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bboessen — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:57:13 CST

Welcome to the Austin College New Media Class Wiki
Here you will find the collected knowledge about New Media from the Spring 2007 Media Studies course on New Media. This website will evolve as we begin to traverse the topography of our contemporary mediated world. Below will soon develop several links to topics, concepts, and specific artifacts related to these new media, especially media that are networked, digital, and mobile.

What's New?

As the site grows, we will need a place to present major additions, like new pages. Let that place be this place.

Added 6 April 2007: A new page for all your thesis writing on the course readings. Each reading has a "questions" link underneath it for questions and answers for each one. I moved most of the questions on Wolf to the "Questions about Wolf" page, but each of you should take a few minutes to copy and paste your other earlier questions on the 27 and 29 March readings onto their "Questions about..." pages.

Added 30 March 2007: Seriously... put some games up on that Paidia vs. Ludus page... dispute me... I dare you - Daniel

Added 29 March 2007: [Summary of our discussion about the assignments has been moved to the page entitled "the Wiki and Questions Debate," which is also now linked from the Connections page.

Added 26 March 2007: On the Connections page, a link to the new space for posting questions (and responding to them) to the wiki.

Added 18 March 2007: The Paidia-Ludus Face-Off, a place to begin categorizing games we've played by their place along the great P to L continuum. If you disagree, move it to the "Contested box" and provide an explanation of why.

Networked

How have networked technologies changed the ways we understand concepts like "community," "communication," and "relationship"? Also, your Site Analyses are here.

Digital

In what ways have the various technological shifts from analog to digital media shifted our collective social, political, economic, and cultural relations with one another? Also, your Game Analyses are here.

Connections

This is a section for starting new pages about relationships between networked, digital, and mobile concepts we have discussed in class. This section explores what happens when an artifact, practice, or technology does not fall easily into one of our pre-fab categories.
Also, the Questions page is here.

Mobile

How has the introduction of miniaturization and wireless standards of various kinds encouraged us to carry our communication tools with us? What has this done to shape the pace and scope of our interactions with one another?

Artifacts

This is a place to catalogue useful information and analysis of specific new media artifacts. For example, we'll probably see pages here on Youtube or Apple; Lonelygirl15 or The Star Wars Kid; IM or spam. This section will be the most direct reflection of the interests of the class.
You can find the Paidia-Ludus Face-Off here.

Roster

Digital

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:50:12 CDT

Add your entries about specifically digital terms and principles here.

Analog: the opposite of digital. A continuous spectrum of values; a continuum.

Digital Video Recorder (DVR): A device for recording and organizing video content, similar to a VCR, but computer-based and often networked, allowing users to regularly download electronic program guide information to make selecting programs easier.
- One question about these devices is posted here.

________________

If you are looking for information on game design, you might start by looking at some of the online resources below:

Chris Crawford's early book on design may be found here. The introductory and fundamentals chapters are especially helpful.

This page is a clearinghouse of articles on game design. You may find some of them helpful as well.

I typed in "game design" into google and clicked on the wikipedia page. Take a look at the deffernt types of game design and scenarios that people have actually listed. Pretty interesting.

________________

Game Analyses

Networked

ijoshi — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:31:15 CDT

This is where we list and elaborate on the characteristics and consequences of the advent of electronic networks. You should feel free to add the concepts you find helpful (or aggravating), along with your reasons why, to the page as the semester goes on.

AOL Instant Messenger as it relates to convergence

AIM has been a form of communication for a lot of us for several years now. I have noticed that it was definetly more common in high school than it is in college, but why is that? I noticed that college life has given us a social environment that is ideal for meeting new people in person, and the need for AIM has kind of dissipated. But I also belive it has a lot to do with the idea of convergence.

We are bombarded with so many forms of new media and technological advances that we cannot help but approach things like AIM with less importance than we once had. Now we chat, use facebook, listen to music, watch movies through the internet, browse the internet, etc, all at the same time. It has taken some time away from using AIM on its own to the extent that we use to. But, the idea behind communication is still very prevalent through the internet. Now we are using facebook as our main source of connecting to other people. Does this have to do with or need to no longer use AIM, or is it just another form of AIM? I feel that all these new mediums are just other ways to aid in our sense of communication through the internet. (ijoshi)

Convergence: Fidler's claim that contemporary media technologies are merging more and more into one another (LitIA 39). We watch videos on our computers, read emails on our cellular phones, with fewer and fewer physical "toys" with which to access all this data. (I do not believe this term was coined by him, in conjunction with New Media, only used a central principle.)

