Final Paper Blog Three: Final Blog overall

Regarding the Final paper I felt that it was a good idea to explain how obsolescence could be used to the advantage of the Green Movement. In any case I felt that American culture is something more deeply rooted then just the behavior of the American people. To an extent i felt that it would be wise to explain how deep rooted the consumer persona was ingrained into our psyches. It would not change, what would change was the aspects of what we would obsess over. Also I felt it to be a good idea to explain how capitalism plays a huge part in how we been endowed with our consumer style spirit. I also felt in accordance to how deep rooted behavior was it would be a good idea to explain Maslow's hierarchy of need. The paper was indeed enlightening.

This class I had thoroughly enjoyed, I felt that there were interesting notions that I had learned. Things like Obsolescence, technological literacy, digital disconnect, etc were all very intriguing aspects of the class. In any case, a good source of knowledge in regards to technology.

Final Paper Blog Two

Since I have last posted, I have cut much of how i was approaching this paper out. I have decided to look closely how American capitalism and the three main versions of obsolesence that interact with American culture will keep Americans on their path of disposability. What inevitably will happen though is a hard divorce between Americans and their obsolesence it seems. When taking into context events like that United Nations Basel Convention and the taxing upon the environment already from E-waste Americans will have no choice but accept, not embrace the green movement. I feel that is how the green movement will be ushered in. Not through the motivation to save the environment, but through the compulsion  to save ourselves as E-waste and other pollutants start to consume our planet at a more alarming level where it can be felt more readily. American business will realize that to stay alive they will need to evolve as their cost effectiveness upon building products with life spans will not work anymore. Their longevity will come from making products that last, that can be recycled easily, and that do not tax the environment and the people themselves. I find it that my thesis will revolve around this point of action as I am in the revision portion of my paper right now. The paper has shed new light upon my own spending habits and have come realize that technological literacy is a very important subject that all need to know.

Final Paper Blog One

As of right now I have figured that doing Giles Slade's book Made to Break will be a more effective paper to write because I found that book to be really interesting. Aside from quotes from Brave New World and the book Made to Break, I have felt that the overall trend for the paper will be how America will want to stay on its path of a disposable society but it will be deterred to change its course forcefully as the world will not be able to sustain the United States and China at the same time when it comes to disposable societies. The other situation that I see is technology going diagonally instead of progressing completely forward. As Giles states, our landfills are increasing with toxic technological waste from the chemicals in television, phones, etc. What I feel I'll need to look into is how technology will need to be reverse engineered. What I mean is, all things I believe in the future will need to be produced where when they become broken or need to be replaced it will be easy to break them down and recycle them into base components. This form of technology I believe will take time away from us forming higher versions of our trending technology we have already. Also I feel it would be good to research and try and argue the fact that technology of the future will need to be somewhat biodegradable. I think that this will be true because as I have found out from research many of the elements used in making a lot of the technology we use right now is being fast depleted or is polluting the earth. There is still a large amount of research needed to be done but I think corporations will finally get that "light bulb" enlightenment where they realize that recycling objects will be cheaper in the future then to make fully new objects. Also as a cultural development I think people will begin to deter from their own obsolesence and really start to demand products that have lasting appeal and durability. Again more research will need to be done to support these conclusions but I think I am definitely on the right path for this paper. Also it makes things easier when the book has some interesting takes on the future from shedding light on the past. I think it will be a good point to argue that much of our disposability still is derived from many of the learned traits of obsolesence that were instilled upon previous generations dating back all the way to the depression, the "tin lizzy" vs GM wars, disposable radios, AM versus FM, etc.

Chevy Volt

General Motors, that company that was given an extreme amount of money by our government not too long ago is now beginning to turn the corner and give promise back to all us tax payers it seems. In what is going to be the first true "mass assembled" electric car of our lifetime, General Motors flagship car company chevrolet, will introduce the Chevy Volt. What makes the Volt an interesting piece of technology is that it is by no means a hybrid. The volt is propelled exclusively by lithium ion batteries that have a distance of about 35 miles. Yes, that does not seem like much, but it has an on board gas generator that refreshes the batteries to give an additional distance of 340 miles. So altogether, the volt can reach 375 miles before its proverbially "out of gas". The car also retains energy when it stops with regenerative braking that takes the energy required to brake a car and converts the energy into being able to recharge the battery. What is pretty fascinating about the car is that it is able to be fully charged on roughly a $1.50 of electricity. On a standard outlet of 120v in a household it takes about ten hours to fully charge. But GM has partnered up with utility companies around America so that if you do purchase a Chevy volt the utility company can install in your house a 240v outlet where needed (garage) for a highly reduced cost. Add to that the large rebate you get from the government for purchasing a volt and the installation doesn't cost you money and you save some. Where it gets interesting is in the inside for this car. By way of GM's onstar division, which gives drivers the ability to unlock doors if they lock their keys inside their cars, locate vehicles that are stolen, etc, onstar plays a key role in the technological developments of the Chevy Volt. If one has a smart phone they can download the GM application that links ones smart phone to their Chevy Volt. What this effectively does is give a person control of their car even when they are no where near the car. The Application can give the owner readouts of how much charge is left in the batteries, how much gas is left in the generator, can unlock or lock the car from the phone, if its cold out, one can use their phone to turn on their Volt and get the heater to warm up the driving compartment, the app can allow the owner to set when to start charging the car if it is plugged in already (like off peak hours when the owner cans ave more money), the app can tell the car when to stop charging, the application can even help the owner figure out their blue tooth in the car as well, and download MP3's into the Volts 30gig hard drive. What we are seeing is the future of cars here I believe. As gas becomes costlier, we are going to want cars that are cheap to drive in some shape or form. The Chevy Volt shows us how just as phones have evolved to become more savvy and efficient, so can our cars become more savvy and efficient on many levels. I think this car will become a success but it will take some time for it to catch on. I have noticed that cities like Portland, Oregon (one of the greenest cities in America) have already installed public charging ports for Volts. If that catches on, one could think of the numerous possibilities out there in regards for electric cars. Charging ports can not only be a possible theft deterrent (car's alarm goes off if plug is detached before owner uses keys to unlock it), they could be meter services for cities to make money, and can be a way for owners to save possible money then to charge car at home if cities give electricity at a discounted price. Just as the gasoline automobile had revolutionized America, so too do I believe that the Electric Automobile will do it again.

