Viral Links

 https://twitter.com/alexhayes15




On Twitter I took a few different approaches to try to garner views on my video and make my video more well known on the twittersphere. The first technique I tried was the simplest because I used a few tweets to just give a small summary of my video and then told my followers to go to YouTube to check it out. The next technique was my personal favorite. You can see some of the tweets in the top right screen shot above. I used several tweets to tell a first person story of my robot maid turning on me and then me having to run to my safehouse. My tweeting ends much like an infomercial saying if this has happened to you then check out my video. The final strategy I used was to post memes that I made. I turn the famous Ill be back quote around to show that robots have taken over.

I made a lot of posts to Facebook. One thing I did to increase my viewers was post to different pages as well as just update my own status. The first few posts I made were to the Terminator: Genisys fan page. I posted a link to my video as well as some commentaries on it. I also updated my status a few times so that all of my friends could see my posts. In my statuses I posted a link to my video, as well as talked about a furby and a bunker that I am prepared to build. The last place I decided to post about my video was in the UF Class of 2017 page. I posted my third meme to this page. I used a more well known meme template to make sure people noticed it. I also used the UF page to post my infographic.

https://vine.co/u/950420947746320384

For my vine videos i used a snippet of my video as well as different videos that talk about technology possibly killing us and how to destroy them (throwing them away as seen to the right) as well as making sure all doors are locked. 






Overall my social media posts got many views but didn't really get a lot of likes or favorites. I believe this assignment was a great experience because it gave me more knowledge on how to be successful through social media. 

Advice on Social Media Stardom

Getting a hang of social media is not difficult, but becoming good at it or becoming an expert takes a little bit more work. A person looking to start a social media account needs to have a plan before they start. There is important thing that you want to have set out before you look to gain notoriety on social media, a target audience.

It is important to have a target audience and one that appeals to you because it allows you as a tweeter or viner to focus on a certain subject and skill when posting on social media. An example of this would be someone who likes to post about news stories. When I think of news two polar opposites come to mind. First I think of news outlets like Fox News or CNN, but then there are also comedic news outlets such as Comedy Central with anchors like Jon Stewart. I bring up Fox News and Jon Stewart because they talk about similar things but go about it in different ways because they have different audiences. Comedy Central intends to appeal to a younger audience (20-40 years old) while CNN or Fox News look to appeal to the older generation (my parents or older) because old people just want straight forward news. I will look at specific tweets from both outlets to see how they target their audience.


As you can see Jon Stewart uses a more comedic and sarcastic tone while Fox News uses a straightforward approach to get its audience the news it wants without any extra funny business. These two news outlets show why its important to have an audience in mind and that's because it is important to appeal to them with the correct tone in tweets. Another important thing is not only to have an audience but to make sure you engage them.

It is important to engage your audience because this keeps them coming back. Followers will feel a sense of connection to you even if they know nothing about you just because they were mentioned in your tweet or because you responded to one of their question. A great example of this is basically any sports on twitter. I will use Matt Miller as my example.

Matt Miller always does a great job engaging his audience by answering whatever question they have for him. Because he is a scout of college prospects, most of his questions are regarding the NFL draft but he sometimes answers question about different topics. No matter who you are, it is important to engage your audience on Twitter, because if you don't then they will unfollow you and follow other people who can answer their question. Another important thing that Matt Miller does well is be consistent. If you created an account for a specific purpose then stick to you plan. Matt Miller tweets about the NFL draft, and not much else. This allows followers to know what are getting with each tweet.

Screen Story Rationale

My screen story had many different elements to it. Some of these different elements were actual footage I filmed, footage from movies or commercials, and footage that involved using a still background, a green screen, and a toy character that was telling a story. I will break up each section of the video up and discuss the purpose of using certain things such as voice overs or transitions when I did as well any positives or negatives that occurred.

The first scene of the video begins with a short clip from the upcoming movie, Terminator Genysis. I chose this movie because my screen story was designed tell its audience about robots and how integrating robots into our society is not a good idea. Terminator comes into play because it is a fictional movie about artificial intelligence becoming too powerful and fighting back against its creators. A person then wakes up from the dream and tells his friend while his friend tells him that it wasn't a dream. This scene used images to portray the narrative. I chose this technique because I wanted to grab the viewers attention quickly with a scene that is easily recognizable. Audio doesn't come into play until a character says, "that wasn't a dream". I added this scene to add suspense to the video.

