Helpful things

Memorize something every day,

This sounds easy, and it is. This technique is really effective too. First it trains your memory, you will quickly notice that remembering simple things becomes very easy. Now, if you choose to memorize something like daily quotes you will have a library of quotes build up to spit out whenever needed!

Help others,

Helping people has a ripple effect. If tomorrow you help someone, the day after that person will feel more obliged to help the next person. Not to mention that helping people brings you a satisfied feeling. It’s simple, good things happen when you are good, what goes around comes around.

LET’S TRY IT AND YOU WILL SEE HOW IT WORKS 😉

An amazing video i came across today about what goes around comes around and i loved it. i’ll share it to you 🙂

 

My Evening

Enjoying a nice beer on the balcony, making the most out of the new deck chairs I have bought. My boyfriend is also here with me, together we admire the beautiful view that we have the privilledge to enjoy from the 14th floor of the Guilfoyle apartments in southbank.

From here it feels like the world never ends, I now understand why people once thought the world was flat. As I watch the cars driving off to the suburbs filled with lights I suddenly remember my hometown back in Vietnam. The way the stars would shine, the always hot weather, home. All the memories from back home start flowing through my mind. I have to tell myself “only a few weeks left”. Then its back home. As much as I will miss Melbourne, home always remains home. And that is something nothing can replace.

So Ill finish this blog, get on with my evening and start counting down the days…

 

Good night Melbourne.

Unlecture # 11

This week unlecture was quite hard for me to understand since I don’t know what is “ Gift economy” and never heard of it before.

As I understand gift economy is when you given something just for the sake of giving. As Internet has become huge and become the Universal source of information for millions of people which almost for free and this is one of the gift economy.

However everything have two sides. Sometime it cause troublesome by requiring you know the technique or illegal about “ copyright” issue. Because anything that is posted on the Internet is instantly available to anyone else connected to it. Furthermore, there are no technical limitations to the process of copying: as soon as information is uploaded once, it exists—by the very nature of the technology involved—as an infinite series of copies.

As Richard Barbrook, “The Hi-Tech Gift Economy” explained: “The Net reflects two different value systems. The first is that of open source, inherited from the hackers who invented it and the academics who first defined its structure through their early use patterns (see Janet Abbatte, “Inventing the Internet”). These hackers and academics both functioned on the basis of gift economies, and carried those values over into the design of the Net. The result is a structure that is inherently hostile to the idea of “copyright”.”

The big problem is once it has been uploaded; no one can control the flow of it. For example: the new music video of Britney Spears- “ Work B**ch” has been leaked before the release day and they can’t stop the low quality version is downloading by their fan.

Or The leak of the draft “ Bui doi cho lon” not only shocked the film producers but also has caused the lost of millions dollar since no one would go to the cinema to watch it as Vietnamese-American director Charlie Nguyen expressed his frustration on his Facebook page regarding the leak of the draft, in which the storyline, sound, light, color and special effects aren’t properly edited.

However no one could stop the flow even if the police try to shut down the free movie watching and download website, the other one will appear. Just like the famous download movie website “ Movie 2K.to” been shut down by the police the other “ Movie 4K.to” appeared to replace with the new icon “ F**k Police” as daresay

 

We all can see “ Gift Economy” from Internet is not always good. It brings benefits to millions people but somewhere in this world still have other (authors, producer, company, etc) who are suffering from what we are enjoying.

For me when walking out the lecture room, in my head a question was raised: Can our own personal blogs be considered part of the gift economy? Are motives the only things that determine whether online contributions are part of the gift economy? since we also contribute something and exchange informations.

 

Technology as the basis for all human activity.

 

 

Technology has become integral part of twenty first century. I believe that contribution technology has made to modern life is mainly positive, though it has come along with several downsides. All in all, the quality of human life has improved with new technology inventions in day to day life. As Adrian pointed out during the symposium that technology has become a part of us” and even it can have control over us whether with the way we travel or the way we commutate, how we approach the creative side of things and i totally agree with this comment.Technological determinists believe that “‘You can’t stop progress’, implying that we are unable to control technology”

Technological determinism share two general ideas:

  • That the development of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influence, and
  • That technology in turn has “effects” on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or produced because that society organizes itself to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced.

Today technology has pierced in every aspect of our lives : from entertainment to communications, travel and tourism to nuclear weapons. Modern televisions,electronic game consoles,latest movie theaters have given a whole new dimension to entertainment industry. Communication has become zoom speedy , thanks to latest technology phones,computers and internet services. Emails,text messages have made daily contact with society so easy and feasible. Travel and tourism industry is flourising in this technological era. Jet planes ,automatic cars have made travel around the globe super fast. Believe it or not, health care has improved drastically because of cutting edge technology today. Cures to many diseases like cancer, heart diseases are only being made possible because of latest inventions and equipments.

“Every coin has two sides” ,modern day technology also has created several negative effects in human lives. Many people see technolgy as a force that has escaped from human control. They believe technology has made life very complicated. People fail to enjoy simple pleasures of life like watching a sunrise, hearing birds chirping or smelling fragrant spring flowers. They have become so hooked to latest technology that living. Simple life is almost unimaginable today. Thinking about spending 24 hours without internet or phone makes us feel bored! Hand written letters have become a thing of past, walking and biking is now replaced with running on electronic treadmills in an indoor exercise gym.

I agree that inspite or these downsides of technology and inventions, our lives have become better. I can’t even imagine the life without them without car, airplane or phone and Internet, etc. without their support, I couldn’t be who I am today, I couldn’t be sitting here writing this in another language in a country that 3218.15 miles away from Vietnam. We are more efficient and productive in day to day lives and technology is revolutionary way of improving quality of our lives. It as part of a larger spectrum of human activity, technological determinism sees technology as the basis for all human activity.

 

 

 

 

 

Alone

Have you ever laid in your bed and just cried? Because you think you’re ugly, because you’re not good enough for anyone, you’ve counted all your flaws from head to toe, making you feel worse. Cried because all the comments people blurt out, actually hurt? Cried because your family is not there and no one never understands you, they tell you to stop complaining, that you have so much better than the kids in Africa, even though they don’t understand your life either. You don’t want to seem like an attention seeker, so you bottle everything up. Around friends , you’ve created this lying smile and people believe it but at night, when you’re all alone in bed, the girl who everyone thought was happy so is crying her broken heart out? Ever done that? You’re not alone, it’s happen to me and if you ever wanna talk, I’m always here because I know what it’s like to not have someone.