Final Thoughts

As finals week begins to wrap up, I wanted to write one last blog post...

I had no clue what to expect from this class after the first day but I really enjoyed it. The class became really close over the semester because of the way our assignments called for collaboration. It was a good semester...

Thanks everyone for the help this semester, have a great summer...see you in the fall.

Experiment

As I finish up the exam I thought of why we didn't debate the syllabus. One thought is it's difficult to find and keep up with everyone's blog posts...so if you see this write something quick about how you keep track of everyone's post...

The Shallows: Part 3

The last section that we read of "The Shallows" was pretty interesting. One point that really caught my attention was Carr's analysis of the Flynn effect.

The Flynn effect, as this phenomenon has came to be called, is real and been confirmed by many subsequent studies. The Flynn effect says that IQ scores have been rising steadily and pretty much everywhere they have been throughout the century. "The Flynn effect has been used to defend TV shows, video games, personal computers, and, most recently, the Internet." (Carr 144).

Carr talks about how there has not been an increase in other measures of intelligence like that has been seen in overall IQ scores. Those have even been sending mixed signals. "Tests of memorization, vocabulary, general knowledge, and even basic arithmetic have shown little or no improvement." (Carr 145). Other tests of knowledge such as the PSATs have not increased at all over the past 10 years.

Flynn himself talks about the paradoxes associated with his theory.

First, the steepness at which the test scores have increased suggest that our forebears must have been dimwits, even though what we know tells us otherwise. In his book, Flynn wrote "If IQ gains are in any sense real, we are driven to the absurd conclusion that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded"

Second, comes from the different sections of the test and the disparities in the scores. Flynn wrote "How can people get more intelligent and have no larger vocabularies, no larger stores of general information, no greater ability to solve arithmetical problems?"

Flynn concluded that the gains in IQ scores have less to do with an increase in general intelligence than with a transformation in the way people think about intelligence. I think people think about intelligence differently today because of things such as the internet. I think our immense exposure to everything creates a generally smarter group of people. Where as past generations learned in different ways...What do you think?

Another Open Source Example

Location Bug

On the iPad and iPhone, there is a location gathering technique that tracks the places of usage. Apple claims to be fixing this "bug" soon but the users are already are creating a problem. An unencrypted file stored in these devices constantly records your location. An open source application was used to plot the data that the reporter who wrote this articles phone recorded. There have already been lawsuits against apple because of this "bug".

What do you think about this? Is it wrong? right? Does Apple have the right to do this?

The Shallows

In the first reading of The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, I got hung up on one point that he commented on that McLuhan made. It said "In the long run a medium's content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act." (Carr 3). I had never thought about it in this way. Does the programming really effect us or is it the technology itself? McLuhan makes the point that it is the technology rather than the program that effects us.

It kind of makes me think on the scale of what we have been talking about all year. The medium's content can blind us and the blame gets put onto the content and not the technology as a whole. An example that I think of when I read this is when I was a kid watching stupid television shows and my mother yelling at me saying how if i continued to watch this crap my brain would turn to mush. It makes me think now whether it was the crappy television programming I was watching or whether its the television in general.

This point is very interesting and I am intrigued by it. This book seems like it is less dense than other books we have read so far this semester. It is an easier read because of the lack of techy terms I feel. Looking forward to reading the rest.

Final Exam/Final Paper

As I'm writing my second paper I was looking through the syllabus and realized that we have a final exam and the 15 page self reflection still to do after this. I was thinking of a change.

A thought I have was for the self assessment why is there a mandatory number of pages? I believe that someone should assess themselves as they see fit whether that is 5 pages or 15 pages it should be up to the student since it is an assessment about their semester. Thoughts?

Also I think an in class final exam would be ridiculous. The time and energy spent on the midterm was so above and beyond what I think anyone ever imagined so I can only think the final would be the same way. Having this paper the self assesment and a final exam all within 2 weeks seems absurd...

Thoughts?

