Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I like to think that I fit into the category of “those who like technology and use it enthusiastically and nimbly”. I have spent a lot of time online over the past decade and I’m always excited to see what the next thing is – the next piece of tech or the next impressive leveraging of crowdsourcing, etc. Even just the latest expressions of humor (lowbrow as they often are) are fun to follow along with. In my social groups I’m usually one of the quickest to find the information we need online.
I think the most helpful thing about this list as relates to effective internet usage is in remembering that the internet is inherently a social space. As we learn to navigate we need to keep in mind the basic principles of social interaction and apply them properly for the current medium (for instance with the “public narrowcasting” mentioned on p.214). All of the things on the list are things we know from outside of the internet as well: understand your boundaries, join as many diverse social groups as possible, manage your time productively, find ways to build trust, etc.
-
When we are posting our multimodal analysis to our website, should we also include the annotated bibliography?
-
I thought Chapter 4 of W/D was really interesting. We have covered in previous readings what tricky situation copyright laws can create. Having concrete information about how and when using copyrighted works is appropriate and the sorts of situations in which you can claim fair use helps make the situation a bit less daunting. I also wasn’t aware that Creative Commons was actually a non-profit organization. I thought that Creative Commons was just a licensing system that several people on the internet had decided was logical and began to use. You come across the files that make use of the Creative Commons model several places on the internet these days, especially on sites like Wikipedia. I guess I didn’t give the fact that it came from somewhere and would function best when moderated much thought until I read about it in our book! Knowing that a resource exists like this that makes what is expected of you in your use of the material is definitely knowledge I will make use of well beyond this class!
-
Video Game Streaming
Examples: Gaming Live TV
Hitbox
Instagib
TwitchSite Purpose: The purpose is to provide entertainment in the form of various individuals streaming themselves playing video games for visitors to the site to watch.
Focus: The focus for all of these sites is on the videos. Each site has a “featured streamer” somewhere on the front page. Gaming Live TV and Instagib seem to promote their site services and advertisements as the most prominent parts of their sites on first view, while Hitbox and Twitch make the video feeds the largest part, but all 4 sites use this.
Navigation: While some of the sites have a small amount of textual menu options, all four seem to prefer graphic navigation: i.e. images of the games or streams available as links to take you to that section of the site.
Colors: Dark colors are present in large quantities on each website. In the case of Hitbox and Instagib they rely almost solely on blacks and grays, while Twitch and Gaming Live TV use white and other colors as well. A lot of the impression of darker colors on Gaming Live TV comes from the images for the games and from their large rotating banner at the top.
Author: The authors on these websites can be inferred as the companies themselves. However, on all these sites, the content that is provided through the website is provided by a number of different individuals playing different games.
Image Use: Since the primary purpose of each of these websites is to allow site visitors to watch videos, image use is obviously very important. Very little text is used on any of these sites.
-
I think the issue has definitely become more convoluted since this chapter was written. Although we have more paid streaming services from which to access content like Netflix and Spotify, the hoops which companies have to jump through to provide that content is still prohibitive. Netflix has to approach whoever the copyright holder is in each country they want to stream a video to for each piece of content. If a movie has different copyright holders in the U.S. and England, for instance, Netflix might be able to negotiate with the English copyright holder and not the American one, prohibiting them from providing consistent content to all subscribers to the service.
Even as recently as last year there was a huge battle between publisher Hachette and Amazon about how their eBooks were being sold on the website. Even though we as consumers weren’t contributing to this particular problem in the same way that say, illegal filesharing does, the publishing company still had problems with how Amazon was distributing its electronic works. I think we’re still at a point where the laws are too far behind the technology, and even the ideas behind some of the laws are flawed compared to the system they are trying to police. It was really interesting to me that even though information is emerging and becoming obsolete more quickly than ever copyrights last at least 42 years longer (B2B 219)! It seems obvious to me that we need to reframe the discussion on copyright issues somehow to reach a solution that is beneficial to all parties as much as possible but still within the realms of logic. -
In evaluating this texts with Rheingold’s method, it definitively comes across as trustworthy for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was published by MIT Press, which is an authoritative source. Secondly, he is very good to quote his sources, and when he does, those sources are always leaders in their field For example, when gathering information about how search algorithms work, he spoke with the “search anthropologist” from Google (p. 86). Finally, my own experience informs me that people who are telling me to make my own decisions based on critical thinking generally don’t have ulterior motives in mind.
What Rheingold said about online game enthusiasts being less trusting (p. 84) was interesting to me, because even though he specifically discusses seventh graders, I have found that to be true in my own life and group of friends. People who spend more time on the internet as a hobby, or in certain circumstances like professional gaming/blogging, etc., tend to naturally use the “learning process” (pg. 87) to discover just how unreliable certain sources on the internet can be. It usually only takes one instance of using the wrong code and crashing your game, or being ridiculed by other members of a community for being wildly incorrect, for members of these groups to start checking up on the information they’re searching just by habit. -
Koan 7 really does make me question several points. It states that “Bits Move Faster Than Thought” (B2B, 12). The authors use this statement to discuss how the world is now more interconnected than ever – it is a simple matter to call someone on the other side of the world now, or to access material created in one country in another. On one hand, this is wonderful. My husband is from Australia, and had we not been able to talk online we wouldn’t have been able to start our relationship. I am also remotely employed, and would have been able to keep my job when I moved if this technology was not available.
