PDP

SO ive got to have personal development plan havent i really, any good student should.

By having one i can...

1. Organise my goals
2. Work towards targets
3. Be more structured
4. Increase productivity

So here it is......

Rhetoric, and the art of persuasion, or the art of getting what you want.

SO being a former english a level student i should know my stuff here shouldnt i, well sort of, but i do know how powerfull the art of persuasion is. Throguh time this "art" has been used in many diffrent cultures and societies to influence the way in which people think. There are so many persuasive lagnuage tools at the disposal of any given writer that listing them would make for a very good wikipedia page, however this is my blog, not wikipedia. However in a video example below i will refernce to a few of these techniques.

Persuasion can be used in form of writing and video, a perfect example is a film called 9/11 loose change.





Loose change basically provides an hours worth of footage and commentary on how 9/11 is a conspiracy theory, plotted by the American government. Now this video has time and time again been proved wrong but many people go on to believe its message, why? Well first the footage is very select, meaning that the creators are only allowing you to see what they want you to see, on top of this the commentary by one of the creators is in such a tone, and provides so many facts that it makes for a very believable take on the events of 9/11. This all being down to the art of persuasion, and at the end of the day that's what the creators are trying to do, change peoples views via a film.



Rhetoric is perhaps an outdated discourse, dating back to ancient Greece. Compiled of logos, pathos and ethos, meaning grammar logic and dialectic, all of which were taught as separate disciplines however we have seen a cultural shift into which all three are taught under one subject (English). However as of the turn of the last century many believe that rhetoric is making a firm comeback and has made way for modern theorists.






HOW IS IT USED?

1. 
   
   Language tools such as the repetition of three, metaphors and similes indent information into the human mind.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   The way in which an argument is structured.
   
   
   
3. Making grammatical sense
   

WHY?

1. 
   
   You use it every day, so much in fact that its subconscious
   
   
   
2. 
   
   When arguing
   
   
   
3. When persuading a point of view
   

WHEN?
Every debate, every speech, every complaint, the list is endless but its such a part of our lives that we don't realise it. The art of persuasion is indeed a powerful one. My most intimate experience with it, was when i was in Gran Canaria and the only English channel i could watch was SKY news. At the time the presidential race was about to reach its climax and in honesty i was gripped by the speeches made by Barrack Obama. History was made and his speech will indeed go down in history, the following extract is my favourite line as i feel its not only persuasive but reaches out to every American that was holding on to the hope of change, and in a few small words he gave the people what they wanted to hear, thus changing their mindset.



" it's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America. " - Barrack Obama November 2008

Manifesto

 SO im going to make my own manifesto, thats right me.

Well i realise i wouldn't be a very good politician party leader, but making a manifesto isn't too hard, is it? Well in the position of power like any party leader is, they have to construct a manifesto that pleases the mindset of the majority and that's hard. However i found out though research that a party doesn't have to carry out any of the manifesto if elected, seriously?! what the hell is going on there! Anyway i had a look at a few current manifesto's i especially liked the monster raving looney parties manifesto    and found that there is a certain structure to compiling one, mostly in the form of a list. So here's mine on the subject of  gentleman's toilet etiquette

1. 
   
     No man should ever stand in the urinal next to an existing man 
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Conversation is not allowed as this makes for uncomfortable moments
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Wash hands before and after package handling
   
   
   
4. 
   
    The splash zone should be considered before choosing a urinal
   
   
   
5. 
   
   If freshen up chants are started only join in if you know at least one person singing
   
   
   
6. 
   
   The subject of endowment should never be brought up under any circumstance
   
   
   
7. 
   
   Urinal camping is disallowed, this is when a man seeks to stand behind a currently in use urninal so that he may use it next, instead a que should form
   
   
   
8. If a female is brought into the sanctuary of the men's toilet they will be shot at the first dawn.
   

Who needs an autobiography when youve got HYPERLINKS!

SO  wasnt too sure how to go about this task, or even what to write. So i kept it simple i wrote some basic information about myself that was key in my life and hyperlinked to websites that related to the word. Not only does what ive wrote give the reader information but the hyperlink is relevant to what ive wrote, and provdied me with some very interesting information about my life. Enjoy!

My name is Ben Paul Quinney. I was born at Marston green hospital on the 7th of April 1990.

I lived in Birmingham until the age of 14 before moving near to coventry.



Before coming to university i took a gap year in which i mostly worked and partied.
I spent 2 weeks in orlando florida, 2 weeks in ibiza , 2 weeks in gran canaria and 1 weekend at creamfields festival.