Facebook, Life 3.0

In the book The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, he rounds out his story about facebook on what it has planned to do eventually. It seems that maybe taking over the world is not too far off. As Facebook opened up its usage to everyone (including the overseas) it seemed that Mark Zuckerberg was really imagining his concept of having an "open" world where transparency really does have meaning. Maybe it will gather momentum eventually but it will take time to have a complete world wide community that is able to divulge openly with everyone involved. The fact of the matter is, as Facebook has grown exponentially it has opened the world up a bit more yet has shown the ugly sides a bit more closely. Culture between sects of people will always lead to division. The world as the cliche denounces, is growing smaller as we speak. There are obstacles from making it more domestic to everyone involved. Culture tends to keep people seperated to an extent, and it would seem as much even as Facebook tries to keep our doors open. What I see is that as much as Zuckerberg wants transparency in the world, to have people take a moral high ground by having one profile that truly shows what each person is truly about can never happen completely. Facebook may be a game changer but it won't be able to change the worlds perceptions completely. Facebook's tale is an interesting one. It tells the story of a kid with his own spin on a concept and held onto it. His company has grown successful and he certainly made it. As things go on we will definitely see how much of an impact Facebook will have on the world. If people like Oscar Morales are frequent then maybe Facebook will have a definite positive influence on the worlds populations. Maybe it can be more then just a place to how many "friends" you have or a place to find someone to hook up with.

Facebook, How one Networking site took over the internet

So far the The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick has been grinding on me. Yet, more then two thirds through the book I realized that Facebook is such a ridiculous powerhouse. After Zuckerberg had weathered the storm of countless offers by big marketing companies, venture capitalists, etc and kept his vision on the networking concept close to himself, it would be appropriate to say the guy knows how to get people to respond to his product. He understood what people wanted. After the Facebook company had introduced the "newsfeed" aspect to the site that is were I believe the site had transcended all other networking sites. In what would be considered just a way for people to know more quickly what was going on with their friends it had also recreated an aspect of the Internet. It now had the ability to make things go viral really fast. This is not a joke. This concept of all these people having interrelated pages knowing what is happening extremely fast transforms not only human interaction on the Internet but human communication in general. It is here where Facebook shines to be a tool not only for good like when people can be aware of groups like "Save Darfur" extremely fast but also a tool for political and social gain. The aspect of having a tool like that at your disposal really can be powerful. Maybe this comes as no surprise to someone who uses Facebook but I myself have stayed away from the network websites and probably stay so but nonetheless I do appreciate this aspect of how Facebook has undoubtedly changed the way we as human beings interact with one another.

Facebook, How Harvard College Students became Rich

Of all the books we have read this semester, this one I can not stand. I get the whole platform Facebook has created. It has literally personalized the internet and revolutionized the way people interact with one another. Yet, I have to be frank when I say i find it easier to watch paint dry then to Read about Zuckerberg and Co. They take a concept that technically was not theirs in the first place then personalize the concept of an online facebook to how they saw it would work best. How I wonder did they get that money as twenty year olds with full course loads? I am questioning that aspect before they got involved with Parker and others who invested in the company. Obviously this money came from their parents. Maybe its sour grapes I am not sure, but for me this book so far seems like a biography of how rich kids walked around in pajamas into board meetings while reaping the benefits of college students from many schools wanting to be part of an "it" group consisting of Ivy league college students. These guys, mainly Zuckerburg, may have been the brainchild on creating Facebook, but not the concept of an online social network. I don't know, The origins of Facebook just do not have much appeal to me. What I did find interesting though was in the prologue how that guy Oscar Morales was able to set up a group against FARC in Columbia. I do find that concept of what Facebook has done pretty interesting on the sociological front of society itself. It does seem Facebook has evolved from just a college networking site for kids to hook up. I mean the idea of a guy creating a group on Facebook that grew into a nationwide movement against rebels in Columbia is pretty fascinating. To that extent one has to realize whether for better or for worse Facebook indeed has changed the social landscape. It is interesting to point out that when Facebook bridged the gap of being solely for college students and became open to everyone that it really changed aspects of society. It may have absorbed some of the wrong aspects of Myspace (Just that false image, instead of retaining who one truly is) but Facebook it seems has been able to stem that to an extent and develop communities of people who can actually stand for something. Case in  point One Million Voices Against FARC. That is interesting.

