Report #1
Artemio
Baxa and his adventures in Alta
Vista. Take a look at his tips on dating...
Maryelizabeth
U. Pacheco and her "Web
Search Engines and Me" report is cool...
Lisa Among
sees how she stack up in her first report
on the definitions of traffic psychology...
Shelley
Secretario did her seventh report
on the pros and cons of fast driving. Vrooooom......
Introduction
Why did I pick all the reports? Well, I thought about all the reports that
I went through, and what attracted me to all of the reports was I knew
everyone that I picked. I went to high school withArtemio
Baxa and Lisa Among. Artemio
is a 1993 graduate from Baldwin high school, and Lisa graduated with me
in 1992. It doesn't end there. I knew about five other people from other
classes as well, but I actually explored all the generations first. I also
knew Maryelizabeth Pacheco.
She works at Circuit City with my mom, and she did our taxes last year.
She is a wonderful woman and I have had her in two other classes in the
past year. I knew Shelley
Secretario from the Latin American Literature class we had together
last semester. The familiarity of knowing the faces behind the homepages
I was viewing made their pages and reports more interesting to me in the
fact that except for Mary, I haven't kept in contact with anyone else and
seeing their pages renewed that contact. Knowing this, I searched their
homepages with an eagle's eye.
How did I get there?
By clicking, clicking, and more clicking. Seriously,
I started with the online
instructions page, and found the "index
to all generations" file. that took me to the page that gave me
access to all the generational homepages. I systematically browsed all
the homepages starting with 409 generation
1. TO tell you the truth, It wasn't very exciting, so I browsed through
all the generations. what I found was I was attracted to people's homepages
I knew. Artemio was in
409 Generation 3. I browsed
through his homepage and came upon his reports. Since I never took Psychology
459, his report on dating...
was funny. It doesn't apply to me though; I will be married soon...
What is it about?
His report
was actually his first attempt at exploring Alta
Vista. He had some interesting things to say about Alta Vista like
it was "The largest web index with 30 million pages found on 225,000
servers, 3 million articles from 14,000 usenet groups, and accessed12 million
times per weekday." That blew me away because those numbers are so
incomprehensible to me. He mentioned a few useful things about Alta Vista
like, being able to put it on your own webpage (which I'll do), and using
it for spell check.
As far as dating, Alta Vista brought him to dating tips when he typed in
the words, "dating," and "tips." He read that dating
is actually an art (I don't need this advice-- I'm pretty much spoken for)
that can be refined. It was all impression management, something us psychology
majors might be familiar with. Finally, he did an online evaluation that
was done on a scale ranging from -3 to +3. He found his ratings to be above
average every time. Interesting. His report concluded with a questionaire
on Alta Vista.
What was my reaction?
My reaction was that his report was well done, yet
I thought it was a bit short. The reason I say this is Mary's report was
23 pages long compered to his 3 1/2. I explored Alta Vista upon his advice,
and through my three years of web browsing, I never came acrossAlta
Vista. As far as his tips on dating, single people have hope. I realize
that there is a scientific basis for impression management and other techniques
for landing a DiCaprio or a Crawford. With that in mind, his report gives
the person with little or no background in social psychology an introduction
into relationships, something we have studied since Adam and Eve, and will
continue until the Millenium.
Comparisons and Suggestions
As far as comparisons and suggestions, I think that
there was a lot of time put into a lot of the reports I browsed. I particulalry
liked Robert Nakagawa's page as well as generations report because it was
well organized, thought provoking, and was easy to browse through.
Report #2
How did I get there?
I got there pretty much the same way as I found
Artemio's Page .
I went through the online
generations index and clicked on the Generation
7 homepage. And there Mary
was among the other students in her class. Her homepage was the award
winner for her generation as well as her class. I encourage you to visit
the page. Always keep in ind though, she had no prior experience with HTML
or web authoring (Gives me some hope)!!
What is it about?
I gotta say, Mary really pulled out all the stops
on this report. It was 23 (count 'em folks) pages. Whew. A lot of stuff,
but it was worth it. Her report
was about "cruising the internet via search engines. Her report covered
the other web search engines such as: Excite
, Infoseek, Yahoo!
,and Lycos. The topics she used
to make the engines hum were, web page authoring, homeschooling, kid's
crafts, automobile maintenance software, and search engines. Her report
was extensive, covering her mood at the time of her browsing, the amount
of hits she expected back, and even the number of hits she actually got
back. In one instance, she typed in "web authoring," and her
mood was relaxed and calm. She anticipated 5000 pages related to her subject,
but got back 82,818. This example she gave shows how vast the web really
is, and how accesible information is when using these search engines. Her
entire report was based on her reactions to her browsing, such as happy,
frustrated, or relaxed. She mentioned that she remained happy throughout
the entire experience, and she had gained a wealth of information searching
the web on the topics she had picked. Mary hopes that we enjoy the exercise
as much as she did, and she suggests that we keep an open mind to the content
on the web. And finally, BE PATIENT!
