iPod law eases for music, not films

There's an article on the front page of today's Herald entitled "iPod law eases for music, not films" that outlines proposed changes to copyright legislation which would allow "format-shifting" to become legal. The law as it stands does not allow you to copy music you purchase from a CD to your computer and/or portable music device. If the legislation in the proposed Copyright (New Technologies) Bill goes through, it will be legal to copy a CD you've paid for onto your iPod.

One of the things that won't change, however, is the rule surrounding video recordings. Legally you can only "time-shift" recordings made from TV onto (for example) VHS tapes; the provision in the law states that you can only keep recordings you make for "...no longer than is reasonably necessary for viewing [...] at a more convenient time". Of course, just like the current laws surrounding audio recordings, no one actually follows these rules, and they aren't enforced anyway.

Self-agrandising Internet bigwig David Farrar, who is well-known in the NZ blogosphere, is quoted as saying:

"The big stupidity is that now you can do it, but you can keep it only for as long as it would reasonably take to watch it. It brings to mind the idea that the copyright police might check and say, 'This is three weeks old. You should have had time to view it by now'."

The article contains what I think is an interesting quote from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) chief Campbell Smith:

"I think that's fair. You buy something for your own use and that's how it should be. We are in the business of trying to sell people music, not trying to prevent them doing what is reasonable."

So, in short, it's now going to be legal to do what we've all been doing for the last 7 or so years anyway. :)

Hacking Technology Once Again.

Anyone interested in how to turn a 16-speed CD writer and a minimaglite into a laser capable of Burning Things [TM]?

Now we can.

If I weren't technically incompetent, I'd be building one now.

- Kevin.

A Herald article about how business-analysts see the risks of businesses moving into virtual environments.

- Kevin.

School boards: The Internet is safe and we should use it more

Finally, research which proves that the massive hype over online predators is largely unfounded. From BoingBoing:

National School Boards Association (a nonprofit that represents 95,000 US school-board members) did a comprehensive study of students' experiences with the Internet, especially with social networking sites. They determined that the much-touted risk of online stalkers and predators was basically nonexistant (0.08 percent of students surveyed had ever gone to meet a stranger without parental permission). The best part is their recommendation to schools: stop fearing the Internet and embrace it as an incredible tool for instruction.

In light of these findings, they're recommending that school districts may want to "explore ways in which they could use social networking for educational purposes" — and reconsider some of their fears. It won't be the first time educators have feared a new technology, the study warns. "Many schools initially banned or restricted Internet use, only to ease up when the educational value of the Internet became clear. The same is likely to be the case with social networking.

"Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but student may learn these lesson better while they're actually using social networking tools."

Social networking may be advantageous to students — and there could already be a double standard at work? 37% of districts say at least 90% of their staff are participating in online communities of their own — related to education — and 59% of districts said that at least half were participating. "These findings indicate that educators find value in social networking," the study notes, "and suggest that many already are comfortable and knowledgeable enough to use social networking for educational purposes with their students."

No such thing as privacy in the virtual world?!

Google as a well known search engine is continuously growing and gaining its popularity. Finding out that this company keeps a record of every data is very shocking but when you think about it more, it’s actually not so surprising after all. By keeping all the data, people’s privacy has been taken away and has disturbed a lot of people. However, my point of view is that in the virtual world the notion of privacy just simply doesn’t exist. If Google don’t keep the data as well as other companies does it mean that your information will be kept private? There are hackers in the virtual world who can simply decode almost anything in order to get into people’s accounts. What is more is that the service is free for all users, there must be something that is negative about all the service that we get. Even with posting a letter there is risks so the same concept applies to email as well. In the virtual world everything seems to be floating around and also it is out of our control as technology is growing rapidly. People tend to think that the virtual world functions like the real world, because of this users started to give trust but what is most important is that we have to know what is really true within the virtual world.

Google Earth a newly introduced device offers imagery which in a way allows us to experience, explore and discover the place without having to travel there. But people are concerned with the fact that, this way people won’t have privacy and what if stalker uses this device and track people, this would be very concerning. I guess everything just has its downside and it is really hard to avoid. Even without the help of technology, there still will still be stalkers around.

A Fair(y) Use Tale & Thomas the Tank Engine feat. 50 Cent

I just wanted to post these two videos to show:
(a) how fair use works in terms of current laws, and
(b) how fair use can be utilized to create something really awesome, by mashing together two pieces of media you wouldn't normally expect to see together.

First, "A Fair(y) Use Tale". Quote from a Stanford Law School Center For Internet and Society blog:

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.

Secondly, an example of fair use in which the creators mashed-up audio visual material from a 50 Cent video together with the opening credits sequence from the beloved children's television series Thomas The Tank Engine.

Thomas In Da Club:

Some skepticisms and ideas on Internet and its role as the space of ‘freedom’

1. Skepticisms

Is Internet a mere virtual space or an extension of our physical world?
In this conceptual space with zillions of interconnected spider-webs, can we sharply divide the notions of ‘pure’ producers and ‘pure’ consumers of text? If so, what is the standard of demarcation? By whom this standard is being created and sustained?

If the relationship between media (text) producer and consumer is a derived form of the capitalistic law of exchange, can Internet really be seen as the space of revolution with a full of prosumer’s manifesto where all those societal ideologies are nothing more than a piece of rubbish?

We tend to take a photo, correct it through Photoshop and add some ornate writings to adorn our personal blogs. (This post, too) But can these actions simply be explained as a purely intellectual desire to express our ideas without a strong censorship (like that of the old media) or else is it simply an extension of the desire of pursuing the secular way of success from the off-line society? (in such ways like you gain the reputation from those who read your post)

People are seeking to make a success in exclusively the anthropocentric(=humanistic) way, but at the same time they do not recognize that they are gradually framing themselves into an invisible restriction..


