Clay Shirky is a respectable internet think who works with Perl. In his speech, he used a 13000 year old Japanese shrine to show how longevity of the process is better than longevity of the product. The Shrine is periodically rebuilt from wood of the same forest where the first shrine was built. So it wasn’t that the shrine was 13000 years old, but the process of keeping the shrine was 13000 years old. In this way, he compares it to the internet. The internet doesn’t last because the product is good, it lasts because people love it so much. With their love, and the right tools, the internet grows into something bigger and better. Why do you think people have such great love for the internet?

With advancements in technology, the dialog of the world, the way people send and receive message has changed. With tv, the audience was limited to their interaction. When the internet was developed, it was thought that it could also be a way to broadcast messages, another form of publishing. But then Web 2.0 was developed and the internet became a way for everyone to interact. It wasn’t just one way message, but a way to start dialog. “By definition, dialog refers to a conversation and we generally think of conversations as verbal. In the realm of the circuit, dialog reaches beyond verbal transactions to include all performances of the creative act.” Dialog is also a way to find a sense of self, to create an identity through communication with others. We look for our place in the Universe by asking questions, and it is this act that enables us to form groups and communities. We look to make a connect with others, and it is through creativity that we create these connections. With technology today, people can hide behind their cultural identity and instead make their own “electronic” identity that better enables them to conform with society and survive as a member of a community. And Survival is very important to us. Creativity is the key to survival, through creativity we create new ways to stay alive, to make life easier. Through creativity we leave behinf lasting testaments of our quest for immortality, or that we are not immortal, but have created something that we hope and belileve will be. Learning and memory are fundamentals to creativity. One way we learn is through interaction, through dialog, through an exchange in thoughts and information. Dialog is essential for learning and teaching. And it is not just about finding answers, but rather asking the right questions. One way that we express our creativity is through advertising, however, this is not always a good thing. Creative construct that often disguises banal issues in the form of glamour. Technolgy of the twenty first century has also changed some of the ways we express ourselves in the dialog of love, or acts of love. Chat rooms, phone sex, and online pornography. People have an innate desire to mate and procreate, and technolog helps to make that a little bit easier. Also, we need amusement-entertainment is the largerst component of what most communities call culture. To entertain someone is to hold someone’s attention, which means that entertainment is an interactive process. Games are a great way to entertain ourselves. With video games and the computer, people can now play games with each other from anywhere in the world. What ways do you think we will come up with to change dialog in the future?

The audio exerpt starts out by talking about measurement of physical and mental qualities and breeding. Breeding is imporant beacuse a certain scientist thought very few had characteristsics to keep societies healthy. Power and control need to stay in well breed few in order to keep society healthy. He believed the average person was capable of very little. He developed an experiment to measure the wisdom of a collective crowd. It is interesting how people underestimate the power of people working together. Groups are actually smarter than the smartest people in them. The wisdom of crowds is the reason the internet is so successful-google gambling predicting doing business. It can be hard to accept even when right in front of us that groups are very wise. Instead we feel the need to chase the expert but thats not right, ask the groups instead. If it is big enough and diverse enough a group, then they will find the right answer. Why do you think a group of people can be smarter than one very smart person?

Traditionally, sophisticated programs had always been “built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation.” An open source project, in contrast, was the product of a large and informal community of volunteers who in aggregate “seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches.” The internet is the bazaar model of peer production.An open source model has proven to be extremely successful when it comes to improving existing products, but not creating entirely new products. An open source increases the speed in which problems are discovered and fixed. It also helps with the debugging process because debugging requires little cordination between workers. Open soruce also works because it is not democratic as many assume it to be. There are crowds of people invovled but they work through a central authority. Wikipedia is an example of a peer production. Thousands of people add their knowledge to Wikipedia’s website,creating one of the largest encyclopedias. But it isn’t all its cracked up to be. It is poorly written and badly organized, and the encyclopedia as a whole is unbalanced, skewed toward popular culture and fads. To sum it up, peer production is valuable but limited. “The greatest breakthroughs will always begin, to quote Eric Raymond once more, with “one good idea in one person’s head,” and the greatest products will always reach perfection through the concerted efforts of a highly skilled team.” This article believes that a group of people, though powerful in its way, is limited to what it can do. What is your take on this?

The New York TImes article talks about a college that it banning the use of citation of Wiikipedia. This is because Wikipedia is a second hand source, in which its knowledge is provided by thousands of internet users. It’s facts and information are not credited with being true because the information does not go through an editors. Therefore, it is banned as a citation. A debate has been set up to discuss the ban and the pors and cons of Wikipedia. Many professors are against using any encyclopedia as a reference, but they still don’t see too much harm in using Wikipedia for other reasons. It is easily available and offers articles on almost anything one can think of. What’s wrong with that? However, it is probably necessary that Wikipedia start taking steps to censor what information users put into their articles. Just because it comes from an encyclopedia, doesn’t mean it’s true. What do you think are ways WIkipedia can process through the information submitted to them and filter out what is incorrect?

