Final Paper for COPR 1123

I've "finished" my final paper for class, but I'm a bit tired, having been up late working on a project for a client.

I'm going to wait and look at it again later, and see if I still feel the same about it, or make a lot of corrections.

I need to nap, but it's already getting late!

Spread 'Em

Just spent $4 on a bag of pork cracklins and a regular sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I feel like the foreign convenience store operator should have said, in a thick accent, "please spread your buttcheeks, sir," then he would have proceeded to pull $4 out of my rectum.

Still stinging.

I'm Okay

Strange how I react to the question, "how are you?"

Even stranger, how I react to the response, "I'm okay."

"I'm fine," is, in general, off-putting.

I'm not much for pleasantries, canned speech, or pointless discussion. If you ask me how I'm feeling today, chances are, I'm going to tell you, "I'm really tired. I was up too late, and I haven't eaten very well today."

I may venture on a huge discussion if I had a particularly interesting night. Fair warning.

The point is--when I ask, I really want to know! Please, don't short change my interest in your life and well-being with fine or okay. I hope there is, at least, a personal follow-up.

I may, subconsciously, pay attention how many times I get a canned response to such a question. If I stop bothering to ask, it would likely be because I feel like our discussions are pointless, fruitless, or just plain boring. It isn't an act of pretense or pretentiousness; I tend to keep my mind occupied with concepts and ideas, and never bother to devote a lot of time to things I find little value in. It is personal, but it is solely devoted to improving the quality of both our lives.

If I seem somewhat intense or intimidating, imagine how wonderful it is that I bother to ask; I don't often pay attention to the world outside my door without a reason. I don't know about customs, colloquialisms, or social and cultural acceptability. It is not that I don't care about these things; these are not instincts, and I have not found any personal value in learning such things.

I still love you, but I know there is no point in saying anything but what I must say to you.

Abrupt ending.

About Digital Storytelling

George Carter should appreciate this. This was a project done for video class a few years ago. I've actually received an honorable mention for "most engrossing short film."

I still laugh at some of it; it was a really fun project.

About RSS - Again

Actually, this was a clever trick I didn't know about.

Weblog feeds are structured the same as RSS feeds, so you can dump a log address into your reader, and get updates on your reader.

Hot.

Thanks for that one; it can be a real pain in the ass trying to get updates from your favorite sources, when they don't have a dedicated feed linked on the site.

Interesting feedback: you can add RSS feeds and logs directly to your iGoogle page. Useful if you like to consolidate your browser space.

About Google Docs - Part Two

It might not be too mind altering for me to hit the same subject from another angle.

I'm sure it won't, actually.

I've been instructed to log about the experience of "participating in a collaborative document on Google Docs," but I reflect on a familiar experience, yet I believe I'm expected to gush about it like it was the most exciting thing I've ever done. Maybe I'm overreacting, or I might be reacting realistically, as I was asked to comment, and not provide anything--well--of substance?

Background? Right on. I've collaborated a lot over the years. I've rewritten pages via email. I've collaborated over etherpad/piratepad. I've collaborated via whiteboard using individual colors. I get it, it's a bit more convenient, because it's an actual word processor being used by the whole group. But I don't honestly feel like it was a compelling practice; what we did. There was nothing but a relatively limited and uninspired experience writing the same thing as everybody else.

I suppose I get to check that off the assignment list, but I was hoping it would go somewhere.

Fortunately it was familiar ground.

About Google Docs

I've been using Google Docs, off and on, since it was added to Google Labs. I've seen it grow and evolve into collaborative tools, and I've seen entire portions of it undergo major overhauls. I've been using Google Docs as a basis for cloud storage since DAY ONE.

I'm not sure what blogging about Google Docs could prove, but since you ask for it, there it is.

•There are applications that allow you to mount your Google storage like it's a hard drive in your My Computer folder on a PC, or have it show up in the Finder on a Mac.

•As a grandfathered beta account, I have nearly 10GB of storage.

•Just like all things Google, Google will search through what you have, and show you ads based on it. Enjoy that.

On an interesting side note, if you blog enough, Google will ask you to use Adsense, and make money for blogging.

Femail

I always used to think in my head "mail man, femail man," when I'd watch the mail man, or the more politically correct postal worker, come by the house when I was a kid. Or a yoot, whichever you prefer.

Strange, isn't it? I was just thinking yesterday that, because snail mail is called, "mail," email should have been called, "femail." There would then be no need for a "femail man," which would be nice. It has an intimate ring to it, doesn't it?

