The Syndromes of MySpace-ing

Y'know, MySpace is a great case study for showing how internet communities can reveal the contradictory nature of basic human needs, and how these human qualities are accentuated in such a system. Let's go:

1. Tasteful tasteless. 'I love everything. Please like me, my music is me so add me as your friend.' The need to have a distinctive persona and the need to have a 'fishing-net' persona that is accepted in many different social circles merge to create the tasteful but ultimately tasteless music lists.

"Music I Like: Yo, I like Fallout Boy, Kanye West, Avril Lavigne, The Beatles (cos you know, they are like, classic, if I put them here I'll attract more ppl to my profile yo), Creed, Matchbox 20, The Strokes, Green Day (I love punk!), Radiohead, Tool, 50 Cent, Death Cab For Cutie, Simple Plan, yeah, I love indie and emo. And a bit of that ska-shiznit. I like everything."

Don't get me wrong, I do actually honestly like all music. No really. Pssh, of course, no one says you must've heard the majority of an artist's works extensively before you can put them on your 'music list'. But c'mon, how many of those 150 artists do those people listen to regularly? Music lists lose meaning when they cover every 2nd known genre not to mention every new genre we create by splicing words together.

Like 'geek-brock'. This a subset of rock music created by artists who grew up in Brooklyn, who also wear those thick-framed 'Rivers Cuomo' glasses. Typically, these bands are made up of kids who excelled academically in high school but have since rebelled against higher education. Post-punk aesthetics but with computer-jargon. Geek-Brock, honestly, it's gonna be huge. Now let's get back on topic:

MySpace is about having the courage to show who you are bro. My solution for world famine: Narrow your list down to one artist. This way you're naked. 'Yeah kid, you and your wall of bands are like, totally pwned.'

I luurrrve Hanson.

2. Friendly friendlessness. The need to feel popular and included (hence adding so many friends) but at the same time the need for a friendship to have some sort of exclusivity so that it means something. Hence the merging of 4-digit friend-pools and the Top-8 system.

I dunno, I've had the privilege of being someone's 'No. 2'. But then I've since dropped way down. Actually, I've stopped using MySpace. I prefer to just call my friends, 'No. 4' and 'No. 6' in real life. When I walk around Uni, I am flanked by No. 2 and No. 3. They in turn are flanked by their own No. 2's and No. 3's. That's why it's so hard to get through the Quad these days. All these MySpacers are taking the friend-ranking system seriously.

The Rejection:

'Look guys, I've got 3402 friends, I can't like all of you. Geez, what part of 'we're just friends' don't you understand? I added you cos your profile picture was hot, that was all ok? You're my friend, but you're not really my friend. Only my really uber-cool super friends (aka 'comment hopping bunnies') get to be in my Top-8.'

3. Photo real unrealness. The need to be praised by others and the need to feel some sort of authenticity. This results in the 'search for the one magic profile photo that makes my arse look good' syndrome.

Procedure:
a) Buy a camera-phone.
b) Get you and a hot friend into the bathroom.
c) Look in the mirror and start taking photos, making sure you pout your lips.
d) Run out of memory on your phone.
e) Upload photos onto computer.
f) Systematically delete the photos that have red eye or have half of your face cut off until you have only one left.
g) Repeat until you have several hip looking photos that look like they were not taken in the same room in the same sitting.
h) Type in photo captions such as, 'Bubblyz and meeeeee ~~*~~' or 'BeSt fRi3nDs 4eva ^___^.' That's right, 'eva' with e-v-a.

Expect these comments:
'You so hot.'
'Mmmm I like the way your hair looks in this photo... can we meet?'
'That's a nice photo but wth is up with the rubber ducky in the background?'

-------

I signed up for MySpace a year ago. Today was the first day I'd signed in in months. I have one profile picture of myself from when I was 15. I have 24 friends half of whom have appeared out of nowhere. There's one Goth chick from the US and another girl from Australia. Sweeet.

