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braxtondn

Artifact Analysis I: Is America's Next Top Model Bad for Self-Image? | Women In Pop Cul... - 0 views

  • If you look at the application from this website (http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/topmodel-cycle20-casting), there is a requirement that you had to be 5 foot and 7 inches at the absolute minimum to be a model, but I was only 5 foot at the time, so wouldn’t be eligible. I always had hope, though, that by the age of 18, I would be tall enough to apply. I think that’s where the show starts to become bad for people, especially women. It makes us want to look different, in order to do the career we dream of.
  • it’s really altering their views on what an attractive woman looks like, and what kind of woman the media wants to see
  • The show is also teaching girls that you should want to be objectified, because all of the model contestants want so badly want to be a model, when models are really just a “thing” used to sell. When young girls see models on TV or in a magazine, they are seeing beautiful, air-brushed, computer altered women, who are actually not real. But since many girls believe that they need to look like those models, it’s making them have very poor self-image.
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  • One way you can see this happening is in the makeover episode of each season
  • For example, giving an african american woman a perm to make her hair longer and smoother, when she is proud of her natural tight curls. The show gives off the vibe that no matter what you naturally look like, you can still look better.
  • The show isn’t all bad, though. Tyra Banks, the producer of the show and main judge, is great at including diversity, such as women of all races, women with children, women with different sexual orientations, women with curves, and there was even a woman with Aspergers Syndrome included in the model contestants. It’s great, because Tyra is showing that any type of person can be a model.
George Neff

Will Netflix Kill TV? | PopMatters - 0 views

  • Live and weekly DVR ratings have plummeted for most broadcast programs, as many viewers can now catch their favorite shows on demand via Hulu or illegal torrents.
  • Neither of these represent the biggest problem facing TV – that would be Netflix. More specifically, it’s the streaming giant’s foray into the original programming game that should cause all couch potatoes’ skin to crawl.
  • The service is a massive hit. Netflix currently takes up one-third of all the downstream bandwidth the web can provide. The average subscriber watches 87 minutes of programming per day. While short of the 18-24-year-old live television average of 3.5 hours per day, that latter number is split across hundreds of network and cable channels. Netflix has a captive audience.
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  • Netflix is like an indulgent parent – offering unlimited sweets without any responsibility on the child’s behalf. Subscribers are spoiled with the model, gratifying themselves on a whim by binging new releases without regard for any psychological implications that may take place. American culture now expects instant gratification: fast food, instant messaging, instant streaming. There is virtue in patience, a virtue Netflix disregards in the name of better serving the consumer. Unfortunately, faster service does not always equal better service.
  • When network shows are stripped of commercials and sent to Netflix, the viewing experience is somewhat hollowed. Audiences have grown more used to this with TV on DVD and the restructuring of story beats on premium cable channels, but many comedies still require room to laugh and dramas room to breathe. Binging on Netflix turns distinct three-act episodes into an elongated 13th-act behemoth.
  • Conversation becomes stunted or clandestine, which eliminates much of the buzz that builds pre-season – buzz that is necessary come June when Emmy voters fill out their ballots.
  • Television executives have a right to be both frustrated with and terrified by the advent of the Netflix model.
  • Original shows ushered in using the Netflix model, like House of Cards and Hemlock Grove, have cut out the advertisers. Netflix functions as the network, and if the company decides to evolve from simply licensing original programming to actually producing, they’ll be the studio, too. Netflix is making all the money, monopolizing our attention and making poor consumers out of its subscribers. If this model becomes the norm, the producer/advertiser relationship will be pushed to the breaking point.
  • The folks at Netflix have little to fear. House of Cards executive producer Beau Willimon, in a recent Q&A for Vulture, responded to a question regarding the Netflix model and said, “Our show simply gave people the experience they had already grown accustomed to on Netflix — viewer empowerment. People like being able to decide for themselves when, where, and in what quantities they will watch their content.”
  • We’ve seen how this user-driven, consumerist approach has transformed the music industry into a shell of its former self.
  • What is the informed television devotee to do? Netflix is not inherently evil, and at only $8 a month, the access to vast libraries of programming is an invaluable asset. The answer doesn’t lie in unsubscribing from Netflix, but rather in promoting the traditional broadcast model. By watching live, conversing with friends, coworkers and strangers on Twitter, and even purchasing overpriced merchandise from beloved shows, TV buffs everywhere can help keep the industry afloat. In the hands of the responsible, Netflix is a mighty tool for good. In the hands of the ignorant, it’s a weapon that could destroy all television.
  • But what happens once Netflix reaches the point where profiting only on its own original programming makes more sense than continuing to pay licensing fees, which will skyrocket as the studios jack up prices due to diminished on-air returns? Netflix is positioning itself as its own network, assembling a lineup of programming that will survive the inevitable scripted network TV apocalypse. And once the people lose instant access to former network favorites like How I Met Your Mother and The Office, they’ll rebel by cancelling their subscriptions, the fees will also increase as competition is defeated. But by that point the damage will be irreparable – both television and Netflix will be dismantled by the impatient viewer.
braxtondn

