Final Reflective Blog

This will be my last post relating the Digital Civilization course I've been in at college this semester.  Whenever people ask me about this class I usually tell them a couple things.
1) that I spend more time in it than any other class
2) that it is probably my favorite class because of the way it's administered
If we have more time to talk I continue to tell them about how we do our own research for our weekly topics and make blog posts on them and then read other class members blogs and after that network beyond our class and make connections in other places.  It is time consuming in that there's a lot to do, however, it's somewhat fun because we get to choose where to go to study or connect with the places we desire.

For anyone reading this who isn't already familiar with the class, it's an honors western civilization class that integrates modern-day computing technology to enhance education (mostly via the internet).  While in class, the students participate just as much (sometimes more) to our learning as they report on their findings or experiences.  One blog entry that I particularly remember being intrigued in was when I was doing focused research on one of the first computer programmers in the nation.  Her story was fascinating and I even found (and linked) an hour long video of her in an interview explaining what life was like back-in-the-day.  Click here to read the blog post.

There is order in that the professors say when we need to move on or if we're getting off the important subject matter at hand.  One thing that makes a class great, doesn't matter if it's at work, church, or school, is that the person teaching it cares about doing their best and has a passion towards what it is they're teaching.  Our professors Dr. Burton and Dr. Zappala not only showed these qualities in their styles of teaching, but they also respected their students.  I can't speak for other students, but I know that for myself, I want to work harder when I know the work/research I do is significant to those whom I'm doing it for.  This isn't just applicable to school, but to life in general.

Another thing this class has taught and focused on that no other class really has in my college experience is the significance and importance of networking and making connections with people outside our normal circles.  Coming from a private university that's mainly criticized with not having a lot of diversity, I'm surprised these types of classes aren't stressed more to get more diversity into the classrooms.

Anyways.  I've loved the class.  The final presentations were a success, and I've made some nice memories I'll carry around for the rest of my life.

Diversity

This makes me laugh for some reason...

My blog post nomination

Here are a few blog post nominations that I feel have been very well put together.

1.  I was really impressed with Shuan Pai's article titled: "How Did All This Get Here?"  Shuan does an excellent job at tying in history with common political activity, focusing on civilizations as a whole.  She  uses attractive images to draw the reader in and throws in humor throughout.  It is evident she knows her topic well and backs it up with her own personal opinion on the subject matter.

•  Learning outcome addressed:  Self-Directed Learning & Historical Content

2.  The next blog I'd like to give a shout-out to was written by Alex Gunnarson titled: "Master (Almost) Any Software with lynda.com".  Alex covers the site lynda.com really in-depth and provides multiple large images designed to walk the reader through a visual tutorial of how to work with and use the site to learn a very wide range of software programs and online tools.  He also provides a link to a video that shows you an example of what a typical lynda.com tutorial consists of.

•  Learning outcome addressed:  Computing Content

3.  The last blog I'd like to address is one that specializes in showing the personality of the individual.  It's written by Jeffrey Chen and titled: "Contemplating..."  In this post Jeffrey introduces who he is and what his ambitions are.  He uses a distinct and fun style to his writing including words in ALL CAPS and a lot of exclamation marks.  One fun line I like is found in the middle of his post where he writes:

  "Three "Enters" here, to allow you time to let all this coolness sink in...we good? moving on."

• Learning outcome addressed:  Digital Culture via word choice and writing style.

Will Cell Phones Replace Our Wallets???

There are some days I feel as though (and I sometimes comment that) I need a murse.  That's right, a man purse just to simply carry my keys, phone, BurtsBees chapstick, & wallet.  It feels as though when I empty my pockets I'm like Jim Carrey on The Mask when he KEEPS on pulling random things out over and over again and there doesn't seem like there's ever an end.

I recently read an very interesting article titled Google: Android phones could replace credit cards  where they discussed functionality existing on Android phones that allow purchases to be made via your cell phone!  Some gas stations are already supporting the functionality.

To support the article I read, I've attended a couple presentations at college this semester that have talked about emerging technologies utilizing cell-phone functionality to make money transactions.  The areas being targeted at the moment are in countries such as India and Mexico.  The need for the technology in those countries is currently larger than in the US, but we'll shortly be next to integrate the new changes.

Smart phones will prove to change almost everything we do in our daily lives.  They're already beginning to eliminate the following:

• A need to have separate GPS devices in vehicles
• The need of physically dispersing paper tickets in raffle drawings
• The portable gaming industry
• A need to have a point-and-shoot digital camera
• Video cameras (to an extent)
• The need to carry a personal laptop on travel as email may be read via a phone.

I predict that in the future a type of evolution within smart phones will even go as far as wipe out the need to haul an old, heavy, and large portable laptop with a physical keyboard.  You may ask, "well what about screen resolution and having a large viewing window?  Computers are consistently improving.  Chips are getting smaller and smaller. It's no surprise that cell phones are already coming out with projectors embedded within them.  Here's a CNET article talking about turning cell phones into projectors.  I also predict that school attendance will be gathered via smart phones and class-administered exams and quizzes will all be performed through the medium of digital communication with smart phones.  

Think of the possibilities!  Imagine nationwide that the need of physical materials such as pencils. paper, text books, and calculators will be drastically reduced if not eliminated in its entirety.  

So in conclusion, sorry about deviating a little from my original subject, Smart phones are shifting the way we're doing business around the world.  The technology to use ones phone as a credit card is becoming a reality and if that's the case, there will be no need to carry a wallet with cash and/or credit cards.  It becomes burdensome and more of a risk of losing.  Wallets are becoming obsolete, along with the dozens of other mono-functional physical things we use in our daily lives.

What are your thoughts?  Are you excited for the drastic changes or do you see red flags and skepticism all over the place?  Leave it in the comments below.

Group Project Progress

This is simply a small post to link to the Google site explaining our group project in my Digital Civilization course. I've been working on gathering the tools/resources we're going to use for this project and listing them as well as explaining what it is our group is doing exactly.  Check it out at https://sites.google.com/site/digitalscholarshipwiki/project-definition.  Our team members may be found by clicking on "The Team" link in the sidebar.

This site is mostly for the professors to help in explaining what our project consists of but you're more than welcome to take a look.  Enjoy!

Mass Text & Email Program Written in Excel!!!