Wikipedia Midterm Blog Entry

1) I would not consider using Wikipedia as a scholarly source, but it certainly is the best starting point I can think of. Not only does it give a base of information that can be considered in most case truthful. It gives you a base of sources you can start sifting through to start your true research. That is the strength of Wikipedia it gives you a great launch pad and helpful clues to start your research with the sources at the bottum. Its weakness tends to be the fact that sometimes information can be misleading or biased. Sometimes there is no reference for an assertion and that can be detrimental if you use only Wikipedia for all your information as a random person can assume anything.
2)These strengths of Wikipedia impact our daily lives in the way that we can attain information in a moments notice unlike anytime ever before. This effects the way we consume information as now more then ever people need to be taught the ways of being a critical thinker because with the relative ease of information comes the relative ease of anyone spreading disinformation. One needs to understand the importance of sources because anyone can spread viral disinformation and if people are gullible to believe exactly what they read from any source word for word without making sure it is legitimate information well then becomes a problem. American culture is in tune with technology for the most part so things are not going to revert back anytime soon, we just need to accept this and as things move along we need to stay fluid and realize that critical thinking of any new information is key before accepting it as true.
3)I learned from this project that any sort of subject that yields controversy is going to be biased in some way shape or form. It is inevitable, especially when the biased information can be true and public opinion agrees with what is being said. To that extent you really have to search to get the flip side of what is being said. I will take away from this project that wikipedia will always be a great stepping stone and nothing more. But even to that extent that is great stepping stone.

Cultural Obsolesence

"When people are persuaded, advertised, propagandized, and victimized into throwing away their cars every 3 years, their clothes twice yearly, their high fidelity sets every few years, their houses every five years, then we may consider most other things fully obsolete, Throwing away... may soon lead us to feel marriages (and other personal relationships) are throw-away items as well and... on a global scale countries, and indeed subcontinents are disposable like a kleenex."----Victor J. Papanek, Design for the Real World, 1970

This man saw this in 1970, indeed these things have come to fruition, people lease cars for a time and get rid of them and get another, more and more marriages end in divorce, people throw away friends like its yesterdays news. Africa and other third world countries are forgotten. What was the "thing" to do five years ago in flipping houses for money is now the banks natural past time.  It seems cultural obsolescence has invaded our principles as well. In Giles Slade's book, Made to Break, he uses quotes from many people to awaken us into realizing that we have let the objects we buy and dispose of change the way we perceive the world. Slade states, "Obsolescence began to take on increasingly abstract meaning. Whereas in earlier decades the term applied strictly to physical objects, in the 1960's it became possible to describe peoples knowledge, training, and skill sets as victims of obsolescence." It seems to have gone even further then that. As technological obsolescence had grown exponentially after microchips and computers were invented, it seems culturally, obsolescence has increased and gathered momentum in the same manner. With the rise of E-waste throughout the world an especially in America, we are products not of our natural environment but products of our technological environment. Unfortunately, PBT's (Permanent Biological Toxins) are on the rise and we can not get rid of them. We as a nation, built on our capitalistic tendencies are victims of our own success, our cultural obsolescence has given rise to people who will throw away companions in their private lives and professional lives to succeed, get ahead, or be part of the next big thing. We have let big business with all their "death-dating" of the objects they make, destroy our environment. We have landfills with toxic waste that cannot be destroyed. Imagine that? We have waste that cannot be destroyed. So what to do? Well Slade proposes that inevitably America will have to become "greener" because the waste we generate will be too much for us too handle. Countries will refuse to accept our waste, our bribes, and our proposals of "cheap" material that can be harvested through recycling. Finally the corporate companies of America will have pressure put on them by our Government to make objects that can be recycled and are humane to the environment, to make products that can be last rather then making the "death-date" a part of the design. Hopefully this happens before its too late.

Death-Dating

In Giles Slade's book, Made to Break, He goes into much emphasis upon how companies plan the amount of overall usefulness of an item before it breaks which eventually has to be replaced. In all intents and purposes companies plan the "death-date" of their products so they can keep their markets fresh enough to always have a supply of customers needing a new gadget that they sell. Slade quotes from a magazine called Design News that talks about death-dating and states "The product with the longest life period is not automatically the most economical. Value is a product of time and utility. Diminishing returns is an important part of the economic law of supply and demand and applies to product death dates. Is a product that has served a short, useful lifetime at a satisfactory cost necessarily wasteful? I think not....There is not a product on the market today that could not be improved by using...more expensive materials. Every design is a compromise. Is it wrong, therefore, for designers to be cognizant of the results and to make the compromises accordingly? Certainly not." Pardon my french, but that is a load of crap. Just because guys like David Sarnoff, the once mogul of RCA, found it economically superior to make electronics and other items that only lasted for a specific amount of time as a way to make more money does not make it right. In a lot of ways it is crazy how obsolescence has filtered into our lives. Many of us, scratch that, almost all of us within the worldly population have been born into obsolescence (technological, psychological, etc.). We have accepted it and do not even acknowledge that its there. We preach the quality of items but how many times do we read a review of an item we are thinking about buying, do we see anything regarding durability over a certain length of time? You get that through customers reviews on forums by other people but never the companies. Here is food for thought, how many people who just recently bought an Xbox 360 would be very upset to know that the death-date of their brand new $300 console system was about three years (I know I was, and so were 5 of my friends, all Xbox's crapped out after about 3 years of use)? After that 3 year mark it would only be a matter of time before that green circle around the power button that stayed a happy green, going about its business would eventually turn into the "red light of death" that so many faithful microsoft customers would experience. How many people who are enlightened to "death dates" in general would seek for some sort of reform, demanding government to demand something extra of companies? Well Here is a suggestion. If we are to buy our electronics knowing that at any given time after the "warranty" expires that our electronic crap can take a dump and stop working, maybe there should be death-dates printed on that clever little packaging that suckers us into buying said item. Like the way we buy our milk and bread to see how long it will be good for, there should be death dates on our technological items. Maybe in this sense we can partially re-adjust our technological obsolescence and really appreciate items that strive to the best built and stay workable decades after their purchase. Maybe then our landfills would not be experiencing record breaking numbers of technological waste.

