Monthly Archives: August 2016

Media 6; reading 6

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We made it! the final reading, 4 years, 6 semesters and this was it, the last one. fittingly, the reading was about future thinking, as of course now that i’m finishing my degree, i will be thinking about my future.

i found Gardner’s 5 mind theory quite fascinating. the five minds were:

the disciplined mind: mastering a way of thinking or a trade, profession, discipline

the synthesising mind: to be able to pull together multiple ideas, beliefs, opinions and join them together in  way to make sense of them all combined

the creating mind: self explanatory really, creating new ideas, systems, discoveries

the respectful mind: understands others and how they live and may act differently to oneself

the ethical mind: looks at how you act and place yourself within society and the impact your actions may have on the wider world.

now obviously you can’t just be one of these minds, it’s more likely that as a functioning member of society you’re going to have two or three, maybe even all five. i found this quite important when thinking about how i will soon be entering the work force.

in relation to one of the previous readings about the craftsman, the disciplined mind reminded me of the phrase “be so good they can’t ignore you”. to succeed in any kind of professional field, you need to have mastered your chosen discipline, to be so good that you will just keep getting jobs (or stay in the one you are in). but obviously that is not enough to succeed. you can’t just be good, you need to be more. a combination of creative and synthesising, as an entrant to the workforce, you must be able to not just take into account different styles of thinking or working but to then combine them to make your own unique method, to stand out, to get them to hire you.

and of course the last two minds are important as they influence they way you act with others and interact with the world, without understanding how others work or how your own contribution can affect society, you will never be able to further yourself in life because you will only ever see yourself and this will prevent others from seeing you.

 

Media 6; Reading 5

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this wee’s reading was about time, something i have always been fascinated with. Our society is run entirely by time, what time we need to get up, what time we need to be at work, what time we will eat, what time we will relax. And what fascinates me the most is that, time does not exist.

Of course, yes, time does exist, but only because we as humans created it. Animals do not live their life by time, they just live their lives, and are certainly far more relaxed all the time than we are. which is what this article referred to as well, the stress of life, needing to find leisure time amongst our ever growing work hours.

I find this to be something that i am personally a little worried about. As i plan to be a tv producer, i know that my working hours will be, lets just say never-ending. tv has no 9-5, 5 days a week jobs. its seven days a week, 52 weeks a year and working every hour that you can. so where will i find my time, once i do eventually get myself into this industry. it is important to make the differentiation between work and leisure and definitely it is important to just stop working and relax. the world we live in today is just so fast paced, everything needs to be immediate that sometimes even a break or a holiday can seem like work, always being on the move, and still always connected via the internet. you must still always be checking your email and replying to texts and updating your facebook.

maybe the best way to find some time is just to disconnect, if you are not tracking yourself then perhaps you may find you don’t even need time, because you have enough of it.

Media 6; reading 4

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I really enjoyed this weeks reading, found it quite interesting. the author discussed the difference between working as a “craftsman” or working out of “passion”, his argument in favour of the craftsman style.

In general, his idea was that ones work or career will not only be more successful, but more personally satisfying if it is treated as a work of craftsmanship rather than as ones passion. In short, he’s claiming that it doesn’t matter how much you love what you do, true success and happiness will come from just absolutely perfecting what ever it is that you may be doing.

I both agree and disagree to this. Although the author claims that this idea can be applied to any work in any field, both examples used (steve martin and that guitarist i’ve never heard of) are from the entertainment industry. so of course in that industry (which unfortunately is the industry i’ve chosen as my career), it is necessary to be the very best at what you do, otherwise you won’t get noticed and you certainly won’t get hired. but in the entertainment industry, you also really need to love, and truly love, what you do. no one is going to practice guitar for 15+ hours a day, every day, in order to be the best, if they don’t have the passion. no one is going to practice and perfect a stand up comedy routine for ten years with no paid work if they don’t have the passion. in this industry, the passion is needed in order to perfect the craft.

And i do not necessarily believe that this idea of craftsmanship over passion is relevant to every industry. you could be the best accountant in the world, but if you don’t love it, it won’t make you happy and you certainly won’t work to the best of your ability.

i do agree with the author that you cannot just have passion to succeed, that there must also be that element of craftsmanship, a dedication to making your work the best that it cane. but i also believe that passion is necessary, because without passion, there would be no craftsman.

