Category: x Archive FA17

Visual Rhetoric—jonhjelly

0:01 : The is a family walking on a nice sunny day. All of them have their cell in their hands. The son looks like he is listening to music, the daughter looks like she is playing a game, and both the mother and father are sexting as well. It looks like they are walking to the park.

0:02 : Now it looks like something has caught the mother attention. Something must have happen because she took her attention of her phone to gaze upon it. The rest of the family is still on the cell phones and walking.

0:03: As the rest of the family still walking, the mother looks like she is about to get her husbands attention on the occurring situation.

0:04 : The screen cuts to the Mom phone. The video appears to have something to do with forest. The daughter is looking back at her mother with a huge smile on her face. So it must be good news.

0:05 : The screen shows the park that they were walking to. The daughter turns her head as if her breath is taken away from the view. The mother looks like she is watching the view as well.

0:06 : The daughter takes off her headphones and takes in the beautiful view of the park. In the background we can see that their are many kids running around in the park. So maybe their are walking to a kid birthday party in the park.

0:07 : In this view the family seems to be looking at the beautiful view of the lake. The Mother and Father hold each other hands as the approach the water.

0:08 : The screen cuts a close up of the daughter squatting  with her arms folded on her knees look upon the water.

0:09: It shows the daughter looking at herself reflection in the water. In the reflection you see tree be hide her.

0:10: So in this fame the daughter makes a silly face with her tongue sticking out. and on the bottom right of the screen the word selfie appears in white letters.

0:11: It is a close up of the moving water with a rock in it.

0:12: Now we see both the son and the daughter on each side of the small creek. They both have sticks in their hands putting the other ends of it in the water.

0:13:  Now the son looks up the the daughter who is still looking down at the water. On the bottom center of the screen the words Streaming appears.

0:14: Now we see the father and daughter gazing hard at something that is heath taking.

0:15: Now the father starts to squat next to his daughter eye level. They are standing side by side and he is pointing to something.

0:16: The screen turns to what they were pointing at. It was a black bird sitting on tree branch.

0:17: The screen stays on the same bird and now it says Tweet as if the bird is speaking.

0:18: Noe we see the son kneeling one the ground, and he appears to be playing around in the dirt with his hands.

0:19: It is a close up of a snell with a a leaf on the right side of the screen.

0:20: Its the same picture and the words Search Results appear on the upper middle of the screen.

0:21: It is still a close up on the snell but we see a hand, possible the sons hand picking up the snell shell.

0:22: The daughter,Father,Mother are all in a huddle with the daughter hands out. She is about to receive the shell from the sons hand. They all look like this is a beautiful thing to look at.

0:23: Now we see the son twirling the daughter in the park with the Mother watching them. In background we see another family walking by.

0:24: The family seems to be walking from the park as if their are about to leave. The mother has both hands on the daughters arms ad if she is about o take off and start running. Both father and son are just watching them.

0:25: Nothing changes except the word connected appear on the bottom of the screen.

0:26:The family continues to walking from the park. Now the son is looking straight ahead. The mother is looking at the father who is smiling. The daughter is smiling at the ground.

0:27: It shows the family backs as the walk away from the park and on the screen appears Find A Great Local Park OR Forest.

0:28:The words Discover the Forest.org appears under the original words in the previous frame.

0:29:The family continues to walk further and further away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR0nOhtALHM

A Counterintuitive Tease

Escher

Spoiler Alert: those “impossible” stairways M.C. Escher drew in the 1950s still can’t be replicated in 3 physical dimensions, but this video makes a good job of teasing the proposition that they can be.

And this entry from the Snopes facebook page explains the background.

 

Escher Stuff

The wikipedia page for MC Escher includes a terrific list of sources and a very convenient set of links to Selected Works.

Escher on Instagram

Finally, if you like this sort of thing and don’t already know him, be sure to follow modern-day M.C. Escher Kevin Parry on instagram. @kevinbparry

http://www.distractify.com/trending/2017/05/18/Z1nTT9S/optical-illusion-instagram

Stone Money—jonhjelly

Webster defines money as a form or denomination of coin or paper money. After reading multiple articles about the creation of money, how other countries deal with there money problems , and how people from other cultures view and use money. I changed my views on money, I’ve realized that money isn’t worth as much as I treated it as. The value has changed since I was a child, because of inflation every year the value of money goes down little by little. In the 70s a dollar could go along way and could last you a week. Today you are lucky if you could purchase a water for a dollar. Now I views money as numbers in my checking account.