The Social Network

I saw this movie the other night with the full intention that I was going to be bored out of my mind because of the subject matter. The fact is I felt it was a pretty good movie with some very interesting points in between. It is pretty crazy that FaceBook started out with a thousand dollars of loaned money. Aside from the weird twins who were ripped off by the kid Mark, his friend Eduardo, and the crazy girls in the movie, it had a feel that this was nothing of a true to the actual story type movie. Things felt a bit too dramatic to actually be a complete truthful interpretation but that is okay. What I found interesting is how they showed how quickly FaceBook caught on though. To think this kid Mark Zuckerberg started off with his FaceMash website to eventually starting a billion dollar website is pretty crazy. Aside from what happened in the movie it was definitely a portrait of how younger society is consumed with technology like a website profile. The girl the kid Eduardo was going out with tries to burn down his room because he did not change his relationship status................ Yep. It took it a step further when Mark decided to send a friend invitation to his ex-girlfriend while he hits the refresh button again and again to see if she has accepted it. A scathing movie of the times of our fledgling young adults and a young man who literally took an idea and the money and ran with it.

Made to break...Made in China?America?Everywhere?

"We Haven't any use for old things here."   "Even when they Beautiful"   "Particularly when they're beautiful. Beauty's attractive, and we don't want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like new ones."-----Brave New World                   We live in a society where we want the latest everything. It has to look cooler, be faster at what it does, and it has to do things better then previous models or we won't buy them. But that is precisely why companies make things faster, cooler, and more efficient to get us hooked. Even when the newer products we buy tend not to outlast our older items that still worked in the longevity department. Unfortunately, this is our psychological obsolesence at work as we have become a nation of consumers. All we do is consume. In a sobering look at reality, Giles slade gives us a clear look into how our society has become a bunch consumers that indulge pride to stay up with the next in line in regards to the devices we use because in essence they define our culture status. His book, Made to Break really drives home this point upon American society. Even our government spurs it on, in 2009 everyone can recall the switch from analog to digital TV. Yet, what everyone does not realize is the fact that how many non-high definition televisions will make their way to landfills now. How many CRT televisions with their toxic lead glass tubes will pollute our ecosystems for years to come. No one thinks about these things until their too late unfortunately. Companies have gotten so good at their marketing and packaging of items that they scream "BUY ME!" in our general psyche. We awe at newest, fastest Ipad's, blackberries, and HD Televisions that we do even realize they will eventually fail us because they are not made to last. Why does it have to be a "key feature" on a phone or camera to be "shock-proof" or "water-proof?" Why can't they just be integrated features on all items? Why? Well the answer is easy, companies do not make money off of us when we do not buy new things. Look at Henry Ford, the man was self-made. He worked his ass off to eventually father in the industrial age in America. What is amazing about the guy was that he built a car called the "Model T" and he built it to last. The design stayed the same for a long time even when his main competitor General Motors was going through crap cars and changing cycles over and over to try and keep up with him. His ideals stayed the same, he felt  he was doing everyone a service to have a cheap, durable automobile that almost brought people to a certain level playing field while they were driving around. Giles Slade says in his book, Made to Break "Ford saw his car as a great social leveler, a democratic one-size-fits-all symbol of American Classlessness." Credit goes Henry Ford when he could have just reaped the benefits of making cheap cars and have people buy news ones with regularity but he didn't. That would eventually change though, because General Motors practiced that very ideal he refused. At the time they made cars that were not the most durable and their image suffered for it. It suffered until they realized how to make a crappy car that looked good. There is one thing about obsolesence that everyone should learn and its that psychologically most people will satisfy their egos when they can. So if that means trading in a "tin lizzie" as the Model T was affectionately called, for a car with all the trimmings and modern creature comforts but with less durability people would. In 1923, the first Chevrolet from General Motors came rolling off the line  that would look better then a Model T was mechanically inferior and was the first case of market "packaging" that would never be relinquished by companies the whole over. the motto: make it look good for awhile until it breaks and they will buy another as long as the new ones look good, go fast, and do a lot of things for the time being. Visual packaging of anything enacts within most people that psychological obsolesence. A man Giles Slade mentions in his book, saw this right away when these flagship companies (Ford and GM) in America were  dukeing it out for automotive supremacy with different philosophies. His name was Earnest Elmo Calkins. He stated when people saw that Ford was loosing ground to GM that there was more then meets the eyes here, he states "People buy a new car, not because the old one is worn out, but because it is no longer modern." He also goes on to state, "And so the Ford car was put out, and chugged along faithfully on all our roads./ The public laughed at it and christened it 'lizzie,' but bought and used it in increasing numbers, and Mr. Ford rested secure in his belief that he had solved one of the major problems of human existence and that there was nothing more to be done." Unfortunately, that same good-natured philosophy would bite him and teach him and everyone else who was not too busy staring at brand new shiny chrome that human beings once past the base instinct of survival and are preoccupied with the latest gadgets that do a bunch of nothing are quite superficial at times. Why else do we have millions of usable cellphones that become discarded because our "plans" tell us we are ready for an "upgrade" (not necessarily more efficient or powerful but it has a bigger screen and looks cooler). All those usable cell phones, guess where they go? Nope they do not become recycled like they do in Japan. They're thrown away, they are brought to the very same landfills where those big old lead-glass tube based CRT televisions go. Together they form a nice deadly alliance to mess up our ecosystems down the road. As Glade pointed out in his book, unlike the Egyptians who are marveled for the things they made to last our society will not be looked upon as fondly. Why should it? Why should we be remembered for our Declaration of Independence, our freedom, our democracy when we as a people will be leaving everyone pyramids of toxic trash and a messed up earth.                                                                           

Introducing Wikipedia.......The new Delphic Oracle???

