All You Need to Know

Feedback: Positive or Negative?

2006-11-27T11:13:00.000-06:00

The major thing we talked about in discussion from the Emergence book by Johnson was about feedback. This is an idea where there are two different styles of reacting to something. There is positive feedback, where one just keeps adding to a story, lets say. Then there is negative feedback and that is more thoroughly analyzed and provides a better story. The best example is the temperature example where there are two different ways to keep a room warm, one would be to keep pumping in warm air until it became much too hot, positive, and the other would be one where you stop and start the air to keep the room at an even temperature.

The main use of feedback was in news stories. The major discussion we had was whether news today was really news and whether feedback was the reason that so much of the news became something out of nothing. The best example I can think of is in sports and Terrell Owens. He is always in the news and yet I don’t think people care any more. When he first became so news worthy it was because he was a great player and was a little weird, but now he is no longer great and yet ESPN still tries to make them news. ESPN is one the worst at sticking on to a subject for way to long and forcing events that happen into news. Their power in the sports news industry then make the story become bigger than it is. They seem to be a big proponent of positive feedback.

And that's all you need to know,

Bryan

Ants, Cities, and The Sims

2006-11-21T15:25:00.000-06:00

The book that we read and continue to read is pretty interesting. The book is Emergence by Steven Johnson. It has a lot of different topics all of them, however, show and try to describe emergence. Emergence is a system that Johnson says most people have a hard time grasping. As humans we are unable to understand how anything could form complex systems without the aid of a leader or pacemaker to tell the rest what to do. But that is what emergence is all about. A bottom up formation of a complex system that is more complex as a whole, than the individual pieces that form it (pg, 18).

The main example that he uses are ants and how they develop complex hives, without being terribly complex themselves. They just do what is natural to them and they seem to become better as time goes on, until they are in their last few years and they are very efficient. This is such a hard idea to grasp. How can creatures that don’t have much brain power learn how to do things better. The author doesn’t really explain how that works. He just talks about how the collective group of ants become better at there job by following there pheromones. Cities also grow somewhat the same way. Manchester was the least planned city in the world. There are people that believe that not having something planed will lead to inferior cities or neighborhoods. But people like Jacobs disagree, believing the emergence of a neighborhood is much better for the people. It grows the way people want their city to grow.

The last thing that they use for emergent system is videogames, like Sim City and the Sims. These are games where the developers make the game but have no idea how people will actually play the game. They create the bottom of the system and then the player creates completely unique cities or people. The development of the program grows differently for each player. A simple system creates a complex outcome. These are all emergent systems. Although I’m not sure I would agree with all of what Johnson says. His theory in the cities doesn’t convince me. The emergent theory doesn’t hold for cities in my opinion. There is too much going on for it to be emergence. Generations of people grow up in the same place because it is where they are from, all they know, and until modern times, was very difficult to ever get out of the city. Emergence does not allow for some of these points.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

Stranger than Fiction

2006-11-16T18:02:00.000-06:00

I have no idea what to write about today. I have been writing so mach this past week that I’m all out. With just handing in one 5 pager to my poli sci class and the draft for this class and another 5 pager for history, I’m really sick of writing and completely out of ideas, so I just review a recent movie I saw and talk about the last episode of South Park. There may be spoilers, though I’m pretty sure everything is in the previews that I written about.

I’m sure most people have seen the preview of Will Ferrell’s “Stranger than Fiction.” I saw it over the weekend while I was back home in Chicago visiting the old folks and hoping to go to a Bulls game that never game to fruition. No more tickets, damn! The movie has one of the more strange and original premises that I’ve heard in a while. Will is living his sad, lonely life and one day there a British woman (Emma Thomson) narrating is life with, as Will says, a better vocabulary. He learns that he going to die from the narrator, which as anyone would do worries him.

From here the movie picks up and you get good performances out of everyone, but Ferrell especially shows that he can act. It’s funny, but not that funny. For most of the movie Will works with Dustin Hoffman to find out if his story is a tragedy or comedy. There are some touching moments and some really sad moments as well. There are also a couple of disturbing daydreams that Thomson has in her research for how to kill Will’s character. Over all though it is a good movie that has its moments and has some flaws as well. If you like Will Ferrell movies you may like this one, it's different from most of what he has done, but it still pretty good.

Now, on to South Park, or should I call it The Mighty Ducks 1.5. The whole episode was about Stanley Coaching a peewee hokey team, because he became a down and out paperboy without his bike. Did this remind anyone else of Mighty Ducks? It seemed like the same story, but with the edge South Park usually gives things. It was a funny episode, but it seemed like a lame season finale. It seems like the writers had nothing and just happened to be watching the Mighty Ducks and decided that that would be the last episode of the season. The end was over the top, but funny in a evil sort of way. Who would’ve thought that watching 4 and 5 year olds get crushed by the Detroit Red Wings could be entertaining.

