Thursday, November 29, 2007

Technology - creates a "Brave New World"

A very apt quote began the lecture today “They were so obsessed with the fact that they could do it, they forgot to consider whether they should” – from Jurassic Park.

First (electronic) Media Age – centralised dissemination. Anyone could communicate with a minimum of technical and financial resources. Once source to many receivers.
Second (electronic) Media Age – decentralised interaction - The internet has made it possible to communicate with large audiences. We are no longer restricted to the telephone. Many sources to many receivers.

We also looked at the theme of how technology can give us a “Utopia” or create a “Dystopia”. I am a Star Trek fan and so would certainly welcome a Utopian future like Star Trek where humans had evolved to overcome their petty squabbles, where everyone had their basic needs met and be free to search the universe and as Captain Jean-Luc Picard said in the opening credits of Star Trek – The Next Generation – “Space... The final frontier...These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds...To seek out new life; new civilisations...To boldly go where no one has gone before!"

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains…Jean Jacques Rousseau.

I s that what has happened to the internet? Was the internet born free? Can a democracy exist over the internet? Do governments have control over content? What happens to national borders?

The internet may have been free of any major constraints in the beginning but now the growing influence of commercialism is expanding exponentially and the internet is the new frontier to conquer, where people can set up shop and make their million.

Our freedom has been short-lived – not by the regulation of government on our rights to free speech. We scream out at the top of our collective voices about governments controlling the internet, curtailing free speech and the spying on our internet usage by monitoring the flow of information coming in and out of our countries. Yet we do not scream at the top of our voices, or stamp our feet about the commercialisation of the internet. We embrace it!!


How many of us are bombarded with emails from people or companies trying to sell pornography, penis enlargers and any number of money making scams. We have to have firewalls, antivirus scanners, spam filters etc or when I visit a web site only to have my computer monitor invaded with popups from companies trying to sell me stuff.
Is it our freedom to choose? I don"t think so…..

Tutorial Task – day 8

1. Given the conventional wisdom that traditional media are still the dominant form for getting "news" out to the world, do you think the internet will affect the audience for those old media?
Not will affect, it has already affected the old media. I don’t sit down in the morning with my cup of coffee and read the newspaper, I sit down at my computer and click through the headline and read the news online. Many people are now in the position to do this.
2. Check out the local IndyMedia website. What kind of news is there, and do you think a website like that has a place in your life?
It was a very interesting website and I have bookmarked it to add to my daily news routine. When I get up I go make a cuppa, sit down at the computer and read the ABC news, then look over a couple of other news sites, answer my email.
3. Do you think the internet is (was?) an effective tool for politicians to reach out to their intended audience?
I am not sure. During the last election campaign. I didn’t watch any television only listened to ABC Radio and read the news on the internet. I did not go to Youtube to look at John Howard, or Kevin Rudd’s short films. I received heaps of junk snail mail from the local member and the different parties. I think the internet would be more effective, especially we can choose what we wish to read or listen to. Unfortunately people who do not have access to the internet or who can’t read and write are stuck to watching the television or listening to the radio for their information.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

C

See me;
I am the musical note C

Play me, feel me,

Let my energy enter into you

Mingle with your energy, tap your soul.
I can change your mood, high C, Low C, Middle C
I am there for you in times of sadness, fear, happiness.
I create the images,
you can feel me,
Feel me, see me, hear me

I am C

I create colours, visions, I am the music of the universe,
I am sound.
I travel slower than the speed of light
There is a reason for this:
It is for you to feel me, as well as hear me
You cannot feel a photon, only see it
But with me, you can feel me

I do not give up on life, because I am slower that the more dynamic light.
No, I am determined
Insinuating myself into your lives
I surround you
Stop and listen to the sounds around you
I am the vibrations, the humming of the refrigerator
The washing machine, the computer.
I am the songs of the song writers, music writers,
Bad voices, good voices.
When you feel down,
Stop and listen
You will hear me calling you

Don’t wait for me, you can mould me
Play with me.
Learn about me
Even the gifted need to learn
Learn how to manipulate me, I am here for you
For free
You see
I am C

We are the sounds and are waiting for you to use us
Success or failure, we will not criticize
We love you, we were made for you to feel us and hear us
I take my bow and wait for you in antiCipation

What is Electronic Music???

