Spring Break 2007...It's Oh So Close!

So spring break is almost upon us, and I think I say this for everyone: YES!!! Everyone seems to be going some place nice and warm like Mexico or Florida, and if I were a betting man, which I actually am, I’d put my money that there will be more than one post about spring break plans. So, what about me you ask? I will be spending my time mostly in good old Madison, WI! Now if you have actually read any of my websites, which I don’t expect you to have done, but if you have you would know that my parents live in Arizona. So this brings up the natural question of why on earth I wouldn’t at least visit my parents where it is 80° outside every day. I think it is a combination of being too lazy to actually plan something, pack, unpack, etc and the not wanting to spend any money on anything.

My actual spring break plans consist of working most everyday and then trying to find things to do in my spare time. My girlfriend is going to be gone most of the break and I don’t believe any one will be left in Madison, so I’m praying for good weather so I can go golfing! Otherwise I might spend some time in the library for the multiple exams waiting after spring break or play around with the Macromedia software and try to learn some cool website tricks. I am doing something on Wednesday of spring break that should be a lot of fun! I’m going to my first eye exam in Madison, and then I probably get to pick out new glasses. Although without my mom or girlfriend there, I’ll end up picking out glasses that look terrible and have to spend the next year with them. But anyway, there’s nothing wrong with having a spring break without much to do, so in some ways it will actually be relaxing. Here's a couple of funny golf videos that will probably end up taking a lot of my spare time during the week. The first is of Charles Barkley's horrible golf swing and the second is Tiger Woods making fun of it.

Next year my girlfriend and I are definitely planning on going somewhere for a change. I’ve heard that STA Travel has really good student discounts but frankly I have no idea how to plan a trip. Is anyone else out there going anywhere fun or exciting over spring break? Hopefully so and you can give me some good ideas for the future. Well just a couple more days and we are all free for a most wonderful 9 days!

Are We Really Cyborgs Like RoboCop?!

Last week the only reading we had was the introduction from Andy Clark’s book “Natural Born Cyborgs”. It was a very interesting read and definitely opened my eyes up to the technology around us, even if I slightly disagree with his use of the term cyborg. Essentially, the point of Clark’s introduction is to lay the foundation for proving that we are “natural-born cyborgs” (3), and he does so very convincingly.

Clark explains that the human brain can go “where no animal brains have gone before” (5) because of the great power our brains have. He also uses the line “smart thinkers whose boundaries are simply not those of skin and skull” (5) to describe what humans might be. So as he establishes, as I think most people can agree, that humans have brains that are highly developed, the key to being a natural born cyborg is that we are basically using our brains to manipulate things, or tools. His best example is that our brain is “acting in concert with pen and paper” (6), so that our brain cannot do most math by itself, but employs tools to get the answer. I do agree with this because after you get past very basic multiplications, for example 34*892, it would near impossible do to in your head, but fairly trivial with a pen and paper. So the brain in some way is retaining an ability to manipulate tools to find it’s answers without having them stored. I think this is a lot like how to study for some exams, where it would be foolish to memorize everything, but if you know the main concepts you can derive the specifics during the exam.

So I think Clark is using the reasoning that humans are natural born cyborgs because we are always using tools or machines to live our daily lives. Just like movie cyborgs, such as Terminator and RoboCop, are dependant on machines to live, in many ways Clark argues we are too. Clearly not to the extreme as the movie cyborgs, but almost everything we do now is using tools and machines such as cell phones and computers, or even glasses and prosthetic limbs. By using Clark’s definition to define how humans are natural born cyborgs, I think it is hard to argue against. There is no doubt we are becoming more and more dependent on technology.

However I think there is a negative connotation often associated with the term cyborg, and we discussed after watching the Matrix in class on Tuesday how there is definitely a fear of technology taking over, or a fear of losing control over what we are. I see why these fears are there, but I simply think we need not worry. Much for the same reasons we are natural born cyborgs according to Clark, is why we do not have to fear technology overtaking us. All the tools we use are created by the human mind. Humans use tool after tool to create better tools, ultimately for the purpose of using them. As long as we have the human mind, with its reasoning and tool-using capacities, I do not think there is any problems. I disagree with Clark’s use of the term cyborg because of this. We are not dependant upon most of our tools for survival like one thinks when hearing the term cyborg, and even the stuff which we are dependant on like a pacemaker is a creation from the human mind. Unlike the idea of RoboCop where his body was put together to save his life, humans are born with only the human brain, and then use tools throughout their lives as the brain tells us to. It is interesting to think about how the brain works, but I just think that humans are tool-users, which should not be considered the same thing as a cyborg that is dependent on technology. We are not dependant on it as much as we are and always have been users who exploit it.

