whoa.

today's open post is going to be somewhat short.

i cannot wait for spring break. I am going to myrtle beach with 3 of my friends and staying at some resort. it is sure to please.

I got accepted to study abroad this summer in Guanajuato, Mexico. This is also amazing!!! i have traveled to Spain before and stayed with a family, and that was by far one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I am so happy i get to go to Mexico and live with a family and take classes and speak Spanish 24/7.

Today at work (i work as an information guide at the red gym), the main red-head lady from CSI came in with her husband and son to take a tour of the campus. so awesome. everyone in the service area was so excited. even thought i didn't get to talk with her, it was amazing that she was even at UW-Madison touring the campus. it just goes to show that celebrities are real people too. :-)

have a fantastic spring break everyone!!

Half Man, Half Machine...AAAHHH!!

CYBORG?!?

The word cyborg has somewhat of a negative connotation. At first, when i think of a "cyborg" I think of someone who is half man, half computer, and usually this person is someone who wants to take over the world.

But when you think about what the word cyborg means, the negative connotation becomes somewhat unnecessary. In reading "Natural-born Cyborgs" by Andy Clark, i found that the term cyborg can be attributed to someone who is connected to the network of Internet, computers, and various resources. Clark mentions that the loss of his laptop was like brain damage (pg. 4). A previous post of mine also outlines the intense need for connections through technology and computers. Clark also discusses how the world is now smarter and people are now smarter than they have ever been due to computers and technological connections (pg. 5).

In class, some people were arguing that this intense need for technology is bad. It shows us that we can't function without technologies and computers. However, i definitely disagree. I think that one who uses technology and computers fully are utilizing their resources to the fullest and in turn are more in tune to the world around them.

I do also think that this relationship between human and technology is very complex and somewhat ill-understood. There is so much interaction between biological, cultural, and technological that the line that divides good interaction from bad interaction is very fine. I still feel, though, that without the interaction with technology and the network, our world would not be as advanced as it is.

cyborg –noun
a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.

cyborg - noun
everyone.

Do what you want to do, go where you want to go.

The internet is a hub of connections, connections galore. But are we really interacting with the people who we think we are interacting with? Could someone possibly be someone who they just aren’t? or could someone be portraying a side of themself that is not who they are if you would have interacted with them face to face?

In Turkle’s “Identity Crisis” in Life on the Screen, Turkle talks about this: the internet being a “…chance for all of us who aren’t actors to play [with] masks. And think about the masks we wear everyday” (256).

People are able to show what they want and keep hidden what they want. And they can do this to an even greater degree that in everyday life because they are protected by the screen. “…it is a world where anything goes that can be negotiated…” (257). The internet is a place where people can explore their self and negotiate, on one level or another, who they are with themselves and other people.

Turkle also talks about how people explore different “parts” of themselves or their personalities. She says “…different parts of the self are not full personalities. They are split-off, disconnected fragments” (261). In this sense, people’s personalities on the internet are like a sampling of who they truly are. A sampling of self occurs as people explore their various ways of being and acting.

One last thing that I found in Turkle’s piece and that I really liked: she says “Different people make the computer their own in their own ways” (267). This sentence really stood out to me. It is so true that you can be whoever you want, act like you want, and pursue whatever you want on the internet. You make it your own as you explore what your limits are and what the limits of your interaction with the network is.

That's the cool thing to do?!

In talking about the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign in class, I understand the impact of the "fundamental laws governing the spread of fads, ideas, and epidemics..."(Barbasi 126) that Barbasi discusses in the course reader:

The innovators (someone or a group of people who are willing to take risks) spread the idea to hubs (a person or people with many social networks) and the idea reaches its threshold and explodes in popularity.

Given this, I wanted to explore the possibilities of what kinds of things could fall into this pattern of cool. Is it just ideas, epidemics, or fads? can it be activities or people?

I went home this weekend and, not looking for ideas that i could put in reading notes, was pleasantly surprised at the material i got from attending the musical at my high school. Now, high school is a battleground in regards to cool. People are brutal in high school when it comes to being cool. So i thought if there is any example i could use, it would be theater in high school.

When i was in high school, i was very involved in theater. when i was a freshman, the theater click was pretty small, and many of the people in the productions would not really socialize with other people outside of the theater click. Many people thought that theater was lame, boring, and something only weird outsiders did. However, a group of friends and I (who had already established many social networks through school, sports, and extracurriculars) decided to try out for the musical second semester of my freshman year. At first, people said, "You're in the musical?!" they would be surprised and come to see it because one of their friends was in it. As my four years went on, more and more people knew who would be in the musical and more and more people came to see the musicals. My senior year, the freshman class who decided to do theater was HUGE. They had a lot of talent, and they had a lot of friends. Many people, who didn't have preconceived notions about theater, came to see the shows, and some even tried out on a whim. As i went back to see the show (Little Shop of Horrors) on Saturday, i was surprised at the people in the crowd and the people in the musical. There were football players, the 'popular' people, and even families that you wouldn't expect there. What was even more shocking was that there were football players and skater kids in the cast and pit! holy cow!

so i guess what i'm getting at is that my group of friends and i were the innovators of Thomas More High School Theater. We also were the preliminary hubs, using our social networks to spread the word about shows and auditions. The freshman class (who are now juniors) were another hub who brought theater involvement to its threshold, and now the theater department is doing pretty well.

