Thursday, July 14, 2005

____________

Thursday, October 23, 2003

My last blog. We have finally come to an end of a long awaited ending of a semester (except for the exams). This class has been very educational in terms of looking at technology and exploring the Internet and World Wide Web. While it has been really fun, it is now time to concentrate on our exams so I leave with this I wish everybody the best of luck and we’ll all be seeing each other on the 11th of next month at 9.15am… see you them.

posted by Anonymous at 8:14 PM

Hey guys,
Limin's blog on the digital camera reminded me of an interesting experience the other night. The other night my Dad was showing me photos, from his recent trip away, he however due to his recent purchase of a digital camera, the pictures were not in physical form, but on the computer. This reminded me of the traditional 'slide show', and how technology has effectively made a full cycle, from the photos (which was not as boring as people could pass around different photos and look at different things), compared to the digital 'slides' on the computer screen (with the viewing dictated by the photographer, often meaning a long show).In this way the digital camera is a form of remediation of the slide rather than the photo. With most of these digital cameras the quality of the photo is never as good as the 'film' photo. So rather than quality, we consumers are concerned with quantity- (being able to take hundreds of pictures- as I found out last night). However it also represents the impatient nature of modern consumers- we want everything now, rather than waiting for the film to get developed. The computer format of the photo is perhaps more useful as it can be e-mailed, or sent to others in disk format, used as wall paper for computer screens. However it makes you realise how heavily we are affected by digitization, for like many other mediums convenience or efficiency is perhaps priviledged over quality.
This is my last blog, have a great summer!
Chris
posted by Anonymous at 8:03 PM

FINALLY -- The very last Blog. #10.

In waiting for inspiration for this blog to arrive, i was reading the mail and found that the In touch newsletter that comes with your telecome phone bill actually had some interesting stuff in it about new technologies. One that struck my attention was called 'Classrooms without walls'. A guy called Clive Sergeant talks about a new initaitive of Telecom's called SchoolZone that links groups of schools together over a broadband internet connection. This means they can use video confrencing technologies and share resources. It also means that the students can go on 'virtual field trips' to zoo's etc via these video-confrencing links without leaving the classroom. They can also learn other subjects not taught at their school in video confrence inks with teachers at other schools.

This isn't an idea for the future, it is already up in running in a group called CoroNet, of schools inthe coromandel including TeAroha, Morrinsville, Paeroa and Waihi Colleges, Thames High School, Whangamata, Mercury Bay and Coromandel Area schools - together these have created a virtual school.

Since these schools are all relatively small it means that the students have more opportunities to try less prominent subjects that aren't offered at their school.

This means that students get more opportunities and teachers are able to teach their specialist subjects regardless of the size of their school andits location.

Pretty amazing really, just another example of technology becomming more and more prevelant in our everyday life. Makes you wonder though, how far this idea of education/school online will go in the future !!

Thats all for me for the year bloggers!!!!!!!

posted by Anonymous at 7:42 PM

Yipppee!! Last blog! Well, it’s been a whirlwind semester for me. Being an exchange student from Singapore, and in my final year of Business school back home, you can imagine how this course is almost completely off tangent to what I study. But I wanted to learn about something that is present in my everyday life – new media and technologies. And I figured that this is my one good chance to do so.

It’s been an exceptionally interesting and eye-opening class. Now, I look at my surroundings, and even the world, a bit differently. I no longer treat the relationship between me, my computer and the Internet at face value. Like what Ashley mentioned, our skin ends at our fingertips, but there is so much we can do with these fingertips, and does it all end there? These fingertips enable us to communicate with the interface to unlock the door to the cyberworld, a world where we become, cyborg-ish. And I still remember this quote said by someone from one of the videos that we watched in the very beginning of this course that goes something like that, ”There’s nothing interesting about two computers talking to each other. But me and the other person over at the other computer, that’s interesting.” And if we think about it, millions of computers talk to each other in the cyberworld, but what really drives the “talk” is the person thumping on the keyboards. And ultimately, it is still us, humans, that drive technology, that make things happen, mediated by new interfaces.

There are other things that I have learnt throughout this course but too long to put it down here. So before I end, I’ll just like to say a big THANK YOU to Luke and Nick for making this a wonderful learning experience for me. I certainly took something very valuable away with me from this course and I have begun to link my business studies with new media and technology. Also, thank you all bloggers for making this blogging experience interesting and fun! See ya all!

posted by Anonymous at 7:32 PM

Well, I don't know how many blogs I have done but it doesn't really matter because I know they are pretty much worthless anyway. This is probably my last blog, and it won't be any different. I only have 7 minutes because I am at work and am using an internet kiosk (I work at the airport).

I would like to quickly talk of my horrific recurring cyborg nightmare. In this nightmare everyone thinks I am a robot and as such have no humanoid feelings. The horrifying thing is, I am merely a cyborg and of course i DO have humanoid feelings! I keep saying that I am a real boy but everyone keeps saying "Shut up you stupid faggot robot" or "You are the dickest guy, robots is shit". Stuff like that. This happens almost every night, and everyone hassling me in the nightmare is wearing "Blogger" t-shirts. I don't get it.

Well, I don't imagine that will get me any marks, but it's too late now.

I love you all, but myself most of all.

Regards,
Robert Dowd.

P.S. If you are taking an international flight today come and see me and I'll give you a knife to smuggle on the plane.
posted by Anonymous at 7:13 PM

Today I finished my last essay this semester finally! Also this is my last blog for 203. I will end all my blogs with one digital device we are all familiar with –digital camera.
In the past twenty years, most of the major technological breakthroughs in consumer electronics have really been part of one larger breakthrough. When you get down to it, such as CD, DVD, MP3 and DVR are all built around the same basic process: converting conventional analog information into digital information. This fundamental shift in technology totally changed how we handle visual and audio information.
Digital camera is one of the most remarkable instances of this shift because it is truly different from its predecessor. Ordinary cameras depend entirely on chemical and mechanical processes. All digital cameras have a built-in computer and all of them record images in an entirely electronic form. It’s so impressive that the digital camera becomes so thin
but the screen is so big now.
Buy the way, what you guys already said is what I want to say.
I really like blog stuff, it provides a space for students to share and exchange ideas. I have learnt much much more throughout this course:)Thanks for Luke introducing this new form of assessment, thanks to everyone, I really enjoy reading you guys’ awesome bolgs.
Good Luck to everyone

posted by Anonymous at 6:55 PM

Hey all you stragglers still doing some blogging… thanks for the shout outs, amazing considering now that I finally got all my functions right and figured that I’ve only written between 8 or 12 Bloggs. I thought I had been much more mouthy than that. Well anyways, I hope I don’t bore you TOO much with one more, but I am gonna try and squeeze yet another one out in the final hour. It’s about the Cyborg- my favorite. I think in this class, we did a very literal reading of all the cyborg has to offer. After rereading the cyborg manifesto… for fun believe it or not… I think we did not give it all that it deserves. It defiantly has literal roots and configurations, but I think it can also be used as a metaphor for the way we relate to these new technologies, specifically the Internet and our computers now. Haraway says “why should the body have to end at the skin,” and I think this alludes not only to the body that we can have as the mechanized literal cyborgs of the future (ie the work of Stelarc), but that we are cyborgs now. Recently, I lost my internet connection in my room as my three month subscription terminated. Truthfully, I felt a kind of loss, like when I broke my leg... I was inhibited from going about my day the way I usually do, cavorting around cyberspace over my coffee in the morning… incessantly checking my mail, checking out the weather back home, seeing what the Blogg has to say… and I realized it was as if I was undergoing difficulties with my prosthetic limb or something... big boo. I see that physically, my skin ends at the fingertips, but there is so much that I do with these fingertips to interact with my environment that I wonder if that is really where it all has to end. See- what it comes down to ya’ll is I think we are already cybogs… all of us… now. We use these techno ‘things’ to interact with our environment, real and virtual. Hell, I’ve named mine and I would argue that Lu Lu Bean is defiantly an extension of my body. I take back my previous closing statement and choose to unleash the unabashedly even nerdier one… cyborgs forever. Rock out all, it’s been real and virtual… alright, stopping now before I go where I can’t recover. tah
posted by Anonymous at 6:17 PM

In researching my essay for this paper I stumbled across an article which had something to do with the cyborg and phone sex. (I didn't read much of the article as my mind began to wander) I was thinking about the computer generated voice messages used for Pizza Hut, WINZ and the like, and I was thinking about what would happen if they started using these on the phone sex hotlines ("c'mon callers join the party"; "give and receive phone" etc. lines - think late night channel 4). Robotic voices saying dirty, dirty things, hehe. Anyway, enough about how my mind works...

