Hello Interwebsites, Hope your week has been going well, as you don’t already know I’m just trying to catch up on my blog posts… Don’t hate me. Pls <3. Week 9’s readings were really strongly based on… maths stuff? Joy. I haven’t seen an equation since almost a year ago at High School, so it’s nice to be back to where I began. The readings looked upon the 80/20 rule and the Long Tail which talks about consumers and statistics.

So firstly the 80/20 rule, this rule is an odd phenomena that basically says: 80% of such is done by 20% of the population, like: 80% of profits are produced by only 20% of the employees. However it would be considered an overstatement to say that this rule applies to “everything” it’s more of a tool for estimation.

The Barabasi reading (80/20 Rule) also talks about the differences between Power rules and Bell curves, although it was discovered that the majority of rules in nature follow a bell curve, when we looked up the rule for online linking it followed a power law. Now children, let me use my extensive knowledge of mathematics to give you a crash course on why the two are so different. For those who have recently completed VCE you would be rather familiar with the Bell curve, the way it works is that the mean (average) is the middle point, and we move outwards from that point by cutting it into sections using the SD (Standard Deviation). Each section is worth a certain percentage and the more to travel outwards the smaller that percentage becomes.  As you can see from the image, the first section is always worth 34%, then 14% and then 2%.

Now for a Power Rule, we aren’t using a shape rises then falls, instead we can given a graph that begins as a large number but gradually gets smaller. And that is what the Long Tail is, however to explain what the reading discussed about, I’ll have to explain the actual shape of the graph.

The power rule is a exponential graph, where both ends head towards 0 but they never cut the axis. This is due to the fact that when the equation is written, when either the x or y values = 0 and substituted into the equations they cease to exist. Which isn’t important and will make a lot more sense if I just show you a picture.

When looking at the longtail graph the y-axis represents the “popularity” and the x-axis represents the product that is being marketed. This basically means, that the “narrow” section of the graph represents all the popular forms of media, such as large budget movies and those mainstream things that we often are exposed to on tv or the internet. Whilst the “infinite” section is the indie media, ones that we search for ourselves, one that are produced by those with a smaller budget and not part of a mass company. The long tail theory is the one that suggests that despite the huge popularity of mainstream media, it will me the indie media makers that have the overall larger profit combined due to it being “infinite”.

The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.
~Malcolm X

Hello Interwebs,

Okay, I’ve been really bad lately and so today I am absolutely determined to get up to date with my blog posts! It is my time to shine!!! We’re doing readings today and for week 8, I had two readings: Six Degrees by Watts and Small Worlds by Barabasi!

LEGO~

Watts’ article seemed like a mixture between a dear diary and some science essay that went on for 26 pages to my displeasure.

Moving on…

Barabasi’s (that is a mouthful), seemed to follow a similar type of structure, but with more formal examples that are used to explain the point that was present.

Both articles discussed different types of linking between individuals and the strange logics of the universe. The idea that we are all oddly linked either loosely of through good friends is not a foreign concept for me. I grew up in a Chinese community where for reason whomever we spoke to that was from China originally somehow knew a friend of a friend of a friend’s, it was the most uncanny thing. One point I was at school where there was this other girl in my class who I didn’t really speak to, however one day as my dad was picking me up he saw another parent and it turned out they used to be best friends and guess who their child was… Yep, the girl in my class. Another time I found out that one of my neighbours (who ironically, not in relation to this story, went to the same kindergarden and highschool as me), worked at Donut King whose boss knew my mum… what? I don’t even.

Same thing goes for family back in china, I have nieces, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers of family friends, sisters of aunts of nieces of step mothers I’ve never met before but somehow they all know who I am. I have a big family for a single chid I guess 😛

And then theres the Kevin Bacon Game. A game in which you could literally connect ANY actor to Kevin Bacon… Literally any actor, and they would be scaled based upon how many links in between. Majority of people I typed in were only number 2’s… except Lucy Lu, who was a 3. Success! I should be a detective.

