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(no subject) [Nov. 14th, 2006|04:51 pm]
In conclusion to our conversation about Second Life (which took place while actually in Second Life!), I do feel as though SL mirrors real life in multiple aspects. Just like our avatars, we spend time on our physical, real-life appearances and care about how others perceive us. We are also able to maintain social and work-related relationships through SL, as we saw today with our in-class conversation which took place in SL. In many aspects, SL is even better than real life. We can perform acts that would be impossible in real life, such as flying, and we can teleport to a multitude of locations instead of having to fight traffic or book a flight. Many people may also feel that the physical wall which the computer screen provides allows us to act in ways we wouldn't normally, which allows us to feel more liberated and therefore become more outgoing. All of these aspects of SL show that the program can certainly fill a void in our lives and even help us overcome personality deficits.

At the same time, I think that these sorts of programs can become dangerous to our real lives. By "dangerous", I am not referring to meeting and communicating with mass murderers/rapists through SL--I believe that people who do this would probably find some other way of locating such people and naively falling into their traps in real life. I use the term "dangerous" in the sense that some people may become so obsessed with their activities and social networks which take place in SL that they no longer maintain a first life! Thus, I think that "Second Life" should actually be called "First Life" because it takes over that role for many users!

More seriously, I have seen this very process happen to one of my best friend's sisters. She was always kind of an outsider in that she wasn't in the "popular" crowd, but she completely isolated herself when the Internet came into her life. It began with simply meeting people in chat rooms on AOL, and quickly spun into an all-out social network which she now devotes ALL of her free time to. She has visited several of her online friends in real life, and she now has a boyfriend who lives in Australia and has only visited once in real life. She has been on SL for the last year or so, and she has become so introverted that it is uncomfortably obvious to everyone she talks to how incredibly awkward she feels communicating in real life. I feel badly for her because she reached out to a community that would be more accepting of her than the kids at school were, but I think it has made her worse off in the long run.
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Second Life Blog [Nov. 3rd, 2006|05:24 pm]
The first interesting place I found for this assignment is in the area called Munro and is called "Blue Water - Aquariums, TVs, Furniture, Club" (coordinates: 55, 34, 147). I found this location by searching with the keyword "bar", which actually turned up an immensely diverse list of places (places which do not relate to the word "bar" in any way!). They don't mention this is the description of Blue Water, but I found this enormous, winding water slide there! After several failed attempts at ascending the slide's ladder, I finally did make it to the top and slid down, which was really cool! Then when I got to the bottom, I was able to literally walk up the slide backwards, which was rather difficult seeing as how Lauren Tornado was taking tequila shots at the same time (she's a lush).

I then stumbled upon "Carducci's Horse Track" (coordinates: 61, 50, 28) in the area called Yongchon. I was immediately able to go onto the horse track itself and jump on a horse--though I could not get the horse to actually move! This was probably because there was no race going on at the time, as the track's racing hours are from 5:00 am to 3:00 pm Second Life time (I am assuming I was there outside of those Second Life hours. I do not know how to convert Central Standard time to Second Life time). On a side note, I ran into a dragon while at the horse track. Literally. He was green and breathing fire.

