Is All our Technological Progress Hurting Our Posterity?

"The Dumbest Generation?" and "Where Are We Headed" in the PBS’s Digital Nation

Summary:
Each of these video segments deals with the adverse effects that digital media is having on our and the newest generation. What is argued initially is that educators are seeing a “dumbing down” of students in college, high school, and even down to the elementary level. This loss is seen in the way that student write – “in paragraphs rather than essays” – and in the way that they read – sparknotes, short books, how much they read, etc. They cite data that shows test scores in reading and writing may be going down as a result, and suggest that technology and media is to blame for all of this. The other side of the argument is also offered here, though. Many of the people speaking say that students are learning different by the standards of previous generations. They also admit that there may be some loss that comes with this, but there is also societal gain, and that this loss has come with every new technology. The best example I thought was their reference to the Homeric poems, which in print are thousands of pages long, yet used to be cited from memory. They say that this ability to memorize single things in this volume was lost with the inception of print, but they also point out that this loss comes at the feet of great gains (print). One additional thing that they show is how society is adapting to technology in education, especially video games. They show an elementary/middle school that is based on simple games to encourage learning and exploration. There is also multiple Army recruiting buildings called “The Army Experience” walled with Xboxes playing shooter games aimed at teens that play video games.
Inquiry:
I have mixed reactions to both sides of the argument presented here, and think that a middle ground is more of the right path for society. We’ve all grown up with books, and very few will doubt that kids who read more do better academically. Children are reading less and less as technology becomes more prominent, they are tempted with games more and more, and I believe the claims that the video makes about kids learning differently. I think that these learning differences can be a bad thing, but only when taken to the extreme. I recognize that the advances in society outweigh any small learning loss that comes as an effect, but I still think that as a society we should encourage kids to read physical books, play outside, and just be unplugged. I find more and more that my digital life can be more of a burden than a benefit (sometimes), and I fear that children who grow up totally wired may never catch themselves and see what there is outside of digital media.
I think that our generation (and even more so with the people just a few years older) has a unique position in that we were mostly raised on books and more classical forms of education, and are just recently (last ~10 years) seeing technology being a major part of our life. We all grew up knowing what cell phones were, but they were simple then, never touch-screen smart phones with internet access. This is all that children might ever see even five years from now. We have seen both sides of the situation, something that our children will never see. But is it a bad thing?
Questions:
1) If you were the parent of a young child now, what kinds of digital media would you encourage? Specifically, what new media do you think are most beneficial to children’s education today?
2) One could argue that video games, etc. are good for children “in moderation”. Can this argument be made with books? Is there a point where reading too much can be just as bad as playing too many games? What makes the difference between these thresholds?
3) How did technology influence the young generation before ours (lets say pre-cell phones), how has it influenced us, and how will it influence the next generation (i.e. someone who is being born now)? What will be the defining educational differences between these three groups?



P.S: did anyone else notice Henry Jenkins’ part, and/or the Wooden Mirror? They seemed like fun Easter eggs as I watched.

Electronic Monumentality

Summary disclosure: this is a long post
This article is an excerpt from the introduction from Ulmer’s book about electronic Monumentality. Ulmer conjectures and hypothesizes about the precursors and implications on creating monuments electronically that address, reach and impact individuals and societies. Ulmer suggests starting an internet consultancy (EmerAgency) to educate society about electronic monumentality and MEmorial to act as the implementation method.

Electracy is the literacy of new media and the internet and it makes individual and collective commemoration possible and facilitates the creation of new politics, ethics and education to recognize and address the dromosphere (the pollution of human thought and language (http://heuretics.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/internet-accident/) Ulmer claims that his application of MEmorial could potentially be to electracy as analytical writing is to literacy; a way to think critically and analyze dilemmas, the realm of electracy, in attempt to reach a solution or a puzzle piece to the solution.

He goes on to talk about the implications of apparati on individuals and socities;
- Orality; solved dilemmas by chance and religion. Aided individuals in identification of oneself as a spirit.
- Literacy; brought on the Enlightenment and the move toward science and knowledge. Literacy has helped aid in the identification of selfhood, however “has not done well ameliorating societal ignorance” (xxv)
- Electracy; Because it is a new apparatus (starting with photography in the 19th century) the ramifications are yet to be seen, however one of the main applications as of now appears to be entertainment. Ulmer later asserts that one of the goals of electracy is to “do for the community as a whole what literacy did for individuals.” – or rather give a framework for solving societal dilemmas.

One of the barriers, Ulmer states, for electracy to achieving its societal goal is that our era bases our knowledge/belief on literary testimony, meaning that a story/fact doesn’t have a great impact unless received testimonially and this is likely because of a numbing from exposure to much trauma. There are “concerns about “compassion fatigue” – the failure of citizens to be affected by or at least moved to action in response to the daily rehersal of worldwide misery”. This fatigue from trauma exposure makes electracy’s goal of societal identification and solution difficult.

He continues to layout how MEmorial would be an electracy application for individuals and societies to process, monumentalize, and solve dilemmas and trauma.

The audience is definitely academic peers that are familiar with various works and concepts that Ulmer’s arguments are built upon as it is replete with specific terms with little or no defining and quotes from several previous works. The language is quite sophisticated and the background understanding of this language assumed. Ulmer claims of his MEmorial format as a society problem solving tool and has much on stake. In a sense he is comparing himself to Socrates as he stated that Socrates had an oral application of a literacy mindset and Ulmer is claiming that electracy (in the form of MEmorial) is the way to solve not just individual but societal dilemmas. In projecting these arguments I think Ulmer has a lot at stake.

Personal Comments
In my opinion Ulmer greatly over-generalizes concepts that are not necessarily true. For Example, he claims that literacy has helped the individual identify themselves and process and solve dilemmas through knowledge and education. But how widely is this sense of “literacy” applied and is it always a fail-safe problem-solving self-identifying mode? How widely are any of the apparatus applied?

