Revenge of the Nerd

And this is what happens when you become a tad bit too engrossed in the image of your online persona.

All I did was call him a nerd and he came to kill me!

Michelle Malkin

The whole blogging 'celebrities' idea intrigued me so much I had to know more. A few google searches later and I had fallen in love. Michelle Malkin is a conservative Asian-American journalist with an eye for controversy.

Controversy and all, I support Michelle Malkin - journalistic free-spirit and a testament to all the principles of blogging discussed in the 2nd course reading.





Lucas Cooney

MySpace Art

I found this weeks' conversations on online identities rather interesting. Primarily because I am a fine arts student, and last semester I created an art project around the idea that there can be an online identity that is not strictly linked to any one person (or indeed any part of one person). I achieved this by simply creating a myspace profile under the name "e_being" (genius, I know). And although it hasn't experienced much activity, I would like to encourage you all to login as this "identity" and do what you like with it (although changing the password is a little sad, and I can always change it back).

The login is e_being@hotmail.com, and the password is "i11usion". I think this is an interesting experiment into the idea of an individual having multiple identities, where one of these identities is actually shared with others, and to a certain degree, out of everyone's control (much like the guy that hacked the MUD in the story in our tutorial).

I would really appreciate your participation.

-Sam Gisler

Blogging: Creating Celebrities

I've just been reading on this website, http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/425827/1246992 about regular people who blog and become celebrities as a result. There are many of these people including Perez Hilton (who is most commonly known for celebrity gossip, and I'm referring to actors, singers etc) and I find this whole concept fascinating. I personally believe that a blog is more like a diary more than anything else and to become a celebrity because of it seems a little bit ridiculous but I was thinking about this earlier today, maybe it allows some to live viacriously.

It has been said in lectures that some people are unable to transfer their online confidence into the physical world, but I would like to present another idea. Could it be that instead of having physical diaries that we kept private we now have online diaries and actually are seeking more advice than we used to before.

I really don't see what all the fuss about blogs and online identities is all about. It just seems ridiculous to me. In saying this, it didn't used to. Maybe it is a bit like watching a movie in that it allows you to escape reality for a short time, but the question is, why are we wanting to escape reality and why can't we interact with people in real life? I understand that the times are changing and things are different to what they used to be, but I believe it is because of the internet communities that people are becoming more and more socially inept.

I could be wrong though, and as has been pointed out, people do have different ideas and belief systems. I would like to leave you with the question, should people be famous because of blogging which in essence is just talking about what they think and their every day lives? I mean are we so desparate to have idols; and so desparate to be famous that this what we are now doing? Shouldn't celebrities be people who are famous for doing something, like acting, being a politician or a successful sports player etc etc?

VIRTUAL WORLD - ANOTHER LEAP

The idea of a second life over the internet? well there are possibilites of exploring to more inner depth than one could imagine. The virutal life of people does not just linger when you are at home on the internet, but it has a taken a leap further with IBM creating a virtual world for its employees to meet. It does sound crazy about having a virtual meeting place for all the employees. May be in the future we might not even have offices to goto, everything might be placed to work from home. check out the link it is more indepth than one can imagine where the virtual world is taking us.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_hi_te/virtual_world_guidelines

loneliness and technology

In class we were discussing how new forms of communication media may in fact be breaking down our social bonds. This is contrary to the claims made by their creators.

When reading the Jan/Feb issue of Add Busters magazine, I discovered an article entitled 'Loneliness and Technology'. So I thought I would scan it and host it (thanks Kevin) to share with you all.

The story starts by explaining a how a woman lay dead in her London apartment for two years before she was discovered by her land lord. It suggests in a age of advanced communication technologies our social bonds may be breaking down not in spite of media technologies, but because of it! People are calling this woman's death the failing of modern communities, and claiming that new communication technologies are eroding human bonds.

How ever it does mention examples of teens who may be withdrawn in social circles, but witty conversationalists within online forums... And it goes on to suggest that the elderly and terminally ill have been given a new communicative life due to the Internet because they have previously been isolated from physical communication circles due to there conditions.

It raises some interesting points about how the Internet, cell phones and other new communication mediums have changed the way in which we communicate and states that the subtle nuances of face to face communication such as facial expression and body language have been lost.