My main intrest in life is music, i live for it. Mostly house but also the really dirty stuff like dubstep and DnB.

I am also a huge Aston villa fan!



I have one brother named George who is about to turn 12 years old and parents of which i wont mention their ages but that's my family.



My claim to fame is being in the website be at tv, on several videos i can be seen dancing around from various events ive been to.



I currently attend plymouth university and love it!

Social : The Media's most powerfull weapon. Part 2

A flock of birds, a heard of cattle, a group of humans. All operate ona  network, and im not talknig about tmobile or orange, no what i mean is that living oragnisms operate on a network of information, this is especially evident in mass media that we as humans are exposed to.

Social : The Media's most powerfull weapon. Part 1

Social media can be said to have three components;

1. 
   
   Concept (art, information, or meme).
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
   
   
   
3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print). (WIKIPEDIA)
   

SO im not going to be boring and explain what media is as its easy to identify, however when you dive deep into how media interacts and influences our lives, that's when it become interesting.....


 We have become a nation that relies on technology, from contacting friends to writing this very blog. As time moves on there is more things we can do with our impressive library of gadgets. We are so reliant on technology that the loss of information on a computer or no internet access can be devastating to work or die hard facebook users. Its a sad thought to know we are probably the laziest humans through the progress of time, but do we care? of course not were only interested in telling our friends on certain social media platforms that we've got a hot new date for tonight, as interesting as that is, and it is, its perhaps useless information that is being shared amongst everyone at an alarming speed.



COMMUNICATION is perhaps the best reference for this. Have a look at my time line...



Letters > Telegrams > Telephone > Text messaging > Email > Instant chat > Statusing ( Facebook/twitter) 

 Over time the medium in which to communicate has vastly changed and with it the amount of information that can be sent via these methods. From it taking days for a letter of love to reach a loved one to now being able to send multiple declarations of love within second, although that's probably going to land you in some sort of trouble.



SO as mass communication has evolved so has the way in which media uses it.

I found this graphic very interesting. Instantly you cane see the vast amount of companies depicted and the various methods in which they operate. Take a look at the outer blue circles, i bet anyone reading this uses at least 5 of them, i know i do. With that in mind, think about how we all gain our information, how we all take what's said to us or put in front of us and most of the time take it on-board as reality and truth.



Newspapers are the best example of this, we pick it up, read it and believe every word, i mean why would it be published if it wasn't real? Of course were not that stupid and do take newspaper articles with a pinch of salt. There is a website called The Onion.
It is a database of joke news articles, but most believable, which plays on the fact how we as society believe most of what we see distributed in the form of mass communication. 



Touching on the subject of mass communication we know that the internet is now the most dominant force among the tools available to any given media company.
Due to the internet being an information highway of the world we can literally find out anything.We can buy anything, look at anything, read anything etc. It is indeed incredible the amount of information that is stored in one single source, and its available at the click of a button. However we don't usually examine where any given piece of information has come from. The fact that any person on earth can now go on to the internet and publish anything they want is alarming and amazing at the same time, of course the media is well versed in this field. Any user can spend no more than 5 minutes innocently browsing the net before they come across adverts, pop ups and articles advertising products and displaying certain news bulletins, information that perhaps would have taken days to each years ago. The power of advertising is phenomenal. It influences how we spend our money, our time and our lives.

“There is no such thing as society”

“There is no such thing as society”
Margaret Thatcher
Interview for Woman's Own (Sep 23 1987)



SO "The social" is a very intrsting and thought provoking subject. We started to explore all the diffrent social/media formats and investigate the diffrent networks we as humans operate on. 



Definition:  The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals). It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary. (WIKIPEDIA)



In my opinion this refrence to the term social is one i would agree with. For me it perfectly sums up what we mean when we use the words social. 



I took this term a step further and subtly listened out for when myself and friends used the term.
The main use seemed to be when describing a person....
" He's quite sociable" , " She's not very sociable with us"

For me its clear that when used in this context, "social" is referring to the friendship network and to how there is a general consensus that being sociable means doing stuff together. I also saw an interesting example on wikipedia..



"Another common meaning of a "social" in English-speaking countries such as Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia is that of a leisure-time gathering with food and drink, organised by an institution, association, or company. A distinguishing feature is that it is deliberately organised at a venue at a predetermined time. Thus one might say, "are you going to the social?", meaning a social event by some organisation."(WIKIPEDIA)






In relation to the quote referenced at the top by a former Prime minister we have to look a bit deeper. First of all i do in no way shape or form agree with this quote, why? Ill explain...