Also the creation and application of EmerAgency and MEmorial seems so abstract and inapplicable that I do not see how it could achieve the goal that it aims to achieve. Going back to the application of the apparatus, if only a few individuals pursue the application and utilization of apparatus

Inquiry
Below are some questions that I was left with;
1. Ulmer states that society can be ignorant (illustrated by Uncle Sam below) and electracy has the potential to solve this societal ignorance and “compassion fatigue”, however how true is this? In my opinion new media is more often than not abused and taken for granted and allows for individuals to become self-centric and with a sense of deserving (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk)
2. But how widely is this sense of “literacy” applied and is it always a fail-safe problem-solving self-identifying mode?
3. Aside from societal ignorance and compassion fatigue, what are other challenges that electracy will face in it’s attempts to achieve it’s goal of educating individuals and societies with the goal of creating new politics, ethics and education (thus making the world a better place)?

Rise of the Rhizome

“Introduction: Rhizome” from A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari discusses the relationships between objects, specifically focusing on the repeated appearances of linear progression to describe how things come about from something else. Deleuze and Guattari firstly challenge the conventional ideas about a book and what can be gained from reading it. A quote from the passage challengingly states, “Literature is an assemblage. It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has been.”(407) This quote claims that the ideas or “organs” upon which the “body” of the book is composed are not truly original, or ideological in nature, but instead take from others in an endless cycle of citations to create literature as we think of it. To oppose this binary way of thinking that one cannot exist without the other and one leads from the other, Guattari and Deleuze propose the idea of the Rhizome. The rhizome is described as “an antigenealogy. It is a short-term memory, or antimemory. The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture offshoots.” The rhizome is further described as not a means of reproduction, but when it becomes other things that it is more of a continuance of itself, and never does it stop being what it inherently is. Very little can be discerned from the authors besides the fact that they are radical thinkers, who challenge the extremely dominant Western idea of linear progression, i.e. left to right, 1,2,3,4,5, you read books from top to bottom, front to back. It is possible that these men are foreign or raised in a different culture if you make a giant stereotypical leap from their names but besides that, little is revealed about them. Deleuze and Guattari don’t have much at stake when they are arguing their beliefs but with drastically different ideas like theirs, it is important to be concise and say what you want to say correctly, the first time, in order to be taken seriously.

I will be the first to admit that this reading, one of the shortest readings that we have had all semester, was incredibly difficult for me to understand the first time through. I had to reread and even re-reread several passages to understand (I hope) what was being said. My first response to this reading was the Deleuze and Guattari were being controversial and tearing down widely held ideas just for the sake of it. I love to read and the after the first page of ripping my beloved books apart, I was a bit annoyed with the reading. However upon finishing the passage I found that I had to agree, at least partially, with what Deleuze and Guattari were proposing and that creating things to follow a rhizomatous structure could quite possibly be a great knew way to approach things. Already I believe things like links to other sites and parts of webpages function as rhizomes because they just transport you to different parts of the whole, without any mandated linear fashion (for some sites). I do not believe that the idea of a rhizome is so different from the linear thinking Deleuze and Guattari make a strong effort to discredit. Essentially all of the offshoots, roots, and leaves start from one place, the central bulb and grow outward and away. They do not become separate entities and are just a different form of the same central thing but neither do these offshoots and stems come from nothingness. They begin somewhere. I also wanted to touch on the criticism of dichotomy that Deleuze and Guattari make, mainly that even while they attempted to point out the flaws of dichotomy, they could not help but use dichotomies. But on the other hand that fact may just prove their point, that we are only able to describe things in terms of others, as opposites of others in some cases, and that this should not be the case.

Some questions for thought are:
1. Do you think there is something wrong, or flawed about linear thinking?
2. If we were not to describe things by their relation to other things, how would we describe them? Is there a certain point we can get to and then we tread upon the line of defining things in terms of another?
3. Think of and explain a practical use of a rhizome-like structure in your life. What is it? How do you apply this idea?

Autism Online

Autistic culture online: virtual communication and cultural expression on the
Spectrum by Joyce Davidson is an article that addresses the how the Internet has opened the door to the mainstreaming of autistic culture and communication. Davidson’s primary claims are that the Internet allows for “language games” (as coined by Wittgenstein) and the spread of the Autism Spectrum, the self-proclaimed autistic culture. Davidson goes on to quote the biographies of several autistic people who have shared their views on how they view life as well as how there is a huge demand for the recognition of minority status among the population as neurologically different. Davidson claims that this is largely made possible because the Internet virtually eliminates the things that usually make “normal” communication so difficult for those with autism, ie focusing on facial expressions, body language and social aspects of conversation that don’t come naturally to autistics. Davidson is not really speaking to the autistic community in this article but is more trying to inform those possibly interested in the culture or more likely to inform those who use the Internet of what it has to offer beyond the normal realm of thinking. It is hard to know that much about Davidson, who seems to compile many thoughts and ideas composed by other people, no doubt making it an easy access to the information, but Davidson seems to lack many original ideas herself. Davidson avoids making any real controversial statements in this paper but does contribute those ideas that are divisive to others and makes comments on them. Overall it doesn’t seem that Davidson has much at stake by writing this article, only the knowledge that she is informing those who might have impressions of the autistic community without any basis.

I don’t know too much about the autistic culture or how it plays out online but I do have a cousin who is autistic and know his limitations as far as communication and how things can easily overwhelm him, so Davidson’s article seems to make sense as far as claiming that the Internet can allow those with autism can communicate better on a less personal level. I found the article extremely interesting as I had never before heard of the desire by autistics to be recognized as simply different and not disabled. Blog sites such as this or chat rooms are the perfect mediums for autistics to communicate to meet their social comfort needs as described by Davidson. The “normal” population of today, especially those around our age, are utilizing programs such as Skype, other webcams, or even ChatRoulette to communicate with others, however it appears that autistics would purposefully avoid means such as this for the very reasons we value it, for the personal “face to face” interaction.

