October 2010
8 posts
Essay Outline
Unfortunately, I’m still in the preliminary stages of my research, so I haven’t quite yet developed an argument. However, my research thus far seems to indicate that the Web 2.0 services are far dodgier (EN: nice academic language there) in their terms of service than sites which have been around for quite a while. There seem to be several reasons for this including changing social...
Week 10 Lecture Summary
This week’s lecture was titled “Censorship/Privacy in Social Media”. Firstly, it should be mentioned that the mandatory internet filter will not be happening. With the current political climate as it is, the scheme has almost no chance of making it through Parliament, as the LNP have taken the party stance to oppose it. The chances of any sort of blacklist legislature making it...
Obsolescence
Part One: Cyberpunk’d
Technology is being recycled by major companies. It has become a budding industry: helping businesses and people safely discard old machines. As far as postulating about what one would do with an iron lung, for example, such things haven’t been invented yet so any possible alternative uses are unknown. However, a future of people implanted with mircochips...
Week 9 Lecture Summary
This week’s lecture was titled “Cyberpunk and William Gibson”.
Firstly, an objection to the word cyberpunk which bothers me to no end. Cyber = my least favourite prefix on Earth, as it has been attached to almost anything remotely technological for the last 20 years by the mainstream media as a way of trying to sound “hip” (think “cybergoth”) or...
Research Essay question
For the essay, my chosen question will be: Why is privacy such a contentious issue for internet users? Discuss with reference to at least ONE social network service (or other web2.0 service).
Already, I have located three interesting sources to aid me in my research: 1. http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886 2....
WatchAll photos within this video are of my own creation. Audio is a Creative Commons licensed song titled CiszaSza, CiszaSza by DigitalSimplyWorld which was found on Jamendo.
Week 8 Lecture Summary
This week’s lecture was titled “Virtual Philosophy” and was regarding the philosophical concept of reality. Two main philosophers were discussed: Plato and Rene Descartes, as both spoke in depth about the nature of reality and existence (not to be confused with the yet to be reached branch of philosophy titled existentialism).
To begin, we discussed Plato’s allegory of...
Week 7 Lecture Summary
This lecture was titled “Free Culture, Free Society”, and discussed Creative Commons and the idea of open source software.
International laws exist to protect the intellectual property (i.e. creative works, inventions) of people, and safeguard the right of these creators to control the financial gains and distribution of this content. Intellectual property can be protected under...
September 2010
2 posts
The Commodification of Identity
PART ONE
My daily media consumption begins immediately. I start my day by drinking coffee and reading the morning news on the internet (ABC News, CNN, and whatever comes up on Digg). I’ll also check out webcomics and blogs that I follow, if I have the time. With the exception of this Tumblr account, I don’t contribute anything towards any social networking sites, as I find most of...
Week Six Lecture Summary
This weeks lecture was titled “Media, New Media and Social Media”. When technology is used for social and cultural communication, it becomes a “medium of communication”… or the plural media. This definition differs in a way from the more common usage to describe the popular venues for news journalism.
The themes of virtual community and individual identity were...
August 2010
10 posts
Scavenger Hunt
ADAM’S QUESTIONS 1. What is the weight of the world’s biggest machine? How much did it cost to build? The World’s Biggest Machine is the CERN Large Hadron Collider, however it is very difficult to calculate its actual mass. - http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/ 2. Find a live webcam in Antarctica. Can you find a place to stay in Antarctica?...
Week Five Lecture Summary
In our week five lecture (titled “Consumption and Production”) we discussed how we consume media for both information and entertainment.
This involved studying the ways in which journalism has evolved in order to adapt to new technologies. Blogging has become a way for average people to contribute news (e.g. The Huffington Post), thus inspiring legitimate news sources such as CNN to...
WatchMy still image movie.
I do not own the song, which is the property of Paul Stanley and New Door Records.
Week Four Lecture Summary
This weeks lecture was on the history of cinema. The lecture material discussed follows the history of film and the technologies used to create it.
The purpose of the lecture was to discuss dates and milestones in film-making history. This inclues: 1985: The Birth of Cinema - the first motion picture viewings. 1929: Cinema first appears as we know it today, i.e. containing colour and sound...
Geocities
Before the social networking sites of the 21st century, Geocities dominated the internet. It was essentially a community of homepages created by users in order to discuss subjects like tech, entertainment and news.
The company began in 1995 as Beverly Hills Internet. It organised its users into 29 “neighbourhoods”, however content wasn’t necessarily divided by subject...
Week Three Lecture Summary
Our Week 3 lecture was titled “A Shot History of Computing and the Internet”. This involved us discussing the beginning of computer use (from Babbage’s early Difference Engine) to modern day internet technologies.
We began by briefly running through the reasons for the development of computers, i.e. as calculation devices. It wasn’t until the 1950’s when...
Early computer use.
The first computer that I ever used was in primary school. It was an old-school Macintosh Plus - black & white with no sound. Every week (from grade 1 onwards) we had the opportunity to play educational games for half an hour, on these awful machines. The screen was the size of a Blackberry, and they took almost the entire lesson to boot up.
I wouldn’t get a computer in my own home...