Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Tree Octopus



Today (September 6) in class the assignment was to pick one website from a list of 10 or so, and then investigate them. After the investigation process we were to answer a couple questions on the authenticy of the website. Well, being the curious guy that I am (slightly worse than George the Monkey), I picked the craziest website that I saw. The website I chose was The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. If we were not in class the amount of "LOL'ing" coming from me would have been uncontrollable. At first glance this website seems very much legit, since it has a ton of info, a bunch of links, and some footage. But c'mon, a "Tree Octopus"...Really though? I’m giggling while I'm typing, hoping you don't see the amusement on my face. The photos where all doctored! Thanks to the one photography class I took in high school I was able to notice it. The information was all small talk - simple stuff to get the readers to skim over it. The links were all books either on fictional creatures and fictional stories or non-fictional books on octopus. Not to mention that the website is asking you to donate a dollar, but the way to donate is to hand the dollar directly to the tree octopus. The biggest give away was the Kelvinic University page. The page is the worse university website known to all educational websites. Its displays zero art, no color, the words are misspelled and no contact information. It screams HOAX. Most importantly, Octopi are classified as cephalopods (marine creatures with long limbs, big heads, and big eyes).They must be fully submerged in water to survive because if not in water they will begin to lose their shape. That shoots the entire website down. You have to love a comical read though!

2 comments:

  1. Well done, Derrance! I like the conversational tone of your post. it makes it fun to read! Sadly, though, some students have thought this site to be legit... I'm glad you got a good laugh over it. (I think it's funny, too.)

    Just add a little more content (you're at 222 words, and you need 250).

    Also, revise these few things:

    Replace August with September in "August 6)"

    Replace the ; with a , in:"Well, being the curious guy that I am (slightly worse than George the Monkey);..." It should just be a comma there instead of a semi-colon.

    Delete the "a" in: "At a first glance this website..."

    Revise the rest of that sentence so it reads: "At first glance this website seems very much legit, since it has a ton of info, a bunch of links, and even includes some video footage."

    Combine these thoughts so they read: "The information was all small talk---simple stuff to get the readers to skim over it."

    Replace the "where" to "were" in: "The links where all books either on fictional creatures..."

    Overall, good job! I like how you explained your reasoning and deductions. Yes... octopi DO need water--ha!

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  2. Excellent! You're done with this post!

    25/25

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