My questions for contemplation are
1. Do you believe that adding “neurologically different” to the list of social variables would be a good idea or even valid?
2. If a cure were to be found for autism, or at least a super-effective therapy, do you believe that it should be an option to receive treatment or something that should be mandated? (as with some psychosis)
3. Do you consider autism as a disability or simply a difference? (this may require some research)

The Hacker Manifesto by The Mentor

Summary:
The Hacker Manifesto is a short, but very clear and meaningful statement of the place of the hacker culture in our society, and the frequent mislabeling of hackers. It tells us that a hacker is not necessarily someone that spends their nights breaking into your computer and stealing your identity. While this is something that some people that fall under the definition of a hacker do occasionally do, hackers are generally people that simply change things in a system in order to make them suit their needs or just to make them work better. They are the people that define their lives by the computer and what they can do with them. They are generally the people writing the software that we take for granted and use daily. They were the people that our schools rejected and misunderstood, but now they are some of the people that we most depend on.
The author, “The Mentor”, or Loyd Blankenship is presumably a hacker that is explaining very concisely who it is that become “hackers”. Being someone who has found this article in the past, I would think that his intended audience is the person who is interested in hacker culture, and is mildly knowledgeable with computers. His stake in making these statements is to address the psychology and general societal misunderstanding of hackers and their motives. He wrote this manifesto after being arrested, so I assume it was in protest of this.


Inquiry:
My personal view of a hacker is not one of accusation or suspicion but something more along the line of reverence. I consider myself of fair intelligence, but the complexity of the systems that hackers understand, manipulate, and live for is sometimes mind-boggling to me. One of the most impressive things is that the best of them do it for fun, doing as a hobby things that are nowhere near the comprehension of the vast majority of the population. And even with all of the social stigma that comes with the term “hacker”, they are one of the unseen cornerstones of our digital society, often being the ones developing our computer software. In this respect I totally agree with The Hacker Manifesto when it says that hackers are misunderstood because they are above the social norms and limitations.
Questions:
1) What is your take on the term “hacker”? Do you personally assign it a negative connotation? Why or why not? When you think of a “hacker” what mental image comes to mind?
2) At the end of the Manifesto, it mentions using services without paying because it is run by “profiteering gluttons” (i.e. downloading software, music). Do you think that actions like this should be considered criminal? As Stallman also pushed for; should people be allowed to limit the distribution of intellectual property like software?
3) The Manifesto mentions that hackers are all alike. What is your take on this position? Do you see hacker culture as a sea of anonymous nerds all working independently towards a similar goal like The Mentor does, or a defocused group of digital delinquents?

The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman

Summary:

GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix”. At the time that Stallman wrote this, he was a programmer frustrated with the social limitations that the software like Unix (an early operating system)created by having licensing restrictions. Stallman believed that software should be free to be received, used, modified, and redistributed. This belief was based on the idea that users distributing it rather than paying for it really didn’t hurt anyone except the corporations that were unfairly profiting from it. What did hurt people thought was their limited access to useful software at the hands of these greedy corporations. These ideas led to Stallman creating his GNU operating system, which would function similarly to the popular Unix, but with open licensing, meaning that it could be distributed and used freely.

The actual manifesto’s purpose is to raise money, resources, and volunteers for his GNU project, so his audience is obviously programmers and companies interested in his cause. What Stallman has on the line is the future of his GNU project, so this Manifesto is extremely important. He first describes GNU, saying that it is a full Unix-compatible system to be distributed freely. Stallman states that his moral reasoning for writing the GNU system is that “…the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I just share it with other people who like it.” (546) The meat of Stallman’s arguments comes when he explains how all computer users will benefit from Unix. He states that freely distributing software is not just to save everyone the price of the software, but is to avoid “wasteful duplication of system programming effort”, which can “go instead into advancing the state of the art”. (547) This is then followed by a series of arguments against GNU and their rebuttals. Most of the argument has to do with the fact that the field might stagnate if programmers are no longer getting paid, and is countered by Stallman’s citing the nature of computer programmers and the fact that they will still be able to make money, just not as much.

Inquiry:

I believe that Stallman’s main idea behind the GNU, that restricting software use has a detrimental effect on society as a whole, is very sound. Professional software licenses can cost in the thousands easily, even more depending on its use, and this comes to be a huge cost on companies and consumers. This limiting of the use of professional software leads to it not being shared and used by people who may need it, and in this way puts an unnecessary burden on society. In my experience, when trying to get a license for Adobe Photoshop, something I need to support my Graphic Design hobby, I found that a new copy of the latest version can cost up to $999.99. I have spent hours learning to use Photoshop, and to find that I can never actually use it because a simple license cost so much personally limited me in a field that I was really interested in.

Our generation seems to have adapted to this legal but unethical limitation by circumventing these limitations with illegal and still unethical methods of software sharing. While a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended edition costs $999.99 here, one could download a copy for nothing elsewhere just as easily. The happy ending to my story is that student editions of Photoshop are below $100, and work perfectly with the limitation that you can’t use it to make a profit.

Questions:

1 ) What do you think of Stallman’s idea of a freely distributed Operating system? Would it cause the field of software design to advance, as he suggests, or do you think that programmers would shy away from a profession where their work was handed out and modified freely?

2) Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were unable to do something computer-related because of software costs? If so describe your experiences?

3) Have you ever used open-source software, or freeware? Did you find it to be inferior or less reliable than equivalent licensed software? I recommend you try Ubuntu. It is a Linux-based operating system that you can download and use for free. You can even download it and run it in “Demo mode” without installing anything. Try it!

Let me google that for you...

