Once again the readings from this week have intersected with the musings of one of our fellow subjects; Communications Histories and Technologies. I have moments when reading Networked Media materials that I seriously think this is Histories & Tech. I mean, they aren’t overly different, at least not in there focuses.

Technological determinism is something I’m familiar with through this other subject, since we had an entire week about it earlier in the semester. I was happy to to come across cultural materialism, the counterpoint theory that I had not yet encountered.

It’s kinda simple: technological determinism believes that technology evolves outside of social influence, only then emerge and be the principal causal agent in social and cultural change. Cultural materialism, on the other hand, focuses on contextualised changes in culture and society that occur for reasons outside of but also including technology, which is in turn affected by the needs and priorities of the world at the time. I’m definitely a cultural materialist: the idea that technology is destined to evolve and cause specific changes is… kinda stupid, to me, anyway.

Technology is invented because of what society needs and wants, and also what other technologies have proven successful or have failed. The prevalence of mobile phones and computers has necessitated the evolution of wired connections to Wifi, which in turn has led to the implementation of wireless connections to create cordless speakers and lights and power switches that can be controlled over an invisible network. We wanted this, and we expected it to arise. The internet has shaped the way that current society works and what our technological priorities are, but it was an older society that dictated how the internet would be shaped.

Another thing covered in the reading this week was that technology is – or isn’t – ‘neutral’. I mean, what the frig? Technology doesn’t make decisions. A gun might increase the risk of death but it doesn’t decide to shoot someone in the face. An atomic bomb doesn’t get up and walk to a city then explode all over the place. Some bastard has to drop the fucking thing. Don’t blame the damned bomb. It doesn’t care what you think because it’s an INANIMATE OBJECT. My god. Are you people stupid? Disease vaccines aren’t invented that immediately cure all disease, nice volunteers and doctors have to administer them. INANIMATE.

INANIMATE.

THEY DON’T CARE.

This is fairly simple, really, though there are a few weird little quirks, at least that I’ve noticed.

If you click on ‘edit’ on your niki page, then change the mode to ‘HTML’ – everyone’s favourite – the data on the page will be presented in code. Hopefully you know that already, but let’s be condescendingly thorough here.

Now find an image. I’m going to use this:

Because, you know, why not. Anyway, this cow can embedded in any page by putting the code:

<img src= “http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01090/SNN2226COW1-280_1090180a.jpg” />

Where http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01090/SNN2226COW1-280_1090180a.jpg is the link to the image.

It’s that simple. To make it easier, there is also – in the HTML page – an option to just click ‘img’ up on the top dashboard there, and then a little dialogue box will appear asking for the link to the image. Once that’s dealt with, another box will ask for a short description, which I’ve always found a bit unnecessary. Really, this just appears if the image fails to load. Also, computers will read aloud this text for the blind. Some people say that if you put your cursor over the image this appears, but only in Internet Explorer (and who uses that?). With a description, say ‘cow wash’, the code looks like:

<img src= “http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01090/SNN2226COW1-280_1090180a.jpg” alt=”Cow wash” />

If you really want that description, but don’t like the ‘img’ button’s ease-of-use, just type the ‘alt=”description here” ‘ thing between the source URL and the angle bracket. Done.

Now, I sometimes notice that clicking ‘save’ while still in the HTML editing page occasionally causes the new code you’ve entered to spontaneously delete. This is exceptionally annoying, so feel free to swear and break things, but after that’s done learn that if you click into the ‘visual’ edit screen before you hit ‘save’, you should see the image there in the text and everything should be OK. Just hit ‘save’ when you’re in the ‘visual’ editor and life can continue, sans cussing and breaking.

So, for funsies, let’s embed some images.

It’s ELMO. But that photo is also freaking gigantic. Let’s make it smaller.

To change the size of images, add ‘width=’ and ‘height=’ attributes, i.e. for this image:

<img src=”http://i.imgur.com/oBajIPw.jpg” alt=”” width=”304″ height=”228″ />

I kinda made those numbers up, but that doesn’t matter. Feel free to play around like:

<img src=”http://i.imgur.com/oBajIPw.jpg” alt=”” width=”304″ height=”666″ /> equates to:

It’s still Elmo though, so it doesn’t matter.

Interesting tidbit:

The editor will automatically re-order the attributes in a tag. As long as you start with ‘<img’ and end with ‘/>, the middle stuff – provided it’s valid – will be in the right order. Some of the attributes include:

‘src=’ , which is the URL in this case. For the koala above it’s: http://i.imgur.com/mGFK7wv.jpg

‘height=’ and ‘width=’ which is covered above. You can also tell the image to be sized based on percentage rather than pixels, but I wouldn’t. Note that the entire image is still loaded, regardless of how small you make it.

