Process Post #9: Thoughts on Analytics

Analytics are tools used across different social media platforms. I am most familiar with Instagram’s analytics, and it also helps track my screen time use on the app itself. I keep track of the reports on Instagram since I hold a public account. I like to see insights on how my posts are doing and the rundown of how many users interact with my account. I mainly post dance content on Instagram (some are published on my movement page) and analyze how my audience on Instagram grows which helps build a bigger dance community. Insights like these do help guide you in knowing the progress of your business/accounts, although as discussed an invasion of privacy is at risk.

For tools like these to collect data, they need to also collect personal information from your phone (number, location, etc.) and about the environment, the user is in, (Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us 2016). A conversation from the Pod Academy states that a phone comes with a series of sensors that run background information which transfers from the phone to cell towers, which can also be communicated to the internet where others and sites can gain information about you (Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us 2016).

Tieing into KeptCollexion, I have Google Analytics plugged into my site. It gives me tips on how to improve my site and reports the overall health of my site. Currently, my site’s status reports as “Good” and suggests that I improve my site’s performance and security factors. It’s good to know what steps to take to upgrade my website, but a risk I am taking is the exposure of personal data collected.

Reflecting today, I think it’s challenging to keep everything private once you own a mobile device or some computer since these devices run a constant background cache of data and personal information. It’s something that can’t be avoided unless you decide to go deviceless. Think of it now, TVs and smart homes do the same. It is just the way technology runs today, but it also reflects our responsibility to how we use these devices and what we choose to share and install.

Reference:

Pod Academy. (2016, May 3). Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. Pod Academy. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/

Report Analytics. (2017). PNG Tree. photograph. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://pngtree.com/freepng/report-analytics-audit-business-data-marketing-paper-blue_4772977.html.

Intermittent Fasting

I have been intermittent fasting for the last two days to months; let me tell you, it is hard! My health has been taking a toll on me because I often find myself exhausted halfway through the day and constantly feeling sluggish, so I knew something had to change. Then, I came across Intermittent Fasting, where you must start eating at a particular time and stop eating at a specific time. So I eat my first meal at 9:00 am and stopped eating at 5:00 pm. I thought at first that this would be easy. I mean, all you have to do is stop eating after a certain period of time, right? NOT!! I struggled not to snack on anything when I ate my last meal at 5:00 pm the first night. I remember feeling so many emotions; I was irritable and couldn’t do it. I never knew it could impact me in this way. I sat in the room and felt like I wanted to cry; that’s how tough it was on me. But, with time and the right mindset, I got past my first hurdle, the first week of fasting. I allowed myself to have one cheat day, and I got too comfortable with it around week four, and I broke my fasting for five days!! I ate my favorite foods, and I let it get-go for five days, and I said to myself, “I give up,” My partner reassured me that I could do it, and in the end, I started all over again. Now that I am hitting my two-month mark, I have noticed some significant changes, I get whole way faster, and it is still hard not to snack after 5:00 pm, but it has gotten way more manageable. Overall, this is working for me. I am down seven pounds and will continue my journey till I reach my goal.

The post Intermittent Fasting appeared first on Kayla's Blog.

Terrible 2’s going into Terrible 3’s

My daughter was an angel when she just turned two, but the terrible two’s started to kick in when she was around 19 months things took a turn. My daughter is now struggling to work with her emotions and displaying her motions very harshly. The tantrums! she has a meltdown almost every day, especially when it is bedtime or when she needs to get ready in the morning daycare, anything that triggers her, she screams her head off. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL! I am having a hard time with this phase. I am trying to teach her to use gentle hands and use her words when she is upset because hitting and yelling get her nowhere. Now that she is turning three next month, on April 8th, and soon going on the “big kid” side at daycare, she will need to learn how to use her words and deal with the situation that may arise at daycare while playing with her friends. Also, no one tells you they refuse to eat dinner when they are around this age!! All they want is snacks and cereal.

My first baby is turning!! I can’t believe it. Isabella and I are on a learning journey together, and we will learn how to deal with emotions and grow together. I want to set a good example for my children and instill in their brains that they always have myself and their dad in their corner. In time, this phase will be behind us, and in the meantime, I want to spend every moment with them while they are still young because I will never get these moments back.

The post Terrible 2’s going into Terrible 3’s appeared first on Kayla's Blog.

Mini-Assignment 4 (remixes)

Remixing is my bread and butter as a designer. I learnt how to use photoshop while making photo compositions and love to utilize those skills to this day.

Here are three posters I have designed which utilize the concept of remix. All these posters feature their source images from the covers of 1950s golden age comic books. I have doctored the images, manipulated, transformed, recoloured, and gave them extensive typographic treatment.

All three images are a series of advertisements for my philosophy undergraduate journal: Jove’s Bodega.

I hope you enjoy!

