final paper 2

In doing the research for this paper, I explored the idea of global population growth over the last century and how that has increased global consumption of goods worldwide.  Global population has exploded, due to technology progress to make living conditions globally better and advances in medicine and other things. This has allowed what were previously considered third world countries to make advances in their purchasing power and join our American ways of consuming and disposing of goods and contributed to the obsolescence of all things in their countries as well. This also contributed greatly to the amount of "garbage" that is not biodegradable in our planet. It makes me wonder if continued export of our way of life is the right way and how we can change things before they reach a point of no return. Interesting thoughts....how they will fit into my paper will be also interesting.

Facebook the end

Facebook is all over the place; television, news programs, Oprah. Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed on 60 minutes recently, which he used to make his official announcement that Facebook was changing the appearance of its profile page. Talk about being accepted into the older generation's world of power and greed! Now Zuckerberg has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, making him the youngest man ever to be bestowed that honor. This puts him into the company of people like Mohandas Gandhi, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and more recently, Barack Obama and Ben Bernancke.  That is because they are recognizing him using the criteria "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year".  I'm sure that there are many that are still scratching their heads at who Mark Zuckerberg is, but when this article is published, it will introduce him to a population who has never heard of facebook, much less created a profile page of their own. This may partly be due to a generation gap, but also people who are leery of sharing too much personal information on the web. There are many others who feel that although his work has created something that has changed the way that facebook users use the computer and look at social networking, there are still millions who don't have access to clean water everyday, much less a computer to update their statuses. So how could he be Person of the Year? Because he has changed the lives of 500 million people who share their pictures and status of how many cows and beans have been planted on their imaginary farms? Because now I can find out if my 2,000 "friends" are together, broken up or just hookin' up? I don't know if the phenomenon of facebook has truly influenced the events of this year but it has certainly has an effect on most people ages 25 and under.  So since many of the future movers and shakers of the world interact with him everyday, I guess Mark Zuckerberg is the Man.   

final paper

I've been ill recently and had promised to stay on top of the work required for class but sadly have overestimated my abilities. But I am trying to get caught up. I'm glad that one of the topics that we can choose to write on is Made to Break by Giles Slade due to my recent addition of technology into my life. I just had a pacemaker put into my chest and though it is a life choice, the battery has a life of only between 5-8 years, which means it needs to replace in that time. I plan on using our book and the research I gather to see how much of this obsolescence is true verses the companies suggested times for everything. It all seems to be a money game in the end.  But actual lives are in the balance every time an invasive procedure is done, and because not everyone has the basic benefit of health insurance, the costs are prohibitive. Anyway, that's a basic outline of what I plan to write on.  I hope it is relevant and interesting to you as well.

Facebook Effect Part 2

This second part of the book is exciting because it charts the way facebook becomes a "real" company. Through its rapid growth, it needed rapid infusions of major money. I find it incredible that so many people saw the potential of the idea that Zuckerberg had for them to offer to give young men control of millions of dollars. It has obviously paid off in spades and those who had the chance to invest early and didn't are kicking themselves throughly because of their lost millions. But who knew? The idea wasn't a new idea. Nor was it one that their team had any experience with. Nor did they have a track record of any sort that would inspire confidence or trust with massive amounts of money. But the confidence that Zuckerberg had in himself showed potential investors that he was the one that they were banking on. Without his somewhat geeky way of explaining, when he felt like it, Accel would have never bankrolled them to the extent they did. It is inspiring to see that there are success stories  involving kids and their ideas that can happen even when the sharks get involved.

But none of it would have happened without the leadership of Zuckerberg. He saw past the naysayers and followed his vision of what facebook could be in order to make it a success. Even with opposition from within his own circle, he continued to expand facebook to fit his vision. When he added the ability to add photographs to profiles, he expanded the use of facebook to be part of the culture of America. He recognized the social importance of seeing yourself, and the relationships that that represented way before anyone did. His definition for this phenomenon is  "..."social graph," meaning the web of relationships articulated inside Facebook as the result of users connecting with their friends."(157) This is so true. People want to share and want their friends to share as well. And share they do. Pictures are tagged, sometimes minutes after they have been posted. In fact, people who don't want their social lives out there are often caught unaware that pictures have been taken until they have been made public. This can be positive but also has negative effects. I personally know people who have been tagged in photos of them in compromising situations that have been the talk of the office, because they unwittingly let their boss be their "friend". Not smart for most jobs, especially ones in education. I know we have talked in class about having two profiles, one for partying and one for professional reasons, but sometimes they mix and the results can be ugly. Nothing has happen to these people I know, but it sure can make for an awkward conversation around the boss's office. So the lesson that facebook users must take away is that it is good to share but don't share everything. You never know who looking and making judgments based on a silly moment with your friends.

