Discussion Post: Week 8
As we keep moving forward with Presentation II, what have you seen about these presentations that you liked? What strategies do you think are worth implementing? By the same token, what pitfalls do you think you’ll need to focus on avoiding? Those of you who have already delivered your presentation, how did it go? Was your presentation as effective as you hoped it would be?
We’ll keep this a little bit brief this week. Remember the Occupy Wall Street protests we discussed last week? Apparently, they’re only getting bigger. As the movement has spread overseas to Rome, with social media guiding the call to action, peaceful demonstrations have devolved into all-out riots, with police using tear gas and water cannons to stymie demonstrators in their window-smashing, car-torching efforts. Similar protests have taken hold across Europe, Asia, and Australia. While the protests have largely been more peaceful in the U.S., police have arrested 74 demonstrators who were disrupting businesses, impeding traffic, and attempting to start conflicts with officers on charges such as criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Additionally, two officers have been hospitalized from injuries incurred when protesters tried to topple police barriers.
You’ve probably also heard about last week’s foiled terrorist attack on U.S. soil — the attempted assassination of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, failed when Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri allegedly attempted to hire an informant to carry out a bombing attack. Arbabsiar was detained at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on September 29, while Shakuri, part of Iran’s Quds Force, remains at large in Iran. The U.S. Justice Department is blaming the government of Iran for the plot, although Saudi Arabia has avoided fingering its Middle Eastern neighbor.
In tech news, the once-renowned BlackBerry has continued its fall from grace with a four-day outage over the past week. Just a few short years ago, even as the iPhone was taking hold in the U.S., Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry at least dominated the business market and many other countries. Now, BlackBerry is just one among a mass of smartphone options, and its unlucky reputation as the “riot phone” used to coordinate violent protests over the summer has left its market share to plummet. With its strongest selling point, reliability, now called into question, its most dedicated customers are looking for alternatives. Android is more than happy to provide that alternative — the Ice Cream Sandwich is slated for a Tuesday release — or Apple, with its new iPhone 4S, would be happy to soak up any lost RIM customers. Of course, Apple isn’t just sitting around and waiting for its competitors to fall; the not-too-distant iPhone 5 is said to be Steve Jobs’ last project, which could push it to unprecedented sales, and some analysts are speculating that the iPad 3 is already in production.
With manned space flight out of the picture, NASA will be using some of its newfound time to study the climate right here on earth, although they’re certainly still interested in studying phenomena throughout the universe such as the enigmatic dark matter. The organization also confirmed Russia’s findings on the Soyuz rocket failure; Russian scientists said that the cargo rocket’s crash was likely related to contamination in its fuel lines or stabilizer valve. Steps are being taken to prevent a repeat of the incident. As you’ll recall, with the end of NASA’s own manned space flight program, American astronauts are looking to commercial flights and Russia’s space program to continue their work. Russia’s hardly the only country pushing forward in the space race, however: China announced plans to launch its own space station last month, and even Iran is working to send astronauts into space within the next decade.
Oh, and let’s not forget the Texas Rangers’ 4-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers to reach the World Series or the growing consequences of the NBA lockout. Considering the amount of time the average American spends watching sports and all the jobs and dollars at stake, these issues are important as well as entertaining.
That’s all for this week. You know the drill — discuss!
Other articles of interest:
U.S. Said to Have Abandoned Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Next Year
Intensified Yemeni air strikes kill 24 al-Qaida terrorists
G-20 Tells Europe to Deal ‘Decisively’ With Debt Crisis at Oct. 23 Summit
Ohio Wages Fierce Fight on Collective Bargaining
Boise State waiting on Big East invite
An era ends in embarrassment
Weather delays rescue of ill N.H. scientist from South Pole
Talk like Yoda? We may have originally
Robot biologist solves complex problem from scratch
HIV/AIDS Neutralizing Antibody Points To New Path For Vaccine
Boo! Hiss! Dutch Scientist Rains on Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Parade
News with a Spoon 
Blackberrys……I’ve never liked them and have never been a RIM user and I don’t plan to ever get one. They have already been falling into a hole and are now digging even deeper once the four day outage occurred looking for some kind of easy way out. However, I don’t see that as a possibility unless they have some amazing phone that they have been working on locked up and are waiting for the right time to show it off to the public (doubtful). With the new apple products being released recently and new android phones coming out soon with already a big selection to choose from. I believe blackberry has only one more year to figure out something that can keep them alive. Otherwise I see blackberry not existing in one or two years.