Jove's Bodega poster 1

Jove's Bodega poster 2

Jove's Bodega poster 3

Essay: On AI bans in Academia (PUB101)

Word Count: 1197

Slovenian cultural philosopher Slavoj Žižek once explained to a general audience:

“As important as providing answers is…[philosophy] can ask the right questions. There are not only wrong answers, but there are also wrong questions. Questions which deal with a real problem but the way they are formulated, they obfuscate, mystify and confuse the problem [sic].”1

Here, Žižek draws from the long-honoured tradition of the Socratic method. As the stories go, Socrates would accost the knowledgeable men of ancient Athens and question their expertise. The result was always the same: The artists knew little about beauty, the generals knew little about courage, and the leaders demonstrated an insufficient understanding of justice. Why? Because we all harbour unexamined beliefs, and those presuppositions affect our worldview and, subsequently, how we think, act, and shape what we presume is possible. However, the right questions reveal our judgements as limited. Through this process, we can begin to unpack why and how we come to these wrong answers and seek better ones—but first, ask the right questions.

Fast-forward to the end of 2022. Artists, politicians, academics, and everyone on Reddit had contracted fevered anxieties over Open AI’s ChatGTP and Midjourney. It is not a new subject, but one that ebbs into popularity as new problems arise; and is expected to increase as machine learning is further developed and implemented. It is a complex phenomenon with far-reaching material and social dimensions that we have yet to comprehend fully, adding to our collective anxieties. It is as though we are ‘The Mouse’ in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, wearing our wizard hat. We may automate brooms to fetch us water, but what will happen when our machines act out their directives too well? Or at the cost of a catastrophe? We may even discover, as did the Apprentice, that we cannot prevent them from executing the tasks we gave them. 

The most common question one will likely encounter is, “should we ban AI in academia, art galleries, or other specific places or fields of discourse?” While this question can be applied in moderation, for example, limiting AI art from art galleries ensures that human art is celebrated, the position to ban AI in academia is a wrong question which only mystifies the challenges ahead. 

Let us grant for argument’s sake that AI should be banned in schools. What does this mean? In one interpretation, a ban might broadly affect all instances and uses of machine learning in academic writing and research. In contrast, a narrow effect might focus on the most uninspired academic frauds so brazen as to copy-paste complete exposition and argumentation verbatim. 

In the latter narrow sense, some promise is offered in anti-plagiarism AIs which check texts for signs of being generated. In a survey of testing 100 false positive texts (text which humans had failed to identify as generated), preliminary studies showed that AI could isolate a series of common patterns of speech that were indicative of generated text.2 However, the effectiveness of using AI to detect AI plagiarism is not guaranteed to remain an effective solution for long. This is because machine learning is highly iterative, and the mistakes it makes today are likely to be absent tomorrow, which means we will need increasingly more complex checks and balances to catch the more clever forms of academic dishonesty.  

If our ban is targeted in a broader sense to prevent all machine learning from participating in writing and research, I hate to inform you, but the cat is out of the bag. Machine learning and neural networking are already indispensable tools across the sciences and social sciences. So we can see that even if we grant that an AI ban is the correct course of action, it seems increasingly difficult (perhaps impossible) to enforce in a narrow sense and misguided given the current state of computer science and research in a broad sense. 

“Should we ban AI from academia” also treads dangerously close to a Luddite view of technology.  A Luddite generally describes a person who supports a position of technological regress; however, historically, the English Luddites disavowed and destroyed machinery during the early years of the industrial revolution because of their reactionary views that integrating machines would make their labourer obsolete—an anxiety we still possess.3

This historical Luddite also offers an analogy to demonstrate how the wrong types of questions obfuscate the problem. Their conclusion was a simple one. Destroy the machines they perceived as threats to their livelihood. However, they could not articulate that the tension was not man versus machine but between those who sell their labour and those who buy it. It was against the backdrop of industrialization that the asymmetric power dynamic between labour and ownership became demystified, allowing for the observations of Adam Smith and Karl Marx to be actualized. The takeaway of this analogy is that because machines were not banned, we were afforded a clearer picture of labour relationships, ownership and production, and the logic presents something parallel to machine learning. 

While many important questions are waiting for us, we tend to see them when we are staring at them in the face. However, how can we accomplish this while we defiantly close our eyes? Thankfully, not all fields have suffered from this reaction, and as a result, they produce better questions.

We recognize that machine learning reproduces human bias and can even amplify bias4, which raises the question of whether it is possible to remove our unintentional biases from data sets because of its implementation into research. Similarly, automated cars disproportionately hit certain ethnicities5—more examples of biased data sets realized only when vehicles are on the road. This raises another critical question, who is ethically responsible for autonomous machines? Finally, as it stands, the proprietary ownership of these technologies by mega-corporations like Apple and Google leads us to question the nature of knowledge and its ownership. For example, if Midjourney is a simple aggregate of all our collective artistry and ChatGTP is a summarization of our collected works of knowledge, is it right to be owned for profit? All of these questions occur because machine learning is adopted into sophisticated societal roles not despite it. 

