Imagine for a moment there is an intelligent being who one day got bored and decided to create something that wouldn't just lie there...it would move around, reproduce, evolve in totally unpredictable ways, becoming years down the road who knew what for it had infinite possibilities.
We'll call that being God and his creation Life.
Seriously though...Whitelaw's article about artificial life - isn't that essentially what we are trying to do? All life is creative in some way - reproducing, shaping its environment: that's what it is to be alive. But to make a creation that is not just a copy of ourselves that is capable of the same thing...well that makes us Gods.
Not that there's anything wrong with that :)
If we are to make a creation and truly want it to be a type of Life it has to be something that will be self evolving, unpredictable, with an unknown end. We, as its creators may be able to interfere in its development, but if it is not at least somewhat uncontrollable, then it is not really life.
Whitelaw refers to this type of unpredictable development as emergence. Traits and aspects emerge that were never planned and may in fact seem spontaneous.
Much of our own evolution did not occur slowly. A mutation can achieve what thousands of years do not. If it is a poor mutation, it generally dies out quickly, but if it is an advantageous one and can be replicated in the next generation, it will continue on evolving the species by these little evolutionary hops until the end result may even be completely foriegn from its origin.
Do we want to create life? Why not? As I theorized above, it seems to me that all life seeks to create something, adapt its environment, etc. We as humans are a particularly curious and interfering lot...why not want to make a form of new life?
And virtual life makes complete sense, really. We have to start with our own understanding of the world because there is not much else, but we can't just replicate ourselves as that is just as easily accomplished with a few minutes of biological coupling followed by 9 months of gestation. Instead to create new life it must be something separate and novel.
The virtual realm with its ability to both interact with us on a meaningful and understandable level and also its virtual alienness seems perfect.
Is creating new life possible? Quite possibly. We don't know we can't...we get closer all the time.
Is it a wise thing to do? Well, new life owes its creator for its existence whether it appreciates it or not. But it is quite possible new life could evolve into something dangerous and scary and incompatible with its maker.
The creation might turn against its creator; we are not invincible, though we are playing at being Gods. But if we were created, could we also kill our God? Some would say we already have...
Could our new life live side by side with us? Maybe...it seems possible. Can we live side by side with our God? Hmmm...well there's a religious question for you. But it's not something we can really be familiar with because most of us don't see God as controlling and interfering with everyday life. Regardless of religion, most of us believe our God has allowed us at least some degree of autonomy. So we might be able to do the same...culture our life but then remain removed from it, aloof.
Or...maybe, just maybe we could wander a brave new world together, remaining human, interacting with intelligent machines who in turn share our world as equals (rather than a separate world where we do not interfere) and have freedom to live in it with us.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Assignment Blog: Week 6
Gosh, is it really week 6 already? Huh...how'd that happen?
Anyway...well, this week is a bit hard to write since it feels like last week's blog entry adressed a lot of the same themes, but oh well...
*L* plus I've procrastinated starting this...because I've been too caught up in my own on-line life. It's not as gripping as it once was, but maybe I'll talk about that.
Of course I'm not actually going to introduce you to my online self - as others feel, my privacy is important. I think back to those students who get in trouble because of things on FaceBook and MySpace and articles about how such things can even haunt a person when trying to find a job, or attracting stalkers, etc.
But, neglecting the Cyborg Manifesto, I do sympathize with many of the people described in the other two articles.
The nice thing about an online life is twofold - (1) it's possible to reinvent oneself. It's hard not to have a bit of the RL personality come through, but nevertheless physical details, socioligical info, etc. are fluid, not set. It's possible to express parts of ones personality that can either only happen on a fantasy realm or that are contrary to the rl face. And more importantly it's possible to experiment and feel safe doing so. (2) You can chose who you associate with. It's possible to find groups of people interested in a very narrow topic whereas in rl it may be hard to find even one due to geographical limitations. It can also allow for a great variety - instant association with people in different situations and locations who one would not otherwise have the opportunity to meet.
