They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well, for my spring break one thing that happened in Vegas was a little gambling and what stayed there was my money.
To kick off our spring break a couple of my friends and I decided to pack things up and head out to good ol' Sin City for a few days. We'd all been there before...the only thing that made this trip special was that we were all finally 21. Now, I'm sure I'll look back on this trip when I'm 65 years old and laugh at how young and immature I was, but please bear with me for the time being and expect to hear a lot more not-so-subtle hints at awesome it is to be in Vegas as a 21 year old.
Leaving out the grisly details of my interpretation of Vegas' open container law and how this factored into my subsequent gambling, I want to take a minute to discuss my apparently inherent misunderstanding of the workings of video poker machines. My friends and I stayed at the Aladdin hotel, which happens to have a fine collection of these machines. We experimented with a few groups of them but after a while decided to keep coming back to the same set of three machines over the course of our trip. I kind of liked going to the same three machines as it made me feel like I (maybe) had a bit more a personal connection with the device I was endlessly feeding my money into. Even so, that didn't help me figure out the difference between the "place bet" button and the "place bet and go all in" button. I can't tell you how many times I caught myself laying down $20 dollars on a single hand (high rollers need not read this...if you do understand I'm a college student with very little money who knows nothing about gambling).
By several repeated acts of God I managed to lose very little money on any of these hands and sometimes actually make a little cash. By the time my friends and I finally made our way home I think I was $35 dollars in the hole...not bad when you take my horrible gambling habits into consideration. Still, it was a little irritating to see my friends walk up to a roulette table, put some money on a single number, and walk away with $200 dollars on a single spin. I guess that's Vegas for you.
Regardless of my losses, Vegas was still tons of fun and I'm counting the days until I can go back there and act like an idiot again. I mean sure, I'm a college student, but I can't ALWAYS be expected to act smart!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
A FEW THOUGHTS
I've thought about a lot of different subjects for my final project but it seems like I always keep coming back to one in particular. Ever since moving to L.A. I've had a sort of weird fascination with downtown, particularly the old Historic Core and eastside that has been undergoing a sort of gentrification-fueled cultural renaissance over the past few years. I'm no city planner, but I can't help but notice the pricey lofts and apartments that are appearing in old warehouses and department stores throughout the district as well as the new restaurants and trendy bars that seem to be popping up on a daily basis.
For my project I'd like to look at that area of downtown and assess how it has changed, why it is changing, and what we can expect to see in the future. This would probably involve making multiple trips to downtown itself to talk with residents, store owners and visitors, as well as a little work tracking down the people that are behind the gentrification and growth. For the project website I hope to go beyond the standard set of interviews, articles, and links and provide the viewer with pictures, video, and sound. The goal is to provide a better sense of what downtown and the people that exist there are all about. All in all, I hope visiting the website will be a cultural experience in itself.
As I stated in the first day of class, I am not hugely technically minded. At this point in time I feel that I can get by with my basic html, photo editing, blogging, existing on the Internet etc. That having been said, there aren't too many things that I can think of that I would like to focus on in the second half of the class. One of the only things that comes to mind is working with Flash, although I am not sure if that is too advanced or time intensive for this particular course. I think Flash would make our final websites/project much more interesting, but if we are aiming for a more basic approach to the project then it might not be appropriate.
Thanks a lot and enjoy your Spring Break!
For my project I'd like to look at that area of downtown and assess how it has changed, why it is changing, and what we can expect to see in the future. This would probably involve making multiple trips to downtown itself to talk with residents, store owners and visitors, as well as a little work tracking down the people that are behind the gentrification and growth. For the project website I hope to go beyond the standard set of interviews, articles, and links and provide the viewer with pictures, video, and sound. The goal is to provide a better sense of what downtown and the people that exist there are all about. All in all, I hope visiting the website will be a cultural experience in itself.
As I stated in the first day of class, I am not hugely technically minded. At this point in time I feel that I can get by with my basic html, photo editing, blogging, existing on the Internet etc. That having been said, there aren't too many things that I can think of that I would like to focus on in the second half of the class. One of the only things that comes to mind is working with Flash, although I am not sure if that is too advanced or time intensive for this particular course. I think Flash would make our final websites/project much more interesting, but if we are aiming for a more basic approach to the project then it might not be appropriate.
Thanks a lot and enjoy your Spring Break!
FLOW OF TRAFFIC
There are a few things that newspaper websites can do to both boost the traffic flow to their websites and improve news coverage through reader-contributed content.
