Love the unlimited source of Information

Peter the Wild Boy

I had a major paper due for one of my many English classes. I first thought to write about an experiment that was mentioned in a book called the City of Glass by Paul Auster. But then I realized that the topic was too broad. By doing more and more research regarding the experiment, I came across a topic that was mentioned in the text. It was specific enough to do my paper on it. Peter the Wild Boy. It was fascinating how fast I was able to find information on him and how many news articles that I found. He was a famous person that had no background. He was found abandoned in the woods when he was 12, and still they are finding more and more information on him. 

In 2011, they were able to diagnose him with a genetic disorder called Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome. All from a painting. The very painting that is shown above. The internet has so much information out there that can either be beneficial or can be hazardous. It all comes down to what we choose to do with that information. For me, it has helped me to finish this paper in less than a couple of hours. For others, probably would take them less time to write my paper, but still I was able to get it done. 

I love the internet, it can do so much for you when used correctly. 

Media Fast...

Media fast, what to say about it.
It failed.
I came to the conclusion that I rely too much on media to get through everyday. From friday night to saturday night, I found myself on my computer and listening to music.

The intentions I had of going on this media fast was to focus on doing my homework. But it did not turn out so well. I ended up turning on music to block out the roommates to help me focus on the assignments that I had to do for the week. But eventually it led me to a direction where I ended up surfing the internet in less than an hour of the fast. I could have done better, and I plan to once I don't have many projects and assignments coming up.

The idea of the media fast is great. It was a great conclusion to how much I depend on the media and how I should lay off of it for a while and enjoy the things around me. One of these days I would love to sit in my hammock and pull out a good book to read in the sun. That would be my ideal day to to spend my media free day.

Avatars? Possible Project?

Have you seen the movie Surrogate? 

If not, check this site out, gives you a summary of what it is about: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/

Will our world eventually become like this? 

 Recently I read an article called, Avatars, Identity, and Walkies. The writer first explains what an avatar is and how it developed. When the internet first came out, we could pretend to be who we wanted to be and eventually that developed into the games that we have out. Examples of such are second life and RPG games. We pretend to be people when in reality we do not act like those creations at all.

http://www.sciencetext.com/avatars-identity-and-walkies.html

The writer said something interesting in the text that I felt that it was profound to share.

Those of you that participate in avatar-based markets, do you feel that this is true?

I feel that as we get more involved with the internet, the more that we are losing a part of ourselves. There is good in having a balance between reality and the digital realm. In my previous blogs, I wrote about the concept of Simulacrum. If we can't seem to decipher reality and creation, then what is the purpose of continuing in a false reality?

Media isn't all bad. There are pros and cons to the media and how people choose to act on it. For example there was a study done on avatars. I think this would be a pretty cool project to do. The title of this article is called: You and your ugly avatar.

http://www.sciencetext.com/you-and-your-ugly-avatar.html

This deals with creating two types of avatars. One attractive and the other not attractive, in other words, ugly. As a group of people created these, they analyzed how many people interacted with the two avatars. The research group found that the more attractive avatars were popular versus the less attractive. In a sociological perspective we can learn from this research about how different people are on the internet versus how they are in reality. We know in reality that attractive people usually are popular, and from this article we learn that it is the same in a virtual setting.

In order for us to understand the pros and cons of the world of finding your identity through avatars I think that we do something along these lines of creating two types of avatars and see which of the two are more popular. Instead of creating less attractive and attractive, we can do something more extreme and see how popular of the two are. Both would have similar personalities, but one would be an animal and the other would be human. But this idea is still up in the air.

Definition of Identity

http://www.nickbostrom.com/views/identity.pdf

I found an interesting website that led to this pdf file about identity. It is called the future of identity. It is really long so I decided to show some snap shots of the table of content. You can check out the website for yourself if anything peaks your interest. 

While reading over the introduction, it discussed the definition of identity. There is a passage that stuck out to me. 

Psychological identity shades over into  social identity. Social identity involves aspects such as the different personas (social roles) people take on in different contexts, how people identify with group identities (as well as sexual, gender, and cultural identities) and how these are used in various forms of expression and affiliation. People maintain a rich structure of social identities, often keeping them separate.  Each of these identities has attributes, roles and norms within their social contexts

This site defined identity and established the functions of it in a scientific manner. But the question I had in mind was where is the ethics behind all this? Are we becoming too involved or not enough involved when we aren't establishing our location every second when we are on facebook or twitter? 

I feel that having these resources are great, but what can we do to separate ourselves by the identities we created on the internet? 

