Characterization

This is a small characterization of a fictitious villain in a larger piece using the technique of interior monologue mixed with narrative to explain his reactions to the heroine and also his family situation.

Chas watched Tresha walk away and whistled. She was beautiful, smart and…innocent. There was no way around that. She wasn’t the type of girl you partied with, but the kind you brought home to Mom as the girl you were hoping to marry.

He looked at the shortboard and checked the price. Too much. That was his life. Everything was too expensive and sucked. He had finally met a nice girl, but he couldn’t bring her home to his parents.

His old man would be boozing and probably offer her a beer, tequila or whatever his poison of the moment was. Or maybe not, the old man wasn’t exactly known for sharing anything, especially his alcohol.

Maybe the bodyboards would be better. His was all beat up. Sort of like his mother. After years of living with his father she was beaten, worn into the ground. All the physical and mental abuse had taken its toll. Now when she wasn’t working, she was sleeping. That cycle started as soon as he had gotten big enough to hit back.

After that one time, his father hadn’t touched anyone again. Chas felt sick, remembering the feel of his fist connecting with his dad’s jaw and it shattering.

Yeah, his father hadn’t touched anyone again. But that’s when she gave up. Short of the house falling in around her she, the old lady made it clear to her children not to wake her. Especially for something she didn’t consider a good reason. He didn’t blame her, sleeping was better than being awake in their house.

Blog 1

The site I chose to do my blog posting on is DaxMusic. The targeted audience of this site is people needing audio services done in studio, from demo projects to radio jingles, and his fan base leftover from Dax’s days as the keyboardist for the group ‘N Sync. In the about page it lists not only the type of services offered but also the ‘N Sync connection and his professional affiliations from Grammy voters to being endorsed by Peavey Electronics since 1990. There are also demos, endorsements from clients and samples of past projects, including one that was nominated for a Grammy.

The site appeals to reason with the impressive affiliation and past projects list, to the emotions with audio clips of his various work and the ethical sensibilities with the professional affiliations and endorsements. It only takes listening to Dax’s work once to make a lifelong fan and supporter of this multi-talented producer and musician.

10x10

10x10 is an amazing website that hourly presents a collection of 100 images neatly fitted together in a 10 by 10 grid. These images and information are taken from news sources and represent what is going on in the world during a certain hour. The unique thing about the website 10x10 is that it is automated and does not require human interaction for it to operate. This website uses flash and could be a whole new way to check the news. The website is not perfect due to the limitations of computer AI. There may be a few missing links and images. Cognitive Science can only do so much in automating a grid from eternal sources. For a more detailed information of what this website does, click here.

10x10’s core is its visual text accompanied by a few lines of verbal text. It uses visual images to best show what is happening in the world. This could be because “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Although some images are repeats of others, these images are relevant to the topic which it is trying to express. Not only does 10x10's layout display news of the current hour, but it documents and keeps past news so that one may refer back to it. This website is easy to navigate and is keeps everything simple. You are not flooded with text nor are you provided with too few. The images in the 10 by 10 grid are also numbered for navigational purposes. The numbers individually match up with a single word on the right hand side to describe what the image is about. 10x10 provides a different approach to viewing current events in the world today. Whether you chose to use it or not, the decision is yours.

Skateboarding and Spatial Literacy: 50-50.com

Though I'm clearly not a skater, I've admired the 50-50.com site for many years for the way it meets a particular set of purposes and speaks to a specific audience with a combination of modalities. The site has developed from a relatively simple where-to-skate-on-O'ahu information channel (and a place to post digital video of skaters around town) to a rich source of diverse material on skating and a space for interaction and discussion for the skate community. It also serves the purpose of organizing skaters to fight for more and better skate parks on the island, and for more understanding and respect from the community at large. These functions are summed up in the inventive use of menu labels for main sections of the site (combined with humorous JavaScript rollover images that reflect the grim humor of some skaters): absorb, interact, contribute.

