Scott Haberman's Blog Site

Today's presentations included Piracy, Safety of the internet, Internet scams, mobile phone culture and of course, Halo. Even though I wrote about video games last week, I'm going to chat about them again. The reason I want to discuss Halo is because I was addicted to it last year and still play it very often. I've never played any game more than Halo throughout the years of my video game entertainment, and that says a lot. Halo is a great game to play with your friends which is the main reason I play it. I can get lost in the game for hours with all my friends having fun and talking sh** with them, just like playing basketball outside. It may not be physical as other sports but video games such as Halo give you great "bonding" time with your peers. So those are my thoughts regarding halo and how it is involved in my life. These posts about presentations are not that long compared to my other blogs but that is because a lot of this is just regurgitation of other blogs earlier this year and I don't want to say the same thing over and over again.

Alright, I finished my paper last night and chose topic #2 about the internet being transitioned from us thinking it brings us more freedom, but realistically is another way for us to be controlled. It all starts with junk-email, spam, pop-ups, viruses, etc. which are all methods that are desensitizing us to the freedom being taken away from our lives. I don't want to go into too much detail because someone could copy my same idea and use the same argument.

So basically I agree with the statement that we are being transitioned from freedom to control at this moment in time, but will not notice it for many years to come. Anyways, time for accounting and then I will get back on next week after presentations on Tuesday.

Alright, time to blog about more presentations. I'm limiting my blogs for presentations to the winner of the day (by my decision of course), the group who did video games. Ok, I just got done watching the guy beat Super Mario Brothers 3 in 11 minutes, that is completely amazing. When me and my sister played that back in elementary school, I remember it taking at least a couple weeks for us to beat the whole game while playing it at least a couple hours a day. Anyways, video games do play a huge role in our lives these days no matter what anybody says. Every single person I know has played video games and have experienced them sometime in their life.

Many of my friends will play video games from after school, say around 3pm till 2am straight. I don't understand this addiction but it is a good way to get away from your normal life. Whenever I play games it is to relax and forget all the school I had that day. Since I talked about video games earlier in my blogs I'm not going to get too analytical in this one. Also when the other presenter went on about Halo. That is the coolest game of all time. My friends and I played that every day last year for at least four hours a day. The most addicting game ever, but it is really fun. It was also interesting to see what people do to games like attach a sound to a video in the game, that was rather hilarious. Anyways, that's my blog on the winner today. This weekend I will be writing my paper to finish up the class so hopefully that will go well and be painless. Until next time....

Lecture has reached it's end after eight weeks and now it is time for two weeks of presentations. Yesterday our group presented on Motion Pictures and Copyright infringement. It was a rather successful presentation thanks especially to Derek, who was flawless in the design of our website. The other three topics were Online Gambling, Existence of Race in Cyberspace, and File Sharing & MP3's.

The topic that most interested me is Online Gambling. This is mostly in part because I think it is a huge hoax and anyone who plays it are the most gullible people in the world. How can you think you are being dealt fair hands or given unbiased odds when you are playing against a computer program made by a human being. This idea is ridiculous because there is no 100% guarantee you are given a fair chance which is why I would never put my money in this. I barely ever gamble, probably only going twice in my life. So I would not start now with a skeptical online gambling website. Just my thoughts though. The other two presentations were interesting but I thought online gambling sites needed to be addressed more promptly. Until next time...

Ok, before I start, I just wanted to let out some shocking news I heard from a friend today. My high school basketball coach just resigned and I could never be more surprised. This guy was one of the most inspirational people I have ever known and played a huge role in my life senior year in high school. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Alright, today's topic of "Smart Mobs" and Mobile Computer was actually interesting to me even though Professor Shaviro didn't think people cared about it. I thought it was more relevant than some of the topics earlier this quarter. Alright well cell phones and their abilities these days are amazing. First of all there are cameras, internet and other new capabilities being integrated into phones. I think cameras are a great idea because, say for example you get into a car accident and you need to get proof of the damage. Well all you have to do is turn on your phone and take a picture then send it to your email account over the internet already on the phone. The technology these days is amazing and it is increasing our efficiency and amount of time we have to do other things in our daily lives.

So cell phones and how annoying they can actually be are just new extensions of our abilities, just like the printing press was one day, the telephone, etc. We will become more advanced and we will respond by using these new extensions and will improve the quality of our life. So I'm a little depressed about the above news so I'm gonna do some reflecting and get back on this blog next week. Until then....

Today's topics actually sparked my interest the most out of all other days this past quarter. The main reason for this is because I've been playing Computer Games almost my whole life. When I was about five, Nintendo first came out with Duckhunt and SuperMarioBros. My sister and I quickly became addicted. As the years rolled on, the games' quality rose along with the increase in use around my neighborhood. I feel all computer games are art because a game is an expression of many designers who created the game and it is constructed with beautiful graphics of art. But as games and systems(consoles) become more and more common, it seems as though people are being desensitized to the games' message.

One example is the army game released by the United States Army which is available at no cost and is a 1st person shooting/fighting game that you can play by yourself or live online with people around the world. This is genius by the government because they are using a tool for recruiting that almost every young male (and sometimes females) uses for fun almost every day of their life. This game by army could inspire many people to want to enlist because they may feel what they're playing is "pretty cool" and the real thing might be even better. It can be argued whether this is "wrong" or "right" by societies standards but I just think it is another channel for the army to recruit.

This example shows that video games can play a huge role in our lives even if we don't recognize it. Some people may play video games for 100 hours a week and some may only play two. But the point is, video games are art and can be used for many different reasons.

Digital Art

Alright, I'm starting right off the bat. I think something is porn if it involves real pictures or videos of people having sex. The naked body is an amazing thing and can be seen as true art, but two people having sex is an intimate thing and should be private. Anything published is porn and whoever thinks differently I would definitely make a strong argument. What is the point of putting this crap online except for perverts or for someone just trying to get themselves off. I just think it is bs that this girl thinks what she is doing is art. She's just a bored person that has nothing else better to do with her life, just like hackers who think their stupid crap is art also. Go outside and take pictures of trees or draw a picture of a dog, and no, not a naked dog. Ok, just a little sarcasm that had to get out.

And now to the Mozilla Firefox, I have a headache from trying to think about what the heck this is. It's not that great of a program and I have no idea what the message they are trying to get across. I don't think my blog today is because I'm tired or angry, the material from this lecture just doesn't make any sense to me and wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't alone. So that's about it for this blog since my interest has left the building.

So if you want to ask me what art is, I'll tell you it is your expressions of your life, not pictures of other people having sex no matter how you argue it.