"Culture of Anarchy"...and Piracy stuff

I never knew that piracy was such a big problem in our world. We always hear about piracy in the United States and with the ability of people to sell things online in America I could see where piracy can be a huge issue for us. With overseas countries and even Mexico, I wouldn’t think that piracy and burned DVD’s and CD’s would be such a popular economy. For a country that does not have the technology to creat and produce movies the way Americans would, or a country that doesn’t have the technological advancements that our country has, you would think they would be researching how to catch up, not wasting their money on a small in-home burn station. Nor would I think that the amount of people buying from them would be as large as it is! When I think of places like India I think of a movie we watched in my images and experiences of childhood, entitled “Born into Brothels”. Two people from America go to Calcutta to film children that are raised in the red light district and grow up there under the rule of their parents. They are forced to cook and clean. They clean allot because they don’t really live in houses, they live in squares and have no running water and there is lots of drugs involved. Places like these I don’t see being the first people to spend their week’s wages on pirated music and videos. The part that interested me was when they were talking about how to stop this piracy. The author stated that this wasn’t stopped until there was going to be equal economies. Meaning United States would have to come down and India would need to go up. I guess the hardest part for me to understand, or maybe I am misunderstanding is that the technology is out there. It is not like it does not exist. It is the people of India and Mexico that have different priorities in their government system and they are not as focus on progression in the digital age as some other countries. Why is that fair then, because they choose to act on other matters, that they can copy and sell these electronic resources and their government just turns their heads. If they put an end to the majority of this piracy and black market economy they might have the opportunity to bring it into their own country and bring that revenue of CD’s music and DVD’s into the nation’s economy and not into the home pockets of its citizens so they can produce more. The government sees this black market as a means to keep their citizens content while they focus on other matters at hand. I think they need to put a stop to this and hir these piracy making people to work for the government and add a slight tax on the product and then the nations economy may have a chance at one day’s catching up to America.

Dear Mr. Frank R. Wolf,
My name is Rebecca Grau and I am a concerned College Student at George Mason University. I am writing to propose that you and your colleagues reexamine bill H.R. 4137. Passing this bill will only end in a devastating outcome for all involved. If a college does not comply with the ban of file sharing and government funding is taken away from schools, we will essentially be segregating colleges and universities into children of wealthy parents or planning for very poor graduates drowning in debt. For schools that choose to comply with the file sharing ban i feel we are going to be restricting the learning opportunities of those to follow. As a future teacher of America i am concerned for the teachers that will follow. If funding is cut for the schools or schools need to spend a massive amount of money controlling peer-to-peer file sharing the focus of their spending will turn away from the actual education of the students to all of the politics and legislation laws they need to abide by. There is no possible way to trace these file sharing transactions and i feel that this bill will bring great controversy to the college and take the real focus off of learning.
Thank you for hearing my concerns and i hope you will take this seriously into consideration in the very near future.
Sincerely,
Becky Grau

Prosumer approches, crisis of value and the political economy

** This blog is probably not very coherent, but I’ll try my best. My father was in the ER this weekend with what they thought was a heart attack. My Family is in CO so I spent all weekend waiting around by my phone freaking out. But I’ll try my best.

The prosumer approaches to new media was very hard to focus on because it jumped around with all the different links and side notes and trying to listen to what the guy was saying was all a bit confusing It wasn't very clear to me what exactly he was talking about when he mentioned "Nontextual communication". I understand it is basically the video and photo use to relay terms, ideas and thoughts without a written docuement, but what are the boundaries for nontextual communication? What all is included and what all is excluded? And what exactly is a prosumer? I understand a consumer, but I’m a little confused as to what the term means and why he chose it as part of the title.
I thought the sound snippets over the September 11th video really put in perspective how important sound is to a video. The video reminds me of the article from a couple of weeks about on The Five Principles of New media and how he had the student's works as examples for his teachings. As well as the Photoshop article that also used students examples. I thought the idea of the video paper for the end of the year assessment was a great idea and allows the teacher to fairly grade them based on what they have learned in the class. This is also an idea I can take with me into my teaching career.
The other readings were a good bit wordy and a little confusing! I’m still confused as to the plain definition of an ethical economy. The "definition" he lays out about ethical economy is that he called it this "Not because I necessarily believe that it is inherently better or nicer than the mainstream corporate economy. Instead, my choice of the term ‘ethical’ refers to the fact that this economy is largely coordinated by respect, peer-status, networks, friendships and other forms of inter-personal recognition; and it is geared towards the accumulation of such forms of interpersonal recognition, what sociologists would call ‘social capital’." I kind of understand what he is getting at but think that I am a bit confused. He says that the economy is driven by social status and the respect of my peers? I can see how some people would purchase something because it is cool or the "in" thing, but I just figured that was a phase people go through and that when you get old you get mature and stop doing that. I find it hard to believe that I am that highly influenced by my friends and peers as to what I will purchase, how I am going to spend my money.

