The World is Sustainable

Last Thursday, I attended a series of lectures at OCC which were related to the International Day of Climate Action. This was an event initiated by 350.org in order to raise awareness and get the public to act to reduce the amount of carbon in the air.
I was able to attend several lectures, including GreeningUSA's 12 Traits of Sustainable Communities, Rethinking 81, The National Scene, and Transition Towns.
I thought that these lectures were extremely interesting and I was happy to see that we are taking action to preserve and improve the world that we live in.
One topic that seemed to be common throughout the different lectures, was the issue of sustainability. I was very intrigued by this, since I didn't know what it meant. Now that I do know what it means, I find myself even more interested.
The UN's definition of "sustainability" says that it is "the ability to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
I now find myself thinking of ways that I can do things while making the world a safer place for my children and their children.
I believe that the topic of sustainability related very much with the lecture about Transition Towns. Doing things in a more natural, earth-friendly way, while dealing with the concerns of climate change and peak oil is going to be paramount to the survival of the Earth and the human race as a whole.
It is very scary to think of what will happen when we start running out of resources and we have to think of alternate ways to maintain our quality of life.
I look forward to hearing about what happens in Copenhagen this year, hoping that my country will have a stronger presence than in Kyoto and that we start encouraging our younger generations to take care of our planet. I also hope that, locally, we can create more programs that will enable us to lead greener lives and make it easier for people that are hesitant, to help make our community more sustainable.

Here is an image of Prof. Klein talking about Transition Towns.

It's a Coverup!

The second video that we watched this week was an interview with Gerald Celente.

Celente Video

Gerald Celente, a Trends Forecaster for the Trends Research Institute, talks about how he predicted the current economic crisis a year before it occurred. He actually says that his prediction was off by a few days.
Celente's main focus was that the recent stimulus packages that have been given out to companies and banks don't constitute a recovery, but a coverup. He says that the country has two possible directions it can take now, it can go through a revolution or a renaissance. Although he believes that we are better positioned to begin a revolution, it is still too soon for a recovery.

The biggest thing that he mentioned, that really resonated with me, was that we really have to let the "too big to fail" fail. We shouldn't have bailed out the companies that lost so much money and bankrupted the country.
I didn't know too much about the economy and the stimulus packages until I saw this video, but Celente makes me want to be more active in the economic future of my country and my family.

SNL vs. Obama?

In our last class, Prof. Klein had us watch an opening video for Saturday Night Live, in which an Obama impersonator poked fun at the President.
The link to the video was taken down, but the gist of the video was that the fake Obama proved how he hasn't done anything since he's been in office. He listed all the promises that he made during the campaign and showed how he hasn't been able to complete any of these items. Some of the items in the list were healthcare reform, close Guatanamo Bay, pull out of Iraq, and others items.
I thought that overall, the video was pretty funny. It's meant to be a spoof, and I took it as such, even though a lot of the people in class took it a lot more seriously.
I must admit that a little part of me was a little sad for the President because, being a supporter, I do agree that all of these things that made me vote for him haven't been accomplished yet.
All I can say is that it is still early, and the President was handed a country with a great many problems that can't possibly be solved in less than one year. There's still hope for our new President yet.

Edit: Here is a link to the video on Hulu.

SNL Obama Skit

Let Change Come

In his lecture, Rip, Mix, Burn Sue, Ed Felten talks about a lot of things related to copyright protection and infringement, the future of technology and its role in the creation and distribution of media.

The main topic that resonated with me was the concept of control, the way that consumers attempt to harness the media that they purchase and the technology used to manipulate that media. This article also made me consider the way that broadcasters and movie studios wish to distribute content to consumers, but want to control the way that consumers experience this content.

The very forward-thinking concept of the 1930's, the Church-Turing Thesis, is more applicable than ever today. Now, we have powerful computers and machines that allow us limitless possibilities in media manipulation. With computers that we use every day, we can literally do anything.

While I understand the need to generate revenues and control the way that people experience digital content in order to keep the revenue streams flowing, I believe that allowing the public to experience and generate change is positive for the advancement of technology. As Felten states, change will challenge us to create the technology of tomorrow, which in turn will push the makers of media to take consumers to new heights with their work.

Only Rock and Roll Indeed

This year's Apple event titled "It's Only Rock and Roll" happened on September 9th and was dedicated to the music industry and Apple's role in it.

Jobs briefly talked about the iPhone, but the only relevance that the iPhone had in this event was the introduction of iPhone OS 3.1, bringing the "Genius" technology that was already available for music, to the applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

As was expected because of the title of the event, no new products were introduced for the computer lineup. There was a lot of speculation that a form of tablet was going to be introduced, but Apple history shows that this kind of release usually happens in January or June, during the developer conferences, so why be surprised that it didn't happen now? Ever since the introduction of the iPod, September has been a "music" month for Apple.

The significance of the event this year was not the fact that new, faster, iPod nanos were introduced, or that they now feature a nifty video camera (why not enable still image capture too?), but the fact that Steve Jobs was there heading his beloved company. Many people, myself included, didn't think that he would return to his prominent role as CEO of Apple and would be phasing himself out slowly, giving the reins so someone deemed worthy only by him. Jobs made it perfectly clear that he is working on developing products to take Apple and the music industry to the next level.

No matter what, Jobs will continue to push the envelope and shatter standards as long as he can hang around to do it, and keep forcing us to "Think Different".

Intro

This blog will follow Introduction to Digital Media (CIS106) throughout the Fall semester. Check back for updates, thoughts, and general witty comments.