Class 4/19

So today was an interesting presentation to say the least. I honestly knew very little about wikileaks before today and I still really cannot decide how I feel about it. I understand the argument that was coming from both sides and I honestly am sitting on the fence.

However with this said I hate losing and want to argue for my side...


Is nonsense like this found on wikileaks? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJiCU6Jw0Co

Heirarchy

In class today when we got onto the topic of idolizing celebrities, I think my true point got lost. We were talking about the absolute extremes, people such as Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber who are so out of touch with their followers and have people tweeting for them. Then the other extreme was us. Who gives a shit what I tweet about right?

These are by no means the people that I was talking about idolizing. The people that I was mentioning caring about what they have to say are athletes who actually have a talent and care for their team and organization. REAL ROLE MODELS.

With that said I don't claim to know much about news, technology, or anything else, but I do know sports.

One example that I would like to give is a trade that happened at the trade deadline this year in the NBA. Kendrick Perkins a member of the Boston Celtics was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Celtics are a team that are known for the way they build a family, care for other players, and want to win. When Perkins found out that he was being traded, he tweeted that he was upset about having to leave his family, best friends, team members, and coworkers like this. A fellow member of the Celtics who was traded mentioned how upon learning the news of the trade they both cried, cried, and cried some more. People like this who a positive role models and truly care about what they do and how they do it are the people that I was talking about in class.

This example is a million times different than me giving a shit what Lady Gaga has to say on twitter. I do not follow her and never will. I care about people who care about what they do.

Yes I am envious of their life styles and would do anything to be a professional athlete. Some are spoiled little bitches and I do not look up to people like that (such as Terrell Owens). But there are middle of the road people who do the right things and just flat out care about winning. These are people that I was talking about in class.

Class 3/31/11

I enjoyed the presentation from class the other day. At first it seemed as if it was going to be just a powerpoint with zero interaction from the class, then the debate opened up. That was a fun way for the class to get involved and who doesn't love a little competition. I hate losing and yes it sucked to be on the losing team but it was a good job by the other team and the group presenting.

Government Intimidation

Sri Lanka Website Editor Arrested

Mr. Rupasinghe questioned the government's hand in many different events and this lead the his arrest. It is a very interesting article. What if our government did this? Do you think this is fair?

I feel that this is entirely out of line by the government. I think that this journalist (or any for that matter) should be able to say/write what he wants.

Porn on Billboards

Prision for Billboard Porn Hacker

Take a look at this. Pretty interesting...

Class 3/24

What to post, what to post...

For the first 30 minutes or so, as a class we are going over the chapters and what we found to be important.

For chapter 6 we are talking about feedback loops and the war effort. We are talking about the idea of gated communities, the rules and regulations associated with these communities seem ridiculous but people buy into it and want to live there. The idea of surveillance is what is on hand. This iWar is showing how this war is the first of the technological age and is a scary thing to face.

Chapter 7 is about more of a political aspect. If the politicians have access to companies databases, then they can target people for their individual needs and wants. Then politicians would not actually need to have a stand on and issue, since people will just be hearing what they want. It kills creativity and seems to tie back into Lanier.

Its hard to say whether real time blogging is helpful or harmful. I think it benefits people in different ways. We are all talking about the chapters and frantically writing as we go and it helps hearing everyone's points and thoughts about the topic at hand. It is good hearing what everyone has to say and I think that it could help some, while harm others. I am sort of on the fence about it. It was a very interesting way of having class and I think that it can work from time to time but not every single day.

iSpy: Chapter 3

The Taylor System:

Frederick Taylor is seen as the father of the complex algorithms that keep track of everything we watch on TiVo in order to suggest other shows we might like. He is a scientific management pioneer. In the workplace, Taylor would stand over employees with a notepad and a stopwatch. He would record the time it took people to accomplish their tasks.

Taylor however, did more than just stand over his employees with a notepad and a stopwatch. Taylor fine tuned his workers and the division of labor in an information intensive process. His techniques and methods of working helped create mutual interests between both management and labor. This refrain that Taylor created, carried over into the marketing realm, where, once again, asymmetrical monitoring is presented as a way for achieving harmony between in this case marketer and consumer.