In class Video Clip 11/01/2007

The video in class made me think in terms mostly of those that relate to my life in the most. Microsoft and the iphone. In History, how does the line between copyright, creativity and a monopoly become clustered together in a large grey area where lines are defined on a per-case basis? With microsoft, you have to pay for the product, but the product only, you dont the codes to your product to try and better it after you have paid a large sum of money to microsoft. I was also once told that there are other programs you can download for computers besides microsoft office, home ect. I have never heard of them before because most commonly in life everyone uses microsoft. SO, since they comtrol the computer population and do not release the codes with your purchase, only the product and in the sense of real-life usage, wouldn't Microsoft be considered a monopoly for it's use of copyright and high priced product? What other options do we really have that are accepted in today's society? When i purchased a new computer recently i then had to purchase the microsoft package that comes with it. I felt like i was being robbed for the simple fact that to get by in school and get my homework done i had to fork out this $150.00 so that i could type my portfolio and work on my powerpoint presentation. I had no other option.
On the contrary working in the cell phone buisness, we sell you the phone, you pay for the phone, and you sign a two year contract with us saying you'll stay with us. However you can only use that phone with T-mobile network. UNLESS..... you can get the phone unlocked. Because of third party dealers and strong competition you can find people to unlock your phone and use it on other people's network. Or because the object is a physical one, as opposed to a software code, you can physically take it apart and do a hard-wire unlock. This is what has happened with the iphone. It was only a matter of days that people we able to play around with it and get it unlocked. The cell phone buisness I would not consider a hard manopoly in the terms that there are other options to keep the prices competativly cheaper. You can always search or bargin for a good deal. However, once cingular and apple realized that the phones were able to be unlocked they sent out an over-the-air patch that would automatically re-lock the phone to the cingular network and a new un-lock code will then have to be found. This again pushes the manopoly and copyright line. If i purchase the iphone (some were $600.00) why could i not choose to use it for my own purposes? You have my money and i have the product, should the rights be mine now?
Perplexing to me though is that i would never think of purchasing a book, and using their words for my own. But why not? I bought the product, can't i do what i want with it? However to me i would think of the books and words on a separate platform than technology.

Blog post on Photoshop 10/22/2007

After reading all these things about Photo Shop it was amazing to think of what gets changed and goes unnoticed on a daily basis! I am a complete freak for gossip magazines, but shocking to me was that people magazine was able to Photoshop a picture of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt together to make it look like they were together! Some people would see that cover and never think twice about what they saw and the thought that it could be an altered image. What really bothers me is that we don’t have any nationwide laws against things being published. Most upsetting to me is the fact that people came change and alter pictures of American troops overseas. Out of respect for those risking it all so that you can sit here in your warm house on your fancy computer and alter those pictures, you wouldn’t disgrace their names and their values because you think it would be funny.
It’s just amazing what America has come to these days. America is preached as a free nation with freedom of choice however, you give people too much of an opportunity to all speak their mind and do as they personally feel, you lose creditability as a person in regards to allowing people to do as they please. It becomes a big joke and there is no definitive line separating the truths and the lies. Who do you believe?
In a court case, can you put up a big enough argument that no video or pictures should be used as the defendant you feel like the photos and videos may have been altered by anyone at any time? How do we maintain that level of honesty in such a large independent nation? What sources can we trust to be creditable? The Website for the History of Digital Tampering in the Media, Politics and law had some of the most wide-know journalist companies our there! If we are getting lied to on the front cover of Time, Newsweek, TV Guide, Redbook, Star, Men’s Fitness and National Geographic who can we trust to give us the real picture, the real information.
I took complete offense to the DOVE commercial. I love that they promote real beauty and real women. The Photoshoped, warped look of the girl after several hours of hair, make-up and on screen air-brush she looked beautiful and fake. That’s not what women want to see! Women care about using a product that works on real women. Not something that works on a supermodel who never had the problems before anyways. Photoshop can be a very devious and tricky thing to detect. We need to find a better way to hold people accountable for their changes.