I've been a bit slack with the blogs in the last few weeks, so have to catch up on a few topics... So, in keeping with the theme of this blog so far, I thought i'd talk about the range of sex toys available on the internet, in relation to Scott's porn/ cybersex lecture. THese sites can be found in abundance on the web. Anything from the sale product range, advice on how to clean your sex toys to how to make your own!!! This site: http://www.sexuality.org/sextoys.html#cleaning advises

"Keep your toys clean with a little soap and warm water. If you want, break out the hydrogen peroxide for that super clean feeling. Don't submerge the part of a battery vibe that holds the batteries. Do not submerge electric vibes at all.
Leather harnesses can be cleaned with a damp rag, and nylon webbing harnesses can go in the wash with the rest of your laundry.

Silicone dils and plugs can be boiled up to 3 minutes, cleaned with a bleach solution, or run through your dishwasher. For more delicate polymers stick to warm water and soap, and replace them every so often, as they are impossible to keep perfectly clean.

Oil products destroy latex! That means oil-based lubricants, massage oils, butter, olive oil...anything containing oil. Use only water-based lubricant with latex."

While this site: http://www.homemade-sex-toys.com/ gives a DIY guide to creating your own sex toys. Enjoy!! (sorry about the lack of links, they weren't working for some reason...)


posted by Anonymous at 5:45 PM

I read a few blogs every day, because they are written by excellent writers with interesting ideas. Many of the ideas stick with me, and I remember them months later in another context.

Often, especially when working, I would like to go back to an old blog post to find a great phrase I remember, or just a link to an interesting site. I almost never find it. I may remember everything else, but I never remember the date.

Today, I wasted a good hour trying to find a link to a site I know I read in a blog some time the last year or two. Of course I didn't find it.

I like the Web to be a library. I want to be able to come back. Blogs are like TV. When it's gone, it's gone.

Randomly plaigerised piece about blogs. Kind of reminds me of a soap like shorty st. If i'm not seeing it everyday, i'm unlikely to watch (participate) at all.


Somewhere on the Web, I keep another Web log, with comments. In this particular blog, I've got a fan. Whenever I post something, I immediately get an ecstatic comment, most often "Fantastic!."

What I post there is certainly not fantastic. And even if I were to think some of it were good, not every day. What motivates my fan?

Is it a blog fan or a blog stalker?

Maybe blog invigilator would be a good term. Theirs at least one here.
posted by We're Not Floating at 5:45 PM

So I don’t know how you guys’ papers went, but for me, writing a tech paper was interesting as a case study within itself. I study Philosophy of Science as the nerdiest component my obscure major and within that we talk about how people within a paradigm communicate amongst each other in their discourse. I don’t know what you all might have and might have not read, but for me I found the primary sources ridden with quick and witty vernacular, wacky alliteration, double entendre and meanings, and even riddles… kinda odd. It’s like there is an emphasis on being clever with one’s use of language that is not appreciated in another paradigm that I can think of. It is visible even here in the Blog amongst us. We jokingly refer to ourselves as cyborgs, and employ great wit when we coin terms like ‘bloggery’ to describe an emotion associated with… whatever that term connotates. Some basic titles of essay’s from our technocultures reader like- ‘hacking away at the counter culture’ and this is just the beginning. In the essays themselves authors say stuff like “the carpal tunnel of love” to refer to what happens to one’s wrists after overindulgence in cybersex and developing carpal tunnel. Is it because tech heads are just that hip that ‘we’ can say our piece/peace while making the reading fun? Are tech writers young and innovative enough that this sort of writing would appeal to them? Are they subtly making fun of them selves? Whatever it is, I hope you all enjoyed the readings for your paper… they struck me as kinda like a puzzle luring me to read more. Unlike the dregs of an ethnography about a Chinese farm family in the 19th century, it was like a conversation with a quick and engaging person over a really fruity drink reading this stuff. I hope you all enjoyed it as much too… techno-nerds forever.
posted by Anonymous at 5:35 PM

emotioneric
Kind of a funny concept site. Academically speaking, it is a human appropriation of computer communication i.e. emoticons.
Emoticons have been a major hook into the internet for older generations of my family.

Incredimail is the particular favorite of my mum & grandma, because it has attachable sounds and cute puppy dogs etc.

Like i discussed in my essay, the internet seems to be providing more and more ways of giving people a more recognisable identity in cyberspace. With the advent of broadband video conferencing, I wonder if soon a class blog or similar net participation tool will be video based. Also perhaps allowing academic interaction of technoculturephiles around the globe.


penpal Just remembered the penpal system from way back, oh things have changed. Always found writing to anonymous people quite hard work,
guess thats why I haven't done many blogs ;)
posted by We're Not Floating at 5:18 PM

Well in the immortal words of .... well almost everyone else in this blog,
My last blog... it has arrived.
I thought How fitting to do it on the last day of Uni. I thought well i would talk about just this the blog and how fascinating the experience has been.
Communicating and sharing ideas through each person individual post has been great and even though there has been no immediacy to it there have been discussions, feedback and well arguments to a certain extent as well.
I think the advantage over chat rooms for me is that you feel less intimidated that are going live with people that you actually don't know. I actually feel safer using a blog idon't feel so lost in the cyberspace galaxy, but then I am just a scaredy cat. It is also exchange of information, awesome pictures and links to websites. Conversing in a manner that may not be intimate, but more about the meeting of minds, rather than trying to find someone to emotional connect with.
So thanks to one and all for their input into my education, you have made life interesting and enjoyable, and thanks to Luke for bringing us all together - who would have known blogs exist if not for you!! Anyway good luck everyone for the exam and for life - don't study too hard
posted by Anonymous at 5:04 PM

I feel sorry for both Nick and Luke! The blogs have been flooding in since wednesday! There look like some great last minute bloggery! Big ups to Matt's Cyborg tribute that was very cool! I want thank everybody in 203! Its been an intersting semester with a very new way of assesment with the advent of bloggery! Big ups to DAN, MATT, JIHYUN, DAMIEN, DOYUN, BELLE, and ASHLEY! You guys have posted some very awesome stuff during the shananigans that is the Blog! (Its kept me going with the blogs, I might have given up otherwise) ROB, you are one funny M*****f****r! Love your work, might see you at Aphrodite this sunday! Previous to this course i would be what Luke calls a "Technophob", im not quite a "Technophile", but a certainly am a little more computer literate as well as open eyed about how technology affects the lives of everyone in the world. Big thanks to LUKE, NICK, and NUBEEL you guys have made what seemed previously uninteresting to me, a little more fun than i thought. Although my computer usage is at a minimal level again, but mostly due to the world cup of rugby, cricket season, NFL, NBA and the list goes on! Good luck to everyone and there exams! Enjoy the summer, and hope to see everyone next year! Catch you on the flipside!

PS I hope ive done enough academic blogs!
posted by Anonymous at 3:20 PM

10th entry! Yeah! It's time to celebrate!
Throughout the course, I have heard so many phrases such as the death of cinema, the death of old media - kind of formula: the death of ...
We may argue that the emergence of new technology is just about to kill the old staff. Just like the digital technology produces digital cinema to kill cinema. We may also look at it in another way which is the universities or institutions have been training technical personnels to refresh our societies. I think may be one day, human beings can get kind of wireless device(cyborg) installed to their body after birth, and this 'new technology' is able to download any information they need, similar to those plugs in the matrix, but we are wireless. This means - 'the death of university(education)', no one need to go to school for training any more, instead, we go to a 'retail store' to 'buy' the info. the knowledge you need and learn them immediately after 'transations'. I think this is pretty much the human future.
Finally, I hope you will enjoy the music and do well in the exams.
posted by Anonymous at 3:16 PM

Its time to get drinking now that uni's finished!!!!! Not that most of us never stopped drinking! (Disclaimer: I am not trying to influence people away from their meaningful university studies for the upcoming exams with alcohol) Anyway if youre tired of the drinking at shads and other slightly boring bars check out this website Worlds Best Bars !

This last chance blog is about blue tooth! Those of you with newish phones might have this feature on your cellphone! It is an upgrade from the old infrared, bluetooth allows two or more phones and/or laptops for that matter, to interact with each other in the same vicinity, ie play games, exchange information and data. Now the good thing about it is you dont have to be right next to each other, you can actually be 20 metres apart. You also dont have to be directly lined up with no interfernce between the outputs like infrared does. However, one of the problems with bluetooth is its privacy issues. Some phones have locking mechanisms blocking people from viewing their phones and laptops but those without or dont know how to use the function allow themselves to be very, very easily hacked or can have advertising downloaded onto their hardware by passers by with high tech bluetooth units! Believe me this is a way in whcih advertisers are already looking to go! And i checked there are no privacy laws about them yet! A friend of mine was overseas he was using his bluetooth phone to send an email via his laptop, he was sitting in an open air cafe. As he began to log onto his bluetooth, a message scrolled across his screen "I can see everything!", as he looked up a man waved to him from the other side of the cafe, the man then preceeded to show him how to block his bluetooth access from public access! So watch out, people could be watching you!
posted by Anonymous at 3:01 PM

Last minute bloggery! I blame the world cup for not doing my blogs! Go the ABS! Anyway, i wanted to talk a bit more about dvd-r players. After going to Lukes ftvms200 lecture and my tutorial i thought it was kinda relavent to talk about "time shift" and "time slip". These two concepts could be explored in huge detail. Time slip is interesting as it explores the loss of time with the power of the dvd-r, which allows the user to watch the beginning of your recorded program while still recording the end of the program. Now thats technology at its best! These dvd-r players can also remove adverts from your recordings. There is one slight problem with this. If everyone in this country goes out a buys one then our public television would find it hard to get funds as advertisers would have to find new ways of advertising! For example we would experience large quantities of advertising and logos in the actual content of programs, and banners and logos that flash across the screen during your favourite program! Catch 22! They have got us by the balls!