This is the blog for March 11. I am getting it done early so I don’t have to deal with it later in the week. :)
The article “The Search Party” by Ken Auletta was published in the New Yorker in January of 2008. It examines the search engine Google and how it developed and the current controversies surrounding it. Auletta has a biography on the New Yorker webpage (biography). In this it discusses his stake from being previously involved in politics and he talks almost exclusively about communication. Clearly he is very well informed in the area, but I see serious biases as he works. It is hard to see some of his counterpoints and through his interviews; you see his points only through quotes from Google. Microsoft and other competitors have no quotes in the article. The claim that Auletta makes in this article is that Google’s expansion to D.C. and their lobbying operation was extremely important. The article starts with Google’s foundations of starting business and then talks about how it has been expanding faster and faster recently into many different avenues rather than just being a search engine. Google is quoted though as saying that they are “70% to the ‘core’ mission of providing a search engine and our advertising network.” This meaning that although they also deal with “Gmail” and their “apps” they are still focused on the premise of being the best search engine. The article discusses how Google strongly believes that the users are most important in many cases they quote some of the heads as saying we do what is best for our users. It also glances over the idea of Google collecting personal information and how they store it “safely” and to make the interactions more accurate with their searches.

This article is severely one-sided. I don’t really mind that they store my data because it is useful. I may have to search specifically for something one time, but after that, I am able to be more general the succeeding times. I love this feature. However, I don’t think that Google should be so cavalier about the storage. I think that standing up to the government and to not give them information was very wrong since they could have stopped people with illegal pornography. I am glad that they are careful with the information though since it does protect its users. Besides, then our government may spend time hunting down people who were just doing searches as jokes. The article starts discussing how Google is getting more involved with phones and this shows how it is dated. I think that re-examining this article would prove very interesting and if I had more time, I might do some research on it. I know that the Droid by Google is a very popular phone (our teacher loves hers :) ). I think that looking at Google as compared to Bing would be interesting now since Bing launched in the summer of last year. In Auletta’s biography it also lists his recent articles. Guess what? He wrote about Bing. (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/10/bing-of-the-hill.html) I think that it is great how technology and media are so fast to catch up with what we want to see and learn about. My opinions of Google are still the same after reading this article although I think that it is kind of odd to have the whole company really run by 3 people. Honestly, after I became a billionaire at the beginning of Google, I would have sold my spot to someone else and taken my money and retired. One more thing about Bing, I have problems that their ads show really cool features…that aren’t actually available. I wanted to use the when to buy plane tickets feature and it isn’t available (or I am just too stupid to figure out how to use it) for many cities. I like that Google is more to the point than the other engines as well.

By the way, the first thing I am doing when they invent time machines is going to buy serious stock in Google.

Question Time!

1. What do you use for a search engine and why? What makes this one that you use better than the others?
2. What is your opinion of Google keeping people’s search records and do you think they should be available to the government? Why or why not?
3. Do you see Google trying to stretch itself too thin by invading so many areas of technology (advertising, searching, phones, etc.)? Or will this be a good thing for them and they will become even more powerful? (they were in the top ten of richest corporations when this article was pubished)

Best application of The Cave's technology: Adult Entertainment

Technology is a phenomenon that has been advancing exponentially over the last 100 years. Bill Gates was quoted as saying, not even 20 years ago, that the private consumer would never need more than 1GB of hard drive space. I remember when my family got our first computer with Windows 95 and dial-up internet. Now, Windows 95 and much faster internet can be run on a cell phone. When I first got my own computer just 5 years ago, it came with a 100GB hard drive which was top of the line and I thought I could never fill it up. In the last generation, we’ve advanced from radio to silent black and white movies, to black and white with sound, to color tv, to stereo sound, to surround sound, to high definition, to HD 3-D, and now to immersive 3-D. At the rate these technologies advance, everyone will have an immersive 3-D setup in their homes within 20 years or less (I do not claim to have the know-how to make such a prediction, so I am playing it safe with that estimate). Even though I am aware of such technological advancements, it always surprises me when I see it firsthand. The Cave, at the University of Arizona, was built 5 years ago and cost about $400,000, and already the technology is available for the average consumer to own a 3-D capable television. My experience there really made me marvel at people’s technological prowess once again, but more than anything, it just made me want to see James Cameron’s Avatar again (that is SUCH a good movie!).
As far as my experience with the cave directly, I felt that the technology was stunted by the programming. I had hoped for an immersive environment (like a video game world), yet all we got were three dimensional models (which didn’t really look that good in 3-D). The flaws in the 3-D effects could be fixed by a few little changes (like a spherical projection plane, the edges between the surfaces ruined the 3-D effects). What really amazed me were the audio tracking applications that allowed the user to walk around in the digital environment. But, we all experienced it, so I don’t really need to go into detail. In the end, I enjoyed the experience because it opened my eyes, once again, to the wonderment of technological advancement and gave new dreams for my video gaming future.

I would like to know:

Did you find anything less/more intriguing than I did during your experience in The Cave (ie 3-D tech, motion tracking, etc.)?

Are you looking forward to this kind of technology being available to consumers? Why/why not?

What kind of program would you have liked to see available at The Cave (I alluded to the idea of a digital world to walk around in, or having something that moved on its own within the program)? I will give a prize to the most unique idea.

Let's see how an environment responds to my fist in your face!

Krueger’s article, “Responsive Environments” begins with his description of his own work on creating environments that respond to participant action and follows his a description of how he believes human-computer interaction should be and how it can contribute to many different fields. Krueger’s projects have followed a theme in which participants enter a room with pressure sensitive flooring, and a computer responds to the participant’s actions in different ways. The first project that Krueger was a part of was GLOWFLOW (a computer responded to participant footsteps by creating sounds and lights, but the effects were delayed, so the participant had no idea of their impact on the environment). Krueger evolved that idea with METAPLAY (an artist in one room interacted with a participant in another by drawing images that would be projected into the room that the participant was in). This expanded on GLOWFLOW by adding an element of interactivity between the participant and the environment, because (s)he could interact with the artist, influencing different creations. PHYSICSPACE was similar to GLOWFLOW, but the participants were aware of how their footprints affected different sounds and how they could influence them with their movements. MAZE used physical movement to control an avatar to navigate through a maze, and VIDEOPLACE (a work in progress) will allow video interaction between people in different rooms.