The Facebook Effect Part I

Was the movie screenplay The Social Network using this book as its blueprint because it mirrors it almost exactly? Or maybe it's because I saw the movie and I have the pictures so fresh in my mind. David Kirkpatrick seems to have unlimited access to Mark Zuckerberg and his machinations to create Thefacebook, and shows how a computer savvy yet socially awkward young man can create one of the world's highest valued and influential websites without having the goal of being a multimillionaire can happen.

The journey of how it begins is chronicled from the bowels of the Harvard dorm room to the formation of a real company requiring real financing. It also goes more in depth than the movie about the business end and how leveraging stock options gave them the money to explode the site so it wouldn't crash and fail. What was interesting was that they were able to pitch their idea to hardened businessmen and have them competing for the opportunity to be financial backers in a then still unproven site.  Although they had began the march across the college campuses of the country, there was no proof that it could make money. It was also interesting that Zuckerberg did not make Thefacebook his only focus and split his time on a website called Wirehog. Although it caused dissention in the ranks, Zuckerberg doggedly pursued the idea of Wirehog, but didn't let it take his mind away from Thefacebook enough to cause it to be any less successful. "Facebook seemed to be thriving, but Zuckerberg was thinking about Wirehog almost as much."(98) Parker, who was as influential as he could be, couldn't understand why he was hedging his bets and not totally believing in facebook but went along with it. This belief in Zuckerberg that had businessmen and partners on the same side proved itself to be correct.

But what I really liked about the book so far is that it begins with what impact facebook can have on real world events. Though it is most well known as a way for people to communicate with their "friends", it also has definitive impact on what common citizens can do to make real change on their governments. This is illustrated in the story of Oscar Morales and his frustration with how the Columbian government were handling  the guerrilla group FARC. By using facebook to coordinate a demonstration against FARC, regardless of the potential danger to himself, he informed and educated many that normally wouldn't get involved in something they felt they had little voice against. "He expected 50,000 to show up. In fact, 300,000 did, about 15% of the city's population.(5) He showed the best side of what facebook is and proved to the world that it is to be taken seriously as a networking tool that can change lives and determine new events. These types of spontaneous involvement in a normally ambivalent society reinforces the idea that Zuckerberg's creation that intimacy through the web can facilitate "efficient communication and cultivate familiarity" (12)  is one to reckon with and is here to stay.  Through the expansion from the original college students who were allowed to use the site to all populations, facebook reaches across barriers normally not easily overcome; generational, cultural, lingual and political affiliations. This site is indispensable in most people's lives today and will continue to grow. This will change American culture today and in days to come.

   

Audit for our midterm project

Scientology!  What a controversial and unknown topic we finally chose. After having several choices shot down by our esteemed professor, we settled on Scientology, (mainly because medical marijuana was already taken and we couldn't do a profile on a person). As we soon discovered, Scientology is a "religion" that is much disputed and has many core enthusiasts as well as many disbelievers.

We first looked at the site and discovered that there were 266 sources listed and we agreed to each take 50 to research individually and divide the remainder later. Although we didn't discuss in detail what each would do, we all basically did the same thing, which was to click on each source, follow the link, read what the source had to say, decide on validity and whether it was biased, and create a list to count how many came from each place. I was assigned # 200-250, which were mostly newspaper articles, some essays written by acknowledged followers of the religion, and journal entries found in the Marburg Journal of Religion. Several were foreign news reports, where Scientology gained some notoriety in other countries like Australia and England, but most were based here in the United States. We noticed that a disproportionate amount of newspapers were local to where Scientology had a large base, and were reporting on controversies that were local and sometimes took a very biased view against Scientology. There were also some news clips from the main networks affiliates, NBC, as well as online news like CNET, that reported on the questionable circumstances when a member died in the care of Scientologists and the court battle and undisclosed settlement reached after court had began. I also learned that Scientologists are not afraid to sue for any press that they feel in inflammatory or negative, and they seem to have buckets of money to support their litigations. We also looked at information that was omitted and tried to figure out why it was omitted.

