Author: Will M.

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Databases and narratives are interesting to compare to each other because of how they differ, but also how similar they are.  Let’s think about the ways in which they are similar to each other.  Databases are made as an encyclopedia of different sources, whether it be pictures, words, letters, or anything that can be categorized.  Meanwhile, narratives take the elements that are used in a database and makes sense out of them.

It’s comprehensible to seethe benefits of each of these categories of forms of literature (databases and narratives)  Starting with the database, a list of items make up a database for no real reason at all except to inform the user base of an encyclopedia for example.  In an English encyclopedia, one can find the meanings, etymologies, function, and pronunciation of a word.  This is good for learning how to speak, read, and write in English.  However one might want to see these words in context, and therefore can go to a narrative, which has those words used in sentences, and are used to drive a certain plot, which I and most other people think is more entertaining and intellectually stimulating than an encyclopedia.

However when thinking about these two categories of literature, we have to acknowledge that databases have ultimately come before narratives.  In other words, before people could make rhetoric out of the words they were using, the words would have to have been made, which would have been written down in encyclopedias.  Below I have a video posted comparing databases and narratives that could possibly further our conversation of this topic of the language of media.

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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When reading How To Think About Bots, I realized that most of the things that these bots were doing were considered to be human actions. They were buying things of the dark web and acting independently of the humans that made them. That begs the questions can bots be considered independent of their creators? Or maybe even human?

I think these are important questions to ask, especially in the age of rapid progress in AI and bot technology. It might also to be asking certain questions as to the authorship or responsibility of works of literature or actions in a certain situations in which the bot generated literature or bought drugs on the Internet. This idea of authorship relates to my DIG 220 class in which we have pondered whether or not bots should be credited as authors or the people making the bots should.

It is interesting though to explore the responsibility of the bots for buying drugs. For example, in How To Think About Bots says that even though the drugs that were bought were in ownership of the people who made the bots, “our lawyer and the Swiss Constitution say art in the public interest is allowed to be free” (Power). But isn’t this a loophole in the system? Honestly, I don’t think that this should be able to happen legally. It is a sly way to buy the 10 ecstasy pills, which are illegal, but since it was a bot, it is not illegal.

In think that these scenarios illustrate the way in which technology are becoming more and more like human beings in the way that our actions are becoming more and more similar as time passes. My question to you is: should they start to be treated as people?

 

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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Upon reading We’re the reason we can’t have nice things on the Internet, I found out that the umbrella term of “trolling” is much more vague than the generic 14 year old making fun of a photo on the internet. It makes sense that it actually transcends this image of the generic troll to “politicians” like Donald Trump, and even News Media Coverage.

Let’s start with the elephant in the blog, Donald Trump. It’s pretty clear that his excessive tweets for the most part “trolls” aspects of racial, gendered, protest groups and many more aspects of society. I always thought that trolls were weak little kids who hide behind their devices, and it’s true although the weak bully with tiny hands happens to be controlling the White House. And this is scary (and has been), because this just adds more evidence that Trump (also known as Troll) is so immature, yet has the capabilities of starting World War 3.

It almost seems hand in hand that as we talk about the fat elephant we have to address the mainstream media. This time, however, the media outlets do have people who are wrong “on many sides”. Let’s look at a topic like conflicts in the Middle East. All the media does is shows the violence with maybe a little bit of coverage about the treaties or an armistice. Like Phillips says in We’re the reason we can’t have nice things on the Internet, most of the media uses these stories by “flattening its subjects into fetishized objects, and essentially converting bad (or tragic, or just plain gross) news into an opportunity to sell more ads.”  Below is an important video going into detail of two examples in which the media has distorted stories, this ignoring the actual impact.  The second example goes into the power that the media has to cause major shifts in economic supply in order to turn make more money (not on topic, but nonetheless very interesting!).

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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Reaction GIF:

Counter GIF:

The former GIF resembles the general populations sense of utter surprise at something, whether it be ignorant people trying to defend their beliefs or political leaders doing the same thing during a press-brief. This GIF can be used endless situations for acts of awe, disgust, or any negative reaction that makes someone cringe.  My counter-gif example shows a celebrity who is annoyed in an interview.  However there is not much of a present reaction of his face, and he is wearing sunglasses.  Reaction GIFS are meant be over exaggerated, and so by posting the counter example I meant to show that the GIFs are over exaggerated.

Sports GIF:

Counter GIF:

Sports GIFs are usually meant to show triumph in sports.  My first GIF is footage of an amazing dunk made in a basketball game.  These moments are used to show the glory of great athletics.  In contrast, my Counter GIF shows a sports failure in which a baseball player misses an easy catch.  This satirizes the glory of the sports GIFs by making one that is funny to watch because of the unfortunate miss.

Wobble GIF:

 

Counter GIF:

This wobble GIF shows man’s disappointed face moving back and forth in random directions in the frame.  It’s really intense, and it has the caption “Triggered!” on the bottom of the screen.  My counter GIf is used to undermine this GIF.  It shows the same GIF, but modified by taking out the caption and making the effect of the wobble less intense.  This makes the GIF less intense and undermines the principle element of the GIF: the wobble.  For example, making this GIF into a picture would have the effect of making it just a picture of a disappointed face.  My counter GIF shows the same GIF slowed down.

