Who Says Links are the New Web Currency?

I remember someone talking about how for website's popularity used to be about pageviews, but now blogs are using links as the base for establishing popularity. Or something like that. I was just thinking that that isn't really the case, because back when a website was just that, a website, where were the people getting cash from to support their dirty habit? as far as I know people who run websites with advertisings make a lot more money when someone clicks on an ad, yes, a linked ad, instead of simply seeing the ad. Why's this so? I'd presume that by clicking on the ad you have proof someone was sucked in by the advertisement, whereas pageviews are nice but don't cover the costs. So it has always been in the interest of websites to get viewers to click rather then view.

So what I'm trying to get at is that in my opinion links have always been a strong part of the Internet, and aren't suddenly in fashion due to weblogs. I'm sure this is what everyone else thinks, just some of the commenting during the first two weeks seemed to be propping up blogs as a new revelation in the way people use the internet regarding linkage and popularity. It's slightly more obvious with blogs, but its not really something new per se.

That's all.

About The Idiots...

I don't often quote lyrics. Well, I never do, not on DevArt or here. But I think instead of talking about a topic for ages, I can pretty much some up my opinion with the lyrics of a song by none other then NOFX. They sure hit it spot on... The song is (the) Idiots Are Taking Over, from The War on Errorism Album. You can probably guess which are my favourite lines :P

It’s not the right time to be sober
Now the idiots have taken over
Spreading like a social cancer, is there an answer?

Mensa membership exceeding
Tell me why and how are all the stupid people breeding
Watson, it’s really elementary
The industrial revolution
Has flipped the bitch on evolution
The benevolent and wise are being cornered, ostracized, what a bummer
The world keeps getting dumber
Insensitivity is standard and faith is being fancied over reason

Darwin’s rollin over in his coffin
The fittest are surviving much less often
Now everything seems to be reversing, and it’s worsening
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool
Now angry mob mentality’s no longer the exception, it’s the rule
And I’m startin to feel a lot like charlton heston
Stranded on a primate planet
Apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground
With generals and the armies that obeyed them
Followers following fables
Philosophies that enable them to rule without regard

There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated
Political scientists think the same one vote that some monkeys are inbred
Majority rule, don’t work in mental institutions
Sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions

What are we left with?
A nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
Who feel it’s their duty to populate the homeland
Pass on traditions
How to get ahead religions
And prosperity be a symbol to culture

The idiots are takin over

Copied from lyricsfreak.com

Online Discussions Can Be Bothersome. Word. - Lab Session 4 Post-Op

Well, we had a practice Discussion Forum thing at the tutorial yesterday. IT goes to show the power of a word used in context can have, and how even though things we post on the Net are always there for people to see, something like this discussion forum still allows for the following to happen:

We all logged into our groups and then into the rooms, I jumped around privateorpublic, blogging and lobby for a bit, then settled in the blogging room. (Ok, we have not been given the power to look back on logs, something that I am emailing the group on now and hopefully get changed so that not only our tutors can check the logs). Upon arriving, someone said something like 'blogging is really boring, lets all go home', and in response I quoted every mofo in existence by saying 'Word'. Now, this word isn't too funny on its own, but it obviously got a few people cracking up in the room, because soon enough other people were querying off of the discussion forum 'whats so funny back there?' or 'we must have missed it the joke, it must have been funny'. Which brings me to one of the points I'm trying to make; just because the discussion was on the net, doesn't mean you will never miss a joke, or a craftily put comment. True, in the forms that stay up on the net you are more likely to get it because you can go back and look at it multiple times. But for part of the time you still need to be there at the time of the joke, and know its context, to get it. Jean (tutor) seemed confused at what was so funny, although she could go back and see what was said. Whereas the few of us in the back of the room were cracking up over the whole situation. If we were all discussing things on the Net - the anti-location - how come we had suddenly become specifically locationed in our laughter? Ok, it was 6pm on a thursday afternoon right before a week off of uni, but its interesting that while doing this supposedly locationless discussion on the net we still ended up with a locational connection (other then being in the same room).

The Net and the WWW doesn't automatically make us smarter, or better at picking up on jokes, etc. It helps facilitate traditional forms of discussion and new types of discussion in a virtual location, it doesn't automatically make the user better at listening or paying attention. So its up to all of us Net users to make sure that we aren't just piggybacking on the Net's ability to streamline discussions, and that we are still developing rational and supported discussions as has been done throughout time, before the Internet was created.