I thought I'd share with you guys a project I created at the beginning of the year in one of my technical classes involving Microsoft Excel.

MemoSend - Danny Patterson, Winter 2010

MemoSend has been created to fit the needs of multiple organizations and businesses, as well as small groups or families wanting to use it for personal reasons.

MemoSend is a program coded in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) designed to enable users to send out mass text and email messages. The idea was thought of after a realization that church groups continually perform the same regular and inefficient routine tasks of cutting out hand-out flyers and physically walking around to every apartment building to deliver them on EVERY door. This is time consuming, not to mention that not every roommate even sees the announcement before the event expires.

This program enables users to create & save lists of contact groups and then pull up saved lists from the past to send messages to. The saved lists are stored as text files within the folder or path that the workbook is stored under. Phone number format verification testing is performed and adjusted appropriately so it may be used to identify the initial phone carrier (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, ect...) the device was purchased with. Logical statements are thrown throughout to identify the specific addresses needed in order to send a text message via a simple email message.

MemoSend Program 

Project Write-up  

Please read the project Write-up document linked to above to learn how to use the program.  There are a few bugs still and I've listed the ones that have come to my attention in the "Disclaimer" section at the end of the write-up.

Let me know what you think of the program!  It is very beneficial if utilized for team projects. 

Hanford & the Atomic Age

I feel as though I can bring a lot to the table on this week's subject of the Atomic Age.  I'd like to center my focus on the Hanford site in Richland, Washington.  I was raised my entire life in a small town right next to Richland.  My grandpa worked at Hanford, my dad works at Hanford, and for the past seven years or so, I've worked in a national laboratory right next to Hanford and I've been to the site many times for various work tasks over the years.

Hanford helped produce approximately 2/3 of the total plutonium in our nation for approximately 40 years.  The government opened the area and brought in approximately 50,000 people.  This established what is now known as the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick).  I highly recommend watching this seven minute BBC documentary on the town's pride in nuclear past.

Currently and for the next twenty years or so extensive cleanup is being conducted on the site.  Nuclear waste was stored in multiple single-shelled tanks under the ground in the area.  In August of 1991 an official report was sent to the Government regarding those tanks leaking radioactive waste into the environment.  Now each of those tanks have been replaced with double-shelled tanks and the waste transported into them.  Current research being done for the cleanup at the moment is the science of vitrification.  Vitrification is essentially turning unstable nuclear waste mostly in the liquid form and solidifying it into a stable, black glossy glass that can then be held and played with or whatever else you want to do with it.  I've held chunks of vitrified nuclear waste in my own hands!  Hopefully none of you say "so that explains a lot."

The Hanford area is depicted in the image highlighted below.  As you can see it's clearly a dead area and is somewhat surrounded by agriculture

In the image below (taken from Google maps), you can see the roads and buildings which once existed at Hanford.  These have long been torn down and cleanup continues at the Hanford Site.  

This next image shows both the National Laboratory(The green area at the south portion of the picture) where I work and a small section of Hanford (North on the picture).  This particular segment of Hanford is called the 300 area and within the last five years, the majority of the buildings you can somewhat see at the top of the image are completely taken down.  I've helped clean out two to three of them and there's a lot of history in them as well as hazardous materials.

As for my experience growing up near Hanford, we never really worried about the radioactivity.  Most of the people in my home town works there and everyone is comfortable with everything.  We had a pet cat show up at our house years ago and we nick-named her Hanford because she had three extra toes on each foot.  We liked to say she got a taste of the radioactive waste which ultimately caused her mutation.  Glowing green and being radioactive is tossed around light-heartily by the community.

Let me know if you have any questions regarding Hanford.  I'd love to answer to the extend that I know.

Peer blog review "Hakuna Matata" by Eric Collyer

I recently reviewed another student's blog within my Digital Civilization class and wanted to highlight his posted blog entries.

The student's name is Eric Collyer and his wordpress site is hakuna matata from Kenya to Provo.


Eric has done an excellent job at tying together digital concepts with human behavior as well as tying together on occasion those concepts with the historical elements of our class.  

Most of his posts are short and to the point, which is nice, and he shows he has a lot of knowledge with the technological aspects of the class via the tools he illustrates and discusses.

Eric has personalized his blog by writing about personal experiences such as the Asking for a Date entry and adding a relevant comic strip which came to his mind after a class discussions.  Regarding the Consume, Create, and Connect aspects of the class, it's rather difficult to judge and review some of these, but overall Eric has shown he has consumed the weekly topics appropriately and has adequately explained various ways in which he has connected with others on our class subjects via Skype & Google Voice at a minimum.  The Create genre could use a little improvement as does my own blog, but overall I think he has done an excellent job with his reporting for the month of October and beginning of November.

Reflective Blog Post II

This post is to represent how I have viewed my recent progress and where I stand in regards to my Digital Civilization course objectives & requirements.

Historical Content:

I feel as though I've taken a larger step at understanding and researching the historical aspects of our weekly topics. Rather than dive into the breadth of a topic (which is rather boring and overwhelming) I chose to select a specific individual, concept, or theme and dive into that for as much information as I could reasonably justify with my schedule. After gaining an interest in the work they spent their lives doing, I would then have the motivation and drive to do additional research on the random questions that came to me pertaining to the overall subject.

Computing Concepts and Digital Culture:

I've found it very fascinating to begin to relate the digital culture to reality. Identifying various case studies in class and on my own time have shown many similarities with how people behave and what influences them to act. Even though I'm majoring in a very technical major (Information Systems), I'm still constantly learning new tools and of new sites that change the way businesses and organizations operate. Often times these tools enable them to gain unimaginable success if they were to attempt to pursue their interests on their own within their own community.

Self-Directed Learning (utilizing the three Cs of Consume, Create, and Connect):

Consume- One of the main areas I've evolved my research for finding the very basic information on an individual is not through Wikipedia, but rather through Prezi.com now. I've found that there are many presentations publicly available that only highlight the main accomplishments and milestones of a person's life and leave out the excessive in-depth analysis. This has saved me considerable time and from there I tend to find one category or bullet point that interests me and I dive into that more through other sites and try to find documentaries, books, and simply other sites that have already explained the given situation/event.

Create- I've generated some analysis of topics covered in class via animoto.com and prezi.com. If I were to select the area needing improvement most it would definitely be this one as I pictured in my mind that this category directly applied to our digital labs and not really to the historical content of our class.