My own online life is very like that...actually, I don't play a character per se. Rather my alter-ego is a reflection of my real one...just a much more opinionated and uninhibited one. *L* and it's so hard not to just write the name...It's true that when I'm writing as Amber speaking about my other life, I often refer to her in the 3rd person. She is me, but outside me. (In fact, she may not even be a she...I once participated in a study where over 90% of people thought I was male based on my vl name and people outside the fandom often assume I am male unless I tell them otherwise *L*). She hangs out with a group of primarily women aged 17-60 who are writers, united by love of a certain tv show. But we are much more than that...we tend to share thoughts, ideas, little stories from our rl that our virtual ones can examine. But through our stories we can explore much, much further all sorts of ideas and actions, letting the characters we write do those things we are curious about, but do not, ourselves do. In a way...those are also virtual lives, more akin to the the game lives described in the article.
But even so, it can be incredibly demanding and time consuming. I recall applying to grad school. I had to go "on sabbatical" for 2 months just to have the time...complete with a going away party...allowing myself to be back on my forums only on my birthday. Yes, my online life is a bit different than the gaming lives...but it has many of the same elements. exploration, friendship, getting involved in the lives and problems of others and talking over bits of mine that i wouldn't dare mention to most of my rl friends...sometimes ABOUT my rl friends *L* It feels safe...there is a freedom of participation and association. Friending and defriending is at will, the virtual life can be entered or exited on a whim. Friends are made from common interests and lack of unwanted judgment. Though one does start to value those online friends enough to still develop a code of behaviour so as not to lose them, similar to rl.
Another activity I like participating in is watching ljdramaz or "kerfluffles" from the sidelines...fights in the fandom, if the terminology is unfamilar. There's a voyaristic pleasure from watching those even though they are sometimes quite horrid. There is one I recall...
W, very popular writer in the fandom, but one with fairly low self esteem wrote a fic (story) for a ficathon (where authors write stories for other authors based on requests) wherein the demeanour of a character named Oz was compared to a blue raspberry Popsicle. kk, a nosy little bitca, read the story and noted that her friend gl had written a story with a completely different plot a month earlier featuring Oz EATING a blue raspberry Popsicle. The P word...Plagerism flew. And W was horribly upset and others got involved. Sides were formed, thousand word essays were written, people who had never met were suddenly the best of friends, and those who had been busom buddies now split in two. One of the more interesting things that came to light was that gl had a habit of breaking up past friendships by subterfuge and also of borrowing large sums of rl money through paypal and never paying it back. People who had split due to her meddling years ago were now talking and realizing this and reunited...yet kk and gl were popular enough that others stayed with them. Nevertheless by the end of the kerfluffle, our corner of the fandom was forever reshaped.
A very good example of this is also illustrated by a book sold at the UW bookstore (one of only about 5 venues) called "When the Fan Hits the Shit" about an international scam involving the Lord of the Rings fandom that started out with a pair of online fans in the same forum i roam (LJ - livejournal) and ended up defrauding even the actors from the movie.
Anyway, the point is that virtual lives and real lives can be equally engaging, and can get incredibly tangled. One thing that I found interesting in the pdf article was the comment one person said about having multiple lives in multiple windows, the rl only one of them...and often not the most interesting. I often feel this way myself...which always seems just a bit sad. How can text seem so much better? Huh. Back to the Ryan article about text = vr i guess.
The one bad thing about online lives is when they die. Because it's such a fluid forum, sometimes people just...disappear. Often they are missed, but no one knows...where did they go? There's often not the satisifying finality of a body. Just a missing url or a blog that hasn't been updated in ages. But sometimes, virtual lives do end. People announce they are gone (though they sometimes come back) and that's always jarring. In our fandom it's called psueocide, and it's really frightening how much such a thing can cause the others in the fandom to mourn as one of our own is lost to the demands of a rl we never knew...
The other thing that has occasionally happened (why many of us have at least one rl contact) is that a person will die for real and the fandom finds out about it. I remember the first time that happened...and that was the creepiest thing of all...because I found out the person had died before I ever read their blog. Friends on my flist (friends list) were mourning so I went to visit the blog and right there at the top was a post by a cousin saying the person had died in a car crash. Of course we have no way of knowing the truth of that, but we assume it's real and it certainly feels that way. So I was able to meet her the day after she died, scrolling through posts of the weeks of her life, her thoughts, art she had done, stories she had written, silly, colorful little things...of a person who no longer existed. I even wrote a few comments on entries...ones that she would never receive. Very, very weird. In the rl people often just die. They might leave a few pictures, they might leave the products of their lives, novels, paintings, businesses, but short of a diary (which is private) there is no public log of day to day thoughts...in the virtual world, that's exactly what there is. Rather than looking back and reviewing you feel like you can in fact meet that person. In rl you meet people who are alive. In vl, you can meet anyone who has ever been online. Even though that person is no longer there...
