For Final Exam, "The Best and The Worst of Internet"

This is the final post as Assignments of CIS 2011 Fall class.
I hope this is the best and meaningful one.


I decided to talk about the aspects of internet. 


Internet has both the best and worst aspects. In my opinion, the best aspect is freedom of expressions. And the worst aspect is the irresponsibility of usage. Most people who use internet doesn't recognize that their behaviors come out with responsibility.


Firstly, I state the best aspect. Like my post "Sex, Religion, and Internet," everybody is allowed to express what they want to express. 

But some countried restrict internet because of political reason. For example, China and North Korea. Why do they restrict? It's because internet has the freedom of expressions. These countries have something which they don't want to let their citizens to know. Or, they worry about if citizens share their thoughts or complains.

And I want to introduce one Japanese Manga artist as the best example of "freedom of expressions in internet."

His name is Shuho Sato. His Manga is famous in Japan and some of them became movie. (ex. Umizaru) His life of Manga artist seems to be glorious one. But after some Manga, he started to write the Manga "Bokuman." For some risence contract reason, it was forced to stop. Publisher didn't pay the risence fee of the movie for him.
After that, he decided to show his Manga only on website. Here is his homepage. We can buy his Manga here. He doesn't have any contract to publisher anymore, this is his way of expressions. He choose website as his stage.

Again, this is the famous movie, but there were problems after this movie...

And his website had great impact on Japanese publishers. Like Article: What Will Record Labels Look Like in the Future? by Jason Feinberg, Manga Publisher have to be changed. Jason said "Labels’ traditional revenue streams are drying up and no business can flourish without sustainable income." This is the same as Japanese Manga publisher. But no publisher in Japan tried to change, that's why Shuho was the pioneer.


Secondary, the worst aspect should be stated here. We can send our thoughts to all over the world. But very few people understands what it should cause.


In Japan, we can post our thoughts or photos to Facebook, twitter, mixi, 2-Channel, and all social networking sites. Needless to say, we can post them to our blog like this post. 

But sometimes, the serious problem occurs. For example, a man wrote "I will kill many people at Akihabara." on 2-Channel. But because we don't have to sign up for writing 2-Channel Wall, that kinds of posts were usual. Nobody believed it.

But it happened. This is Akihabara massacre. Fumi argued about this incident on his blog "What's Happenning in Japan Right Now?." The post is Akihabara incident and its aftermath. He really love Akihabara, so he is very worry about Akihabara.

Here is the problem. The man who killed people is worth to be punished, but why did nobody believe his post?

Because they usually post on 2-Channel without their own responsibilities. That makes information on internet meaningless.

This fassion has to be improved. I was talking about Japanese one because I have never lived abroad, but surely this kind of issue should happen all over the world.

 I stated two aspects of internet, I hope both of them are persuasive ones for you. But Internet is useful and convinient by using right way of policy.

Sex, Religion, and Internet

Jamie Lewis posted "Aliaa Magda Elmahdy: The Egytian Nude Blog Photos That Shocked the Arab World" on International Business Times website.


Islamic country is known as strict-law religion for women's sex. And she wanted to rock the religion. "Sex and Religion" is eternal theme of human beings, but its surroundings are changing nowadays.


Many songs have this kind of theme. Like this Steve Vai's song "Sex and Religion"

I think Middle-East religions are the most strict ones for sex. Like this song, Christian is strict too, but it's very different direction of them.


Internet allows us to release our opinions and beliefs into the world. China limits citizen's internet for political reasons. This Aliaa's case proves that the freedom of expression strongly effects on religion. That's why China do that.


Like Japan, the country which people feel free to use internet is not familiar with this kind of problem, but we have to know the power of internet. Everyone can check your blog, posts, and homepage. 


If you do something on internet, you have to owe your responsibility. 

ds106 #5 ; Find Yourself

My family name is Kinoshita (木下).


I found advertisement including my name in Osaka city!
here

Kinoshita is described "きのした" in Hiragana. This is Teppan-Yaki (Japanese stake house) restaurant.
"Kinoshita" is famous family name in Japan, but it was hard to find out advertisements.


Have you guys ever seen "Kinoshita" advertisements?? Please let me know!!


Description of this Assignment

ds106 #4 ; 1 Quote a Day

Here is a conclusion which I got recently.

"If one feel happy or satisfied, another one must feel unhappy or dissatisfied."

Yusuke K

I found this in complicated situation. But I cannot talk about that here, sorry.

Everybody should have chances to feel this feelings, but they do not want to recognize this.

Description of this Assignment

de106 #3 I have been in here! (by using google map)

First of all, here is my hometown. I was born in Tokyo, and during elementary school, I lived Fukuyama city with my family. Fukuyama city locates in Hiroshima Prefecture, and second-largest city in Hiroshima Prefecture.

大きな地図で見る

Secondary, when I was in junior high school and high school, I was in dorm which is at Matsuyama city in Ehime prefecture.

大きな地図で見る

This city has many spas like "Dougo-Onsen." and known as the origin of "Haiku."

and then, I moved to Tokyo!

大きな地図で見る

I love these cities, and maybe the end of next year, I will move to California!! 

Description of this Assignment

ds106 #2 ; Video Essay

Here is the video. This is the music video of Korean famous group (They are famous in Japan, too!).

Usually, every songs have story. But I think this video is brilliant because even this song is sung in Korean, we can understand the story.


I've watched many music videos, but I have never seen this kind of video.


Whatever your mother language is, you can understand this story. Every pop music video should be like this (in case it has clear story.)