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Since we love this debate so much, does this harmony Taylor created tie into our facebook debate? Is a harmony created between marketer and consumer when the internet follows us and advertises on the side of our facebooks?

iSpy: Chapters 1 and 2

In our class discussions since the beginning, we have gotten onto the topic of advertising many times. For instance, the issue where Shane was shopping for shoes and when he went back to facebook the ad for the shoes he was looking at was right on his facebook page. This is something that we debated many times, whether the internet should follow you around.

The part of the reading in iSpy that made me think of this topic was were Andrejevic mentions "contextual advertising". His example was the way google equip the entire city of San Fransisco with free wireless internet. Since google could track where the wireless internet was being used, they would then place location specific ads, severely tight ones for that matter. The example that Andrejevic used was imagine you are working on your laptop in a park during lunch time, then you could find ads such as discounts at a sandwich shop that happens to be right across the street.

This location specific advertising and also the email messages sent over gmail, google can keep track of a lot of things you say, do, and enjoy. So it is not very difficult to imagine how "contextual" the advertising it does may become. Andrejevic describes this idea in his book as a digital enclosure, which he defines as "the creation of an interactive realm wherein every action and transaction generates information about itself."

It seems to me as a scary thought, that every single move we make on the internet has the possibility to be tracked and recorded. Andrejevic talks about the list of things that internet browsers collect from our usage on a daily basis and it seems rather scary. I wonder why they have the right to follow our wants and needs so closely. Doesn't it seem like an invasion of privacy? And that ties back into the initial paragraph and discussion we have had a countless number of times...is the idea of follow our internet history and in turn advertising it on our facebook page a invasion of our privacy?

Hackers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12662596

This is a scary thought. Hackers can do a serious amount of damage. Take a look.

Blog Theory Part 2

Ok so this time I think I have understood the reading much better and can write a post without sounding like a fool.

I'm going to take a look at Section 2 of Chapter 3. The part where Dean is speaking about how there was a blog surge in 2008 and an estimated 80 to 120 million blogs were being used. That continues on to say "The overwhelming majority of these appear and die in a matter of months, having been seen by few if any readers." This is where Dean was making the point that blogs were around in such and overwhelming amount that they were unable to draw attention of readers because there was nothing separating their blog from the millions of others. The select few blogs that actually have readers and followers are so open to the public and the criticism that comes along with that. Dean sums that concept up perfectly when saying "Strangers and opponents remind us of our exposure, our visibility, vulnerability, and ultimate lack of control." Then Dean goes on to cite a neo-nazi who tore into her via a blog comment about how big of a moron she was.

This vulnerability that is associated with the internet and everything you say and do on it is very scary. Everything that someone has on their facebook or myspace is out there for everyone who has internet to see. That is an example of the lack of control Dean is writing about and I agree completely. Her points are spot on and I don't think enough people realize how much information about them are out there for the world to see.

Blog Theory

After reading chapters 1 and 2 of Blog Theory by Jodi Dean, it made me think back to Terranova. The claims that Dean made had examples of what other people thought such as in Terranova with no real examples or dissection of her own. I thought that if a claim was made that some personalization should go into that claim. If you made the claim explain why you thought it to be true, not use someone else's words to. This is something that I feel I have seen before these couple books we have read.

An example that I have of this from the reading is on pages 14-15. On these pages, Dean writes...

"Even as critical thinkers in sociology, psychoanalysis, and economics consider the extremes produced in the circuits of reflexivity, techno-enthusiasts write as if reflexivity were the solution to a wide range of sical and politcal problems. Much of this writing relies on the migration of concepts from cybernetic and complexity theory into commentary on contemporary society, a migration enabled by the rapid growth of networked communicaitons. As computers became tools for everyday life, so did the language of computer networks suggest ways to analyze everyday life."