2. (My) Ideas


I believe that the Internet is yet another space where anyone can express its inner heart. This ‘inner heart’ could be a sense of skepticism, hate and doubt towards our secular world, or something like expressing the joyfulness of living as a mundane human while believing to be satisfied with the reputations and fames gained in the off-line world.

Lets think about this.
What is the core strategy do you believe that YouTube and My Space used to achieve a great success? Many people might think it is a providing of space where everyone can freely access and express the ideas and thoughts. However, judging these websites as a 'space where everyone's voice could be heard and spoken' is questionable, as in so many ways we are still being asked and restricted to be a 'gently behavior user'. (Can you upload a porn movie to YouTube? Well, yes you can, but within a second you will be prohibited to upload a clip for a certain period of time as a means of punishment!) How sad is that the freedom does Internet provides us is entirely based upon our secular and socially contaminated laws and mentalities!

Why ‘Technological Determinism’?!

From the dawn of the 21st century and since then, the accessibility of information and usability of interactive communication is gradually becoming eased by embracing the increasingly sophisticated technology. The advent of the World Wide Web in the late 60's opened up the possibility of what the American economist Fritz Machlup termed in a little prior to the birth of the internet; so-called 'Information society', a conceptual environment where we are living on today.

These days, Internet (and its relative technologies) are believed to be the core forces that drive our society more interactive and globally associated. No one would doubt on the usefulness of the internet as a ‘good’ medium in terms of its time and space economizing process, simply because we as the internet user all know (by empirical) that Internet has been bringing lots of convenience and availability that were not be found in the traditional old media.

However, here in this point of view, I want to make one thing to be clear. Internet has undoubtedly been the revolutionary medium in which brought a cataclysm to our society, but I am advocating that the Internet as a piece of technology has no exerting power to cause all these deeds nor does the Internet technology solely determines every single transition of our society and culture.

As opposed to the idea of 'technological determinism' coined by Marshall McLuhan and other media scholars, I rather believe that the power of change and power of raising such revolutions are created not by the internet as a technology, but by its way of application. I am a faithful believer of the theory of 'social construction of technology (SCOT)' that the technology is shaped by human society, culture, economic and politics rather than vice versa. Here I suggest one example;

'The idea of Internet as an interactive media of all sorts of text was not actually the ultimate goal sought by its original developers in the beginning. What we call 'Internet' today essentially shares a same root with the Alphanet in which its aim was to share and transmit the military information across the space within a short time. Today, Internet became an indispensable medium of our daily lives as a conductor and messenger between person and person, or between person and society. It is a ‘killer application’ in which its initial purpose of use has altered by its consumers in such an unexpected way that its creators and developers had never been thought of…’

Summarizing this point, I believe that the technology and its influential power upon society are not just decided by its value of being, but by its consumer’s way of application. Technology is like opium, because it could be both a ‘painkiller’ and a ‘man killer’ depends on the way of use. (Same way does apply to Novel's invention of dynamite bomb.. who would ever think of the irony that the profits made by selling the WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) would become used for a Novel prize for peace and literature?)

Observing this point alarms us that we have to be more circumspective of embracing the new technologies, just as what Hegel of the centuries ago had already warned us with his theory of Master-slave;

‘A master who becomes too dependent upon a slave is no longer really a master’.

Is Vista really that Good?

I first get in touch with the Vista at the beginning of this year, when I got my new laptop. The seller told me a lot of advantage about this new software, like a Mac-like interface, improved security, and far better networking, it's a great improvement over Windows XP.

Actually, the advantage I can only feel is the new interface. Transparent windows slide into place with animations, there are useful gadgets on the right side of the screen, and the colours are subtler than in previous versions of windows.Windows Aero, which features windows with glassy, translucent edges, and whose colours, level of transparency, and saturation can be customized. The most amazing thing I found is the Windows Flip 3D, I can see thumbnails of all windows as I rotate them, and all these windows are in there dimension.

For me, there is no other good thing about Vista compare to windows Xp, except the better interface. Yet, I still have to mention that some function about this Vista even though I don’t really need them.

First would be the network and Sharing Center, which lets you easily configure to and managing multiple networks, and accessing all of your network’s resources. Second, Wireless Networking. It is say that, this is a good feature if Vista which is easy to manage, and with good security, but I never use it before. Third, the search function might be useful, there is a very powerful advanced search tool that lets you narrow your search by date, file size, author, tags, and location. You can even search other computer on your network (as long as you have the right to read from the other PCs).

Yet, there are many worst things that I realize when I using Vista. First of all, it is a really price product. Then, the power battery can only be used for only one and a half hour even though I fully charged it everytime (for laptop). Thirdly, very high requirement to hardware, any computer program were produced before 2006 are not suppose to run vista. At lease, your computer has to include 1GHz CPU, 1GB internal memory and DirectX 9 display card.

Like any new operating system, though, there are things you’ll love about it, and things you’ll hate about it. I still measuring if I should keep using Vista or change it back to Xp.

-Xiaofei H

Big Brother is Watching, Get Over It?

The laws of privacy have been extremely slow to even generally reach New Zealand and the world. To complain about privacy being threatened on by Internet then is on a completely new level. The reality is that it's probably going to take an exceptionally long time before our judicial system can catch up to all the new technologies which as we speak are draining any thoughts of personal privacy right out of us. By then, the laws we have to protect us probably still won't because something new will come forward to threaten us further. We're living in a world where we cannot hide. The google argument is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to privacy. Security is not going to come any time soon. So, either you become really comfortable with your secrets being shared, or you can keep complaining about it, it might work one day...

