Reading Notes One More Time - Emergence

So here's how it is. Emergence. The idea of something on a lower scale of thought becoming something on a higher scale of thought.SIme I'm using Sim City for my project, I thought I'd take the time to talk about it some more. The book states, "[property] values change in response to the values of neighboring blocks." So, a good neighborhood will likely stay a good neighborhood if surrounded by good stuff. But, one bad place can chain react to kill some places. The algorithms are simple in their own right, but when put together they are an emergent system.
This only draws similarities to the game of Life, which many computer programmers do for one of their first programs. I know I did! This works in the same vein. A cell is dead or alive by a few simple rules. If a cell is surrounded 2 or 3 cells, it is also made alive, any less or any more it is declared dead. SO, if surrounding property is "good, it thrives, similar to Sim City. The Sim City algorithms are simple.
Emergence is all about interactions. One simple rule will not create a thriving metropolis, but web them togheter and it becomes more representative of real life. Is there a connection between the computer world and real worldif the correct algoritms are used? What about intangibles like freak events and such? HOw can you account for those?
It's best to continue investigating.

Reading Notes - Movie Time

I would like to take this opportunity to begin talking about the movie.

First off, Scarlett Johansson = MEGA HOTTIE. Just don't let my girlfriend know that.

But seriously, this movie has a lot of interesting factors. In the debate of place versus non-place, the movie raises some cool scenes. Is a bar a non-place? To some people it is, while for some it isn't. Just passing through, havin a beer. Seems inconsequential to me. Would this be a non-place to this person? I guess so. But of the person who frequents the bar, goes out with his buddies every friday night, plays poor, camaraderie abounds? Sure seems like a place to me.

I still am pondering the whole karaoke and tokyo rush scene. IT all seems a little out there for me. I understand it was supposed to raise the relationship of murray and Johansson, but other than that, it really didn't raise that much in the theory of place for me.

I plan on expounding after movie has finished. Until then, adieu.

Reading Notes - The Non-Place

My local non-place is the West Transfer Point.

Let me explain myself. I never ride the bus. I have a car here in Madison, so I just drive everywhere. Since I work at Weather Central, which is located on the east side of the WKOW building on the Southwest Side, I pass the West Transfer Point every time I work. So, last night, I decided to take time and head over there. Now, since I don't ride the bus, I have what you may call a bus stigma. In my opinion, I would always think that you'd find rather, how you say, "uncouth" people at the bus stop. But, I forage ahead nonetheless.

I flet weird sitting there. Who sits at a bus stop? People were just walking through, standing and waiting for their next bus, or running right up to the one that had already arrived. This is the difference between place and non-place. When you stay at a location and become connected with it, it becomes a place. The only people that stay at bus stations are vagrants. I am no vagrant, let me tell you.

So, I continued onward, watching people come and go. There really was no talking, just kinda like how you would stand in an elevator looking straight forward. This is the epitome of the non-place. There's just no connection to it!

After a while, I got bored and just had to leave. I get creeped out by people being in close proximity to me too, so I was a bit uncomfortable as it was pretty busy at that hour. So, there's my non-place. With no connection to the location, anything can be a non-place, perhaps. But, any location can be a place. It truly is a grey area.

Reading Notes Again - The Human Cyborg Paradox

Let me make this blunt: I don't think humans are cyborgs. The thought of it is seriously disconcerting to me. Humans are carbon based beings that should only use machinery on their bodies when necessary. The turning of bodies into machinery holds many moral consequences.

Humans are akin to cyborgs in theory. We are trained to do specific tasks (education) and implement them every day (work). We break down if we're not maintained (injury, sickness), and must get fixed if this occurs (Go to the doctor). But humans have totally different aspect when it comes to one thing: free will. We can choose what profession we want to do, and we can pick the places where we work. We can choose which doctor to see and when to see him when it is prudent. Humans make educated choices, cyborgs do not. The case can be made for the idea of Artifical Intelligence as a form of free will. Is free will just a set of if and for loops that our brain takes and follows, just like a computer program? This is a tough question. One argument is that of the quality known as a soul. Is there a secondary being in ourselves that is inherently objectified to free will? The soul can't be quantified, so it certainly can't be implemented into the AI of a cyborg.

My point is this: People like Stelarc are dabbling in playing God. A cyborg arm is perfect for an amputee. They certain NECESSITATE it. But for some reason, it leads me to thinking about the villian from Spider-Man 2 whose name eludes me. He had that array of arms that did his bidding, and the power of superiority was part of his problem. Something tells me that a slippery slope pattern is possible to form. Cyborg implants to a human to give them an advantages could create an arms race for the "perfect" human, and could eliminate the human all together. WE are imperfect beings, with physical shortcomings. To give implants to a perfectly healthy person would give them a superiority complex that could get out of control. Giving an amputee a new arm with full mobility is fine, because he is back of a level playing field as the rest of us.