The NRP broadcast 423 The Invention of Money had discussed “that money is as real as the stones on the bottom of the ocean floor.”  They claim that money is fiction, Money value can disappear it is not set in stone. Back when we were on the gold standard each dollar correspond to a dollar of gold. Ever since we got off the gold standard the value of money is fluctuated. It has not been constant since.  Currency has changed into information, numbers and commas on a computer screen. Another interesting fact is that their are not even a trillion dollar bills in the world. Their aren’t even bills for most of the money that exits according to NRP broadcast. It is sad how much power this idea of money can make people do ridiculous and foolish things.

The way the money imported  into our economy is not as you imagine it would be. When I think our economy need money, I think the Federal Reserves sends freshly printed dollars bills to some of the biggest banks in our countries. Unfortunately that is not the case, what really occurs is the Federal Reserves type of how much money they think our economy needs and they put the number into the computer and buys how much of treasury bonds from banks. Just like that Money is sent into our economy according to NRP. They literarily make money out of nothing. Without printing any new bills or anything, they just type in numbers and with a click of a button money is created.

Money journey to come into our economy is still different. The federal reserves doesn’t  print a million bills and send into our encamp. Realistically they put numbers into a screen then they send it into a bank and  exchange the bank gives them bail bonds. No new money because most of the money out there doesn’t exists out there. So like a magican they make money out of nothing. Its a magical experience for the federal reserve to make money.

As I read other articles, My eyes were opened and  I realized that money value is all in our minds. At least it was in this small Island in Micronesia a Germany colony. This people on this very small Island had huge stones as there currency. Not even gold but stones that were round like big stone wheels. Now according to Milton Friedman there was a family on the island that was very wealthy but has never sen the money. But no one on the island has never questioned them about their wealth because of their ancestor. It was known that one of their ancestors went on a search for a stone that would have valuable in their currency.  But after coming across a deadly storm they had to let the valuable stone sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean. When he returned from his travels he told all of the people on the island about what he found and what happened when they ran into the deadly storm. Ever since than the family has been wealth because of their ancestors failures.  Its crazy to think that because of their ancestor failures the family is well off, with nothing to show for it. This just makes the augment on money being fiction even stronger.

Money has evolved into a fictional thing that people of our society fight, killer, and rob each other over. Recently on the internet the bitcoin has been making moves on the world in the last year. According to Jeff Reeves “the bitcoin has no federal bank to back its value. This means that there is no true value for this, its value is whatever the person is willing to pay for it.”. Every year money value goes’s down so who is to say that the idea of money won’t be relevant in a few more decades.

Work cited

“The Invention of Money.” 423: The Invention of Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Jeff ,Reeves . ”Bitcoin has no place in your -or any-portfolio” 31 Jan.2015.

Stone Money—Killroy513

Money is one of the most important things in this world.  It makes the world go round. There is many different forms of money used around the world, its value is recognized by its significance. For the Yap people their currency is made up of lime stone rocks carved into cylinders. These rocks would be decorated and customized for whoever had them made. These stones, being huge in size, would not move from its final placement. The Yap people relied on word of mouth for financial records. This is almost like today’s modern credit system. Our credit system is based on invisible money that appears electronically.

Currency can be anything, as long as it has value to whomever wants it. In the past money was made of preshes metals. Gold was the most saute after currency since it does not really loose its value. Most countries used gold to back their paper currency. The United States of America used gold to back the currency. During the Great Depression, many countries wanted to insure their assets would be secured. France being one of them, wanted to secure its credit in gold. The United States dived the French shares. Eventually this would change. The gold would not be used to back the currency’s value. This would start the modern day system of credit.

Inflation is good and bad for an economy.  To much inflation is bad because it discredits the moneys worth. Prices for everyday goods would jump. An example of this is Brazil. It had to much inflation and no one had money to buy the things they need. Eventually the currency was changed and the economy leveled out. This made it better for the Brazilian people.

In the end money is truly one of the most important things to have. It can be anything as long as it retains its value.

