Ummm… WHAT
This entire reading made zero sense to me. So much mumbo-jumbo. Plus I can’t say the style of the page helps any. Ugh. Why don’t they have Sparknotes for our readings?
Would you want to stare at this all day?
When i was little, I used to make weird connections like this all the time- I’d find links between things and network. I used to think that my dad knew the WWE wrestler Booker T, because Dad knew all his stats when we watched the wrestling together on a Saturday arvo pre 2003. Because I assumed this, I also assumed that anyone who appeared on TV with Booker T was his friend… and that my dad also knew him, thus I knew a whole bunch of wrestling meanies and in my head I was prettty much the queen of WWE. Marry me John Cena!
Obviously this is nothing like what we’ve been talking about, but to my 9 year old self. That was as connected as it got. Same goes my logic when it comes to dieting. Chocolate comes from the cocoa bean.. which grows naturally… so it’s a plant…. So chocolate is a salad? Or potato chips- potato = vegetable = healthy.
You’re welcome. Forget the Paleo diet, it’s all about the logic diet. Eat everything. All of it. Just go for it. What’s a box gap?
All i can think about. Bacon. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life.. it’d be Bacon. 360 degrees… of Bacon. Or maybe just 6 Degrees of Bacon. Apparently, there’s a “Regina Lee” out there with only 3 degrees of Bacon. Look for yourself.
here’s a question for you- is it because of technology that we advance in terms of culture? Or is it our culture that causes advancements in technology?
Similarly to the nature of the never-ending question; “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” it is quite the mind-boggler.
On one hand, we can assume that every technology is a remediation- an improvement on a previous technology. But if that’s the case, how are new technology’s “invented”? They aren’t, are they? So they must be improved. Improved through usage. Perhaps one day Thomas Edison was sick of his candles running out, did he “invent” the lightbulb? Sure! But really all he did was create a form of light that lasted longer than an oil burner or a candle. Remediation. Because of the lightbulb, we are able to function in the dark. But why did that occur? is it because we need to function in the dark, so the lightbulb was created? Or it was created first, then it allowed us to carry on activity after the sun had set? It gets you, doesn’t it?
In order to use technology, you need the technique. So how do you create a technology without having the technique first? Or BECAUSE you have a technique, do you create the technology that goes with it?
*mind implodes*
While i struggled to really be inspired by anything drawn from the lecture, something that did grab my attention was the suggestioni that Broadcast television only allows for 24 hours of broadcast a day, as opposed to the 24 hours uploaded every 5 minutes on Youtube. I mean, it’s true, but we don’t really think about it like that.
The internet has an absolutely unlimited capacity without any hierarchy. There is no location of control or centre. It is never-ending, almost like a black hole.
It is this that allows the internet to be porous, allowing networks and connections and hyperlinks to be weaved in and out, connecting people from all over the world.
6 degrees of separation, hey?
This is concept that has already been discussed in my comms class in the reading “Communications, Technologies and Social Institutions” by Raymond Williams. What struck me about this new reading however, was Brian Eno’s suggestion that culture can be defined as “everything we do not have to do”:
“We have to eat, but we do not have “cuisines”…”We have to cover ourselves against the weather, but we do not have to be so concerned as we are about whether we put on Levi’s or Yves Saint-Laurent””
Where a book is a technology, the technique would be reading, but what would the culture be? Weather we read the newspaper, or a comic book, or Jane Austen?
Where “technology” refers to the study of craft, it suggests that technology does not strictly refer to anything electronic, as it is understood to be in society. It would refer to the anything made by man. A “craft”, so something that is designed, or made, right?
Uni and work has really gotten in the way of my valuable GTA time. Thank GOD my basketball team had a bye this week, so I was allotted some solid game time (see what i did there? ;)) Unfortunately for me, my mother has taken the liberty of watching me like a hawk and dictating my life- “why does he keep swearing?”, “this language is absolutely foul”, “what the hell kind of game are you playing?”, “why did you let your sister play?!”, “why are you so bad at driving?”, “aren’t these games for boys?”… etc. MUM, PLEASE. LEAVE ME IN PEACE. All my guy mates are warranted the peace and quiet required to play this heavily addictive game, and we spend hours on end in a party chat room yelling at our TVs in unison. It’s quite sad, really. My favourite thing about these kinds of games though, is the narrative. The fact that all the missions are linked together- it may not strictly be hypertext, but in a way, i’d say it is. We complete missions, which act as a link to the next part of the story.