Media Can Damage Self-Image | Psych Central News - 0 views

    • braxtondn
       
      This reminds me of the show "America's Next Top Model" because on their Facebook page, there are only pictures of super skinny females. There are no pictures of thick or plus size females. 
  • The study shows that women who possess these body image concerns are twice as likely to compare their own bodies to those of the thin models in the advertisements
    • braxtondn
       
      Most females have a bad habit of doing this when looking at Vogue Magazine or Seventeen Magazine. People also get discouraged from trying out to become a model because they don't think they have the "model look". It is not a healthy thing to do because it will only cause females to find more problems within themselves
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  • Conversely, women who are content with their bodies did not show any effects from viewing thin-ideal advertisements.
    • braxtondn
       
      Being comfortable in your own skin is the main key to being happy. Some may set goals for losing weight, by looking at other skinny models or the skinny/fit people used for fitness magazines , websites,and commercials.
  • “Women who already have low opinions of their physical appearance are at an even greater risk for negative effects from media images,” says Gayle R. Bessenoff, Ph.D., author of the study
    • braxtondn
       
      Already having low self-esteem can make the effect of media's "acceptable image" more damaging than to a person with a little bit more self-esteem
    • braxtondn
       
      The image that young women may think is acceptable to society is not so acceptable to the media unless you are a thin female. Everybody at some point wants to be thin, but they need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin because not everybody has the same bod shape.
  • The deleterious impact of advertisement is the subject of new research exploring the relationship between the so called “thin-ideal” media message and body-image issues among young women.
  • University of Connecticut researchers discovered female undergraduates who viewed advertisements displaying ultra-thin women exhibited increases in body dissatisfaction, negative mood, levels of depression and lowered self-esteem.
braxtondn

USATODAY.com - Do thin models warp girls' body image? - 0 views

  • "We have done studies of grade-school girls, and even in grade 1, girls think the culture is telling them that they should model themselves after celebrities who are svelte, beautiful and sexy."
    • braxtondn
       
      Being sexy doesn't mean you have to be skinny. As long as the skin you're in makes you feel sexy and beautiful thats all that should matter. People don't need advice from a celebrity, who also struggled with their body image, to tell them that in order to be considered sexy by the media and today's society, you have to be skinny.
  • Some girls can reject that image, but it's a small percentage: 18% in Murnen's research
    • braxtondn
       
      That is a shame that only 18% are unaffected by media's new idea of an acceptable look. They must either have a high self-esteem or do not interact with the media as much as the other 82%.
  • those who were exposed to the most fashion magazines were more likely to suffer from poor body images.
    • braxtondn
       
      This shows that magazines such as Seventeen and Vogue are held responsible for the negative image that they are putting into teens' mind. They do not need to be skinny enough to put on a magazine cover, they need to accept the skin they are in and show it.
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  • t's not surprising that women want to be slender and beautiful, because as a society "we know more about women who look good than we know about women who do good," says Audrey Brashich, a former teen model and author of All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty.
    • braxtondn
       