While this essay criticizes the conclusion of AI bans as technological regression and for the intellectual deficits they create, I close by remarking that this is not an argument for the laissez-faire adoption of AI and machine learning in academia. We ought to curb academic dishonesty at all avenues, and ChatGTP offers the dishonest a new avenue of play. In addition, AI hallucinations are akin to being lied to by a machine and must be scrutinized meticulously to prevent such hallucinations from becoming institutionalized as knowledge. However, the problem is that these issues already existed before generative text, and a ban on AI will not solve that problem. 

There has always been a market for plagiarism, and scholarly research becomes discredited when new information becomes available. We must take proactive positions regarding our future alongside machine learning. Failure to do so may mean we miss out on the novel and crucial questions shaping future consequences produced by AI’s role in society. 

Bibliography. 

  1. Big Think (Freethink Media), ” Slavoj Žižek – The Purpose of Philosophy is to Ask the Right Questions,” 2017, video, https://bigthink.com/videos/the-purpose-of-philosophy-is-to-ask-the-right-questions/.
  2. Jawahar, Ganesh, Muhammad Abdul-Mageed and Laks V. S. Lakshmanan. “Automatic Detection of Machine Generated Text: A Critical Survey.” International Conference on Computational Linguistics (2020). https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.01314.pdf.
  3. Donnelly, F. K. “Luddites Past and Present.” Labour / Le Travail 18 (1986): 217–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/25142685.
  4. Sun W, Nasraoui O, Shafto P (2020) Evolution and impact of bias in human and machine learning algorithm interaction. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0235502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235502.4
  5. Wilson, Benjamin, Judy Hoffman and Jamie H. Morgenstern. “Predictive Inequity in Object Detection.” ArXiv abs/1902.11097 (2019). https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.11097.pdf.

Essay

Over the years, technology has made significant advancements and continues to strive for betterment in enhancing people’s lives. Today, having an online presence, whether it’s active or passive, has become an essential part of our existence. With the integration of technology in daily life, it has become more effortless to perform everyday tasks. Many traditional activities, particularly the way we receive information and connect with one another, have shifted online.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, and others have become many people’s primary source of information because news can be swiftly shared and the platform allows users to voice their opinions easily. According to Cetina Presuel and Martínez Sierra (2019), these social platforms are major players in the concentrated online news market and have significant control over the distribution of information to their users as well as over the organizations and individuals that generate it. It follows that the prevalence of misinformation has emerged as a significant concern due to the freedom of expression allowed with little to no regulations on media that can be instantly shared worldwide. 

These major social platforms operate using unique algorithms that tailor content to the users’ interests and facilitate content sharing with like-minded individuals. TikTok is notorious for its algorithm. Many of the Tiktok stars, like Bella Poarch and Charli D’Amelio are known to have risen to fame after one of their videos randomly went viral as a result of the algorithm.

The Plaid Press, a student-run publication blog published by the advanced journalism class at Granada Hills Charter High School, has published a post called “Tiktok needs to stop” by Crystal Earls who expresses her concern with Tiktok stars who randomly rose to fame. In her post, Earls specifically highlights Lil Huddy and describes him “like others in the TikTok community, [who] has achieved [their] internet fame for no reasons other than shallow over-sexualization and his production of talentless, unoriginal content”. Earls has worded it better than I ever could because this is exactly how many of us think about Tiktok stars, especially those who may be the same age. Earls’ post raises a common concern that “Teenagers hardly know how to do things themselves most of the time, so to think that they are setting an example to tons of others across the world is unnerving and scary”.

Tkhostov et al.(2022) discovered that “false [information]” are totally social constructions, since the data indicate that we tend to trust information that matches with our preexisting beliefs, attitudes, and representations. As a result, there’s a growing concern stemming from the belief that individuals who come across fake news may not be exposed to real news that would encourage them to scrutinize the reliability of the information (Nelson & Taneja, 2018). With fake news consists of false news, polarized content, satire, misreporting, commentary, persuasive information, and citizen journalism (Molina et al., 2019), filters used to regulate posts are useless when the content is coded with other terms relating to anything that would otherwise be banned.  

So how can we combat this phenomenon?

To progress in this direction, the initial action should involve enhancing digital literacy and fostering critical thinking. In the current era, the most effective approach to promote and boost digital literacy and critical thinking is by creating educational content such as posts or videos that align with current trends. Ensuring active participation of students in the learning process will facilitate thorough comprehension and application of the information to their daily lives. 