Sports is built on a superiority complex, though. It's fine the way it is now. If everyone was exactly the same, games would end in ties. But the difference in talent is discrete comepared to the perfect cyborg control. Think of the Bionic Man. Technology, as we have seen, can get out of control. We can't guarantee that someone with malevolent tendencies can take things out of control. Don't play God. Accept who you are.

Don't Look Now It's READING NOTES AGAIN - The Online Identity

Upon reading Identity Crisis, I took a look at my own personal online persona. I take a two sided approach to my online life. Usually, I'm just me. I like to tell it like it is with logic, snarkiness, and all around attitude that everyone loves or loathes. Of course, I have a soft side as well. I like to talk about the things that really affect me in important ways, such as family life and relationships. At heart I'm an absolute nerd, and will talk about wrestling and video gaming at a moments notice, and relate all of life's experiences to a wrestling angle or video game moment. Of course, there is also my alter ego. He's derived from the nickname my best friend gave me a few years ago, JC Superfreak. Together, my friend and I formed the "Freak 'n Slack Connection" (with his nickname being Slacker Cracker), derived from the "Rock 'n Sock Connection," a WWF tag team from the late 1990s. Everything about JC is me, just ramped up a notch. Think I'm annoying now? Magnify that by 10. Loud, crass, and brash, he will tell you like it is on a moments notice. He's kind of like my evil twin/heelish side.

So, it comes as no surprise to me that this alter-ego is derived from a part of my personality that is not usually seen by everyone. Identity Crisis talks about this on page 261. It makes a bit of sense to me that my online personality alter-ego is just a part of my real personality that just manifests itself. In the real world, there is no way I'd have any sort of friendship if I told off everyone. That's be stupid. Maybe the online personality is a way for these feelings to come out.

What's scary is the people that utilize their online personality as their real personality, and make friendships with people they think that are real, but are totally different in real life. I won't go into the details, but this happened to me when I was younger. Usually, the people who make their real selves their online selves are just looking for an outlet of their personality where they think it will be appreciated. In this light, I think of the outcast high school student who just wants a friend. There's a lot of those kids out there, I was indeed one of them.

The online personality is something that can be studied further and really be something psychologist should analyze.

Guess what it's READING NOTES - Confusion about Cool

Cool is confusing, isn't it? In my previous post, someone called me on this confusion. Cool is supposed to be rebellious. Cool is predicting the next trend, and being the next trend. Cool is ahead of the curve. After thinking about it some more and reading "Coolhunt," I think I'm beginning to understand.

Fo some reason, I would just like to say that the woman featured in this article is not what I think of as cool. Personally, I find the definition of cool here is skewed. I think sitting and shilling Converse shoes thinking they'll be popular again. THat's a fad, in my opinion. I think of cool as something that stands the test of time, like black suits. They're practical, they always look great, and they're always in style. That's cool. Functional, chic, and NEVER out of style. If things come in and out of style, they're a fad, pure and simple. While they may be all the rage for a period of time, they'll always fall out of style.

Most clothing is like this. It's ludicrous to think otherwise. What DeeDee is doing is finding the next big fad, not a cool hunt in my opinion. This leads me to the class' definition that is presented in "Writing About Cool." Cool seems to be all about finding the next big thing. Every tred has its origins somewhere. There, I will agree that the trend has cool tendencies. It's truly different, and not everyone is doing it. But, once it picks up steam, it's not cool anymore. Then, it dies once it becomes old news. That's why I used the example of the black suit. It's always in. To me, the key to cool is durability.

People, will no doubt, disagree with me, but that's how I see it. Fads die. Cool lives forever.

More of Them There Reading Notes - Viruses

Last week's reading really got me to thinking what a risk the internet is. I mean, seriously. Every computer that is hooked up to the internet is faced with danger. You've got viruses and trojans and hackers and phishing sites and spyware and malware and every other bad thing you can think of. Watts was correct in correlating biological viruses to the connected age. But, this also got me to thinking, computer issues of this technological age can be correlated to biological diseases.