      Hearing this from a teen model who was probably in the 18% of young women who weren't effected by the media, is amazing because she knows what is most important. Although looks play a major part in being successful, the hard work is more important. Media is taking away the important concept and forcing a lesser concept to become the main focus.
anonymous

Storytelling Theory and Practice - YouTube - 0 views

  •  
    Sturm argues that storytelling provides something larger: a way of organizing information. He says we can look at these characteristics as dots of data on a screen, where the story is the way we connect the dots. And how we connect the dots, changes the kinds of stories we create. Storytelling ethics and the need for trust and truth are discussed. Comments include his Story Listening Experience Model http://ils.unc.edu/~sturm/storytelling/storyexperience.pdf I wonder if this model could be used to create better programming routines for socially interactive storytelling robots? I have no idea how it would be possible to create a script for conveying ethics and the need for trust and truth using artificial intelligence. I think such activities require mediation by authoritative human participants to connect the dots and to establish a teaching presence that can address issues of ethics, trust, and truth for the listening audience upon reflection. I can easily see teachers, parents, caregivers "remix" what a storytelling robot presents to facilitate deeper reflection by young children in early childhood classrooms.
perezmv

http://oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2006/08/17/inside-pandora-web-radio.html - 0 views

  • Pandora (which is also the name of the company) grew out of the Music Genome Project, which company founder Tim Westergren began six years ago.
  • He became fascinated with the way directors described the music they were looking for, which led to his wondering what made people enjoy certain types of music. He asked himself, "If people haven't found any music that they love since college, and artists are struggling to find an audience, is there a role for technology to help bridge the gap?"
  • Westergren started the Genome Project from the idea of creating a platform for connecting people with music that they'll love based on music they already enjoy. The project uses experts called "music analysts" to deconstruct music into its fundamental parts and capture the results into a database. Pandora has 40 professional musicians who come to the office every day and listen to one song at a time, analyzing each in anywhere from 200 to 400 dimensions. (The dimensions are somewhat different for each genre of music.)
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  • Pandora chose the dimensions because they are quantitative. For instance, how breathy are the vocals? Is the music diatonic or chromatic? The music analysts are trained to be able to score songs consistently. In fact, one of the test cases is, "Could a group of 10 musicologists listen to a song and agree on one score for a particular element?"
  • vector space.
  • "What is exciting about the Music Genome Project, with respect to Pandora the radio-listening experience, is that by understanding the music on a song-by-song basis we can put together a playlist that has a much more natural ebb and flow than you might be able to do with collaborative filtering data," Conrad says.
  • "I think curator is the right word," Conrad replied. "Of all the financial models that could be leveraged to make Pandora a successful business, the 'play for pay' model runs completely spiritually opposite to the founding of the company.
  • I asked what Pandora was doing to avoid being influenced by big record labels, which have been widely accused of corrupting traditional radio through payola schemes.
  • "Since we use a human analyst to analyze song by song, we've experimented with using a smaller number of elements," he continued. "We've determined that you can't create interesting playlists with only 20 attributes. But we do keep an eye on machine listening as it might provide a way to augment the manual analysis."
  • I ask myself, "What's this song doing in my Bill Evans station? This song should be in my 'Soft Jazz Guitar' station. Why can't I tell Pandora to place this tune in the appropriate station?"
  • "It's fascinating to me that you raise that particular example," Conrad said. "Because the scenario that you just described is--after we evolved the product over five months and took a lot of low-hanging fruit off the table--probably the number-one listener request.
  • Pandora creates playlists with a "matching engine," written in C and Python, for each listener station. This engine builds the low-level linkage to the "source" music (the music that listeners indicate they like) and the music that actually gets played (a mixture of what the listener explicitly indicated, mixed with music that the Pandora service believes listeners will like). The replication system is Slony.
anonymous

