In Summation

For my last post, I really just wanted to talk about how much I enjoyed this class as a whole. This class helped me make new friends that I hadn't really talked to yet outside of the room, and now I'm friends with most of them. There were new and fresh things to talk about every week, and the amount of information I've learned I really appreciate. I really liked having this class as what I call a 'sanity' class, a class I look forward to because the rest are pretty darn stressful. So thank you, Dr. Wilkes, Dr. Parks, and Sydney, for creating an awesome class that was a wonderful first introduction to college.

The Last Class

The last week, we did a lot of really cool things with codewriting and creating our own websites and animations. Although occasionally frustrating, the results actually did turn out quite cool. I've never written code before in my life, and  I really liked learning how. Also, I enjoyed seeing my classmates' websites and the funny and creative things we all did -I'm looking at you and the penguins, Noah, and Roommates' ridiculous Boone holiday card she made on Scratch.- It was a great way to end the class.

More Updates on Egypt

The elections are finally happening! I've been trying to keep an eye on Egypt ever since I researched their revolution, and I'm legitimately very happy things seem to be going well for them.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-12-02/africa/world_africa_egypt-elections_1_election-results-election-board-moderate-islamists?_s=PM:AFRICA

Something I Forgot That's Totally Awesome

I forgot that in that class, I showed everyone this awesome video of Westboro Baptist Church showing down with Anonymous, with Anonymous clearly coming out the better...man? collective? I've always been entertained by this video, and I'm attaching it to this post, if you'd like entertainment today.

Viva la Revolucion

My topic for the internet was about the role it played in the recent government upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia, which was completely fascinating. It was so cool to see the internet, which a lot of people condemn for all its flaws, be able to help a country overcome totalitarian regimes. The internet effectively helped them gather groups for protests, spread information about the cause, etc. We spent a long time on all these different topics, which I really enjoyed. Everyone got to talk and share their opinion -and I'll admit it, I have an opinion on everything. When I get bored, I talk. It's a flaw. - This was definitively one of my favorite sections of the entire semester. It was so cool hearing about all these different things on varying subjects all related to the internet. Everything from medicine to dating to overthrowing crazed governments.

Also, I learned that one of my great aunts is on the dating site 'Christian Mingle' and is legitimately meeting cool men her age. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it's extremely entertaining.

Bees!

Technically, we talked about cloud computing. But I think more of us were interested in the little insects the lecture centered around. Granted, bees terrify me, and I certainly would not have been able to do what Dr. Wilkes did with the branch, but they're certainly very interesting and that video was beyond awesome. The concept and application of cloud computing is also very interesting though, especially in how many places its being applied, down to a website that helps beekeepers connect with one another and share information about their hives. I'd heard of 'the cloud' before this class, but I hadn't really understood, and this lecture really defined it for me helpfully.

That Thing on the Internet Everyone Hates

Meaning captcha. That is, I hated it until I discovered the thing has actually made itself useful. And as an rabid history fan, I love that it's actually translating old documents to be able to be kept, read, and learned from. These days, I hold significantly less animosity toward the little images with the random words. However, I do hold animosity toward the dude for getting me addicted for about a week to Verbosity, his way of categorizing things on the internet. There are other games on the website as well, but I'm not going to link to any of them since I'll just end up at my desk playing them the rest of the day.

Marketing and You

The guest speaker that week was really interesting. He pointed out a lot of the things I had subconsciously noticed without thinking about it, that of course bigger companies with bigger ad budgets are the first things to appear in a Google search, and that this is very quickly becoming a viable Internet business option. Internet advertisements are probably becoming much more useful and relevant to society than any kind of print media. (Which is a little sad, but who's asking me?) And ever since he pointed out QR codes, I SEE THEM EVERYWHERE. But I don't have a smart phone so....

I thought this website was really awesome. It deals with treating your brain like a computer, and we didn't cover it in class or anything but I found it relevant and really freakin' cool.

The Beginning of the Book Reports

Again with my favorite kinds of classes - discussion. Four different groups presented the books they read and wrote book reports on, and asked questions and got the class talking. My book in particular was...interesting. Or extremist. Extremist is a much better word, actually. I didn't really like it all that much, mostly because I have never liked books or articles designed to scare and shock its readers and not worth much else. I think it's cheap and rather pointless. The book had 'The Coming Dark Age' in the title. Really? I thought dark ages were times of slow development. I definitively wouldn't call our time period a time of slow development. Sure, the good ol' days were probably awesome, but how are we supposed to go back to that anyway? Go back in time and waggle our finger disapprovingly at various scientists? 'Nuh-uh. Bad. Bad scientist. No computers.' It was a little silly, in all honesty.

I didn't feel the other three groups had books that were quite as opinionated as ours, but I rather don't agree that we are the dumbest generation, as many of the books were arguing. I think if earlier generations had access to the same technology that we do, they would be using it the exact same way that we are. It doesn't make much sense to freak out and run around like chickens with our heads cut off. I'm sure that when books as entertainment value entered the world after the printing press, everyone was like OMGBOOKSAREGONNAKILLOURKIDSMINDSTHISISAWFULSTOPIT. Except for no, it didn't. Reading recreationally is now considered a good thing. Why must everything have a practical function? Anyway, I was a little aggravated and almost insulted at how easily these authors were essentially calling people my age stupid.