Question: Does Shenk's concept of "Data Smog" (see below) make convergence more promising or more problematic?
Question: Was this term coined by him? Who coined the term "convergence" with regard to New Media?

Data Smog: Shenk's term for the fact that our ability to produce information (or, perhaps, "content"?) has outstripped our ability to process it (LitIA 158).

Question: To what extent is his choice of terms--"smog" especially--instrumental in shaping the way we end up understanding this development in information "signal-to-noise ratio"?

--our lack of processing information is also held back by the affects of spamming as well. In essence, the ideology of convergence links to the high potential for more "data smog", while also allowing more opportunities for spammers to infect themselves into our lives. As the president of Brookline, Barry Shein, states "Spammers are gaining control of the internet. Well if we have the ability to check email through cell phones, spammers also have the ability to "spam" through other technological media as well. Therefore, it would be safe to say that the newer the media, the more the maintenence. (rsororian)

Site Analyses

Questions about Sunstein.

russian-gestapo — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:55:48 CDT

Bucy 9-4
With the advent of Internet communication communities can now be interest based instead of place based. Society could fracture into little worlds obsessed with bombs, cars, or porn. Too many options, too many topics, too many opinions, filtering is needed on the web.(JohnMark Purcell)

WOW Funeral

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:32:31 CDT

Here you go guys this is the video of the WOW funeral I was talking about. Again sorry for taking so long to get a' postin' on the wiki. The first one has a little commentary and the second is a youtube link that can be enlarged. Caution bad language.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/17/funeral-crashing-in-wow/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gti6TClHx0w

Does the internet need control or not?

Ive got one for you- heres a website i found regarding porn an YouTube. In a way it seems as if the internet is being controlled to an extent. Too bad its the legality of most things that keep the internet in line...if even that. Do i see angry moms and new laws in the future?

http://www.storygeek.com/?p=23

this article shows why porn is not on video streaming sites such as youtube. but i do love how it is a "social" and "business" network. They are actually trying to keep it clean (rsororian)

Connections

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:10:30 CDT

Just a place to start recognizing and discussing connections.

After Spring Break, we had a significant discussion as a class about the role of the Questions and Wiki assignments. My summary of that "debate" is linked here (bboessen).

Information Marxism (?) -- This might be a good term to describe what Kaiti is bringing up in her comment below (it also may be the first time I've ever seen a page respond to a comment and not the other way around).
Marxism describes a set of theoretical and critical tools first used by Karl Marx to oppose Russian government policies in the 19th Century and encourage revolution. His work is often used today to critique practices of capitalism by a variety of scholars and critics, often drawing on the work of later Marxist theorists, including Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci.
Kaiti suggests that the multiplication of information brings with it a multiplication of information processing chores, often imposed on the working class by their employers. This "information oppression" as we might call it can be seen as yet another tool for keeping the working class from realizing both the extent of their oppression and their own power to bring about change (through Revolution, Marx would argue).
This is a provocative linkage between theories of new media and older theories of power, and one I invite others to comment on here.

--bboessen, 15 Feb 07

Connectivity and Interaction- plays a huge role in technology today. Probably does not relate to much of what Brett said above, but can contribute to the "connections" page. I think connections, in todays world, live better through technology. As for me personally, my best way to cnnect and interact with others are through online forums. I think things such as forums are way underestimated. They actually have a huge impact on debatable arguments. You can almost always get answers back to questions or concerns within the same day. The coolest thing is that they can be on the other side of the country. You always have the luxury of a diverse audience. (rsororian)

More on the idea of convergence: multitasking

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:36:51 CDT

So well all know that convergence is the coming together of different types of technologies such as computers and communication media. Everyone multitasks, but the question is, are we hurting ourselves be doing it? Do we become less efficient? Or do we multitask simply because we can?

Here is an article about multitasking, its actually the first link that comes up after serching it on Google and after the WIkipedia. http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html

I know multitasking has been around for longer than i can even think, but the significance of it now is that its getting embedded into society. I mean, i can remember when i was in early middle school and i couldnt understand how some people could listen to their CD players and write their papers. They would also be having conversations with other people while doing this. To me i would always be like "wow that person is kinda smart bc they can do that", or something of that kind. But in todays society, youre pretty much a loser if you cant multitask, but it not because of that that youre a loser. Youre a loser because its so much easier to multitask now. The idea of convergence in todays world shows that things like AIM, cell phones, the internet, Microsoft Word, video streaming, can all be done at the same time. The reason is because of the digital capabilities of all these media.

So i think, the main reason people mulititask is because they CAN. Technology today is prety much telling people that they can do 34987289 things at once. (rsororian)

Mobile

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:22:05 CDT

This is the page where you post examples of how Mobile technologies are changing the ways we interact with one another.