Having said that, it is equally important for users to take a proactive measure of reporting fake news. Mere disregard of such falsity by scrolling past it may inadvertently worsen the problem as the misinformation could reach someone who lacks the ability to discern its inaccuracy, thus leading to the acceptance of incorrect information. However, I acknowledge that although some users report content, the platform may not deem the content to have violated their guidelines. It is quite discouraging especially since it is an extra step that often asks for details that need some time to fill out. Hence, platforms need to accurately review the content reported in order to encourage reporting and combat the spread of lies and harmful information without becoming overly censorious. 

References

Cetina Presuel, R., & Martínez Sierra, J. M. (2019). Algorithms and the News: Social Media Platforms as News Publishers and Distributors. Revista de Comunicación, 2, 261–285. https://doi.org/10.26441/rc18.2-2019-a13

Earl, C. (2020, February 21). TikTok needs to stop. The Plaid Press; The Plaid Press. https://theplaidpress.com/2020/02/21/tiktok-needs-to-stop/

Molina, M. D., Sundar, S. S., Le, T., & Lee, D. (2019). “Fake News” Is Not Simply False Information: A Concept Explication and Taxonomy of Online Content. American Behavioral Scientist, 2, 180–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219878224

Nelson, J. L., & Taneja, H. (2018). The small, disloyal fake news audience: The role of audience availability in fake news consumption. New Media & Society, 10, 3720–3737. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818758715

Tkhostov, A. Sh., Rikel, A. M., & Vialkova, M. Ye. (2022). Fake News through the Eyes of Three Generations of Russians: Differences and Similarities in Social Representations. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 1, 83–102. https://doi.org/10.11621/pir.2022.0106

Process Post #8 – Copyright

I’d like to spend this post talking about the world of intellectual property, and the growing dialogue over how to include Indigenous works in copyright law. This is a current topic which includes many people who know much more than I do, but I wanted to use this platform, however small, to raise public perception of such an important concern.

So much of Indigenous knowledge is relayed orally, yet we are offered little to no legal protection over this vital medium. Of course, we still ask for permission to perform drum songs or retell an individual’s story, for example, but we are often not given that same level of respect back.

In Traditional Knowledge Exists; Intellectual Property is Invented or Created, Gregory Younging discusses traditional knowledge. Traditional knowledge is a term for traditions such as agricultural techniques or astronavigation, which are based on experiences passed down through communities and generations.

Many First Nations communities have their own customary laws, which state how a piece of traditional knowledge may be used, whether it be kept to a certain group of people, used in a specific setting, with the guidance of a trusted individual, etcetera.

Despite the longevity of these systems, they are not officially recognized in western law for a variety of reasons:

  1. First Nations people most commonly communicate teachings through spoken word, which means that our knowledge is typically not recorded in written form.
  1. A vast majority of traditional knowledge is reliant on the land it was conceived on, so it may not even be relevant to those outside the community.
  1. Traditional knowledge specifically denotes techniques that have been used for so long that they would automatically be placed in the public domain anyways.
  1. Furthermore, there isn’t always a specific person to which legal rights could be granted to.
  1. These systems can also interplay with eachother in many different ways, which makes it even more difficult to pin them down legally.

One of the biggest concerns with how traditional knowledge isn’t properly covered under western law includes the appropriation of closed practices by people who are okay with encroaching on our intellectual property, provided it is technically legal to do so.

There has subsequently been a push for Indigenous communities to adapt their customary laws into the systems of intellectual property. Unfortunately, many factors including those above make it hard to reconcile these two forms of copyright.

It would be a shame for the preservation of traditional knowledge to be undermined by intellectual property laws that were created and forced upon us, while also not recognizing our complex systems that had worked perfectly fine for thousands of years. 

I hope that eventually traditional knowledge will be held to the same standard as western copyright law, and that we may be protected against appropriation and plagiarism of our work without needing to fundamentally alter our entire systems in order to do so.

☆.

Is banning artificial intelligence truly the best course of action?

We are not even three months into 2023 and yet you could already call this the year of artificial intelligence. Although the idea of AI has been around for some time, the recent developments have been remarkable, particularly in terms of accessibility to the public. The advancements have been so fast that society has had a hard time deciding how to proceed. One of the more challenging dilemmas is AI’s implications on education and students. Many schools have called for a ban on the use of AI, but is this truly the best course of action? I contend that AI should not be banned in schools for several reasons. First, there are more effective ways to combat plagiarism and cheating. Second, AI can be a powerful tool for enhancing student learning. Finally, since AI will undoubtedly be an integral part of our future, it makes sense to begin implementing it now.

For years, many have criticized the grading system for evaluating student performance. In his academic journal, The Case Against Grades, Alfie Kohn outlines the many problems with the grading system. Kohn argues that grades decrease student interest in learning, encourage students to seek out easy tasks, and lead to a reduction in the quality of student thinking. Moreover, he contends that motivation to earn good grades is extrinsic, resulting in a focus on grades rather than on learning. Perhaps most concerning is Kohn’s claim that a grading-focused environment is linked to higher levels of plagiarism and cheating (Kohn, 2013). The biggest concern with AI in schools is its potential to be used to plagiarise and cheat, some schools have decided to ban its use because of this. However, “Mr. Sid Dobrin, chair of the English department at the University of Florida believes that banning AI won’t solve anything and that students are plagiarising assignments because they can be plagiarised…Some professors are redesigning their courses entirely, making changes that include more oral exams, group work, and handwritten assessments in lieu of typed ones”(Huang, 2023). Making these changes in how students are assessed removes opportunities for plagiarism and cheating while also creating a more engaging curriculum.

