It’s always hard to say goodbye.

CT 1010 was probably the best and most unique class I have ever taken.
In the beginning, I didn’t know what to expect, but after I heard a lot of good things about this class, I figured why not? But what I got was even more significant than that.

thanks to this class:

1. I learned everything from how to use Gifs.

2. How to create memes and use them as my creative expression

3.It gave me a better understanding of how to use photoshop through DS Assignment bank.

concert Zelda (1)Minecraft (1)

4. And finally, steps to building a website. (including a domain name, WordPress, and social press.)

Also, looking at some of my classmate’s websites gave me inspiration for what I’d want for my own website. for example, Shaikh’s website.

Honestly, I’ve been behind in many of my assignments, but I’ve been working non-stop to make them up, so I’m hoping to get an A for the course.

The best part of this class was the freedom to blog about anything we wanted to and at our own pace. That’s the best thing coming out of my two years at York college. With my new website, I will definitely be blogging about astronomy. Hopefully, the page can grow and gain more followers as time moves on. After this, I even have plans to create a secondary site about gaming. Who knows how far we can go! If you’re interested, join me at http://mconeil.net! The more, the merrier.

It sucks that I never got the chance to meet you guys in person, but it sucks even more that we are still stuck in quarantine. But we’ll manage. I believe in you guys.

Nevertheless, it has been a pleasure. Thank you guys and professor Seslow for making my final semester at York college a blast.
STAY SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Woah, did you watch the latest episode of “Game of Thrones” off of www.watchmoviesonlineforabsolutelyfree.net?

Ok, I won’t call the cops this time, but I’m watching you.

Ok, but really onto the point. Copyright is defined as “the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.”

During Larry Lessig’s Ted Talk, one quote that stuck to me throughout the whole thing was when he described creativity as a “culture where people produce for the love of what they are doing and not for the money.”

He was trying to say that many people don’t use copyrighted material to earn money off someone else’s creation but for their personal use. People can express their creativity through remixes, art, music, memes, and so much more. It can inspire someone to reinvent or recreate a piece of art or even encourage them to create their own original idea.

However, it does not justify using someone else’s work and distributing it without giving credit to the original owner. After all, If anyone could copy freely anything that is an output of your creative work, how would a writer make a living writing books or a musician make a living producing music?

Also, in many ways, copyright can enhance creativity since you have to develop your own ideas instead of taking advantage of someone else’s.

 

Vaporwaves?

That’s a thing I haven’t done since middle school. (I’m getting old)

According to Wikipedia, “Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.”

Like all types, it has a time span of usability. When I discovered it back in sixth grade, I thought it was terrific. Vaporwave started with people sampling 80s and 90s mainstream pop, soul, smooth jazz, etc., and then slowing and processing it in other ways to make it strange and trippy. Synthwave, retro wave, Outrun, etc., are mainly people recreating the style of 80s music in new pieces. Vaporwave is incredible because its a part of new music that’s been made from old music. Sometimes it works, but it can veer over into straight nostalgia, pastiche, or boring re-enactment. but, still I couldn’t resist them.

I personally really like the style of it. Here are some pictures of vaporwave that I found on the internet.

and my personal favorite…

 

I was looking over some of your websites, and you guys really outdid yourselves. 

The website that caught my attention was https://slimshakey.com by Shaikh Islam. 

First off, the name is creative lol. But not only that, Shaikh’s website has a lot to do with horror stories and conspiracy theories. The overall feel of the website gives me a very eerie vibe as soon as I log on.

He separated the site into four different categories or “floors.” The first floor introduces you to some of the most popular conspiracy theories such as “The bizarre death of Elisa Lam,” a woman whose body was discovered from a water tank after she went missing, and the real-life “Men in Black.”

The second floor has a series of photos related to some of the creepiest stories, and the third, which contains videos. 

Finally, the best part of floor 4 is where people can contribute and share their personal stories of experience, allowing users to feel more welcomed. 

Shaikh’s website is organized and very well made.  I might even share my own stories, XD. Thanks for sharing your site with us!

I give this site my seal of approval.

Also remember to take alook at my website : mconeil.net

 

I wanted to create a site about one of three things: Video games, building pcs, or my favorite subject, astronomy. Ultimately I chose astronomy because I felt that many people would be talking about gaming, and there’s isn’t much to speak of pc building anyway. 

