Walk On The Wild Side

On September 11, 2001, our country as we knew it, and perhaps even the rest of the world, had changed forever. Beneath the well known story of the 9/11 attacks lay many other explanations, or theories, of what actually happened that day and who is truly responsible. As I began to research the different conspiracies that have developed over the years derived from the that fateful day, I stumbled across a site containing "The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories". As the title states, this website shares what the author considers to be the most interesting theories out there and lists them in descending order. Each theory is coupled with a brief paragraph summarizing what the theory is attempting to convey, as well as three to nine minute video of which supports each individual claim. All of these conspiracy theories suggest that someone besides Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, mainly the United States Government. The different theories mentioned on this site include:

1. "Inside Traders Knew About Attacks Before They Happened"
2. "Air Defense Was Told To 'Stand Down'"
3. "Planes Didn't Make Twin Towers Collapse,  Bombs Did"
4. "The Pentagon Attack Scientifically Doesn't Hold Up"
5. "Flight 93 Was Completely Staged"
6. "Hijackers Are Alive. How Did Their Passports Survive Explosion?"
7. "Phone Calls Made From Plane Were Faked"
8. "Jewish People Knew Attack Was Going To Happen, Took Off Work On September 11th"
9. "Black Boxes Found By Search Crew Were Kept Secret"
10. "The Bin Laden Tapes Are Fake"
11. "Aluminum Planes Can't Penetrate Steel Structure Of World Trade Center"  

I have chosen two of these elven topics to write about.

1. "Inside Traders Knew About Attacks Before They Happened"

This first theory suggests that traders of the stock market were somehow tipped off about the 9/11 attacks. Therefor, the traders were able to place bets, also called "puts", on which companies would soon preform poorly on the stock exchange. According to the video posted underneath the short paragraph explaining this conspiracy, on the Thursday before the attacks 2,000 puts were placed on United Airlines betting that the stock value would plum-it. Apparently, the 2,000 bets that were placed was 90 times the amount of bets placed over the past three weeks, yet they were all placed on a single day. The same thing can be said for American Airlines. The video goes on to point out that Morgan-Stanley and Marsh and McLennan, the World Trade Center's biggest tenants, also had a massive increase in puts placed against each company. These different accusations seem to be legitimate, seeing as how they were produced by ABC. Yet, I dared to venture further into the world wide web to see if I could find more evidence either supporting or confirming these claims. This is what I found. It's an analysis, researched and written by a finance professor named Allen Poteshman, published by the University of Chicago. This study concluded that the volume of puts placed were, "unusually high which is consistent with informed investors having traded in the option market in advance of the attacks." This source appears to be very credible as both the author and publisher are respected parts of the academic world. Although all these transactions may simply be coincidence, all signs seem to point at insider trading.

Yet, according to Snopes.com, this conspiracy theory is completely false, "The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United Staes...investigate these rumors and found that although some unusual (and initially seemingly suspicious) trading activity did occur in the days prior to September 11, it was all coincidentally innocuous and not the result of insider trading by parties with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks..." In a report released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the author states that the large increase of put options have absolutley no connection to the attacks that occurred on 9/11. Apparently, one U.S.-based investor bought 95% of the puts offered by United Airlines, as well as 115,000 shares of American Airlines. After a thorough investigation, it was said to be that this sole investor had no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda.

I believe that there may have been some insider trading occurring on the days before 9/11. To me, it just seems far too coincidental that the puts of four of the most affected companies (American Airlines, United Airlines, Morgan-Stanley, and Marsh and McLennan) of the attacks also experienced a massive increase in puts a few days before that fateful day. In my own personal opinion, the fact that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States conducted the investigation about the possibility of insider trading simply invalidates the data that was collected from this federal agency.

