Hw 15-ABCDEF 3-Treasure Hunting

To Quinn,

Just to start off, i really like your overall idea that technology is infact bad and doing more bad then good to us. Like how facebook is destroying our friendships and our addiction to technology is growing stronger by the day. The reason i choose to write the comment on this is because i really feel like this is your best work, you really start off strong by going in depth with you research on M.T.Anderson. Then you didn't stop, you really went in deep with your connections to facebook and how the technology we already we have is just like feed, we are only steps from having it already in our heads. That is what i really liked. It really brings our life and this book together. It shows us how we really aren't that far behind these people. Like how we have a "Feed" on facebook and how it keeps us updated on our friends recent activity, i just think things like that are really what are keeping us down. Some suggestions i have is to work on you grammar (small stuff), and to show the other side of the arguement. Show what good stuff is happening and how that can positively help us. You have some very contriditory ideas, such as how you said it was hard to live without talking to your girlfriend and similar stuff, but in your blog you talk about how stupid it all is. Maybe technology is stupid but what it is doing is genious. Other then that i really found you comment and especially this blog post to be very helpful in terms of seeing your point of view, which is something that i can use later on in this class as a start off point, so a million thanks.

From,

Sam

To Will,

You really have some great ideas, just starting off with homework 13 i think you really prove a great point by showing us how feed is meant to show us who we are and by doing that causing us to change, because if we saw who we really were we wouldn't be very happy, than in 12 you prove a great point of how younger generations are frowned upon but older generations are respected for the things they did. Like what we are doing is disgraceful and stubborn or arrogant, we are wasting our lives and loosing our individuality. But in one or two generations we will be heroes for what we did and people will remember us for all the great things we did. But until then we are the punks. Then we get to the crown jewel. Number 13 is a work of art. You gave us the full truth. As uncensored as it may be you showed us how teenagers live and how different levels of anti social behavior and the effect it plays. How being detached from technology takes away contacting friends and brings on solitude. Then gorging yourself in technology is the exact same thing. If you don't leave the house so you can play video games then nothing has changed. These ideas could really be put to use on your art project with maybe a deeper study of the pysche of the teenage mind. Some of the biggest spots for improvement is the depth of your work. You have great ideas but you don't explain them. Its like the rough draft, you need to complete your work. Just take the time and finish your thoughts before moving on. But your ideas really do encourage some thought into who we are as people. And how the little things we do have a spiderweb effect. So thanks for your thoughts will

From,

Sam

Hw 14 Second Text

I read the two shorter stories from the book Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson and main arguments of the two different selections is that we as a nation are becoming more sophisticated by force and dumber by choice. We as a nation are becoming more dependant on complicated shows to challenge us but more difficult video games require cheat-sheets. We are willing to pay big bucks for these games but are not willing to do any of the work that real life requires.

To be completely honest, if i was never told that i would have never thought about it. I would have never even considered how much different modern t.v shows are then the ones from a long time ago, or how i cant play a video game without cheating or playing on the easiest level. I want to be challenged when i watch t.v but i cant stand challenges in video games.

I mean these articles directly related to my life by showing me who i am, but the scariest thing is that the article wasn't just talking about me, it was talking about my generation and how we are all the same. We are all close minded idiots. No matter how hard we try we are all groomed the same way and have the same basic mindset in one way or another. Maybe i don't dress to impress everyone. But i do play a video game on an easier level to impress myself.

What i do disagree with is that the people who are writing this are the people who are from a generation and are talking down to us like we are less then them because we go about our lives differently. They read while we spent our time on the computer, so they are better, smarter and more sophisticated. The fact still remains that we will one day take over from them and frown down upon the other generation. Everyone has their weak point. Its all about how you go about presenting it.

Feed talks about how we are giving into Digitalization and how it will take us over. This shows how it is changing us, not for the better and not for the worse. Just improving some things while taking other aspects away from us. Feed shows us that too much will corrupt us and cause a total take over by the advertising powers. But Everything Bad Is Good For You is outlining how our lives are changing. Not scaring us into changing. Just opening our eyes and complimenting us while pointing out that some things need to be handled.

We are becoming more sophisticated and yet we are deteriorating into a more simple and less usable mechanic device. We need to start challenging ourselves and keep pushing our selves to thing harder, or we will become incredibly smart but have no drive to do any better then we were before. This will push us no where. We need to continue to be human, but on whose terms?

HW 13 Feed B

Art is in the eye of the beholder. It is meant to convey a message and what is so wonderful is that the message you get out of it could be different from the message someone else gets out of it. In Pablo Picasso's Scream (http://www.your3dsource.com/images/expressionism.jpeg) the message can be different depending on what you look at. If you look at the color you see fear and anger. If you look at his face you can see anguish or dispare. The mix of colors give you different emotions. Red is anger and blue is sadness. You see a man in the background who could be looking for the screaming person or just a person in a background. You don't know if the screamer is a man or a woman and there is no real emphasis on the face. That is left for you to understand.

Feed is a work of art. It conveys a message to the reader and to each person this message could be different but have the same overall message. One person may say their feeds are destroying their lives and shutting them out from reality. Others may say that is was advancing their society and improving communication. But it makes you think about things like that and that is what makes it a work of art.