Five principles of new media

The readings on “The Five Principles of New Media” were a very confusing reading. I’m not sure if it was the style of presentation or the material. I get really confused when it comes to the technical terms of computers and technology, so I got really confused with the in depth look at the Five principles of numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding.
I understood numerical representation as the way a computer is ran. It is run off of numbers and all the numbers and codes are equated to the pictures we see and run programs we use.
I understood modularity as the pieces of a computer that work together to form the big picture. I would think of it as a file saved in my documents. I save my homework in a certain file but the computer saves pieces of this files code throughout the computer and when I click to access that file at a later time, the computer pulls all these pieces from all over the hard drive into one piece that is my homework.
I understand automation to be the basic function of movement and our own creative edge on a file. Most common example of this would be the ability to add motion to a PowerPoint presentation with moving words and pictures that fly into the presentation from every angle.
Variability was a hard one for me to understand. I think I understood it as the ability to have a varying response to the same action. Each time I added a color to the paper, the squares would appear in different arrangements and different sizes. They never appeared in the same shape in the same spot two times in a row.
Transcoding seemed to be difficult as well. The overlying idea was that it was the merge of our culture with technology?!?!? The first thing to come to mind was as if I were to take a picture of a modern day pop star and used Photoshop or another editing program to warp the picture and create a shimmery, distorted, but still fully understandable picture or the same pop star.
Overall I didn’t understand exactly how this incorporated into the other readings we’ve had this semester. I thought it was kind of a throw-off to switch the subject and style of reading right before our mid-term evaluation. I was thinking we would be getting a great article with a story to dispute or an idea to argue, but this seems to be factual information on how computers work and a greater vocabulary lesson on its components.

Case Studies

I though most of the group presentation today delt with technology in today's world and privacy issues. The only ones that didn't real fit that title were the librarian as a keystone species, and the one about the gardener. I was alittle lost on the librarian one because i felt that most of the conent was lost in the video aspect of the presentation. I also wasnt too sure about the gardener presentation, because i felt they didn't describe exactly what type of gardener they were talking about up-front. The other presentation delt with privacy of computer use of students, privacy with rooms of a job, and when is too much freedom too much.

After these presentations today i have a better understanding of what is expected of our iundividual projects and what else i need to focus on my research. I now better understand the keystone species and location. The keystone species is what is present to allow all of this stuff to take place. I also learned that locality is the objects within the ecology and how they are used based on the topic of your ecology. The computers used in the video servalenced operating room would be different from those kids that loved playing "Pueblo" and again different from the hi-tech school where the photo-shopped class was taking place.

Overall i enjoyed learning from most of the presentations today, i just found a couple of them hard to follow as the group presented based on thier choice of presentation style.

Readings for September 25th. Ogres, virtual sweatshops, Amazon.cult and cheap pay

I wasn’t too impressed with the other readings, the Amazon.cult article really turned me off. It seemed like a whiney rant against the company because of a bad experience. If you miss one full day of training, I would expect that you would be behind the times and a little lot. That article also bashed company policies. However, I would not go into a job expecting not to follow their rules?!?!?! In relation to the blurb index they created, this policy is just in place to save face of a large company and provide it’s customers with uniform across the board.
The internet gaming article! Wow! I was really impressed as well as shocked by the “Ogre to Slay? Outsource it to Chinese.” When I started to read about this gaming craze I thought this was a great idea. However, I didn’t know there was so much animosity about the selling and purchasing of these advanced gaming prizes. To me I think of it as a skill that you are sharing with others for the price of your skill. I played softball all my life and if someone wanted lessons in softball to become what I was, I would sell my teachings to them as these gamers are selling their skills to others.
This article was also shocking to me as I am a regular checker of CNN.com and saw last week a story of a man that died after a long gaming session. I went back to find the exact article but I couldn’t. Here is something similar that lists a few incidents. http://www.switched.com/2007/09/17/man-dies-after-days-of-non-stop-gaming/

In the article, 7th paragraph in they mention that the gaming “quotas” for each of the employees. These quotas are causing the Chinese gamers to play till their death. Curious to me, on the second page was the use of the term “virtual sweatshop”. It reminded me of the industrial revolution where the children were forced to work for low wages for long hours in poor conditions. Although these gamers are provided housing, the article attached above shows they rarely take breaks. The idea of the money exchange for these gaming abilities is a smart one, although as we see, dangerous.

