http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/1st-Gen-iPad-WiFi-iBooks.jpg/220px-1st-Gen-iPad-WiFi-iBooks.jpg

Audrey Watters has many good points in her article about Apple and their potential future in the eTextbook market. She focused primarily on K-12 education, which is an interesting standpoint. Maybe it’s because I went to a poorer school in WV, but the thought of high school digital textbooks has never crossed my mind.

Although I still prefer to buy hard copies of my college books, I understand the market and the reasoning behind college eBooks. They’re lighter, you have everything on one device, etc. I chose not to buy them because I still think they are way too expensive. Sure the initial cost of the eBook is less, but you can never sell an eBook to anyone else. Factoring in the cost that I expect to get for the physical book in return in a semester, eBooks are still way too expensive for me to swallow.

High school eBooks will never fly. Not anytime soon, anyway. As Watters said, not every kid has an iPad. Or parents who can buy them one. Additionally, not every school has the budget for iPads and to pay the $15 per student per year fee. It’s cheaper for them to use physical books and continue to use them for 10+ years. You can find relevant, up-to-date information in the internet for free, so why pay Apple for it? (Plus, let’s face it, it’s not like Apple — and other textbook companies — really need that extra cash they’d be raking in)

Tim Carmody’s  piece on reading revolutions was also interesting. I was especially intrigued by one of his last points — that we first learned to read vertically, then horizontally, then vertically again. With eBooks adding videos and movable flashcards and other fancy things that one really doesn’t need, we’re going to relearn how to read again. My guess is that it will just be too scattered an all over the place.

Call me old fashioned. Although I love my iPad, it is by no means a primary educational tool. And to me, it probably never will be.

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Needless to say, I thought Cow Clicker was the dumbest of the dumb. After reading Ian Bogost’s article about Cow Clicker, I discovered that my first impressions were correct – except for this game was actually designed to be the dumbest of the dumb as a satire. Interesting.

I agree with all of Bogost’s points. Especially the ones about compulsions and destroying time. I, like so many other Facebook users, do have a compulsion to check Twitter and Facebook multiple times an hour. Sometimes multiple times a minute, depending on my level of boredom. When I think about it, it kind of makes me sick how much of my time I spend (or, rather, waste) on social media. All for what gain? To know what my friend of a friend had for breakfast?

Because of the compulsion, time is destroyed. Facebook games, like Cow Clicker, run in real time. Because you have to wait a certain amount of time before you can do the next thing, you have to keep checking to see if your time is up. It’s really a brilliant concept, except for the fact that it’s potentially destroying the minds of a generation (that is, unless they wish to become farmers, with which there is nothing wrong).

I am questioning, however, Bogost’s goal. Yes, he pointed out annoying things about Facebook games. Yes, he created a satire game to further illustrate his point. But why? Does he plan to single-handedly take down the Zynga empire? I imagine that most people who read his article agree that Facebook games are dumb. I guess I just don’t understand his purpose in all his efforts.

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Everything today is virtual. We live our lives online. We have eBooks, eMail, eCommerce, eEverything. Since we live such a large portion of our loves online and with computers, it is actually surprising that more people do not know computer code. I admit to not knowing a lot (if anything important at all) about computer code and programming. It’s like a second language that makes no sense to me at all. I do, however, use a computer daily. Somehow it does not make sense that  I don’t really understand how to truly control an item that I use multiple times a day.

It’s also interesting that Rushkoff makes the comparison of a CD to a physical copy of a text. I never thought of it that way before, but it’s true — we only buy CD’s nowadays for the nostalgia and appeal. Like books on a bookshelf, it’s really more to show off than anything. You can get the same content on a digital platform (iPod, eReader), but there’s just something show-offy about having the physical object in your hand. It’s something I can’t really explain or understand very well.

We are at the point of no return. I have just been looking for your embrace. You are very impressive at first glance. I find myself having thoughts about you that I need to share with everyone. It’s almost a compulsion. I had had this conversation with one of my roommates and our friend about them.  Last weekend when you thought it was a good idea to post a twitpic of you and your friends at the club? That’s now public domain for everyone and their mother (literally) to see.

You can follow anyone, but I chose you. I feel the desire to know you. It will be interesting to see, in a few years, how yummy and delicious you have become.

This was my first website I made, and within a year, I went from desire to obsession. I personally have set my social networking sites to private, where you cannot search for me unless we have mutual friends. Simply because I prefer my privacy. The actions we engage in as young adults – delicious.This should not be blamed on the government, but I saw the pictures you were sharing in the chatroom.

Smile, You’re on camera,

Big Brother :) <3

Remixed by: Liz Finley &&&&& John Casey

Red text from John’s blogs, black text from Liz’s blogs. :)

Queen’s “Under Pressure” —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I

Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE&ob=av2e

Queen’s song came first. There was never an official law suit, but it’s believed that Ice paid off Queen to keep it out of the courts. The two songs are completely different, with different lyrics and meanings. The beats, however, are strikingly similar. So did Ice steal Queen’s “intellectual property?” Yes? No? Maybe so?

And then what about the remixes where the beats and things are perhaps less similar than the original? Where do we draw the line of what is considered plagiarism and what is not?

According to RIP, “artists build on the work that came before them.” This is exactly what remixers do. And any artist, for that matter. As humans, even, all of us are products of pieces of someone else; our parents, friends, complete strangers influence the people we become. If I start saying “fetch” like Gretchen from Mean Girls, does that mean I’ve stolen the intellectual property of Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay?

It’s all very confusing. I don’t really know what side I’m on in the subject, either. I mean, I guess it would be annoying if someone stole your idea. But, everyone knows you did it first, and isn’t imitation the biggest form of flattery? Just something to think about.