New Media Literacies - Learning in a Participatory Culture - 0 views

  • Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes. Being able to interpret, manipulate and create simulations can help you understand innumerable complex systems, like ecologies and computer networks – and make you better at playing video games!
  • Multitasking
  • Distributed Cognition: 
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  • Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. If you’re worried about your students using Wikipedia at inappropriate times and taking everything they read on the internet as gospel truth, you’re worried that they aren’t exercising good judgment. But judgment also includes knowing when sources are appropriate for your use: for instance, sometimes Wikipedia might be the appropriate resource to use.
  • Visualization - the ability to translate information into visual models and understand the information visual models are communicating. VIsualization has become a key way we cope with large data sets and make sense of the complexity of our environment.
George Neff

Roche Holding Ltd. (ADR) (OTCMKTS:RHHBY) News: FDA Gives Roche Priority Review For Cerv... - 0 views

  • While viewers enjoy watching episodes of their favorite TV shows back-to-back, advertisers suffer because video-on-demand (VOD) providers do not want to alienate their viewers by running advertisements.
  • Critics say that the company’s reliance on subscriptions alone poses a problem, because an increase in price will translate into lost subscribers.
  • This loyal customer base can also be used to leverage the findings of a study by Annalect, – Omnicom Media Group’s marketing technology platform – which suggests that binge viewers don’t actually mind ads.
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  • The study also found that 21% of binge viewers say they remember the ads, compared to 10% of non-binge viewers.
  • Research shows that 80% of Generation Y, 68% generation X and 49% of baby boomers are likely to be binge viewers. In a survey, 826 out of 1,307 respondents above the age of 18, who watch televised content for more than five hours a week, were also binge viewers.
  • Research also shows that there is an opportunity for companies like Netflix, which can transcend the subscription-based model and incorporate advertisements in their sources of revenue. They can also come up with new pricing models and offer subscriptions with ads at lower rates.
George Neff

http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/publications/documents/1997_ElliotChurch_A... - 0 views

  •  
    A hierarchical model of Approach and avoidance
braxtondn

How the Media Affects the Self Esteem and Body Image of Young Girls | Divine Caroline - 0 views

  • The medias harmful affect on the self body image and self esteem of young girls has brought about some of these three damaging effects: eating disorders, mental depression, and physical depression.
    • braxtondn
       
      It is interesting and sad knowing that new media has this affect on young teens. Something should be done in order to help prevent such negative affect. The media needs to recognize that everybody will come in different shapes and sizes, instead of just focusing on one specific image.
  • “Women may directly model unhealthy eating habits presented in the media, such as fasting or purging, because the media-portrayed thin ideal body type is related to eating pathology”(Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw & Stein, 1994)
  • In Allie Kovar’s article, Effects of the Media on Body Image, she mentions that “the national eating disorder Association (2006) reports that in the past 70 years national rates of incidences of all eating disorders have dramatically increased across the board . . . Bulimia in women between the ages of 10 to 39 has more than tripled.” (Kovar, 1).
    • braxtondn
       
      The media's "thin ideal' is causing young teens to feel so poorly about themselves that it is causing more women to become diagnosed with eating disorders. There is no reason that the media should be having that much of an affect on teens that it is tripling the amount of eating disorders. The media ( actresses, models, and celebrities) should be looked upon by their success not by their body image.
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  • “If children grow up seeing thin women in advertisements, on television, and in film they accept this as reality and try to imitate their appearance and their actions”(Nature vs. Nurture, Shea, 1).
    • braxtondn
       
      THis is very true. Parents can stop this by controlling what their children can and can't watch. THere are so many things that parents can do to help boost their child's self-esteem also, they just need to try harder so that the media doesn't win.
  • “The ideal female has become thinner while the average American woman has become heavier…”(Domil, 2).
    • braxtondn
       
      Whats acceptable to the world is not acceptable to the media. Whats more important though? All that should matter is what each person thinks about themselves. Media is just negatively effecting society's image
  • The media is only going to get worse and put more pressure on the self body image of how it should “ideally” look
    • braxtondn
       
      The media is like an annoying bug that will never go away. We have to be stronger than what the media wants us to be and be above the media's influence.
Maryam Kaymanesh