Krueger makes the argument that the response is the medium saying that it “has the potential of being more rich and variable in some ways, than reality itself” (384). He claims that with the variability of video production, a person can interact with the environment more fully because the avatar can, for example, be shrunken down, fly, grow, flip/rotate, etc. He also emphasized that it is not the attractiveness of the visual/auditory response that is important, but that the response establishes a relationship between the observer and the environment, which is what Krueger calls, “the central theme” (386).

From his argument, Krueger risks criticism from those that believe that a more visually appealing environment is more important than the response itself. Krueger states that the means of output are not nearly as important, saying, “it may be desirable that the output not qualify as beautiful in any sense as that would distract from … the relationship established between the observer and the environment” (386).

Given that Krueger has quoted much funding from the University of Wisconsin over the course of 30 years, it can be assumed that he has conducted much research at the university and is probably a faculty member (379, 380, 384). The intended audience of this article are those that hold stake in the future of teleconferencing, because he makes several references to the field stating how his research advances the current standard providing “an infinitely richer interaction than Picturephone allows” (388).

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Throughout my reading of this article, I had trouble understanding what Krueger meant by “Response is the medium.” It was not until I finished and began to think of relevant examples that I came to understand how attractive computer response can be. It is a concept that is now being fully developed and helps to make current forms of new media seem archaic and dull. Applications of response can be seen in video games, personal computing and artificial intelligence.

The first example that really made me believe how much of an effect computer response has on a medium is an analytical viewing of the current video game console war. There was a drastic break off this generation, when Nintendo decided to take their console in a new direction. Last generation was all about graphical improvement, which was not Nintendo’s strong suit, so with the release of their console in 2006 (officially dubbed as the Wii), users were introduced to a new kind of console gaming. Gamers are no longer restricted to the two control stick scheme, but now use a motion sensitive controller that responds to the users’ movements. Now, playing digital tennis is no longer dependent on button mashing, but requires a flick of the wrist in order to make the onscreen avatar swing the racket. This can make gaming more interactive and makes one feel like they are actually accomplishing something when they play. Even though other systems like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are more powerful, having games that display better graphical technology, the Nintendo Wii has by far been the better selling console. The success of the Wii is proof that Krueger is right in his assertion that response is the medium.

This idea can also be applied to personal computing, where multi-touch technology is becoming the next big thing. Though the technology is relatively old, the new applications for it are becoming immensely popular. Apple has seen great success with their iPhone and iTouch, and other companies have been bringing in the use of touch technology. More applications of this tech can be seen in the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Kn2HKCWqs&feature=fvw

The response from the computer is shifting from mouseular point and click operations to physical touch and move gestures. These transparent interactions make computers more approachable and easy to use.

Finally, computer response is a very important application in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is a very popular research opportunity to make computers seem more human. If computers can respond to people humanistically, it is the ultimate form of computer transparency. This transparency comes from the way the computers respond to human action. Some example can be seen in the following videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdEoD10-Uvk&feature=related

The success and attraction of these technologies is because of the response, which shows that Krueger has made some accurate assertions.

I propose the following discussion questions:

1. This kind of technology is a little scary to me, because it is possible that with complete transparency, people could forget that they are interacting with computers. Are my fears at all justified, or is the development of AI a masterful accomplishment that should be welcomed? What kind of things could go wrong with the development of AI?

2. In what ways do these technologies improve the humanistic quality of life? In what ways do they worsen it?

3. Many scientists agree that there are technologies that never should have been created (ie atomic/hydrogen bombs). Could the development of AI have similar ramifications? Should we develop it just because we can?

Web-based Memorializing after 9/11

The primary focus of this article was to analyze specific characteristics of online memorials in order to see if there is a pattern associated with them in regards to who made them (individual vs. institution). It begins by discussing memorialization in general and its reasons for occurring. The article then discusses the Oklahoma City bombings in comparison to the WTC bombings. Next, the characteristics of the online memorial are discussed, such as their ability to be updated over time and the immediacy in which they can be posted. Finally, there is the analysis of eight specific web pages. There were 7 specific characteristics that were being analyzed on each webpage: 1) object/focus of commemoration; 2) co-production; 3) voice; 4) immediacy; 5) fixity; 6) intended audience; and 7) relational positioning of victims. In the end, it was found that there wasn’t exactly a clear pattern of results between websites created by individuals and those created by institutions.

What I found interesting from the article is that my perceived “attitude” of each of the individuals/corporations seemed to be a good indicator of how each website was characterized. For example: when I picture a computer scientist, I picture someone who is technical and to the point. Interestingly enough, the article states that the web memorial designed by a computer scientist, September 11, 2001, Victims (14), was described as straightforward and didn’t use any euphemisms. Additionally, the National Park Service is a service whose job includes running monuments, so I would assume that they would be able to do a good job in profiling a fallen monument and creating a memorial around it, and the article describes its memorial site as being “well planned and designed) (10). I am sure there is some sort of unconscious confirmation bias going on in my head that lead me to “notice” these “correlations” between my thoughts and the results, but it is interesting nonetheless. To wrap this up I have the following questions:

1) How do the results compare to what you would have imagined?

2) What other characteristics could you use to compare web based memorials, in addition to the ones used in this article?

3) The end of the article mentions the effect that time will have on each memorial site. Over time, do you think the findings of the study will stay roughly the same, or will they begin to change? (ex: Over time, will the Neil Casey site continue to have visitors/donators?)