First, you got you spyware/malware/trojans. Think of these as the STDs of the internet world. You go to a site, conenct with it, and the site infects your computer just like a nasty sorority girl would give you The Clap on a Friday Night. You have fun when you're on the site, but you certainly feel bad about it afterward. You have to go in to your compy and clean up the mess with Spybot or Ad-Aware or stuff like that. Your solution? Similarly akin to not knocking boots with your rather questionable choice in women, you could not go to the site, or, if you're a desperated, sad little man, protect yourself. Get a firewall, get your removal kits, and for goodness sake, get Firefox. I rarely have these problems anymore like I used to with Internet Explorer. And seriously, don't be a fool, wrap your tool.

Next, thinking of the email virus akin to tuberculosis. While TB is not really a threat now, a computer virus is a threat if you have no protection from it. TB can be dangerous if it becomes resistant to drugs, just like a computer virus could be a problem if it circumnavigates the current protection technology. So, stay abreast of the situation, and keep yourself clean.

I could go on, but the virus analogy is kind of grossing me out. I'm still stuck on that sorority girls one. Sick. All kidding (not really) and stereotyping (that neither) aside, the real world's danger is similar to the web on this front. The connectivity of the internet is the danger and the pleasure all at the same time. Keep yourself up to date and protected and you'll be safe.

And now, a viral video!

New Reading Notes - A Title That Eludes Me

I enjoyed last week's reading that had nothing to do with Lexia to Perplexia. Don't get me wrong, it's interesting stuff, but it's so WEIRD.

I'd like to elaborate some on "From Grid to Network." First, grids. Grids are quite efficient. Everything within has its place, easily accessed, and may even look good. Look at the map of New York we received. Sans traffic, the city would be a dream to get around. It just looks efficient. Meanwhile, Paris looks like a veritable train wreck. One way streets only work in a grid system. Organization is key. In a physical world, grids are a necessity. But, grids aren't everything. While terrific for city planning, the network is great for the World Wide Web.

If the internet was a grid, it wouldn't be nearly as terrific. What makes it work as a network are the links . Sure, a grid internet would have these things, but there wouldn't be a chance to access other related things. Look at Wikipedia. Every entry on the site has link to other related things or hyperlinks to sources at the bottom. I spend a lot of my down time just kinda surfing WIkipedia to just learn new things. Most of my obscure, worthless knowledge comes from this place. I do trust most of the content, most of the incorrect things are blatantly obvious. A gridded internet wouldn't allow a crossing of topics, it would only guide you to the same information over and over again. You know? That's boring.

But wait. Could it be that the internet is a bunch of grids networked together? I would say yes. There are many sites out there, and I would say that the grid aspect of the site is the genre, while the networking aspects of the sites is the hyperlinking between them. While you can easily stay within the genres, and therefore the grid, you can hop to another site via the network. In this non-physical world, the network is much more efficient. The internet is the grid-network hybird that is slowly becoming integrated to every facet of life.

Reading Notes 3 - Serious for a Moment

If I could be serious for a moment, I present to you this week's edition of Reading Notes.

I talked about my reading notes in class last Tuesday and that went over like flatulence at Easter services. Hopefully this week I won't be so controversial. This week I would like to talk about Lexia to Perplexia. All I can say is I'm in stunned silence.

I have never seen such random coherent incoherence in my life. I THINK I'm getting my head around it, but I really don't know with absolute certainty what is going on. I certainly hope that it's just not me. In the first section, there is wordplay with HTML code and words, kind of a cyber mash-up of actual text and of cyber text. This got me to thinking about how hypertext and regular words are similar but so different. HTML code is words, but they are words that create visuals. I think of it as onomatopoeia for the eyes. I come back to our website creation assignment as well and see this notion. Dreamweaver and the HTML I code creates a picture for me to enjoy after coding or writing.

Then you get to the whole section with the eyes, and that just is insane. It reminds me of "A Clockwork Orange" for some reason. I think about how the guy's eyes are kept open while he is forced to watch violence as to make him aware of the violence he causes. The whole rest of the thing continues on like that too. It's so weird.

I have a question. Is this thing insane for a reason? I just don't GET it. Sure, it makes me think of the connections of HTML to regular writing, but is there more? Is there a notion of "fast rhetoric" in there? Is the whole program a metaphor about how the internet is a place where true writing is lost?

Honestly, I think I'll stick with Wikipedia.

Reading Notes Deuce - MEXICO

I just finished up doing two things. First, I did this week's reading. Second, I was watching one of my favorite individual episodes of any television show ever, Wonder Showzen. If any of you have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Think Sesame Street, but gear it toward adults, and then smoke some crack. That's about it, really. (Note: James Conrad does not advocate drug use. Not cool.) The pilot episode is named "Birth," and has overlying themes of "Mexico." Random graphical cutouts of Mexico fly across the screen during some transitions between scenes. When one puppet character asks a child what they learned from a short film just shown about Mexico she answers "Eat Nachos." Also, the picture seen here is also from the same episode. This child gives it to a man on the street, who is genuinely surprised by it. A giant puppet letter S has sex with a giant letter N, and give birth to a lower case I, and the family spells out SiN in a family portrait (as they are unmarried). Brilliance.

