Response to "Always Already New"

Only less than two pages into this article, I just had to laugh. Giltleman says that "the internet is wrong about it's own history," when she's referring to a mishap in a program that read a few scanned documents wrong translating the word "interest" into "internet". That reminds me of this "quote" that's been floating around the internet for a few years now...

And speaking of Abraham Lincoln... (insert awkward transition here.) Gitleman contrasts the documentation of history before and after the invention and popularization of the internet. Before the web, history was a record of the past. When newspapers were delivered, the "breaking news" featured within them was already days, if not weeks old, depending on if we're taking about pre- or post- Pony Express ;) Now, "breaking news," is just that. I can look up an article on an event merely seconds after it occurs. There really is no "history" to document, after all, the event could still happening while the article hits the newsstands (and by before it hits the newsstands, I mean before the post is published onto a website.) History, in modern terms, takes place in the now. History is no longer the periodic documentation of the past, history is the constant tracking of the present. And as far as digitization of history goes, it's hard to view timelines. Digital articles can be altered, moved to different websites, and all together deleted. After all, it's said that the average lifespan of a webpage is somewhere between 40-70 days.

Even in the internet's infancy, critics talked about the hard to call line between "the true and the false, the important and the trivial, the enduring and the ephemeral." (Well, I guess my addition of the picture of Lincoln wasn't too far fetched as far as where this post is going... this is a happy coincidence!)  The article even continues to talk about how is possible to cite an article off the internet, and your brain can be filled with complete BS. It is possible to find a website with literally anything on the internet. If you wanted to find a website on how to properly elect an octopus into office, I'm sure it wouldn't be too far of a search before an article was found.

The web offers plenty of uncertainties within citations. Citing a book induces no fear because even if a book is 50 years old, unless every copy of the book was burned in a horrible fire, it would be possible to track it down. Now, people run the risk of citing a website that will someday expire. In a digital world that is meant to keep everything accessible at all times, things sure are tricky to find.

Case in point: The internet is sketchy as hell.

Response to "As We May Think"

Ever since the beginning of civilization, people have worked to make their own lives easier. In essence, they worked hard so they never had to work hard again. To solve problems that in their own time were difficult, (but in hindsight are now considered relatively easy,) things like the abacus were created. The abacus made a mathematician's job incredibly easier, but the mathematician still had work to do. (Also, isn't it funny to think that at one point a "mathematician" was considered anyone who could at 2+2 with the help of beads?) And over time, the abacus turned into the calculator turned into the basic computer turned into a machine that can essentially think for us. Now, a mathematician is no longer someone who knows how to compute incredibly hard equations by hand, with a little assistance of an invention to keep his math straight; a "mathematician" is a computer who can do equations that are monumentally harder than any human could ever compute within milliseconds, all with a little help of a human controller, who's sole function is to enter the equation and press a big red button that says, "solve."

As Vannevar Bush said in the essay "As We May Think,"

"A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily preform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is promarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgement in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs."

Technology has made our lives too easy. No longer do we ask ourselves, "How do I solve this?" but rather, "Which program is best at solving this for me?" Soon, our whole lives will revolve around technology (more than they already do, we still do use our brains for some things,) and that concept scares the crap out of me. But then again, maybe that's because I just recently watched The Matrix movies and have a deep fear of a computer system trying to beat me up. Or maybe its because I learned they are no longer teaching cursive in schools, because it is now outdated and won't be a necessary tool for budding adults to need to know. Or maybe because of the fact that over 60% of children who are now kindergarten students, when they complete college, will hold a job that currently does not even exist. (I paraphrased that statistic and am hoping the percentage is correct.)

The idea that computers are taking over our society reminds me of both the giant brains in the episode of Futurama that try to kill the world with knowledge, and the lethargic, lazy, don't-know-how-to-do-anything-for-themselves society from the movie Wall-E. When will the line between whether humans control computers or whether computers control humans be crossed? Perhaps it already has...

Response to "Why I Blog"

In the essay, "Why I Blog", author (or blogger, so to speak,) Andrew Sullivan talks about the contrasts between writing published journals and writing a blog entry. Blogs are "spontaneous expressions of instant thought," where journal articles are rehearsed, reviewed and re-edited, (because you can never edit just once.) Blogs are "colloquial" and "unfinished," where articles are professional and polished. Blogs are "personal" to the author, who often fills his posts with emotional opinions about topics. Readers come to know the author quite deeply -- and often relate to the author on a friendly, equal level, where columnists are removed from their work, hiding any personal bias and sometimes not even signing their names.

The ironic thing about the contrast between those two styles of writing, is that while I'm sitting here typing my response, I find myself pausing, thinking, contemplating, deleting, rewording, deleting again, and carefully picking the words I keep. Which, according to Mr. Sullivan, or Andrew (depending on if I'm referring to him as the columnist or the blogger, respectively,) is the exact opposite of what a blog should be. If I were to write this response in "proper blog manner," it would be filled with intense emotional appeals, relateable humorous anecdotes, a few spelling errors (from typing so fervently,) and ultimately, it would be left without a conclusion. And for two reasons: first, a blog is a "draft" of sorts. The author hasn't had time to revise his or her work, and perhaps, never will.  After all, a blog entry is a snapshot in time, showing exactly how the author feels about a subject, and perhaps the author hasn't quite finished his ponderings yet, and the conclusion is to be posted in a different entry. And also, a post might be conclusion-less because as Andrew has pointed out, a blog post is merely the start of a conversation, or the budding of an opinion; it is not the end-all of all knowledge. Perhaps, the blogger is waiting to finish his thoughts, and is opening his post up for discussion among his followers. Maybe one of his followers holds the answer to the blogger's ponderable question that the author would have never thought of by himself.

To keep this post in non-blog fashion, I end with a conclusion: I hope I can learn to blog properly. Emotionally. Opinionated. I hope I can learn to read an article and know instantly how I feel about it, with little time wasted to discover my thoughts, hidden away. My high school English teacher always pleaded to my class, "Tell me you love this book or tell me you hate this book, but never tell me you don't know how you feel." I hope I can learn to know how I feel. I also hope to learn to let others influence how I feel, much like a reader responding to a blog post, I hope to let my peers challenge my views and in that, push me to see what my views actually are.

So, here's to a new year, a new way of learning. And here's to blogging.

Welcome!

As I sat at my desk trying to think of a half-way decent name for this blog that has been inherently thrust upon me, I hit a mental block. Yes, a block before I even started. Every name I came up with was either very, very lame, or very, very cheesy. (Or already taken, but that's besides the point.) As I complained my naming woes to my hallmates, one of them suggested, "Why don't you just call it "Lame and Cheesy?" ... And thus my blog was born.

So, here begins the digital documenting of small insights into the brain of a first year Communication, Culture, and Media major. Considering I'm a female art student surrounded by a sea of male engineers, hopefully my writings will be far more insightful and far less cheesy than the title of my blog.