The main narrative for the rest of the video is audio with some visual images sprinkled in. Examples of audio are when Lt. Dan is talking with pictures of Ray Kurzweil in the background, as well as Lt. Dan speaking with other backgrounds behind him, such as a terminator, roombas, and RoboCop. My initial plan was to have all of these backgrounds be videos instead of still images but the movie making software that I used, Camtasia, did not produce the effect that I wanted. For whatever reason, whenever I used a video as a background, the video lagged and only played piece by piece. In the end, I'm glad I was forced to use still pictures as the background because this allows the viewer to focus on the audio and instead of getting distracted by gunfire in the background. The first scene of pictures did use a little bit of imagery because I used arrows to point out Ray Kurzweil. Another example of this is when I circled the roomba. I still used small clips from RoboCop and Terminator but those scenes were for enjoyment purposes to make the video more interesting as opposed being in the video for educational purposes.

The tone of the video is serious because many of the important audio that is heard is based on real life things such as Ray Kurzweil, a roomba, and a humanoid robot created by Japanese scientists. The elements of the video that are most responsible for conveying this tone are the Ray Kurzweil scene and the Roomba scene. These two scenes are mostly factual and included to talk about some research that I did online.  The video is also serious because Lt. Dan discusses how robots could take jobs that are currently held by humans and he says not to allow this to happen.

Live Tweeting

Before I discuss my live tweeting experience, here is a link to my twitter so that all of my tweets are available.

https://twitter.com/alexhayes15

The event that I chose to do for my live tweeting was National Signing Day for college football. The fact that I love football and that Gators football is my favorite thing about UF factored in to my decision on what to live tweet about. It was an enjoyable experience because the Gators did better in recruiting than many expected. I was also given an excuse to go into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in between classes (more about this discussed later) which is always a great experience, even if there aren't 90,000 other fans screaming and yelling. One thing that made National Signing day an easy event to tweet about is that information on recruits could be found anywhere. Every sports website had something on each recruit and all of the major sports networks were covering it. This was great because I was able to hear many different viewpoints on the recruits and whether or not each recruit was ready to succeed at the next level. One of my favorite parts of national signing day is where ESPN has coaches and recruits do interviews. This is where fans learn the most about expectations for the coming years.

A difficulty about live tweeting during National Signing Day is that NSD lasts all day and its very easy to miss information on a recruit because new information comes out so often. For example, I had class on NSD so there were some moments when I had to focus on note taking and wasn't able to constantly refresh Twitter or sports website. Luckily, during this time not much happened for the Gators, recruiting wise. Another difficulty was that my phone battery doesn't last all day so I was in danger of running out of battery by late afternoon times. Now onto some specific tweets that I made.

 

When I look back through my tweets, this picture of the video board in the stadium is my favorite. I consider the stadium to be my favorite part on campus and love that people could go into the stadium and see the gators future players.

 

Not many of my tweets got retweeted or favorited so my tweets weren't successful in that regard.

This tweet was successful because one of my followers favorited it. The purpose of the tweet was to show that even with a good recruiting class this year there was still room to improve. The gators didn't use up all of their scholarships so next years class will be even better because it will have more scholarships to give recruits.

This tweet was important because many experts expected the gators to have a poor recruiting class after a second straight below average season. Instead, the gators reeled in two 5* prospects, one of which was CeCe Jefferson. This commitment ensured that the gators would surpass expectations. This also showed how good of a recruiter Jim Mcelwain is and that he will be able to do so much more with a full year of recruiting next season.

 

For one tweet, I took a screenshot of the rankings. I enjoyed this tweet because it showed how far up the rankings the gators moved up on national signing day (44 spots).

 

 

 For this tweet I went to the other side of Twitter and decided to retweet someone else instead of expecting others to retweet me. I retweeted a tweet from top recruit Martez Ivey.