Information Ecology

Information Ecologies Proposal


The Information Ecology I have selected to research is an Elementary School Classroom. I chose this environment because of all the information available in a classroom.
The diversity of this information includes books, encyclopedias, computers and internet access. The classroom is also provided with teacher assistants to help teach students with learning disabilities and students new to the country.
Classrooms today are becoming equipped with Smartboards as well. A Smartboard is the co-evolutionized product of the original chalk boards, to the over head and projection screens, whiteboards and the later. The Smartboard now gives teachers the internet capabilities as well as advanced teaching programs with interaction features for the students to try. All of these can be projected on a large screen for the whole class to view.
The keystone Species of this Ecology are the teachers and students. Without teachers, there would not be students, and without students, there would be no need for teachers. Both are a key component to how the ecology is run.
The locality of my Information Ecology makes most of the information in this environment primary. Our dictionaries and encyclopedias are going to be very basic with simple wording, as opposed to a college level dictionary with advanced definitions and extended word use. Our computers will be equipped with simple co-curriculum based learning programs, with no free roam of internet for leisure. Smartboards will be used as a glorified whiteboard to project math problems and language arts reviews. In college smart boards are normally used for internet review and article look-ups to share with the class instead of wasting paper printing 100 copies.
I’m very excited to begin digging deeper into this information ecology and I hope to find more information in this environment that I can use to further my research for this project as well as help me understand more of my resources in my classroom.

After the New Economy

Sorry it's late i didn't have computer access last night, my Gram is a little behind the times. And if it makes a difference, I as a college student got up at 7:00am to write this, since we are two hours behind you :) phew!

This article was fairly hard for me to read. Therefore I am gonna focus on the part that interested me the most, but also confused the heck of out me! On page 10 Doug Henwood displays what to me, appears to be the mad scientist views of Gilder. Gilder was expressing his frustrations about who actually is at the root of the "microcosm" stating it wasn't the work of ivy league men with tons of money and women they married straight off the show "Desperate Housewives."
Gilder begins a list of all the common people of the world, in which he lost me half way at the "Adam's apple bobbing". I had to read over this passage again because I wasn't sure what his true meaning of this passage was. Was he telling us the root of technology doesn't come from people like Bill Gates? Is it supposed to come from everyday Joe's? I could understand the making process could yes, be hands-on labor, however now days, everything is done by machines. Although I'm pretty sure it was another one like Bill Gates inventing the machines.
In the beginning I also got confused as to what exactly Henwood was trying to prove. He insults Gilder's first list saying he left out the cruel treatment of women making these parts of computers and other technologies, and then re-iterates that we shouldn't forget Gilder's amazing list making skills. Henwood then displays another list of Gilder's he wrote in reference to how a "capitalist society is always saved by the last among it's citizens perpetually becoming first." (Pg. 11) This part reminded me of our theme throughout our first year NCC showing us a group could only be as good as it's weakest member.
Was Henwood trying to prove Gilder wrong by saying that Bill Gates is a great asset to our society, but if the weakest ones in the society can't use a computer, we don't prosper as a group? Or was he simply mocking Gilder all together, completely off track from his other ideas, of the stock market and his research of how many times the word "New Economy" was used in articles between 1980 and 2003. Further down page 11 he insults Gilder's home life saying his style is deeply "austere" (severe in appearance or manner; uncompromising) and that his couch was so shabby that good will wouldn't take it as a donation.
He then goes on to talk of Gilder's views on masculinity, femininity, racism and the wealth of workers. (Page 12/13) For this, I wish I were in class to discuss. Is Henwood just throwing out more examples to prove Gilder's instability in the social world or was there a point to these readings in terms of where he started with the new economy? He tried to tie this back into economics by focusing on the "Stats he [Gilder] must have gotten from The Bell Curve." Gilder goes on to state that black women earn 106 percent of wages of white women. Again is he mocking Gilder or using his work as an easy means of dispute?