First of all, when looking at quotes you have to realise your only looking at a certain part of the entirety, of what was said. So i had a look at the statement in its entirety.

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987



So what i gain from this quote now, that she is referring to the social relationship between the government and the people. It could be argued that there is no social between the government and the people as its them doing and enforcing and the people ( us ) abiding. However i think that the government works on the basis of what the majority want to see happen in their country, therefore creating a social relationship. 



Secondly to say the fraction quoted at the beginning of the post, is in my opinion complete crap!



SO what do i think?

• 
  
  Society provides a means of communication "Tracks of communication" - Mentioned in my previous post.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Society is the foundation in which any given person grows up in.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Society differs from country to country, town to town.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Society is compiled of all the living organisms that live inside of it.
  
  
  
•  Society is the realm in which to be "social" in
  

Now without getting to philosophical, i believe that society itself is simply a reason for living, maybe even the meaning of life? Think about that.......

I am a map, a map i am.

SO in our first sessions, points had been made about online identity. Some very thought provoking questions were put forward..

• 
  
  Who shapes the knowledge that we know?
  
  
  
• 
  
  Is our identity really our own?
  
  
  
• How do we connect in the social? and so on..
  
• How much do we know about ourselves? and so on..
  

This made me question my own identity, predominately being in the form of a facebook profile.
SO In this mind map, i thought about where i gain my ideas and information from and soon realised that nothing i knew, made, believed, and liked was anything of my own, a sort of depressing fact, however still very interesting. At the centre of this map i have a cloud representing myself, but drawing to it i have several lines, which i like to call the train tracks of communication. Via these " Tracks" i interact with other people in which information is shared and ideas are born. Of course this works on a two way process thus there is an arrow showing the flow of information can be directed both ways accordingly. This track system works across the board especially with education, as we are taught by other people with a constant feed of knowledge.



SO with that in mind, you can see that such topics as education are fed by other peoples knowledge, which leaves me to believe that as we move forward and as time goes on most ideas will have no originality and be purely sculpted from existing ones, however the "tracks" of of communication that provide peoples identity will be something new, e.g. people have different movie tastes, and the information that a certain film provides to any given person can be taken differently.


It was also interesting to see that people had took very different approaches with this task, no self map was designed the same, which arguably gave each person an identity, right down to the colours used on each map.

 

My ideas, my blog and my hand.

SO here's 3 different images of my left hand, i experimented with lighting a little and different ways of shaping my hand. Ive settled on using the left most image for my assignment, this is because i like the way the light exposure creates a dark side and a light side on my hand which i could use to represent bad and good points of myself.

The hand of exploration.

SO after reading the tattooing brief, i was quite inspired to go in search of other similar works, in order for me to gain a certain perspective on how to represent different autobiographical facts. Perhaps the most subtle way to do this is how i take the picture of my hand. I began to see that the way in which the hand is positioned can greatly represent a persons well-being. These four image are extremely good at showing different emotions in my opinion.

          


The leftmost image best suits this project, it enables more surface area in which to describe autobiographical facts, the image suggests that the person is an open book, however i think its a bit to standard. 

The top right image could suggest love or affection, but the fact that the hand is turned over might suggest a closed booked relationship, and that's not what i'm going for. Especially since that according to certain beliefs the lines on the palm of peoples hands represent certain aspects of their lives, which is interesting concept i'm going to explore.

The bottom left image is a more artistic approach, however after considering the palm lines concept, it clearly highlights them, so i think i may try out this angle.



Finally the bottom right image is connotes locked feelings and hardship. The handcuffs are indeed a clear give-away but even without them i think its clear to see that this person is trying to represent the feeling of sorrow, loss or maybe something as simple as thinking time.

SO    s i went a bit more depth into the realm of palm lines/palm reading all that crap. Not too sure what to make of it in terms of believability, i myself am quite sceptic. However its interesting all the same.












I plan to use the information on this video to start to map out certain autobiographical facts. 

Evaluation

So after many hours, many cups of tea, and many frustrating moments my site is done,

www.busy-signal.co.uk

Im quite proud of what I've accomplished, and feel I've learnt a lot through this assignment.

Stage 6 Reflection:

 

What im happy with....

• My layout turned out the way i wanted it to
  
• My JavaScript, something i struggled with, works perfectly.
  