I would also recommend for people to test out the new Iphone4s “Siri.” It is pretty amazing what it does!
I haven’t liked blackberry’s slow programming. Yes I have had them but they don’t compete with the other contenders. If they had a better software maybe.
Rumors, rumors, rumors. These are the only things you ever hear involving just about any iDevice that has ever been created, and frankly it’s quite annoying. The iPhone 4s has been out for 2 days now. Two days!! And already there’s a ton of stuff floating around about the iPhone 5 already. Who cares? Why can’t we all just enjoy what we have now and the sheer insanity of what technology allows us to do rather than sit around caring about whether one crazy guy (Steve Jobs) had input on a future phone. Let’s start caring about stuff that really matters people.
I have given up on black berry since last year when my black berry died only after one year and a half years of use. This article and complaint is about the reliability of the black berry from a software perspective, but now It gives me even more reason to never go back to the blackberry, The device does seem to have a more professional look especially for business, but for me at school I only need two functions of the phone, the call and text functions. I am currently using a Nokia and it is pretty reliable so I don’t think I will have to change phones until I get out of college.
I have never had any problems with my blackberry devices. I once was a proud owner of two blackberry phones. From my experience, they were tough as nails. The phones would suffer the usual wear and tear and would still process all the functions required of them. However, ever since the new era of touch screen phones, RIM fell behind. Their fame was held in security and their trackball. This was quickly replaced with touch screen phones that offered competitive security. I now own an android phone and wish it was a bit tougher built, but its capabilities overshadow those of RIM.
There are some mixed feelings on Boise State and their football program. Boise State has become a very respectable team out of the Mountain West Conference. Some people think that Boise State wins so many games because they do not play top schools week in and week out like teams in conferences like the SEC, Big East, and Big 10. A move would gain them more respect. Although a move to the big east may also prevent some players from going there. Boise State will not be ranked in the top 10 as much. Boise State is getting a lot of recruits based on there success and recent emergence. I think most sports fans will agree with the move to a bigger conference. I guess we will just have to see what happens to Boise State when they do make a move.
My presentation did not go as well as I would have hoped. When I practiced it beforehand, the time was perfect. When I did the actual presentation, there were certain latency issues that I ran into. I believe these issues were mainly due to the network change. My computer had to do a bit more processing being on an unfamiliar network which caused some things to not go according to plan.
For the next presentation, I plan on practicing in the room itself, rather than at home. This will hopefully eliminate any problems when the main presentation is up.
I am excited to see what all happens with Occupy Wall St. We have been in need of a revolution for a while now. I’m glad to see people are protesting finance industry bailouts and corporate greed. The people of our country need to be aware of everything that is happening. People are finally standing up and saying enough is enough. I wish I could have been in Times Square on Saturday to join the protest, but I am a poor college student. I hope that Occupy Wall St creates a change in the way our economy has become.
Not to detract from the conversation, but I wanted to express my condolences for Dan Wheldon and his family. In case you haven’t heard yet, there was a large accident at the Indy Car race in Las Vegas today. Dan Wheldon was airlifted to a Vegas hospital and was later pronounced dead. He was a great driver and this is a very sad day for the Indy Car Series.
I think the story about Renee at the South Pole is sad yet courageous. It is amazing that she held on for so long. I hope that she makes it back to the U.S. okay. Also, I hope that her problem isn’t too severe.It’s nice that she is still uplifted and not too discouraged about the situation.
So far for presentation 2, the main thing I noticed is some were not an actual demonstration of anything; they were just informative. One thing I do like is when a visual aid is brought in rather than just something on the computer. One thing I will focus on for my presentation is timing and making sure all technology is set up and working before hand.
Isn’t the Android Ice Cream Sandwich sculpture cute? It’s so much more representative of both the name of the new product and the brand itself than the gingerbread man or the honeycombs are! Also I bet that it’s true that the iPhone 5 will have ridiculous sales as Steve Job’s last project. But, I don’t think Blackberry will ever be out of the picture, as I’m sure they are doing well enough to launch a big comeback with the help of effective marketing. I personally am not really into the smartphone lifestyle, so I can’t speak about any personal experiences with any of them, but my friends who experienced the Blackberry outage are still loyal supporters of the brand.