Lit Analysis Readings

For my Lit Review Analysis, I did Morrison, Song of Solomon and Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey". I have to say that they were interesting readings. I liked how they were able to compare the literature to what we have been learning in class and how that relates to us. Many of the books that I read, I am able to relate to them in some ways, but not in a modern sense. Learning more about digital culture and how it has been around for a long time, it has taught me that we have been exposed but not aware of the world that we live in.

In a way these blogs and Lit Analysis Readings have opened my eyes to what we are surrounded by. In the Morrison, Song of Solomon reading, I liked how there was a comparison to an article that I read in my American Post Modernism Lit class on "Death of the Author". I found it fascinating that Morrison felt that she went against the beliefs of "Death of the Author". The article states that when a writer writes a book, they are killing themselves because their books can be interpreted in different ways. But Morrison felt that because she is around, she can explain herself about certain situations. I also enjoyed how there was a reference to the death of favorite character and how people hated reading it. But Morrison stated (paraphrasing) that if it were a minor character, then the audience wouldn't care as much. It was overall a fascinating read.

With my fictional book, I am going to do Howl's Moving Castle. I have read this book several times in my youth and have always felt a connection to the Protagonist, Sophie. She is a quiet girl that grew up surrounded by people telling her what to do. She didn't have a voice. The issue that she had was a identity issue. When her father passed away, her family was split apart. One sister was sent to be a apprentice of a Baker, and the other a witch. Sophie, because she was the oldest, inherited her father's shop. While working in the shop she loses herself in the life that she did not create for herself. She meets a witch that transforms her into a old woman. From then on, she lives her life to the fullest. This is about an avatar that many of us create and live our lives through them. She creates a identity that no one really knows her by and her true personality comes out. She is not that timid girl that I read earlier in the book. But this is a just a touch of the book. I wish to do a closer reading on it.

The book and the movie varies a lot. 

Simulacrum

During my American Lit class, we were discussing a book called Simulacra and Simulation.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22613.Simulacra_and_Simulation
 While in this class, it made me realize that Simulacrum is everywhere, especially the digital world.
The blog (http://dyckellis326.blogspot.com/2012/09/virtual-identities.html)
discussed Virtual identities. Which goes perfectly along with the article Simulacra and Simulation. As each of us feel a need to create a new identity we lose ourselves in the world of Simulacrum.

How many of us are honest with the things we post online? Or even be able to write things online that we can't say to people's face? 

CyberneticsCybernetics by Norbert Weiner

Cybernetics by Norbert Weiner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The book was interesting to read. Cybernetics had everything combined into one book. It covers the biological factors as well as the technological and the historical. It gave me a new perspective on how technology is similar to the human body. An example from the text: “The synapse is a coincidence-recorder, and the outgoing fibre is only stimulated if the number of incoming impulses… ” (29).

Overall the book was fascinating to learn about technology in a new perspective, but because this was for a class, I would not have chosen it to read on my free-time unless I wanted to fall asleep.

View all my reviews

Cars in relation to digital culture

I was reading an article for my English 495 class and it was about how cars urbanized America. But what does this have to relate to digital culture? Simple. Cars were a symbol of the new technology during that era and has been growing in the industry ever since.

You have this: 

 To this:

But getting back onto topic, due to the car industry people craved speed. Speed as in getting things done quicker, getting to places faster. This created a need for devices to help improve our society to function better. Instead of washing clothes by hand, we now have washing machines. Even then we all want the brand new models that wash clothes faster and more efficient. Not only with washing machines but brand new cell phones.

Remember the old cellphones that we used to have.

The new Samsung S3 series model, with just a tap you can share photos or information with another fellow user.

It is crazy to see how much our society has changed over the last hundred of years.As society keeps on moving forward, we continue to rely more and more on technology. It is great that technology has done so much for us, but to what point is enough?

Vets are inserting identity tags into pets so that the owner can claim the dog. Great idea but....

The US Military Wants To 'Microchip' Troops

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-06/news/31591343_1_troops-first-step-computer-chips

What will happen to us?

Devices

The movie minority report has inspired this guy to create this:

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/minority-report-interface-its-now-only-70-away-784828

 It is fascinating to learn how much we are influenced by movies and how that influence can lead civilization to become more involved in technology. As our society becomes more involved in the world of technology, we have either become too dependent on them. Question: When was the last time you looked at your cellphone? Or how many times a day do you look at your cellphone? Technology is great, I can say that I tend to look at my cellphone at least a hundred times a day. Seeing various devices comes into play is interesting, but I feel like we are becoming too dependent on it. I guess I have been watching too many dystopian movies/books, but if all technology were to just shut down one day, how many of us can survive in that type of world?