Blog 4-DTC 357: Stock: Conections?

This is kind of a difficult prompt, but I’ll so as best as I can.

To start off with an early quote from McLuhan, where he says ” Clothing is an extension of the skin”(36) I believe this is related to the reading because in some games what you wear can affect your life span. I know that in a game that I play, if I don’t have clothing that is for colder environments, I will surly die because my character freezes to death. This is a way that games incorporate real life problems into games, because of course if you’re in freezing weather, you wont want to be in a bikini, and if you were, you would suffer severely(debuffs).

Another quote that relates McLuhan to the readings is “Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another”(63) This is very accurate with the game world of the day because there are so many different MMO games out there (massively multiplayer online), or other games like Call of Duty and Battlefield that can involve so many people at any point in time, its ridiculous.For writing this book so many years ago, it is quite incredible that McLuhan could have had so much insight that he could have seen just how much connection one person has with another. Of course, it is absolutely more prolific than I am sure he could have thought with the invention of chat rooms, MMO games, COD, Battlefield, online classes, and even….MMO-Flappy bird. The ways people can connect with another over the internet(electric circulatory) is astounding in the least.

Just thinking about the ways one person can connect with another is incredible when you really think about it, for example, there are apps you can get on the droid and ios market that let you talk to random people, there are dating apps, there are games that have the ability to talk to other players online. To think that McLuhan could have even theorized so much connections between people all over the world is hard to imagine, so good for him in having such foresight. Anyway, that’s my thoughts on the topic, pretty boring post I think.

Thanks for the read.

Quin

Blogs(3) I posted on

Megan P: http://meganpetersonwsu.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-instantaneous-world-of-electric.html#comment-form

Scuba Steve M: http://scubamadrigal.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/blog-3-freestyle/comment-page-1/#comment-2

Blog 5-AMST 475: Bodies in Cyberspace

Ok, so to start off, I have been on the computer since 10 am this morning and I am absolutely worn out! So I apologize in advance is this post is as terrible as I feel it will be, but never-the-less I will try my best.

So, I want to start off with this “Are you FUCKING SERIOUS?!?!” I feel that our readings were some of the most bias, sexist, and ridiculous shit I’ve ever read. Not saying that we should not have read them, but the authors decided to neglect some important things. Those things are, for instance things like this:

or this:

or this:

Don’t act like the internet and pornography is only for men and us men materialize women in unrealistic and hard to attain bodies. The top 2 images are of “Firemen” and the 3rd image is from Abercrombie and Fitch. Do those images not sexualize and facilitate womens desires? Or how about the movie Magic Mike? That’s a woman’s Channing-porno, highly sexualized and, in general, most guys don’t look like that because that takes hours of work every day and eating habits that are far from delicious. But don’t get me wrong, I believe women are just as(or more) sexulized as are men. As for the sex tourism, with regards to Chow-White, how about the ‘new’ Rastatutes? Thats sex tours for women, R&R(Rent a Rasta), or Rastatutes, heres some writing about it. Chow-white “examined 22 sex tourism websites” (page 3), but they don’t talk about women on these tours, or R&R. I think this is wholly unfair because it makes men out to be devils and just want sex, like this guy they quoted “Just like the Ford Model ‘T’. We have any color you want as long as it’s black. I don’t worry about color. Some of the best lays I’ve had were dark-skinned girls. They’re all pink on the inside anyway”(page 6). How horrible does this make men look? Where are the quotes from the women “his dick was huge” “well obviously because he’s black”, or from a lesbian girl I know “I fucked a Chinese guy once, that was the last time, he had a TINY dick” I mean come on.

http://silentwhisperss.wordpress.com/tag/rastatutes/

Now, I don’t know the amount of women centered sex tourism vs men sex tourism, but it is most certainly in favor of the men. This is because women have been the sexual desires of men since the dawn of time, and as such men have exploited women since the beginning, the common saying is “The oldest profession is prostitution” I’m not quoting anyone in particular, but we’ve all heard it, especially when watching cop shows and cop drama’s.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1427987/worlds-oldest-profession-still-one-most-honest-china

