The Tap Dance: Smithtown's All New Local Café and Brewery

There's a new microbrewery and café in town and you need to know about it! The Tap Dance, Smithtown's newest place to hangout with everything you need in a brewery. The Tap Dance’s menu includes their own IPA beer and gluten free beer. The menu is accommodating for all. The beers have a variety of flavors. The cafe also has a delicious menu for small plates and meals for you to enjoy with your beer. The Tap Dance is placed conveniently in the center of town and is a great place to go for summer weather. It is a great outdoor spot to gather with friends and family. The outdoor dining and tasting experience is just in time for the warm weather. The Tap Dance is locally owned by Smithtown’s own. This relaxed environment is perfect for small gatherings, parties, or a quick trip out with friends. It's all about enjoying yourself and feeling proud of your hometown. It's important for people to support local shops to keep the business in the town. Small businesses are a large part of our economy and we want to keep them going for years to come. The Tap Dance also wants the brewery and cafe to be a place for people to come and enjoy the town. Whether you're a local who's lived here for years or someone passing by town, this cute spot should be on your list of things to do.

The difference between a brewery and a microbrewery is the difference in how much beer they produce. Typically a microbrewery is going to produce less but will also sell some of that beer to off site locations other than their own. The Tap Dance does both. While keeping it very local and tending to the people of Smithtown they also ship out some of their own IPA to other breweries and stores around the country. Microbreweries became popular in the 1960s and have continued to grow in popularity since. People tend to like the localness of it and being able to have a taste of home at their local breweries. With the new concept of gluten free beer being produced in these microbreweries, it is giving an opportunity for those who fit into that category and is a more inclusive experience. With the warm temperatures nearing, we expect to see The Tap Dance becoming the new place to be this summer and we’ll be there too!

Café = 1M -10M, brewery = 1M-10M, local = 10k-100k

About Me

My name is Alexa Ondrush and I like to describe myself as a photographer/Music industry candidate. I am a senior at HPU and will soon be graduating to go into a career in music. I like to sing and have booked several gigs and would like to continue my singing career on the side. I have had the opportunity to perform at multiple charity events on Long Island and New Jersey. Singing the National Anthem at METLife Stadium for the National Football League's alumni gathering has been one of my favorite experiences. I have had three previous internships in the music industry. One of them was for artist management and the other two were in A&R (talent search). I really enjoyed it and can't wait to start new positions in the field. I study Music Business with a minor in Music Performance. I am also the president for HPU’s all female a capella group, Petal Points. I spend a lot of my time working on things for the group including planning our trip to Disney last month with the other two a capella groups. We are currently working on our set for the ICCA competition for a capella groups across the country. We meet 3-4 times a week where we practice our songs and choreography. I love leading this group because it is satisfying to watch the success and make the girls feel like they are a part of something great.

I have a very deep passion for the arts. When I am not singing, I love to take pictures. I have spent the past several years studying the art of photography and voice. When it comes to my photography, I created my own business about 5 years ago. It started as me taking pictures for my sister until more and more people asked me for it and I started making money. I created my own website and business cards and started booking shoots in NYC and the hamptons. I enjoy it a lot and make good money for a side job.

After I graduate in May, I plan to move into an apartment in NYC with my best friend from high school. I would like to work at one of the major labels as an A&R rep or do tour management. I have been told that whatever door in the industry opens, you should take it. So I am willing to start at a different position if it means getting my foot in the door.

Music, Music industry, photography, graduate, college, a capella, voice, singing, New york

 Media Law:

Final Technology Post

     Though out this semester our class has spoke a lot about technology and the positive and negative affects of it. I never really thought much about my relationship to technology until this class. It has really sparked my thinking and made me consider some things. Overall I think I have a good relationship with technology. I have always considered myself very proficient with technology. Since I was young I could always fix my devices and my family now calls me the IT. I think because I understand technology so well I have been able to use it in moderation and for good. I have and IPad, iPhone, and a Mac. I use these things for artistry, note taking, organizing etc. I find it very helpful and I absolutely love how I use my technology. I definitely think part of my love for technology could be because I am good at using it so I can imagine for people who don't understand it why it would be frustrating living in todays society. For someone like me I use it more for daily life and artistry reasons as opposed to using the internet. I should use technology to inform me on current news but I find myself not using it for that as much. Im very interested in the media and music side of things. As an artist and en employee of a record label, I like to stay up to date on all things music related.

