So I was looking around in the app world today to see what worthless free apps I could find (they're always my favorite). I ended up with one called Grass. You can guess what it is just by the title, and yes it really is that worthless and boring. You are literally staring at a patch of grass that will move a little bit when you touch it. That's it. Nothing more to it. I just thought it would comfort everyone to know that there are worse apps than the Guru Meditation out there.
Another thing: why does this app really exist? Are there so many people in this world that never get a chance to play with actual grass so they need it on their iPad? How could anybody ever think that this could in any way simulate touching actual grass???
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Hyper Hyper Text and a Flood
Greetings from a friend of a friends in a bed I've never seen with a computer thats not mine.
Alright, so I was pretty excited about tomorrow's reading (or rather today since its 3:00 am). However, to preface this early morning post: the Carrollton Hall dorms flooded around 11:00pm. On my floor, 6th to be exsact, down the hall there was a accident causing the fire sprinklers to go off. The entire right side of the building is just short of destroyed. Ceiling ties, carpeting, walls, and rooms are done for. (If you think this is dramatic then you would be right. It was a scene out of Titanic.)
Students were bustling outside the emergency exits, alarms were flaring, and uniformed persons were in command. My favorite part was when, during evacuation, I passed the room that the accident occured and saw water quickly flood out into the hallway. Yikes. Even better was seeing the side of the building from the outside seep with water and spill in mass off the brick and flood the walkways.
Chaos.
Yes. Chaos.
[Never let go Jack!]
Quite the chaos - oh - and the same type of chaos in say... "The Medium is the Message."
Alright, so I'm not sure how my life will be in the next few days so I figured I would post. Janelle told me I would like McLuhan piece since I am a huge fan of "The House of Leaves." Good call. MM was pretty entertaining and definitely made 5 pages in the Moleskin.
So here we go...
I thought the break down of each social construct, such as family or education, was a great aspect in the beginning of the book. Along side the images filled with irony and propaganda, it was a intriguing rhetoric that McLuhan used. Certainly (and especially since most people know of my passion for photography) the images were all at once odd, beautiful, haunting, and amiss, dare I say, simulacras? This in and of itself was a fabulous chaotic decision on McLuhan's part. He was able to utilize photos that not only stimulated the events or people within the image, but also stimulate the sense of chaos while reading. I found myself asking where would he take me next?
Next, the quotes held their own in the piece as well. While the images and photography somewhat scream for attention, the quotes were dominant. For example, in a world of chaos, what would you say if asked, "Who are you?" Touche McLuhan.
Now, beyond the images and the curiously inserted quotes, the context of what McLuhan was saying follow through with what the class has been talking about. I'm sure most can agree that there was plenty of references to Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Furthermore, McLuhan uses this tension of generations to explain that there is indeed a language barrier going on. This language barrier, extending out of the electric circuit (EC), is what causes the discrepancies and fissures between those who are comfortable inside the circuit and those who are not. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but McLuhan believes that whether one acknowledges it or not, we are all already in the EC.
Living in the EC is at once daunting and demanding. We are daunted by the effects of EC through media, but it cannot escape it because it demands that we participate in it. This is why Digital Immigrants, from a McLuhanian point of view, are simultaneously afraid and already within the EC. It is quite like McLuhan's notion of the ear. We are forever unable to turn off hearing, unless we are deaf. Unlike the eye, there is no lid to shut it. We have no way of shut ourselves from EC.
Alright, so I was pretty excited about tomorrow's reading (or rather today since its 3:00 am). However, to preface this early morning post: the Carrollton Hall dorms flooded around 11:00pm. On my floor, 6th to be exsact, down the hall there was a accident causing the fire sprinklers to go off. The entire right side of the building is just short of destroyed. Ceiling ties, carpeting, walls, and rooms are done for. (If you think this is dramatic then you would be right. It was a scene out of Titanic.)
