emergence

Last week we read the introduction and chapter 1 in the Steven Johnson book "Emergence." basically, emergence is higher level rules or orders being created through low-lever rules through behavior and interactions. The best example he gave of emergence was an ant colony. The ants all have their specific jobs, most notably protecting the “queen,” they do without any other ant directing them and all of those ants doing those jobs creates an extremely efficient community that is created from the bottom-up.

A more human related example of emergence can be seen in software and on the internet with sites like wikipedia. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, making it a bottom-up program. Another good example that we worked with in class are the recommendations at amazon.com. When you create an account and start adding different products to your wish-list such as books, dvds, or music, amazon makes connections with other products they think you would like and make recommendations. I was pretty surprised how good it was with recommendations for myself. I also like that if something you don’t like shows, up you can remove it and amazon remember that continue to factor that choice in for future recommendations.

dreamweaver workshop

i decided to go to a dreamweaver workshop for class. we basically went through how to make a webpage, make links, put in pictures, upload to mywebspace, and use the css in dreamweaver. overall it was pretty much the same as what we did in class. the only thing i wasn't really familiar with going into the class was how to use css. i would say that part was really the only useful portion of the workshop as far as learning something new. already being familiar with dreamweaver going into the class made it boring at times but it was still good practice to go over all of the basics again so hopefully the process continues to get less time consuming.

non-place

i ride the great metro buses pretty much every day so i figured that would be a good non-place for me to observe. i've always felt a little weird standing around with a bunch of people waiting for a bus. pretty much everyone keeps to themselves. yesterday the people there were listening to ipods and reading books. there are occasiosionaly people who talk to each other but that seems to be very rare. i've always thought to at least learn the names of the people i see at the bus stop over and over but that rarely happens because people always seem so serious with a 'don't bother me while i wait for my bus' look on their face. i feel like when you actually get on a bus people get even more protective of their personal bubble even though you are closer together. it's basically an unwritten rule to fill up each individual row and every other seat first before people will sit directly next to each other. i've had people come sit right next to me when there are still other seats wide open and have thought to myself 'why are you sitting here, don't you know anything about buses?' so it seems that even though bus stops and buses are very public places, there is very little interaction between the people who spend parts of their day there.

Best song of all time

The other day i was reading Brian Anderson's blog. He is the new play by play man for the brewers' tv broadcasts this year (apparently i can't help but mention the brewers in every non-directed post). At the end of his most recent post (from march 26) he posted a link to youtube where there was a clip to CCR performing their song "Midnight Special." This really didn't mean much to me, but for some reason it reminded me of "Hotel California" by The Eagles, so i searched to see if they had any clips of that song being performed. They did, obviously. So I watched it and i came to the realization that this is the best song of all time. I really like The Eagles but they probably aren't even in my top five favorite bands of all time and I think most people would probably say a song by their favorite band is the best ever, but for whatever reason, Hotel California just tops everything i've ever heard, which i think is a lot. I would venture to say that if I was stranded on a desert island and could only listen to one song the entire time it would have to be Hotel California. Maybe it's just this video that made me feel this way, with the 70's hair and mustaches, and of course, Joe Walsh's amazing guitar playing faces. I wish I could provide better reasoning, but I think the best proof is to just go watch the video. I apologize for not just posting it on here, but for some reason youtube won't let me set up my blog to allow me to do that. So here is the link: Hotel California. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

Turkle Article

After our discussion in class last week about the Sherry Turkle piece "Identity Crisis" I was intrigued by reading some of the other blog posts about it so I figured I would do one too. Turkle focuses on the use of MUDs or multi-user domains. This includes games like World of Warcraft. I had a couple of friends in high school that played that game and I remember my other friends and I making fun of them endlessly. I personally have never taken part in any MUDs, unless you count playing on yahoo games. In the reading I was really surprised to hear that people created characters out of multiple aspects of their personalities and would have multiple characters. I guess it’s just a whole other world that I had never heard of or thought about.

I was very interested in the story about the girl that had lost her leg and used a character with only one leg to help her cope with her own loss. Through meeting other people who accepted her character with one leg online, she grew more comfortable with herself and it helped her gain confidence out in the world of real people. To me it’s really a good story and I’m happy that she found a way to deal with her loss and get comfortable in her own skin once again. I’m sure there are tons of stories like hers. It seemed to be fairly split among the class on the question of these MUDs having a positive or negative affect on society. I think my opinion lies somewhere in the middle.