Stone Money—unknowntrendsetter

Many people who I have a close relationship with has told me that it is near impossible to live a comfortable life or various fun activities without having money. In my experience I can agree with that general statement. The way people view money in the world is really interesting. Especially the people who are in control of regulating it in certain areas of the world as well as people who own large amounts of currency. In general, across all economic backgrounds and social classes, place very high value on money. Currency is used to control just about everything. There’s a famous quote that i am sure that everyone has heard once or twice in their life. It’s, “Money makes the world go around”. As is to be understood, if all of the citizens in any country were to completely abandon the use of a certain currency, that form of  money would have no value. A Great example of this is as the NPR podcast discusses how in the country of Brazil, a certain currency was being devalued everyday and making people’s lives harder to survive. When Brazil wanted to build expensive buildings in the middle of the jungle, it cost a lot of money to make. So what they decided to do was to just print more money. This caused severe inflation to their country for decades and make it harder for people to purchase daily necessities like food. Many different stores completely changed their prices regularly everyday to try and put the correct value on their product so that money could be made and continue to flow. This meant that people had to constantly spend money as soon as they got it because the money was losing value daily. People pretty much completely lost faith in their country’s currency. NPR podcast used the example of the lady running in front of the price changer and picking up the product in the grocery store before it became too expensive. People really fought to make sure they got things at the lowest possible price before it was too late. Pretty soon this became very impossible to keep up with since people were losing a quality of life and the trust was lost. If I were in that position, I would have most likely done the same thing. This forced the country to come up with a brand new value system. People put their trust in the new form of currency, which was named the Brazilian Real.  

When I read the story on the island and currency of Yap, I found it’s story rather interesting. Discovering how their currency was different to that of most of the world was very interesting. Hearing about the concept of the trust that the people of yap have in each other and their capital was shocking to me seeing that the country could easily go back and check to see if the money is there. In the beginning, I thought it was foolish to not get confirmation for the money to build the home, then I thought about how the banks are being run in our country and our digital currency. The majority of the people in the country gets paid a direct deposit, where you are not able to see the physical paper money in hand and doesn’t question where it is exactly, yet it is understood to be owned by you. In the United States, our earnings are supposed to be secured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or the FDIC. This corporation began under the new deal crafted by the president at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a way to restore the country to its former financial and economic norm. Even before that, during the age of the international gold standard, since many Americans did not have gold, it regulated how the American dollar’s value in comparison to other countries. For example, as it has been stated in Friedman’s essay, “The Island of Stone Money”, France’s currency: the Franc, had more value than the American Dollar through gold per ounce. This happened because citizens in the United States as well as the country’s gold reserve did not have as much gold as France. The example that Friedman used in is article was The original conversion of dollars to gold at the time was $20.67 per ounce of gold. As the US did not own as much gold as other countries, the value dropped and was called in the country’s newspapers as the draining or “The Loss of Gold”.  This is what helped caused the United States’ Great Depression. Once the country loses currency/valued goods, the economy begins to shift towards a recession, and in this severe case, a depression. NPR talks about Ben Bernanke’s role at the Federal Reserve. Bernanke works at the national bank called the Federal Reserve. In times of “economic limbo”, the government will try to work with the reserve as well as various other banks around the country to regulate the economy, spending and so on. The banks will usually lend money to the reserve from a special bond that has been held for years, as revealed by NPR’s podcast on the subject. This could sometimes be dangerous since if it is too little, nothing will change in the economy. If it is too much, there will be a certain amount of inflation the country might receive, which the value of the dollar will decrease.

In my opinion, there aren’t that many differences in the basic structures of the banking system comparing Yap to that of the United States. Both countries basic structures rely on some form of trust in another person or people that money is in fact owned by someone else and can be used at anytime, with or without being physically moved anywhere else. The only difference is that the Yap currency has to be made and counted for. In the US, there are not enough physical paper money to match the amount of electronic money that is being made daily. Most people just check their online bank account to see if the money is there.  

In conclusion, After viewing all of the sources provided, it has not weakened my thoughts towards money, but the exact opposite has happened. In order for money to help others everyday, it needs to be valued highly so everyone can work towards having a certain standard of living.

Stone Money—phillygirl

A big limestone wheel is different from an electronic bank balance, but they’re both considered money because the limestone wheel is equal to the same worth of money. As “The Invention of Money” mentions, ‘the stone money at the bottom of the sea, it exists. It’s still good money. Someone owns that stone even though it’s sitting on the bottom of the ocean.’  A limestone wheel and money is completely equal. Now an electronic bank balance is different because all it is digits informing you of how much money you have. Meanwhile a big limestone wheel is physically money. However, you can exchange money from your electronic bank balance to buy a big limestone wheel and it’ll be considered an equal exchange. For example, in stonemoneyessay.pdf  they say “After concluding a bargain which involves the price of a fei too large to be conveniently moved, its new owner is quite content to accept the bare acknowledgement of ownership and without so much as a mark to indicate the exchange, the coin remains undisturbed on the former owner’s premises.” Which is saying an exchange with money and a limestone wheel is equally the same.