In fact...here is the post I wrote that day (names truncated to protect my own vl):
5:36 pm - Not even sure what to put here....
Huh.
Well, I'm friendslocking this and disallowing comments, just because
it feels so much like I'm tresspassing to post this at all, but I need
to write about it (hopefully, it's not in poor taste...I don't think
so, but like I said, I just really need to get this out)...I'm sitting
here at work, and EB IMed me about something...
Just last night I was in a philosophy class talking about death...how
most people don't really think they're going to die...they know it
abstractly, but don't really let it sink in because it's just too damn
scary. Then we talked about how death is the end. That's it. At that
point it no longer matters because the game is won or lost as the case
may be, and all the moves that one made in life are now set in stone.
(This was in ref to the soul, actually...it's a Christian class--I'm
at a Catholic college, so sue me) Then I went home and actually made
post about it to the class message board that was a bit irreverent and
had a link to Common Rotation's song "Gone Dying"...(opening line "I'm
going to die someday") So weird to think about that at this moment...
Because here's what EB IMed me about. Someone died. It wasn't
anyone I knew or had EVER even had a brush w/. But I went to her LJ
anyway, and read the post her bf had to make at the top to let the
world know (makes me kinda wanna give my passwords out just in case).
Now that alone didn't mean much to me; as I said, I'd never met this
person in chat, seen a post of hers on LJ, read her fic, or any of
these things before. I've read obits in the newspaper and those don't
really mean much to me either, unless the name is familiar.
But then I started scrolling down. Yesterday preety was alive. She
posted, laughing about a Bush quote. Before that, she wrote about an
earthquake, seeing Val Kilmer, and (in my opinion, the most sadly
ironic and creepiest of all) about someone plagerizing her fic in
which she joked about her own death with comments like:
-----------------------------
"when you decide to plagiarize and steal certain segments of a fic
from another writer, please make sure that they're either dead or
experience complete immobility in their upper body region"
"my supposed friends there dubbed me dead after the forum closed down
and thought that it wouldn't hurt to use some segments of my fics and
incorporate it into theirs"
"Between school, work, RL and trying not to kill ppl that go around
stealing segments of stuff you've written because they for some reason
unconciously dubbed you dead, things are a little tough to handle
right now."
-------------------------
This makes me think of all the times on the internet I've made
comments w/EB "Well so-and-so hasn't posted/updated for a
while...they must be dead." Meant in jest, of course, but you never
know.
Anyway, it's just so WEIRD. With the obits, it's just there in black
and white. Someone died, the services will be held, they were survived
by, donations to... but this is so very different. This is the cap to
entire collection of preety's thoughts...she laughed, she gave
huggles, she wrote fic while drunk, she had a cute mood scheme, she
squeed at celebrities, she got angry, she hugged her flist, she made
Chicago references, she drew an AWESOME picture of Toby McGuire, she
wished her friend a happy birthday in large sized font and offered
drabbles that probably never got written, whined about her new job,
complained about Spander, made and posted her first icons...
And she talked about how she felt when someone died:
----------------------------------
"I know that you're all tired about some of the things that go on in
my RL, but my dad just got a phonecall today from his sister with news
that my grandma's sister had passed away this morning. See, the thing
is that I truly loved her and she loved me but the problem was that we
weren't as close as we once were when I was a child.
So, after recieving the news, my dad went into grief-mode and my mom
started crying and all woe is me.
I wanted to cry and say something besides "i can't belive it" and "I'm
sorry" but nothing happened. I felt so bad and kinda heartless.
Then, just now, my mom started reminiscing over her father, my grandpa
( he passed away six years ago). She quoted some of the things he used
to say like "How are you doing today, sunshine?" and "No smile lights
brighter the sky than yours" and I started to freakin' cry. So strong
and bad that my chest hurts.
And I wonder, it's six years later and half a lifetime away. Does it
ever get easier?
Do you ever actually talk about that loved one without feeling like
someone's crushing your heart?
*sniffles*
*sigh*"
------------------------
I've got this pit in my stomach now that won't go away.
I don't know her, but LJ is such a living format that I can look back
through posts made just this month, and feel like I am actually
touching a little dynamic piece of her that is so very vibrant and
alive.
