Holiday Giving

This year, when I was asked what I wished for for Christmas, I honestly had no idea. Nothing, really. I didn't want to ask for something that would mean nothing to me a few months later. There is nothing materialistic that I have been yearning for; I don't even want the typical girlie things that are commonly asked for at Christmas time like clothes, makeup, or anything sparkly. What I really want, I realized, is to help someone or something. That's why I decided to adopt animals from the WWF. The first step was to chose an animal to adopt but I couldn't decide so I just adopted them all. I didn't want to favor any species over another! I think the WWF is a very honorable and important charity, it speaks for those who literally cannot. I love animals, and last year my aunt adopted a seal for me, which is how I was introduced to this charity. It is a very meaningful cause; every penny spent is worth it. Each adoption pack includes photos of your animal, a certificate, lots of information packets, and a stuffed animal version of the real thing. They also send you info about the animal you adopted three times throughout the year, so this really isn't "just for Christmas". This is another charity I consider to be very pivotal; you can purchase animals to be sent to people in africa who are less fortunate and desperately need the animals to help them sustain their land and carry their families. I think the importance of animals is often overlooked and I am glad that there are charities that realize this and set out to make a difference. I also like that on this website you can add a goat to your shopping basket; I found that somewhat diverting.

WWF - Reg. Charity No. 1081247
Practical Action - Reg. Charity No. 24725

Photocitation

Flawless, Captivating Photography

Most people consider themselves not to be photogenic (even if they actually are), right? On the gadget website, Gizmodo, I found the most interesting and helpful article. Coming from a family that is very big on photography, I have had to sit through my mom's commentary on all of the photos from various events that I have taken countless amounts of times. There are always the complaints on how I should have used a different setting for the lighting, or the flash should have been changed, or I should have used a different lens; critical advice. The photos we take, however, usually turn out really well after they have been through the abiding and disparaging process of Photoshop. Thank goodness for Photoshop. As great as it is that we can edit any photo and completely transform it if necessary, I do wish that we were capable of taking photos that don't need to be edited. From the countless photography books spread over the coffee table in my living room I have some basic knowledge of what a good picture should look like, but the techniques required to attain such effects in the picture are advanced and can be costly. In this article, that includes sub-articles with how-to-do-it steps, my eyes were opened to the world of lower budget photography. So much of what is written about in the article is DIY, but looks flawless and exorbitant. I was very impressed, and if you're as interested in photography as I, I'm sure you will think of this the same way I do.

Also, as I was reading further into this article, this was brought to my attention. I love looking at portraits of people because they always say so much. Personally, I think that a good photo can say more than words themselves have the ability to. There are also some beautiful portraits on this article. I think we are so lucky to live in a generation where photography is so simple and accessible, everyone should be able to capture what is meaningful to them for their future generations to look at. This is why I was so interested in this charity that I came across. Photography can raise so much awareness for causes; this charity aims to do just that. When people actually see what is going on in the world instead of just hearing about it I think that it will make a greater impact on how giving we all are. Nothing makes anyone understand the seriousness of something like being part of it, and although photos don't necessarily put you there physically, high quality pictures can almost drag you into the situation and compel you.

Photo citation

Starlight, Star Bright

So I recently discovered you can buy stars. As in the stars in the sky at night. Since when?! Star Listings is a UK company that allows you to register a star with your name. It has been around since 2006, it costs from 25 pounds and after you pay for it you receive a certificate of your star and then it is yours forever. You are able to chose the constellation you prefer your star to be in and you can even give a star as a gift. Apparently this is quite popular? I wasn't aware. This whole concept of buying and owning stars seems quite odd to me, who decided that they had the right to distribute stars in the first place? However it's almost like owning nothing, there are trillions of stars in the sky, and almost all of them are not visible to us, so what exactly are you paying for? Something you cant see but you're just assuming is there? It would be great to be able to say, "yeah I own the North Star", but for all those invisible stars that are so far out in our galaxy, it seems like a waste of money. Although I do think it is quite romantic, and I wouldn't mind owning a star myself. Also this website knows what people want, because for just £3 extra they will include a silk red rose in your name-a-star gift pack. How amorous.