3. "Planes Didn't Make Twin Towers Collapse, Bombs Did"

The third conspiracy contemplates the probability of a small plane, when compared to the overall size of one of the Towers, being able to collapse the whole building. According to newsone.com, the falling of the towers resembled a scheduled demolition rather than a terrorist attack. The video embedded below the short paragraph depicts many different first hand accounts of people who were both inside and outside of the building. Almost all of these first-hand interpretations of what happened mention something about a bomb going off. In fact, there is even a a short clip towards the end of the video in which a camera is set on a concrete sidewalk, facing away from the street and towards a mans foot. The viewer can hear the plane flying over, and then before the plane even hits one of the Towers, there is a massive vibration. This vibration disrupts the video recording process and can be seen in the actual clip. Shortly after, the viewer is able to hear the plane crashing into one of the Towers. The disturbance in the clip is thought to be a bomb going off within the Tower before the plane hit it. The problem with this particular video is the fact that it was just recently released. This could mean that the video has been altered in some way to makes it seem as if the video recording process had been disturbed, when in reality it had not.  I discovered many different videos that suggest that bombs did indeed cause the collapse of the Twin Towers.

This first video states that an audible explosion can be heard right before the first Tower collapses. One of the issues I have with this video is the point of view. The Tower that falls is blocked by the smoke coming from the other Tower, as well as the other building itself. Therefor it is hard to see exactly when the first building, Tower 2, begins to fall. Secondly, although the noise that is emitted most definitely came from the first Tower that collapsed, it may have simply been caused by many floors falling onto another, which could have also initiated the collapse. This second video shows two fireman being questioned by what I assume to be civilians.  The firefighters, which appear to have literally just walked out of one the buildings that collapsed, state that after the plane had initially hit, there were three more explosions which brought the lobby down on top of them. This source also seems quite credible due to the fact that these firefighters had first-hand experience with this situation.

Now I do not doubt that what these firefighters heard were explosions, but who is to say that these explosions were man made? There is no telling what was kept inside the World Trade Center Towers, yet I am willing to bet there were some high-pressured, extremely flammable containers located somewhere within those buildings. All it would really take is a little bit of heat for something like that to explode. I do not think it is that far-fetched to believe that bombs were placed in the Towers, yet I find it much more plausible that something, such as I have suggested above, caused the explosions.

 There are many skeptics to the "controlled demolition" conspiracy theory. According to Phil Mole in his article titled, "9/11 Conspiracy Theories Debunked", detonating devices that are typically used during demolitions are all set off at once. This results in all parts of the building being in motion at the same time. Mole continues by stating that if one were to look carefully at any video of the collapse, that is definitely not what happened. He states, "The parts of the building above the plane impact points begin falling first, while the lower parts of the buildings are initially stationary. The parts of the towers below the impact point do not begin to fall until the higher floors have collapsed onto them." The author points out that if the towers had indeed been rigged to collapse, it would be extremely hard to pinpoint the location of which the planes would collide with the towers and then make the towers begin to collapse at those exact locations. Another point Mole makes is that unlike a planned demolition, where the building falls into its own footprint,  Tower 2 tilted towards the direction of which the plane made impact. This caused the building to fall at angle, which is apparent when watching this video. The first twenty or so floors are visibly seen falling at an angle before the rest of the building begins to collapse. Theoretically, a planned demolition falls straight down, which is demonstrated in this video. Also note that many of the explosions take place at one point in time.

I believe that the buildings fell solely because they were hit by planes. There may be some truth behind the different explosions people had reported, yet I do not think that anything but the impact of the jets caused the Twin Towers to fall. After reviewing the video of an actual building being demolished, it seems that there are a ton of explosives involved, much more than just the two or three mentioned by the firefighters.

Movie Poster Anaylsis

The movie posters that I chose to analyze are that of the feature film, "Halloween". The first film, released in 1978, was directed by John Carpenter. Although the movie only had a budget of a little over $300,000, it grossed over $47 million which is not bad for an independently produced movie. The second film, directed by Rob Zombie and released in 2007, cost much more to make, close to $15 million, yet went on to bring in a bit over $80 million. Although reviews were mostly negative, this film grossed higher than any other film featured in the Halloween/Michael Myers lineup. If you're interested in reading more about these movies, including their story lines and even some trivia, click here and here. Now, let's take a look at the original"Halloween" movie poster.