After reading the story I can see merit in what it is saying but can't seem to form a definitive opinion on this matter. My experience with communities such as Face Book and My Space is they have enabled me to stay in better contact with friends and family living overseas..... I can defiantly see negatives to this form of communication, such as a complete absorbtion and reliance, leading to isolation. But, they have kept me in greater contact with people I may have lost touch with if I had to rely on phone or email alone. Maybe that is because I am a inherently social person, both in the physical world and virtual world. For me though, nothing beats the real thing. There is something about a face to face conversation that fuels my emotion. I hope because of this I won't die behind the keyboard of my lap top, alone, lonely. Sad huh?

Any way read the article and form your own opinion on this matter. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and see if there are any other articles for or against the points raised in 'Loneliness and Technology'.



Superthanks.



Andrew Blackman.

Don't Be A Tool, Use A Tool

Reading through this week's reader (...as you do) I can't help but notice that a majority of the problems inherent in online socialisation are caused by those who seperate themselves too distinctly from the real world. E-mail, Messenger and sites such as Facebook can be fantastic tools to the common user if only they take care in using them. These services can connect us to our friends instantaneously to share information, photos and to make plans and arrange meetings easily. Even a blog like this is useful. The simple reason for this is that when you know who you are talking to, when you use the internet to communicate with a friend or aquaintance for the sole purpose of improving real life communication, then the results will always be more favourable to you. Why people with full knowledge of the risks of anonymous online interaction still continue to waste away their precious hours of life communicating in a way that will in no way improve their social self is beyond me. If you want to talk to someone or play games with someone online, meet some people with similar interests first, join a club! Thereafter, you will be able to socialise online in safety and in good humour with someone you know and can interact with in real life. Use the internet as a tool to improve your real life socialisation, don't be a tool and waste this technology which can be so beneficial to the social flower and the shy wall-flower alike!

Mobile Phone Outrage

Although slightly belated, I felt given my bias towards business and economics that it be fitting that I comment on the ridiculous mobile phone calling prices in New Zealand and how it is that reason why us New Zealanders resort to txting more than any other country in the OECD.

There was quite an extensive debate in class in the first week as to whether it is New Zealand culture that dictates our calling and txting patterns in New Zealand or whether it is because of the ridiculously high calling rates. My argument is that it is purely the calling rates. The Commerce Commission has been gathering statistics and reporting them every quarter in regards to telecommunications in New Zealand. The most recent report shows that New Zealand comes 25th out of 30 in the OECD countries for mobile phone pricing; this is the highest it’s ever been, we were 30th in 2005 when the reporting from the Commerce Commission started. This statistic is an average and is taken from 16 different categories of mobile phone usage. The most recent figure is boosted through Vodafone coming 15th and 19th in two areas. This comes about from the partial deregulating of the telecommunications industry. We come last in 2 areas and second to last in 3 areas; no surprise that Telecom is the culprit for the last places. So while you may tell me that in New Zealand we have a culture of txting, I will not buy into this one single bit. The statistics prove this. If you want to get hold of someone immediately you are going to call them, not sit there txting away. If you want to have conversations with people, you are more likely to ring them, but considering that the youth of today do not have everlasting disposable incomes, or can’t face their parents when they get the phone bill, they txt, because it is cheaper! They have in-depth conversations through txts that could occur much more efficiently through calling, yet the high prices prevent this. Yes, txting may have its advantages and can be used more effectively in some cases, but New Zealand’s high calling prices have engraved a path for txting to take over some of the functions that calling has. I am on Vodafone and use “bestmate” each month. I use it not to have unlimited txts to someone, but so I can call them anytime, anywhere, making them more accessible and providing me with more efficient communication. Bestmate is in my opinion the only calling based option that works out really cheap in New Zealand. The majority of Telecommunications companies marketing is to do with txting, like txt2000 and $10 txt. This is simply because it is so much cheaper in New Zealand for the companies to provide txting and therefore cheaper for the consumers to txt.

So let me know what you think, I am hugely biased towards the whole business side of things, yet I strongly believe that if we started off with cheaper calling prices, the culture that has developed from these high calling prices would not be one of txting, but one much like America, where we call. We are now so used to the high prices and so used to txting; it is very sad and nearly criminal in my opinion. As for why are prices are so high, that’s a whole different story!