But that’s all I have to say about that, those thoughts should cover most of the prompt except the last question. to address that in closing, I am not too sure what Joseph means by that. But my understanding would be, that men are in power over women and there is nothing they can do about it because dominance is ingrained within our society, and men need to be in control because when we aren’t we feel useless and powerless, or lesser when a woman is in charge and we are not. Honestly, I don’t have a comeback for that, it is common knowledge that men prefer and like to be in positions of power, our generals are men, President, many nations rulers are men, many CEO’s are men, in general, men are in charge of the big-boy jobs. And that right there, that little saying is it self sexist, why “big-boy” jobs or “big-boy” pants. Of course that saying has been adapted to “big-girl” pants. Everywhere you turn, men are the dominant force in our world ingrained with sexism. Just like “I’m not racist but…” racism is as prevalent as sexism is, and we have to change our minds and hearts to overcome those hurdles.

Thanks for reading, hope it wasn’t too terrible.

Quin

Blog 3- DTC 375: Your UI your way…mostly

“[t]he private, fixed point of view became possible and literacy conferred the power of detachment, non-involvement”” (50). He compares this phenomenon to what the invention of the vanishing point (or forced perspective) did in painting during the Renaissance (52), and then argues that “[t]he instantaneous world of electric informational media involves all of us, all at once. No detachment or frame is possible” (52). Discuss — with examples — how the user interfaces of video games you’re familiar with either support or work against McLuhan’s assertion, and why.

Hello There

Well, this is an interesting prompt isn’t it?

User-interface can be a dodgy part of any videogame, there are so many ways a UI can be successful, unsuccessful, good, bad, annoying, or perfect. I happen to have a high-end gaming computer that I built, with a large screen so I can view my games at Ultra high detail without worry of frame rate. This is important because some UI can take up the entire screen, the boarders, or none at all. I personally never got into W.O.W. but I do know that you can have skill bars, chat boxes, quests, or various other things on the bottom of the screen, the top of the screen and on both sides, effectively killing those portions of your view. For example, in this screen shot I got from the interwebs.

It shows  break down of what a player can have on the screen at any given point of time. This connects with McLuhan’s idea because it shows the “party” UI, where one can see who they are partied with. I have never seen a player who plays with others in a group not have the party UI up. Its part of the connectivity and group feeling that one feels when playing online with others. Granted, not every player will have this UI, but for the most part I believe this is about the average, considering my roommate showed my his WOW UI and it has almost all of those on his screen. That is an example of UI that I think is just too much.

But to counteract his argument, there are games like this,

if you don’t recognize it, this is the DayZ mod for Arma 2. The UI is extremely minimalist, I took this Screenshot from in-game, and I am in a party with another person, but you cannot tell what so ever. The little icons on the right are all that you get, they consist of how much noise you’re making, how visible you are, your hunger, thirst, blood level (life), body temperature, and if you are at full clip or not in your weapon. You get nothing else, this UI is dependent on the person who runs the server you play on, and for this current mod there are over 5000 servers who have their own variation on the UI. But the UI here is pretty generic. And it works for this game, its about survival, seeing all that is happening around you at any point in time, and, for the most part, you play solo, because everyone else is out for them selves and will shoot you on sight to get your gear. This game is entirely detached because no-one knows is you can trust the person you see through your scope, so instead of asking, most shoot on sight, and don’t ask questions later.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on UI and connectivity between people and video games. The UI can vary from just too much, to absolutely nothing and anywhere in between, our games can be played with others in a large group, or online but with your self only in a free-for-all manner.

Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading.

Quin

Blogs(2) I have commented on:

Elly H- http://ellynhoward.wordpress.com/

Nichio B- http://themadblackscientist.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/a-simple-matter-of-world-wide-communication/comment-page-1/#comment-24

Blog 4-AMST 475:My Thoughts

Hello Readers

Well, my thoughts on Office Tiger? I have to say, that world of out-sourced work was presented in a different light that I would have imagined it to be. Usually when I get a call from someone who is more than likely an out-sourced worker (deductions from accent) I immediately assume that they are there because some company is paying them a little higher than everyone else and they hate their job. I was a telemarketer for an entire 4 hour shift and I quit as soon as I was done. But to digress, I imagined out-sourced work as only telemarketing, not really branching out from there or even trying to think outside that box. But what I saw with Office Tiger was much different. I saw people who were more motivated than ANY other worker I’ve ever seen. I have enough experience with this considering I’ve been working various jobs since 2006. I can tell you that for the most part working isn’t fun, but I could NEVER motivate my self to work 12,14,16,20+ hour shifts no matter how much I love my job. I have had a few jobs I loved but a 20 hour shift, good god no way!