GOOD COPY BAD COPY - a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture

Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about copyright law and the doctrine of fair use. Featuring interviews with Lawrence Lessig, MPAA and RIAA spokespeople, and a mashup artist from Pensylvania called "GirlTalk", the film examines the current state of law at the intersection of copyright (the corporations) and culture (content producers). It mainly looks at issues surrounding sampling in music culture, and the (legal and cultural) history of the music industry. There's an interesting section in the film which looks at the infamous "Grey" album created by DJ Dangermouse (one half of Gnarls Barkley) when he mixed together Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles' White Album. It also features interviews with the founders of Sweden's Pirate Party, which "...strives to reform laws regarding intellectual property, including copyright, patent and the protection of design. [The party's] agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy (such as private property and private information), both on the Internet and in everyday life."

The film is free to download and is distributed using the BitTorrent network model (the .torrent file is available at the PirateBay).

Here's the trailer:


There are a few scenes which didn't make it into the final cut over at blip.tv...

I can put the full movie on a DVD if anyone's interested in a class screening maybe? Let me know in the comments...

New Godzilla Movie?

There's a movie coming out in January next year but the filmmaker, J.J. Abrams* isn't releasing its title. He's set up a teaser website for it at 1-18-08.com, but there's nothing much there except for a few nondescript photos, presumably people in the movie... Watching the trailer doesn't reveal much either, but it's probably the awesomest trailer I've seen in a long time. There are all sorts of crazy theories flying about as to what the movie could be, and someone's set up a blog called 1-18-08 Project Cloverfield collating and scrutinizing details as they are known. There's also 1-18-08news.com. There's quite a lot of speculation and de-bunking on the IMDb boards for the movie as well...

*Abrams is most well known as an Executive Producer on the television series Lost, which is famous for keeping its viewers glued to the screen by releasing only enough plot information to keep them wanting more.

woohoo! woohoohoo!

a renaissance of old media
woohoo!

Click To Play

woohoo!

and this was brought to you by the wonders of the new media. (blogger, podcasting etc)

‘omg my mom joined facebook!!’ - NYT

Michelle Slatalla of the NYT wrote an article called
"omg my mom joined facebook!!" about her experiences using Facebook. Here's an interesting quote from the article, by a Facebook spokesperson:

"Facebook is all about being a reflection of real-world relationships,” she said. “The same thing you’re experiencing with your daughter online is a reflection of how you’re not a part of her social network in real life."

Web 2.0: The Separation of Form and Content

Professor Michael Wesch at Kansas State University has a website called mediatedcultures.net which is the home base for a class he runs taking an ethnographic approach to YouTube and the vlogosphere.

He created a short video to attempt to explain how Web 2.0 functions as primarily a way to separate form from content, and re-view the way people use communications technologies like the Internet. I've presented his original video below, but I'd also recommend checking out mediatedcultures.net and taking a look at some of his students' work. Personally I find his technical skills fairly amazing.



Wesch was also profiled in Wired Magazine's 2007 "Rave Awards".

Blogging to peak in 2007 -- Gartner report

Ars Technica has an article up about how industry research firm Gartner estimates that blogging will reach its peak of 100 million sometime within the next year. Most people who create blogs abandon them at some point, and the estimation is that there are currently 200-million "ex-bloggers". Also shrinking is the growth rate of the blogosphere. Although it is now 100 times larger than it was four years ago, it's doubling in size now only once every 7.5 months, compared to until now having doubled twice a year -- or once every six months.

New Technology

Hey, i decided to be really laim and type in New Technology in youtube search.
The resault came out better then I could expect.... This is the link to a really funny new tech and instraction how to use it.
Hope you all have a good laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek

President Bush Discusses a New, Developing War.

Class Rep Meeting

As you may already know, the first class rep meeting of the semester is going to be held next Tuesday, so if you have any problems with this course or there is anything you love about the course feel free to either come up to me after the lecture or email me at wild_aucker_liz@hotmail.com

Thanks.

(GATE KEEPERS)-FINDERS KEEPERS!!!!!!

It is very interesting how the social and economical power is situated and spreaded among the world. It is desturbing that fewer people will control everything and the rest can protest as much as they want and little will change. I like the approach of the Canadian government to the law suit against copying on the net,and breaching the big companies copyrights. What they doing is saving a lot of time to the lawers at the court room and a lot of people to get a criminal record,for what for copying few songs for themselves.In this way they preventing a lot of problems before they are created. Some people can say,but isn't that saying that is ok to break the law,and copy whatever we want. I would say no,just as long we dont make out of it and to certain limits. The laws are created by people for people from the same circle the first people came.We (the rest) have to uphold the law so we wont be able to do anything about it. We have rights,we also have the right do do nothing otherwise we can get skwasht by the big boys. Since a long time ago there were gate keepers like kings or rulers with domenating power which have the same role as todays internet gate keepers,and it will be the same pattern of controll in the future unless,someone very smart and inteligent and unique person or persons figure it out for the betterment of human kind and liberate us from the gate keeping world of financial stability for the big boys.

Speaking of Privacy

Very recent broadcast of DemocracyNOW on new legislation just passed in the U.S. (by the Democrat-run Congress, no less) that now gives the government even more power to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. Among the things no longer kept private: all international calls made by Americans, including those calls made outside of the country.

What's next?

Lucas you bet me to it...

I also have two music video's cued up to share with the blogger's sphere...

However unlike Pinks Video, these video's don't communicate a strong anti Bush agenda (but... the producers are French). Nor are they representative of anything we discussed in class today.