OECD statistics (clicking here downloads a PDF file)

Article from NBR (National Business Review)

Luke Versalko
www.myspace.com/luke_versalko

Emotions and the Internet

In the tutorial yesterday we had talked about how in Turkle's article there was a couple whose husband was becoming emotionally invested in a relationship with a woman online which in turn was upsetting the wife in the relationship. While this is a fascinanting avenue to discuss, I have to say in terms of the online peers that I have through myspace, livejournal etc I happen to think there is a certain amount of emotional attachment to the persons who are your peers on the internet. For instance, with the peers I have you know there real name, age, sex, and a lot of personal details about them. This is because a lot of these blogs whilst being public talk about persoanl issues and problems that they are going through. Like one of the articles in our course talks about it is like a documentary. Back to my point, due to the nature of this you tend to feel emotional about the hardships of the said persons therefore affecting your life in some way. There are even people I know in real life who I have a more emotional connection with them if i talk to them on msn rather than real life. This is because they feel more comfortablw discussing personal behind the securrity of a laptop. It would be interesting to see if anyone else agrees or disagrees with what I am saying.

HTML for Beginners

Through the last few posts, I've found that quite alot of people are unfamiliar with the basics of HTML - hypertext mark-up language, which is the fundamental 'code' for what we 'see' as the internet.

2 posts down a person used the [img] [/img] tags, which are common in most forums for linking pictures. Unfortunately, blogger is based on basic HTML for inputting images, linking to another page, and text manipulation by way of bold, underline, strikethrough, and italics. Thus, I've decided to give you guys a list of basic tags that you can use if you like for you posts.

Text Linking
To draw a link from a particular site to a set text, you have to copy and paste the protocol address (http://www...) into a particular tag in the form of < a > and closed off with < /a >.

A good example would be as such for google:
< a href="http://www.google.co.nz"> Google New Zealand < /a >

Done properly = Google New Zealand

You should do well to remember there are no gaps between the "<" and ">" tags, besides the space betwen "a" and "href".

Image Linking
For linking a photo directly, you also have to copy and paste the protocol address into another set of tags in the form of < img > and < /img >.

An example to use, let's say, to be the picture of a Kiwi Bird. It will be as such:
< img src="http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4378/kiwils7.jpg" >

Remember to take out the space just as above so the image will come out like so:

(keep the space between "img" and "src")

Text Manipulation
These I'm sure most people will be quite familiar with, if you're a forum-frequent; it is simply changing to format of the tag to suit the language. You do so by replacing what is normally "[" and "]" with "<" and ">".

< b > ... < /b > = Bold
< i > ... < /i > = Italics
< u > ... < /u > = Underline
< s > ... < /s > = Strikethrough



Anyhow, that's the very basics of what you can do with HTML in a blogging context, and I hoped that helped alot of people!

Go the aussies!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10453956

battle of the sexes within the online infidelity ring!

I decided after todays tutroial to delve deeper into the concept of online cheating and to find situations of male complaints of women virtual unfaithful acts. There are endless tales of women divorcing thier husbands over cyber-affairs, but none of men divorcing women. which brings an interesting question to light, are women not engaging in these affairs?
Obviously all the realtionships men have online can't be with dirty old men pretending to be women, thus it is a given that woman are enganging in cyber-affairs, relationships, and sex. But why aren't the men filing for divorce, do men not see it as cheating? The technological tools are the same, but the response seems to be varried.
there have been several theories floating through my head; women are not at their computers as much (there is a generalisation, but a valid one that men spend more time at the computer than women), women and men have different attitudes towards cheating (is a betrayal for sex more hurtful than a betrayal for love?), do men want to spread thier cyber seed, and women want cyber-commitment for thier cyber babies? the tools raise a whole new moral question.
if it is almost real but not quite, should it still be counted?
I say yes and no. If the emotions are real, though sex, or contact is not, it still feels real. reality and beauty are thus in the eye or rather the keyboard of the beholder.
But take forexample the concept of cyber rape. I feel, as a woman it undermines the tradgey and horror of real rape, to insinuate the violation of your files even plays in the same legue as the violent and very real destruction of peoples, bodies and minds during and post rape.
are men predators online like they are thought to be in the real world???

http://handbag.com/relationships/couples/onlineinfidelity/
http://www.netaddiction.com/articles/cyberaffairs.htm

My expereince with Online and Offline

Now on the topic of online community's etc.

