Category Archives: spring25bond

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Where Did Week 7 Go?

Week 7 to me went by super quick. I think only having three assignments played a role in the week flying by. Despite only having 3 assignments I enjoyed this week. The propaganda assignment and the PSA assignment were enjoyable to complete. For the Propaganda assignment I wanted to incorporate Leo Storm. My quote for my poster was ” Believe in Yourself” I wanted to create a poster that would be useful to myself and anyone viewing it. As I explained in my blog Leo had some experience with the quote as he had to do a lot of believing in himself has, he attended Harvard University and had to overcome a lot of adversity, forcing him to doubt himself at times. However, he still believed in himself and that is what ultimately led to his success. I felt a majority of people could relate to this poster as everyone goes through their own struggles and sometimes, we just need that little reminder to get through it. For my PSA assignment I did a simple background of AIs and their pros and cons. As for how I created my audio, I used Audacity, Pixabay, and speechgen.io. My first step was to find some background sound for my PSA announcement, using Pixabay I found a sound a liked. After that I used speechgen.io to create my text to speech of what I wanted my announcement to say. Once both were complete, I uploaded both to Audacity and meshed the two audios together. I’m excited to see what next week has in store. Until next time!

Trouble In San Fran.

by Andrew Johnson

Since Jonathan (my character) has moved to San Fransisco, considered the “Bay Area,” he has seen the homelessness rates in the city rise. The propaganda piece created illustrates the concept of this situation, hoping public policy will clear the streets and open the beauty of the city back to it’s original state.

The process was to create an image that showed people lying on the ground using deep.ai to generate an accurate image. After uploading the picture, I used Google drawings to add additional text to emphasize the portrayed propaganda.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Chuckles Reacts

Chuckles isn’t quite sure as to where he stands with AI and Aggressive Technologies. However, he has stated that he is not pleased with the takeover from Aggressive Technologies on his architect job. Chuckles has a lot more to say and more thoughts on Aggressive Technologies which can be found here. For now here is the next assignment of his reactions to a few designs and PSAs others produced.

First up is the propaganda picture by Marie. First thing I have to say is that Chuckles would have a great laugh seeing this post. He would also really get along with Marie. They share the same sense of humor and pretty much the same values. Overall, Chuckles enjoyed the incorporation of humor with this serious matter.

Next up is a Public Service Announcement by cat on a moped and Dr. Ravioli. Chuckles is not chuckling after hearing this PSA… A fully AI operated moped?! He has so many thoughts and concerns with this concept. This was not the news he wanted to hear this morning. He fears that the helmet could be useful but harmful at the same time. There’s always issues and risks with having something fully dependent on technology, and there’s not always a positive outcome from it.

Lastly, we have another propaganda poster, this one is by Sydney. Chuckles would not react well to this either. The first line is “We’ll think for you” and Chuckles says that first they will think for you, and next thing you know they are doing everything for you and trying to be you. The word trust is mentioned on their twice and Chuckles would be quick to inform you that you can never fully trust AI.

Week 7 Summary

This was a lighter work week, and I really appreciated that as many of my classes had midterms and last minute assignments due.

First thing I completed for the week was a propaganda poster.

Propaganda Design – Do Not Fear the Robot!

Tapping into my research of color usage on posters helped me create something that my course character would advocate for. I went more into detail on the reasoning behind the message in my post.

Public Service Announcement: Coming of the New Civilization – Condemn Aggressive Technologies!

Next was the PSA. This one also related to my course character and allowed me to add a new layer of depth to Hwei as someone who has a messiah complex. I used technology that I explored during the audio week of the semester, and it all meshed nicely into a very convincing audio clip.

Here are my daily creates for the week. I went into more detail on the roundup and Mastodon posts.

Daily Creates Roundup: Week 7

Finally, I did my usual weekly commenting and also created a post on how Hwei would react to my classmate’s posts. One of the propaganda poster designs in particular was very relevant to my character, and I wrote a reflection on how it related to my own story.

Hwei’s Approval of “One and the Same” Propaganda

I’m hoping that maybe I can collaborate with the creator of Isaiah Beacon for the upcoming group project, as I can see both of our characters bouncing off of each other’s ideas in a very natural way.

Keep Calm and…

Laugh on!!! – Chuckles

To complete this propaganda design assignment, I used Adobe Express. This class urges you to utilize various and new digital tools, so I decided to give my usual Canva a break and try something new – Adobe! Luckily, both platforms are quite literally the same so it was not difficult to find tools and editing features.

