Finally paper blog 3

After a long period of time including a staring contest between me and my computer screen, frequent Facebook visits, and musical relaxation, I finally finished up my paper. It feels like I just emptied all my knowledge bowels onto a word document about technopolies and modern-day campuses. I used one outside source for a small portion of my paper, and used a few, but long, quotes from Postman's book to backup mine and Postman's argument. I feel like I did good enough providing points in my paper, but I'll wait for my grade to see if I can truly boast about how awesome I am.

final paper blog 2

I'm halfway there with my paper on college campuses being technopolies. I feel my arguments are falling into place perfectly and I am supporting my arguments amply. The only roadblocks I am facing are the quotes to pick from the book to support my arguments thoroughly enough. And it is definitely way too late to write the paper on Made to Break instead of this one. It's hard not to surf the web when I'm stuck at a certain point in my paper since the internet is always at my disposal. Oh snap! I just made another argument while taking a break from writing this paper. Instead of waiting for my train of thought to fully derail, I'm going to continue on with writing this paper.

Final Paper Blog Blah

I just finished reading the details to the final paper in its entirety, and I'm still a little torn between which topic to pick. There are only 2 choices and I have pros and cons for each book. I'm leaning towards Neil Postman's Technopoly book only b/c it relates to me more as a college student. I really did like Giles Slade's Made to Break a lot more than Postman's Technopoly. One reason is that I loved the argument and agreed with it completely. I shared a similar view on technology as it relates to "disposable consumerism" through daily observations that accumulate over a lifetime.

Chances are that I will pick the topic which is the easiest since it's finals time, but the difficult part for me is to differ between what makes each topic unique. I don't want to write a paper for the sake of writing a paper. I rather already have some opinion about which ever one I decide to write about. That's why I feel Postman's book would be ideal for a final paper.

The Facebook Effect (p. 214-333)

Finally, this book and semester are coming to a close. I thought the pictures in this book added something that's usually missing from books when they talk about certain figures in history, no matter how recent the history may be. Seeing all the faces behind thefacebook was refreshing and cool. And the ensuing chapter really gives some visuals inside Zuckerberg's mind about how he wanted facebook to turn out. Though some of the facts that Sean Parker brings up may not be accurate in terms of how Zuckerberg saw Facebook.

"What he meant was that he wanted his nascent service to be a place where others could deploy software, much as Microsoft's Windows or the Apple Macintosh were platforms for applications created by others." (p.215)

The way the book lays out how Facebook would generate money through advertisements was very interesting to read. It showed that although this site was to help connect almost everyone together, this could not be done without generating money. Who else but Google to help bring in the revenue through ads on Facebook which Zuckerberg only accepted to finance his plan to keep his Facebook empire. Before I read this book, I figured Zuckerberg was in it for the cash by any means.

"While Zuckerberg had been forced by circumstances to accept advertising, he did so only so he could pay the bills. Whenever anyone asked about his priorities, he was unequivocal - growth and continued improvement in the customer experience were more important than monetization." (p. 258)

After finishing up the book, I still wasn't very impressed but I do think it surpassed my expectations after reading the first section of the book. I was really looking for some type of psychological analysis into the minds of real Facebook users and not just the brains behind the operation. Getting an inside look into the decisions that were made and the obstacles Zuckerberg had to overcome were humbling, but I really didn't care for a whole book on it, which in my opinion, thought that what it was if I had to summarize it in a sentence.

I'd give this book a 3.8/5.0. Also, I'm glad this was the last book we had to read to close out the semester. I just wish the book reflected the user way more. It was still an interesting read overall.

the facebook effect (part 2) (p107-214)

As the book continues, the idea of being intriguing fades pretty fast for me with every page. I really don't care about Zuckerberg, but once it started talking about how he got into the start of the actual business as an entity, it got a little more readable. It was kind of interesting to read the development of a website created by a Harvard nerd and how he turned it into a bazillion (est.) dollar company. Within chapters 5-11, I felt the story  getting a little bit more intimate wit facebook users from other people's perspectives.