On a lighter note check out this funny, truly American website!
posted by Anonymous at 2:38 PM

I was reading about represnetation and virtual reality of digital cinema in the course reader and I like how the wirter of the article draw boudary between digital cineama and hollywood cinema and their virtual realuty. 'real' is the itself. it is capture of the real but its articulartion or constitution is representation. realism occupy Hollywood cinemas...(I think this is what the wirter said..do you think Hollywood films really capture the moment of real? I don;t think so~~in reality there is only ONE Brad Pitt) I quess relaism involves cultural connotaions and doscourses as well...When I think about virtual realism, the term virtual hit my mind is ideology. Before I study thecnhocultire and new media, virtual was a ideology like NZ vertual landscape is low mountains surrounded by lake, there are not many trees in the mountain. you can see the refection of the mountain from the lake. Clear blue sky and long white cloud..you konw? When I heard virtual in the technoculture class, it seem so new~~
any way get back to my course reader, virtual reality is seem so phenomenone. so many special effect, I see it but I don't ralise there is one...

Anyway, this class was an awesome experience to me. I feel pity I am not very technological person...

i wish everyone good luck and hope te see you guys at the stage three classes, well if I get to one. Have a great holiday.

bye for now~~~~addios!!
posted by Anonymous at 2:34 PM

BLOG 9:Look whoose scamming you now....

The internet is a fraudsters haven. Apparently the largest jail term for the internet fraud was 12 years for a virginia man convinced for billing $100,000 out of 268 victims. Crazay stuff!. According to a story from the Dallas morning news via the SJ Merc reports stated that online auctions, attract the largest amount of fraudsters on the net. So I decided to look for possible scammers online, by jumping onto EBay.com -the internet's largest online auction site and trademe.co.nz-New Zealands version of Ebay. I found nothing really out of the ordinary, just a bunch of bootleg products that aren't even AAA quality-who would pay $130 for a fake Louis Vuitton wallet, that ain't even leather? If you buy that your scamming yourself. But it does happen a guy made thousands and thousands by selling old laptops for $200 and later $800 , which he originally bought for $30 at a pc sale. All it took was a little tlc to the comps and then he began exaggerating the Gigz and Megz. He didn't get caught, but because of his concious he confessed. What's even more amazing is this guy was 15 !! This brings up the question of control and regulation on the net. What kind of surviellance do these auction sites offer? Because non deliverable merchandise and non payment forms 20.3 % of complaints, sites like Ebay and trademe offer rating systems of their sellers and buyers. The more loyal you are the higher rating you get, and the more stars you obtain-which is placed next to your trading name. They also offer net insurance for around $10 US which you can claim up to $200 for damages and loss. Paying systems like Paypal also look out for those dodgy characters using fake creditcards and allow a fast, safer way of exchanging money over the net. So if your looking to trade, buy or exchange -check out the guidelines, you may end up protecting yourself from a possible fraudster.
posted by Anonymous at 2:20 PM

yey my last and final blog
well in light of the exam and revision I'm goin to briefly discuss the digital divide since I have just been reading up on it.
Many people when they think of technology they naturally assume that a large proportion of the world has access to it however this is very much so not the case. In America the divide is actually getting worse because as more upper income groups purchase and use computers and the internet there is a much lower rate of increase in those with less cash to spare. For consumers worldwide differences of wealth and poverty underpin the highly varied access to other services, goods and technologies can be applied just as equally to new media. Global access to online resources is globally highly uneven and because of this it would be inaccurate to discuss the distribution of media with simple, universal levels of involvement with the experience of new media.
A cyberpunk future seems very likely in which the digital divide between technology of the wealthy and technology of the poor is only bridged because of recycling and a range of social entrepreneurship initiatives on the other.
Well that's enough from me good luck to everyone for their exams and see ya round next year.
posted by Anonymous at 1:19 PM

It's my last blog! I've really enjoyed the class and learned a lot. I think that much of what I have learned will help me in the future. The connection between technology and culture is definitely important for what I want to do. I'm a public relations (PR) major and it's important to try to reach audiences using a variety of different media. New media helps a lot but I think it's also still essential to use the old media. But with the Internet and other new media, there are also going to be more competing messages and PR practitioners are going to have to keep coming up with new ways to deliver their messages tho their key audiences. I did my essay on the 'death of the author' and I came across some interesting points while I was researching for it. Although now everyone can post their writings and messages on the Internet, people are still going to pay more attention to those who have the talent of storytelling. Storytelling is an art and PR practitioners and journalists need to be able to tell a story well. PR people need to have messages that catch people's attention. If they are talented in doing so, they can outshine the many messages on the Internet. There are always going to be new technologies and with those new technologies come limitations and benefits. It's important to find ways around the limitations in order to get the maximum benefit out of these technologies.
posted by Anonymous at 12:42 PM

wow.....it'll be the last blog... actually i posted more than 10 blogs,,,, however,i regret, there were not more infomations and some imgaes for each topic.. i have wished that i would be a good english speaker,,, coz, when i write these things, it would better to expain what i reach to....^^

anyway, today's due on blogs... my last blog show u about "virtuality"
it is quite important in the new technology society. also, we can remake our lives through virtuality system...
according to Peter Skagestad, university of massachustts- Lowell
"The adjective 'virtual,' practically unheard-of a few years ago, has become a primary buzzword of the 90's. Yet the word 'virtual' is nothing new, although its ubiquity is new, as is perhaps its current meaning or meanings. In 1902 the word was defined by Charles Peirce as follows: 'A virtual X (where X is a common noun) is something, not an X, which has the deficiency (virtus) of an X.' Peirce also references Scotus's concept of virtual knowledge, the concept of virtual velocity in physics, and Edmund Burke's doctrine of virtual representation, which is not representation but is supposedly as good as. The concept of virtuality is deeply embedded in Peirce's doctrine of signs and hence in his semiotic doctrine of mind. In this Peircean doctrine, which has been more recently echoed in the writings of Wittgenstein and Popper, we find the most promising philosophical framework available for the understanding and advancement of the project of augmenting human intellect through the development and use of virtual technologies."

some imgaes develop below...








it is not showing real world... but we can feel it like a real...
we are getting used to live in virtuality world and new technology will be more making new creature feigures to show us!!!

ps.... good luck for all your exams!!!!!
especially, Good Luck for Media 203!!!!!!!!!!^^

posted by Anonymous at 12:37 PM

In the last blog, I just want to talk about some feeling about what I got from the paper. Covering all the lecture's content, there is a obvious main chain about new technologies' innovation and development. That is the close relations among new media, society and culture. They interact and represent each other. Here I will focus on the influence comes from atrs and culture.A critical reassessment of the role of arts and culture within today’s network society seems necessary. Let’s go beyond the ‘tactical’ intentions of the players involved. This is not a blame game. The artist-engineer, tinkering away on alternative human-machine interfaces, social software, or digital aesthetics has effectively been operating in a self-imposed vacuum. Over the last few decades both science and business have successfully ignored the creative community. Even worse, artists have actively been sidelined in the name of ‘usability’. The backlash movement against web design, led by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, is a good example of this trend. Other contributing factors may have been fear of corporate dominance by companies such as AOL/Time Warner and Microsoft. Lawrence Lessig argues that innovation of the Internet itself is in danger. In the meanwhile the younger generation is turning its back from new media arts questions and operates as anti-corporate activists, if at all engaged. Since the crash the Internet has rapidly lost its imaginative attraction. File swapping and cell phones can only temporarily fill the vacuum. It would be foolish to ignore this. New media have lost their magic spell; the once so glamorous gadgets are becoming part of everyday life. This long-term tendency, now in a phase of acceleration, seriously undermines the future claim of new media altogether.

posted by Anonymous at 12:25 PM

Offiical Blog #10

Last real blog, and I'm gonna talk about something really random compared to my other 9
posts.
Dunno how this popped into my head, but here's an analysis of the network society.

What is the network society? How can one come to a conclusion about what a network of
societies is?
Nova Roma.org

The backbone of civilisation??


Ugly picture, but its all they had on the site. Oh, btw, SPQR= Senate and the Roman People...good to know?