Annotated Bibliography and Abstract

 Ellie Zolfagharifard "Rise of the Real Terminator: Scientists Create Shape-shifting Liquid Metal." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 23 Sept. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.

"The team claims the breakthrough could lead to better electronic circuits, self-repairing structures and perhaps, someday, T-1000-style robots." This article talks about how scientists have used alloys of indium and gallium to create a metal that can reshape itself after being distorted. A quote from the article says that "we can use this technique to control the movement of liquid metals, allowing us to change the shape of antennas and complete or break circuits." This quote shows that if this metal was used in a machine then the machine would be able to heal itself on the battlefield. The source relates to my project because I will be discussing futuristic weapons that the military could create and one of those weapons could be a robot that is self healing. This differs from my sources because it discusses the healing process a robot would use. The article also says "this means that when this alloy is placed on a flat table, it will form into an almost perfect ball, and holds its shape." This quote just talk more about the ability for the created metal to reform itself.

Kelly, Kevin. "Better Than Human." Wired. Conde Nast, 24 Dec. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

This source discusses how many of the jobs currently held by humans will soon be taken by robots. "Before the end of this century, 70 percent of today’s occupations will likewise be replaced by automation." If this is the case then why can't some of these jobs include military. Many soldiers are already not needed because of UAV's so what's a few more lives being saved because robots are used as infantry. An example of a robot thats can operate on its own is a Roomba vacuum named Baxter. "First, it can look around and indicate where it is looking by shifting the cartoon eyes on its head." "To train the bot you simply grab its arms and guide them in the correct motions and sequence." These two quotes show that a machine can develop intelligence on its own and can learn in a monkey see monkey do fashion. This article relates to my project because it shows that robots can be programmed to do different commands. This is different than my first source because it discusses a robot as a whole and not just the materials used to create one.

Grabianowski, Ed. "How Military Robots Work." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

This article talks about different robots that are used by the military. Most of them are just used by the bomb squad. "ACER can handle many heavy-duty tasks, such as clearing out explosives with a mechanical arm." "Everyone knows that being a soldier is a dangerous job, but some of the tasks that soldiers are required to do are more dangerous than others." This quote shows why robots are used by militaries.  "The military doesn't use the kinds of humanoid assault robots we've come to expect from films like "The Terminator."" Unfortunately humanoid robots aren't used but in my video I will pretend like they are and go around searching for the next news story. The source is different from the other sources because it discusses robots currently used in the military.

Baraniuk, Chris. "Are We Ready for the Rise of Social Robots?" BBC Future. BBC, 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

This article discusses the future of robots and how they will affect human society and if humans will be able to accept robots into the workforce. This is why this article is different than the others. It focuses more on the human interaction as opposed to the specifics on the robot. Some researchers "worry that if other robots aren’t good at provoking that kind of reaction, they might actually achieve the opposite effect and encourage violent or unfeeling behavior." This shows that people may turn on robots. If people turn on robots then "it will only be a matter of time before robots will interrogate humans.” And well if this happens, Terminator will become a true story. "And then there’s the possibility of social robots being hacked." If humans can hack robots, then they control them to attack people. The source relates to my project because I will discuss the Terminator becoming real.

Cadwalladr, Carole. "Are Robots About to Rise." The Guardian. Guardian News, 22 Feb. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2015

This article discusses a crazy man that thinks robots will on day take over the world. The man is Ray Kurzweil and he is the director of engineering for Google. "With the fact that he takes 150 pills a day and is intravenously injected on a weekly basis with a dizzying list of vitamins..." This quote shows that while he may be a genius he may also have clouded judgment. "He has been saying for years that he believes that the Turing test – the moment at which a computer will exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human – will be passed in 2029." "But then he predicts that by 2045 computers will be a billion times more powerful than all of the human brains on Earth." These quotes show that an intelligent man believes that artificial intelligence will surpass ours one day. This means a SkyNet is possible. This source relates to my project because it discusses artificial intelligence. It is different that my other sources because it discusses one mans beliefs.