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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I hear the word blackface and think of the minstrel shows that I learned about in AP US History.  I think that people probably don’t do this today-although I was horrified to read that in fact well-known comedians/actors like Robert Downey Jr and Sarah Silverman did this recently.  Anyway, like lynching of black men and women being subtly given the new name of police shootings and just under the big umbrella term police-brutality, blackface has a new name that is subtly using the anonymity of black bodies in order to express extreme emotions of non-black users on the internet, and I find it as bad as the original.

 

The article We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface is a crucial piece of literature that is a good step in recognizing that GIFs can be inherently racist and can be blackface.  Lauren Michelle Jackson uses popular GIFs to define what digital blackface is, and the fact that these are commonly used is problematic.  This is because black people are not stereotypical objects to be used to show frustration, shock, rage, and extreme happiness.  Although the article nor I am advocating for not using any image of any black person, we need to be aware of how we are using these images.

 

A thought that I hadn’t pieced together in my head until reading this article grabbed my attention that otherwise would have left me wondering where the line is between what is digital blackface and not.  And obviously I shouldn’t be the number one source as a white man.  But Jackson said in We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface that these GIFs of black bodies serve “an uneasy reminder of the way our presence is extra visible in life, every day, in ways that get us profiled, harassed, mocked, beaten, and killed”.  Jackson, most likely a black woman by way of using pronouns such as “our” and “us”, explains that these GIFs illuminate the light in which black people are profiled, harassed, mocked, beaten and killed.  In other words, black people are so much so stereotyped, that these stereotypes are getting them killed.

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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Upon reading The Environmental Toll of a Netflix Binge, I found it pretty jarring to think that data-center’s use so much energy. As consumers we tend not to think about things like the consumption of our consumption because we’re using it on the surface. This idea reminds me of the idea of how this class is meant to shape our understanding of what actually goes on inside the digital world we live in, not just the output of a cat video that we watch.

Going back to the reading, although it was initially surprising that data companies like Netflix and Facebook use a ton of energy, after logically thinking about it, it’s not surprising at all. Although I don’t know the exact process for how data companies use sources of energy, they have to keep their centers working and running so we can enjoy our streaming and Internet use. I guess it was just initially surprising because of the fact that we don’t think about these things. And I think finally thinking about these things is what can make a difference in shaping opinions to in the future make it so we have a future in which we still have data centers, but run on renewable sources of energy.

I think it’s great that Facebook and Google have switched to natural resources. However it’s nice to think that altruism made them switch when in reality it was just because it’s cheaper in the long term to do so. And it’s just a fact of business that things are done because it makes for good business, like how the bigger companies pressured the smaller companies to switch too. Looking to the future, I agree with Ingrid Burrington who says in her article that “recognizing that how we build the future frankly determines whether we have a future at all” (7). In the context of data-centers, that means switching to renewable sources of energy. But it also applies to the whole world, as we’ve known for an even longer time.

I attached a video that I think is worthwhile to watch.  It is part of a webseries called Sci-Show, and is with John Green’s brother.  The speaker talks about energy intake, including the need to cool the servers, keep them going, and ways in which data centers are trying to cut the costs, and the energy used.  It’s very interesting and educational.

Posted from My blog by Will M.

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I found it particularly jarring that even since 2005 communication technologies have been used in away to negotiate public and private space. Now with the vast array of technology available, we probably do this more. Social Topography In A Wireless ERA: The Negotiation of Public and Private Space illuminated how people use technology for privacy for me, even when in public. It sounds obvious but I’m interested in the way that technology is taking over our lives. I say this because I’ve noticed through the reading of this text and applying it to real life that we as technological consumers, and bystanders for that matter, subconsciously behave in a way that caters to our technology, whether it’s a smart-phone, cell-phone, laptop, or tablet.

One example that I’ve noticed a lot is when my parents called me on the phone last night. I was doing work while talking to a friend when my mom called me. So subconsciously my friend and I had this unspoken communication that I’ll see him later. To make it seem more like the article though, I subconsciously got up and started pacing around the room while talking to them-good thing I was alone in the room! Anyway, I said I was doing this subconsciously because I wasn’t aware that I, in fact, was catering to my phone call. I stopped my conversation with my friend, I stopped what I was working on, and I started pacing around the room. And now that I think about it I had my back to the door! I literally privatized a public area although I was alone in the room. Had there been people I probably would’ve left the room to protect “those bystanders from being infringed upon by the private matters” (380 Humphreys) of my phone call.

I think for the most part that technology that lets us take our private matters with us like cell-phones is good for society because it lets us connect.   But on the other hand I’ve always lived my life believing that a balance in everything is necessary to live a well-rounded life. For example, cell-phones are definitely necessary in today’s day in age, but I procrastinate all the time on my phone and on the internet and can miss out on learning, socializing with actual people, and sleep. However, we’ve seen this as a historical trend with kaleidoscopes and landline telephones. But now it seems that since technology is so widespread, there’s even more of a warning towards the distraction that technology can bring from actually enjoying life. When thinking about this, I recall a video that I saw two or so years ago about the negatives about technology. It’s well worth the watch I assure you.

Posted from My blog by Will M.