In class today we talked about enlightenment. You said that you were more enlightened then us because you were less ignorant because you admit you are ignorant, and because you aren't as dumb as us. I want my project to represent enlightenment through technology because enlightenment isn't something you go out to achieve. It is something that dawns upon you just as a greater truth would. So i want my project to represent totally technological nirvana which may be bliss to us and hell to you. But if i am enlightened because of it then that is what i set out to achieve and then i am happy and satisfied with my work. That is all, thank you

Hw 12 Feed A

"All good things must come to an end," is a proverb. You want to know what feed is, it is about the lives of two teenagers intertwining and ending. Whether or not Titus dies is not what this book represents. It represents a modern day romance. After all you never know what you have until it is gone. Titus never loved Violet but she did love him. She saw what no one else saw and loved him for that. But in the end that didn't matter because all good things must come to an end. We live closed off from the beauties around us is what we are told. We are told that we don't appreciate the little things in life anymore and we are becoming a more technologically dependent nation.

I think that people cant make this argument because there is two sides to every point thats why no president is ever liked by everyone. Its hard to please approximately 307,728,417 people. Everyone wants something different. In feed they make is so that everyone is happy, they look at everything you do and compare them and "make your life easier." This book shows what would happen if our addiction becomes a problem. Implanting a device in someone's brain so that they can always be connected to everyone else. This book is very similar to Brave New World because they both represent a world where everyone is happy, either by choice or by force. In feed they aren't forced to be happy, the feed makes them happy so they are sealed off from the world. But to us this happiness is wrong because they are shut out from the atrocities that are going on around them.

What is happiness though? Is it when you go out and buy that new car? Is it when you make a new friend? Could it be when you have a rare streak of good luck and find some money? To everyone it is different. But most people aren't happy about your happiness if it isn't making progress. Because if everyone just looked out for themselves then no one would be happy because this world wouldn't be able to sustain its self. To be socially acceptable you cant live that way. Like 1984 or Brave New World this book is trying to warn us of what is "impending disaster." We need to be productive members of society, not mindless droids. Either way we aren't really free so whats the point.

Self Experiment

So for my experiment i turned off the tv and the computer and my phone on wednesday night. It was pretty painful. I could only read and do homework that wasn't on the computer. I couldn't watch the Twins vs Detroit Game. I missed a lot. I couldn't even listen to music. I don't think i could flat out quit technology. Most of it is necessary to me. Especially my cellphone, that is the main way that i talk to people. So if i didn't have it then i cant talk to people. I think that like most drugs that if slowly weaned off it i would be able to not use it. But for that one night i was struggling. I even went to bed early. Is technology taking us over? Or is it just reinventing us?

HW 10 informal research internet

http://www.somewhatfrank.com/2005/06/are_cell_phones.html

This piece links cell phones, which are our life line and blood and exposing some of their potential risks and hazards. Cell phone companies say that we can only absorb so much radio frequency energy without it being harmful to our brain. But what defines too much? When is too much? Are these life lines of ours going to kill us?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/are-mobile-phones-wiping-out-our-bees-444768.html

This is a blog about how like they are disrupiting our brain tissue, cell phones are also disrupting bees and killing them off. They are saying that the radiation is disrupting the way they see and making it harder for them to navigate and in essance killing them. So now my question is why all of a sudden is this happening? Why aren't the refriderators or freezers killing them because they give of 10 times the radiation that the cell phones give off? Is this part of some bigger plot?

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3805196.ece

In the first paragraph this story address some really interesting ideas.  It discuss how people don't believe the planes hitting the twin towers existed.  Then she addresses the Nobody Syndrome, which is a mass loss of personality.  Everyone is so used to reading everything on the internet and then taking what they know from that, instead of from people or friends.  So they adopt an internet personality.  Which isn't really a personality at all.  So if  we are all equal then isn't that what we want?  Or is too much?  Do we really want everyone to be equal or the same?  What defines equal?  When will this be too far?  

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Is google making us stupid?  That is the main idea of artical.  People are loosing their interests in things and because of that attention spans are shortening and what was once a great generation of learners and readers has become a generation of skimmers and scanners.  No one wants to read anything through and since that is happening we are loosing our knowledge.  We are learning more varity but less in depth.  So are we really loosing our minds.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

This is the story of the graffitti artist named Banksy.  He is famous in england and throughout the world for his stencils that question the society that we live in.  He leaves messages that are obvious but no one can say.  Or better yet no one knows how to say.  So if we loose ourselves to the internet, will we loose this form of art too?  What price is there to pay for creating something and saying something out loud.  Is Banksy the real life Anonymous?   

Hw 9

Thanks Will! That comment really did bring up some good points about how i could have improved it, as well as making me feel good about my work at the same time. I should go more in depth with my work, some intensity would have definitely helped me. So next time i could put some of my time wasting into a more intense form, but is reading really all that intense? I mean what defines intense? Better yet what defines a waste of time? Isn't wasting time doing something that doesn't make you happy? If i am happy while i am on the internet then isn't that what counts? Anyway this comment did help, thanks for using your time to help me out.