Process memo

My main goal throughout this term has been to put together an exemplary soundtrack for the documentary about Michael, the Oregon State senior that has been struggling with his sexuality.  There are 6 original songs featured in the documentary, all of which I have completely composed, produced, and edited from scratch for this film.  I spent a large amount of time, many hours, and put my full effort into these tracks.  I employed a number of different musical approaches, and utilized an assortment of instruments.  Overall I am very happy with the way they turned out, and think for the most part they added a level of quality that is missing from pre-made soundtrack pro loops.

My second task was to set up the “pride profile” website.  The site, which is a wordpress account, consists of a number of interviews featuring staff members from the pride center.  I was not in charge of filming or editing these videos, but I did make a youtube account, convert all of the videos to web videos and add them to the pride profiles website.  I also devised the layout for the website.  I created an original color scheme and coded it in, plus a unique banner.  I also wrote some basic information featured on the profile.  The pride profiles can be found at:

http://prideprofiles.wordpress.com/

As of now the site is private, but once the pride center approves of it will be released to the public.

Finally, I helped interview Michael during one of the filming sessions, and help edit some video.  I am not very proficient at pro tools, and do not know very much about effective editing, so my help was limited to suggestions and criticisms.  Through observing my team members editing styles, which were spectacularly fluid, I was able to grasp video editing concepts that had previously eluded me.  It was a treat learning about video, since I had always been interested in the craft but never very savvy.

The interviews my group generated were both surprising and interesting.  Michael was a very conflicted person.  It was very surreal listening to him express such self hate, and spout off about his churches traditions and beliefs in a positive way when his very nature clashes so dramatically.  I have previously been unaware that our culture, which in many cases is still very hostile towards homosexuals, could produce such self-doubt and despair.  It was eye opening.

I genuinely feel I spent a very commendable amount of time working on the specific aspects of the documentary I had been charged with.  I am happy with my contributions.

I would have liked to have been a little more involved with the filming process.  The parts I was involved with were fantastic.  Due to my schedule I was unable to make a few of the shoots.  Altogether, however, I am very happy with my contributions, and the contributions of all my teammates.

Sex offenders in NY are booted from social media sites

“New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that more than 3,500 sex offenders from his state have been purged from Facebook and MySpace.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10406914-238.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Although this is the first I have heard about sex offenders being removed from social media sites it has apparently been common practice for some sites, like Facebook and Myspace, to remove registered sex offenders.  This appears to be one of the larger instances however, resulting in thousands of eliminated profiles.  While for obvious reasons it seems like a good idea removing potentially dangerous people from internet communities it still seems a bit strange that committing certain crimes can effectively ostracize from cyber communities on top of your real physical community.

Laptop failure rates

“As most laptops are essentially commodity products comprised of the same stock list of components and parts, one might assume that all laptop brands are the same, at least as far as the general reliability of the hardware itself.

Warranty firm SquareTrade has just released a research paper analyzing the failure rate for 30,000 laptops comparing brands and hardware categories–and the results might surprise you.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

I had always wondered how long the average laptop lasted.  According to a recent study, conducted through a survey involving 30,000 laptops, one third of the laptops purchased today will completely fail within three years.  Notebooks in particular are more likely to fail, followed by entry-level laptops.  Premium laptops are only slightly less likely to fail, they are only separated by a 0.5 percent lower risk of failing than their cheaper counterparts.  The most durable laptops, which have the lowest failure rate are produced by Asus and Toshiba, while Hp laptops are the most likely to malfunction.

Perhaps the most interesting conclusion that can be made by this study is that laptops today are far to pron too failure.  In an age where groundbreaking new technologies are being produced almost daily it seems odd that laptops, which are now practically household items, are so fragile.  Surely it would not be too difficult to produce more resilient models.  Laptops are not cheap, even the lower end models can cost hundreds of dollars.  Maybe the short lifespan inherent in laptops is left unaltered for a reason; once a customers laptop has failed, after a couple of years, they will most likely return to buy a new one.

A million Xbox accounts banned

“Xbox 360 consoles are equipped with digital rights management technologies designed to detect pirated software,” InformationWeek wrote, “but some players have successfully ‘modded,’ or modified, their machines to circumvent DRM protections.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10395265-52.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Over the last few years there has been a drastic increase in the number of modified Xbox 360′s.  The amount of pirated material available is constantly growing, and more people are learning how to obtain this material.  This Tuesday a largely anticipated xbox 360 game, Call of duty: Modern warfare 2 was released.  This game has already broken sales records, and has gained the attention of millions of gamers.  Before it’s release, pirated copies emerged around the internet.  In an attempt to fight the torrent of pirated downloads, the Xbox game server has banned around a million profiles, which will bar players from playing any games online.