    However, in recent years I have started to truly believe the "don't always believe what you see on the internet" saying. I have started to realize that a lot of the things we see or read online are not true and are fabricated. Although this is a big issue it's not something I worry about on the day to day. I definitly think it is negatively affecting our society but its not so much a personal problem. I am concerned for this societies future however.  The continuess flow of false information online for billions of people to access can be very dangerous. It's contributing to the divide in society and America right now and if we continue on this path it can be detrimental to the country. I think a lot of people are worried about this issue however we have come to accept that it is an issue. People understand the consequences of this but no one knows what to do. It's come to the point where it might just be out of our hands and in the hands of the tech companies and the government. The attached picture is just one example of the many instances where false news is spread online. 

    For a negative example of social media: the Facebook like button. If you've ever seen The Social Dilemma you would know how crazy it is to hear from the people who created these technologies. In the film, the guy who created the Facebook like button explains how he had good intention but it has quickly turned into a negative thing. It's unfortunate because I think most if not all technologies were created with good intention and the ability to advance society for the better but society took it and used it negatively unintentionally. There is always going to be those people who ruin it for the rest of us. This article from The Atlantic talks about Facebook and how most Facebook users don't even know that Facebook takes their information. It's concerning that some people really have no idea what these platforms do. 

    For my own family, I know they can't appreciate technology as much as I do. A lot of them are technologically challenged so some very simple tasks are very difficult for them and it becomes more work to get things done. I will say I love the ability to be able to communicate with my friends and family while I am away so I think in that aspect we're all very grateful for technology. The technological advancements in communication especially from iPhone to iPhone is very impressive. FaceTime has made communication a lot easier and close to the real thing. 

   

    In terms of social media I think almost the whole world has a very negative relationship with it. This has messed with young peoples' mental and physical health. Almost every single person I know has had at least one experience with social media where they felt left out, bullied, or compared themself to something and it in turn created a negative affect. This article does a great job talking about this after a young girl felt victimized by social media. In this class we talked a lot about more complicated technologies but I think the whole industry gets a bad rap because of social media. I truly think that without social media we wouldn't see technology as such a bad thing. Don't get me wrong there are definitely other things wrong with technology but social media is the one thing we see come up every single day that almost every person in the world has access to. 

    When looking into my online footprint I was pleasantly surprised to see what comes up when searching my name. The first thing is my LinkedIn and it reads "Alexa Ondrush president of HPU petal points." The next link is my personal website. Following that is my Facebook which I only use for my photography business. The one after that is my YouTube for my singing videos. Then lastly the podcast I created last year. Im sure if I did some deeper digging I would find more but I pride myself on a clean online presence. My music career is very important to me so I like to post things that would help me move forward so LinkedIn and my websites are the most important to me. Overall, I would like to consider myself a positive technology user. Here is a short article on how to create a positive digital footprint to get ready for your future. I use it to get ahead in my career, to keep myself on track and organized everyday and to communicate with people and make connections. 

AI In Society

    This documentary was very alarming to watch. It's scary yet interesting to see how AI is going to change our society and already is. In the first story, they discussed how China is changing the world of facial recognition. The new technologies have these systems recognizing people at lightning speeds. China is putting these facial recognition systems on the streets to catch people for jaywalking. Fines for jaywalking aren't cheap either. It can recognize a person from far away even if the image is slightly blurry. They're also putting these systems in food establishments to pay for your meals. Soon, face recognition will be used everywhere. In a way this is very helpful to our society. It's convenient in some ways incase you forget your wallet or for safety reasons. It's easier to keep things more secure and can keep others from viewing bank accounts, passwords, your phone etc. The negative side of this can be the lack of privacy. Knowing that at any point while you're out in public a camera can access your face and your identity can be scary. This gives tech companies and the government the ability to know a lot about us just by scanning our face on a camera. In terms of security, I think this is revolutionary. With all these advancements security is a lot more secure.

