power point is evil

I strongly agree with Tufte's argument. I always thought of Power Point as being an easy way out of any assignment. All you have to do is put a couple bullets on each slide and then you've got yourself and A.Most of the time when I was required to make a power point, half of my grade was based on how pretty it looked. So most of the time I spent on making it look nice and filled with color instead of the information that went into it. I liked the way he ended his article with "the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience". I don't think that using power point is a respectful way to speak to people, it's just much easier. Using a power point is very impersonal, especially if your audience is reading it themselves. Plus it's a big pain the butt when you have to sit through a presentation that consists of 10 slides all with 1 or 2 bullets on them, so once it's finally over you still don't know what the heck the presentation was about. I think they're a good way of putting half the effort into something but technically you've completed what you are supposed to. So I think Tufte is completely right about Power Points, they were a stupid idea and they give not only kids, but other people who take advantage of them, an easy way out.

Johnny Cash "Gettysburg Address

I thought it was very honorable of Johnny Cash to talk about Gettysburg. Back when he was popular, his word would mean a lot to people around. It was a very good way to make an impact on society. I like that Cash really sounded like he meant what he said. You could tell he was proud of what so many people did for our country. I always thought President Lincoln was a great president. He almost eliminated one of the major problems of the U.S back then, slavery. So it was a good idea for Johnny Cash to make this clip just to make sure people remember what happened and so they don't take advantage of their freedoms. He wanted people to appreciate what we have because so many people take it for granted. I think that we should have someone who is very well-known nowadays, just to remind people why they have what they have.

Cussing Canoeist

I do not think the jury was right to rule against Timothy Boomer. Although cussing is thought of as being tacky, trashy, and unnecessary, I don't think it is right for a state to decided that people are not allowed to use the fowl language. If you want to get political with this argument, then making it against the law to cuss is taking away a freedom, the freedom of speech. Even if it could harm the minds of young children that doesn't mean it should be made illegal and if that's the case then there are many other things that should be made illegal such as video games or cell phones. I think that Timothy Boomer just made a mistake. Sure he said it over and over again, but sometimes when people get mad, the last thing they think about is the words that are coming out of their mouths.

"Just" Radiohead

The music video "Just" by Radiohead would be conceptual because it's not telling a story nor is it in a wild concert environment. The meaning of the song could be taken many ways because of the fact that the subtitles were taken away right when the man was about to tell why he was lying down. So after watching the video, your mind can go off in many ways of why he was lying there, what he said, and why his answer mad the whole crowd fall down. The sound of the music is very dark, there is not a fun beat to it. It actually sounds a little depressing. The most common phrase used in this song is "You do it to yourself". When you tie this into the video, it first makes sense because it looks like the man is hurt or drunk or he did something to himself and that is why he is on the ground. But after he tells the other man who tries to help him that he is okay then it totally twists your thoughts. The visual part was like an average rock video, it doesn't seem like too much goes on. Most of the focus was on the man on the ground. We have no idea what this video's point is. It seemed like the whole thing was filled with chaos.

Rachel, Laumara

MTV

When MTV first came out, it was only airing music videos of popular artists. People complained then about how it was taking attention away from radio stations and it was also causing unexpected side effects to its listeners. I have to laugh at that a little bit because if those people who complained then would see MTV now and how it has grown and changed into something completely different, then they would definitely have something to complain about. MTV stands for Music Television, where you could tune in to see your favorite band rocking out. Nowadays, it may still stand for Music Television, but there is a whole bunch of other mindless crap that rots the brains of our young society. I know that it has grown popular by having various things to watch besides music videos, but it seemed like back when it first aired, there was more class to it. MTV over the years has lost it's meaning. They still show music videos, but most of its airing time is taken up by "Reality shows" with people running around naked and drunk, doing incredibly ridiculous things, that everyone should know if they weren't on TV, they would be in a world of trouble. I think that MTV kind of promotes these inappropriate behaviors now, instead of promoting the good music like it used to.

A song that matters to me

A song that really matters to me is "Sweet and Low" by Augustana. The song has a really good rhythm to it and I think it has a good meaning. When I listen to this song, it makes me feel happy, even if I am having the worst day ever, it brightens right up when I listen to it. I feel like it is a very uplifting song. In my opinion, it's about not having a lot of hope, but to not give up because there is always a way to get through things. In the song, it says "The rain is gonna fall, the sun is gonna shine" I think that it means that there will always be bad moments but then there will always be good ones too and to not let the bad ones take over you. That's why I like this song. It makes me happy and I think that it sends out a strong meaning.

Hearing is believing

When I listened to "Hearing is believing" there was a lot that I agreed with. Nowadays, it seems like people can write about whatever they want and as long as there is a good beat, then it becomes popular. No one pays attention to what the song really means, they just like to be able to dance to it. Even if a song sound like it is dangerous but the words clearly show it's not, the song would be considered indecent.
Another point that was made was that your mind can make it's own images, even with just listening something. A physical picture is not needed when you have something to listen to because your ears are like your eyes. I would prefer to be able to listen to something, such as a movie, without a picture, than watching something without sound. When there is only audio, it opens up your imagination and let's it go wild. But when you have a picture, you are limited to what your mind thinks.

Where do images come from?

I had seen the "consider before you read/view" at the bottom of the page, well I decided to read it and it told me to see what jumps out at me first. What immediately grabs my attention. When I turned the page, the first thing I saw was, what looked like to me was a human "blob". It didn' really look like anything at all. It has legs and arms and a long body that blended into its head, kind of like a black bowling pin. It was standing next to a boy on a porch. Underneath it, it said "the both of me". I didn't really know what that meant. Maybe it was what he really looked like (the little boy) and what kind of person he was, like a monster.Or maybe it was just something in his imagination. But I think the reason why I saw it first was because it was kind of the only thing not surrounded by color. Most of the images are colorful, but this blob is black, and the background(house) is just white. So because of such contrasting colors, it immediately grabbed my attention.

A place for my stuff

When I read this and I saw the "All my life for sale website" I thought that it was really cool. It may be a little on the strange side for a man to sell off random things around his house, but people bought them for a reason. They may be collectors or just thought that it was cool or maybe they wanted to put their name on this guy's page. But either way, I thought it was very interesting what this guy did. Like people say "One person's trash is another person's treasure" and that is obviously true.

Why I write- Jane Didion

When I read this article, at first I was a little confused on what the whole point of it was. She didn't seem to get to the main idea until the second page or so. But then after she started talking about how she discovered herself to be a writer and how she uses pictures to write, I could somewhat relate to her. When I write, I try to get an image in my head and work from that I think it makes it a lot easier to write and to stay on topic. Sometimes when you're just trying to write something and you don't have a clear thought of what you really want to write about, then you can get sidetracked and lost in your thoughts.

Blogging: A great past time for the elderly

I thought the article was very interesting. You would never expect that there would be a higher percentage of older people than younger who blog. Usually it's the younger kids who are always on the computer and on social networks keeping in touch with just about everyone in the world. I didn't understand why he thought it was humiliating though. He said that he is made fun of because people know that he blogs. In my opinion I think it is a good way to get your voice heard. I thought that is was funny when he mention the blogger jokes, even though I've never heard them, I could see how he would take them as insults. But I thought it was interesting and a good thing that older people are blogging more often because he hear enough from the younger generations, now we just need to hear from the older ones.