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My epub works on readium.

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Tumblr Blog

My tumblr: http://fuckyeahanimalshapedfood.tumblr.com/

Intro

Tumblr Blog Statement

This blog is a collection of images of adorable, animal shaped food. You don't normally see food decorated that way. Most of the time, most foods, especially baked goods, are decorated abstractly or are representational of organic forms such as flowers and plants. Generally, common food decorations appear rather banal and generic in appearance. Foods decorated as animals, especially in a simplified or cute way is not as common as the average way of decorating foods. These types of animal food forms are not normally seen in the baked goods section at a Jewel, Dominick or even at gourmet cupcake bakeries such as Sprinkles, More and Crumbs.

Animal shaped food requires a different type of taste level. Animal shaped sweets may not look quite as sophisticated as the sweets seen in gourmet bakeries or other food restaurants, but they do appeal to those enjoy animals and cute things in general. Cute food, like the ones on my blog inspire other people and generally makes them happy, at least that is the reaction I get whenever I stumble upon something completely adorable.

In essence, animal shaped food is awesome and requires little to no artistic to make. I hope this blog inspires others to appreciate this type of food aesthetic or encourages them to try to produce their own adorable, delectable noms.

After the Flood Response

After The Flood 
James Gleick

(B) write about how Wikipedia is both similar to, and different from, traditional print-based libraries.

Similarities: they contain a collection of various information of different subjects

differences: 

wikepedia: faster, on screen info, info is summarized

libraries: slower when it comes to searching for information, physical information rather than on screen, the information is denser than what you would find on wiki if you were to research a certain topic

Undoing Property

I didn't really understand the article that much or much of what I've read, but as far as the topic goes, I don't really have much interest in cloud or have any interest in how far this cloud technology goes.

Even though I have an iPhone, I never use iCloud. I don't know any one else who uses it so I guess there's no need for me to use it. I guess I didn't I still even don't know how cloud works or what it does exactly, and I probably won't learn it until I need it.

And now I'm confused. Was the 'cloud' technology the author was referring to related to torrenting?

What is the Social in Social Media?

I didn't really understand the text at the beginning of this article. It was all very confusing and I was waiting until it got to the point... which I'm still unsure of what the point of the article was until I continued reading towards the end, and the article ended with the words, "That's the social today."

All I understood from that was, the social in social media is all about making connections with other people and I felt that the article did not really need all the extraneous information written from the top to the middle of the page. I guess it did explain some history behind social media and how it started, (which was not of my interest) but then it was also riddled with some jargon I was not familiar with that I had to google. Although it did pick up near the end especially when they discussed this:

"What’s happening?” Everything, even the tiniest info spark provided by the online public, is (potentially) relevant, ready to be earmarked as viral and trending, destined to be data-mined and, once stored, ready to be combined with other details. These devices of capture are totally indifferent to the content of what people say—who cares about your views? That’s network relativism: in the end it’s all just data, their data, ready to be mined, recombined, and flogged off. "

I think its interesting that social media has made reduced the 'importance' of our opinions to meaningless data... maybe not so meaningless but data that is used, mainly for the profit and benefit of growing businesses. The whole concept of data mining also reminds of my boyfriend who is an IT major and is going to be working with data mining and gathering data from social media sites. It makes me wonder if graphic designers could design this data and all this information?? 

Also this quote was mentioned:
"Keen warns that we will end up in an anti-social future, characterized by the “loneliness of the isolated man in the connected crowd.”¹⁶

I disagree with this. I don't believe that the future will become anti social. I feel that people have probably become more connected because of social media.

Print and Pixel by Nancy Levinson / Response

Print and Pixel article

I don't really understand the point of this article. I feel like the topic is similar with past articles we've had to read which relates to 'the future of publishing' or what the "future of publishing entails'.

This article also follows a similar format to those past articles we've had to read for class. What I mean by format is that is that some of the articles give an introducing to the value of books and reading, then somewhere in the middle, the articles refer to or giving a short history lesson of what publishing was like in the past, and then it summarizes or explains currently trending or available publishing methods Then the articles conclude with what publishing would be like in the future (which involves some sort of open ended statement, theory and what if's? situations).

Overall, my main immediate response was that this was dry read, and it felt somewhat similar in content to past articles I've had read in the past.

While reading this, I also felt bad for this author:

"More than a century earlier, in 1851, Herman Melville published Moby-Dick — which appears on the top-ten lists of Steven Holl and Tod Williams/Billie Tsien — to mixed reviews and weak sales. The poor reception devastated the 32-year-old author, and by the time he took a humdrum job as a customs inspector in New York City, a decade and a half later, his writing career was wrecked; when he died, in 1891, the New York Times obituary described him as "an absolutely forgotten man."  Not until the Melville revival of the 1920s would the author's magnum opus be rediscovered. "

It is very unfortunate that his book was poorly received and ultimately ended his writing career. I felt bad for him. I've never actually finished reading Moby Dick myself, but I remember trying a long time ago and getting bored.

I also can't imagine "from news to periodicals to books" being a non profit enterprise in the future.

Post Artifact/

some article
This text is a great introduction to the next section of our course. Read it. It's also itself an instructive example of the post-artifactual publishing it argues for. In your response, discuss one or two features of the future book, according to Mod, which you find most intriguing or problematic.

I don't think I really understood what he wanted the future book to be like... I read it, but I didn't completely understand, maybe. A lot of his ideas went over my head. I mean he did mention this:

"Engagement with readers (the building of community and conversation) begins immediately in the pre-artifact system."

And this: 

"The line between Publisher and Author is blurred."

And these two points just reminds me of Wikipedia, which is one example he mentioned earlier in the article. It also reminds me of one of those fiction writing games, where one person writes one line in a book, and the other writes another, and so on. Is this somewhat like the idea of what the author was saying? Like a digital version of this fiction writing game? I mean its an interesting idea, but I don't know about it.