Connect- Along with focusing my efforts more on the historical content this last month or so, I've also worked more on the networking ("Connect") aspect of the class. The digital tool "NetworkedBlogs", which integrates your blog posts seamlessly with your Facebook profile page, has really enabled my posts to be viewed by a much larger audience. I've received many more comments (sometimes via my Facebook wall rather than directly on the blog entry) that have generated discussions and thoughts from others. In the process of networking, I connected with an individual who writes on occasion posts on her Hubpage. She suggested her site and later followed up with a few messages containing supporting links to a topic I wrote an blog entry on. Overall, the Connect aspect has considerably improved since the last reflective blog post.

Overall, I feel as though I'm better equipped to efficiently and effectively do research on various subjects. I'm seeing the value of venturing outside of a simple Google and/or a Wikipedia search and I can find what I'm looking for much quicker than crossing my fingers and hoping that the first ten sites Google pulls from my original search contains exactly what I'm looking for.

John Maynard Keynes Economy & Governments

I still find it very interesting that very often the topics being covered in my digital civilization class are being taught to some degree in another one of my classes.  For this particular week one of our two main topics is on the man John Maynard Keynes, an economist.  His discoveries identify the need of government intervention in certain economic situations in order for a country to not lose all control of its system.

Here's a short breakdown of who John Keynes was and his accomplishments :

• He was born in 1883 at Cambridge England, where he later taught
• He was a British economist who spent his career amongst England's most intellectual individuals
• He was appointed director of the bank of England
• One of his large accomplishments was he helped form capitalism in the 20th Century
• He actively participated and aided the British in both world wars.

Keynes theories gained so much popularity that they developed into a category of their own, now known as Keynesian economics.  Wikipedia states that "it (Keynesian economics) argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle."

President Obama has been putting a lot of money into the economy while he has been in office.  His mentality of stimulating the economy fits nicely into Keynes principles.

In my Managerial Economics class we've been discussing the moral hazards of government intervention regarding company bailouts classified as "too big to fail."  When a company reaches this classification and fails, a domino effect begins to take place and the hundreds of businesses which relied on the success of the large company now also start to go under.   Companies that know they're ensured to stay running via government intervention have a large tendency to make more radical  and risky decisions.  Doing so may result in very large returns, yet the contrary exists where it could also put them under very quickly.  

Remember the year 2009 and watching the stock market plummet from approx 12,000 to less than 6000 in less than half a year?  Remember all the news articles about AIG bailouts, Bear Sterns, or the housing mortgage issues?  If you'd like to watch a really well put-together PBS video on what caused the economy to fall so rapidly as it did, click here.  The video is approximately an hour long.  It discusses the very essential need of government intervention and how the public understood and interpreted its actions.

Here's a fun music video of Keynesian Economic principles put into a rap if you're interested. 

Stealing a blogger's story

I was reading through some news headlines and found one titled:

Lifting of blogger's story triggers online furor

In short a magazine took/stole/"lifted" another blogger's story and made some changes and then published it.  The author who came to find out about it sent a letter of complaint and was responded to in a very unprofessional manner.   The response is below.  The author of the blog's name is Monica.

"But honestly Monica, the Web is considered 'public domain' and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offense and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!"
 

This generated all sorts of traffic to the magazine's facebook page where fans went from 12 to over 5000 in just few days.  Everyone going to the page is leaving humorous slams against the magazine named Cook Source.  

Moral of the story, always be professional because you never know if something you write will unite the masses to savage your reputation on the internet. 


This isn't the end.  The editor of the magazine attempted to start up a new facebook page but it was quickly identified.  After publishing this post  I came across article after article talking about this whole mess.  People have even gone as far as creating webpages addressing it!  Oh, this all went down last Thursday.  Within a matter of only 2 days, tens of thousands have heard of the unfortunate blogger and how her work was taken from her.

Life of a programmer pioneer

I spent quite some time doing research on the life of one of the first pioneers in computer programming.
Her name is Jean Jennings Bartik.

Jean graduated high school at a young age of 16 and was the only female student in her degree of Mathematics at Northwest Missouri State University.  She was recruited by the US Army in 1945 as a human "computer" to calculate the firing trajectories of artillery during the WWII.

To bring the time into perspective,

• 15 cents for a gallon of gas 
• $1000 for a brand new car
• 40 cents = minimum wage
• $200 a month was the average salary of a worker
• There were only 5000 television sets in the entire nation

Jean was assigned to work with another lady named Betty and if they had any questions, they were told to ask their mentor (John) whenever he was in his office and they did so quite a bit.  Jean describes Betty as a woman who could analyze and solve problems in her sleep and that often she would show up the next morning with a solution to a former problem and most of the time she'd be right.

The women were not recognized for their many accomplishments for many years.  It wasn't until a friend put their story into a Wall Street Journal article that people began to recognize these women and Jean for their contributions to programming.

I don't want to make this too long, but an excerpt from one of Jean's published works The Technical Camelot states the following to illustrate her working situation:
"There once was a congenial spot
where ideas flowed so free-l-ly
and designs were done so speed-l-ly
where all them forgot
frontiers weren't pierced so eas-i-ly
No one believed in not
in Technical Camelot.

If you're interested in watching an hour long presentation/interview with Jean Jennings Bartik taken in 2008, click here to watch this video.

Jean worked with the mentality that nothing is impossible.  She's definitely a true pioneer in computer programming.

Freud, Analyze this

One of the weekly topics we're covering in my western civilization class is Psychology and we're studying a little about Sigmund Freud.  Two things come to mind when I hear the name Freud,

1) My psychology class in high school with Mr. Jones, and

2) the song "Die Another Day" by Madonna (she has a catchy line saying, Sigmund Freud, analyze this, analyze this, analyze this.)  

However, on a more serious note, one of our class readings was an excerpt on one of Freud's writings and I wanted to expand a little more on subject.  I encourage you to red the excerpt.  One of the views to explain the reasons for the aggressiveness of the natural man is the concept of private property.   

