Tag Archives: networked media

Richie Rich – Noding Freely In Agreement

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A reading from last week, by the same author who wrote the article on the 80/20 rule (in fact, they are different chapters from the same book) discusses how these Power Laws affect different networks and how free-scale networks begin and grow.

It talked about the way in which unplanned networks (in the sense that they don’t have a premeditated structure, like a building might) inevitably create these hubs, from which most other parts of the network are connected. These hubs are the same thing as the spikes in the Power Law graphs.

These hubs are usually the oldest parts of the network, as they have more time to develop more links to other parts of the network. For example, Hollywood film producers who work for big companies will inevitably know a lot of people, who have less ties than they do.

This raises another interesting point. That hubs have many many links, but theses links are weak. Whereas parts of the network that are less linked, generally have stronger links. It ties in with what was discussed in the lecture, “You don’t get jobs from friends, you get jobs from acquaintances”. Those loose links are generally stronger, and the tighter links are generally weaker.

Generally, the growth of a node can be determined by two factors.

“A. Growth: For each given period of time we add a new node to the network. This step underscores the fact that networks are assembled one node at a time.
B. Preferential attachment: We assume that each new node connects to the existing nodes with two links. The probability that it will choose a given node is proportional to the number of links the chosen node has. That is, given the choice between two nodes, one with twice as many links as the other, it is twice as likely that the new node will connect t0 the more connected node.”

But the thing that I found most interesting with the article was the thought it left us on (especially in regards to my comment in my last post about adjusting something so that it better fits your expertise), about the next step for scientific research into free-scale network models.

Unlecturing

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In response to the unlecture, where Adrian attempted to blow our minds with the notion that the internet was not, in fact, a virtual space, but was actually very physical with very real world consequences.

I think the question was, “What does it matter if there are more mobile phones with internet connections than there are people on the planet? Does the internet actually exist if we aren’t using it?” In essence at least.

Adrian responded by giving examples of all of the reasons that the internet existed in physical space, and how there was a literal, measurable, carbon footprint for every email that we send (and that, it is reasonable to describe spam emails as physical pollution).

(One of the things he failed to mention, in terms of how large Google was as a company – “Google uses more electricity than Melbourne” – was how it is storing some of it’s most recent data farms. They eliminate the problem of real estate costs by floating their servers in the ocean.)

In response to this, I agree, the internet does have a physical presence on the world. However I think the distinction lies in the fact that is is the infrastructure that takes up the physical space, and the internet itself (I suppose this really comes down to a definitional argument; what is the internet?) remains virtual. I cannot touch Facebook any more than I can touch this blog post. I can touch a server, or a screen, but not the literal thing in itself.

Similarly, I cannot access the internet without a computer or a smartphone. The internet can still exist, in terms of the fact that servers, fiber optic cables (oh Tony), data centers, technicians and electricity can exist, but without a medium through which to access it, it doesn’t exist in a practical sense. And if a person is only able to access the internet through one medium at a time, there seems little point in championing the fact that there are more mobile phones than there are people on the planet.

It seems a little like owning more than one pair of the exact same glasses so that you can read different books while wearing them. One pair for fiction, the other for biography. An iPad for social media and a computer for working.

It almost becomes an existential argument, “If a tree falls in a forest…”, and ties quite will into what we were talking about in philosophy and quantum theory, and how perception of a thing alters the physical state of the thing (Schrodinger’s Cat), but that isn’t what I imagine Adrian had considered when he was answering the question.

(Strange how we inevitably alter the context of a thing in order to suit it best to our field of specialty/interest.)

Self Organising Networks?

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One of the readings for this week, a chapter in a book by, Albert-László Barabasi, called Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life, discusses the idea of the 80/20 rule.

It is basically the idea that 20% of things do 80% of the work, leaving the other 80% to do 20% of the work. It is a phenomena seen across the board, from 20% of pea pods producing 80% of the peas, to 20% of people earning 80% of the money, and is to do with what is known as a Power Law.

