Week 5 - Kid's Games

Just treat all URLs as being accessed on Aug 26th, Brisbane time.

EDIT: Post was completely wiped because of an overabundance of links that may be what Adsense takes issue with.

Week 5 - Oh that's "clever"

My first impression of "Rubber" is that its writer/director/whatever wants to mock and insult the audience for all of those elements of entertainment that are taken for granted; and in pointing them out desires adulation simply for being "clever". Steal this movie. By the way - while there is an awful lot of "no reason" in real life (such as the fact that life is pointless and all meaning is assigned, not inherent) this film and indeed most films aren't actually displaying "no reason", they're simply not stating the reason to the audience. I don't want to give too much credit to bad filmmakers though, because most of the time - including "Rubber" - the reason is "because the writer/director/whatever said so". And yes I've been lazy and not really gone through the readings, going really off of my impressions of the portion of the film that was shown. As for identifying the first plot point - not sure, but if it's about surprising the audience then I'd say when the tyre first starts moving on it's own. If it's about surprising the "audience", then I'd say when it first demonstrates its mind-splodey powers, that generates quite a stir amongst them.

Week 5 - Essay Musings

I'm tempted to follow up item 2 with regards to gaming, due in part to my earlier post on the same subject. I think the main problem I would face in covering that topic would be restraining myself from spewing opinionated vitriol at arguments that I disagree with; mainly because I find that when people study such subjects "scientifically" they are actually drawing conclusions before conducting their research, so "gaming is bad for kids and I'm going to prove it" seems to appear in popular media too frequently for my taste. Another possibility is covering how narratives are changing due to new tech. There is certainly enough history there: cinema changed theatre, TV changed cinema, video changed TV and DVD basically said "screw you, television" and allowed the audience to enjoy their viewing entertainment whenever they wanted and have it be completely free of advertisement, which of course is the main reason people hate TV, or at least it is for me. Might be easier on the gaming subject, I'm sure there are studies suggesting that there can be some benefit from gaming, and most provable negatives are probably more physiological despite how often the attention is paid to psychological effects, my point there being that no one seems to want to study the brainwaves of people watching violent sports or movies as much as they study gamers.
Maybe because gamers are more willing to sit still for longer?

Week 4 - Terms of Servitude

According to this the terms of use for this very service, they may "refuse service to anyone at any time without notice for any reason". I suppose that means even after they have allowed a user access to the service. That statement immediately follows their age disclaimer, that you must be at least thirteen years of age to use Blogger. I don't recall being asked for any proof of age or identity when signing up though... I could comment on that but someone there might read it and disapprove and terminate my account with extreme prejudice against all those who point out their stupidity... oops. Reminds me of an email I had at aussiemail - suspended without notice or explanation. Really very annoying. The way I read it - this service is provided and they claim no responsibility for the content yet may rescind the privilege of access due to use of said content. So the only things really that make them remove user posted content are local laws of the nation or state in which the poster resides. Sounds like Blogger has no standards or opinions.

Week 4 - Game on

Alright so I'm an antisocial misanthrope who enjoys playing games on my computer. There now that my qualifications are out in the open I feel like I can comment on this subject without having to listen to anyone else's opinion because I'm right you're all idiots. That strikes me as more rational than researchers who study the effect of video games on the players. Such as this little nugget of nonsense which yes, is just a student's research paper based on some other people's work, but still adopts a rather annoying attitude of "games make people crazy" that reminds me of tales of "devil's music" and "jungle fever" that arises when there is some new cultural phenomenon that old people don't understand. Granted that it will have an effect on brain activity, but to suggest that video games are what made me into the social outcast living in a cave is completely misjudging their data. Interpretation is key - maybe they like games because of the way they are wired, not the games rewiring the brain. I like games because they cam be fun and entertaining, and I'm isolated from people because I hate them. Plus the hating people came first, so suck on that!

Actually that's not entirely true, but I do play a lot more now than I did as a kid - I suppose because I had "friends".

Week 3 - Internet Archaeology

Except IRC - my chosen topic due to the fact that I have actually used it couple of times over a decade ago - is still in use today. Indeed apparently still serving more than half a million users amongst the top 100 servers alone. Apologies for the lack of "proper" references in this post, every search led me to more websites, none of them journals. Plus I'm lazy. Also no one was really shouting out the peak number of users since the inception of IRC, though since it's still going I imagine it was quite a few. The date of "birth" for IRC was sometime in August 1988 according to it's creator, Jarkko Oikarinen and given it's position as one of, if not the earliest example of real-time communication replacing mailing lists and BBS posts. While the tech itself may not be quite the same, it is also essentially the genesis of "chat rooms" that are now often hosted within websites, rather than on specific channels dedicated for that purpose. Another lazy hyperlink to a document from 1993 co-authored by Oikarinen provides some perspective that I'm not going into here. Also some controversy about file sharing - go 'net.

Week 3 - Bloggercise

Well I'm lazy and easily frustrated and will quit as soon as something gives me a headache - which is nearly everything - so I will not cheat and post the only 2 answers for those searches required. For some reason, Internet and database searches hate me and every time I try to find something to do with Stephen Stockwell or Paul Soukup or mobile phones I hit walls. There was some thing about phones and cancer and that is apparently still counted as "new" medical thinking thanks to some classification from the World Health Organisation, but I'm too lazy to chase down a credible source. Thus I arrive at the easy answers:

Governor Slugwell's first appearance, found through the underground comics trial database:
Burden, Bob, 1985, "When the Shoes Aren't Worth the Shine", Flaming Carrot Comics, no. 7

Leon's reaction to Holden's query:
   "Leon looks shocked, surprised. But the needles in the computer barely move. Holden goes for the inside of his coat. But big Leon is faster. His laser burns a hole the size of a nickel through Holden's stomach. Unlike a bullet, a laser causes no impact. It goes through Holden's shoulder and comes out of his back, clean as a whistle. Like a rag doll he falls back into the seat. Big slow Leon is already walking away, but he stops, turns, and with a little smile of satisfaction fires through the back of the seat."
From:
Francher, Hampton & Peoples, David Webb & Kibbee, Roland, 1982, Blade Runner Draft Script, Alexander Street Press

And yes I know that this is later than it should be and of course incomplete. I still have to half-ass my way through the other required activities, leave me alone.