  "The ownership of private wealth gives the individual power, and waited the temptation to ill-treat his neighbor; while the man who is excluded from possession is bound to rebel in hostility against his oppressor."  The concept seems sound and I believe there is definitely truth behind its meaning.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder-day Saints, our religion believes that when Christ comes down to earth again, we will live by a law where everybody will have all things in common, and wealth, space, necessities will be distributed according to family/individual needs.  Poverty would essentially disappear and there wouldn't be categorizations of different nations such as "3rd world countries". 

After thinking about this another thing was brought to my attention.  A memory of a college class discussion came to mind where the topic was on patents, health care, and innovation within the technology spectrum was brought up.  In short, people work hard to find, develop, and address current world problems for the sole purpose of making a profit (the American way).  When you pay a doctor the same salary as you would a person with the same life situation, but they only have obtained a high school education, what would motivate anyone to attend years and years of schooling if it doesn't benefit them?!  Why spend millions in research to discover a new medicine if you won't at least get paid for your hours and hours of tedious labor and time above and beyond that of your simple-life neighbor?

Let me know what your thoughts are!  Oh, and I'm not huge Madonna fan I'd like to add.  That particular song was simply abused over the radio by being played way too much years ago!  

Entangled Alliances

I surprisingly remember when World War I was covered in my junior year in high school clear back in 2003.  The one event that triggered all nations to go to war was the assassination of the heir to Austria's throne along with his wife by a Bosnian youth simply for avenging seizure of his country.

Prior to this time nations had been developing things for war.  Warehouses were turned into factories everywhere.  Countries started to get a little paranoid and made alliances with other countries.  The kind of mentality of, I scratch your back, you scratch mine when it itches applied.  These entangled alliances continued to expand until all the nations as a whole appeared to look like that of a huge bowl of spaghetti or a woman's mind (in the scientific fact that everything relates to something or another).


photo by docman / Ard Hesselink

If these entangled alliances wouldn't have existed, WWI most likely wouldn't have even occurred.  Austria would have duked it out with Servia and that would have most likely been the end of it.
Instead:

• Austria moved to war against Servia, 
• Servia's russian alliance came to the call of action against Austria
• germany promised to aid austria
• french backed up russian allies
• mobilization orders went throughout all of Europe & WWI begins.

One thing I'd be curious to find out if an element of history could be changed, how much different would the war have been if countries wouldn't have even started to make weapons of war prior to the assassination of the  heir to the Austria's throne with his wife?  Would the mentality of the necessity or inevitability of going to war exist or would some sort of peace arrangement get developed in the place of war?

Created Game

I decided to create a game a few years ago when I was informed of a simple platform to use.  That simple platform ended up taking me about 6 hours to learn, but I was able to gain a lot of knowledge in regards to video game terminology such as sprites, objects, and controllers.

Although this game could use some improvement and documentation/instructions, it's pretty self explanatory.  The objective is to collect the stationary objects on the screen while dodging the ones that move.

The platform/software is GameMakerPro and it may be downloaded for free from yoyogames.com.

The improvements I'd make would be:
add a timing element for bonus points
Increase the size of the point scale reading and lives remaining
Give the Bear additional properties such as shields, firepower, and slow-motion
I would increase the size of the levels and add more rooms.

If you play it let me know what you think.  I've had a few friends play it and it's kind of fun!

Oh, the link below sends you to the yoyogames.com site and allows you to download the game in the format where you need the actual GameMakerPro software to run it.  I created an executable for it here which should allow you to download and play it without needing the software.  Let me know if it doesn't work though:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4431965/surviver.exe

Chuck The Bear

Added: 22 October 2010
By: daniel42386

Changes

I have found it interesting that through my various general education studies at college, the most significant events and people tend come after or appear when someone opens their mind to new and creative ideas.

The Greeks were a zealous people for knowledge and started the first steps of world enlightenment through theories made by intelligent men such as Thales, Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle.  Their search for "perfection" led to the discoveries of patterns within nature, sciences such as mathematics & geometry, and philosophical thoughts to explain life.  More importantly, these individuals unlocked the mentality to think "outside-the-box."  This led to one of the great world Emperor's, Alexander the Great, to used innovation, intelligence, and creativity to dominate his surrounding rivals/countries.  The Romans took and added to the intelligence of the Greeks by creating a revolutionary way of governing their country via a Republic, rather than a Democracy.

Various elements have altered the way we view life.  Romanticism, Humanism, Religion, and Science have given us many new ways in which to see the world around us or at least wonder more about it.  

Animoto

I just finished learning all about the site Animoto and wanted to share with all of you what it's all about.
Essentially, it's a quick tool to make a very impressive presentation/slideshow by simply performing three things,

1. upload your pictures (or specify the location of your images online)
2. Select your music (upload your own or pick from their selection)
3. select your video clips

The really impressive thing of this site is they take in all of your images, the theme of the video, music, and put it all together with random and creative transitions to and from your images. Check it out when you get a chance! In my last blog post I embedded a video I made in a quick 20 minutes or so and I love what I see!

Animoto

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I decided to use Animoto to illustrate and show off the book our group decided to read called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.  Enjoy!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Hacking Wii Guru and possibly the future of gaming

Here's a prime example of an EXCELLENT Nintendo Wii hacker who has experimented and identified clever experiments you can use with infrared technology.  I honestly believe this WILL be the future of many business applications and video games.

Darwin in regards to animal species

In my past blog post I wrote about how I disagreed with Darwin's theory in regards to humans, but I wanted to also post a little something on how his theory is correct with animal species.

I found a Prezi presentation online where a student illustrated how the principle works and why it does using examples.  The link to her slide show is: http://prezi.com/94pngjo2t1fp/prezi-assignment/.  I particularly enjoyed seeing the images she displayed of the evolution of panda bears, elephants, and giraffes and wrote a short excerpt on each one.  Giraffes most likely had shorter necks but those with longer necks could reach more food from the trees to survive over those that were simply out of luck.  Pandas with small jaws in the past had a harder time eating bamboo so those with larger jaws ended up with the advantage and lived better and longer and eventually became dominant and superior.

Anyways, thought you might like the random information.  Enjoy!

Evolution

As I was reading an excerpt from Charles Darwin called On the Origin of Species, a particular line really struck out to me.  It reads, "... during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences, characteristics of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of species of the same genus.  New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older, less improved and intermediate varieties."  

I completely understand how this is true with animals and those that simply die from natural selection, but it really doesn't sit well with me when regarding the human race.  To an extend I believe this was true for the majority of the history of the world, but we seemed to reach a point where the "varieties" of people evolve for both the better and the worse.