Students were bustling outside the emergency exits, alarms were flaring, and uniformed persons were in command. My favorite part was when, during evacuation, I passed the room that the accident occured and saw water quickly flood out into the hallway. Yikes. Even better was seeing the side of the building from the outside seep with water and spill in mass off the brick and flood the walkways.
Chaos.
Yes. Chaos.
[Never let go Jack!]
Quite the chaos - oh - and the same type of chaos in say... "The Medium is the Message."
Alright, so I'm not sure how my life will be in the next few days so I figured I would post. Janelle told me I would like McLuhan piece since I am a huge fan of "The House of Leaves." Good call. MM was pretty entertaining and definitely made 5 pages in the Moleskin.
So here we go...
I thought the break down of each social construct, such as family or education, was a great aspect in the beginning of the book. Along side the images filled with irony and propaganda, it was a intriguing rhetoric that McLuhan used. Certainly (and especially since most people know of my passion for photography) the images were all at once odd, beautiful, haunting, and amiss, dare I say, simulacras? This in and of itself was a fabulous chaotic decision on McLuhan's part. He was able to utilize photos that not only stimulated the events or people within the image, but also stimulate the sense of chaos while reading. I found myself asking where would he take me next?
Next, the quotes held their own in the piece as well. While the images and photography somewhat scream for attention, the quotes were dominant. For example, in a world of chaos, what would you say if asked, "Who are you?" Touche McLuhan.
Now, beyond the images and the curiously inserted quotes, the context of what McLuhan was saying follow through with what the class has been talking about. I'm sure most can agree that there was plenty of references to Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Furthermore, McLuhan uses this tension of generations to explain that there is indeed a language barrier going on. This language barrier, extending out of the electric circuit (EC), is what causes the discrepancies and fissures between those who are comfortable inside the circuit and those who are not. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but McLuhan believes that whether one acknowledges it or not, we are all already in the EC.
Living in the EC is at once daunting and demanding. We are daunted by the effects of EC through media, but it cannot escape it because it demands that we participate in it. This is why Digital Immigrants, from a McLuhanian point of view, are simultaneously afraid and already within the EC. It is quite like McLuhan's notion of the ear. We are forever unable to turn off hearing, unless we are deaf. Unlike the eye, there is no lid to shut it. We have no way of shut ourselves from EC.
[The ear is to noise as we are to media.]
However, what happens when we embrace EC? We cannot be released from it - our society is marinated in the technological age - but if we can come accept it what would that mean? Because of EC McLuhan says that children are growing up faster. True. Because of EC our news comes immediately. True. --> Everything is fast, fast, fast.
Great, well what does that mean?
If I'm Tim Morton I'd say we are in the Mesh. In a way thats very true. To a certain extent we are Meshing. However, a distinction needs to be made. Media isn't creating a Mesh for us. They are not necessarily creating these "connections". Yes, EC allows for such connections, but media and EC are perhaps only illuminating the Mesh and/or this interconnectedness. EC is the medium through which our solidarity is revealed.
This is what I can do at a close run to 4:00am now. (My apologies.) Its be a hard day, if I make to Bobet it I'll be in my PJs, wish me luck, and pray to the dorm room gods.
C
P.S. The iPad unfortunately got left behind.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Google Books deal revoked
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12827031
This is relevant to the class' interests.
This is relevant to the class' interests.
Friday, March 18, 2011
YACHT
http://vimeo.com/5860685
So, this link is to the music video for musicians/performance artists/digital media enthusiasts/whatever YACHT. It's basically an experiment in symbols without context and I thought people in this class would find it interesting. In many ways I think it's very similar to the Heavy Industries piece in that it ellicts an emotional response which is devoid of any concrete meaning.