I have been in the mix of online experiences i think Sherry Turkle's idea of 'windows' is a good concept with what i have lined up in the blog post.

This notion of online having many windows that vary through online community's, email, chat or video's all defining different areas of capacity to ourselves of course. As in the offline world the concept of windows is largely the same according to Sherry Turkle. Where roles played out in our day to day lives are just another window.

Now i play this game called Counter Strike Source online. I am in a group "clan" i spent many nights talking to them online using a microphone and everything. Shared pictures of each other. Along with chatting away at these people is this whole online community of gamers. Its weird but you would be in your room chatting out loud to these guys and for anyone that is not familiar with gaming it would seem really bizarre. It came to the point when our team got pretty serious and we decided to enter into a video gaming tournament. Suddenly the concept of knowing these guys online would shift to meeting them in the flesh. And hundreds of others around the Counter Strike community. The windows of online self and offline self were going to collide at an event called xlan.

Xlan is New Zealands largest video gaming tournament also termed "lan". It houses all of the popular games in the New Zealand scene and you can qualify for the "WCG" (World cyber games championship) in Seattle. Now knowing that i would be seeing these guys that i have chatted with for many nights at this convention was quite daunting for me.

[IMG]http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8163/panaramicku0.jpg[/IMG]
Picture of the "LAN"

It carried its advantages and disadvantages. I didn't really want to take my gaming very seriously at all. But many people see this as a huge stepping stone for gaming. I had to tell my friends that i will be spending the weekend playing games and downloading movies etc off people. I wont be out and about consuming alcohol and partying like your average night.

Sure there was a bit of laughs and name calling. But it really was not serious. My friends seemed to accept it. What confused them is how an online activity can actually cause me to change my social plans. They could not comprehend why i would bother. It was a combination of experiencing something different. I thought i would get bored i feared that i wouldn't enjoy it, i mean Friday to Sunday of gaming seemed pretty intense. Also wondering whether or not i could mix in well with these guys i have been chatting and gaming with for most part of the year.

I went to xlan. The experience was actually very satisfying. It was overwhelming to see so many gamers, so many screens. There was no real paranoia about social persona it simply did not exist. Seeing these guys in the flesh was really bizarre as well. Online you would have to almost imagine them through voice and speech. To my surprise they came in all different shapes and sizes and after shaking hands it really puts a grin on the face. The amazing feeling of dodging all the computer hardware, coding to see this person on the other side of the wire. It all comes to make sense there is an instant click really. It was not strange at all. Team based Counter strike almost forms a bondage over the Internet and to see them in real life was the same really.

An aspect that i noticed was this cross between online gaming and real life at xlan. People addressed each other by the gamer tag. Meaning your name you use when playing the game. Quite often i will have my gamer tag called out instead of my real name. It gave the environment quite a matrix feel.

Sherry Turkle's idea of windows applying to online and real life played a huge part in my experience in a largely online based community. Sitting at my computer contacting people through online shifting to a LAN and speaking to them in person, playing as a team with your online mate right next to you is something special really. How these windows can actually bring people together is quite amazing. The thing about online gaming is that we often keep it separate and hidden from everyday life out in society. Its a hidden type of activity not flaunted but brought out in times of leisure. That goes with online community's we do not actively personify our activity's over the Internet when first engaging in social activity's. The Internet is almost hidden away in some ways because by cherishing the Internet and actively embracing online gaming you often get socially stigmatized. So it is a personal and rear to infuse into the real world. Xlan broke this barrier but strangely i felt extremely comfortable. It was this weird feeling that xlan was like the Internet. A large connection of computers, people and interests. I mean the Internet provides these types of categories and in a sense programs and technology is so developed that we are made to feel comfortable in an online based world.

