Imaginary Reality

Written by Daniel Punch


Our once concrete world is now dissolving into a realm of intangibility.

It's interesting to considerrepparttar ways in whichrepparttar 105591 computer andrepparttar 105592 Internet have changed our lives. Tasks that once required visiting certain locations and interacting with specific people, such as booking a holiday or accessing your bank account can now be performed online. Often when you do go somewhere to talk to an assistant they end up performingrepparttar 105593 task online inrepparttar 105594 same way you could have done yourself.

Online banking intrigues me greatly. We've almost lostrepparttar 105595 need for real currency. I get paid by check, which goes straight into my bank account. I then access my bank account usingrepparttar 105596 Internet and transfer some money over to my savings account, which is at a different bank to my regular account. If I ever need money from my savings account I log in and transfer it back to my main account. I have never given any 'real' money to this bank, nor have I ever received any from them. The majority of my purchases these days are made using Eftpos. I hardly ever actually have cold, hard, real cash on me. Basically we purchase things with data these days. Numbers flit all overrepparttar 105597 place, being subtracted and added from one variable to another. Presumably there is still real money somewhere being couriered between banks but I generally never see it. It makes me wonder how long it will be until we actually don't technically have money.

The stock market similarly intrigues me. I've never been involved myself but it seems to me that it'srepparttar 105598 professional equivalent of gambling. People take a punt that a certain stock will go up or down, and they either gain or lose money depending on whether or not their bet pans out. What interests me more isrepparttar 105599 fact that in essence this is an economic reality built aroundrepparttar 105600 concept of buying and selling absolutely nothing. What you own are theoretically 'parts' of a particular company. Collect enough bits and you could ownrepparttar 105601 company. In actuality you transfer a few numbers that represent money and receive a few numbers that represent stocks. When these numbers become larger numbers you sell them again, and receive in return a few more money numbers. There's usually no real product or money (that you hold in your hands) seen in any of this process.

Computers and Internet: Inspiring Us to Create

Written by Daniel Punch


Computers and Internet are not deadening our heads; they are inspiring us to create!

The Internet is sometimes criticized (usually by parents who think their kids need to be outdoors more often) as leading people to be sitting in front of their computers all day growing bulbous, lethargic and (depending on who you talk to) stupid. I think thatrepparttar opposite can often be true. My friends and I have recently been inspired to new creative ventures throughrepparttar 105590 time spent online.

I have long been a fan of movies, martial arts movies in particular. It has been said that they’re kind of likerepparttar 105591 modern musical with finely choreographed dances (although in this caserepparttar 105592 ‘dance’ is a fight) showing fantastic physical ability, timing, and grace. Recently I have found that there are many online groups of people dedicated to making their own martial arts films. Most of these guys are really talented and I’ve seen film fight scenes that are better thanrepparttar 105593 majority ofrepparttar 105594 American made ‘martial arts’ movies. Whererepparttar 105595 commercial films focus on special effects, from wirework (attaching wires to an actor in order to allow them to do extraordinary feats) to computer rendered effects (sometimes even using a computer animated actor in fights as seen in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’), these independent groups get out there and make impressive films through sheer physical exertion and amazing ability.

It’s amazing what a bit (well, a lot really) of hard work can do for you. These independent action crews perform wall runs, flips, falls, tumbles, and flying kicks withoutrepparttar 105596 use of wires or special effects. There’s no insurance to worry about or studios to get sued so they try some pretty incredible and dangerous things. My favorite stunt crews are ‘The Stunt People’ who can be visited at http://www.thestuntpeople.com, and Zero Gravity Stunts who have their homepage at http://www.zgstunts.com. There are also Jabronie Pictures (http://www.jabroniepictures.com) and VJ Films (some of whose videos can be found at http://www.my5minutes.com/thumbnails.php?album=1115) that are both worth a mention. These sites also provide many links to other similar websites, so your collection of independent short films can be built up to a fearsome size quite quickly.

So, I’ll now get back torepparttar 105597 original topic of this article, that beingrepparttar 105598 Internet as a medium to inspire people to become active and creative. These films got me pretty excited. I’d never really thought about just trying to make my own short martial arts film. The world’s largest short film festival held in Australia called ‘Tropfest’ provided a group of friends and I with a valid excuse to behave silly in front of a video camera. I’m not going to lie;repparttar 105599 film we produced was relatively low quality. One ofrepparttar 105600 fights we filmed was, well, not bad! There was a decent amount of good mixed in withrepparttar 105601 not so good, and I have great memories of spraying false blood out of a hose that was wound around a friend’s chest all over my parent’s house when simulating a gunshot. We had no flips and very few tumbles (I myself havingrepparttar 105602 gymnastic ability of a dead walrus) butrepparttar 105603 point is we got in there and had a great time with an entertaining outcome. We have plans to make more movies and a few other film festivals onrepparttar 105604 horizon that we may enter. Maybe one day our films will be good…

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