Don’t Bank(s) On It – Lecture 4 Post-Op

Our second lecture with John Banks, oh what joy. This time he spent the first half of the lecture explaining to us what ethnographic research entailed, and the second half (which I admit I didn’t stay for) was going to be about his time he spent utilizing ethnographic research at Auran. I’ve read over the lecture notes so I get the gist of what he said in the second half. I also want to point out that I have nothing personal against any of the lecturers, and if I make what seems like a negative comment on their lecture it will probably be about the way they presented the lecture or the content itself.

Now, ethnographic research is an interesting technique, although it does seem somewhat common sense that you get a different outcome of research if you involve yourself in what your researching instead of staying behind the metaphorical glass wall. A good example of this is actual when I went to Japan, and why I went to Japan. I had studied Japanese in grade 9 and 10, but that was sooo boring I stopped. But I was still interesting in the Japanese language, culture and people, so I decided right at the end of grade 12 to do an exchange for 10 months. I went over to Japan, went to a school there and by actually being in the culture, speaking the language with the people, I learnt much more, and in a much different way to when I learnt Japanese in the classroom. So I suppose I was unknowingly participating in my research. I mean, all forms of research include some form of participation, even if it is simply to try and ‘think’ from the point of view of your subject.

A Biased and Opinionated Article with Absolutely No Quotes- Smoking (Tobacco)

Preface: Warning, these will be highly one-sided, biased, black and white opinionated articles. If you're offended by anything I say, then switch off the computer, and go join a Luddite commune or something. Even better - though a slightly less practical approach - would be to write a SENSIBLE reply. And by sensible I mean only using swear words where and when appropriate.

Ok, this week's Biased and Opinionated Article focuses on people who smoke tobacco in its many forms, but most specifically in the cigarette form.

Firstly, I will fill you in on my personal perspective of smoking, and where I am coming from. I don't smoke, I have never smoked anything, and I don't plan on. Neither of my parents ever smoked while I was growing up (or before, for that matter), nor do any of my relatives. I spent a year in Japan at the age of 18, where I was subjected to a culture infused with cigarette smoke. It was utterly disgusting, but I had to live with it. I had to burn my clothes on returning home, but I lived with it.

My personal opinion on smokers is that whether they admit it or not, they are in some form or other addicted to smoking. Anyone that smokes beyond their initial cigarette in highschool or whatever is an addict. Simple as that. After thinking about it, I can separate smokers into two groups. The Ignorant Addicts and the Informed Addicts; the last probably being the worse of the two. The Ignorant Addicts are those that don’t know about the destructive properties of smoking, and as such blindly continue smoking to their hearts content. Informed Addicts - a sad bunch - are those that know, acknowledge and/or admit that there are destructive properties to smoking, but continue to smoke anyways. Now, remember, I’m using the word addict so that I can add that it isn’t completely 100% these individual’s fault that they smoke. There is a chemical reaction going on that is most probably the cause for their continued use of tobacco. This also means that the physical treatment of this chemical reaction is a step towards breaking the addiction.

My personal opinion is that smokers should be able to smoke if they want to, with the one simple exception that they do so in no public place. At all. And that controls are put in for private locations that may allow smoking e.g. clubs and live music venues. So basically, if you want to smoke, do so in your own home, not in anywhere I could be. Period.

You want me to get technical, ok, I will. As a citizen of this country - let alone a human on this earth - I have as one of my basic rights (although we don't have a bill of rights, I'm fairly sure it's hidden somewhere in the Constitution) to be free from intentional or unintentional harm wherever I am in Australia (let alone the world). Ok, so this may be a bit too much when talking about private places, but at a basic level, public spaces are spaces and places where anyone is allowed to be. Anyone is allowed, with the knowledge that they are free from harm and that if any such harm would happen to fall upon them, that punishment would be forthcoming on those that caused the harm. Unfortunately this is not the case at our current point in history. People are freely locating themselves in public places, and unintentionally (sometimes knowingly) causing actual physical harm to those around them. In any case, it doesn't matter whether these people are unintentionally or knowingly causing this harm, it is the act itself that is important to stop, at least in public places. It IS my right; to be in any public place, at any time, and be safe in the knowledge that no-one around me is causing me physical or psychological damage. No-one has the right to smoke in public places, because that constitutes a threat to my health.