Bancarz, Steven. "First Ever Human Robots Invented By Japanese Scientists." Spirit Science and Metaphysics. Wordpress, 17 Dec. 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

 

This article discusses how scientists have created a robot that looks exactly like a human and they intend for it to be able to learn basic human tasks so that humans don't have to do them. The article states that the creator of the robot "was creating the humanoid robot: to make it as indistinguishable in behaviour and appearance from a human being as possible." However they these robots aren't there yet and "they don’t even control themselves yet." As of right now "they are controlled by someone behind the scenes who speaks through them and moves their mouths and arms with computer software. They are nonetheless a huge milestone for human ingenuity." This source relates to my video because I am looking to find a secret robot created by the military. It is different from my other sources because these robots look exactly like humans on the outside much like a terminator does in the movies.

Four videos I will use to help develop my screen story are (videos will play immediately)

The Terminator Trailer

The Cloverfield Trailer

Hunting for Bigfoot

and A Interview Clip from Fox News

For my video I intend to create a news scene where a reporter gets news that the military is in the process of creating a humanoid robot that can be used in the battlefield instead of human soldiers. The reporter is scared because he/she has seen the movie Terminator. The reporter will try to get to the bottom of the story. He/she will go to different places such as the "military base" on campus and the police station to look for the robot. The Terminator trailer comes into play because I intend to base my screen story of the movie. I will incorporate the first person camera view that is used in the movie Cloverfield. The video will be similar to hunting for bigfoot because a reporter is out searching for a thing that doesn't exist yet and is just chasing ghosts. Fox News and CNN will be helpful because the reporter will go out into the field and interview different military personnel to obtain information.  I will look for suspenseful music to play at certain times and I will find clips of disaster noises for example explosions for certain parts in my movie. As I make my screen story I may also look into other movies that talk about humanoid robots such as they new movie Chappie, Irobot, and RoboCop. I intend to get friends to help me film the screen story and will probably have them be eye witnesses in my video or will see how good they are at editing and see if they can help me piece together different scenes. The key behind the video is to describe the social interactions between futuristic humanoid robots and humans. I chose it because I am in Air Force ROTC and I am interested in the development of military weapons.

Follow the Frog...No Not Literally

 

Comedy sets the tone

The Follow the Frog video is trying to set a comedic tone for the first couple of minutes. It does this by a documentary like video of a man who is trying to protect the rainforest.  The documentary is comedic because the man goes to different extremes to help save the rainforest. For example, he leaves his family, moves to Nicaragua, and joins a tribe. The next comedic portion of the video is when nothing works out and the man is forced to move back home where he finds his wife with another man. The tone reminds me of two videos. First the video reminds me of the DirecTV commercials where a person's life goes from good to bad to worse. The Follow the Frog also reminds me of college humor videos where a man's life is narrated.

 

 

The Tone Setter

The tone of the video is initially set by upbeat music. The music helps show that the man is living a good life and possibly living the American dream. The music cuts out and this shows that the happiness of the video is temporarily over. It shows that maybe this mans life isn't so good. The video then says the man isn't as good as he thinks he is and you can hear gunfire instead of upbeat music. The next music scene comes in and acts as a suspenseful background sound while clips of trees being cut down play. The music quickly turns more positive as the man leaves for his trip to save the rainforest. The music is upbeat because the man is saving the world and accomplishing something great by sacrificing his life to safe some trees. The music stays positive until the end of the videos. This gives a comedic sense because the man's life is then ruined but the positive music is still playing

Goals Accomplished?

The video accomplishes its goal to draw the viewers in with a funny story about a man who sets out on a journey to save the rainforest but ends up losing everything because he tried the impossible. I like how the video used a narrator to talk about the man and his journey. This turned the argument into a funny story about a man's life changing for the worse. I would also incorporate similar music timings into my video. For example, if I was arguing for something I would use happy music to describe the benefits of it.