And that's all you need to know,

Bryan

Lost in Japanslation

2006-11-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

This past week we watched Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It is a great movie, that’s funny and poignant at times. It takes place in Tokyo and Murray, really, just plays himself. It deals with some of the ideas that we talked about two weeks ago when we read about Augè and non-places. The two main characters seem to be completely alone when they are surrounded by people and feel most comfortable when they are with each other.

The Augè article dealt with something called non-places and how the world is becoming more a non-place as it is becoming more globalized. He says that a non-place is somewhere people may come in contact with each other, but don’t actually interact with each other. Really they just live their own lives around others doing the same thing.

The movie had some of the ideas that Augè had about the world and non-places. The main characters felt very lonely in a city with 20 million people. A lot if had to do with the fact that they couldn’t speak the language. With Murray’s character it also seemed like his home had become a non-place because he traveled so much that it no longer felt like home. And Johansson also felt out of place when she was with her husbands’ friends. They both felt completely out of place in the hotel.

But the problem is that as the movie goes on the hotel and the city become more of place. The relationship between Scarlett and Bill grows and so through that their stay becomes much better and more fun. The place feels more like home and more comfortable when they are with each other and so the city becomes a place. They even talk about just staying in Tokyo and not going home.

What does this say about his idea of non-places? It seems to say that a non-place can become a place. It doesn’t even take a major change in an area for that to happen, t can take only two people to make a city a place for themselves only. Augè never says anything about a non-place being a place for other people. He describes a shopping center as a non-place, but doesn’t take into account the fact that there could be some people that have a friend that works at the store and go in their to hang out with each other, which makes the place a more comfortable place where these few teens create a place of their own.

This is what Lost in Translation seems to say about non-places, that all it takes is two people, who enjoy their own company, to make a non-place a place.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

My Dreamweaver 2 Training

2006-11-09T18:55:00.000-06:00

So I finally went to a training section. I went for Dreamweaver 2 section and there happened to be two people from class, so in a way it was a mini 201 class. My directors were Chou and Alula. We learned some cool things.

We started with the basics, how to start a new page and we looked at the code as well. We then went over some of the some things that we did in class. The trainee than showed us some cool features. For example, how to make the links have different colors as well as how to make them change when you go over them from Dreamweaver. That will save a lot of time because I don’t have to go through Fireworks to do the same thing.

We did a lot of CSS which is a pretty cool feature and can make a website look slick. Through CSS you can change everything from the font and color style and background style.

The overall class was actually pretty good and it was informative. I would say everybody in our class should take this because it will help for the final site.

I also want to add that I was only able to see the end of the Bulls and it pissed me off. They looked like they were playing like crap on D and the O was just not there for anyone except for Hinrich. South Park was OK last night, especially the prank calling part. Cartman calling himself an a-hole was priceless.

Postmodern to Non-places

2006-11-05T19:02:00.000-06:00

This week’s articles were quite difficult. I’m not sure how much the readings added to my understanding of what we were doing in class. The Jamison article dealt with postmodernism and how it was different from modernism. To Jamison postmodernism is not so much the next step in the chain of human advancement, but a rebellion from it. We spoke about a singer Ryan brought up in class, John Cage, who is considered a post-modern musician and how all he did was go away from some of the rules of music to create a weird and odd sound. It sort of helped to understand more of what Jamison’s idea was for the paper. Jamison was very much against the elitism that that post-modernism was showing, but he himself was writing a piece that would take a month to dissect and a dictionary to understand only slightly, not the most accessible writing. The last part of the article about the hotel made things slightly clearer than before, but not by much. The hotel reminded me of hypertext on the internet in the way one never knew if a guest would get back to the shop they found in the hotel, the way you may never find your way back to a website that you found through random hypertext searches (41).

The other article, written by Auge, “From Places to Non-Places” dealt with the idea of the US becoming more of a non-place. A non-place is a location that really has no meaning to anybody. A place is a something like a small community where everyone knows each others name and speak and interact with each other on a regular basis (discussion). We talked about how most places are now non-places now. The bus, the airport, they are all places where we go and don’t really interact with anyone. When walking down the street most people listen to their I-Pods and so they tune out the world and are in their own solitary world. When someone talks to them they may get pissed because they are being taken out of their comfortable and solitary world. Like I said in class, the only time that the US seems like a place is when people are drunk are willing to and want to talk to everyone and everything. It seems that this is when the repressed American comes out and acts like the old world used to act, that is open and in a “place” type of way. It sad this is the only time when people actually respond to and acknowledge the existence of the person walking past them.