My thinking of money before today’s reading was that money was a very powerful thing. If you owned a certain amount of money then you were considered a dominant person. If you’re known to have a lot of money then you know that you’re doing the right thing in life. In my opinion, after learning about money I think it is pointless. Regardless of how much money you have, it doesn’t determine anything because it’s technically not there. You never actually get money in your hand, you barely see it. You just get a little receipt that indicates that you have money. I don’t think money is important as it seems. Money is just a factor in life that is considered to help us get by. In “The invention of money” the author explains that money is fiction. They mention, ” It is not physical, it is just numbers going back and fourth online.” In “Why Money Has No Real Value?” Christianson says, “Otherwise, the money just sits as useless piles in a bank vault somewhere.  It is the entrepreneur that gives value to any dollar investment, not the other way around.  The bottom line is that people and their abilities have real value, and money does not.” My view on wealth has also changed because I’ve always the goal in life was to become wealthy. Everyone wants to become wealthy. But after learning this, becoming wealthy is a waste of time honestly. You become as wealthy as you can get for you not to see or spend your money the way it is you want to be seen or spent. You barely see your money because as “The Invention of Money” explains you get your hard earned money direct deposited into your account and you pay your bills electronically. So you never really experience the feeling of hundreds of dollars actually being in your hands so it’s like you never earned it to begin with. After learning about what money really is about, that changed my perception on my faith in things I never see as well. In my opinion, if I don’t see it then it was never there.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

“The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Christianson, Darren. “Why Money Has No Real Value?” 5 Aug. 2015.

Stone Money–pdqlover20

What is money, anyway? When I was younger I though money brought happiness. I also though money ruled the world. When someone would ask me where did I see myself in 10 years I would say “I hope to have a stable career so I can make a lot of money.” I use to compare money to success. As maturity set in I learned that money is not everything, we do not need money to be happy. I learned that happiness comes from within and that money is only a number.

If we all had the same amount of money the world would be a lot different. Money is what causes different social status in our country. For example some different social status are lower class, middle class and upper class.  Money can make people do evil things at times, money is a great tool for helping other but is nit needed at all times. If money could be controlled by the government America would be a calmer and stress free country. Many Americans work hard day to day but money is never currency as we get paid. Money has no actual value.

We can think of money as a spinning circle, circling from one person hand to the next. Discussed in NRP broadcast 423 The Invention of Money they question if “America really knows how much money is out there in dollars” and how could we ever find out the total amount each person owns. Back to my second paragraph if we all had an equal amount of money this would not be a topic to discus. I think America should money is not paying enough attentions to the amount of money that is out there.

The broadcast relates the Limestone wheel of the Yap community and the American dollar to having no physical value but having a value in faith. Another comparison is that a person does not have to physically have the stone in front of them but other automatically know they stone belongs to that person and they are wealthy. As in America I can relate this to famous people. Celebrities are know to have money with having to ask no questions. Money is what makes people who they are today which can be a good or negative result. My views on money have changed tremendously, they article “The Island of Stone Money” by Friedman Milton opened my eyes to the situations in France and Brazil that I knew anything about the text was very informational.

In the source I gather it states that the dollar bill has no real value other than iconic heros faces on them. The author explains that “money generally took the form of coins composed of precious metals such as gold and silver.” Which compares to the The Island of Stone Money article.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Moffatt, Mike. “Understanding Economics: Why Does Money Have Value?” 2017 https://www.thoughtco.com/why-paper-momey-has-value-1146309

