Excel Blog Entry

I have learned so much about Excel in the short two weeks of learning about it. I can now make statistics using the formulas that excel provides. Any gradesheet that I would like to make for my classes, any Calender I would like to create, or any other list of resources that I want to use. This is my first time using excel so it is very exciting to learn all of these new things. I really like how easy it is to average a set of data. This makes things so much easier than imputing into a calculator. If I were still in a math class, this would have been an amazing tool to use. I do not like how excel is extreamely different on a Mac, rather than a PC. I am really glad I am in this class, or I would be without this wonderful tool of Excel!

OJ Simpson Photo Manipulation

I chose the picture of O.J. Simpson because his case is famous, and there is much to be learned from him. He also was a really good football player, and that makes him interesting to me. This picture originated as a mugshot in jail, where Newsweek Magazine put the original photo up. Time Magazine altered the picture to look a lot more dark and guilty looking. Many shadow effects were used and the picture was just darkened in general. This picture was darkened to make him look like a scary man that had allegedly murdered someone, but got away with it. I believe this picture was harmful because it took a man, made him look way more scary than he was in the original to persuade people that he is a bad human being. They say innocent until proven guilty, and he was never proven guilty. This man does not deserve humiliation like this.



I really liked the movie avatar. I thought it was really cool that all of these people are really people but just photoshoped onto screen like this. Its amazing what photoshop can do!

Facebook Dangers

Facebook Dangers

The college student deserved to get turned down by the law firm. I know for certain if I find any pictures of myself that could potentially hurt my future; I would always ask the owner of the picture to take it down because of the terrible things that could happen, like losing a job opportunity. If this person was your true friend, they would realize their huge mistake and take the photos down instantly. Friends should look out for each other and make sure that each other look good. I have heard that many businesses do a routine background check like the one in situation B, and Facebook is one of the first things people look at. Facebook is kind of like an interview in itself. Facebook provides what you look like, your preference, your sexual orientation, your political views, your religion, who your friends are, and a basic understanding of what your life is about. People need to be really careful on what they put on the internet because everyone has access. People should always be watching their image and should be aware of others trying to knock them down. This student could have been set up with one of the most prestigious law firms, but his past ruined everything. “Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become” (Thinkexist.com). This quote accurately explains that we are building our future every day; we can only be as successful as we make ourselves out to be. This student should avoid cameras if they decide to put themselves in a bad situation. My parents always said to take myself out of a situation that could harm me, and that would be my advice to this student. This student does not have any legal resource, because anything that is put on Facebook is no longer their property. The picture belongs to the company that owns the website, and all rights are signed away when the picture is put online. The company allows other people to copy and paste this picture to anywhere else on the World Wide Web. It was not ethical of the friend to take and publish the photos without the student’s permission, but things like this happen, and the fault lies with the person whose image is ruined. I feel truly bad for people that are damaged by cases like this. I once saw a TV show where the ex-boyfriend had pictures of this girl naked, and he was forced to give them back to her, but someone anonymously posted them on the internet for everyone to see. That’s the problem, once things are put on the internet, they cannot be erased, and it is hard to officially get them in trouble. This person is obviously a very bad friend and is not looking out for the best interest of his or her friend. I know for sure if I had a picture of someone else that was doing something illegal, I would feel ethically wrong and defiantly would not post it on the internet for everyone to see. It was ethical of the firm to share the reason for his disqualification because everyone deserves to know why they are denied from something. This way, that person can change their flaws and remove their skeletons from their closet. It is a shame that this person got ripped off out of an awesome job at a prestigious law firm, but he can learn in the future that his actions have consequences. He or she does not really even deserve that good of a job if they were dumb enough to do illegal drugs and get caught on camera doing those illegal drugs. Intelligent people are always looking out their social wellbeing, and this student needs to try again with a new company. He or she could go to the company and explain that happened a long time ago and beg for his or her job, but their first impression is that he or she is a complete loser and is a stoner. On the other hand, they could try to play it off like it was not a big deal and that many people did drugs in college, and it was before he was a mature college graduate. The student now has learned about the subject of self image the hard way, and now has to live with his mistakes and face the consequences.

Copyright and Creative Commons

An issue that has recently caused some trouble for college students is file sharing to steal songs from the internet. Copyright means government recognition protecting someone’s intellectual property. Copyright infringement is a crime, and copyright is where you copy exactly someone else’s work. They can find anyone that is illegally file sharing by identifying their I.P. address. This individual code can trace anyone’s activity back to their computer that they did the file sharing on. These activities can result in lawsuits and could be very costly in the thousands of dollars. Yes, a lot of kids get away with file sharing and stealing songs off the interenet, but if you are summoned, it could potentially cost you thousands of dollars. The free songs that you get from the internet is not worth the risk. The main lesson from today is that if you do not pay for it, you cannot listen or watch it. It is very easy for the hackers to find your theft of songs, so it would be wise to not steal in the first place!


Copyright and Creative Commons by Zach Wright is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.