Numbers

Counting-using tally marks in which each tally directly signifies the thing they represent, one for each. Numbers- abstraction of the tally marks, precursor of the modern process of digitalization.

Fourth millenium BCE, numbering and calculating depended on direct physical analog:one pebble for one sheep, two pebbles for two sheep. Third millenium BCE, written digit formed, independent of the objects they represented. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are ways to manipulate numbers.

Digital systems-whole numbers or integers, said to be discrete.                                                              Analog systems- continuous with no breaks or steps  E.g.- an analog thermometer moves up and down continuously while an digital thermometer shows a changing of numbers

Age of question: Do you think math, numbers, and such always existed or was invented?

Digital vs Analog

Analog signals-process through which a physical trace of the signal is made                                         Digitial signals-the signal is reduced to digits or numbers, which represent aspects of the signal or information

Analog duplications lose clarity because it is very hard to copy a physical object perfectly. Digital copies can be made over and over again perfectly because it is just duplicating a set of numbers. Ponograph/analog vs Mp3/digital. A phonograph is made through vibrations physically cutting into a wax cylinder through which sound is mapped on and played back in a physical and continuous way. Analog recordings deeply tied to physical existence. Mp3 player makes sound that is represented through binary numbers. A sound is fed into a computer which converts the sound to numbers in which a cd player or mp3 player reads and translates to feed sound through the speakers. Digital music can be stored on a virtual network as opposed to the libraries or collections of analog music.

Do you prefer analog sound or digital sound? Which is better quality to you?

Decimal and Binary

Decimal counting system is probably a remnant of counting on one’s fingers- base 10 using ten discrete symbols (0-9). Notational system tied to the limits of our extremities. Aboriginines developed system based on 2, or binary system. It is composed of nothing but zeros and ones. There were several advantages to using binary numbers with computers- it is easier to store in an electronic curcuit and shares many properties with the formal logic on which computer programs are based.

Algorithms

mathematics- an abstract set of rules that allows us to manipulate numbers and so better understand and regulate the world

The ancient Greeks believed that math should be general and that mathematical statements should be proven. This is what is called proofs and they laid the foundation for algorithms

Algorithm-a set of rules for finding the solution to a problem;  finite list of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task that, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state

In computers, a program is a type of algorithm. It is translated into a code the computer can read through a programming language. Algorithms are the basis for the concept of modern computer programming.

Punched Cards

The first digital image can be traced back to 1801 in which Jean-Marie Jacquard demonstrated an automatic lookm whose actions were directed by the program stored on punch cards. Punch cards were the precursor for the computer of the 1960s. The information was encoded on them by a series of punched holes in specific locations.

History of the Computer

1. The earliest calculating device was am abacus, at first markings in the dirt and then beads on a wire. Used for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Then arabic numerals opened up mathematics and therefore the abacus was replacd with pen and paper.

2. Logarithms- a mathematical concept that allowed the process of multiplication to be broken down into a series of discrete steps using addition

3. 1623- first mechanical calculating device

4. 1642- the Pascaline was a mnechanical adding device; numbers were represented by the positions of gears in the mechanism, and calculation consisted of physically changing the angle of the gears

5. Stepped Reckoner- could calculate square roots as well as basic arithmatic functions; used gears and a movable carriage

6.  Analytical Engine-conceived to perform any arithmetic function and, more importantly, it could make decisions on the basis of its calculations; could think for itself

7. ENIAC- first general purpose electronic computer; could be reprogrammed for a variety of tasks; a very fast and complicated adding machine, but lacked the ability to branch; became obsolete

8. EDVAC-early stored-program computer; architecture is the basis for all modern computing

9. A Mathematical Theory of Computation- showed that all information media—text, voice, pictures—could be represented in binary form. That is, media could be encoded into digital files.

How else do you think the computer/ calculating will advance in the future?

This article was interesting although a little bit hard to understand with all the acronyms (right word?). I grew up with the internet and computers because both my parents are in information technology. They would go to conferences and come home with pens, t-shirts, and even teddy bears from AT&T IBM and more. But I guess I never realized how new it all was, I felt like it was always there.

I found it interesting that the internet’s history begins with Sputnik. I would never have thought that. I also found it interesting the internet didn’t really pick up speed until around 1989 into the 90s when its hosts broke 100,000 and various countries joined the network. Today, everyone is connected to the internet. There is a commercial on TV that advertises a product that allows one to find the internet in even the most remote places. So it’s interesting to think about.