VEA - Social Media in Your Classroom? - 2 views

  • students and teachers can use social networks to enhance instruction.
  • schools pay thousands of dollars for digital storage, communication systems,
  • free! This
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  • collaboration sites, but Facebook already does all of this, and they do it fo
  • Facebook can also serve as a gateway to other sites and further learning.
  • Social media can also be a valuable teaching tool in another area:
  • Students need to know not only how to use these new resources, but how to use them appropriately.
  • Teachers can model appropriate digital usage by incorporating social media in the classroom in an open and honest way.
  • Teachers can model appropriate digital usage by incorporating social media in the classroom in an open and honest way.
  • Communicating in or reading a foreign language allows students to see how translations, idioms and appropriate vocabulary make a difference, causing them to become more careful in their own usage and translations.
  • Communicating in or reading a foreign language allows students to see how translations, idioms and appropriate vocabulary make a difference, causing them to become more careful in their own usage and translations.
  • Another viable and practical draw to using social media is that a teacher can develop assignments allowing students to see connections to real world employment
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    If social media and technology is good for the classroom
braxtondn

Selfies and Self-Esteem, Emotional Effects of Pictures - 0 views

  • So, if you’re doing a little more than documenting the moments of your life, and obsessing about your image seems to be taking over your life, what can you do to put things into perspective? “Make sure the focus is on the internal as much as the external,” says Weiner. “If all the images are fabricated to a degree, they’re not really showing life as it really is. Not all moments are perfect and model-ready. Enjoy your beauty, take that selfie, but be present for those memories while you're taking the photo.”
    • braxtondn
       
      This is interesting because of the phrase " model ready". 
  • “It depends on how you use it. If you're using it as a tool to document feeling good about yourself and you’re just taking mementos of living a great life, that’s fine.”
  • “It can be empowering. Some women use it as a way to control how their image is portrayed in social media, which is completely fine.”
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  • “It may reset the industry standard of beauty to something more realistic.”
  • “The concern lies when people who are using it to create a personae that will be approved of, i.e., how many Facebook or social media clicks, 'likes,' and approvals they get. Facebook and other types of social media create a feedback loop, and some people take more to feed their self-esteem, which can become more important than simply documenting the experience.”
  • Jess Weiner, Global Self-Esteem Ambassador for Dove, a social messaging strategist, and CEO of Talk to Jess, has seen a considerable rise in self-esteem issues with the pressure to constantly be camera-ready. “I have seen a remarkable shift is self-esteem issues with the rise of the selfies," she says. "The pressure to be camera-ready can elevate self-esteem issues, with the pressure of commenting on posts and with the rise of social media. It has a more competitive aspect, and that can really put the pressure on.”
gerellmalazarte

Surgeons reconstruct baby's skull with 3D printing technology | Fox News - 0 views

  • They sent us cutting templates, which were pieces of 3D modeling that we were able to place on the child’s skull during surgery
  • Both Egnor and Duboys said the 3D modeling technology helped to cut down on the length of the procedure, which meant Gabriel spent far less time under anesthesia than during traditional surgery
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    Increasing the speed of 3-D printing they were able to just send the templates to 3-D printing machine.
wstrahan