This poster is both simple and creative. The background is black, symbolizing the possibility that the scary parts of the film take place at night. The hand which wields the knife, a now household symbol that represents Mr. Myers himself, seems to just appear out of the darkness. This may be relevant to the fact that the main character also seems to just simply appear out of the dark during many parts of the films. The hand also shows that the veins and tendons are extremely tense, possibly foreshadowing that Michael Myers seems to have massive strength, especially when compared to a normal human being. Obviously, the pumpkin that has been carved into a jack-o-lantern signifies that indeed the film takes place around or on the date of Halloween. Yet it appears that it is not a full jack-o-lantern anymore, perhaps an allusion to the massacres portrayed in the film. Simply put, this pumpkin that had been carved out no longer represents a joyful gathering of kids dressing up and receiving candy. The text to the left of the poster, "The Night He Came Home!", suggests that whoever "He" is might possibly be superior to any other man alive, and that this is not a typical homecoming. This poster may have successfully scared the teenagers and young adults of the late 70's into seeing this particular film.


The version of "Halloween" that was released in 2007 is pictured to the left. Almost immediately it becomes obvious that this remade classic has undergone some drastic changes. The first thing that may pop out at the viewer of this poster may in fact be the large head in the middle of the image. The viewer will soon realize that this head a collage of different characters, or perhaps a better word would be victims, featured in the film. The head is apparently that of the masked Michael Myers, which is nice to see that the creators kept it classy by reimplementing the old-school look. The figure with his back turned towards the viewer has a mask in one hand and a knife in the other. The color used, sort of burnt orange if you will, seems to signify chaos, or just a general uncertainty of the future. The poster comes across as dirty and gritty, much like Mr. Myers himself. The caption at the top of the poster, "Evil Has A Destiny", suggests that Michael Myers will stop at nothing until all of he has killed everyone he needs to. Having been released in 2007, this poster directly targets my generation whom, for whatever reason, seem to have a higher tolerance for guts, blood, and vulgarity, which I believe this movie poster depicts perfectly.

Reading Quest 3

The Internet

The author of this piece, Steven Johnson, seems to believe that the internet has revolutionized the way our culture thinks and spends its free time. Johnson makes the point that a majority of the activities carried out online are extremely participatory, where as when one watches a television program the phrase "zone out"  comes to mind instantly. The author continues by stating that the internet, and all of its different software and tools that may be included, presents a learning curve comparable to learning a new language. Steven Johnson believes that the net continuously challenges our minds in three ways: "by virtue of being participatory, by forcing users to learn new interfaces, and be creating new channels for social interaction."
I agree with most everything Steven Johnson states in his essay. Every time someone downloads a new program or application, the learning process begins to take place. Sure, a vast majority of such software includes some sort of tutorial or a "Help Me" button, yet most users choose to simply dive right in and figure out the in's and out's for themselves. We are constantly challenging the logical part of our brains, attempting to understand all of the functions of a certain application, or perhaps even troubleshooting a recent problem we have experienced on our desktop computers.


Learning to Think in a Digital World

The author of this essay, Maryanne Wolf, concurs that the current technological enhanced society we live in may encourage thinking habits for younger generations that could possibly destroy everything that our intellect has been able to create. Wolf states that it is a possibility that younger generations may become so accustomed to information popping up at their will, that they may no longer know, or feel the need, to investigate further or to analytically tear apart what is presented to them. The author then goes on to say that the complete opposite may also occur; the younger generation may one day show that they have mastered the necessary skills to improve and, "increase human intellectual capacities, quality of life, and collective wisdom as a species..." Wolf states that the children of our society should develop expert reading minds before being submerged in a technologically driven world.
Although I wish this weren't true, it seems as Maryanne Wolf has brought up many valid points. If one were to take a step back and look at a simple feature of a software program, such as Spell Check, one might begin to see such behavior being exhibited. Spell Check was implemented to make the users life easier, but is it also possible that this awesome device is dumbing our culture down? Instead of looking the word up in a dictionary and studying how it is spelled, the user just has to right click and select the right word. I believe that this is the message Maryanne Wolf was trying to convey, and I have to say she did a pretty swell job.


