Summary of Blogging

I found this exercise of weekly Blogging class material made it easier to keep on top of things. by doing this I kept on top of my workload instead of leaving everthing until the last minute. I think that many uni courses would benefit from using blogs in tutorials as it saves the last minute stress of trying to remember what was done during the semester.

I have to admit though that my style of blogging is a bit untidy as I have not exactly categorised my blogs in a neat fashion, but at least you can get the gist of what I am saying. Being a bit of a Myspace Junkie I had fun mucking around with the html coding. I have to admit that I am not a technological fanatic and hate (I am terrible at playing them) gaming and find it boring, but I did enjoy the remaining content of this course. : )

Why I hate Wikipedia

So this is my second attempt at writing about this topic as It seems somewhere along my blogs it seems to have vanished somewhere and no, I did not unfortunately make a back up of my blogs until fairly recently.

We discussed in the lecture the issues surrounding Wikipedia in regards to anyone being able to edit the articles that appear on the site which has made the quality of the content available insufficient for knowledge. Wikipedia is one of the leading online databases providing information on almost everything. Despite the benefits of being able to look almost everything the downfall is that it is not always accurate and should never be used in academic referencing. The reason why is that the information provided is open for debate, is accessible all over the world and Wikipedia users may freely add, remove or edit an article and it is not checked before publishing by accredited academics. This then relates to the previously referred to reading by Jorge Luis, Tion, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (I have discussed this in an earlier reading).

I have never used Wikipedia that much, and have never used it as a reference for academic material, although I find that it is good to get a basic idea of what something is and is also good for movie outlines.

Open Source/ Digital Cilvil Liberty

In the last lecture of the semester we focused on Electronic Civil Liberties, the Creative Commons and Free and Open Source Software. We looked at the web site Electronic Frontier Foundation and looked at the cases they were defending such as the NSA/AT&T spying case . This case is quite extreme and it is unbelievable how organisations are tapping into our lives, finding out our every details. This site proved very beneficial in regards to the assessment I chose to do on Privacy issues on Facebook and it is unbelievable that private information is being shared despite how many legal policies are broken by doing so.

The Creative Commons is a non profit organisation that provides artists with the freedom to change their copyright by giving their audience their work for free changing 'All rights reserved' to 'Some rights reserved'. This provides their target audience with freedom to experiment with their work, for remixing and reuse making the Creative Commons challenge regular copyright.
The Video we watched was a talk from Ted.com presented by Lawrence Lessig, the creator of Creative Commons. He spoke passionately about the laws of copyright needing to change and his reasons why we should have some freedom when it comes to resuing peoples work.

Free software was founded by hacker Richard Stallman and he created a free operating system made from free software. It's name was changed to Open Source as it is not exactly completely free but open to use. Adam then explained the range of free software/open source and the programs that we can use instead of bought software,and he also stated that the free stuff is in some cases better then what we pay for. We we told to use some of the programs made availabe for our free use to see if we like them. I chose to look at Mozilla Firefox as I was on of the few students in the class who are still browing the web on Internet explorer. Truthfully I have not yet seen much of a difference and as a force of habit keep opening Internet explorer. In such a small time it is hard to explain the increased benefits of Firefox but so far I have discovered that you can get the page source for a page and the tabs of the server are better organised.

Reading: Why Software should not have owners
Richard Stallman argues in his article 'Why Software Should not have Owners' that software with propriety restrictions have a negative impact on society as people in this day and age are continually remixing other people's work to make it there own (especially in the digital world). Stallman believes that in order for people to increase their creativity and share their ideas with other artists then for this to happen in harmony software should be open.

Is it wrong to download music and videos online?

This week in the lecture we were questioned as to whether we though it was wrong to download free music and videos, despite the laws of copyright against it. Many of the class were pro download, stating that although it is wrong, as long as the material for copying is available then they find nothing wrong with the use and download of illegal copying. I am against this though as mass illegal production of artists work reduces their income. Admittadly though I would be lying if i said that i had not pirated an artists work, but not from a mass copying online theft. I have been to the video store and payed to borrow a film and if it has been any good I have copied a version for my own use. Or I have bought a CD and copyied one for a friend. This though is not on a mass scale as I have payed the video store money to borrow the film and i am making a copy for my own purpose and nobody elses, the same goes for the CD. I have payed the money for it and given someone a copy. There comes a point in time when it can become a problem though. If I was to copy things as a mass copying then this is where the artist beings to lose on income of their work. I think that downloading on the internet could work if there was still a payment made. An example of this would be that you could get a downloaded copy of something with less quality and most of the payments being made would go directly to the artist so as they are not being completely exploited .