Someone else give it a go?? I would love to find someone who Kevin Bacon couldn’t be linked to (instead of someone called Chris Evans the First…I couldn’t find out which one was the actual Captain America)

Welcome to another late post Interwebs,

Going back to week 7’s readings, we had the Potts Murphy Theory on Technological Determinism (To my displeasure) and an interesting collage reading – screenshotted directly from “Adrian’s kindle for mac”.

So for those who don’t know Technological Determinism is a theory and belief that our culture and society are primarily motivated by the development of technology. A good example is the use of mobile phones, they have quickly grown within the past 20 years and nowadays the majority of people carry them.

A technological determinist might argue that due to mobiles we can not communicate more efficiently and that without them we would still be stuck making phone calls at home. Of course that also comes with risk such as texting whilst driving, online predators…etc. However, maybe a non-technological determinist (someone who is against this theory) challenges this argument with the fact that mobile phones have changed the way we live, the drive of our society is not dependent on the fact that mobiles have been invented.

Despite the fact that I never want to really talk, let alone think about technological determinism (along with the rest of the year level) I do concur that I don’t necessarily see myself as a technological determinist, rather I believe that many factors drive our society. Things such as pop-culture, government, economy… there just seems to be too many things to take into account before we can come back to technology as the main motivator. Maybe us humans simply evolve… because we do? We change not because someone has invented a new mobile device, but rather because we crave change. Any agree? Yes? No? Meh…

The other reading we did was a collage. Super weird, basically there were patches of text that were listed down the page, of course when looking at a collage is it important to never reading in a particular direction or manner, just be random. I think since we’ve been talking about reading books lately in class, this was a good reading to relate to the idea of “when does a book begin and end?” or “When does a story begin or end?”. Same question applies here I guess, where do I begin reading and when do I stop? God knows, I like to be told what’s in my meals rather than just putting it in my mouth and taking a guess. Which is probably why I was a little uncomfortable about the concept of having a reading with no beginning or end, just our own decisions. Well…Crap.

During the Week 7 Symposium we talked about both the conscious and unconscious of our minds. Things that we consciously do and things that we subconsciously do. I mean, they talked about how easy is it to trick our bodies. You can trick your body into doing plenty of things these days, some people even attempt to trick themselves into losing weight!

The questions posed:

1. Which is more important in making a great book, form or content?
2. Without a conventional narrative structure, how much control does an author lose?

Which to be honest, I think we strayed pretty far from…

We ended up on the idea of semiotics, and how the way we are taught as we grow can affect the way we view certain things. Words are not necessarily linked with an object, but with the way we perceive that object on a personal level. Example, when I was growing up I was really bad at sitting still when we were driving around in our car, so a way to get me to stop bouncing off the walls was to tell me that Taxi cars were in fact Police Cars. I literally spent all my childhood being afraid of taxi cars… My parents thought it was hilarious of course, but I guess it had to end sometime. By sometime I mean one of the many 10000 embarrassing moments that were my life, basically, I was hanging with a couple of neighbours and they were running around on an EMPTY (I emphasis the empty) road, and I see this taxi car parked across from us. So obviously the first thing that I did was start screaming at them to get off the street before we get in trouble to the other kids confusion, and that my friends was how I learnt that taxi are not police cars.

So in this case, the object (Taxi) for me up to a certain point was a symbol of police, although thats not what they really are and probably don’t give two shits of all us kids running around, but it was what I was told and so I associated the two.

ANYWAYS, the point that was summed up with the idea: words are only defined by what is difference, a word can only mean something only by what it is not rather than what it is.

The Magic Bullet theory was also brought up, not the theory about the assassination of the US President, but the Hypodermic Needle Theory (different name, same theory) suggests that us humans all will wholly receive information in the same way and react in the same way. It’s not difficult to believe that this theory isn’t very popular these days.