Here is the description of this assignment.

ds106 #1 ; Iconic myself!!

This is ds106 Assignment! 

 Create an iconic image/design for your own site that somehow represents you. 

Here is an interesting app in my iPhone. This is called "WordFoto."

A normal photo becomes the awesome photo which is drawn by words in this app. 

I created icon by using my own portrait. 

This kind of way is used in advertisements of the movie "Social Network."
I think this is the very new app in Phones.
 This is Assignment Description.

Malware

Whenever we use internet, we have to think of malware. Because connecting to the internet is the same thing which open the door of our home. It sounds like anybody can rush into our home! So what we should do?

Just closing the door does not make sense because it means shut down the internet. If we have to keep opening the door, we need some guards. Sometime we need to invite some information to our computer, so the guards are required to distinguish malware from information.

What if malware comes to our computer?

check this video.

Whatever browser we use, we have same danger of malware. For Mac, there's supporting by Apple inc. every day, but if you use Windows, you have to install anti-virus software and check updates frequently!

QUESTION (for Final exam);

If you want to protect your computer from malware, what should you do for it? (If you want to use computer with internet connection)
a) Just shutting down computer
b) Installing anti-virus program to your computer
c) Choosing Mac
d) not paying for internet fee
e) Checking your computer's HD all the time

we are all artists, so am I.

This post is the response to Timmmmyboy's "We Are All Artists" lecture for ds106. 

As we know, the word "Artist" has several meanings and definitions. But everyone can be an artist, and needless to say, I can, too. Actually I did not regard myself as artist even though I was guitar player. I thought I was just imitation or follower of my favorite artists. At that time, around 14 years ago, I had no chance to describe my playing. To do live performance, it takes a lot of time and money for ordinal people like me. 

But nowadays, we have many chances to describe and perform. In Japan, youtube, Nico-Nico-Douga, and pixiv. These are good for recognition. By using these websites, we all recognize ourselves as artists. And of course, ds106, too.

I used to post my performances to youtube like this

but this is just an extension of what I used to do. 

I noticed I am not only music artist but also an artist of other genre by using ds106. Later, I will post some for ds106 assignments, but maybe these are very different from what I did before. 

Audio, music, and guitar (as mid-term post)

Van Halen Frankenstrat by keefer37 Used under Creative Commons 2.0

     Audio, needless to say, is the one of the most famous element of music. I will focus on guitars because I'm a guitarist. First of all, when I was 12 years old, I was not interested in music at all. But the friend of my father gave me a chance to listen the sounds of electric guitar directly. He played "eruption" of Van Halen. I found that one guy posted about Van Halen on his blog. This song was almost all composed by only a guitar. (and drums are only at intro.) That was amazing experience for me. That was only a guitar! "What a loud and cool sounds!" I felt. Listen and watch that song.

     I did not know at that time, but this guitarist, Edward Van Halen, did really advanced performance on this song. A guitar was invented as acoustic guitar at first, and it was made by wood and steel. A electric guitar is, too. Almost all the materials are same, but their sounds are very different. Maybe the time when electric guitars were invented, they would be advanced sounds at that time. But, Edward did advanced by his own techniques, his own fixed guitar, and amps. The important thing was his technique. Other guitarists improved and fixed their instruments at that time, but his technique was the only one. For example, he invented the skill called "tapping". Nowthetime, every guitarists know tapping, and this is essential technique of hard rock music. This skill is widely taught by many guitarists.

     Music is a harvest of audio, but it depends on not only audio but also human technique. I used to have same guitar, but I can't play his sounds perfectly. We guitarists all cannot play like him. This blog posted his interview. In this blog, the interviewer asked “Who are you?”, and the one replied  “Edward Van Halen.” This was his early days and he was just a man. 33 years have passed since this interview, but he has been my guitar hero. Every time I heard "music," "guitar," and "audio," I always remember him. I hope to see his live in Japan.

RIP Steve Jobs

We lost the pioneer of IT world.

I love your all products, Steve.
http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

King of Pop

What do you think when you heard "Pop music"?

I'm thinking about Michael Jackson. He was the legacy of MTV.

At that time (the middle of 80s'), people could get informations of music only in MTV show. There was no youtube, myspace, facebook, even internet. They watched MTV and know what is in fashion of music.


Do you think the next one will be coming up like Michael Jackson?

Actually, No. Sometime, Lady Gaga is compared with him. Her performance is awesome and brilliant like Michael Jackson, but we CAN compare with others via internet. This is the difference from 80s'. Michael Jackson was the only one at that era.

I think Michael jackson was the last superstar in music.

Internet, e-mail, and SMS text message on the mobile phone.

We all may have own mobile phones, and also use text-message as communication tools. In Japan, usually people have their own E-mail addresses as mobile phone. But this summer, we can send text message via our number of mobile phones (this is called SMS, Short Message Service or just Text Message). 

According to Cameron Chapman, "E-mail was first developed in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name." 

Needless to say, this was for computers at first. E-mail is the fundamental communication tool in the internet network. Actually we Japanese use this even via mobile phones. I heard people in most other countries use SMS as text communication. (Sorry not for sure, see this page!).

In Japan, there's three major company  of mobile phones, Softbank, au, and NTT docomo. SMS uses only phone number, but Japanese SMS cannot be sent to other company's phone. So we had to ask e-mail address when you want to text your friends!

But from this summer, we can send SMS to other company's phone! Maybe E-mail address of mobile phones will disappear in Japan! That's needless for every phones!

cited: The History of the Internet in a Nutshell