Now the story behind this poster… As we all know now Chuckles is a very bright (inside and outside) individual. You can read more about his characteristics here. Since he is an architect, I chose the background to be buildings. Not just any buildings though, I chose colorful ones to represent Chuckles’s colorful personality. His to go line is “feeling down? keep calm and laugh on”. When choosing the font I wanted to go with simple, big, and bold lettering. Now what I love about Adobe Express was its different text layout features. In particular the Bow text layout which I used for the words “laugh on”. This fit so perfectly because it resembles the shape of a smile. The overall appearance I wanted for the poster was bright, lively, and simple.

Now finally for the last aspect of the poster, the line that says, “even if AI is watching you”. Chuckles has a love hate relationship with AI. He thinks its great and useful to an extent. However, since AI has been integrated everywhere, he feels like he’s being watched. Reading the keep calm line after AI is watching you, should help keep you calm says Chuckles!

Daily Creates Roundup: Week 7

Here are my daily creates for week 7!

This first one was a response to my own iteration of the “castle on the hill”. It is a very different from a traditional castle, but it was fitting from my point of view.

The next one was to share a picture that conveys joy.

I shared a picture of Jannik Sinner winning his first Grand Slam title. That first title winning feeling is definitely one filled with joy, and I immediately went to this moment to share as my daily create for the day.

The last create for this week was playing around with a Net Art generator to see what it would give me.

The keyword I used was “Space”, but I highlighted how the surface of earth looks like it’s going through a volcanic apocalypse. A little scary but maybe this was supposed to be a mashup of modern technology and prehistoric earth.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Week 7 Summary

After a week filled with job interview prep and studying for midterms, I was very happy to have such a great week in DS 106! I really love all of the assignments that center around my character, Isaiah Beacon as he fits into this AI universe so well. I was fortunate enough not to run into any technical hiccups this week, which was very nice after last week.

Starting with the Daily Creates, I think that they went well this week. I think we got lucky and got a bunch of easy options. I particularly enjoyed looking through a bunch of puppy photos for the pure picture prompt. You can find all of my responses here.

The propaganda assignments came very naturally as Isaiah already owns a media empire that pumps out a lot of media. The PSA assignment was probably my favorite assignment, as the idea of a robot political advertisement made me laugh. I also enjoyed having the robot slip up in his script and then restart because this added a more comedic, human element. You can find that assignment here. Likewise the propaganda assignment happened fairly easily as well. I got lucky enough to find a graphic on Canva that perfectly matched what I was looking for. The catchphrase for the poster also came to me easily, and I think in the end it all looked very nice together. You can find that assignment here. The reactions assignment also went well, and I had a fun time getting into the head space of Isaiah and relaying his reactions to each of the poster. My favorite one was definitely from the Hurkle-Durkling blog. You can find that assignment here.

Overall, a very good and fun week of assignments!

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Week 7 Summary

The first assignment this week was to create propaganda. I created and discussed my process here. I enjoyed this assignment and thought it was interesting that not many other people seemed to create anti-Aggressive Technologies propaganda. It appears that most of the characters are on board with Aggressive Technologies and their plan to take over the world.

The next assignment was creating a PSA, which I did and reflected on here. Give it a listen and see if you agree with the announcement! I like the idea that there are some people trying to stop Aggressive Technologies but definitely a minority imposing the resistance.

We also had to do three daily creates this week, which I wrote about here. I appreciate the daily creates where we can use art generators or other websites of that nature to create something. There were two that I did like that this week, so let me know what you think!

I also looked at some of the PSAs my classmates made and, like I mentioned, was surprised they were pro-Aggressive Technologies/ AI for the most part. You can read my further analysis of the three PSAs I saw here. Hopefully Düşünür is able to contribute to the resistance and persuade more characters to join him!

Aggressive Technology Propaganda

Color and design were very important when creating this poster. The blue color represents technology and Aggressive Technologies’ goals, so I highlighted the word “Liberator” to give a sense of AT’s passion for creating a new reality that they see as an ideal one. The simple colors show the focus and lack of care for the costs of getting what they want. This propaganda poster wants more people to sign up and become an employee of AT, which shows that speed is a high priority. Rikaro, my character, will come across this poster when Aggressive Technologies is still growing and needs more help in their weapon development. Rikaro believes in the propaganda and wants to “free” people from the limitations of the world too. But after going against AT, I imagine him looking at this poster he kept with him in disgust. When he attacks one of AT’s buildings for the first time, he’ll throw this poster in the fire, which starts his fight against them.