    Another strong negative of the new AI advancements is the job displacement. Because these systems are so smart and are able to do most things humans can, a lot of jobs are being replaced by AI. This is becoming a problem for white collar jobs. Although this is not a white collar job we're seeing this problem especially in the truck driving industry. Embark is a company created by a young CEO engineer who created a self driving truck. This has become an issue for the truck drivers because they will soon loose their jobs due to the advancements of this industry. 

    The pros of AI other than the security is in the health industry. Doctors are working to create AI systems that can detect early signs of breast cancer. This is huge for the breast cancer community because they can catch the cancer before it spreads while it is still in the treatable stages. 

    Overall, I think AI is something we need to look out for and as a society keep it under control. We also need to appreciate the technology advancements thus far because there are a lot of positive things that AI is doing for the world that we cant look past. 

EOTO #2 Reflection- Influencers

After watching todays presentations, I wanted to reflect on the "online influencers" slides. This is a topic I find very interesting so when I saw someone was presenting on it I had to talk about it. I have always been baffled by the fact that some people can actually make millions from posting videos online. I think it's very unfair and an unreasonable industry that we put way too much focus on. Today I learned that it's actually a 13.8 billion dollar industry. This is so unreasonable to me because you have other industries that are actually so important to society that aren't even worth this much. Another interesting fact is that moms were the start of the influencer craze. I almost wish thats still all it was because now its so out of hand. 49% of people actually depend on influencers for recommendation on products. This is interesting to me because half of the time when an influencer is promoting a product they don't even use it. Its a brand deal and they're making a lot of money off of so most the time they don't care if it works or not. 

I think this has had such a negative effect on our society for a few reasons. Fist being that you now have kids growing up thinking they can do this as their profession which is very hard to do. It's led young people to do stupid things online just so they can get noticed. This is concerning because people are going too far and doing things that can potentially be dangerous all for the likes. The second reason influencers are negative is because of the comparisons young people (specifically girls) make to these influencers. What people including myself fail to realize sometimes is that these people spend their whole day focusing on their health, working out, making videos and for some getting surgery even. Society cannot compare themselves to these influencers because most of us don't have the time or money to do what they do. This can be detrimental for a young persons mental health. 

Agenda setting is one of the media theories that dictates how we view the media. The theory was developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972. They came up with this theory from looking at voters and their behavior based off of the media.This is more about how the media can tell us what to talk about and what they present to us but not how we feel about it. How we feel is what we come up with based off of what we see.

 

Framing is another aspect of agenda setting. it was founded in 1988 and it's when the media can have the audience think a certain way to get to a conclusion. This works by the media giving certain facts and describing in a specific way so that you get to that conclusion but it feels natural. It feels like you came to that conclusion yourself when really it was based off the facts presented to you. You can learn more about framing and more details of agenda setting here.

In a video I watched on agenda setting, the presenter described the example of Obama Care vs The Affordable Care Act. Basically, both of them were presented to a group of people and the individuals felt differently about Obama Care because some people did not like Obama at the time. Obama Care and The Affordable Care Act are the same thing but because of the name and the way it was presented had people drawing conclusions without even knowing much about the topic. 

Agenda setting can be looked at in a visual format. First off you have reality which is the things happening in the world that we see. Then you have your gatekeepers who are basically the reporters of the world and the people bringing you this information. The next step is the media agenda which is the step at which the facts are put into the media and its decided what conclusion they want you to feel and how their going to get you to it. Public agenda is the viewing portion where people discuss the media that then turns into policy agenda. This is when the government comes in and politicians becomes important. This is when politicians can decide how they want the public to view them. They can see what voters want and they will please them by putting certain laws and policies in place. 