‘alt=’ which is covered above.

‘title=’ which appears when you hover over the image in most browsers that aren’t IE.

There are heaps more, but I seriously can’t be bothered, so enjoy!

The unlecture this week seemed to be about topics once again explored in Communication Histories and Technologies, specifically mediation. There is only a certain amount of control an author has over their own work, they cannot choose how the audience will interpret it. Anyone person will perceive a piece differently to everyone else, and this cannot be avoided.

This is an interesting idea, as it means that control is really only a utopian – or dystopian – goal that is, ultimately, unreachable. Nothing can take charge of an individual’s interpretation because no one has shared contexts, even people who have been raised in exactly the same way at exactly the same time. Their minds will differ, and that’s where interpretation generally occurs.

We can do what we can to take what control we can: we use definite terms, we are succinct and to-the-point. We attempt objectivity. We assign order. But the audience will still get the final say.

‘I am alive’

Take this statement. What does it mean? It could be an objective fact: I am alive. But what does it mean to whoever reads it? Is it being ironic? Does the subject really feel ‘dead’, as in unmotivated, lethargic and pessimistic? Are they happy to have survived an unfortunate event?

This is mediation, it’s almost the space between what is presented and how it is taken. This is where there is no control. There will never be control, because we can’t beam thoughts into people’s heads and tell them how to think. When you think about it, the mediation is all there is. The mediation of a word is what gives it meaning, it’s why ‘duck’ is a bird, a verb and funny word, and why it’s whatever-it-is at any specific time. Mediation is why ‘DUCK!’ is taken by some as something we scream when a brick is thrown at someone’s head, while others might picture an excited child yelling at the birds in the park. We can contextualise as best we can: ‘Stacy saw the brick coming, and thinking quick screamed ‘DUCK!’ to her comrade before the red prism could have its devastating collision’. The meaning is obvious, but we still don’t know everything. Things are lost, things are gained, but no doubt the story is given more meaning through the audience’s interpretation. Perhaps the word ‘comrade’ is focused on: are they soldiers? What assumptions can we make?

So that’s it, really. The conclusions we jump to about something, even if the conclusion we reach is that we shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions. Mediation is where control dies a quick death, and there’s not much else to it. We can’t do anything about it, and we definitely shouldn’t. Mediation is where we take what is given to us and we add our personal touch. Everything we read, see, touch and perceive is mediated and is thus experienced only by ourselves: every single thing is some other thing to everyone else.

Currently extra-ing on a short film for a friend, attempting to look busy.

Thinking about life.

Over thinking about life.

There is some regret over yesterday’s post. Everyone I told about it has either said nothing or been supportive, which is a good thing, I guess. Mostly I just feel like I was a bit too… Well… Honest. I’m a private person with no real desire to be open, so to have a massive essay detailing personal struggles when I wasn’t really someone who liked that sort of thing is very, very disconcerting.

Let’s talk about something else.

Yesterday – after awkward blogging – I made chili con carne. It was pretty amazing, but the serving I made for myself ended up being around five times bigger than I could possibly eat. The bright side is I now have three lunches over the next week sorted, which cuts down on Macca’s.

On that note (?) my friend is using a gib in her shoot. It’s fairly cool, and I hope we get to use it in our show (story for another time).

I really want my gum right now, but the camera’s rolling and my bag isn’t with me. I’m supposed to be in a cafe and I don’t want to draw attention by getting up.

After this shoot wraps I’m gonna go to the library and write an essay about remediation for an hour or so, then I’m gonna go up to Queen Victoria Market and locate and purchase a nice pineapple. You see, when I don’t know what to give someone for their birthday, I give them something they obviously don’t want, I.e. a pineapple. This friend would probably appreciate it though. Issue is, pineapples always get their leaves hacked off in supermarkets and fruit stalls, and a headless pineapple is a lousy gift. I have to find a pretty one.

I have to attend two parties tonight: pineapple girl’s Twin Peaks-themes birthday bash and the wrap party for Live on Bowen at the Wilde. Why people have parties on Sunday is beyond me.

Oh wait: the election. That’s depressing. I mean… Tony Abbott? Really? No, just no. He’s an idiot who does not deserve to be the supposed leader of this country. As I said with a friend last night, they were both bad decisions but Rudd was just bad taste, while Abbott is a cry for help. Interestingly, he’s also cut $4.5 billion from foreign aid.

Not gonna rant. I think my time at the shoot is done. Gonna go now.