Cell phones and pagers are the first mobile technologies that come to mind in this category. Do we always need to be in contact with one another?

I think that people love and hate cell phones. They love them when they need to call someone and ask something but they hate them when someone calls them at a bad time, and this inevitably happens to everyone because everyone has bad times and everyone is always carrying their cell phones. We feel that we just need to get in contact with one another all the time. It is a convenience complex. People need to always pick up for us but we dont always need to pick up for them.

Sarah had posted this in the artifacts page but I think this is another good place to have the link so here it is... (cellis)

Cell Phones for Kids? - This is a really neat article about the different phones they have out there for kids, some of them are really nice! (schilmeran)

Cell Phones and AIM

Cell Phones And AIM

roz89 — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:21:04 CDT

So I was sitting in my dorm room during exams week, and someone- an anonymous fellow- walks into my room and starts telling me this great idea he has for getting through his exam. Now before i start, i just want to bring to everyones attention the ability to recieve text messages on your phone through AIM. The cool thing is that they read just like normal text messages. Of course many people already knew about this, but what i certainly did not think about were the possibilities of things that could be done with this ability. I mean, think about it, one person is out somewhere doing something, and another person can INSTANTLY send them a message wherever they may be.

For example, lets say youre taking a test, youre sitting in the back of the class and its very easy to get your cell phone out and use it. Who is to stop people from simply feeding answers to these test takers by researching questions online and instant messaging answers to someones cell phone! Or even more realistically, instant message yourself the notes the night before...resulting in the DIGITAL version of your history class. I mean, come on, cheat sheets are sooo 5 minnutes ago.

Of course, the AIM/cell phone relationship could be used for other things, but this subject specifically is what made me think a little bit. Things are seriously becoming digital all around us all the time. (rsororian)

Exam Cram-New Media

nwithers — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:55:53 CDT

I thought this might be of interests for everyone during exams week. I found this website called http://safari.examcram2.com/home , in which, if you join, you can read entire books online search content inside of them. This site links to another site owned by the company called http://www.examcram2.com/markets/index.asp?rl=1 which helps prepare users for tests and exams related to the "safari" site's content. Almost all of the content in the two sites are related to media and technology literature. Check it out and enjoy! (nwithers)

Artifacts

cgellis — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:44:37 CDT

This is the page where we link to the physical things (including media texts) with which we interact.

Paidia-Ludus Face-Off
Which games are clearly which, and which are you willing to give your life for?

________________

Apple, Inc.

Nintendo

Scambaiting

Nintendo8.com - Has hundreds of classic Nintendo 8-bit games.

Internet: So there's this thing called Internet...and the best part is, you can save yourself countless hours of extra verbalizing by dropping that pesky "the"--no more "the internet," now it's just "internet."

NumaNuma

Fake Name Generator - Generates a name, address, email (which I believe really works), phone, mother's maiden name, birthday, credit card carrier and number, credit card's expiration date, and SSN. Very useful.

Prelinger Archive : If any of you aren't familiar with this archive, it's quite interesting, especially if you have nothing better to do. It's a collection of older short films, songs, documents, 'educational/instructional' videos, etc. who knows, you might find that film from high school healthclass (I hope no one would want to, but I'm not here to judge). you can download the files for free, and they are compatible with the media players that i use..i don't know how much that says...

John Titor :Here is the homepage for John Titor an alleged time traveler from the future who returned to the past to retrieve a certain IBM computer that could rectify a computer coding bug that has paralyzed society in the future. It's an interesting way to see how people could effectively become someone else. Titor showed up randomly on some internet message boards claiming to be a time traveler, of course no one believed him. Over time Titor began to show tremendous knowledge of things to come. Some of his predictions have come true, however the large civil war that devastates the US has not occured yet. Is he who he says he is?

Digg.com: A social networking news site; stories are "dugg" by visitors/users and thereby promoted up the list of all stories; the most dugg stories make it to the site's front page, often inciting a "digg effect" in which a site will be inundated with digg visitors in a very short period of time. The creators/owners of the site produce very little of the content that appears on the site. Instead, visitors/users create links with short descriptions that can then be dugg by other users.