So, this link is to the music video for musicians/performance artists/digital media enthusiasts/whatever YACHT. It's basically an experiment in symbols without context and I thought people in this class would find it interesting. In many ways I think it's very similar to the Heavy Industries piece in that it ellicts an emotional response which is devoid of any concrete meaning.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Chapter 1
You are the Reader--the controller of the iPad. Settle back, stretch out your legs. Perhaps you enjoy shifting positions--your attention flits from one thing to another (homework to New Orleans cuisine to Stanley Fish's latest blog post), and your ever-changing position mimics your thought process. Bed. Carpeted floor. Wooden chair by the TV. You turn off the TV. Place the remote control on the chair's armrest, change your mind, lay it on the floor.
Relax. Sunlight filters into the room from the part in the curtains--too dim. Adjust the brightness of the screen. Better. You press the Home Button on the iPad with your index finger, type in your password (0523--your birthday), and go to Settings. You sit back, throw your legs over the armrest and finally breathe. Relax. Anticipate.
You have found the ideal position: the iPad is propped up against your thighs. There is a small smear in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. You attempt to ignore it as you go on the Kindle App to read. The smear catches your attention; you sigh, tug on the long sleeve of your shirt, click the iPad's screen off, and rub at the mark. Your sleeve leaves a trail of streaks across the screen. You become obsessed. You press your tongue against the cotton of your sleeve--the sleeve is now damp, the ocean blue now a navy--and you return to the screen, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing--the streaks will come off--and then you stop to admire your handiwork. There are wet streaks and dust has collected in the crevices of your iPad cover.
Your ideal position has now been compromised. You decide--with an emphatic nod to yourself--that the streaks will not bother you. (You remember that your obsession with precision and perfection led you to snapping at anyone who dog-eared your printed books...You sigh in relief at the mere thought that books are now electronically produced and you no longer have to worry about broken spines and dog-eared pages and food stains).
Willing yourself to ignore the dust, you tap the Amazon Kindle app, and your library immediately loads. Swiping your index finger from right to left across the screen, you scroll through your library. You stop at your modest collection of Pynchon novels. With the tap of your middle finger you choose Gravity's Rainbow. You have read this before (twice), but you decide that there must be something you have missed in the past. You debate whether to go through your bookmarks and notes to spark some sort of argument in your head, but you ultimately decide on starting at the beginning of the e-book: your location is 1%, 1-11.
You begin reading "Chapter 1 Beyond the Zero." You skip over the quote by Wernher von Braun and onto the first sentence. "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."
The words are too familiar. You are having second thoughts about your selection.
It's not that you expect anything in particular from this text—you have learned that no entity is complete within itself, that no text will satisfy your craving for the ultimate text. There is no text without a sequel, an update; the ever-permeable nature of digital technology demands the constant evolution of textuality. You have learned not to expect a feeling of fulfillment at the end of a novel. You have learned to expect the novel's second edition to replace the first, with or without your consent. You have learned to save your favorite passages in a word document--one never knows when they will be altered by some unseen force. Presumably this force knows what it's doing--it may be presumptuous of you to save a scrap of text which the author wishes to alter--and you feel a pang of guilt, but still you save scraps and phrases which mean something to you, trying to preserve the relics of last year, last month, last minute.
You decide abandon your rereading of Pynchon in favor of browsing the Internet for a suggestion of something new. You open Safari and open one of your favorite blogs. Lucky for you, this blogger has just published a review of the new "digital translation" of Calvino's novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Modernized For The Digital Era! the advertisements proclaim proudly. An Ode to the Collaborative Force which is Intertextuality! Experience the Inevitable Thrill of Translation! You weren't sure what this meant, exactly, but the phrase was somehow compelling. So you opened your Kindle app and went to the bookstore. Good for you.
In the bookstore, you glance briefly at the Amazon recommendations. Your brother recently bought his textbooks on your account, and as a result your most recent recommendations are of varied content--textbooks on nuclear physics, Wodehouse novels, an interactive graphic novel by someone you've never heard of but you think your younger sister mentioned him, once. You pass these by. You have a limited amount of time. You can't go buying every book in the damn store--it would surpass the memory capacity of your iPad, for one thing.
