Last blog!

Well, tomorrow is the last day of class!  I feel like I've developed a much better understanding of the internet, which I use all the time, this semester. It's made me a lot more aware of my internet habits and how the internet effects me. Dissecting the Internet has made me realize how crucial the internet is to our world. I believe understanding computers and the internet will be very important in the future, regardless of what career I choose, so I plan to take more internet/computer related classes next year. I'm also very excited to be taking Dr. Parks game world/film world class next semester!

Now to finish my Scratch animations!

Week of December 4th

It was really interesting learning how to set up websites and create animations last week. It was a little frustrating learning how to work with the programming at first, but once I got the idea it was really very logical. It was also a little tricky learning to save my work to the correct remote files so I could find it later, but now that I know how to do that correctly I think it will be very useful. Scratch has also been fun to play with but certain aspects of it seem a little glitchy or at least not entirely intuitive. Also, the first time I made an entire animation it for some reason didn't save correctly and reverted back to the un-constumed un-animated sprite when I went back to it the next day.

Our annotated bibliographies were also due. It was interesting to write about the sources I found because it made me realize how limited truly reliable information still is. Although their are tons of website specifically about drones and the affect of flying UAVs on pilots, it was very difficult to find books or scholarly articles that related to that topic. Finding highly reliable information is a much more time consuming and difficult process than just looking something up on the internet, but I found that it made me think a lot harder about the topic than I would have had I just looked at a few websites that discussed and provided an opinion specifically on my topic.

Blog Nov. 27th

I got a bit behind on my blogs so this one is for the week of November 27th! Unfortunately I was sick on the 22nd so I missed out on what sounded like a very interesting guest speaker! It is clear from reading the materials that were meant to prepare us for that discussion that cyberspace is of great importance to the U.S.
Departement of Defense, their main points being essentially that cyberspace is central to modern society and that cyberspace can be both a major tool and bane to U.S. defense. The article about the U.S., Russia, and other countries recent policies on cybercrime was interesting because Russia and China refuse to sign a treaty that would allow police to track down cybercriminals, even in other countries. This brings up an interesting idea; is the internet breaking down borders? And, if so, do we need to reconsider our idea of sovereignty?

catch-up blog!

It's been far too long since I last blogged! I'll have this blog be a catch-up from Fall Break. Over break I was sick, so I spent a lot of time reading. I recently got a Kindle and e-texts have been a topic that have come up in discussion in class a lot. Personally, I've really enjoyed having a Kindle. It took some time to get used to not having an actual physical book but now I would be frustrated without the ability to highlight and search for specific parts in the books I'm reading and to find and download most any book I want to read instantly. At the same time, I've definitely noticed it changes the way I read personally. Since I have so many books downloaded to my Kindle it's easy to just skip around, instead of sticking to reading one book at a time. When I get at all bored it only takes a few clicks and I can be reading something else without even getting up. In a sense, I understanding what the author of The Shallows and several of the other books read by our class earlier this year. The internet, and e-book, do make it easier to be more scatterbrained and decrease the likelihood that we'll stay focused on one text at a time. The other thing I've noticed is that a lot of the classics are free on the Kindle. That means publishing companies that used to make money off of reprinting frequently read well-known novels are losing a lot of that money to e-book market.

Week of 11/13

Last week in class we discussed several different topics concerning how the internet is effecting the world. It was really interesting discussing the deep web and how it can be used by hate groups and terrorists, like the Taliban, to provide information to their followers that is invisible to web users who don't know the URL for their sites. The topic of my article was internet porn. It was shocking to learn that 7 in 10 children have accidentally seen pornography on the internet, and many of those children were searching innocent topics, like water sports. That also brought up a discussion of what role the internet and search engines should play in protecting children from explicit materials.

blog for last week

I can finally post on blogspot again. Yay! I think it wasn't working because my friend was logged into his google account on my computer and I hadn't logged out of it. Last week we talked a lot about crowd sourcing. We played some fun games and learned the benefits and challenges that come with using a large group of people as a source. We also learned about verbosity and some other online games that contribute to a pool of knowledge as you play.

We have also been learning about cloud computing. I think I understand the concept, but I'm still not sure how cloud computing is really different from just about any internet resource.