Maybe "femail" should be the name given to the evolution of remote human interaction, in much the same way that email revolutionized the concept of mail:

Eventually we'll see a world with a ubiquitous network; one that permeates the atmosphere and connects devices--forget devices. HUMANS connected together. The system would connect users all over the world with a series of nodules as a directional identifier. I could be known as mike.watson.albany.georgia.us.earth.milkyway. Earth.milkyway would be would be a forward compatibility for an extraterrestrial network--in the works.

Security could be a system of PGP codes that underlie the unique name--trusted acceptance would allow the user directly to identify me as my full locale identifier or even just Mike or Watson, or Mike.Watson. Maybe the separator would be different than the "." period, but a trusted node could call me anything they want, and it could automatically be saved with their personal identifier. Attempting to contact me directly by overriding the PGP would be an uphill effort, for sure. Social mediums, however, would allow others to see your node name, but the only way you could use my node is to receive a trusted node pass directly from me. Each node would be able to identify the level of security for all different activities in conjunction with external trusted nodes.

Along with this network, we will need a "femail" system that allows trusted users to communicate with "intertrusted" users directly. It would be the convergence of the cellular, txt, multimedia message system, and mail system as one--along with other conceptual interactivity. Documents could be sent to you directly, stored in your own brain, or maybe a localized Arbitrary Organic Storage (AOS). As well could you receive short messages, sensations and smells (limited matrices of interactions with the olfactory and/or nervous systems). Sights, smells, sounds, and sensations would be directly sensed, rather than as a secondary effort, such as holding up a picture; you can opt to see, feel, hear, smell or taste what your trusted friends intend.

It is a pretty far off concept, and you probably would never need an iPhone--the iPad would be useless, sadly. School would be obsolete; we could arbitrarily learn and understand concepts and languages by direct relation with sub-cognitive association, rather than having to memorize and cognitively make associations.

Maybe we'll never achieve the kind of reasoning skills needed to interact on such a grand level.

About RSS

Would you rather have your news come to you, or would you rather go to it?

Would you rather have your news tailored or just get what you're given?

I'm no neophyte to the majority of the Internet's offerings. I have accounts just about anywhere; email addresses, instant messengers. I have run servers for DNS, FTP, VNC, and in-home media. Webpages? Sure.

Coincidentally, I haven't ever really picked up much on RSS. I suppose that the majority of my iGoogle pages are cleverly hidden RSS feeds, but I think I'm taking a shining to the mess of news, in one place, from the sources I selected. I like the organization of iGoogle, but I think I like the chaotic nature of the aggregate better. I can sort them, or select a single source, or just see the whole mess, which is what I gravitate toward.

It may be an assignment, but I'm digging it.

Strangely enough, I don't see as much of the instructional value as I do just bringing in news I subjectively enjoy, but I really do enjoy it.

Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

Frank-N-Furter, the Sweet Transvestite

I was up until 2-something-ish last night. I'm not blaming Dinner And A Movie at the Albany Municipal Auditorium, but I am blaming the Midnight classic Rocky Horror Picture Show, which would only be rightfully shown at Midnight. We got a group together; Alex, Buckworth, Isaac and Krista, Matt and Scarlet, Robert, and myself. It wasn't based on the group, it just sort of came together that way.

There was singing and yelling. There was rice. There were newspapers and water guns. There flashlights and lighters and dancing and playing along. Ages 12 - 60 could be seen singing the same songs, throwing toilet paper, and calling Janet a fucking slut.

48 years of calling it like it is!

Pretty cool, really.

At any rate, I was so ready to roll out once it was over that I had friends who were wondering, this morning, if I was upset when I left. It was 2am; it was time to go!

It is time to go!

Caffeine and the True Definition of Irony

Strange thing happened the other day.

Tired as crap, I had some coffee to wake me up and keep me from being--well--a damn fool. I went with a co-worker to work on a computer, and spent an hour working on the computer, only to phone Apple for a service call (yes, Little Billy, Apple computers DO break!).

The trip, frought with drowsiness, culminated in a groggy trip back to the lab, where I realized that I left my coffee mug in the faculty member's vacant--and locked--office. Somehow I managed to suffer the very fate I feared, and it involved the very tool I was hoping would have prevented the incident.

*slaps head*

Call Me Crazy

You're crazy!

Thank you. Anyway, there is a point.

You put all your faith in the Mac--you're essentially a true believer that all things Jobs shall never fail. You justify and rationalize failures. You're bound to find yourself on the defensive.

Computers DO make mistakes.

Even Macs! 