I have to say how completely pissed I am that the Bears lost to the damn Dolphins and Mr. Bear Killer, Ronnie Brown. I can’t put into words how shocked I am. I can take solace in the fact that I had some friends from Chicago come up here and that I showed them around Madison and didn’t watch the game. For that I am grateful to them.

And that’s all you need to know (not really though),

Bryan

Big Weekend for Badgers

2006-11-02T20:15:00.000-06:00

This is huge weekend for the Badgers, with Penn State coming to Madison. This will be the first good team the Badgers have played since Michigan and the first of two against better teams. The next two weeks may make the biggest difference in what bowl game they will play in. Stacco and Hill have to be on their "A" game and the defense has to play well. I'm worried about this game, not because I think that Penn State is better, but that they are good enough to just squeeze by on a bad day by the Badgers.

The NCAA basketball pre-season is also almost upon us and that means Badger basketball. I'm pretty surprised that the Badgers are ranked 9th nationally. It's great, but I hope it doesn't get to their heads and thay lose a game they shouldn't.

South Park was funny, especially when the teacher was trying to desribe evolution, that was really funnny. Cartman freezing himself so he could play the Nintendo Wii was also funny and him being thawed out 500 years later was crazy. Could some one tell me why it looked like all the future guys were wearing big condoms on their heads. I don't get it.

The Office was funny tonight. The Indian party was funny and Michael asking his girlfriend to marry him in front of everybody was great.

And that's all you need to know,

Bryan

Online Identities and Smart A.I.

2006-10-29T19:04:00.000-06:00

This week’s articles dealt two distinct, but related topics. Both were about the formation of a character to imitate a real person. In one case the imitation was that of a real persons’ personality and in the other it was the case of a A.I. acting human. The article by Turkle was about online communities and the creation and use of MUDs and other types of online communities. A mud is an area where people go into an area and create a character that represents them in this world or area. They then do all sorts of things in there, like talk and do quests. It was very helpful that Brittany could describe the MUD to the class and on her blog, because the article did a poor job of explaining it. The discussion helped to make more sense out of what the article was getting at.

The idea that people would have multiple personalities was interesting (153). We talked about how each different character created by its user could, effectively, represent one of the sides of the person creating that avatar, as they are called (154). The idea to connect the MUD characters and what goes on there to the multiple personalities was a bit of stretch, but an interesting way to go. The only difference is that in the MUD the people are just focusing on creating a character that has a trait that is part of their actual personality, while in multiple personality disorder, there are completely different personalities.

The article by Miller was the more interesting of the two we read during the week. This one was about a robotic intelligence and what it takes for A.I. to be considered even close to human. The article talked about a test called a Turing Test, which is a series of questions that would allow a judge to identify if it was a human or A.I. (159). The test is used to see if A.I. has a human quality or could pass for human. Similar to this test is the test from the movie Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, in which Ford chases fake humans and gives them a test to see if they are real or a replica. Not the best movie, but it reminded me of the Truing test But a program could be programmed to respond in a way that would make it seem human and trick the judges. So it brings up the question of is it a viable test (166)? Well according to Miller the test is not really doing what it has to. It is looking more for ethos, which is part of rhetoric, according to the Greeks.

We had an interesting discussion about whether or not we would be comfortable talking to a robot as if it were a therapist, when we really could not be sure whether it actually understood our feelings. Some of the students said that they wouldn’t like it others didn’t care. It falls on what you believe. Miller brings up during the last part of the article a part about the real and simulated world. She believes that we live in a simulated world, but that we can get out of it. All people use rhetoric to make a good face, just like a robot may try to act like a human, to gain trust in a chat room. It seems like the simulated world may be all we know and so one can never know what is really true. It is like trying to prove whether God exists or doesn’t, you can’t really do either. The only that can be solved is by dying, and that doesn’t give much chance for testimony and research.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

It's MY Super Sweet Halloween 2006 Party and I'll do what I want!!!

2006-10-26T18:08:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure what to write about today, but I’ll give the ol’ college try. The World Series has definitely taken a turn I was not expecting. I thought the Cardinals would be crushed by Detroit. It looks like Detroit forgot how to hit and so it seems as if St. Louis will eventually win it. I’m thinking Cardinals in 6.

It is awesome to be a Badger football fan right now. They have gotten in to the top 20 for the first time this year and I doubted them, I feel like all the other experts that chose the Badgers to finish 5th or worse, like fools. They have completely dominated all of the Big Ten opponents, except for Michigan. The Badgers are the best team in the Big Ten (not named Ohio State or Michigan) by a good margin. They should crush Illinois this week and they should finish the season 11-1, and get a great bowl game, maybe the Rose Bowl, but only if U of M and OSU play each other for the championship. I feel like an ass having not bought season tickets.