Learning Theory, Video Games, and Popular Culture

This piece, written by author James Gee, introduces a new way of looking at the mind. Interestingly enough, the author has chosen to interpret the human brain as a video game. Gee states, "...I am arguing that the mind is a simulation, but one that builds simulations to prepare purposely for specific actions and to achieve specific goals..."  The author goes on to establish a solid foundation for his argument by giving an example of how video games may be used as a metaphor for interpreting the complexities of the human brain. He starts by explaining how many video games may come with some type of an "editor" that enables the end user to manipulate the world of which the game takes place. Gee believes that this example directly correlates to the human mind's ability to edit and create different scenarios of a certain event based on past experiences. Much like our brains, video games posses the necessary tools for the user to create different worlds, characters, and outcomes based on previous events. The author goes on to state that, "For humans, effective thinking is more like running a simulation in our heads," in which we are able to imagine many different outcomes to a certain event without actually experiencing said event. I agree with the author on most details pertaining to his argument. James Gee uses many different examples, much like the one above, that effectively display how video games may be used to depict the human mind.

Usability of Websites for Teenagers

Jakob Nielsen, known as the world's leading expert in web usability, believes that most of the websites on the World Wide Web are simply not as easy to navigate as they should be. According to a study preformed by Mr. Nielsen, there is a success rate of only 55% amongst teenagers whilst trying to preform a certain task on a website. This seems low, especially when compared to the success rate that adults experience, 66%, while attempting to navigate the same sites. The author goes on to list the different reasons for why teenagers seem to have a harder time succeeding at preforming different tasks. These reasons include, "insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level." A common misconception about teens is that they are all web-savvy, yet as majority of teens struggle to complete a somewhat easy web-based task. Jakob Nielsen continues by explaining that teens dislike sites that are slow or boring, or even sites that just have way too much going on. I can agree with this 100%. I believe we have all had experiences with a certain website that had so many icons, badges, buttons, and glittery banners that by the time you're done looking at all of it, you've almost forgotten why you visited that site in the first place.
 

Magazine Audiences

In order to complete the "Magazine Audiences" quest, I rummaged through a stack of old magazines sitting in the corner of my room attempting to find something that stood out. I came across an issue of Import Tuner that was published in February of this year. Import Tuner is dedicated to bringing their readers the latest and greatest happenings in the car tuning world, from slammed Infinities and other small cars, (see picture to the right), the best performance upgrades for certain automobiles, to the incredibly beautiful models that usually grace the front cover. Basically, Import Tuner has everything their subscribers are begging for and more.

I suppose that the overall message of this particular magazine is that if your personal project car build does not involve ridiculously low and poked out stance, much like the Toyota Celica GT to the left, or a horsepower rating higher than 300HP, your build is worthless. That may be taken out of context, but I would imagine it would be difficult not to feel that way after looking through this magazine. Most of the cars featured in Import Tuner are extremely well done and have been well funded. For example, the Celica pictured to the left had well over $20,000 invested into it before it reached its current state. Obviously, not everyone interested in building high-powered cars can afford to spend this type of money. Although this is the message that is depicted, I do not believe the editors over at Import Tuner are purposefully slashing dreams and killing their readers hopes of ever producing such fantastic automobiles. They are simply trying to show everyone the crazy and unique things that owners have done to their rides. The readers will see the featured cars, the advertisements for the performance and aesthetic auto parts, and the stunning girls within each issue. This in turn encourages the readers who do participate in car building to attempt to complete their vehicles at a quality that far surpasses this months special features.

For the editors of this magazine, low cars and high-powered four cylinders consume their lives, and it may very well consume their readers lives as well. Yet, is spending tons of money in hopes of being mentioned in one magazine really worth it? Some may argue that the values of one's life should be deeper than that. In other words, money, cars, and hot girls are not what living life is all about. I am here to defend these gear heads; being involved in the tuning world is much more complex than that. There is a sense of community, of belonging to something huge, that I believe really draws most avid readers in. After completing a build successfully, most owners will eventually take their car to one if not both of the following events: car shows and track days. At these meetings, owners bring their cars together to basically nerd out with each other and look at other enthusiasts vehicles. Someone who was to engage in such an activity could possibly, and most likely will, build life long relationships and feel apart of a massive community.

So in a sense, the implied values and the overt message do conflict with one another. Although the main message encourages readers to spends mad money on their vehicles to achieve an awesome result, the underlying values displayed in Import Tuner somewhat emphasize the importance of belonging to something bigger than yourself.