The policy agenda and the media agenda become a cycle because what happens in the policy agenda then becomes media for the media agenda so those go back and forth. The media agenda will decide how they cover stories based on how the policy agenda reacts. The audience is below all of this because we are influenced by all of it. 

Now that we understand the theory and what it is, we can decide, do we think this theory is correct? This is an opinions based question but I think yes. I think this can actually be seen as a really bad thing and we are seeing it a lot today. With politics being so prevalent and dividing our country more than ever, I think we're seeing this a little too much. Agenda setting is being seen lot on the political news companies which is contributing to the divide in the country. These companies are only showing certain sides to the story which in turn is turning the country on itself. It's causing fights between the left and right because people are not getting the same news. If we continue down this road it could lead to some serious implications with fighting in our country and we'll continue to go backwards as a society. While I do understand the reason for doing this is not to harm the country it could still be dangerous. News companies and politicians are trying to please the people so they're seeing more of what they're interested in which in turn creates more revenue for these companies. 

This generation is growing up in the age of "fake news" and a lot of this is coming from the theory of agenda setting. Giving the media too much control and allowing them to change stories or only share what they want you to hear should not be allowed. There should be a portion of the government that regulates this and ensures that all sides are represented equally and fairly. 

I like the propaganda pictures above and to the right because it does a great job representing what agenda setting really is. It's interesting because it makes you think you are viewing media on your own when it's really completely controlled by the gatekeepers. 

Blog 5 Sensorship

As class we know exactly why we have never heard of these websites or heard these voices. That is because of the Sedition Act of 1861 which made it a crime to criticize the government. This was the same year the Civil War started and journalists began to speak out against the war. The government didn't like this so they passed the act. Even though this was created in 1861 we still see this today especially with the websites linked here. The government will purposely make it difficult for you to find people with these opinions online. The government pairing up with technology companies such as Apple, Google, etc. can cause this making the internet unfair. This country claims to not have sensor-ship but its very ironic that some things are easier to find than others. Part of our Democracy is to have your own opinion and to be allowed to express your thoughts but we aren't always allowed to do that according to this issue. 

Blog 5 Pivacy Issues

After watching the TED talks I am now more concerned than ever about my privacy online. What I am most worried about is my social media pages. What we learned from the videos is that when you delete something, you are not really deleting it. Everything online will always be out there in a computer somewhere. It's very concerning to know that my information is tracked and recorded somewhere for technology companies to access. It's even scary knowing that the messages I send to my friends or family could be somewhere even though that is personal information. 

I don't think there is much the government can do about this issue. They can help by putting laws in place to keep companies from tracking our information but I think these companies would do it anyway. They benefit so much from stealing our information so I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I also don't know how to reverse this problem. Our society is so deep in the privacy issue that reversing it would be so difficult and would completely change the whole industry.

I think the most we can do about the issue is to try our best to not put anything online thats too personal. We need to be careful with what we share and not keep anything on our devices that could be used against us in anyway. I think social media should be limited and Amazon Alexa's should not always be turned on. It's also important we listen to the individuals who give TED talks or others trying to give advice on how to stop or prevent these issues. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

I think out of all the theories of free expression number 4, Individual Self-fulfillment, resonates most with me. "Free speech enables individuals to express themselves and thereby create their own identity. " As an artist and musician this one seems close to home. Being able to express myself and have my own identity is very important in the creative industry. Artists need to have the ability to share their message and have an individual unique identity for fans to relate to. Without having this, this world would have no creativity. No art, music, or dance which we all innately need. I also love the idea of theory 3, Stable Change. This is important to me because certain things can really set me off sometimes but Im not a violent person. What I mean by this is that I can get very angry but Im not going to react by becoming violent with someone-most people feel the same way. When I feel angry I tend to "vent" to someone I trust or feel would understand where Im coming from. I think this expression is very important for people to be able to get their anger out without having to resort to violence. Its a much safer way to get your feelings out there and work it in a healthy way. 