“Gutside academia Pareto is best known for one of bis empirical observations. An avid gardener, be noticed that 80 percent of bis peas were produced by only 20 percent of the peapods. A careful observer of economic inequalities, be saw that 80 percent of ltaly’s land was owned by only 20 percent of the population. More recently, Pareto’s Law or Principle, known also as tbe 80/20 rule, has been turned into
the Murphy’s Law of management: 80 percent of profits are produced by only 20 percent of tbe employees, 80 percent of customer service problems are created by only 20 percent of consumers, 80 percent of decisions are made during 20 percent of meeting time, and so on. It has morphed into a wide range of other truisms as well: For example, 80 percent of crime is committed by 20 percent of criminals.”

(This is the third time I have tired to upload this post, and the third time it has failed after I have rewritten it from scratch. It’s enough now. Just read the article and think what you want.)

 

Unlecture Week 7

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So, after listening to Adrian talk about the death of context for half an hour, I wasn’t able to restrain myself, and wrote a post about why I disagreed with it. Here is what I wrote.

“My initial reaction was to want to write a post about this immediately, but as the case was, I had a two hour class right after the ‘unlecture’, and was unable to. This might prove to be a good thing, as my possibly emotional, and probably unreasonable reaction has since been tempered and I’ll no longer be shooting from the hip, so to speak, and might be able to argue this point better.

 

In essence, I disagree on several different levels, with what was discussed by Adrian in the ‘unlecture’ this afternoon. I understand his self admitted (seemingly in a keen way) position as devil’s advocate for these slightly challenging ideas, and for that reason, I assume no personal offence will be taken. I agree with some of your more progressive notions; the death of the book other than that as an object of literary study and the idea that as producers and that we are not being paid for our product but for the experience had by the consumer when using the product. Today’s discussion, however, was different. Not only because it challenged long held preconceptions about the role of an author, but because it seems to approach the argument from a limited point of view.

 

The main notes that I took, to help me remember exactly what heresy you were promoting, was that it is impossible for the context of a work to survive, and that an author has no control of the interpretation of the work by the audience.

 

On the second point, to some extent, I agree. An author is not able to control how their work is read. A Muslim will read Dante in a very different way to a Christian. A report on the success of an agricultural technique used on a farm in New Zealand will be read by an Ethiopian in a very different way to a Norwegian. That is the nature of context. Everything is subjective, and there is categorically no possible way to have perfect communication. No matter how you say something, it will be interpreted in different ways by different people. Loaded language used by journalists will mean something different to me, than it might someone who hasn’t studied media. That is the nature of language. It is imperfect. Which leads to it’s own plethora of problems, none of which I have much room to discuss here.    

 

His other proposition, however, that context cannot survive once a work is published, or produced, is what I do have a problem with.

 

Context, is everything. To suggest that one should take a work as an isolated incident, removed from the author and the time it was published, it ridiculous, plain and simple. How can you possibly remove a work from it’s context. And I don’t mean that as, “How could you possibly, it simply isn’t right (morally) do disregard such a long standing tradition”, but rather, that it is not possible (literally). How can you achieve a higher objective plane where the context of a work no longer affects an interpretation of it?

 

I remember reading somewhere once, that to read and understand Dante, you have to be a Christian for as long as the reading takes, or at least, words to that effect. To understand the author, you must insert yourself into the context of the author, in order to best understand it. How, otherwise, would you be able to marvel at the Wright brothers achieving flight for the first time, if you refuse to allow yourself into the context that is a flightless 1903. For the whole of my life, flight has been very achievable and is done thousands of times every day across the world. Who cares if the Wright brothers did it 110 years ago? Because of the context. It is in the context of the event that flight had previously not been achieved by humanity, thus making it an enormous step forward for us as a species. It was the context, as was illustrated in an interesting YouTube video about who certain people are successful, that showed they were one of several teams attempting flight at the same time, and were by no means the most financially or materially supported. That similarly increases the significance of the event.