I would like to share these two music video's simply because they are well produced both musically and aesthetically. Also... Collectivley they kick ass, the T-Shirts graphically depicted in the first you want wear, and the 2nd makes you want to love your friends.

Please... Enjoy.

Video_1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fo_QVq2lGMs

Video_2
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8fRyXyGSk68

Andrew B.

Dear Mr. President

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DEh0eSpNvY

Views: 2,179,818
Comments: 4159
Favorited: 9043 times

Staunch and conflicting views on Pink's politically themed pop anthem. The chance for anybody to contribute their own argument and/or feelings toward the song. From an interface perspective: why limit the comments to 10 a page? Is there a better way - a way for stronger engagement? Live YouTube chat?

On a different note: I'd love to hear what you all think about the song? Imagine a class discussion on this little puppy! George Bush sucks! No, Pink sucks!

In parting, "You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine",

Lucas Cooney

Myspace for pets?!!

Hi there 203, hows everyone going? This is my first blog entry EVER so I hope its not to bad.. I have been meaning to get onto this sooner however I've have been suffering from low motivation/inspiration. That is until I discovered a interesting website by the name of petstar.co.nz

The site is basically like myspace and bebo etc but for peoples pets. My girlfriend who happens to be a pet-obsessed vet nurse introduced me to this site in the hope that I would create a profile for my cockateil. Her motivation was that her cat could add my bird as a "friend". I found this idea completly bizarre and struggled to see the point in it. Even after I told her that cats are the sworn enemies of birds she still insisted I create my cockateil a online identity.

When I created my myspace one lonely winters night I initially thought that it was the stupidest thing in the world. I have since changed my mind on that subject and am now a regular user. Perhaps i am being naive about petstar too. Maybe it is really really awesome. Maybe.

Thanks

Alan Jones

Comics Online.

I was meaning to post this last week closer to the tute about webcomics but I'm lazy and whatnot.

At last a comic where you don't have to worry about your copy being damaged and losing value. A comic where you can have the first edition and not have to leave it in a plastic case to never be read. A comic that is online and most importantly a comic you normally don't have to pay for.

Webcomics started to really come of age a few years ago. One of the comics that still exists and predates most others was brought up in the tute. This comic is Penny Arcade. This comic was started in 1998. While most of the other comics I'll be referencing this blog began in 2002/3.

The idea behind a webcomic is very similar to that of a webcomic just with subtle differences. While a regular comic would be released once a month and would contain an entire story or a large chunk of an ongoing story. A webcomic is either updated daily or weekly or on a undetermined timeline. And normally your update is a singular page of the comic or a couple of pages. So because of this webcomics normally follow a different format to a regular published comic.

A published comic tends to have a story to tell and will start from the beginning and be ever working towards an end of some kind. Webcomics tend to be a ongoing story with no particular end. This isn't always the case however and this is where i start to name drop. Inverloch is a webcomic that basically follows all the conventions of a regular comic its just posted online. It is just the publication of a story that is nearly finished now. However most comics follow a format like Questionable Content this comic has been around since 2003 and is just the ongoing story of the characters lives. This style of webcomic is almost a soap opera. Theres no end to this story as long as all the characters exist.

This format allows these comics to have such a long running life. However in order to keep a webcomic alive for 5 years like Least I Could Do you need to have a solid fan base and be making money. This is what normally sinks most webcomics. Most people start a webcomic for fun because they like to draw and want others to enjoy their work. When Ryan Sohmer created LICD the last thing he thought is that it would become his full time job.

The same can be said for creator of Ctrl-Alt-Del, Tim Buckly. He is another prosumer who turned his hobby comic into his full time job. Ive been in correspondence with Tim over the last year since interviewing him for a project I was working on. During this correspondence I spoke with him about how hard it was to setup a business out of his hobby.

Like Kevin was saying in the tute how the popularity of your work can be your undoing Tim confirmed this. He said that the hardest part of setting up the comic is when your just beginning to get popular. When your not earning enough from the comic to pay for the cost of your bandwidth. He told me that he was losing money on Ctrl-Alt-Del for about 3 months til his advertising starting profiting. Eventually he was earning enough from his site that he didn't have to work another job.

Advertising is not the only way that these webcomics make money. Merchandise is another large way these sites make money. Most webcomics have a donation button on their site so if you enjoy the content and want to see it survive then you can help the artist out by donating.

I find Webcomics a fascinating piece of media because they are ever evolving. Some comics even change artists as they progress.
I'm always keeping my eye out for new and up and coming comics to give my support to and I hope some of you check out a few webcomics yourselves.

Steve.

Are we really this surprised?

After giving it a lot of thought majority of us seemed so outraged with Google and the concept of Big Brother over our g e-mails. But is it really shocking news? Does it really bother us as much as we have portrayed it? Don’t get me wrong I too am guilty of the outrage. To think about Privacy it seems to be a concept of last century. Now it’s all Big Brother. Lets start with cell phones that can be monitored through satellite to pin point the location of the call and the conversation itself, internet… hey we are all subscribers, filters are in place to track “trigger words” such as bombs, etc on our e-mails, texts and calls. The streets are monitored by surveillance that in some instances one can watch live on the internet (http://traffic.transit.govt.nz/Traffic.do?view=cctv# ) check it out. Our entire life history can be traced in Governmental agencies; think of Flight bookings, medical histories, census, and the list goes on. So are we really that surprised, or outraged? Hey we all got used to Google and if it goes another Google would take its place, so does it really matter who reads our e-mails in ten years time? The only option left to privacy is good old pen and paper and no return address on the envelope.

