20 Questions at its Finest

I have an iPhone. I am definitely not tech savvy, but I do love some of its functions. I enjoy apps, but do not tend to download very many, because I am not the type of person to use these apps all day long. However, I discovered an app not very long that has absolutely blown me away. Everyone knows the game 20 questions; well this is an app that you can play 20 questions with the computer. Your goal is to think of a celebrity, character in a movie, athlete, video game character or anything similar to those. and it has 20 guesses to discover who it is you are thinking of. It is AMAZING to me how often the Akinator (the name of the app) can correctly guess who is in your head in 20 guesses or less.

I mention this app to again talk about creativity. Whoever created this app must have a near unlimited amount of information to know all of these facts about a plethora of people and characters. The creator of Akinator also was required to make a system that had to use so many variables and options. This fantastic system works at a great pace and a great amount of accuracy.

This app, at least as of now, is my favorite one. I read somewhere that there are a total of over 630,000 apps ever created. This statement almost blows my mind of how creative our world is. A lot of these apps are helping people in our world with issues of convenience (gps, access facebook, or keep a diet). They are also used just to have fun playing games. Either way, these digital creations are growing and growing and growing and becoming more and more creative. Apps would have been unheard of only 10 years ago.

"Mean Joe" Greene

I was searching through popular Super Bowl ads and came across this famous commercial. On the left is a star football player, "Mean Joe" Greene. On the right is a young, cute adoring fan of his. Basical what happens is "Mean Joe" Greene is finished with his game and the fan approaches him and offers his Coca-Cola to the football player. "Mean Joe" gladly accepts the coke, and then tosses the kid his jersey out of appreciation.

I will be using Toulmin Analysis for this commercial, and analyzing exactly why Coca-cola did what they did. The claim for this advertisement is pretty simple; Coca-cola is trying to sell its product. This claim, of course, is no surprise. Companies produce these high-dollar commercials to make their product known as much as absolute possible. Since the commercial contains a football player, the audience is probably mostly geared to males of all ages.

The data is a mixture of the use of celebrity and the typical "cute" factor. People will want to buy the product if the famous Joe Greene likes it, wanting to be like him. Also the little kid is really cute, and puts an affectionate feel to the commercial. "Mean Joe" Green might be one of the toughest, strongest football players, but he also shows his  affectionate side when he tosses the kid his jersey.

Warrants for advertisements also seem to be relatively simple. In this particular advertisement, the warrant is that the audience enjoys Coca-cola. These marketing specialists assume that people that are watching are actually interested in their product, when it may not always be the case.

The link to this advertisement can be found here (http://listphobia.com/2011/02/08/10-most-popular-super-bowl-ads-of-all-time/)

Creativity is at Lightning Speed

My girlfriend got the new iPhone 4S this week, and I am completely jealous. Although it is not the iPhone 5 yet, there are many awesome qualities about the new phone that my doesn't phone have. Now I am in no way "suffering", because I have an iPhone 3GS, but I still am "longing" for the new technological improvements of this brand new digital tool. However, this nation of ours is changing so rapidly that it is simply impossible to keep up unless you have unlimited funds.

There is a Best Buy commerical (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAAZ7iXN-o) that explains exactly what my point is; creativity in this day and age is absolutely amazing and I have no idea how it is happening this quickly. I grew up in a time where VCRs were the way to play movies, every household used their landlines primarily, laptops were uncommon and very expensive, dial-up internet was a privilege, and my arm would get tired manually rolling up the windows to my dad's truck. Now a lot of these events seem somewhat "ancient" to me, but in reality all of the ideas were fairly new at the time and then were quickly outdated by something newer.

I am not at all against this giant wave of technological improvement. I just do not have a brain that can fully comprehend how all of these magnificent changes are happening, and happening at such a ridiculous speed. It makes me extremely curious how different events such as communication, transportation and internet surfing will be in only 15 years. Our world is changing so rapidly, will my grandkids or even kids know what a DVD player or XBOX 360 is? Who knows.

Which Blog will Stop you from Pirating?

This week I will be rhetorically analyzing two different blogs, seeing what the similarities and differences are. Both of the blogs i will discuss are speaking about Piracy, but they go about their discussion in different ways.

The first blog I will discuss is by Rohit Bhat and titled Reliance Entertainment Takes A Drastic Step To Prevent Piracy. This blog is discussing a story that happened recently, of Reliance Energy using its court rights to sue some top file sharing companies. The author is mainly using the technique of logos, by spitting out specific facts about a variety of file sharing companies and about Reliance Entertainment. The author uses numbers and specific quotes to prove the solid facts of the story. He is obviously very against piracy, but disagrees with the way Reliance Energy went about it. He is most likely targeting fellow "piracy-haters" and challenging people to brainstrom new ideas to stop piracy.

Joseph Campbell discusses his views of piracy in his blogpost Let's See Virgins, Gangs and a Lawyer in Virginia.... This blog is his account of examples of companies suing other companies for copyright infringement. However, he talks about a completely different aspect of piracy. He discusses companies suing just to earn some money, but not actually caring about the stopping of piracy. This artist uses a combination of ethos and pathos in this blog, and having a large bias towards these companies. Ethos is used by describing the various examples and experiences he has been through, establishing a better perspective for others that have not been through similar situations. He appeals to pathos by using biting vocabulary such as "using some of that new fangled geolocation technology" and "nothing more than faking a fall in the local market."

In comparing the two, I believe the first blog does a better job at promoting no piracy. The second blog rants on and on about various stories, but the first blog gives the cold hard facts. The second author does use ethos, but it doesn't seem be as good of a tool as the use of logos in the first article.

Stealing the Spotlight

I haven't discussed the topic of Intellectual Property yet, but that doesn't mean I have no thoughts on it. The times have definitely changed when it comes to this subject, and especially in the category of music. According to my friends, I am obsessed with music. I am always singing, listening to, talking about, or playing music. Since I am so obsessed with this amazing part of life, it disappoints me to see that these hardworking musicians aren't getting all that they deserve. I would say that one is considered "abnormal" if one actually pays for all of his or her music. People buying albums, and downloading every last song on iTunes just isn't even near the norm anymore. These people that participate in illegally downloading music tend to not take into account the fact that they are inhibiting the artists from reaping the full benefits. This seems strange to me, because I think you would want to support the person(s) that are producing the music you enjoy.

The majority of illegal downloads is done by teenagers and young adults, but even middle-aged adults are hopping on this free train. These parents of kids that download illegally most likely prohibited this illegality initially, but then realized everyone else did it. Since it is so common, they figure that they might as well save some money, and ask their kids to download music for them. Therefore, the population of people disrepecting artists' intellectual property is steadily increasing.

Also, covering songs from previous artists is a fad that is getting extremely common. Major bands receive permission from the band that originally sang the song, and then create their own version of that song. However, there are many artists that enjoy posting videos on Youtube or singing for small crowds. These are the people that are infringing upon artists' intellectual property, most likely without permission. Now I have no idea if the band Bon Jovi would be offended or honored if "Joe Bob" created his own version of the song "Livin' on a Prayer" and posted it on the internet. Regardless, if "Joe Bob" doesn't give credit to Bon Jovi, then this is disrespecting Bon Jovi's intellectual property. If the band name isn't mentioned, then it could lead people to believe that it is his original song, which steals the spotlight from Bon Jovi. Stop stealing others' fame!