However, I did enjoy seeing the "now" pieces of Facebook falling in place throughout the book like in Chapter 9. Zuckerberg discusses the news feed and its impact in the 2006 chapter. "It's not a new feature, it's a major product revolution." (p. 182). Also, the fact that Zuckerberg really didn't want to sell the company unless he heard a bid for 1 billion dollars was really interesting and something to think about. He had, in his own mind, already figured this site would generate an enormous amount of attention and revenue. To pick 1 billion dollars as a starting bid for considering to sell the site was extremely smart on his part. He knew the potential this site had, and today we can see the impact it has over many of our lives.

Ben Parr, who launched "Students Against Facebook news feed" had a great quote which I would say sums up what most of Facebook users think. "We are more comfortable sharing our lives and thoughts instantly to thousands of people, close friends and strangers alike. The development of new technology and the rocking of the boat by Zuckerberg has led to this change.... News Feed truly launched a revolution that requires us to stand back to appreciate. Privacy has not disappeared, but become even easier to control - what I want to share, I can share with everyone. What I want to keep private stays in my head."(p. 214).

I went from not liking this book very much to becoming a little bit more interested in it because of the perspectives of others outside of the company. Hopefully, the last section is worthwhile.

the facebook effect (part 1)

Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect already sounded more promising than the rest of the readings in my opinion. I only feel that way because it's the most current topic circulating my life at least. Of course, the story of Mark Zuckerberg's vagillion dollar website begins the book. I haven't seen the movie so I can't compare the book to "The Social Network."

I never knew about Facemash (p. 23) and how this was sort of a precursor to the ever popular social media website controlling how we live our lives. "He didn't ask permission before proceeding. It's not that he sets out to break the rules; he just doesn't pay much attention to them." (p. 24). I feel that Kirkpatrick paints Zuckerberg fairly throughout the book. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a rebel of the internet, or at least Harvard.

I honestly thought the book was going to be some psychosocial analysis of how Facebook users are affected by immersing their lives from reality to a virtual world and that virtual world becomes their new reality. I would have definitely enjoyed a book like more than one about how it got started. Simply reading about the origins of Facebook can get really boring. The behind-the-scenes look at how it was created was a little interesting, but it got redundant which I felt about most of the books we read in class so far. I going to stay optimistic about the last 2 sections we have to read for The Facebook Effect.

Group Blog Entry

Based off of our assigned topic, I would say that the Wikipedia page is a viable source of information if you wanted to know about Polygamy in North America. The strengths of the source would be the actual cases of polygamy they give on the page. Also, they give a nice history of polygamy in NA from the perspective of the LDS church. The weakness I found was that the page focused a lot on just Mormon polygamy although, judging from the source, Mormon polygamy seems to be the most popular in North America. Black Muslims are briefly mentioned, with a valid source, but the info is very almost non-existent.

The strengths of the article will be able to inform readers about Mormon polygamy in America. The weakness of the article may not answer all the questions a particular person may seek which is why the article isn't that great.

I learned that there are a lot of cases of bias in the other presentations, but in ours, not so much. The only thing is that some facts and information may not be mentioned leaving people interested in the topic unfulfilled. What I'm taking away from this project is that I won't solely search wikipedia for information, but some of the information they do provide is accurate, for the most part. My overall assessment is that wikipedia should even be allowed as a source for projects just as long as the students who use it double-check and verify what they read.

Solo Presentation

It kinda sucked knowing that someone else had an almost identical article to discuss, so I talked the statistics that weren't mentioned in the other one. The discussion that followed was not very productive. Most people in attendance usually never say anything which I wouldn't consider a bad thing. It would have been more beneficial to give a presentation to a roomful of deaf children. The feedback would have been a lot more intellectual.

The statistics provided aren't life-changing. They are a reflection of how people, more specifically 20% of Midwestern teens, lead their lives. Is it a reflection of all students, probably not. The ones who get offended or comment on a question, instead of answering the original question,

The discussion that followed would've been more intellectual.  But, when only jesters and village idiots want 5 seconds of fame, their limelight starts dimmed and faded. That's what happens when people want to be stand-up comedians in the comfort of their seats all to entertain Facebook friends they won't see after they graduate.