 

If context cannot survive with a work, why is it that only last semester, while studying Kafka, Linda Daley suggested to us that we read his diaries to better understand his work? And that to read more of his work, including his articles, autobiographical pieces, short stories, and other people’s accounts of him, would also help our understanding of him.”

This was unfinished, but I think the points still stand by themselves. After I wrote that, I had a chat with Eliot about what exactly Adrian might have meant, and he suggested that he might mean it more specifically in the context (HAH!) of hyper-text narratives. And with this, I would agree. That is the function of the hyper-text narrative. To remove the authors context in order to give more agency to the reader.

But still, while a reader might have 30 options as to where the story goes next, those 30 options are still somewhat a reflection of the authors own context. A hyper-text narrative written in 1890 in Texas (supposing there were any hyper-text authors in Texas in 1890) might write about an adventure across the south of the United States, and as the protagonist, you come across a seated black person on a packed bus. Your 30 options might then be variations on how you might remove him from his seat so you are able to sit down. That might be a perfectly justifiable course of action in the context of 1890’s Texas, but in the present context, we might struggle with the ethics of choosing the best way to remove a person from their seat, because they are black, from the 30 options presented to us. The context of the author then affects us today, when we read the work. We are unable to avoid our own context while reading it (as is the nature of context), but similarly, we are unable to avoid the authors context as the choices he gives us within the hyper-text narrative will inevitably be choices that seemed reasonable to him when he wrote the text.

Perhaps, as Eliot suggested, Adrian worded his argument rather too strongly, so as to best carry his point, and for that, I might forgive him. We are all prone to exaggeration on points that we believe passionately about, and as his passion seems to be the forward progression of media and cultural texts generally, it  makes sense that he might push his point strongly.

Thoughts on that?

X&Y

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When you hear X&Y, it’s not surprising that your thoughts turn instantly to the popular Cold Play song, from the album of the same name released in 2005. After selling 13 million copies, this is understandable.

(After writing the first sentence of this, I thought of dear old Patrick and his long and detailed monologues about various albums and artists. Though as my intention is to neither bore you or ax you to death, I might get to the point.)

Forgetting this, and basing the title purely from a quote from Albert Camus‘ novel, The Stranger, I decided to call a short clip I made last semester X&Y as well. It was for a class called Editing Media Texts.

The task was to generate 2 mins multimedia aiming to serve as a self-portrait to present as our major assessment. There was, however, a catch about this. Firstly, all of the sources material had to be publicly available, meaning we had to get it from either Wikimedia Commons or Archive, so as not to be breaching copyright. Secondly, we also had to meet these criteria:

  1. No more than 50 words of text.
  2. Seven still images.
  3. Two videos.
  4. Two soundtracks: one ambient/music, the other voice track.

These criteria made the task more interesting, and more difficult at the same time, which in the end, turned out to be positive.

Have a watch of it, and let me know what you think, either here, or on YouTube.

Dying Breath of the Book…?

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One of this weeks readings was a section from a book, The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives, by Douglas, J. Yellowlees. It was quite long, which was rather taxing, but it did make some interesting points about several issues, including the future of the book in the face of e-readers and new technologies.

One interesting passage argued that even though technology has passed the book by, history suggests to us that this does not necessarily mean the end of the book.

“Even if ou became used to reading in this way, it is hardly likely that digital media like hypertext are going to supersede books, regardless of how much critics like Miller or Birkirts fret over the fate of the book and le mot juste. Radio and cinema went foraging for slightly different niches once television debuted on the scene, and ballooning numbers of video rentals, airings on premium cable and satellite channels, and pay-per-view showings have all helped recoup losses for films that were absolute dogs at the box office – and unexpected boom for Hollywood. It is hard to imagine books becoming the horse of the twenty-first century – a possession that has lost so much of it’s utility that only the well-to-do can afford to have one around.”

The article places the discussion in the context of hypertext, and how these kinds of technologies will affect traditional reading experiences. What, for example, would happen if you were never able to read the same book twice? And that by virtue of your past experience, will read a text one way, as opposed to if you reread it again two weeks later?