So i want to conclude that online has fused into our day to day lives. And meeting people in real life that you spend online time with is not daunting at all but quite liberating. Online activities however do conflict with social activities. And quite often it is not understood and taken from a social stigmatization point of view.

Facebook faces closure?

I knew Facebook was facing legal action but I didn't realise that it might be shut down as a result. Perhaps the BBC is just being sensationalist (heaven forbid!) The end of the poke? Surely not.

Two stories in today's Herald...

One on MySpace detecting and kicking off sex offenders and the other on the Nintendo Wii becoming part of a gym workout.

Next week's class needs YOU!

So one of the things we'll be doing in next week's class is discussing the claim that the Internet 'democratises' our society by giving ordinary citizens unprecedented opportunities to 'have a voice' - to comment on the news, to post their own short films to a global audience, to become producers and not just consumers of culture.

Those who make such a claim are often confronted by sceptical voices who say things like: "it isn't democratic because you need to have a certain level of money (for equipment), skill, and spare time on your hands to take part in the new environment". Hard to argue with that. But the sceptic will often go further and say: "It's true that the Internet is awash with blogs, videos and podcasts produced by 'ordinary' citizens, but most of this 'user generated content' is crap!" How is that good for democracy? If people are spending their spare time making puerile videos for YouTube or writing 'opinion pieces' (rants) about Iraq on their blog, then they're spending less time watching high quality films or reading well-informed journalism about Iraq. This leads to a more 'active' but dumber citizenry, right?

Well, in the spirit of interactivity, which this course obviously embraces, I'm looking for some 'user' input from you. What I would like you to do is to send me examples of 'user generated content' (it could be online videos, websites, blogs, podcasts or whatever) that disproves the claim that it's all crap. The best example gets shown in class and wins a (small) prize as yet undetermined. Email me your links, please - don't just leave a comment (otherwise everyone will have already seen it come class time!)

Bunbury Me Alive

Being an English geek...

An interesting midground between the virutal and the real is best represented by an idea in Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest". In this play the two characters Algernon and Jack have created separate alter-egoes to escape the social rigidity of 19th Century London. Critics have readily claimed that Wilde's homosexuality and personal double-life was the muse for the inclusion of 'Bunburying' in the text. Algernon and Jack show a nonchalance and almost normality to what would be considered schizophrenic behaviour.

My argument is that in Turkle's postmodern computer age, all users of the internet who engage in social interaction are 'Bunburying'. The ability to create multiple selves allows for the individual to escape the constraints of responsibility. The real world comes with real world trappings - job, family, finances etc. 'Bunburying' on the web allows the individual to momentarily (define moment!) escape from these aspects of their real lives. 'Bunburying' allows the individual the ability to fool others - a dirty pleasure (master-slave dichotomy perhaps?)

Reality itself is at the centre of the 'Bunbury' dilemma. If web-based escapism proves better, then we can slowly forget the real. Conversely, if 'Bunburying' proves too much, well, it wasn't real anyway. This is the problem we face.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunburying


Lucas Cooney
www.myspace.com/kooneyman

The Internet Transcends Sarcasm.

I think this one pretty much speaks for itself.


Study: Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful To Monkeys

The satirical humour the net facilitates is something I think is really interesting, also considering how it's simultaneously a distribution network.

- Kevin.

Threadless.com, Where T-Shirt Designers and Buyers Are One

Everyone loves a good t-shirt, especially if it has the power to grab others’ attention or label the wearer as a clever person. I happened upon the website Threadless.com months ago because of their shirts, which fit the characteristics above. Surprisingly, however, I found that this site wasn’t only an online store—it was also an online community of people who designed, critiqued, blogged about, voted on, and bought shirts.

The site sells many t-shirts that all have some unique quality, each striving to send a message that is unlike those found on the clichéd graphic tees that we may find in stores today. For example, there is a shirt with a design that looks like argyle, but upon closer look are really fighter jets streaking across in a triangular pattern. The best part about the shirts is that there is no single designer, not even a couple. The thousands of people of this online store community are all the designers, thus allowing the site creators to sit back and relax while their members create designs, weed out the unpopular ones through voting, and ultimately produce a design they will want to wear, and thus, buy.

