[VIDEO] I found out about this via Ben Shapiro who said had Donald Trump not gotten re-elected this movie wouldn't have been made. This film is a sequel to the 2010 The Social Network - a movie I missed out on, but plan to see in the near future.
Facebook seems to have fallen out of favor from it's 2000s peak. The saying goes Facebook is for old people and Instagram is for people who can't read. Let me find the actually quote, let me visit with A.I. for a moment.
Facebook is for old people. Twitter is stupid, and Instagram is for people who can't read.
Thanks A.I. I should find a kid who's more adept at social media. Right now the next hot social network is currently TikTok. What could it be in five years?
Anyway, The Social Network dealt with Facebook as an emerging company the spiritual sequel is more of the impact of Facebook after it's emergence. Sadly to see The Social Reckoning I have to wait until October.
[VIDEO] I'm a fan of youtuuba on YouTube and he shared with his subscribers this teaser showing us the process of editing and producing his Train Odyssey videos. I want to share this with you and perhaps if you do your own train vacation videos it might give you some tips.
As far as sharing my train videos I use both still shots and videos splicing them together with background music when needed. He doesn't use an editing program that's widely available as he explains in another video years ago. In my case, I use iMovie for the most part finding it relatively easy to use and especially used on an actual computer.
On Shedd School blog I shared the first part of his Train Odyssey as he takes Amtrak's Capitol Limited out of Chicago all the way to Washington, DC although the first part that I share ended with him traveling through Indiana. Then as an extension of his odyssey he visits the Florida Keys and the Everglades Nat'l Park.
[VIDEO] Well sometimes things happen in spurts, but at times I share small accomplishments. It's been seen at there that you get more attention upon posting 100 videos on YouTube. Well on my new channel that milestone hasn't been reached yet though on the channel I've had since roughly the beginning there are literally 100 videos and more including the above one.
So basically it's me on the train to Memphis, Tennessee leaving Chicago back in December 2014. This was the trip I wrote about at that time my first real trip out of town in a few years. A lot of the recent old videos I had posted to my other channel so far were recording years ago on a MiniDV camcorder. This time around I used the then new iPhone 6 at the time.
[VIDEO] I've really enjoyed Jim Zimmerlin's videos of his model train collection. It's probably how I discovered his YouTube channel two years ago. I wouldn't be able to make an offer on his G-Scale model trains especially the Amtrak train he has.
Today he's combined videos of model train with German Shepherd puppies. Animal videos seem to gain traction on YouTube. We love seeing pets and their owners interact. We could be talking about dogs or cats or adult or puppies and it seems there's an audience for it.
For Zimmerlin, his vids on his cruises and his model trains got the traction for his channel. However, time will tell if this video combing puppies and a model train will itself go viral.
I've been part of the internet for many years. When I first logged on most of the homes that were online connected through a dial-up connection on a telephone landline. The designs of most websites were pretty basic as opposed to now (to understand what I'm saying look up Greyhound.com and go back as far as you can over at archive.org). What a vastly different place it is today.
You don't really hear about webpages anymore. Basically a website is a collection of webpages though virtually every website has a webpage. Even this blog could be seen as a series of webpages and it gets updated semi-frequently which constantly expands like a book.
I always imagined having a website even though ISP's once commonly offered free webspace to customers it's something that has become obsolete these days. As stated before there are so many free tools these days that allow anyone an online platform. In the late 1990s through early 2000s you had to create that platform. There was no social media, and the service I currently use Blogger didn't exist until at least 1998.
When I first created a website it was through Geocities - which had been owned by Yahoo!. Of course I never realized that if you want people to visit you had to have a draw to it. I bought a photo scanner to post some pics and used the rudimentary photo editing software. I also shared some of my favorite Star Trek pics that I found online at the time. And this was during the time I was at Morehouse College. Of course it wasn't until 2005 that I started blogging which makes updating a website far easier.
And yet the internet evolved some more with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram. Now most people access the internet on their smartphones. I myself now own an iPhone which is a multifaceted tool that allows me to make phone calls, text, email, shoot photos, shoot video, etc. And with an iPhone and these other smartphones you can also update social media, and upload photos & video on the go!
Now it causes me to wonder where I could've taken this internet thing if I had discovered Blogger in the late 90s to early 2000s. The tech available at the time that I just simply had no idea about beyond what I had already learned about back in the day. Though thankfully it doesn't take long to find out about what's available these days online. Not only that there is an app on a mobile device also!
Often on this blog I talk about the internet as it once was. Instead of blogs and social media sites people used to have their own personal web pages usually via their internet service providers. Many dialed onto the web with a dial-up modem using a phone line. There wasn't as many bells and whistles online back in say the late 1990s.
