Kick Ass!

I saw Kick Ass the other night, and I loved it. It's been awhile since I've enjoyed and been entertained by an action film. The plot is quite simple: a comic-book fanboy (Aaron Johnson) who gets inspired to become a real-life superhero. He runs around and calls himself Kick Ass in a tight green, wet suit look alike outfit. Spider man romance story is woven into the plot as hot high school classmate falls in love with the nerdy-geek boy. Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) come together motivated by vengeance to kill mafia-drug lord. Based on one of the best selling comics by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr...



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What's most intriguing to me while watching Kick Ass is the reminder of our new age. The first movie I remember seeing that reflected our society and internet advancement was in American Pie. Remember that scene when Jim is hoping to get lucky in his room with Nadia the (international student) and everyone awaits in secret on live webcam? Well Kick Ass has now taken a step ahead ..

Kick Ass became famous when stand byers recorded his fight with street criminals as evidence, which was quickly posted on YouTube and distributed all over the internet. Next thing you know, Kick Ass is a hero and  world-known celebrity, who is all over the news. The movie demonstrates and proves to us once again, the power of online technology, especially when empowered and driven by the force of people. Kick Ass was not short-lived news. He and (Red Mist) created a community around themselves on MySpace to communicate with their fans to help save people.

Check out the movie and let me know what you think!
See video Kick Ass trailer. From the ending of the movie, I'm assuming a sequel will be released in the future..

Dirty sexy gossip blogs

Here's a thought for the day. Online communities or blogs such as thedirty.com bring people together to trash talk and attack innocent people. Interesting thing you notice on these sites, people usually attack women leaving crude snarky comments about their physical looks and sexual behavior... hating on how fat this girl looks, how slutty they look, or how she will sleep with anybody. Whether or not these comments deem true, most of these women unknowingly have their pictures stolen by the attacker from either a myspace or facebook account, and you can only imagine how terribly embarrassing it would be to have a posting forwarded to you via email. 

These websites not only invade privacy, they also damage a person's reputation. Women who have seen themselves on these websites will face difficulties landing a job. Spreading gossip seems so easy to do over a click of a mouse, while victims of these websites go through extensive efforts to have the posting removed. Yet, will the defamation ever really be replaced?

Sadly, people still find these online gossip columns to be entertaining, guilty indulgence. Likewise, there are temptations to gossip about people you hate, since it's less confrontational and your identity is concealed.  It's an encouragement to those web attackers. No wonder web bullies still exist. 

Still, victims today are fighting hard to shut down these websites and find their trash talker. While commenters can be sued, they don't have the power to take down posts. On the other hand, websites are not liable for commenters' behaviors or actions. This is because they are protected by the terms and conditions of their online communities. All the power lies in the hands of the web owner, since he/she has rights to all content within the community. 

Most memorable from reading...

So how do we battle against these websites? Stop giving hate-spewers an audience.

How to protect yourself from online gossips?

1. Don’t post Girls Gone Wild-worthy shots of yourself on My Space, Facebook or anywhere they can be copied. On photo-sharing sites, use privacy settings.

2. Is someone saying malicious things about you online? E-mail a polite request to the site’s webmaster, asking that the offensive material be deleted.

3. You might consider calling in the pros, like ReputationDefender for about $15 a month. But, be aware: Web gossip is so hard to control that there are no guarantees.

Reference: Why are nice, normal girls getting bullied online?

First meeting - apoc 2010

I was a little surprised that this class entails mostly guest speakers. However, this seems logical to help us gain a general understanding about the industry. John Cole spoke during our first meet about the consolidation of print media companies as most of news content is rapidly growing and converted to digital space. In addition, the increase of broadband users have affected our daily lives. As broadband becomes more common, the cost will decrease and the use of broadband will be similar to that of electricity. Something that intrigued me was that notion that cable television may eventually become obsolete. As we begin to see cable television companies feel threatened by the internet. Eg. Time warner cable promotion, offering cable subscribers free viewing anywhere.

I have also signed up to volunteer for Twiistup coming up end of January. I'm still a little uncertain what or how this will turn out. However from my understanding, this is an tech0 industry conference/social event to give entrepreneurs a chance to shine and promote themselves. This will be interesting and I look forward to this..