Lets use an example and say that a city of dumb people get in a war amongst themselves, the strong ones first kill off the weak ones, then the strongest end up surviving, reproducing, and children with stronger genes than their peers end up creating the next generation.  Now lets take the strong legions of men and have them fight against a small nation that has a little wisdom (such as the Persians & the Greeks).  The group with the wisdom, although not all strong men, end up surviving.  Soon intellectuals begin to grow, guns are developed, and now any dumb man on the street can shoot an intellectual.  Does this make the dumb man/men a better, superior individual in thought and might than the one they just shot?  I think not.  In fact, I completely believe that if civilizations get bad enough, they can entirely wipe out the elite wise and good people of the world.

The Difference Engine

Charles Babbage was the first individual to invent a computer.  The 5.5 min video clip below shows his machine (which he never was able to construct in his life) that he designed all within his mind.  It's very impressive!



It's interesting how the times have changed.  If I wanted to invent something, I would do all my brainstorming and drafting on a computer and test it out using computer software.  Charles didn't have access to any of that and he was able to engineer a work of art to perform simple arithmetic functions.

Comical FarmVille music video.

This video is named Farmaritaville and was produced by a YouTube channel named "The Station."  It comically depicts how the Facebook game FarmVille has controlled some peoples' lives and that people are spending way too much time performing work in a virtual world.    Enjoy!

Understanding equality of the sexes on the American frontier

The topic that interested me the most regarding the American Frontier was how the equality of women was viewed and acted upon.  In "The Modern World" by Edgar E. Knoebel, he discusses this particular issue by stating: 

 "... an American woman is always mistress of herself; she indulges in all permitted pleasures, without yielding herself up to any of them; and her reason never allows the reins of self-guidance to drop, though it often seems to hold them loosely."

Due to the requirements of surviving along the lines of the American frontier, work was naturally split up into two different types of work.  1) the strenuous, more physical type such as chopping wood, chopping trees down and up into firewood, sawing logs, holding a 50lb hunting rifle and carrying a 300 lb piece of meat back to a house, and 2) the more domestic type such as cooking, babysitting, knitting, and house-hold cleaning.  

Men didn't look down on their wives thinking they were inferior and women didn't hold hard feelings towards the differences in their work because they worked as a team. 

One last quote from Knoebel I'd like to share talks about how confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes in Europe causes problems:

  "They would give to both [men and women] the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them them in all things - their occupations, their pleasures, their business... both are degraded, and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women."

 

Imagine a world or life where the traditional roles of men/women are reversed.  How would our political structure be different and how would the nature of the family as a unit change?

Addictions

What causes people to become addicted???  Does ones obsession to live in the gym all day long differ from another's obsession to play video games non-stop?  What about someone who uses drugs on a regular basis?

In our digital civilization class we learned that Romanticism, a new way of thinking around the time frame of 1780-1850, gives people a sense of individualism.  Romanticism heightens ones perception of themselves so they see themselves as more enlightened, divine, thoughtful, and lastly, important to the world around them.

Addictions seem to stem from a common fundamental element.  That is they give people a false sense of worth about themselves.  The video game addict controlling their World of Warcraft (WOW) avatar gains their sense of importance by building up their profile, collecting virtual money, and interacting with other WOW players.  The dude without a neck in the gym gains his sense of worth by showing to everyone around him that he is indeed the alpha male of the group.  The drug addict gains a false sense of worth by the excellent "high" sensation they experience.  Life to them feels more enjoyable and that they can show to the world that they're unique and important.

This leads me to ask, is there a correlation between romanticism and addictions?

Objective vs the Subjective

We discussed today in class that there are two ways to look at nature.  One is in an objective manner and the other subjective.  Objective deals more with quantification and methodology where as subjective is more mysterious.  Experiment vs experience.  Collaborative logic vs the unknown.  Reality vs imagination.

Can we live objectively at all if the subjective elements of the world didn't exist?  Do concepts such as romanticism provoke extensive thoughts to compel others to want to identify the item of topic?

Book Report

As I was browsing for books which would relate to our class and contribute to our learning I found a syllabus for another class where required readings were listed.  Needless to say I trust the books to be beneficial to ones education in our digital civilization class.

Shakespeare's The Tempest - This looks interesting because it's from Shakespeare
 

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)  - This is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical books of prophecy with the author's own personal touch regarding romantic and revolutionary beliefs.  This seems interesting and probably contains metaphors not thought of before because of the different way in which the stories are presented.


Civil Disobedience (1849) - This is an essay that argues people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid governments using them as agents of injustice.  This looks like an overall good book for all countries to follow.

Friedrich Overbeck & Franz Pforr

Two very influential artists emerging from Germany were Friedrich Overbeck and Franz Pforr.  They were influential in the movement of art from the years of 1810-1840 and used Catholicism to inspire their paintings. The two of them formed the Nazarenes movement, an anticlassicism in which they revived the art of fresco painting. Fresco painting is a method of painting water-based pigments on freshly applied plaster, usually on wall surfaces.  The colors dry and set with the plaster to become a permanent part of the wall.  It's ideal for making murals because it's durable, and has a matte surface.


The image below depicts a fresco painting (see how the cracks are cracks in the ceiling rather than simply dry paint.



The reasons being for why their work was SO SIGNIFICANT is they were using their artwork for more than mere enjoyment.  They were using their art as a way of communicating/teaching to the general public.  They related their work of art to the church (Catholicism) and their country.  


Friedrich Overbeck was the leader of the Nazarenes and they contributed to the romanticism era by painting religious subjects using clear and vivid colors with precise outlines in all their paintings.
You may view a few of the well known paintings here:     http://www.all-art.org/neoclasscism/overbeck1.html

HubPages.com

I recently was recommended to HubPages after showing interest in a subject of video games on another individuals blog.  That individual recommended HubPages so I decided to explore it and I find it to be very resourceful!

Signing up is simple and free and only takes about thirty seconds.  All you need to do is complete the five entries listed below:

Once you are signed up you have the ability to specify your interests and afterwards a list of the most relevant blog creations on that/those subject(s) will appear on your HubPage homepage.  Just as sites such as Diigo uses tags to order its bookmarks into genres, HubPages does so with its Hubs (essentially the same as blogs)

Whether you want to contribute to HubPages by copying over your blog entries from blogspot or if you simply want to use it as an excellent tool to search a wide range of sites very tailored to your desired subject, you can use this site to benefit your educational experience.