My reasoning for being a non-MySpacer: It's too much work maintaining both my real life persona and another MySpace persona. I had to abandon one of them, so I chose real world me.

I'm sure most avid MySpacers are aware of the 'Spaceing mannerisms' I've mentioned above - so I've got a few questions for you guys:

Why do you MySpace?
What do you personally get out of the experience that you can't get from real-world interaction?
How much of an overlap is there between your real world social circle and your MySpace network?
How much of a role does MySpace play in what happens in your life?
How much time do you spend MySpacing?
What has resulted from the relationships you've formed entirely on MySpace?

I ask these questions with interest, as, I have no idea.

This post is way too long. Bye.

:oP

Dennis

Superman in 3D: success or failure?

Last night I went and saw "Superman returns" in the Imax theatre and I found the whole experience a little paradoxical. On the one hand, a feature with 'selected 3D scenes', surround sound and a multi story screen is obviously an attempt by the film makers to create the sense of immediacy, which refers to the process of making the audience feel as though they are a part of the feature, immersed in its story and setting. This mostly happens when producers attempt to conceal the fact that mediation has taken place.

My problem with "Superman the Imax experience" is that only selected scenes (usually those in which flying, fighting and saving the day occur) are in 3D. This requires that the audience must at all times have their customised plastic glasses on hand and be vigilant for the on screen prompts which appear throughout the movie as a signal for them to put them on.

Does this not detract from the overall immediacy of the text as a whole? Is it not a snap back to reality which reminds the viewer they are in fact seated in a cinema and must now fumble to find their glasses and put them on as quickly as possible? Or, were the film makers successful in creating a situation where greater immediacy is in fact achieved through hypermediacy?

Thoughts?

-Andrew S.

Class reps for 203

Yes, it's that time again. If you would like to put yourself forward as a class rep for FTVMS 203, please let me know via email before our next class on Wednesday. We need two people who will be available 10-11 on Wednesdays (actual meeting dates to be confirmed). If we get more than two nominees then we can do the (s)election in class next week. If you're unsure about what the role entails and would like to know more, I can give you further information.

Are Any Female Night Elves Really Women?

I wanted to respond to something that I thought were interesting about the Turkle article. I got to thinking while reading it about people playing with multiple identities, particularly gender identities because that's the easiest ones for people to either imagine or be shocked by. I found the article interesting because the way it focuses almost exclusively on those who create these identities and not the audiences for them. Thinking back to around the time when the article was written; that time when I was playing SimLife on my dad's Macintosh SE and we got our first modem. (aside: It's nostalgic to think of those particular levels of technology, I'm curious when I'll start to feel nostalgic for my iPod and DVD collection.)

At that time I had a e-mail pen pal, Heather Eisner*, who lived somewhere in New York. I don't remember too much about the experience but I do remember how I felt when she stopped writing. Back then it cost a quarter to send an e-mail on Prodigy (an online service like AOL) and she told me that her parents were upset with how much it was costing her to write her dozen or so pen pals. I never heard from her again. For 10 or so years I've always assumed that everything that Heather told me about herself was true. I had no reason to doubt it until reading Turkle's article really. I approached it with the naiveté that I assume many people did at that time, that generally people online are "indexical" for real people living in the real world.

A while after that I started dialing into the University of Utah's gopher, similar to the internet we see nowadays but with an interface similar to a BBS or a terminal prompt. Through it you could access various databases, programs and MUDs. I started playing a MUD during my computer class in Junior High and continued on playing MUDs in every computer class I had through to High School. During my Senior year I started playing a game called "DragonRealms" on AOL which I was happy to see is still around today if anyone is interested in looking into what a MUD is/was like. It was pretty much standard Tolkeinesque fare, I started a hobbit-like thief character and for a change decided to make it a female. The attention that I got was noticeably different than when I had played before and I quickly began to get weirded out by the situation. One day, after a few class periods of playing as this character, a guy who I had hung around with in the game wrote me and said, "Are you okay? Did you hear?" I didn't have a clue what he was going on about. "Princess Di has died." I realized at that moment that he assumed I was a girl. The clashing of the MUD world that I was playing in and something in the real world colliding like that really disturbed me. Of course I really didn't care that Princess Di had died, I was a 17 year old male. But the reality of it was to much and I never played a MUD again.