Of course, there would be no wonderful designing if there weren’t any motivation. Threadless.com gives $1,500 to those artists who have won the regular ongoing design contest, and money and prizes to those who win special contests (an iPhone is up for grabs at the latest competition). Anyone who is anyone can be a t-shirt artist simply by fabricating a design on his or her computer (with Photoshop, etc.) and submitting it to the site. It is a painless and freeing process, allowing a group of individuals on the web to make what they want to wear. And even if they aren’t the original creator of a design, they are still part of the process because of the feedback they give through blogs and comments on the site.

All of this makes Threadless.com a unique virtual community. Its members share their desire to turn their creative visions into walking masterpieces and spend valuable hours at this task. And by being within a creative community, the site members are allowed to develop their own standards. This aspect of the community fascinates me, because, like in a real community, this one lets people negotiate the rules by which it will be governed. Also, the community actually gets to transcend the virtual and manifest itself into reality through the tangible t-shirts that are bought and worn.

On a more personal note, a couple of weeks ago I submitted a t-shirt design to be critiqued (an optional first step before submitting a design to the site for real). After a few weeks of feedback I altered my design and submitted it. Although it didn’t win a print, the process made me an in-member to the community. I interacted with other members through my design, making me feel like people were listening and helping, all wanting me to succeed. Now I log on often to vote on and critique other designs; it is how I contribute to the community. When myself and other members see a great design emerge I can feel our excitement build, through our comments, blogging, and campaigning. We even grow outside of the community to our friends and family, using E-Mails to urge them to log on and vote for what we like. Not only does Threadless.com’s virtual community provide support and creative freedom, but also the feeling of being part of a group of people who share a love of t-shirts and want to express themselves in this way, as a designer and/or as a wearer. It is immensely satisfying to wear what you helped create.

- Erin O.

Virtual community VS Off-line social relations

The priority has always been given to the research of the relationship between virtual community and social relations. Since the term of “virtual community” has come up, scholars usually focus on these two issues: those that whether the online groups can be treated as communities and those that such online communities whether intensify or weaken the offline social relations. For the “virtual community”, there is one crucial element that the friendship between members of the society requires long enough time, in order to share common destiny and interests in their long historical development, creating a strong force of affinity and cohesion. The other element which involves the communication between persons and groups should be frank and to give mutual support and inspiration to each other. As a result of the community as a whole also has to have capability to provide something which is beneficial to the members, such as information, knowledge or economic interests. Therefore, “virtual community” as a medium which can be understood as a social net work that is based on general and shared interests rather than geographical proximity. By combining the online communication with social practice, it helps to enhance the overall social development. Especially, to the increasing middle class, virtual community can be treated as the extension or expansion of social conviviality. However, some people think that the knowledge of one particular virtual community is usually shared by its members who have the same interests or habits, and yet, such a kind of community lacks of diversity and interdependence of the real social community. Even, people argue that one who exists in the virtual community could be isolated from the reality. It also leads to other questions, such as is face to face communication still necessary, to what degree it is necessary? How does the identity influence the interrelationship and community cohesion, include the problem of how to balance the social commitment and anonymous identity? Various economic sectors play what kinds of roles in different communities?

Musical Tesla Coil

Because strange applications of technology is a fascinating aspect of the course, I wanted to share with you this movie of people who have created a setup which modulates the tones produced by the high-voltage sparks from a Tesla Coil.

Movie and explanation available here.

- Kevin.

Here we are in virtual reality

So we talked about the role of technology in bringing us a virtual reality. We talked about the meaning of virtual reality. Goode notes that Pierre Levy in ‘Becoming Virtual (1998)’ states that the virtual liberates us from time and space, the here and now. Levy reminds us that language is virtual and that the computer age has taken the evolution of The Virtual to a new level. I am still confused myself if it is that we take a step forward, or backward, in questioning “What really is virtual reality?”