On the "Skatepark Progress Page" in the "absorb" section, the site combines a journalistic approach to laying out articles (including pictures of key figures like former mayor Jeremy Harris) with photographic images and architects' diagrams of existing and proposed skatepark facilities around O'ahu. Readers can not only engage in the verbal discussion of the progress of these various facilities, but they can apply their highly developed spatial literacy to evaluate the plans for the parks.
This section of 50-50.com essentially "maps" the island from the perspective of a skater. This spatial "translation" of O'ahu into a social space, demarcated and evaluated in terms of "skatability," has been feature of the site since its early days.
Its rhetoric engages the culture of skating directly, appealing the specific "ideologics" native to this particular culture, but it also addresses larger social problems that emerge from the legal and economic infrastructure of the State and municipality, such as the marginalization and criminalization of youth culture.

Don't click it?

I would like to recommend this website to the class. I feel this website is really interesting and I believe it uses intensive flash to display the visuals. The really amazing thing about this site is that it is against the common "clicking" of your mouse to move around on the website. You will actually be warned when you click on anything!

I believe this website appeals to computer users that use computers on a regularly basis. Also this website would appeal to people that are interested in changes in the technological revolution. The reason I believe this is because of the way the website displays explains that the creator questioned existing habits of interface development and decided to take it to another level.

This website strongly appeals to logos. When using this website, you are pratically going out of your normal computer using interface where nearly everything is controlled by you clicking on links, pictures and objects. Meanwhile, this website argues that there are ways to navigate on a website without clicking.

Dontclickit appeals to pathos in the way it requires you not to click on anything at all. The website will even try to trick you to click on pictures at times. The result will be a warning reminding you that clicking is deeply rooted in you and perhaps a habit created over time. While navagating through this website, you will strive to not click on anything. This will appeal to your emotions, making you fustrated, interested, annoyed, or fascinated. Emotions will vary depending on the person.

Dontclickit appeals to ethos by showing that although clicking is not wrong, it has almost completely taken over computer interfaces these days. This website is shows ways of changing how a person interacts with website interfaces.

Check this website out if you have time.

Example of Blog Post 1

I'd like to recommend the Web Standards Project (WaSP) web site to everyone in the class. The WaSP group aims its site at a range of people who produce content for the World Wide Web, including high-end web developers and people who are just learning how to publish on the Web (like many of us). The "Recent Buzz" section on the home page is blog on which members post ideas and reports about current practices in web design. These posts include a number of critiques of existing sites that don't comply with standards.

What's striking to me about the rhetoric of the page is that WaSP characterizes its efforts as a "fight":

Founded in 1998, The Web Standards Project (WaSP) fights for standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web.

While for the most part a page like this appeals to logos, advancing the rational argument that compliance with web standards is objectively better than non-compliance, WaSP's account of its "fight" involves ethical (ethos) and even emotional (pathos) appeals. WaSP argues that people with disabilities are better able to access information on sites that comply with web standards. This is an ethical appeal--the WaSP group is advocating consideration for the disabled. If you read through the "About" section of the site, you'll detect (at least I do) a kind of outrage at the general disregard for standards. The implicit message is, "we're angry about the lack of standards, and we're going into battle to defend them." This anger is part of an emotional appeal--we're expected to be angry, too.

I hope this helps give an example of the kind of thing I'm looking for in your own posts. Remember that can enter the tags for a hyperlink you learned on Friday directly into the Blogger window to create a live link in your post.

Thanks for Jumping In/CSS

It's great that a number of you have started our blog rolling already. I'm glad that folks have some HTML and other scripting background--and that they're willing to share it. "CSS" means "Cascading Style Sheets": it's a way of controlling the appearance (and some behavior) of a web site. You use a separate file (or a seperate chunk of script) to indicate how certain HTML tags should be displayed. We'll go over the basics in a few weeks.

Welcome to HI Tech Rhet

This blog will be a resource for you throughout the semester. I'll assign you specific formats for some of your posts, but you can use the blog at any time to communication with other students, reflect on our discussions, and coordinate study groups.

I look forward to getting to know all of you.