10/25/11

I found the speaker's discussion of the role of the internet in business today very interesting. When I use google I often forget that I'm not just getting the most relevant results for my search. Businesses pay huge amounts of money to be at the top of key searches, and where a business shows up in a google search has a huge effect on whether or not that company will be successful. Considering that anyone can pay to be at the top of a google search, google is not as impartial or unbiased as it may appear.

Personally, I am not as likely to trust the pages that paid to be at the top of a search as the results that are just there because of relevance or popularity. If a business pops up at the top of a search I will look at it, but I will also look at ratings from actually people to make sure they're not just at the top of the search because they paid to be there.

fall break

Over fall break I went to NYC. While I was there the "occupy wall street" protest was taking place. It was really interesting to see the role of technology in the protest. Social media allowed enormous number of people to very quickly gather (at one point the estimate was around 100,000 in Times Square). The protesters were broken up several times only to quickly reconvene because instant communication via Twitter and other social networking sites made it possible to almost instantly reorganize.

Although the protesters were unified by social media, it was interesting to hear that most people were not unified in their message. Some people even argue that the internet has made it too easy for protests to take place, and that it is responsible for the protesters lack of a unified message. I agree that the internet made it very easy for just anyone to join in on the protest, but I found that the message of the protest was actually clearest online. Very few people could say exactly what the were protesting, but online there were very specific grievances, such as the repeal of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act.

missing blogs

It looks like two of my blogs from the beginning of September are missing. I can't remember what I originally blogged about so I guess I will go ahead and do some extra blogs for the past few weeks.

week of 10/15/11

This week we began the presentations. The Dumbest Generation and Against the Machine both seemed to take a fairly one-side pessimistic view of the internet. While I think there are some negative aspects of the internet, I feel that it is very difficult to argue that it is all bad. Like any other major technological advance, it has caused a paradigm that has profoundly and permanently changed our society, but that change is not necessarily a good or bad thing.

10/4/11

I'd never heard of 4chan before reading the article for class. It's really interesting how anonymity can bring out the best or, perhaps more often, the worst in people. I was going to check out 4chan but from how people described it in class, due to the open and yet anonymous nature of the site, it is very difficult to find anything of interest among the meaningless chatter and pornographic images.

I liked how the article compared anonymous sites, like 4chan, were compared to the psychological id, google was compared to the ego, and Facebook, the superego.

9/30/2011- Privacy and the Internet

The online search assignment this week was really interesting but sort of alarming at the same time. It was surprising how easy it is to discover where someone went to school, where they live, who their family members are. It really only takes a few pieces of information (such as a high school or hometown) and a name to discover a lot of information.

It concerns me that so much information about me is available to anyone on the internet, but at the same time I am willing to have that information out there because I wouldn't want to give up the convenience of the internet. Like they said in Blown to Bits, it's really too late to go back and take that kind of information off of the internet. However, it is important to consider how that information should be used as more and more details of our lives become available online.

The speaker Tuesday (Ray the weather guy!) really had some great points about nutrition. He uses a tool called FatSecret online, which is like a tracker for all of the food he eats and the exercise he does. I think it could be helpful to try, once I have time since you have to track every single thing to have accurate results. I might also try to get a pair of minimalist running shoes. I probably won't get the vibrams because they look like they would feel weird, but I would definitely consider buying some that don't have individual toes.

Weeks of 9/05 and 9/12

It was really interesting watching Digital Nation last week. It seemed to focus on more extreme examples of the effects of the internet, but I liked what seemed to be the conclusion that, like any other major historical technological progress, there are both positive and negative aspects of change.

According to rescue time I'm less efficient than 79% of people, so I think I'll work on improving that this week!

I wasn't too excited about going to convocation this morning, but it ended up being pretty worth it to see Christopher McDougall up there wearing his sandals with a gown. His story about the man surviving a 100ft fall from a tree was fascinating.  but I probably won't be climbing any sequoia trees anytime soon.

Week 2

On Tuesday we learned about computer networking. It was interesting to see how computer technologies can become outdated in a very short span of time. The game was also really fun!

Hon 1515 Week 1

So far I am really loving Dissecting the Internet! Binary code is a little confusing, but I think I understand it now... maybe?

Anyway, Dr. Wilkes and Dr. Parks are great (although I'm maybe a little afraid of Dr. Parks and her shooting skills?) haha. Can't wait to see what we learn this week!