welcome to the first post!

So i start my blog with note that this is started for NMD 405. Meaning, this blog is for that class, but i may use it from hereon if i see fit for other needs. But lets start with the 5 readings and paragraphs...

1: Google algorithm predicts when species will go 404
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/googlefoodwebs/

this article peaked my interest because it talks about something that's a problem with our growing society. If a species goes extinct, what could happen to other species in relation to that species. Using the Google Pagerank algorithm, scientists have been able to accurately map which animals are most beneficial to the food web. Ecologist Stefano Allesina of the University of California in Santa Barbara said this about the use of the technology, "In PageRank, you’re an important website if important websites point to you. We took that idea and reversed it: Species are important if they support important species."

I find this intriguing because for one, we can map out what creatures are most important and ensure to protect them for use in future generations. The technology maps not only the direct importance, but relavent importance along with it, giving you a clear idea of how quickly the ecology could collapse if, lets say the honeybee went extinct. another good use of this technology in this format allows the scientist to track how much matter flows from one species to the next. So if one species tends to stop being useful, the project then maps accordingly to the projections.

2: EA spends 3 times more on marketing than development

Now, there wasn't a whole lot of story on this. Maybe more like a small blip. But comments made are where the meat of this is. My stand with the video game industry is that games should be produced with the public in mind. Meaning games should be cheaper, and deliver a rich experience. EA, who has a hit and miss record with this sort of thing, has done little to prove there's any real reason for the way they spend their money.

While it's true that pharmisuticals among many others do the same with their own products, It's a shame people have to pay large sums of money for the ads they see, and not the pills they use. As a commenter put it, marketing needs to be kept in check with what it does with it's money. Sure we could use another brand of drug that's completely identical, but why not take the less expensive way and get generic brands by word of mouth, or by cutting back on how much they spend on these advertisements. People don't have a lot of money to play with, so if there's something identical for cheaper, unless they've had trouble with other drugs before, most would probably buy it.

3: a quantitive study of how memes spread

having read the article and original source "charles darwin tagged you in a note on facebook", i found that meme evolution to stardom to be an amazing thing. The 25 things about me servey that was used as an example was a great show of how it worked. It started as 16 random things, but as more and more people used it, boundaries were moved. Soon different notes with 20, 35, or 14 random things about me came out of it. It was interesting to see that as people played with the border, it sort of destroyed the idea behind the note posting. The more people fiddled with the rules of the note, the different versions found themselves dying off. The most balanced one, the 25 random note, found it's way into the spotlight, pushed the others aside and blew up into a facebook phenominon. and the way this was looked at as a disease spreading across a body or country made the whole viral motion make a lot more sense.

4: the bubble project
After watching the slideshow on the bubble project, i found a great appreciation for what they did. Taking the comic voice bubbles and slapping them on signs, advertisements and pictures to make hilarious remarks or serious statements out of what was seen. The bubble project felt very much like a lifehack meme that only took some tape and paper to get a great responce out of passerby's. the idea can hit global audiences, and still make sense to those who see it. Many good responces came out of the project, and i felt the ideas shared were all relavent to today's issues.

5: Kurt Cobain suicide letter vs. google ads

This story suprised me a bit. Having not known google ads pull from words on the page for their ads, i can see how this page might have been offensive to many. The last letter Cobain wrote, telling how he really felt about what was going on in his life, and then to have the words transformed into ads is akward. Granted, once a site holds google ads, it's not up to google what goes into the ads, as the ads are generated from words on the page. At least google had the sense to take their ads down on that page.