AI also has tremendous potential for enhancing student learning. In his academic journal, Artificial Intelligence Applications to Support K–12 Teachers and Teaching, Robert Murphy highlights the ways in which AI can benefit both teachers and students. Murphy mentions how AI can be used to create personalized curricula that adjust the difficulty of questions based on each student’s level of knowledge. This feature helps keep students engaged by providing a challenge that is neither too easy nor too difficult. Additionally, AI can be used to identify students who may be falling behind and provide them with additional resources to help them catch up. Finally, AI can be used to provide students with learning and attention challenges, such as ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, with an educational experience that is tailored to their needs (Murphy, 2019).

Lastly, since AI will inevitably be a part of our future, why wait to implement it? Although some people are skeptical of AI and not fully on board with its use, the technology is here to stay. Companies like Microsoft and Google are racing to develop more advanced AI, and countries are competing to develop more sophisticated AI technology. In his academic journal, Cai Cuihong says “The world is thus embarking upon, or perhaps could be said to have already started, a new cold war, this time driven by AI” (Cuihong, 2019). With so much emphasis being placed on AI research and development, the technology will develop fast and could have a big impact on our everyday lives. With that in mind, it makes the most sense to begin implementing it into our lives now.

While it is understandable that some schools have banned AI with it being a new technology and how it was quickly used unjustly, this is only a short-term solution and as time goes on it will get more and more difficult to detect it. Instead of trying to ban it, schools should embrace AI because there are better ways to combat these issues, such as changing assessments to include more oral exams, group work, and handwritten assignments. Additionally, it has tremendous potential for enhancing student learning, such as through personalized curricula and tailored support for students with learning challenges. Finally, since AI is here to stay and will only become more integrated into our lives, it makes sense to begin implementing it now rather than waiting.

References

Cuihong, C. (2019, October 1). The shaping of strategic stability by artificial intelligence. JSTOR. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep24532.16

Huang, K. (2023, January 21). Alarmed by Ai Chatbots, universities start revamping how they teach. Nexis Uni. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.todayonline.com/world/alarmed-ai-chatbots-universities-start-revamping-how-they-teach-2090501

Kohn, A. (2013, November 13). The case against grades. JSTOR. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/42982088

Murphy, R. (2019, January 1). Artificial intelligence applications to support K-12 teachers and teaching. JSTOR. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/2847893/Details 

It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! Wait, no… it’s a glory???

During the reading break, I took a trip to Las Vegas. While flying over Nevada I was looking out of the window enjoying the sights of the mountains and desert lands near death valley. In all the flights I’ve taken over the years, I’ve never seen what I was seeing. As we flew above some light clouds I started seeing a rainbow appear, but not any rainbow, this one was circular. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I started to make out the shadow in the center and realized that it was the shadow of our plane in the center of this circular rainbow!

Picture taken of a glory from an airplane of the Nevada desert near Las Vegas
A picture I captured of a glory from the airplane window above the Nevada desert.

According to Paula Ferreira (2022), turns out that this is a rare optical phenomenon that is called a glory. Usually only seen in the right conditions and up high on a mountain or from an airplane. From a mountain, you usually see the observer’s head as the shadow. This phenomenon is caused by the sunlight interacting with water droplets (mist or clouds).

Glory encountered during a hike in An Teallach, Scotland Date: 2005-08 Author: AndiW
Glory encountered during a hike in An Teallach, Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon) Date: 2005-08 Author: AndiW

Or more scientifically speaking, glories appear because of wave interference of light internally refracted within small droplets. Much like how you played with prisms in science class in high school, that is how you get certain colours from white light bouncing off the water droplets. In other words, it’s complicated, but if you would like to learn more about them you can read about it here. I hope someday you get to discover one of your own while adventuring. It is quite amazing to witness.

Schematic animation of a continuous beam of light being dispersed by a prism. Wikimedia Commons.
Schematic animation of a continuous beam of light being dispersed by a prism. Wikimedia Commons.

References

Ferreira, P. (October 5, 2022). “The glory: the science behind a rare optical phenomenon” Retrieved from https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/the-glory-the-science-behind-a-rare-optical-phenomenon/

Wikipedia (March 24, 2023). “Glory (optical phenomenon)” Retrieved from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon)

How to Lift with Proper Form

A common mistake lifters make in their fitness journey is not correcting their form. While it doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect, your form should be correct and proper to ensure optimal results and that you’re lifting safely.