Significance of elevating expectations for children

As I was reading the assigned reading on "the family of the past" it made me think of how our perceptions on children affect they way they behave as well as how we treat people.

One thing I've noticed and have learned is that people adapt and change into the type of individuals others see them as.  For example, you've all encountered spoiled children whether it's family members, friends, or random people at Walmart.  I'm sure you're not the only ones that view the children as spoiled, rotten, burden-some annoyances to the general public.  There's a good chance their parents view and treat their children in that manner and the children thus adhere to the expectations (whether they be little or none) placed on them.

Take another situation.  A young child has a large learning disability where their brain cannot process and analyze information as it should, leaving them in a constant setting of appearing "less intelligent."  In a positive and uplifting environment where encouragement, support, and expectations to do ones best exist, that child will perform at levels exponentially greater than if negative or even no support existed.  True, they may not get the straight As as the brightest children in the class, but they will achieve passing grades typically averaging Bs and possibly a few Cs.  This was the case with my little brother who was diagnosed with a learning disability at a very young age and when examined in high school, doctors were surprised he hadn't dropped out of school because every individual with cases similar and less severe as his had done so.

If parents would change the way they perceive children to a more divine manner, would our world be completely different in twenty years?  Would innovations exponentially grow and would great scholars similar to Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle emerge from communities on a regular basis?  Think of how much better our world would and could be.

Barracuda Business Event

I attended the Barracuda Business event and found it to be extremely interesting and very informative so I better understand the procedures one would have to go through if they need up-front capital from investors.  I saw most of the given presentations in a previous business lecture series so it was interesting hearing comments coming from experts on topics I had never even thought of.  The startup companies were: Genome, an online clothing site where the tools/technology is designed to only show you items that fit you perfectly, Meal-drop, a site designed for University students so they may order their meals and have them delivered anywhere on campus at a moderate additional fee, and lastly we had Karma Key which was a digital rewards card business.  As each individual presented, I found myself remembering the topics covered in “The Art of the Start” book.  Those topics mainly covered the red flags investors do not like to hear.  Such shows signs of incompetence.  One example was when an investor asked a direct question and the student began to somewhat beat-around-the-bush/question by explaining something else and not directly answering the question.  The investor promptly interrupted him and said “You’re not answering the question!” to which the student replied, “I do not know.” 

I realized the significance/benefit of having a company representative with very strong presentation skills.  They also need to be very well educated in what your business does and how it operates so when investors ask challenging questions, they won’t make your company look bad.  The event was very informative and I learned a lot on how a panel of investors can drill difficult questions at new entrepreneurs looking for a little start-up capital.

Do video games teach historic principles?

While I was in my interview with the professors, we got to talking about virtual economies and how there are many studies being done to determine if video games aren't simply "a waste of time."   I grew up playing regular, super Nintendo and lastly Nintendo 64 before making the switch to PC games where the first game I purchased was Sim City 2000.  You had to quickly learn common principles that cities need to function such as controlling taxes, maintaining water and power supplies, and having adequate governmental forces to regulate crime and natural disasters.

When I started to play "The Sims," (a game where you control the life of an avatar, earn money and build your house gradually) I started to realize and that our lives aren't much different than the fictional characters I'm controlling.  In the game, you have to maintain a balance of Hunger, Comfort, Bladder, Energy, Fun, Social, Hygiene, & Energy.  If any of those gets too low, your "Sim" cannot function efficiently (and sometimes not at all) until those levels are brought up.

When I'm having a busy day, lets say I've been driving to Utah from Washington, eating junk food, my teeth need to be cleaned, I need to take a shower, and I'm starving.  In this condition there's NO WAY I'm going to sit down at my computer and take a blackboard quiz.  I noticed that within myself I behave in a way very similar to that of the avatars in the game "The Sims."

I can write on and on about the benefits of learning from civilizations from "Where in time is Carmen Sandiego" or "Age of Empires."  I remember playing campaigns in the latter game when I controlled Joan of Arc and led her followers to take on missions which actually occurred in real life.


Recently I found another game being advertised on facebook called "City of Wonder" which is designed to show you the progress of civilizations and as they progress, you see why it is and how it is that they get better. The unique items of this game is they provide you with "advisors" by which they recommend you to act/research/purchase varies items for your civilization.  In the image below, the cultural advisors suggests that there is something significant about having religion within a culture to explain the unexplainable.

  As we study the various subjects of democracy and the social contract as well as history in general, we can learn a lot about how and why societies have behaved using video games and see ways in which everything could be better without improper government decisions or the necessity of war.   I believe games may be used as a very resourceful tool to aid in study, but cannot completely teach all concepts/mindsets possible.

Reflective Post

I feel as though this class has integrated very nicely with a lot of my other classes at BYU and I've been able to use concepts and principles learned in one class and apply them to another.  Such topics have included Architecture within Athens, play writers and medicine men such as Hippocrates.  In my history of creativity class we've talked about Hippocrates & play writers and what it was that made them so unique and great in their time.  We didn't necessarily talk about the implications of their work like we do more in our digital civilization class, but the two topics flow well together.  My interior design class is really going in depth with the architecture of buildings such as the pantheon which complements the topics covered in my history of creativity and my digital civilization class because when we refer to the enlightenment and how men searched knowledge for the sake of knowing everything, I was able to have a much better understanding of some very specific items which were addressed during this time period.

How has your digital literacy assisted your self-directed learning in the subject areas of this course? (consume)
  My digital literacy has really helped me find various credible resources to do research with.  It helps being a senior majoring in Information Systems as I already have a lot of tools in my belt in which to work with.

How has your creation of blog posts and digital media impacted your learning? (create)
  I think the fact of having the requirement to post twice a week to a blog motivates me (and I'm sure others) to do enough research to make a reasonable post and be able to expound more on a general specific or two within the topic being covered.  It has also been fun to post something and send its link to other professors within other classes so they may reference to it in regards to something relevant to their class.

