Commencing this class, we decided to discuss some take away thoughts from the readings.

• Extracts from Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
• Extract from Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

Gina’s take away idea from the reading:

• The online world is an endless resource of information and opportunity. It cannot be restricted. An example is in the shops or at Blockbuster where there are limitations to what can be in the store at one time. Blockbuster will only have two maximum of each DVD for customers. Online, there are unlimited copies of movies, and a wider range as it doesn’t need to be confined to the restrictions of one small shop. The same applies to online shopping, where there is an infinite shop online.

Kevin’s take away idea from the reading:

• They are so critical about the change from books to online. They are so scared of change when they should be excited about it. We should be more worried about what technology is doing to society – how being on Facebook is not actually being social at all.

My take away ideas from the reading:

• The number of people who have read hypertext narratives isn’t as many as those who have read the narratives in books. That being said, nothing in a hypertext narrative is preordained. It is up to the reader to determined where they go, their choices, and consequentially what they read. A hypertext novel may have a range of different outcomes and pathways, and so, can become something which is re-readable and enjoyable every time. This isn’t to say that re-reading a classic novel isn’t enjoyable each time, but that they excitement of not knowing what is next is eliminated after the first reading of a narrative in a printed book. With hypertext narratives, the possibilities are endless; the combinations numerous.

The rest of the classes take away ideas:

• There is never one absolute meaning to be gained from a text. Meaning is dependent on context, thus interpretations of a text will differ between individuals.
• Hypertext is musical – it has cadence, repetition, flow, loops and redundancies.
• Hypertext opens up space for interpretation and leaves text open to more than one dimension.
• Adrian’s ‘pin-backs’ make us feel like our opinions are invalid (isn’t the point of the blog to write our own opinions?)

The last dot point created quite a discussion amongst the class. Some groups thought that Adrian’s posting about our ideas came across as criticism. Some felt like it was a bit of a put down, but then, after discussing it, we decided that it would be quite time consuming for Adrian to read our blogs then think about our ideas in order to write about it. We came up with various different ways in which we could overcome this problem: perhaps we could have an anonymous feed-back area; Adrian could acknowledge ideas from the blogs as being good, then state his opinion; we should just sit back and not say anything. I read through the pin-backs and personally think they help our understanding and increase our thoughts on the ideas brought forward. They encourage discussion and further thought.

We then moved on to the Niki task. For the next two weeks I am working with Courtney, Sam and Memphis and we are doing our Niki on Richard Stallman. Our research led us to find that he is:

• An American software freedom activist
• Doesn’t care about PR
• Doesn’t care about his appearance and has low emphasis on aesthetic
• Lived cheaply like a student his whole life
• Has serious problems with privacy issues: doesn’t own a cell phone, doesn’t use swipe cards to go through doors and he doesn’t like being tracked
• Anti-copyright
• Believes that the term ‘intellectual property’ is an excuse for not sharing information
• Was an avid hacker
• Fluent in French and Spanish
• Has never been married
• Launched the GNU program
• Has a beard

From here, we decided that to give it a personal touch we would write it in HTML code. Sam is somewhat a professional on this.

Richard Stallman has become a ‘Jesus’ like figure in the future, where everything he tried to accomplish during his lifetime is now out-dated and banned. We want to write the Niki as if it is a celebration of his achievements when he was alive, like a brochure trying to turn people and alert them to his cause. This will be written in sort of Old English writing and will appear to be reaching out to an audience who miss the old days where software was free and everything wasn’t controlled by the government (as that was another concept Stallman strongly believed in: that all of our actions are monitored by the government and our privacy is no longer a privilege).

Stallman even looks like someone who generations in the future would worship, for we predict the future to be very controlled, with a heavy focus on the materialistic aspects of life. Stallman presents the complete opposite and so our concept of him being a figure to worship could be quite credible. We don’t want to complicate too much (as we only have 300 words), however, as it is an informative piece about Stallman’s achievements (just as Jesus and his accomplishments are continuously celebrated), our research can easily be incorporated into the piece. The point of view it is written in is from a believer in Stallman, still fighting for his cause in almost an ‘underground’ world in the future.

Our group was super productive this class and I believe this Niki task will be very entertaining to complete. I am actually starting to like the process of establishing the Niki – I think it’s a really creative idea to take a subject and write about it using a personal touch. Would have never thought to do that prior to this course.