“The Invention of Money.” This American Life. N.p., n.d. Web

Stone Money- NewEditionLover

Is money really fictional? As I listened to the story of the “Stone Money Of Yap ” from the planet money team i learned many new concepts in which I thought were very interesting. I spent a long time thinking were money goes and how people in the United States go about using it. How does money just disappear without anybody knowing where it went? I view money as a concept of life and without it you basically cant survive. Without money you cant do the things you want and live life without any worries. But in the end is money always there? Do we just work just to have the idea or thought of having money? If my mom goes to work just to pay bills and pays online she technically didn’t pay them the money from her pockets but from her debit or credit card. Now this has me thinking am I just another worthless person just thinking that money is gonna cause me happiness in the long run? I’ve learned through the broadcast that dollar bills represent the idea of money and money is never currency as you get paid. They say this because most of the money simply doesn’t exist and money is technically created out of nothing. That idea had me confused because how doesn’t money exist? Without money no ones daily routine would ever be the same again. Money comes and goes but it is a very beautiful sight to have when the money hits your account after tremendous amounts of working. When you make a purchase its basically like your signing your rights over and that’s it. Having money to me means that I can be happy and flourish with life. Money does exist and it shows how much status and “stain” you have in your town or city. What does money mean to you? Money gives me a feeling that I’ve never felt before !

In the article “The Island Of Stone Money” by Milton Friedman taught me a little more about wealth and supremacy. How can you and your family be known but not have anything to show for it? Is the idea of wealth a good thing generally speaking you basically have nothing but you just a known figure. To me money is very real. The bible claims that money is the route to all evil? But without money I wouldn’t have everything that I’ve ever wanted! Money has gotten me a car, food ,shelter and all my worlds greatest necessities. To me money makes you who you are without the money your nobody and your just another broke person, with money you can have all the nice things in the world and have all the power in your hand . You can clearly look at someone and tell whether or not they have money.

The source i gathered by Christopher S Penn article “The fictional nature of money” he describes lifes most precious values stating “without it ,you don’t eat,you dont have a place to live, no clothes to wear, unless it doesn’t involve money. Penn also stated  Money can be a tremendous amplifier of personal power. ” meaning you can basically break the rules and do what you want just because you have money.

Work Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

“The Invention of Money.” 423: The Invention of Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Christopher Penn. “http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/05/the-fictional-nature-of-money/”

Stone Money–PlethoraGaming

One thing I have known for a long time is that money has different value in every country. For example when I traveled last year one dollar would be equivalent to 70 of that country’s currency. Three dollars can get be a box of Oreo, while two hundred and ten of the other country’s currency can get me about five boxes of Oreo’s. I have no doubt that we believe in a sort of fake money, after hearing about the concept of Stone Money.

Friedman said that the acknowledgement of ownership and believing it is all that it took for them to have something of value the stone money, and that acknowledgement is passed down. This surprised me because how can generations of people put trust in something, and not question it? Then I recalled, there is religion people putting faith in something even it may not be real; as long as we add some value to it, there are going to be people who believe it

The US setting aside gold for the French is exactly like the German marking a number on the fei, by adding belief to it, it adds value. This created a lower monetary value for the US, while increasing the France’s monetary value even thou the gold was not even moved a few feet away. This goes back to show that money is not fluid, just because someone makes someone else perceive something.

The story of How Fake Money Saved Brazil by NPR also shows the effect of how we perceive money. Their story was that the value of money were not stable, and in order to stabilize and return faith into the economy they had to create a fake currency. By changing how much the old currency values compared to the new currency and keeping products at the new currency the same, it restored the value of the new money. Because the money was no longer varied, products maintained a value, which restored faith in the economy

This plan could have easily back fired if they did not believe in the new currency, this shows how the faith we put into currency can change the value.

And now in modern-day we have electronic currency. We can now get paid by having our money deposited directly into our bank account. And because it shows a number we believe in it, even though it’s just a set of number; we use it to buy other things that have numbers written down to show its value. Even though we didn’t pay physical money for it, the electronic money is treated as real physical money. Money that is not backed by something valuable like gold etc… we can consider it fiction.

We also have other fiction money, such as Etherium and Bitcoin known as cryptocurrencies. Even though they have an equivalent value for other non-electronic currency, what would happen if they stopped using cryptocurrency or say they get banned in a country? That might be what we will be facing soon as there are rumors about cryptocurrency ban in China. According to Josiah Wilmoth just rumors of the ban dropped values of the currency by ten percent or more. This proves that because we believe is some rumor we affect the cryptocurrency.

To sum this all up, just because we perceive or believe something, we are capable of making a value for it.

 

Work Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Wilmoth, Josiah. “Ethereum, Bitcoin Prices Lead $20 Billion Slump Amid Chinese Regulatory Turbulence.” CryptoCoinsNews, Cryptocoinsnews, 9 Sept. 2017, http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ethereum-bitcoin-prices-lead-20-billion-slump-amid-chinese-regulatory-turbulence/.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 9 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil&gt;&gt;