Week 3 - Brain, meet world

Reading through the Halpern reading and couldn't help but notice the little alarms raised by the discussion of the "World Wide Mind" and the technologically integrated human.I must say I was surprised that there would be anyone that excited about hooking up their brain to the Internet; is there not already enough over-stimulation in the world for you Mr. Chorost? And the personalised Google searches... ugh, so personal reinforcement of our own ideas is the goal - then may I say that Google is not a tool for communication but a tool for division, and the thought that no one would dare use this hall of mirrors for mass manipulation is one of the stupidest things I've ever encountered. Mass connectivity isn't really the fault of the Google algorithm though, as let's face it, people would rather engage with the familiar and associate with people who share the same opinions as they do; that is the basis of civilisation, and the reinforcement is just so much like a religion - this is the way, follow it, it is good, it's worked so far. If I could reach out, press a button and get all of you to behave according to my will, of course I'd do it. I'd make you better than you are, make you live up to your own expectations and ideals. And I'm not the only one who thinks that way. I know why people are scared of different ideas, hey if you let someone else's thoughts in your mind, it wouldn't be your mind. I just wish people would think about that next time they find themselves agreeing with someone.

And for anyone who doesn't like the thought of being monitored by governments and corporations, think about how much of yourself you're putting out for free on these stupid social networking sites and then shut up.

Week 2 - Video fun

Well I suppose first I should explain the selection (it had far less swearing than I remembered) - aside from being completely absurd and silly, it is a prime example of machinima - taking existing media and manipulating them for the purposes of creating a new work. Sort of the digital version of scrap art. In addition to this, the only reason this clip exists is thanks to an internet meme, specifically in this case all the nonsense that surrounds Chuck Norris. If you cannot draw a connection to new comm tech studies from that information than I can't help you. Anyway, this video is created from "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" computer game with music and such from various other sources. It is episode 2, because episode 1 is kind of boring, 2 & 3 are the most entertaining in my opinion. Enjoy. Oh, and the credit at the bottom is for the poster on dailymotion, not the creator of the video.

EDIT: Removed video for possible copyright infringement, although it makes me wonder how people post anything on here without someone making wild claims of ownership.

Week 2 - More to come

Finding 5 others is a process... video to come later when I find one - this stuff can be over multiple posts right?

I was going to be lazy about the application for analysis and mention the Google search engine, but I'm going to be even lazier and mention something that helps me analyse the Google search engine. AVG - a free virus scanner -so again no plugs, has an application within it called Linkscanner. So when running a search, the links will have a little symbol next to them indicating the likelihood of encountering spam or pop-ups or malware embedded in the site that the link directs you to. Quite frankly it's alarming the number of top Google searches that have warnings from linkscanner, and I will only consider clicking a link that is deemed "safe" although that is a very relative term. But as I said, it is disturbing how many top 10 links will have warnings associated with them - is Google trying to infect us all?

Also last week I mentioned that many seem not to treat language itself as THE communication technology, well at least it seems the teaching staff do, so that's a relief. I suppose I must mention how I liked the organisation of the McGaughey reading categorised the different streams/schools of communication tech, although having all of them alongside each other would make for a wonderful comparison of contemporary technological developments. I must protest though; the credit given to Thomas Edison is misplaced, he was a patent holder, not an inventor. He was very good at taking credit for other's work, I'm surprised he isn't credited with inventing plagiarism.

Week 2 - Pre-emptive strike

To jump ahead of the potential suggestion that I'm misusing this tech I'd like to clarify with a couple of examples:

Eating a picture of food is misusing the medium

Setting a mobile phone to vibrate and using it for sexual stimulation is misusing the tech

I'm expressing myself for the purpose of a passing grade - so all I can say in my defense is that I find it difficult to achieve a balance between an appropriate academic tone and something that doesn't make me want to kill myself. If I can't have fun with this then I will go mad and then I become really, really not much of anything at all.

Not sure where I was going with that.

Week 2 - Out of order

Well if I was supposed to do things at certain times, I've already screwed that up. Part 2 of this week's requirements will be brought to you by the power of Steam - the online digital distribution game shop and social network. That's not a plug either, it happens to be one of only two methods with which I engage with new comm tech, the other being MSN messenger, or "Windows LIVE" messenger as it is now. Either way, both programs are used by yours truly for instant messaging, but that interaction goes no further than a few relatives and a couple of their friends that I met at some LAN gatherings. So basically, not a whole lot of interacting going on. I don't even play online much, so even Steam's new community functions aren't really something I engage with. And yes that was my choice - I don't like people, they're annoying idiots for the most part.

It was suggested that ruminations on the issue of online privacy should be raised - the best defence is always ennui. If you are completely boring or normal or just plain avoid attention, privacy isn't much of a concern. What I find more intriguing are the people who complain about invasion of privacy - yet their social network pages are littered with personal information, not to mention the links to their family and friends.

My point is that you can feel safe if you avoid all contact and live like a hermit.