Protesting has been a reoccurring theme in U.S. history as well as the rest of the world. In terms of the U.S., protesting is a right, a freedom to speak up for what is wrong, and a right that was ingrained in our constitution since its birth. Protesting is a way for people to have a voice, and to change things that they believe is wrong. It is also a media magnet. The media and the press love to cover stories on protests because protests usually involve a controversial issue that people are for or against. Many protests are triggered based on the governments and corporations choosing not to disclose information to the public. Therefore, protesting becomes a method for getting at the truth. In addition, protests are never good for the people being protested against. Like I said earlier, the media and the press loves to cover protests, and that usually turns out bad for the subject being protested against.
Last week I found the speeches to be very interesting. I think I learned something new from each person’s presentation. First off, I learned a lot about the new airport at Indy. I’ve never flown from this airport but after the presentation I feel really familiar with it and would feel comfortable flying from there one day. There was also a presentation about how to make paper airplanes and some history on the man who built and set records for paper airplanes. I didn’t know there was even a record or that so much time and thought could go into something so simple. The guy had a special weight lifting and work out schedule to prepare himself for these record throwing airplanes. We also had a presentation on how to make diagram charts on a program that determines actions and outcomes. The last presentation we had was on the guitar and the parts of it. I knew some of the parts of the guitar, but I walked away having learned a few more and I had never seen the type of guitar he used in the presentation, so seeing that was pretty neat.
Seeing the immediate cancellation of the first 2 weeks of the NBA season kind of tells me that the commissioner really doesn’t want to deal with the players and he will stop at nothing to get what the owners want. Cancelling was a little premature, I think. Postponing would have been better I think because they could have played a full 82 game season. Because of these wild actions I don’t see a full season, or even a season for that matter, happening this year. That’s a shame, because I know a lot of basketball fans – but on the bright side, the NCAA will get more views.
I think that the NBA is going to cancel the season for sure. I have been following this in comparision to the NFL lockout, and it seems a lot worse. There has already been preseason cancellation, and the first two weeks of the regular season. The season should be starting right about now, and honestly I dont know if the NBA will play basketball this year. But like you said at least their is college hoops.
It saddens me to hear that OWS has gotten violent, I’m sure there’s some fault on both sides (police and protesters both), but I think it also means progress. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~Ghandi.
As per the speeches I’m finding these a lot more interesting than presentation 1. Almost all of the lectures I’ve had for many of my CGT classes have been technical demos, so it feels quite natural for me to watch something in this format.
I’m happy to hear that NASA will be turning their attention to Earth’s climate. Perhaps they’ll have the clout to convince people that we really do/do not have an impending problem that needs to be fixed.
…I also now want an ice cream sandwich. It sounds delicious. Oh, it’s a phone? …still sounds delicious.
It’s not at all fair or accurate to say that OWS has gotten violent in the US. Brian tries to portray it this way, but the facts just don’t cooperate.
It would be a grave mistake to hold up the number of arrests as evidence of the protests riotous nature, given that the police make sport of harassing, brutalizing, and arresting peaceful political protesters.
The only specific grievances said in the linked article to have been committed by protests were entering a bank and refusing to leave when the manager asked, (which is trespassing I guess and certainly annoying but hardly riotous or “violent”) and trying to dismantle police barricades (which is a legitimate form of protest as far as I’m concerned).
Also, as jamoliah points out, the alligator tears shed over two police injuries are highly disingenuous in the face of the long record of rampant and flagrant unprovoked violence against peaceful demonstrators on the part of the police during these protests.
Something I think I am going to struggle on most with this presentation is staying within the time limit. I have been brainstorming what I would like to say and I just keep thinking of more! My topic is one of those that can be taken many different ways, so I am just going to have to stick with a simple way of explaining it and keep myself from going into too much detail.
I agree with Jill. The presentations so far have been more informative than demonstrative. Although all the presentations I have seen were well done. I enjoyed learning something new.