The basic idea behind 'nova roma' is that people interested (mayb even obsessed) with Ancient Rome and the whole classical Greek/Roman period can interact with other people with that similar interest.The point behind the site is that they're looking for a resurgence of roman values and culture basically.

WHy am I bloggin this you say? I just find it really fascinating that an ancient society(2000 or so years old), with
its own culture its own language which is no longer spoken today,can still exist through the
medium of the web.

This is what u'll see when u get to the front page.

Because ancient Rome stands as the bedrock of western civilization...

Because Roman Virtues mean more than Family Values...

Because the Gods of Olympus are calling...

To become part of the community you have to verify your age as there are parts of the site where you vote for other members to fulfil certain positions in this online society.
WIth a population of 1928, its not a HUGE worldwide society, but that may also be due to the language barriers. - -But wait, you can view nova roma in Deutsch, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, aswell as english.

If anyone knows if they're are egyptian or any other equivalents, and you're not all too munted (students not munted/tired.. do they exist?) just blog or email me

Well, thats my last blog, hope everyone has a lax labour weekend. Good luck for exams, or, as the spanish say 'buena suerte'.

-Damien.

posted by Anonymous at 4:51 AM

In my last post, I want to talk about virtual reality.

Four key elements of virtual reality experiences:

1)virtual world; 2) immersion—physical and mental; 3) sensory feedback; 4) interactivity.

Firstly, virtual world is an imaginary space often manifested through a medium, or is a description of a collection of objects in a space and the rules and relationship governing these objects. Secondly, immersion is into an alternate reality or point of view. Physical and mental immersion: the state of being mentally immersed is often referred to as having “a sense of presence” within an environment. Immersion sensation of being in an environment can be a purely mental state or can be accomplished through physical means. In addition, physical and mental immersion: mental immersion state of being deeply engaged; suspension of disbelief involvement; physical immersion bodily entering into a medium synthetic stimulus of the body’s senses via the use of technology. Thirdly, sensory feedback, unlike more traditional media, VR allows participants to select their vantage point by positioning their body and to affect events in the virtual world. Moreover, these features help to make the reality more compelling than a medium experience without these options. Sensory feedback is an ingredient essential to virtual reality. The VR system provides direct sensory feedback to the participants based an their physical position. In most case, it is the visual sense that receives feedback, although virtual reality environments do exist that display exclusively hepatic (touch) experiences. In order to base the sensory output of the VR system on the position of the participant, the system must track their movement. A typical VR system will track the head of the participants and at least one hand or an object held by the hand. Advanced system may track many of major body joints. Finally, interactivity- for virtual reality to seem authentic, it should respond to user actions, namely, be interactive. Interactivity comes more reality with the addition of the computer to the equation.

posted by Anonymous at 4:19 AM

BLOG 8
UPDATE ON iTUNES-not sure if anyone has written on this...sorry if they have..

When the ipod was released, I wasn't quite sure on the effect it would have on the market considering a large proportion of people have PC computers. However, last Thursday (US), iTunes digital software became available on PC. Since then over a million copies of the software and a million songs have been downloaded within the first seven days. Along with software developments, the target audience is also changing and extending. Originally the ipod and software was targeted at the new age, tech addicts, fashion concious people-lets face it ipods and Macs are both very expensive commodities-I'm left poor afer my purchase in the weekend. Lately though, I think the audience is expanding, due to new software developments. Parents can now set up "allowance" accounts for children whose parents don't want to give them access to a credit card number and there is also the option of buying and sending gift certificates. Apple has also announced a promotion with PepsiCo inc. Starting in February in which 100 million wining bottle caps on certain Pepsi drinks grant the winner a free song. Also last week Apple announced a partnership with Time Warner Inc.'s America Online AOL, to make it easier for the Internet service provider's 25 million users to sign up for and use Apple's online music store. iTunes is definately progressing and growing, its only time before it reaches our shores.




posted by Anonymous at 3:27 AM

This is my last blog, Im too tired to think!
This class has been fun, i wish you all the best for you exams etc, and have a good summer :)

I know this was touched on by Belle, but I think smaller is better and this example is so cool!The new Infotainment range from Phillips,of key ring devices, combine digital technology with the design of a fashion accessory, allowing them to be worn attached to a key ring, around the neck or put in a pocket. No bigger than a pack of chewing gum, the range features two MP3 players and two digital cameras. Built to take the hard knocks, the devices are made from magnesium, which is extra light yet sturdy. The still digital cameras use flash memory and have, depending on the model, 64MB or 128MB of memory. The KEY007 with 64MB of storage will store up to 800 photos, while the KEY008 with 128MB of storage will store up to 1600 photos. Featuring VGA picture capture technology, images can be enhanced up to 1.3 Mega pixels on a PC.Wouldnt that be just so sweet? Theyre going to be sold for about $200 NZ and will be out before Christmas, ahhh Christmas
posted by Anonymous at 3:00 AM

sorry it got posted twice
ignore the last one

posted by Anonymous at 2:49 AM

Blog Nine:
when you think of gadgets and new techonlogies you often think of the country Japan right? If you answered no to this question where have you been? Aside from the larger companies who produce all the well known develpoements in televisons, computer and cellular phones, there are the smaller companies across Japan who make it their business to cater to those with the "gotta-have-it" gene and passion for all things tiny and digital. Such companies will take Japanese electronics and, as much as possible, replace their hardware, software and manuals with English-language equivalents. Perhaps the best-known importer is Dynamism (http://www.dynamism.com/), which got its start six years ago when Douglas Krone, a recent college graduate, bought himself an IBM laptop in Tokyo that was not available in the United States. After going back to the states and showing off his new laptop, Krone decided to go into the import business. His Chicago-based company now has 12 employees and an office in Tokyo. Though Dynamism shoppers can expect to pay a markup of 20 percent to 30 percent over Japanese retail prices, Krone said the extra costs cover valuable services like lifetime technical support and free shipping for repairs, "almost like a technology concierge service."

A smaller but similarly minded competitor in the world of Japanese importing is Kemplar.com (http://www.kemplar.com/), which focuses for the most part on laptops.One of Kemplar's hottest items right now is the JVC 7310 laptop. The 8.6- by 6.9-inch unit is less than 1.2 inches thick and weighs under 2.4 pounds. As with its other computers, Kemplar replaces the Japanese operating system with an English-language version of Windows and includes a translated manual. Ohh fantastic!

Japan is a crazy country, and if you interested maybe check out these and the many other importing sites, just to see what ideas are coming out of the technological giant of the world :).

posted by Anonymous at 2:47 AM

Blog NIne
when you think of gadgets and new technologies you mostly them coming from Japan right? If you answered no to this weher have you been? Aside form the larger more well known companies that are developers in televsion, computer and cellular phone techonologies, there are smaller companies across Japan who make it their business to cater to those with the "gotta-have-it" gene and passion for all things tiny and digital. Such companies will take Japanese electronics and, as much as possible, replace their hardware, software and manuals with English-language equivalents.

Perhaps the best-known importer is Dynamism (http://www.dynamism.com/), which got its start six years ago when Douglas Krone, a recent college graduate, bought himself an IBM laptop in Tokyo that was not available in the United States. After showing off his new laptop to fellow Americans, and seeing the popular reactions he got, Krone decided to go into the import business. His Chicago-based company now has 12 employees and an office in Tokyo.
Though Dynamism shoppers can expect to pay a markup of 20 percent to 30 percent over Japanese retail prices, Krone said the extra costs cover valuable services like lifetime technical support and free shipping for repairs, "almost like a technology concierge service."

Continuing along the importing lines is A smaller but similarly minded competitor Kemplar.com (http://www.kemplar.com/), which focuses for the mostly on laptops. Their focus is on laptops due to the market for something ultra-portable that they could hand to their sales people or tech people on the road, something that was small enough to fit in a briefcase.One of Kemplar's hottest items right now is the JVC 7310 laptop. The 8.6- by 6.9-inch unit is less than 1.2 inches thick and weighs under 2.4 pounds. As with its other computers, Kemplar replaces the Japanese operating system with an English-language version of Windows and includes a translated manual - fantastic!

Check out these and other importing websites, beacuse you never know what youll find that you can purchase from good old, crazy old Japan!

posted by Anonymous at 2:39 AM

Well, our semester is nearly ending and hope everybody could be good luck in the exam ^_^ This is my tenth post as well as the last. Through all the posts during this semester, I found they are quite useful and can contribute to my study on modern media technologies. I enjoy the blog! :p) For the last post, I would like to talk about cyberspace as a psychological space.

With the advance of computers and online networks-especially the internet-a new dimension of human experience is rapidly opening up.The term "cyberspace"has been mentioned so often that it may at this point seem trite and overly commercialized.However, the experience created by computers and computer nerworks can in many ways be understood as a psychological "space".When users power up their computers,launch a program,write e-mail,or log on to their online service,they often feel consciously or subconsciously-that they are entering a "place" or "space" that is filled with a wide array of meanings and purposes.Many users who have telneted to a remote computer or explored World Wide Web will describe the experience as "travelling" or "going someplace".Spatial metaphors-such as "worlds","domains",or "rooms" are common in articulating online activities.