Pop Music Website Analysis

The artist's website that I choose to analyze was that of an newly famed rapper. His name is Wiz Khalifa, and if you are in any way somewhat interested in the rap/hip-hop music genre, it has become extremely hard to ignore his presence over the last couple of years. Wiz Khalifa represents the city he hails from quite intensely, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, having even wrote and preformed a song titled "Black and Yellow", which represents the colors of the National Football League team the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wiz Khalifa can single handily be held accountable for the whole "Taylor Gang" fad that seems to have simmered down a little bit, especially when compared to last summer.  Perhaps one of the more interesting qualities of Wiz's music is the fact that just about every track he lays down is permeated with marijuana, metaphorically speaking of course. Wiz Khalifa very openly and honestly raps about smoking weed, rolling joints, and ripping the bong. I believe that this alone has contributed immensely to his success. That is Wiz's thing, he smokes weed, and everybody who has heard even one of his songs is aware of this. Wiz Khalifa has been able to capitalize on what people have been rolling up for hundreds of years.

This brings us to the Wiz Khalifa Official Website. When one first opens the page, lo and behold, there's Wiz Khalifa's name at the top. Yet, his name is formed with really thick white and green smoke, of which I can only assume was produced by the burning of marijuana. This automatically enforces the point I made earlier, Wiz Khalifa is all about his weed. Honestly, when I first opened the page, I chuckled to myself and said, "Yeah, he would." If you take a closer look at the font, the "W","A", and "K"s in his name sort of, for lack of a better term, swoop out when compared to the other letters. This makes the title look semi-elegant, and I find it to be a appealing to the eyes. The font may even be trying to imitate that of a fraternity or sorority. In other words, it kind of sort of looks Greek. As one scrolls down the page, the typical bombardment of different merchandise relating to a particular artists become apparent. Advertisements from Wiz's new mix tape, to the collaboration album and movie he did with Snoop Dog, to a banner displaying "Join Taylor Gang Now!" All of these things continuously support the previous opinions that the visitor, or user, of the website already had. Off to the right of the website are different tables that include some of Wiz Khalifa's music, tour dates, a Twitter widget, etc etc. All of these boxes, or tables, have the same background color, dark green. Once again, I can only assume that Wiz and the designer of the website are attempting to make a connection back to what enabled the artist to become so popular in the first place, marijuana.

All in all, I believe that this website most definetly supports the image that Wiz Khalifa has fabricated for himself. All of the different elements that make Wiz so popular are all wound up and put in one place, and it works extremely in enforcing his persona.

My Tweeps

So I finally added a "List Widget" to my blog to fulfill the "Find Your Tweeps" quest.

The two individuals that I chose to include in my list are people who literally have nothing in common, but I look up to both of them all the same. These two people are Ron Paul, one of the Republican candidates for the upcoming election, and Chase Gabor, skateboarder and skateboard film guru.

Although most people may not agree with me, I personally believe that Ron Paul would be the best Republican candidate that American's could vote into office. Sure, he's a bit older than the other candidates, but should looks and age really play any role in the decision making process that occurs when once decided to support a candidate? I say no. When an individual opts to support a possible Republican candidate, I feel as if proposed policies and solutions to the problems we are currently experiencing are the only variables that should help execute a decision. Ron Paul wants to cut spending, $1 Trillion in his first year,  lowers taxes in order to bring jobs back to America, and stop regulations, such as Obamacare, from occurring. I personally do not understand what's not to like. I admit, I am no where near being the most politically savvy person, but all of Dr. Paul's ideas sounds great to me. Although I do realize the chances of him being chosen for the Republican candidate are very slim, it would still be nice to get someone into office who can truly balance the budget and turn this country around.

Next I would like to talk about Chase Gabor. This guy is a pretty ordinary dude, and is far from being a political figure in every sense of the term. The only attribute that sets Mr. Gabor apart from a good majority of the rest of this country is his career. Chase Gabor films various videos for the most popular skateboarding website in the world, The Berrics. Chase gets to do what he LOVES to do every single day of the week, which is push  around a piece of wood while holding an extremely high definition and extremely pricey camera. And what's better is that he makes a decent salary off of what he loves doing. This is what I like about Mr. Gabor, he made something out of nothing. Skateboarding usually only will result in two outcomes after a certain number of year: 1.) Going pro and making mad bank or 2.) Having a broken body by the age of twenty five. Yet, Gabor was able to take what he loves to do and make a living at it. After all, isn't that what most people want to get out of life? (Sarcasm)

But in all honesty, I truly respect both of these advocates that made it onto my list. And in fact, it turns out that they may actually have something in common, the motivation and courage to continue to fight for what they want. Whether it be Dr. Paul, and his continuing commitment to attempt to sway the American people to see things his way, or Mr. Gabor, who has relentlessly pursued his dreams in becoming the best skateboard videographer to ever walk the planet.

