Atlas Speaker Series - Lee Sheldon

Lee Sheldon is a writer, game designer, television producer and scriptwriter. He's utilized many various mediums including Television, novels, and video games. In his talk “Designing Coursework as a Game,” Sheldon was sure to mention his time working on Star Trek: the Next Generation. He also trash talked Zynga games for a bit. Since he is also the author of the non-fiction books The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game and Character Development and Storytelling for Games, one could almost consider him a contemporary Renaissance-man.

The majority of the talk is about his experimental academia. Each of his students start with zero experience points (XP), and they build up XP by finishing tasks or “quests” similar to RPG (or role-playing game). As the student gains more XP, he or she gains more levels when they reach a particular amount. For example, level 5 = 555 and level 6 = 666. He explained different instances of using this approach. Sheldon showed various images students doing cartwheels, high-fiving each other, and generally running around having a good time. He seems to believe that positivity and fun in the classroom lead to more engaged, or at least enthusiastic, students. I'm a fan of RPGs myself and think this model has a lot of potential.

The most interesting part of the talk for me was the bit about the “emergent reality lab” being built at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Its essentially a large virtual reality space that ditches the goggles and gloves for screens and projectors. Sheldon says that space can fit a smaller sized class, and mentions the surround sound. He has dreams of projecting on and manipulating the contours of the ground. It appears to be the world's most elaborate and expensive classroom, but it has way more potential than that.  I would love to use that space for an Art installation.

The link to Sheldon's talk can be found here: http://www.colorado.edu/atlas/newatlas/mainphoto/photo103.html.

Remix Culture

I don't really see a distinction between remix culture and culture.  Remixing plays a crucial role in the visual, literary, and performance arts.  Remixing and collaboration both have a large impact on my own artwork.

The biggest consequence of remix culture is that some artists and companies may not make as much money as could due to copyright violations.  Remix culture affects innovation by not only allowing regular consumers to contribute more to culture but encouraging it.  Remixing allows our culture to redefine itself.

Assignment for 03 December 2012

The Digital Divide is the difference in people's ability to access advanced technology.  This divide prevents some people from accessing the internet and information.

It's interesting to see how people react when they first interact with a computer.  I liked that the professor left the villagers to explore the computer on their own without instruction.  It bothered me that the school was charging the students to use the computers.  It's interesting that Javine is taking her lessons from school and teaching them to her parents.

As time goes on, will the Digital Divide shrink or grow?

Group 9: I.T. & War for 11/26

I know that computers were developed for the military during World War 2 and continued research has helped develop the computers we use today.  Gathering information is crucial for the military and has been for much longer than computers have been around.

Roland says that "chariots were perhaps the most dominant instrument of warfare before nuclear weapons." The development of gunpowder, artillery, ships, or even the use of metal to create weapons and armor among others have all had their own significant impacts on warfare at least on par with the chariot.

The way warfare is carried out has changed as humanity grows older, but war on a fundamental level hasn't changed.  "Before these conceptual categories took hold of the modern consciousness, premodern commanders thought of their armies and navies in terms of men (human capital) and material (arms and armor, forts and roads, food and ammunition)" according to Roland.  The materials may be different, but Commanders still think of their armies in these terms.

Roland states that "the military establishment began to institutionalize research and development, adopting from industry a kind of planned obsolescence that would keep American armed forces a generation ahead of their potential foes.  They created what President Dwight Eisenhower called in his farewell address a “military-industrial complex,” a perpetual arms race, not necessarily with any particular enemy, but with the status quo." This made the U.S. military a constantly evolving entity compared to armies of the past.  This started to happen around the same time that the computer was invented.  New means of communication including the radio and now the internet have all allowed information to be gathered and analyzed more efficiently.  These forms of communication have not only reshaped the battlefield, but also the decreased the amount of time that it takes for the battlefield to reshape itself.  

Group 10 Reading Assignment

I see nothing wrong with sharing music or any other form of media.  Sometimes its easier to just download a title than acquiring it legally.  Since Torrenting only creates a copy, it's the same as sharing.  I think pirating is a misnomer, and file-sharing is a much more accurate name.

My preferred method of listening to music is Grooveshark.  People upload songs to this database, and the music is available to stream.  I prefer it because it allows me to create and save playlists as well as making radio stations.

Group 8 - Virtual Reality

I know virtual reality is used for training purposes in the military, but I'm familiar with virtual realities through sci-fi books such as Ender's Game and Snow Crash as well as films like The Matrix and Tron.  As a gamer, I'm not really sure what separates virtual reality from video games.  I know the feeling of being immersed in a video game, and it seems to me that it would be difficult to get immersed in virtual reality while wearing the clunky goggles and gloves.

Questions on "A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND ITS SOCIAL APPLICATIONS" (Samuel Ebersole)

1.  Are books, films, and video games all different mediums of virtual reality?  Which mediums, if any, should be excluded?

2.  What is "virtual rape"?  How did it impact the virtual community of LambdaMOO?

3.  Should a person feel guilty for any actions taken while in virtual reality?

Questions for Group 7

1. What are similarities and differences between the Digital Economy Act and SOPA/PIPA?

2. What's wrong with having passwords for wireless networks?

3. What does Stallman think of Google and Chrome in terms of tracking people's IP addresses?  I would to love to see this browser he's working on.