I vaguely remember this because for a brief time until my mother abruptly cut off our internet service after almost six months - she likely didn't see the point for herself at least and claimed it was starting to cost too much. As for that last part well I was taking to the internet more than she expected and just made the decision to cut it off and was in no rush during that ensuing period to bring it back.
Either way back in the 1990s where was no Facebook, Google was probably in its infancy, no Twitter, no Instagram, Blogger was likely also in its infancy. Basically if you wanted to connect with people you literally had to create your own platform and there weren't many places back then that would provide one for you!
Blogger I now know was started in 1998. It was likely around when I attended a community college in downtown Chicago and had no idea about it although I spent a lot of time surfing the internet at school. During this period my interest was in creating this platform to connect with others or at least sharing information just had little idea or inclination to do the necessary work.
Anyway I only became aware of Blogger after perusing the forums over at ProtestWarrior. A blog was the perfect medium for me to share information of course the next step was readers which PW provided at the time. Then of course when Capitol Fax was beginning to grow by 2005 or so that would be more exposure.
Now in the 2nd decade of the 21st century a website isn't that important anymore. Social media is king today and the most popular sites to use is facebook, instagram, twitter, and YouTube. And in addition to websites or blogs we can use social media to supplement websites or blogs.
As of now this is my current challenge. If I wanted this blog or other blogs I created to be successful it hinges on utilizing those other platforms that exist today. Perhaps create a useful YouTube channel. Perhaps create an interesting ig account as I have for sixthward.us. Then effectively using twitter - both personal & sixthward.us to supplement the blog platforms.
I see now that utilization of various platforms can truly be beneficial, the question now is how to effectively utilize them.
[VIDEO] Lately when I go to the movies most of them are just forgettable entertainment. You go in and be entertained, however, later you simply forget about it. There's nothing really groundbreaking about the movie itself or laugh, feel the adrenaline, etc. and then you leave.
That wasn't the case with The Circle. Now with that said I've seen the reception on its Wiki page and saw that so far there aren't many that like the movie so far. I never pay attention to Rotten Tomatoes and see that this film isn't rated highly.
Why does The Circle touch a nerve with me? It shows the scary effects of social media. Our hero Mae starts to work at this tech company which appears to be a cross between Apple and fb. It offers these small cameras that can be placed anywhere and unseen to the eye. And then there appears to be a social network attached to it.
Mae herself becomes a major show on this social network and likely billions log on to see how she's doing. Unfortunately some sad consequences come of it. Her friend Mercer comes to an unfortunate end as the latest online sensation. It seems the friend - Annie -who brought her to that company doesn't want anything to do with her although they seem to have an uneasy relationship as Mae's star begins to rise.
Mercer's strikes an unfortunate nerve. As Mae begins broadcast her life for her company her fans find out about Mercer's past and refer to him as a deer killer although he defends himself by saying he doesn't kill deer. It becomes a point where he as Mae's friend had to cut ties with her because of her new celebrity.
Unfortunately, later the crowd clamors for Mae to find Mercer - after she herself used the Circle to find a wanted fugitive. They do so and of course a comment about him being a deer killer. After keeping a low-profile and he flees. Without giving away much this is the point in the movie where I take off my ballcap. I was truly disgusted with the movie at that point.
To start we see a form of online shaming in this film. Let's say you find one piece of information about someone - whether that person posted themselves or not - and then it goes viral. Then it literally becomes a form of bullying and outright nastiness. Perhaps it's truthful or perhaps not, however, either way someone believes it and spreads it and for a moment it's like wildflower. Scary thing is, it might be a while before you find out about it.
I like how Mae turned the tables on her bosses at the Circle - Eamon & Tom - who egged on the many activities that led to what happened with Mercer. She got connected with one of the founders of the circle - he has a low profile because we doesn't like what's going on at this company - who helped her turn the tables. And we go back to one thing that they never wanted to give up for themselves - privacy.
They didn't truly want to be transparent, but everyone else should be. Mae's life was saved because she took a kayak got thrown about in high waves and almost drowned. Perhaps there is no right to privacy in a public place but how transparent does one need to be in the world. Beside we all should be embarrassed by something.
It lets me know, now that we live in a world with cell phone video cameras and we can broadcast those images live on Periscope, fb, ig, etc. we have to be more careful. Perhaps we might behave better if we're being watched - and yes that's not always true. At the same time at what point have we gone too far with this activity?
BTW, I never realized that this film was based on a book and see a vastly different story here. I got to find that book now and give it a read. Perhaps it'll tell me more about the story and the issues in real life that are shown.