To get back to the “prompt”, I would like to discuss the technology we witnessed during the film. If you noticed, during the beginning, the computers they were working on were archaic at best, and as the film progressed, the computers changed! This might have been because each portion of the film was covering a different section of the company, but I did notice a progression in technology. Especially when they were in the “Photoshop area.” Did you notice what computers they were using? Mac’s, the Photoshop dedicated computers were Macs, and I have to say, as someone who has extensively used macs for Photoshop. I have had a easier time with PS on a Mac than on a PC. That however, is the only time I prefer a Mac over a PC. It just makes me wonder, are they using a Mac because it is a more complete and PS shop ready computer? Or is it because building a PC that would easily run PS would be too time consuming. I have a PC I built and it is much much more powerful than the school Macs in the AML and I know for certain that it was a much more cost effective venture to do so rather than buy a mac. That might be our American influence affecting them over there in their work place. To tie in the reading, Nakamura’s article uses her coined term, cybertyping. This relates to the out-sourced workers to me because before I saw Office Tiger, all I could imagine were a ton of tiny rows, cubicles, and unhappy people at their desks taking calls from angry Americans and Europeans. The internet tells us, and politics tell us, that out-sourced work is bad for our economy, doesn’t help the american people at all, and is COMMUNIST! But who really wants to do a job like that, where you’re brainwashed into working 14 or more hours a day and thinking its GREAT! I highly doubt that the American people would enjoy work of that magnitude. 

I decided to look up, on the Washington Post, what their thoughts were on Out-Sourced work, and here is what I found.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/outsourcings-net-effect-on-us-jobs-still-an-open-ended-question/2012/07/01/gJQAs1szGW_story.html

The author makes a few good points, for example “Outsourcing is merely an extension of the age-old story of specialization and exchange, whether it is done within a village or country or across national borders.”

Relevant? Yes, because if a company moves their call center, or usually undesirable job section to another country, they can save money and expand their company to another realm, in-turn opening up jobs here Stateside. So yes, we are losing jobs here in America to outsourced work, but for the most part, it’s jobs we don’t want to do.  

Anyway, that’s more or less my thoughts on the subject. 

DTC 375

I found this little blurb in the paper today, and thought it was interesting that this library is choosing to take a commodity, canned foods, in replacement of currency so their customers who have fees can wipe their debt free.

Blog 2-DTC 375: The Moniez? Physical? Fabricated? Who knows?

43-8 Go Hawks.

Ok, So as soon as Professor Edwards gave us this prompt, the first thing that popped into my head was “What would this scene look like now?”

It goes something like this.

A man, a quite inventive man was a digital mogol. But it wasn’t always that way. He was exceptionally literate on the computer and could code just about anything. However, after he finished his formal training he began to get so bored with the notion of regular work he decided to quit his job. This is where everything changed for him. He got into the digital underground and began to hack and crack facilities with in untraceable means. It started out simple, he set up an off shore account, somewhere crazy like Switzerland! He then proceeded to see if he could fabricate his balance, he started low, with a 5 dollar amount. Figuring that no one would notice a 5 dollar deposit from nowhere? Because usually when fraud happens, the victim is the user, the person, not the company or the bank. But knowing that he could be found out if he simply made money appear without actually having any, he decided to make his trail go through many many networks, so back tracking to the source would be tedious and nearly impossible. So every week he would deposit 5 dollars, then 10, then 20, then 100, and so forth, over a few years, his weekly deposits were nearly 4 thousand dollars. But he did it in such a way, such a tedious and gradual way, no one ever knew. His wife didn’t know, his kids didn’t know. It’s like the movie “Lord of war” with Mr. Cage, his wife didn’t know he was a weapons dealer.

Now, he has money, fabricated power, a beautiful house, and the ability to buy what he wants. This is where our scene comes in, His wife asks for money, he says how much, and she responds, instead of a gesture with her fingers and inch apart, she makes the gesture of about 3 inches. Meaning, “I’ll just take your card” he understands and hands her his credit card that has such a high limit he doesn’t care. And, at any point he can just make his credit disappear, so whats a few zeroes? They’re just digital, and he is the “king” of his digital empire.