Bit on a lighter side. I have been sent these links about a good old game Tetris … but with a twist. Really check them out. I know I have enjoyed it heaps! Hopefully you will too.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/clips/russian-dorm-tetris-284988.php?autoplay=true

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2205

And to finish off couple of links on Facebook: some say picture’s worth hundred words so watch these:

Facebook- harmless fun or US conspiracy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMWz3G_gPhU

Facebook infomercial parody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHi-ZcvFV_0

My blog about... Hypermediacy, Remediation and well. General randomness :p

After reading some chapters off Bolter and Grusin’s book titled “Remediation” last semester it has sparked me into blog writing mode. Sigh…

Now I want to begin with just a short definition. Hypermediacy can be defined as a style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium (Bolter, Grusin 8). ). Through this definition a part of hypermediacy is a visual representation, this is a key term because in order to have a text hypermediated it must be visual.

From this term of a hypermediated space I would like to turn my focus on all things in terms of digital spheres. What I mean by this is the different levels of communication on a system purely based on hypermediacy. And it is fair to state that the internet itself is a contested and never ending cycle of remediation through hypermediated texts and images. More so with the introduction of video’s especially the quickly accessible youtube videos made available through simple hotlinks or embedded on other websites has given rise to a huge insurgency of hypermediated spaces.

These are not static. But forever morphing and changing like Jean Baldrillard’s theory of the simulacrum. These hypermediated forms become fragmented to a degree of simulation. It is constructed differently every time it becomes remediated under a form of hypermediated website. I think hypermediacy is the backbone of the internet in general.

This may sound rather extreme. But the internet really does survive on a constant flow of information and images. Or else. It will. Simply not survive and become of any value to users of this forever changing medium. However my idea of hypermediacy and remediation is somewhat blurred between reality and the internet.

I see the internet as a way of compacting hypermediacy and remediation into a codified form, compact squashed into a machine or line. However in reality if we apply hypermediacy and remediation into something physical, in everyday life for example say… A theme park or circus we get hypermediacy and remediation in a physical sense we as people can see the events and objects in front of us it is not virtual it is as if all the physical items that make hypermediacy are blown up and scattered everywhere in a succession of images and sounds. This too is stimulating for us, except it occurs in everyday life.

This is perhaps why the internet has become such a powerful and strong medium. Because it has the ability to compact hypermediacy and remediation into a tight little package, users are almost passive to this concept. It is not overwhelming for modern minds as websites are increasingly designed with cluttered spaces of hyperlinks clickable images and active pop-ups of random information. Perhaps it is the influence of capitalism fuelling the need to target consumers.

Or more extremely it could be industrialisation which caused this high level of hypermediacy and remediation on the internet the idea of large and mass scale changes to society causing a clustered sensation which signifies the internet itself. Man made and unforgiving it is a landscape in which most of the worlds population are born into. Is that why the nature of the internet seems so familiar to us, is that why remediation is so important, to send us a subconscious set of ideologies that a hypermediated space is the norm and the fact that its natural and embedded within ourselves in both virtual and reality.

Who knows how the internet morphed into this form but what can be included with this blog entry is the fact that hypermediacy is about delivering a message and remediation. And this is the constant flow of the internet which is largely unoticed. But in trying to unravel this can cause a sprial effect on many different levels.

GOOGLE and What if GOOGLE wasn't there.?

Google is a very usefull and smart browser or search engine. There are many search engines ,but Google is the most popular. Basicaly if it wasn't google the most popular,it would of been some other browser on his place to disscuss in class and hear on the media. This corporation as well as many others collect data for one or another reason. Atleast this corporation is telling us that they are using our personal data.On the other hand other corporations can use this info ,but not tell us and we dont question them. Its funny isn't it? We as normal and average people don't have to be too much concern whatever this corporation is doing as long as they dont brake the law and harm someone of us.What we can be concern is how good they are with protecting that private and valuable for all of us information from people who can do damage to everyone. It is normal to be upset about it but little some of us can do to prevent the plans of growing and multimilion dollar company. Even better in some casess if they missuse some private info and they get cought, they can end up paying a lot of money because they have it. It is interesting how they wont reveal how they do this search engine to work so well. Google now is in the big game and in the big game are bigger things concerning this corporation. They have to get involved with other big corporations and governments and exchange vavours and deals and from now on will be a game on another level which level they dont have to explain much what they doing and how because simply they can...

A bit about Blogs and the Public Sphere

Kevin had asked me in tutorial to provide the link to a very well-written article that I had read last semester concerning the ideals of Jurgen Habermas and his notion of the Public Sphere, surrounding the idea of the Weblog. Unfortunately, Project MUSE has refused to re-divulge that particular piece of writing, but instead has given me a couple more that may allow those who are unfamiliar with the terminology to gain some understanding. Under each heading is a short quote that I've picked out that are relevant to our understanding, but if you wish to read the complete article, feel free to do so. Unfortunately, they don't all contain relevant things, only snippets, or are too heavy-laden for the brand new user of the terminology.



Cybersalons and Civil Society: Rethinking the Public Sphere in Transnational Technoculture
In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas presents the salons of eighteenth-century France as instances of the newly emerging bourgeois public sphere. There, bourgeoisie, nobles, and intellectuals only recently removed from their plebeian origins met on equal footing. As Habermas writes, "In the salon the mind was no longer in the service of a patron; 'opinion' became emancipated from the bonds of economic dependence." The salon provided a space apart from the economy, a space where people could exchange ideas and voice criticism on matters of shared interest or concern. The vitality of the exchanges was such that new works and great minds first sought legitimacy in the salons. (¶4)


You Can't Spill Mustard on a Blog
A blog, with apologies to Swedish lumberjacks, is a contraction sans apostrophe of the words 'Web' and 'log.' The word refers to an electronic diary (some prefer to call it a journal) that one may keep, situated on the Internet for the perusal of interested parties. Just like a book or article, it's there, regardless of whether or not anyone cares to read it. Blogging (the act of creating, maintaining, and updating a Web log) is, in effect, self-publishing; and, because you usually have to pay somebody for it (maybe a server, but I'm not really up on the lingo of the cybernauts), blogging is somewhat akin to vanity publishing. (¶5)

Battrick

Online gaming taken to another level!

