games
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web designing companies
03.22.07
End of the Quarter Post
Hey everybody, I realize that more than all of you are never going to check back with this blog, but I figured I would end with my thoughts of the course.
The Loss of Aura
Though the event was rather startling and nerve wracking at the time of its ocurrence, the corruption of my hard drive and the resultant loss of information brings an interesting spin to Walter Benjamin’s discussion on aura. Even though most of the memory in my computer were digital copies of photos, or were constructed through an established set of characters (papers and texts); the loss of my computers memory has created a sense of “auralessness” in my computer. The only way I have been able to explain this loss, is the idea that “aura” can also be encapsulated in “ideas.” This theory would help to explain why the loss of my previous papers feels so depressing. The fact that I will never be able to see the ideas that I had at one point creates the greatest since of loss.
03.20.07
e-mail it to both?
Were we suppose to e-mail the take home final to both margaretha and professor morse? i think i might have forgotten to e-mail it to professor morse. I thought it was just the final paper that we needed to e-mail to both. anyone know?
03.19.07
To Professor Morse and Margaretha
Thank you for this class, I found so many facets of it fascinating. It’s an odd feeling when you feel yourself thinking in a way you never have before, and I felt that feeling more than once during this quarter. Both of you did an amazing job. This is certainly one class I will take with me after I have left UCSC.
Thank You Both.
-Kyan
Why We Should Be Watching a lot of “Futurama” In This Class
I’m still in the typing mood and short a couple cases of sanity after that final so I will tell you why Futurama is relevant to the class and why we should be watching it Mon-Thu at 10:30 and 11pm on Cartoon Network.
Question on extrapolating
Hi, I was just wondering Benjamin’s outlook on the silent film comedy?
-Eric
Questions about Dolby Sound
Hi, I was wondering if anyone had some good links to some examples of doldy sound?
-Eric
And here come the robots
Here are some links to robots which are making our life easier:
http://world.honda.com/HDTV/ASIMO/
http://www.irobot.com/
More proof of our ever-growing dependency on machines. The Asimo freaks me out. The future is now people!
Aphid’s MetaVid
I thought the project Aphid presented to our class was probably one of the coolest things we saw all year. It’s crazy that C-span has a monopoly on the broadcasting of our government representatives. I think the website he made was awesome because it broke down the walls of corporate control and gave it back to the people for free.
sequence analysis
This is a pre-rewrite version of my sequence analysis paper. I sent Margaretha a rewrite, b ut I can’t find it. The new version goes more in depth based on feedback, but this one should give you all the general idea:
Guerrilla Television
anyone know of a reading from the second half of the course that can be connected to Deirdre Boyle’s Guerrilla Television article?
final paper
Digital video technology : Personal and cultural transitions
The moving image is a medium that has been going through technological transitional stages since the precinematic era introduced the zoetrope many years ago. The medium of moving photographic and digital images however has changed dramatically in form as well as cultural significance in the last decade. What I wish to discuss here is the availability of the modern day digital video technology, and the fact that both the amateur or professional cinema photographer can use it aesthetically. The influx of production because of the availability and affordability of newer digital video technology creates a distorted line between amateur and professional filmmaking. Read the rest of this entry »
Citations and whatnot
So…this is a rather late shot in the dark, but it just occurred to me. Since it’s a take-home test, I figured dropping quotes in is ok, but do we need a bibliography at the end? It’s all course readings, so when I say “Benjamin” it’s rather obvious what I’m referencing, but is the formality required? I can throw it in if it is, I was just wondering.
-Dan
Quicktime
I know this was one of the first texts we read in this class, but I thought in talking about it we could bring things full circle.
“I always feel the presence of an ‘elusive’ and ‘vast’ absence, a sea of memories shifting below the surface and in the interstices of what I watch. In other words, I am always aware of an effluvial databaseâ€? (Sobchack, 311) Read the rest of this entry »
03.18.07
Sending the Final Take Home Exam
How should we save/title the take home final?
Is TakeHomeFinal OK?
Confusion on Question 1 of the Final
On the 1st question it tells us to “Draw on at least four texts (including Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto and one Oshii film) from the second half of the course.” Does that mean that one of the films counts as a text and we need to find two more? That seems too good to be true but I assume the parenthesis ends there for a reason.
Film name?
Does anyone know the name of the electronic music/DJ film we watched about a week and a half ago?
Non-digital open source
Hi everyone, Mike brought up an interesting point in our study session- Is there an example of open source material that is not a computer program?