Let’s break it down into some of the most common exercises people make mistakes on:

Conventional or Romanian Deadlift

Two types of deadlifts are engaging and fulfilling when done right. A conventional deadlift is a strong compound movement that helps with your overall leg strength and growth. Romanian deadlifts help target your glutes or hamstrings.

Common mistakes here include:

  • Not engaging your core
  •  Rounding your back
  •  Lifting with your back instead of your legs
  •  Lifting too heavy

These mistakes aren’t unheard of but should be quickly adjusted and fixed to avoid injury. You also want to achieve optimal results, and bad form will hold you back.

The key to a good deadlift is to squeeze your core, straighten your back, and roll back your shoulders. Maintain a good posture, and avoid relying on your back to get the weight up. For RDLs, there is no need to go all the way down, but rather as soon as you feel it in your hamstrings. Here’s an example of a conventional deadlift:

This YouTube video demonstrates good deadlifting form: 

Dumbbell Shoulder Press

This movement is efficient when done right, but here are some common errors:

  • Arms are at an incorrect angle
  •  Not lifting both arms at the same height and time
  •  Not using a full range of motion
  •  Touching the dumbbells at the top

A tip I found on TikTok was to press the dumbbells at a 45-degree angle for better engagement and safer lifting. This is up to interpretation, but I find holding the dumbbells at a 90-degree angle puts you at risk of injury, such as losing your posture and dropping the dumbbells (I have personally witnessed this happen).

Lifting both arms at the same time and height is important, and if you are unable to do that, chances are you need to lower the weight. In addition, make sure you’re pressing using a full range of motion, by pressing to the top and then lowering just above your shoulders. Another thing not to do is to tap the dumbbells together at the top.

This article explains the instructions for this exercise very well, and can also be applied to chest press in some ways.

Barbell Squat

I absolutely hate squats, but I’m implementing them into my routine again, so this is good to know.

Often people make the mistake of:

  • Going too heavy too soon
  • Not keeping a neutral spine
  • Butt wink
  • Not engaging core

A main tip is to start with the bar until you perfect the form, then add weights after.

This TikTok gives a few tips for a good squat, and demonstrates good form as well:

@megballard

i worked on these things for a while- dont expect to perfect it in one try. let me know if this helps! #squatform #squats #gymtok

♬ original sound – meg ballard

Takeaway

Lifting with good form is easier said than done. Some tips to apply across the board are to start with lower weight and engage your core. Ultimately, do your research, and practice until you get it right. It’s better to start slow than to risk injury. Until next time, contact me for more!

The post How to Lift with Proper Form first appeared on Lifting With Lita.

Mini Assignment #4 – Remix

For this mini assignment, I chose to make a video edit of all my Splatoon 3 clips I’ve taken since the game’s release last September (minus my embarrassing failures; if you really want to see them check my media tab on Twitter LOL).

I used music made by the synth-pop artist GUM, who you might know as Jay Watson of Tame Impala; his work overlays vocals and creates remixes with itself in really interesting ways! Another reason I chose this song in particular was for the lyrics near the end, which is a sample of Herbie Hancock where he talks about how “[a machine] doesn’t program itself…Yet”. I feel like this entire line of thinking was ahead of its time, especially as the limits of technology are now being pushed past what anyone was ever imagining back then.

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Process Post #8: Remixing Creativity and AI

This week’s reading focused on trending resources that came to be since the ongoing evolution of technology. AI, artificial intelligence is the “simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions” (Frankenfield, 2022) according to Investopedia. Since the development of AI, programs like ChatGPT and DALL-E are now widely used in different aspects of education, personal interest, and work. With the topic of AI, one of the readings elaborated on the use of DALL-E. I found it a helpful article written by William Antonelli. The article even mentions how DALL-E has become so popular lately and how random requests generated from the AI site have been shared on social media (Antonelli, 2022).

Reflecting now, how society moves along with the evolution of computers and human intelligence has also brought us much closer in terms of community through the influence of social media and the internet. An example is this blog here, KeptCollexion. Striving my goal to reach an audience sharing similar interests to build a community is a step toward connecting with others through the internet.

I think that DALL-E is a fun tool to use to let your imaginations go wild, and can contribute to content for this blog. Displayed above are the results of typing “Kirby and Yoshi playing videogames and eating snacks.”

Reference:

Antonelli, W. (2022, June 14). How to use dall·e mini, the viral AI tool that can turn any prompt into a series of pictures. Business Insider. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini

Dall·E. DALL·E. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://labs.openai.com/e/NqKZ4pci4MJ9MQUiqdiahlAW/DdYGYkkVt4SKdlPODnGrzcgw

Frankenfield, J. (2023, January 19). Artificial Intelligence: What it is and how it is used. Investopedia. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp

March Moodboard

Happy March!

