The stupidity of the human race mystifies me

Kirschenbaum Chapters 1-2

"so thoroughly integrated into our daily lives are magnetic recording media that we routinely embed them in an even older substrate, paper" (29)

I cannot read a hypertext or journal article straight from the screen. I have to physically print out the document and highlight/mark it up. To me, the paper version is somehow more tangible and permanent. It is only after reading the paper copy that I go back and click the links. When editing my own paper, I have to print out a copy because it is so much easier to skip over details when all you have to do is press down on the scroll button.

"Thus one does not always need to look at screens to stud new media or to learn useful things about the textual practices that accumulate in and around computation" (31)

Well, this quote certainly applies to the last book we read, Cybertext. I'm probably the only one in this class that hasn’t taken Writing for Internet, and thus has never played an interactive fiction game. But, I understand the theory behind Aarseth's writing, so I can comprehend the material. I'm sure lights will be shed on certain sections in the next semester, for I will be getting a double-shot of interactive fiction.

So entrancing are these symbols that we forget ourselves, forget who we are. We forget ourselves as we evolve into our fabricated worlds. With our faces up against it, the interface is hard to see" (34)

did this quote remind anyone of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons? He retreats into the recesses and lures of the internet, living his life through the machine. His identity is summed up in daily blogs, chat room conversations, and role-playing games. All of these things are good in moderation, but it is key not top get sucked into the virtual world, or you will lose touch with reality. Comic Book Guy has no idea of how to properly function on the real world. He does not know how to communicate with people, often treating them rudely. Be careful with the internet: you don't want to be 40 and living in your parent's basement. It doesn't matter how smart you are; everyone is susceptible to temptation.

"There is no bottle of white-out paint complete with miniature touch up brush" (40)

this is the reason I prefer to write on the computer, because changes that would take several seconds to correct on paper can be changed in less than a second. When I leave for Paris in less than a month to do my study, I will not be taking my computer with me, so I will be getting a tutorial in writing carefully and deliberately.

"digital evidence has become a routine part of many criminal investigations" 46)

last year, I got an aim from one of my friends still in HS telling me that the HS chorus teacher had fired for writing inappropriate stories about what he would like to do to current students that rivaled Penthouse letters. I pieced the story together from what I heard from friends still in HS, as well as the copy of the documents that circulated through the current student and alumni bodies: He was "smart" enough, and I use that term very loosely, to make up fake names, although his character was easily identifiable. A student had found his xanga containing the "musings". She was smart enough, and I use this term tightly, to copy the document and send it to the principal. He had a tracker on the site and deleted the offensive material once he saw that a student from the school had seen it, but he was too late. The CIT people were able to track down the source of the material using the IP address the students had coped. He fessed up and sent out a letter of admittance and apology. It s shame; the man was a brilliant musician and teacher, but he made a mistake that cost him his career. Erasing a document does not mean erasing evidence. The stupidity of the human race amazes me sometimes.

"the easiest way to recover data, therefore, is by simply locating a "deleted" file on the storage media after its entry has been stripped from the FAT but before any new data has been written to the same location" (51)

Is this a pun on the phrase "trimming the fat?"

Chapter 2:

"with each stroke of the keyboard or click of the mouse, do we realize what's happening in the discourse networks of the purring, putty-colored box?"

Much like cars, we don't care what is happening so long as the machine operates. Some people just don't have mechanical interests and care about the product more than the process. This is my hypothesis of America architecture that I will be testing against the Parisian architecture in less than a month.

"Instantaneous access to any portion of the physical media without the need to fast-forward or rewind a sequence" (89)

One of the benefits of that electronic text is that scroll button and in-text search engine. In this way, electronic text is valuable to a different type of reading: research. When searching, we do not often read the entire contents. But scan for quotes that support or disprove our thesis. Reading the document in full would not allow time to write the paper.

"Storage, then is a kind of suspended animation" (97)

Interesting. Even though you turn your assignments in and receive them back with grades, you are not done with them. They will come back to you during the portfolio review and during job interviews. I hope you all saved your STW papers and didn't have to tape them back together like I did mine once I read the portfolio requirements.

"What if I hated Ken's taste? Would I lose respect for him? I'm not talking about the Paula Abdul songs; we're all entitled to our guilty pleasures. But what if it was all bubblegum, or deeply dull? It would be like opening his closet and finding Star Trek uniforms" (101)

Ha ha ha. Though I am obsessed with Harry Potter, it will never get to the point where I dress up and go to conventions. And I know people like that.

"Pod jacking, plugging into a friend or stranger's iPod" (102)

Yet he fails to mention that when you do this, your songs are erased and replaced with the other's songs. Your iPod takes on a new identity.