Music as a Service as an Alternative to Music Piracy? - Springer - 0 views

  • Music pirates show a clearly positive approach to MaaS. The mean of attitude was 3.95 on a five-point scale.
  • While most pirates would use the free version (mean = 3.57), few would pay for MaaS (mean = 1.65).
  • Alternative
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  • We can observe a strong difference between the influence of attitude on intention to use free MaaS and the intention to use paid MaaS: building a strong attitude therefore does not lead directly to high willingness to pay; instead, it is the intention to test free MaaS that is influenced by attitudes.
  • We found that the search for music recommendations and the flat rate preference influence the attitude towards MaaS positively and significantly. The new recommendation functions and the pricing model are therefore functions users rated highly and which can help build a strongly positive attitude towards MaaS.
  • Pirates seem satisfied with the sound quality of tracks provided via illegal networks and seem to feel safe from prosecution.
  • Our study demonstrated the attractiveness of MaaS offers to music pirates. Nevertheless, most music pirates prefer free MaaS.
  • We showed that flat rates are regarded as an attractive pricing model by music pirates and that this constitutes a suitable alternative to pay-per-download, which is often considered too expensive (Al-Rafee and Cronan 2006).
  • Users who do not consider music piracy owing to moral scruples and higher search costs also show a positive attitude towards MaaS.
  • A reason for the increased willingness to pay may also relate to hedonistic social benefits, established by integrating social features into recommendation systems
  • MaaS providers should therefore focus on comprehensive, user-friendly recommendation systems that support social exchanges between MaaS users. Our study results clearly demonstrate that a platform’s features positively influence the attitude towards MaaS. Besides direct recommendations from friends, users can receive recommendations based on tagged music channels or collaborative filtering.
  • The presented study demonstrates that new offers of music consumption can also be an attractive alternative for music pirates. Although there is no indication of the reduction of illegal downloads in general, music pirates consider the free ad-based version of MaaS an alternative. Music pirates who have rejected legal music consumption due to high prices in the past may well switch to legal consumption.
  • Pandora
braxtondn

The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected Consequences of Selfie Obsession | TeenVogue.com - 0 views

  • "The cult of the selfie celebrates regular people," says Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., faculty director of the media psychology program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.
    • braxtondn
       
      This is a main reason why selfies could help become the solution to boosting self-image
  • "There are many more photographs available now of real people than models." And posting selfies is an empowering act for another reason: It allows you to control your image online.
    • braxtondn
       
      Maybe this will allow for ANTM to post more selfies of models instead of professional pictures
  • But let's be real: The most common selfie is the one where you look cute, partially because it's a quick way to get positive comments about your appearance. "If I feel pretty, I take one," says Maryland native Paris, 23. "When other people Like it, it's a mini boost of confidence.
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  • Psychologist Jill Weber, Ph.D., says there's a danger that your self-esteem may start to be tied to the comments and Likes you get when you post a selfie, and they aren't based on who you are—they're based on what you look like. On one hand, seeking validation is totally normal
    • braxtondn
       
      Pros of posting selfies
  • But according to Dr. Weber, there's more to it than that. "In my experience, girls who repeatedly post selfies struggle with low self-esteem," she says
braxtondn

7 Telltale Signs Social Media Is Killing Your Self-Esteem | Alternet - 1 views

  • Yet what often begins as a harmless virtual habit for some can fast-track into a damaging, narcissism-fueled habit which negatively impacts our self-worth and the way we perceive others
    • braxtondn
       
      Can this be fixed? Does it have to have such a negative impact? Is it really the media or the people on the social networks that are causing the media to have this kind of effect on people
  • Of 298 users, 50 percent said social media made their lives and their self-esteem worse.
  • According to psychotherapist Sherrie Campbell, social media can give us a false sense of belonging and connecting that is not built on real-life exchanges. This makes it increasingly easy to lose oneself to cyberspace connections and give them more weight than they deserve
    • braxtondn
       
      People go on the social medias knowing what to expect. Its up to the person to control whether or not to let the things they see, effect their lifestyle or what they thick of themselves. There are things on many social networks that allow people to edit their photos so they can loo a certain way, in order for it to be acceptable to society and the media. This is another reason how the media is becoming harmful to self-image.
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  • “When we look to social media, we end up comparing ourselves to what we see which can lower our self-esteem. On social media, everyone’s life looks perfect but you’re only seeing a snapshot of reality. We can be whoever we want to be in social media and if we take what we see literally then it’s possible that we can feel we are falling short in life,” Campbell told AlterNe
  • Women who spent longer periods of time on Facebook had a higher incidence of "appearance-focused behavior" (such as anorexia) and were more anxious and body conscience overall. What's more, 20 minutes on social media was enough to contribute to a user’s weight and shape concerns
    • braxtondn
       