• I managed to incorporate code and designs that i wanted
  
• It looks the same in all browsers
  
• I feel i can confidently do this again
  
• My contact form looks neat, and works perfectly
  
• My knowledge on coding is more secure
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
  What I'm not happy about
  • My logo doesn't blend quite rightly into the header
  • MY html fails, this is my biggest flaw, and even though most was corrected I failed to correct the rest
  
  
  
  So there you have it a complete website, id like to thank chris for all the information provided and the help given.
  
  
  

stepping into the realm of validation

SO my website was done, design coded and live, good. Now came the validation of the code,

Using http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ and http://validator.w3.org/ .

First up my CSS file, was successful in being validated, no problems what so ever I even gained an icon in which I would proudly display on my website.

It was all going to well until...

Stage 4 Validation doesn't like me:

        Certain errors had been found in the html..

 This was a simple fix, and like many of the others on my pages. I managed to correct all that had not been validated, however this brought on a series of unfortunate events...

 

  I responded to these errors but no matter what i tired it still failed to validate, i searched the internet and came back with nothing. Errors such as these have resulted in my html failing to validate, which is very very annoying! I am not sure hot solve these problems and therefore cannot pass html validation. At first every page had a warning, due there being no charset, which was easily fixed by inserting

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

  Into the header of each page, but this still did not fix those bloody errors.

JavaScript friend or foe?

SO all had been going well, the html was near enough done, the hyper links all worked and my template looked as it should look. My pages were complete, my form was set up all and I was pretty dam pleased with myself, I even had fun with the html making an image change on mouseover on my about section via this code.

 <img  src="images/family.jpg"
         onmouseover="this.src='images/kissy.jpg'"
         onmouseout="this.src='images/family.jpg'"/> 

Stage 3 Javascript: 

First off i did what was necessary and that was to validate my form. We had done validation in practicals so i refereed to the lecture slides in order to gain vital information. However on first attempts my code refused to work, very frustrating. JavaScript seemed to be laughing in my face. My form was being sent to sam-i-am, but it just wouldn't validate, why not? At the time I cocouldn't work it out so I took a much needed break.

On returning to look very closely at my code, i first realised that i was missing simple IF statements, a stupid error i know. Upon even further inspection i noticed that the dreaded caps lock key had been neglected the whole time, was this a moment of clarity? YES IT WAS!! my script now worked perfectly, pop ups graced my screen when fields were left blank or an invalid email address was submitted.

Now i could move on. I wanted to make it clear to the user that they would be navigating away from my website upon clicking the blog and facebook links on my sidebar. Again i would have to use JavaScript.

The main part of the code that enabled me to do this was this here..

  <script type="javascript">
function leaveConfirm2() {
if (confirm("Proceeding will direct you to my Facebook page,do you wish to continue?")) {
window.location.href = "http://www.facebook.com/benquinney/";
}
return false;
}
</script>

<script type="javascript">
function leaveConfirm() {
if (confirm("Proceeding will direct you to my Blog,do you wish to continue?")) {
window.location.href = "http://benqdat.blogspot.com/";
}
return false;
}
</script>  

At first this code would not work but I soon found out why. I required a second piece of code here..

<a href="http://benqdat.blogspot.com/"onclick="return leaveConfirm();"> 

Success! The user was now prompted when clicking both sidebar links, but a minor error still remained.

At first i had the same slice of code for both my blog link and facebook, this was easily fixed by using.

<a href="http://benqdat.blogspot.com/"onclick="return leaveConfirm2();"> 

This gave the second onclick its own unique id.

So there we have it my JavaScript was nicely polished and inserted into my html files. My website was now live and I felt a sense of accomplishment. Lets see if the validator agrees..... 

Under construction and friends.

So now came the tricky part, coding the dam thing. So with my PSD file all nicely prepared i was ready to start exporting it to the web. 

Stage 2: HTML and friends:

The onslaught of the coding has began, and my ideas and pouring out although executing them has proved harder than expected.
My CSS file was first needed to be edited in order to repeat the header slice, and footer slice along the x axis.
 #footer { 
   background: url(images/footer-slice_17.jpg) repeat-x;

I also needed to set it perfectly for all browsers in terms of fonts. So i set up a font family to enable 3 different selections in case the user is missing one. Whilst on the subject of CSS I found creating the styling relatively easy, even though some playing around with the padding was required to make things look the same in both Firefox and I.E it was simple to do. After the first bits of html and CSS things were starting to take shape....

As you can see its nowhere near as it should look, but i was certainly on my way. I used text filler that Chris provided in the practicals to see where my text would go and hwo it would eventually look, very useful.
All seemed to be going well, then JavaScript reared its ugly head....