Pirated material has become a major issue for almost every form of media today.  Movies, music, video games and even digital books have become pirated on a large scale.  Millions of illegal copies are obtained, and almost nobody is caught.  It is currently understood that new laws or regulations must be implemented, or companies, musicians, game developers, directors and actors, even authors are endanger of loosing the means to support themselves and their crafts.

Project work, so far (11/11/09)

So far I have helped film the first interview for my group project.  I have also helped put together a plan outline, and deadline list, with the rest of my group.  I have recorded a few original musical tracks to be used in our film, as well.

Google’s library plan

“Google announced plans in 2004 to scan millions of tomes tucked into library stacks across the country, admirers embraced the ambitious project as a digital undertaking as visionary as Magellan’s setting sail around the world. The project would throw open musty archives everywhere, putting hidden works on the Internet for all to use.”

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1933055,00.html?CNN=yes

Google, which I had previously believed was nothing more than a search engine,and a handy map source, is now nearly finished gathering thousands of old novels, encyclopedias, journals and even album notes into a digital format.  They are taking advantage of the demand for content new e-reading technologies have created.  In a large scale effort Google has been scanning a multitude of material over the last few years, including a number of forgotten or largely unavailable titles.

Many companies and legal professionals, along with a number of authors and publishers are uneasy with these development.  It is unclear who will profit the most from this upcoming market, although many believe Google will be raking in most of the profits.  Also, no other company will be able to compete with Google’s E-reading technologies, and many fear Google is going to establish a monopoly on the market.

The risks of social networking

“The growing threat of identity theft and other cybercrimes gives  social networks a new set of risks.

Social networks are not inherently evil. On the contrary, most social networks – Facebook and LinkedIn, for example — are conscious of both privacy and security. However, they are a community; like all communities, they have varied populations, including some who would prey on the weak.

Some of these opportunists are benign, such as the growing community of corporate marketers who have made a valiant attempt to commercialize this new medium. Some are not.

Making sure that the networks themselves are safe requires the use of various monitoring and management solutions, and a fairly competent IS staff — nothing new here, and some of the larger providers actually have above-average security operations.

Still, keeping the end-users of social networking services safe depends on something much more difficult to control: the end-users’ behavior.”

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Keeping-Your-Secrets-Safe-in-a-World-Gone-Social-68494.html

This article stood out to me not because of its proclamations that identity crisis and other cyber thefts are a real threat, I had already heard plenty of horror stories, but for the argument that claims we are increasingly vulnerable due to our odd habits of sharing intimate details of our personal lives so openly on the internet.  There are billions of people on social networking sites now, many of them regularly post detailed information about themselves.  The desired audience may be close friends, but increasingly it seems like people are more willing to accept friend requests from total strangers, or just leave their profiles open to the public.  The audience therefor is much larger than the poster might initially think, and complete strangers will readily be able to access it.  If you are out of town, or just happened upon a large sum of money, and decide it wise to post this information you have now potentially given that information to hundreds or even thousands of people.  Not since the development of the internet have people, in such great numbers, decided to disclose so much of their personal information, potentially to anybody that will listen.

Facebook’s new music feature

“Facebook, which has been toying with bringing music to the social network for at least a year, will also take its first step by integrating Lala into its popular gift store, according to a person briefed on the plans. Representatives of Facebook and Lala would not comment.

Currently, the Facebook gift store is stocked with images like birthday cakes and dogs (many illustrated by the former Apple interface designer Susan Kare, incidentally). People buy these images for a dollar — with 10-cent Facebook credits — and pass them on to their friends’ profile pages. It sounds frivolous, but its actually a big business, with the gift store widely estimated to have earned Facebook tens of millions of dollars in 2008.”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/hot-on-heels-of-google-facebook-to-take-first-step-int-music/?ref=technology

In recent history, thanks to the internet, the ability to listen to more, and discover a wider array of unique musicians has become infinitely greater.  Thanks to Panadora.com, an internet radio station that actually creates a playlist for you based on your musical taste, or lala.com a website that allows you to browse and listen to millions of artists.  Now facebook.com, the largest social network on the web, is hopping on the band wagon.  I hope that this feature, which will utilize the facebook.com store, will help people discover music that is new and interesting, as well as promote up and coming bands that deserve to be noticed.

Besides the obvious profit this new music feature would have for facebook.com I wonder whether web services like this, or Pandora.com or lala.com have a positive effect on the music industry.  I like to hope that they due.  They offer free, or at least cheap, and accessible methods of listening to music, unlike the current trend of pirating material.  I believe these music features will spark peoples interest in musicians they would have otherwise been unaware of, and will ultimately persuade many people to purchase more mp3s legally, which is now exceptionally simple to do over the internet thanks to itunes and even amazon.com.

Final project

I want to focus on local music for the final project.  I either want to put together a documentary featuring local musicians and bands, or maybe a podcast episode containing interviews, performances, recorded tracks etc.