How have you connected with other class members and with the general public in these areas? (connect)
  I have connected by commenting on the sites wherewith I find information on topics I'm studying.  For example, when I wrote a post on the combined strategies Planet Hollywood did with a flash mob using the top subscribed YouTube "Vloggers", I informed one of the guys I follow on YouTube of my blog post regarding the flash mob.  To be completely honest, I don't feel as though I'm doing too well in this category as I have not heard back from any of the multiple sites I've posted comments on.  I feel as though I've connected nicely with multiple individuals within the class in regards to their blog posts and them commenting on a few of my own.

I've really enjoyed learning of new sites with very useful tools on them.  Quizlet is probably my best find.  I programmed a very crude java application which would randomly generate multiple choice questions for term/definition practice.  I spent hours on it and shared it with many people in the past couple years.  Now that I've found Quizlet and see how it's much more refined and better than my own, I highly appreciate it and I've even used it to study for a midterm this semester in another one of my classes.  Whenever I get the chance, I share these tools with other classmates and it's fun seeing their responses.

Overall, I've enjoyed this class quite a bit and I feel as though I've met two out of the three learning outcomes very well but I can use a little improvement in the third (connect) category.  I definitely spend more time doing reading and assignments in this class than any two of my other classes combined.  The blogs are fun and I really like how the class is completely networked outside of the classroom.  Sorry about writing a novel.  I hope you don't mind reading this.

Virtual Economies

Virtual economies has facinated me for the past year or so.  I knew they existed clear back in 2000, when I first heard of them because I had some friends who played Everquest and sold their avatars for hundreds of dollars.

I'll admit to the fact I play a little FarmVille on facebook for a few minutes each day just as something fun to do.  I've watched (sometimes in pain-staking agony) as the game has evolved over the last six months.  It's designed so if you want a head start or simply not wait, you can pay REAL money for the privilege to expedite  a process/building, or to simply purchase items ONLY available with "FarmVille cash", which you acquire only when you level up (and even then it's only in increments of one).  Zynga (the producers of FarmVille) is in it for the money, not to please its gamers by developing improvements to enhance user enjoyment.

Virtual economy spending will amount to nearly $2 billion this year and next year it's expected to reach $2.6 billion! In a recent article I read (found in the "spending" link above) that one report shows a virtual game player paid $330,000 REAL dollars for an imaginary space station in a virtual world!

I'm thinking I should learn some additional programming and manage a team to make the next big & highly addictive virtual world/game.  There's potential big money in this area!
 

Babies in class?

I was curious on what your thoughts are on college students bringing in babies to class with them. Do you view it as acceptable or completely not acceptable?

Flash Mobs Planet Hollywood

Flash mobs are recent creative means to attract the masses.  Check out the flash mob video below:



Not only did this one-time flash mob advertise in front of the hundreds present, but they attracted millions over the internet.

If you noticed in the video, many of the people in the "flash mob" were holding cameras.  Planet Hollywood made a genius marketing move by flying down the people who have the most subscribers on YouTube.  I've been following the bearded guy for over a year now.  His name is Shay and goes by Shay Carl on his YouTube channel "The Shaytards" http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAYTARDS.  Shay Carl decided to begin doing something completely new.  He started "vlogging" or in other words video blogging his life and he has attracted over 625,000 subscribers to date.  On average, his videos receive half a million views a day.  You guys should watch and subscribe.  Anyways, Planet Hollywood is essentially advertising (via YouTube) for free to millions of viewers!  They were practically guaranteed millions of views just from the accumulative daily views of each of the individuals holding a video camera in this flash mob.

Most flash mobs aren't like this.  This one is definitely on steroids and turned out to be a success before it even began. 

Empiricism & Ants

I find it interesting how the majority of my classes have similar topics.  On Monday in my biology class we watched a movie called Lord of the Ants. If you're interested you may watch it here: http://video.pbs.org/video/980049632/  It is 50 min long so just prepare yourself (I may add it's quite interesting).

This video is a documentary of Edward Wilson and his life findings regarding his life-long studies of ants.  This man, much like the wise individuals of the renaissance, started making observations from scratch.  One interesting thing though that ties well with John Locke's Essay on human understanding is that a fellow scholar of his suggested he try to link chemistry with the behavior of ants.  This new idea led him to discover how ants communicate one with another regardless of the fact they can't see and they don't speak.

Have you ever wondered how it is that ants know where to go to get food after one ant has found a stash?!  They leave an invisible chemical trail behind them and when they return, others may follow its scent and the trail becomes larger and the invisible chemicals stronger until the food source is devoured.

Edward Wilson followed the practice of empiricism to find his answers and unlocked a new way of understanding how insects (ants particularly) live & survive.

John Locke

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

In John Locke's essay concerning human understanding, he basically explains that it takes experience to generate ideas in general.  Creativity thus wouldn't be possible without first seeing something with a little bit of detail on it.

Teachers have suggested in a few of my classes that by getting something/anything down on paper in regards to composing an assignment will naturally generate additional thoughts and provide you with a direction to follow.

There's a small creative side to my brain.  I find that when I go to stores such as RC Willey or down a craft isle in a random store, random thoughts automatically jump in and say "what if..." or "I could do this with that" or "wouldn't it be fun to use this and do/make...".  If any of you play FarmVille, you'll understand me when I say there aren't a lot of options to choose from when it comes to decorating your farm.  Having random objects available may be enough to spark ideas to turn original functionality of one object into that of another.  Take for example the brick wall in front of this school house:

It appears as though it's a simple brick wall adorned with flowers here and there.  In reality, those are multiple stone mailboxes positioned side to side to give the illusion of a wall.  The flowers act as a way to cover up what's really there (the physical box sticking out).

The actual John Locke:

LogMeIn

website: https://secure.logmein.com/

Have you ever called in to get help to fix your computer? If you are among the many who have had to dealt with an IT person over the phone, they most likely had to go to a link which gave them access to your computer.  This is called remote desktoping, or in other words, connecting directly (via the internet or internal network) from one computer to another. 

Have you ever been put in a situation where you wish you could simply SHOW your friend/parent/grandma how to do something with their computer WITHOUT attempting to patiently guide them step by step in a painstaking manner (often bundled with errors due to improper execution of procedures)?  Let me introduce you to LogMeIn.

LogMeIn.com is a tool you may use to access your computer from anywhere in the world!  Well, as long as it's connected to the internet and not powered down. 