What was my reaction?
Although her report was extensive, most of the content
was readable and easy to follow. Most of the work she did was online, and
it took a long time to put it all in report form. I thought her usage of
tables organized her thoughts and it made her report attractive, rather
than just milling through text. I never really thought of the behavior
in searching the web, but when studies are done, moods and feelings should
remain constant with Mary's behavior. Searching the web, as we all can
attest to, involves curiosity. What makes this experience so relaxing or
happy is that the web does most of the work, not the user. Could you imagine
having to go to every server and pull out information yourself? The web
wouldn't be as fun and exciting if it were.
Comparisons and Suggestions
I suggest we have more reports like this one because search engines are
so vital to the web. Many of the similar reports that dealt with search
engines usually dealt with one or two, and dealt with only one subject.
There should be more content to many of the reports that I have seen. I
understand that as the generations grow from semester to semester, the
content of the work grows due to a few factors such as more reports to
choose from and sorry more demands from Dr. James. The length of
th report is not as important as the quality of it so I suggest that those
of you over-achievers try to limit the paper usage and say what you need
to say in less words. Believe me, when it comes to browsing the generational
curriculum, novels are not attractive, but poems aren't either.
Report #3
How did
I get there?
Everything was systematic in searching the the online
generations index , and finding the Generation
6 homepage. Lisa was the first person on the list, so I browsed her
homepage like I did the others. I found her report
in her homepage.
What is it about?
Lisa's report is titled, "Definitions of Traffic Psychology: How I
Stack Up." She first gives us five definitions of traffic psychology
like "Learning what the problems are and how to correct them,"
and "A different way of looking at traffic." Lisa goes on to
share her experience as a road user, ashe breaks down some elements of
the road such as drivers, pedestrians, passengers, and cyclists. She also
mentions ways to better your life.
What was my reaction?
I thought her paper was brief, yet informative. I
know nothing (until now) about traffic psychology, but she gives a great
introduction to a new environment for me. As a psychology major, I agree
that there needs to be a large amount of research on this subject in order
to assess problems and then solve those problems to make the road a safer
place. I thought that the section she included about "heightening
your awareness" was particularly interesting because it addresses
a part of me that I take for granted. I know that there are ways that we
can improve our driving just by being more aware than we normally are.
Additionally, I had no idea that there was a such thing as "agressive
driving syndrome." I wonder if there are any statistics that show
how many people in America suffer from this "disease."
Comparisons and Suggestions
I never thought of the roads in this manner, but the more I get into traffic
safety and road rage, the more information I see on the subject. There
were a lot of reports that dealt with the subject as well, and many of
the reports in the PSY 459 section were also from personal experience.
Still I thought the later generations did a better job at covering the
subject matter. As far as other suggestions, I think that road rage is
a very serious subject and the more you know about it the safer you will
be. My advice is to take 459 with Dr. James and not only will you get to
do another webpage, but the things learned in that class could save your
life.
Report #4
How did
I get there?
I got there doing the same systematic way of browsing like I did for the
other three reports. Shelley Shelley
is located in Generation
4. She has several reports in her hompage , and this was
report #7. Again, like everyone else, I knew the face behind the page,
and that was the motivating factor why I picked Shelley.
What is it about?
Her title was what really grabbed me. "Are Fast
Driver Cool or Stupid" is about the pros and cons of driving fast
in our country. I watched the movie, Conspiracy Theory, and she
brought up an interesting point about our government "deliberately
setting the speed limit too low, then sending out police to sneak behind
motorists is highway robbery disguised as traffic safety enforcement..."
I think Mel Gibson wrote about that very thing in the movie. Well, maybe
not. She goes ahead and points out the safety risks involved in operating
our cars at high speeds (like losing control) and that is the reason for
posted limits. "Speeding also does not allow for for any driver adequate
time to observe and react to road conditions, thus making road conditions
unsafe." That statement was the defining point of her report.
What was my reaction?
I agree with her report. Accidents do happen, and
I really would not want to lose a loved one due to an automobile accident.
Speed is often a factor, and when we lose control due to speed, our cars
transform into weapons. I also see the reason for posting limits so low.
Whether the government on any level actually conspires against the American
people is something the people at "The X Files" can write about.
Actually, that's what The X Files is about. There were things to be learned
in her report about speed and its effects and I know that people speeding
is a fact of American life. The only thing I can do is drive safely and
pray.....
Comparisons and Suggestions
Speed is a factor in accidents, and I think that some of the generations
should put more information on solutions in their reports as well.
I know that there are a lot of ideas out there that may help, and we should
incorporate more solutions on how to curb speeding and other road rage
crimes. We all run into those times where driving on the road is not for
the timid, but I think that if you drive safely, you can help others on
the road as well. And finally, the best reports can be found on Faith
Matsuda's page.I suggest we learn from her example on how reports should
be done. I predict that she will win awards for her content and page for
Generation 8. Watch......