...then she goes on to prove this point by something that Steven Johnson said in his book. I would have liked to see a little more analysis of the points she took with her own words to see where she really stood on the issue. Because it is unable to truly tell whether Dean is believing it or not when using someone else's words to prove the point.

I personally feel that this migration of networked communications are concepts from this cybernetic culture. Our online activity connects us today in more ways than ever and this growth hasn't slowed down. So yes I believe that this computer networking language is a way to analyze everyday life. I know most of the information (like seen in Terranova) I get from an online source. i.e. computer or cell phone.

Free

Professor Dean, I understand that you hate everything Chris Anderson but I agree with what he said in "Free". I have heard the example used in the beginning about Gilette before, they were the first company for the most part to give their product away in order to gain business. That idea evolved throughout the article to say there are still ways you can figure out how to profit out of a free services just like craigslist and google. He says how free is what people want. The final section I think sums up the article well. He says...

"Between digital economics and the wholesale embrace of King's Gillette's experiment in price shifting, we are entering an era when free will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly. How big a deal is that?"

...I don't believe that this is a big deal. We have seen throughout history that money is still made off of being free. Another thing that he mentions in this article is that...

"Traditionalists wring their hands about the "vaporization of value" and "demonetization" of entire industries. The success of craigslist's free listings, for instance, has hurt the newspaper classified ad business. But that lost newspaper revenue is certainly not ending up in the craigslist coffers. In 2006, the site earned an estimated $40 million from the few things it charges for. That's about 12 percent of the $326 million by which classified ad revenue declined that year"...

...with that being said, do you think that everything being free will be a big deal? Because to me it seems hard to answer other than yes or no. What do you think?

Also Professor Dean, I like posting articles from wired.com, is that an issue because of your passionate dislike for Chris Anderson? If so I won't mind looking for links else where.

Network Culture: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 definitely was much easier to follow than chapter 1 was. In chapter 1 it seemed as if Terranova was all over the place in an attempt to set the foundation for what she felt was relevant for the reader to learn. Chapter 2 does a good job of dissecting some of chapter 1's points a little. The part of chapter 2 that really caught my eye was where she goes into the transformation of information. On page 51 she says, "A peice of information spreading throughout the open space of the network is not only a vector in search of a target, it is also a potential transformation of the space crossed that always leaves something behind - a new idea, a new affect, a modification of the overall topology. Information is not simply transmitted from point A to point B: it propagates and by propagation it affects and modifies its milieu." This point goes back to the idea of noise and what becomes information. Everything we hear is this greater noise and we as a listener have to decide what to take in and store as information. As the noise goes from channel to channel, it is modified which makes the next person who grasps onto that information have a different experience than the previous person who evolved the idea. This quote from chapter 2 shows that information is constantly changing which creates and entirely different feel than before. This made me think about how things I believe to be true just via the word of mouth may have been drastically altered from the original true fact.

Is Twitter Really Worth 10,000,000,000?

Take a look at this article I found which talks about a recent rumor that Twitter was going to be bought by Google for $10bn. The CEO of Twitter Dick Costolo has dismissed the rumor and talked about where Twitters revenue comes from and the plans for expansion. I suggest everyone to take a look. It surprised me because I didn't realize Twitter was this large, I thought it was just a vehicle for celebrities, musicians, and athletes to get their thoughts out. Enjoy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12462653

Network Culture: Chapter 1

Alright so it seemed like everyone was sooooooooo happy to be done with Lanier as was I. Then to begin reading this...

I thought that this was way more confusing than "You Are Not A Gadget". It just seemed so dense that I could not understand a thing it was saying. Not even just the material on the pages made this book difficult to read I thought. The pages seemed way to bright white as if you walk outside with fresh snow on the ground on a very sunny day. That mixed with small font and tight pages made this book nearly impossible for me to get into/understand at all. Hopefully today's class will let me better understand what Terranova is trying to say.

However, there was something right off the bat in this first chapter that confused me and hopefully someone can clear this up for me. Is Terranova arguing that there is an information quality that defines the twenty first century culture? Or is this chapter saying that there is not quality that makes such cultures unique? I don't get it...Please save me!

