Political Participation

Because I am from Norway this blogpost was not easy for me to do, since I do not know that much about Australian politics. I have been given some tasks on political participation, and will now reply on which ones I would do while sticking to my political beliefs.

I searched around for e-petitions and I did find one I wanted to sign. Because I was not sure if i am a "resident" of Queensland or not. I decided to hold of on doing it since the condition of use said something about being fined and imprisoned which is not something I would like to happen. Anyway the e-petition i wanted to sign is called 'Ban on lightweight plastic bags in Queensland' - and I chose this one because I agree, that we use to much plastic, not only in Queensland but all over the globe. If more people knew that plastic is made of oil, and that the ocean is full of it and killing the animals, they might just think twice before using too much of it?

I rarely comment on stuff, not even on Facebook. Not to go in to details about me, but I do have some problems with people judging others opinions, and that is why I tend to comment in my head instead, so the next thing I was to do was respond to a blogger on major news site. I am not going to do this, since I have some troubles with it.

Next on the list was contacting Barack Obama - to do this i could try tweeting him. I am not going to do this either, but I will tell you this; A couple of days ago he was on 'reddit', speaking to the people via social medias. If you go HERE, you can see what he talked about.

When searching the NBN homepage I searched for my postcode to find out when I will get NBN and this was the results:

Print screen (nbnco.com.au)

Next on the list I had to find the local, state and federal representatives where I live. This is where i found information about the representatives: Role in government - I am not going to send them a message, since I do not have anything I want to ask them. And I wont list all of their names, since there is so many. Here is another link to the federal representatives of Queensland: Senators and Members

Doing this, I found out more about Australia and Queensland, and how politics works on the Internet


Pages mention / references: 

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petitions

http://www.nbnco.com.au

http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/council/role-in-government-206.html

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&sta=QLD&mem=1&par=-1&gen=0&ps=10

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obama_president_of_the_united_states

(Post 11)

Social media

This week we have been talking about Social Media, I made a survey about social media use - mostly on Facebook, the results will be out very soon. I would like to use this opportunity to talk about cats on the Internet. No actually, I would like to discuss something I believe is important. About privacy in social media when it comes to police matters. I will use a news story that has been going on in Norway lately, where a 16 year old girl has gone missing - assumed kidnapped. The police wanted to check her Facebook account for possible contact with people, but Facebook will not give out passwords to anyone, not even the police. I wonder when the police can overrule social media, or if they ever will? is there not a time where the "laws of Internet" should not apply? We do not know in this case, if there is reasons for checking the Facebook account, but if there was - it seems just stupid that they cannot get access. Just something to think about.

facebook privacy

Resources:

http://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/article3448711.ece (norwegian news)

(Post 10)

Survey

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(Post 9)

Cyberpunk Timeline

(Post 8)

Neil Postman on Cyberspace

I just watched Neil Postman on Cyberspace on YouTube. He is talking about what Cyberspace is, and hearing what he said, it made things clearer for me. I still have problems with understanding the term “cyberspace”. Neil Postman explains it by saying it is a “metaphorical idea”, and goes on to saying it is “a place where your conciseness is located when you are using computer technology on the internet”. I have a better understanding of it now, when he also talked about other medias, like where your head is at when reading a book and so on. 

This clip is from 1995 so it may be outdated, but I found it very interesting. He talks about the problems in the 19 century, and how the new technology do not fix the world problems even though we now have technologies that makes us aware of what is happening in the world. I liked when he talked about him buying a car, and that the car had cruise control, and he wondered why this was needed, and the man replied something about, not needing to press the gas pedal. Where Postman says, he never saw that as a problem followed by: “Am I using this technology or it is using me?” Interesting take on technologies right there

(Post 7)

Thoughts on "Blade Runner"

Blade Runner

Going to school might sometimes be hard, and the loads of homework and assignments you get do not help. But being so lucky that your 'homework' is to watch a movie, you cannot complain. I watched Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' for the first time. I watched the directors cut, and have not seen any other versions of it.

Warning: Spoiler alert

I thought all in all it was a good movie, all though I still have troubles with the therm "cyberpunk". Before discussing this movie with any others, I sat there in the end wondering if Deckard was in fact a Replicant. In the end we see the unicorn origami, which you earlier had seen Gaff putting around - to show that he knew what the Replicants were dreaming. So by leaving the unicorn, which we saw earlier that Deckard had been dreaming about, this must mean that he is a Replicant too? But why is he so much weaker than the other Replicants? And we can ask ourselves why Roy did not kill him, when he had the chance? Was this because he was a Replicant, or that Roy had human feelings. I do now know, but I do know i liked the movie.

Unicorn Origami

File sharing: From Napster to BitTorrent



gomonews.com



In 1999, an American college student named Shawn Fanning created Napster. Napster was a file sharing computer service which was mainly used to share music in the format of MP3. 1.5 million people were using Napster in 2001 before it got shut down, after being dragged to court by the Recording Industry Association of America. (Napster 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

Napster was the first-generation of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and after followed other P2P like for example ‘KaZaA’ which was created in 2000 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. (Niklas Zennström 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

Most of these different file sharing programs seems to have gotten in troubles with the copy right law, and many faced lawsuits. But it looks as many people won’t give up on file sharing, as it today is still very common – even though it is not all legal. I believe that the most common file sharing program today is BitTorrent, and these days’ people also download movies and TV series in addition to music files. 

To download files using a BitTorrent such at uTorrent which is one of the best clients (as it is free to use and comes without adware or spyware) you will need to go to a torrent search engine. There are many different search engines. Examples of these are ‘MiniNova’ and ‘the Pirate Bay’. Once you go there you will have to put in what you want to download in the search field and you will get options and then select the file you want. When you chose to download a torrent, it will automatically show up in your BitTorrent. And you're done - the download time depends on your internet speed. ('Using BitTorrent' 2010, Apc, 30, 4, p. 42, Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre)

I think Napster influenced today’s file-sharing because it is stilling going on, and I do not think people will stop sharing files in spite of the laws. Maybe one day it will be legal, but I understand that sharing files may affect the movie and music industry, as they probably lose money on people not buying their products because they choose to download it instead.  


References: 

'Using BitTorrent' 2010, Apc, 30, 4, p. 42, Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre, EBSCOhost, viewed 13 August 2012.

Napster 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August, 2012, from http://www.britannica.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/EBchecked/topic/754550/Napster 

Niklas Zennström 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August, 2012, from http://www.britannica.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/EBchecked/topic/1378578/Niklas-Zennstrom

(Post 6)