I can’t recall the last time I purchased a CD. This seems to be a growing trend in our ever digitising world. The revenue from tangible Compact Disk (CD) sales is now the third major source of income for the U.S music industry. Permanent downloads sits at number one, engulfing 41% of industry revenue (as of 2014), and has been…
Database and Narrative
The Lev Manovich writing on “Database as Symbolic Form” attempts to answer the question of ‘what is a database?’ It looks at etymology of the term as well as its current uses and associations, and looks at the differences bettwen database and narrative. The reading suggests that a database is a cluster of singular items and is unaffected by narrative.…
Remove Your Friends and Hide Your True Self.
“I find it hilarious how in uni lectures if we’re waiting for the lecturer to arrive, everyone is on their phones, totally silent”. “On the train everyone is just face down, glued to their screen. Surely that is going to have a strange impact on the way we develop.” These sound like statements I’ve made over and over again throughout…
Power and Bacon
80% of crime is committed by 20% of criminals. Intriguing, right? Now you feel compelled to read the rest of this post. It’s all thanks toVilfredo Pareto,an influential Italian economist. After two decades of working as a railway engineer, he eventually turned to investigating the study of economics. One of his most recognisable notations was his discovery of the 80/20…
What’s in the Middle?
Does a network have a centre? The answer is, it depends. What kind of network? What defines a centre? The Internet network has no direct epicentre. It is a correlation of hyperlinks that take you from one site to another. There is no defined beginning or end. It is defined only by the choice of the individual and their interests.…
Shoutouts
I’m continuously impressed with the variety of interesting material that comes out of the Networked Media students’ blogs. It’s great to read the opinions of others, as it triggers me to form my own opinion and actually think about things – something I seldom do. I guess I’m more of a do-er. Take Monique’s latest post for example. She’s created her…
Picture That #6
One of my favourites from my first stop in the Big Apple. Why New York is referred to as that, I’ll never know. Nevertheless, here’s an iPhone photo I snapped in Central Park with a nice view of part of the Manhattan skyline. The water in the foreground is half-frozen, during a cold December 2013. I absolutely love the city…
Cobwebs Overtaking Blockbuster
If you haven’t already realised, nobody heads to Blockbuster anymore. Music stores are going out of business. My favourite childhood book store Borders has closed down. We have one thing to blame for this (or thank) – the Internet. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson confirmed my already present ideas about the battle between physical media; CD’s, DVD’s, paper books, and…
What is Neutral?
Can technologies be neutral? This question, which we discussed in Networked Media Symposium 8.0, was a tricky one. To be able to answer the question, we first need to decide on what actually is neutral. Let’s start off by actually looking at the definitions, and see if they can help. “not supporting or helping either side… impartial.” “having no strongly marked…