Battrick is an online cricket game, where you manage a team, train up players, play teams from around the world and arrange friendlies against your mates; which turn out to be matches to obtain bragging rights. Possibly becoming an obsession amongst some of my friends and for others, another way to prove ones manhood.

Online gaming can be so addictive! If you like cricket check it out. It now even has its own wiki page!

www.battrick.org

as if you didn't know enough

1) with Gmail every email you send might be by default attached to that which you are replying to, so say the whole correspondence goes on for a time without either participant deleting these from their account, at any one point, copies of the originals are made onto the databank that Google stores in perpetuity as we learn to the horrors of some among us. So there, copies of copies of originals. Folks, you realize your damage is done. There is no getting out. Say goodbye to your freedom days. There are less of them than you'd thought you'd have. Treasure the memories. Big Brother will swoop down any minute now. But live, live, keep living! You can always pick up knitting, which is useful for solitude, along the way

2) so say you want to change to Hotmail instead. Good news, it's same old same old. They would have been storing data without your awarenesses(yes i insist on this spelling) , because you, so happy and excited, had skipped reading the terms and conditions, agreed to them, so happy and excitedly while signing up to something, anything that is not Gmail for it's horrors and bias and dreaded power that is not yours to share. Yes you did it when signing up for Gmail, now do it again for Hotmail, Yahoo! and AOL and Cheerful.com

3) really what you should do is start your own server and no one, not anyone, not even Big Brother can say they hold something of you that you didn't offer willingly! you would have to get all your friends on board so that they will taste the benefits that you have created by your representation of the will of the people! And Barlow will shake your hand. Yes he will. Remember his hand. Remember it even when you discover it's not such a bad thing storing other people's private matter without their knowing. Maybe you'll learn why you need to or by coercion from Big Brother, he's made you his Little Big Brother. Lemony Snickets! By Gosh! Oh Golly! And yes, Big Brother is still somewhere up there and above you. Always. So have a go. Get to shake Barlow's hand. And learn that there's someone else's hand that would be more impressive to do so as compatriot, as Brother. Big Brother- his immediate ranks should be man's ultimate vision for success. Let's give credit where it's due to people who have made it. And let's remember why Big Brother's there. He's awesome, invincible, and for all primary intents and purposes, comforting

Google as Big Brother

In today's lecture there was a bit of debate surrounding the access to our personal information that google has and around 50% of those who participated in this discussion were of the belief that this is no problem and that we shouldn't accept it. I'm going to play devil's advocate (unlike in class) and say that it is acceptable.

For starters, if you didn't want your personal information being held by a large corporation then why would you sign up to a gmail account and why would you use the internet full stop? Also, why are we just blaming Google for holding our inofrmation? Univeristies, banks, the government and hospitals hold our information and we willingly give it out. We also make our telephone number available in the phone book, so why are worried about a company overseas having our inofrmation? It's not like it is going to be used by people for sinister purposes, but I do wonder something. If Google are willing to get into discussions with the Chinese Government then what is to say that they haven't been in talks with the New Zealand government? That is what I am more worried about.

I asked a flatmate earlier today about her opinion on the matter and she doesn't really mind and thinks it would be interesting to look at her emails and searches done over the years. I tend to agree on this matter, but only to a certain point.

We send text messages to people on a daily, sometimes even hourly basis and so the phone companies know where we are going to be and at what time. This would enable them to stalk us should they want but there have been no reported cases of such behaviour in New Zealand.

In short, we are being paranoid about nothing.

Bound By Law?

Continuing on the thread of discussion about Creative Commons and copyright issues, I highly recommend reading Bound By Law?, a graphic comic available to read online free under a Creative Commons license. I originally read this comic for a non-fiction production class that I took at my college back in the states. In the class we were being taught how to produce, direct, film, edit, and distribute documentaries. However that isn't all a filmmaker has to worry about these days. It is equally important to learn about restrictions most likely to be encountered on the journey to becoming a documentary filmmaker. The restrictions I speak of are the ones created by copyright law--an ever-perplexing set of rules that draws a hazy line between fair use and copyright infringement.

Law in general can be quite dull and confusing to most people, so "Bound By Law?" aims to create a fun and simple graphic novel that teaches copyright basics, particularly when it comes to documentary. There are also tons of facts about music and graphic copyrights, and historical info about copyright law, too. It answers such questions as: "Why do we have copyrights?" and "What's 'fair use'?" The book itself was produced by Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, which interests itself in intellectual property and the cobweb of rules that surround it. Also, as part of the Creative Commons, "Bound By Law?" has a license that allows all people "to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work" and "to make derivative works" of the graphic novel. However, you must not use the work for commercial purposes, you must distribute work related to this under the same Creative Commons license, and you must attribute this work to its authors. These rules are very clear and very creatively open, and that's what the Creative Commons is all about.

Just to spark your interest about "Bound By Law?" a little more, here's a fact it brings up: the classic work "Moby Dick" has no copyright protection, but your recent diary entries are copyright protected for the duration of your life + 70 years. Find out why by reading "Bound By Law?"!