The Digital Sublime: When old Myths Were New: The Ever-Ending Story

This reading was a little harder for me to grasp then some of the other readings I have had throughout my time in New Century College. The thought of some of these inventions being the “end of the world” or having such an impact on daily life that inventors could just “give up” doesn’t even begin to faze me. It was very hard for me to think of electricity or the telegraph as a life changing invention. For me, my blackberry has really been a life-changing invention and has made me addicted to it. If I leave the house with out it, I would rather turn around to get it and be late to where-ever I am going.
When the reading began they spoke of inventors promising an “Electronic Utopia.” When I think of this, the first thing that comes to mind is the cartoon “The Jetson’s”. In no way shape or form have we reached what I consider an electronic utopia however, I wonder if the inventors could look on what we have at our disposal today and feel that their visions were fulfilled. Would they consider what we live in today an “Electronic Utopia?”
The talk of the telegraph was nerve striking for me because reporters of that time considered it “the nerve of international life, transmitting knowledge of events, removing causes of misunderstanding, and promoting peace and harmony throughout the world.” If any technology we could produce would allow everyone from every nation to gather around a camp fire and sing “Kumbiya, My Lord” (well without the my Lord part because that would be offensive to 40% of the population based on religion and the other 20% just because they like to argue) then there would be no war and that would be a great start to the electronic utopia. Although another interesting part of the telegraph invention was the thought that it brought about “….early versions of hacking, virtual sex, and fears of information overload.” In the mid 1800’s sex wasn’t even acceptable to talk about, and I wouldn’t even believe the thought of them trying that over the phone.
Electricity was the hardest idea for me to grasp. Sure, phones, TV, and radio had to be invented at some point in our history, but spoiled as we have been in our generation, Electricity was something God created on the 8th day and has been there since. As true as I know it is, but the thought that people once lived without electricity blows my mind. In the reading, it seemed very contradicting as “One writer was moved to compare the sight favorably with Athens at its peak of classical power: “In a moonless night Athens hid her beauties…..Not so, however with this modern Athens, for night is the time of her greatest splendor.”” When overlooking this grand fair with thousands of lights I find it hard to compare it to Athens, a city of stone and sand. When looking at something so new and grand I would have compared it to something of the future, not of the past.
Working in the telephone industry this part was one of the sections I took most interest in. When the telephone was first introduced they stated it would guard against “nervous strain, provide safety for your family, reduce household fatigue and make writing an anachronism.” They also claimed it was a “moral obligation for a considerate husband and a good citizen.” This made sense to me when talking about cell phones. Only cell phones can provide you safety in your home or on the road, as well as reduce household fatigue if you provide your entire family with phones to check-in where they are at. Radio’s were a minimal section to me as those come standard in every car made, set in every clock purchased, and now come in the software of phones.
This reading was interesting for me in terms of the development of technology. It still doesn’t occur to me that where we are in terms of technology has been a long process and many along the way thought they had made a huge impact, however we still have so much to expand on.

Ideology

i think of ideology as an idea that guides a group of people and is thier one of their major connecting basis of interaction. In terms of a political aspect people lobby together for certain political issues and have that new interaction beause of the ideology they both are working toawrds. If this ideology was never and issue or idea, people might not have ever met or interacted or in the end become friends if this overarching idea was never thought of.
Majority of the time Ideology had been based on social movements. The one that is fresh in my mind comes from my rpior class of "women and leadership" we watched the movie "Iron Jawed Angels" about the history of women's rights. These women started as two best friends and because of the ideology and thought of women's right movement they grew into a large group of women they gathered from across the nation all in support of this same political idea and gathered on a social network passing notes in prison to get their word across to eachother when one is isolated.

In class writing responses

Becky Grau
September 6, 2007
Info Technologies
“Daily Show Clip”


As funny as the video was, it really brings out the true ideas behind myspace and facebook. Online you can create a whole new person, either someone you wish you were or someone you would never be in real life but have the chance to act as when know one really knows who’s behind the name. If it weren’t for myspace and facebook I probably wouldn’t drag out these awkward conversations with people I’m “sorta” friends with. If there is someone that I care to actually talk to I see them in person or take the time to talk to them on the phone.
Those that are afraid of the technology have the real true value or life experiences. Those that live on the internet social websites tend to live within the social network itself. Leaving messages for others about what someone posted on their website and usually little about actual life. For instance in the video, the boy giving us the investigation into these websites didn’t have a real picture of himself but one that he made and posted as the idea of himself, Therefore breaking the ties between reality and the internet.
Page 15 in chapter 2 stated that “Human expertise, judgment, and creativity can be supported, but not replaced, by computer-based tools.” A prime example of this situation would be the readings regarding the doctors misdiagnosing people. You can research as much as you want on the internet or using technology but you cannot learn to be a doctor based solely on the web or other computer based tools.


My influence on technology-
*I misunderstood, and thought we were writing on how we can control the use of technology....
Elementary education major-
When working with children technology has taken over several parts of the teaching aspect. Attendence, communication, grades, and some assigned projects are done through the computer. Videos and SmartBoards have taken over classrooms. Although I feel that for some instances the smart board has replaced the old fashioned hands on way of learning for children. There are no more centers but instead they take turns in small groups working with the teacher sitting on the carpet watching the smartboard. When teaching math you click and drag the math blocks over to the other column and watch them disperse into ones or tens instead of having the children count out the ones and tens and physically moving the blocks infront of you. I currently have a blackberry to use my school and work e-mails at the touch of a button. I consider it my “crack-berry” I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my blackberry and I also feel that it has controlled my life. I could use a regular phone, we have plenty around the house but I choose to be technology savy at my fingertips.