This question is much less of a hypothetical example and more of a reality once we admit the possibility of the self being as fluid as a choose-your-own-adventure novel. The question then becomes, if we are now being forced to be aware of this fluidity of our own perception in terms of the different texts we consume through specifically built structures like hypertext, will that affect our conscious reading of traditional paper books?

If we become aware of the fact that we never take the same path through Wikipedia twice, even when searching for the same information, then will that awareness extend to when we are reading a hard cover of Jane Austen? Will we begin to consciously realise that our attitudes to a character we may have hates on our last reading, are perfectly able to change on this reading due to a near infinite number of different variables?

The question was summed rather perfectly by Brian, when he compared the discussion to the quote by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Lock, Stock and Two Loops of Learning

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After reading the double-loop learning article by Chris Argyris for what must be the fourth or fifth time this morning, I must admit that I still don’t quite get it. I was once told that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else, which has since become a small measure I test myself with every time I am learning a new concept, and I would not be confident at the moment to begin to try and explain the notion of double-loop learning to someone else.

It seems as far as I can deduce, that double-loop learning is essentially a reframing of a situation by adapting your perspective on it in order to embrace the perceived ‘problem’ as a potential ‘solution’ for something else. This may, however, be far from the mark.

In an effort to employ double-loop learning to assist my understanding of double-loop learning based on what I understood so far about the theory, I began to independently research it. The problem being: the reading was not explaining clearly what double-loop learning was exactly. So as I understand it, a response via single-loop learning would have been to repeatedly read the article till it made sense, and if questioned about what it means, I would reply in very broad and general terms so as not to seem stupid or incompetent. Perhaps a double-loop learning response would be to question if or not the article is actually able to communicate the theory to me adequately. Perhaps I learn better via a more varied platform of communication. Perhaps some audio explanation and some visuals are needed to help clarify the dry academic text?

So after a quick Google search of double-loop learning, I came across several pieces of media that have helped me understand the theory better. And while my understanding may not yet be complete, it is more advanced than before I started to look.

I found this flow chart, which seems to explain the theory pretty well. The crux seeming to be that I must get past defensive reasoning when facing the problem. Perhaps my reasoning might be, “I am very good with the English language. My VCE results say so, as have my teachers and most people who read what I write. Similarly, I am able to read complex academic works and understand them. It is unacceptable that I am unable to understand the theory in this article, as surely I am capable of understanding it through reading it alone. I will read it and reread it till the theory makes more clear sense.” For to admit that I am unable to understand it through reading alone would be a reflection of my weak grasp on the English language. Once I move past this, and admit that I have a developing understanding of English rather than a developed understanding of it, I may be able to move forward in my understanding by approaching it via different media mediums.

I also found this video. Apart from what seemed like hours of unnecessary footage of the woman working out, the message was similar to that of the flow chart. The woman had two problems: she couldn’t get any breakfast and a creature was throwing bananas at her. Her solution was to keep running (I assume, till the shop opened) and try and avoid the creature by moving away from it. This solution is single-loop learning, as she accepts that the creature will continue to pester her and that she is hungry. After a “what if…”  break in narrative, she employs double-loop learning, where she changes her perspective on the banana throwing problem in order to transform it into a solution for her other problem: hunger. This way, both problems are solved as she is no longer hungry and the bananas are now welcomed rather than being rejected.

This other video was much more concise, and was more specifically business related. It challenged us to ask the question, “Why?” when faced with a problem that couldn’t be fixed because it “just couldn’t”. If it required a breaking of company policy in order to fix a problem, rather than adapting the solution in order to stay within policy guidelines, the better response would be to question if or not the policy was actually beneficial, rather than to assume it was correct simply because it had been the standard and enduring policy for a number of years.

So in essence and summary, the theory of double-loop learning when opposed to single-loop learning, is that you must take a step back from the parameters of the problem and test if or not those parameters actually have any value in being there. If I receive a a bad coffee, rather than accepting the coffee is bad and fixing it by pouring sugar into it to make it drinkable, I should go to the barista and tell him that the coffee wasn’t great, and perhaps he needed to do something else when making it. Or maybe I even just make my own coffee and bring it from home.