I saw South Park last night and it was an ok episode. It was stupid, funny and I would agree that those Super Sweet 16 girls are little monsters and really annoying. The Three Killers take on the Three Stooges was not that funny and got real old pretty fast. The Biggy Smalls thisng was really funny to me though.

I hope every one has a great Halloween and doesn't get too much pepper spray in their eyes this weekend. Good Luck all. ------------------------------------------------------------------>

And that's all you need to know,

Bryan

Remix to Ignition

2006-10-22T17:49:00.000-05:00

This weeks articles dealt with the use of others work for your own benefit. Sampling, as it is called in the music business, is using music created by another artist in your own music. Usually the sample of the music is changed slightly to fit the style of the newer song. This brings up a lot of questions about the legality of this. Is this practice possibly stunting creativity? This has been used for a while. In Rice, he talks about rap artists being among the innovators of sampling (58-59).

Public Enemy was among the first to use different types of black music, from across different types of music and time periods, to make a statement. Others, like Beck used sampling to make a statement as well, that he could use all types of music to create a sound never heard.

Rice’s book also spoke about the difference in the way samplers are treated. Elvis was never blamed for using blues in his music, while Public Enemy heard all about their sampling (60). Could this be because of racism, or because the music Elvis used was less well known during the time, while what public enemy used was popular music? I don’t really know, but I’d say it is a little bit of both. This is hard to really find the answer to.

The “Connected” article also dealt with this idea of sampling. This article had the idea that copyright laws had to be very strict or else there would be a loss of originality because there would be no reason to be original (147). I disagree with this, copyright laws do the opposite. They take away sounds that belong to the world and allow only those that copyrighted it to use it. One shouldn’t be able to own a type of sound, just like The Donald should not be able to trademark the phrase “Your Fired!” That’s something that has been said for years. In my opinion, sampling can lead to some of the most original music created, because the artist is making it his own and combing different types of music into something new. It may be one of the most difficult things to combine different styles of music and make it sound great and not sound forced, but flow.

This led to an interesting discussion in group discussion about plagiarism in school. In college there are so many ways one could plagiarize, that it seems surprising that everyone hasn’t been blamed for plagiarism. There are only so many different ideas that can possibly be unique, one has to just sample an idea and create a unique twist on that idea. But that could be plagiarism. Plagiarizing has no place in college, at least where you use another’s work as your own, but you should be able to use an basic concept and make it your own, with out have to site it as another’s idea.

In discussion we also talked about some other types of sampling, such as Family Guy, which is maybe three minutes of originality, whit 18 minutes of sampling. But the thing they do is they use the sampled idea and make it their own, by adding a funny or ironic twist.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

Rollercoaster of Emotion on "Monday Night Football"

2006-10-19T20:16:00.000-05:00

I don’t know what to talk about for this blog so I’m just going to write about the “Monday Night Football” game. That was one of the oddest games I’ve ever seen.

Monday night I was about to blow my lid. I couldn’t believe that the 5-0 Bears were getting killed by the 1-4 Cardinals. I was a little shocked by how well the Cardinals were playing in the first half and how badly the Bears were playing. I have never seen a worse performance by a quarterback than what I saw out of Grossman’s. But then what happened in the fourth quarter was something I had never seen. Just when I was about to give up on the Bears and turn the game off, the defense scores a touchdown, and I decided to continue watching. Then the worst joke job in football history happened, and Bears scored enough, without an offensive touchdown to win the game. I was shocked at how they had won such a game. That was a bad win that they really didn’t deserve. The performance by Urlacher in the fourth quarter, though, was one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen by a defensive player. He was all over the place and just carried his team to that win. Also the performance by Matt Leinart was amazing for a rookie. He will be a great player in a few years.

I saw the end of the latest South Park episode and it seemed pretty funny. Cartman as a hall pass monitor was pretty funny, even though it reminded me of when he was a police officer, telling people to respect his authority. He looked ridiculous dressed like Dawg, the Bounty Hunter.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

Tipping all the Way to the Bank

2006-10-15T18:48:00.000-05:00

This week’s articles had a lot to do with what make people want to buy something. “The Tipping Point”, by Malcolm Gladwell was about just that. This article was about the Hush Puppies phenomenon that occurred in the mid-90s. How could a shoe that was selling poorly and was almost completely shut down, make such a turn around? The answer is not some amazing marketing scheme, but a bunch of New York teens buying them, to be different. These kids started a trend that exploded all over the US. How this happen. Gladwell uses a theory known as the tipping point, which is a point in the timeline of something that either falls or grows at an extreme rate( 129). In the case of New York crime, a huge fall in crime rates in the 1990s had people scratching their heads (128-9). It is part of a lot of things coming together to influence the outcome. It was not one thing that made New York’s crime rate fall, just as it was not just the teens buying Hush Puppies in New York that made Puppies explode. Many things led to the point where both just exploded and the trend continued to carry the momentum of the tipping point.

