Tré's Media Blog

Wikileaks is very close to something I can get behind. The concept is solid. I can get behind releasing classified information, even classified information that people don't want released, as long as it is done very carefully. I do not feel that the people at Wikileaks have been nearly careful enough. They have caused numerous problems with their releases, and endangered countless lives. One of the best examples I know of is the release of personal information about whereabouts, contact information, and political dealings of millions of Turkish citizens literally during the week of a coup. Wikileaks put all of their lives and livelihoods at risk (Ellis). Even Edward Snowden, who I respect much more on this topic than Wikileaks, and who I believe has tried much harder to be careful with then where and how things get released, has made mistakes. Wikileaks just comes off as near lazy by comparison, and that has had terrible consequences. But, like I said, I agree with the spirit of Wi...

I honestly felt that the "RiP! A Remix Manifesto" video was pretty bad. It is outdated, entitled, and factually inaccurate. To begin, the DRM issue is no longer relevant. It is not really a thing anymore. It isn't a major point, but it is there. Secondly the entire video comes across as entitled. Artists have a right to make money off of their work, and that is made much more challenging without legitimate copyright law enforcement. Do I feel copyright law has gotten out of hand? Sure. But even their main star character, Girl Talk, goes way too far in my mind. He does not, and should not have the right to just remix those songs and profit from it. It is not fair to those who own the copyrights. As much as he is remixing those songs, they are still distinctly recognizable as direct clips of other people's work, and those people need to be credited for the effort that they put into their own work. He deserves every fine thrown at him. The people in this video make vague...

Today I am going to be taking a good hard look at an advertisement campaign put out by the GOP known as the Mainstream Media Accountability Survey. It has been around since early 2017, but recently I have been seeing a version of it advertised during YouTube videos, and so it was brought back to my attention.. Despite how it might sound, this is most certainly an advertisement campaign, not a legitimate attempt at a survey. It is a poll consisting of twenty-five questions, many of which rank in the most biased, poorly worded, and leading questions I have ever read. I have seen a few different versions of it, which I will link to at the bottom, but all of them, as you might have guessed, mostly relate to mainstream media. Some of my favorite questions include "On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply)", "Do you believe that thee media unfairly reported on Trump's executive order temporarily rest...

Lately I had been seeing an add to put a measure on the Oregon ballot to remove the state's sanctuary status. This ad has been very confusing to me. All it says is that Oregon is currently a sanctuary state, and that "you" can help stop that my signing a petition to get the measure on the ballot. This doesn't seem very effective to me. I feel like the people who would care enough to sign such a thing already know about it, and by not explaining why they consider it to be a bad thing, they don't seem to be trying to make anyone new care. It just feels very redundant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuXWuqG3Ns8 So it isn't exactly new, but I want to talk about that Superbowl Tide ad. I think it is brilliant. It has integrated the idea of clean clothes as a whole throughout the entirety of advertising with Tide. It is funny, it makes you think, and now every time you see a commercial (for a least a little while after watching it) you are going to wonder if th...

Magic the Gathering advertising interestingly enough seems to almost completely ignore their own competitive scene. They consistently post pictures from casual weekly events, and fun looking groups playing at card shops rather than large tournaments. They also put a lot of effort into advertising the "fluff" of Magic thee Gathering: the lore, art, big flashy cards that don't necessarily see much actual play. Yesterday alone, they posted three tweets, two of which were about streamers playing magic and teaching people to play magic, and one about the lore of the set releasing tomorrow. This tells me that they are very clearly directing their advertising at new, younger players who are more interested in getting together with some friends at the card shop or around the kitchen table, and not to people looking for a competitive outlet. I would guess that this is reasonably effective, as the posts that are shared do look quite fun, although I am probably biased in that I alre...

My girlfriend and I have attempted somewhat successfully to limit the amount we use our phones just before bed. It is better for our ability to sleep, and does help facilitate more meaningful conversation between the two of us. Overall, it has not been too large of a problem in other areas though. I currently have 5 games installed on my phone, and as for my computer, I will go by steam games alone, because trying to account for all of my games would be an incredible challenge. I currently have 18 of the 143 games that I own on steam installed on my computer. Of those, a full half of them are either building or exploration based, examples including ARK: Survival Evolved, Subnautica, Terraria, and Portal Knights. I very much enjoy the feeling of exploration and building, both of which are things I would like to translate more into my real life, but often cost significantly more to do than just buying a game for it.In a week, I probably spend around 10-14 hours playing video games. I pr...

I made a twitter specifically for this occasion. I am now following Donald Trump, NPR, and thee Washington Post. I was drawn to the news posted by NPR on the resignation of Scott Pruitt. I have strongly disagreed with much of what Pruitt has done in office, both in terms of policy, and in terms of corruption. I am very glad to see him go. While I do not personally use social media very much at all, I do feel that they are a huge boon to people's ability to obtain information and a benefit to democracy. Yes, echo chambers are a serious problem, but it is almost certainly still significantly better than a lack of the internet itself. People are still getting a lot more information than they used to, and they can still easily look up or find information that would be outside of their echo chamber, which is bound to happen to at least some extent, whether it comes through passing a TV on a station you don't normally watch, or overhearing coworkers who disagree with you. People ca...