I didn't quite see this at first, but after re-reading pages 50-55, I think Postman is a little insane. He feels quite strongly about the topic of Technopoly, and he makes these claims about books written in 1911 as being the "scaffolding" of our modern Technopoly in America. He continually makes references to A brave new world as somehow Huxley wasn't writing about fiction, he rather had insane foresight and saw the world he was writing about come to pass many years down the road. Postman essentially says that we're living in the society from A Brave New World.
-On page 52-53 he discusses how "all of these have been written about extensively in many contexts and are well known" (53) are the four reasons why technopoly has taken hold in America. This seems to me to mean that hes sort of saying "here are my reasons, they're well known, therefore my argument is infallible. And how can you stupid people not see what is right in front of you? How could no one see how these four pillars of Technopoly shaped and molded the people and nation to become a technopoly?" I'm getting weird Terminater-esque vibes, meaning how Sarah Conner is so sure that Skynet is gonna come and fuck everything up but no one believes her. This dude is saying pretty much the same thing, but the only difference is that Skynet hasn't become self aware yet while we've missed that opportunity to not become a Technopoly, its already happened and we did nothing to stop it, in fact we maybe even embraced it! Personally I don't see anything wrong with living in a technopoly, I apparently, according to Postman, was born into the technopolic world, and if i truly was, how could i know anything besides existing in this technopolic world? I can't. Therefore I have no problem with living in such a world.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Final Paper Blog
So i'm reading the technopoly book again, and im amazed at how far advanced Postman's views about tech in the future were. In 1992 he was pretty confident that eventually, computers would essentially take over our lives in every aspect of use and activities. I remember when Quicken came out in like 91 or something, the tax software. My dad was super excited to use it, however simply by reading the manual, he couldn't figure out really how to use it. That year he spent a while on Quicken, failed, and had to scramble to do them by hand. Flash forward about 10 years, he's still doing them by hand and it takes him about 100hrs to do all the tax stuff. In 2008, his business and something else (i can't remember) switched to this computer only format whereby making doing his taxes by hand almost impossible. He bought the new quicken, and the Quicken for Dummys book, and within a few weeks, he was able to learn the software. He wasn't fluent in using it, however in 2010, he has become a quicken genius. My point being that had my dad wanted to continue doing our taxes by hand, technology and forces he couldn't control, forced a switch in what he was doing. If he had painstakingly learned how to use quicken back in 91, all the years prior to 2008 would have likely been easier for him to do the taxes, and when he was forced to switch to the program, he wouldn't have had to segregate himself every evening for a few weeks learning how to use the program.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Midterm Wiki Blog
Should Wikipedia be used as a scholarly source?
-The answer is "not really". Its not a flat out NO, but it is a "not really" answer. The more straight forward facts that the entry has, generally means its actually pretty reliable because the numbers or facts are just copy-pasted from a website into Wikipedia. The more arguments, concepts, ideas, anything that isn't a black and white fact should be seen with some skepticism before accepting the entries claim as factual.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this source?
-I think the greatest strength of Wikipedia is the magnitude of available information in such a small place. There are millions and millions of articles in over a hundred different languages. I can honestly say I don't think there is this much potential knowledge anywhere else on the web, or in the world. There is just so much info just waiting to be learned that its somewhat humbling. The greatest weakness of this information smorgasbord is that any schmuck with a computer can post something and have it be misconstrued as fact when it is far from the truth. So ironically, the same feature that makes it great, the amount of information, is also its greatest weakness in that you as the reader have to comb through all the information and do research on the citations to make sure what your reading is legitimate or not.
What do these strengths and weaknesses tell us about the potential effects of technology on American culture?
-This may be somewhat of an un-politically correct answer, but here it goes. People today, rich or poor, smart or stupid, have pretty much the same access to information. Years before, it was only the rich that had access to information. Not all of them smart, however it was only the smart and rich ones that added to the knowledge bank. Today, irregardless of your financial background, you have access to more information that ever before in recorded history, however there is no teacher to help guide and steer the student, there just becomes a jumble of information that is not properly understood. What I'm trying to say is that people will rely too much on immediate information which they will accept as pure and utter truth, and people will actually learn less from half-truths and facts from more sources and more topics than they would if they learned correctly and absolutely about less sources and topics. This technology is a phrase, making us dumber, not smarter.