But then I go back and read that last post from the bf and know she'll
never post again.
I don't even know how I feel about this...odd grief. It's like she
said about how her mother talking about those things her grandfather
said made her cry...her LJ makes me cry...not because I loved her or
knew her, but because of what a person was and did and will never be
or do again.
It's just so immediate...that same feeling I had when someone in my
high school died, (3 did out of a class of 124) even if I didn't know
them very well, because it made me think about others around me and
myself...any day any one of my LJ friends could just stop
posting...would I even know why?
*hugs EB close...*I love you more than you know, girl
==============================
ADDED LATER: *points to icon*
Yep, not my normal (avatar). This is my first post using an icon other
than my default ever, actually.
This is an icon by preety, and a rather beautiful one at that. I
saw a post a few weeks back in which she made her first set of icons
to share. So I took one, and now I'm showing it off. Reading her LJ
made her seem so very alive, and for a moment she affected my life
just a little bit. This is really the only memorium I can think of...
Anyway...well, this week is a bit hard to write since it feels like last week's blog entry adressed a lot of the same themes, but oh well...
*L* plus I've procrastinated starting this...because I've been too caught up in my own on-line life. It's not as gripping as it once was, but maybe I'll talk about that.
Of course I'm not actually going to introduce you to my online self - as others feel, my privacy is important. I think back to those students who get in trouble because of things on FaceBook and MySpace and articles about how such things can even haunt a person when trying to find a job, or attracting stalkers, etc.
But, neglecting the Cyborg Manifesto, I do sympathize with many of the people described in the other two articles.
The nice thing about an online life is twofold - (1) it's possible to reinvent oneself. It's hard not to have a bit of the RL personality come through, but nevertheless physical details, socioligical info, etc. are fluid, not set. It's possible to express parts of ones personality that can either only happen on a fantasy realm or that are contrary to the rl face. And more importantly it's possible to experiment and feel safe doing so. (2) You can chose who you associate with. It's possible to find groups of people interested in a very narrow topic whereas in rl it may be hard to find even one due to geographical limitations. It can also allow for a great variety - instant association with people in different situations and locations who one would not otherwise have the opportunity to meet.
My own online life is very like that...actually, I don't play a character per se. Rather my alter-ego is a reflection of my real one...just a much more opinionated and uninhibited one. *L* and it's so hard not to just write the name...It's true that when I'm writing as Amber speaking about my other life, I often refer to her in the 3rd person. She is me, but outside me. (In fact, she may not even be a she...I once participated in a study where over 90% of people thought I was male based on my vl name and people outside the fandom often assume I am male unless I tell them otherwise *L*). She hangs out with a group of primarily women aged 17-60 who are writers, united by love of a certain tv show. But we are much more than that...we tend to share thoughts, ideas, little stories from our rl that our virtual ones can examine. But through our stories we can explore much, much further all sorts of ideas and actions, letting the characters we write do those things we are curious about, but do not, ourselves do. In a way...those are also virtual lives, more akin to the the game lives described in the article.
But even so, it can be incredibly demanding and time consuming. I recall applying to grad school. I had to go "on sabbatical" for 2 months just to have the time...complete with a going away party...allowing myself to be back on my forums only on my birthday. Yes, my online life is a bit different than the gaming lives...but it has many of the same elements. exploration, friendship, getting involved in the lives and problems of others and talking over bits of mine that i wouldn't dare mention to most of my rl friends...sometimes ABOUT my rl friends *L* It feels safe...there is a freedom of participation and association. Friending and defriending is at will, the virtual life can be entered or exited on a whim. Friends are made from common interests and lack of unwanted judgment. Though one does start to value those online friends enough to still develop a code of behaviour so as not to lose them, similar to rl.
Another activity I like participating in is watching ljdramaz or "kerfluffles" from the sidelines...fights in the fandom, if the terminology is unfamilar. There's a voyaristic pleasure from watching those even though they are sometimes quite horrid. There is one I recall...