On the other hand, it makes jurisdiction and governance very difficult. If I buy an item on sale in England and have it shipped to me, what types of taxes apply? Should I only have to pay local taxes because I purchased it from my home? Or should I have to pay the same taxes I would if I were buying the item in England and shipping it home? If I post an image online with a copyright and someone else in another country where copyright laws are different steals it, have they broken any laws?
-
-
erheyer,
I didn’t even think about the timing of this chapter! It’s a really good point that it was timely to help prepare us for the rest of the course. Hopefully now we will be able to use these techniques to help us stay on top of all the work for this course, despite all of our other responsibilities.
-
When typing replies on wordpress you can see all the formatting buttons above the text box. One of these says “link”. If you click it another window pops up with fields called “URL” and “Title”. URL is where you paste the website address you would like to link to and Title is where you type how you would like the link to appear in your post.
At least, this is how it all appears on my windows laptop.
Hope this helps!
-
I think it’s great that you can list yourself in this category! I agree that several people seem to feel like sharing things online for the world to see is somehow as acceptable as mentioning it to a single group of friends at their house. Considering the context of what you are sharing where, and who might have access to it in the future, is an important skill that I think more people will have to develop as time goes on.
-
Tarin – It’s really interesting to note how important internet communication has become in this era, especially in the face of disasters or civil unrest. Think of the way that people were able to coordinate “largely on the strength of wireless” despite having other avenues closed off in your example. It really foreshadowed the way that the same techniques have been used in the Middle East in the recent past to spread information globally when the governments were trying to suppress it. I think the most worrisome thing about this, especially when thinking about censorship, is what happened in 2011 when Egypt almost succeeded in cutting off internet services to its citizens totally following their protests. Details in this article. The internet has become an incredible tool for free speech. Like a quote in the article says, internet service “is essential to ensure that government acts responsibly towards its citizens”. I think it’s important for us all to be aware of what regulations are being put in place by our own government to try and keep that route open and unobstructed in the future!
-
We read in B2B on pg 219 about the fact that when copyrights were created, they lasted 28 years. Now they last for 70 years AFTER the copyright holder’s death. There is almost no chance for consumers to ever have access to these works as part of the public domain. For instance, any commercial endeavor that uses the Happy Birthday song still has to pay royalties. (snopes.com) It is one thing for an artist to want to make money from their work. Everyone should get paid for the work they do. But it’s quite another to expect that the work that you have done in the past should somehow continue to gain your estate/company money for 70 years past the date of your death! If copyright laws were adjusted to a more reasonable scale, I think the number of people who idly illegally download things would decrease. I also think the average consumer would be more understanding of stringent copyright protections from companies if there was an understanding that they wouldn’t be in place forever.
-
I think the last point you brought up is very important! It’s not enough to know how to check your sources, it’s also important to know when it’s necessary. I liked Rheingold’s example on pg. 82 about “good enough to settle a bar bet” vs. evidence that is reasonable to use in a dissertation defense. If all you are trying to do is amuse yourself or do something else frivolous (like settling the previously mentioned bet) a casual Google search is good enough. If you are making important decisions like who to vote for, what treatment options are most effective for your illnesses, etc., it is better to dig a little deeper!
-
Ah! I love the example that you chose! I had forgotten that commercial even existed. It is definitely a great example of how we as a culture have kind of gotten past that first “someone on the internet published it so it has to be true” mentality. I definitely think we have more work to do on that front though, since just adding a veneer of respectability is usually enough to overcome that for most internet users even now.
I think it’s interesting that you point out Rheingold’s lack of formality in titling his chapters, and in including cartoons, etc. I think considering the publisher of the book (MIT Press) we can conclude that any informality is his attempt to engage the reader in a non-threatening way, considering this is not written as a textbook and therefore needs to be approachable to the non-academic reader. -
Jen,
As frustrating as it is to know that companies are tracking our data through rewards cards, I’m not sure getting rid of them would do you much good on its own. If you’re purchasing items with a debit/credit card, or really anything besides cash, there will always be another link between the types of items you buy and who you are. Your metrics will be stored in databases somewhere in the company, because even if they don’t have a separate file on you they’ll still be tracking which products are bought at what point in times and at what prices, etc.
And while privacy concerns are DEFINITELY valid, there is some benefit to you as a shopper from these cards. If you shop at Kroger, you probably get their coupons in the mail. How do you think they know which coupons you are likely to use? It’s from the algorithm that analyzes your shopping history. The same thing applies to Amazon. How do they know what suggestions might catch your eye on the front page? It’s based on your browsing/buying habits on the site.
So it’s really a question of this: is the benefit/reward I get for 1)lower prices, 2)personalized shopping incentives like coupons, and 3) having recommendations of items that I really am probably interested in purchasing so readily available worth the trouble that I would go through to protect this data from the corporations? I think the answer is less clear than it might first appear, and probably will be different for each person.