Is it music that is created by electronic instruments like synthesizer music, electric guitars, electronic keyboards or turntables. Or is it computer software generated music from Cakewalk, Finale or Sibelius. Or is electronic music the media that transports the music to us like computers, Hifi’s, radios, cds, and iPods. Or is it the file formats that we use to store the music on our computers, iPods, cds like mp3, midi, wav, wma, mp4, Odg Vorbis, Flac,APE. It could also be the genre of music Techno, Electro, Dance, Trance, House, Ambient. Electronic music could also be the sounds of machines in our environment, the blood swooshing through our veins, our heart beat all powered by electronic impulses travelling about our nervous system.


Richard Stallman - What can Individuals do?




That was my question - what can I do an an individual. I found a Youtube movie with the answers. Thank you Richard.

Day 6 - Time flies when you are having fun!!

GNU – Free as in Freedom!!!

http://www.gnu.org Wow….I was so ignorant, now I know……Wow. Yeah I have heard of Linux and my son uses Linux, I don’t.

Why?

I have heard about it. I don’t feel comfortable with monopolies. I want freedom of choice. I have seen it in action. I suppose I am just too lazy to learn how to use it!!! Is that my attitude about other issues? Another group we learned about today is the Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF http://www.eff.org is a non profit organisation founded in 1990 and defender of free speech, privacy, innovation and consumer rights. Now I know about these organisations I will certainly investigate them further.

Creative Commons creating a better future for all….



http://creativecommons.org Is it the ideas? The breadth of the Creative Commons. There is something in this that reminds me of the Philosophy of Star Trek. I can’t put my finger on it, it exists at the edges of my conscious. All info is free to use, which reminds us that we should all (wherever we live) be free to live with the basic necessities of life. Is participation in the electronic world also a right? In the film clip we saw today Larry Lessig ask the questions. Questions, many others as well as myself, have wondered about, but really not taken the time to take a deeper look at what is happening. Not taking the time to actively embrace the future that is happening now.



Friday, November 23, 2007

Instant messaging,MP3’s, RSS, P2P, VOIP

Todays lecture was very interesting and we discussed instant messaging, in the early days of IRC and ICQ I did dabble a bit but because I didn’t have any friends who were online it was mainly talking to strangers. MSN was the same until my children got older and travelled, and my friends got better educated about communication software etc.

I have a mp3 player and refuse to buy IPOD only because they lock you into their software, they hold the monopoly and we wanted to be a little different. But most importantly when I purchased our MP3 players we wanted to be able to watch video files as well. Rss feeds are a boon to radio listeners especially ABC Radio National – now I don’t miss any of my favourite programs.

P2P well better not say much about this only that I love it and use it….my husband who is Japanese is able to enjoy Japanese television programs because of P2P. Then there is VOIP we use skype and windows live messenger – with microphone and webcam can communicate with my family anywhere in the world.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Still Life, sorry Second Life


Rushing home from work, in through the front door, trip over the dog and race to the computer . Log on and start existing in the realm of Second Life. Ready to start work, my job is selling real estate interact with a few customers – ooo that androgyn with wings looks sexy might ask it out for a date. Tonight we go to a dance club and dance the night away....go home to androgyn’s place or mine doesn’t matter.

Oh, wait a minute. I have worked all day in my first life job as a real estate agent and rush home after work to log onto and work in my second life job. I could go out after first life work with everyone, have a few drinks, maybe meet someone...go home or invite them to mine whatever.....