When reading over your post I couldn’t help but notice the list of problems caused by the Occupy Wall Street protests. The list included the various disruptions and two injured policemen within the United States. The list failed to include mentions of any injured demonstrators, which shocked me slightly. I remember watching a video earlier that showed policemen committing unprovoked acts of violence against the demonstrators. The acts included pulling people out of lines, pushing people with cameras to the pavement and randomly using pepper spray. Now, don’t think that I’m the type to side with protesters for no reason. I merely think that the inappropriate actions of all sides should be noted.
I am going to write about an article i saw on people protesting steve jobs funeral/wake. I read on slash dot that people associated with a church are protesting steve jobs funeral because they believe jobs tried to be god. Controlling industry and monopolizing, causing coveting of objects and devotion to things that aren’t god. i think this is stupid, idiotic and disrespectful to everyone.
I completely agree with Chris on this. I can’t believe people who profess to be religious are protesting a man’s funeral/wake. How is this showing love and assuming the best? I’m a Christian and it really makes me sad/angry when people act this way and not only make themselves look heartless and uncaring but put a bad light on others who may be grouped in with them because of their faith and beliefs.
I have worked for AT&T the past seven years and watching Blackberry’s keep declining on the smartphone totem doesn’t surprise me one bit. Up until last year, they were ridiculously expensive and their software was so out of date that it just wasn’t a good phone. I had a Blackberry because I thought it was top of the line two years ago and it was a horrible phone. The track ball never worked and you couldn’t do anything with it. I barely could see any of the websites and it always froze up on me. Even with the release of the new Blackberries there have been problems with the touchscreen already. Blackberry was an incredible back in its time, but now they are losing their loyal group to Android and the Iphone because they just give us so much more.
I remember when I always tried making my presentations long enough to fit the criteria, haha, now I’m desperately trying to cut things out of mine to make it short enough without taking away from the presentation.
On the topic of phones, RIM’s blackout really surprised me, especially since they’ve been one of the top 3 smartphone contenders for so long, you would think they wouldn’t have these reliability issues. I personally am looking forward to android 4.0’s release tomorrow, along with the phones rumored to come with it, the new samsung galaxy nexus, and motorola’s new phone, which only has a quick teaser-http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Home
Maybe I’m missing out on why America has privatized NASA’s potential? Did we say, ” Hey not much intelligent life out there or hey nothing we can’t get to again in a few years right.” To progress the human race and understand key concepts on survival we have to interpret how the universe works. America was one of the leading nations in exploration and technology use in space. Years ago, we were determined to get to the moon, boost national security, expand social media with satellites, and add to current GPS units for aviation. Cant lose it. That’s all I’m saying.
So far I have really enjoyed the presentations. When I gave mine, I was a little apprehensive knowing that my partner and I were the only ones doin a group presentation out of our class.
One thing I have noticed with the presentations so far is some of them are becoming very detailed. I almost wish I had a tutorial to go through the presentation with the speaker. This would also help me to actually remember the exact order of the requirements to complete the action.
I noticed this too. Many of the presentations included a lot of jargon with no clear and easy to follow definitions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, because I feel that the class is meant to prepare us for presentations targeted toward our choice of industry and not college students. I want to give an informative and detailed presentation to help better myself when I’m confronted with these situations in the future but at the same time I also want the audience to know what I’m talking about.
I think RIM’s outages last week really hurt it because BBM is there strongest selling point. Without BBM, Blackberry phones would just be any other phone, and last week thats just what they were. RIM’s shares continue to decrease over time and I personally think if they don’t find any innovation they will be out of business in five years.
On another note, I thought my presentations went really well last Thursday and I wish everyone else good luck!
The Occupy protests do seem to be growing quite a bit. I even got a invite on Facebook to participate in an Occupy Purdue protest. I can totally understand peoples’ outrage with the current economic climate. The economy is in the tank, unemployment is high, and things don’t show any signs of getting better. I think that the Occupy protests are largely unfocused though. There doesn’t seem to be a cohesive set of demands or grievances among the protesters. There does seem to be a good amount of anti-capitalists feelings though. I don’t think abandoning capitalism is viable solution to our current problem. Capitalism is largely what made this country great and don’t think people should be so quick to abandon a system that made the United States into the great country that it is.