Is this, the physical world that is in relation and in fact driven by the psychological world of each individual, a virtual reality itself? And therefore, isn’t the psychological world the real reality? It is our belief in the way we are being perceived that we perpetuate or change the way we live. For lack of space, and that we are already in access of the internet, ‘Google’ Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and G.H. Mead’s Mind, Self and Society. So it is we find the commonplace throwaway “You don’t get me”, so it is we find on ourselves the tools to express ourselves (e.g. our face, our hands), and so it is we find that this virtual reality is failing us and we turn to a virtual-virtual reality. Someone said in class, and I agree, that this which we call virtual is only an extension of what is already virtual. We might have brought ourselves closer to our own reality by reducing our identity to words on a forum or taking on a better body shape that would fit perfectly with the dress of our desire, and this in effect liberating us from our physical constraints which has blinded the world to who we really are. Indeed, it could be argued that our newfound freedom finds us frightfully shameless, be it in bashing civilians on Grand Theft Auto or overindulging in lewd exchanges with a woman in a chatroom.

Consider if we found a better capability of getting closer to our reality as we for ourselves know it, through the use of words or music or other art forms, that suddenly through our expression of personal style with such mediums on a blog or in a chat room, this aggressive and coherent flow of our expression could do more for us in relating to people who partake of our work (the audience). Could it be that what we call abstraction that is the quality of this virtual-virtual reality is a better representation of the true reality of the individual participant than the tangible quality of touch, eye-to-eye contact and the visual image packaging of clothes sized 4 to 42? I say, to those who dig a band for it's music and not it's drug abusive band members, you've got the idea.

Technophile/Luddite

I think this is a pretty apt description of my situation!

Virtual moderation.

Hi guys, have never blogged before, so it’s all very exciting! The lecture today discussing Virtual Reality, I couldn’t help but think that no one brought up the fact that many chat rooms and other forums do have ‘moderators’. To my understanding- people who are there to keep the conversations regulated and hopefully stop it from becoming a free for all. They are often the founders of the forum or chat room (I may be wrong on this). The first time I used an online chat room I was around 14 and it too was a text forum. As I found anonymity and liberal thinking just some of the attractions. Although in saying this in regards to the clip played today with the two young girls, I couldn’t help but think that at the ripe old age of 15 maybe their levels of maturity and ability to distinguish between reality and virtual reality hadn’t quite reached its peak, the girls spoke about ‘falling in love’ and allowing themselves to become submissive through these technological mediums. This only depicts how dangerous and perceptive other individual’s can easily become. A knowledge of when to step back and ask yourself when enough is enough might have been needed in that situation. Virtual reality can be a great escapist medium, but it is just that Virtual. Moderation is the key.
Elyse.

Constructing a Virtual Reality

I found today's lecture thoroughly interesting. I think it is the concept of a constructed reality, a reality that is somewhat different to our every day 'physical' existences. Someone raised an interesting point during the lecture about various windows and I didn't have a chance to say that I agree with, and support this concept, not just online, but also offline. I have found myself, particularly in recent weeks thinking about the different realities that I have and then I think about the interent and online communities and while I can relate to some of the comments that were made, I find the whole concept somewhat disturbing.

I find it disturbing because it is, as Luke mentioned, very immersive and almost trance-like. A couple of years ago I was entirely immersed in online communities to the point where it had negative impacts on my personal life and life outside of the internet, and that is why i am so anti an online presence.

Others mentioned that it can break down inhibitions and barriers that people may face in real life but is this truly the case or is it actually creating more barriers? Lets think about this for a second. You go online to escape your reality and you end up chatting to people on forums or creating a myspace profile but what purpose does it really serve? Is it not distancing you even more from reality because you can't do that in real life and because you do find yourself addicted to this online community?

And to go on a tangent; there was once a time when we had karaoke in pubs and then reality shows that held competitions. That has now changed and Fairfax is running a blogging competition through their internet news site, www.stuff.co.nz

By the way, I'd like to take this as an opportunity to put myself forward for the position of class rep. I've been in the film department for a while now and am also studying politics. In my spare time I go out drinking with friends and take acting classes. I'd like to represent you and it would be fantastic to finally, in my last semester of uni actually be elected as class rep. I know you'll make the right decision *hint hint*

care to chat?

That is the most common question when you enter any text chatroom. Its either that or A/S/L? (age/sex/location) or something along those lines. I started using chatrooms, like mIRC ( IRC or Internet Relay Chat is 'virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk.') when i was 14. (what would be at least 12 years ago now.. how times have changed) and it was purely text based. Which was why when the argument today of how can something text-based be so powerful and influential, i seriously beg to differ.