I decided to search for religious places next. I thought that this would be really interesting--to see if religious people actually attended church/synagogue/whatever through their Second Life avatars. Sure enough, I found the "First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life" (coordinates: 160, 26, 63) in Modesta. It seemed more like a rain forest than a church to me, but I guess that is part of the magic of Second Life! The church does hold religious services and states that it welcomes people of all religious backgrounds. There is also a head priest (the avatar is actually dressed like a priest and everything) whose name is "UU Guru." I am assuming that the "UU" stands for "Unitarian Universalist" or something to that effect, which I guess means that this user's greatest dedication/purpose in Second Life is his religion. This truly reflects on how huge and diverse the uses of Second Life are; while some people become members to live their sexual fantasies vicariously through their avatars (and it seems that there is plenty of opportunity to do so in Second Life!), others use the program to unite religious members and spread their beliefs. Furthermore, I think this makes Second Life a perfect example for the uses and gratifications theory which we have all studied in one communications course or another. The community 's members are fulfilling some need(s) they have through Second Life, a media product which provides gratification for a plethora of needs.
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Military Industrial Complex [Oct. 17th, 2006|02:10 am]
In my quest for information on the term "military industrial complex", I did what I always do when I am searching any topic--I went to Google. Yet again, Google did not let me down, for my search returned 2,280,000 EXCITING results! The first two on the list were from Wikipedia, and I have had several professors threaten me with my life if I ever even think about turning to Wikipedia for information of any kind! However, I saw that a few other students from class have cited Wikipedia for the answer, so I will assume that it is not too sacrilegious. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex) the term "military industrial complex was coined by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961. The term refers to the interdependent relationship between U.S. industry (specifically defense contractors), military, and Federal government. This "iron triangle" (as it is also called) unites in an effort to financially profit from war, all the while working against the public interest.

In the context of Eisenhower's speech, the term was used in warning the nation of the potential abuse of power that such an iron triangle poses. Basically, it sounds like an all-out separation between all of those in power--whether financial or political--and the rest of the American masses who are unaware of their joined, self-serving, and ulterior efforts. Furthermore, it seems like Eisenhower invoked the term amid the turbulent political and militaristic climate which the U.S. found itself in. For only 15 years earlier the U.S. dropped the first (and second) atomic bomb in its attacks on Japan, and the global fallout which ensued led to the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Eisenhower apparently saw the potential for greedy and/or power-hungry politicians and businessmen to seek profit from nuclear weaponry, and he wanted to warn the American public that such dangerous ventures may not be in the best interest of the masses. Ironically, less than one year later, the U.S. found itself in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and with the subsequent Cold War events which followed, the public quickly understood just how much danger the government had put them in while "enhancing" the U.S. arms industry.
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My Smart Mob Map [Oct. 10th, 2006|03:29 pm]
This is the link to access my mob map: http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/lakers/smart.pdf
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My new mini website [Oct. 5th, 2006|01:19 pm]
Here is the link to my new website: http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/lakers/threebombs.html

Enjoy, my friends!!!
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(no subject) [Oct. 4th, 2006|08:39 pm]
Prior to reading "The Accident of Science" from Crepuscular Dawn, I had never heard of the whole "three bombs" concept by Einstein. However, having read the article and discussing it in class, I have decided to do my second mini-website on the three bombs! At first, it was hard for me to get my head around the word "bomb"--sure, the word fits perfectly when paired with "atomic" and I can certainly picture the logistics of a "cyber bomb", but a "genetic bomb" sounds completely foreign to me. I now understand what Einstein means by the genetic bomb, as well as the end of humanity: we will essentially be the cause of exterminating our own existence! We will genetically manipulate ourselves away! This is a rather frightening concept, and what's more, the process is happening so fast that raising ethical issues in society will not be able to curb scientific advancement.

As the book chapter discusses, warfare has changed (and is still in the process of changing) completely. I, for one, believe that science could have a lot to offer in the way of reducing war casualities. For example, wars could consist of robots simply fighting other robots, or maybe even cyber bombs counteracting other strategically executed cyber bombs. However, I certainly see the potential for greater disaster in the warfare changes which are occurring. As many scholars have noted, the dropping of the atomic bomb set an undeniable precedent for warfare altogether, but the advancement of bomb technology and the logistics of war could produce quicker and more widespread destruction--which would ultimately end in humanity destroying itself, as is discussed in Crepuscular Dawn.
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Something I have always wanted to know how to do... [Sep. 26th, 2006|06:49 pm]
Since Dr. Delwiche did declare that the topic for this blog could address anything imaginable, my idea is far from the realm of technology--but indeed something I have always wanted to know! My quest for knowledge is as follows: I have always wanted to know how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue. I've seen several people do it over the years but whenever they try to teach me how, I can never get it right. Thus, for this assignment, I did what I always do when I have a completely random question/search topic: I Googled it. Sure enough, the very first site that came up on the results page was a step-by-step set of instructions on how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with one's tongue. Here is a link to the site, for those of you who are curious: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/003155.html .