More recently, my friend Jim was one of the first people I knew to have a blog. It sits empty now since he's moved on to MySpace but at the time he was blogging a lot about pop-culturey stuff. He had made friends with a bunch of other bloggers including a girl, "Plain Layne", who he'd tell me about at different times and confessing once that he was really excited about how quickly his friendship was progressing with her. Layne would post comments on Jim's blog, giving Jim advice or support and such. Layne's blog became quite popular and because Jim talked about her so much I began to read it every now and then, mostly when Jim linked to it from his blog. Layne's blog began to become much more titillating and the things she wrote about became more risque, as she became more lurid the popularity of her blog grew. She developed a reputation as a blogger who would answer any question about her self in as detailed ways as possible. She met a girl on a trip to Spain and became a lesbian, later she decided that she was straight again all along the way sharing incredibly private details about herself. She was constantly losing jobs or having crazy experiences.

Then one day Layne disappeared. She stopped posting and Jim got really worried about her because of her sometimes irrational blog posts. The blog disappeared off the net the next day and people started worrying about her. Bloggers started searching for anyone that had actually met her and it was quickly realized that no one ever really had. Then people started quickly figuring out that Layne probably didn't exist at all. Jim commented at the time that,

"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling. This whole tale started strangely and ended more strangely. The only questions that come to my mind are the most obvious: who did this, and why?"

Things became apparent through nosey bloggy research that Layne is a man. Jim and others were heart broken. As for the man who was Layne he continued writing the blog as his alter-ego Layne for a little while but people lost interest. And so into the night passed another internet meme and someone, somewhere probably bought the ironic t-shirt associated with it. When asked about his experience writing the blog "Plain Layne" the author, Odin Soli, said this which I think is very telling in the post-modern way identity players approach their situations.

Most people were reacting to the blog itself. The comments were a type of personal interaction--that's why I called it "creative interactive fiction." People got whatever they wanted out of Plain Layne. Most folks never commented. Others became very caught up in the character, much like you would with fan fiction or massive multiplayer online role-playing games. All I did was share the character. It was also interactive in that people would suggest new plots.

It seems that he saw the experience of not as a hoax but rather as a new form of experimental, death-of-the-author infused fiction.

So now I think back on Heather Eisner and I wonder if she was anything that she said she was. Did she like the Beatles because she was actually 45 and not the same age as me? I've definitely become more cynical with my online interactions. But what does that do for those who freely shift identities when everyone automatically assumes your not who you say you are? I've heard that people who play World of Warcraft openly assume that anyone playing a female night elf is actually a 13 year old boy. So when it's taken for granted that on the internet your likely not to be who you say you are, when cynicism gets so great that you're not fooling anyone anymore, how does that change things for those doing the acting? Kevin theorized today in tutorial that those playing with identity are doing it for themselves and don't really care if the audience was aware of the mask. As I stated, if that's the case it seems that makes it a lot like the "not very good transvestite" in Little Britain where everyone who interacts with these "identity players" tries to clue them in on that they know they're not who they say they are and they just keep repeating "but... I'm a night elf laaady, and I do night elf lady things."

*name changed to protect the pen pal

Disturbed……..

Reading Sherry Turkle’s discussion of identity in chat rooms and MUDs, I must admit I found the anecdotes concerning teenage/adult identity play disturbing.

Take ‘Doug’, for example, apparently an American college junior. Quite unlike the endearing cartoon character, he has four colourful personae across three MUDS: a seductive woman, a cowboy who describes himself as a “Marlboros rolled in the T-shirt sleeve kind of guy [no doubt not the Brokeback Mountain type]”, an undisclosed “sexual tourist” and finally, a genderless yet voyeuristic, eavesdropping rabbit named “Carrot”.