What did I learn? What will I take away?
-Well actually I learned that Wikipedia is actually a little more credible than I had thought. In 2004, I was a senior in highschool and Wikipedia had very rapidly burst onto the scene. We didn't know then that most of the information was bullshit, and I remember we had a quiz and most of us took the info from the entry and regurgitated it on the quiz. We all failed. The only kid who didn't fail actually read the book while we tried to take a short cut. After that I have always taken Wiki entries with a grain of salt. My auditing however showed me that at least in some articles maintained by competent contributors, the information is more or less correct. Writing research papers I would never, ever, ever, use any information from Wikipedia even if I made up the citation from a real book, the info itself is somewhat tainted. However if you're looking for some quick answers or if your having an argument with a buddy, the site is great. Overall, Wikipedia is more real than I had previously thought, however there is too much room for contributor error and bias.
-The answer is "not really". Its not a flat out NO, but it is a "not really" answer. The more straight forward facts that the entry has, generally means its actually pretty reliable because the numbers or facts are just copy-pasted from a website into Wikipedia. The more arguments, concepts, ideas, anything that isn't a black and white fact should be seen with some skepticism before accepting the entries claim as factual.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this source?
-I think the greatest strength of Wikipedia is the magnitude of available information in such a small place. There are millions and millions of articles in over a hundred different languages. I can honestly say I don't think there is this much potential knowledge anywhere else on the web, or in the world. There is just so much info just waiting to be learned that its somewhat humbling. The greatest weakness of this information smorgasbord is that any schmuck with a computer can post something and have it be misconstrued as fact when it is far from the truth. So ironically, the same feature that makes it great, the amount of information, is also its greatest weakness in that you as the reader have to comb through all the information and do research on the citations to make sure what your reading is legitimate or not.
What do these strengths and weaknesses tell us about the potential effects of technology on American culture?
-This may be somewhat of an un-politically correct answer, but here it goes. People today, rich or poor, smart or stupid, have pretty much the same access to information. Years before, it was only the rich that had access to information. Not all of them smart, however it was only the smart and rich ones that added to the knowledge bank. Today, irregardless of your financial background, you have access to more information that ever before in recorded history, however there is no teacher to help guide and steer the student, there just becomes a jumble of information that is not properly understood. What I'm trying to say is that people will rely too much on immediate information which they will accept as pure and utter truth, and people will actually learn less from half-truths and facts from more sources and more topics than they would if they learned correctly and absolutely about less sources and topics. This technology is a phrase, making us dumber, not smarter.
What did I learn? What will I take away?
-Well actually I learned that Wikipedia is actually a little more credible than I had thought. In 2004, I was a senior in highschool and Wikipedia had very rapidly burst onto the scene. We didn't know then that most of the information was bullshit, and I remember we had a quiz and most of us took the info from the entry and regurgitated it on the quiz. We all failed. The only kid who didn't fail actually read the book while we tried to take a short cut. After that I have always taken Wiki entries with a grain of salt. My auditing however showed me that at least in some articles maintained by competent contributors, the information is more or less correct. Writing research papers I would never, ever, ever, use any information from Wikipedia even if I made up the citation from a real book, the info itself is somewhat tainted. However if you're looking for some quick answers or if your having an argument with a buddy, the site is great. Overall, Wikipedia is more real than I had previously thought, however there is too much room for contributor error and bias.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
TFLN Extra Credit
I don't know if i can still get full credit for this, but I attended the Texts from last night conference back in september. It was super boring, and the people were super boring. He had an unhealthy obsession with people not wearing pants, and he was one of the most unfunny people ive ever been in front of. They were Michigan State law students before they dropped out to focus on TFLN; thank you Mark Zuckerberg wannabees. Overall it was actually somewhat insulting to learn that these uncreative and unfunny people started a blog website posting their drunk friends messages, and now are millionaires with a book and an mtv show coming up. And what is even more insulting, is that not only did they not really give a shit about this company or its business model, but now it suffers from the wikipedia disease: the "anyone can post anything they want and it may or may not be true" disease. If you submit to the site, all you have to do is type anything you want into the submission box, it doesn't require you to have any proof whatsoever of the validity of the messages. So essentially the site is now full of funny and creative people typing funny shit masquerading as real world text messages. if my friends were half as funny and witty as these people my life would be instrumentally more interesting.