Here's a quick rundown:

Recent functionality has just been added so you may access your computer from your iPhone, iPad, and smartphone.

If you read my Dropbox post you know I helped set up my grandma's computer.  I made sure to also set up a Logmein-free account for her computer.  The reasoning behind it is so I (or my parents) may help her with her computer problems in the leisure of our own homes.  Often times the problem is simple such as not being able to get to a webpage because the hyperlinked shortcut disappeared from the desktop.  If you decide to purchase the Pro version of Logmein you will have a lot more functionality at your disposal.  They give you the pro as a trial for a couple days and in the time I had it I remember logging into my desktop computer from my laptop and listening to the music with my laptop speakers.  Other neat things include direct transferring of files in a drag & drop manner.

Anyways, check it out and drop me a line to let me know what you think.  You may never know when it'll come in handy.

Sign up at: https://secure.logmein.com/

Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/
A fellow student in one of my classes introduced Dropbox to me at the beginning of the year.  It has been so resourceful that I've told everyone I can (when computer stuff is brought up) about it!  Let me introduce it to you with this video available on Dropbox's homepage.

Practical use for Grandmas:

Over the summer I helped upgrade my grandmas computer (a college student's nightmare).  She informed me that she had lots of floppy disks I could use to move her files over.  Thinking of that process made me shudder and almost want to vomit in my mouth.  Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but to say the least, I was very happy to inform her I could simply use the internet to transfer her files and reload them back onto her computer.  Now that thought I'm sure made her shudder.  Her eyes got really big and replied slowly, "On the internet?!"  Old people talk of the incredible changes in technology continued in her family room while I went to her office to set up a free Dropbox account and begin uploading her genealogy history files and her desktop shortcuts and a few images.  Once her new computer was set up I signed into Dropbox under her account and installed the software and within an hour or two, her computer was all set up with her former files.

Practical use for anyone with two computers:

As for myself and for all those who own two computers, I use it as a means to keep all my data in one centralized location.  I rent a laptop at college so I have a computer to use in my classes and to do misc homework/research in areas other than my apartment. 

Before I used Dropbox, I would:

1) save my assignments to a flash drive, take it to school, and load it up onto my secondary computer or lab computer.

2)email the assignment to myself, log into my email account once at school, and retrieve it to work on it.

Both of these methods took approximately 2-3 minutes to perform, but now with Dropbox, it's only a second or two.

Sign up at: https://www.dropbox.com/
You won't be disappointed.

Interior Design Assignment

The purpose of this assignment in my interior design class is to experience contrasting options when purchasing furniture.  I visited three stores and here's my analysis.

Furniture Store Visits on September 17, 2010

RC Willey: 

This was my second time going into RC Willey and being able to identify interior design concepts as opposed to simply being fascinated by sheer beauty completely made my visit worthwhile!  As I entered the store the first thing that caught my eye was the arched ceiling which had architectural lighting to emphasize the paint pattern & texture on the ceiling.  Right away I was able to identify multiple Doric & Ionic styled columns.  I never realized how significant each little part (fluting, abacus, echinus, acanthus leaves) was.  Many of the back legs on the chairs resembled that of a saber leg.  One thing that I was curious about was the "golden" mean rule for having wall wooden borders.  In RC Willey it appeared as though they didn't follow that particular rule, but kept their border approximately 1/4 of the way down from the ceiling.  It's possible that the colored paint in the background needs to be visible above the large furniture so it's set up so you can see the colored wall above and all around the objects you're viewing.  One lady thought I was one of her employee's nephew (that was random).  There was a lot sale this day and on the outside there was a lot of furniture in the parking lot.  The exceptional quality of their products and the decorations surrounding modeled rooms really put me at ease and I felt as though I could chill in a corner for the entire day and be content with simply looking at my surroundings.  Oh, and I've been wondering what one would fill in the corner of a room if a bed was positioned diagonally in a room (leaving a large chunk open, inaccessible, and useless).  In RC Willey they simply put a tall fake green plant and a tall lamp for lighting.  It looked simple and simply amazing!  I also saw a couple large candles.  One was $80 and the other $200!  They were as large as a fire hydrants and the patterned colors matched with the theme of the balanced room.  I kind of wanted to light all ten of the wicks on the two candles but then, I have better things to spend $280 on while I'm at college.

Website:  http://www.rcwilley.com/utah/orem/

Basset Furniture Direct:

I realized after returning home that Basset fell in the same category as RC Willey for this assignment but I'll still write a little about my visit because I'm glad I dropped in and learned more about their business.  When I first walked in the thing that caught my eye was a huge bed displayed about six to eight feet in front of me.  When I looked around the bed I saw couches and pillows.  My first impressions were that they specialized in selling couches and beds.  When I walked around the corner and saw a lot of empty space my impressions weren't that great because I was comparing them to the grand RC Willey and their extensive decorated rooms.  A lady approached me and after I told her what I was doing she gave me a very good run-down of their business and what they do and specialize in.  After realizing that they customize furniture so you may select ANY fabric or material you could ever desire, my opinion on them changed dramatically.  She flipped through a catalog near the end of my visit to show me some of the items they have made in the past.  Essentially, if you decide to purchase from Basset, you're getting help from professional interior designers.  They're in a different market segment than that of RC Willey, but also claim that they're the cheaper than all their competitors.

Website:  http://utah.bassettfurniture.com/

Alice Lane:

This small showroom was considerably different than the previous two stores I visited because its products were VERY unique.  I kind of felt as though they were more in the market of "fad" furniture and household accessories.  If you're looking for a one-of-the-kind item to show off in your house you can easily find one in this store.  One thing that caught my eye was movable track lights scattered throughout the store (as opposed to general fluorescents).  One of the employees informed me it was their second year birthday as a business and that I was welcome to have some of the assortments of candy on their front desk.  Honestly, I didn't really like this store.  I thought it was trendy but I didn't get sucked in with their displays.  I'm thinking that possibly one of the reasons for this is there were windows everywhere and it was around 6:30pm so the light coming into the store was a very warm/hot one which added glare to a lot of the products I was viewing.  The number one thing that impressed me was a base of a trunk of a large tree which was sanded down, treated, and in the form of a table in front of a couch.  Anyways, simple pleasures for simple minds I suppose. 

Blog: http://blog.alicelanehome.com/

Website:  http://alicelanehome.com/