This ties to what we have discussed in class, and our blog posts with respect to digital currency. Never in his career did he actually have any physical money in hand, he was able to make zeroes disappear and appear at a whim. When his wife needed money for shopping, he gave her his card, when he wanted to buy a car from the dealership, he used his card. Of which his balance would vanish from their records. His entire life revolved around the fact that he never actually made any physical currency and he didn’t care. He was “rich”. His wife and his family had no idea that their wealth was based on nothing, it was a “fiat” wealth. It was wealth that he deemed to have value because he made his accounts have money that didn’t actually exist.

PS- I was watching HULU and this commercial came on.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/75e2/bank-of-america-flowers

This gave me the inspiration for the story, because not once do you see him use actual physical money. Everything in this commercial was digital, from purchasing flowers to paying for a cab! CRAZY!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my story and the tie in with our lectures and blogs.

Quin

Blogs (1) I responded to:

http://meganpetersonwsu.blogspot.com/2014/01/technology-has-rapidly-advanced-in-past.html#comment-form

http://susancinderella.wordpress.com/

Blog 3-AMST 475:Filter Bubble (43-8 Hawks)

First off, Well done to the Hawks and their absolutely dominating performance. This is why SEATTLE has the NUMBER 1 Defense.

          Now, lets start off with the serious business and respond to this here blog post. I believe that a self selected filter bubble, is just as it sounds, well within our control. We can choose to put the headphones on our head and press play with our music, or we can choose to leave them at home and try to make physical contact with those around us. The problem with that is, what about their bubbles, do we want to infringe our will to talk by bursting their self imposed bubble. More often than not, we will ignore those with headphones because it signifies to the outside world “leave me alone, I am doing my thing” more or less. As soon as our prefessor gave us this prompt, I thought of a commercial by JBL.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/76E7/jbl-synchros-s700-headphones-song-by-classified

This commercial does a few things, shows multiple people in their own world with headphones, shows people not listening to their headphones, and shows the interaction between 2 people wearing the same “unique and different (hipster!)) headphones “clicking”. Quite interesting because headphones are usually a filter bubble, but this commercial shows a connection between 2 people in their own bubbles.

 

Another self imposed filter bubble is the hand held device, phones and video game consoles like the DS, 3DS, PS Vita and so on. For example, I went to PAX (Penny arcade expo) in Seattle last year, and I was “second” in “line” more like a massive 6 person wide queue, the first 6 people, standing shoulder to shoulder were on their own 3DS devices. Not making any sort of eye contact or talking to each other what so ever. You figure they would talk to one another given they already had at least 3 things in common, 1: They like PAX 2: They like and have a 3DS, and 3: They like video games and video gaming! But nope, they were in their own world, not interacting with those people who were within breathing distance of each other. 

As for some steps to ameliorate filter bubbles, let your friends and family know what is going on here! Show them the TED talk, show them his website, let them do some research on just what they are missing when searching on the internet for things. As soon as I saw that video, I went home and did a few searches for my self, I was looking for AR-15 upper receivers. I found 2 sites that interested me, but I knew that there had to be more out there. So i grabbed my phone and searched again, and again these 2 companies came up, I forgot that my phone (droid) has chrome installed, which I have linked to my home computer, so they share the same history and cookies! I went incognito and I indeed found other sites and pages with more information on what I was looking for. But before watching that TED talk, I really didn’t know how much of what was out there that I was missing.

I feel virtual campfires are a step in the right direction, to get people to understand one another and connect even if its via digital medium. As it stands right now, the digital age is creating a divide, at least I feel this way. Lastly, for the digital divide or gradation of inclusion. I feel that Facebook helps with inclusion as well as creates divides. It helps because people can make a “group” and others of the same interest can follow and recommend those groups to people they feel are within that niche, but at the same time, this can single out those that are not within that mindset. Making clicks and groups within one large organization further separating one self or their peers from others. Yes those groups include people you don’t know, but what about all the other groups, all the other pages, everything that has been filtered out because you are within the zone you know and are familiar with. Anyway, that is just my thoughts on this subject.

Thanks for reading.

Quin

And here is the link to my Pinterest Board on what I think Digital Culture is, and what it means to me.