Organized Crime: Is it the Worlds Largest Social Network?

Organized Crime: The World's Largest Social Network

So I was looking at Wired Magazine today because one of my roommates has a subscription.  I saw the most interesting article and thought that it was perfect for our class to take a look at. It is completely interactive so go click around and you will be amazed with some of the info you find!

The title of the article is "Organized Crime: The World's Largest Social Network". It really made my head spin to be honest. One of the stats the article had said "Transnational organized crime - that is, cooperative activity between criminal groups in various nations - is estimated to be a $2 trillion industry, larger than the economy of Spain." This along with many other facts such as the breakdown of where all this money is made and spent is frankly just absurd. There is a completely interactive map with every different crime organization like the Yakuza and La Cosa Nostra and what their specialty is. Also it even breaks down to the flow of goods around the globe such as things from female trafficking to counterfeit goods.

Honestly it is amazing and I think everyone should check it out. Let me know what you think about it!

Powerlaws vs. Bell Curve?

Hey class sorry about the delay for this post, I must not have hit publish last night. Well anyway here you go...

As we have been having this on going discussion about the way in which we should be graded in class, I thought the idea of the power law system was a great topic for this post. The concept of the power law system to me seems crazy. The article says "We are so used to the evenness of a bell curve, where the median position has the average value, that the idea of two-thirds of the population being below average sounds strange." In class we all made a huge deal that some people would always have to get a bad grade per assignment if we had a bell curves in place for all of our assignments. I thought it would only be bad if nobody deserved a failing grade. For instance what if the worst work for that particular day was C worthy, I don't believe that person should be bumped down to an F because of the bell curve. I think curves should help not hurt you.

However, imagine if our class was on a system like the power law system? Imagine having 2/3rds of the say 15 students in class being below the median...that would mean that 10 of us on every single thing would receive a grade worse than a C. Also, in this power laws system, many of us would assume that a rising number of students (in my class example from above) would cause the curve to flatten out, but in fact, increasing the size of the system would increase the gap between the #1 spot and the median spot. This is making me start to believe that the bell curve idea for our class isn't that bad.

I understand that I just compared this power laws system to our classes predicament over the bell curve but I wanted feedback from everyone about what they were still thinking about our classes grading situation. Professor Dean sent us to the web to sort out this discussion on our own and I think that this article was a great way to get this discussion up and running.

What does everyone think? Should we have the bell curve, no curve, or perhaps something as extreme as in this article? Please let me know!

Question from class - 2/3

My question from discussion today that we didn't get to answering was...

Lanier wrote about the power music has on people. Then he continues on to say that the industrialized world of today, has caused the reinvention of life through music to have stopped. Do you find that to be true?

Let me know!

You Are Not A Gadget - Part 2/3

After reading parts 2 and 3 of “You Are Not A Gadget” I found some correlations between them and part 1. I found that there can be another kind of danger that can arise from believing in bits too much. Back in chapter 1, Lanier made a distinction between ideal and real computers. Ideal computers can be experienced when you write a small program. These “ideal” computers seem to offer infinite possibilities and an extraordinary sense of freedom. We experience these “real” computers when we deal with large programs. They actually reify our philosophies through the process of lock-in before we are ready.

These concepts are built off of good ideas; however, this cultural software is built like a brand new tiny program each time, which is free to be anything at all. That seems like a great idea, but then everything is aligned on the same starting line. Which in turn makes everything the same.  This concept is called a “flat” global structure and it suggests this big happy world.

That is not how the world works. Lanier makes a good point when he says “software people know that it’s useless to continue to write tiny programs forever. To do anything useful, you have to take the painful plunge into large code.” These flat tiny programs are meant to be applied to human affairs, which then leads to a blandness and meaningless way of life. What if everyone was exactly the same? Would that be a fun world to live in? That is basically a very rough comparison of what these tiny programs are trying to do to the human affairs online.

