bamboo: snake oil for the modern american

hello!

just finished a long and tedious day working on our first project here in hong kong. we had to select a product or idea that we think could and should be used in america. my group chose bamboo, a sort of 'wonder-plant' depending on the climate it's grown in. here are some fact about bamboo you might not know: totally kidding, i won't bore you with that stuff. although it is an amazingly versatile plant that we should definitely start growing. we're relaxing back in our rooms now, about to head out for a group dinner in hong kong. indian food! woohoo! i was thinking today, "man, you know, i haven't really farted a lot since i've been here. i would really like to be constantly having to run off to a corner, pretend like i'm taking a picture, and rip a big fart." NOT. so thanks in advance, indian food. i'm sure we'll have a great day tomorrow crop-dusting the design studio with some butt squeaks.

i've already kind of grown to liking this city, i'm gonna be sad to see it go on sunday. i think it has kind of sealed the deal for me that i'd like to live in a city when i leave college. there's so much to do and see and there's always something going on, but if we need to, we just hop down three stops on the train and we have the solitude of our own rooms. it's nice to have that kind of freedom. so, add that to the list: buy motorcycle, keep up with the body decoration when applicable, move to a rad city. hopefully i'll get some pics up later tonight/tomorrow. dinner time! later

ramen, minus the microwave and the shame

just finished a great dinner with some of my group members and the two teachers from the trip. it's always awesome to hang out with professors outside of the classroom and get to know them like real human beings. we had a great meal (japanese chicken, teriyaki style, with a bowl of ramen. take the stuff you buy for 55 cents at kroger and multiply it by about 11,000 and thats what the ramen here is like). i found out that sam, one of my favorite professors i've had (who grew up around DC as well), saw black flag and 7 seconds at the old 930 Club in DC, back when it was in a superbly ghetto area. thats awesome. time for some relaxation, which probably means just reading a few pages and falling asleep. i know, i know. it's only 10pm (or 22 over here), but running around Hong Kong all day takes it out of you. i'm beat, see ya later

photos are up!

woohoo! i've edited a small bit of the photos i've taken so far (like 10% of them) and posted some to flickr. more on the way, so stay tuned!

Ryan Ford on Flickr

Mong Kok East - i can smell it from here

whatup fools?

the internet situation is still a little sketchy in the rooms, but in the computer lab we have a solid hook-up, so i'll use this for the mean time.

yesterday we made the trip from the hotel in Hong Kong to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, about a 30 minute train ride. the view from our room is insane, we're halfway up the side of a mountain, overlooking the bay. the way they use space here is incredible, we could and should definitely take tips from their design and resourcefulness. we got the run-down on the computer labs and workshop here at the university, then got cut loose to run around the city and work on projects. we got off the train, saw some great graffiti, and were thrust confused-American-face-first into one of the most densely populated places on the entire planet.

we walked the blocks, through the shops and tents and markets and alleys, grabbed some grub and beers, and headed back out. after adventuring for a while, we popped into the 7-11 and grabbed some more beer (two tall-boys for HK$11 - about a buck fifty american - awesome!). somehow in the middle of this huge gaggle of people and buildings and cars and awe, we found a tiny, quiet park where we enjoyed our beverages in the company of some locals and some people doing yoga. at 9 at night. wow. found our way home, walked back up the room.

woke up this morning and basically our teachers just said, "well, go work on your projects, see you tomorrow at 9am." so we got to go nuts around hong kong today. explored some alleys, some markets, got a bunch of sweet/goofy crap for super cheap. god bless capitalism. we saw some more really awesome graffiti, and now we're chillin' in the room getting a little work done on our project. i'm gonna try and remember my flickr password and put up some pics, so look out for that. tonight? hmm, i think me, jake, and paige (group members) are heading out to dinner and drinks with sam, our professor. i'll keep you posted.


soundtrack to the day-

against me! - sink, florida, sink
bruce springsteen - mary queen of arkansas
the replacements - alex chilton
lucero - san francisco
the avett brothers - salina
sam cooke - summertime

see ya soon

The ratio of sleep to miles

hello!

