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Saturday, December 06, 2003 |
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Sunday, November 23, 2003 |
Updates: Kara has been having some contractions. Just warmups though.
Now I've got to get to work! I hate writing papers. It makes me wish I was dead. It does not help that it's been snowing all day. Like if it was nice I would go to the beach or something. What am I going to write about?
I'm just brainstorming here - Technological criticism, Location Based Services... Social Contructivism... I want to write something about the effects of an increasingly internetworked world on public space. Cellphones, cameraphones, personal publishing (blogs) persistent lightweight presence. Can I connect them all together and use what we've been reading in class to critisize? I'm sure someone could.
The other day I was walking through the skyway in Saint Paul. I was writing a text message to my brother. I could have been in timbuktu for all the attention I was paying to my surroundings. I suddenly realized that I had walked about three blocks with out noticing anyone I walked by. It helps not having to worry about getting run over by a car (in the skyway). What is the culmulative effect of all this 'absent presence'? If fewer and fewer people are participating in the hear and now, do less things happen? This is something to research... I could startout with explaining the rise of mobile computing. Maybe a brief history... The adoption rate, of course it remains to be seen how well adopted the phone will be as a computer. It hasn't quite gotten there, although the cameraphone is soon to replace the DVD player as the fastest adopted consumer technology. I read that somewhere... But where??
Absent presence is one thing. But so is the infinite recording of the world. As I said, many, many people are getting camera phones. Blogs new blogs are being created every 13 seconds or something (another tidbit I need to pin down) Moblogs are popping up quite frequently. Anyone with a cameraphone can start a moblog for free. Well cameraphones are for rich people. I don't think so. They are very affordable. Anyone can set up a moblog at their local library. That's not to say people from all walks of life are starting up moblogs, but any obstacles to entry are not strictly economic. At anyrate, what are the effects of anyone being able to record anything they see, and making it available for potentially millions of people to see (Billions I suppose)
One guy who has (had) a moblog, said on his last post that it was boring the shit out of him. He's only going to start again if there are riots in Minneapolis. The point is, if something interesting does happen in Minneapolis, if there are enough first hand viewers, someone is going to get images and text, and it will be available to read on the web in minutes. Anyway, it seems like a good topic.
3:23:12 PM 
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003 |
"ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular
hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive
process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work
become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions
incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few
people have the resources needed to resist authority."
http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.htm
8:18:59 PM
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Friday, October 10, 2003 |
Classmate, Jeff Coate, was part of a panel presentation at the GIS/LIS conference today. The Wright County, and the Cities of Buffalo and St. Michael, are integrating map services for data sharing and cooperation.
My question for Jeff. How has this technology affected the relationship of the parties involved?
Other Geog 8291ers invloved:
Professor, Francis Harvey, presented about local data issues with NSDI.
Avowed technophobe, Rick Morey, was also there representing MnDOT.
I provided technical support to Nancy Rader, of LMIC, for her presenation about the MGMG metadata tools. The software wasn't installed correctly on her laptop. During the presentation, I had to install the Metadata Editor and Stylesheet the old fashioned way. It was harrowing only because the mouse pad was set so 'loose' that the mouse was flying all over the screen. I could barely get control over it.
11:07:04 AM
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Tuesday, October 07, 2003 |
If, as Feenburg says, technology is subject to the same interpretation and criticism as Art, Literature, etc... Then tell me, how do you interpret the Segway?
New places are already "segway friendly" because of ADA. Segways and wheelchairs go pretty well together. So design isn't really an issue, as far as segways are concerned.
How about obesity though? Obviously, the heritage foundation doesn't agree with findings by Smart Growth America that sprawl and obesity are linked. Then why are we so fat? Diet, yup, that's part of it, but sitting around all day, at the office, at home in front of the TV, and in cars is a big part of it.
10:15:46 PM
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Saturday, September 27, 2003 |
Psychogeographical Markup Language. Via Social Fiction : "PML is a protocol that contains transferable & unified metadata about space recorded during psychogeograhical drifts. PML is the name of the data-structure behind the psychogeogram: the diagrammatic representation of both informational, physical & emotive aspects... [icon's blog]
Here is a site that will require a couple of visits to wrap my head around: http://www.socialfiction.org/index.html
10:26:17 PM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003 |
Bowers makes a well put point on the fallacy of the unbridled enthusiasm (apologies to Kramer) of the computer age. He quotes Larry Elison, "by combining all information - numbers, text, sound, and images - in digital form, and by making available everywhere, and by making it infinitely manipulable, the information highway will utterly change our lives."
He also cites Gates, "... It will relieve pressure on natural resources because an increasing number of products will be able to take the form of bits rather than material goods"
Bowers goes on to point out that if they actually looked at the data (numbers, text, sound, and images - in digital form), they'd see that in the next twenty years, we could be looking at an ecological catastrophe in natural resources from fisheries to forests.
By the way my ecological foot print:
If everyone lived like me we'd need 4.9 planets. It's all the meat that's killing my score. yum yum...
12:27:22 AM
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Among many things Bowers talks about High status knowledge vs low status knowledge, these correspond to low context knowledge and high context knowledge. Basically high status low context knowledge is that which you learn at school, and in books. Low status high context knowledge is that which you learn from your mentors (Mothers fathers etc.)
Bowers says the elevation of low context knowledge (hence the name) reduces the importance of high context knowledge. It is high context knowledge that leads to an economically sound lifestyle. Local knowledge is replaced with data (low context knowledge).
I say sadness because this is the lifestyle I would like to lead, but basically I'm afraid too, it is an alternative way to live. I'm not afraid to be different. What I'm afraid of is that this is an age old story. Hunter gatherers live with loads of high context knowlege, in harmony (ideally) with their environment, and with a low ecological foot print. Agricutluralists live a lower context lifestyle. However they displace the hunter gatherers who live at a lower density then the agriculturalists. Industrial revolution over agriculture. Virtual culture over industrial. I'm not saying it's good, quite the contrary. My understanding is that those hunter gatherers had hours of free time everyday, that's my bread and butter. This site has more info about agriculturism vs hunter gatherers http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/342WorstMistake.htm
12:07:22 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Matt McGuire.
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