After reading the Fox News article on the US forces remaining in Iraq and the approached deadline for their return home. In 2008 an agreement was signed saying all US troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011, with the exception of 160 military employees stationed at the embassy to facilitate the sales and training of weapons to the Iraqi forces. The debate about extended the time period troops occupy Iraq is being hung up on the fact that the Iraqi government is adamantly refusing to provide US troops immunity to their laws. This jeopardizes the safety of troops when it comes time to defend themselves if necessary. The next couple months will be interesting with the upcoming elections and the measures that Obama will take with the war in the Middle East.
I am relieved to have my second presentation out of the way. To think think that I have another week before I even have to start thinking about presenting again is bliss. When I was practicing at home, I was consistently hitting six and a half minutes. Immediately before I went up, I decided to cut some minute details that the audience really sis not need to be presented. It cut my time down to a near perfect four and a half minutes.
As for the Yoda talk, it seems like useless knowledge. It is understandable that any knowledge is good knowledge, and bless these nerds hearts for devoting all their time to coming up with this theory. With that said, I look at things from a functionality standpoint being a pilot. We do not care if, never mind, I can not think of a good example to demonstrate this. Quite simply, these “scientists”, if they are indeed as bright as they like to think, should cure cancer or solve our energy crisis. I would prefer the latter.
In the last few weeks the world has lost three great pioneers in their respective field. Of course everyone knows of Steve Jobs, but we have also lost Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders NFL team, who was a true revolutionary for the sport, and Dan Wheldon, Indy Car driver, who was a true class act. It is often said that these kinds of things happen in threes, and hopefully we are done with the losses for awhile. I think the loss of Dan Wheldon is especially hard to swallow as he had two young kids. RIP to all.
I’ve enjoyed the second round of presentations, but many seem to not be actual demostrations. They are a huge improvement from the first round of presentations but I feel that these are very informative.
I’m very excited to present my topic today, ‘Cultural Cuisine’, where I will be demonstrating how to cook Indian food. I hope things will go well and people will find the topic interesting and will hopefully try the recipe at home!
Well, I work at best buy mobile so I’m around a lot of cell phones. I’ll say that the majority of people that come in with problems are bringing in their android phones. it’s usually not a software issue, often times it’s hardware or simply the person just doesn’t know how to use the phone. A lot of times it’s an update that was bad and now it’s doing weird things. When people bring blackberries in, it’s because they’ve dropped it 300 times and it finally cracked or something. I think people are being unfair to RIM and blackberry. They make a quality product that has been on top of the market a lot longer than the iPhone or android. Blackberry started this smartphone thing, so I think they’ll stay around, especially with their new OS and new phone line. I’ve used all the phone platforms extensively… and while blackberry may not be the most fun or ‘pretty’ but they’re definitely the most efficient.
I feel that my presentation went alright. I have given demonstrations before while at a computer, but my audience was also following along on their own computers. That was not the case in class and I feel like I went into that mode and did not engage the audience enough.
As for the Blackberry outage, I’m secretly hoping that RIM falls under sometime soon. I am dreading the day when I have to depart from my beloved iPhone and move on to a corporate Blackberry. Many of my coworkers at the company I interned for this summer were doing the 2 phone thing. They had their company provided Blackberry and their own personal smartphone, since blackberry just wasn’t cutting it for them (and a way to be detached from company email and calls for awhile). If RIM doesn’t make some major improvements in the near future, large corporations might start looking elsewhere.
I think it is great that other countries are getting involved with space exploration. Personally, I am disappointed that the United States stopped manned flights from NASA. Now they are using their time to study Earth’s climate? Definitely not the the kind of excitement we are used to seeing from them. Hopefully someday NASA will be able to be what it used to be, an American dream.
I for one am completely tried of seeing this occupy anywhere stuff going on all over the world. I understand there are problems but you are just adding to the problem and not becoming part of the solution. I think this has gotten completely out of hand and is getting to the point where people just want to do was “in” and apparently that’s just getting in the way of everyone who realizes that this is a waste of time and money for all the additional problems that these “protestors” have created. Its gotten to the point where most people don’t even know why they are there, they are simply just there to be a part of the problem. Its become a joke to see who can have the most clever sign and get on TV the most. The media is treating the protests like its ESPN College Gameday instead of what it really is. A nuisance. I really hope that this all goes away very soon. We get the point that there are some politicians that are corrupt and some big businesses are really greedy. These protests, at the moment, are doing nothing more than driving up police force overtime costs and creating a problem for everyone else that realizes its a waste of time.