You type Calvino's name in the search bar and allow yourself to be directed to the latest edition of If on a winter's night a traveler. A cheerful prompt informs you that others who have bought this item have also bought other novels by Calvino. You do not want other novels by Calvino. You select If on a winter's night a traveler, and you buy it.
Once you've tapped the purchase button, the iPad screen flashes to your electronic library. A small, somewhat transparent digital cover of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler appears on your shelf next to The King James Bible (free edition) and Reading Borges After Benjamin (which you bought in hopes of doing some extra reading for your Reading W/ the Digital Human class but have yet to finish). You patiently watch the little bar signifying the progress of the download of your book fill with blue. The progress bar vanishes and the cover becomes opaque.
You are now ready to begin reading Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.
Relax. Sunlight filters into the room from the part in the curtains--too dim. Adjust the brightness of the screen. Better. You press the Home Button on the iPad with your index finger, type in your password (0523--your birthday), and go to Settings. You sit back, throw your legs over the armrest and finally breathe. Relax. Anticipate.
You have found the ideal position: the iPad is propped up against your thighs. There is a small smear in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. You attempt to ignore it as you go on the Kindle App to read. The smear catches your attention; you sigh, tug on the long sleeve of your shirt, click the iPad's screen off, and rub at the mark. Your sleeve leaves a trail of streaks across the screen. You become obsessed. You press your tongue against the cotton of your sleeve--the sleeve is now damp, the ocean blue now a navy--and you return to the screen, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing--the streaks will come off--and then you stop to admire your handiwork. There are wet streaks and dust has collected in the crevices of your iPad cover.
Your ideal position has now been compromised. You decide--with an emphatic nod to yourself--that the streaks will not bother you. (You remember that your obsession with precision and perfection led you to snapping at anyone who dog-eared your printed books...You sigh in relief at the mere thought that books are now electronically produced and you no longer have to worry about broken spines and dog-eared pages and food stains).
Willing yourself to ignore the dust, you tap the Amazon Kindle app, and your library immediately loads. Swiping your index finger from right to left across the screen, you scroll through your library. You stop at your modest collection of Pynchon novels. With the tap of your middle finger you choose Gravity's Rainbow. You have read this before (twice), but you decide that there must be something you have missed in the past. You debate whether to go through your bookmarks and notes to spark some sort of argument in your head, but you ultimately decide on starting at the beginning of the e-book: your location is 1%, 1-11.
You begin reading "Chapter 1 Beyond the Zero." You skip over the quote by Wernher von Braun and onto the first sentence. "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."
The words are too familiar. You are having second thoughts about your selection.
It's not that you expect anything in particular from this text—you have learned that no entity is complete within itself, that no text will satisfy your craving for the ultimate text. There is no text without a sequel, an update; the ever-permeable nature of digital technology demands the constant evolution of textuality. You have learned not to expect a feeling of fulfillment at the end of a novel. You have learned to expect the novel's second edition to replace the first, with or without your consent. You have learned to save your favorite passages in a word document--one never knows when they will be altered by some unseen force. Presumably this force knows what it's doing--it may be presumptuous of you to save a scrap of text which the author wishes to alter--and you feel a pang of guilt, but still you save scraps and phrases which mean something to you, trying to preserve the relics of last year, last month, last minute.
You decide abandon your rereading of Pynchon in favor of browsing the Internet for a suggestion of something new. You open Safari and open one of your favorite blogs. Lucky for you, this blogger has just published a review of the new "digital translation" of Calvino's novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Modernized For The Digital Era! the advertisements proclaim proudly. An Ode to the Collaborative Force which is Intertextuality! Experience the Inevitable Thrill of Translation! You weren't sure what this meant, exactly, but the phrase was somehow compelling. So you opened your Kindle app and went to the bookstore. Good for you.