W, very popular writer in the fandom, but one with fairly low self esteem wrote a fic (story) for a ficathon (where authors write stories for other authors based on requests) wherein the demeanour of a character named Oz was compared to a blue raspberry Popsicle. kk, a nosy little bitca, read the story and noted that her friend gl had written a story with a completely different plot a month earlier featuring Oz EATING a blue raspberry Popsicle. The P word...Plagerism flew. And W was horribly upset and others got involved. Sides were formed, thousand word essays were written, people who had never met were suddenly the best of friends, and those who had been busom buddies now split in two. One of the more interesting things that came to light was that gl had a habit of breaking up past friendships by subterfuge and also of borrowing large sums of rl money through paypal and never paying it back. People who had split due to her meddling years ago were now talking and realizing this and reunited...yet kk and gl were popular enough that others stayed with them. Nevertheless by the end of the kerfluffle, our corner of the fandom was forever reshaped.
A very good example of this is also illustrated by a book sold at the UW bookstore (one of only about 5 venues) called "When the Fan Hits the Shit" about an international scam involving the Lord of the Rings fandom that started out with a pair of online fans in the same forum i roam (LJ - livejournal) and ended up defrauding even the actors from the movie.
Anyway, the point is that virtual lives and real lives can be equally engaging, and can get incredibly tangled. One thing that I found interesting in the pdf article was the comment one person said about having multiple lives in multiple windows, the rl only one of them...and often not the most interesting. I often feel this way myself...which always seems just a bit sad. How can text seem so much better? Huh. Back to the Ryan article about text = vr i guess.
The one bad thing about online lives is when they die. Because it's such a fluid forum, sometimes people just...disappear. Often they are missed, but no one knows...where did they go? There's often not the satisifying finality of a body. Just a missing url or a blog that hasn't been updated in ages. But sometimes, virtual lives do end. People announce they are gone (though they sometimes come back) and that's always jarring. In our fandom it's called psueocide, and it's really frightening how much such a thing can cause the others in the fandom to mourn as one of our own is lost to the demands of a rl we never knew...
The other thing that has occasionally happened (why many of us have at least one rl contact) is that a person will die for real and the fandom finds out about it. I remember the first time that happened...and that was the creepiest thing of all...because I found out the person had died before I ever read their blog. Friends on my flist (friends list) were mourning so I went to visit the blog and right there at the top was a post by a cousin saying the person had died in a car crash. Of course we have no way of knowing the truth of that, but we assume it's real and it certainly feels that way. So I was able to meet her the day after she died, scrolling through posts of the weeks of her life, her thoughts, art she had done, stories she had written, silly, colorful little things...of a person who no longer existed. I even wrote a few comments on entries...ones that she would never receive. Very, very weird. In the rl people often just die. They might leave a few pictures, they might leave the products of their lives, novels, paintings, businesses, but short of a diary (which is private) there is no public log of day to day thoughts...in the virtual world, that's exactly what there is. Rather than looking back and reviewing you feel like you can in fact meet that person. In rl you meet people who are alive. In vl, you can meet anyone who has ever been online. Even though that person is no longer there...
In fact...here is the post I wrote that day (names truncated to protect my own vl):
5:36 pm - Not even sure what to put here....
Huh.
Well, I'm friendslocking this and disallowing comments, just because
it feels so much like I'm tresspassing to post this at all, but I need
to write about it (hopefully, it's not in poor taste...I don't think
so, but like I said, I just really need to get this out)...I'm sitting
here at work, and EB IMed me about something...
Just last night I was in a philosophy class talking about death...how
most people don't really think they're going to die...they know it
abstractly, but don't really let it sink in because it's just too damn
scary. Then we talked about how death is the end. That's it. At that
point it no longer matters because the game is won or lost as the case
may be, and all the moves that one made in life are now set in stone.
(This was in ref to the soul, actually...it's a Christian class--I'm
at a Catholic college, so sue me) Then I went home and actually made
post about it to the class message board that was a bit irreverent and
had a link to Common Rotation's song "Gone Dying"...(opening line "I'm
going to die someday") So weird to think about that at this moment...
Because here's what EB IMed me about. Someone died. It wasn't
anyone I knew or had EVER even had a brush w/. But I went to her LJ
anyway, and read the post her bf had to make at the top to let the
world know (makes me kinda wanna give my passwords out just in case).
Now that alone didn't mean much to me; as I said, I'd never met this
person in chat, seen a post of hers on LJ, read her fic, or any of
these things before. I've read obits in the newspaper and those don't
really mean much to me either, unless the name is familiar.