Well lets put it this way I do not see many people trying to scale a mountainside in Greece, slay some serpents, then ask Wikipedia what happens next. Wikipedia is much easier then that and to that extent we can attest to the fact that even though its not a prophetic oracle it does give us plenty of breaking news even before many authorities even know what is going on. This was the case as Andrew Dalby (author of The World and Wikipedia: How are we Editing Reality) states on the Chris Benoit murder suicide. That a wikipedian correlated the evidence 14 hours before the authorities did. Dalby talks about how wikipedians genuinely love creating pages or editing articles for the sake of making them better aside from the few that try to be malevolent. As stated before he even acknowledges that Wikipedia is a sort of social network for user-generators. The site has its tendencies of having political bias, staying neutral, footnotes have nowhere to hide, and the blurring of fact and fiction but it tends to be a great place for consolidated facts. But to really extend the reasoning we use Wikipedia is that it does let us access almost anything we really want to explore. If one can sift through some of the drama between wikipedians, viral marketing that some companies try an inject into the site under certain pages, or the certain people who try to plant a "leak" to see how far it spreads across the internet the site really is useful for everyone. Wikipedia has its good and its bad but in the end the site is not to blamed for being out there for free access to information, we need to blame ourselves. Dalby reiterates this when he says "Vandalism and spam are not the fault of the servers, or the site itself, or the software. They are our fault as human being. Were given access to the site, we're bored and stupid and we write childish and unpleasant things and leave a mess; were greedy and we add links that we think will bring us money." This is all very true, sure it "could" be considered an "encyclopaedia full of crap" but how many things do most people truly look up everyday just crap in and of itself. When someone sift through that crap and finds a tidbit of information that they are truly seeking to help in their cause of research that is when Wikipedia shines. It was never meant to be the end all research destination for students it was merely a place to consolidate facts and making searching for answers a bit easier.

"An Encyclopaedia full of crap"

I use Wikipedia as most people do but there are discrepancies about this useful yet sometimes fact-phobic website. As stated by Andrew Dalby in The World and Wikipedia: How we are Editing Reality, he says "Wikipedia is an user-based information online website, that can have information changed by anyone." he goes on to describe how the content user generators literally have "awesome power" and that they can write whatever they choose too, to an extent. Yet, when Wikipedia was first introduced one of the co founders of the website stated " You can edit this page right now!' While that may sound like a recipe for authorial anarchy, the quest for communal knowledge seems to have prevailed so far over any attempt to pit individual opinions against one another." Now that was said back in 2001and even though much of Wikipedia can be attested into being that way some of that notion has changed completely. Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) also stated "Its kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work. There's kind of this real pressure to not argue about things." How things have changed Jimmy. Andrew Dalby goes into how often "wikipedians" use pages that they make or when they alter another page they leave questions or other rhetoric's to each other. To this effect you not only loose sight of factual information but your beginning to turn an encyclopedic type website into a rehashed version of Facebook to an extent. Little wars between these people should be kept in chat rooms and forums and not where there is supposed to be valid information for people to look at. When "wikipedians" (those who add new pages to the website) fight each other over what is written because sometimes things that are written are "agenda based," to literally how sometimes people just argue each other because they do not like what is said with "editing wars" (wikipedians literally edit over each other repeatedly till someone stops and the winner keeps his generated content up).These sorts of things can really tarnish the reputation of a fact based website even when it tries to self-evaluate its own pages. but to even further drive home the point that Wikipedia should never be a paramount place to acquire all legitimate information and should only be used as a stepping stone is the fact sometimes user-generators straight up just add false information just for kicks or to make a point. When you have pages that are constantly changing it doesn't take much for anyone to just edit a page as they feel fit. Now not everything with this website is terrible, not at all. The fact is Wikipedia is one of the largest information based websites around and it is very useful as a place as stated before to start your research off. More to the point what has just been said was a way to clarify that when you go to Wikipedia or another dot com website you need to critically think about what was said and take everything with a grain of salt. Verify the facts at different places and just make sure anything you read into at Wikipedia is susceptible to fallibility.