The other article was also written by Gladwell and it, too, dealt with something becoming popular. The article was about cool hunters. These are people who happen to be cool and are looking for other cool kids to find what is cool to them and sell that info to companies like Nike, Reebok, Adidas, and any other fashion company. The article says that there are three rules to being cool and one is that one has to be different from others, be innovative. Another role is that you can’t manufacture cool (144). This is what Reebok has tried to do and it has been rather unsuccessful.

I remember the old Reebok commercials with A.I. (Allen Iverson) and some rapper. It was trying to cash in with the hip urban crowd by having rap music, but it still couldn’t catch up to Nike. These commercials were laying it on too thick with the “cool” factor. Iverson is already a cool NBA player, there was no need to overload with the rap. The rap was too much and one could see they were trying too hard, which is something people who are cool don’t do. The other problem with Reebok is that Iverson is the only person that I know that is with Reebok, and that’s not going to help spread the word that Reebok is worth buying. Their website tries hard to be cool with unique writing style and the slogan, "i am what i am". This is like the Sprite ad that tells you to "Obey your thirst". This slogan is going for those that are rebels, but maybe that just isn't cool any more. The problem may be that Reebok just isn’t cool and so can’t make things that are cool. This is the last rule of cool; you can’t know it, if you ain’t got it (145).

This idea of a few people knowing what is cool and that then becoming popular seems to just be bull. It seems that it is just the luck of the draw as to what clicks with people. What makes Tommy a hit, no one knows and it’s the same with why Reebok can’t be a hit. DeeDee is all about the Tokyo fashion and she is almost certain that what is in Japan at the time would be coming to the US in one way or another. Well, the paper was written 9 years ago and I haven’t seen that come over here. Just because one person likes it, does not mean that all people will like. Maybe the problem is that DeeDee and Baysie weren’t doing it for Reebok because they weren’t cool and they really weren’t finding the cool kids. No body ever thinks that they aren’t cool. Maybe these companies should double check who their cool hunters are.

And that's all you need to know,

Bryan

Keep cool my Babies, keep cool... er warm that is

2006-10-12T17:48:00.000-05:00

Let me see… October 12^th, it’s usually in the 50s. Not today though, today it was 29 when I went outside and it started to snow at the same time. I don’t know about you but that seems a little early. I was talking with my roommate earlier in the day, before I got outside and the first thing he told me was that he was so happy he had taken his jacket with him in the morning. This is a person that almost never complains about the weather, but it was the first thing he said to me when he got back from class. After a few minutes my other roommate came back from work. Today was his first day and he has to bike for about an hour to get to work because he works on the far west side of Madison. You could tell that he was chilled to the bone. This should not happen on a mid-October morning. I love winter, but I also like fall, so I don’t want to miss that part of the year. Imagine if it’s like this on Halloween, people will be freezing and it will most likely dampen some of the fun.

This week we play Minnesota in our Homecoming game and it should be another nice beat down of a lowly Big Ten opponent. I’m guessing PJ Hill will shred them for monster yards and Stocco will burn them with a couple touchdown passes. The hockey season is almost upon us as well, and while I’m not the biggest hockey fan, it is still cool to have two number one teams. Being national champs was great and it was a great time to be a Badgers sports fan.

And last but certainly not least, the Chicago Bears are playing Monday Night. I couldn’t be happier with that team right now. I can’t wait to see the Bears defeat the Cardinals. It should be another game that will be done by the end of first half, though.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

Networks, the Good and the Bad

2006-10-08T20:31:00.000-05:00

This week the articles were much easier to understand then others we have read and they were interesting articles. The Duncan Watts article “The Connected Age” is about the network and how they are better than the grid and also some of the weaknesses. He used an interesting example of power lines to show the connectivity of the network world and the good and the bad that comes with it. The power lines had a system to take up any failure in another line and continue to deliver power (23). This is an advantage of the network, being connected and a way to avoid problems and deal with problems quickly. But the problem with the power lines was that it had a built in failing; that of a cascading affect that on failure would cause a failure in another line and eventually a complete failure. This is a built in weakness of the networks. If one thing adversely affects a one part of a network it can affect another as well.

This article also had an interesting part that dealt with how networks can be created and how they can become so well connected. The six degrees (38) part of the article said that one person that new 100 people could, within six degrees, be connected to 9 billion people. We had an interesting discussion with this article. People gave some of their stories about weird ways of being connected to people you would never know. We also spoke about what would be more complicated an individual or a group of people. We agreed that the individual is more complex because in a group one can behave in a more predictable manner. One of the people in class gave a great example about the Halloween party in Madison and how you can now predict a riot caused by the whole of the people there, but you can never know which person decides to start it.

The other Watts article about viruses was a good read. He used two different networks to describe viruses in the computer network through the way the human network can get viruses. This was a great way to show how they can spread. The SIR model is one that seems to get at the heart of how viruses spread, but it also seems to be simplistic, because it didn’t deal with the randomness that can happen when a virus spreads. In discussion we spoke about how one could avoid viruses spreading to a lot of people. Breaking up the way the basic system works so that it may make it more difficult for viruses to spread. The problem with that idea is that it would make it harder for people within, or without, offices to share info across the internet or a network. We agreed that something had to be done because nearly all of us had received a virus at one point or another. Making things so similar to make things easier to share creates a built in system of failure. And this is something that Microsoft has to deal with. The Apple Vs. Windows commercials point this problem out because Apples’ don’t have many viruses wile Windows has many.

And that's allyou need to know,
Bryan

Finally

2006-10-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

Any one who has to take a test like the LSAT or the GRE or MCAT knows what a pain in the ass it is to take. The tests are not very hard, but time is precious. I took the LSAT over the weekend and I can't be happier just being done with it. I have been studying for it for so long that I am numb. It was and is a test that can shape a lot of my future and so it was one of the most important test I have ever taken. Law schools, and graduate schools in general, put too much importance on these tests, taking away from all the other things that each student has done, but there is nothing I can do about that. It was such a pain to study for that test and study for my classes, but I hope it was worth it and I don't regret it because I brought it on myself and it should help me get into law school, hopefully. It is such a relief to be done with that I can't explain it.

The one thing that made my weekend great, was coming back from Chicago, because I could get a test center here in Madison, and seeing the Bears demolish the Seahawks on NBC's Football Night in America and by the way, that may be the worst name I've ever heard of. All that money and they counldn't come up with a better title? No wonder they're last among the big networks.

Any way, the new episode of South Park was pretty funny, even though I have never played that type of game. My buddy does and so that was pretty funny to his game be made fun of. I think My Name is Earl should be a good one from the commercials I seen of it and so should The Office, come to think of it-ish.

And that's all you need to know,
Bryan

Complex or Chaotic?

2006-10-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

We had a lot of interesting readings this past week. The ones from earlier in the week were about blogging and where it originated from. But the underlying theme of both of those was that there was a network developing and that is also one of the keys to this class. The amazing thing about blogging that I found out through the Miller and Shepard article was that something that started as a place to write some information and write what one pleased could become an online community that is very complex and immense. The way we broke up the article helped to make it more easily understandable and also helped to clarify some of the questions I had reading it. Breaking it into what a blog is, what it does, and where it came from all helped me understand how it has become what it has today. Its history is more complex then I thought and for this reason, it is more believable that it can form such complex communities.

The part of the essay that dealt with the networks that are created by the bloggers themselves and through the connections from what they have written to something someone else has written also makes the complexity of the blogging more pronounced. These articles from this week included a lot of what we had read the past few weeks, including the importance of hypertext and the formation of 3D writing as Mike put it in class and on his blog.

The connections that people can make with each other over a few lines of text are also quite odd and interesting. The discussion in class about exhibitionism and voyeurism was an interesting one and it helped to see what the great interest in blogging can stem from. We used the 90s as a time when the reality TV craze happened and how it brought around different forms of entertainment and new types of stars. From nobody to somebody was a big craze. People liked to see other people living their everyday lives. This taps into what the blogs are for many people. They are diaries that are made for the public and these create internet celebrities. From the simplicity of life we get a great amount of entertainment that, to many, become really complex and personal.

This also led to our discussion about the ethics that may or may not be needed in the blogging world. Should what is put up there be truthful or should it be stated that it is false? Also, are the people online the real personality of the person typing into the blog or is it a false one? Someone in class a great comment about the possibility that the online persona of a person may be the real personality and that the safety of the blog can allow the true person come out. I could see that happening, because the person can speak his mind without having to see the other person and so it can make you feel safer. This is all really complex.