But then I started scrolling down. Yesterday preety was alive. She
posted, laughing about a Bush quote. Before that, she wrote about an
earthquake, seeing Val Kilmer, and (in my opinion, the most sadly
ironic and creepiest of all) about someone plagerizing her fic in
which she joked about her own death with comments like:
-----------------------------
"when you decide to plagiarize and steal certain segments of a fic
from another writer, please make sure that they're either dead or
experience complete immobility in their upper body region"
"my supposed friends there dubbed me dead after the forum closed down
and thought that it wouldn't hurt to use some segments of my fics and
incorporate it into theirs"
"Between school, work, RL and trying not to kill ppl that go around
stealing segments of stuff you've written because they for some reason
unconciously dubbed you dead, things are a little tough to handle
right now."
-------------------------
This makes me think of all the times on the internet I've made
comments w/EB "Well so-and-so hasn't posted/updated for a
while...they must be dead." Meant in jest, of course, but you never
know.
Anyway, it's just so WEIRD. With the obits, it's just there in black
and white. Someone died, the services will be held, they were survived
by, donations to... but this is so very different. This is the cap to
entire collection of preety's thoughts...she laughed, she gave
huggles, she wrote fic while drunk, she had a cute mood scheme, she
squeed at celebrities, she got angry, she hugged her flist, she made
Chicago references, she drew an AWESOME picture of Toby McGuire, she
wished her friend a happy birthday in large sized font and offered
drabbles that probably never got written, whined about her new job,
complained about Spander, made and posted her first icons...
And she talked about how she felt when someone died:
----------------------------------
"I know that you're all tired about some of the things that go on in
my RL, but my dad just got a phonecall today from his sister with news
that my grandma's sister had passed away this morning. See, the thing
is that I truly loved her and she loved me but the problem was that we
weren't as close as we once were when I was a child.
So, after recieving the news, my dad went into grief-mode and my mom
started crying and all woe is me.
I wanted to cry and say something besides "i can't belive it" and "I'm
sorry" but nothing happened. I felt so bad and kinda heartless.
Then, just now, my mom started reminiscing over her father, my grandpa
( he passed away six years ago). She quoted some of the things he used
to say like "How are you doing today, sunshine?" and "No smile lights
brighter the sky than yours" and I started to freakin' cry. So strong
and bad that my chest hurts.
And I wonder, it's six years later and half a lifetime away. Does it
ever get easier?
Do you ever actually talk about that loved one without feeling like
someone's crushing your heart?
*sniffles*
*sigh*"
------------------------
I've got this pit in my stomach now that won't go away.
I don't know her, but LJ is such a living format that I can look back
through posts made just this month, and feel like I am actually
touching a little dynamic piece of her that is so very vibrant and
alive.
But then I go back and read that last post from the bf and know she'll
never post again.
I don't even know how I feel about this...odd grief. It's like she
said about how her mother talking about those things her grandfather
said made her cry...her LJ makes me cry...not because I loved her or
knew her, but because of what a person was and did and will never be
or do again.
It's just so immediate...that same feeling I had when someone in my
high school died, (3 did out of a class of 124) even if I didn't know
them very well, because it made me think about others around me and
myself...any day any one of my LJ friends could just stop
posting...would I even know why?
*hugs EB close...*I love you more than you know, girl
==============================
ADDED LATER: *points to icon*
Yep, not my normal (avatar). This is my first post using an icon other
than my default ever, actually.
This is an icon by preety, and a rather beautiful one at that. I
saw a post a few weeks back in which she made her first set of icons
to share. So I took one, and now I'm showing it off. Reading her LJ
made her seem so very alive, and for a moment she affected my life
just a little bit. This is really the only memorium I can think of...
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Nintendo Acapella, Stomp, and WOW Coulton
Hmmm...well these are only vaguely related to class...but it reminded me of Thurtle's music choices, only more tolerable :)
Anyway, the first is a clip I've always loved. Talk about humans imitating tech *L*:
Seriously cool.
And then the rhythmic stylings of the music group Stomp who find rhythm (fit in your own comment about interconnectedness and networks here) in every day life and activities. The kitchen one has ALWAYS been my fav!
Also, um, this isn't at all rhythmic, but how's this for web enabled human networking?