Check out Video games vs reality..(Ty)

Here's the WOW Funeral video I was talking about...enjoy.---Nathan

-This video is awesome.. in a bad way.. I could not help but laugh. Good video Nathan. (Ty)

Portals Trailer - an Impressive Half-Life 2 mod involving a mind boggling amount of spatial craziness

Electroplankton
Girl gets pranked by co-workers through the internet Click me... (Ty)

PowerPoint Spoof - This is kinda relevant and sorta funny so I thought I'd put it on here. -kmartinez

Morphable Faces - Making 3D faces out 2D pictures is pretty crazy if you ask me... - cellis

Cell Phones for Kids? - This is a really neat article about the different phones they have out there for kids, some of them are really nice! (schilmeran)

HP Commercial

cgellis — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:40:58 CDT

So I finally found the commercial with HP's new slogan... "The computer is personal again." I just thought that was interesting considering that we were discussing how one of mac's greatest advantages was the fact that their computers are usually more personal and user-friendly. It seems like HP had foudn this out and is trying to reach out to change that reputation. (cellis)

Here's the commercial if you want to see it...
http://www.hp.com/united-states/occ/index_f.html

Household DVRs

cgellis — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:40:13 CDT

In Frank Rose's reading, The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of Television, he stated that, "A recent Forrester survery showed that if 30 million households had DVRs - a milestone we're projected to reach in early 2007 - three-quarters of the national advertisers would cut their spending on TV."

Now I am not entirely sure how to tell where we stand on houshold DVRs or any of that, but I was wondering if someone was able to find out. I also can't find where to tell how much national advertisers are spending currently but the reading says that $9.3 billion were spent on the six broadcast networks alone in 2003. (cellis)

Video games social?

cgellis — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:39:47 CDT

Do you feel as if games such as Halo and Counter strike are social? Some would say no but I have heard about many people who feel as if this is a very social interaction. What do you think?

This is my question but I personally feel that they are not very social. Social in a sense that yes you are communicating with someone else but not social in the fact that you are not getting to know the other person or you are not conversating with them. All you are doing is simply playing a game against them. It reminds me of family fun in that you are obligated to talk to the other players but if you didn't have to you probably wouldn't. That sounds terrible doesn't it? Ok well maybe not family fun, but forced family fun.

I am a huge fan of Halo and Halo 2 and I play with others almost regularly. Every now and then my friends and I will have several people go to one person's house and have a huge Halo tournament. Evn though I can definitely understand why one would say it is not a very sociable intearction, I believe it can be. Of course there are things like XBOX Live which enable someone from playing with others without any actual interaction, I think if the game is played with many individuals in the same network, it can be considered a somewhat "sociable" experience. (cellis)

Paidia-Ludus Face-Off

LTownBreakdown — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:45:15 CDT

Kitten Cannon- P
Alterbeast - L

Battletoads - L

Beyond Oasis - L

Comix Zone - L

Ecco The Dolphin Series - L/P

Electroplankton - P

Final Fantasy Series - L/P

Galaga - L

Gunstar Heroes - L

Herzog Zwei - L/P

Katamari Damacy Series - L/P
-What does L/P mean? Take a stand! I say KD is Ludus--ultimately, you're playing to win, aren't you? (bboessen)

-L/P because in many of those games, while you still play to win, there are so many different ways to win, complete your objective etc.

Kid Chameleon - L

Mario Bros. Series - L/P

Phantasy Star Series - L/P

Shining Force - L/P
SimCity - P
Sims, The - P

Super Smash Bros series - L/P

Sonic The Hedgehog Series - L/P

Tetris Series - L

Rocket Knight Adventures - L

Vectorman Series - L

Zoop - L

Halo-L/p

Questions

LTownBreakdown — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:41:44 CDT

If you already moved a question/answer, delete it from this page so everyone can tell what is left to be moved.

Q:Perceptual and psychological immersions are important when trying to achieve a true gaming experience. Why is it that high levels of immersiveness causes strong emotional reactions out of some users? (Ty)

A1:

Q: Wolf draws a line between video games and interactive art because art focuses more on experience than on a set goal. This distinction forgets that games can also give a very rich and eye opening experience. Can games be art? Why or Why not? (Daniel)

A1:Videogames can be considered artwork. Wolf tells us about multiple types of art in this chapter. One kind is interactive art in which the audience is actually engaged in the piece they are analyzing. For example John Cage wrote a piano piece that “had no notes at all and consisted solely of the ambiance of the auditorium, including sounds made by the audience.”(Wolf, pg 48) Videogames are very similar to this piece of music written by Cage. It takes interaction and participation in order to fully appreciate the whole product. It is different from traditional art in that our interaction is directed down a path of some sort which leads to a common experience. Traditional art on the other hand consists solely of the experience. This experience is not necessarily directed or goal oriented. (Ty)

Q: Why in early games was Horizontal movement favored over Vertical movement? What did this mean for games of the time? (Daniel)

