Presentation on Snapchat

The introduction of Snapchat has arguably turned social networking to different a side. Combining features of Vine (short, less than 10 second video clips) and Instagram (photo sharing), and many other features, Snapchat is quickly taking the lead in the youth's method of social networking. Despite all this, the application is still not available for Microsoft windows phones, as Rudy Huyn, a developer for the unofficial Snapchat app for the phone has since received the hammer by the developers to shut it down. Though Microsoft hints at future support of the app, Rudy personally has not received word of support for the app.

I digress, Segen did a a good job walking through some of the features on the app, notably the "news" feature which relays up-to-date articles on occurrences around the word and a "face-recognition" feature where it can edit your facial features to cause you to vomit rainbows. The developer's rejection of facebook's buyout means the developers want to further innovate their product, and I with many others agree on their decision. I personally do not use this application (reasons above) but I can see the potential and fun of this app. Although the entertainment factor is subject to the comedic ability of your friends, the reality is -  if you have boring friends, you will get boring snaps. Clouding your news feed with uninspired, uninteresting updates could potentially diminish the quality of the app in the beholder's eyes.

Community, Cults, and Culture - Has technology played a role?

Community in the broad sense has been heavily influenced by the onset of technology and the web. Others have broadly defined the 'community' as a word, or taken its direct definition. We must consider the notion that arguably, a sense of community has diminished in the present day by the invention of the web, making users less likely to participate in human-to-human interactions and more likely to become solitary. However, I personally believe that the sense of "community" has been enhanced post-world wide web.

Let's further defend this point that community has grown since the invention of the world wide web. Sub cultures and niche communities have already established themselves at their corners of the internet. A student in his presentation mentioned Reddit, a huge "social networking" website where millions of users have already cemented into different "subreddits" featuring selective, and sometimes specific interests. Some sub-communities on Reddit have developed a cultist-like following, a fascinating phenomenon where if a user, for instance, states any point that goes against the status quo he or she will be argued aggressively against, or potentially removed from the community. Examples of these are prominent in controversial subreddits whereupon subscribers follow topics in an overzealous manner. Forums and discussion boards pertaining to other interests have stemmed substantially. A core fanbase of a certain following may branch off to different communities.

Moreover, a modern day-to-day internet user should identify the culture of different sites and communities. Mentioning "Youtube Comments" as a subculture the user quickly associates them with vile, and less than intelligent input in most cases. Imgur, an image hosting site, similar to Reddit, has a voting system for their comments, so usually the most humorous, or clever comments will be seen. Tumblr, a blogging site is identified as having a radical social justice views on feminism and tends to be very forward with the aforementioned standpoints. Many other websites can be mentioned, and a general idea of what culture pertains to which community is subjective, but one can quickly notice that not only has the internet established a community on its own, but enhanced it and established a sense of "community" encapsulating any interest a person may have more so than the world has seen before the internet.

Age of Singularity, Convergence and Moore's Law

Humans first began making tools out of stone. After we began mining native copper and tin, we smelted them together to create the first tools and weapons made of bronze. Our knowledge of metallurgy grew, as a result we could smelt more advanced materials, so in some parts of the word before others - we forged tools made of iron. It wasn't until the mid-19th century when the industrial revolution started in one corner of the world.

Right now, we exist in the age of information. The idea of convergence: data throughput, access to the internet, computational speed, and memory storage is advancing exponentially. We are achieving milestones in artificial intelligence and robotics. According to Moore's Law, processing power and transistors per square inch will double every two years. This will happen with the slow integration of technology in our environment, bodies, and brains.

A Visit from Erik Hanberg

Erik Hanberg spoke at our class last week mainly about publishing and his experiences with the publishing boom.

Hanberg was an author, his wife designed the cover of his first several books and he seeked third party agencies to publish his books. As a result, he saved quite a bit of money on publishing, and made decent profit from selling his books. Hanberg began selling, initially, his mystery novels on the onset of the publishing boom. On his timeline, I could recall that he churned out novels almost yearly. This to me is fascinating, writing and keeping track of the progress of his books and visualizing the work being done on a step-graph was also quite neat. He was able to think of entire story lines in months, not to mention the needless research that may have been required his later novels particularly in the sci-fi realm.

Overall, his talk was very interesting, Erik is a bright guy. I had never had known how authors did work during the cusp of online publishing, and his analogies on the gold mines of California really gave perspective on the timing of these booms and how certain people, if lucky, can truly capitalize on the opportunity.

What You Should Never Buy Online

1. Sloths

Nine times out of ten it was just painted raccoons. 

2. Virtual Memory

Because sites like www.downloadmoreram.com exist - Yes, you should never buy it because you can always download it for free!

3. Anthrax

I'm never buying this again. It never delivered plus I got interviewed by the FBI, would not recommend. 

A Trial by Search Engines

In the span of an hour, groups had to complete a virtual scavenger hunt using search engines to find very specific websites and locations and later prove them with a screenshot or URL address. With clues so niche and detailed, within minutes our group was already struggling with some of the tasks.

We decided to split the hunt, each of us taking a few questions at a time and sending those answers to the designated recorder. Let us begin by going through some of the bizarre tasks I was assigned to scour the web for:

1. Twitterfall on global warming.

I was not familiar with Twitterfall. Neither was the rest of my group - and when asked if any of them have twitter accounts, all of them said no. Thankfully, I had a twitter account that I don't even use (I only signed up to retweet tweets for a chance to win a beta key) so I ended up using that to finish this task.

2. Comment on a message board, bonus points if you get someone to reply to your comment.

What better place to try this than on Reddit? I logged in, sorted by 'rising' (this means Reddit sorts through posts that are 'rising' in popularity) in hopes to get a quick reply. I saw a post about a user who did very interesting makeup for a Halloween costume. I chose this post for a couple reasons: The original poster is showing off his/her work to thousands of people, this makes it more likely for him/her to respond if you have any questions about his/her said work. It also implies the original poster did the makeup him/herself, and that this wasn't a repost from last year's Halloween. This way, I can ensure a reply. I entered the thread, and posted:

 "Spooky. How long did this take you?" 

All my predictions were correct, and within minutes she replies, "Thank you! It took close to an hour because I had to start over a few times, finding the right placement for the eye and nose was really tricky and having her real eye staring at me while I was doing it didn't help!"

3. What is the name of [Andrew Fry's] married sister?

We weren't sure if we got this one right. This question alone contributes to the idea of the vast power in today's search engines. How a user can do background checks on certain individuals, gather related information about family and/or locations live, and narrowing it down further by age and surnames is truly eerie. 

Concerning fictional viewpoints on the web

EPIC 2015

The plot of EPIC 2015 consists of a series of events, fact and fiction. The series of real events begins at the start of the video, from 1989 with the invention of the world wide web. The real events end in 2004, from this point on the video passes into the realm of fiction. Starting in 2005, where Microsoft buys Friendster, and the inception of Googlezon.

The hypothetical Googlezon is very intriguing premise. The term may have caught on by its own, as the combination of google-like technology and amazon-like technology becomes more and more apparent in today’s tech industry.

THE MACHINE IS US/ING US

An interesting video that’s very well produced. The “internet scare” has been a hot topic in the last decade, especially with the rise of SOPA, CISPA, and now, CISA. Encroaching evidence of NSA violating privacy of civilians is also contributing to the idea of the “machine” using us. The feeling of this video is quite a negative one, looking at technology and the rise of the web as a threat to humanity. 

There are some who disagree with the negative connotation of the web, including myself. I believe the benefits the world wide web has given us far outweigh the consequences of a more streamlined, connected web.