I am beyond excited for the springtime, I’ve been looking forward to days where I can wear a tank top without my massive puffer jacket overtop.

I hope you like my moodboard for March:) Even making it felt like motivation for myself for what’s to come.

My Favourite Reminders

Sometimes I need mantras to help me get through hard times. I have compiled a list of my favourite ones and I share them with you now in the hope they will help you if you need them. Even if you do not yet believe some of them (yet), say them because fake it til you make it right?

  • It’s okay not to be okay.
  • We try our best, that is all we can do.
  • You are strong. It is not an opinion. It is a reality.
  • We learn, we grow
  • It is okay to rest.
  • Don’t gaslight yourself.
  • Whatever you are feeling is valid.
  • It is okay to take up space.
  • Your needs are not special
  • Just because you re struggling does not mean you are failing.
  • Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase.
  • The fact that you are trying is proof that you are strong.
  • It is okay to give up sometimes.
  • Fuck this shit.
  • Fuck off. This is what I want. I will not let others hold me back.

Mini Assignment #4 – Make a Remix

“Purple Stain” imagery was created using DALL-E and the video clip was created using Canva

Purple Stain

Purple stain, purple stain

Purple stain, purple stain

Purple stain, purple stain

I only wanted to see you bathing in the purple stain

Purple Stain was created for educational purposes only. All original song lyrics before this terrible remix was inspired by Prince and his original song Purple Rain.

Peer Review #2

Peer Review # 2 This week I am reviewing “VP COLLECTIONS” by Victor. 

Direct Link: http://vpcardcollections.com/blog/evolving-skies-is-the-best-sword-and-shield-pokemon-set/

Screenshot of VP COLLECTIONS By Victor

Theme and Customizations 

Upon first glance at the website, it looks visually appealing and exciting. It has plenty of contrast with the black and white styling. You can tell right away that the content will be about Pokemon in some manner with eye-catching Pokemon artwork on the home page. The website design is exciting and draws you in with lots of great pictures and an amazing about-me write-up of the author. I like that it introduces the author on the home page, where you find out about Victor’s passion for collecting cards. The theme choice looks very professional.

Site Structure and Layout

Kaptelinin, mentions “affordances” and explains that a good design is intuitive. This means website visitors should be able to know how to navigate a site using their intuition. I feel Victor’s site has been built using an intuitive design structure, which makes his site easy to navigate, it grabs the user’s attention, creates interest, and allows your eyes to wander to see what will come next. I love that the content of the website is easy to navigate. 

Usability and Accessibility

I noticed and appreciated right away that Victor included “One Click” an accessibility plug-in on his website. Homer Gaines mentions that 15% of the world’s population has a disability, which makes it important to consider accessibility in website design to be considerate to others that may experience visual limitations. This add-on enhances usability for Victor’s users. Victor keeps a consistent theme throughout his site and his sentences are easy to read.

Typography

In addition to the usability of websites, choosing a readable and appropriate typeface is important as well (Gertz, 2015). Victor uses a readable typeface that fits his theme. He uses contrast effectively which makes it easy to read and navigate. The bolded white categories and titles on the homepage are appealing against the dark artwork.

References

Gaines, H. [UXDX]. (2022, January 27). The four principles of accessibility [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUxx_sq2QdY

Gertz, T. (2015, July 10). How to sur­vive the dig­i­tal apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Kaptelinin, V. (2014). Affordances. In M. Soegaard and R. F. Dam (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed. Interaction Design Foundation.

Peer Review #2 – Sammy Universe

This week I had the pleasure of reviewing Sammy’s website, which is suitably titled SammyUniverse. 

Immediately, when opening the home page, the banner had a picture of a planet with the blog tagline. I think the photo she chose ties in with the title of her blog since it is a planet in a “universe,” similar to the universe she created with the website. It is also similar to the header style discussed in the article “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.” Travis Gertz details this commonly used home page format and attributes the widespread use to the fact that it simply works for many people and companies, creating a trend that can be seen on many other sites. 

After scrolling past the banner, there are some clear template blocks still containing placeholder texts. There are some headings which state that “Music, Film [and] Random Things” are going to be explored. There is also a block with a motivational quote, a few sentences, and a link box; however, the link does not direct the reader to any page. It’s unclear whether this block is a filler or something Sammy wrote but possibly forgot to link. Closer to the bottom, after more filler blocks, there are links to some recent posts and assignments and contact information. I do like the homepage, and the colours of the banner photo match the she chose, but I wish it were more concise and included content from or about the blog. The blog’s footer is a GIF of purple/blue clouds, which I thought was a nice creative touch. I liked that it was moving and matched the other colours of the website; it captures the readers’ attention. Sammy could use this to her advantage and include some social media links in the footer since I didn’t see any throughout the rest of her blog. 