I chose to let people speak and give them there moment with hope that the conversation would be enlightening. What I really learned from my presentation in this class is that a presentation is only productive in the right scenario. I doubt people who laugh at YouTube clips about a girl getting raped with an auto tune effect and some music would have something that intelligent to say anyway.

I conclude that my presentation wasn't great because the same topic was discussed 5 minutes before I spoke. The discussion that followed mine was equally abysmal. I love college.

Group Presentation

I rarely ever want to do work, but this group presentation as something new for me. Not the actual project itself, but the way we collaborated for the assignment. We talked about how to approach the wiki page within the given time the day we were given the topic of polygamy in North America.

Tom suggested we use Google docs, something I'm sure most of us have never done. I thought it was amazing how we could all assemble PowerPoint from different locations when we couldn't meet. That's what made the assignment a little fun.

We did all meet at Justin's apartment one night to construct the PowerPoint. This was crucial for the project. Even if we all met virtually, we definitely needed to get together in person at least once to get an understanding of how to tackle the wiki page audit. We all came with ideas at Justin's which made things go smoothly. We layed out the basics of what we were going to do.

Phil was the saving grace making the handout for the presentation. The day of the presentation came and I felt we did all real good job. I think even in a technology class I'm always still in awe when I discover something new on the net like Google docs. That was the biggest part of getting our presentation in order. And of course the other major factor was having intellectual partners that contributed a lot to the assignment. Overall, I think we deserve 5 A+'s. The End.

Who Sane?: Made to Break (186-281)

Who Sane?: Made to Break (186-281)

For some reason blogger.com is f-in up for me. I'm posting in the form of a comment. Thanks for putting up with it b/c you have no choice.

Alas, the final pages of Made to Break give us the big picture. We finally reach the end of the the long timeline narrative to get the ultimate point of Slade's book.

He mentions Moore's Law, which I think is his major point within his argument of technological obsolescence. "Although Moore's Law was intended to emphasize the increasing power and the diminishing costs of integrated circuits, it also provided an index to the steady rate of technological obsolescence created by ICs." (p196). The best part to me is the last section of this book. To me it seems Slade formats the book to increase at an exponential rate like how Moore's Law describes. I talk about Moore's Law a lot b/c I feel it's the reason for tech woes as well as pros.

I love how he talks about the rise of Microsoft and Macintosh. Slade also brings up other events within the 60s and now that also provide a backbone to his argument.

"Very soon, the sheer volume of e=waste will compel America to adopt design strategies that include not just planned obsolescence but planned disassembly and reuse as part of the product life cycle." (p. 281). He closes out very well and his final words make his point even more cohesive. I admit, I really didn't care for the old talk pre-internet, but I appreciate what he had to say in terms of disposable products before the internet dynasty.

Although we have all these products running our lives, we have to find a way to manage how often and intelligently we use them for. That's the most important message I gathered from this book. We are stuck in this fast-paced, ever-changing society controlled by intricate circuits but we have to get a better grasp of what's in store for us. I don't mean the next cool new iPod, but we have to keep our eyes on the future we our paving for ourselves. In the end, I would give this book a 4/5.

Made to Break (p83-p185)