Cyber-Spaces of Grief

Maya Socolovsky’s article about cyberspace and grief focuses on the idea of online memorials and the ways in which they are different from their real life counterparts. She starts off by discussing the September 11^th memorials and the speed at which they were created, such as the t-shirts and models that were being sold mere weeks after the attacks. Socolovsky then goes on to discuss the ways in which physical memorials seem more tangible and permanent as opposed to web-based memorials. Finally, Socolovsky discusses in further detail specific web memorials – three victims of the Columbine shootings – and the ways in which they affect people. In the process of discussing the Columbine shooting victims memorials Socolovsky also touches on the concept of religion and politics when used in conjunction with memorials.

What I would like to discuss more is something I feel the author didn’t bring any attention to, despite it being fairly relevant to the topic. While she does discuss the different ways web memorials make us think and feel I don’t feel as though she adequately discussed some of the reasons that they are becoming more and more commonplace. I feel that a huge reason they are more common is simply due to the fact that they are fast and fairly cheap. When discussing vitrualmemorials.com specifically, she says that a text base memorial is free, and there are packages running from $25 to $225 (12). Though I don’t have exact numbers on hand, I know that even a simple “real life” memorial such as a gravesite can cost much more than that – the gravestone alone can cost $225, if not much more. The time required for a web memorial to be created is also much less than a physical memorial. In a few hours or days time a decent web memorial can be created and viewed. For a physical memorial, the time investment is much larger. To go back to the simple gravesite example, a quick google search tells me that headstones can take several weeks to be created. That is quite a difference in time, and the gap increases as the size of the physical memorial increases (the Vietnam memorial took about 8 months to be completed). Though the point of a memorial is not to minimize cost or build time, those two factors certainly restrict people who might otherwise want to create a grandiose display to honor their loved ones. To conclude, I have the following questions:

1) What do you think the author meant by using the word “Other”?

2) Several times the author hints at the idea that online memorials are not as “effective” or emotional as physical memorials. What do you think of this notion?

3) Besides cost and speed, what other factors do you think have contributed to the increase in online memorials?

Video Games a waste of Time?

Video Games a Waste of Time?

Summary
Gee starts out by talking about literacy and semiotics claiming that reading and writing are not the only components of literacy, rather it is being able gather meaning from words AND images, symbols, graphs, etc. He also states that “people need to be literate in a great variety of different semiotic domains” (20). A semiotic domain that he explores throughout his book is video games, which he claims are “not necessarily a waste of time” (25). He goes on to illustrate why playing video games are not a waste of time stating that one is active learning when (1) by playing video games one learns to experience the world in new ways (2) they have the opportunity to join and collaborate with a new affinity group (3) develop the resources for future learning and problem solving (4) help one learn to think about semiotic domains as design spaces that engage and manipulate people. But then he questions whether those are good qualities to learn. He claims that if a good game that encourages active learning and critical thinking is played by someone who is ready to challenge themselves and interacts in the above 4 manners that the tactics can possibly even be brought into real-life experience such as science and math.

When Gee states that “Some readers of the first edition of this book were bothered by the word “semiotic” as a piece of jargon,” this reveals that some of the readers may not be as academic as he.

When he says that strategies and problem solving learned through playing video games can promote active and critical learning and can even possible apply to real life, he protects his claim that not all video games spur on that kind of learning. Since he backs his claim up with that I feel like he has less at stake,

My Video game Summary

I have spent countless hours on this website (http://games.asobrain.com/) playing explorers/settlers, which is a multi-player computer rendition of a board game similar to Settler’s of Catan. In the game you are supposed to settle and expand faster than the other players, you get points based on towns (1 point) and cities (2 points) you can get other points by having the longest road or largest army. You get resources (wheat, sheep, steel, wood, brick) to build roads, towns and cities depending on which pieces of land you settle. It requires a great deal of strategy, which I do not have the greatest. One that I have realized is that whoever gets to go first often ends up wining because they have the opportunity to choose the best piece of land. This reminds me of the first mover advantage that we talk about in marketing, whoever penetrates the market first usually has the best advantage… but they need a good strategy for success.

Inquiry

I thought the claim that video games encourage active and critical learning was very interesting. Many of the new educational tools are turning to video games as a means of teaching. I think video games being a way to foster active learning and critical thinking depends greatly on the game player and whether or not they are willing to challenge themselves and think critically.

1. In your life what are different “semiotic domains” that you must be literate in? Are you literate in those domains solely internally? Or also externally?
2. In your opinion, what are examples of video games that do not promote active learning or critical learning according to Gee’s standards of critical learning?
3. Do you play/have you played any video games that you feel have taught you problem solving skills that you have been able to carry into other areas of your life?

Video Games and Computer Holding Power

In her publication Sherry Turkle focuses on video games and the way they are affecting the lives of the people who play them, with her audience being the general populous, as those are the people who are and will continue to be affected by the growth of video games. She primarily follows a young boy named Jarish and, through several snips out of interviews with him, gives insight into how he feels about video games and his feelings on the future of video games. Aditionally, she showcases a few other people by focusing on their motives for playing video games. Alongside the personal interviews Turkle addresses some of the concerns surrounding video games, such as the “myth of mindless addiction” that was often applied to video games. Using four years of studying video games and those who play them, Turkle was able to go beyond just discussing the games and delved into the minds of those who played them and examined the social impact video games have had as they have “become part of the cultural landscape” (500).

One of the biggest overall arguments made by Turkle is that video games affect the mind in a way that lasts longer than just the time spent playing the game. Turkle shys away from using the word “addicted” too often, stating that “most people don’t become addicted to video games just as most people who diet don’t become anorexic” (512). She does, however, point out the ways in which games can seem to be an escape from reality or a way to gain control. For example: Jarish, the young boy who is fascinated by video games, uses video games as a way to gain control. His parents divorced and his father re-married and then divorced again. Jarish himself is small for his age and doesn’t really fit in with other kids. He doesn’t have much control in his life. When he goes into a game, however, he is in control. Jarish says that when he is angry he goes to play his favorite game “Robotron” (506). Jimmy is another young boy who has a physical disability who turns to games to give him an altered state of mind. In Jimmy’s case he strives for absolute perfection. He plays one game, Space Invaders, in a “ritualistic” way and states that achieving perfection calms him. Other examples of video games causing an altered state of mind are Roger, who plays to clear his mind in the same way that skiing clears his mind. David, a lawyer, plays games to achieve a Zen-like state, where he can “direct [himself] totally but not feel directed at all” (510).

