I love the Miami Dolphins

An Insane world of Manputers

2007-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

There are valid points in both Vannevar Bush's and Nathaniel Hawthorne's essays, but deciding which one I saw as more important wasn't difficult. Nathaniel Hawthorne's essay was a good example of how times were changing, and the social effects of those changes. Through time our family lives have become more and more distant, and technology has played a large role in that. Hawthorne's essay however, was more of a social commentary. Bush's essay also a social commentary, but the more important aspect of his essay was his ideas for future.
I think that people today have accepted the distances within their family. Some people don't see the distance as a negative thing. They see it as "personal space", their own haven from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the house. To be a normal part of our society today, I think that it is better for people to be more individualistic and not with the family all the time. Of course it is also good to have family time, to reaffirm the values of the family and feel togetherness. Times however, have changed. People, at least in the United States, are more individualistic than ever before. The world today would probably be a nightmare for Nathaniel Hawthorne. We're living in the middle of his idea of the future.
The internet, as we discussed in class, is both a positive and negative entity. There are many negative aspects of the internet. Crime, a decrease in formal socialization, laziness, and addiction are many problems that have arisen from the internet.
To me things like crime and laziness will be with us forever. The world we live in is growing at an astonishing rate, if anything, crime and other negative social problems will only continue to grow. The negative aspects of the internet are numerous, but to me, there is one positive that negates the negatives.
Bush talked about the need for humans to constantly record their history. Over time, it has become easier and easier for everyone from the Pope to the most common man to publish their thoughts and make their own contributions to the history books. As our population grows exponentially, so does our need for space to put all our history, as well as our aptitude for advancement.
It is easy to say that we're at the peak of publishing information and "writing history" as far as the human race is concerned. Cell phones, e-mail, blogs, message boards, websites; more information is being traded back and forth, all around the globe, than ever before in the history of mankind. It is also easy to predict that our rate of information exchange will increase more and more rapidly over time. So what is going to be the next big leap in technology? Where are we going to put all of this information?
Bush believes that computers, someday, will integrate themselves with the human body. After all, many tasks like writing a paper or typing on a keyboard involve electrical signals, within our bodies, that are faster than many of today's most powerful computers. To me, the idea of the Memex is just like the idea of "The Matrix", or the futuristic computers from the movie "Minority Report". It's all a gigantic network of computers and people, working as one.
In today's world, we (humans) run the show. We make the computers, we set them up, and we write software programs that tell them what to do for us. It seems to me that many ideas of our future and computers embrace a different reality regarding the relationship between humans and computers. We think we run the show, but slowly, as time goes by, we lose more and more control to the computers. Eventually, we will rely on computers so heavily, we will have to integrate them into everything. The idea is that we will develop a new level of computing. One where the hardware is our brain, and we're all linked up to one, crazy, ultra-mega computer.
I often think about how easy it is for me to operate a cell phone, or a digital camera, or a computer; Then I think about how insanely difficult it is for my parents, or especially grandparents, to operate the very same thing. What are my children going to make fun of me for. What will they be using with ease, and what will I be struggling with? The idea of the Memex is frightening and insane because no one knows what the future of technology is. Will we have some kind of crazy mind-link hypernet? Will we have an ultra-advanced form of the internet? Nothing can be said for certain, only that technology then will far surpass anything we can fathom now.

My name is Billy

2007-08-29T18:21:00.001-07:00

Hello, my name is Billy Cooper. I'm a senior, majoring in Advertising, from Charlotte. I was born in Miami, so as you can probably tell, I'm a huge Dolphins fan (sadly). I recently moved into a house above Capone's on King St. Some of my hobbies are playing football/ultimate frisbee. I liking to do the internet studies.

Computers and Videogames

2007-08-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've seen pictures of myself as a small child, maybe three or four years old. I was at the public library playing computer games. I don't really remember that very well. In elementary school, I used to play Oregon Trail on the really old floppy disks, as well as some of the other games they had at the time. I think that playing on the computer as an adolescent fueled my thirst to play videogames. For most of my life (until recently), I really only used the computer to do three things: schoolwork, download music, and surf the web. I've always played videogames. Nintendos, playstation one and two, even a dreamcast, I've always been a videogame player.
Recently I bought a new computer. I started doing a lot of research about computers and how they work. I guess I always had a pretty accurate idea of how they worked, but I didn't know exactly how. Think of it like a car. I know how to apply the gas, brake, turn the wheel, park, and so forth. I don't know what underneath the hood is causing it to happen though. I know how to type, click, and run the computer. But I didn't know what inside was allowing me to do so.
I still don't know exactly how a computer works, but I now have a good understanding of how they do. So when I ordered my new computer, I was able to customize it the way I wanted to. Having a nice, brand-new computer in your room is a good way to spark a new interest in computers. I was thinking about buying an X-box 360, but now I think that I am going to become more of a computer gamer (for now at least). An 360 controller or a Playstation 3 controller each has about ten or twelve buttons on them. They each have two thumb sticks and a D-pad, which is nice, and essential to playing certain games.
A computer has maybe 70 buttons (I'm not going to count), and the mouse. The precision of a mouse is much more useful for many different types of games, and you can buy videogame-style controllers that plug into the USB ports on your computer, although I don't really want one.
The thing made me realize that computers are superior to video game systems, is the fact that a computer can be constantly upgraded. More RAM, a bigger hard drive, a new video or sound card, a new processor, they can all be upgraded to keep your computer up to speed. Granted these things don't exactly come cheap, but it's not like you'll have to do it all at the same time, and compared to buying a new system every five years, it's not too bad. Not to mention that it's your computer, which you also use for everyday life, so applications and software like the internet and Microsoft office will run faster and at a constantly higher level.
So that's it. I guess I'm kind of a videogame nerd. I've just always been around videogames and I've always enjoyed playing them. So many guys (and some girls) today play videogames, I think most of us are videogame nerds to some extent.