So reiterating my point from earlier today, yes, in a way video games are hypertext narratives. Similar to the Sims (which I find almost equally as addictive), as you are the “controller” (to a certain extent) you are able to create your own story, more so in the Sims as you create your own life and narrative. In terms of author interpretation, video games? ehhhh, not so much. There is no way that you can see the personality of the author or game designer through a video game. I agree with Adrian in the sense that the narrative is the thing with the personality- you can see within the game, or the characters in the game, that they change and develop and they are a certain way- but this doesn’t mean the author is. So, what? Just because the game has car chases, bank robberies, strip clubs, dysfunctional families and crazy killers, does that mean the author does? No! (I hope not), honestly, the only facts we can really draw from this is that the game was marketed to a certain demographic- mostly males, aged…. what, like 15-30? All we can deduce about the author is that he knows what his target audience wants. And what the audience wants, the audience gets.
No complaints here!
In all honesty, I am going to get nothing done this week, i just know it.
For all of you who don’t know… GTA V came out last night- Now,it just so happens that as I went to post about it, I saw this post about video games being hyperlink narratives… And I think to an extent, yes, video games can be hypertext narratives- Of course in GTA there is a set storyline, but much like “The Sims”, you are the controller. You control where they go, what weapons they use, what car they drive, how fast they drive them, etc. Of course these actions are limited, so in a way, perhaps not. But aren’t our actions limited too?
What’s different about this GTA is the fact that there are 3 protagonists, unlike the usual single protagonist, GTA V allows character switches between characters- you jump through the map to “catch up” with the other protagonists and take over from wherever their built-in, systemised mind takes them, for example, more often than not I find Michael sitting in his parked car, doing absolutely nothing; understandable, since he has the most dysfunctional family, like, ever.
But there is a major, major difference this time in the control you have as a character- much the same as usual, you can change your appearance, go to the gym, even the gentlemen’s club, get drunk, or high, highjack planes and everything under the sun! But this time, you have three different characters with three different personalities in which to do so, allowing so many more variations in “choosing your own adventure”.
Judge me all you like, but i’m going to get political here, and talk about rights for a second.
it was suggested that we look for patterns. and that intent fades- something that really cemented this idea for me was a discussion I had with a friend of mine (Z is my friend, and of course, R is me!)
Z: I’m not against gays at all but husband and husband just doesn’t sound right lol
R: Oh well, regardless of weather it “sounds right” or not, it’s happening. it’ll eventually happen, just like women’s rights and abolishing slavery.
Z: That’s so different, but probably, yeah
R: It’s not that different, it’s all about equality
Z: Slavery is like evil and wrong. Marriage is a religious tradition between a man and woman. there’s a pretty big difference
R: Slavery is evil and wrong based on morals. Back then it was normal because it segregated the wealthy and the poor, you were born into a class, and you had to deal with it. Over time it became a general social understanding that it is elitist, immoral and promotes inequality. Just like how people say that homosexuality is immoral; people are fighting for equality.
—
The point of this example, is to demonstrate that things change. We look for patterns, but things change. I saw a pattern in that change was happening, and also saw intent fading as those who enslaved poorer classes intended to maintain a social status and create a hierarchy, and that intent faded; dating all the way back to Moses freeing Egypt.
Side-note: I am not religious, so I am in no way qualified or feel like I have the expertise to comment on the issue; my views are purely opinions based on what I have heard, or learned, but not what I practise.
Another side-note: We continued on talking about equality and law and religion for a while, and after agreeing that not both of us could live in our ideal worlds, my friend sent me a snapchat of this:
Something that really caught my attention in the lecture was the idea that a story must contain truth claims, whether it be truth claims made in “a world” or “the world”. Where a documentary makes truth claims about “THE world”, fictional narratives make truth claims about “A world”-
While authors can control the truth claims they decide to make, they cannot control the interpretation of their work- similar to my post on “the gap”, the reader interprets material for themselves based on past experience and cultural knowledge, they treat the material as the object it represents, and as suggested in the lecture, “the piece has the personality, not the author”.
In my interpretation, this means that we don’t learn anything about the author through their works; we just learn about the piece. we learn about the characters, the qualities and tone of the piece, and its mood, but we cannot push these assumptions on to the author.