And for all of you out there that are about to reply by saying I have no way of proving that smoking has negative effects on the individual smoking or those around them. You are inhaling toxic substances into your lungs, whereby they get absorbed into your bloodstream and are carried all over your body. But that’s just your body. The exact same thing is happening to a passerby who gets a whiff of your cigarette, but for them the smoke hasn’t passed through a filter, its coming straight out of the cigarette. And I don’t care if there are studies to prove that second hand smoking doesn’t kill. That’s a load of crap. It’s a physical invasion of toxic substances; if that doesn’t set warning bells ringing then you deserve to be working at the toxic waste dump in a swimsuit.

Another interesting point that I want to bring up on the whole smoking phenomena, is about the lasting power of the cigarette, and where this power comes from. Cigarettes have been around for a long time. They will continue to be around for a lot longer. So why haven't other social trends and fads stayed around from the time cigarettes where really the in thing, the cool thing, before people knew that it was bad for you, and for everyone around you? Smoking doesn't have a lasting ability in a cultural, social, or personal sense, or any other sense for that matter. That is other then the physical effects it has on people. One example of an effect is the chemicals in the cigarette that cause the relaxing effect, another of course being the harm it causes to the lungs and the rest of the body. The most important effect it has to this discussion is the one of addiction. The real reason why cigarettes have stayed around as a dominant form of relaxant and social lubricant is that it’s inherently addictive. Which makes it much easier to make a lot of money off of, but I’ll leave the whole politics/money discussion surrounding smoking for later.

Obviously I haven’t gathered any referencing or links to sites that support any of my claims. Fortunately this is all simply my opinion so I could really give a shit whether it’s properly sourced or not. It also might be called common sense in some parts of the world!

Get on the Dance Floor, and... Do the Trinidadian... - Week 4 Tutorial and Reading Post-Op

Fun tutorial :P BLOGGING!!! Discussed stuff about…blogs! Lol, well actually it was more on online communities, customers consuming and the like. Interesting reading though on a case study of a people we all like to love, or was that love to like, the Trinidadians! Its interesting how the Trinidadians have been able to integrate the use of the Internet into the very fabric of their society. This is a fairly decent example that such a thing is possible, even with an area that isn’t known for being financially well off. So why hasn’t something like this happened in our own society? I…do not know, and I wish I did. Instead we tend to separate ourselves from the online world, not being willing to put our real person on the net for others to find. It’s a sad world.

Just a quick thing, I know most of my reading posts have come after the lecture, and with the tutorial discussion. Don't ask me why I am doing this, cause Iw ould make a lot more sense to talk about the lecture and reading together, and the tutorial separate. Oh well. It's a blog. We do things DIFFERENTLY here.

This is Only a Small Update, You Have Been Warned

I've already done a large rant on DeviantArt, that was just something to do and wasn't actually part of my assessment. So I'll be uploading soon both my Mailing List Discussion (Using the Craplist) and the Online Community Discussion (which I will be using DeviantArt for. Then of course comes the reading and lecture discussions.

Fun.

Oh, If Only I could Charge for Open Source, I would be a Millionaire - Week 3 Tutorial and Reading and everything Post-Op

Spent the lab session looking and discussing Virtual Communities and Mailing List. Nothing really new to me since I have been a member of devART since the end of last year, and I have been a member of the mailing list for the band TISM for at least a year now. The reading material was of course based around the quandary of open technologies vs open publishing. Open source is as interesting to me as it should be to everyone else, very. The people doing it aren’t doing it for profit, so their motives are going to be easier to predict, and yeah everyone adding to things and then passing them along can only turn out for the best in the end. Other then that, the reading goes between discussing newspapers and internet-based publishing, and a range of other groups, but never sticks on one long enough to form a solid focus for the discussion.

Overall, Open Source = Good.

Deviant Art, It Is I, Your Maker!

Deviant Art is an online community I'm an active member in. It's a community based on the expression of creative ideas and artwork, and the ability to share these with a large community of likeminded artists and comment on others. There are many ways one can interact on DeviantArt, depending on what your objectives are. You can submit your own work for others to comment and constructively criticize, you can browse other's submissions and comment on their idnividual artwork. By having each member allocated their own main page, you can also make general comments and talk with a person about their overall style. Further communication can be made through the forums, and by posting journal works for people to read. An integrated messaging system allows for the notification of members when they receive a comment on their work, and notification of when other people have submitted new 'deviations' (e.g. artwork). By adding another artist to your favourite list (by 'devwatching' them) you can easily keep track with newly submitted artwork and journal posts. In turn others can add you to their list, to see when you post new images.

