Com1450 Blog

  Cord-cutting is defined as “the practice of canceling or forgoing a cable television subscription or landline phone connection in favor of an alternative Internet-based or wireless service.” (Oxford dictionary) Basically, it involves moving from live TV services to streaming services. Since the 2020 pandemic, cord-cutting is up by 23% (fortune) and more and more people have been buying internet services.  eMarketer shows that advertisements have dropped over $10 billion and they have projected that it will climb back but won’t reach the original $70.59 billion until at least after 2024. That drop is almost 15% and it hasn’t been this low since 2011 (Tech Crunch).  The math is there if you are wanting to save a buck here and there. With internet costing around $60 a month plus subscription services adding around $30-40, that's still nowhere near what an average cable cost would be. Spectrum offers just internet for $49.99 a month and you can add cable to that for an ...

 Jada's blog post taught me a lot about the beginnings of Youtube. I didn't realize that the site was meant to be used as a dating website at first! That really goes to show what all can change in ideas in a very short time. When people think of these ideas, some of the downfalls of them are that they are too stubborn to significantly change their idea. For these creators, changing their idea to adapt to how people were using it worked out for them big time!     Many startups think that they need a shiny new office space with high-tech equipment to get started. What these people don't realize is that many of the big companies started off way smaller than that! Youtube was founded in a garage and was later sold for 1.65 Billion dollars. They needed very little to get their idea off the ground. Of course, once they grew they probably needed a lot more, but at the start, many ideas don't need grand foundations! 

The First Fax Machines     The "fax" in fax machine is short for facsimile, which means " a system of transmitting and reproducing graphic matter (such as printing or still pictures) by means of signals sent over telephone lines" ( Merriam-Webster ). So, a fax machine would be a machine that is capable of sending messages or images over telephone lines. How does something like this even start? On May 27, 1843, Alexander Bain achieved a patent that was for "improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs" ( FaxAuthority ).     So this wasn't exactly the fax machine, but he was the first to be able to transmit images across a wire. However, Frederick Bakewell took Bain's design and created a telegraph that could transmit images to one another. This was not commercially available, but it was a good first step to move towards that.  ( FaxAuthority ).  Giovanni Ca...

Green Party Presidential Candidate Removed From PA Ballot   This is the blog p ost for week 6     We've had a roller coaster of news this week. Trump's Taxes and Breonna Taylor's court decision rank among the most popular. What I see talked much less about is the removal of Howie Hawkins from the PA ballot. Democrats' main identity of Trump is that he is a fascist that wants complete control of the government with no one going against him. The validity of this is up for debate and there is way too much to talk about on both sides. In turn, Democrats say how they want to remove every ounce of fascism from this country and make it truly democratic.      Democrats recently sued the Green Party in PA for not signing "filing papers in person" ( Washington Post ). This in turn had Howie Hawkins, the Green Party presidential candidate, removed from the ballots in PA. The removal of opponents from official ballots sounds a lot like fascism, something that the Democ...

Who is the Media?     America has very rarely not been at war, dating back to its own revolution. Today is no different, just maybe not as well known by the general public. There is, however, one difference between the media of Today and during the Revolution. For the most part, the media of the revolution was biased towards America in terms of America vs. Britain. If it was positive for America, it was in the media. Today, media isn't for America, its for the Left or the Right.  Where Are We?           Just on Friday of this past week, we sent more troops to Syria ( Antiwar ). Where was this on your mainstream media? Did the Left show it? Did the Right show it? That's because both of these sides want to have some sort of governmental power. If you show the people what you're actually doing in these offices, they will lose a lot of support. According to the  Committee for a Responsible Foreign Policy, 86.4% of people believe that our mil...

What Does the First Amendment Say?      "Congress shall make no law respecting...the right of the people peaceably to assemble" (First Amendment, United States Constitution, 1791.)     The world we live in today is like no other time in the history of America. We are battling a virus, civil unrest against the government, and civil unrest against each other. True, there is rarely a time where we are in constant "peace," but the last time our country had this much inner turmoil it launched into a civil war. The Black Lives Matter protests have swept the nation and began receiving heavy media involvement since the death of George Floyd. Yes, George Floyd was not the first, nor will he be the last. But his death was at the perfect time to launch our country into the civil unrest we see today. What Does the First Amendment Allow/Disallow?      Anyone can protest, for any reason. This is commonly accepted. What causes differing opinions is when these pr...

Reddit      I don't really watch much television, so the news I do see relies on what I see daily on the internet. I am on Reddit for at least 2 or 3 hours every day and just sort by "All." This means that the content I am seeing is the most upvoted content on the entire site. Reddit's population is mostly liberal/democratic leaning so I have to keep that in mind when looking at content and comments on that content. Twitter     I have set a couple of twitter accounts to send me notifications whenever they post a new tweet. This is mostly video game or other forms of entertainment related. Like Reddit, Twitter is a mixing pot of all different kinds of people, however it seems to mainly skew left. This is also dependent on who you follow. The most popular tweets are left-leaning. Youtube     Like Twitter, I have set multiple youtube channels to send me notifications whenever they post a new video. This ranges from all sorts of different news genres from ...