Then there’s the 21 year old virtual raper who ‘defends’ his violent characters as “something in me; but quite frankly I’d rather rape on MUDs where no harm is done.” (Turkle, 2001, p. 242).

Such uses of multiple personalities in MUDs clearly demonstrate antisocial bordering on insane behaviour. I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume, for example, that rape committed online is any less traumatic or that an urge to commit rape virtually is any less serious than an intention in reality.

Yet Turkle fails to acknowledge this, instead highlighting that “The anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and try out new ones” (Turkle, 2001, p. 241).

While this is true, what are the chances of such behaviour translating into reality? There is at least a chance, I think, which indeed warrants emphasis for those unassuming surfers.

Did anyone else find such dangerous use of identity play just a little disturbing? Has anyone adopted or been victimised by similar identities? Has anyone committed or been subject to virtual rape? Are Doug and the virtual raper part of a minority?

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Sex and Drugs Solicited on Website: School blog warning

What a shock it was to see a North Shore Times article that had Rangitoto warning their parents about the "dangers of the internet" in regard to "Bebo, the blogging site... made headlines last month after teenagers solicited sex and drugs on it". The article goes on to say "[Rangitoto College] is concerned that students may be putting themselves at risk through inappropriate use of the net" and "A female Rangitoto student had a cartoon picture of scantily-clad woman with the words 'so scandalous' next to her profile"

Well thank goodness we aren't on Bebo...

I think there is a 'fear' that has gripped adults in relation to these new online mediums, and this article has done nothing to curb these fears other than to say Bebo will now 'screen' the users better.
Firstly: these scandals didn't even happen in New Zealand, and it has been reported that they were apparent hoaxes to begin with, just school kids being stupid.

Secondly: Don't these parents have a certain amount of accountability as their 12 year old surfs the web un-supervised in their own room.

Thirdly: The use of pornographic images/lewd language can't be any more than what I see on public toilet walls and pictures kids used to bring to school when they found 'dads special magazines'.

Finally: It only takes a person to sit down and explain to these parents not "The Dangers of the Internet" (as Rangitoto called their meeting) but "Responsible Use and Supervision of the Internet", explaining that this is an exciting medium with many amazing opportunities for kids and uni students to interact when their parents won't let them get outside because the media reports kid nappings like weather updates...

multiple selves a fad or permanent change?

It seems to be pretty universally accepted that the vast majority of virtual community users, friendster members, instant messengers and so on are young people - either adolescents or not much older. This is reasonably significant in regard to how individuals form their identities, as these media allow much greater experimentation, as one's consciousness is not bounded by the mediating presences of one's physical appearance and physiology. What I wonder, is whether these media have been picked up by young people simply because they are young technologies - and today's youth have grown up with them as a given in everyday life; or whether they have become popular with young people predominantly because of the way they facilitate experimentation with identity, and a kind of practicing of 'real life'. Young people would surely feel this need much more, as most people reach a point in their lives when their identity becomes more fixed. As with most things of this sort, it is probably a mixture, but what will be interesting to see is whether today's youth let go of these technologies at some point and face 'real life' with a relatively unified identity, or whether they continue to experiment with their selves, remaining multifaceted and disparate.
Sam

Rockstar Supernova: Terrible... Yes

I have a question about this 'rock' band Supernova. Apart from the legal battle they are fighting because someone has already got tha name, I want to know... what record company is behind it?

From my very limited watching of the show I find they sing a whole range of songs that aren't usually in the same record lable (Johnny Cash is on American (Warner) while Nirvana is on Geffen) and I was wondering what label Supernova will be on. The reason I find this interesting is the three main guys were all from bands on other record labels and Microsoft owns the show.

Also interesting is their use of the internet to compile the 'reality' part of the show and put it online instead of airing it, not even in the u.s.

Oh yeah and by the way, they just started recording the album with the winner... wanna know who it is?