A1: Vertical movement was actually favored of horizontal in early vieo games because horizontal movement was more difficult to program. This was because, " the position of objects on the horizontal axis was limited by the machine cycle and writing of registers [so] horizontal motion had to be further fine-tuned through a separate register that would fill in the resultant gaps in movement." (WP Pg. 55)

Q: Wolf defines abstraction as something that has been "simplified, [reduced] to a few essentials and basic forms instead of trying to reproduce it."(48) He then goes on to say that abstraction is "both a necessary and inevitable part of the video game-playing experience."(64) This seems to contradict the trend of today's games of being more realistic and more detailed, often taking hours to fully understand how to play a game successfully. How is Wolf justified in saying that abstraction can be used to "expand and explore the great potential" of future video games? (murban)

A1: Sometimes the desired out of body experience is a little bit abstract from reality. This is how games are going to develope. People having abstract ideas and making them happen.(Ty)

Q: Presence is the result of what two types of immersion, and how are those two types different? (murban)

A1: Perceptual and psychological immersion. Perceptual is accomplished by blocking out the real world and just focusing on(for example) the screen mouse and keyboard. Psychological is the user's mental absorption in the world.(John Mark Purcell)

Q: Why does Wolf say that abstraction will always be an important part of video games even though representation is becoming ever more vital to video games' success among today's gamers? (schilmeran)

A1: Abstraction will always be an important part of video games because it can serve as an element within representational game graphics. Even though it is no longer a major feature of video games it can still serve such things as surface textures on three-dimensional objects.(p.61) It can provide the minor details in the big picture of the video game. (jstanley)

Q: Even though the terms presence and immersion are often associated with eath other, what is the significant difference between them that results in them ultimately being two seperate sets of criteria for analyzing 3-D video game design? (schilmeran)

A1:in immersion “the user’s actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment”. (Wolf, pg 69) Where in presence the user “accomplishes significant actions within the environment” and it has a repercussion effect with the social and the natural environment in the videogame. (Wolf, pg 73) Immersion gives us the feeling like one is actually in the game. Presence shows the environment that you are in the game by changing based on the player’s actions. In 3D videogame design they are separate problems. Immersion is basically the setting and the sounds and the graphics. Presence is the difficult part. Creating an interactive environment in which the environment will respond to the player’s actions. Example: a street light falls over because a player ran their vehicle into it. (daniel)

JohnMark Purcell
WP2
Q: Which general category do RTS(real time stratagies) fall into?

WP3
Q: Myst III:Exile had no avatar but what a huge success. What happened to that game type?

Q: In your opinion from personal views of the gaming world and notable games: Are abstract games more popular than simulation games? Why do you think so? Note: Notable character icons (Mario or Solid Snake from Metal Gear), which games surpassed their generation ( Arcade Pac-Man or Star Craft ), and sales numbers (Super Mario Bros holds the record for 40 Million games sold, the Sims holds the second with 24 million games and expansions sold). (ckaczmarczyk)

A1:I personally feel that simulation games are much more popular that abstract games. Today's most popular titles are simulation games. These days, the more real a game is, the more likely people are to like it. Some abstract games, like Pac-Man, were popular when they came out, and still are popular. I believe that this is so because of two things; 1) because people get a "nostalgic" feeling when playing Pac-Man and 2) because simple games like that have smaller file sizes and hardware requirements, which is perfect for playing on cellphones or over the internet. As phones have been getting better, the games on them have evolved and become less abstract, for example being able to play Rainbow Six 3 on your cell phone. (murban)

Q: All games have a goal that is trying to be achieved, whether it is a never ending quest to build the best and biggest city or to save the princess in 25 minutes. That is the point of any game, to beat the obstacles in your way to achieve the goal (including most every game from all time periods and genres). Are games with a greater sense of “presence” played differently than other games? Would Space Invaders be different than Halo, where they both have different levels of “presence” but have the same idea of game play: shoot the enemy before it shoots you? (ckaczmarczyk).

A1: Yes, it does make a difference to what extent presense is represented. Space invaders does differ from Halo because you have a greater sense of presence in Halo and you will feel more personal defeat if you lose in Halo because you are given a physical body with a personality. In space invaders, you are simply a space ship trying to survive a few attacks. (ijoshi)

Q: What caused the "decline of abstraction" and what type of benefit (or drawback) did it have on the gameing industry. (rsororian)

A1: As graphics and proccesors impproved abtraction became an artistic aspect of the game, not a necessity. Home console games were sold because of the naratives(this is how they differed from arcade games) and the graphics became a way to distinguish between consoles and games. This pushed companies that wanted sales to move more toward realism.