The website’s typography is relatively simple. Around three sans-serif fonts are alternated between writing portions, but they fit the blog’s theme and are easy to read. One header on the Film page includes a combination of two fonts that I found visually appealing, especially with the inclusion of the bolded word. It allows the reader to understand what Sammy is trying to emphasize. 

It could be beneficial for Sammy to consider incorporating more contrasting font styles into her text to allow for variety. 

Sammy’s website has a few different cool aspects that come together to create a captivating user experience. 

Similar to the footer, other movements occur throughout the blog, such as appearing text and images that fall into place when the page is opened. These things grabbed my attention and made me want to keep reading. Next, I really enjoyed the use of images! From a reader’s perspective, there was a perfect balance of photos and text. The pictures were all relevant to the blog’s content and acted as a visual aid. It was especially crucial in the movie reviews and music recommendations, so the reader knows what is being discussed. The music and movies were also linked, which is important when discussing or recommending a piece of media, especially if you want the reader to view or listen for themselves. 

The website layout is unique from other blogs that I have seen. The music and film pages are sole pages and don’t include individual posts, making everything easy to find. The same can be said for the blog content, which is just one long page. On the Posiel page, all the content is separated by each week of class. I found this format to be interesting, but it took some work to navigate. While it was all categorized into Process Post, Weekly Content, and Mini Assignments, it isn’t easy to find what you are looking for if you do not have every week of course content memorized. It would likely be a good idea to title each week and the assignments; doing so would give context to the reader and make it easier for them to find what they need. 

In conclusion, Sammy Universe was a very captivating website that I enjoyed exploring. The theme was consistent throughout the site, and the colours and photos matched the theme or the content. Its general usability is good, but the Posiel page could be easier to navigate. Overall, this blog was fun to review, and I look forward to seeing what else Sammy has to add. Keep it up!

Why Women Kill!!

Tv show called why women kill it has three pictures of women

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across someone on Tik Tok, and they were talking about this show, and I watched about three of their Tik Toks, and I was hooked! I quickly found that Prime had this series and binged watch the whole season in two days. At first, I was confused because it kept going back and forth between three different eras. My favorite period would be the 60s with Beth Ann and her husband, Rob Stanton. I love her relationship with her neighbor Sheila; those two were my favorite. I cannot believe that Beth Ann became friends with Robert’s mistress and lives a double life for awhile while being a housewife, and when her husband is at work, Beth is out roaming with the mistress. Near the end of the series, I was so upset when Robert knew what happened to his daughter but still blamed his wife for the death of their child. Along, Robert knew that his mistress left the gate open, which is why his daughter could leave their yard. With all of Robert’s lies unfolding, she knew there was only one thing to do, which was to murder her husband “by accident.”

I also enjoyed the period when it was Simone and Karl. Everybody loved Simone and Karl until they found out that Karl was gay; everybody thought they could catch a disease when being in the presence of Karl. I found it hard to watch because I can’t believe that’s how they treated Gay men back in the day. Karl had his best friend, Simone, and even though he put her in a tricky situation by coming out as gay, Simone stood by his side the whole time.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic show, and if you haven’t watched it, you should check it out.

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Peer Review #2

For this peer review, I was paired with Jack. You can access his website with this link that is provided ” jackdanielswhiskeyno7.com.” Jack has created a website where he can express his interests, such as photos of the city, nature, and some of the campus. He also posts about his interest in cooking. By the way, his cooking looks fantastic! Unfortunately, many people are in my PUB 101 class, and I haven’t been able to review this one yet. However, once I saw that I had to check his website out, I was pleased. I enjoy looking at what my classmates are doing to their websites.

Theme and Layout

As I started looking through Jack’s website, I thought he had it well organized, and all of his buttons on the top right-hand side took me to where it needed to go. However, while going through his site, I saw how his “Home” page flips through different photos that he has taken. This shows his authenticity because the pictures he provides have been taken by himself. In addition, the way he has his website is structured it is easy for others to use.

Customizations

When I came across the “through my eye” page, it brought me back to one of the required readings that our Professor provided in week 5. In the article “Digital gardens let you cultivate your little bit of the internet | MIT Technology Review,” in the first paragraph, Sarah Garner expresses that her website didn’t feel like her. Garner then came up with an idea to create a page that involved what she was interested in. Jack’s “through my eye page” reflects your “Digital Garden.”

Social Media Integration

As I go through your website, adding your social media pages to your website would be beneficial. I assume you have Instagram, and if I am correct, you probably post more photos of nature, the city, and the water. I would love to see more of your work, you take amazing pictures, and others would enjoy seeing more. But, on the other hand, I could only review so much because you don’t have much posted on your website. I am sure there is a valid reason why you are behind on the assignments we are required to do, but once you are all up to date on the mini assignments, process posts, and peer reviews, your website will come to life. I believe in you; you have done a great job so far! Keep up the excellent work. PS- You should open your own restaurant and display your photography skills.

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