Finally, an article about video games! It’s not like I don’t enjoy the normal articles, book excerpts and studies from class, but Seductions of Sims is right up my alley, although I have only played SimCity a few times. For academic purposes, I found a free copy of SimCity 2000, and downloaded it to familiarize myself with the contents of Starr’s article. For academic purposes. Ok, so I probably should have waited until after I wrote my post, or maybe until after I completed my two projects for engineering classes before immersing myself in the simulated world of city planning. My bad.
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The assignment: Completely cut yourself off from all communication for 300 seconds. Don’t think. Don’t speak. Just breathe.

This idea of cutting off all communication is neither new to me, or is it a difficult task. To me, technology and many forms of communication are simply distractions that I use to keep myself from doing any real work or from thinking and praying. In fact, I have cut myself off from communication for many hours at a time on several occasions. However, the added stipulation that I cannot even communicate with myself made this activity quite challenging.
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Wow. So the assignment is to find out as much information as possible about our guest speaker Jason Gallo. After only 20 minutes of “research” I feel like I could give a creepily personal look into the life of this guy (whom I’ve never met). Here goes…
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With the continued advancement of IT, it does not surprise me that the influence of the Internet has spread into the public sector. Philip N. Howard describes in his article “Digitizing the Social Contract” how political communcication patters are changing. He focuses on the way political culture is produced and argues that there is little effect on the way it is consumed. The “C-SPAN effect” shows that even though more information is readily available, “no measures of political sophistication show improvements since the channel went live.” Will the Internet prove different?

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Because Anacondas on the land are for pussaaaays. I assume whoever reads this is as excited as I for Sammy L’s new movie and as equally disgruntled for the intended title change. I mean, who changes the name of “Snakes On A Plane” to something as lame as “Pacific Air Flight 121?” I’ll tell you who. Samuel L. Jackson. And he was in everything.

If you’ve never heard of this future blockbuster, here’s a plot summary. On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who’s a witness in protective custody, let loose a crate full of deadly snakes.

WOW!!!! I am currently not watching movies, but when this comes out, I think that will change. No, I know it will.

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In reading the Danah Boyd article “Friendster and Publically Articulated Social Networking,” I was faced again with the terrible truth that we, as humans, are quite disfunctional. Whatever happened to the good ol’ days of taking a gal down to the diner and sharing a milkshake? I don’t know; I wasn’t alive… But, it is still sad to me to see the extent to which online communities have infiltrated our non-digital communication and relationships.
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Upon first observance, one would conclude that SPAM is simply a hotdog “loaf.” Actually, this miracle food has much more to offer than its tubular cousin. Mainly, you can fry it to a greasy state of bliss.

If only e-mail spam was as fantastic as Hormel’s creation. In reality, spam, or unsolicited emails, are not only not delicious, they are downright terrible. Back in the days before advanced filtering and spam blockers programmed into email providers, I used to get upwards of 400 pieces of spam a day in my free Hotmail inbox. Oh, the agony they caused…
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In these three chapters of his book, Lessig provides an interesting comparison of the Internet to government as we know it. Seemingly, the desire for freedom on the Internet resembles the desire for freedom in post-communist states. In both instances, Lessig points out, society believes the absence of regulation and structures resembling government would lead to liberty. Lessig makes an understandable assertion that “liberty [in cyberspace], as anywhere, will come from a state of a certain kind.”

Lessigs main argument reinforces what we discussed in class: technologies do not have inherent characteristics that determine their implications for society. Good thing we rejected technilogical determinism. Lessig showed through example of two different universities’ approach to constructing a network that “there is no single way that the Net has to be.”
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Reading this paper about the “implications of technology for social stratification” took a numerical approach to understanding the effect of the Internet on society. The study sought to determine what factors contributed to a person’s Internet use. Specifically, the study looked at adoption, deepening and dropping out of Internet users and the effect of race, gender, education, employment and income on these patterns.

The question this study answered was does the Internet contribute to the equality of Americans, or is the Internet just another means for the “rich to get richer?”
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That’s right. The real Sox just sent Boston to an early vacation in dominant fashion.

My favorite part about destroying the Red Sox in three games is that now all of the naysaying sports-writers are talking about how our pitching and defense are so great, and that of course we should have beaten Boston. These are the same people who all year said we were idiots for getting rid of a couple power hitters, despite the fact that we were in first place in the AL Central the entire year.
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