The Digital Past

Crowd sourcing, things like Wikipedia and Google, break the structure of the mass market. It’s all based around the idea that information wants to be free, so these websites make much of the information everyone looks for free and accessible. Then comes in websites like Amazon, who use crowd sourcing to fairly accurately predict things that people may like or want. Other websites do this too, especially when it comes to ads on social media, like on Facebook or Instagram. If I view a website or had added stuff to a cart, that website now appears in a lot of ads on my social media so I see it a ton, with the hopes that I would buy it. I always find this extremely creepy, but it’s a smart marketing tool. Then there is the Amazon Alexa, which while they are extremely helpful for some people, I don’t want to be listened to or tracked. Yet this one, tracks domestic habits and things you ask, then sends you offers on things it believes you would want. Again, creepy, but a very good use of crowd sourcing and marketing. We also looked at this website, “Claritas,” and looked up our zipcodes, where it showed the typical demographics of them. From there, places use these demographics to send people in these zipcodes things they would want, and then also puts those types of products in those stores. Again, major crowd-sourcing. I will say that for my zipcode, 20852, it seemed extremely accurate. Like Professor O’Malley said, this could be very corrosive of nationalism, as it seems more that our lifestyles are more important to us over where we are a citizen of. Which is sadly true, because yes I am an American citizen, my lifestyle is something I think about all the time. It’s extremely interesting to think about how much crowd-sourcing actually impacts our lives.

IT’S THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING! WHICH MEANS A TON OF FOOD AND THE OFFICIAL START OF CHRISTMAS SEASON! Aside from that, we talked about the final project in class on Monday. It’s to create a song, roughly about 3 minutes long, and a paper to go along with it. I’m going to be using Apple’s Garageband, as he showed us in class, but I’ve never made a song before. I’m slightly nervous that it would sound terrible, but I’m also excited because it seems kind of fun! I’ll keep updating about the process as I go!

Hertz is the measure of frequency for sound. (Sadly, as I’m writing this, my ears now hurt) People with normal hearing can hear from about 50 hz to 20,000 hz. We listened to the hertz frequency in class today, starting from the beginning and going up to about 17,000 hz. I do find it interesting that as you get older, you can hear less, like how our professor could only hear up to around 12,000-13,000 hz, but most of the class could hear up to the 17,000. It has to do with hearing loss and age, and there are plenty of other factors too, I’m sure. The further you go up in hertz frequencies, the more it hurts to hear. Going up to 17,000 hurts was so painful to listen to, especially because it was a continuous sound. As I was doing research on the hertz frequency, something came up about the magic number “432,” which is apparently the natural frequency of the universe. It’s interesting to read about, and how this certain frequency seems to bring everyone together. I will say that it is a pretty nice frequency to listen to, after listening to it! Although, I never want to go so high on the hertz frequency again!

Sometimes I do find it a little difficult to follow what is specifically being talked about in class, like this past Wednesday. I really enjoy this class and the discussions though, so it’s really interesting. We talked about how songs use samples from other songs, like Cardi B’s “I Like it” song uses another song as a sample. From there, we kinda veered off. Although, now as I listen to music, I do listen for samples of other songs. Again, let’s take my favorite band, Panic! at the Disco. They have a song called “Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time” out, and the guitar in it is great, but also very recognizable. It’s the “Rock Lobster” intro. A lot of songs sample from other songs, which makes me think if people have either lost their creativity or just had good ideas to that beat?