Ciphers!

This week was really interesting, if a little different. We had a guest speaker who taught us the basics of ciphers, and allowed us to go nuts with partners coding and decoding messages. We only had the one class that week, but it was a nice way to slide into fall break. It was just a lot of fun where we all learned something new that was more like a game than a usual activity.

4chan and Facebook

This week in the ever changing Dissecting the Internet classroom, we studied the two sides of the social internet - total anonymity and transparency. I had never visited 4chan myself, but I'd seen other websites poke fun at it and some call it essentially the scourge of the internet. And while I do understand what 4chan is trying to do, sometimes the complete anonymity is rather bad, considering it's known for things like posting child pornography.

As for Facebook, we were assigned sides in a debate, Good vs Bad. I had good, and I do actually think that for the most part, Facebook is a good thing. It's a matter of convenience and being responsible for your own actions. I don't understand why people post everything about themselves online, and then blame Facebook for the bad things that result from it. I've even seen some people with their addresses on it! Just because there's a little blank box doesn't mean it needs to be filled in.

The Wide World of Stalking

Being told your assignment is to stalk one of your classmates is an odd mixture of amusement and curiosity. What would someone find if someone searched 'Meredith Gragg'? Granted, there's nothing bad to really be found about me, it's more the personal details someone could find if they were determined enough. As predicted, the stalking came up with some pretty crazy things. I had Amanda, and I found out her past work history, her parents' names, her brother's name, home phone number, where her parents worked, and all kinds of crazy things like that. The weirdest thing that she found out about me that I wouldn't have thought of is my theatre resume posted on this awards site, as well as my time spent in France, down to the exact dates, and the fact that my aunt got married like two months ago. A lot of this information was found out without the use of Facebook, just the sheer amount of crap that Google has to offer a determined stalker. I thought it was a pretty crazy thing to see first hand, just how much of yourself is on the internet.

Week Three

There was only one class this week due to Chris McDougall coming for a speech today, but the class on  Tuesday was a particularly good one just because it was so discussion oriented. I'm gonna go ahead and say I love discussion classes. I like hearing other peoples' opinions that make me think, I like actually putting into words what I think, and it's nice to hear some personal things about my classmates as well. I like the relaxed atmosphere that it had on Tuesday, not to say that it isn't relaxed normally, but since it was such a round table type of thing with so many different questions and opinions to be had and not a whole lot of judgment being passed -at least I hope-, but the whole thing was a cool class, especially since everyone got to say something at least once.

It's gonna be kind of a short one this week, since there was only one class and honestly the only thing I have to say is I just like talking and hearing other people talk and conversation in general.

Week Two

This class has a wonderful balance of lecture-style type learning and hands-on experiences. This past week, we had a reading written by Intel a decade ago. It was weird to have it illustrated how much the digital world has changed in a relatively short time span, but also very eye-opening. Then, of course, the hands on part was there as usual, with an interesting exercise in data transmission with neon bowling pins as our messages and as a group had to get all the messages sent in just the right way. Even more interesting, however, was the basic magic trick involving treating squares of paper as the ones and zeroes, and you could guess which piece had been turned over while your back was turned.

This past Tuesday, we watched a video for the class period  about how digital our society has  become. I agree and disagree with many things in the videos, but the first thing that pops to mind is how wild I thought it was that people have met and gotten married via the game World of Warcraft. But I mean hey, I'm not one to judge. I was raised on live and let live, and whatever makes people happy is okay with me. I do, however, think it's a rather broad assumption to think we are all becoming that way or even should be that way. I agree that there are people far too addicted too video games to a likely unhealthy degree, but there are also people addicted to drugs, alcohol, and a myriad of other things. Just like I don't do any given form of drugs, I also am not a video games person. I played Pokemon when I was little, and can play a mean game of Pacman in an arcade. But it's a little unjustified and a little insulting to say my generation has no attention span and we all like video games too much. Maybe I'm becoming the minority, but I'm much happier sitting on a comfy chair with a really good book over playing a video game or getting on Facebook. I didn't like the brash generalizations that treats teenagers as a separate species instead of simply a different age group.

Will we treat the next generation the same, even if these huge changes in society continue? I hope not. Then again, I'm perhaps a bit technology impaired myself, but I found it hard to see those kids in South Korea that addicted to computer games. I wasn't even allowed on the computer that much when I was that age. My mom would come in and kick me off and I'd go back outside or read.

Anyway, though, to wrap this up, I did very much enjoy the movie on Tuesday. It made me think and I hope we see other things like it.

Week One

Dissecting the Internet was the first class of my college career, and after my first week in the class, I'm very glad that it was. The professors are some of the nicest and most welcoming people I've met, and the class on its own is so interesting. All of them were personable, if a bit scary with their knowledge of firearms, but the class was really cool.

To be honest, I'm not usually much of a tech person. I never gave much thought to how the internet worked, only that it did. But actually getting in depth to this kind of thing is more interesting than I ever gave it credit for, credit that it's turning out to deserve. Binary code was fascinating and I loved trying to translate things like my name outside of class.

I'm a little bit more excited about the sociological aspects of the class coming up, because that falls in line with more what I tend to be interested in, but until then, the stuff like binary code and the technical stuff about how the internet works and how is far from boring.