The girls and I met at Livingston Campus Center on Saturday to compare and collate our independent research and do the PowerPoint presentation. During that meeting, we realize that our sources were limited, with only 24 main references of which 13 were unreliable due to the author's bias. We also discovered that there was a Wikiprojects page, which was created as a way to show Scientology in a positive light, and we felt that in itself made the whole entry biased towards Scientology. Also, the Scientology entry has restricted editing features but that could be due to vandalism as well as the desire of those people who choose to portray Scientology only positively.

All in all, we decided that the Scientology site on Wikipedia is a biased site based on the limited amount of prejudicial  primary sources. Although it was informative on the the basic overview and beliefs of the church, it minimized the negative aspects of some of those same beliefs. When investigated, sources that are not scholarly should not be anyone's primary source for their own research but can be used as a general overview of a topic. This entry in Wiki was clearly not a scholarly source but rather an opportunity for some members to present their information in a convincing way.

By doing this project, I am reminded that this has potential effects on the American way of researching and receiving information. Many students use Wikipedia as their primary source, often not going further to investigate the sources of the entry. The assumption of truthfulness and validity that encyclopedias inherently have is not the same for Wikipedia. Due to the very nature of Wikipedia, it is a source that should always be looked upon as suspect. It is the easiest research for students and is depended on because of its simplicity. Because technology has so infiltrated how research is done today, false or misleading articles can be cited as truth, and the bad information is confused with the good. I think that Wikipedia shouldn't be ever used as a primary source but can be a good place to start to learn about topics. Even using their sources offers potential good primary sources that can lead to a more true paper that would be respected as scholarly. 

Websites: good and Bad

In doing that little exercise during class, I realize that are many ways that the internet has infiltrated our lives, both good and bad. There are many people who say that it's negatively affecting our lives through loss of privacy, too much dependency, too much information to filter through. I believe that's true for those who let it be more than what it is, a tool to make our lives easier.

In brainstorming for different sites that have positive uses, we came up with a few for each category. For personal relationships, facebook is the clear winner. But for other segments of the population, eHarmony and match.com facilitate people meeting because of common interests and may develop real relationships that become life partnerships. I know some divorced people who have tried to find a new partner through these sites, and some have been successful. They tell me it's more safe than playing at the bar or club scene and more satisfying than waiting for someone to introduce you to a third party via blind dating. These sites provide a "preview" and hopefully the person, when met in person, has not been lying and it can lead to at least a pleasant evening.

For commerce, Amazon, ebay and craigslist are sites that are useful. Although every store has a website for purchasing goods, these offer the competitive power of having multiple vendors to choose from and if you trust reviews from previous customers, you can gauge whether that vendor is a trustworthy merchant. There are many textbook sites that I have used, valore.com, half.com and others, but I always go to amazon first to see if the price is better and because I've never had a problem with shipping or delivery.

For info sharing, what is better than getting all the news you could want or need from CNN or Google News. All newspapers have a online version so local news is just a click away as well. Local municipalities and towns have websites that updated fairly regularly, so you can find out if your town has a Halloween event or other special things without much search. I know my neighborhood group has a website which publicizes events that are for us only, as well as crime reports of petty vandalism or theft so we can all be aware.

For health, I think that webMD is a pretty good source. I have used it occasionally to try to self diagnose an illness and to research more of illnesses that friends have had. I used it recently to begin to learn about something I was just diagnosed with and it was helpful.

And for public good, there are a glut of websites. We can be as simple as Sparknotes for students who don't want to read or as complex as familywatchdog.us where sex offenders are listed based on proximity to the address you put in. I know that I have used that one before, especially before Halloween and we're about to trudge from house to house in search for free candy. It's good to know who your neighbors are, because they aren't advertising their proclivities.

Made To Break 3

Upon finishing this book, I realize that this trend towards obsolescence is the theme for this class thus far. We have read books on the history of computers, where the growth of computing in the 20th century was built on technology phasing itself out with the increasing speed of each generation's chips, we have talked about wiki and how knowledge, trustworthy or not, changes and become obsolete daily, depending on the topic and now we learn of the calculation of businesses to make us believe that things are obsolete whether or not they really are. As I begin the facebook book, I see that the theme continues because facebook is designed for intimacy and immediate change, sometimes several updates a day. This again leads to the idea that everything is temporary and we aren't happy unless everything feels fresh and new.