Flashing Lights

Last week was Thanksgiving and my parents surprised me with a last minute trip to Dublin to visit my friends over the weekend. Everything was planned and I had my flight details and all the transportation was organized. When I got to the airport I tried to check in but they told me to go to the ticket desk. Turns out my flight was scheduled to leave at 12:30 and it was 12:20 already. I had to book myself onto the next flight, all because I was an hour late. This was all completely my own fault, but nothing could stop me thinking about how I could have actually made the flight by being on time. I am fairly slow in the mornings but if I had been told about my flight leaving soon I would have hurried myself. As well as being notoriously late all the time, I am also always on my Blackberry (bad habit, I am aware). This lead me to think about whether or not there was a certain kind of application for Blackberries that would let you know when your next appointment, party, or in my case flight is. I searched everywhere on Blackberry App. World but my search results were unsatisfying. For your computer, there are such things as email and appointment notifiers, but nothing that really intrigued me, and there was nothing about flight times. As a person who is always late for everything, I have tried almost everything including setting my clocks forward a few minutes with the hope that it will speed me up so that I will arrive on time for things. Nothing has worked yet, even my friends and family's criticizing hasn't had a major effect on my punctuality. If I could invent anything it would be a very obnoxious and interfering notifying application, that would let me know when all of my scheduled appointments and such are taking place. I was thinking something that has an alarm and lots of flashing lights, whatever necessary to grasp my attention and keep me on track. Maybe that way I wouldn't miss anything else.
(Image: own)

Sentimental Feelings Resurrected By Dolls

One of the things I love about online magazines and newspapers is that you can go through not only recent issues, but also all of the older issues (even as old as before the internet existed on some websites). A very close relative of mine writes for the New Yorker, and when I was in fourth grade I was interviewed by him for a piece he was writing on The American Girl Café in Manhattan. Yesterday my father sent me an email about an article that interested him in the New Yorker, which I didn't even end up reading because I was immediately reminded of my nine-year-old dining experience. As I was so young, I wasn't aware of what a prominent magazine I was being written about in, but now as it is online I can go back and find the article and laugh at how much more naive I was back then. I was reviewing the Cafe, which had just recently opened at the time, and as I was so young I was referred to as the "Irish Girl". Reading the article almost brought back the entire experience for me, placing me in the store going up the seemingly huge escalators, stepping into the pink and black striped penthouse restaurant with views of my favorite park, just six years later. I think that technology can have such an incredible positive affect on people, just like this did for me. Memories are very sentimental to everyone; as dull or vibrant they are, they still mean a lot and speaking for myself, I really enjoyed finding this small fragment that contributed to part of my childhood. It occurred to me that technology must have this effect on millions of people every single day. It probably does the opposite too.

All this reminiscing got me thinking about all the other ways technology can help people mentally. When I was in fifth grade, I went to New York in December (as is tradition with my mother) and instead of seeing friends, going to the Nutcracker ballet, and shopping for the entire time like we usually do, my mom took me to Ellis Island. My descendants on my mothers side are Swedish, and they emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. My mother wanted to show me this, she wanted to prove to me that our family's history was interesting and worth learning more about. I remember the emigration hall to be huge and I felt tiny. When I went outside to look at the wall of all the emigrants who passed through Ellis Island's names I felt even smaller. The list of names was hundreds of thousands of people long, and I never ended up finding my great great grandparents names, but when we got home my mom showed me the Ellis Island website. On it you can search names of people who emigrated and their information comes up. I ended up finding my ancestors, and so much more information about them that even my mother didn't know. I remember she was so taken aback by it that she almost cried, but i was so young that I didn't understand why it meant so much to her, but now I do.

Just Another Music Website?

Today in my technology and culture class we were discussing and comparing web 2.0 tools. Everyone had so much to say about their own favorite web application and it wasn't until after class that I realized one of my favorite websites can be classified as a web 2.0 tool. Grooveshark is a relatively new website that was introduced to me by one of my best friends. It allows you to listen to almost any song in the world for free, it is almost instantaneous and it has many features such as the option to create your own individual playlist or library. You can mark songs or albums as favorites and it saves what you have chosen. It displays favorite and most popular songs in a different category and they give you the choice of downloading, sharing (by email), downloading the ringtone, or adding the song to your 'favorites' folder. It is simple to use and best of all it costs absolutely nothing. There is also an application within Grooveshark called Grooveshark radio. Grooveshark radio compiles songs for you to listen to based on the songs you have entered into the website's search box. It is somewhat like iTune's Genius, except the difference between the two is that Grooveshark radio's songs are chosen by Grooveshark users, unlike Genius which is computer-generated. You can 'smile' or 'frown' at the songs that are listed and it saves your choice, so you never have to listen to music you don't want to listen to. It never really occured to me how much we all use web 2.0 tools until I was required to research them for school. To be honest, I didn't even know what they were until I read a definition on them and was given a list of some popular web 2.0 tools. They are extremely helpful and rewarding, and they can make our technology life so much easier, faster, and more modern if we learn about and use the right tools. I am very glad I was introduced to Google Reader, it saves me so much time now! Check it out for yourself here.