LOST

LOST, a show on ABC about the survivors of a plane crash living on a mysterious island, quickly became an extremely popular show after its premier in 2004.  There are tons of websites dedicated entirely to the show.  The show is often referenced in pop-culture.  The only problem with the show is that it is extremely confusing.  There are plot twists around every corner and many side-plots meant to add to the mystery and keep the viewer entertained.  The show has gotten even more hard to follow now that time travel has been introduced into the mix.

This is fantastic for the avid fans of the show.  It keeps the show new and exciting.  The only problem is that the show is currently so confusing that it is impossible for anyone who has not already seen every episode to begin watching it.  That was the problem that I had when I decided to begin watching the show this season.  After two episodes, I was completely lost.  I had absolutely no idea what was going on.   This is problematic for the producers of the show because that means that it is really hard for them to acquire new fans, so any time they lose viewers, their numbers can not go back up.

Luckily, the producers came up with an idea to combat this.  It is somthing that I noticed for the first time tonight.  On the bottom of the screen, an information bar would occasionally appear.  This bar would give the viewer background information about what was going on in the show.  For example, any time a name was mentioned, the bar would explain who this person was.  This made it much easier for new viewers like me to continue to follow the show.

American Idol

Why do so many people love American Idol so much?

There are three main reasons:

The first reason is that its the American “rags to riches” story, which Americans love.  In every season, people from small towns that no one has ever heard of show up to the auditions and make it through to Hollywood.  Americans love to watch this.  They love to pick their favorite inspirational small town singer and cheer them on to win the competition.

The second reason is that people love the characters, especially in the audition epsiodes.  There are always the strange, quirky people or the cute, sincere people trying out.  The viewers love to watch these people.  They love to see how these people sing and what the judges say about them.

The third reason is the drama.  Viewers love watching the drama on American Idol.  In every season, we know that Simon is going to criticize the singers, and in every season, people end up getting pissed off, crying, cursing, and yelling, and Americans love watching it.

Superbowl

With the superbowl just a few hours away, I’m sure many people are getting really excited to see all the new superbowl commercials this year.  Mr. Dow is even getting caught up in this crazy, showing some popular superbowl commercials of the past the other day.  There is good reason to be excited.  This year, a 30 second commercial spot is going to start around $3 million.  This is more than the starting price has ever been, and with the economy the way it is, its a lot of money to pay these days.  If companies are going to spend that much money in order to air a commercial, then they better be positive that the commercial is going to be entertianing and effective.  So I’m excited to see all the new commercials this year because I’m assuming that they are going to be the best possible.

Wall-E

Over the summer I watched the movie Wall-E.  Since then I have met two other people that disliked it, as I did.  The movie requires the audience to feel for this machine, Wall-E, and somehow it and another robot ‘fall in love.’  To me this is a huge problem.  Robots should not be human.  The only robot I ever liked was Rosie from the Jetsons.  She was a great addition to the Jetson family and did not have emotions besides her own programed ones.  Robots scare me.  If humans have the ability to create emotion, which I honestly believe that they do not, then all is lost.  Wall-E takes place in a dystopia.  All humans are overweight, crippled, and stupid.  And for some strange reason, there is no diversity in the future, everyone on the spaceship was Caucasian.  As much as I appreciate robotics and think that it is cool, there has to be a limit.  Wall-E should never happen.  The movie or reality.

A thought

Over break I saw the movie Doubt.  The movie is quite good, I enjoyed the play more, but see the movie.  In it, without giving away much, Meryl Streep is on a quest to keep things the way they are and not allow change to occur.  Part of this is a war against ball point pens.  Meryl Streep’s character believes that allowing students to write with fountain pens will eventually destroy penmanship.  The film is set in the early sixties so I ask you, the reader, was she correct?  Did the advancement of technology allow for a lapse in handwriting progress?

I believe that yes, art is suffering because of technological advancements.  Of course there are exceptions but consider the following.  Classical music was the popular form of music during the 1400s-1900s.  Then came jazz, to rock and roll, to now what people call hip hop and rap.  Slowly but surely beautifully, complicated music has become a series of repeated back beats and fast talking.  Visual art as well.  Think about modern art. Many people claim that modern art is “something my five year old could have done”.  Not to say anything against any modern art forms but they are much less complex then their ancestors.  I believe technology is at the root of this phenomenon.

the universality of web 2.0

I know all of our media class has read “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, in which he argues how this new age of technology is truly universal. Living in a main technological center of America, however, one can sometimes forget that the rest of the world is really catching up to us. After hearing the news that I needed to blog one more time in order to get my grade, I became worried that I would not be able to do it. Right now, I am writing this on the beach in Grand Cayman. I was worried that I would not be able to connect to the internet anywhere. I received word earlier this morning that almost all of Grand Cayman, or at least where I am now,  is wireless. The rest of the world is not only catching up to us, but surpassing us!!!