"The lack of durability, in turn, grows from a unique combination of psychological and technological obsolescence." (262, Slade)  Since it seems that we are being programmed to want the newest thing verses the something of quality, we don't care if things are broken before they should. Although people buy insurance for their cell phones against the possibility of it breaking, it really shouldn't break unless we do something to it that it isn't designed to handle. I got thrown into a pool this past summer, fully clothed and had all my electronics broken in one fell swoop. But one of my friends has a water resistant/waterproof phone that he kept tossing in the pool after I was moaning about my lack of phone, and as I shoved my phone into a bag of rice with the hope of salvaging it, I wondered, why aren't all phones water resistant? Why is it a special thing to have a rubber gasket around the battery compartment to keep water from getting in? Couldn't it be built into the price of all phones so this wouldn't happen to anyone who happen to fall into a pool or drop it into the toilet? I suspect it has lots to do with the fact that Verizon knew that I would be at the store the next day to get a new phone and doesn't care if the one I had would have worked for another year or two. Replace, not reuse, that's the mantra.

Which brings me to my next point. I was very happy to get a new phone but was mad that I lost some features on my old phone so I could get the water resistant one. "Modern consumers tend to value whatever is new and original over what is old, traditional, durable or used." (265, Slade) The euphoria I felt because I was due for an upgrade lessened that disappointment of having a broken one because I was able to replace it immediately. But other than for electronics, this mindset doesn't work for me. I still buy things for myself sparingly, mainly because I have children that want the latest things and they use the bulk of my money, but really because when I do shop, I buy things of quality and not because they are trendy, and they last. All the jackets I have are several years old, and they make go out of style, but if I hold on to them long enough, they are in style again. I look around at fashion and what people do to fit in by what they wear and I think if the girls would raid their mom's closets from the 80's, they would be perfect for today. In fact, we would save the environment and reduce what goes into landfills if we made everyone shop at thrift and second hand shops. Very little clothing ever gets worn out. Maybe that's what I'll get my kids for Christmas this year, gift certificates for the nearest thrift store, and watch the fun begin. At least I could feel better about not being one of the people who are not thinking about how much I'm contributing to waste.  

Made to break

Planned obsolesce has become so entrenched in our culture that it occurs even in things that we don't normally recognize. Today is Halloween and we are bombarded with images of what is the "hot" costume of this year. Why should there be any "hot" costumes at all? Isn't it just fun to get dressed up as something and go out begging for free candy? Instead, children's costumes are based on the hot movie of the year, whether it was a movie that was appropriate for them in the first place, and there are more packaged Iron Mans, Wonder Womans, and Spider Mans out there than the costumes that could be created from things around the house like tramps, witches, or football players. I get more of a thrill from the clever child who stuffed himself into a dollar store laundry bag and hung dirty socks around his head with a pillow case to carry his loot than I do watching overly muscular Batmans flexing with plastic Halloween themed bags coming to collect my Hersheys and Kit Kats.

For Brooke Stevens, Halloween must be a culmination of some of his ideas penetrating markets he didn't even imagine. He says, "Planned obsolesce,...was simply psychological obsolescence, not product death dating. It grew out of "the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than necessary. In particular, he was fond of claiming that obsolescence stimulates the economy."(153) I believe that he touched upon a psychological phenomenon that he created to spur on the business world that has become so much a part of our society that government supports the idea as the magic bullet to get us out of our current dismal economic situation. Again and again, we try to stimulate the economy with the hope that by giving people more opportunity to spend on things they don't need, we will recover our jobs and reduce unemployment, buoy the stock market, and recreate some of the small businesses that have closed. The problem is that the remedy chosen by our economists is not working, so now what do we do? The desire to own all the newer and better things still exists but so does the massive debt that our nation and individuals accrue. And because of our desire to want and get more as a society, we make less, own less of anything of quality, and owe more. College students who graduate with so much debt now and have no way to pay it back without getting a six figure job upon graduation are commonplace, but the six figure jobs are not. Somehow our culture has to stop encouraging consumption for consumption's sake and go back to some of the Depression era savings ideas. Until then, I expect to see many more college graduates working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to keep buying the next ipod or new cell phone in order to feed their habits.

Everything is Made to Break

While reading Made to Break by Giles Slade, I thought if I wasn't paranoid about the things we own and how big business conspires to get inside my head, then I would certainly be now. It is proven that businesses have thought out how best to make me feel inferior based on what I have and not who I am. The amount of money and time that they have invested to get into my head is astounding and what's even worse is that it works. I have happily joined the collective mindset and proven their psychological profile in order to create more profits for the business world. Every year, I update clothes that are not worn out, buy new toys when the previous have not been broken, and purchase things that are unnecessary based on advertisements or the pressure to stay part of the culture that has the newest, coolest, fanciest things. More recently, I shopped for a new backpack and other school supplies for my daughter, knowing well that her backpack from last year was perfectly functional but acquiesced because she wanted a new one to begin third grade. Thus, I realize that even 8 year olds, or especially 8 year olds, are targeted in this idea of obsolescence.

