To demonstrate my academic achievement and work as of the date of this blog post in my class, Topics of Media and Culture: The Author, I have created a portfolio. This blog will show my in-depth analysis of the class and texts, my interaction and fruitful discussions with peers, and my timeliness to deadlines.

Paper and Digital Artifact: For this class, I have also created a digital artifact and final paper that demonstrates what I’ve learned in this class as well as subject matters that are interesting to me. My digital artifact were a couple of YouTube videos which documented how young adults spent time on Internet when it comes to reading and writing. I wanted to know what my audience is reading and how to best develop my online presence to draw them in. As for the paper, I wrote about the Death of the Author, which we discussed at the very beginning of the class, and how the wealth of information has only complicated finding “the true” author’s intentions.

Other students portfolios for the third quarter of the class can be found on the class webpage.

Depth: In these blogs, I have gone over the top (or really more than is required) in-depth for the topics of discussion. Some of my more in-depth blogs got the most comments, including Hayles Part 2 and Hayles – When others are famous for your work, where I bring in issues that I’ve learned in other classes and in life. Though I didn’t have much of an idea in Term Project Ideas, I did link to my source of inspiration.

Interaction: In this section, I demonstrate my interaction with my peers. In Hayles Prologue, I link to Jessie’s blog because it inspired the blog. Hayles Epilogue links to two students blogs as a reflection of the book.

Discussion: This section shows how I read and reviewed/commented on my peers blogs which promoted a discussion of some sort. Hayles – When others are famous for your work, Hayles Part 2 and Hayles Chapter 7 prompted discussions to which I responded.

Timeliness: Though it is mostly self-explanatory, these posts show that I make deadlines or blog before them. Hayles Ending was posted a day early and Halyes Part 2 was posted the night before.

Coverage: These blogs are ones that didn’t fit into the other categories, but just prove that I did, in fact, write them. There were so few blogs this time that I did not need to add any to this category.

“Code permeates language and is permeated by it; electronic text permeates print; computational processes permeate biological organisms; intelligent machines permeate flesh.”

I love summaries because they make sense of everything I’ve been trying to figure out that whole time. For some reason, I don’t find introductions to do the same but perhaps its because I haven’t struggled through it yet. Though we had a hard time, as Jessie’s blog shows, we made some ground. We talked about originality in Jalen’s blog,

I don’t feel I need to break the quote down. Taking from the last part, we have machines that have replaced human work. As our knowledge of ourselves grow, we are better able to “create” and fabricate machines with our knowledge so what’s to say that won’t change the role of the author.

It can make it a lot harder or easier. For example, it used to be that author’s had to describe and cite everything in their work that was unfamiliar to their Target Audience. Now, with e-books, they can just hyperlink to a page. However, with all of our cognitive surplus, that means authors have new jobs. We can create webpages for our stories with fake backstories, characters, photos, etc. We can create maps of our new worlds.

Why? Because “‘What we think’ and ‘what we (we think) we are’ coevolve together; emergence can operate as an ethical dynamic as well as a technological one.”

I just wish we had more time to read this book and dissect it because I feel like I barely got anything out of it by having to read it so fast and understanding perhaps >1%.

Jerz’s Other Students

Chapter 8 must be right up Jessie’s alley. Sims.

“It is surely no accident that in his evolutionary simulations Sims designs programs that can be ‘seen’ as creature striving after a goal and winning against competitors, for these are among the most canonical narratives in traditional accounts of evolutionary history (not to mention Western capitalist society).”

At first, I didn’t understand that she was talking about the actual game. When I did, I felt more comfortable with the text because here was an example that I finally had experience/read/etc.

Hayles goes on to debate how these Sims can actually strive after anything, but I thought  the narrative part was particularly interesting, especially after the experiment with the children. We, as a learned people, know what to expect and can piece together something when it doesn’t fit our mental picture right. As I learned in Public Opinion and Propaganda last year, this includes twisting and leaving out facts that do not fit in order to have the conclusion make sense.

Also, the goal to win and compete is one narrative spread throughout many cultures (see War, Colonialism, etc). That has to do with Greed and Power. What are some other narratives? Romance. Lust. The desire to have a partner and procreate.

Hayles 4b

I have no idea what my term paper is going to be about. I thought it had to do with the project that we were doing, or the article we were supposed to write so long ago. (What happened to that?) Then there were those web sources that we annotated.

In that case, I have focused on how kids spend their time on the Internet with the hypothesis that they do a lot of short interaction. They want short sentences as seen by TL;DR. They like to screw with people for fun, but don’t like it done back to then (trolling). Memes move far too quickly to cover them in something like print. They enjoy visuals though these aren’t always necessary.