Johnathan Coultan is a comic music genius who writes a "Thing a Week" (literally a new song every week) and supplies them to the world via podCast. Then Mike Spiff Booth (aka spiffworld), another geek genius who is Program Manager at Adobe animates them using graphics from World of Warcraft. This particular song (not even my favorite, but a good one) is well known to me, because one of my friends works for Google (which now owns youtube...the place these vids are released) and rumor has it the google nerds sit around and watch this vid repeatedly. *grin* So...that's only about 4 degrees of separation, right? And one more makes you, whoever is at my blog reading and watching this :)
(if you like it, go check out other vids by spiffworld on you tube. He does a LOT of coultan songs with WOW images!)
Anyway, the first is a clip I've always loved. Talk about humans imitating tech *L*:
Seriously cool.
And then the rhythmic stylings of the music group Stomp who find rhythm (fit in your own comment about interconnectedness and networks here) in every day life and activities. The kitchen one has ALWAYS been my fav!
Also, um, this isn't at all rhythmic, but how's this for web enabled human networking?
Johnathan Coultan is a comic music genius who writes a "Thing a Week" (literally a new song every week) and supplies them to the world via podCast. Then Mike Spiff Booth (aka spiffworld), another geek genius who is Program Manager at Adobe animates them using graphics from World of Warcraft. This particular song (not even my favorite, but a good one) is well known to me, because one of my friends works for Google (which now owns youtube...the place these vids are released) and rumor has it the google nerds sit around and watch this vid repeatedly. *grin* So...that's only about 4 degrees of separation, right? And one more makes you, whoever is at my blog reading and watching this :)
(if you like it, go check out other vids by spiffworld on you tube. He does a LOT of coultan songs with WOW images!)
Assignment Blog: Week 5
Networks...
Hmmm....what to say about them?
I have to admit that of the two articles, my favorite was the Barabasi, primarily because the Castells on the Space of Flows was a bit repetitious but seemed to be primarily about physical space leading to networks, while Linked by Barabasi was more about virtual and intangible, but had to do more with personal connections...and an interesting mathematical theory.
It was interesting to note that most things that occur in nature or otherwise tend toward set mathematical orders. That's true of course, but I for one don't often think to think about it. Power curve vs. bell curve...an inverse exponential basically...it's not too surprising that there should be models which allow for extremes rather than always models which exclude them. Of course like with any model that mathematicians (or economists...they're particularly bad) try to fit to real life...it never exactly fits because it never exactly accounts for everything.
Barabasi's model, he admits, is a bit weak...relying on the twin laws of growth and preferential attachment. Yet...it DOES better represent what's happening than other previous models have. It can be improved on...letting links decay with age, etc. Of course my point is that a model can never account for everything. Talking about movie stars, what about pairings like Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller who rarely appear in a movie without the other, thereby ensuring they would share most links in the IMDB? Definitely not random and not described by preferential attachment based on popularity, but rather by preference for a specific node. Another example I can think of...an existing network pattern from one medium inserting itself in another medium. When the New York Times went online, it already had a high readership. Those already online who read the paper version were likely to then attach to the internet version. Those who join the internet later that are familiar with the paper version are likely to do the same...again, preference based not on the popularity of attachment to the NYTimesOnline but on previous experience with a related node in a different network.
*cough* anyway, tangent aside, the model is workable...a better way of explaining. Is it important that the network concept be explained down to the latest detail? Well, if you want a network to become predictable (and models ARE all about predictibility, hence why the first economist who can make a truly good model of the stock market will be a very, very rich person) they yes, it should always be made better and better. But I think this model captures the important point. Attachment in a network is not random. Nodes exist and can be explained, and furthermore are quite essential for the functioning of a network if interconnectivity is to allow both multiple paths AND only a few degrees to get from most points to most other points.