I finished the 2nd reading section for Slade's Made to Break and I'm convinced it's a book worthy of my eyes. I was kind of thrown off when I read the chapter on radios at first, but Slade's message became clearer towards the end of the 2nd section. I remember reading about all the info from the radio chapter b/c I read about David Sarnoff and RCA in a media studies class awhile ago. "The 1950s marriage of transistors and printed circuits rendered the postwar generation of consumer electronics obsolete, because it made them, for all intents and purposes, unrepairable." (p.105) That sentence is what kept his argument relevant to me for that particular chapter at least. Radios, aimed to sell to teens were being shipped, to the States in different colors and styles making them appear disposable seeing as how teens are one of the largest groups of consumers in the US. The death dating phrase on p. 113 added a new outlook to the phrase planned obsolescence. The fact that products are designed by scientists to purposely not last long is kind of f-dup if you're a consumer.
I understand why he is talking so far in the past, but to me, some of it is unnecessary. The strong usage of the past just reminds of the saying, you won't know where you're going, if you don't know where you came from which is why he must be relying on the past so much. I can respect it, but I would honestly not want to read all of it. Chapter 5, The War and Postwar Progress, made the reading assignment more interesting compared to the last chapter. Chapter 6 introduces the 1960s history of obsolescence and also counterculture. A lot of ways of life changed in the 60s but the speed at which technology evolved got faster. I enjoyed on how Slade explained a change in advertisement as well through obsolescence. "...psychological obsolescence through their VW ads..." (p. 179). I agree with how obsolescence became a trend and has further manipulated how Americans live their lives. The only problem I have so far with in this book is that I feel like I'm getting waterboarded with historical references. Other than that I like it.

Made to Break (1-81)

Giles Slade's Made to Break starts out talking about the economic values of manufacturing goods. Slade talks about the "disposable culture" or "the throwaway ethic"  (p. 13) when introducing disposable products for men and the idea of cheap materials being used to make things like paper shirt fronts. The King of all razorblades, Gillette, was one of the examples Slade used for discussing disposable items for men. I drew a conclusion from the title of the book and after reading the first few chapters that it's about consumerism in America and the idea of disposable technology. By disposable technology, I mean the idea that with the rapid technological advancements in society, and within the short range of time that these advancements are created in, society will tend to replace good, still working technology with newer innovations. I believe this is true because of conforming to the evolved consumer culture that the majority of US citizens participate in.

"But as the disposable trend continued, it became culturally permissible to throw away objects that could not simply and conveniently be consumed by flames." (p. 24) This quote supports the argument that if the item isn't disposable like paper plates or cups, than the tendency would be to simply throw whatever it may be away as society adapts to a disposable consumer culture.

The book carries on like some of the other books we read like Computers by Swedin and Ferro in that it's structured in a timeline. This makes sense because in order to analyze the present, we must see how we got to this point through a scope looking back at the past. In Made to Break's case, it's through the economic tendencies of our society starting from the 19th century when disposable products took over.

I enjoyed chapter 2 where Slade discussed Ford and GM and how each company came up by Henry Ford for Ford and Alfred Sloan for GM. He basically based the chapter on the idea of obsolescence out of the competition between the two car companies. Obsolescence is basically Slade repeating the idea of something disposable but reinforced by car manufacturers. The car in the 1920s was a huge technological advancement and is just grazing the technology of computers and the effect they have. But as you read on, you can tell that his argument is cohesive and easily structured for the reader to understand what he's getting at.

The third chapter starts talking about the Great Depression, but I feel the grip of the book's argument will be in between the 2nd and 3rd sections of the book. I have to read more to see if my guesses about where he's leading his argument are correct.

Peace.

Technopoly

This book was great and I've shared similar thoughts with the ideas Neil Postman presents on the effects of technology on the United States population as discussed in his book, Technopoly The Surrender of Culture to Technology. I feel that people have access to great inventions like computer and smartphones, but the uses they serve could lower human logic and thought.

Earlier in the book (on p. 64), Postman gives one definition of a Technopoly as having an "information immune system" that "is inoperable. "There's less thought used to solve real life problems with new gizmos and gadgets that do all the work for us. The only thing that seems to be required of us is to give the devices our full attention. A small example of technology taking over our minds is when people start using their phones for other reasons besides actually talking to someone. Regardless of what they are doing, some form of technology is taking away their attention so that if they were driving while doing this(..and let's be honesty, there are a lot of people like me guilty of this) making them hazards and dangerous to themselves and everyone else on the road.