Made to Break 3
-On page 187 when Slade is discussing how "obsolescence began to take on increasingly abstract meanings (187)", I find this to be very interesting because the macro-level effects of this have been huge since the 1960s. No longer is obsolescence pigeon-holed to "strictly physical objects", but people's training, jobs, and knowledge have all now become obsolete with the rise of computes and technically advanced machinery. This started a shift in employment with the younger generation getting the technical training necessary to maintain and even create these new machines, thus rendering the older generation obsolete. So now for the first time, your age is something that is being created obsolete; not for the obvious fact of simply their age, but all that goes into their age and their lack of tech savvyness is what makes them literally obsolete in the evolving industrial and business worlds. Even today we have very similar issues associated with technology, but in many ways on a day-to-day level, its more about software knowledge rather than physical tech knowledge, but both are going to be helpful in any job anywhere. My excel knowledge is far from perfect, and that is honestly a downside of hiring me. I am pretty proficient in a program run on linux called Tribute, my fathers industrial supply company uses that, however not many other companies use Tribute so all that knowledge is likely to go to waste which would then render all that skill and knowledge obsolete when I begin to work on whatever computer software program they have at whatever job I get.
-With the creation of integrated circuits by the work of Jack Kilby and Noyce, “it combined three cutting-edge technologies into a single sealed device (193)”. This is a great example of the speed of technological progress; a few years before each of these components was recently a brand new technology and now they’ve been merged together which has made their individual selves obsolete. So each technician who worked or even created the individual components, in order to not become obsolete himself, now has to learn how to work and build these IC circuits which employ all different sorts of technology into one more powerful circuit.
-The first software that would be truly universal in both terms of availability and demand was a word processing system. The first systems that were not typewriters, were mainly mainframe systems that were hard to use and expensive (207). Seymour Rubinstein in 1979 came out with his second word system called WordStar, replacing the somewhat shitty WordMaster (207). This product was marketed to executives who already owned an Apple II computer because the price was $450, however if enough companies invested in this software, it rendered the “typing pools” obsolete. This one readily available product created a whole new business dynamic with the obsolescence of the typing pools, but more importantly with the benefit of employing half of the same employees to do the same work, plus extra work which the WordStar allowed for. Technological advancements helped save money, and grow your business with the new opportunities these computers afforded.
-I actually did not know that the first video game was Spacewar developed in 1962 (217). I thought it was a tennis-type game played with this little blue dot screen in the 50s. I could be wrong, or the books definition of what a video game is doesn’t include the absurdly crude game I’m thinking of. What I also find quite funny, is that the game Computer Space was apparently going to be a huge step up in video game technology, however it required the player to read a manual on how to play, and “few arcade players were willing to do that (217)”. This is funny because the strong base of video game players today is exactly the same…slightly lazy, slightly socially awkward, slightly stonerish and definitely, definitely, not gonna waste time reading a manual to play a game. Any time I pick up a new game and need to hit pause and look at the manual every few minutes because I don’t know how to do something, is usually a game I return the same day. If its super awesome but hard to play, yah, maybe I’ll put up with it. But if its anything short of spectacular, I’m going to return it the same day and get and get a game I know I’ll like like Madden or NHL haha. But the same guy who created this game, Nolan Bushnell, went on to create Atari and Pong so I guess he got the “intuitive” video game memo.
-Another point with this Atari video game concept is that when they went to sell it to Ballys, a major pinball company, the executives were less than thrilled with the lack of mobile parts in the game (218). Their business model was based on flashing lights, moving parts, and action of the person; this new system had two moving parts and no real physical movement. However because “the home video game market was essentially a subfield of consumer electronics, it went unnoticed by pinball manufacturers (220)”, which was an egregious oversight as we now see today. The pinball arcade system was super popular even up through the eighties, but again, with the technological advancements of the computer and graphical user interface, the age of the arcade was dying and the rise of the home gaming console was about to begin. The first Nintendo was the first major market home console and it started the drive and push of the home gaming market. On top of the home console market, the portable gaming market was also in high demand and the Nintendo Gameboy was the answer to that demand.