Growing up, my family was obsessed with Sci-Fi. After watching films like “Alien”, “Star Wars”, and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, the thought of going into space completely infected me. Besides the fact that many things in the heavens are beautiful, astronomy reminds us of our place in the universe. It lets us know that our problems, no matter how serious they seem, are in the larger scheme of things, not that serious after all. It allows us to know, amid all the changes that happen at an increasing pace in our modern world, that some things remain the same.

The domain name is basically the name of a website. This makes it easy for users to remember the address of a site and access it with ease. 

Thus far, I have learned how to photoshop, hyperlink, create gifs, and create a website. It seems easy, right?

Picking a name that was unique and easy to remember was a little harder than I thought. After thinking about it for a while, I finally came up with five potential names.

1. mconeil.net
2. mcroy.com
3. the spacelogist.com
4. outerworlds.net
5. spacenews.org.

I think I’ll be going with the name mconeil.net because it’s simple it’ll be easy to remember. (after all, it is my name lol)

 

This semester was probably one of the most challenging semesters I’ve ever had to deal with in my college life thus far. From having a full-time job to being a full-time student and getting ready to transfer from York college, I really need life to slow down a bit right now.

I came to CT-101 hoping to get an easy A, but I got more than that. Thanks to this class, I am better at photoshop(barely), can create memes, and even have my own website!

I feel like an IT technician lol.

Honestly, my communication skill could use a lot of improvement since it’s pretty hard for me to get my words together when writing a paper or summary. Still, Co-Vid19 gave me enough time to work on that.
Hopefully, I get a pretty decent grade in this class!

Also, here’s the hyperlink to my website, i hope you guys like it.

mconeil.net

This week, we had to pick two assignments from the DS106 Assignment Bank that I would like to create. 

The DS bank has multiple options to choose from, but I decide to go for the Mashup and Visual projects. I figured that those two would help me the most since I like Photoshop. 

People use Photoshop for many different reasons. Personally, it helps me fulfill my artistic desires. If I want a photo where there’s snow, but I can’t get to a place with that particular weather, I could photoshop the snow into my image and get the results I wanted. If you know how to use it, you can do almost anything. You can’t believe your eyes anymore. You could make a Horse with a dragon head, a guy with swords as feet being in a submarine on mars, etc. With Photoshop, I can create that image.

Now and then you need a particular photo with a specific background, light or tones to finish your imaginative work.  With Photoshop, it’s sometimes even easier, and if you know how to use it correctly, it looks nice. So why not?

For the mashup assignment, I decided to choose the Video Game Cover Mashup. I chose those topics because I like video games. As I was doing the project, I ran into a couple of issues using photoshop, so they came out weird but here we go anyway.

Minecraft (1)

Zelda (1)

I like to photoshop, but I’m terrible at it lol. But now, I got a little better, so progress?

The next project that I did was the Concert I’d want to be in. (this one is pretty self-explanatory)

concert

This is me at a Drake concert. 

 

People like memes because they usually show some kind of emotion that can’t be described in any other way. It is usually meant to be a joke.

In today’s assignment, We had to answer one of the most sought after questions of our generation, “Are memes art?”

Well, are they?

The short answer is yes!!!

According to Wikipedia, “Art is a diverse range of human activities involving the creation of visual, auditory or performing artifacts, which express the creator’s imagination, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

In order words,  art reflects the things in our lives as Society, Human aspirations, Culture, Geo-politics, etc., as we know it.

Time is one of the biggest influences on art. As time moves on, so does our taste in art. Today, with the impact of the internet in our society, viral media serves as a form of art.

While many may argue that “digital art” or digital media is not real art, it is still art, just a different medium. Art, to me, is an expression of the human experience.

(Me when people says memes are not real art)

With memes, you can express yourself, just like paintings or drawings.
Here is a bunch of memes that show creativity and expression.

Before coming into this class, a friend of mine had recommended that I take Ct-101.

After the second week I found out we were going to be making gifs and got really into it!

I thought it was cool because who doesn’t like gifs.

I like Ct-101 because compared to my other classes, this is the only one where I don’t have to write essays or do research.

Once again, stay safe and be active.

These were made using Giphy.