 I loved the way Postman opened up the chapter 10 with a hypothetical California chardonnay TV commercial starring Jesus (p. 164). He goes to the extreme to say society is on a course to downgrading so much that biblical figures will run Madison Ave and try to sell us things some rappers talk about. Moore's law was discussed in the first book, Computers by Swedin and Ferro, and directly relates to the discussion of technology. The exponential increase in technological advancement has to be lowering something on another graph important to human health, whether it be mental or physical.

To say technology is pure evil is going to an extreme since it has a great influence on medicine and ways to live healthier. Of course when the boundaries to search/upload/download content of almost ANYTHING is endless. It's a little scary thinking about what someone could be using technology.

Computers: The Book

it's been a long time, i shouldn't have left you without a dope post to read through?...sorry

I finally got my Swedin/Ferro Computers book and it was a nice factual layout of computers past and present. While Neil Armstrong was moonwalking aimlessly in '69, ARPANET gives birth to the marvelous internet.

It was still a bit too dry for my tastes. As the introduction says, it "provides an accessible historical overview of this ever-changing technopoly..." (ix), so I knew to expect before I started the first chapter.

I would have to say the format of book is a reflection of Moore's Law, whereas it starts off primitive and then gets exponentially more interesting towards the 2nd half of it as technology improves faster and faster.

"Intel saw the advantages of the personal computer market and continued to push the microprocessor along the path of Moore's Law." (p. 102). This explains my point how it took almost 2/3 of the book to speak on the more modern technology that we relate to today. It's not that the book isn't interesting but more towards the point that for a book that came out in 2005, it seems a bit outdated. If you take a step back from the wealth of information and knowledge the book overfeeds you, computers are just a byproduct of Moore's Law. Technology and the constant need to improve it will not likely stop until all the over-exaggerated movies about the end of the world actually start to make sense if we still have enough of our attention spans to care.

Overall, I thought, while the book was a little dry, it got me to think outside the structure it presented itself in. Although it was inevitable, I was glad the authors acknowledged Moore's Law. The book has a point which is made through this idea of rapid technological change. Computers may be obsolete within a few years which I  believe was one of the major themes and I couldn't agree more.
 

Tech Log

I assumed using the internet would be harmless for my psyche until I recorded  how aimlessly I spent my time. This seemingly innocent assignment led me to believe how I waste my time far too much on a computer.

(I don't have exact numbers for the log since I have the attention span of a lab rat.)

Music:  The first thing I do when I get on a computer is check for new material and news. (About 1 hr.)

School work: Next I check for the all the homework I haven't done. (About 10 min.)

Writing: I write songs/poetry but usually write in a real notebook. But since I broke my hand, I've been using my laptop. (About 1-2 hrs.)

Videos: Whether it's youtube or another site like it, I clock in less than I thought I would. (About 10 min. if I find something relevant to me)

Facebook: I admit I'm on fb way more than I need to be. (About 10-20 min.)

Sports news: I briefly check for any worthwhile sports news. (About 5 min. if I even care enough to check any given time of the day)

Real news: I wish this wasn't as low as it is. (About 5-10 min. and treated the same way as sports news unfortunately)

AIM: I'm probably the last of a dying breed for AIM use, but I use it to talk my friend I rap with. (I rarely "use" it but I stay signed on for as long as I'm using the computer)

Other: Most of the time I'll be searching the web aimlessly whether it's wikipedia or google (About 1 hr. if I have nothing better to do)

I'll be listening to music for as long as I'm on the computer which could also be the sole reason I'm on a computer in the first place.

You realize a lot about yourself when you record how you manage your time throughout a normal day whether it's on a computer or watching TV, etc. Life moves too fast to want to write down what you did, at least, that's how I see it. But when you take a few minutes out of your day and see it from outside your bubble, you kinda which you could pop it and live outside the norm of our, for the most part, zombified society. Don't get it confused b/c I'm speaking as part of that demographic of caged-in lab rats. I'm not saying the internet is bad at all, instead, I'm insisting the way I use it could be much more helpful for myself. And actions are louder than text messages so I should take my own medicine before I preach anybody the gospel. I need to change my fb status first though.