well, this was a blog for class, but i've conveniently renamed it to suit my travels

day 1-2, travling, landing, beaching

me and the rest of the design in asia gang peaced out of columbus international airport yesterday (read: god knows how many days ago due to the crazy time traveling), skipped through chicago to tokyo, and landed safely in Hong Kong at about midnight today. first reaction to the plane rides: UGH. man, nothing says 'will there be free alcoholic beverages on this flight?' like a 13 hour plane ride to tokyo. anywho, we got up this morning at 7:30, had a nice asian breakfast (steamed shrimp dumplings...excellent) and exchanged some currency. right off the bat, this city is amazing. endless skyscrapers, huge mountains, fog, rain, heat, sun, people, etc. maybe its just because i'm a city guy, but i love the fast paced nature of it. right now i'm enjoying the free wifi of repulse bay beach (don't have time to post pictures right now, but google image search it, it's very amazing) and gettin' my tan on with the rest of the crew. agenda for tonight: tram ride, dinner, relax, beers, enjoying life and being thankful we made it safely here and could even afford to come here in the first place. the internet situation might be sketchy for the next few days, but i'll try and keep this updated. i'm gonna try and keep the touchy-feeling emotional crap to a minimum, but lame as it may be, i enjoy a good heart felt description to give you the full experience of everything i'm feeling and seeing. word.

oh, also, i had this kind of neat idea i think, so check this out:

soundtrack to the day-

reverse the curse - exit 193
brian fallon - the blues, mary
skip james - sickbed blues
band of horses - funeral
the lawrence arms - the revisionist
bruce springsteen - lost in the flood
otis redding - mr. pitiful
gallows - rolling with the punches


catch you later

ryan

Videocast!

Well, this is it. Later dudes!

Web 2.0 and Mary Zajicek's Whiny Attitude

The elderly can't aren't going to be able to bedazzle their names for their myspace pages! oh heavens!

that was certainly a rude, cheap shot, but in all seriousness Mary Zajicek does bring up some valid points about the recent explosion of web 2.0 services and those being left behind. Her main overarching theme is accessibility, something we as media studies students have never had to worry about. After reading her article, It was a bit eye opening to sit down and think about how many groups are being excluded from this new phenomenon because of circumstances of accessibility. While Zajicek does discuss the influence of web 2.0 applications in regards to certain groups like the visually and physically impaired, she tends to focus a lot of her paper on the elderly and their ability to adapt to these new technologies.

To be brutally honest, and this is going to sound very mean, so I apologize, I really don't think there are many web 2.0 services that are worth teaching to old people (sometimes I impress myself with how subtle i am). Her excerpt on Skype was interesting, as I think this is one of the only applications that could prove useful for the elderly. It's a fairly simple program, and it has astounding money saving potential. No elderly person is going to find solace in the depths of myspace or facebook, I don't think. Now, I'm sure there are more than few tech-savvy grannies out there chalking up the friends, but for the most part, it's not worth teaching these people through the accessibility barrier just so they can wonder what the hell tagging a picture means. It would be more trouble than its worth to instruct the elderly on what these applications are let alone how to use them, and even if we did, there is no real positive that could become of their new knowledge.

Videocast!

For my videocast, I will be attempting to educate the internet population on what a fixed gear bicycle is and why so many damn hipsters ride them.

Research and Creativity Expo

On Thursday I got to check out the Research and Creativity expo over at the convo. My first reaction after walking through the door was "holy crap there's pizza." my second reaction after walking through the door was "man, i suck compared to these people." The expo itself was very well organized and way more impressive than I had initially imagined. Every college present had a clearly marked section of the pie that is the convo, and there was so much to look at that I ate my complimentary slice of pizza and spent enough time walking around that I got hungry again.

I spent most of my time gawking at the Media Arts & Studies and Viscom sections, but there was so much to look at I still feel like I didn't get to see it all. Of particular interest to me were the games and animations developed by the MDIA groups. I'm an animation major and after seeing what those groups have done, I definitely want to become more involved with these projects. If I were a prospective student looking at OU for the first time, I would be way more than impressed.

Overall the event was well organized, and the creative and research majors were well represented and showed some amazing work. I feel as though this type of event can do nothing but help OU's name, and furthermore, that pizza was soooo good man. sooo good.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Longevity is not something my music taste really lends itself too. More often than not, I listen to a band so much that I get sick of them and move on to something else pretty rapidly. One exception to that rule however is The Lawrence Arms from Chicago, IL. They have stood the test of time in my album rack, and I almost feel as though I've grown with them as they progress as a band. Their music and lyrics are something I can truly relate to and have gotten me more into the music I love and play today. Thats why I chose to do my podcast on their most renowned album, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Blogging About My Opinions on Web-Logging and it's Street Cred

Let's just skip the semantics and just cut to the chase for once Ryan, ok? ok.