Sources:

• There was this annotated source on Social Media in Teens and how they spend their time.
• Then there are actual websites like Reddit, Skype, YouTube, where I could analyze information from.
• Also, I have already started recording so I have some info from my brother.

Other than this idea for a project, I have nothing. I wish something could just be assigned to me instead.

“If, on one hand, humans are like machines, whether figured as cellular automata or Turning machines, then agency cannot be securely located in the conscious mind. If, on the other hand, machines are like biological organisms, then they must posses the effects of agency even though they are not conscious.”

My sister and I were having another one of our deep conversations about the way the world works. I gave her the hypothesis of the Earth as a conscious being and we, as people, move on its cellular level. The Earth believes us to be like cells or robots without much consciousness (just as we believe our cells to mindlessly carry out programmed tasks–not far from the idea of artificial intelligence). She said it was completely possible and furthered it to the universe. We came up with strange conclusions about purging and cancer on bigger levels, but that won’t be brought here.

The point I want to make is that we have things that are biological that actually seem like AI. We do plenty without our conscious mind like breath, even while sleeping. We learn and program things like language After all, it’s not the same for every culture.

I’m not entirely sure what this “agency” is that Hayes keeps speaking of. Can you help? Perhaps if I did I could conclude this better.

Other students on Hayes 7

In chapter six of Hayes book My Mother Was A Computer, the idea of original work is questioned again. This is something that has been intensely discussed among SHU English majors.

“The author creates his literary property through exercise of his original genius, yet it is clear that writing is always a matter of appropriation and transformation…A literary tradition must proceed an author’s inscriptions for literature to be possible as such, yet this same appropriation and reworking of an existing tradition is said to produce an ‘original’ work.”

Some of the biggest works come from reworking of old ideas like vampires in Twilight, witches in Harry Potter, and Battle Royale for Hunger Games. (Obviously, some of these were better done than others.) These works, as we were discussing in the last class, are original because of their phrasing and how they put the words together, not so much the idea.

Cliche-phrases get started as great and innovative ways of comparing something. So not even the way words are put together is original because we have definitions for how things are described (metaphor, simile) and how words are put together (alliteration).

Something I’ve been thinking about is how books that turn into movies seem to lose their author credit. It becomes about how the actors portray the characters, how the director chose to shoot certain scenes. The creation becomes someone else’s. Other people are famous for your work. As writers, would you feel comfortable with that?

“Operating in an economy of information one can dream the social position and economic class will cease to matter…Rightly criticizing the rhetoric of free information, Markley points to the ecological and social costs involved in developing a global information network…” Hayes, My Mother Was A Computer, Chapter 3

This was a sentence I could understand and draw connections that I have learned from experience and other classes. While I’m not sure of Hayes’s conclusion, if she believes that classism will fall or prevail, I do get both sides.

Whenever technology assists in the movement of information, there is a general breaking in the class structure like the printing press and writing in the common language of English (rather than Latin) did for the Bible. The masses were now able to read rather than be told and make their own value judgements. It’s the idea that the more one reads, the more educated they are and, therefore, the better prepared they are to have a better job and climb the socio-economic ladder.

While I believe the spread of information through the Internet will break down classism, Markey has made a good point. Only those that have the technology have the access and this technology doesn’t come cheap. Yes, in America an underprivileged kid could sign up for Internet hours on a public computer and use their time on research instead of games and FB.

However, there are many countries where, while we get reports and information on them, they do not get the same back. A significant portion of third world country citizens do not have access to even the crappiest, oldest computer with dial-up. I also don’t think they’d care to know who Beyonce is wearing at the Grammy’s or what your new dog’s name is while they are trying to figure out how to pay for their next meal.

Then there is the ordeal of language. We have translators, yes, but there are still large landscapes of the Internet and global information that stays put. I can’t speak Chinese, Japanese, Korean, fluent Spanish or Portuguese, etc. When I find something I want to research and go back to the original source or website, I can’t even navigate to find the author.

On the flipside, our English websites are spread all over because globally English is a dominant language. So here is another barrier in classes. China can read what we write, but can our average citizen jump into one of their forums?

Food for thought.

More Thoughts on Hayes

I was having a hard time understanding this book so I read Jessie’s blog entry first and she really inspired this post, as seen by my comment on her page. I also used the same quote she did:

In A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram extends the claim to include biological systems and, indeed, complex behaviors of every kind, including social and cultural systems. In this context, “My mother was a computer” can be understood as alluding to the displacement of Mother Nature by the Universal Computer. Just as Mother Nature was seen in past centures as the source of both human behavior and physical reality, so now the Universal Computer is envisioned as the Motherboard of us all.

—Hayles (3)

Before there were computers, there were people that did things that machines now do. Mother Nature is being replaced by the Universal Computer. Jessie said that scared her and I want to debate the positives and negatives.

As a child, I do remember playing Mario and Duck Hunt. I remember Oregon Trail and math games on the computer. They helped me to make decisions quickly, to problem-solve, and test outcomes without an actual physical negative outcome or danger.

Then again, these resources were few and far between. I spent most of my time in my own mind. Now, I was not a normal child by any means. I was studious, but withdrawn and clinically shy. My sisters and I would lay in the grass and watch the bugs move. We’d create stories and follow them to their homes where we investigated and drew our own conclusions about the way the world worked. We were mini-Aristotles.

If something particularly intrigued us, we would go the library, research it, and then recreate the situations in real life. I have to say that I felt those real life effects and interactions were more valuable than those I got on the computer screen.

On the flipside, today I hardly sit and think for hours. I hardly research and test my theories. Instead, I rely heavily on the Internet, its links, criticisms, studies, and texts. I analyze my sources, yes, but I so believe what they say without simulation of my own. I simply don’t have the time. However, I’ve learned a great deal more and more quickly than I ever could have by watching the washing machine cycle and stopping and starting it at different places, or watching cookies bake and turn golden in the oven.

As an adult, I work with children as a substitute teacher in a variety of schools. Some students still operate as I did, sitting in a circle in the morning, answering questions verbally, and using physical pictures to tell the weather. Other children have those new whiteboards that connect to the computer. They have slides that they can click on, drag items, write in different colors, erase, and expand or minimize their text.

There is a difference in the way that they learn, yes. I personally have not seen any better or worse, any difference in their levels of knowledge.

So is Universal Computer better than Mother Nature? I can’t say, but its certainly faster.

To demonstrate my academic achievement and work as of the date of this blog post in my class, Topics of Media and Culture: The Author, I have created a portfolio. This blog will show my in-depth analysis of the class and texts, my interaction and fruitful discussions with peers, and my timeliness to deadlines.

Other students portfolios for the third quarter of the class can be found on the class webpage.

Depth: In these blogs, I have gone over the top (or really more than is required) in-depth for the topics of discussion. Shirkey, Cognitive Surplus 5 has a graphic of a meme that I connect to the text. In the post, I make several references to the text, real life examples, and the Pirate Code of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (for which I deserve extra special credit for the creative stretch). In Scandal Breaks Groups, Shirkey 6, I include references to real life events, not just my opinion, and hyperlinks to cement my point.

Interaction: In this section, I demonstrate my interaction with my peers. In Writing=Creating=Making, I not only have an in-depth blog, but I also link to my classmate Katy’s entry on the subject. I link to Beth Anne’s entry in Garden of Forking Paths? too. At the bottom of this website for my professor, an outline for the class schedule, you see two links where I comment on other students’ work.

Discussion: This section shows how I read and reviewed/commented on my peers blogs which promoted a discussion of some sort. I was the first to comment on Beth Anne’s entry on Borges. I know I’ve commented specifically on Ashely and Jalen’s blogs this quarter, but they aren’t showing up. I’ll have to start commenting on other people’s. I didn’t receive any comments this quarter either. Interesting.

Timeliness: Though it is mostly self-explanatory, these posts show that I make deadlines or blog before them. For Shirkey 7, Cognitive Surplus, I posted the blog entry the night before the deadline. I have since updated it so the time-stamp may be different. If you got to the course outline webpage, you can see I did in fact post it early. The same goes for my entry titled, Garden of Forking Paths?

Coverage: These blogs are ones that didn’t fit into the other categories, but just prove that I did, in fact, write them. Strikey, Chapter One and Two, Looking for the Mouse, Ex. 4 Annotated List of Links, and Annoying Itch.

For one, I do not understand The Garden of Forking Paths. That is to say, it’s not that I don’t understand the basic plot. I got that and it was all summed up very well in the end:

“The Chief had deciphered this mystery. He knew my problem was to indicate (through the uproar of the war) the city called Albert, and that I had found no other means to do so than to kill a man of that name. He does not know (no one can know) my innumerable contrition and weariness.”

Really, what I do not understand is the purpose of reading this entry for my journalism class. I thought, from my professor’s description, that it would be an IF or chose-your-own-adventure type thing. Perhaps, I should have read the assigned pages from our textbook before this online entry. Instead I read some of my classmate’s entries.

“Back in Borges’ day, the idea of using a text as a puzzle was revolutionary.”

Along with Beth Anne’s point, Borges includes many Asian texts that challenge the Western texts. While none are hypertext or linked to, it was probably revolutionary in the 1940s to refer to real texts in a fictional world. It brought the reader closer to the story.

More entries on the Garden of Forking Paths