I had friends (and myself included) who would meet people online and become friends (or more then friends in some cases) and this was exciting and scary at the same time. I have to admit, I was out of control when it came to chatting online. Its amazing to see how naive and easily duped we were, and this was only text! Chatrooms today have evolved in the sense that it has become almost real. Hence the meaning of 'virtual reality' to me is about making the user feel like they are there. Online communities like IMVU has tried to penetrate the 'virtual' chatroom boom.

The application IMVU allows you to create your 'avatar' and enter different rooms, which can be anything from Buckstars (their version of Starbucks) cafes to beaches and so on. It is based on 'old school text chatrooms' and you have catalogues to browse through for clothing, hairstyles, pets and even furniture. The text used within IMVU are in forms of speech bubbles. The power of this technology allows you to walk in and out of rooms, looking for friends or random people to talk to.

There is also the sense of an RPG ideology, where you use your mouse and keys on your keyboard to navigate around the room. Like i said, amazing! Basically, I am still amazed at how something I take for granted like talking to friends online has become something so 'technologised' and intricate. It looks like this will be the future of communication. Maybe we'll have super computers which will allow us to enter the chatroom, literally.

Joanne C

Between Technophile and Luddite

Defining technophile and luddite, was easy in the class. But I guess we need a new term for those who fall in between, who are annoyed by the technology and love them to very bit. There is another question that arises, luddites are defined as those who fear the change in technology rather than just hating technology, I am not sure if Neo-luddism defines the hatred without any fear. I love my computers for gaming and at the same time hate them to the core when they crash, I could use a line from headlines of New York Times saying "Shakespeare Never Lost a Manuscript to a Computer Crash”. Well if it’s just not manuscripts, I bet many of you would have lost loads of pictures and videos etc.

Just to show how much one could hate technology, I am posting a video, in which it felt really good to smash my laptop with a golf club. Though it was an expensive product of modern age, it did feel nice to thrash it as it was an expensive piece of crap.

And about the discussion in the class last week regarding the choice of sending sms or calling people was a personal choice or Economies of scale, I would stick to economy of scale, because,
I just got back from India where making a call costs you only 6 cents a min and in NZ its 49 c. And about sms it costs you 20 c here, it is nearly obsolete in India with such low rates of calling. I am sure it will be the same here if the prices for calling are that cheap.

Office Hours.

I've sorted out my office hours for the semester. They are:

Wednesday 1-2 in Arts 203.

If you can't make my office hours, there's definite leeway to arrange to meet another time over email, and I have no problem with fielding questions via email itself.

I'll go over that in tutorials too, but it's safest to have information where as many people can find it as possible.

- Kevin.

A note on notes

Just wanted to point out that I am posting up outline notes for the lectures on CECIL. These are in no way meant to be a substitute for taking your own notes. They're just there as an outline of the topics covered - a kind of wire frame on which to hang your own notes should you wish. They're more detailed than just the Powerpoint slides would be, but not comprehensive by any means. Actually, they're just a tidied up version of my own notes. But folk in this course last year seemed to find that format helpful so I'll stick with it. I won't be posting them up before the lectures (a) because I think that tends to discourage individual note-taking (which is essential if this stuff is going to stick!) and (b) because I don't quite know how much material I'll actually get through in a lecture because I like to allow for in-class discussion. On which subject, the level of discussion in class so far is great as far as I'm concerned, so thanks to all those who have been contributing so far. So much better than just having me drone on 100% of the time!

DVDs: have they ruined family viewing?

We all know the dvds are technically superior than VHS tapes, with regards to sound and picture quality. However what really sets dvds and VHS apart is the interactiveness. I am going to argue that this is the one downfall of the dvd.
With a dvd you can pause and replay your favourite parts of your favourite film and be oblivious to what anyone else in the room. My sister does this alot. She will sit down with a metre between her and the TV and continuely replay her favourite parts of a comedy she had watched the night before.
What is more annoying than how my sister uses dvds? Is how my chain smoking mother uses dvds. After about the forth "smoko break" I normally retreat to my bedroom or frantically text my friends asking them if anyones going out that night.
Does anyone else miss VHS?