We watched a short film on Youtube, Cocaine Jesus. It shows that anyone can make a short film on short budget and load it to a page that can be viewed by anyone. After this we watched Steal this Film, a documentary that is made on views and opinions and the rights and wrongs of copyright theft. The documentary as stated in its opening credits is free to download and watch but within reason. There are still certain restrictions. This is an example of Open source as seen in next week's course content.

Reading: When Pigs Fly:The death of oink, the birth of dissent, and a brief history of record industry suicide

The issue of music and video piracy is a difficult issue to be adressed. The companies supporting the musicians and actors are drowning in money and the people who want to buy their work are poor and the internet provides their work for free. Does this mean we are 'entitled' to their work? Are we entitled to it because someone is offering it for the taking so therefore we have the rights? If everone else is getting it for free why can't we? The masses began downloading in masses and the distributing companies and artists involved in production were losing out on their profits. Where has the generation that wants countless CDs and DVDs in their home collections. The technology generation is not phased by only having copies of their movies and music on their computer hardrive.

Blade Runner/continuation of Cyberpunk

Blade Runner is a 1982 film directed by Ridley Scott. It is a film that explores the Cyberpunk vision of the future where humans have developed the technology to create replicants (artificial humans). These replicants were created to serve as fighters in colonies on other worlds, with a fixed life span of four years. These replicants become a problem after a mutany in an off world colony and all are declared illegal and are to be terminated upon detection. This movie portrays the problem with man trying to create his equal.

Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a blade runner, a policeman who's job it is to hunt down and kill the replicants. He searches out these replicants in the bleak, dark existence which is the future state of the Planet. He is succesful in termination of the four escapee replicants, but begins a love affain with Rachel (a test replicant, unaware that she is a replicant). For replicants life spans are four years so he must enjoy what little time he can have with her. The other replicants fight for their survival determined to seek answers on the possibility of life extension.

Roy the last replicant Deckard fights is dying as his four years are almost up. He could have easily let Deckard die (when he is falling off the building) but through Roy's appreciation for life, realising that his is almost is heroic in saving Deckard from his fall and giving him a second chance at life. This film questions what it is to be human and why life is so precious.

Reading:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' is a novel by Phillip K. Dick, basing the story structure of 'Blade Runner' film. The reading discusses the similarity of the humans and the replicants and how the androids are an example of what it is to be human, as they a have an innate desire to survive, just as humans do (even though they only have a limited lifespan). Roy's desire to live is so great that, just as Deckard hunts the other replicants Roy in return hunts Deckard.

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that interrelates with the effects of virtual reality, the internet and cloning. More than often it centralises it themes set in the near future and with physcadelic effects. It is a difficult genre to define and I found the lecture on it quite hard to comprehend and take it all in. It is a world that is based futuristically and implements the idea of punk as being the rebellion of control on society. The difference between Cyberpunk and science fiction is that Cyberpunk creates a dystopian world, whereas science fiction creates a world of utopia.

Readings:

Allegory of the Cave
Platos “Allegory of the Cave’ shows how human’s perceptions of the truth can be altered through different conditions. This reading explores the reality that people have from being in a cave since childhood, only being shown shadows of objects projected on the wall. This example shows how distorted their reality is and if they ever were to see the real object their perception of what it is would be distorted and perhaps seen as artificial as it is not what they knew it to be.

Burning Chrome
William Gibson’s ‘Burning Chrome’ is a Cyberpunk novel that portrays a world where people are controlled by computers. The people who live in this existence are plugged into the computer network and the dangers encountered are the hackers of the computer system disrupting everyday life.

Gaming. Isn't there better things to do with our time?

This weeks lecture focuses on Games and whether or not they are to be seen as a waste of time or a positive way to use our spare time. Being someone who does not play any sort of virtual gaming I am quite biast in saying that I do beleive it is an absolute waste of our time and there are many better things we could be doing. It has been argued though that is can increase hand and eye coordination, but then again why not go outside in the fresh air, running around getting exercise and throw around a ball. That works your hand-eye coordination better does it not??

Despite this opinion there is no lying that gaming is a big part of western culture and the involvement is increasing dramatically as more and more people find themselve become immersed in a fantasy land, escaping their realities. Electronic gaming is booming and an example of this can be seen with the Nintendo Wii. It is a gaming console which through the use of motion controls allows the players to guide their actions physically rather then pressing buttons for directions. Could this be the beginning of the seeminly far fetched consoles of eXistenZ???

Reading: Trigger Happy
Steven Poole's Trigger Happy explores video gaming and entertainment in society and its evolution and effects. It probes at the possibility of finding the distinctions between virtual and reality and how we differenciate between the two realites. How do we know which one we are in? If we spend too much time in the virtual world how do we act when we are back in reality and is there a line that can become hazy where you can't define the difference?? Game designers seek to create a world that resembles our reality to increase our entertainment value.