Creative Commons comes to Aotearoa New Zealand

New Zealand has recently become one of 44 countries to join the worldwide Creative Commons movement. Someone in a previous post mentioned LibriVox, the free audiobook website. LibriVox is one of many sites to adopt CC-licensing practices in releasing and publishing work on its website. The CCANZ site explains things much better than I could, but the cool thing is that New Zealand is actively exploring new avenues of content protection, rather than resorting to archaic near-totalitarian systems of Digital Rights Management.

From the CCANZ site:

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons was founded in 2001. It is a nonprofit organisation that offers a flexible range of copyright protections and freedoms for authors and artists. It has built upon the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright to create a voluntary "some rights reserved" system. All Creative Commons tools are free.

Digital technologies are connecting people in ways that were never before possible. Creative Commons aims to help enable a participatory culture – a culture in which everyone can actively engage in the creativity that surrounds us, and in which access is assured to cultural, scientific, and educational content that has been pre-cleared for use by its authors.

Creative Commons uses private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Offering your work under a Creative Commons licence does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions. All Creative Commons licences require that use of another person’s work must be attributed to that person in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

A safer alternative?

Sure being paranoid about google is a bit of a conspiracy theorists haven at the moment, but this can't hurt can it? I still don't see how they can do anything if I use a decent firewall and delete any cookies that install themselves.

'Bowling Alone'

BOWLING ALONE: THE COLLAPSE AND
REVIVAL OF AMERICAN COMMUNITY
by Robert D. Putnam

In his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University Robert Putnam explores the ways in which people have become more disconnected from one another due in part to the rise and influence of modern communications technology. About two-thirds of the way through last century, Putnam says, Americans -- and I believe it would be fair to extend his research to include most of the Western world -- simply stopped partaking in group activities. He cites the case of bowling alley membership declining over the past twenty years, and the economic impact of people no longer bowling in leagues (it is from here that he takes the title). The loss of social capital has lead to a more disparate and 'less connected' society, Putnam says. Entertainment television is 'lethal' to civic engagement and real-world interaction; "...people watch Friends, rather than having friends."

If all of this interaction with technology -- and particularly communications technology -- is making us less socially well-rounded, then I wonder what Dr. Putnam thinks of interactive social networking web applications such as Facebook and IM programs such as MSN? Personally I feel as though these technologies allow me to interact socially with people more regularly regardless of geographical or other constraints, albeit that the interaction achieved through such services is a of different nature than meeting someone in person.

Blackle Schmackle

Black Google.
No, not racist.
Energy efficient.
Every little bit counts, right?

Google Schmoogle

Is is paranoia or just really is what it seems? Google, supposedly the 'biggest' and 'best' search engine on WWW may in future, use all the information that users have typed into their search boxes against them? I don't think so.

After the enlightening discussion during lecture, I realised that nearly if not all in class use Google without thinking. I know i do. Hollywood (or was it someone else?) coined the term 'I'll google you' or 'Just google it', which just shows that information is serious power. But, in saying all that, does it really matter how powerful Google has become?

The 'hate sites' on the Web which disagree with Google from everything from Gmail to privacy of the users and even the love connection of Google and Wikipedia. An interesting one I found was The Anti Google FAQ, which was hilarious in ways to get around Google and their databases.

Something else I came across was The New Media Journal.us, which was apparently taken of the Google News section, because of hate content. It's the perfect example of gatekeeping, and of policing articles on media and news sites. The original email (or so they say, I'm a skeptic) which I'll call The Email, does not really explain much, but it does give links of the hate content.

And then you turn around and get Andrew Taylor who seems to think Google apps and that Google itself is pure gold. Hilarious! There are even sites telling you, why Google is God like this, which I personally think is a joke!

My favourite site is definitely this one. It made me laugh out loud in HSB comp labs.

I wonder..

have a good week all

Analog obsession

ASCII-art is art that is created (usually on computers) by combining upper- and lower-case letters and numbers, symbols and other ASCII characters. Here's an example:

Except that the above is what I would call retro ASCII-art. Why? Because it wasn't created on a computer; it was made using red and black coloured ribbons on a 1965 Olympia SG3 typewriter. The interesting thing about this sort of art is that it was inspired by new technology, but created using old technology. The artist's name is Andrew MacRae, and he has a blog with some of his artwork on it. There's a blog post on ABC.net.au called "Andrew Macrae's analog obsession" in which the author admits that he "thought it must be computer generated somehow" because it's so expertly done. The artist's own explanation of his fondness for analog is interesting, and I particularly like the fact that he points out that "There's no spell check, no internet connection, no Solitaire and no Microsoft Word paper clip to tell you it looks like you're writing a letter, would you like some help?" MacRae is obsessed with typewriters in much the same way and for many of the same reasons as people collect records or write hand-written letters to one another.

There's something unnerving about the 'perfection' of digital; analog, complete with all its imperfections and faults like the crackle and pop of vinyl or the slightly off-centre look of a typewritten page, just feels more natural. Record collectors buy records because they prefer the warmer more authentic 'feel' of the sound, as opposed to the harsh clinical sound of Compact Discs or digital audio files; people who use typewriters do so for similar reasons, I imagine. mp3s don't have that distinctive smell like vinyl does, and a laser-printed page looks the same no matter what computer or printer you use, whereas a typewritten page will always be different.

Roll Call.

Hi everybody, you know the drill:

More people are signing up, which is excellent, but there are some who I cannot tie to Actual Students.

This could well be due to my having an out-of-date class list, perhaps, or some other glitch. In any case, please send me an email or reply here with your name and ID if you are:

Power_Pod

Moomin

Ngai070

Stephen.