I don’t really know why I’m doing this, other than I’m feeling like shit (screw the <EXPLETIVE DELETED> garbage) and a lot of people have been asking me annoying questions after I started going a bit over the rails.

To briefly sum up my answer to the most common one: No, I’m not OK. But thanks for asking, and don’t ever do it again.

If you aren’t really into soppy, emotional stuff just stop reading, because I need to be a bit honest and right now honesty is telling everyone about my problems. Imagine slow violins and cellos in the background, me standing alone on a stage, the spotlight blaring down on me. All eyes on me. I can’t speak for anyone else, so I’m not going to. Just stop if this is annoying you.

How do I start? Simply put, this year has been especially hard for me. No, I’m not overworked, I haven’t broken up with anyone, my pain is all someone else’s trials. I won’t be specific because it’s not my place to divulge the specifics there, but some people reading this know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the big issue for me was really the loss of a support network. When bad things happen I would turn to my friends, but after a year of living four hours away from any of them, and being largely telephone and social media illiterate, I had lost a fair few of mine. It didn’t help that at the start of the university year I moved here, leaving behind the few that I still had in my small home town. To make matters worse – and people who know me would already know this – I despise texting, and I don’t really like saying anything with weight over a telephone. I have to do it in person. Maybe I’m a control freak, maybe I just don’t like the idea that someone could instantaneously sever communication when things get tough. I don’t know, I’m happy to say it just bothers me.

So, when the lightning crashed I didn’t have anyone I felt comfortable turning to. Within twenty-four hours, I’d say I told four people: My roommate, Bec, my friend, Jess, and two fellow RMIT students, David and Myyen. You might know them. One of them definitely helped, the others were mostly in the ‘I’m so sorry’ field of speaking, which is fine. I’m generally there too when someone tells me something unfortunate, it’s just never really what I want to hear. There’s no blame though. I’m not really in a position to blame.

The months that followed weren’t too bad. I was pretty fine. A little more emotional, maybe a bit more reckless and brash, kinda angry a lot, but none of those things were entirely new aspects of my personality. I was just more… well, intense, at least more so than I was before everything. It did get worse, and as much as I don’t like it I became somewhat dependent on the friends I’d made, whether it be through my course or through my work with student organisation RMITV (but that’s another story). In all my time, my friends had always been casualties in my search for money or experience. They were the first thing I overlooked when I wanted something else, and all of a sudden they were the thing that I wanted more than anything else. That was definitely the biggest difference for me, I was worked hard to be around people after nineteen years of preferring to be alone.

Let’s just say I wasn’t very good at it. I can see that I clearly didn’t really understand how to maintain that kind of friendship, especially when all the people I was trying to be buddy-buddy with had far busier lives than me, and had some very old friends they’d gathered after the many years they’d spent living in my new city. There was no competing with old friends, and after a few months of trying I became complacent with having to wallow in loneliness and self-pity for the rest of my depression.

And no, I don’t have depression. I spent quite a long time staring at the screen trying to think of some other, less connotative word to stick in there, but depression fits the bill pretty well. You see, I’d convinced myself that it was a phase, that in a few months I’d pick up and be myself again, content with spending days alone and unoccupied. I still stick by that, because my feelings have definitely changed over the last while.

Just in the last bit of time, I’ve managed to fight with a lot of my friends, mostly because of my inability to communicate like a normal person and my severe insecurity when it comes to other people. As much as I shouldn’t say this publicly, whenever anyone says anything to me, I have a habit of turning into some sort of veiled, verbal assault on my character. It annoys me as much as it annoys anyone else, but it just happens. Then, I get angry. Then, I say something stupid. Then, friendship over, I feel like an idiot.

My emotions worked in phases.

First: contentment.
I’d be happy with my current standings, regardless of how miserable or fantastic they’d seem from the outside. No, I was not a constant pit of misfortune and dread. I was… pretty satisfied.

Second: fear.
Happiness was always followed by my natural pessimism seeping in like chlamydia. I’d see or hear something that I’d take the wrong way. I’d overthink a simple event. I’d overthink the future. I’d get scared. Here is the fall into the pit of misfortune and dread. Being as cynical as I am, I’d see my happiness as temporal and relative. It’d go away, essentially, and I would feel stupid for basking in the warm glow of my surroundings when winter was coming.

Third: anger.
As I suggested: I overthink. Whenever the fear came, the anger followed, because I’d search and search for the causal agent in what was about to or what had gone wrong. Then, I’d act. I’d yell or send an angry text message or just stop communicating (I am intensely passive-aggressive, and I really badly don’t want to be. Everyone out there has the permission to punch me in the face when I’m PAing all over them). Of course, sometimes I’d sit tight in my anger, or try to repress it for later retrieval. Luckily, I believe a few horrid mistakes have taught me a few lessons about anger, and I think that this is one stage that I’m slowly getting control over.

