Cyberlog

2004-02-27T13:30:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday we talked about computer games. It was funny to me because we went into the whole thing of how the different sexes act towards different types of games. It is kind of common knoledge that most females don't particularly like the kind of shoot 'em up games. And it is also said that most males don't care too much for the word problem or problem solving type games. But this is not ture in all cases. The girl that I sit next to in class likes that sort of game as do I (if I was better at them then I would like them more, but we are not all good at everything.) Personally, I really like playing games like Texttwist and Tetris. These are the games that challenge me, but I also enjoy the James Bond games or the games like Street Fighter. I think that it just depends on the person what type of games they like. We mainly talked about the shoot 'em up games and not the other types that so many people enjoy playing. That is the only thing that I wish we would have talked about a little more. It was a prett good discussion because almost everyone does or has played computer games.
I can't believe that the quarter is almost over. For our final we are doing a presentation. I am in a group with 4 other people. Our topic is copyright infringement and I am doing research on some of the legal different cases and the out comes of them. It should be a pretty interesting topic.

2004-02-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday I did my first co-facilitation. I was a little nervous at first because I have never really talked in this class at all. Our topic for discussion was digital art. The thing about any art is that it could be art to one person, but it could be an ugly piece of crap to someone else. This was one discussion that we carried on for quite a while. One form of digital art that we were given to look at was a sort of “game” called film text. When I first looked at it I was really confused because I didn’t get what the point of the “game” was. After a few minutes I got frustrated so I exited out. Before class on Thursday my group met with our professor to discuss what we would be talking about. None of us in the group really got what the “game” was about so he told us. He explained that it is a sort of mimic of not only a computer game, but also of poems and computer language. After he explained it to us a little more we all started to understand it a lot better. My first co-facilitation experience was a success in my mind and I am looking forward to my next one.

2004-02-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

Here I am writing about last Tuesday. I feel like the biggest slacker, but oh well that is how it goes. The topic for last week was hypertext and digital aesthetics. This has a lot to do with newspapers vs online articles. Personally, I don’t think that the internet will ever completely take over and do away with newspapers. I really like sitting down some mornings and reading the paper while I eat a bowl of cereal. It is a kind of way that can start off my morning by becoming more informed of the world around me. I also believe since not only newspapers, but books as well are online, that authors are going to have to be more creative. This is going to be a way that the readers are going to get “more for their money”. It will be a good thing for everyone. One advantage that the net has over regular papers is all of the links. To me this is a more interesting aspect of the net. But I don't think that newspapers will ever be obsolete.

2004-02-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

Wow, I haven't written in so long. I am going to write about intellectual property and copyright. I paid special attention to this topic because it could apply to me personally. It actually applies to anyone that downloads music. I have never gotten into downloading music so I don’t have to worry about it, but most of my friends and family love to download. If one of them got sued for doing this I am not sure how I would react. I don’t think that these big music label companies should be suing the “little” people for millions of dollars. They are just greedy bastards that want more money from the hard working people. When downloading music most people are just trying to get a sample of the type of music a particular artist makes. Personally, I believe that the internet helps to boost artist images because it get them out there for people to hear about and listen to. This is the main thing that gets infringed upon. There are other things that may get ripped off, but things on the net are going to be a lot more accessible. This is just one more way that the net is changing today’s society.

2004-02-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

Wow! I have not been on the ball at all lately with my web log. I am so far behind. Oh well there is no time like the present. I guess I should go back to last Tuesday. The topic for last Tuesday was privacy, ownership, surveillance, and hacking. I thought that the way the co-facilitators started out the period was interesting. They started off by talking about viruses and what we thought that meant. Of course most people talked about the type of viruses that affect the human body. We then made the transition from human viruses to computer viruses. It was kind of funny to hear some of the stories from some of my classmates. One guy told us about how every time he turned on his computer his CD Rom drive would open like five minutes afterwards. The question of whether or not there should special laws for hackers. I believe that with the net today it is really hard to place regulations on what people do on it. On the flip side I am positive that there has to be tough penalties for hackers and viruses creators. Next thing that we talked about was anonymity. I think that being anonymous can be good, but it can also be very frustrating at times. For instance, if a person is trying out who done something good or bad and they are keeping themselves anonymous. Personally, sometimes I like to do things anonymously. Well, I have to go to class now, so I will write about Thursday later.

2004-02-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

The topic for discussion from Thursday was really weird to me. The topic had to do with post humanism. We got to talking about cyborgs and what is going to happen in the future. The question was brought up about whether or not computers will ever be smarter than humans. In a way I think that computers are somewhat smarter than humans already. Yes, they can only do what we tell them, but they also have so much more memory than we do. They are way faster then us and have all sorts of info at the drop of a hat. Another question that was brought up during class was whether or not we as a class thought that it would ever be possible for humans and machines to be combined. I am not sure what I think about that topic. Many advances have already been made in the ways of technology, so I believe that they sky is the limit. It is possible, but I don’t think that I will be around to see it. If I am then that would be very creepy.