And of course the internet is a very, very interesting basis for discovering and exploring these types of networks. It allows people to connect like never before. When the london subway was bombed on 7/7/05, I had a friend who was on it (and survived, thank god). But I've never been to London. They've never been to the US. In fact I don't know if either of us has ever been to a geographic location the other has visited ever. But I know her. She is my friend. When she was shaken up after, I was giving virtual hugs. Likewise, I got to be in Rome for the election of the pope...because I "knew" people who were. I know people all over the world, and they know me. But...none of us have ever met. With the web, suddenly connections aren't existing by accident or simple chance of location, but rather entirely by seeking out common interests. This allows larger and larger nods and diversity of nods than ever before. Here comes the true virtual city. And, another aspect is that the web allows greater analysis of non-virtual networks. Databases, such as IMDB allow cataloging and comparison with greater detail and speed than ever before...very nice :)
Another concept I thought that was interesting. Obvious, but interesting...the idea that the most connected nodes are those that have the most impact, and that those only connected to a few places essentially do not exist. It's true, I suppose that without connecting to other people, one tends to have very little impact in the world. At the same time, those websites with almost no one linking to them don't really have any impact, and if they ceased to exist...no one would notice. So, save for the page's creator and possibly one or two others, that page does not exist. My poor blog *pets it*. I try to post here and make it healthy and robust! But if no one visits a link to it, if no one comments, isn't it just wasted data on a blogger server somewhere? And I'll just leave that comment hanging...and abandon my blog to an existential crisis until next week :)
Hmmm....what to say about them?
I have to admit that of the two articles, my favorite was the Barabasi, primarily because the Castells on the Space of Flows was a bit repetitious but seemed to be primarily about physical space leading to networks, while Linked by Barabasi was more about virtual and intangible, but had to do more with personal connections...and an interesting mathematical theory.
It was interesting to note that most things that occur in nature or otherwise tend toward set mathematical orders. That's true of course, but I for one don't often think to think about it. Power curve vs. bell curve...an inverse exponential basically...it's not too surprising that there should be models which allow for extremes rather than always models which exclude them. Of course like with any model that mathematicians (or economists...they're particularly bad) try to fit to real life...it never exactly fits because it never exactly accounts for everything.
Barabasi's model, he admits, is a bit weak...relying on the twin laws of growth and preferential attachment. Yet...it DOES better represent what's happening than other previous models have. It can be improved on...letting links decay with age, etc. Of course my point is that a model can never account for everything. Talking about movie stars, what about pairings like Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller who rarely appear in a movie without the other, thereby ensuring they would share most links in the IMDB? Definitely not random and not described by preferential attachment based on popularity, but rather by preference for a specific node. Another example I can think of...an existing network pattern from one medium inserting itself in another medium. When the New York Times went online, it already had a high readership. Those already online who read the paper version were likely to then attach to the internet version. Those who join the internet later that are familiar with the paper version are likely to do the same...again, preference based not on the popularity of attachment to the NYTimesOnline but on previous experience with a related node in a different network.
*cough* anyway, tangent aside, the model is workable...a better way of explaining. Is it important that the network concept be explained down to the latest detail? Well, if you want a network to become predictable (and models ARE all about predictibility, hence why the first economist who can make a truly good model of the stock market will be a very, very rich person) they yes, it should always be made better and better. But I think this model captures the important point. Attachment in a network is not random. Nodes exist and can be explained, and furthermore are quite essential for the functioning of a network if interconnectivity is to allow both multiple paths AND only a few degrees to get from most points to most other points.
And of course the internet is a very, very interesting basis for discovering and exploring these types of networks. It allows people to connect like never before. When the london subway was bombed on 7/7/05, I had a friend who was on it (and survived, thank god). But I've never been to London. They've never been to the US. In fact I don't know if either of us has ever been to a geographic location the other has visited ever. But I know her. She is my friend. When she was shaken up after, I was giving virtual hugs. Likewise, I got to be in Rome for the election of the pope...because I "knew" people who were. I know people all over the world, and they know me. But...none of us have ever met. With the web, suddenly connections aren't existing by accident or simple chance of location, but rather entirely by seeking out common interests. This allows larger and larger nods and diversity of nods than ever before. Here comes the true virtual city. And, another aspect is that the web allows greater analysis of non-virtual networks. Databases, such as IMDB allow cataloging and comparison with greater detail and speed than ever before...very nice :)
Another concept I thought that was interesting. Obvious, but interesting...the idea that the most connected nodes are those that have the most impact, and that those only connected to a few places essentially do not exist. It's true, I suppose that without connecting to other people, one tends to have very little impact in the world. At the same time, those websites with almost no one linking to them don't really have any impact, and if they ceased to exist...no one would notice. So, save for the page's creator and possibly one or two others, that page does not exist. My poor blog *pets it*. I try to post here and make it healthy and robust! But if no one visits a link to it, if no one comments, isn't it just wasted data on a blogger server somewhere? And I'll just leave that comment hanging...and abandon my blog to an existential crisis until next week :)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