Theory 2, Participation in Self Government, seems like the one that might be struggling in todays society. This theory states that citizens should be well informed on all candidates when voting on an election. I think with todays issues with censorship and social media this isn't completely accurate. There is a problem with algorithms to where you are force-fed certain information. Yes, anyone can post whatever they want so all candidate information is out there somewhere, but that doesn't necessarily mean its going to get to you and your feed. Therefore, information is getting lost and rumors and fake news have become so prominent we don't know whats real and whats fake.

Going back to theory 4, not only is this seen in music its also seen in social media. Being able to have our own identity a part of all fields across communication. When we look at social media today we know its a huge industry that has a lot of opportunity to make a lot of money. A lot of people get their fix of individual self fulfillment just off of social media. People use their Instagram, Snapchats and Facebook as an extension of their personality. Many people pour out their whole lives onto these platforms for hundreds, thousands, or millions to see. This theory shows us why people do this. As human beings, we want to be relatable and we want the approval of others. We want to show people who we really are and be accepted for that. Many people use social media to do this and find others who are similar to them. This is also why people photoshop themselves to be acceptable to society. For some people in order to feel self fulfillment they think they need to change what they look like so people will approve of them. Over time this has become a huge problem in our society and has led to more complicated issues in mental health. Linkedin has an article that describes these issues that are very important to our society today. 

EC Technology Blog

I was very intrigued watching the technology YouTube video we watched in class. I was scared at the same time as fascinated seeing where technology is moving towards. Watching Will.I.Am recreate himself in a digital copy was really interesting because thats something we could have never imagined a few years ago yet soon that might become the new normal. Something I thought was very cool was when they mentioned that the robots/computers are not programmed by the individuals who created them but instead they program themself. What this means is that the creator isn't manually inputting all the information into this robot. The robot instead learns like a baby or human would. The creator has the ability to "teach" it certain things so it then can make connections and observe. It does this by using a neural network which is a more simple version of a human brain. These machines use object recognition to learn which is using a small camera so you can show it an object and explain what it is. This helps it learn what the object is as well as what it does and how it should feel about that object. 

While watching the creators team up with Will to create his digital duplicate, he expresses concerns for making it look too realistic to where "his mom can't tell the difference between him and the fake him". This is a very realistic concern that I think a lot of people face. This film didn't really explore that too much but rather touched on the idea. I hope that the upcoming episodes in the series talk about that a little deeper so we can hear from the creators on how they feel about these drastic changes to technology in society. 

EOTO Presentations

After watching the presentations today the carrier pigeons stood out to me. I find it very interesting that pigeons were even capable of sending messages but if there was no technology people had no choice.  Carrier pigeons started in Rome where they were originally used for racing. People would go to an arena to watch the pigeons race each other. After this people then realized they can use them to carry messages from place to place. This was very important for the military. This was how they were able to communicate with each other and share important messages amongst the troops. To interfere with the messages people would send falcons to attack the pigeon so the message never arrived at its destination. 

Looking back at this invention it seems crazy to us now however, if it weren't for this invention we might not have the communications we use today. It was this invention that inspired the radio which then eventually lead us to phones and instant messaging that were all familiar with. 