The fact that I found the site in under 15 seconds further solidifies my love for Google. I feel like I can type anything in that little box and Google will bring me the answer I am looking for--and 45,000 other sites that have slight mentions of my search topic but are nonetheless relevant! Sometimes when I'm bored, I even Google my name in quotations and others' names just to see what comes up (really cool of me, I know). I don't remember what life was like before Google, but it must have been horrendous.

This kind of reminds me of my feelings toward the pre-cell phone era. Though I know there was some point in my life when I did not have a cell phone, I do not recall what that must have felt like. Granted, I was much younger then, but considering how I feel about my cell phone now (like it is an extension of my soul), I can't believe I didn't feel this huge void in my life (the same void I temporarily feel when I forget my cell phone at home). I guess all of this proves how technology-reliant I am, even though I feel like I don't understand technology very well at all! I just know that I need it and I get angry when it is not working--kind of like a drug addiction!
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My web site [Sep. 25th, 2006|08:15 pm]
Since I wrote my blog a while ago, I did not put a link to my web site because it was not finished yet, so here is the link: http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/lakers/backtothefuture.html
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My final project topic [Sep. 20th, 2006|07:49 pm]
Prior to Tuesday's class, I had no clue what I wanted my final project topic to be. However, after hearing several students' ideas to correlate this project with their capstone seminars, I started thinking about how I could do something along those lines. My first proposal is to basically create a website in correlation with my capstone project, which is entitled, "Children, Cover Your Eyes": A Quantitative and Analytical Look at Audiences' Responses to Sex versus Violence in Film. I am really interested in this topic because I took a course from Dr. Christ last semester called "Sex and Violence in the Media" in which we studied the effects of said content. At the same time, I know that this is not necessarily technology-related (though it is media related), so I do not know whether or not it will suffice for this course's final project.

Another idea I have for this project is inspired by our recent 150-page assigned reading from The World is Flat. Though I found the amount of reading overwhelming, I enjoyed the author's narrative storyline of travels and encounters as well as his sort of self-realization process (figuring out where he fit into all of this). My proposal is to dedicate a website to information on outsourcing. This would include not only statistical data and relevant historical explanations but would also include a more opinion-based section open to public discussion of the topic (a forum of sorts, if possible). This would allow people to discuss the issues surrounding American companies' outsourcing habits as of late and also let employees who have been outsourced vent about their troubles. Who knows--maybe they will make some valuable career connections at my website's forum and find another job (a little overzealous of me, I know)!

My third proposal is to dedicate a website to ethics questions surrounding singularity. More specifically, I would like to focus on the potential genetic revolution because I feel that it poses many difficult questions that we need to address as a society. This site would also have a forum (hopefully) for people to discuss which kinds of ethical issues may face us in the years to come. It would provide information on the history and time line of genetic science as well as what the leading scholars in the field (i.e. Ray Kurzweil) are predicting.
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The world is flattening [Sep. 18th, 2006|06:00 pm]
The first aspect of the reading which struck me as amusing and intriguing was the name of the book itself, The World is Flat. It reminded me of the old "chicken little" expression, "The sky is falling!", as such a title is rather alarming at first glance! Having read the author's explanation and justification of this concept, I completely agree with what he is saying--it's just that I had never thought of it in "flat world" terms!

Outsourcing and globalization are definitely aspects which are  "flattening" the world as we speak, creating a "level playing field" (as Infosys Technologies Limited CEO Nandan Nilekani explains it) for the global economy. At the same time, the author notes that the consequences of such flattening pose potential threats to the world as well. For example, he explains, "My personal dread derived from the obvious fact that it's not only the software writers and computer geeks who get empowered to collaborate on work in a flat world. It's also Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks. The playing field is not being leveled only in ways that draw in and superempower a whole new group of innovators" (8). This is clearly evidenced by the abundance of terrorism websites and terrorist-made videos which circulate the web on a daily basis. The developing global situation therefore poses a threat to American individuals' safety but also to American individuals' civil liberties, as the government has taken strong action (internet monitoring, phone tapping, etc.) through the PATRIOT Act.