Lastly, here is a link to a YouTube video that is quite strange but does cover a few of the same things Clark tries to say in a vastly different medium. I could not embed it because it was disabled on this movie butcheck it out if you have 3 or 4 minutes.

What's Stealing and What Is Creative Sampling?

Last week we read part of Steven Shaviro’s “Connected” as well as chapters 7 and 12 from Jeff Rice’s book “Writing About Cool”. The most interesting part of these reads were the questions brought up about the ideas of authorship and the rights to intellectual property in regards to sampling. Rice defines sampling as “joining pieces of different songs together to create a new song” (58). However, I do not feel that it needs to be limited to music, but the idea of taking small bits or samples from different places and putting them together is sampling in a general sense. Whether it is a research paper, a news article, a song, or a speech, sampling is commonplace. The question we started to touch on and I think bears deeper investigation is where is the line between sampling that is acceptable and sampling that constitutes stealing.

I think there are a few key components to delineate between stealing and acceptable sampling. The most important one is the spirit of the sampling. If someone is using the sample as a building block to something completely different, then there is no harm done and it is acceptable. Scratching is a perfect example of this, where the originally used songs did not really contribute to the newly formed message. If the original work or idea is used but the meaning is completely changed, then it is probably not stealing. However, I think it is also important that when a sample is used that the original author be given credit. If this doesn’t occur, the sampler would have to be assumed to be trying to take the credit for him or her self, which is in the spirit of stealing. The only clear thing about trying to figure out the differences between types of sampling is that it cannot be done with a single boundary line. Case by case analysis probably needs to be applied to some degree, as the length of the sample, how recognizable it is, and usage of it all play a role in whether or not it is stealing.

To further complicate things, in some ways almost nothing is ever made from scratch without any sampling of ideas. Could Watson and Crick have solved the structure of DNA without the X-ray diffraction information of Rosalind Franklin? And could Franklin have obtained her information without someone developing the X-ray diffraction technique before her? The answer is probably no to both these questions, and I think it is important to realize that sampling did play a role. It plays a role in almost all discoveries and new creations, so whatever we do, we should make sure we do not eliminate it.

Another issue we touched on in class and is mentioned in the Shaviro reading is making people pay for samples of information. I tend to think it is not a good road to go down as it certainly could limit our ability to create new ideas. How does it make sense to own an idea or sound to the point that others need to pay for it? What if Watson and Crick published their paper on the structure of DNA, and then every researcher thereafter had to pay them for using that structure? Needless to say, I don’t think science would be where it is now. People should not be allowed to take someone else’s work directly without giving credit to the original author, but I just do not see how money should be given to use an idea. It is another point of contention though as many music artists do not want their song used at all if they do not receive money, so it is just another gray area.

Rebelled Against

The Men's basketball team had a great year but it's over! We lost to UNLV in the second round of the tournament 74-68. For most of the last two games our shots simply weren't falling, committing way too many silly fouls and turnovers, and at times our seniors didn't seem to realize it could be their last game. But even though our season ended going 4-4 in the last eight games, it was successful. We set school records in wins with 30 and Big Ten wins with 13. We spent all but one week in the top 10, and reached the #1 ranking for the first time in school history. Alando Tucker became our first First-Team All American since the 50's, and the Big 10 Player of the Year to name just a few of his accolades. We were already on the college basketball map, but this season helped put us right in the middle of it. It's disappointing to see such a great team end so poorly, but it won't be the last time Bo Ryan fields a fantastic badger team. So as sad as it is to have the season end, it really was a special season!

Is Cool Really Cool?

When reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Coolhunt”, I found a couple of very good points made. In the reading, it becomes clear that cool people are necessary to spot cool in general, and that trying to look for cool things is not realistic. This is stated in Gladwell’s first rule of cool, which states, “the act of discovering cool causes cool to take flight...” (Gladwell 12). If something is cool at one particular moment, then once people spot it as being cool, something else becomes cool instead, so it really is a fluid situation. This makes sense because part of cool is being rebellious and if something is noticed as cool, it may no longer really be rebellious. I also liked the idea that only cool people can really coolhunt, which makes sense because if you were not cool, why would you be able to see it? DeeDee and Piney in the article realized this when they had a non-cool coolhunter working for them and he “just didn’t have that certain instinct” (Gladwell 11). When you see a truly cool person, there is something about them that is different than other people, that screams at you like they know what they are doing and I think that is part of that instinct that DeeDee was talking about.