Fourth: regret.
Regardless of what I did or didn’t do, I’d always regret doing or not doing it. That’s a sentence and a half. Maybe I think ahead too much, so when I do something, I invariably end up realizing the other option would have resulted in a better outcome. This isn’t always true, and in the long run nothing I’ve done this year has had consequences so dire that I’d have not done them, were I given the chance.

Fifth: sadness.
Following regret comes sadness. This is probably the shortest, and interestingly the least devastating phase (other than contentment, obviously). This is the quiet, lonely part where I’d sit in my room, on my bed, staring at a wall. I’d think – never a good plan – about all the things I should be doing, then I’d just stop caring about the fact that I’m not doing them and think about something else. Perhaps sadness isn’t the best word, but indifference doesn’t work either. Complacency is pretty good, as that’s essentially what I was feeling. It’s like contentment, except I’m not satisfied. I’d become so pessimistic and scared and sad and angry that I just… stopped caring that everything was wrong and that it wasn’t going to improve. I just accepted it, and gave up trying to fix anything.

First: contentment
We’re back here, because after giving up the fight or sending an angry text message and wigging out on someone, there always turned out to be a solution. I’d have dinner with a friend, I’d do something with RMITV, I’d volunteer with Fareshare. I’d do something, and I’d do it with people I loved. And yeah, I’m happy to say I fell in love about twenty times this year, with literally anyone whose simple presence would instantly drag me out of the second, third, fourth or fifth stages of my made-up emotional segmentation and put me back here. I lost all desire to have a sexual relationship, so I was actually pretty happy to say I fell in love.

Of course, with all my grateful infatuations came more fear. Once they were gone I’d decide I was just annoying them, that we’d never be real friends. All that stuff. I wouldn’t love them anymore, and thinking about them would cause physical pain. I’m dramatic like that. I did everything short of putting the back of my hand to my forehead, tilting my head back and wailing at the top of my lungs: ‘It’s all too much!’. I’m a bit too shy for that.

Interesting story: My sister once did exactly that, then pretended to faint. This was because she didn’t want to wash the dishes though, so it’s not quite the same.

Before you ask, yes, I did see a professional. It’s nice to have someone sit there and be your friend, but I only get five free sessions and I don’t want to waste them. What’s more is that the friends I know I have help more than someone whom I know to be getting a nice pay check to talk to me. It’s just… not quite the same. That, and I know far too many psychologists as friends and acquaintances to trust them. They’re just like us and I don’t like that fact.

Don’t write me off: I’m pretty fucking normal sometimes. Sometimes. I have no desire to off myself or anything, so don’t take this as some sort of suicide note. This is me both explaining myself and putting myself out there a lot more than I should be. I’m outing myself as a bit fucked up in the head, but mostly OK. It’s just, I can’t always be taken at face value. I can’t always be expected to be motivated, or on time, or hard working. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Working with me in a group can be hard, and I get that, and I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s gonna change before the end of semester. I think, come week 12 or 13 or whatever, I’ll still be insecure and needy, a little bit sad and easy to anger. I’ll give up pretty quickly. Just… don’t let me.

In the end, I don’t want to.

Before I jump off this self-centred tirade of why-you-should-give-a-crap-y-ness, there are few, awesome people who I need to mention, but I’m gonna keep it to only those within RMIT, whether or not they study my course. If they’re in Networked Media, I’m gonna link their blog and stuff, so definitely give them a look. If you know of them, talk to them. They’re all great people in their own ways, even if I’m not really friends with them. These are the people who at least partly know that I’m not always that great, and who’ve been even a little bit supportive. I don’t know where I’d be without them, and anyone who fucks them over doesn’t deserve to be considered decent human beings.

In no particular order (OK, alphabetical):

• Myyen Au
• David Delmenico
• Jess May
• Nick Pearce
• Rachel Reynolds
• Nick Stevens
• Georgia Symes

I may not have known all of you that long, or really talked to you that much (two of you I’ve only started talking to, like, four, five weeks ago), but you guys know more than some people I’ve known for most of my life. Which is, well… good for you. You’re all awesome people (except Nick Stevens, who’s a dick) and I definitely love all of you in weird, creepy ways. Just mull on that for a while.

It’s because of you guys, regardless of whether I know you as a friend or if we don’t hang out anymore, whatever, it’s because of you guys that I have to retract my statement from earlier on.

I am absolutely, honestly, OK.

Nonetheless, don’t ever ask me if I’m OK, ever.