Q: Why is social interaction such an important aspect of gaming, and how does it increase the sense of presence? (rsororian)

A1: Social interaction is important in some genres of games, such as MMO’s or single player rpgs. One of the basic human needs just about everyone searches for in life is a sense of belonging. When a player finds a community to play with (whether it is through a guild on an MMO or just interacting with NPCS), the begin to fill this void. Since games are essencially 1’s and 0’s, social interaction is an important allure to keep people play games and to keep the field of game play fresh. The interaction can be created digitally (basically conversing with nonplayer characters) to create the appearance and feeling of interacting with a society. That is just part of the game.

Q: Do you feel that realistic or abstract games give a better since of an outer body experience?(Ty)

A1: Remediation is evident in new digital media as seen in things such as online literary texts or galleries of artwork. The new digital media is giving people another way of accessing the old forms of media. (murban)

Q: Why may abstract games not be learned as intuitively as representational games? (jstanley)

A1: Abstract games represent worlds that are being seen through the eye of the designer. They don't necessarily have to use the physics or realities or our world. A representational video game is supposed to act like it would in our world. So the car goes straight when you steer it in a straight direction. (John Mark Purcell)

Q: What do Durlach and Slater say contributes to a higher sense of presence and what kind of impact does this have on the participant? (jstanley)

A2: By giving the avatar very human like features and emotions, any way that connect a player to his avatar really adds to the experience. The higher the sense of presence the more involved in the game one is and the intensity of the game can increase.

Q: Andrejevic discusses that audience and user interaction with other people's work questions the idea of ownership. Please list an example that you find applicable to this concept of audience interaction and authorship. Does it live up to Andrejevic's conclusions on pages 129-131? (ckaczmarczyk)

A1:

Q: What are some of the negative effects of the fan fiction explosion and what could possibly be done to prevent these from happening? (kmartinez)

A1: Some of the negative effects: the author's characters being used in way not true to the original, copyright issues, inability to control what is published. The only way for owners of media being copies into fan fiction is to use copyright laws to the full extent. Unfortunately, slight names can be changed and the fan fiction author can claim these characters are not based on anything, but the author and the reader both know who is being referenced.

Q - How are autonomy and interactivity being combined in today's world and what effects could this have in the future? (murban)

A -

Q1: Desscribe the idea behind escapism in video games. (ijoshi)

A1: Escapism is the idea that a player can use the video game world to escape from their own reality through participating in activities forbidden in real life. (kmartinez)

Bucy 5-1
Q: If only those who pay a premium will be invisible now, in the future(the masses get what only the rich had) how will everyone be able to become invisible? (jpurcell)

A:

Q: How has the internet and its accessability affected you? Do you feel more effecent or do you feel you have gained no benefit from the use of the internet? Please explain why. (ckaczmarczyk)

A:I feel that my access to the internet has augmented greatly my worldview. Being in contact with so many different people and so many different sets of ideas has forced me to not necessarily become complacent, but accepting of a larger portion of Ideas that I may have never accepted being holed up in my tiny south texas town. The internet has generally streamlined many of my daily tasks, whether it be schoolwork, getting news, or finding where the party's at. Anyone not gaining from the internet has simply not dove deep enough to view the way it has been a blessing. But then again, those not gaining anything from the internet, may not have anything to gain. It all comes down to whether you care or not really - I'd love to be disconnected, but at the same time I have been connected for so long i've fallen and pandered to the way the net digests information and throws it back in manageable chunks. It's just too damn convenient. (Daniel)

Q: Do you think that judging someone based off of their google search is acceptable? Why or Why not?(Ty)

A: Obviously judging someone off an internet source is a risky endeavor. Usually the only things most people have viewable through internet searches are accomplishments, activities, or memberships. Judging one's entire character through searches is a broad and risky idea especially since what you see in these searches can curve the truth. As long as there are people out there who intentionally portray something other than themselves, the dangers of judging people based on their internet "profile" will be a real one and an unacceptable way to get the truth about people. (jstanley)

Q: As we grow more mobile and new media begins to influence our lives more, do you think the advent of dating sites shows the disconnection of society today? Why or why not?(Daniel)

A: traditionally, yes. technology will continue to break down our tradition time and time again, but the advent of dating sites actually promotes the connection of society. Whether the mates are looking for "one night fun" or an actual long term relationship, the sites still network with many diverse people. When you think about it, dating sites could actually help the diversity of the world, as personality tests will match people up by how they act, not where theyre from. (rsororian)

Q: Do you feel that search engines such as google contain benefits that far outweigh the negative, or do you feel that the potential for people to invade others' privacy through these searches poses a major threat to internet users? (jstanley)