Which leads me to the really out there readings of the week, the ones on Complexity Theory and Chaos Theory. These were interesting and difficult to understand, but after a few read throughs, they make a little more sense. The focus on the examples helped to specify each as its own theory. The article by Taylor seemed to be a little all over the place. It also dealt with networks and complexity. I liked his use of architecture as a way to describe the complexity of progress. He used Le Corbusier as the one who was too rigid to allow for advancement of society and new ideas. He represented the grid as the basis of construction. Then he focused on a superficial change, one that masked the grid, but didn’t reinvent it. Last, was Frank Gehry who put the grid on its head. The network is connected, global, fast, always changing, and it is very complex. This is where Taylor talks about reaching the edge of chaos and it is also the point of movement towards change and advancement (97).

This is a very interesting idea and one that makes sense. It is always those that are at the edge of limits that create the great things. This is similar to the saying that the line between genius and insanity is a fine one. Galileo was considered crazy; Newton was a weirdo, and Michael Jordan a freakish athlete. All these people eventually changed the way things were done in their respective fields.

And that’s all you need to know,
Bryan

Perplexia'd by the Readings

2006-09-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

This week’s readings were about as perplexing as Lexia to Preplexia was. The readings were about the advent of hyperlinks and other internet age creations have changed the way people read. I didn’t understand much about what N. Katherine Hayles was talking about. The discussion and the group discussions helped to sort out some of what she was getting at, but not by much. Reading this article online however clarified a lot of the hyperlinks that were in the printed article because it allowed me to read the definitions of the hypertexts. It is an interesting way to write, when any word that your reader might not know can be connected to a page or site that can describe it for them. It can reduce the amount of questions one may have after just having read something online. It can give the reader a more complete picture of what is being stated in an article or paper or whatever. This seems to be where Hayles is going towards, or at least what I got out of it. She also focuses on the point that the book will not disappear on account of the web, because she says that the physical nature of the book can’t be duplicated with the internet.

The article that focused on Lexia to Perplexia didn’t really help me read the site any better than before my reading it. It did help to explain a lot of what I found most difficult to understand and why it was like that, but it still didn’t lead to my comprehension of what the hell I was reading. I didn’t like not having control over what I read, with the most miniscule movements of the mouse causing me to lose focus of what I was reading and popping up some new box for me to get annoyed by a few seconds later. It is an annoying site to read, but it defiantly keeps my attention up. It’s like having somebody blow a whistle in my ear when I about to doze off while reading something boring for a class. His idea to use a system where every movement changed what you were reading could be seen as a type of rhetoric, in that Memmott wanted to show how this new technolgy was different and changing the way people read. He was getting his point across in an unusual and rhetorical way. His rhetoric was what he made of it, which is what all writers or speakers do when trying to persuade someone of something.

This week of class was very lively and it was one of the more enjoyable weeks of English I’ve had. Being in the computer lab really lets me know what we’re working on and allows me to understand more of where the class is headed. Working on the webpage was pretty fun. I’ve never made a webpage before, but what we’ve done so far is not so difficult.

And that's all you need to know,
Bryan

Big Weekend

2006-09-21T17:48:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure what to write about this week. Last week I wrote about the class readings, only to find out the Friday is for whatever I want. I'm not going to make that mistake twice. This is a big weekend for the Badgers, they have to play the Wolverines. I have to say I’m not very optimistic about their chances against them. The win last year was great, but both of these teams have changed. Stocco has to get better, and the receivers have to get better. PJ Hill is the lone bright spot and maybe the defense, even though we haven’t played anyone yet. I don’t think we’ll win, but I’m going to say we squeak one out 24-21, anyway.

This is also the last chance the White Sox have for doing anything to try to catch up. I don’t see it happening, but I can hope. After last night I’m pretty sure they are dead in the water, though. From World Series champs to out of the playoffs, it’s amazing how quick things can change.

The last big sporting event is the NFL and the fact that all the NFC North teams are playing each other. The Packers and Lions are trying to get a win and I think the Packers will actually win, because they can’t be worse then the Lions. The big match up is between Da BEARS and the Vikings. Both are 2 and 0, but the Vikings have looked mediocre in their wins, even though they beat playoff teams from last year. The Bears, on the other hand routed both of their opponents and looked great on offense for the first time in my life (what I can remember, anyway). This should be another win for the Bears, but I’m going to say it’s not going to be as lopsided.

One thing I have to say about the readings this week is that they were out there and way over my head. And Lexia to Perplexia is a really annoying to try to read. It’s all over the place and doesn’t seem to have a coherent thought that I could find. It’s probably because I wouldn’t understand anything in it anyway.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

Medium may be in message, but still confused

2006-09-17T19:45:00.000-05:00

This week’s articles were both very difficult and complex reads. Both were written by Marshall McLuhan, an apparently very influential author and person. The first article, “The Medium is in the Message” was about how the most important part of writing and speech is, not the content of what is said, but in what medium it is stated. This point makes some sense in that the difference between radio, TV, and the internet can lead one to having different opinions of what may have been said by politician during a speech.

