Blog no more (Post #13)

BLOGS ARE STUPID AND A WASTE OF TIME (Post #12) - December 4th

omg anxiety (Post #10) - November 25th

Facing Failure (post#7) - November 16th

Moving Past Memories (Post #3) - October 31st

(Provided links so you can just click)

I guess that’s it. These are the final four posts that epitomize the awesomeness of my awesome blog. No I’m just kidding…nothing in this world can capture the awesomeness of my awesome blog because its too awesome to be expressed in just a mere four posts. Again, just joking.

Seriously though, I chose these posts because they share the common style, voice, and visual appeal I was going for, while each having their own unique qualities so that they each bring something different to the table.

I chose Post #12 because it really captured how I felt about the whole blogging process. Plus it has that “just kidding” in there, which is something I really enjoyed including. (Louis, to be crystal clear, I hope you know that I do not think that Blogs are stupid).

Post #10 because I strongly feel that it has a lot of voice and style to it. I thoroughly enjoyed this particular set of visuals that I incorporated because I liked their common style (except maybe the money bills).

Post # 7 because I really invested a big chunk of myself in this post and so its unique in its own way. I rarely share things about myself in the blog and this was a post that was entirely devoted to a personal story of my own. In that sense, I felt that it was special because I really added a part of my life into the blog, which makes this one hell of a significant post.

Post # 3 because I enjoyed the analysis I provide here while using those two visuals of a photo taken within a past photo to convey my points. The visuals here really capture the good sides of memories and the potential dark sides that people might want to block out. Plus I just thought they were really neat.

Okay that's really it, Bye bye bloggity blog blog

BLOGS ARE STUPID AND A WASTE OF TIME (Post #12)

Just kidding ;)

Blogging is not stupid, and definitely not a waste of time.

By far, the most valuable quality of blog writing is that it allows you to express yourself in a genuine way. It feels so much more natural to just let the thoughts flow from your mind without worrying about confining to a strict structure of an essay or whatever. It makes it easier to be yourself.

Plus it makes it way easier to show how awesome I am. Nah I’m just kidding, but blogging definitely allows for a more comfortable style of writing than a persuasive essay would. Keeping in mind we could always go back to edit our posts, there was a nice sense of amnesty floating around. If I didn't like what I wrote or came up with something better, I was free to go back and revise it

Audience-wise, it was fun to know that my readers would be my fellow classmates and so I could write on a more familiar level. By that I mean I could talk about something that occurred in the LHSP program or something on campus because I knew my audience would know what I was talking about.

It was also very fun to read the blogs of others simply because I was curious on what they were writing about. I often wondered what other directions my classmates were heading towards with a given prompt. And because of their blogs, I could easily go to their blog and read what they wrote. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy

All in all, the blogging component of this course helped me let my creative side breathe a little. Where as the first two papers were strictly analytical and straightforward, I was able to play around with the blogs and how I would go about and write.

You could say it served as a mini stepping stone for the 4^th and final project since it helped me move away from the rigid style of argumentative papers to a more freeform/story telling style.

To be honest, I’m going to miss blogging in this class.

Mechanical Hearts? (Post #11)

How would I write this paper? o_o

“We so often think of intelligence, of AI, in terms of sophistication, or complexity of behavior. But in so many cases, it’s impossible to say much with certainty about the program itself, because any number of different pieces of software—of wildly varying levels of “intelligence”—could have produced that behavior.”

I would have argued something along the lines of “While the evaluation of artificial intelligence based on the complexity of behavior can display data recollection, it fails to accurately assess the extent to which machines can imitate human beings. Rather than measuring a machine’s capability to be human, it merely shows how well a machine is able to regurgitate facts and phrases in accordance to the dialogue given. “

As Christian puts it “Sophisticated behavior doesn’t necessarily indicate a mind. It might indicate just a memory.”

Therefore a machine is not displaying nor utilizing cognitive activity in order to have a coherent conversation with its partner. Simply put, it is using pre-assembled answer sheets created by humans and coordinates its responses accordingly. Christian goes on to quote Dalí to solidify his point.

“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Thus, the repetition or regurgitation of a human-like answer does not necessarily mean the one repeating is human. It only proves that it can mimic sounds and match inquiry A with response B.

Therefore I must agree with Christian’s opinion that “I think sophistication, complexity of behavior, is not it at all. For instance, you can’t judge the intelligence of an orator by the eloquence of his prepared remarks.”

In order to further complicate the issue, the article provides evidence that computers are unable to grasp basic human functions that characterize our species. By highlighting the actions computers fail to do, we simultaneously emphasize the traits that make us so awesome.

“As computers have mastered rarefied domains once thought to be uniquely human, they simultaneously have failed to master the ground-floor basics of the human experience—spatial orientation, object recognition, natural language, adaptive goal-setting—and in so doing, have shown us how impressive, computationally and otherwise, such minute-to-minute fundamentals truly are.”

omg anxiety (Post #10)

Rather than focusing on how we feel about beginning college…what will happen to us after we end college?