2004-02-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

For today's log about Tuesday's class I am going to give a personal example of the topic that was discussed. The topic for discussion was Virtual Bodies. As a class we started talking about Virtual Reality games and programs and the different pros and cons. Some people brought up their own examples such as the Back to the Future ride at Disneyland. Other people brought up the issue of Military and Piolet training and the simulators that are used to keep real harm from coming to anybody. These all bring up interesting ideas, but I would like to tell about one example that I have. Sometimes I enjoy reading just for fun when ever I get a chance. This summer I got hooked on a series called One Last Wish. Basically the books follow the lives of a few teenage girls that each have a terminal illness or need a transplant of some sort. To make a long story short the girls meet at this house in the woods that is set up to be a get-a-way retreat to take their minds off of things. One of the girls has been sheltered all of her life by her parents because of her illness, so she has no idea what it is like to do anything fun. At the camp there is a Virtual Reality machine and the girl becomes hooked to it because it allows her to experience things that she had never before dreamed of doing. In this way I believe that V. R. is awsome and so rewarding for those that would never have a chance to do some of the amazing gifts that life offers. I think anything that allows people to fulfill their dreams is worthwhile.

2004-01-30T16:56:00.000-08:00

I have not done very good this week at updating my blog so I am going to write about Tuesday right noe and about Thursday at another time. So, here goes...Tuseday's topic was on Virtual Communities. The question af wether or not the internet was helping or hurting people was brought up agian. The exact question that was asked was "Is the internet bringing people closer together or isolating them?" In my opinion, it depends on the person and the situation. Take, forinstence, a person that does nothing but "mess" around on the computer. The computer engulfs their every step and they end up getting fired and losing everything in the real world. For this person the internet would be ading in their isolating behavior. The internet has become such a comodity for today's society, that most people wouold not be able to survive in everyday life. The key word is everyday. Once a person begins to subsitute the internet human interaction then I believe that it is a bad thing. Vitural Communities can be a great thing for the people that have a hard time meeting new people and making new friends, but it can be taken too far. I think that if a happy medium between the virtual and real communities can be found then it will be best for all that are conserned.

2004-01-25T17:39:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to make a few comments about Thursdays class. The topic was Virtual Identities. It brought up a lot of heated debate about what is right and wrong and the question of moratily. I think that some people try to get away with things on the internet that they know they wouldn't be able to get away with in the real world. I believe that every person is different and just because they are pretending to be something they are not dosen't always mean that they are living out some buried fantasy. There are some crazy psycos out there that try to get their kicks by pretending to be 13 year old girls or 88 year old women, but I think that a good majority of the people are just messing around. Every good has its bad, because eventhough there some harmless pranksters, there are quite a few preditors that want to prey on inocent young girls. For these type I believe that there should be ways to stop them, but there is no way to date that can do this and still "protect" the people that are just surfing the web. I don't know where they leave me, but these are a few of my thoughts on the subject of Virtual Identities.

2004-01-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed class today because we discussed a lot of really good topics. I really liked how we started off by defining globalization and networking systems. It was interesting how much the different definitions varied. When I think of a networking system I envision one of those big half spherical things that have a bunch of bars connecting and form a sort of big monkey bar contraption. Globalization would not be at all possible with out a networking system. I think that globalization has helped the world a lot in the business sense. There were two different web sites that we viewed. When I first looked at them, I was really confused. The contents of the sites were very peculiar and odd to me. One of them was a site about robots that would be able to do the work of illegal immigrants that might not be allowed into the country any more. They would be doing the work from their country with virtual reality technology. The other site was one that advertised apes for work to fix computers. Overall it was a very productive class period.

2004-01-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Today in class we discussed cyberspace. We started off giving our definition of cyberspace. It was interesting to me how differently people think. We then went on to talk about the boundaries of cyberspace. Personally I believe that they are limitless. Cyberspace is such a vast thing that I believe there will never be boundaries to it. Next we were asked if we thought that the internet would ever replace the media. In my opinion, there will always be newspapers and news stations around. I don’t ever see the internet completely replacing the other forms of media. Today’s class had a very intense discussion. I could tell that many people had many different ideas. The basic theme of the discussion was good. We covered a lot of basic info about cyberspace. It was very interesting and I enjoyed all of the topics that we covered. I look forward to the more indebth discussions to come.

2004-01-13T15:43:00.000-08:00

Today in class we disscused "the medium is the massage", by Marshall McLuhan. When I first read this book yesterday I didn't really have any opinions about it, but after listening to the things that my classmates were saying it made me think. I believe that it is true that television and computers have changed the way that people live and interact with eachother. The subject of violence and computer games came up and one person commented that violence has always been around, but the way it was dealt with by parents has changed. Childrens imagination now compared to the past was also discussed. It was said that children of the past exercised their imagination more because they had to not only think of games to play, but they had to imagine the setting that they were in. Children of today can just pop a CD into a computer or PS2 and plop down in front of it and start playing. They don't have to think about very much except how to manuver around a certian object. While I will agree that this may help the child's hand-eye coordination, I believe that it may damage an even greater tool for the future... social skills. The last topic that I would like to comment on from class sort of ties into the past and present violence issue. I think that parents try to blame the media, record companies, and game producers for the things that are wrong with kids today. I believe that if parents payed attention to what their kids were doing and listening to then there would not be as big of a problem with violence. Overall I really liked our discussion and I believe that Marshall McLuhan wrote many things over thirty years ago that are more valid and useful today then they were back then.