Now, I don't really see myself as a full-fledged 'artist'. I can't say many of my uploads on DeviantArt are really deserving of the title 'piece of art'. But that's not what I use DA for. You don't have to be amazingly talented at something to use DeviantArt, because one of the reason for using it is to improve or to find what you are good at. Even if you are drawing stick figures, or you have only taken photos out your bedroom window, you can still use DeviantArt. There are lots of people on it that are simply art lovers and just browse other poeples pages and look at their images and comment. And there are some who are just starting out with their artwork, and look forward to other's comments. Here's one of my images...wahoo!!!

The format of the submitted artwork is heavily separated into categories, which means the upload process takes a lot longer then normal. Types of artwork that you can upload range from digital imagery, to traditional photography, to artist nudes and poetry. The one thing I think is missing in deviantart is a section for audio and video artwork, although they do allow the submission of flash animations. This is probably because they host all the submissions on their own servers and audio and video would severely tax their servers.

That leads onto the topic of subscriptions. One of the most important functions of DeviantArt is that for an artwork sharing and commenting community its free. The deviantarts aren't subscribers, because you can do almost everything with a non-subscription membership. It is only when you begin to think commercially or wanting of the other functions (such as shoutbox and the ability to start posts) that you have to pay for anything. To convert your imagery into prints you have to buy a separate Prints Account, where you can have DeviantArt organize that sale of prints of your artwork.

Different from this prints account is paying for a subscription. By paying for a subscription (not that much, really) you get added features such as no ads (although the non-sub adds aren't that bad. You also get additional message center features such as the ability to have a personal calendar, shoutbox, polls, forum and shoutboard. Subscribing for a year is about $40 Australian Bucks.

Overall it's a cool place to find like-minded people (like many online communities) and sometimes find some really cool works of art... Mature warning on this painting...

So go and check out my page http://existentialistno09.deviantart.com and maybe you'll want to start one of your own!

Main DeviantArt Page: http://www.deviantart.com

Newsflash: Interesting Content Heard Before Not That Interesting Second Time Around - Lecture 3 Post-Op

Urg...The lecture was interesting, In that it proved the age old theory that 'Interesting Content Heard A Second Time Is Not As Interesting'. To give John some credit, it was interesting to hear about his involvement in the early research and study into online communities and his time spent at Auran during that time. But other then that I can't truthfully say anything else was more then just re-enforcement of previously stated theories and concepts on virtual communities that I already know from previous classes and the readings. That said I'll be more then happy to upload my comments on this weeks reading, which was more of the same, but at least I could start and stop reading it whenever I wanted to.

And for some reason it's not as exciting thinking about doing a Phd on video games and online communities as it once was...you'd think I'd be like 'wahoo, play games, talk online all the time, sign me up!'. Maybe I've moved on...:P most unlike me.

Blinks and Oinks...what the F are they?

Easy enough: Blinks is short for BlogLinks, and Oinks is short for Other Links. You can see these two to the right. This is in the hope that it will be easier to have these categories seperate once I actually add more to each of them, instead of having a mixture and confusion... (just something I thought up while attempting to read readings :P).

I also want to point you all towards a blog that I just found, partly because I just finished watching an incredibly well organized doco on SBS called CUTTING EDGE - WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION (by Danny Schechter). Danny also runs a weblog titled News Dissector, which is pretty damn true to its title. Find it in the link section, or here: http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/

Media, especially in the US, is in good need of a kick up the ass and a good look into...

Formation of a Blueprint of a Run-Through of a Plan...

I'm about ready to do some major uploading. In other news I'm considering creating a blog using wordpress, cause I've heard enough good news about it and more bad news about blogger. So I may be shifting everything over soon...But not yet. I'll give blogger a chance, partly because it's all I know, and the only thing that's annoyed me about it so far is the insanely long wait before that 1kb post is updated on the blog front.

I'm beginning to see the usefulness of weblogs to individuals, groups and everyone involved, but it still bothers me how some real douchebags try to spoil it for everyone else. Personally, I'm happy to let another one of my many alternative personalities for a play around outside of my head for a while because I know they will behave themselves... An interesting post here, and even more interesting (and fairly rude) comments as well.