-Now, video games have become a cultural obsession and has “such a fundamental impact on our society in so many areas (225)”. Pinball has been rendered obsolete due to a changing in the society and culture of the eras. “Pinball is tactical, mechanical, and physically labor-intensive (225)”, while video games illicit and emotional response with dopamine being released and actually causing a possibility for addiction; however my father has told me stories of how kids back in the day were definitely addicted to pinball too.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Made to Break 2
-Edwin Howard Armstrong taking David Sarnoff's attractive secretary in a ride in the "fastest car he could find" and then marrying her soon after, seems like an episode of Mad Men (85). But what is interesting is that Armstrong, after having his ego and reputation take a hit after he lost a patent and AT&T started calling some other guy the "father of regenerative circuitry", devoted almost all of his waking hours to solving the AM frequency radio static problem (85-86). He invented what was called a "limiter" and a "discriminator" which significantly decreased radio static and allowed for a stronger signal to carry further. In a demonstration, apparently audiences could hear and discern activities over the airwaves such as water being poured and paper crumpling (86-87).
-I for one, assumed that with the creation of FM radio, it wouldn't bring the whole FCC, RCA, and NBC to its knees. Like Armstrong, personally, I am all for technological growth and new developments, and care little about how the major corporations are going to make their money on new products that make their i.e. 1000% profit margins obsolete. So because of the potentially disastrous bottom line for RCA, and with their hopes being pinned on the TV destroying the radio, Sarnoff misrepresented the FM invention, fired the biggest proponent of the radio signal, Dr. Baker; and asked Armstrong to essentially clean out his lab and that he was replaced by the TV wonderboy and his lab (91).
-On a side note, obsolescence is a necessary part of the capitalist economy. Speaking to economics here: manufacturers make a product; people buy this product; the product is improved and now the manufacturer markets the new and improved product to the same people that just bought their old product. This is how our economy works, and this is how a free-market economy works. Without obsolescence due to new and better products, we would all have Soviet era type appliances and automobiles. That wouldn't be good at all.
-Another part of this obsolescence idea is that of automated assembly lines and faster, more efficient manufacturing practices that eliminate time and manpower. If the costs can be lowered, and manufacturing times lowered, this means that it is possible to still sell the same product for the old sale price and make more money per sale...or you can drop the price and sell more units. Either way, it is the obvious choice to make when owning a company that sells things like radios and TV's to the public. So when Motorola streamlined their making of the hand-held radios, these products could no longer be fixed, they simply had to be discarded and a new one would be bought, they helped facilitate the move towards the "death dating" part of planned obsolescence (113). In this case, the prices were likely dropped significantly because the product had a short or variable life expectancy. Either way, this was necessary to do so in order to keep customers coming back time and time again when their old radios would break.
-The Japanese were smart people; when their silk export business dried up in about 1931, they increased their hold over Manchuria, established a puppet ruler, expanded their drug trade considerably, and the icing on the cake here, they got their puppet ruler's wife addicted to drugs so they could control all of Manchuria (117). That was actually a very savvy and very effective way to maintain power and maintain money coming into Japan.
-So what did the U.S. do when Japan became even more aggressive in the seas and in China? That's right, we created nylon and seriously cut their importation of raw materials from the U.S (117). The U.S. chemical company DuPont finally made nylon stockings available on "N-Day" May 15, 1940 (125). On a personal note, I went to high school with two of the DuPont heirs, the older one was a few years ahead of me, I can't remember his name, but the younger one was a grade below me. His name was August DuPont V I believe. Either way, they had a lot of money. I'm not too sure if any of the family members have anything to do with the business side anymore, but I do know their father was on the board of Trustees and he was on the board of trustees at Pingry, which was my high school. The Pingry School's board of trustees reads like a Fortune 500 best companies conglomeration; I'm serious.
-But what is interesting about nylon and silk is that nylon would never, and in fact has never, taken over for silk, it has merely been an acceptable substitute. The contest between the two is not a story of "superior technological innovation replacing an inferior natural product. It is the story of a symbolic contest between two cultures fighting for economic dominance (128)". So although silk was not made obsolete, the silk war in this case created a status symbol for the real deal and a cheap substitute which everyone could enjoy in the case of nylon.