Bernard London and Aldous Huxley both used the same idea to create a non-fiction and fictional world to better illustrate this idea of obsolescence. London wanted government to intervene and set standards to make obsolescence part of the fabric of our country and Huxley fictionalizes what would happen if government did. Today's society is a combination of both, where laws are written to protect businesses and government is the greatest consumer and citizens follow along. "...a product's death date was exclusively a limit imposed externally by a committee of experts and then enforced as a social rule." (77) This is what happens today although it's not broadcasted to the populace. A group of experts somewhere determines what the hot new colors of a item shall be for this season and we are socially pressured to purchase the new thing. Then we are proud of the new thing that we purchase and subtly look down upon someone else who hasn't made that same investment to replace their item. I can think of many examples of this, but the one that comes to mind first is cell phones. How much do we frown when you see someone, usually older, who is using a giant cell phone that does nothing but make or receive phone calls? Isn't there a sense of disapproval that they haven't used their upgrade to buy a new one even theirs works perfectly for their use? But yet when you look at the big picture of our economy, and see the amount of debt that we each owe, and what the accumulation of useless goods contributes to that debt, does that help us as a country or hurt us? Is this the idea of American culture, to owe more than we make, to consume more than we produce, to want more than we need? If it is, we all are fulfilling this business model and it is making us a poorer country for it.

The World and Wikipedia, Part 2

In reading this book, I was surprised to realize that so much research was done on a relatively new medium, Wikipedia. I found it interesting that the author was able to document a great deal that happened within individual articles and create a story that was appealing even to a novice user of Wikipedia like me. The back story to some of the editors of Wiki was fascinating, and the amount of time that they devote to it without monetary compensation was mind boggling. It was also surprising the lengths that people will go through to invent credentials for the pseudonym that they write under in order to garner respect from other volunteers. If one edits on Wiki to serve one's quest to share knowledge with others, then who cares who is writing but care more whether the information is correct in what they are writing. If someone purports to have a doctorate in whatever, do they automatically have more value because of that piece of paper, real or fake? Can knowledge or expertise be measured by a piece of paper? Do we discount knowledge unless there is education behind it? For example, if an uneducated car mechanic was to write about the operations of a car, would we not take it seriously until he gets a degree in mechanical engineering? Who really is the expert?

The positives of the medium of Wikipedia outweigh the negatives and I think that the author does a good job highlighting both. He tells readers to use it carefully and to be aware that there are people who vandalize purposefully, but through the very nature of how it is set up, it very often will be corrected and more good information is there than not. There are stories of how some articles have given more misinformation that others, ex. John Seigenthaler and  his battle to correct his biography. But all in all, Wiki allows for even the most individual tastes and interests an opportunity to have credence, whether it be some ancient Greek poet or Sept. 11th. This democratic nature is the strength of Wiki, and because of it, will continue far beyond the printing of this book. "Here, then, is the first reason why we love Wikipedia. We love it because it's a virtual nation, or rather a virtual world." (TWAW 120)  Just don't ever use it as a primary source, because the virtual world is not always trustworthy.   

Current Event Presentation

I did my current event presentation on an article that I found on CNN.com entitled Parent survey says that social networks don't protect kids' privacy. (CNN.com 10/10/10) This survey was conducted by a group named Common Sense Media, which is a private lobbying group made up of various people that say that their mission is to provide information to parents and caretakers about different media services since children spend so much time on them. Common Sense Media also gives ratings to movies, television, books, music and more recently, websites and mobile applications. How much influence they have on parents' decisions on what to purchase is varied, but the group seems to have mostly conservative views and are endorsed by many Christian organizations. Although this survey was sponsored by them, I found it to have interesting results.

The article said that 75 percent of the parents surveyed said that they rate social networks' privacy protections as negative. It also said that more than 90 percent of parents polled are concerned that their teens share too much information online. (CNN.com) When I asked the class whether they agreed with these findings, most who answered said yes. When I followed up with a question on whose responsibility it was to limit sharing online, social networks or the users themselves, most answered that it was the user's responsibility. I also asked, "How could/should social networks do more to protect privacy?" The class responded that if the business did not have a profit making reason to do it, the likelihood they would would be slim to none. Everyone agreed that it was always money that drove decision making in these companies, not the good of the consumer. If the good of the consumer happen to coincide with profit, then changes would be but otherwise, profit ruled. That belief is a very cynical one, though probably correct.