Watch this video if you think they have the slightest idea of what’s going on:
http://www.breitbart.tv/occupy-sacramento-protesters-have-no-idea-why-theyre-there-badger-reporter-for-asking-questions/#.Tp6w_pkGu54.facebook
Presentations this week went well I think. Everyone who gave a demonstration knew to look back up at the audience consistently so as to not give all their attention to the computer. I had practiced my own presentation in my home and the time was always a little less than five minutes, which is good, but I think when I presented, things didn’t really go well for me that day so I might’ve ended up going over the time limit even with the buffer. I think it’s because I’ve never really given a speech while demonstrating on the computer at the same time so I took longer. Hopefully next time will be better.
I wanted to comment briefly on the presentations that we have seen thus far in class. Overall, they have been very solid demonstrations of technical information. The introductions have been intriguing and I have been pleased by the way in which the presenters used the allotted time. The visuals have been impressive and I have really enjoyed the technology that each presenter utilized. I am looking forward to this coming week’s presentations and learning about some new things that I haven’t seen before.
I am waiting iPhone 4S for myself, so I am living without phone now. It has been over a week and I am kind of frustrated living without a phone, but since my friends got all those smart phones that I can contact through facebook, I think this life without a phone is a good experience for just a week. I know there’s been some issue regarding storage but this is just too much. I pre-ordered I phone Oct 8, and they still not sending my phone. They need to do something about those inventory issues. Every time when they release product, always have problem with production. They never learn a thing from experience. I hope I can get my phone this week and eventually stay connected with my friends again.
As negotiations flounder between the National Basketball Association’s owners and players, I am increasingly unsympathetic towards both sides. Although I respect the concerns of both the owners and the players, their staunchness and corresponding unwillingness to comprise conveys an unattractive message of selfishness and greed. While neither side should profit at the other’s loss, I find the seemingly insincere manner with which the owners and the players have approached negotiations thus far to be unprofessional and detrimental to both of their reputations. Unfortunately, the owners and players’ egocentricity regarding contract negotiations unfairly holds hostage the ancillary businesses and individuals that count on the annual professional basketball season to earn their living and disrespectfully disregards the millions of loyal fans who make the owners and players’ profession an annual reality.
I agree with Brad on many of his points he mentions. The fact that the players are completly against taking anything less than their current 57% of revenue is ridiculous. The players have to understand that the current system wont keep the league surviving. 22 out of the 30 teams are losing money. Yes, its not all the players fault, the owners are the ones giving away these 12 million dollar deals to players who have only earned maybe half. Everyone is to blame this this fiasco and unfortunately it is the fans who have to pay the price. I do disagree with Brad regarding the disregard for the businesses and such who rely on the season to take place. Yes it should play a role, but each side does have to more concerned about its role in the league first before worrying about outside factors.
I present next Tuesday and excited to share with the class what I’m presenting. I think presentation 2 has gone well so far, given the technological problems out class has been having. I agree with Jillian, I will definately test out my technology before presenting to ensure a smooth and effective presentation. One of the biggest worries that I have is my presentation is dependent of the software working to show my demonstration, so if it isn’t the day I present, I will have to improvise and work with with what I’ve got…the show must go on!
I can’t say I was terribly satisfied with my performance on presentation II. I honestly felt decently prepared for my day to present; unfortunately I had managed to overlook some small but crucial details that threw me off a bit. Mfbecks’ video is flat out depressing. More than ever before, it seems that people feel obligated to be critical, cynical or confrontational. Even when the public doesn’t know what to be unsatisfied about, they’ve gotta go out and make some stink anyways! Criticism, in my opinion, is utterly imcomplete without a solution to complement it, and this sloppy gathering of irate individuals have only reached that first part, if that. Thank you, protestors, for wasting our time and resources and detracting from more well-defined and important issues. I could see this movement either fizzling out unceremoniously, or devolving into something similiar to the London riots; perhaps nationwide even?
I am not surprised that Blackberry sales are declining. While the hardware and software may not be up to par with other smartphones on the market, I believe one of the main reasons for Blackberry’s decline in sales would be a lack of marketing. Apple has been able to market its products so well that many people refuse to by any other type of technology. Apple products are not necessarily ‘better’ than other technologies out there, but they are able to keep customers interested with marketing and keeping products user friendly. I have a Samsung Focus windows phone which in my opinion is 10x better than any Apple product, but I do think that MIcrosoft could do a better job of marketing its products.
Concerning the article: U.S. Said to Have Abandoned Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Next Year,
This is possibly one of the worst military blunders in history. NEVER, EVER, EVER tell your enemy that you are on a schedule to quit. Any progress made, any hope of winning, any lives lost will all be in vain. Because your enemy no longer has to win, he only has to last till your expiration date. And I use the term expiration date intentionally, because that is what this seemingly simple and yet infinitely stupid statement and course of action has done. If you plan to withdraw troops, you do so in a quiet and graceful manner, with a scaling down of activity over time. Now that the insurgents can see the end in sight and know that they have effectively been granted a reprieve, the attacks against our men and women on the ground will only intensify as the date approaches. What are we going to do about it anyway? we’re leaving.
I understand that according to the article the Iraqi government is split on whether it wants us to stay or go, and as the new government of that country, it is their prerogative to decide, but so many lives and so much money is invested in the success of that country that to abruptly leave according to a set schedule that was made public well in advanced is just reckless.
I am presenting next Tuesday and I have to say I am really nervous now because everyone has improved so much for his/her presentation and I am not sure if I can do as well as everyone. These presentations are interesting and appealing to listen. I can mange to have good quality of information but it is just hard for me to present well since I get nervous easily. I will use up the rest of time to practice more so I can catch up with others. I really have to say good job, everyone.
I would like to discuss the two big issues happening in sports today, the World Series and the NBA lockout. First I think we have gotten off to a great start to the World Series. Right now the series is tied one to one heading into the third game in Arlington after the first two games in St. Louis. This should be very interesting because both these teams are very well matched. I think that in the end the Rangers will win it all but I think that this one will come down to the wire. And for the NBA lockout, well there is not much good to say about it. It seems as though the negotiations are going nowhere. I believe it last ended with the owners proposing a 50/50 “take it or leave it” deal, to which the players associations rejected. There is no ideal ending for anyone and the mess seems to have gotten bigger. Although the blame could be pointed on the owners for starting it, the players are going to need to be the ones to bite the bullet and take what they are given. The players have more to lose than the owners.
This round of presentations was a really good learning experience for me. I don’t really find myself to be that technical of a person, so I don’t get a lot of practice with the type of topics I’ve seen presented. I was really surprised to see such a wide range of topic. I figured that everyone would be behind the computer demonstrating some type of software. It was nice to see so many different themes, and almost all were something I hadn’t seen before. My favorite presentation was the one about changing your desktop and making it more functional; I don’t remember the name of the program. Not only was the subject matter of the presentation cool, the presenter himself did a great job at keeping the speech interesting. I look forward to his presentations because they’re always a lot of fun.
Even topics that I was familiar with were presented really well and still kept my attention. For example, I know how to make an omelet, but during that presentation I was still engaged in every word the presenter had to say. He made it fun to watch, as well as added some research information that I didn’t know beforehand. Overall, everyone I have seen present so far has done really well. I as well, have already given my presentation, and it went pretty well. I did happen to go over the time limit; sometimes I’m spot on and others I’m not even close. I did get some good tips from my classmates and teacher on had I can deal with time management better. Other than that, I did well in my eyes, and hopefully I will keep improving upon my speaking skills.
As far as the presentations go, I think everyone has done a great job so far. Some things that could be improved are making sure the audience can see your demonstration and also make sure the audience knows the terminology you are using. For some of the presentations I just felt kind of lost because there were a lot of words I wasn’t familiar with since the program demo were mostly software I haven’t used before.
Some things I am worried about is the audience to understand what I’m talking about and keeping track of time. The cards don’t really help becasue I always forget which color is what. I always present faster in front of class than when I practice so I may try implementing my phone to vibrate once every minute or something. As long as the vibrate isn’t too loud.