      It is amazing how only 20 mins on a social network can have that effect on one's life.  People are more focused on trying to be accepted into society that they will let a social networks and media tell them how to eat, look, and live.
  • It is important to remember that what you are viewing is only a small sliver of someone’s life, which for the most part, is heavily embellished and mostly rooted in fantasy. When such images are starting to poison the way you look at your own life it may be time to step away from the screen.
    • braxtondn
       
      This is one way to fix the effects that media has over people's self image. Just because you see models looking all glamorous on the tv screens, instagram posts, Facebook, or magazine covers, doesn't mean that their life is technically better than your own.
wstrahan

China and Nigeria: Neo-Colonialism, South-South Solidarity, or Both? | Daniel Wagner - 0 views

  • Bilateral relations between China and Nigeria will likely take one of two paths in the long term: either China will remain the overwhelmingly dominant actor or Nigeria will become a regional superpower, evening out the playing field. If China remains the stronger player it will shape Nigeria in its own interests (commonly referred to as "Chinese Imperialism").
  • During the first eleven years of its independence, Nigeria and China had no diplomatic relations. The Nigerian government's view of China grew especially sour after Mao officially supported the secessionist state in Biafra by supplying the Biafran administration with weapons.
  • During the period of General Abacha's military rule (1993-1998), Beijing's no-strings-attached development projects were increasingly well received. Nigeria's leaders grew resentful of Western conditions for aid and investment, and many Nigerians began to question what a generation of economic dependence on the West achieved for Nigeria.
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  • Abuja subsequently adopted a new approach to international trade, balancing traditional Western partners and China.
  • The evolution of Nigerian-Chinese relations mirrors that of China's relationship with other African states (such as Angola, Sudan, and Zimbabwe) that sought alternative forms of aid and development packages following the imposition of sanctions by Western nations based on alleged human rights violations.
  • Today, more than 200 Chinese firms operate in Nigeria.
  • China agreed to provide Nigeria with a soft loan of $1.1 billion loan in exchange for Nigeria agreeing to increase its daily supply of oil to China ten-fold (from 20,000 barrels per day to 200,000) by 2015.
  • China recently embraced a new foreign policy in West Africa that contrasts with its traditionally passive approach to the spread of Islamic terrorism and extremism in Africa. Last year a Chinese diplomat in Mali pledged support for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)'s military campaign to dislodge Al Qaeda-affiliate groups in northern Mali.
  • China's number one concern in West Africa is access to natural resources and new consumer markets
  • While many Nigerians consider China's growing presence to be nothing short of a God send, others have raised concerns about Nigerian sovereignty, bearing in mind the impact Chinese trade and investment has had on other African countries.
  • The Chinese model of importing its own workers to build infrastructure projects, for example, does not sit well with many Nigerians.
  • A number of Nigerians have also voiced objections to the "slave-like" labor conditions in Chinese-operated factories across Nigeria. Attention was first brought to these conditions when 37 Nigerian workers died after being trapped inside a locked Chinese-owned factory that caught fire in 2002
  • Western powers that claim a desire to help Nigeria develop are often perceived as insincere, with their own aid being viewed as an infringement on Nigeria's sovereignty, since it often comes with strings attached.
jwatts55

Articles: Making Cents - 0 views

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    I'm sure each generation of musicians feels they've lived through a time of tremendous change, but the shifts I've witnessed in my relatively short music career-- from morphing formats to dissolving business models-- do seem extraordinary. The first album I made was originally released on LP only, in 1988-- and my next will likely only be pressed on LP again.
jurasovaib

MAKING WAVES: Kanzius Research Advances - Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation - 1 views

  • Beginning in February, large nonhuman subjects have received weekly injections of cancer cells into their livers, creating a consistent model in a "controlled environment." This month, the subjects will undergo MRIs to determine whether they now have liver cancer. If affirmative, the Kanzius noninvasive radio-wave cancer treatment will be administered, allowing data to be collected and analyzed. The success of these tests is mandatory to move forward in approaching the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and ultimately advancing to human trials.
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