Thanks!

- Kevin.

The greatest illusionist of all times is called:TECHNOLOGY......

In reality technology is responsible for the well being of all of us. Thanks to that we have improved medical care which saves lives,and laboratories which decover a vaccines,and cures to deseases and sickneses. It so nice that we can talk on the phone with relatives on the other end of the world,and now even recently its posible to see them via our PC desktops. The world is changing and improving for the better of human kind. We embrase all of the gadgets we can lay hands on on way or another. I like all my gadgets. They make me partialy happy untill i get bored with them,and so i start looking for new one. Technology gives us many things,and one of them is temporary satisfaction,which will come to pass with the replacement of newer and maybe better tecnology.All of this is the circle of the consumarism machine which is made for one purpouse:to make more gadgets and more money for someone,not you and me.
After all i love my gadgets.Its good to have cell phone,laptop,gps,PC,Car,PSP2 or 3.When we have all of this or some of this we think we are happy or atleast we dont think we are unhappy,which is an illusion. It is a good illusion,because i dont know what is the other way of not making us to feel unhappy or shortly to make us happy,without technology. Our days technology is so big,so huge that we have a subgect at uni to study a almoust new culture in the human history and that is technoculture. Technocultue started with the discoveries of the sientist throught the centuries,but realy exploaded when TV was introduced to the public.Later was the VHS,Walkmen,CD player,PC,Internat,DVD,I-pod,mobile phones,gps. The products of human inteligence is producing a new human culture, which is trying to understand how and why we are so interested in technology and how the technology is effecting our lives. Thank god that human being is so adaptable because lets say if all the technology is gone,what will happens? We will adapt that is for sure.I guess tahts why we always find a way to rebuild what was lost. I assume that in order a person to function properly without stress and problems,that person needs to be happy or atleast not to be unhappy which the same depends how you look at it. So in order someone to be happy technology plays a huge part our days. For example:electricity,water,Tv,transport,infrastructure,helth sistem,education,communication,and especialy military which is responcible for every techno-gadget we se at the shop.The military has something to do with every smart technology we use ourdays,because what we use is recicled military old technology,or atleast part of it.However the association we make most of the time with the word illusion is the word majic not the word practical trick,or very smart or sophisticated mechanism for bliding our visual ability to discover the truth. For that technology has the gold medal,because we know that is a trick.we dont know how it works,but we like it and part of us will watch the trick again is because the ability to imagine different scenarious to figure it out how it work,or jus because of curiocity or entertainment.

What will happens if it gets out of control?

Technology has been always wellcome into our lives. Since we exist on this planet we craft and improve the tools we create or discover. That we call evolution.Evolution is a good things we say and we are right,i guess.Let's see what we have achieved so far in this evolutionary proccess. We can fly thanks to the metal birds with horible sound ,but luxury interior we build in order to cross oceans and vast main land. Good or bad? Good for us bad for the planet ,because we are running out of fuel,so is also bad for us also. Communications.Wow ,now we can communicate faster,longer, and with people we dont know or we dont even dont want to know.We can travel fast on the ground thanks to the gorgeous cars and motorbikes(which i love so much) ,but also we can die fast on them,and we do ,unfortunatly. That is only part of the so called commercial technology available to majority of the population on mother earth. But no worries,its all good ,its under control. A who has it under control? We think it must be the people we pay so much money to protect "us "from "us".What i mean is that we consume everything supplied to us (i reffer as a humans),but also we create reasons to make wars,and chemical weapons and kill to protect something which is more protected if there is no war. Now there is a project near France wher is suppouse to be build a partical excellerator which will produce a huge amount of energy. Its all good,its great,but they say what if something goes wrong,lets say:misstake,terrorists,who knows.If something goes boom,we are gone they say.Where we going to end up ,when we produce more danger than safety,also in order to be safe we create more dangerouse things to protect us,because of which we have to create more dangerouse to protect us from them and so on. And What will happens if all of this gets out of control?????

We blog, We-Media

Web page has become a main form of internet communication. As an internet medium, it contains some functions of printing media as well as some characteristics of visual media. Blogs can be treated as personal web pages; however, the way they have been used is far more different from what we called those traditional web pages. The traditional web pages are more like the formal publish reading; they probably require some of the technicians to design and update them. Sometimes, the content of them have to be thought carefully, hence, the costs and the techniques are considerably high. In comparison, blogs are easier to use and organize by individuals. Their contents can be news, diary, photo, poem, academic essay, music, video, story and so on. They are open to everyone, and people feel free to use them.

The most important meaning that the internet has brought to people's life is its medium characteristic, because it can do something that traditional media cannot do. Such as E-mail solved the time problem of regular mail, the instant web-phone made the cost less than the telephone communication, the web-cam increased the interactivity, and the importance of blog is that it allows the individual to take over and participate to the mass media. Although the purpose of each blogger can be different, the way that the blogs have been used is not something privately, it trends to close to the mass, people write things on them and want their things to be read as a piece of public reading. Also, we all know that there is a good feeling when we share something with others.

New Way of Using Facebook

Mom reunites through Facebook with son she gave up for adoption

Short version, for those who can't be bothered reading the article:

A lady gave up a son when she was 17, and has been searching for him since. Now she's 37, and has somehow found him through FaceBook (!!), after having searched through numerous phone books, adoption registries and the internet.

So, now, we are presented with an entirely new way of using these networking sites, whether it be Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, or whatever. Are they still inherently "evil" (according to some) if people are able to use these services to perform such tasks? I suppose that in the end, the question lies in the user of the particular medium - do they have enough control over themselves to be able to stop when it's "time", or are they like crack addicts going 30hrs without?