Current Event: The Semantic Computer System

This current event revolves around how A.I is starting to evolve with getting over one of its biggest barriers, understanding language. Semantics is the understanding of what language actually means, to understand the back round knowledge behind the context of words. A team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, headed by Tom M. Mitchell, a computer scientist, have been working on getting a computer system to understand semantics to be more “human.” They have a computer in Pittsburg, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, surfing the web to teach itself how to understand words rather then just regurgitate them. The computer system they are working on is called N.E.L.L, which stands for (Never-Ending-Language-Learning System). How N.E.L.L does is by scanning millions of web pages for text patterns to understand facts, its accuracy in realizing semantics so far is 87%, the way it understands semantics is by grouping them into different categories, 280 to be exact. These categories by example are things like animals, car types, states, companies, etc. N.E.L.L figures out facts by understanding how to different categories would be related like the Mustang is a car (one category), and Ford is a company (The other category). By scanning text patterns N.E.L.L understands by the key word probability, that the Mustang is a car built by Ford. The “built by” is the relationship between the two categories, upon which there 280 different types of relations. It understands the relationship between things by looking for patterns, correlations, and by using programs that understand rules (like when Microsoft is a unique name of a company and not a general word like bus). It is interesting to note that both categories and relationships between categories are expanding as N.E.L.L searches the web for more facts and information. As N.E.L.L learns a new fact it is then stored into its “knowledge base” a word coined by the researchers working on N.E.L.L. As its database grows larger N.E.L.L actually becomes more efficient at learning new facts because each new fact helps refine its learning algorithms. Because the Web is a rich source of material for a computer to learn in it helps making computers become more “human” faster. This would directly help people in general when semantics become part of the daily software on computers and search engines, where people can interface with computers in a more general atmosphere because computers will be able to understand what the user is trying to get out. For example if one were to go on a search engine to find out what is wrong with ones television for instance, instead typing in keywords, one could ask a question like “What is wrong with my Bravia LCD TV it has a big red spot in the middle of the screen?” It could help refine the results more. Or even down the road having software that can act like a personal assistant which can help one in their day to day routines. The N.E.L.L program is not the only, nor is it the first try at getting semantics right with computers, many other companies like IBM and Google are trying to do the same but what makes N.E.L.L different is that it is almost completely automated while other programs are more passive and require more user interface and programming which takes more time. Its learning systems go by a hierarchy of rules to help resolve vagueness of words that generally stump other semantic programs. Also N.E.L.L learns hundreds of things at once which is how it was designed because the more things it takes in the easier it is for itself to self correct a mistake.(the more differentiating two things are the easier it is for the program to understand them so that’s why it takes in more information at once). This idea though of teaching computers semantics takes time and even N.E.L.L needs the occasional assistance because it’s the background information of words that tie up computers systems like N.E.L.L an example given by the NY Times articles states “When Dr. Mitchell scanned the “baked goods” category recently, he noticed a clear pattern. N.E.L.L was at first quite accurate, easily identifying all kinds of pies, breads, cakes, and cookies as baked goods. But things went awry after N.E.L.L’s noun-phrase classifier decided “Internet cookies” was a baked good. (it’s a database related to baked goods or the internet apparently lacked the knowledge to correct the mistake.) What is interesting about this program is that it really trying to get artificial intelligence over a major hurdle which is trying to A.I understand what language does and means. All this information was taken from the NY Times technology website with the title named Aiming to Learn as We do, a Machine Teaches Itself with the author being Steve Lohr. I felt this current event was interesting because it really had me wondering about how close we are to have A.I really being a consistent part of society. All I can say is with the way we are so dependent on technology already I wonder how dependent we will be when artificial intelligence is more of a expert on specific topics then the experts are. I do not know but as cool as search engine that understands whole questions rather then keywords would be I do not think I would be thrilled with robots running around in the near future doing ones house chores wondering to itself " Why if I am smarting then this organism am I cleaning up after it? I think this should be the other way around." Obviously a bit extreme but you never know, what if we do end up making terminators with skynet going all crazy?

Rutgers Suicide

With what has happened at Rutgers a few weeks ago it is still fresh in my mind. What really draws my attention is the fact that technology played such a large part in the way the events led a young man to take his own life. Aside from his roommate viewing him with a web cam and the fact that government in the state of NJ is pushing for new privacy laws with harsher penalties, it is the reasoning this young man decided to let everyone know he was about to kill himself on facebook right before he jumped. Honestly, is that what it is all coming down to? Yes, the correlation between writing a suicide note and leaving a quick response on facebook may seem similar but their not. Emoting your suicide right before you do it is a lot different then the police finding you somewhere and then they break the news. In this day and age it is almost insane how much our culture has changed in the last decade. Everyone is so wrapped up in Facebook, Twitter, and even Myspace still to a degree. It is literally taking human interaction and turning it on its head. In our last class we just watched how on Youtube an Anthropological professor at KSU has stated as we stray from human interaction yet we appreciate it more, really? I really can not say one way or another but here is some "food for thought." With the way divorces have been going up is it fair to say that this can be linked to the way people have been finding relationships from dating websites to even Facebook once again? Going back to this young man from Rutgers all I can truly have is pity for him. I am in no way trying to be mean when I say I pity him but I do feel that his generation which has revolved around this new way people interact had deceived him. When he found out everyone in his personal world was beginning to realize he was gay and because he was not emotionally stable enough to tell anyone yet, when this happened it must have been like his whole world came crashing down around him. The despair this kid must have felt must have been surreal because like I have said a lot of time and energy in the younger generations today go into keeping their profile in shape. This event to me has let me realize one thing very important and that is that a lot people really have come to label their profile as a completely new extension of their physical being. Culture certainly does move fast towards change.