Oh, I have a small stop/start animation video clip I'm gonna try to show at the tutorial on Wednesday(16th, tomorrow), if I can pass it by Jean first...It is actually on topic, and quite funny as well (as well as being short). Hear that, Jean?

Now for the serious stuff:

Plan A
Now: Upload two 'responses' (if you could even call them that) to some of the readings from earlier this semester (required readings for week one and two I think), in preparation for uploading even more rrs tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Upload other rrs for available readings in week 1 and 2, and maybe even a couple from week 3. I'll also be uploading my first opinion paper tomorrow. It's currently at the editing stage and will be ready to upload soon. This one is on smoking (tobacco specifically) and its fairly long (and hopefully opinionated enough to get a response).

I think from now on my posts are going to be shorter, more to the point and less babbling...

Blood Discusses Weblogs, World Doesn't Stop Still - Week 2 Reading Post-Lecture

It’s no surprise that this reading was all about weblogs, and supposedly how utterly fabulous they are (seeing as it is from a book about creating and maintaining weblogs, what would be the point in putting the negatives in there). Other then a basic overview of what makes a weblog a weblog (“It’s the format, stupid”, Me, 2005), Blood goes on to talk about the history of weblogs and the diversity of content in said weblogs. No surprises there. She goes into detail on some of the earlier weblogs, such as Lemonyellow and Be Nice to Bears, and eventually through all this information comes to what she sees as the three very broad categories for weblogs; “…blogs, notebooks and filters” (Blood, 2002, p6). From her point of view, the ‘Blogs’ were the short-form journals based on the webloggers daily life with little emphasis on links and more on content. Again in ‘Notebooks’ the weblogger’s content is most important, but tend to be of longer length and more likely to be used as records for ideas and theories then for external events. Finally, ‘Filters’ are in to Blood all joined under the heading of filters because of the important they place on the “…primacy of the link” (Blood, 2002, p8).

I keep on reading this reading, and it seems to keep on getting deeper and deeper in bias, the content being aimed as more of a salute to the weblog then a critical discussion on its constructive and destructive effects. I suppose that is to be expected from the introductory section of a book on how to create and maintain a weblog. I might extend this post later when I feel like it.

Terry Flew and his Technicolour Virtual Culture-Babble - Week 1 Reading Post-Post-Lecture

Having read a few of Terry’s contributions in the areas of Communication Design, Digital Media and Media Comm in the past (and spoken to him a couple times down the pub) I was pretty much prepared for the way he went about discussing the origins of virtual communities and their relation to the development of new media technologies. Which by way of the reading he has tried to impart an alternative way of thinking about new media technologies as 'cultural technologies', because of the broad relationships that exist between culture and technology.

I really only skimmed through this reading, only a few sections catching my attention and forcing me to look a bit closer.

A quote from one of those sections:

“…[Rheingold, Schuler and Turkle’s] descriptions of cyberspace and online environments also involved a degree of proselytising for increased engagement with these sites, and a belief that developments in the online world prefigured alternative scenarios for society more broadly”(Flew, 2004, somewhere :P).

After working out exactly what proselytising actually meant ( = to convert or be converted to a different way of thinking, thank you wikipedia!) the meaning of this quote became a lot clearer. It’s interesting to consider the effects (positive and negative) of online communities on society as a whole, as well as looking at how a participatory aspect is required when studying such online communities. More on this in a later post.

Terry continues to discuss (in a very longwinded way) the way in which the internet has changed over the last decade, and how this has had an effects our views, theories and concepts of virtual communities and new media technologies as a whole. With a little bit of discussion on modernity and post-modernity in relation to new media technologies, he rounds it up concisely in his conclusion by proposing that "...new media, and the relationship between technology and culture more generally, can be fruitfully pursued by thinking about new media as cultural technologies, where the relationships between technology and culture are seen as broad and interconnected"(Flew, 2004, p38). Not much more to expand on that, although it must be pointed out thathe is leaning of course more towards discussions on new media technologies then individual virtual cultures (seeing as the book is about all new media technologies) Other then that, he sure knows how to summarize well, and he must have also been paid by the word.

Who would have thought!

Oh, and another quick thing. And this is fairly funny. Try this:

Start typing a post, and include the word 'weblog' in the text.

Now, spell check.