I know. How DARE I? Get over it. Get in to a mindset where you use the right tool for the right job, and let go of the elitist ideal. Sure, I love my Mac, too, but let's not bleed about it. I may not like Windows, but I respect the platform. When you're dealing with computers, which aren't exactly the least common denominator (technologically speaking), you have lots of parts. This translates to lots of chances to fail.

I wonder how many Apple software engineers used to work for Microsoft?

About YouTube Videos

Okay, so we aren't all perfect.

It is an interesting concept; rather than taking you through an exhaustingly wordy explanation for Web 2.0, and how it progressed beyond the concepts of Web 1.0, a hand drawn and cut out paper girl is going to SHOW you how Web 1.0 worked, and how Web 2.0 differs. It is an individualized approach to the typical dictated attempts to share information, and it gets the message across--mostly. 

The video shows the figure setting out the basic elements of Web 1.0; it represents a business meeting, a young girl with a laptop, a family with an iMac, an ambiguous figure checking email, another girl who is looking for video, and so on. It then attempts to represent the shift to Web 2.0 by showing how each of the recipients of the information from the business meeting becomes a contributor of shared information in a shared world by drawing lines going from each to the other. It makes a point without saying a word.

Unfortunately, it gets a bit lost with some of the representations, which can be as ambiguous as the girl/boy checking her/his email. It could have more simply been displayed by having:

Web 1.0 = information -> 

Then saying: 

Web 2.0 = information -> + feedback <- + sharing! <->

Representing some of those concepts may have been a bit of a stretch, but it would be better than the little transitions(?) that it attempted to make, that left me wondering if the video was going to GET TO THE POINT. The sharing aspect, once it did get there, was pretty good.

All that aside, it did a decent job driving it all home.  The sound quality was atrocious, but it gives it a bit of charm. Keeping the seams while removing the atrocious quality would be nice.

Concept: 8

Execution: 6

Video: 8

Audio: 4

Overall: Average the other 4 numbers, people.

Not About YouTube Videos

I was going to take and post about a YouTube video, but I was distracted by a song I heard. Coincidentally it is also available as a YouTube video.

"Kreuzberg"

There is a wall that runs right through me
Just like the city, I will never be joined
What is this love? Why can I never hold it?
Did it really run out in the strangers' bedrooms?

I
I have decided
At twenty-five
Something must change

Saturday night in East Berlin
We took the U-Bahn to the East Side Gallery
I was sure I'd found love with this one lying with me
Crying again in the old bahnhof

I
I have decided
At twenty-five
That something must change

After sex
The bitter taste
Been fooled again
The search continues

 I honestly didn't know what the lyrics were until I looked them up. I usually don't pay much attention to the lyrics of a song; I have a scope of listening very much akin to my scope of understanding--I set myself outside of the picture to see it objectively. Even when I do deconstruct a song, I typically do so from the viewpoint of the way it interacts harmonically, rather than listening to the poetry.

About Blogging

Much like journaling, it can be pretty personal. Being forced to blog or journal would be not only tend to be less personal, but also less visceral; more contrived.

I have a laundry list of lots of things I could blog about--things personal and passionate, but blogging about concepts that I'm given as a subject is largely no different than asking me to post discussions in the class discussion list, except that I'm less likely to get a response.

Give this exercise meaning by allowing me to be a bit more creative and free thinking; see my experiences, blogging or otherwise, become more memorable for us all.

Identification

Everybody has a favorite. 

If you've ever been anywhere from 3-17 while these guys, the Ninja Turtles, were popular, you're a fan. Moreso, you're a fan of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo OR Raphael. Maybe two of them, if you're that dynamic. You identified with one or two of the turtles, and conceded that the others just aren't for you. 


I've always felt differently. I've always felt that, rather than identifying with one or two ninja turtles, that they were all essentially a part of your overall balance.

The first is Leonardo balancing with Raphael, or discipline balancing with disorder. Strangely enough, they seemed to butt heads quite a bit because both had leader personalities; Leonardo is even tempered and deliberate; always trying to figure out the right way to do things, and Raphael is brash and headstrong; caring little about rules or regulations. Both had a tendency to be reclusive when not in action; internally, Leonardo is always focusing on discipline, and Raphael just wanting to be alone.

The other concept is the cerebral balance; Donatello versus Michelangelo, or the keen analytical mind versus the free mind. Both are very observational; both share a strong extraverted personality. Donatello loves to share inventions and concepts with the others, while Michelangelo loves to smell the roses and party. One tends to speak very technical while the other is always very relaxed and detached, even when excited.

I believe, in conjunction, the range between the two sets of balances represent personality aspects of all individuals, however analogous the relationship.