Facebook vs. Twitter

Today I used Twitter to check hundreds of updates, follow a new person or two, get all my news (both social and actual), make dinner plans, and tell others what I was up to.

I logged on to Facebook for one second to wish a friend happy birthday.

Is twitter on the rise?

Who Am We? by Sherry Turkle

The article gives the audience a lot of fancy phrases that tell us all what we already know: that the computer/internet has completely changed our lives. There’s a newsflash. I can’t stand reading articles that state the obvious. I want a new point or new spin added to the ideas and realizations that we all already know. Yes, the internet is probably the most life changing inventions since the wheel, and yes, windows and computer screens change our way of “thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity.” It’s not until later in the article that a totally new idea is introduced.

This article gets to a new point at the end. The point that programming, originally thought be a cut-and-dried skill is now anything but. Ok, again not the biggest news, but Turkle makes the good point that programming is not straight forward but a creative opportunity for expression in a wide range of fields. As someone who knows very little about programming, this perspective on the difficulty of it was interesting, but like how I was annoying by the obvious first part of this article, a programmer was probably annoyed by the whole thing.

Twitter Wars: Christie vs. Corzine

@christiefornj 3,845 followers

@joncorzine 3,065 followers

Not much blog experience

Building this blog for my New Media class forced me to sit down and write more then 140 characters. My only previous blog experience was doing a one time project for a local political blog. I was writing on the race for the vacant House seat in my district.

Lance Can Win in County by County Battle

What is Corzine up to?

Honestly, is this the best @joncorzine can do? Five years in the Senate, and a term under his belt as Governor and all he can spend his money on is a commercial that critiques his opponents driving record? Where is the ad that outlines everything he accomplished as Governor? Where is the ad that says "here is what I've done for you, now get out and vote?"

Christie has run his fair share of negative ads as well. Though with Christie there is more leeway. He is the challenger and the burden of proof is on Corzine to earn another term. When the man who currently holds the office only runs ads attacking the challenger's driving record, (and looks to me also poking fun at his weight), he sounds like a man who has nothing else to run on.

Shout Outs

I find it so funny that in the span of one week two interruptions made national headlines. Kayne's odd injection of himself into the MTV Music Video Awards cemented his status as an egomaniac. Congressman Joe Wilson's shout out during President Obama's Joint Address to Congress was also odd, but the behavior was "not like Wilson" as friends have said.

Whether the shout outs were typical of their respective behaviors or not, both were pretty shocking to watch unfold.