I don't see that how it would benefit the social networks to change what is a successful model without some great tragedy happening that turns public opinion against them. I used the example of Craig's List and the soliciting of sex that was initially tolerated until women were murdered after meeting the killer through a Craig's list ad. When it was discovered that Craig's list had a role in the crime, the company shut down the category of sex solicitation. Although they discontinued the category, sex still is available on the website; it is just more cleverly hidden and subtle. So I think if something terrible happened and Facebook was found to be a contributing player in a crime, then either the government would enforce new privacy policies or more likely Facebook and other social networks would be proactive in creating more stringent privacy policies. Until that tragedy happens, it will be the job of the parents of teens to do the policing, hard as that may be.  

The World and Wiki

The evolution of Wikipedia is an interesting one. The premise of everyone having some sort of meaningful knowledge that can be offered to the public is awesome but scary. I have used Wiki as a quick overview of a topic but do not trust it for fact. Although many people who edit the articles have some expertise, many also do not. The chapter on vandalism of articles and the harm they could do was particularly telling of this. Biographies, when written and published, are done using extensive research and sometimes can take years in order for fact finding to be checked and rechecked. Oral stories which are often told through family folklore have roots in truth but are changed with every telling. These are included in biographies only with the most rigorous investigation to separate rumor and innuendo from the truth so incorrect information is not spread to damage the person's reputation. If there are inconsistencies or errors, many times there needs to be a formal disclaimer or retraction so the author or publisher is not sued for libel or slander. Then a revised edition would be released with corrections made. Wikipedia has no fear of this.  Wiki has no fact checkers other than the volunteer editors who are only as good as their interest and proficiency in the topic is. That is always hoping for the best but not knowing if that is what it is and expecting a good samaritan to come fix it if it's not. It may happen, it may not. That is not the best resource to use for truthfulness.

Even though the facts may not always be correct, since Google often lists Wiki as the first or second site when any topic is searched, many people believe it to be legitimate. Young people especially, use Wiki as a primary source while researching for papers. Too often on papers, multiple sources may be given on a bibliography page, Wiki is really the one that most of the information comes from. Kids are lazy and who wants to read through a few professional journals or boring research books when all information can be found in a concise page of the "same" info. And there lies the danger. We are once again allowing technology to make things easier but accepting mediocrity. This shows in the state of our country and educational system.  When anyone uses Wiki, they should always be aware that what they're reading may not be the truth.

The Social Contract aka The Facebook Movie and algorithms

I went to see the movie The Social Contract Friday night and was pleasantly surprised. Being that I am not a user of Facebook, the phenomenon of this social networking site has me as an outsider. I look objectively at the story of the founding of  Facebook and am quite appalled at how greed can change even the most awkward geek with limited social skills into a cutthroat guy who is willing to screw his only friends. Now granted, there is an enormous amount of money at play here, and I would have wanted to be an initial investor so I could be a millionaire now but alas I was not and that chance is past.

The movie itself, aside from the subject matter, was well written, well directed, and well acted. Jesse Eisenberg was a convincing Mark Zuckerberg and I was especially surprised at Justin Timberlake's performance as Sean Parker. Timberlake's portrayal of the evil protagonist in the movie was believable and persuasive. The rest of the cast was ok but not particularly memorable. I was amazed that the actors who played the Winklevoss twins were not twins in real life. The camera angles fool the eye and until you look very carefully, they look identical. All in all, I was glad I went to a movie that I wouldn't otherwise go to, and the people I dragged were pleasantly surprised as well.

What struck me as interesting was that at our last class we spoke about algorithms and how they influence our virtual worlds. Facebook began as an algorithm, written on a Harvard dorm window and now influences millions who have no idea how hard it is to work on an actual farm to take care of their farm animals daily. Ironic, I think, and a bit amusing, to me. So the next time I receive another unwanted email from Target, Valore Books, Priceline or Enterprise, I will not take it personally that they want me to buy something, read a book, go on a trip or rent a car but will realize that some geek who wrote some undecipherable formula without knowing me or anything about me can find some obscure thing that I didn't even know I had an interest in to take my precious time to click and look. Amazing what technology can do!