5-4-3-2.0-1

The new year is less than two weeks away, and we must think to ourselves all that has happened over the past year . Upon researching the most influencial new inventions of our society in the past year I could not find anything. After thinking about it, I realized that society has not produced any influencial “new” items. I realized that society is obsessing over advancements but not new inventions. In the past year, a typical ipod has gone to an itouch and an iphone, and the computer industry has been dominated by macs. Where is the next breakthrough invention? I challenge everyone reading this to invent something, anything, in the next year, and hopefully it will affect us all. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Survivor Gabon

You may not have watched the latest installment of CBS‘ show Survivor but you have probably seen at least one episode since the show began. The show’s 17th season just ended with 59-year old Robert Crowley walking away with $1 million. Survivor employs the slogan outwit, outlast, outplay and if you have seen any of the competitions, you know that is exactly what is done. What sets this winner apart from the other 16 winners is his age. Crowley is the oldest survivor winner in the history of his show and much of his support came from this fact. In a reality show where physical skill is essential, other contestants viewed 59 years old as “too old to win”, whereas he claims, his age and wisdom is what actually led him to victory. This high school physics teacher  says other contestants underestimated his talent and sometimes “when you fly under the radar, your path ends with victory”. Although it is interesting in itself that this man won the game show, what is more intriguing is America’s fascination with the “underdog”. This is just one occurrence of America supporting the least likely choice but it is very interesting to see the support America gives to the underdog on reality shows, sporting events and other things as well!

How I Stay Productive

Please comment at my blog.

I like to be really productive when I work, and I like to know what the heck is going on. At the same time, I am not the best at remembering my long list of things to do or places to be off the top of my head. While I found paper lists to be useful to a point, I found that tools on my computer made managing my life super easy. Over time I’ve adopted various portions of David Allen’s Getting Things Done action management method.

As well, I’ve found a ton of great mac apps that streamline my time on the computer, where I spend the majority of my time working or playing (and alternative can be found for Windows as well!).

Email

Moving from my ISP’s email to Gmail was like crossing the Iron Curtain. Suddenly I had tons of storage space and was able to access my email through an excellent user interface. As well, search became useful! Today I use my email as my primary inbox for tasks and information, especially because of my iPhone’s constant presence.

Calendering

The logical next step was towards maintaining a good personal calendar, and a great option was only a link away at Google Calendar. After switching to a mac laptop, I moved to Apple iCal, but I back up my calendar to Google Calendar using the excellent utility Spanning Sync.

Tasks

The hardest part of getting organized for me was finding the right task management software. I knew that paper just did not work for me, though I love using my moleskine notebook for notetaking when I attend conferences or otherwise go to hear speakers.

I didn’t begin a trusted GTD system until found an app that I liked. I tried way way way way way way way way way way too many GTD apps. Eventually I settled on iGTD, which is free and was excellent until the sole developer stopped work. I jumped ship to the $80 OmniFocus and have been in heaven ever since. While it certainly is not perfect, I’ve finally settled into a system I can trust to keep me organized and on task.

Knowledge

I’m someone who tends to collect tons of random information that I want to keep. Right now everything is fairly spread out and hard to combine into something useful, but I have permanent links in Safari and Firefox, reference links for the future in delicious (thank you pukka!), whole website pages in Evernote (cross-platform with a webapp!), and DevonThink Pro for the miscellaneous knowledge that I forget two seconds after committing to the database (router config settings anyone?). I also use a password manager for all of my logins for websites, FTP servers etc.

Scrivener is my choice of software for creative or academic writing of all sorts–term papers, blog posts, and the like. Pages and Bean work great for most school assignments and random files full of text. Bookends is a fairly good bibliography management utility (yes, it formats all your works cited pages for you! ☺).

Also, I finally committed myself to having “current projects,” “files,” and “school” folders on my Desktop with everything filed fairly neatly.

Putting It Into Practice/Conclusion

I like to believe that when I work on anything, I am proceeding at the fastest possible pace my mind and body are capable of (okay, okay, three hours of sleep slows me down, but not much). I know where everything is, I know what I need to do and when I need to do and when it’s due, and I have all of the tools to do everything as fast as possible.

I want to end with a special shoutout to the most amazing application of all, quicksilver. Quicksilver allows me to launch any file or app from the keyboard in seconds. But, it can do so much more, from moving or appending text to files to sending emails, viewing and editing my bookmarks, opening links, to controlling iTunes or my FTP client or the operating system…. Learn it, love it, live it mac users. Windows users, check out this list here for some poor alternatives ☺.

I hope you can be successful with your quest to be productive.

FOOD 2.0

everyone talks about web 2.0, with the advance of technological innovations, so whats next. we have seen the emergence of blogs, wikis, and social networking sites, but can this expand. Why can’t we have food 2.0? I challenge the chefs of america and the world to test my taste buds. Make something that makes me say, “Wow” only in this society. Now i don’t just mean computers made out of chocolate, but new, wonderful tactilious recipies. Every few years a Willy Wonka comes about and will change the way we live. Please, use the internet and other web 2.0 tools to seasrch the world to combine tastes and create something that will make my mouth water.