Media 6; reading 3

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This weeks reading by Lobato and Thomas discussed the not so attractive world of freelancers and interns in the media industry. an exploration into these two crucial roles revealed a poor state of affairs for those trying to break into the entertainment industries or those who are attempting to make a living of freelancing their work for minimal pay.

the reading discussed how people are hired as interns by companies in an effort to get free (or minimal cost) labor in an industry where people are desperate to get their foot in the door by any means and media entities exploit these people. this extends into the world of freelancers who may have progressed past the point of interning or offering their services for free to gain experience but are still paid next to nothing for what is regarded as professional work.

i found this reading extremely relevant to myself and my future career goals. as a hopeful media practitioner in the television industry, i worry that i will not only be unable to find work but that if i do, i will be grossly underpaid, if at all, while still be expected to work to the capacity of a fully paid employee. and often these positions provide no prospect of full time employment once the internship has concluded. I certainly experienced this while on exchange in the states, every production company around was constantly advertising for unpaid interns to be writing articles, editing videos, maintaining websites, acting as secretaries or performing menial office jobs, all for no pay whatsoever.

there seems to be no near solution to this as the only two apparent ways to enter the industry is either through an unpaid internship in order to gain experience, or to enter into a full time position with 10+ years of industry experience already under your belt in order to be paid.

Media 6; annotated bibliography

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Bostrom, N 2003, ‘Are you living in a computer simulation?’, Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 53, no. 211, pp. 243-255

 

This article claims that if we believe it to be a possibility that at any time in the future we will possess technology capable of creating a simulated reality with sentient simulations, then we must also believe that we could be those simulations.

This goes against the more commonly discussed theory, at least in the media/entertainment industry, that we are biological beings which are unknowingly living in a virtual reality (in a manner similar to that of the Matrix films) but rather suggests that we are the computer simulated products of an advanced “posthuman” civilisation. It is also reliant on the conclusion that conscious thought does not need to be organic but can be replicated using computers and technology.

The author describes this posthuman stage of civilization as one where humans have an unfathomable level of computing progress.

 

This article appears to be incredibly relevant to the topic be examined regarding where the technological advancements in society will lead us and how we as humans will react to and interact with these advancements. The author suggests that any form of posthuman society will use their incredible computing power to create “ancestor simulations” and as such we must assume that we could potentially be a simulation ourselves. An interesting point the author made was that, in order to minimise computing power, there may be what he refers to as “shadow people”, humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious, and that we may not ever even know if the people we see around us are real or base level simulations.

 

Igarashi, T, Sharlin, E & Young, J 2011, ‘What is mixed reality anyway? Considering the boundaries of mixed reality in the context of robots’ in Wang, X, Mixed reality and human-robot interaction, Springer science and business media, New York, pp. 1-13

 

 

Moskowitz, C 2016, Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? High-profile physicists and philosophers gathered to debate whether we are real or virtual—and what it means either way, Scientific American, viewed 2/8/16, <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/>

 

 

Burrus, D 2014, The Internet of Things is far bigger than anyone realizes, Wired, viewed 2/8/16, <http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/the-internet-of-things-bigger/>

 

In this article, Burrus discusses the internet of things and the possibilities that this technical progression may grant our society. He claims that rather than just being a simple manner of “machine-machine” communication, the internet of things will allow for a much greater level of interaction between people and machines and between sensors, machines and people. The most interesting notion is that of sensors and they’re uses in everyday life. As Burrus explains, sensors can be used in every day situations, from simple scenarios such as road maintenance to complicated real time traffic information and route planning for commuters.

Burrus discusses the seamless convergence of this technology with our society in only the positive effects, disregarding any potential negative results. For example, when describing how a smart car may automatically slow when sensors detect an icy road ahead, there is no mention of adverse potential for self driving or self acting cars that may receive incorrect sensory input. This new technology may appear to be bringing about a fundamental change in the way we act, but Burrus doesn’t consider whether this new dependence on the internet of things or a sensor system may cause issues if this system begins to fail in any way.

This article’s content and the subsequent discussion forms the basis for what we will be looking at in terms of the internet of things and how we as a society will interact with a changing technology and the combination of the real and virtual worlds.