I also found the author's account of the Indian call center "24/7 Customer" and Indian workers (of American outsourced jobs)altogether interesting in that it is not as critical as I would expect. I was surprised by his description of the atmosphere at the 24/7 call center as "your average insurance company" (22), because I had definitely pictured those sorts of companies in India as your typical Third World stereotype--a filthy sweatshop with starving, shoeless children (alright, maybe not quite that bad, but that is what I pictured when I thought of a generic Third World company). The truth of the matter is that, from the sounds of it, India is not even a Third World country! The author describes the booming metropolis that is Bangalore with the abundance of American company buildings (GE, Microsoft, etc.) as though it is New York City--though the wandering cows and dirt roads hold Bangalore back from achieving that status. The other aspect which still keeps India in the Third World category is the fact that their workers' payments are substantially lower than those of First World countries like America. Though the author says that the $500 per month that the call center workers make puts them above the average standard of living in India, I feel it is unfair for American companies to take advantage of the situation.

In his second chapter, the author goes into "The Ten Forces that Flattened the World", which is essentially a history of the technological development of the computer and the Internet. I was especially interested in the discussion of politics and how technology has affected it (under the subtitle "Flattner #4: Uploading"). I have taken several Political Science courses at Trinity which have dealt with the nature of elections and campaigns, and the author notes exactly what we studied--that political candidates have yet to take advantage of the resourcefulness which the Internet poses. Indeed, the Internet could be very useful to the democratic process altogether. The author cites the ideas of Andrew Rasiej, founder of Mouse.org and former Democratic candidate for New York City's Office of Public Advocate:  "The new model in business is that you involve your community and customers in an ongoing conversation about every aspect of your business, from the moment you conceive a product...to the way you collect and absorb customer feedback and respond more quickly to changing tastes. 'Well, the time is here to apply the same principle--the power of many--to reinventing civic life and reinvigorating democracy'" (116). If politicians would utilize the Internet to connect to and network with their constituents, people would not feel so disconnected from the political process and would become more involved, which is the key goal of democracy.
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Pre-1992 Media: Back to the Future Part II [Sep. 8th, 2006|01:58 pm]
Ok, so I know that this is not any kind of groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece. At the same time, the movie does give several predictions for the future, was made in 1989 (so it fits the pre-1992 criterion), and was one of my favorite movie when I was little (and thus quite influential on my own images of the future). In Back to the Future Part II (I picked part II because it deals more with the actual future than the other two movies in the trilogy), Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels to the year 2015 in his time-traveling DeLorean only to mess things up again and have to travel to the past. First of all, the DeLorean is what makes all of this fictional time-traveling possible. The concept of time travel is something that we think of as futuristic technology, but for this movie it is something of the present. The other futuristic technology that sticks out most in my mind from this film is the hovering skateboard. (see -->) I think this sort of portrayal of futuristic technology is funny, because I'm wondering what purpose the hovering skateboard actually serves?! It seems to me that this would be harder to keep your balance on than a modern-day skateboard... I guess the fact that it can travel over water is a plus (see next picture), but that's about it. 

I also remember that in this movie, the future family's household has this enormous tv that has a six-way split screen so that you can watch six different channels at the same time. This sort of technology has certainly occured (you can watch more than one screen at once now on most tvs), and with the invention  of Tivo, you don't have to split the screen--just record one show while you are watching the other. 