Q: What issues arose from problems related likes and dislikes of individuals' characteristics and how did the creators of weAttract.com go about to resolve these issues? (nwithers)

A:

Bucy 4-3
Q: How was Aufderheide right about the future of NTCs? How does AOL Time Warner differ from his predictions?(John Mark Purcell)

Bucy 4-4
Q: What is Clear Channel and why do many people not like it? (jstanley) Clear channels shrink playlists and these channels have put many radio veterans out of work.(Ty)
A: Clear Channel is a company which owns 1200+ radio stations. The reason why people wouldn't like it is... the 'political' views of the company may interfere with the freedom of speech the dj's and the producers have. Basically, limiting of free speech and one company taking over too much broadcast space and having too much control. (ckaczmarczyk)

Q: Is Clear Channel manipulating the purpose of relaxing the FCC radio ownership rule? Has Clear Channel's domination of the radio market affected you? It has affected me when they canceled the Eagle in Dallas, and made it some cheesy love pop station. It almost made me puke a little. (ckaczmarczyk)

Bucy 5-1

Q: Does an interview or a blind date, to you, have any differences to you than a face to face interaction? Does it correlate with Neil Swidey's observations? No, because a blind date is an interview. Yes it correlates. We agree that they are very similar.

Q: When considering the Digital Divide and its importance regarding social problems in America, in what ways can the digital world help to end inequality? (Daniel)

Q:How do some people use the personal homepage to reclaim a sense of identity which discontinues with their previous one? (Ty)

Scambaiting

GM_of_OLC — Wed, 09 May 2007 01:05:31 CDT

Have you ever gotten an email asking for help transferring money or some other such request involving money? If you have, hopefully you didn't decide to help whoever was asking for it, because most likely, it was a scam. One of the most well known scams is the Nigerian 419 scam, where somebody contacts you about helping them to transfer money in exchange for a portion of the money.
But not everybody dislikes getting these emails, these people are known as Scambaiters. A Scambaiter is somebody who replies to these emails and engages in a (hopefully) long exchange, keeping the scammer just interested enough to keep trying to trick the person. This can sometimes take place over several weeks. The general idea of a Scambaiter is that if they are keeping the scammers busy with their nonsense emails and requests, this keeps real potential victims from being targeted.
It is actually surprising with what a Scambaiter can get away with, as the scammers are ridiculously greedy and will do almost anything to get their victim's cooperation. A common Scambaiter activity is to get the scammer to send a picture of themselves holding a sign with something the Scambaiter picked. Another example includes a Scambaiter getting a scammer to copy the entire book of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by hand. All 293 pages.
With this advent of new technologies, there are always new dangers to be aware of. Though email scams are certainly not something new, they continue to be a problem, mainly because some people just don't know of the dangers. Scambaiters are trying to raise awareness and help to slow down these dangers.

419 Eater: A website that contains much information about Scambaiting. It also contains exchanges between Scambaiters and scammers, many of which are very funny and worth the read.
(murban)

Questions about Parker

GM_of_OLC — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:57:17 CDT

Q1: How does Parker, through Nass' experiences, suggest that PowerPoint both "lifts the floor" but also "lowers the ceiling"? (kmartinez)

A: Parker suggests that PowerPoint "lifts the floor" by providing efficiently delivering content and distributing a lot more information. It "lowers the ceiling" by removing the process involved in how to get that information. (pg 211) (schilmeran)

Q: Do you feel that PowerPoint provides an added advantage in presentations, or do you feel that it creates too much generalization of the topic of the presentation? (jstanley)

A: I feel PowerPoint provides a wonderful advantage in presentations. Just because Powerpoint has a certain style and set-up that is reccomended (and easy) for user to use for their presentations, does not mean that is the only way it must be done. PowerPoint still allows for creativity and is an extremely effective way of presenting infromation digitally with minimal effort. (cellis)

Q: What does Parker feel is lost by giving a PowerPoint presentation as opposed to any other type of presentation? (schlimeran)

A: The "process." He claims that with the rigidity of PowerPoint presentations, one cannot see how their professors(or other presenters) got to their present state of thought. Also, when not using PowerPoint, people are more able to think freely and can think of new things on the spot.

