Tecnologies in our life

Here we have an example of how new technologies impact our daily life. I chose this video from the creators of the iRack parody. This video is a parody of new tecnologies, and how they impact or envolvement in childs of today. Here, this "twelve year old kid", Lorenz is a good example, this kid, as you see (even if it's a parody) is addicted to video games. This one, only by enter in the house of his friend max, need, as soon as he sees video console,he needs to play with it. In the moment he starts to play with the video game, you can see Lorenz's face look like brainless, he get cross-eyed and his tongue sticks his mouth(funny but sad at the same time).If he can't play, he need to lie to Max parent's to continue playing this game.

This kid, or the parody of this kid represents how dangerous and addictive are video games or new technologies to kids or the impact on children today. This parody could have been the same if you change the Xbox for a Blackberry or an Iphone or any of this new technologies. Nowadays kids are very sensitive to this kind of stuff, and they are changing every year. Companies create new games or consoles year after year only to extend this addiction, actually they earn a lot of money with it. Every year we see the new Iphone for example, last december, Apple made the Iphone 4 S, the only things that they changed was the camera, but people still buy it. Another example is, the Call of duty franchise, which created the new Call of duty modern warfare 3, the only thing that they changed, weapons, but kid's will buy it and it costs 70 euros. Those companies use their addiction for their products and to earn more and more money cause we get like Lorenz, braineless when we use them. They incite us to consume their products with "new" things every year. New technologies like this only make us silly. I'm not against progress, but this kind of progress makes me sick, we need to keep our culture and knowledge, but this kind of stuff won't help us, we need to fight against them, or avoid to buy their products.

irack

Commentary

MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series that stopped being aired in 2009 in the USA.

Much of its comedy parodies popular television shows, movies, and music, and covers topical, political, and pop cultural humor.

As usual with MADtv, this particular sketch was taped in front of a live audience.

In fact, this video entitled ‘iRack’ pits an aggressive man against a hostile audience.

Actually, the man embodies two people at the same time (the CEO and founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs and former US President George W. Bush) while the audience also represents two groups of people: Apple Computer shareholders and investors and American citizens as a whole.

At first, the man is proud to present Apple’s products which include well-known high-tech products like the iPod or iPad but also a few (fake) novelty products like the ‘iVacuum-cleaner’, the ‘iMicro-wave’ or the ‘iLamp’!

Therefore, right from the start, this sketch ridicules Apple’s propensity to always innovate even if the previous product still sells on the world market.

Then, the man unveils a brand new product called the ‘iRack’.

From this point onward, that man is no longer Steve Jobs but George W. Bush and the new product stands for the country called Irak (also spelt Iraq), which was invaded by the US and British armies in March 2003.

We could call this substitution of one man/thing for another one an extended metaphor that runs through the whole video.

At the beginning, the audience applauds and cheers the man because he is Steve Jobs but then they turn into US citizens and start being puzzled and keep protesting against George W. Bush’s foreign policy, more particularly his handling of the Irak war.

For instance, a woman remarks that the product/country looks unstable while another man claims that (the) ‘iRack/Irak’ looks like something America shouldn’t be involved with. Another spectator says that the ‘iRack/Irak’ looks so shaky that it needs to be fixed.

The US president replies to these three comments with a kind of self-confidence , even self-assertiveness whch borders on arrogance, for example when he says ‘Mission Accomplished’, a phrase that makes reference to a famous speech President Bush delivered in 2003.

Bush stated at the time that this was the end to major combat operations in Iraq. While this statement did coincide with an end to the conventional phase of the war, Bush's assertion became controversial after guerilla warfare in Iraq increased and the vast majority of casualties, both military and civilian, have occurred since the speech.

Then, the man starts putting more and more iproducts into the iRack, symbolizing all along the large number of US military troops sent to Irak to fight in the war against the counter insurgency (local fighters and Al Qaeda terrorists infiltrated in Irak).

A woman is clever enough to remark that the iRack doesn’t even want all those things in there, which is an indirect way of saying that American troops were not welcomed in Irak. As a matter of fact, it is a well-known fact that they were invaders.