Reading Quest 1

During Chapter 2, I became extremely interested in the fact that Riley was able to identify a radar blip as an enemy missile based on basically a feeling in his gut. This is simply incredible. I became curious to see if there have been other instances of an unconscious decision ending up being the best decision to make. I found that the human brain is actually a great decision maker, that is when the decisions are made unconsciously. According to Alex Pouget, a professor at the University of Rochester,

"You don’t consciously decide to stop at a red light or steer around an obstacle in the road. Once we started looking at the decisions our brains make without our knowledge, we found that they almost always reach the right decision, given the information they had to work with."

During a study conducted by Pouget, participants were asked to stare at a computer screen with multiple dots. Most of these dots are moving randomly about the screen, but a set and controlled number of dots are moving either to the left or to the right. The longer that the participants stared at the dots, the more information was obtained and stored subconsciously, until the brain was able to ensure the participant that the dots were either moving to the left or moving to the right. At this moment the participant instantly realizes which way they dots are moving with out even thinking about the complex process that it took to gain this information.

I guess this is why when one spots something laying in the road, that person is instantly "encouraged" to swerve in order to avoid the object. This type of thinking is extremely affective in the way that it allows for good decisions to be made in a reasonable amount of time based on the information presented to the brain.

Fads And Trends.

Both fads and trends come and go, there is no denying this. Here are some of the trends and fads that I personally believe will either leave an impact on our society, or fade into the abyss of useless information that Google has so kindly been able to make accessible to the people of this world. Anyways, let's start with the (more than likely) useless fads that my generation will (more than likely) look back on years from now and laugh at.

1.) Being A Hipster


I can honestly say I have no idea where this whole thing came from, but literally overnight it seemed as if the word "Hipster" was a common household term. Apparently, this is a hipster.>>>
Now, you may think that image is a little over exaggerated, but I dare to disagree. Hipsters love big framed sun glasses, v-necks, cardigans, tight pants, and vans. I can almost guarantee if you were to walk into any Starbucks anywhere in this country, there would be some form of Hipster sitting in the corner playing with his or her iPhone or blogging about something related to foreign policy. Being a Hipster isn't such a bad thing though, they support open-thinking and progressive movement towards a better world. They tend to be well educated, although not all of them are, and are very current on the happenings in the different parts of the world. For more information on Hipsters, click here. This may have sounded like a rant on this new counterculture that has emerged, but really I have nothing against Hipsters. I believe this may be a fad simply because it seems to be mainly focused around fashion. If you don't dress a certain way, you aren't hip enough to be a hipster. Different fashion fads change so rapidly it's ridiculous. I could be wrong, but that's the way I see it.

2.) The iPhone

So, is it just me or does everyone have an iPhone these days? It's incredible the amount of marketing Apple put into this device in order to make everyone believe that their lives suck without it. All you have to is take a look at Apple's stock history since last October compared to today!


It is an incredible phone though, it's able to visit almost any website ever made, the camera is better than many digital cameras, Siri is super helpful, and have you seen that display?! But in all honesty, although smartphones seem to have changed the world we live in such a short amount of time, the iPhone 4S is just a fad. In about 8-12 months, Apple will once again announce it's latest and greatest iPhone, which I'm sure will be able to do something I can't even imagine yet. Which in turn will start the fad of everyone owning an iPhone 5. Yay.

3.) KONY 2012

First of all, if you haven't already, I would highly recommend watching the video above. This thing went live 2 days ago, and already has over 11,500,000 views. Um, DAMN! This video is dedicated to the all of the children in Africa constantly being kidnapped and being forced to fight for the Lords Resistance Army lead by Joseph Kony. Basically this guy is a scum bag and needs to be stopped as soon as possible. This video is all over Facebook, and people are already taking to the streets in order to attempt to bring Kony to his knees. As much as I hate to say it, because I fully support the efforts of Invisible Children Inc., I believe that this may just be a fad. Unless people actually listen and participate in the instructions given during this video, this whole thing may just fade in the darkness. But I guess we'll see. More on the war and what you can do to stop Kony.