-Brooks Stevens said he coined "planned obsolescence" which isn't likely to be true, but for him, "planned obsolescence 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 is necessary (153). This is actually very interesting because this is sort of how most Americans who aren't on the strictest of budgets live. Times now are tough, I get that, and I get that what we would collectively "splurge" for in 1999 most of us can now no longer afford now. However the idea that we can have something newer, better, and quicker has always been the idea that most Americans have as the idea behind research and development. I know that when a new toy comes out, be it childrens action figures or high def tv's, we're always looking at what our neighbors got and trying to one-up him. You got the 50' well I got the 55'; your kid just got the lego set with awesome shit that we didn't have growing up, my kid just got two of those lego sets. Its all about competition and ego in a market economy like ours that drives the new and better products. I'm getting a new car. I have an '03 with 94K miles on it. It works but its dying and before it goes kaput, I need a new one. If i didn't absolutely need a new one, i probably wouldn't be getting it, however I am, and since I am, I'm gonna ball out with a new 2011 model instead of a 2010 or even a 2009. Why? Well because since i'm spending the money anyway, lets go all out. Its a mentality that drives obsolescence almost as much as the products themselves. If that crazy super computer that China just came out with was available all of a sudden in a laptop size for say $200,000...I know a ton of people that would buy them immediately no matter how expensive it is. I know that's actually a very low figure but i was trying to pick a price significantly higher than any laptop we have now. So not only would the product itself make every other laptop immediately obsolete, it comes down to the consumer and whether or not he wants to make that purchase to own a crazy powerful, crazy cool, crazy expensive device. However because of the genuine obsolescence to existing computers as well as extensive physical inventories of laptops and laptop components, not a single company which exists today would come out with this lightning fast Chinese computer. It would practically put them out of business with how much capital and assets they have in their physical inventories and manufacturers of the components. It would need a new company, one that has no share in the existing market, to come out and compete dangerously with powerful tech companies. And because this won't happen, ever, we have to live our lives with he planned death of existing technologies and when new toys are made available. -On a paranoid stint here, I truly believe that most major tech, chemical, and defense corporations have already developed cures for cancer, aids, missiles that do crazy things, and computer chips the size of red blood cells that have double the computing power of existing processing chips. If it isn't these things its others which unfortunately, cannot be released to the public just yet due to the huge profit hits these corporations would take.
-I for one, assumed that with the creation of FM radio, it wouldn't bring the whole FCC, RCA, and NBC to its knees. Like Armstrong, personally, I am all for technological growth and new developments, and care little about how the major corporations are going to make their money on new products that make their i.e. 1000% profit margins obsolete. So because of the potentially disastrous bottom line for RCA, and with their hopes being pinned on the TV destroying the radio, Sarnoff misrepresented the FM invention, fired the biggest proponent of the radio signal, Dr. Baker; and asked Armstrong to essentially clean out his lab and that he was replaced by the TV wonderboy and his lab (91).
-On a side note, obsolescence is a necessary part of the capitalist economy. Speaking to economics here: manufacturers make a product; people buy this product; the product is improved and now the manufacturer markets the new and improved product to the same people that just bought their old product. This is how our economy works, and this is how a free-market economy works. Without obsolescence due to new and better products, we would all have Soviet era type appliances and automobiles. That wouldn't be good at all.
-Another part of this obsolescence idea is that of automated assembly lines and faster, more efficient manufacturing practices that eliminate time and manpower. If the costs can be lowered, and manufacturing times lowered, this means that it is possible to still sell the same product for the old sale price and make more money per sale...or you can drop the price and sell more units. Either way, it is the obvious choice to make when owning a company that sells things like radios and TV's to the public. So when Motorola streamlined their making of the hand-held radios, these products could no longer be fixed, they simply had to be discarded and a new one would be bought, they helped facilitate the move towards the "death dating" part of planned obsolescence (113). In this case, the prices were likely dropped significantly because the product had a short or variable life expectancy. Either way, this was necessary to do so in order to keep customers coming back time and time again when their old radios would break.
-The Japanese were smart people; when their silk export business dried up in about 1931, they increased their hold over Manchuria, established a puppet ruler, expanded their drug trade considerably, and the icing on the cake here, they got their puppet ruler's wife addicted to drugs so they could control all of Manchuria (117). That was actually a very savvy and very effective way to maintain power and maintain money coming into Japan.
-So what did the U.S. do when Japan became even more aggressive in the seas and in China? That's right, we created nylon and seriously cut their importation of raw materials from the U.S (117). The U.S. chemical company DuPont finally made nylon stockings available on "N-Day" May 15, 1940 (125). On a personal note, I went to high school with two of the DuPont heirs, the older one was a few years ahead of me, I can't remember his name, but the younger one was a grade below me. His name was August DuPont V I believe. Either way, they had a lot of money. I'm not too sure if any of the family members have anything to do with the business side anymore, but I do know their father was on the board of Trustees and he was on the board of trustees at Pingry, which was my high school. The Pingry School's board of trustees reads like a Fortune 500 best companies conglomeration; I'm serious.
-But what is interesting about nylon and silk is that nylon would never, and in fact has never, taken over for silk, it has merely been an acceptable substitute. The contest between the two is not a story of "superior technological innovation replacing an inferior natural product. It is the story of a symbolic contest between two cultures fighting for economic dominance (128)". So although silk was not made obsolete, the silk war in this case created a status symbol for the real deal and a cheap substitute which everyone could enjoy in the case of nylon.
-Brooks Stevens said he coined "planned obsolescence" which isn't likely to be true, but for him, "planned obsolescence 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 is necessary (153). This is actually very interesting because this is sort of how most Americans who aren't on the strictest of budgets live. Times now are tough, I get that, and I get that what we would collectively "splurge" for in 1999 most of us can now no longer afford now. However the idea that we can have something newer, better, and quicker has always been the idea that most Americans have as the idea behind research and development. I know that when a new toy comes out, be it childrens action figures or high def tv's, we're always looking at what our neighbors got and trying to one-up him. You got the 50' well I got the 55'; your kid just got the lego set with awesome shit that we didn't have growing up, my kid just got two of those lego sets. Its all about competition and ego in a market economy like ours that drives the new and better products. I'm getting a new car. I have an '03 with 94K miles on it. It works but its dying and before it goes kaput, I need a new one. If i didn't absolutely need a new one, i probably wouldn't be getting it, however I am, and since I am, I'm gonna ball out with a new 2011 model instead of a 2010 or even a 2009. Why? Well because since i'm spending the money anyway, lets go all out. Its a mentality that drives obsolescence almost as much as the products themselves. If that crazy super computer that China just came out with was available all of a sudden in a laptop size for say $200,000...I know a ton of people that would buy them immediately no matter how expensive it is. I know that's actually a very low figure but i was trying to pick a price significantly higher than any laptop we have now. So not only would the product itself make every other laptop immediately obsolete, it comes down to the consumer and whether or not he wants to make that purchase to own a crazy powerful, crazy cool, crazy expensive device. However because of the genuine obsolescence to existing computers as well as extensive physical inventories of laptops and laptop components, not a single company which exists today would come out with this lightning fast Chinese computer. It would practically put them out of business with how much capital and assets they have in their physical inventories and manufacturers of the components. It would need a new company, one that has no share in the existing market, to come out and compete dangerously with powerful tech companies. And because this won't happen, ever, we have to live our lives with he planned death of existing technologies and when new toys are made available. -On a paranoid stint here, I truly believe that most major tech, chemical, and defense corporations have already developed cures for cancer, aids, missiles that do crazy things, and computer chips the size of red blood cells that have double the computing power of existing processing chips. If it isn't these things its others which unfortunately, cannot be released to the public just yet due to the huge profit hits these corporations would take.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wiki 2
I got confused I guess, I thought the second wiki was for this weekend. Next week i'll catch up on all the posts and we'll be square.
-Right off the bat in Chapter 5, we learn who the first Wikipedia users were. I, for one, never knew nor ever really questioned who the first users and editors were. I always just assumed it was a group of knowledge nerds who made articles for self-indulgent reasons and had an "I'm smarter than you, so there!" kind of attitude. But in reality, "they came largely from the academic, scientific and information technology communities" and were professionals; real academics and scientists who had jobs as professors and scientists (114). That is awesome! They were originally working on a site called Nupedia "which required its authors to have academic accreditation" so naturally when they made the shift to the easier and more receptive wikipedia, they were able to post more and edit more because there was no hierarchy of admins and regulators. This is astonishing to think about, and a little ironic.