Jobs?

Will we be able to find one after we graduate?

Gee WILIKERS, PANIC TIME!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH OURLIVES? Pft, I don’t know. And I’m not the only one. But just because there are others who don't know what's going to happen after graduation isn't exactly making me feel better. It’s that uncertainty of the future that is bothering almost every college student I know. In a time when the economy is not doing so well, jobs aren’t exactly easy to find. Scratch that, they’re impossible to find. It's like trying to find Ohio State tickets 20 minutes before the game. At least, that’s what everyone is telling me.

Here’s an article that specifically talks about the uncertainty of getting a job after college.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/recent-college-graduates-wait-for-their-real-careers-to-begin.html?pagewanted=all

In it, you’ll find stories of Harvard graduates who are having trouble finding jobs

Then there are articles with scary numbers, showing us exactly how much graduates are struggling to find jobs

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?_r=1

So first we have to worry about how well we do in school = Anxiety

Then we worry about being able to find a job after graduation = Anxiety

Also we have that ridiculous student loan to pay back = Anxiety

Another thing is (and this is me personally) I’m not even sure if I’ll still want to do what I’m studying for in five years. Who knows? Maybe I’ll graduate with my degree and realize that what I do is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. Then I just wasted four years of college and a huge amount of money. Then I’m really screwed

Hopefully the circumstances will change by the time we graduate in 3-4 years and things will be different.

Is it possible to be as giddy as this in 3-4 years while heading towards a secure job??

or are we just going to end up nowhere?

Probably not...I hope. Stupid Anxiety!

Critical Evaluation of a Literary Blog (Blog Post #9)

First something to get your attention!

ok! now onto the post! :D

Athitakis’ Blog resembles something out of the New York Times website, but with a more relaxed feeling to it. By which I mean it carries a certain professional look to it with the straightforward simplicity of black and white. However, it doesn’t come off as something completely serious and boring. While the blog itself lacks some colorful elements to it, the banner makes up for it. The banner, which lies at the very top of the blog, displays a row of books that convey a sense of intellectual competence. Personally I liked the overall simplicity of the layout although I would prefer if there were a few more pictures here and there. Even the New York Times has a few photos to mix things up.

I also enjoyed the links that were provided so that in case I did not know what he was talking about, I could quickly click the link and quickly catch up. For example, in his blog post entitled Links: The Envelope Please, Athitakis references a numerous amount of people unfamiliar to me. Richard Locke, Justin Cornin, Lev Grossman, Colson Whitehead, Andy Borowitz, to name a few.

Although at the same, the laundry list of authors made it difficult for me to stay engaged with the flow of the post. The disconnected stream of different ideas offered a variety of things to read about but ultimately had me lose interest altogether.

Compared to other Blogs, this was one of the more enjoyable ones. In my opinion, the worst one was the Literary Saloon. Stylistically, it was very bland. The colors were dull and the overall layout of the blog seemed like something from 1999. The posts were also very short and seemed to have had little effort put into writing them. Again there was a lack of photos or anything visually appealing. You can even go so far as to say that this blog was visually unappealing.

On the other hand, Thereadingexperience was overwhelming with the amount of text it threw at you. The posts were interesting to a point but I quickly lost interest when I realized there did not seem to be an end in sight. The little previews on the right side of the blog show almost the entire post its supposed to be previewing. I did not have any idea of where I should be looking at, or even when the post was put up. There was no indication of the date or time, which I suppose is only a minor detail.

Personally, I preferred the blogs of our classmates. Maybe it’s because I actually know them, but I find theirs much more enjoyable to visit :D

Though if you asked me, Athitakis' Blog would be my recommendation out of all of them.

Re: “To a Young Writer” –Oates (Blog Post #8)

The main point that Oates makes is simply “write your heart out.” She argues that you should never be ashamed of what you do and your passion for it. She advises, “Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.” In essence, she is advocating the notion that you should follow your own way, to follow your own direction.

Furthermore, both Baxter and Oates question the problem with leaving behind an example or giving advice.

In “Full of It” Baxter states,“ The curse that The Great leave behind is the curse of their absolutely unfollowable example. Their lives and their work cannot be replicated and they create a bizarre perspective when they seek to offer advice.”

On that note, Oates asks, “What advice can an older writer presume to offer to a younger?”

Both of these writers have influenced me into thinking that I should write whatever it is that I wish to write about. I should read whatever I wish to read about. Though I can’t help but feel that this piece of advice is all too obvious. At the same time, I also feel like I am being cheated out of being given advice at all. Since they both say that I should follow my own direction, I am left without any sense of direction. What if I don’t know what I want to do? What then?