Q: Is the popularity of PowerPoint really creating more boring people or has it just finally given them a voice? And if it has given them a voice is good that PowerPoint has given them a voice or does it just make their boring speech accetpable? (nwithers)

A:

Q: How do you feel that powerpoints have enhanced presentations? Consider the implementation of graphic designs and animation and how they help "distract" viewers from the flaws notable in presentations of business factors or statistics. (ijoshi)

Q: How does PowerPoint lead us to believe that information is all there is? (cellis)

Q: Some people, such as Sun Microsystems' chairman and CEO Scott McNealy are "banning" PowerPoint presentations. Why? (murban)

A:

Questions about Garfinkel and Shelat

GM_of_OLC — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:50:24 CDT

Q: What are Garfinkel and Shelat's three hypothesis for why there are so many cases of unintended disclosure and what are some recommendations they give to prevent these in the future? (kmartinez)

A1: 1. These types of disclosure are rare.
2. These events happen so often they are not newsworthy.
3. People are generally not looking for confidential information.
(Bucy, 310)
Some Recommendations include: sanitizing through erasing, overwriting, or taxonomy. Using degaussers, disintegrating, or incinerating.(Bucy, 312) (jstanley)

A2: 1.these types of discloure are rare
2. these events happen so often they are not newsworthy
3. people are generally not looking for confidential information.
As mentioned above the recommendations deal with sanitizing hard drives or basically any techniques altering date or erasing data. (ijoshi)

Q: What are some the techniques mentioned for sanitizing hard drives? Why is this so important to do? (ijoshi)

A1: Some of the inadequate methods of sanitizing hard drives are simply erasing via the delete button, putting in the recycling bin, or by removing from the hard drive. Also overwriting, although approved by the government, is still not fully effective. One recommendation is to "equip a disk drive with a cryptographic subsystem that automatically encrypts every disk block when the block is written, and decrypts the block when it is read back" (Busy, 317). He also suggests that operating systems come with a background process that erases sectors that are not currently in use (Bucy, 317). These are so important because sensitive information such as medical, financial, or social information could be extracted from old hard drives. All of which could be exploited by people with the intent to use the information for illegal acts. (kmartinez)

A: Another way to overwite a hard disk is to fill every adressable block with ASII NUL bytes (zeroes) (Pg. 312). (cells)

Q: When information is "erased" from a hardrive, where does it actually go and how can it be retrieved? (cellis)

A: The information does not go anywhere, rather the tag telling the computer where the information is is erased. The information is still there, but the computer does not know where the information is stored. There are several programs that can be used to find and restore "deleted" information. (murban)

Q: Even though there are many ways to properly sanitize a hard drive, why are so many being sold or given away with important information still on them? (murban)

A:

Questions about Barlow (B11-2)

GM_of_OLC — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:39:03 CDT

Q: What role does convenience play in the future compensation of creation? How/why does it play this role? (cellis)

A: Barlow seems to think that because the internet creates the convenience for anyone to get a hold of any work, compensation of creation would increase instead of decline. He says it plays this role because the internet is basically a much larger advertisement for the artists. The more a work circulates, the more the masses at large are aware of it and can buy it. (kmartinez)

Q: In hindsight what could internet programmers done differently in order to curtail the illegal distribution of music, movies, etc. that anyone with an internet connection and computer is capable of doing? (jstanley)

A: I think Barlow attempts to say that the illegad distribution of music and movies and such was inevitable. Even if the music and movies were completelt protected 4 or 5 years ago, by now there have been numerous technical loopholes that totally make copyright laws obsolete to these "acne-faced kids". He makes a bold statement when he says , "along came Napster. Or more to the point, along came the real internet". Thus Barlow shows the inevitable result that the internet has been responsible for. (rsororian)

Q: According to Barlow, the implementation of file-sharing actually enhances the relationship between the artist and the audience. In your opinion, is commercial activity important and how does it relate to file-sharing and the "relationship" between artist and audience. (ijoshi)

A: Commercial activity is important when we look at the music business for what it is... a business. However we as consumers tend to have idealized accounts of the music we listen to and the artists who create it. Making connections commercially seems like a lost cause. Nothing is connected, the money you make is taken from you to purchase the said CD. However a feeling of goodwill can replace this empty feeling if you connect the purchase of that CD to the benefit the artists or band experience when you purchase their CD at a retailer. Downloading music however seems to connect other consumers with other consumers while fans go behind their favorite artists back and acquire their new album. But once again what about the artists that freely distribute music? The relationship is complicated and involves many different perspectives. (daniel)

Q: Barlow makes the claim that it would be hard to "write a song" if you've never "heard a song." For Barlow it seems that it would be hard for anyone to create if we were not allowed access to copyrighted works. What does this mean for copyright? Should it be inflated and strengthened, or brought down a few notches? (Daniel)

Q: Why do you think that the "RIAA is unalterably convinced that the easy availability of freely downloadable commercial songs will bring on the apocalypse" despite that fact that CD sales have risen by 20% since mp3's began showing up online? (murban)

A: