ELS Autoblog

I just wanted to blog briefly on something that caught my attention in the prologue of Miller’s Crossing, especially comparing Miller’s Crossing to The Glass Key. That was the portrayal of Leo, as played by Albert Finney, who was the Paul character for the Coen brother’s adaptation. As opposed to Paul, who was a blustery, brash character with the intelligence to get himself into profitable situations but not through them or out of them, Leo seemed much more controlled, sophisticated, even academic. Of course, the relationship between the Ned/Paul character was still born out in Miller’s Crossing, with Tommy being more intelligent and splitting away in the end, but it was far harder to condescend to the Leo character in terms of intellectual power. I was wondering if this was a directorial choice by the Coen brothers or if it was simply a matter of acting styles changing since the […]

Original post by anniek

There is an idea/concept/speculation trend that I have noticed since the first new media studies class.  What I have picked up on is this: It seems to be that more would get accomplished if we simply worked together by pooling our collective knowledge to figure something out (I am using the word “our” in a general sense).  Let me try to clarify this. 
During the first two classes we discussed how communication was difficult because of field specialization (For example a math teacher trying to explain theories of calculus to a gym teacher in order to accomplish something…there is a lack of communication because a gym teacher isn’t specialized in the field of calculus).  Perhaps greater unimaginable things could happen if we were able to combine two things together to make it work (whether it is to find a solution to something, or to increase efficiency in general).  Instead of […]

Original post by Peanut!

Today I walked out of a movie theater, having just seen Michael Moore’s SiCKO, with a renewed political and humanistic vigor. It might sound odd, but I had a New Media epiphany shortly after watching that documentary on corrupt American health care. It happened while I was standing in line at Potbelly’s, waiting to order a sandwich. I saw the people around me, without that tense shouldered social anxiety I normally might have felt. I thought about their lives. I picked up my sandwich and I smiled fluently at the cashier.
A man in the film said that putting your life in danger was living, and the rest was television. He was referring of course to putting your own life on the line in hopes of saving another, as with a firefighter. Interesting, I thought. It was then, thinking about that quote while eating my food, that I remembered Walter […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

So we talked briefly on giving emotions to machines. For instance, making a vacuum afraid to go near stairs for fear of falling down them. I thought that was a cool idea till I imagined my vacuum screaming bloody murder that one fateful day it fell down the stairs. Then what if it thought I wasn’t meeting its emotional needs? Would I wake up one morning and find a note on my pillow saying, “Goodbye, I’m sucking on someone else’s rugs now.” ? Running to the door, I’d see it swaying open in the breeze and the truth would hit me: my vacuum is gone, gone forever. Falling to my knees I’d weep with my head in my hands. I’d then call my vacuum every day and leave sobbing messages asking for it to come back. It would ignore me for a while, but then eventually would realize I wasn’t […]

Original post by georgestreet

AddThis.com has two nice little widgets that combine 34 bookmarking services and 22 RSS feed services into single buttons, perfect for “Web2.0 Social Media Optimization.” I’ll provide an example:

There is also a WordPress edition which includes a plugin and a conveniently integrated drop-down menu.

Original post by humanisticmystic

First of all, since I missed class yesterday, if any or all of this was talked about, I’ll shut up and color (although i always had a hard time staying inside those damn lines). From what I’ve read on the blog, it seems like some of y’all are noticing the high level of violence in the Lancelot reading, and thinking that the violence itself is the significant part of the reading. The problem with this is that we’re reading it from a 20th century point of view, from a world in which we are removed from death, and where real violence is something most of us have/will never see. This is not the case for the original audience of Lancelot.
The middle ages were a time of constant warfare (hell, the English and French fought over the same chunks of land for over 100 years), high infant mortality, […]

Original post by ebarn4wv

On my way home tonight, I remembered something that had to do with speech recognition, which I forgot to bring up in class. I work at BB&T, and last Friday someone left a cell phone (I don’t know what kind it was – a Blackberry maybe? It seemed high-tech, anyway!). Well we called the last contact on the phone which happened to be the person’s roommate, and she said she would let him know where his phone was. The next morning when we opened the vault (where we had put the phone the night before for safekeeping with everything else), the phone started beeping. We thought it was a call or a message coming through so didn’t pay attention. But a few minutes later one of my co-workers was on her phone and the phone started beeping again and when she looked at it, it […]

Original post by Ashley

Eleven years ago to the day I was sitting in a movie theatre with my family watching, “Independence Day”. I know that movie has since been deemed one of the most ridiculous of all time, but I have to say that as a 12 year old that movie was amazing. I’m sure if I watched it now without having seen it before I would have a completely different opinion, but I can’t forget how much I loved that movie once upon a time. I wouldn’t begin to analyze that movie as a work of art, but I can’t deny I think it’s great. I encourage anyone who fears the world will be annihilated by creepy and repulsive aliens to remember Will Smith fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.
I hope everyone has a good 4th of July.

Original post by kcannon