Two people in the room suggest that he should take things out of the iRack  instead of putting in more things, which is yet another implicit criticism signifying to President Bush that he should pull back American troops.

Of course, he entirely disagrees and keeps putting more things/sending more soldiers in there.

Next, a man clearly says that the iproducts don’t seem to be getting along in the iRack, which symbolizes the fact that American soldiers and Iraki civilians did not get on well and even hated each other.

All of a sudden, the iRack starts to smoke but President Bush claims that this is the beginning of synergy, i.e. cooperative interaction among groups. In order to help the process along, he starts throwing more money into the iRack, which is a metaphorical way of showing the huge cost of this war for the USA.

At this point, one of the spectators speaks out and says that they do not support him in this but Bush answers that he doesn’t care, as if he no longer cared whether American citizens supported him or not, which is what must have happened in real life as George W. Bush could not run for a third term in office anyway.

Of course, Barack Obama was the one who won the 2088 presidential election against the Republican candidate.

Finally, everybody gets panicky and scared because the fire is engulfing the entire room, just as the Irak war could have spread to other countries in the Middle East.

In this desperate situation, Bush only says that there is no exit strategy, another reference to a famous speech after which the real George W. Bush could not walk out of the conference room because all the doors were locked!

As a conclusion, Bush/Jobs invite the audience to focus on Apple’s newest product called the iRan.

This is the final twist in this video and it is really well thought-out as Irak’s neighboring country, Iran, might well be the next target of an American military invasion due to the nuclear threat it is supposed to represent as Iran’s government is intent on building a nuclear bomb that would make their country a potential threat for Israel and the USA, among others.

I must admit that the mix of satire, humor, and political criticism found in this video is truly ‘explosive’.

Besides, it points out various locations and forms of power, whether economic (Apple corporation’s worldwide domination  over high-technology products) or political and military (the US government’s  tendency to rule the world according to American interests).

That’s why this video is a perfect illustration of one of the four notions studied this year, namely ‘Locations and Forms of Power’.

A Fanatic Geek

Here, we have a picture from a cartoonist named Chapatte to the Int'l Herald Tribune. As we see on the background, this scene takes place at the Cannes's festival. On the foreground, we can see two celebrities with a fan who looks like a geek, with his T shirt with an internet simbol. This fan looks overjoyed, and he's telling one of the celebrities, that he has pirated all his films. So we see the latter's face like annoyed, actually, this fan is telling him that he stole money from him,or his author's rights. In the left of this celebritie, we can imagine that this is his wife or girlfriend, but this one looks haughty.
In the background, we can see a lot of fans begging for an autograph, an paparazzi taking photographs. On the left, there are two famous people that are waving at the crowd. All this in the red carpet.

So  this cartoonist is making a statement of people who are downloading illegal movies, and that is more and more usual nowadays, actually most of the people do it. But this teenager don't represent his generation, there's still young people who buy movies or music, not as much as artists would like, but it's something if you see the prices of those things. If you can have it just in a few minutes on your computer and FREE, why go to a shop, waste time, and spend 12 euros for a CD, or DVD. Those artists can even earn more money doing a concert if they are musicians, or if they are actors, most of them are doing adds for more money. So we are only doing a little damage for enterprises which are earning millions like nothing. Now those enterprises are doing laws to try to stop us from downloading, so they are making downloading more limited than a few years ago. Downloading shouldn't be limited, it's also a way for people to access to culture and knowledge.

Do you don't you want me to love you?

Helter Skelter, one of the first hard rock songs of The Beatles. This song is  from the white album, in 1968. I put this song here, cause it's quite unusual to hear a song like this coming from this group. The fact is that this group have always searched new sounds and ways to do their music different. If you listen The Beatles in 1962 it won't be the same has if you listen them on 1965, or 1970. The point is that many people usually think that the Beatles are only pop songs, here i show us that this isn't true, and a good example can be this song. A funny thing is to hear Ringo saying at the end, " I've got blisters on my fingers".

And an interesting thing was the first version of this song, which is slower, and completely different, so you can see also the evolution of this song in the studio.