On an even deeper psychological level,users often describe how their computer is an extension of their mind and personality-a "space"that reflects their tastes,attitudes,and interests.In psychoanalytic terms,computers and cyberspace may become a type of "transitional space" that is an extension of the individual's intrapsychic world. It may be experienced as an intermediate zone between self and other that is part self and part other.As they read on their screen the email,newsgroup,or chat messages written by an internet comrade,some people feel as if their mind is merged or blended with that of the other.


posted by Anonymous at 2:12 AM

Blog Eight..... Only in America

I dont know if this has much to do with anything but here goes. Two teenage boys in America have been arrested following a sniper incident in Tennessee. The boys said they were mimicking the video game "Grand Theft Auto III", and this has now triggered a $246 million damage suit against the game's creator and others. The suit, filed on Monday in Cocke County Circuit at Newport, Tennessee, named Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., Wal-Mart Inc., which sold the game, the parents of the two boys involved, and the boys themselves as all being responisble.The suit alleges that the parties being challenged should have known the game would lead to "copycat violence." As an example of an immersive game or virtual phenomena is this playstation text really to blame for this, and if so why hasnt this happened with the thousands of other games out on the market? I believe that you can not blame sony playstation for comprising sucha realistic game fro the stupidity of children who have access to weapons. There must be more of a motive to kill that simply playing a game... basically some Americans are whack!



posted by Anonymous at 2:07 AM

This is actually my 11 entry I think but I dont think my discussion with nick on 'dumps on chests' cyber sex counts, anyway I think that this has been an eye opening, interesting, fufilling paper to take which I would reccomend to others if it was offered in 2004 (extra points for the exam? ) which it isnt why is that? anyway by far the most interesting topics we studied would have to be hackers which I wrote my essay on and digital devide which got me thinking alot about whether technology is neccesarily a good thing, still in two minds about that! another good topic would have to be everyday life and new media and who could forget scotts graphic lecture on cybersex!!! anyway techonology and culture are now truely interconnected in my mind, good luck for exams everyone!
posted by Anonymous at 1:33 AM

tried to post a link on the previous entry but it didnt work, so Im afraid you'll have to go the old fashion way @
www.fablegame.com
posted by Anonymous at 1:28 AM

A games entusiast told me about a cool website this week. The Website is at www.fablegame.com, and is an advertisement for a game called 'fable' which comes out on Xbox next year. The website is interesting firstly because it is an interactive advertisement. Basically a window comes up on the site, which is an old 'pop-up' book, as you move through the pages, you can pull tags which make either 'good' or 'evil' things happen. For example on the first page the good tag gives an old lady an apple, whilst pulling the evil tag makes the old lady fall onto an upturned rake and die a rather bloddy death. This site encourages the consumer as an active audience, and is a clever way of building hype and interest for this new game. Because the site is interactive, it is almost a game in itself, and thus microsoft's form of advertising is almost tricking the consumer, into watching. The second interesting thing about this site is that it is based heavily on intertextuality. The site is a cyber simulation of the traditional pop-up book, and relies on the audiences knowledge about fairy tales and pop-up books, to create themes of mystery and fantasy. If your computer has flash capability, check out the site....

Chris
posted by Anonymous at 1:05 AM

____________

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

hello, all.
Blog Entry 10-yeah!
Through this course, I have been surprised how technologies have been improving today as well as people's ideas and theories arond them. As my last blog, I would like to talk about another new product from SONY, 'PSX'. It contains 250 GB hard disk in it. So you can record your favourite programmes on DVD, the longest hours you can record is 325 hrs!! Moreover, you can watch better quality TV programmes through PSX, or listen to your CDs or music in your hard disk, or enjoy your photos in your digital camera or movies in your digital video cameras on your TV. And of course, you can play your PS and PS2 game softs. Even better, PSX doesn't keep you wait until it finishes recording. You can play your recorded programme even it is still recording.

Everything has started beeing digitalized and becoming into one product and compact and 'new'...Then probably, old analogue TV would be gone someday as well as video player, cassette player, ordinary cameras...But these old analogue products were produced from someone's ideas or desiresonce upon a time. So have new digital products been. I think that is a great thing. Human continue to imagine, think and work hard to make it possble. As long as this process has been continued, there would be no end for new technology. :)

Good Luck on your exams and have a great holiday!
posted by Anonymous at 10:04 PM

*ATTENTION*

If you want to find out how many blogs you've done, go to Google and type "your name"+ blog. Seeing as we are all stars and famous on the WWW, it will return all the pages with your posts. (you still have to scroll down and find them on the blog page though).


And onto other matters:
Can they get any smaller!?
I saw this the other day:

And... to ask quite frankly - what is the big deal with making technology 'small'? I mean 'smaller' doesn't necessarily equate to 'better' - especially for cameras. There is a fine line between 'pocket sized' and 'hard-to-hold,I-think-I'm-to-drop-this-on-the-club-floor,-please-don't-crush-it-people'. (and yes I see that this camera has a handy 'round-the-neck-strap', but ... come on... neck straps?).
I think that in this obsession with 'small design', some designers are neglecting 'good-design'. That is, something ergonomically easy to use. The human eyeball isn't getting smaller, and neither are human hands. There's no point in making such a fiddly piece of technology.

posted by Anonymous at 8:25 PM

Last Blog:

Today I had really good intentions of starting my Technoculture and the New Media studying as I had a four hour break to fill. However, it’s not that easy to get motivated! But I did get as far at the first concept on the list of 19 others- NEW MEDIA. Now, the text book offers a rather lengthy definition of the concept which is very useful, but I thought I might relate the concept of New Media to the Rugby World Cup that is currently shaping television viewing. All Blacks coaches John Mitchell and Robbie Deans have a laptop capability that allows them to watch the game in continuous replay. The pictures come from a Sky TV camera on half way and offer the widest view available of the action unfolding on the field - independent of edited, multi-camera presentation beamed to audiences at home. ‘New Media’ are defined by a number of characteristics that shape the way we view or think about new media. One of the characteristics I relate this laptop phenomenon to in terms of new media, is interactivity. New Media have interactive potential due to digital media offering the opportunity to manipulate and intervene in media. One of the features of the coaches’ laptop “video analysis system” functions is the ability to freeze the action and replay or bookmark a passage of play for review later on.

Another technological innovation Telecom is working on to help the All Blacks keep up with the play against their competitors is one called “injury intranet”. Telecom's IT specialists, Advanced Solutions, host an Intranet for All Black coaches and medical staff to record and track players physical performance and recovery from injury. Mayhew has this loaded on a WAP enabled hand-held device to give access to the application while in the field.

I think it’s great that the All Blacks are using new technologies in the Rugby World Cup. New technology can have a major role in the campaign and something as simple as an injury track like the one mentioned above could make the world of difference.

Take care everyone and Im sure you will all kick ass in the blog assessments!


posted by Anonymous at 8:18 PM

BLOG NINE-YUSSss

When I think of surveillance I think about its representation in films. The whole idea/ theme of surveillance is a fantastic way to hook the viewer- “Will they make it??!!!” “Will they crack the code??!!” What is so fantastic about surveillance is how the human brain/ ability, should never be doubted when it comes to overcoming it. In this respect I am thinking of films about large scale fraud or robbery where surveillance takes the form as the key theme or idea. If you think about it, surveillance is operated by machines, but really surveillance is a machine. To me what is particularly exciting is how humans will always find A way to get into the system, somehow change it or stop it in order for the robbery to take place. Movies are fictional forms of entertainment, I know, but how many times have you heard stories of large scale robbery or fraudulent acts which take place in instances where the surveillance has been tampered with. Classic examples of this are seen in movies like Ocean’s Eleven, Entrapment, The Thomas Crown Affair, Speed, Mission Impossible, to name but a few. I love seeing the most advanced forms of surveillance in movies like these where it takes the form of facial recognition, voice checks and optical scans.
posted by Anonymous at 7:40 PM

The idea of leaving the body behind has come up a few times in this class. Stelarc talked about how our bodies are weak and with the help of machines they would be able to do a lot more. I don't think that our bodies are going to be cyborgized (i dont know if that's really a word) in our lifetime. I don't think that the body should be seen as a limitation. I know that there are many things that we cannot do due to the way that our bodies are structured. It's true that we need food and water in order to live, but if with the help of machines we eliminated this need for food and water, what would we try to do next? Perhaps be immortal? I do agree that certain technological items need to be placed in people's bodies for them to survive. But these items make them have the same abilities as a healty functioning human being. I don't see any reason for a healthy - functioning human being to try to supersede being human by getting technological items placed inside of their bodies in order to have superhuman qualities. The artist who came up in tutorial who negatively shows cyborgs had some interesting ideas. People don't yet regard something that is part machine to be of the same status as them and I personally would have a problem with giving machines the same rights as humans.

posted by Anonymous at 7:34 PM

In the lecture on Stelarc I showed two video clips. One was from a tape available in the AV library, the number of which is FTV6614.