Ben

Tech-know-logies

The technology world is becoming more and more integral in society as businesses and organisations move towards an increasingly competive market in making the most of the latest technologies available. But how much do we know about technology? To what extent are we benefited by technology? That's not to say that it has no beneficiality whatsoever.

What deems to be significant is that we never know the implications of technology till it is within our grasps especialy in regards to communications technology. The internet was never designed for the conuldrum that has progressed to this very day. It was soley made for scientific purpose and who would of thought that today we would be creating a somewhat alternative virtual life in a community or virtual space interacting with people from all walks of life! Technology definitely has it's benefits- convenience, efficiency, creativity but is also dis-empowers humans and leaves alot of room for debate and what the implications of technologcial use will be in say 20,30 years down the track, even 10 years.

As discussed in the lecture today, website such as Myspace, Youtube and Flickr as examples have hurtled in quicker then the media industry can say "user generated content." Firm predictions in a constantly changing environment will turn out to be wrong in the future. Who knows, perhaps your mobile would become a universal portable device enabling yourself to check in at the airport, pay for your groceries. We all know that the world is becoming more and more interconnected with the likes of advances such as these. But when is enough , enough? Where do the boundaries lie when work and leisure/family time are paralleled? Will an increase in technology lead to more workload? It can be seen that new technologies somewhat complicate things to the extent that things are taking just as long being that we ourselves are constantly battling keeping up with the latest technological battles popping up before our very own eyes.

Will technology end in the destruction and breakdown of community and the world itself? as we become more profit driven humans treating the environment with dis-respect or will technology prove the latter and provide new endless possibilities?

As Captain planet says, " The power.... is yours" [cheesey i know, but relevant]

Ethnicity of Online Communities/Networks

Something that I was thinking about during the lecture today wasn't talked about, and that’s Ethnicity. Here's what I see in 3 different online community websites (Myspace, Orkut & Hi5).

I don't believe these online networks are truely worldwide and diverse in cultures & people as they claim/seem to be. I believe ethnicities as they do in the real world, huddle together online also.

Myspace is filled with predominantly White Europeans. Orkut is predominantly filled with Indians, Fijians and Brazilians. Hi5 seems too have the best mix of races, everyone seems to be chillin there ;) Big big generalizations, but still its about right. All my European, Indian, Fijian, Brazilian and Asian friends fall into either Myspace of orkut. Then there’s hi5, which people tend to have along with their Myspace or orkut accounts. So Hi5 seems like the merging of cultures and Myspace and orkut are our ethic hangouts.

This leads onto ethnicities fighting over such websites as to who "owns" it, like racial gang warfare online! It's happening on orkut, Brazilians claim ownership. It goes on....

People still arn't really mixing online

Hottest?

In the lecture today we discussed virtual poledancing and putting yourself "out there". I think this is an interresting site in light of that. It's Norwegian (cause that's were I'm from, so I know it from home) but you don't have to be able to read it to understand it.
The point is, the actual web-address deiligst.no translates to something like hottest.no and it's a "community" where you make a profile, with a nice/sexy/hot photo of yourself, and then other people give you a vote as to how nice/sexy/hot they think you are. If you are lucky (?) and get a high score, you get to be put on the "topplista", i.e the top list. If you click around a bit in the "topplista" on the right you'll see that the average age is about 14-18 years. And yes, a lot of the pictures contain not very mature boys with a bare chest or girls in their bra.
I wonder if their future bosses will hire them on the basis of what score they got?

Music, Clothing, Teeny Bopper Culture and a gun... any takers?

As the title may suggest, I don't have the greatest of respect for the teeny bopper music culture, trashy catchy music that sells until the next thing comes out. It is a driver of the capitalist culture amoungst one of America's biggest spending markets - pre teen girls.

It is true that popular fashion trends are carried by pop music. Not just the pussy cat dolls either, every genre has those that sell products. The Checks from Takapuna Grammar sport Little Brother gear through sponsorship, Bono's glasses are sponsored (by a brand I can't remember), The Stones tours have had corporate sponsors throughout their history. These deals are the work of clever marketing exectuives who make big money for record companies and the bands by "selling them out" as people might put it. I just think the teeny bopper market is a lot bigger and the reason's the music is created isn't neccesarily for musics sake, but more as a marketing tool for products.