4.) Planking

This is such a dumb one, and I'm glad it died as quickly as it came alive. Planking is the act of laying on something, belly down, stiff as a board. Strange, right? It seems the objective is just climb onto something, lay down, have a friend take a picture, then post it to Facebook. I don't know where this originated from or why, nor do I really care. I actually know a kid who fell off of a building and broke both his legs while attempting to blank. Needless to say at laughed at him. But in all reality, people have died form participating in this ridiculous activity, and here's the proof.





5.) Instagram

Ahhh, Instagram! What a great little application. This app allows for the user to take a photo, apply a filter to the photograph, then post it to the social network that is Instagram. Much like Twitter, Instagram allows you to follow people and comment on their posts, except for Instagram replaces Tweets with the photographs mentioned above. Here's an example of one of the many different filters once may apply to a photograph. It's quite an interesting concept, but I just don't see it sticking around for that long. Sort of like how the whole MySpace thing died off.



Now it's time for the trends that I believe have or will eventually make an actual impact on our society.

1.) Social Networking

I feel like this one is pretty obvious. Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and even YouTube has changed the way the world communicates. All of these different ideas come together in one place, it's quite incredible if you take a step back and look at the whole picture. I even believe that the revolution taking place in Egypt can partially be accredited to Facebook. Even the whole Occupy movement can easily be traced back to Facebook. It's this ability to openly communicate different ideas that will change our future drastically. Facebook can and will be used as a tool to gather people with a common interest to achieve a goal. This is why I consider social networking to be a trend, and not just a fad. Social networking will never go away, although it may change from one company to another, such as Google+ now challenging Facebook, or Facebook shutting down all together (eh, this is probably false) the concept will always remain the same. To bring people together and allow them to express themselves as they wish.

2.) Texting

Although at times, an actual phone call may be more appropriate, texting has made communicating with the people you know extremely convenient. Forget something at home? Boom, take 10 seconds out of your day to ask your roommate to bring it to you at lunch. Although it may be turning our society into one without emotion by decreasing "face-to-face" communication, I believe it has made us a more efficiently operating society. I don't believe texting will die off for a very long time. For another example how texting, and cell phones in general, have changed the world, click here.


3.) Gas Prices

It's no secret that gas prices are soaring past $4.00. Apparently, they aren't supposed to come back down either. This sort of sucks if you ask me. But this continuous increase in gas prices will affect each and every one of us. Obviously it will be taking more money out of our pockets. What if this increase doesn't slow down? I believe that anything over $5.00 could easily shut our country down. I don't think that the truckers who keep our country stitched together will not fancy paying that much for fuel. Sure, this scenario may be farfetched, but it could happen. 

4.) TV Talent Competitions

Most of us are aware of American Idol, and the tons of other singing, dancing, or straight up talent shows that are out there right now. It's impressive, there seems to be a new one being produced every couple months! This is a trend that started with the creation of American Idol, really the only talent show that seems to have prevailed throughout the last decade, although it is begginning to look like "The Voice" is giving Idol a run for it's money.. Whether or not American Idol will stick around for another 10 seasons is hard to know, but it seems obvious that this trend of America voting for a particular participant, or the whole talent show trend in general, will not be taking a back seat anytime soon.







5.) 3D Movies

Like a flash from the past, 3D movies have made a huge comeback over the last couple years, and people love it! I saw Avatar in 3D, and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. Yeah that sounds really nerdy and stuff, but it's true. I don't believe I would have had the same experience if I had choose not see that movie in 3D. And these days it seems that every feature film with some sort of action happening is produced in both a 3D and 2D version. To see whether or not 3D movies gross more than 2D movies, click here. But really, this isn't your dads 3D movie going experience. If done correctly, 3D movies can be amazing. It seems that more and more movies are being produced in 3D, and I doubt this trend will slow down in the near future.

My first blog.

Well this is my first blog, so that's good.
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is, but I guess it could be useful for something.

*EDIT*
Just wanted to add my twitter account so my fellow classmates may follow me if they wish to do so, @hunterinstine