I was talking to the director, who was also the director when i was there, and she said they had an overwhelming amount of people audition this year. So it just goes to show that even activities which were once thought of as something the 'cool' people would never do can now be thought of as the thing that cool people are doing.

Red Gym Folk. Damn They're Cool!

Today at work, I watched the people who came into the Red Gym for one reason or another. I found a couple trends among the people I saw:

1. iPods were a staple for all people.
2. The majority of people wore dark jeans.
3. People who came in big groups all had scarves on. Weird, I know.
4. People who exerted quite a bit of confidence were all wearing brown dress shoes.

So, clearly pretty much everyone had an iPod. I think this cool accessory has already hit its threshold, and everyone has caught on and bought one/uses one. I remember when I first got my iPod, I had no clue what it was. I got it from my parents, which is even weirder because my parents were in a way the innovators. They purchased one for me before they were this huge deal. I think I was a freshman in high school. I used it quite a bit and all of a sudden saw a boom of people using them. Maybe I was the hub?!?!?! That would be pretty cool. Anyway, at some point they hit the threshold, and people started using them ALL THE TIME! Now my dad has a iPod…I think that’s the weirdest (haha). He is definitely the straggler in this coolness.

The dark jeans thing is hard to make any sense of. I mean, I have a pair of light jeans, two medium colored jeans, and one pair of dark jeans. Maybe it was just a coincidence that people were wearing them on the same day. However, this could be because dark jeans are the cool jeans. I am not sure, and I don’t think I can discuss how a shade of jeans would hit a hub and cross a threshold…I think jeans are jeans. But maybe that’s just me.

It seems that people who travel in packs like to wear scarves. This might correlate to scarves being popular items fro cool people. If I were a coolhunter, I would notice this and take advantage of it. Maybe advertising scarves that match shirts or something…then people would wear them more. I don’t know. I don’t wear a scarf. I think that possibly the people wearing the scarves are innovators and that soon, since the people wearing them are pretty popular, scarf wearage with hit its threshold and everyone will wear them.

Confidence, I feel, tells a lot about a person. I think that cool people might have more confidence than uncool people. Brown shoes aren’t worn by everyone, so I think maybe they have just hit the hub and the cool, confident people will allow the fashion of the brown shoe to explode after it hits the threshold.

I did see a lot of northface jackets, ugg boots, stretch pants, and huge sunglasses. But this is a fad of coasties. Nothing else. It is definitely not cool because most people would not walk out of their dwelling-places in those clothes.

That is all.

A Web of Destruction?

This past week, the discussions in class was more on the relationship between grid writing and cool writing. However we also read selections from Duncan Watts’ Six Degrees. I want to touch on both of these topics in this week’s reading notes.

In class on Tuesday, we discussed in depth how things can be grid-like and network-like. In particular, we talked about how the university employs a grid-like pattern AND a network-like layout. In the oldest parts of the university, it is not like a grid due to the “emergence” theme of that part of the university. As time went on, buildings like van hise and van vleck were built and they are more grid-like, even on the outside. And nowadays, the new dorms being built promote networks as the use the “cluster” format within.

On the subject of networks, I feel that a network can work in so many different ways. As mentioned before, emergence has a lot to do with networks as interactions with people lead to new relationships and new products. As we interrelate with people we are able to put new ideas together and produce new groups and possibly something that has never been produced before. I am constantly told by my father that I need to make connections and get my name out there. That goes along with the theme of networks: networking gets you opportunities that you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t go out there and get your name out there and network.

Continuing with the theme of networks but switching over to the reading, Watts discusses how networks greatly contribute to virus spread. On page 119 of our reader, Watts says, “”…why have we only recently started to experience [computer viruses] on a global scale?...The answer…is the internet” (Watts, 167). The internet provides us with such a HUGE network of connectivity where we can be connected to millions of people with one click. And with the growing network, virus spread is so much easier. Modern connections have allowed viruses to travel, and do so quickly to infinite places. It seems the only way to stop this amazing spread of viruses is to plainly cut ties within the network. Just as “removing dirty needles from the circulation eliminates one mechanism by which HIV can spread…” (Watts 181), cutting ties within a network will eliminate a pathway for viruses to conquer.

Finally, I want to say that people who make viruses for computers suck. What’s their deal? Do they really have nothing better to do?