Busy signal is born!

So, getting started was hard, I wanted a decent URL that coincided with my subject area of technology, and from something of an epiphany the name busy signal was born. With the name now in mind web space and a domain name was purchased and i was ready to set off on my quest of making a half decent website.

Stage 1: The birth:

With a sort of theme in mind i set out to make a simple yet relatively attractive looking web template.

I found it hard once again to get started, trying out various colour schemes and layouts, things started to get complicated, i was trying to be too complex. So I settled for a simple header, footer, sidebar and content box.

 

So there we go, not too shabby eh? Although not too great either. With a colour scheme and layout i could then develop the rest of the layout, font, font size etc.

So this si busy signals womb, its ready to be born its all nicely designed, sliced, saved and exported ready for the web and saved in appropriate folders. Now the tricky part stage 2......

Wish you were here!!

SO here we go, here's my idea of what perhaps one of the more noticeable buildings in stonehouse could look like in 20 years time. I wanted my postcard to reflect how i think stonehosue would look in twenty years time obviously, and i wanted it to send a clear message. I think that if the council were to receive this card it might be striking as a message. Ive tried to put across that stonehouse could become an area of rebellion against the council for such neglect and mistreatment. So the postcards message is from the perspective of a rebel resident to others wishing to join the rebellion. A little far fetched maybe but take into account how the world is slowly starting to divide itself via different societies over issues such as race and beliefs.

• 
  
  
  
  The road has been removed, and union street has been abandoned, left to mother natures devices.
• 
  
  
  
  The building work has deteriorated beyond recognition and repair.
• 
  
  
  
  Plans for demolition of union street are announced but probably not taken into action.
• 
  
  
  
  

  The are of the city becomes a crime/drug haven.

All positive things really......... Oh yeah, wish you were here!

Urban decay and friends.

SO i started wondering how to go about this postcard theme. Stonehouse could be regenerated, revitalised and rebuilt, super, but it could also continue to decay and deteriorate. I hadn't thought much about what would happen if it was left to rot, so i looked up the theme of urban decay. These are 3 images i think best sum up the theme. Its amazing to see how if left to their own devices urban structures can rapidly fall apart and, let  mother nature slowly takes its grip. After having a look at urban decay i decided to have a crack at fusing it into an image from stonehouse.

So heres what ive come to realise.

Plymouth is a city stuck between rapid new development and rapid deterioration. I read a fair amount of future plans for Plymouth and it all looks promising, but being a student so interested in aesthetics of city landscapes, its frustrating to see the city's buildings falling apart. To me the WW2 bombing runs still hold a presence today.
SO i want to change that.

1. I first looked at cities from around the world, particularly focusing on New York and Tokyo. Now both these cities are extremely modern with a bustling lifestyle. The architecture of both cities is high rise where possible and laid out in block formation. However the neon, high rise and busy aesthetics didn't seem to suit that of stonehouse.
   
2. USA, ASIA, PRETTY MUCH REST OF THE WORLD
   
   
   
3. So i decided to look a bit closer to home. Leeds and Birmingham( My home town by the way :D woohoo) are two cities which i love being in. Not only are the facilities fantastic, the entire architecture of both is very pleasing and at times amazing. Birmingham itself underwent a massive cultural redevelopment in the form of the bullring shopping centre. What s interesting about these cities is that both combine the old with the new, a topic that I think Plymouth is trying to achieve.

wish you were here, not quite.

So now I have to begin thinking about how i want the area of stonehouse to look in say 20 years time. Ideally I'd like to see a massive redevelopment that incorporates architectural brilliance, with masses of money invested, but this is perhaps a bit unrealistic, even though some regeneration is present. SO my idea.....

Due to the stonehouse area's extensive history it would be good to see that history incorporated into new aesthetically pleasing developments, combining both old and new. Union street should really be returned to its roots of a mass entertainment strip of either both theatre or nightclub orientated. But both have nearly vanished. Two huge clubs sit dormant on union street, one (The dance academy) with the owners serving a jail sentence and the other with a £1.2M asbestos problem. No sign of anything happening there then!

So really if anything with the current attitude of public and council stonehouse is going to continue to deteriorate, shame really but i think a clear message needs to be sent.

It seems like an easy idea, but im going to have a browse for some inspiration so with that said, i think a tea break is in order.

Quinney returns to stonehouse.

I decided to go back to stonehouse to the area of highest interest which was the run down yet ever popular union street. Using my iphone i took many of pictures that would give anyone a clear insight into Stonehouse.