In the bookstore, you glance briefly at the Amazon recommendations. Your brother recently bought his textbooks on your account, and as a result your most recent recommendations are of varied content--textbooks on nuclear physics, Wodehouse novels, an interactive graphic novel by someone you've never heard of but you think your younger sister mentioned him, once. You pass these by. You have a limited amount of time. You can't go buying every book in the damn store--it would surpass the memory capacity of your iPad, for one thing.
You type Calvino's name in the search bar and allow yourself to be directed to the latest edition of If on a winter's night a traveler. A cheerful prompt informs you that others who have bought this item have also bought other novels by Calvino. You do not want other novels by Calvino. You select If on a winter's night a traveler, and you buy it.
Once you've tapped the purchase button, the iPad screen flashes to your electronic library. A small, somewhat transparent digital cover of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler appears on your shelf next to The King James Bible (free edition) and Reading Borges After Benjamin (which you bought in hopes of doing some extra reading for your Reading W/ the Digital Human class but have yet to finish). You patiently watch the little bar signifying the progress of the download of your book fill with blue. The progress bar vanishes and the cover becomes opaque.
You are now ready to begin reading Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Final Project Proposal
*This group had several ideas and this is one of the prospective ones. There may be some slight changes if and when consultation with a professor is necessary.
In a digitized world, there are several types of mutative or evolutionary social changes. These changes can be considered both mutative and evolutionary. This fluctuation in society is what is arguably bringing progress concerning many cultural facets.
We have talked about change social facets with music digitizing, books digitizing, to the classroom setting digitizing. However, what happens when something as "human" as Art is digitizing?
Today, there are many forms of digital art; there is anything from digital photography, digital to stop-motion films, digital/ electronic music and the like.
Our group would like to explore the world of Art and how it is mutating and evolving from being a separate entity from the technological world to how it is embracing it and relying on it. We will do this through an exploration of contemporary artists, different mediums with devices like the iPad, and how the Art is being presented with blogs and showcase websites.
Cait, Kalee, Joshua
 |
| ERIK JOANSSON, photography and retouch artist |
In a digitized world, there are several types of mutative or evolutionary social changes. These changes can be considered both mutative and evolutionary. This fluctuation in society is what is arguably bringing progress concerning many cultural facets.
We have talked about change social facets with music digitizing, books digitizing, to the classroom setting digitizing. However, what happens when something as "human" as Art is digitizing?
Today, there are many forms of digital art; there is anything from digital photography, digital to stop-motion films, digital/ electronic music and the like.
Our group would like to explore the world of Art and how it is mutating and evolving from being a separate entity from the technological world to how it is embracing it and relying on it. We will do this through an exploration of contemporary artists, different mediums with devices like the iPad, and how the Art is being presented with blogs and showcase websites.
Cait, Kalee, Joshua
Japanese Digital Culture
Japanese Digital Culture. The aura of the Japanese culture and its connection to digital media is already loaded with
content. We are going to research how a completely different culture has adopted the digital sphere, and the different
factors that have made a contribution. Japanese industries continue to dominate internationally in digital hardware
such as cameras and displays, but has fared less well in content and services. Although certain areas, like anime,
have become popular in younger cultures, they still represent subcultural niche products taht are not major
export industries for Japan. Some commentators call this the Galapagos effect, and it will be interesting to see what
factors led to the rise fo the dominance of certain digital "species."
Japan can also serve as a great example for the dangers of technology. Although it may be easy to say, "no, we're not
like them," part of our presentation would just be about asking the question: are we really not like them? If not, are we not even close?
Final Project: Chris Rolando and Elle
content. We are going to research how a completely different culture has adopted the digital sphere, and the different
factors that have made a contribution. Japanese industries continue to dominate internationally in digital hardware
such as cameras and displays, but has fared less well in content and services. Although certain areas, like anime,
have become popular in younger cultures, they still represent subcultural niche products taht are not major
export industries for Japan. Some commentators call this the Galapagos effect, and it will be interesting to see what
factors led to the rise fo the dominance of certain digital "species."