There is one part of Gladwell's article that I have a little trouble with though. I agree that it makes sense that only cool people can see cool. Yet, can you really see cool? The second you see cool, it is not really cool anymore. So then even cool people don't really see cool. And why would any cool person wear something that's not cool? Well of course they wouldn't, but if they define it as cool, then it would not be cool anymore so they couldn't wear it. By that logic they would be naked, but that might be thought of as cool too and here we go again! So maybe the point I'm trying to make here is that cool doesn't change once a cool person sees it. Only when an un-cool person like myself recognizes cool does it change. I didn't see that distinction in the article, but I feel it should be made.

I also thought there is a lot of overlap between many of the recent readings we’ve had such as Gladwell, Barabasi, and Watts. The idea that ideas or viruses or a number of other things spread through patterns that are all similar to one another is a common theme. I think the example in Gladwell’s article as well as Barabasi’s of the Iowa farmers and the hybrid corn is a prime example of how many things probably spread. You have those early innovators that set the stage for early adopters. Then if the idea is actually good enough to make all of them happy, you are undoubtedly going to get the majority. Of course, as with anything there will always be the stubborn stragglers at the end to resist change.

It becomes very interesting when thinking about these ideas with the spread of almost anything. As it’s March Madness, it makes me wonder just how the NCAA Tournament has become such a huge success. I speculate that it started out relatively small, but as those early adopters began to become excited about it, it lead to the majority slowly making it huge. Also, I think the ideas of hubs from Barabasi probably played a role as a fairly early adopter. Somewhere along the line someone figured out that the tournament could be a huge TV hit, and had the connections to make it reach so many more people, causing the huge spread. At the very least, the spread of ideas is an interesting thing to think about.

Midwest Region 2 seed

I was about to start writing my reading notes post, but I thought I would make a little rant on our tourney prospects from my opinion. For starters, we looked HORRENDOUS today against Ohio State, but the odds of Tucker playing that bad again and for us to make so many turnovers are unlikely to hurt us again in the tourney. As far as being a 2 seed in the Midwest, it is probably a blessing in disguise compared to being a 1 seed anywhere. This is the only way we could have played so close all the way to the final four. We get the 1st two rounds in Chicago, and the next 2 in St. Louis.

So how are our match-ups? Well let's be honest, the day we lose to 15 seed Texas A&M CC is the day I drop out of college (aka, it won't happen). But the 7-10 game winner between UNLV and Georgia Tech is not that scary for us either, as we have much more depth and star power than either of those teams. Our Sweet 16 match-up would probably be Oregon, though don't doubt Notre Dame or Winthrop to be there. Oregon is definitely a good team, but their lack of post presence could be a huge advantage we could exploit. And theoretically, if we make it to the Elite Eight, there is almost no way we will be playing someone other than Florida, Maryland, or Arizona in my mind. Florida is a very formidable opponent, but those three teams all have one thing in common: They are from no where close to St. Louis. We already travel good, but if we make it to St. Louis, we'll have such a huge home court advantage that I don't see us losing easily. So I think we have our work cut out for us, but I can't imagine a better seeding in the end. So GO BADGERS!!!

Wisconsin v. OSU: Round 3

Tomorrow at about 2:30 PM, Wisconsin will be involved in the 3rd round of OSU v. Wisconsin. A win puts us as a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament and with serious momentum. It's just SO EXCITING!

Coolhunter's Paradise: Memorial Union!

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Coolhunt”, I went on my own coolhunt today. I picked a public space where I figured all the cool people would hang out, and which was sort of close to home since it is frigid out! So where else to pick other than the Memorial Union, and in particular, hanging out at the Rathskeller. After all, “The key to coolhunting...is to look for cool people first and cool things later” (Gladwell 10). Going at 11am on a Wednesday probably didn’t make for the ideal coolhunting conditions, but I made some observations nonetheless.

As seen in the picture, I spent some time just casually observing the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) game near the Rathskeller because I figured anyone that can play the game well would be cool. Unfortunately only one person, in a group of 3 others played the game, but I do think they were cool. They came into the room and acted as if they owned it, not caring what others thought. The DDR player played the game in a fashion where he seemed to be in complete control and moved his feet faster than I can think. He wore a hat sideways, which screamed rebellious and individual to me, and though I do not know cool well, I’m pretty sure his clothes were cool too.