I felt that the second round of presentations have been very good so far and I’ve really enjoyed them. The wide range of topics is nice; no one’s presentation seems redundant. I’ve also enjoyed the humor people have added to their presentation. It works well for the audience, which is our peers (and instructor!), and keeps the audience engaged. My only real criticism so far is the use of some technical jargon in a few presentations. It may not be very advanced jargon for their topic, but for a group of peers that may have no background in that area whatsoever, it can still be over our heads. This is part of the reason I didn’t go too deep into how a camera works in my presentation. I would have loved to talked about it, but it’s a complex topic that would require more than 4 to 5 minutes to explain to those with no background in photography. As it is, I still hope I made it easy enough to understand.
In response to the Occupy Wall Street movement, I agree that there is a problem with America today, but am not too informed as to the specifics of it all. As far as the protests and the violence that is coming along with it, I’m not sure that either side is particularly to blame. To blame the cops for being ‘overly brutal’ is wrong in my opinion, but to blame the protesters for starting it all would be wrong as well. Each side has done things to the other side and had things done to them by the other side that has caused the animosity between them. Personally, one of the people that was arrested is one of my friends from high school, and I know that he can go above and beyond to get under people’s skin.
My second presentation was worse than presentation 1. I had issues with time management. I knew that my presentation was too long, so I had to keep it short. However, I was enjoying my time too much during the presentation that I was not consciously monitoring my time. At the end, I was rushing too much that I was not able to control myself.
Beside presentation 2, I want to talk about the Blackberry phones. Recently, I heard rumor that US government is causing the outage of blackberry phone. According to the theorists, Blackberry is one of the choice for Occupy Wall Street leaders, so US government is trying to hinder their communication by causing the outage. I personally do not agree with it. As you said on blog post, it is really good chance for Apple and Android to consume the rest of the market. However, I fear future dualpoly situation that there is no other cell phone OS choice between Apple and Android.
I liked the variety of different technologies that were introduced in these presentations so far. The different varieties ranged from business to play or work technologies to fun technologies. Some examples of each are the presentation on “Garage Band” which would fit under the fun category and the presentation over “Electrical Circuit Application” under the work category. In terms of demonstrating a certain technology, strategies I support are turning the podium so your body is not completely enclosed from the audience, live demos versus screenshot tutorials, established work, and stepping out from the podium for your introduction and closing and at times throughout the presentation. I have already delivered my presentation and I thought it went very well, and actually better than I anticipated. I felt like my demo on Outlook was most applicable and beneficial to everyday life in comparison to some of the other technologies out there.
So far, Presentation 2 has been going well. I have learned quite a bit of new information, even though I had to miss the first day and cannot yet see too well. Everyone who has presented so far knows a lot about their topics, and they do a good job sharing how to perform a task. As we have gone over in class, the only small issue is that demonstrations can tend to keep the presenter behind the computer and reduce eye contact.
As the top country currently in space exploration, we should not be cutting manned space flight. As I have discussed before, in the past U.S. scientists have invented some excellent spacecraft ideas, including one that could go 10% of light speed and carry thousands of people. We could have built it in the 1960s but refused to do so as it was powered using nuclear explosives. There is no reason why humans should not already have expanded our presence beyond our moon. It is important for our survival to experiment and find ways to expand, or else population control will be needed. This planet can only support so many of us, and we are clearly already pushing its limits given climate change and the human-caused extinction of hundreds of species.
Honestly I’ve liked every single presentation that I’ve seen thus far, everyone had sucn good topics with interesting things to demonstrate. My presentation day is next Tuesday. I do feel that everyone has improved from the first speech. The strategy I plan to implement is simply confidence, I can say that everyone has been confident and comfortable with their speech topic.The only pitfall for me is letting my nerves get the best of me, and making sure I convey my topic clearly. But, all in all I’m feeling somewhat confident about presentation II.
I for one am glad that I’m done with presentation 2. Personally I felt a lot less nervous compared to presentation 1. Although I do believe that there is still plenty to work on and that I’ll never really perfect a presentation as with each new presentation presents new roadblocks and unforeseeable obstacles. I did really enjoy the majority of topics, and I actually found myself intrigued to branch out and do some research into a few of them myself. I’m not sure about everyone else, but I did feel more rushed in this presentation as it required more information and a demonstration, which I battled against through practice and up to actually presenting. All in all I did feel rushed while demonstrating but I feel like I conveyed a solid demonstration with the time allowed.