Lightsabers: The Toy we Dream About

 

The lightsaber was nothing more than a fictional idea that came about because of the fictional movie series Star Wars. For someone who doesn’t know what a lightsaber is then look at the urban dictionary definition to get an accurate description. With the release of the second Star Wars trilogy, lightsaber toys became the new hit. They could be found in any store such as Walmart, Target, or Toys R Us. Some companies, such as ultrasabers, have taken the lightsaber fad even farther and made web sites where a customer can customize their own lightsaber. Luckily for Star Wars fanatics, the toy aisle is not the end of the road for lightsabers. Scientists and MIT and Harvard have accidently created a “lightsaber”. Unfortunately this does not mean a real lightsaber will be the toy of the future.

 

Lightsabers as a sellable toy won’t become a hit across the United States because of how much a lightsaber would cost consumers. The most developed lightsaber currently on the market costs around $400. The problem is that this lightsaber is still just a more advanced version of something you could buy in Walmart. It has a polycarbonate tube that attaches to a spyder 3 laser. This is more advanced because the Walmart lightsaber is nothing more than colored plastic put together around a flashlight. The Wicked Lasers design is much more high tech because it uses similar technology to that of a laser light show. Now just imagine if scientists successfully took lightsabers to the next step. This means removing the plastic or polycarbonate tube and just having a beam of light that extended a few feet from a metal tube. Buying a real life lightsaber would cost well over a few thousand dollars because of the amount of technology that is needed to cause photons to flow a few feet and then bounce back without scattering across the whole room. The presumed cost to purchase a lightsaber is one thing that will keep it from becoming a common household item. Another factor is that the research and knowledge on how to construct an actual lightsaber are still in the baby stages.

 

 

Not much money has been put into research because most people just don't think an actual lightsaber can exist. Scientists also have more important projects to deal with. People don't think an actual lightsaber is possible because light particles, or photons, when emitted scatter throughout a room as opposed to stopping after a few feet like in a lightsaber from Star Wars. Another problem with creating a lightsaber is that photons aren’t solid so they will pass right through each other. This is different from the Star Wars movies, because in those, the lightsabers would clash like real swords. Scientists have reportedly discovered the first step to making real life lightsaber. They did this by cooling atoms with laser beams. This in turn slowed the atoms own enough to where they could form a solid like piece of matter. The thing is though that the results were accidental and they don’t plan on doing further research into developing a lightsaber. Instead they will use the information to help understand different scientific projects like quantum computing. It is clear that the technology to create a lightsaber does not exist yet and most likely never will because not enough people are willing to fund its research. But lets pretend everyone wants a real lightsaber and everyone will do whatever it takes to get one.

We will pretend everyone wants a lightsaber right now and scientists are willing to work in a lab until lightsabers are on every shelf in every store. We will look at a theoretical design for a lightsaber as well as some practical uses. The first thing we need to do is learn how to turn light into a solid material and this,as stated above, has already been accomplished by researchers at MIT and Harvard. So we will use their method and shoot lasers at photons and slow them down. Another thing that needs to be done is finding a way to keep the photons from extending throughout the room. This could be accomplished by attaching a small mirror at the end of the lightsaber. This will force the photons back to the source of light instead of turning into a laser pointer or a flashlight. So what are some practical uses for a lightsaber? First, a lightsaber would just be awesome to have lying around a house as a decoration. Now for some more useful suggestions. The most likely use for a lightsaber would be as a weapon in the military or for law enforcement. They could also be weapons for self-defense in place of a concealed firearm. It would work well because it would have the power to block bullets as well and cut through anything like in the Star Wars movies. Another option would be for surgery. The lightsaber could be made into a smaller less powerful model and be used instead of scalpels. This would benefit doctors because they wouldn’t have to worry about sanitizing their scalpels and other cutting equipment. The final use for a lightsaber would be as a construction tool. Companies could use a lightsaber instead of saws to cut wood, metal, or plastic. In theory, a lightsaber would be fun but it is also dangerous and could cause many deaths and injuries.

Back to reality, a lightsaber would be fun to have and has many everyday practical uses but lets be honest, we may never have the proper technology to make them and even if we did, the odds are people wouldn't want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a lightsaber. To create a lightsaber, scientists would have to figure out how to turn photons into solid particles that would act as a blade of light. Another thing is that lightsabers would be very dangerous and could be deadly if given to criminals. Lightsabers may be cool in theory but unfortunately they will never be more than a movie gimmick.