Is blogging journalism? Well, in this reporter's humble opinion, yes. However, that's not to say that every blog is a legitimate source of factual information. Hell, if i farted in a bucket and called it art, does that make it art? My personal answer to that question would be yes, because I said it was art. But that doesn't make it good art. Writing a blog and calling it journalism just gets you tucked under the warm, sweeping blanket of the word 'journalism.' It doesn't make it good journalism.

On Save the Media, it was mentioned that, "Bloggers aren't journalists, but journalists can be bloggers." I can see exactly where there coming from here, but because I'm a jerk, I have to disagree. After searching through some internet definitions, the only real thing I found that makes a journalist and journalist is that they are formally employed by a news agency. Now, of course this ads a huge amount of credibility to their claim, but how can we exclude everyone else just because they're not working for Fox News? (bad joke). In all seriousness though, what if I happened to witness firsthand the signing of a major bill? or the former vice president shooting someone in the god damn face with a shotgun? If i went to my blog and hurridely typed up what I saw verbatim, does that not make me a journalist?

It seems more like these guys are arguing credibility rather than the definition of a journalist. And again, there's no doubt that I would rather hear a breaking news story from a proper journalist than some faceless internet personality, but I don't think we can complete discard bloggers as useless, biased information, which it often is, but we still can't write them off 100% (obviously this doesn't include people who have personal or commercial blogs, but you get my point....I hope).

Well anyway, whatever you're opinion is, this is just one of those arguments that I don't find worth getting heated about. People will continue to blog, journalists will continue to report, and despite all the hair-pulling and name calling, no one will win. Everybody's got an opinion, and you've just heard mine. If you believe on way or the other, there's a good chance I'm not going to sway your ideals, but it is a very interesting topic to hear both sides of nevertheless.

Well, I'm off to make a sandwich. Tuna salad today? Hmm...nope. Nutella and banana. Bingo. Later skaters.

Tim O'Reilly Gets Busy on NPR - A Statement of Reaction

It's no secret that this new collection of social media and networking tools are rapidly becoming more and more common as a definitive part of our lives, and more specifically our generation. There's a lot of talk discussing the horrors and the virtues of these tools, and I thought Tim O'Reilly made some pretty rad points about what they are and where they might go.

His statement that web 2.0 signifies 'the second coming' of the internet is not at all an understatement, but I do think we have to look at it like we did with the original .com craze. After the bubble burst on all the upstart websites in the 90's, few survivors remained. While some people may suggest that this new web craze will burst as well, as we continue to assimilate the functions of these tools into our lives, it seems more and more probable that this new wave of social networking websites will not disappear in the sense that they will no longer exist, they will disappear in the sense that they become so ingrained in our culture that we accept them as a way of life. i mean, i can barely fight off the facebook addiction as it is, think about the rest of our generation, and the one after us!

I also like Tim's comment about collaboration. This generation, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, relies very heavily on the communication aspect of technology. These web 2.0 websites are clearly a reflection of that. Facebook and Twitter are simply giant parties that everyones invited too. Without people at the party, what are you going to do with all these party hats and novelty beer mugs? You've hung the streamers and busted out the thong song, you just need everyone to show up, which is exactly what our generation is attracted to - communication. It's the collaboration and this sort of 'anonymous teamwork' that make these websites work and lead me to my next point - predictions for the future.

As Tim mentioned, it's hard to truly predict what will pop up next, but there is a sort of trend you can follow to get an idea. He mentioned mobile technology as a trend with ever-increasing popularity. Tim, I think this is a real good call buddy. Apple changed everything with the invention of the iPhone, and everyone (companies and consumers alike) have started to latch on to this.

I'm about to go off on tangents and ramble for another four hours, so I'll just sort of wrap this up and say that my one big prediction is that (drumrolllllll....) the people will kill the news. yep. I'm edgy as shit and thats what I think. Allow me to explain. O'Reilly mentioned the Mumbai terrorist situation and i think that's a perfect exmaple. People were using this communication technology to update everyone on what was happening long before the news got any sort of solid story locked down. Another one I can personally remember is the Virginia Tech incident. I was reading a forum online, and the people who were actually living this horrible situation were literally updating everyone on the forum what was hapenning in real time. WHO NEEDS NEWS NETWORKS?! As these web 2.0 tools becoming increasingly assimilated into our lives, we the people ourselves will become more reliant on eachother. The only difference is that we won't even have to speak face to face.