Kira’s emdublog

Groups never work out for me, so I have decided to work on my own for this project. It’ll be more work for me, but at least I won’t have to rely on anyone else for my grade and no one else will be relying on me. I went to the class meeting and actually learned more than I thought I would. There were subjects of study that I hadn’t thought of like Skype (and VoIP in general),  forums, MMORPGs, &c.

I have decided to do my project on GaiaOnline. My sister participates in this, which is where I got the idea, and it’s an interesting combination of anime-style MMORPG and forum posting. I have joined and found out a few things about the company itself. It’s a good beginning I suppose.

So, to be honest: I didn’t understand a lot of what Licklider was saying because I don’t know the terminology. With that in mind, I did understand some of the possibilities for HCI that he envisioned. I was also put in mind of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from “The question is not ‘What is the answer?’ The question is ‘What is the Question?’” from Poincaré. The possibility of a computer as complex as Earth itself is mindboggling, yet still concievable. Not just HCI, but Human Computers.
Again the fact that anyone could have concieved of the possibilites that have actually come to pass in the world of computers is amazing. It makes me think: What are computer scientists predicting right now that will come to pass? And: What are they predicting that will seem rediculous in the future (i.e. jetsons-esque tech)?

Vannevar Bush reads like a technological Nostradamus. He may not have gotten everything right, but the things that he did are eerie. If he had been shown the modern computer, what would he have said? Of course, we haven’t quite gotten rid of that mechanical step between the electrical impulses of the computer and the brain, but I’m sure he’d be proud of our progress. Our computers serve several of the functions that Bush described for different machines. The Voder/Vocorder, calculator, electronic databases, even the endless library of the memex can be contained on one machine.

The other aspect of this article I took in was the fact that we take many of the technological advances we have at our fingertips for granted. Less than 70 years ago, the kind of things we do on a daily basis were nearly unimaginable. It makes you wonder, what will we be capable of in 50 years? Will we have finally gotten rid of that laborious and time-wasting mechanical step?

The introductions were pretty obscenely long. I realize that you have to know some of the history of a subject before you can really talk about it, but jeeze. I think the first introduction could have been broken up a little better so that it didn’t look like just columns and columns of text. The second introduction was much easier to read and didn’t feel so listy. Reading the intros for this book is important because it does give you a lot of background knowledge for what we’re about to study. I found the most interesting parts to be the discussion of “the art of science and the science of art” bits. Seeing how the two approaches to organizing and conveying information came together was really remarkable.

Borges’s story would definitely have confused me if I hadn’t read the introduction to it. Although I think it lost something because it was already all figured out for me. I really like discussions of time and especially nonlinear time. Although, this was sort of linear, but I liked the idea that the separate realities or lines of time could rejoin at a later point. Overall, I liked the story but the fact that the main character was a nazi spy (or something?) was kind of distracting.

Right now there are several urls that I visit multiple times in a day:

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Hokay, so, here’s my blog. It’s chillin’. Dang, that is a sweet blog you might say.