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with this week's reading. Surprisingly, I feel it has everything to do with Marshall McLuhan's article, "The Medium is the Message." In it, McLuhan states that objects (and later, media) shape society on how they are used, not just what they are. One example used is the electric light. Electric lights brighten surgeries and baseball games, but that surgeries and night baseball games came about because of the light bulb. This doesn't change the light itself. A factor throughout the piece is the notion of people asking what something is "about." My theory is this: Electronic media, which we've been analyzing for the last couple of weeks, is governed by use.

Let me explain. I've gone into depth previously about Wikipedia. It can be a cornucopia of knowledge, or a total lie. Who assemble the truths or the lies? Whoever put the page together. YouTube can be a place to find cool videos or a place to find illegally copied copyrighted material (talk about a gray area). What I'm saying is this: electronic media is a gun (which shoots to kill), whose purpose is set in stone, electronic media is a fluid idea of communication that has multiple ways of use. The light bulb is not a fluid idea. It lights up a room. The End. A blog can be a multi-faceted message. On the top most layer, a blog says, "Hey, I'm an internet writer!" On the next level, there's the actual words that the person writes, whatever that may be, good or evil. On an even lower level, there's sarcasm, and wit, and all those literary bits that we all know and love.

Electronic media is as multifaceted as the show I was just talking about. On the surface, it's just talking, kind of like how the show is absurd for the fact of being absurd. But, there is a deeper level of involvement with electronic media and other types of media than there is with a light bulb and a gun: rhetoric. The spin you put on things, just like WS does, is what separates media of communication, electronic or otherwise, from a light bulb and a gun. Material things just do what they do, communication does what it does, but spins it and adds layers to it. One must think about what is being relayed to him when talk to, but you don't really need to consider a gun being shot at you.

So this brings me back to where I began. I'm still wondering what Mexico has to do with a fake kid's show.

Reading Notes 1 - Global Warming is not Fast Rhetoric

In this edition of reading notes I would like to take to task the article of Lester Faigley, "Rhetorics Fast and Slow." While I am not opposed to some of his viewpoints, I see the article as a view of a man who has a problem with change overall.

First, I would like to analyze his list (Faigley 6, CP 51) of how his life is "too fast." First I would like to state that his list is entirely subjective. Having a cell phone, being occupied by email, and impatience are all a lifestyle choices that can be altered. Who says you have to make your cell phone more than an emergency device? Who says you have to check your email as much as you do? All of these things can be changed to however he would like to do them. Check your email once or twice a day, near the end, and send what you need to. Don't answer leisurely cell calls.

My point is this: life is only as fast as you make it. But his analog of life being too fast, rhetoric, and the problems of every day life is a bit of a red herring. As I see it, fast rhetoric is today's electronic media: cells, emails, and other sorts of instant media, whereas slow rhetoric is books, letters, and ideas that take time. Faigley himself states that fast rhetoric is quite possibly the downfall of society as we now know it: "fast rhetorics are manifestation of a culture that suffers from A.D.D., a culture where things are quickly used and discarded, a culture where abuse of the environment and gaping inadequacies are ignored." He cites that global warming, of all things, is a problem caused by fast rhetorics. Honestly, I don't see the connection.

Global Warming as we know it today is caused by carbon dioxide emissions from multiple man made sources, such as vehicles, factories, and other fossil fuel burning. How does Faigley make the connection to fast rhetoric? Is it because we as humans shoved it to the back of our minds with other issues that were spread through fast rhetoric? Is it that the facts were watered down through fast rhetoric? Was there a "spin" put on it by lawmakers, in the conventional rhetoric sense? While I'll agree with him on the lawmaking side of the issue, I see that fast rhetoric would only make the problem more prevalent through information spreading quicker. Just this Friday, the IPCC, the leading science community with the task of studying global warming processes, released its latest report on Friday. It is widely available on the internet for all to read. If we were still back in the day of telegraphs and the Pony Express, information to create this report would take much longer to assemble. Policy makers would have no basis for stopping a problem that began during the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, not the INFORMATION AGE.

Faigley comes off in his article as nothing more than a senile old man yelling at children from his porch to get off of his lawn. He needs to adjust to today's world. MAKE time for your personal pleasures. Make the world your own oyster, and you can create with it more than what was possible just 10 years ago. The information age helps solve our problems, not enhancing them.