My reply to him was a car. A car’s engine is like umm…well…an engine that you would find in the code for a video game, like a graphics engine or a physics engine for a race game. Anyway, like a code, tinkering with something can change the performance of the engine. Since the 1970’s, car engines have been calibrated for fuel economy. A home mechanic can change that by adjusting or replacing the engine components, much like in a code where you can change a digit or replace a line of code with your own, to crank out a couple more housepower out of the engine. The big difference between a car engine and source code is that the results of the former failing are a bit more catastrophic. The order cialis order cialis professional order viagra professional transmission and suspension of a car are also systems that can be calibrated like the engine and thus, like source code. Even though engine failure is a possiblity, it seems as though people have always been encouraged to tinker with their car. You won’t void the warranty if you pop open the hood unlike a playstation or a blender.
For reason’s I can’t explain at the moment, I think these examples of non-digital open source should be restricted to things mechanical because they are systems that resemble open source code- in my opinion. Anyone think different?
My take on Benjamin and Chanan
Benjamin ideas are applied to Chanan’s ideals about the destruction of the aura of sound. Chanan claims that our postmodernization has removed the aura from music and sound recordings. Benjamin would probably argue that sound recording is just a promotion of the aura that can be experienced at a live performance. Because it is the lack of permanence that helps create the auratic sense, the sense that each moment is fleeting and unique. No one else shares this experience except those immediately surrounding one and aura is a derivative of this. The fact that the adjunct is now the concert rather than the recording is what troubles Chanan.
For some reason my 2nd post is not on here…
So allow me to place another hypothetical question for discussion.
As nerdy as this seems, I’m going to use Star Wars droids as the basis for this.
In Star Wars, C-3PO and R2-D2 and the only droids that are focused on in the movies. Droids need constant memory wipes in order to properly function, as stated in the films. But R2-D2 never gets any memory wipes, and he seems to learn his fiestiness from theother characters he travels with in all three movies. C-3PO, on the other hand, does get one memory wipe at the end of Episode 3, and his personality changes a little bit from the first two movies. This suggests that the droids not having memories wiped allows them to learn and develop personalities that they develop during their lifetime, separate from their programing. Similar to the logic in I, Robot, these droids seem to evolve in their way of thinkingm and use new cognitive strategies to retrieve and sort through information, thus developing personality quirks. As we see in Star wars, they become more human. C-3PO becomes a coward, and although as a droid he should be able to freely access the 6 million forms of communication he is “fluent” in, he seems to stutter and slow down when using a language other than English, as if he has only a basic understanding of the languages, thus being flawed as only a human should be. R2-D2 as well becomes more and more independent, helping when not asked to and coming up with creative ideas to solve problems, all while staying loyal to who HE thinks is his master. R2-D2 changes hands so many times and has many masters in the 6 movies, but he is only loyal to who he chooses, which goes against droid ethic programming. All of this suggests that these droids are evolving and becoming more human with time.
So how human are they? And how much of them are still droids? How does this relate to the topic of cyborgs?
Just food for thought.
Cyborgs
This topic may be a little late, as we discussed cyborgs a couple of weeks ago, but whatever.
I was talking to a friend recently about the episode of Futurama when Fry ended up getting committed to a robot mental hospital, and they convinced him that he was a robot and not a person.
How would that fit it with the cyborg topic that we have been going over? Is he now a human trapped in a cyborg mindset, a cyborg trapped in a human body, etc? Is that state of being real enough for him to be true?
Figured it would be a good conversation topic.
03.17.07
Chanan article?
Hey all. On the schedule in week 7, it says that the Chanan article was a handout, but on the take home final it says that it’s on Eres. I don’t remember the article, nor see it in my class stack, nor see it in eres. Could anyone help me out?
Studying
OK in the library, Saturday afternoon, missing March Madness. It’s alright though I’m about to get to the take home final, I’m more than likely going to post some of my thoughts for anyone to respond to or debate with me. I think if we try to organize our thoughts we’ll be better off than if we just shoot at it alone. Good luck all, and I plan on having my thoughts up here soon. Oh and I have my iPod in my ears to avoid ditraction and be immersed in my studying
-Kyan
03.16.07
on immersion and distraction (and ritual too)
in section today we got into a discussion about potential overlap of meaning/experience between the terms immersion, distraction and ritual. what i will be looking for in the exam answers is a demonstration that you have a grasp of these terms as they relate to the readings, lectures, ad the techno-cultural devices you choose to discuss. should you want to discuss the limits of that understanding, or the questions that these terms raise for you, that is fine, but be sure you do so after you have clearly demonstrated your handle on them as a result of the specific readings.
feel free to post your thoughts and questions!
Am I missing Something?
In an attempt to read some of the articles from week six that I haven’t had time to read before now, I’ve run into some difficulty. I’ve been trying to locate the Edwards reading, The Closed World and the Abbate reading, the origin of email in Inventing the Internet. Both are allegedly Electronic Resources according to the take home final but I can’t find them anywhere. Has anyone else run into this problem, or does anyone know where else we can get a copy of these readings?