Have we not come far enough in the use and design of the web to include the word weblog in the spell checker on a bloody blogging site? I know it may not officially be a word, but I'm sure its fairly close! Close enough that on a site like this you should be able to type it in and not get an error message.

That's all I have to say for now.

Get your Writing Utensils equipped in your Grasping Appendages Everyone...

Here's the plan (take notes if you feel its necessary, but all posts will be staying here on the page forever, so you really don't have to). Forgetting all that uni kcb295 stuff that I need to upload - which I will get to, eventually - I will attempt to upload a fairly long opinionated article each week on a subject of my choosing to this very weblog (yes, this one). This is simply so I can get my opinions out there, have people hopefully respond in kind, and also so I can actually look forward to uploading something other then 'this reading sucks' each week.

I haven't decided on the timing of these uploads yet, it may be randomly each week, or I may dictate that it has to be uploaded by lets say Sunday Midnight. Topics will of course be completely up to me, but I'll take suggestions into consideration. I'm fairly sure the first one will be on SMOKING (tobacco), a topic that shouldn't be taboo to talk about, but seems to be challenging for some people. Further topics may include Politics (US, Australia and/or In General), CI Precinct, Iraq, Music Students and Mime Artists. Ok, so maybe I won't use them all, but they are possibilities.

Warning, these will be highly one-sided, biased, black and white opinionated articles. If you're offended by anything I say, then switch off the computer, and go join a Luddite commune or something. Even better - though a slightly less practical approach - would be to write a SENSIBLE reply. And by sensible I mean only using swear words where appropriate.

In other news, I got my first SPAM COMMENT! CELEBRATIONS! (see previous post for location of spam comment!).

Enough said. Click through to deviantART page. (All images my own, feel free to use them for NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, as long as you ask me first, and allow other people to use your piece in the same way e.g. CC).

An explanation...of sorts. and sortetts.

Ok, here's some filler about myself while I read readings and do other things class-related. Oh, and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing here.

Name: Taylor Foster
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Current Occupation: Third Year Bachelor of Creative Industries (Interdisciplinary) Student at QUT. I could have just said Multimedia.
Areas of Study: Communication Design, Sound Studies and Digital Media.
Current Units of Study: Contemporary Issues of Design and Technology (KIB813), Virtual Cultures (KCB295) and World Music (KMB631).

Virtual Communities that I belong to:
The online art community known as DeviantArt at http://existentialistno09.deviantart.com
The Urban Myth Webcomic Community Forum at http://forum.umyth.com

Mailing lists I am at the mercy of:
Craplist - For fans of the band TISM and all fellow enjoyers of crap.
TripleJ Mailing list - Weekly update on Triple J news.
CNN News Mailout - Meh, delete most of them but its ok when I want to hear about 'major' developments.
Trash Video Mailout - Independent Video News
4zzzfm Ska Trek Mailout - Updates on weekly playlists and Uucoming ska Gigs
SpiderWebSoftware Mailout - Independent Software Company mailout list, updates on games and betatesting (which I've participated in a few times).

Duh...duh duh duh....duh duh duh *imagine 2001 music*

Yes, I have arrived. I have climbed the evolutionary ladder, from monkey with a bone, to monkey with a cellular phone, to monkey with a computer and finally a monkey with access to the internet (and this weblog). As you can see... all of these monkeys are evolving to use more and more advance tools, and if such is the case, we can assume the Internet is a Bone, and that Olivia Newton-John was really that bad of a singer. But I stray. For it is not the bone that is the critical object in my studies, It is in fact the monkey and how that monkey interacts with other monkeys while using that bone that is the focus.

>< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< >< ><

Welcome...to the NEW (and somewhat OLD) blog for Monkey Number 09 Taylor Foster. This is a blog specifically designed and expertly run to provide an outlet and vehicle for my experiences in my studies this semester at uni, specifically in the class KCB295, more widely known as Virtual Cultures, or How-To-Pick-Up-A-Hot-Date-Online. Throughout this semester I will be continually adding to this blog, not out of any enthusiastic spur of interest in such a thing, but simply because I will be beaten by a Cane if I do not. And when I say beaten 'by' a cane, I do in fact refer to a Cane beating me up with its own, bare hands. Which, believe me, hurts like hell.


So Welcome! and I hope I can, over the course of this unit, help to expand our mutual understanding of what it is to be a monkey using a tool, and, of course, learn how to punctuate correctly.