Blogs Being Shut Down

Recently a few blogs speaking out about Russian/Uzbekh billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, the man trying to buy out Arsenal football club have been taken down.

The blogs were speaking against the billionaire, highlighting his criminal record and things he doesn't want you to know.

http://elleeseymour.com/2007/09/21/outrageous-shutting-down-of-british-blogs

In my opinion this is ridiculous as everyone is entitled to free speech and expressing their opinion. Just because Mr Usmanov doesn't want people to know about his past, it shouldn't give him the right to get blogs shut down.

In a case settled out of court:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2111824/09/no-rights-just-t
the company demon Internet was sued for malicious comments posted on its newsgroup servers and faces bills of up to £500,000.

The Internet is of course all set by terms and conditions but I personally think this is crazy

I just think the world has gone mad if you have no right to speak your mind in a blog. The whole point of a blog is to express personal feelings.

Radio 1 DVD

We watched a DVD on Radio 1 and here is my report on it.



42 Million People listen to the radio each week and Radio 1 is one of the most popular radio stations in the UK.

Beginnings of Radio 1
The BBC ruled the radio world up until the 1960’s when pirate radio became popular. Stations began broadcasting from pirate ships with Radio Caroline being one of the forerunners. The government decided to set up Radio 1 and poached popular presenter Tony Blackburn from Radio Caroline to spearhead the station.

Producers
The producer of a radio show is the person responsible for running the show and making sure it all goes according to plan. The producer works out what goes into the show. They make sure that the show gets on air. They make sure that the music is suitable for the audience and generally make sure the show goes ok. They also check the papers and TV for topics to talk about during the show.

DJs
The DJ is the face and voice of the show. Radio 1 has a policy of recruiting DJs with regional accents to help make the station feel national and less like a London station. The daytime DJs are usually people with lots of personality, character and charisma. Night Time DJs are usually experienced in a specific type of music.

Playlists
The playlist is designed to reflect current trends in music. The daytime playlist is more light listening with all the current hits and new songs whereas the night time playlist is more specialist and targets a specific audience. The playlist is made to be a balance between the big well known artists and new up and coming artists. The playlist consists of tracks that have to be played so often:

· A List – up to 35 plays a week
· B List - up to 25 plays a week
· C List – up to 5 times a week
Music is listened to before being put on the playlist and there are board meetings before a playlist is drawn up

Reporters
The Radio 1 news is called Newsbeat. It is different from most news as it packages the news for its audience. Reporters are assigned to stories and they then have to go and do a report about the story. Once they have finished the report they have to edit it to fit into a package so that a few stories can be showcased.

Publicity
The publicist is responsible for placing stories in the papers and hyping up the station. The job of the publicist is to promote events or shows that are upcoming and try to get potential listeners as interested as possible and draw them back into the product. There are many ways of doing this but the most common ways are using newspapers and building websites.

Overall I thought the DVD had some interesting points but it did drag on a bit and some of the information given wasn't needed.


www.bbc.co.uk/radio1

www.chrismoyles.net


Radio 1 logo found on www.google.com
Radio 1 logo property of BBC

The Week In Words

This week has been the fourth week of the course. I am really starting to enjoy the course now. I'm starting to learn new things, and re-do things I've done last year.

I learned how to install programs and run an anti-virus scan on Monday in Susan's class which was fun.

On Wednesday, In the computer programing class, we had to do presentations in groups about the process and steps it takes to build/design something, like a car or birthday party.

Today has been spent learning about HTML in the web site design class where i learned how to code styles. It was confusing to begin with but after some practice it was rather easy.

Other than college my week has been spent watching Manchester United win against Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League thanks to a Cristiano Ronaldo goal in the second half and playing Bioshock on my Xbox 360.

I have also been playing Rainbow Six Vegas online using Xbox Live which is always good to pass a few hours of boredom





www.2kgames.com

picture copyright 2k games

Bob Marley Concert

We were asked to watch live concert clips of bob marley and then rate them.

The clips were very good, two of his more famous songs performed live and they were nice and relaxing. Bob marley was one of the best entertainers and he was always moving and letting the crowd join in too

overall i thought they were very good, despite everyone in the class randomly singing parts of the song

My Favourite Album

My favourite album is "the fragile" by nine inch nails. It is a double album and has 23 tracks on it.




It was written during Trent Reznors battles with drug addiction and depression so its very honest and is amazing. It has so many great tracks on it..from the awesome build up of the opening track "somewhat damaged" to the calm ending of "Ripe(With Decay)"


It is one of the only albums i can listen to all the way through, despite its lenth, and never get bored.


My favourtite song ever "We're In This Together" is on this album and although its a very basic song its perfect.


Highlights of the album include the opener "Somewhat Damaged", "we're in this together", "Into The Void" and "The Great Below"


The tracklisting is as follows:


Disc One (Left)
1. Somewhat Damaged
2. The Day The World Went Away
3. The Frail
4. The Wretched
5. We're In This Together
6. The Fragile
7. Just Like You Imagined
8. Even Deeper
9. Pilgrimage
10. No You Don't
11. La Mer
12. The Great Below


Disc Two (Right)
01. The Way Out Is Through
02. Into The Void
03. Where Is Everybody?
04. The Mark Has Been Made
05. Please
06. Starf**kers Inc.
07. Complication
08. I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally
09. The Big Come Down
10. Underneath It All
11. Ripe (With Decay)


Overall i rate this album very highly, despite being twice the lenth of a normal NIN record, Trent Reznor perfectly laid out the traklisting so that it never gets boring and you keep discovering new things everytime you listen.

www.nin.com

www.interscope.com


image property of nothing records

First Post

Im 19, i am currently studying computing at Aberdeen College.

This is my second year at college after doing the intro to IT course last year

I like football, drinking..alot and computer games

Muisc is a huge part of my life and i love going to gigs and go as much as i can. My fave band is Nine Inch Nails

I dont really follow a certain team, but enjoy watching the spl and premiership.

Anyway i must get back to work...

later