 And the fact that the word internet was once used as a verb-internetting in interesting. In 1993, Bill Clinton was the first president to go on-line. In 1994, the internet was first spammed by an email lotterying off green card services. First banner add also appears on hotwired.com for Zuma and AT&T. 1995, dial-up services offer internet access and the Vatican goes on-line.In 1999, E-trade, online banking, and Mp3 players are the technologies of the year. 2001 is the year of Napsters litigation. Having a blog becomes popular in 2002.

What is a worm?

                                                                                                                         This picture is interesting because it is taken in a school bathroom. Did she get bored in class, ask to go to the bathroom, and waste some time taking not one, but four similar pictures of herself? The pose, hand on hair with eyes looking up towards the side, might be trying to tell others that she is sexy but also innocent. With her hair placed over one eye, she might be trying to tell people that she has a bit of mystery to her, or that there is more to her than just what you see.Or she could just think that that side of her face is more attractive. She takes the picture at arms length, and she does it so well that you can’t even tell her arm is extended.

This picture was taken for no other reason than for him to show off his body and tattoos. More specifically, he is focusing on his abs.Part of his face is actually covered which might suggest that its not important and that he would rather his audience only look at his body. To make it worse, he takes a big step towards being conceited by adding the caption “warning, may cause sudden arousal”. Quite obviously, he wants to send out the message to guys that he is masco based on his muscle and to girls that he is attractive and worth looking at.

This guy shows that he is really into his music. His pictures show that he is the creative type, expressing himself through his music, fashion, and picture style. He has a picture of himself with Santa Claus and wearing funny outfits which shows he likes to make people laugh and is not embarassed to be a bit different. Most of his pictures were taken by others, with only a few mirror and arm extended shots.

This picture is not only the typical couple picture that is intended to show that they love and care about each other and need a picture to prove it to the rest of the world. What is interesting about this picture though is that they use the mirror to take it. Most couple pictures are at arms length, but this one takes a different approach, including the whole body embrace and not just the lip lock.

This picture belongs to the girl in the middle of the bunch. It shows that she likes to have fun and is very into socializing. The fact that she has this picture up as her default shows that her friends are a very important part of her life and that she would rather pose with them then be alone. Yet the fact that she is in the middle surrounding herself with others might suggest she likes to be the center of attention.

Wunderkammern. A “cabinet of wonders” in which people in the Age of Discovery placed their foreign treasures for contemplation. It symbolized a view of the universe as a great chain of being, in which everything is linked together in complex hierarchies of correspondences. It reflected the belief that a person had the ability to obtain universal knowledge. This relates to a virtula collection because one must find relevancy or meaning between creations of virtual imagination.

Encyclopdia. Collection of information categorized into volumes of books. It attempted to break down te barriers between liberal and mechanical arts. It contained a series of cross references between entries to challenge the Church in its fixed knowledge structures. This relates to how the internet contains volumes of information that relates to and cross references to other information.

Commerce. Online auctions and selling has changed the face of commerce. No longer does a person has to leave his house to buy something. We can browse any item at the click of a button and buy it from anywhere in the world. It has created a global market.

Cabinet. it is used to create a private world for storage, archiving, and comparison. Not an item to be used physically, but rather a safe hold for objects of interest. A prototype of an interactive computing system.

World Trade Center. The attack on the WTC was witnessed and photographed by more people than any even in history. Through this people tried to understand just what happened that day, but in reality we will never understand. Through sharing photos of this even throughout the world, the internet demonstrated its physical ideals-community, spontaneity, democracy, interactivity, and replication. It showed that its not about the technology, but how you put that technolgy to work through your imagination.

     This article is so true. Self portraits are becoming such a craze and to be honest its getting a little ridiculous. Is it an art form? No, I don’t really think so. I think it is just narcisistic people being bored. Must people take the same picture over and over again until they look just right? To be honest, no  one is going to look that closely or judge that critically how you look. And yet the idea of an imaginery audience must really be true in the minds of adolescents- that people are more interested in them than they actually are. And thinking further on that, perhaps the audience isn’t so imaginery. People might actually be a bit more interested than one might assume or else things like Facebook’s newsfeed wouldn’t be so successful. It is like a sort of entertainment for people to know what others are up to.

     I prefer the candid method of Facebook that allows others to tag you in embarassing pictures. It’s fun and it’s real and most importantly it’s showing the real you-not the you trying to look just perfect.  And with the way teens are today when it comes to body image and being self conscious about how they look, how can teens be so obsessive when it comes to taking pictures of themselves? Do you think this self portrait craze is helping or hindering when it comes to teenage self esteem?