In saying that I don't think it can be justified that young teenage girls just watch music videos for the fashion, but I wish it was, then we could change the music. There's an understanding that links these girls with this music, and when they rebel their are the same ideals with a different sound... eg. Avril Levene and nearly all emo bands around. I think the ideals of a capitalist economy are strongly represented in the video's on nearly every music video on tv and internet. Jay-Z 's Roccafella wear makes him more money than all of his other ventures, he's just signed Victoria Beckham... I'm pretty sure there are some fairly close links to music executives who create pop stars and the clothing industry that supplies Glassons and Supre...

Texting - the dumbing down of society?

This post is about how people use mobile phones and in particular text messaging - it was touched on briefly in today's lecture. The issue I want to raise is the impact of texts on modern language use. I believe the advent of text messaging, specifically in New Zealand (I can't comment on other countries), has reduced the ability for people to express themselves. Take emails for example. How many people use text-speak to write instead of normal English? What's their reasoning for doing so? Time-saving? Laziness? A more extreme example is in everyday speech. Has anyone said "lol" in a conversation instead of laughing? Personally I find it slightly annoying when someone sends an email full of text-speak and abbreviations. I've said "lol" in emails myself. Eventually, everyone will speak in abbreviations and have no vocabulary at all. A little extreme perhaps? Perhaps texting links in with how people use new technologies and the flow-on effect to other aspects of society.

Thoughts?

Blogging the new MUD?

I have to admit that before reading Sherry Turkle's article I had no idea what a MUD was (sleeping in FTVMS101 lecs didn't help). But it got me thinking, how many people do i know actually use MUD's? Not many. After reading her article about the exciting ways one can modify his/ her personality I would have expected MUD's to be alot more popular. Then another thought occured to me. Could it be that just as how the user interface on the imac's and pc's updated and eventually replaced the old DOS systems the same thing is happening with Blogs and MUDs? Blogsters are able to project their ideal image by customising colour schemes and designs etc as well as adding photos which may or may not be them. i guess the main difference is the "liveness" between MUD's and Blogs.
U guys have any ideas?
hope i made sense

Why is Blogging getting all the limelight?

I do not wish to seek the subjectively obvious answers to why blogs, bloggers, blogging are almost synonymous with netizens of recent years. I'm more concerned on why other similar forms of virtual discussion/personal/etc. dialogue/word/media spaces in cyberspace didn't get as much hu-ha. Without much research and out of laziness I blame the actual word blog and its associates (blogger, blogging, etc.) First off it sounds apparently much cooler than weblog (web+log = blog) and hence (perhaps) easier to use/incorporate. Weblogger, weblogging, may not sound too bad but I'm almost positive that I'd be ridiculed should I claim myself to be an advent internet forum-er, and I do a lot of internet forum-ing. Same goes for bbs-er, bbs-ing, guestbook-er, guestbook-ing, web diary-er, web diary-ing, etc. I personally despise blogs for the sole fact that it's just too easy in may more ways than its ancestors. Add to that I don't like the word blog so much. It sounds all too fake, pretentious and overrated. Then again I guess that works very well for (many) bloggers who share the same traits. Here's a quick ref to the history of the blog: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog. In no way am I putting this link to insult the very informed/educated bloggers who alreay know about it. Why are we blogging again? Oh yes, I remember now.

The power of you tube as a viable viral advertising medium

Rav4 ad comes back to NZ screens
---------------------------------------
The Advertising Standards Complaints Appeal Board has allowed in part an appeal against its decision over the Toyota Rav 4 ad.

In April the board upheld 17 complaints about the ad which shows a couple going to extreme measures in order to drive the vehicle to work.

During the commercial, the woman is electrocuted in the shower; the man's hair is set alight and he falls down stairs; and the woman is blown up in her house. Although it is currently off New Zealand screens, it has become a popular download from online video sites such as YouTube.