Back to the Basics with Technology

   That title does not mean reinventing the wheel. I merely am stating that it is time to realize that there does need to be a line drawn in the sand with technology. Why should we just sit back completely exposed as technology changes every last part of American culture through our generation, to the next, and the following generation? We need to realize that there needs to be a median where we accept technology but not let it run our lives. As Postman puts it in his book Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology, he states "A resistance fighter understands that technology must never be accepted as part of the natural order of things, that every technology-------from IQ test to an automobile to a television set to a computer----- is a product of a particular economic and political context and carries with it a program, an agenda, and a philosophy that may or may not be life-enhancing and that therefore require scrutiny, criticism, and control." 
    This seemingly may be mundane to some but it has resonance to my ears. Why should we sit idly by and let new forms of technology that have not been used ever in the scope of humanity dictate the way we perceive life? How come to many Americans believe newer is always better? I for one see a 1968 Dodge Charger as a way sweeter mode of transportation then a brand new 2010 Honda civic. But to get back on a more serious mode of discussion, how come Native Americans and Ancient Greeks found that perseverance through the human condition more appealing then figuring out a new shortcut through inventing a tool for ease of use? Why was it that discovering more through philosophy went wayside then figuring out how to download illegal songs?
   How could a man like Francis Galton take statistics past just numbering students papers like William Farish did at Cambridge in the eighteenth century and use numbers to describe which cities in Britain had prettier ladies? How was he able to get people to jump his bandwagon on judging the skulls of men throughout history and decipher their IQ (Copernicus had a lower IQ supposedly by this way of measurement then Galton himself by almost a hundred points! Please!) by the size and shape of their skulls. How can people be more dependent on the findings a machine will give through statistical readouts then the experience a doctor may garner from years of practice? Doesn't one realize that machines designed to figure out medical problems do not come some far away magical place? That instead they are contrived and designed by ideas from other doctors from years worth of the very experience needed from tending to sick patients.
    The Human condition is being replaced by the mechanical condition unless we stop it and take the reigns back from our mechanical "brethren". I say brethren because we literally say when a computer has a problem it has a "virus," or is "infected," and needs to "quarantined." Is this seriously what is happening? Have we gotten so lax in our differentiation  between what is organic and what is inorganic that we need to label computers "sick?"
    For America we need to realign ourselves and get a few things straight. Number 1, "Scientism" isn't completely an end all be all to figuring out the human condition as well as it 3 ideas (1, natural science can be applied to study human behavior, 2, social sciences can be used to organize society on a rational and humane basis, 3, faith in science can serve as a comprehensive belief system that gives meaning to life). Number 2, As Postman states as he did with numero uno, we should not be so dependent on computers to believe that everything after computers could not have happened without them. Number 3, we need to realize that technology will not always save our butts and that we as a society need to accept this (what were to happen if a solar flare brought with it a massive EMP pulse and fried everything electrical? Would we just throw ourselves into a mass hysteria and kill ourselves?).
   We Americans need to realize The Neil Postman is on to something. We cannot just allow ourselves to be subjective servants to Technology because when ever in American culture did we depend on another power to bail our asses out of anything? I am not trying to use the symbol drain with Uncle Sam telling you you have what it takes to be independent. But, as a whole we really need to realize that we should not be so dependent on technology. We need to take a step back and re-orient ourselves into forming all the technology we are so dependent on into being just tools for us to get by. Not things we are dependent on for survival.
   For our own sake we should not accept the metaphorical message about computers as stated by Postman "The fundamental metaphorical message of the computer, in short, is that we are machines----thinking machines to be sure, but machines nonetheless. It is for this reason that the computer is the quintessential, incomplete, near perfect machine for technopoly. It subordinates the claims of our nature, our biology, our emotions, our spirituality. The computer claims sovereignty over the whole range of human experience, and supports its claim by showing that it "thinks" better then we can." 
    The hell it can, as for right now, just like everyone else, I can still pull the damn plug from its ass.

Are We Tools to the Tools we use?

   In the book, Technopoly, The Surrender of Culture to Technology, the author, Neil Postman cites Karl Marx and says "Among the famous aphorisms from the troublesome pen of Karl Marx is his remark in The Poverty of Philosophy that the 'hand-loom gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.' As far as I know, Marx did not say which technology gives us the technocrat, and I am certain his vision did not include the emergence of the technopolist. Nonetheless, the remark was useful. Marx understood well that, apart from their economic implications, technologies create ways in which people perceive reality." 
   It is interesting to note this quote in Postman's book because it explains how much technology influences each individuals life but also specific cultures as a whole. Postman goes on to explain the different types of culture that inhibit the earth in regards to technology. You have the "tool-using societies" upon which many ancient civilizations are categorized by Postman. This did not mean that they were completely inferior (ancient civilizations made many remarkably wonders of the old world like, the pyramids), it just meant that they did not let tools (technology) rule their lives or let it change the very foundations that created their societies. They just had tools to help in survival. Of course this could not stay the same as eventually certain tools would lead about change and would inevitably change the whole platform upon which people perceived their worlds and how they went about their day-to-day lives. Though technology played a significant role in how people lived, they still held onto important aspects of their society like religion, family hierarchies, etc. These cultures and civilizations now became "technocracies." What would then take place was another huge leap in technology that would engulf said society completely where as put by Postman "Technopoly- the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology." Technopolies are the last step of the chain upon which technology completely changes or eradicates all known culture and replaces it with a new style of culture dependent upon technology itself. Technology creates a whole new social order as stated by Postman.
   This is a large process to understand and really makes for some interesting discussion. Postman really drives home the concept of technological dependency and I believe him. everywhere one looks, one is bombarded with new forms of technology. The printing press altered society completely it gave people better access to information and let people become more aware. The clock drastically altered the way one utilized their day. Stirrups on a horse altered the social classes of feudal Europe to add knights into the mix. The computer has completely changed the way people of current society go about communicating with one another. There are also backlashes to these new forms of technology though. Luddites have extreme prejudice towards any form of technology because they realize that they replace people with machines.
   You see, the Evolution of technology spurs on the revolution of society, for better and worse. Also, food for thought, how might we be when a new form of technology replaces our ability to feel and be empathetic to others? When family structures are seemingly being changed along with metaphysical beliefs what will be next on the horizon? Will emotions be next on the chopping block? Will humanity be completely altered one day to just resemble organic machines, completely autonomous and detached of life? As stated by a quote from Freud delivered to us by Postman "What good to us is long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?" We should not let technology make things so mundane with shortcuts that we virtually sap all inspiration out of life.