Tute:Online Chatting
Out tutorial task was to check out online chatting in the form of msn and virtual reality online chatting. I have never used msn before so I literally gave up when i had to join up and make a login. I couldn't get it to work, and couldn't get the login to work so I guess I'll never know the 'joys' of instant messenging. Personally I think that myspace and facebook take enough of my time to be needing to join an even more time wasting program.

So judging the fact that I have never used msn I will just have to guess that it is basically just texting backwards and forwards but for free on an internet???

The virtual world I chose to become a temporary member of was Habbo Hotel and this was definitely an interesting experience. I found this to be a virtual chatting area focused on pure stupidity. The conversation between avitars (virtual people) was mostly rude and the word bobba was said a lot. I questioned the other avitars on what bobba was. It is a world that is used to filter out swear words and other words not appropriate for some ages such as the word sex. It was rather pointless though as they ended up still using the same language just extending it, eg; sssex or shhit. For a while though I though that bobba was some teenage slang that was in at the moment that I had not heard of.

The conversation between players was either rude telling you to get out of the room or a little bit too friendy. For example to test out these kids I went in looking a daggy nerd with two pigtails, a big baggy jumper, baggy pants and glasses with sneakers and the response from the male avitars was to get out of the room. I then later changed my appearance to a blond girl with a ponytail, and nothing more then a bra and hotpants. The response I got was quite different.

I had people asking me to come to their room and make out with them and wanting to grab my boobs. My response to them was that I was just a cartoon an to get over it. Most of the people playing the game I'm sure where a lot younger then they said they were. One of the most popular questions being asked was a s l (age, sex, location) which i naturally (being 21) made up.

This site I think is bad as it is usual as cyber bullying a lot of the conversations were pay out or marriage proposals. The most interesting conversation I had was with a french person who couldn't speak english so all my questions were asked in French so I was looking at babel fish to translate.That was as about as interesting as the game was to me. Another personI spoke to gave me his myspace band name which actually didn't sound too bad.

Mind you this is a game I would never play again, unless I was 9 again. I only played the game on 2 occasions. Once in the last class and then once at home for about an hour.

I do know why I don't play any computer games though, as although I hadn't played it since fri I went to a particularily bad 21st birthday party on saturday night that I left after about forty minutes of arriving but I went home to sleep and all night I was at the birthday party in a room at Habbo Hotel and everytime I left my avitar was sent back to that room resulting in me being in an all night virtual reality of the party.

This is one game I will not be playing again.

Working with Microsoft Word/Excel

The aim of todays tutorial was to familiarise ourselves with basic principles of Microsoft Word and Excel. The purpose of this is to help us with our studies at university.

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a fairly easy program to use and I found the letter writing activity quite basic although it did take a while to comprehend the mail merge tool as it wasn't working when I used it at the computers at uni but was fine when I tried again at home and it was an application that I had never needed to use before.

Microsoft Word is a program that everyone should already be using for everyday computer writing and the tools are easy to use as the menu icons are easy to comprehend and not hard to find.

Once I had got the Mail merge to work it was a very easy program to navigate around.

I use Micrsoft Word for all my assignment writing at university and when I was at school. I do not know what program I would use instead. It has always been a simple functioning, easy to navigate document that is very helpful.

Microsoft Excel
The Excel exercise was rather simple and straight forward just time consuming and it was boring entering all the data.

It is a perfect program for entering calculations and for creating graphs but unlike Microsoft Word it is not essential for everyday use and can not be using for writing large details only numbers and figures.

It is a program that i find useful for keeping track of my work payments and I use it to make time sheets on a weekly basis.

eXistenZ and the altered perspectives from game playing

The 1999 David Cronenberg's film eXistenZ is a psychological thriller in the world of Virtual realities within gaming. The purpose of the big X and Z is to draw out the letters within it 'isten'. Isten is a Hungarian word meaning 'god'. This movie gives a futuristic view to the extreme world of gaming and the abstract possibilites of how gaming could be in a world with increased technology.

I have to admit that I couldn't stand this movie and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I disliked it for the fact that I don't like playing games as I think there are better things to do. I also can't think of anything worse that having a reality that you can go to, to escape the one you are living in. As seen in the movie there was a fine line between what was the real world and the fake one. How can you determine how to be in either worlds?

Some things are practiced in gaming such as fighting and killing that can be reversed in the virtual world but in reality is permanent and criminal. If you are killing people in the fake world without guilt then what stops you from overlapping and start doing it in reality also without guilt.
I feel the same about the theme of this movie as I feel about the real game 'Second Life'. I just cannot comprehend what is so bad in reality that you become involved in a game to escape to.
By getting away from games you will be able to increase your own quality of life and begin living a life that is not sitting in front of a computer or television screen, or in eXistenZ's case a pod.

