywood production "12 Monkeys" which had "state of the art" equipment at their disposal.

La Jetee

Week 1: Introducing "Are we there yet?"

Hi, my name is Kathryn, I am 17 years old and will turn 18 in May (I can't wait). It is so frustrating being 17, you not a child anymore but your not considered to be an adult, I work part time at a convenience store five nights a week but by law I can't sell cigarettes.

I am an Arts student at Griffith University-Gold Coast with my main interest being Digetal Video. Like most people I was nervous about my first week at uni. Although I eventually managed to find my way to all my classes, the venue was changed for one of my subjects (Psychology) without me being aware of it and I found myself in a Law lecture, talk about being nervous and confused. The biggest difference from High School I have noticed is the amount of hours you have to spend reading the course material.

One of the courses I am currently enrolled in is "1501ART New Communication Technologies". So far in the course we have looked at the history of communication technologies from Morse's code and the telephone to ipods, weblogs and the Internet. I can't possibly imagine a life without all the technologies that we have available to us today. Just think if it took only fifty years to go from the invention of the telephone to the creation of the television what new communication technologies will be present fifty years into the future from now.

One of the requirements of this course is to create and maintain a weekly weblog, which is why http://www.123arewethereyet.blogspot.com/ has been created. The title of this weblog - Are we there yet? - was chosen because just like going on a long journey, this weblog will reflect my progress through this course.

Over the next 12 weeks I will be adding weekly posts about information covered in the lectures and the tutorials as well as my own personal thoughts on what's been covered in the course so far. I will also be including links to sites that can be used for the essay research as well as links to other student's weblog.