Future of Food

Here is a link to the book I published yesterday! :D

The Demise and Birth of Food and Nutrition

http://www.lulu.com/shop/jennifer-zoleta/the-demise-and-the-birth-of-food-and-nutrition/paperback/product-21442766.html?showPreview=true

Medium is the Message response

2.5 "The Medium is the Message", Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan writes

Just before an airplane breaks the sound barrier, sound waves become visible on the wings of the plane. The sudden visibility of sound just as it ends is an apt instance of the great pattern of being that reveals new and opposite forms just as the earlier forms reach their peak performance.

Think through this metaphor in relation to technologies of writing and publishing. In what sense might we say that the medium of print becomes visible just at the moment it is “superceded” by the internet?

That all depends... I mean, I don't know. I can't really think of a such an example since print still hasn't died as of yet. I suppose I think of newspapers when I think of this metaphor. I remember liking the feel of the newspaper and reading from it. I also didn't mind the smell all that much, but nowadays I get all my news from the internet. Newspapers cost money and the internet is technically free (if you don't count the internet bill) and its basically the same type of news you would receive on the newspaper as you would see it online. There's also the easy of navigating through news headline links on the internet as opposed to flipping pages and unfolding them with using the newspaper. Also the comments section can be funny and the debates that go on can also be quite entertaining, yet I haven't really seen the death of newspaper either. It is still around for those who still prefer it over any other medium. Other than that, I'm not quite sure... of how I can think of the relationship of print and the internet in relation to the metaphor that is given.

POD Excerpt Response

In your writing this week, consider one way in which POD has either transformed existing publishing practices, or opened up new ones.

Cite a relevant sentence or paragraph from the text.

“Having open tools which are collectively developed and shared, implicitly guarantees fair access to the means of publishing, thus promoting freedom of expression.”

Keeping this quote in mind, basically anyone can publish, without having an editor or publisher to shoot down your idea no matter how ludicrous the idea or how awful the quality of your writing might be. Freedom of expression! Honestly I don’t really understand how print on demand works after reading this excerpt. My mind couldn’t possibly process and understand all of the information I read about POD, of how it works or of the methods of POD; therefore I feel as if I can’t brainstorm any ideas of how POD transformed existing publishing practices or open up new ones. I mean, it does sound nice, if this is any similar to self publishing, you could make more profit off of the books you sell than to send your book to a publishing company who would sell and market your books for you.

And to conclude my answer to this discussion question, I will reiterate, from my first sentence, that POD basically gave anyone the freedom to publish whatever he or she wants. For example, someone actually published a book of twitter’s posts. I don’t understand why the author would do that or why anyone would buy such a thing. Maybe as a physical record keeping book like to preserve memories or history in a printed form rather than a digital one? I just answered my own question. Maybe I should write a novel myself.

Chapter 1.9 Response / Alessandro Ludovico's Post Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894

The Death of Paper… Has Yet To Happen

I find it both funny and interesting people have been predicting that the death of paper for about a hundred years especially when it hasn’t happened yet and I predict that it will probably never happen. Print has stayed with us for centuries and if print has stayed with us for that long of a time like how people have, for the most part, always worn clothes, then it will probably never die. Many people still like to draw, paint or write in journals and sketchbooks. What would happen to the artists or writers who still prefer traditional types of media if we no longer produce paper? Well, of course, they’d get frustrated. Many also still prefer to read the newspaper, novels, or magazines. How would we be able to comply with these consumers needs if they'd rather want to read from a physical form rather than a 2-D digital one? And even if we have technology like nooks or kindles, there will always be people who would prefer to buy the physical copy (like me)? Thus, I believe that paper will still be a needed medium for everyone in the future, whether or not you’re an artist, writer or reader. Paper’s existence will continue to exist just for a while longer, if not forever.

Response to William H. Gass article: In Defense of the Book - Why Books Are Good

1. What, according to Gass, are the things about books that cannot be reproduced on screens? What do you think?

 Firstly, one huge difference between books and letters on the screen is that books are dimensional, portable objects that you can hold in your hand. Since the screen is 2-dimensional, any sort of note taking such as making annotations, quotes or interpretations would be quite tedious in comparison to having a copy of a book in your hand where flipping through the pages takes seconds and you have the freedom to scribble done notes with ease. Books can also be borrowed, pre-owned and by being pre-owned, they also have some sort of tattered history form the previous owner like when the author described that sometimes you would fine a lot of the previous owner’s junk in between the pages.

 2. Write about a particular book you own and take a photograph of it. Write about your history with it: how you found it and the ways it’s been a part of your life. This recollection need not be as intimate and affectionate as Gass’. It could be very matter of fact.

 This book is called Drawing People: How to portray the clothed figure. I received this book as a present from my cousin, Donna, who is studying to become an art teacher. She decided to give me this book as a gift since she knows I enjoy drawing/illustrating and from experience, she also believes the book is a great reference and thought it would probably help or guide me into improving my drawing skills. Yet, I have not really touched it ( and only skimmed the pages) ever since I received it in the mail last semester since I was busy with school and have been so distracted with other things that I haven’t had the time to draw or have been in the mood to draw at all. I’ll most likely pick it up one day in the future… basically, it’s been sitting on the shelf with all my other books. Also, while flipping through the pages, in between them was a cardstock sheet of paper of a quick Adventure Time illustration, autographed and drawn by Ristaino, who is an artist who works for Adventure Time as a character designer and storyboard artist. My cousin picked up this sketch for me when she went to the 2013 San Diego Comic Con during the summer. I just left in the book because I don’t know where else to place it and I’m afraid I’d lose it if I didn’t leave it in there.