For McLuhan to state that the content is not where the message lies however seems extreme to me. The medium to me seems to be only the messenger of the content. A TV by itself is useless unless it has some content coming throw the glass. Although somebody in class had a good idea about what McLuhan might be trying to get at when she described the idea of watching a football game on TV or listening to it on the radio, one has two different experiences.

The article also has some focus on the difference between oral and literate societies. In his opinion literacy can be the cause of disharmony between the people of a nation or even neighborhood. With the oral tradition, McLuhan believes that it can form communities and avoids the major pitfall of print media, individualism. He says that individualism is a by product of a literate society.

I can see how that could be believable because being able to read does allow all people to form and believe whatever ideas they may want from a text. One has the choice to believe it or to disagree with it and it causes discussion, but in my opinion that can only be a good thing. What would be the point if all people just agreed with everybody else? It would be a world with little advancement and little reason to try to change and challenge ourselves to become better.

The other article and hot and cool mediums is one that was very confusing to me. McLuhan has the idea that nearly every medium falls within two mediums, hot or cool. Cool would be one that is a more sensory filled medium, kind of like slow rhetoric from the Faigley article from earlier this week, and hot makes up the faster, less interactive mediums, just like fast rhetoric. The author makes it seem as if hot is part of the print medium and cool is part of the oral mediums. McLuhan believes that cool is the way to go because it is more of a unifier, than hot is.

The way he separates what is hot and what is cool seems to be arbitrary in some instances. He puts movies on the hot side, but TV on the cool. Movies and TV seem to be fairly similar to me, so I can’t see why they are on opposite side of the media spectrum to McLuhan. In a way I could see it as going to a movie one gets surround sound and a huge screen, so there is a sensory rush coming at one at one time, so it should be a cool medium, but it also throws a lot of info at you, so it could go in either really. This second article really didn’t make a lot of sense because of how arbitrary the placements of the mediums were.

And that’s all you need know (maybe),

Bryan

P.S.

The Bears Rule!!!!!!!

Fast and Slow: Different Types of Rhetoric

2006-09-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

The latest readings that we have read have added to the complications of rhetoric. The two articles that we read have divergent opinions about the direction the writing is going into. The first article written by Kathleen Blake Yancey focused on how technology could and should change the way students in college write. She is herself a Professor of English. Her ideas seem to be very much on the cusp of technology, making her ideas all the more surprising considering she is a professor. She wants to change the way students write, so that it is more than just a student to teacher exchange of written material, but one where more people can read the material and comment on it. She is into what Lester Faigley calls fast rhetoric, where the point is to get as much information out into the public as possible, in the hopes of educating and enlightening as many people as possible.

The Faigley article was very much on the opposite side of Yancey’s work. He was more interested in the revitalization of the slow rhetoric. Faigley says that all this technology is creating a digital divide between those that have the latest technology and those that don’t. Though this change into technological writing he sees that the instead of become a more peaceful and accepting people there has been little change because of the advancement in technology. Faigley goes so far as to say that the community of the America is starting to fall apart because of the fast rhetoric so prevalent in our society. I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that but I see his point. I am sort of in the middle ground between Yancey’s ideas and Faigley’s ideas. In this world there is no question we have to slow down or we will lose ourselves completely, but to the point where our world is not moving forward, in any facet of society.

And that’s all you need to know,

Bryan

2006-09-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

Rhetoric

I always thought rhetoric was a more complex and complete way of writing and speaking that allowed the writer or speaker to get his point across in a much more complex and sophisticated manner. After reading the introduction, my view of rhetoric is different, I see now that rhetoric is actually a planned and very thoughtful way of speaking. I see that it is quite complex, more so then I believed. The article does a great job of getting that point across. At first it seems very vague and broad and only after one reads more into the article does it start to take shape and explain what rhetoric is and what it isn’t. I knew that rhetoric was a way of speaking, but I didn’t know that it was a discipline. I thought it was something that one just had in them with the help of a large vocabulary. Training in rhetoric was something I had never heard of.

I enjoyed the many varied examples that the author uses to show what is and what isn’t rhetoric. The examples were great because they ranged from romance to politics. The fact that rhetoric has so many facets to it that are necessary to make it successful also added to my understanding of it. The audience one is speaking to, and the need to be up to the challenge of responding to questions raised against what ever may be spoken about, all add to a greater understanding of the complexity of rhetoric. At first, I thought rhetoric was only big words and great sentences, but the article showed me the real side of rhetoric, one that all people should understand. It can help one persuade people to their side and it can help one see when somebody else is trying to persuade them. In this ever globalizing world we need to understand rhetoric more than ever.

And thats all you need to know about that,
Bryan