The Quicktime movie I showed can be found here.

Dan - I think you're right... the point being that for a large portion of the modern / humanist era (not Ancient Egypt. t.b.s) there was, within Western culture at least, a denial of this and a tendency to treat technology and culture (and nature) as linked but incommensurable - as distinct, base elements of our world, if you will.
posted by Technoculture and New Media at 3:06 PM

I always thought technology and culture were always linked.
Isn't that what the stair documentary tried to teach us?
I'm thinkin' like ancient Egyptian irrigation technology and so on.
posted by Anonymous at 4:42 AM

cyber + organic = cyborg....
we already learned some about cyborg.. when u read "Donna Haraway's book" ("A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991) u can know well and understand what's meanning of cyborg. we can often see this term through some movies such as terminators,
matrix, men in black so on.. it makes us more attratived and some new techology joins with our lives easily.
i also mention what donna said, " A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. The international women's movements have constructed 'women's experience', as well as uncovered or discovered this crucial collective object. This experience is a fiction and fact of the most crucial, political kind. Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness, the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility. The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women's experience in the late twentieth century. This is a struggle over life and death, but the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion."
cyborgs create simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted as well.

i'll show u some of images for cyborg..



how do you feel about that???
kind of roberts which peopel made for showing new technology.....
these are all reminded in our culture as well.................................



posted by Anonymous at 4:33 AM

Me no understand how find number of blogs i've done.
Searched for articles including my name but only got blogs by other people featuring my name.


How many aspects of remediation can you see on this page (the blogger post page, not the explorer or uni page interface)? Can anyone expand on three? Explain & discuss?

Favela Hifi @4:20 tonight? Gonna be huge.

Some random site that claims to be the best thing on the web?
posted by We're Not Floating at 4:25 AM

Here it is my last blog~
Hope you guys been enjoying this semester~~
wow~~can't believe it is last week now!

Well...... after I have learned so much about new media from this semester.. I want to conclude
what I have learned from it..
It is amazing how the technology has improved in the last decade, and brings a huge impact on our life.. e.g. Internet, as everybody knows that is a very very important part of our life now
e-mail, chat room and cybersex...It brings people close to each other around the world..
It offers a new form of communication, and increasingly disturbing a sense of reality..
It seems that new media has all the good things and probably will replace all "old" media one day in not-too-distant future..

However, the more I learn about new media, e.g. virtualy reality..the more I appreciate old media.. I still believe new media won't completely replace old media.. like Michael Benedikt argues that virtual reality will not replace real reality but displace them..like..how can you replace air, water..etc..
e.g. people still write letter to someone who is important or something that is very memorable.
However, it may not be the case in the future.. if technology keeps improve (which is very likely)
it may change our life style again in the near future.. and accepts new stuff..

Everything is possible.. cybersex, for example. It could be one way to meet our want..
and cybory.. we could hv a relationship with a cyborg..and they might be able to give birth..
who knows??

But in the mean time, it is good to have these old media that might be all disappeared in the
future..Enjoy the old media while you can.. They still have the "human" element that are
not able to be replaced..
e.g. radio.. been around our life for decades..and is still a strong medium..
not every new thing is a good thing..
Learn to appreciate original work while improving it..

Anwyay.. that's it folks! Good luck to your exams and study!
And wish me luck too lo1^_^


posted by Anonymous at 3:40 AM

Buy me sherbet:
Here's two links that will see you through your FTVMS studies from '03 'til Infinity.
Semiotics for Beginners Glossary
All you need for media analysis. Everything. Saved my butt many a time..
Hosted by Daniel Chandler @ The University of Wales, Aberystwyth
MSN Learning & Research - Dictionaries
Bookmark this page - now.
Stop thumbing through an Oxford's Pocket - get the definition you need, the spelling you need, and the fancified thesaurus words you want. Salubrious.

And now, the comics:
Bad-ass Afrofuturist online comics that appear in my essay bibliography. If anyone out there has any Milestone Media comics please contact me. Will trade for donatable organs.
Daath Rekh.com
Home of "Africyber" novel The Infra-Project.
The first web comic I ever read. Seems a little light-weight at first which is great, because as I develop my cultural index I continue to develop more readings. Plus, later chapters are animated :)
Jamurai.com
Home of the Jamurai. Animated shorts that mix Samurai Jack with Jeru the Damaja to the illest effect.
GenXorcist.com
Home of 3 online comics - Cain, Elitists and GenXorcists. Over-arching christian themes... think Spawn meets X-Men: the budget version
posted by Anonymous at 3:19 AM

After the class today, I went to shrot loan to copy a glossary from the text.
Then, from the glossary list, I saw a term 'Avarta the text says, "originally the incarnation of a God in Hinduism. A visual representation of a participant in a shared digital environment(e.g. online chat). It can look Like a person, an object or an amimal. An interdace for a self."
Before that, I though a term Avarta is Korea..(combination of Korean and Korean syle English, how stupid of me~~!!)
I use an e-mail account called, Hanmail. This site is designed to provide service to Korean.
The site provide..no, no, actually sell Avarta. They give e-mail users an Avarta body and basic clothes(morea like underwares)
Then you but clothes for your Avarta.

It is look llike this

firs one is what I was initially given, from then, you can personalise your avarta form the Snow White to the Legally blonde.

There are so many things you can do with avarta. dye your hair, buy pets and you can even have a cosmetic surgery.
Well, I did not know Avarta was the part of 'interface' in new media and technology. Today Irealised, things I take for granted, are the product of someone's hard work.
I didn't know my avarta is the part of technoculture and new media
posted by Anonymous at 2:34 AM

In the latest Remix magazine, among various music editorials, bikini wearing models and various photos of Tim Phinn, lays the inspiration for today's blog: "The Blogger." According to their article, weblogs are the new pink(wat?) the new revolution in journalism and publishing and apparently the latest trend in new media. The estimated number of blogs 'out in the wild' tops the one million mark, active blogs -somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. Originally blogs had a simple format-links to articles of interest with some personal commentry. Later as blogging became popular, the personal journal style of writing began. Today, new forms of blogs are developed. There are photo blogs, technical blogs even political blogs -which emerged after the events of September 11. People enjoy blogging, because of the interactive nature, "there is something enticing about being able to put your thoughts and opinions out into the world and having people read and respond to them. You can say what you like, tell the stories you want to tell, and have complete control over your own space"(RM).

If you enjoyed blogging for this paper, you may want to check out these recommended blogs from Remix mag...

www.moby.com -Quirky weblog by the famous little New yorker himself

dear_raed.blogspot.com/-possibly the most famous weblog in the world, Baghdad resident Salam par blogged as Iraq burned.

www.malevole.com-for those who appreciate style

www.pornblography.com-for Rob D :)

www.williamgibsonbooks.com-blog by william gibson, famous author and cyperpunk.

A.L.S.O I'm selling an Xbox and games for cheap as. If anyones interested drop me an email. Kool.
posted by Anonymous at 1:57 AM

Blog Number Seven... xbox live! (sory if this has been done before)

A few weeks ago at Aucklands townhall xbox announced the arrival at christmas time this year of xbox live!now, if youre a girl like me you may be thinking so who cares? or, great now boys will spend even longer twiddling their thumbs ifront of a dumb box.Although this may seem dull to some people, in terms of New Media developemnt this is huge!What this will mean for xbox gamers is that games they play will extend from the living room to around the world, and you will be able to play anyone, anywhere at anytime.

Xbox Live! will enable players to use a single gamertag across all of the 50 Live-enabled games. The Xbox Live! service will also provide free downloads of levels and equipment, expanding and extending any Xbox Live-enabled game. But will this new technology be costly for an existing xbox owner? "Xbox...was built from the ground up with the future of entertainment in mind. Every single Xbox has been supplied with a built-in hard drive and an Ethernet port...you will not need to purchase any add-on adapters or modify the Xbox in any way'' says NZ manager Wilf Robinson.