Toyota and the advertising agency behind the ad, Saatchi and Saatchi NZ appealed that decision.

The Board has now decided the ad can be played as long as it receives an AO rating and is only broadcast during adult hours.

© 2006 Newstalk ZB News

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

The ability for youtube.com to change the Advertising Standards Complaints Appeal Board's mind about an advert because it's become popular shows that youtube as a medium can influence the traditional forms of advertising. Viral marketing is taking off, corporations should take advantage of this medium.

I believe that advertisers are pushing at the boundaries of what is considered the social norm in New Zealand this is a good thing. I also believe that the Advertising Standards Complaints Appeal Board should be more liberal in its approach to advertisers as many of the acts deplicted in this advert has appeared in movies such as Home Alone which is aimed at a child audience already.

Buying Hardcopy Media (CD & DVD)

I can't believe we all buy these formats. Like cassette and vinyl. Within 5 years CDs and DVDs will be worthless. And besides what will I do with my collection when I die? (At that time they will be REALLY worthless) These formats hold value for maybe 10 years until the next technology is adopted. Remember cassettes?, as soon as CDs came along we all brought our favourites cassettes in CD format. When VHS came along the same thing happened. So get ready to start your movie collections again when Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is adopted.

So after 10 years of buying media, no more for me. I'll never get my money back, I don't like that idea. Time to make proper investments. Currently the way I see it, I can get all the media I need for free the way I want it. So rip all your CDs and backup all your DVDs to DVD-R and sell your collections before they are worthless. Then if you desire, you can use that money to buy all the remastered Blu-Ray editions of your favourite movies.

Just a thought :)

Ringo perversion or good clean fun?

Im a virgin blogging, dialup modem, computer illiterate guy... so bare with me.
Not to long ago, a friend emailed me an invitation to join 'ringo', unbeknownest to me i signed up and sifted through the general dynamics of the website. Basically its a photo sharing website which is all too common around the WWW today. At first i found this a glorious novelty posting lots of my photos from summer excursions and fun nights out and about.

However, now i see photo sharing as slightly more seedy. Thus the phrase, 'Ringo pervert' was coined between me and my friends. These people are the contacts you have who are not your closests of buddies but still produce an invitation to be your 'ringo friend'. But these people, sit smug behind their PC's without producing a singular photo for my ringo perversion!... however they can galavant all through my archive of photos i have produced, in a give and take scenario, for my other friends. This is supposed to be a mutual relationship where effort is put in on both sides! but maybe I am over-reacting? or maybe I am a ringo slut craving more voyeuristic allure.

i knew what i was getting myself into by uploading sed photos, my friends shamelessly peering at my photos in my some-what arrogant brandishing of places been. but still feel short changed by ringo-ites who are joined up and viewing without contribution...maybe ringo is an 'about town' for the not so uber-cool? a chance to peer into the life of someone you know but would not commonly share... Im not sure if i have a point, maybe this is a general vent? but i find the photo sharing culture an interesting realm of the net. A perfect place to archive your photos, (which you "plan" to put on disk) without fear of your computer crashing, however their is more than meets the eye. i will reveal more soon.

any thoughts/ringo perverts out there

Interactive narrative - a contradiction in terms?

Article in the Independent about a new interactive drama from the BBC. Maybe an interesting case study that links to Manovich's ideas (except here from a popular culture perspective). Could it possibly work or is it doomed to be one of those interesting but fatally flawed concepts?

All the web's a stage as BBC drama goes interactive: Wannabees is a new play filmed for the internet in which characters turn to the audience for advice on what to do next - and then they'll act it out. So how on earth is that going to work? Meg Carter reports.

Ipods, Ipods Everywhere but not a Drop to Drink

I do not own a ipod and I realise, to most, this makes me a bit of a reject from society but I've never actually felt like one until recently...