Oh no what life am I living. I know I don’t want to live this life too much pressure, too many inadequacies, need to escape reality.......second life.

Isnt this “still life”? Is second life where you go to escape first life? Making money, be more successful, look better – second life is the chance you have to improve on your first life, it is easier to have a better second life because the more I work in first life the more money I can make to spend on my second life. The more money companies earn and buy other companies to eventually hold monopolies where big business controls the second life world - Live life 24 hours a day, home life, work life, virtual life. Beautiful.

What is reality? I don’t know anymore, will have to relax and read a science fiction book about escaping life on planet earth. Or better still I might watch Matrix and escape. Are we avatar’s of some game?? Created by being’s of higher intelligence and are our souls merely an online game player? Spooky stuff..................

Follow the silicon road

Usenet and Telnet and Dos, OH MY!

ASCII and mashup and Lan, OH MY!

Motherboard, Jpeg and Gui’s, OH MY!

Ram and Rom and Ping, OH MY!

WYSIWYG, UNIX , IP, OH MY!

Help and FAQ’s and wireless, OH YEAH

Google and Yahoo and Ask, OH YEAH

Wikipedia and Youtube and Facebook, OH YEAH

Blogs and second life and digs, OH YEAH

MP3 Player

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Internet - Super Information Highway?????


When my family first logged onto the internet my children were young and I was petrified at what they would find. What looming horrors would jump out of the computer screen and attack them. Thoughts of the pornographic monster jumping out and grabbing their eyes - to damage their psyche and warp their minds. To unseen predators who were just waiting across the other side of the “information super highway” lurking there waiting to write down my kids names and addresses to come to our house and kidnap them and do whatever.

What we did find on the World Wide Web was a plethora of information from entertainment, news, smut, scary stuff, warped stuff, spiritual stuff, religious stuff, educational and utter garbage. We did follow some golden rules as a family - which was to talk about what we saw and interacted with. Always used a “fake name”. No computers in bedrooms. Had a healthy attitude about the internet and if anyone happened to venture to a place that was forbidden, they would quickly close the browser and start all over again. Today while writing my blog I was searching in Google for a better term for “fake name” I came across an internet site http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ . Take a look.

Today there is still the fear of internet predators that target unsuspecting children but there is also a contradiction where young people join up to my space or face book and put all their personal information, friends, photos and where they hang out. Now my children are all older and more internet savvy than I am, they show me stuff which enlightens or shocks me and they always empty the temporary internet file folder.

Day 3 - Tutorial questions

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus?

Onel de Guzman, 24, a computer school student, has admitting writing a password-stealing program as a school project.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/29/philippines.lovebug.02/index.html - found with yahoo.com

2. Who invented the paper clip?

The modern paper clip was patented on November 9, 1899 to William D. Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut. Middlebrook invented not just the paper clip but he also invented a machine to produce the paper clip.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/paperclip.htm - found with ask.com


3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?

The disease is caused by infection with Ebola virus, named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa, where it w as first recognized.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/Fact_Sheets/Ebola_Fact_Booklet.pdf - found with hotbot.com

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?

The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 (Mw) in Chile on May 22, 1960.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/facts.php - found with ask.com


5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?

1 terabyte = 1000 gigabytes = 1000000 megabytes – asked my children

6. Who is the creator of email?

Computer engineer, Ray Tomlinson invented internet based email in late 1971. Under
ARPAnet several major innovations occurred: email (or electronic mail), the ability to send simple messages to another person across the network (1971). http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm -found with yahoo.com


7. What is unique about the political organisation of the Kingdom of Nri?

The Igbo peoples of Nri made, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi Douglas Chambers, who teaches history, a traditional chief, the first white person adopted by the royal lineage in its history.
http://www.nrikingdom.com/ - found with hotbot.com

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly, what is the most efficient way?

You could sit on the steps of parliament house when it is in session or you could go to
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=ZD4 found with yahoo.com

Which Brisbane punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?