The End of Technopoly, finally

When I began this book, I thought it was interesting but as I read more, I realized that the theme of Postman's Technopoly was getting repetitious and boring. Yes, there are many ways that we are dependent on technology these days, yes, technology can be defined by any innovation through the millennia, but to write for almost 200 pages on how it could and should be redefined seemed an exercise in futility. We can recognize some things should change and maybe even have a dialogue but I would hazard a guess that there is no going back. We aren't going back to a time where classes aren't graded and numbers are not used as benchmarks nor where psychologists and social scientists do not exist. His rant uses examples from many works from history, philosophers, religious and "scientists" and discounts what they have done and studied but understands that those same people have made positive contributions to our world as we know it today.

Postman writes, "...language itself is a kind of technology-an invisible technology-and through it we achieve more than clarity and efficiency. We achieve humanity-or inhumanity."(142)  This statement is true, yet it applies to anything, technological or not. Humans can use an invention of any means to suit their will to influence towards good or evil. Language is particularly malleable because it is our means of communication and is the primary way to express ideas but it is not language's fault or responsibility that the creatures that use it, use it properly. That thought would extend itself to anything. Fire can be interpreted as technology. We need fire to heat ourselves, cook our food and numerous other ways that I won't list but fire can also cause immeasurable destruction and pain and suffering. Shall I write a book about the pros and cons of fire and argue its merits and demerits and how it has infiltrated all aspects of our lives? I think not. But it might be a great topic for Postman's next book.      

Technopoly Part I

This book begins nicely and seems to be interesting until he starts with his rant against technology. I was intrigued by his explanation of how dependent we are on computers and such and how he broadens the definition of technology to include all the tools that we use and take for granted everyday. Postman has a point though, there is nothing that we do today, with the exception of sleeping, which doesn't have technology subtly built into it and now that I think about it, sleeping may not be the exception due to the fact that mattresses are engineered with our proper spinal position in mind to get the optimum sleep experience. Everything that is man made has science involved; what we eat, how we go, what we walk around in, the toys we play with, technology has infused itself in our entire lives.

In Technopoly, Postman writes, "The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century." (42)  He may credit that idea to the nineteenth century but I believe that it has existed for far longer than that. Men (and women) have been trying to improve their place by using new tools since the first person used a rock to kill their animal as opposed to their bare hands. And the idea took off until someone else used a spear and less people used rocks. The evolution of how people killed their food and cooked it could be seen as technology and not just progress. Postman uses writing and the printing press as his great example and it is but dissemination of information, good and bad, is progress.  It is bad to have too much information but good when you have multiple viewpoints so to make an educated choice. To follow another person's idea wholeheartedly without exploring your own is dangerous, to yourself and sometimes to others. Look at the Charlie Manson followers. There was no shortage of information for his followers to discover that he was crazy and homicidal, they just chose to ignore it. I believe that we all have to make decisions daily based on the information we have, sometimes too much and we ignore it, sometimes not enough and we hope for the best result. It is not information nor technology that should take responsibility for our actions or lack of them, but ourselves. 

Computers: The Life Story of Technology, Part 2

Somewhere during the reading of the second half of the book, I realized that I have lived through much of the explosion of technology that we take for granted today. Even in doing this assignment, I am using the technology that was written about in the second half of the book. I am writing on a PC clone (Dell), using Windows Explorer to open the URL of my blog, typing on an ergonomic keyboard and seeing it appear on the flat screen monitor, and posting my comments after previewing my work. These innovations were impossible a few decades ago but today we take it all for granted.  Some of these "new" innovations were created after years of hard of work, some were fluke ideas that took off and were accepted by the populace, some were improvements on previous inventions of people past but all have become second nature and integral in our daily routine. 

Being that I am older than most in this class, I still remember the Commodore 64 and still have a Apple IIB or C up in my attic. There wasn't anything written in the book about the size of the disks that held the memory in the Apple but they were gigantic 5 1/2 " bendable floppy disks that were heat sensitive and easily breakable. I remember the games that you could play, made up of mainly crude graphics made with dots and dashes but  we were so excited that we could play anything at home we didn't care. I also recall that for one Christmas, Santa brought me an Atari. It was the hottest new toy, and to be able to play Pong with a friend made me the coolest kid on my block. Through the years after having children of my own, Santa has brought various Nintendos, beginning with the 8 bit grey box, the 64, the GameCube and now the wii. We have also received from a very generous Santa Sega, several versions of Xbox, not to mention Gameboys, Gameboy colors, Gameboy advances, DSs, and PSPs. The video game market has had a very strong supporter in our family. With that said, I have seen firsthand the progression of technology that has gone through the years, and I can attest that the improvement in the realism and interactive ability of each new generation of game system has surpassed the previous and the will so again when the new systems come out, probably in time for Santa to strike again. What I am trying to say is that we don't ever question the improvement of technology, we just purchase the next new thing that comes out, assuming it is bigger and better than the one we already have.  This mentality is pervasive worldwide but especially prevalent in the United States, and is one of the reasons why many families are in debt and young people find themselves more and more in serious financial straits even though they may be working and making a "living". 