Japan can also serve as a great example for the dangers of technology. Although it may be easy to say, "no, we're not
like them," part of our presentation would just be about asking the question: are we really not like them? If not, are we not even close?
Final Project: Chris Rolando and Elle
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Reality of the Digital Human
Final Project Proposal:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that is almost as old as science-fiction itself, and our fascination with AI has only increased since its first forays into popular culture. Movies such as I, Robot and Blade Runner have shifted our attention from a mere possibility to a real threat to our reality. As a society, however, it remains to be seen if our issue with Singularity or AI or even Cognitive Robots is a matter of uncanniness. Will our asinine fascination with propelling our technologies towards these different concepts come to an abrupt stop when we are face to face with a thinking machine? Have we, in fact, already come face to face with such a machine? When do concepts such as Singularity, AI, and Cognitive Robots become too uncanny? Do these concepts expose the mechanics of human thought, or can the mechanics of human thought be brought to bear on modern technological developments? In our project, we wish to not only present these issues to the class, but to also decipher and expand upon the phrase "digital human" in an attempt to come to terms with our new reality--a reality, simultaneously liberating, alluring, and terrifying, in which thought is not by definition the exclusive domain of the homo sapien.
Tentative reading list:
Improving Cognition in Computers (US News)
New Cognitive Robotics Lab Tests Theories of Human Thought (Science Daily)
The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention? (NPR)
Response to The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention
I, Algorithm (New Scientist)
A Manifesto for Cyborgs (Donna Haraway)
By: Amelie Daigle, Maria Pinheiro, Jeffery Muir, and Holly Combs
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that is almost as old as science-fiction itself, and our fascination with AI has only increased since its first forays into popular culture. Movies such as I, Robot and Blade Runner have shifted our attention from a mere possibility to a real threat to our reality. As a society, however, it remains to be seen if our issue with Singularity or AI or even Cognitive Robots is a matter of uncanniness. Will our asinine fascination with propelling our technologies towards these different concepts come to an abrupt stop when we are face to face with a thinking machine? Have we, in fact, already come face to face with such a machine? When do concepts such as Singularity, AI, and Cognitive Robots become too uncanny? Do these concepts expose the mechanics of human thought, or can the mechanics of human thought be brought to bear on modern technological developments? In our project, we wish to not only present these issues to the class, but to also decipher and expand upon the phrase "digital human" in an attempt to come to terms with our new reality--a reality, simultaneously liberating, alluring, and terrifying, in which thought is not by definition the exclusive domain of the homo sapien.
Tentative reading list:
Improving Cognition in Computers (US News)
New Cognitive Robotics Lab Tests Theories of Human Thought (Science Daily)
The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention? (NPR)
Response to The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention
I, Algorithm (New Scientist)
A Manifesto for Cyborgs (Donna Haraway)
By: Amelie Daigle, Maria Pinheiro, Jeffery Muir, and Holly Combs
Individuality of the Masses/Final Project
Our final presentation will be focused on how we implement "the individual" and aspects of technology with our digital interactions. We will use three different, well-known programs to indicate how technology has been able to become programmed to learn from and in some ways, capture aspects of humanity in the forms of "personalized programming." By using the technology we interact with everyday, programming can effectively learn from and use our own online choices to determine personalities; in a way, personalized programming is a tool in which digital culture could effectively teach technology how to understand and possibly even replicate human taste and personality. The digital media that we interact with on a daily basis is effective because we have programmed it to our individual tastes- but learning the individuality of the masses leaves us with this question: have our programming devices programmed us?
Andrew, Jonas, Terra
Andrew, Jonas, Terra
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Ipad Dos
So, tomorrow Apple is unveiling the Ipad 2. http://gizmodo.com/#!5770645/next-weeks-apple-event-what-to-expect has the details if anyone else is interested(and a link to the live coverage that will happen tomorrow at 1:00PM).
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