Basically, don’t get stuck in your old ways. Be open to change.

Unlecture No. 4: The First Symposium

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The lecture yesterday was without a doubt the most interesting lecture of the year, probably of university so far.

I think finally, after the first few weeks of talking about it, and waiting for Brian to return from wherever he was (holiday?), the dialogic structure has fallen into place. It needed to happen this week, as people were getting slightly miffed at the fact we were being told about a revolutionary method of teaching that treats us (students) like capable human beings (as opposed to blank but vaguely keen slates that need to be written on in order to make us appear employable), but the ‘unlectures’ had a distinctly lecture-like feel to them. We were still listening to one person speak for at least half an hour (though we were allowed the enormous privilege of asking one question at the start that may or may not have been answered in that half hour).

(forgive the parentheses)

Things I loved about how this unlecture/symposium was run:

  • More that one person spoke. Not only this, but there was less of a sense of hierarchy among the tutors. Brian seems to have balanced the numbers to achieve zen.
  • Students in the audience asked questions when they weren’t necessarily asked to (“So, does anyone have any questions about that…?” *crickets chirp and a dust ball rolls across the front of the room*). This, I think, will give other students the confidence to engage more openly, with less fear of being made seem like an idiot in front of the rest of the cohort.
  • The content was very interesting. Not to say that the last few weeks have been dull, or that what Adrian was saying was things I already knew, but I think having the other tutors to bounce off made what he had to say a lot more fresh, and much less rehearsed. As the tutors have different ideas about the subject, and the material within the subject, they challenged each other when they spoke. Everyone was thinking, rather than reciting.
  • We rehashed over things that we had already talked about from previous weeks. I think this is important in university subjects more generally, as the content that is covered is usually so massive. My friend studying Nursing at La Trobe said they covered the entire content of year 12 psychology in one week. I understand that you are expected to do much of your learning out of university hours, it is still helpful to go over things, just to make sure they were understood, or even to elaborate on them as a segue to the next topic, rather than segmenting each week as a different section of information.

For me, the most interesting part was the last example used by Adrian, about how you intend to get paid in this industry and what you have to do to achieve that. His example was that of a wedding photographer (a past student’s plan for a business).

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind (even if they had cash t throw around) spend $10,000 on hiring a photographer for their wedding when they can just ask Uncle Clive with his digital SLR and iMovie to make it for you. Clive would be keen to do it; then we wouldn’t have to buy a wedding present.

His answer? You must sell the experience, not the product. You must sell the fact that you can film an entire wedding, ceremony and reception, without being noticed by anyone so they feel they are being filmed. You sell your discretion, not your hour of footage. You sell that you will archive the footage of their wedding forever, for free (in case of housefire, flood, loss of the dvd, etc…). That you will send them uncut, additional footage every anniversary to remind them of their special day. You have to do the things that Uncle Clive won’t do.

The industry must not be about selling a thing. Because now, everyone can make these things with software that everyone gets for free on their computers. It must be about selling the experience of the thing. Which I personally, hadn’t thought enough about. It is not enough to just produce great videos, because there are thousands of teenagers with their webcams, with millions of followers, who are able to do the exact same thing, to a much greater audience.

It tied nicely into my conversation this morning with a friend who wants to start up a coffee shop. He was telling me about his connections in the industry and how he would be able to get discounts on the beans, how he has friends who would be willing to invest money into the business to get it started. And while you need these things (a coffee shop without premises or beans wouldn’t be a great coffee shop), you need customers. And you need a reason for customers to come back to your shop, as opposed to the one a block from their house that serves the exact same coffee, for the exact same price.

My answer (thank you Adrian), was the feel of the place. Everything from the decor, to the music playing, the staff that work there, the cups that people will drink from, and the sugar they will stir into their drinks. A customer must feel comfortable and at ease using a product (or buying a cup of coffee) or they won’t use it, because if they are willing to sacrifice comfort, they will find a very cheap solution to whatever the problem they face, or service they need.