Questions on Readings for Group 5

"Life On the Electronic Frontier: An Interview with Howard Rheingold" and "Review of Howard Rheingold's "Virtual Communities" by Geert Lovink

1. Will the number of people working from home steadily increase?

2.  What attracted people who worked for themselves to virtual communities, such as the WELL, in the early days of the internet?

3.  "Rheingold uses CMC in Japan and France as examples of the fact that the global development of the Net is not uniform and does not automatically result in Internet."  What is Lovink referring to here?  I tried searching "CMC" with many different results. 

Questions on "A Deep Dive into Facebook and Datalogix"

"A Deep Dive into Facebook and Datalogix: What's Actually Getting Shared and How You Can Opt Out" (Reitman):

1.  Would more people opt out of the program if they knew that Facebook was sharing information with Datalogix?

2.   "Due to the large sample sizes that were being tested, it would be impossible to figure out whether a specific individual bought a specific item"  Can Datalogix really determine the effectiveness of an ad if this is true?

3.  "Apparently Facebook also sent in a privacy and security auditor to assess this issue, and was satisfied with the results."  Shouldn't this be a third-party auditor?  It isn't much of a surprise that Facebook's privacy and security auditor was satisfied with the results.

Questions for Group 2 "IT & Politics"

"The Emerging Role of Social Media in Political and Regime Change" (Rita Safranek) -

1.  What methods do repressive governments use within social media to suppress dissent?

2.  Do peaceful protests lead to successful revolutions only if a government is willing to allow it to happen?

3.  If only 21% of Egyptians use the internet, did social media really play that big of a role in their protests? 

Social Media and I

Facebook is a juggernaut of social media. I have spent plenty of my free time scrolling through the news feed on Facebook. I often wonder what I expect to find while I'm checking people's statuses. When I first discovered Facebook, I would regularly update my status and would maintain my farm in Farmville. Lately I've felt more detached from Facebook, because I don't really participate within the community anymore. I tend to block people more often than adding new friends or liking new pages. I'll comment here-and-there on other people's statuses, but I rarely update my own status. While it currently seems hugely popular, I wonder if anybody will still care about Facebook in 10 years. Honestly, I feel like Facebook is just a fad. As my attention drifts away from Facebook, I have found other websites that do more than fill the void.

Reddit calls itself the front page of the internet, and it's hard to disagree. It's not only a great place to find trending memes and youtube videos, but it's also a great place for lolz and generally finding out what the hell is happening in the world of the internet. I feel like Reddit truly showed its power when it and Wikipedia shutdown for a day in order to raise awareness for SOPA. I frequently lurk around both of these of sites looking for both information and entertainment. There is something great about anonymously sharing information. It just feels more accessible through the internet.

IGN is another website is another website that I frequently visit. It's a gaming journalism and review site. For me the comments section provide a nice forum. In addition to providing a source for lolz, it provides a place for genuine discussion for passionate readers. For me anonymity makes the discussion more accessible. I can post my thoughts without the need to worry or really even knowing how people will react. It's a place I can go to share a conversation with people who I don't know, but we share a common interest.

Developments in social media are shaping our modern culture. Face-to-face interaction is slowly becoming rarer but also more valuable to me. Often times I wonder if how much of analog interaction will be replaced by digital interaction. Sometimes I'm glad that I have a “dumb” phone, so I don't have Facebook in my pocket 24/7.

Week 6 Reading Questions Part 2

The Attention Economy and the Net (Goldhaber) -

1.  What is "Illusory Attention"?

2.  Why would companies let their employees bounce around from company to company?

3. "Attention transactions, which already are far more numerous than monetary transactions will come to dominate even further. So even if you have lots of money, you will find it less and less convenient or worthwhile to bother to use it."  What does Goldhaber really mean by this?

Week 6 Reading Questions

The Net & The Web (Hakim Bey) -

1.  What is the "Temorary Autonomous Zone"?

2.  When Bey talks about "data-piracy," is he talking about torrenting or are there other methods?

3.  What is a "yuppetariat"?

Group Project #2

These are my responses to questions asked by Kelly Turgeon.  Kelly's blog can be found at: http://atls2000kellyturgeon.blogspot.com/

1.  "Is there anyway a website can protect it self from being a victim to these types of online server attacks?"  

Various methods of prevention exist, and they all seem to have varying rates of success.  Some prevention and response tools include: firewalls, switches, application front end hardware, IPS based prevention, DDS based defense, clean pipes, blackholing, and sinkholing.  The wikipedia article on DDoS attacks provides a good amount of information on these various forms of defense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack


2.  "How has the group gained so much support if they don’t have an identity?  Do they work together to do these hacks or do they all just label themselves under the ‘Anonymous’ title?"  