From Gigantic computers to Desktop computers

It is hard to imagine as said before that computers that were as large as entire rooms that kept tabs on men making their way the the moon are not as powerful as today's handheld cellphones is surreal. A long way the evolution has come indeed. Yet, this all started after vacuum tubes were replaced by microprocessors. When Ted Hoff of Intel created the 4004 microprocessor (the first complete microprocessor), not even he himself could have imagined the surge that was to follow (Computers: The Life Story of a Technology by Eric Swedin). His microprocessor would spur on a new technological revolution that would change the way the computer would be perceived. With this processor so small as it were it would create small computers called "desktops" that common people would be able to use. It wasn't just its size but eventually it was its price as well. The fact that this technology came about it is very interesting to point out that the major players of today came from such simple origins like Steve Jobs or Bill  gates all started out from building computers or writing software in their garages. The fact that their swimming in money today only shows how impressive this all was for them. In the end though as I even type this blog is the fact that this technology of the seventies multiplied tenfold and became what it is today. It is astonishing how people raved about a simple game called pong as kids today play MMORPG's were they can interact with other kids around the world hacking and dungeon crawling their way to fun. Between the beginning of the internet and the computer it was only a matter of time till these two forms of technology would coincide to take the world by storm. They have effectively changed the landscape of how people perceive their daily world and how they live. The way technology has been evolving as well we can only acknowledge the fact that society is now used to ever changing trends in technology and relishes them. I guess my assumption from all this is that as the wheel turns downhill it only gains momentum as surely technology has.

The evoulution of computers and humanity

      Its early April and Easter has arrived in the year 1900. A group of greek fisherman seek shelter on a small island in the Cyclades called Antikythera and stumble upon a great discovery. They find what is possibly a sunken Roman vessel that has a very old pre-modern mechanical computer amongst ivory statues that was used in calculating lunar, solar, and stellar calendars, according to Eric Swedin the author of Computers: The Life Story of Technology. As interesting as that is to uncover an artifact that gives precedence to the past, what is even more interesting is what we as a species, according to Swedin, have evolved so closely with technology. Mathematics have been around for so long that it only makes sense that it has been with us step by step to help us come up with innovation. Like Herman Hollerith's census machine that revolutionized task-oriented procedures like acquiring the data of millions of citizens (pg. 20). Or Charles Babbages difference machine that furthered mathematics to really expand the horizons of what we can accomplish in terms of numbers because it was a precursor to the modern calculator (pg 15). World War II really pushed technology as well. As battles were fought over land, air, and sea (and under), technology was developing many new ideas on how to wage it. like how a general would relay his tactics to others without giving away intelligence. The Germans were really good at this because they developed machines like the Enigma machine that would conceal missions or other information (pg 32). These machines were not small, in fact they were huge due to the fact they had vacuum tubes and other bulky parts to relay electric currents. It was not until the Cold war that things became more precise, less mechanical, and more automated (pg 52). Eventually with all this progress the concept of A.I (artificial Intelligence) came around and stopped being part of science fiction (pg 63). So what is the reason to ramble on about the history of computers so? Well, its simple, when you realize that we used to have computers that were the size of whole rooms where people had to crawl into them to fix them, we are now seeing cellphones and other hand-held devices that have more power then these old behemoths like the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). It is amazing to realize that we have come so far in such a short span with technology. Two hundred years ago to even 30 years ago people got by with much in the sense of computers. You look at us today and everyone is hooked on them. They have become an all important tool in today's society. We use computers, we live off computers, we need computers in this day an age. Sixty years ago when the government was the only entity that found use for them, we today have built an entirely new infrastructure around them. The next time you pick up your cell phone just look at it and realize that this little device has more computing power then the computers that filled whole rooms that manned the Apollo Project for landing a man on the moon (pg. 67). That is not only technological evolution that is human evolution.

Starting a blog & logging tech. usage

  Starting up a blog seems to be a lot easier then it once was. Since I am a general hold out from Facebook and Myspace entities it still was a snap. I just never felt the need to tell people when I am about to go take a leak or let people know what I am doing. It does seem that letting the world know what you are thinking is as easy as never before. It did not take long to set up this blog and go through the motions to have it appear somewhat professional and worthy. One thing is for sure, technology never stops.
  except when you are vacation, as i was from 9/9/10 to 9/14/10. Other then the obvious technology of a plane, cars (taxi), trains, and a bit of television (to watch the jets on monday night football get their clocks cleared while in Costa Rica) I stayed away from portable technology. I basically logged zero hours. But if i were to give a rounded off amount during a general week, i probably use the internet, cellphone, etc for about ten hours a week, mostly for homework, research, or staying in touch (texting & calling no Facebook). definitely would say technology has not absorbed me completely.