This interactive playing experience will soon rival popular pc games that are played over the interent such as Neverwinter Nights and Command and Conquer. This leaves a few questions to be answered, just how well will this concept work in NZ? And what si OSny playstation planning to do to rival this breakthrough?
posted by Anonymous at 1:16 AM

____________

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

posted by Anonymous at 8:41 PM

Cyber sex is a sex pleasure via computer gives pleasure to some people. There is nothing like a “real thing” but fantasy is making people to have different kind of pleasure. In a way the images and other things can cause more desire for some people to want a real thing. People are tired with normal sex, they want to try other way and explore more sex acts by using different technology to helps them. Is there anything out there involves two people to get pleasure same time , because mostly is between a person and a computer. The cyber sex is mostly for satisfying men and gay people. Adult entertaiment industry is more targeting individuals who are perhaps bored with one type of sexual acts.
posted by Anonymous at 8:19 PM

Blog Number Six: Remediation
Martin Lister defines the term remediation as 'to incorporate or adapt previously existing media'. This was first adapted by theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1964. To use this term in a domestic example Im going to use it with reference to Sky Digital TV. It has incorporated and adapted existing television and satellite television ideas to form a adavanced television network. Not only can you watch up to 70 channels - some pay per view, listen to radio channels, bet, and even connect a keyboard and plug into an online service but you can watch regular television channels and gain synopsis' on programmes. Doesnt it all sound so good?? Well there are drawbacks and as I found out last night they can be very annoying!!
While watching televsion last night my sky digital signal was interupted and i was left with a blank screen and an apology note from sky saying that the transmission has been disrupted by atmosphereic disturbence!!!I was very angry... after half an hour my television resumed coverage but it still left me angry that although we pay more for better channels and extensive entertainment opportunities due to some rain or heavy wind I can be left with no picture!Imagine if this had struck at a vital moment in a game? Then what??I also noticed that we gain delayed coverage of normal channels too.How fun is that?
posted by Anonymous at 8:11 PM

m-a-n-g-a
posted by Anonymous at 8:07 PM

Here is my fifth trillionth time at attempting to put a blimming image into my blog...how great when its the last week of being able to enter a blog....argghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


this image was actually meant to be used in reference with my blog last week that made a comment about munga films such as legend of the overfend...and how i finally clicked about Scotts reference to tentacle rape... The image is taken from the munga film "Ghost in the shell" its about robots who are stuck in kind of a black whole...they're robots but they look so human...they feel stuck and don't know where to belong...quite a phylisophical cartoon but graphics are pretty cool.



As for my photo if this works like my image did.....it is unbelievable how many times i've tried and it didn't work...i thought computer technology was designed to be user friendly and i'm part of a generation where i've been saturated by computer technology and i still find it impossible to use sometimes...lol..oh well here goes nothing.
posted by Anonymous at 7:48 PM

The book "Moths to the Flame" by Gregory J.E. Rawlings brings up the point that the Internet gives us the power to evaluate businesses and authority figures but also helps spread gossip. He says that people can now use it to evaluate restaurants and specific companies . Before it had always been left up to the "professional" critic to evaluate such things and write about them. Now each individual person can offer his or her opinion and everyone can have access to it. He says that people can even take this idea of evaluation to the next level and put evaluations of doctors and lawyers on the Internet. People already do this but soon it may become more widespread. But this can also lead to gossip and one wrong piece of information has the potential to ruin a company or person. I don't think that people will start avoiding certain companies or authority figures just because of what they read online. It may cause people to further investigate it before using the company's or person's services, but I doubt that people will automatically accept whatever they read on the Internet. And I think that "professional' critics are still more trusted and more credible because they have more knowledge in their particular area. Therefore they can analyze and write about the subject better than the average person.
posted by Anonymous at 4:49 PM

Come across a hate group site not long ago.And i believe there are many of them out there with anti-semitic and racist ideologies in their content.And from what i saw,their sites are often very professional looking and could easily be passed off as one of those organization websites.There's even great use of multi-media features like audio, video, streaming radio with of course others like forums and newsletters etc. It seems that these hate groups have been able to tap and make real good use of the full potentials of the internet.Often, their mission and agendas are so subtly presented that I can see how someone ignorant or younger net surfers can indeed get involved in the sites without actual realization the true nature of such groups.Its not like as if they go out there and brightly shout out their hate and want to 'cleanse the world of' the "others".though those kinds also exists i'm sure.And it is difficult to really do much about these groups existance.ISP control is i suppose one of the ways many countries resort to. But there could always be a way around when it comes to the internet.and many of the hate sites breed of course in the US,due to the constitution of free speech that is used to keep such hate groups online.However, there are also growing counter sites that work in trying to stop these sites and also contribute in creating awareness about such hate groups.there;s the Anti defamation league site which has great broad areas. however again, i feel that the hate group sites still seem to have in them in terms of their design and look, a sense of attracting the youth.
posted by Anonymous at 1:08 PM

Hey people, i cant beleive how time flies, we're almost at the end of this semester and i honestly beleive that my brain is full, and it will leak all the valuable information i have garnered before i hit the exams...alas.

Anyway, i am going to do my last post regarding the Enation thingy, its a little bit out of the planned sequence, but hey, who cares! Also, its a little bit of a cheat, because its my essay that i handed in for assessment, but the purpose of the blog is to provide information and discussion for the whole class...and an essay handed in doesnt see the light of day does it? Plus it is relevant to the Enation thing...It is about Information Warfare, and basically validates the concept of a virtual nation being able to weild force in a cyber-political arena. So here it is.

Ciao
posted by Matt at 1:05 PM

Another late night. Another night of celebrations @ shads (haven't been there in ages, no more nachos, rude).
Another impromptu blog.
With reference to Amy's blog about cell phones. I have a low tech nokia 3315, like everyone it seems. Every animation text (4) I have recieved has involved sex in some way. Like the 4 frame pxt movie that Scott showed, the even simpler animation of textamation (a word i just invented) is not something that carries any stigma, I feel at least. Unlike net porn, people freely show and admit to having these sexually suggestive animations.
I don't know where this is going but I guess i want to highlight the increased social taboo attached to high speed technology and the glorification in many sectors of low speed, low res technology.


He's the one who likes all the pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and i say...

Kurt Cobain.
I used to sing this, not knowing what it meant. I think i understand now what Kurt was on about and it seems a strange lyric to sing before any major musical success. Just a random thought, byeeee.
Thanks Lyrics.com
posted by We're Not Floating at 5:08 AM

Finally!! handin FTVMS 200 Assignment, and also my last assignment!
Now it's time for me to finish my 9th blog lol!

I found many things are very interesting aboutt cyborg while i was doing my assignment, which is about cyberspace.. And the lecture on cyborg (two weeks ago, i guess) offered many great points..
The basic concept of cybory is that half human half machine.. Many sci-fi films give us what a cybory would look like, and it seems to be a vital concept in our future..

Like Terminator and Robocop are the old forms of cyborg where we can easily tell the difference between a human and a machine..e.g. there is no emotion, and very stiff movement. They still have the "machine" look. However, technology improves, and our vision of cyborg changes over these years.. "The Matrix" really offers a different vision of cyborg, (even though, it is mainly about cyberspace and virtual reality stuff!) that we could argue Neo is half human and half machine.. He has a metal thing in back of his head that can connect to a machine and access to cyberspace.. Neo still has the human look, has his own thinking and act like a human too..But he could do these amazing kung-fu actions like a "machine"... It is a big improvement compare to the previous cyborgs that don't have much "humanity".

In near future, everybody could be a cyborg.. How? some scientists have been saying to put a memory chip into our body.. Moreover, one day when part of our body fails to function, we might use some machine to replace that part.. Doesn't that make us a cyborg? such as, a person's heart fails, and doctors might replace a 'machine-made" heart instead of replacing another person's heart, because it is just too hard to find a suitable heart for each person..

Thus, we might all be part of human and machine in the future

posted by Anonymous at 4:44 AM

Don't be shy!!!
First of all, thanks for those people who agree with my idea or imagination.
God! I feel that I have left a damn bad impression to my flatmates about me. I was actaully trying to do some research on the topic of cybersex on the internet for my nineth blog last night, and two of my flatmates shot into my room. They could not understand what I am really doing and still not after I expained to them this is part of my course work. They blocked my IP on network and give me an excuse of "Aren't you worried about 'virus'?" All right. I aborded. They probably start to treat me as a 'jerk' now, never mind, they are bit aged for me:) That's the reason I use those pictures to avoid some 'misunderstandings' occur again.(Sorry about the size.)
This raises an issue that such kind of 'understanding' depends on what cultural background a person has. I can understand why my flatmate were so pissed off by what they saw, and maybe I will bring them to 203 class next year and see how Scott enjoys those pornographies. My flatmate and I come from China. People in China, especially seniors, preserve conservative idea. I want to recall the clip called 'Iceman' maybe, the visitor from Hong Kong(Linnan Uni) showed us, in which a woman touches that man's arm from Min Dynasty and he says:"please behaviour yourself." It means a lot, at least reflects the old ideas that belongs to that era. I still believe that if my mum sees what my flatmates saw, she should have shown me out of the house because she is so institutionalized as well. In contrast, people from western are more open-minded and really do not consider this is kind of negative manner as the distinctiveness of cultural values, institutions and habits.(Scott is a good example!:)
posted by Anonymous at 3:33 AM

