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I was in a store last week and saw a shelf of cassette recorders, and I was surprised, because I did not think they still produced them. Does anyone use them anymore? I have not used one since I was about 10 or 11 years old back in the seventies. Getting a cassette recorder for Christmas was a real big deal, before boom boxes came along and became popular.
That is how you recorded your music from the radio. There was no CD collection. There was a record and album collection, and your cassette tape collection.
I remember as if it were yesterday, setting that recorder up, next to a speaker box, and pressing the record and play button. I grew up in a city where there was a black owned (still is) radio station, and on Sunday’s you recorded gospel.
After the gospel program, a Spanish music program followed. When you recorded your music, you had to hang around for the song to finish, so you would not record the commercials. On New Year’s Day, they would play the top 100 songs of the previous year, so you would have to have ten 90 minute cassette tapes ready along with batteries if you lost the plug. The playback was awful, now that I have CD quality to compare it to, but back then, that word “awful” never came to mind. As poor as the sound quality was, I don't recall ever having a discussion with anyone about it or even thinking about how bad the sound was. I was just happy to have a copy of one of my favorite songs. Those were the days…
Companies/entrepreneurs are coming up with “innovative” ways to market and advertise to us, and it seems as if we can’t get away from cameras when we go out into the public domain. This will probably never change, but the fact that a computer program details what types of ads to show me based on what I look like (stereotypes)…seems, well, very biased.
I think I’d be ready to blow a gasket, if suddenly, based on my appearance-- weave, watermelon, and fried chicken ads appeared. I do like watermelon…no, love watermelon, and enjoy homecooked fried chicken, along with tons of other things, but you get my point.
“They are equipping billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by—their gender, approximate age, and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database. The goal, these companies say, is to tailor a digital display to the person standing in front of it—to show one advertisement to a middle-aged white woman, for example, and a different one to a teenage
Asian boy.” READ MORE...
Check out this video produced by Quividi, which produces audience measurement software. In the video, the video software captures the activity of shoppers while they browse and make purchases in a store. Quividi in Action
Check out Motomedia's StreetlevelBillboardsTM. Can you visualize one of those digital billboard ads changing (in front of your face) to another product based on what you look like? What I am reading is, the tracking is similar to statistical tracking website stat software does. But our browser can't see what color we are or how old we are or tell our age. Well...can it?!
The first international Blogging While Brown conference in Atlanta is approaching. So if you are a blogger, a reader, or someone with a general interest it sounds like an interesting event to attend.
Event Details from the conference website:
The most important role of the conference is to share knowledge. The conference will promote intellectual, social, and cultural development of the blogoshere by bringing technologically savvy people from all over the world together in one place for the first time in history.
The conference will feature numerous opportunities to interact in person with other bloggers and blog readers. There will be workshops, seminars, panels, deminstrations and small group.
Conference Schedule
Friday, July 25, 2008
Fox Sports Grill, Atlantic Station
“Meet and Greet”. . . 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Georgia World Congress Center Registration . . . . . . . . . . 8:30AM to 9:30AM
Workshops, Panels, & Keynotes ..9:30AM to 5:00PM
Reception . . . . . . . .5:30 PM
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Sun Dial Restaurant
Brunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11:30AM
http://www.BloggingWhileBrown.com
According to this Washington Post article, the video game Grand Theft Auto is about to be released and this will be the 4th product release. The violence promoting video game has an "M" rating which means "Mature," and can be sold to customers over 16 years of age. But the game Grand Theft Auto (GTA IV) is more popular than before with kids in the 12-14 year old age group.
The article also notes: "The game, to be released Tuesday for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, hits all the hot buttons: It contains "blood," "intense violence," "partial nudity," "strong language," "strong sexual content" and "use of drugs and alcohol." " READ MORE...
Do parents who harbor these games in their homes, think this is just innocent entertainment? It would be interesting to get a comment from someone with children in this age group who actually has this game at home. We know you're out here on the web. Do they just bury there head in the sand and think: It's just fun and it keeps them busy? I wonder what parents think about this or do they think at all?
Do you have a child support story that needs to be told? Mother or Father--Need to put a deadbeat on notice? Want to help in getting some new child support legislation? Child Support Tv is a site I heard about on The Warren Ballentine Show yesterday. He had a congressman on there and they were discussing child support legislation.
I think Warren is behind this site or at least supports it, but they are looking to have 1 Million stories told. Therefore, you can make a video of your story and upload it to the site. You know. Like YouTube, only difference is, this isn't for fun.
Here is a random video from the site. Nice story to send to a deadbeat parent, whether that person is a man OR woman.
Reference: www.childsupporttv.com
I turned on my screen, came back and thought a virus had taken over my screen. Google, made it's homepage black in what it calls a "gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour." Now that really forces you to think about conservation. That is clever! With the price of gas, I didn't need that reminder, because my wallet automatically goes into the default conservation mode.
However, while we are on the subject of conservation: Yesterday, I was just thinking about how wasteful we are, and when I throw my trash away, how many more landfills will he have? Will future generations have to live side by side with trash? Hospitals waste so much plastic, and one employee can use an entire box of gloves or two during one shift. It's nice when we can go and use the toilet, press that magic handle and flush everything away. What if we no longer have that luxury? I see urban cities littered with trash. Where are the "keep it clean" campaigns?
Then I think about how people fight and quarrel over land, as if we created this land with our own hands. We don't OWN anything, everything is on loan to us. Look at that hugh glacier/iceberg that broke off this week, I wonder how many people had a discussion about this and the future implications of this happening? We really need to be kind to earth, before earth becomes angry with us and will return the favor, and not be so kind to us.
No one likes to recycle, because "it's too inconvenient" or "I don't have time to...," or only "certain people" recycle, but one day we will wish we had.
Over the weekend I was in a department store and there was a lady on the phone in the women's clothing department. She happened to be on her cell phone. Along came a lady with three young kids probably all under 9 years old and they were misbehaving, just a litttle bit.
They were being somewhat unruly in the form of hiding under the clothing racks and chasing each other as if they were playing tag. Not too noisy, but apparently noisy enough for the lady on the cell phone. She told the woman with the kids in an elevated tone, "I'm on the phone! Can you tell your kids to be quiet!?" The woman with kids just responded, "Excuse me?" and gave the cell phone lady a dirty look. The cell phone lady just rolled her eyes, kept gabbing, and sifting through the clothes on the rack. I was just snickering under my breath.
She had some nerve to tell someone to shut their kids up, because she is ON THE PHONE, in a PUBLIC SETTING....LOL, I don't condone violence, but I see why some people get...
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