When did ipods become borring and mundune?? To me, they have been these out of reach commodities that I have sort of desired but aren't willing to part with $500 for... Why are they still so expensive if they're borring and mundune?? I'm patiently waiting for their price to come down, but at the moment it doesn't seem like its going to (They just seem to be making more accessiories so ipod buyers keep on buying)... and more and more of my friends are getting them... Should I just buy one so I can be accepted into youth culture? You know, my dad's all like, "bloody uni pedistrians, they're too preocuped by thier ipods to care about looking at the road!!!" adds quietly, "I'm glad your not like that"... Well at least my dad thinks i'm cool right? :)

I've looked at Mp3 players but ipod seem to have the manoploy on the market. One of my friends Mp3 player broke and if he owned a ipod he could buy something (I can't remember what it's called... because I'm not an owner...) to fix it, but they don't sell that sort of thing for the odd Mp3 player...

Should I get over the price and buy an ipod so I can join in the convosation?

A night on the town - in front of the computer

Hi all, long time reader, first time poster...
I thought I would cheat slightly on my first post to generate discussion around my own interest and the interests of the course.

I own an art gallery (yes, I'm 19) on Queen St with 3 friends, Treehouse Gallery. We started up to help emerging artists exhibit in the central city and so far we have been fairly successful in doing so.

When we opened I put together the website as a sort of newsletter for upcoming shows and things with a few pictures of work and flyers etc. As the gallery started having openings on Friday night, I would have e-mails from people wanting photos of the work online at the same time. I found, to my utmost surprise, that people were waiting online for the photos of the work in order to e-mail me if they wanted to buy it.
I actually found that more people from Auckland were doing this than anybody else, rather than coming in to the gallery first to have a look (usually this was done after they had bid on something)

Online gallery's aren't a new phenomenon, but it struck me as strange that people would rather look online than come out to the gallery and be social.

My solution is: I put the photos up on the website after the exhibition has been running a few days, this insures people come to the gallery and we know we are getting to foot traffic and also because people who buy when they are at the gallery are not likely to change their mind to when they hold it online and then come in and see it.

I suppose it's the new way... but there has got to be something in going out to a gallery to look at the pieces on the wall rather than fuzzy pictures on the computer screen, I certainly couldn't own an erxclusively online gallery.

Would be interesting to see what you think...

www.treehousegallery.co.nz

Ben McMahon

The Final Revolution?

Hegel theorised the progression of history simply as the struggle of one group to assert control over another. Masters increasingly rely on slaves to perform their tasks and through this dependency, loose their power.

Of course this ‘master-slave dialectic’ naturally lends itself to the apparent rising dependency of 21st Century society on technology. Encouraged by Hollywood, there is a fear that there will come a time when technology becomes so smart, that our brains will become obsolete.

Indeed Martin Reese, a respected Astronomer Royal claims, “A super intelligent machine could be the last invention humans ever make.” He makes the ominous prediction that “Once can observe and interpret their environment as adeptly as we do through our eyes and other sense organs, their [eventual] far faster thinking and responses could give them an advantage over us” (Reese, 2003, p. 16).

Unfortunately, Reese can’t be dismissed as just another eccentric prophet. There are many other respected individuals who share his views, for instance, robotics pioneer Hans Moravec and Californian futurologist Vernor Vinge.

So will the survival of the human race really come to rely on the mysterious arrival of a ripped T-800 from the distant future?

While we should be aware of this very real possibility, I think our own intelligence deserves a little more credit.

The theory presumes that we humans will begin our own demise by creating the first super intelligent machine. Creating such sophisticated technology will likely require a huge collaborative effort and resources. I find it hard to grasp why we would ever go to such lengths to build something that would so easily spell the end of human supremacy.

Furthermore, because of the magnitude of the project, it will inevitably garner public attention. It is difficult to understand why the public would ethically and monetarily support their own termination.

But then, history has repeatedly shown the stupidity of humanity…………..


For a selection of exciting ways humankind could meet their doom, see Martin Reese, ‘Technology Shock’, Our Final Century (Random House/Arrow Books, 2003), pp 9-24.