The first possibility is simply providing links to popular blogs on newspaper websites. It has been found that over the past few years blogs such as the Drudge Report have boosted traffic to the sites of papers like the LA Times and the Washington Post. If a newspaper site links back to the blog that references it there's a good chance that user traffic will significantly increase for both websites.
Although this might still be in the early stages of development, another thing that could be done to increase traffic flow on newspaper sites is to allow users to socially bookmark or "tag" URLs from their websites. What this means is users would be able to store the URL in an online account for quick access and then would be able to share their bookmarks with other online users. They could also ask other users to submit links to stories they might be interested in. As I said before, this form of networking is not very widespread, only available on a handful of websites such as digg.com and Newsvine. However, if a major newspaper was to take advantage of this method we could see a new trend in online journalism.
Finally, websites could significantly improve their news coverage by creating open, yet moderated, forum-type pages in which users could both report and comment on stories they are interested in. This could prove to be significantly useful for local news reporting, as users would probably be able to report on local things from a first person perspective that the newspaper might not even know about. Forums could also work well for the opinion pages so that people might be able to easily share their thoughts on a variety of issues: local, national, and international. As I said earlier, these forums would have to be constantly monitored and moderated to make sure they stay on-topic and no objectionable material is posted. However, this might not be too much of a concern if the website can quickly establish the forums as a place for repectable, newsworthy, and intelligent conversation that is open to anyone.
The first possibility is simply providing links to popular blogs on newspaper websites. It has been found that over the past few years blogs such as the Drudge Report have boosted traffic to the sites of papers like the LA Times and the Washington Post. If a newspaper site links back to the blog that references it there's a good chance that user traffic will significantly increase for both websites.
Although this might still be in the early stages of development, another thing that could be done to increase traffic flow on newspaper sites is to allow users to socially bookmark or "tag" URLs from their websites. What this means is users would be able to store the URL in an online account for quick access and then would be able to share their bookmarks with other online users. They could also ask other users to submit links to stories they might be interested in. As I said before, this form of networking is not very widespread, only available on a handful of websites such as digg.com and Newsvine. However, if a major newspaper was to take advantage of this method we could see a new trend in online journalism.
Finally, websites could significantly improve their news coverage by creating open, yet moderated, forum-type pages in which users could both report and comment on stories they are interested in. This could prove to be significantly useful for local news reporting, as users would probably be able to report on local things from a first person perspective that the newspaper might not even know about. Forums could also work well for the opinion pages so that people might be able to easily share their thoughts on a variety of issues: local, national, and international. As I said earlier, these forums would have to be constantly monitored and moderated to make sure they stay on-topic and no objectionable material is posted. However, this might not be too much of a concern if the website can quickly establish the forums as a place for repectable, newsworthy, and intelligent conversation that is open to anyone.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
TONIGHT, TONIGHT
I'm not sure how many of you still take the time to brush the dust off your mid-90s alternative rock collection and bask in the glory that is the Smashing Pumpkins. If you do, I'm proud of you...and if not, you oughta try it sometime, it's therapeutic. It was actually during one of these little audio vacations that I came up with the idea for what wikipedia entry I was going to edit for this week's assignment.
I took at look at the wiki entry for the Pumpkins' song "Tonight, Tonight" and decided to add a little tidbit of information I know about the production of its music video. This was actually my first time ever editing a wiki but I didn't find it to be that difficult. Wikipedia has a pretty user-friendly interface when it comes to editing (ie: buttons that automatically drop in links, make text bold, italic etc.). Now that I know what wikis are all about I figure I'll be a lot more willing to go in and correct or add to wiki entries I find particularly interesting.
I want you to actually go look at what I did so I'm not going to provide you with any details about the change I made. I will however, provide you with the links to the pre-edited, edited, and current page of the wiki entry.
And for good measure, here's the music video for "Tonight, Tonight". Enjoy.
I took at look at the wiki entry for the Pumpkins' song "Tonight, Tonight" and decided to add a little tidbit of information I know about the production of its music video. This was actually my first time ever editing a wiki but I didn't find it to be that difficult. Wikipedia has a pretty user-friendly interface when it comes to editing (ie: buttons that automatically drop in links, make text bold, italic etc.). Now that I know what wikis are all about I figure I'll be a lot more willing to go in and correct or add to wiki entries I find particularly interesting.
I want you to actually go look at what I did so I'm not going to provide you with any details about the change I made. I will however, provide you with the links to the pre-edited, edited, and current page of the wiki entry.
And for good measure, here's the music video for "Tonight, Tonight". Enjoy.
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