9. Which Brisbane punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?

Stephen played keyboard for Brisbane punk band, the Black Assassins - http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/stockwell.htm - found with altavista.com

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words?

Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LzQIUANnHc it tells you all about it. I learnt a new word – mashup – found with yahoo.com

Searching the Internet


Before Google I used Yahoo and Altavista as my main search engines. I then started using Google beta version and thought that is was the best thing ever on the net. I loved the name, and the idea of Google and became a Googler. Now I have different ideas and am willing to leave Google and return to search engines like Altavista, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. I never have and never will make Google my home page. I will never have Ninemsn as my home page either.

Search engines rank sites in different ways for example Google ranks sites by how frequently other sites link. Other search engines use met tags which are rather old hat now but this is where they add key words to the main webpage and bots search the web for those words.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I remember Wang Wordprocessors



Todays lecture touched on quite a few subjects that brought back memories of how exciting it was in the late 70's and early 80's as the new computer technology was emerging. I thought back then that IBM golf ball typewriters, and wang wordprocessors were high tech. (Shows my age) I remember, I begged my boss to get me my first desk top computer it was called an IBM PC which ran MS DOS and had 20mb hard disk drive. In those days I had to learn dos language to do most tasks. It was very exciting - writing dos code to play music which was single note tones. I was lucky my job allowed me to spend lots of time in front of that screen playing and learning. In those days I had to learn about ASCII and basic to use a computer. It was fun. Now all the technobabble has gone and we have gui's which certainly makes it easier and of course opens up our interactive world to different formats.


Before I had internet at work we communicated between businesses by telex and when personal telex machines were installed they would print out the telex ribbons down in the telex room where the men would feed the ribbons (paper tapes with holes punched into them) into the transmitter. It was fast communication then maybe a couple of hours to send a telex to Tokyo and receive a reply to Sydney, that was an urgent telex. Now an email is almost instantaneous anywhere in the world. Unless there is a problem with the server.

Today our family uses email, msn, skype, webcam, mobile phones, we all have laptops connected by wireless, we watch youtube, avi’s, mpegs, wmv’s over our network, use the computer as our stereo or plug the mp3 player into the speakers. We have a PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii consoles, which are connected wirelessly to the internet. We also play games like Counterstrike on our computers over our home network, with 4 or 5 players in various rooms of the house.

Monday, November 19, 2007

My first blog

How do you do - My name is Sue. I actually don't have much time on my hands. Time is something I will have when I am much much older and my children have left home! So I am busy enjoying the lack of time on my hands.


I am currently doing Psychology and have enrolled into 1501ART as a free elective. I am very interested in the internet, blogging (even though I have never made one before) I have always wanted to post on the net. Now I have an excuse!!!!


My interests lie in art, music, science fiction I will elaborate further about my interests as the days go on. Today I will let you in on a little secret of mine -

I am a Star Trek fan and have watched every episode of every series - it took me 2.5 years of regular viewing. I was totally lost when I finished watching Star Trek because that is all I watched. My children and their friends also become Star Trek fans (Note: I am not a fanatic). Any spare time I would sit down and watch an episode of Star Trek. Let me elaborate the Star
Trek Family consists of 5 Series and 10 Movies and 1 movie to come -

Star Trek - The Original Series, 79 episodes @ approx 55mins = 72.5Hrs

Star Trek - The Next Generation, 178 episodes @ approx 45mins = 133.5Hrs

Star Trek – Voyager, 172 episodes @ approx 45mins = 129Hrs

Star Trek - Deep Space 9, 176 episodes @ approx 45 mins = 132Hrs

Star Trek – Enterprise, 98 episodes @ approx 45 mins = 73.5Hrs

Totals: 540.5Hours = 22.5 Days

I love the art of Hieronymus Borsch and will discuss this further as the days go on.
Queen is my favourite group, Bach is my favourite composer. I enjoy many different genres of music.