The Moat, under the Wheelers Center, is where I go for coffee when I’m at uni. Why? The one on campus is cheaper. Druid’s Cafe is much closer. Mr Tulk serves the exact same stuff. And if I do a quick google search; “coffee shops swanston st”, this is what Google maps tells me.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD I GO TO THE MOAT IF THERE ARE THIS MANY OTHER OPTIONS WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE?!

My answer? The feel of it. I like the place. I feel comfortable there. At home even. I’d be quite happy to spend the day there, just reading or writing. I like that they play quite classical or jazz over the speakers. I like that there is a different kind of spoon with each jar of sugar. I like that I know one of the waiters is called Stewart, and that he plays golf and used to own his own restaurant. I like that he knows I teach children to swim and do triathlons. I like that I don’t even have to talk to them anymore, I just sit down, and within a few minutes, a flat white will appear in front of me. I like them enough that I have brought at least a dozen people there since the beginning of the year, who had never heard of it, and some of them have become regulars too. It is comfortable, and easy, and I will probably keep going there till I finish my degree, spending hundreds of dollars on coffees and snacks, and probably even go there if I get an office job in the city after I finish uni.

Why? Because as Adrian said, I’m not paying for the coffee, I’m paying for the experience.

Day 01: No sight of land

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Well, I suppose after a week of wholeheartedly avoiding this blog, I should succumb and publish a first post.

In regards to the second ‘unlecture’, there did seem to be a slight contradiction in what we were told was expected in regards to this blog.

  • On one hand, we were unlectured about the possibility of going to jail on child pornography charges if we failed to or incorrectly set up our spam fliters (which would serve to delete hundreds of thousands of potentially criminal messages attempting to weasel their way into our online existences), and that we could serve as a platform for people with slightly different values to hurl abuse and hatred at each other (Justin Bieber tweens on one side, Slipknot fans on the other, ready to wage bloody war on the battlefield of the comments section).
  • But on the other hand, we must frequently and casually post on it, sharing and publishing whatever takes our youthfully enthusiastic fancy, and hope that it vaguely related to the course (a minimum of 5 times a week).

The crux of these two things being that we were responsible for whatever comments were posted on this blog, which, as Adrian reminded us repeatedly, is here forever and will remain as a permanent digital footprint of us.

I see the contradiction rear its confused head now, with half of my brain telling me, “Oh yes Nick, write on the blog! Look how eager Cat is when she sees another dog at the park! Why don’t you have that unreserved enthusiasm for life?” (Cat is my dog, a Kelpie, nearly a year old with enough energy to solve Pakistan’s energy crisis and still have enough left over to heat a 7/11 sausage roll.) The other part of my brain, however, is slightly more reserved, and tells me in a cautious but understanding voice, “You might want to pass university, but staying out of prison is also nice.”

The issue seems to be, that I am struggling slightly to muster enthusiasm for a thing that could land me in jail through no active behavior of my own. To which I imagine Adrian’s reply, “You are legally able to purchase a gun, join the army and kill people, vote for the leader of this country and drive a car, I’m sure you will be able to manage a spam filter.” To which I would agree, I probably can. But the idea is still somewhat daunting.

Then again, I suppose I’d rather be informed and safe than sorry and eating canned peaches from a mess tray in Port Philip Prison. I guess it has to be viewed like a high school sex ed talk in health class. It brings the worst possible result of a behavior into harsh sunlight for all to see, which serves to temporarily frighten us away from risk taking fraternisation (with the internet…), but most likely will never occur. Not, of course, to suggest that it will never happen, but that if you take the right protective measures (the buzzword, I believe, is ‘careful’), you can significantly reduce your chances of any wrong-footing.

Which seems like a reasonable unlecture to have to sit through, even if at the time my main thoughts were focused around Barry, the overweight, wife-beater sporting pedophile who would probably refer to me as “fresh meat”, and would be my cellmate for several decades after being convicted of child pornography for failing to correctly set up my spam filters on my RMIT prompted blog.