One of the common things that I saw that may be a description of cool is Ugg Boots. Though I hear often of people making fun of these boots, doing so might even enhance the cool factor since it shows rebellion by wearers from what others think. I am not sure exactly the story behind these boots, but from my knowledge they became popular on the east coast first. I can speculate that some cool people who were the innovators, which slowly brought about the early adopters before the majority joined in, must have worn the boots. However, even after sweeping one coast, it slowly crept west where I do not feel they are as popular. My speculation leads me to think that what is cool east may not be cool in the Midwest, so the innovative Midwest people may not be wearing them here. Thus it may linger on but until the innovators start to wear them, they may never explode in this region. Yet, I still think that they are rebellious here now, making them cool. In many ways, they are no longer rebellious on the east coast, so maybe they are not actually cool there anymore, but cool here now. So maybe instead the innovators are wearing them now and before long everyone will be.

In the end, I feel that what I figured as cool, may or may not be cool at all. Ultimately, I do not feel as though I am cool and that if DeeDee or Baysie saw me, they would just keep on looking. According to Gladwell’s third rule of cool, it says “that it can only be observed by those who are themselves cool” (Gladwell 11). Gladwell is talking about cool here, and since I do not think I would be considered cool, it would be impossible for me to accurately observe it. Yet, to make it more complicated, the first rule of cool is “that it cannot accurately be observed at all” (Gladwell 12). This is because once you observe cool, it has already changed into something else so that cool is never really observable. Therefore it takes a cool person to properly coolhunt to find the cool people and see what they are wearing. I tried my best and I think I spotted some cool people, but how can I know they really were cool if I cannot observe it myself?!

It's A Small World After All!!!

Though the reading from Mark Taylor’s “The Moment of Complexity” was a reading from further back, we did discuss it a little Tuesday. As I mentioned in the last reading notes blog, I felt as though writing could be both grid and network but that academic writing was clearly grid-like. After our discussion, I would like to recant that statement. I do still feel that academic writing is more grid than network, but a good example in class was the reference section of a research article. A reference section is very much a network as it connects many people, and even though it is not linking many texts quickly such as the internet, it is still linking them. So I think that trying to categorize things into grid and network is much less clear-cut than I originally thought, and almost all forms of writing and expression have both grid and network components.

Last week we read two chapters of Duncan Watts’ book “Six Degrees”, and it is undoubtedly the most interesting and smooth read that we’ve had this semester. Watts gives many great real examples of his points, and by using interesting stories, makes the reading easier to understand. Though we had very little time to actually discuss the reading, I would say that the argument made by Watts is the importance of emergence, and the interconnectedness that exists.

“How does individual behavior aggregate to collective behavior?” (Watts 24). This is a question Watts poses and it is an excellent way to think about the idea of emergence. We can seldom predict how something will work solely by knowing how the individual parts work. One example is how the brain is made up of trillions of neurons, which we know their functions well, but the brain’s overall “nature cannot be explained simply in terms of aggregations of neurons” (Watts 25). Another example of this is mobs and the idea that the mob as a whole acts differently than one would expect by looking at solely the individuals. Halloween on State Street was an example brought up in class and illustrates the way a mob can act much more differently than the individuals would on their own. It is these ideas on emergence that set the groundwork for a science on networks, where relationships among various components of a system shape the way the system work.

Networks can be extremely complex or simple, and this is highlighted by the small-world problem. The small-world problem is how people can be connected to almost anyone on the globe within a short number of degrees of separation, commonly said to be 6. I do think that to make a strong statement that everyone is definitely linked within a certain number of steps is probably unrealistic, as there has to be someone out there that has almost no part in the “worldwide network”. But I think that the small-world problem highlights an interesting point about networks in general, and that is that they can become very complex, very quick. Watts uses the pure branching network to show that a person could reach 125 people within 3 degrees of separation if each person knows 5 new people. The problem is that in the real world, pure branching is not going to happen, and that most likely many of the people you know, know those same people. This is what Watts calls “clustering”. In sort of a connection to these ideas, Watts later goes into the outbreak of diseases and viruses in the world. It can be rather terrifying to think of how simple it might be for a virus to get in one person and quickly get around the world in a matter of days through our networking. Yet, again it is seen how complicated networks can be as no virus has yet to take over the entire globe in such a manner. This can be for a variety of reasons such as infection time, contagiousness, and deadliness among others. So when taking all of the factors of some disease or virus into account, one quickly realizes that a simple model may be sufficient to get a general idea about the spread of disease, but a vastly complicated one is required to perfectly describe it. In the end, I think another major point Watts is trying to get at is the complexity of the networks that do exist, and we need to invest a lot more time and energy into studying them to truly understand aspects of life that we do not now.