When Turkle discusses the idea of altered states, she likens video game playing to race car driving. A race car driver cannot take his eyes off of the road for even a second or he will crash. With video games, the consequence of a loss of concentration may not be as dire as death, but it is certainly not beneficial. All it takes is one second of not paying attention and your space ship will explode, bringing you one step closer to the “end” of the game. It is this requirement of absolute concentration that entices many people to play video games. As Turkle states, “for people under pressure total concentration is a form of relaxation” (509).

Having played video games quite a bit myself, I must say that I can see where Turkle and the people above are coming from. There are definitely some games where I can tune out the rest of the world and become engrossed in the game, and it is absolutely a calming sensation. During times when I am under a lot of stress, like just before a big test, I will often play a video game for a few hours. I find that it allows me to stop worrying and become relaxed and comfortable – a state of mind that is essential for me to be able to study well and succeed. With that in mind, I pose the following questions:

1) What is your opinion on video games causing an altered state of mind? Is there more to playing a video game than just having fun for a few hours?

2) Early in the article, Jarish says that when he stops playing video games he feels “cut off.” Can video games become an addiction just like drugs, alcohol, or other forms of “escaping reality”? Have you ever experienced some sort of withdrawal after a video game is over, like Jarishs feeling of being cut off?

3) All of the video games Turkle investigated were from 1984 and earlier. What do you think the effect of new technology that allows games to feel much more realistic has been on the people who play them?

Lucasfilm's Habitat

Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer take readers down the path of creating and running their world known as Habitat. The article is, in a way, a brief guide of things to focus on and things to avoid, seemingly aimed at those who might create such a world as Habitat in the future. They describe what Habitat is – a “many-player online cirtual environment” (664) – and take readers through a brief rundown of both the technical and social limitations of the game are. On the technical side, there were issues such as figuring out how to implement all of the features in such a way that their technology could handle. How will players interact with objects? How will they interact with each other? How will all of that data be transmitted back and forth between servers and players in such a way that they don’t experience crippling lag, and how can it be done to ensure that players don’t find technical loopholes to exploit and gain unfair advantages? These are just some of the many questions the creators of Habitat had to ask themselves. Socially, there were just as many issues, and it was these issues that led to the most interesting and enlightening discoveries about how people interact with each other in an online environment.

Something the creators of Habitat tried to do initially was plan out massive events that players could play through. The planning would take hundreds of hours, but the creators felt it was a worth investment because it would provide many players days of enjoyment. In reality, their many hour long event was “solved in about 8 hours by a person who had figured out the critical clue in the first 15 minutes. Many of the players hadn’t even had a chance to get into the game” (671). This led to many players feeling confused and unhappy because they did not get their own chance to participate in the action. This event led to an important discovery: you can’t try and plan everything when there are other people involved. As the creators later noted, “The more people we involved in something, the less in control we were” (671). For most people, being forced into a certain path to do something is much less fun than having a hand in developing it yourself, and this event was a great example of that. When the creators recognized this and began to implement ideas suggested by the community, the feedback was much more positive.

Another key point the creators learned the hard way was “you can’t trust anyone” (672). Though the story behind this revelation is long, in a nutshell it involved player’s “cheating” to gain an advantage over other players, an issue that hadn’t been present in most games because they were single player experiences, so cheating only affects you. When there are multiple people involved in the same game, cheating becomes more than a single person experience, and steps have to be taken to prevent it. The creators of Habitat naively expected people to not want to detract from the game play of others, and they had to learn a lesson once it eventually happened.

Personally, I find that I agree with both of those major revelations. When you are interacting with people, be it in real life or in an online format such as Habitat, the most interesting aspect of the event is the other people present and the spontaneous ideas that often spring up. By forcing people to do a certain thing, that level of spontaneity is diminished, as is the overall experience. In regards to not being able to trust people, there is no doubt that that is often the case. While most people do not want to put others at a disadvantage, there are definitely people out there who would not hesitate to do so. With these thoughts in mind, I ask you to think about the following questions:

1) What are some other key things that need to be kept in mind in regards to human social interaction when designing a world such as Habitat?

2) If you were one of the players who discovered the token trick in Habitat (page 673-674, starting in the second to last paragraph on 673), what would you have done? Why?

3) A great debate in the Habitat world was whether or not to allow guns, killing and otherwise unkind behavior to other players. What is your opinion? Should that sort of thing be allowed in a video game world or does it make it too much of an unpleasant experience?

Ideology and the Map: Toward a Postmodern Visual Design Practice

Ben and Marthalee Barton put forth the idea that ideology is present in all forms of visual representations, focusing most of their efforts on showing the ideology present in maps. As Barton puts it, their essay “focuses on the ways in which visual signification serves to sustain relations of domination. More-over…ideology performs such services with a Janus face---its privileges or legitimates certain meaning systems but at the same time dissimulates the fact of such privileging.”(Barton 50) The authors cite countless historical references to the way maps have evolved and changed over the years and what these different styles have promoted or brushed aside, content wise. A central aspect discussed in the article is “the Other”(Barton 60), those things not commonly portrayed on maps or in visuals in general, because of their “unappealing” nature, a qualitative description that is determined by the mapmaker. The Bartons hypothesize that there are two ways to create better maps, through the map being created as a collage or the metaphor of maps as palimpsest. The map as a collage basically calls for the overlay of multiple sources of information, creating an item that is, “the juxtaposition of various representational devices, theoretical principles, or representational functions, e.g. resemblance, symbolic references, similitude, abstraction, exemplification, or expression.”(Barton 73) Maps as palimpsest are explained as texts directly overlaid with more text, almost as if stacking on top of one another, while still being able to read all of the layers. Ben and Marthalee Barton are speaking to an academic audience, as exemplified with the language used in the text, as well as an expected understanding of some obscure ideas such as the palimpsest. Very little can be derived from the authors through sheer analysis of the text, however it can be deduced that they care about seeing the entirety of the world and want it portrayed accurately, regardless of the less appealing aspects. Neither Barton have laid very much at stake by making these claims about maps, except maybe to lose friends who are cartographers, but they do point out faults in map making committed by governments and colonizers. The Bartons really only stand to gain by writing this text, because perhaps the text will prompt changes in how the world is portrayed on seemingly the most basic of levels.