I first learned about Wikipedia when I was a senior in high school, 2005. Yes i guess that was a little late, but then again I attended a private school and most of our research was done in books only, they rarely if ever accepted internet sources so it wasn't until my bullshit senior year science class that we were allowed to look up things on the web and wikipedia was the first hit usually. In class our teacher said that Wikipedia is great for a quick reference look up but be VERY wary of its credibility considering anyone can post and change things from factually accurate to factually inaccurate just because they're being an asshole, and yes, my teacher actually said asshole. So what i find to be ironic is that this was about 4 years after Wikipedia really got off the ground and already the culture and posters had changed dramatically. If in the beginning it really was ripe with academics and scientists, how in four years time had it become so unreliable?
-On page 120, Dalby states that Esprit Fugace's, a French admin, obsession and addiction to Wikipedia was similar to an RPG addiction. The comparable addiction part is for me a stretch to make that comparison, however when he says that its the interaction of members of a community which is not only addicting, but similar to an RPG, that i buy. Everyone wants to be accepted and wanted...its part of human nature. "Fitting in" is the stereotypical challenge for all middle and high school students, and it simply continues onto adulthood and into old age. So when Dalby says "We the people of this virtual world" (120), he is forcing an acceptance of the users who spend hours editing and writing and creating Wiki posts, to all the other people who do the same thing. There is a commonality and a community which these people now belong too.
-A side note here, the way Dalby uses these online pseudonyms as comparable to first name basis with friends tells us a great deal about his feelings towards this online Wikipedia community. He feels as if he himself is a member and it feels almost-nature for him to discuss what a person named "The Cunctator", or simply as "141". To Dalby, these are people whom he feels a connection with because of the time he has spent reading about what they post and edit and comment on. I also have no doubt that he has contacted a few of the people in this book for more discussion on certain topics. These are friends...monikers personified to be real people.
So my gamer tag is Oscar Wiilde, and my internet gamer tag is Rraven. However I am not Oscar nor Rraven, I am Daniel Scheininger. Dalby treats the names like people. I understand that your online handle is anonymous on purpose, and yes, I understand that people who post under names like "141" almost have to be referred to exclusively as 141 because we know no other such name for that person; however his level of familiarity with these online handles seems a little excessive and a little obsessive. I know nothing about Dalby nor is what I am about to say accurate at all, but it seems as though he feels like these are his friends even though he has never met them. He falls into this familiarity with these names without a second thought which leads me to question how many real people friends he has not in the online community. He is expressing personally his first reason for "why we love it" first hand, that of a community where people feel welcomed and accepted. I know a few people who are stuck in MMORPG land, and its not pretty. While I am not judging Dalby, it certainly feels as if his connection to this online community is maybe stronger than many real world connections.
-In the personal biography pages, 148-154, Dalby makes an interesting point. Don't edit your own biography! That to me seems a little strange, however I understand why. You don't want to be bias like Joshua Gardner, a sex offender, nor Richard Worth, a minister of commerce and create or edit your biography to either flat out lie, or cast yourself in an unwavering positive light. This actually brings me to a real life issue: my father. Since you yourself may not even be reading this far, it is fair to say that no one will find it in here so i'll type it, but my father, Jeff, same last name, is somewhat of a politician, but that's not whats cool. What is cool is that in a few months time, my dad will be Chairman of the NJ State Chamber of Commerce. There are only 50 such people in this country and he will be one of them. He was also in charge of The NJ Health Care Reform Initiative which unfortunately got destroyed with the advent of "Obamacare". He does not have a wikipedia page, however when he was asked to run for State Senate which he declined, they said that he should get a wiki page up a.s.a.p. He is a Republic Politician in Union County, i forgot his exact title but he actually is elected to his office and his term is two years and he's been re-elected 3-4 times now. He asked me if I would make him a Wiki page and I said I wasn't sure if I could because taking his word for things without having cited sources wouldn't be very safe. Now, after reading this section, I am almost sure I don't want to do it for him; however who should write his biography if it isn't me or him? Because he needs one, newspapers call him for comments and have to ask personal questions about his professional career as well as his educational history all the time. So I guess i'm asking you who should make one?
-Right off the bat in Chapter 5, we learn who the first Wikipedia users were. I, for one, never knew nor ever really questioned who the first users and editors were. I always just assumed it was a group of knowledge nerds who made articles for self-indulgent reasons and had an "I'm smarter than you, so there!" kind of attitude. But in reality, "they came largely from the academic, scientific and information technology communities" and were professionals; real academics and scientists who had jobs as professors and scientists (114). That is awesome! They were originally working on a site called Nupedia "which required its authors to have academic accreditation" so naturally when they made the shift to the easier and more receptive wikipedia, they were able to post more and edit more because there was no hierarchy of admins and regulators. This is astonishing to think about, and a little ironic.