Apple Announces the First Ever iPhone

On January 9, 2007 Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, announces the first ever iPhone.  After the Macintosh computer and the iPod this was a highly anticipated release. He first announced this at the Macworld convention in San Francisco. This immidaelty started the hype for its release for sale a few months later on June 29th. However this was not the first Apple phone. Many people don't know this but Apple had teamed up with Motorola in 2005 to release the ROKR E1 mobile phone. This collaboration between Apple and Motorola was for the sole purpose of iTunes. Steve Jobs was worried that another company was going to release a phone that was capable of playing music so he had to do it first. This Motorola phone was able to play music through iTunes. Steve Jobs was not happy with this phone because of the terrible camera, cheap look, got a 100 song limit on iTunes. However, this failure lead to a huge success for Apple. Here you can view a list of other failures Apple ran into when creating or updating the iPhones throughout the years. Because of the problems with the Motorola phone, Apple was set out to build something better- and that’s exactly what they did. Steve wanted a phone that was able to play music when in fact it did much more than that. At the same time Apple introduced safari which we still used to this day as our main source of Internet. Not only was it capable of many things but it was easy to use which was very new for this time. It was the first phone to use multi touch as well. This means it was a touchscreen that can use your fingers (many of them at once) without using a stylus. This invention along with the iPhone changed the industry and world all at once. The first iPhone was five years ahead of any phone out on the market at the time. In November 2007 they had sold 1.4 million phones and five years later they had reached 200 million phones sold. Each phone was sold at $500 or $600 a piece which added to Apple‘s financial success.

This invention changed our world in a huge way. It made access to the Internet, social media and music right at our fingertips. This was huge for the communication industry in many ways. It was easy to communicate with others through phone. It also had better message sending which was huge for daily communication. This also started the age of social media. Once this phone was available and offered apps it allowed for people to create media platforms as well as many other applications which is now a huge industry. It also completely changed the music industry which is very important to communication. In terms of negative affects of the iPhone I think we can say that many devices have created the social media issue. The first iPhone was a major breakthrough in technology but along with more technology comes more opportunities for negative affects when taken too far. I don’t think that the first iPhone necessarily created this issue but sparked an industry for social media that we had not had access to before this phone. Despite all of this, Time Magazine named the iPhone the invention of the year which it rightfully deserved. iPhone has updated several times since with almost one new iPhone a year. It is arguably one of the most successful inventions the world has ever seen considering almost everyone across the world either has one or is very familiar with the product. 

Supreme Court Review

1. One thing I didn’t know about the Supreme Court that I found to be very interesting is that they receive over 100 cases every week which is about 7,000 a year. I wasn’t aware that there was that many cases that would reach the supreme court. Its interesting to see how many don’t actually get chosen as well.
2. I think the most important take away is how non-biased the Supreme Court really is. These people do everything in their power to defend the constitution and keep our country in order. Its important for them to do this because if not there would be no order in the country and no set of rules. 
3. What is surprising to me is the approval process. They only select about 100 a year out of the 7,000. I find this surprising because that means a lot of cases are going on that are considered to be “incorrect” which I think is very unfair. 
4. After watching the videos I learned a lot about the Supreme Court. I always knew what it was but I never understood how it functioned. Its interesting to see the way the justices work together and the process of a case moving through the court. 

My Top 5 News Sources

 1. Twitter- I use Twitter as my main source of information. At any point in time I can go onto my Twitter feed and see the latest news and gossip. I like it because it’s accurate and easy. Even though anybody can write anything word travels very quickly on Twitter and for the most part everything I’ve seen has been true. I’d recommend it because it’s a quick way to get quick information. You may not get the full details on a story but if you want to get the gist of what’s happening Twitter is a great place for the basic facts of the story. 

2. Snapchat- Snapchat has a really great feature called snap news. This is a really quick and easy way to get very accurate news. Real news companies have partnerships with Snapchat to deliver their news stories. Daily mail is one of the most popular news channels on Snapchat. This gets updated every day and is served as a mini newspaper.

3. TMZ- TMZ is a news source that gets information quickly. They get their information from inside sources. This site is probably best for drama rather than serious news stories. I would go here for current events in popular culture such as influencers and celebrity drama. 

4. Google- I don’t use a specific source on Google. When I search something in the search bar google populates the best answer and puts it right at the top for a very fast way to get anything you need. To get a deeper story I will go to the Google news tab for the latest most updated information.

5. FOX- Fox is the most official television news sources. This source is very popular for their political views but is also notifies viewers on local news as well. This can include things such as weather, traffic, and crime in nearby areas. Unlike the other news sources listed above, this one is broadcasted to larger audiences due to the fact that older audiences are typically not on social media. This sources target audience is directed at older generations whereas the other ones are meant for younger generations.