Mini Project 3

Algorithms in our lives

I think this idea can be really frightening to people: What if the algorithms are out of control and start to ruin our lives!? (like some sort of horror film). I don't feel the same fear, mostly because people can always rewrite the algorithm (which , by the way, are really cool). While algorithms can potentially be a bad thing, as we read about in the instance of facebook, mistakes can easily be fixed once they are brought to light and that gives a venue for more invention and ingenuity. These things can potentially be something we rely on as much as weathermen, something that could be considered voodoo or "magic" that is actually just effective and good technology, just as good or infallible as the person who designs and tests it: as years go by and adjustments are made, things run smoother and work better.

And how cool is it that people have figured out how to gather effective news from the internet and actually have little avatars report it as if they were real reporters with facial expression? I think it is really innovative of programmers to figure something like that out. To me, it seems like it would be a terrible task that would be far too difficult to begin thinking about, though I was pretty terrible at even code writing in Java so I would be quite useless in actually inventing such a thing. I'm really impressed with the abilities people have with thinking these ideas up and implementing them effectively.

I'm curious to see how people feel about this issue, I imagine the class will be split on the issue, especially considering past opinions on tech. developments.

Oh The Places We'll Go

I was really impressed with Anderson's TED talk. Mostly because it is something we haven't really talked about yet: where video and technology can take scientific research. It makes sense that scientific writing is already multimodal in that it utilizes pictures, diagrams, etc but doesn't it make even more sense that it would begin to actually visually demonstrate experiments! I was really impressed with this because I haven't even thought of it being a possibility. This, theoretically, could make advancements in scientific technology increase and hopefully make a more error-proof system. Wouldn't it be great if everything was run like this? Efficient living would be increased in every way.

I thought the other video was just as interesting but just not as new for this class.

To everyone in class on Thursday (11/3)

So, class turned into a shitshow today. I feel bad that it got so out of hand because I know that we all deserve more from each other and ourselves but -- once pitted against each other, we ended up in a weird mob mentality. Hopefully we can all regain our senses and not do that again. I guess, on my end, I wanted to make sure that everyone knows that if I offended them in any way, I was out of line. That is not the type of argument to die on -- especially since I don't even care about it or spend really any of my time thinking about it, and it wasn't even a valid argument, as both sides were "arguing" on completely different planes. Anyway: I hope everyone recovers from that. I, for one, feel a little embarrassed about it and hope it seeps into the oblivion of the remainder of the semester (come on Christmas Break!) (and yes, Christmas... but I'll concede to it being Winter Break, as well). :)

Death to the Author! *Pitchforks Waving* *Torches Flailing*

While I still like the idea of citation, if only in form of a "work's cited" page, or something of the sort, especially because I'm not an expert, a lot of what I've said or claimed in academic papers tends to be predominantly things I've drawn from mostly other peoples' ideas (even when I am being particularly original). This comes from stepping into a discourse community, combining other discourses I've already been a part of and deciding what could be synthesized between them all... this generally means it isn't super "creative" (which has seriously killed my grade in certain classes when I was so far out of medieval and greek/roman literature and what was and is said about it that there was no way my "originality" could have said anything, even if it was original, it was certainly always wrong). In instances where I am more "creative", I'm generally much more credible and feel much more comfortable in the discourse that I am talking in and around, I know the history and some of the other texts.

It is a really complicated (not necessarily complex, though) issue because there are few parts and a shitton of opinions, well-thought-out, on what should be considered original, "taxable", "citable", or what-have-you. And none of the opinions are "wrong" but it does seem really divided. What I write is generally what I consider relatively worthless, monetarily, because I don't trust "my" ideas to be worth citing, while I will trust the words of others' within a thesis or online intellectual journal. I have little credibility as a writer on most topics because I am not an expert.

Anyway, these ideas of textuality, articulation, authorship and intertextuality are extremely fascinating for me. I might delve more into this for my research... ...probably the articulation thing more than anything. Articulation vs. "creativity"? we'll see...

Diggin the readings

I feel that both authors for this week's readings were really well grounded. Although, I do have to admit that I thought Lanham was complaining for almost half of his article.

Lanham brings up some really good points about the idea that people are really clinging to an archaic idea of what aesthetic is and what we in Lit departments try to reinforce is an idea that was around before computers. Basically, its about time that someone redefines the aesthetic that we are all so obsessed with. He makes some really bold professions about how technology makes it possible for him to teach a music appreciation course while having an insufficient education to do so... I would really disagree. Yes, the technology is there but regardless, there is a major component that a knowledgeable professor can offer that the layman cannot... ... even through another person's course materials, expertise cannot be faked and the specialization of professors in colleges is not, in my opinion, in danger. I do agree with him when he says that the advances in technology open up large new realms of possibilities for collaboration, collaborative education and such. I do think that is an extremely helpful part of our new technology.
Kohl, Liebert and Metten discuss that specific influence in one of its most effective forms: Wikipedia. I'm a huge supporter of the Wikipedia basic source for information. I'm glad that it is recognized scholastically for what it is.

I'm excited for this week's class. I'm glad we are reading people who have accepted technology and its place in our society, professional lives and classrooms.

Images in Scientific Writing

The Mishra piece really interested me. I was reminded while reading it of learning, in high school chemistry and physics, about the different ways scientists have attempted to visually document the things they study, specifically very small things like new molecules, electrons, neutrons, protons, reactions and how they could prove what they found actually looked like the diagrams they have used over the years. We even discussed the models we would put together of different compounds and why they did/didn't fully represent what actually happened. These are extremely interesting things to think about because of how highly esteemed Western Scientific thought is.

I have always been fascinated by the idea that a simple drawing can change the way something, that should be black and white, is viewed and understood. Even within the field of chemistry, if something is drawn or modeled incorectly, it could actually alter the substance and what the drawing means to begin with. It seems that more caution has been used in recent years with theorizing about the appearance of the inner structures of molecules but the formulation of pictures, while, if incorrectly depicted, can be a setback in understanding, it also seems that it is a huge part of how we, as people, grow to understand more and experiment more and expand the field. It seems extremely important to play around with models and pictures in order to further understand things. I am interested in why this method of learning and developing ideas is not used across every field of study (*ehem*, humanities) but Mishra is right, for some reason, it is seen as a silly and childish or un-academic way to present information for people within the humanities.

It seems that the more I learn about the lack of multi-modal learning and writing in academia, the more I realize that we are being seriously shorted on the amount of information that we could potentially access and understand. It would be interesting to see what type of pictures and visuals could be used with the academic writing we have all grown to know and love... ... and hate?