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.