Finally, the funniest aspect of the future that this movie portrays is people wearing really outrageous-looking patent leather clothes, which I think is a legal requirement of all futuristic cinema... Why is it that all Hollywood filmmakers think that in the future we are going to revert to the fashion trends of the 1980s? If this is actually the case, then I guess we'll all become a bunch of brilliant, half-robot immortals who can move things with our minds but don't even know how to dress.
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Einstein & Joy readings response [Aug. 31st, 2006|12:49 pm]
     I found the Einstein letters to be interesting and actually insightful, as I had no idea that he was essentially trying to warn the FDR adminstration of the dangers associated with nuclear capabilities. I noticed that Einstein's suggestions for funding the experimentation changed over time-- In the August 2nd, 1939 letter, he suggests going to "private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause"; In his 3rd letter, he supports Dr. Sachs' idea for "the Special Advisory Committee supply names of persons to serve as a board of trustees for a nonprofit organization which, with the approval of the government committee, could secure from governmental or private sources or both, the necessary funds for carrying out the work." His last letter seems to have a greater sense of urgency, as he (for the first time) actually states that uranium discovery is important to "national defense". He further voices concerns about the lack of organization in the experimentation process, which was obviously a viable concern.
     The article by Bill Joy pretty much summed up my feelings on the whole situation about technological development. Having read Ray Kurzweil's work before, I reacted to the scholar's confident assertions about the future in the same manner as Joy--with a sense of fear. While I myself am by no means a scientist (I have only taken one science course while at Trinity), all of Kurzweil's predictions were rather daunting. As Joy puts it, "While I had heard such talk before, I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction" (1). Furthermore, this whole hypothetical evolutionary struggle between cyborgs and natural humans (in which the cyborgs win!) sounds like another sequal to Terminator.
     An observation of particular interest which Joy makes is that, "Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once--but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control" (2). Again, I find myself reminded of traditional science fiction cinema (I, Robot, perhaps). However, if Kurzweil's predictions of cyborgs and the like are viable, then I suppose Joy is on the right track in his fear. Overall, Joy makes his concerns clearest in the following statement: "We have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own" (6). In a sense, this has always been the biggest worry of mine regarding technological biological development. I feel like we sometimes get so wrapped up in the excitement and sensationalism of scientifically advancing, developing, and progressing, we tend to overlook the potentially negative consequences that "playing God" presents (I am reminded of yet another science fiction film, The Island, which raises similar questions). Don't get me wrong--I think science is an extremely important field and human advancement is obviously not something I am against--I just think we need to take a critical look at the ethical rationale in certain developments. As Joy points out, "It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause" (10). As we saw Einstein warn in his letters, with technological advancement often comes destructive power.
     As for my predictions of the future, I would first like to say that I do not believe myself to be an adequate judge of such a vision. Like I said before, I am not a science person, so I don't think it is even fair for me to make a guess as to what the world will be like in ten years. Having said that, all of the reading we have done so far for this class leads me to believe that it is going to be a very different place from today! According to Joy, we will be well on our way to Robot-land with flying cars and telepathical communication. However, I feel like if we look at the past ten years, and how much life has changed from 1996 (or even 1986) to today, it seems to me that the change is not nearly as great a leap as Kurzweil is predicting for the next ten-to-twenty years. Since 1996, cell phones and computers have become essential to our everyday lives and our cars can now talk to us. This is exciting in its own context, but pales in comparison to a world where we are having chips planted in our heads and we become no longer human in the natural sense. Furthermore, we still have such great problems with the advancements that we have already achieved (i.e. I have my cell phone service and computers can sometimes drive me to insanity) that I am not sure I want a chip in my head that works as well as Cingular Wireless. Thus, my hope for the future is that we hold off on some of these science ficiton-esque developments to a) make sure that they serve an ethical purpose, b) make certain that they present minimal potentional for negative consequences, and c) perfect them before we delve into a dangerous realm of toying with nature.
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My intoduction [Aug. 24th, 2006|03:12 pm]
Hello everyone!

My name is Lauren Akers and I am a senior communication major/French minor. I am from New Orleans so I'm technically a Hurricane Katrina refugee/evacuee/whatever, but our house is fine now so we've moved back. Some areas down there are really bad still though so give money/volunteer if you can!!! Anywho, my interests are animals (dogs especially) and college football because my whole family is from Tennessee so I was born into the Vol obcession... That's about it!
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