I first learned about Wikipedia when I was a senior in high school, 2005. Yes i guess that was a little late, but then again I attended a private school and most of our research was done in books only, they rarely if ever accepted internet sources so it wasn't until my bullshit senior year science class that we were allowed to look up things on the web and wikipedia was the first hit usually. In class our teacher said that Wikipedia is great for a quick reference look up but be VERY wary of its credibility considering anyone can post and change things from factually accurate to factually inaccurate just because they're being an asshole, and yes, my teacher actually said asshole. So what i find to be ironic is that this was about 4 years after Wikipedia really got off the ground and already the culture and posters had changed dramatically. If in the beginning it really was ripe with academics and scientists, how in four years time had it become so unreliable?
-On page 120, Dalby states that Esprit Fugace's, a French admin, obsession and addiction to Wikipedia was similar to an RPG addiction. The comparable addiction part is for me a stretch to make that comparison, however when he says that its the interaction of members of a community which is not only addicting, but similar to an RPG, that i buy. Everyone wants to be accepted and wanted...its part of human nature. "Fitting in" is the stereotypical challenge for all middle and high school students, and it simply continues onto adulthood and into old age. So when Dalby says "We the people of this virtual world" (120), he is forcing an acceptance of the users who spend hours editing and writing and creating Wiki posts, to all the other people who do the same thing. There is a commonality and a community which these people now belong too.
-A side note here, the way Dalby uses these online pseudonyms as comparable to first name basis with friends tells us a great deal about his feelings towards this online Wikipedia community. He feels as if he himself is a member and it feels almost-nature for him to discuss what a person named "The Cunctator", or simply as "141". To Dalby, these are people whom he feels a connection with because of the time he has spent reading about what they post and edit and comment on. I also have no doubt that he has contacted a few of the people in this book for more discussion on certain topics. These are friends...monikers personified to be real people.
So my gamer tag is Oscar Wiilde, and my internet gamer tag is Rraven. However I am not Oscar nor Rraven, I am Daniel Scheininger. Dalby treats the names like people. I understand that your online handle is anonymous on purpose, and yes, I understand that people who post under names like "141" almost have to be referred to exclusively as 141 because we know no other such name for that person; however his level of familiarity with these online handles seems a little excessive and a little obsessive. I know nothing about Dalby nor is what I am about to say accurate at all, but it seems as though he feels like these are his friends even though he has never met them. He falls into this familiarity with these names without a second thought which leads me to question how many real people friends he has not in the online community. He is expressing personally his first reason for "why we love it" first hand, that of a community where people feel welcomed and accepted. I know a few people who are stuck in MMORPG land, and its not pretty. While I am not judging Dalby, it certainly feels as if his connection to this online community is maybe stronger than many real world connections.
-In the personal biography pages, 148-154, Dalby makes an interesting point. Don't edit your own biography! That to me seems a little strange, however I understand why. You don't want to be bias like Joshua Gardner, a sex offender, nor Richard Worth, a minister of commerce and create or edit your biography to either flat out lie, or cast yourself in an unwavering positive light. This actually brings me to a real life issue: my father. Since you yourself may not even be reading this far, it is fair to say that no one will find it in here so i'll type it, but my father, Jeff, same last name, is somewhat of a politician, but that's not whats cool. What is cool is that in a few months time, my dad will be Chairman of the NJ State Chamber of Commerce. There are only 50 such people in this country and he will be one of them. He was also in charge of The NJ Health Care Reform Initiative which unfortunately got destroyed with the advent of "Obamacare". He does not have a wikipedia page, however when he was asked to run for State Senate which he declined, they said that he should get a wiki page up a.s.a.p. He is a Republic Politician in Union County, i forgot his exact title but he actually is elected to his office and his term is two years and he's been re-elected 3-4 times now. He asked me if I would make him a Wiki page and I said I wasn't sure if I could because taking his word for things without having cited sources wouldn't be very safe. Now, after reading this section, I am almost sure I don't want to do it for him; however who should write his biography if it isn't me or him? Because he needs one, newspapers call him for comments and have to ask personal questions about his professional career as well as his educational history all the time. So I guess i'm asking you who should make one?
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