Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!
Once again I bring you a bi-weekly on what has been going on, and trust me, a lot has been going on since you last visited (or if you have been visiting, this will be slightly new). Anywho, enough with my introduction rambling! Time to start off strong.
The Wire
Mayoral Race- I am not surprised that Carcetti managed to pull ahead of Royce. My only question that I really have is will he actually look towards improving Baltimore. The way I see things in politics, is that people do stuff to get re-elected or go up in position, rather than actually try to help people. His high interest in crime seems like a good place to start, but one thing that really interests me will be his stance on education, since a lot of this season seems to be about the education system.
Corner Kid Class- I found this segment of The Wire to actually be super interesting. Colvin and the other social workers seem to be trying a new approach to reaching this kids and socializing them. It was neat to see how they started to try to reach them, then changed their approach. The segment they did with having them in groups to solve a puzzle (for a fancy dinner) was really interesting. However, it was not necessarily the contest that was super interesting, but rather seeing the winning team at Ruth’s Chris. This scene really made the two worlds just seem out of place. On one hand, you had “normal” society enjoying a meal, and on the other hand, you had corner kids having a meal. You could clearly see how they were out of place and just seemed somewhat embarrassing. I’m curious to see how that program continues.
Normal Class- I am really impressed to see Prez actually adjusting to teaching his students. The fact that he took mathematics and probability and applied it to something that they understood, was actually a good way to make them learn. Furthermore, it made it interesting (something that education fails to do normally). However, as the episodes moved on, it became clear that the school wanted to get test scores up, rather than actually teach the students. I found it funny that he found teaching test material to be bad (simply because they refused to learn) when he already had developed at least one way for them to learn.
Prez and Students- His compassion that he shows for Dookie is actually rather cool. He gave him clean clothes, offered to wash the old ones, provided him a shower, tooth brush, and other hygiene materials was great! I feel like that is a good way to reach those in need, and Prez really stepped up. He actually seems to be really concerned for his students especially Randy, and the one kid who he offered to take to the school social worker. I think he is adjusting to his new position rather well.
MCU and the Five’O- The MCU seems like it is a joke at the moment. They really have not gotten anywhere since Daniels, Kima, Lester, McNulty, and pretty much everyone else got up and left. Lester and Bunk seem to be having difficulty trying to find bodies that Marlow is hiding, I am very curious to see whether they will find them or not. On another random note, this season has been the least McNulty season I have seen. I have a strong feeling that we might be seeing Daniels as police commissioner as Carcetti rises (which everyone in the higher ups of the police department do not want).
Nammond, Bodie, and Drug Dealing- Okay, it may just be me, but I do not think that Bodie will be along for too much longer. Marlow has him working for him at the moment, but I think his time is coming, slowly but surely. As for Nammond, it is clear that he will not be able to hold up his family. What is worse to me, is that he is expected to support his family, and it is clear he has very little experience. His mother does not support him in the right ways. I really found this to be interesting because many of these street kids today seem to have their bad habits originate from home. You would think that with Webae being locked up for life, you might would want to push your child in the opposite direction, but I guess not.
Marlow and the Co-Op- Now I did not see this coming, but it brings some really bad news. Right now, it seems as though this working out very well for both sides, which is bad for everyone else that is not with them. I think that there is going to be some good times together, but also some bad times coming with this partnership.
Omar- All I can say about this is that his beef with Marlow is not going to end well for both sides. Marlow’s muscle is ruthless, but so is Omar. I expect both sides to lose good people.
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Daily Time
A Quote that Really Matters
So here is my typical day!
– Get up
– Get prepared
– Eat Breakfast
– Brush Teeth
– Go to class
– Take a nap
– Program
– Play games and watch Youtube
– Go to bed
Some things were omitted just to give you a sense of the day.
I found this cool public domain picture and thought it was cool.
I decided on the the line just because it seems we are always exploring something that is unknown (at least in its creation) to most people.
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I figured some blank lines could be a good way to make this not blank anymore.
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Rexim (see what I did there)
Original Post: http://www.nrandallumwdomain.com/ds106/of-air-and-life/
Remix: Cancer Sucks
I really liked how this turned out. Coming up with it just required reusing an old picture and changing the message. As usual, I used PowerPoint to change the message, and I decided to look up a cancer awareness emblem and add it to the fan.
When this came together I thought it looked very good. I probably should have tried to match the two black colors so the emblem seemed more natural. I rather like this one, but I am also curious to see what other remixes were possible. I think these are pretty good to do, and I can’t wait to do more of these.
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Mash it Up
Platform – Stand together, and no one #$%&* with us.
Candidates we support – Joseph Stewart.
Candidates we oppose – Those who stand against us.
Principal Donors – New Day Co-Op
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http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-your-own-superpac/
So, this took some editing in Powerpoint and a picture off of Google. There were all sorts of interesting pictures available, and I chose this one because it just looked better than all the other ones.
I decided I wanted to make this assignment about The Wire, by using it to support Prop Joe for president. I really tried to make this look like a screen capture from a commercial, hence the reason why the fine print is so small at the bottom. I rather enjoyed making this one and I think it came out pretty darn well! I still wanted it to look somewhat professional so I decided against any wild fonts, and I think this looks good. I had considered a red/white/blue color scheme, but I figured that would probably not go too well in the long run.
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This is also an assignment I will be contributing to my final project (I’m still deciding on sites to use for him), but I think I have a direction to go in.
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/your-favorite-teams-mashup/
For this assignment I decided to find two teams (Heat and Redskins) and combine their logos together. I used PowerPoint to make the logo, and managed to fit them over each other to be like a Redskin comet. In the end, I decided on the team name the Heatskins.
I decided on these teams because I was looking for emblems that had relatively similar color schemes. I was also looking for some emblems that had somewhat similar shapes so they flowed well together. The Redskins’ emblem seemed to fit very well with the Heat emblem and I for one thought it turned out very well. It really hold that comet, like appearance.
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/twittr/
Actual Site: brickshelf.com + google.com
This was an easy one to put together. I decided to use Brickshelf, which is a site to post various LEGO creations, and Google. Using PowerPoint I was able to attach the Brickshelf image and recolor the the words to fit the Google color scheme. I was actually researching which font Google used, but found out it cost $206 to buy it! All that for a font!? I had to settle with the font Gisha, and that is how this came together.
I really wanted to use both of these websites because their colors and logo seemed to fit together super well. I was rather impressed with how well this came out, but it flowed together very well. In the end, I think I was missing the last red section from the Google logo, but in the end I think you can still tell it is suppose to mimic Google.
Additional Thoughts- Mashups were pretty fun, and I really like the results of the ones I did. I’m curious to see what other people did.
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In addition to my Mashup Assignment for the Final, I also did a design assignment for the New Day Co-Op
So, I took a bit of a spin on this assignment. Rather than make it a DS106 assignment, I decided to take it and make it about the New Day Co-Op. I used PowerPoint as my image editor and Gimp as well for the background behind the words.
I figured if Prop Joe was going to have a website for the New Day Co-op, it would be relatively simple, but would show. I figured that it should be more of a traditional business logo rather than something more fancy. After all, this is a business rather than a bunch of random gang members. Anyways, I think this turned out pretty decently, and I think it looks pretty darn good.
Conclusion
The final project is coming up soon (I’m still lagging behind with social media to use for it), but I do have a direction to go in now. With any luck, it should come out decently, I just really need to take off running this week.
Thanks for tuning in again!