“Moblog” Has any one heard “Moblog”? I read a newspaper article about “Moblog”. Today, I would like to talk about convergence of media. Moblog is service that the mobile phone users are able to upload pictures they took on their blogs or their homepages by their mobile camera phones and it satisfies the desire of self-expression. A mobile camera phone becomes a common gadget that everybody uses and it creates another form of medium that is “Mobile Blog”. A mobile phone market has been dramatically increasing recently. Some people expect that “Moblog” will become popular as a new mobile service. The younger generation gets used to using digital cameras so they might easily get used to using Moblog in order to express themselves. Wireless Internet is usually one-way interaction by downloading contents from its provider whereas Moblog gives users opportunity to upload the contents. That is two-way communication because there is interactivity. It has already become common in the states and Japan, the word ‘Moblog’ has already been registered on a new Oxford dictionary. There is huge possibility of success of Moblog by increasing using Mobile service and Camera phone. It seems that technologies develop and integrate mediums and people create new forms of mediums like “moblog”. Moreover, interactivity plays an important role in the new forms of mediums.
posted by Anonymous at 2:46 AM

THere was an article on CNN.com technology about how a woman was sentenced to 60 days home detention for reading the e-mails of her husband's ex-wife. She illegally got her user name and password and used them to read at least 215 of the ex-wife's e-mails. The District Judge commented about how privacy is still very important. This case shows how important privacy still is to people and how the Internet can be a privacy risk. The sentence was harsh in order to send a message to people that such actions will not be tolerated. People's privacy is still very important to them. The ex-wife compared what the woman did to breaking in and reading her diary.
Since many people are now growing up with the Internet, it's easier for them to type rather than write. A lot of people now have online diaries. By having an online diary, you don't have to worry about where to hide it and whether or not your parents or roommates will find it. But now there's the risk of someone getting access to your username and password and reading your most personal thoughts. Even though I can type faster that i can write, I still won't start an online diary because of the privacy risk. I feel as if i can hide the physical object of the diary better but many people may feel the exact opposite way and prefer online diaries.
The ex-wife said that what the woman did was comparable to breaking into her home and reading her diary. This sounds similar to singers' new campaign saying that downloading music is the same as going into a store and stealing it. The woman probably would not have broke into the ex-wife's home and most people probably would not break into a store. It's still difficult for us to mentally compare using the Internet to do something to the physical equivalent of actually doing it.
posted by Anonymous at 2:35 AM

No.
No shell toe Adidas. No colour contacts. No jeans with no belts. No lo-riding denim. No bandanas. No doo rags. No Kangol hats. No pinwheel caps. No bomber jackets. No sweaters from a college you don't know. No work boots when you don't work. No ball shoes when you don't ball. No Converse, you're no All Star. No phat laces. No vinyl on no hips. No hoop earrings when you're no Puerto Rican. No bling. No ice. No shine. No chains. No corn rows for cornfeds. No jerseys for teams from no cities you never seen. No hoodies if you don't know hoods. No Polo shirts. No wristbands if you carry no weight. No sunglasses with no sun. No trucker hats if you run no freight. No camo. No dogtags. No visors. No golf, punk. No surf gear with no sand here. No screenprint tees. No fake high-school teams. No calling rap hip-hop. No calling hip-hop rap. No R&B with no Rhythm and no Blues. No singing hooks when you don't know the lyrics. No 'fro if you're no 'fro. No gain with no pain. No purchase of styles. No badges if you don't belong. No stealing form from those with none. No fashion from tradition.
No uniform. None.

No biting Chuck D. No De La Soul swipes.
- Dan
p.s. No worries - no hate.
posted by Anonymous at 2:30 AM

Thinking about Scott's lecture, what was of interest to me was the particular the point he made about socially sanctioned behaviour - how certain things can be done in public and certain things are just not deemed socially acceptable in public. In this respect he mentioned the idea of the panopticon- where we behave (in public) as if we are being watched. In terms of sex, this idea relates wholly. Sex is something that should occur in the private sphere, and in terms of new technology sex, cybersex and porn-viewing should adopt that formation too. I was reading a recent article in the paper about a primary school principal who viewed child pornography on his office computer. You have to wonder about these people......A headmaster is someone who we would regard as a model citizen in many instances and someone of moral and proper dignity, not a viewer of child pornography. But that is not the point in this instance. The point is, is that this man is viewing porn IN HIS OFFICE, in the primary school where he is the principal.

The court was told he would be logged onto the internet for much of the day keeping images on his desktop, but not saving them as files to his hard drive. Imagine parents of prospective students joining the principal in his office for a meeting and accidentally being subject to his paedophilic acts of viewing pleasure.

It was reported that Internal Affairs checked the hard drive and found evidence that he had viewed 34 pornographic images of children through an internet newsgroup.

This is sick.


posted by Anonymous at 1:59 AM

Do you think public transportation is a form of media?
In New Zealand, may be it is not as effective as cosmopolitan city.
Imagine, there are at least 7milion people using one particular transportation.
Subway is it in Korea.
Less than 2 years ago, form media in a subway station was nespapers, last March, one cale telvision station offeered to broadcast their channel to subway train. Every day, many people get informations off this channel.
Now, Subway train and station are good place to advertise something and to advertise there get competitive day by day.
Passengers means consumers. Short amount of time and money can bring really good advertising effect. Also revenue from the advertising is really high.
The media effect is not as bing in New Zealand, but still I think any form of public transportation is good way to communicate with media consumers.


two years ago, subway during rush hour


as you can see, there are nuber of television and nuber of channels are provided


Even protect bar is used to advertise the firm, LG(Korea electrical appliance company)
posted by Anonymous at 1:54 AM

That's all folks... Well, almost. A reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a general wrap-up session in which we will go over some key concepts and discuss the exam paper. Thursday will be an 'overflow' session if it's required. Otherwise, myself and Nick will simply be available during the Thursday lecture slot on a 'drop in' basis to discuss any questions you have about the exam or revision strategies. So please try and attend Wednesday's lecture as it will help you prepare for the exam.

BUT KEEP THE BLOG POSTS COMING...
posted by Technoculture and New Media at 1:43 AM

Blog Number 5 - two in one night Im on fire yo!
While sitting down to eat my dinner ten minutes ago, a strange thought came over me - we In New Zealand now live in a world surrounded by Interactive Television. While holidaying in the Phillippines last summer I found myself living amoungst endless 'textable' situations. These ranging from ordering the simplist food orderd via text message to be delivered to my door ( eg a starbucks coffee or MacDonalds large fries), or decideing what songs i wanted to hear on MTV Asia, or what movies I wanted to watch on HBO Asia. This idea of interactive or 'text' TV has recently been adopted here by Channel Two, the new C4 and Sky TV's juice TV.Viewers here have the ability to vote for songs on C4's text knock out, request songs on juice TV via text, and vote for movies and partake in polls on Channel two.
But imagine if we could take this ability to control our world via text outside the living room and away from entertainment?
This may be taking it to the extreme but imagine if we had were able to order any type of food for delivery too, transfer money from various accounts, buy things online via text message, book flight tickets or any tickets, or eevn if we had the ability to reciev grades on our cellphones or even vote?
This idea might not seem so crazy in 5 years time...
posted by Anonymous at 12:08 AM

____________

Monday, October 20, 2003

Cheers Belle.

yeah, sure we live in an age where movie goers as a whole like to get tittilation from special effects and CGI. special effects and CGI dont make movies good, though. The film has to be good in itself, regardless of the effects wankery directors can splash all over it. For example, Ghost Ship. That was one of the most shit movies I have ever seen. Save the first scene where an entire deck of people are sliced in half by a rigging wire that comes loose. Other than that it was a crap plot, crap script and had crap acting. All the special effects in the world couldn't save that movie. The same goes for A Perfect Storm, which came out a few years ago. Sure, I was slightly impressed by the big waves they created... but that wasnt enough to hold my attention. I was ready to walk out, the only thing keeping me in the cinema was the fact that I was with some people and it would be rude just to get out.

However, there are films that have NO special effects that are some of the most entertaining films I've seen. I went and saw a film called Travelling Birds the other week at the Rialto. Granted, it was Documentary but that was far more profound, and entertaining than the other films that I've listed. It had the most amazing panaramic shots of scenery from all around the world, following different species of migrating birds. It was amazing.
Another movie along those lines is Baraka, which is just really high resolution shots of nature, people and such. Its supposed to be 100% emotive, so when you watch it it is purely to create an emotion in you rather than to be analysed. The first shot is of this monkey sitting in a thermal lake, with snow all around him. He looks sooo zen its amazing. There is no special effects in that movie either. I could go on.

the point is, yeah special effects are fun. But I think we as beings seeking entertainment, depend too much apon special effects- which in the end do nothing but warp reality. I mean, I loved the Matrix (the first one) but reloaded the effects looked utter shit. especially the fight scene between neo and the thousand agent Smith dudes. I think there needs to be a rennaisanse (sp) in cinema. A return to well scripted, well acted stories that dont rely solely upon a bunch of glossy shit to cover up the heinous plotlines and lack of acting abilty. Anyway... yeah.
posted by Anonymous at 5:54 PM

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