I certainly think that people need to be able to get out and communicate with other human beings on a face to face basis and being online all the time with your 15 different characters can definitely be a hazard. But I also believe that every person should be able to do what makes them happy and makes them feel comfortable. If a person chooses to spend their free time online, and as long as it is hurting no one (other than, potentially, themselves), I have absolutely no problem with it. I believe what is most important is to find a balance between the two worlds. A person needs to be able to be themselves everywhere they go, whether it is online or at the grocery store and hopefully they feel comfortable doing that. I think the perfect example of that is the story of the girl that lost her leg. Through spending probably way too much time online by most of our standards, she was able to feel like herself again and able to appreciate herself enough to know other people could do the same outside of the internet. There were probably other ways she could have arrived at the same point, but using an online character was what she felt most comfortable with at the time and it obviously worked. It doesn’t really matter how you get there as long as you get there. Though she may still spend a ton of time online, she can also go out and be a happy member of society, and that is the most important thing.

sampling

I found all of our talk about sampling and copyrights very interesting and it really got me thinking about my views of sampling and some memorable and interesting cases of copyright issues in music. My view on sampling has changed over the years and it will most likely continue to change. Before a few years ago I was always very much against music that was obviously sampled. I always considered what an artist wrote to be his/her own and to recognized as his/her own. I never put much thought into how much can be sampled before copyright laws are violated. A good example of obvious sampling is the Vanilla Ice usage of the music to the Queen/David Bowie song "Under Pressure." Anyone who listens to both will automatically recognize that it’s the same and if you’ve seen the VH1 Behind the Music on Vanilla Ice and heard his argument saying they are different, you’re heard one of the dumbest arguments of all time. It’s the same, and what bothered me most about it is the fact that Vanilla Ice is fighting that it is the same. If you are going to use the work of someone else, at least give them credit for it. It’s a losing battle, people are smart enough to figure it out and you just look stupid for trying to convince us otherwise.

Another case I’ve always found interesting is the lawsuit filed against John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR). He was actually sued by his record company for plagiarizing himself. It’s probably the most ridiculous case I’ve ever heard of as far as music copyrights go. Every band and artist develops their own unique sound, at least the good ones do and that’s all this case was. The music in question sounded like John Fogerty but if you actually listen to it, the disputed guitar part wasn’t even close to being the same, which was eventually the opinion of the court. I personally don’t see how you can ever plagiarize yourself as a musical artist. I personally believe that if you want to use the same music for every song, you have every right to do so. I don’t think it will make you very much money, but if that’s what you want to do then do it.

A case of sampling that completely made me question my views was from DJ Dangermouse who created the Grey Album. It is one of the coolest things I’ve ever listened to. The Grey Album is the lyrics of Jay-Z’s Black Album combined with music from The Beatles White Album. When I first heard of it through a friend I thought I’d want to shoot myself because I’m a huge fan of The Beatles and the thought of someone sampling their music and combining it with anyone else’s was scary. Then I actually listened to the grey album and was amazed. It’s a perfect example of combining old and new to create a new form of art/music. This album made me completely question my view of sampling. I think the fact that it was so good is what made me change my mind. So, I basically have a pretty confused view of sampling. I like having people’s music protected so others have to use their own creativity, but some very creative things can be done by using other people’s music in a way it wasn’t intended.

Coolhunt

What's cool these days? I think it's hard to tell in a place like Madison, WI during winter. I didn't really have time to sit in one particular public place and observe, so most of my observations were mad around campus, in class, on the bus, that sort of thing. Doing that i saw quite a few trends. Like i said, I'm not sure anyone in Madison at this time of year would be considered a hub, I think a lot of what people where are out of necessity to keep warm rather than to look cool. That said there are still some trends that I've noticed even before doing a coolhunt. I would say the most popular winter jackets on campus are either north face or columbia brands. I've seen a ton of both. There is also an overabundance of weird looking fuzzy boots among the female population on campus. From what i hear they are very warm and comfortable, but i can't help but think some of them still look ridiculous. Other than those two trends, it seems practically everyone has an ipod or some sort of mp3 player, myself included. I've also noticed the razr phones seem to be the cool thing to have.

I can't think of any difference between something being cool vs. a fad. Fads, while they last, are what people think is cool. I don't think that necessarily makes everything that's cool a fad, but i'd say everything that is a fad is cool, at least to most people. As i said before i'm not sure there are many hubs in madison as far as fashion goes, at least for anything that doesn't have bucky badger on it, though i would argue that if it doesn't have bucky, it's probably not worth wearing. I would say some of the fashion trends are brought by students from other parts of the country, but most are just what have sold well in places like chicago, twin cities and maybe milwaukee, due to the similar climates because lets face it, for most of the year people in this part of the country base what they buy and wear on whether they will get frostbite walking to class or going to get groceries.