I find myself agreeing with most of the arguments by the Bartons because they only point out common trends in map making which are indeed true, and then attempt to explain why these trends need to be changed. I have never really thought about it but the Bartons make a good point when they point out that only the apparent good things about society are ever put on maps, with some exceptions. I believe that the most effective way to create a map would be through the palimpsest metaphor because of the vast amount of information that could be placed upon a map without creating a map so large as to decrease its usefulness. Google Earth is not a palimpsest, however it shows the world exactly as it is, color, topography, geography, down to even street level. I believe with the programs we have today, it would not be difficult to create pop-up windows filled with information about the demographic of your choice for each country on the map. This kind of program is already created and would only need to be applied to Google Earth in order to achieve the palimpsest.

Questions to consider

1. What is your opinion of the statement, “Indeed, if the very decision to map is fraught with ideological implications, as we have already noted, the same can also be said of the decision not to map.” (Barton 59)

2. Do you have an alternative to the two main options the Bartons pose as substitutes to present day maps? Yes or No. Explain why if no or what the alternative is if yes.

3. Do you thing the Barton’s criticisms of maps are well founded or simply over examinations of essentially a picture?

The Matrix

I know we don't have to blog about it, but why not, right?
The Matrix has always been one of my favorite movies, but I haven't watched it in years. The obvious themes that relate to class are the ideas of perceived reality replacing our own, and simulation as a form of control. What are your thoughts on these themes? Are they included intentionally, or just a side-effect of the science fiction story?

One thing that the movie made me think about is using digital media (the internet, video games, etc.) to enhance or replace our less interesting real lives. In the movie this was exaggerated to the point where humans were not even aware of the substitution, but are we moving more and more to this? We already depend on digital media in order to organize our data, communication, and provide entertainment, but at what point will/do we forsake real-life experiences for digital ones? Much as people "addicted" to MMORPGs will give up social contact for the sake of their online lives, when do we move from a willing dependence on digital media to a willing preference over our real lives?

Lastly, who else caught the appearance of the book "Simulacra and Simulation"? Haha.

-Sean R.

Panopticism - Foucault

“Panopticism” by Foucault is an extract describing Bentham’s Panopticon, an idea for a structure that allows for supervision of several people (be them condemned, workers, or schoolchildren) by few supervisors. The author describes the structure as a perfect form of control because of its efficiency and its ability to immobilize people by having an extensive power that bears over all individual bodies, which the author claims is “the utopia of the perfectly governed city” (4).

The author’s intended audience is the middle to lower class population, because he intends to inform people of the two different extremes of discipline saying that one discipline is of the enclosed institution, while the other (as with the panopticon) is a functional mechanism that makes the exercise of power, “lighter, more rapid, more effective, [and] a design of the subtle coercion for a society to come” (12). The author states how the spread of the latter discipline throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries might become the standard for a disciplinary society, alluding to the idea that it may become a way to control the masses.

Foucault is fascinated at the creation of the panopticon, especially concerning how it makes surveillance and control of a large group very simple. The author expresses fascination through example, first stating that the prisoner, “is the object of information, never a subject in communication” (6). Then sharing the anecdote of two children brought up in different areas of the panopticon learning different facts (i.e. one is taught that 1+1=3) and then when they meet later on in life, they have discussions that “would be worth a great deal more than the sermons or lectures on which so much money is spent” (8). The author introduces this story in order to emphasize how amazing the design of the panopticon is.

In the article, Foucault describes the ability of the panopticon to keep control of masses by making them think that they are being watched. In an attempt to inform people of possible uses of such disciplinary strategies, the author risks inspiring ideas of conspiracy by which people will attempt to control others using a similar approach.

The Panopticon was an idea created by Bentham that allowed for ease of supervision of a mass of people. The Panopticon could succeed, because it gave people the illusion of always being observed. It is the idea that nobody is around, so someone must be watching. This idea can then be broadened to a much larger scale (not necessarily with a watch tower, but with some form of technology). Cell phones, for example, have the ability to be traced and with such a large percentage of people carrying them, it would be very easy for them to become tools of tracking. With people dependent on their phones (what with internet, communication, entertainment, tools and who knows what else in them) they are not likely to be off person for an extended period of time, which allows for them to be a very useful tool for determining someone’s location. It is not long after that, that the phones begin to be used as microphones and video cameras. These devices are already on many phones, and it would not take much in order to make them transmit information to a private source. Then, people would be living within a world-wide Panopticon when they never know if/by whom they are being watched.

Whether or not Foucault had originally intended to inspire this kind of thinking, he certainly did. The way he described the Panopticon, the examples he used, the presentation of the ease of surveillance, inspired a line of thinking that leads to ideas of control; control of the masses by unbeknownst surveillance.

In order to provide information to support/discourage this idea, the following questions are presented:

1. Cell phones were given as an example of a way that people could be observed without their knowing. What other mediums could be used in order to survey large masses of people?

2. What would be the advantages/disadvantages for a certain body to know where all of its associates are at any point in time?

3. What would be the advantages/disadvantages for a group of people to know that they are being constantly watched?