And finally the question was asked: Are we egocentric? Narcissistic?
I honestly can’t talk for everyone else but my answer? FUCK YEAH. I am someone who can be shameless and be selfish during certain times in my life. Which also shines through when I’m blogging and so what? Didn’t people realise that it’s all about the online persona that gains the attention of readers? If you’ve read XiaXue’s blog then you’d know that despite her pretentious and vain personality, people love her!

Remember kids, even if you’re a egotistical bitch and I, along with the rest of the world hate you, I’d still love to hate you 😛

“I am better than you and my blog will forever be better than yours” 
– XiaXue via this video

Hello my Interwebs!

How have you been? Good? Good.

I am literally the laziest person to ever walk to earth right now cause I’m attempting to complete work from week 6. Don’t hate me for posting this so late and for it popping up on your reading list-thing (I dunno). Plus it took me a solid 5 minutes to dig up posts from that week, so there we go! That’s my punishment right there.

Marcus talks about how despite those who think that books will “disappear” he thinks that they will continue to live in our lives. I agree, I have always been a book person and I’ve never enjoyed ebooks or audio books for that matter, I think it’s because I’m a visual person I prefer the comfort of reading rather than looking at a screen. Each to their own I say.

Monique writes an entire post composed of all three aspects that we need completed per week – because she’s clever and not lazy, unlike me – she agrees that the “possibilities are unless” when it comes to the untapped world of hypertext and the plethora of things that we can achieve. I am, personally still coming to grips with the way hypertext and hyperlinks work, so I honestly can’t begin to imagine what we can achieve with it.

Claudia after completing the reading asks the question:

When do you decide that you are at the end?

Does the reader become the author?

Once you’re finished, what happens if you pick up the book again and are in a different mood? Won’t that change the ending you have created?

Which are some pretty top-notch questions if you’d ask me, when I read the book I usually accept the ending that the author has given me, and I only ever re-read the book so I can experience the same feeling I gained from when I first completed the book. I mean for those who’ve read Harry Potter, don’t tell me that you’ve never skipped to the end of The Deathly Hallows just so you can experience that tearful moment when Harry, Ron and Hermione end their tale and that they’ll never be another book again. *tears*

Here’s an hilariously adorable picture so no one can get mad or annoyed at me for being so behind –>

Mwah~

Allo my little Interwebs,

I’m the worst student in the world, because I have about 3 blogs to write and about an hour to write them. Joy. Time to start smashing them out like candy I guess. (But shhh, don’t tell my teachers!!). During week 6 our readings talked about the restraints of print literacy and how we interact with stories and/or books.

One main point that stood out to me was “interactive literacy” and that books were “primitive” because they “restricted” us. It got me thinking about how much literature has changed over the past few years just because on the internet and technology developments. Apple came out with iBooks and along with that some interactive textbooks for students to use. A couple of years back I came across a story about a young girl who was raised to be a sacrifice in a Pagan-cult town, purely printed online and free (It was a strange story, I’m not sure if you could find it again). Even these days at uni I prefer to type my notes and read my readings online rather than printing them out, however if you were to place my laptop in front of my parents the first they would request would be a pen, paper and a print out copy of my notes. But then, to us, that’s restrictive, if we write in pen, we’ve made a possibly permanent error on our page and cleaning it up would just be a bigger hassle.

Another thing it made me think about was video games, yep, those small cartridges that hold so many hours upon themselves. I am personally a HUGE fan of video games, especially those with a good storyline. So after reading the two chapters it got me thinking: are some video games a form of storytelling? There are even games where you’re forced to make decisions and then your ending will be based upon those choices you make, which can be fun… unless you’re indecisive. I mean for goodness sakes there’s even dating sims!! In Japan there are literally games where you make choices and attempt to gain the attention of a partner within the game, which, if it wasn’t for the fact that some creepy guy married his DS is actually a rather good testament for how far we’ve come from day to day books.