Month: February 2020

The header contains images of the CBD plant itself (by mohamed_hassan) and a vial of a CBD oil tincture (by Sean E). These images were chosen because the relationship between the by-product of the plant and the plant itself doesn’t always show an obvious relation between the two. There is still much misinformation that exists out on the web that doesn’t clarify the difference between the Cannabis plant and the CBD plant because of one condition: They look the same! There will be those who would see the distinct star-shaped leaf and become disheartened because of the bad connotation that lies behind Marijuana and its legal status. However, CBD is completely legal to use in all 50 states in the U.S. By providing an image of a CBD Oil tincture, it provides an idea of the many different forms CBD comes in ranging from the plant itself, oils, edibles, and much more. 

The images were created using a photo editing service called Pixlr which felt very familiar to the Photoshop software I had used in Photography class in my high school. The editing itself was simplistic for the image I had envisioned required three things: cropping, rotating, and increasing transparency. I took the background image of the CBD plant and increased its original size and widened its margins in order to fit the dimensions of my webpage. I then took the second image of the oil tincture, decreased its size, and rotated it to fit towards the side of the CBD plant.

The sourcing of the images differs between the two for the CBD plant was taken from a website called Flickr and the oil tincture was sourced from Pixabay through google images. In order to use them for the website, it was essential to filter for non-commerical use. After using the filter both images provided the licensing information (Pixabay’s licensing and the other through creative commons).

In the article Articles for Computational Culture by Lev Manovich, he points out that the use of layering has changed the way artists can view and create images. Manovich states, “Layers change how a designer or an illustrator things about images. Instead of working on a single design, with each change immediately (and in the case of physical media such as paint or ink, irreversibly) affecting this image, she now works with a collection of separate elements. She can play with these elements, deleting, creating, importing and modifying them, until she is satisfied with the final composition – or a set of possible compositions that can be defined using Layer Groups.” With this addition to editing software platforms like Photoshop and others, it was the most essential for the creation of my header and couldn’t have been as seamless looking without the tool. The ability to rotate and change the transparency between my two images was so much simpler than trying to combine both images on the same layer.

Because of the Pixels: On the History, Form, and Influence of MS Paint by Patrick Davidson, he describes how images created through MS Paint are made up of jagged looking pixelation on a single layer bitmap with mouse functionality unique to the MS paint platform. Davidson states, “The visual dimensions of resolution and bit-depth and the physical experience of using a mouse are therefore the hallmarks of ‘an authentic computer aesthetics’; they produce the visible traces of techniques and devices unique to digital computers.” This process was somewhat different from the process I used to create the header image because the header on my website didn’t require me to physically draw anything to create the image. It was similar because the multi-purposes that the mouse had in Pixlr was helpful with cropping, moving, rotating, and resizing the image.

References

“cbd-oil-hemp-cannabis-medical” by mohamed_hassan

License: Pixabay License

Free for commercial use

No attribution required

“houseplant” by Sean E

License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Welcome to NJ CBD Central, the future of medicine for all those who reside in New Jersey. CBD is a growing industry and is on the rise all throughout the United States of America and the rest of the world. From being able to buy actual CBD flower products to being included in protein shakes at the gym, it’s clear that there are many ways one can use the product. One of the few issues with CBD is finding a supplier since the stores are fairly sparse throughout the state. The biggest issue with CBD is the lack of information and research surrounding the product and its benefits.

The goal of NJ CBD Central is to give users the information necessary to find suppliers for their medicine, the background information on the product itself, and the benefits one can gain by incorporating it into their diet. Many who have taken CBD claim that it has been a stabilizing product in regards specifically to mental and physical health. Those with cancer and other life-threatening diseases have also claimed that it has alleviated symptoms and reduced further growth of said diseases.

Despite the pushback from the FDA to regulate the use of the product, the limited research performed on the product proves that there are many more benefits than harm, especially in cases related to medical conditions. Much more research needs to be done in order to fully understand the scope of what CBD can provide for the pharmaceutical industry, specifically if the product can be made more available to the public as a more affordable medicine. This website isn’t run by scientists researching the product, but you can be assured that the information that is provided here comes from trusted sources and will be constantly updated to implement the most up-to-date science behind the subject.

I choose to share information and locations regarding CBD on my website because I want people who have a genuine interest in CBD but don’t have the proper information necessary to be able to research the topic or look where to find it through referencing this site. Of course, in order to have a solid and reliable website the information is going to be coming from certified sources and locations for where to find the product in its edible and smokeable forms.

Most certified sources are going to include safeguards in the form of copyrights in order to protect the creator/researcher’s information and allow others to safely reference the source for websites like mine. According to Creative Commons, “…CC gives you flexibility (for example, you can choose to allow only noncommercial uses) and protects the people who use your work, so they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions you have specified.” CC licensing benefits both producers and consumers so that research can be protected, reference, and built upon new information later. This becomes especially important to products like CBD which still needs more research to further prove its safety and benefits for all that use it.