I don’t believe that the mass computer users should be grouped into this “flat” category simply because of the lack of scientific thought. This flatness can cause confusion between methodology and expression.

You Are Not A Gadget - Part 1

After this long scary weekend of doctors offices and tests after tests, I never would have thought reading this book would have given me some peace of mind....but it did. The whole concept that Jaron Lanier a dreadlocked out dude from cali was trying to get across was the idea of all the changes that the World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture. He takes time explaining how the Web is transforming our lives, in both the good and the bad ways.

On part of the first section of this book that particularly caught my eye was the section titled "Facebook Is Similar to No Child Left Behind". This section really made me think about life as we know it. One paragraph that I think properly summed up this entire section was the paragraph... 

"What computerized analysis of all the country's school tests has done to education is exactly what Facebook has done to friendships. In both cases, life is turned into a database. Both degradations are cased on the same philosophical mistake, which is the belief that computers can presently represent human thought or human relationships. These are things computers cannot currently do."

This paragraph made me deeply think about what computers are actually becoming. The line that says "Both degradations are cased on the same philosophical mistake, which is the belief that computers can presently represent human thought or human relationships." is the line that explains to the readers what computers are doing to society. But can they truly represent human thought or human relationships? I believe that the answer to that question is no they cannot.

Computers are truly evolving the way the humans interact and receive all sorts of pleasure, information, and all kinds of data, but can they represent our thoughts and relationships. Even though social networking sites such as twitter and facebook do get across peoples thoughts. However, do you believe everything you see on the internet? I don't believe 50% of the tweets professional athletes post not to mention the things my friends say. For instance do you believe that girls are dating other girls just because that is what their facebook relationship status says? The computer is a vehicle for our information that is easily molded and changed all with the intent of the human using that computer.

I think that the idea of computers representing human thought and relationships is not realistic. Like I previously explained it all depends on the intent of the human behind the screen and you cannot believe everything you see on the internet.

Just something for everyone out there to think about...

"Mass Psychology of the Net" 1/26/11

Out of all the readings for tomorrow’s class, the one that resonated with me and made me think long and hard was "Mass Psychology of the Net". In the beginning of the article, the reader learns that universities, research centers, the military, and big computer companies developed the Internet. These different institutions made it possible for the Internet to then be discovered by the "young white boys" in the late eighties. 

These so called "young white boys" were predominately made up of hackers and small entrepreneurs. The youngsters were still committed to the past of the academic computer networks. They supported the old rules of ‘netiquette’ and practiced the Unix code cult. The age in which these youngsters put their spin on the growth of the Internet was known as the golden age of cyber culture. The work this people were doing was determined by the individual psychology of the user. 

This idea of these "young white boys" really got me interested in the topic. So there were people just like me putting their touch on what the Internet is today? I got very intrigued and took some time to find out more about these groups. 

I found some very interesting things about some different hacker groups during these late eighties to early nineties time period. The name of one hacker group I came across was "Skism" and they existed from the late 80's to early 90's. They worked jointly on an e-zine with Phalcon called 40hex, a newsletter dedicated to the study, dissection, reconstruction, and development of computer virus programs. Another hacker group that I found was LOD, which is short for the Legion of Doom. They were one of the most influential hacker groups of this time period. The legion of doom does not still exist today, however the vital knowledge they left behind is.

These groups were made up of people not to much different from myself and that is why I drew such a liking to this topic.

The second Internet development that was made by these “young white hackers” wasn’t the last major Internet development. The third phase is the Age of the Online-Masses. Both the old-style informaticians and the new, freedom-loving visionaries of cyberspace are not equipped to deal with the mass-scale incorporation of computer networks into society. This third phase also requires a deeper understand of the “mass psychology of the Net”. Which means that these masses of people who do not fit into social norms are all surfing the web for the ultimate experience which in turn massificates the Net.

 

The article caught my eye and made me truly think about the true history of the internet and how in fact the internet that I am using this very moment actually came about…

Internet Timeline Presentation -Group #2