Reading: The Military Entertainment Complex

This article shows the technological and social change that can be seen in communication. The Key point of this article is that entertainment is used, and has been for generations to manipulate social views and behaviours in regards to the opinions of wars. This can been seen in the public eye through the news and other communincation methods. Games that are stereotyped around wars such as board games can be viewed as a battlefield and with the desire to play and be part of war games it becomes and accepted part of society. Games that are based on wars can be used to manipulate the player and can change opinions of wars and through editing and changing the information through virtual reality and such the opinions of the players can have altered perspectives whether or not it is for better of worse.

Birth of the computer/ Study of Wikipedia

In this weeks lecture we studied the history of the computer dating back to the beginning of information technology.

We watched a short video on cryptic codes/enigma focusing on the trackings of the Nazi movement on the second world war. These codes were studied in more detail after the war using a developed machine that analyses it.We then touched up on the themes of computer technology.

These are;
The Birth of the computer
Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine in the 19th century which calculated and printed mathematical tables.

Xerox PARC
In the early 1970's a think tank created concepts such as the mouse, graphic user interface (GUI) and pull down menus that shaped the strcuture of computers of today.In 1975 the first PC (Personal Computer) The 0 was released but there was no language until Bill Gates joined the team and created BASIC. This gave birth to programs such as word processing, basic accounting and some games.

Apple
Apple took off after several computer nerds got together for meeting to exchange ideas about computers and displayed their latest and greatest home made PCs. started Apple first producing the Apple I - a primitive machine with a single circuit board, no case and no keyboard. It sold for $USA666.60 but they only sold fifty of them. They created their self-contained PC for people who weren't technology junkies but for people who were interested in the computer software and its possibilities, than the hardware.Tute discussionthe Animation we saw showed how packets from one computer are sent to the computer and the packet one one computer gets split up into pieces and travels to other computers and comes back and reinstalls itself all in a second.

IBM and Microsoft
IBM started of as a large conservative firm that moved slowly producing huge mainframes for big companies that grew to sucess after joining with Microsoft to create Windows.

Windows programs reduced the popularity of Apple and it looked as though there was no hope for Apple until the I-Macs were created. The debate over which computer system is better is a personal one, some people believe that Microsoft windows is better then Apple and vice versa.

Another operating system of Microsoft and IMB is Linux a free operating sytem that is alternatively used to the expensive and clunky propriety operating systems; windows, MacOS and Unix.

The Internet
The Internet is a network of networks containing servers, mainframes and personal computers. These networks use Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies interconnected by telephone system, broadband cable and satellite services. This links people around the world in an information sharing system.

World Wide Web
The world wide web (www) emerged in the 1990s and is a particular part of the internet that merges internetworking and hypertext to globally share on servers formerly known as browsers.

Web pages are written in (HTML) Hyper Text Mark-up Language.

The web is only one application of the internet easily confused as the same thing.

Cyberspace

Cyberspace is the interconnection of reality and imagination.

Karl Popper defines three worlds of reality and the third is that which applies to Cyberspace;
A world where the public structures are produced by living minds interacting with each other and the real world. The subsets of this are religion, language, maths, art and philosophy.

Early Internet Applications
Electronic Mail~email
A virtual main system that sends documents from one sender to either one or multiple recievers.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
A system allowing you to directly download or upload files from another computer and also allows you to upload a a file including a web page onto a server.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
Real time chat system first popular in the 90s as it was the first form of online chatting in real time first known as Synchronous (a medium of communation mainly for chatting but alos file transferring).

MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes
All different variants of the same kind of program usually just known as MUDs (Multiple User Dungeon based on Dungeons and Dragons). Rather then being graphic based games the programs are text only.

Reading: New Media
New Media is always updating due to the increase use of the internet. We must constantly reavaluate the current technologies that we use along with the upcoming technologies to discover the patters that media is taking in society. New media must replace what older media could not do. The best example that can be seen of new media is the birth of the internet and its different branches it has broken off into with the extension of the world wide web. The internet has changed the world in the way we communicate as what could take a matter of days, weeks, or months to be transferred between people can now be done is a few seconds and the click of a mouse.

Tute- Review of a Wikipedia Article
I chose to review the Wikipedia article on the British comedy series Black Books. It is one of my favourite television shows and was interested to see if there was any obvious flaw to the article. From reading what had been written it appears that a basic plot outline had been made and nothing stood out to be wrong. There were citations (a few were missing) and the literature was easily displayed and layed out. Seeing as this is something that is being watched on the television it may been seen as a good source of reference if basic information was required. However if I was too look up something more academic, for example the theories behind the beginning of cancer you would be better off going to an Academic Journal where it was written by a scientist.