Anonymous functions as a collective, but there is no formal structure or membership process.  My guess is that a small group of individuals will pick a target and support is gained throughout the group by word of mouth.  Coleman says that "Because anyone can take the name - as many different, seemingly unrelated affiliations have done - operations can be intensified quickly after a weakness on the part of the target is discovered, or shutdown immediately if trouble or internal controversy arises."  It seems to me that all the members share the credit and the blame for whatever the group decides to do. They don't lack an identity: it's one that is mysteriously obscure and gaining fame/infamy.

3.  "What is ‘a Cartesian attitude’?"

This is something I was also curious about.  It seems to be skepticism taken to the extreme.  It's doubting every bit of knowledge and constantly asking "What can we know for certain?".

Questions for Weekly Readings - Week 5

The Ethics of Digital Direct Action - 
1.  "'We want to send a message that chaos on the internet is unacceptable,' said Steven Chabinsky, deputy
assistant FBI director."  Who decides what is chaotic activity on the internet and what isn't?

2.  Why is a protest considered criminal activity once it's moved from physical space to the internet?

3.  What is the necessary evidence in order to convict someone involved in a DDoS attack?


Our Weirdness is Free - 
1.  What does Coleman mean when she says that Anonymous doesn't harbor a "Cartesian attitude."

2.  Are the communities belonging to Anonymous and WikiLeaks one and the same?

3.  Would Coleman consider protesting to be the highest form of trolling?


Cyberdeterence and Cyberwar -
1.  What exactly does Libicki mean when he says: "organizations are vulnerable to cyberattack only to the extent they want to be."

2.  Shouldn't the United States make strategic cyberwar a priority investment area at least as an option for a counterattack?

3.  Is an EMP the ultimate form of attack in terms of Cyberwar?

Week 4 Reading Questions

Tools for Thought: 
1. I think the concept for the "von Neumann machines" is brilliant.  When von Neumann was dreaming this factory-spaceship-launchpad system, was he predicting humanity's future?

2. What is Thomas Kuhn definition of a "scientific paradigm"?

3. Why doesn't Shannon just publish his later research and discoveries?


Engineering a New Order:
1. What is the difference between the "art of war" and the "science of war"?

2. How would engineering change without the influence of militarism?

3. What is the definition of the "military-industrial complex."?


The Internet Revolution:
1.  Why doesn't the author mention Google once in the chapter?  O' Reagan mentions yahoo several times.

2. What would Bush think of a smart phone in relation to his "memex"?

3. I didn't realize that the military played such a crucial role in the development of the internet.  Perhaps I shouldn't find this too surprising considering the military's role in developing the computer and technology in general.

Group Project

I've been tasked with providing answers to three of my partners reading questions.  My partner is named Danny, and his blog can be found here: http://digitalrelic.tumblr.com/.  Here are my responses to his discussion questions.

1.  “'Political freedom has to be accompanied by a civil society literate enough and densely connected enough to discuss the issues presented to the public.' Does the internet and social media encourage this literacy, or does it do the opposite by allowing people to digest culture en masse without the need for intense critical thinking? "
  The internet and social media does provide the necessary tools to discuss the issues presented to the public.  Many people use the internet and social media for that exact purpose, but the majority use these for self-distraction.  The internet and social media function in both forms.

2.  "Would Bush be satisfied by things like Google and Wikipedia in relation to his idea of a Memex? Or would he still view them as too crude to truly deliver all the knowledge a person requires in an efficient manner?"
  I have feeling that Bush would love Google and Wikipedia.  I doubt he would find either to be crude or inefficient.  If one used a smart phone to create blog entries and post links, then they basically have a functioning memex.

3.  "Does technology really have intentions?"  
  An inventor will certainly have intentions for his or her invention, but I generally consider technology to be morally neutral and open to manipulation.  Someone can always find a use for technology that exceeds the inventors intentions and/or expectations.  The inventor doesn't always "know " the invention.  The computer comes to mind.

Questions for Weekly Readings and Quiz Response

3 Questions From the Readings: Week 1

1. What does it mean to be a "technocognoscenti"? (Rheingold, Tools for Thought - ch. 1)

2. How would Babbage's Analytical Engine read the punched pasteboard cards? (Rheingold, Tools for Thought - ch. 2)

3. How did Bush conceptualize the "Memex" in 1945?  The idea seems so ahead of its time!  (As We May Think)



 3 Questions: Week 2

1. In Resisting Technology: Regaining a Personal Ecology, What does Agarwal mean by "the reversal of climate exchange"?

2. "Ten corporations worldwide control over 75% of pesticide sales."  Why doesn't Agarwal provide proper citation or footnotes for this type of information?

3. "Starting from the unitary encounter of the Self with the Other, there is, in the dynamic of the encounter, a
sensation of flow (and of a lack of flow)."  (Hopkins, Architectures of Participation)  What does it mean to simultaneously have a sensation of flow and a lack of flow?



Week 2 Quiz

The effectiveness of social media as means of inspiring socio-political change is hit-or-miss at best.  For 

every story of its success in one country, there is a story of its failure in another.  The determining factor seems to be the response of that country's government.  If the government of that country chooses to use 

censorship and/or violence, then that socio-political movement will fail.  In the words of Clay Shirky, The 

main function of social media in its current form is "commerce, social life, or self-distraction" and not inspiringsocio-political change.