Zimbabwe

After doing both parts of this project I have decided that I need the Internet more than I realized. I went to the library, tried to look up Zimbabwe on the book catalog and did not have any look. I finally got help from the lady at the reference desk she looked up Zimbabwe and found a book for me to go find. I wrote down the call number and went on exploring.

When I finally got up stairs I walked in circles looking for the DT section once I found the section it should be in I looked and looked and could not find the book with the number the computer told me to get. So I looked at the other books in the area and picked a couple of books to take to the table to look through. After all of this I had about 2omins and had no clue if the book had any valuable information in it.

After this expense I have decided that the only advantage of not using the Internet and actuallibrary is the peace and quiet and the ability to focus on what I am working on. The disadvantage is that the information is out of date and does not give any new information.

The internet is such a wonderful way to do research, type into a search bar what you are looking for and just like that there is information on my topic. I can look up information on the internet when it is my convenience and I can stop and come back to it as I need. I don't have to walk around hoping that I am in the right location I can sit on my comfortable couch.

The only disadvantage that comes to mind is that you have to look at what type of website you are on to see if it is reliable or not.

The information was more timely then what I found in the library. I found information from earlier this year on the internet and in the library the newest information was from 2004.

After these two hours I am glad that for most of my projects I get to have the use of the internet.


going to the

My research with and without the internet

In 1987 Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s first executive president replacing Canaan Banana. Then in 1990 Mr. Mugabe wins another presidential election and his ZANU (Zimbabwe African People Union) wins a majority in Parliament.

Later Mugabe announced an acceleration of the land resettlement programme saying that the private white farmers would not be fully compensated. Then in January of 1998 riots broke out because of the steep food prices.

Mugabe has won many presidential elections since he was first put in office, though he won again by using every dirty trick making it not a fair election.

Then in 2003 there was a downward spiral, the economy was in tatters and almost a million peasants were on the brink of famine. The economic crisis was attributed to the political causes.
In 2009 Zimbabwe has faced collapse due to failing to get financial aid from the internal community, this has cause concern because the government may no longer be able to pay its workers and this could cause serious unrest.

Zimbabwe needs $8.5 billion in financial aid in order to rebuild its economy but nobody wants to donate due to the skepticism over President Mugabe’s sincerity in working with the opposition.

Race is not a Gene!

After reading through pages of information about the Human Race Machine I have learned that there is no gene for race and that the DNA of two people is 99.97 percent the same.

The Human Race Machine is a black machine that has a digital camera, a screen and a joystick. The machine takes your picture and then you move placement markers around on your face to tell the computer where your eyes, mouth and nose are. After making the placements you tell the machine what race you want to see and it shows your face as a different race. The machine can also show your face 20 years from now.

According to the information I found online the machine was invented in 2000 by Nancy Burson and is available to rent for weeks at a time and is on display at certain museums.

All of the stories are about the same some going into more detail, for more information check out these websites.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2009/oct/16/human-race-machine-will-change-your-face/

http://www.humanracemachine.com/index.html

http://www.wolfmanproductions.com/racemachine.html

http://cbs11tv.com/local/Human.Race.Machine.2.942904.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120202078_3.html

http://www.nancyburson.com/pages/publicart_pages/hrmachine.html

What I learned about NPR.

After hearing the Digital Thinkin some questions emerged like who owns NPR, and are people using the Internet to listen to NPR.
What I have learned about this is that NPR is a privately supported non profit organization who is partnered with PBS. Also NPR offers the original broadcast on there website and has hourly newscast were people can keep updated.
They talked at the digital thinkin about the new IPhone App and us non IPhone owners were wondering what else that had to offer for the mobile society.
I found out that they have a link for Blackberry users and that if you are with T Mobile or ATT NPR is available in the phones news section.
I found the conversation helpful because we as Mass Communication Majors are heading out into these fields and we need to be aware of how the Internet is affect the major business and what they are trying to do to stay up with the fast paced society and the changing technology. If major organizations like NPR can not find a way to keep up the jobs that are available to us and are job requirements will be effected.
It would have been more informative if I could have kept up with the topics they were discussing, watching the video I kept filling like I missed what was happening. The answers to most of the questions were very generic and not much time was spent going into detail.
Though overall I think it helped me realize how much the Internet affects the world around me.

Tweeting, Tweeting, Tweeting....

After tweeting for 48 hours I am more comfortable with Twitter and how to use it. I kept hearing about Twitter but before this weekend was hesitant about using it with my tweets being available for all to see. I like the fact that I can ask a question and get an answer or even vent when I did something really stupid (like blow a casserole dish up). It was fun to see what my class mates had going on and how they spent their weekend.

I need to take the time to set updates to come to my phone but don’t want all of the people I follow tweets coming to my phone or it would never stop. Wondering if I can set certain people to get updates from or if I have get updates from everybody

. I defiantly will keep my twitter account because I like to get the updates and stay up on what is going on (finding out the score of a game).

I still have trouble sometimes understanding somebody’s conversation when I search by the hash tag; I fill like I missed something. I did find the view conversation button and that helped some though it shows the same tweet twice. I wish my blackberry had an app for twitter but found the number that I text my tweets to and that worked well, I did not get the re-tweets though tell I got off work and got on my computer.

I still have some playing around to do but think that I have gotten the main things down during my 48 hours of tweeting definitely know more now than I did on Friday.