Towards the end of the book, Computers, the Life Story of Technology, Swedin and Ferro say, "By improving the means by which we communicate, entertain ourselves, travel, calculate, and do a thousand other things, the computer will be an essential tool in reaching for the stars and our quest for all that might follow."  I believe that the computer and all related technology is already an essential tool, all encompassing and invasive in our lives and we can't live without them even for a day. Even if you were to ignore your personal computer, there is almost nothing that you can do in the course of a day that does not touch some form of technology. It is here to stay whether you like it or not.

Computers: The Early History to Now

According to Computers The Life Story of a Technology, by Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro, the use of technology by humans began eons ago, although the face of technology has changed greatly with the times. The use of technology seems to be well documented by the remains of the earliest tools found in archeological sites and in later times, in the published works of the various inventors and the users of the assorted systems. Through this evolution of technology, humans have become more accepting and dependent on different types of machinery and now embrace it as an integral part of their daily lives. Swedin and Ferro say "...devices representing reality became very popular as both tools and objects of curiosity" (2) 
I believe this is an accurate statement that is relevant both in ancient times with the use of the mechanical computer used for navigation by the Romans and its more recent manifestation in the use of the Cray supercomputers that drive the operations of the world's most complex equations and calculations. But what is most interesting about this evolution is that it is always a human whose imagination and "thinking out of the box idea" that makes the great leap that leads to the advances that become commonplace a few years later.

The story that particularly intrigued me is the story of the genesis of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). All our lives, we have taken for granted that Big Blue has always been there and this story confirmed that idea. When Herman Hollerith developed a quicker and more precise way of processing census data for the U.S. Census Bureau in 1889 (21), and formed his company the Tabulating Machine Company, he could not have imagined that it would grow into the computer giant that it became over the next hundred years. Remnants of the monopoly that IBM had on the computer world for decades still exists today and there were few other viable choices for business and government use of technology. Their business model is still studied in business classes and IBM's approach to development of new products by using the deep pockets of the U.S. government to finance research was copied by developers of defense systems and other companies which require mega-million dollar investments. Using the trickle down theory, we are the beneficiaries of much of their original research, from calculators to memory chips to software, which are all commonplace today. These advances once pioneered by IBM have become more applicable in our lives years after they are declassified.

I was surprised that there wasn't anything written on ARPANET and the beginning of how computers began their communication network since we watched that documentary on it. I guess it is to come in the second half of the book. In the meantime, I do my blogging on an IBM clone desktop, I have an IBM laptop, and my work computer is also an IBM clone desktop. I would hazard a guess that IBM has had an impact on my computing life, albeit a weakening influence since my entire family is now using Macs.  



 

Log and thoughts of creating blog

I was surprised that I spent as much time as I did on the computer based on my log. My job normally requires me to be out in the field, teaching nutrition in the community, but I have been spending most of my time in my office recently and thus have had much more time than usual to be online. Including email and normal paperwork and reports that are done weekly, there usually isn't a lot of free recreation time. Due to some individual projects that I have undertaken, I've had to do some research and it's easiest done online. So I've been "on" more often at work which is the bulk of the day. In the evening when I get home, I choose not to go on the computer unless I have to. I don't play games or do too much youtubing and I don't want a facebook page. I am thinking of joining linkedin, which is a  social networking site for professionals that my friends keep inviting me to join, but I have resisted so far. The computer and internet are tools for me, not a viable replacement for spending time with family and friends. I do manage to keep in touch with people via email but I rather talk to or text them. 


Creating was blog was relatively simple. I'm glad that google chooses to make it easy so normal people can just write about whatever they please. I do follow several blogs daily, mostly written by retired reporters or community activists who are taking their time to keep up with the news in my town. Through their postings, I get a sense of what happens at meetings and various other events that I don't have time to attend, and still feel like I'm somewhat involved. It's a sharing of information and much appreciated by the readers. I don't see a whole lot of people caring about what I may have to say in this blog but we'll see!