The End is Just the Start of a New Beginning

So I am going to frank. The whole reason that I started this blog was because it was required for my class. Its pretty simple. But now the class has come to an end and I am really going to miss all of it. I wouldn't say that I have fallen in love with blogging and I think that I would classify myself more as a person who likes to listen to conversations rather than a person who initiates them or plays a major role in them, but I will say that I have really enjoyed the things that I have learned because of my class and maintaining a blog.

#1- The process is just as important as the final product. I always bought into the dogma that the final result of something carried the most benefit. Now I am glad to say I have realized that the process that we take to reach a goal, whether that goal is a school report or some other object, is just as helpful to people as the goal itself. I am not talking about the intrinsic benefit that comes to a person as they learn but I am saying that as we include more people in the process leading up to a goal the outcome is better and those people also benefit.

#2- A man is not an island. This is not necessarily a new view of mine but merely an altered one. The ability to connect with people with new digital tools almost limitless. I think that Kristen taught showed me possibilities the best with her research in India.

#3- Its not about what you know. Its about who you know, what they know, what you know that they don't know and how you both can teach each other what you both don't know. Knowing something is only meaningful if you share it with those around you and don't worry if yo do not know something because you probably know someone that knows tons about that one thing that you are trying to figure out. Get connected and learn.

Just to wrap up I want to say that my Digital Civilization class has been amazing. I have learned more in this class that I can readily apply to my life than any other class I have ever taken. Here is a list of the digital tools that I learned how to use that I will continue using:

-Google Reader

-Skype

-Wigits on Blogs

-Use Google Sites

-Alternate Search Engines

-Spreeder

-How to embed Video

-How to write a blog

-Prezi

-Photo Editing

And the list continues. So in the words my friend:

To infinity and beyond!

Song of the Week

Blog Post Nominations

Historical Content http://heartofapaladin.blogspot.com/2010/10/lost-generation.html
   - Kristi does a great job of summing up some of the ideas about Modernism. Quick to the point and uses good examples and ties in different aspects of the period together.







Self Directed Learning http://technologyinexile.blogspot.com/2010/11/to-establish-rapport.html
   - I really like this post from Kristen. I was unsure of what to categorize it under but I decided on self-directed learning because it shows how she learns something about interacting with people and then applies it to her research. She took advice from Jay about her interview questions and then incorporated it into her discussion with Norbu. Shows how she uses connection with others online to learn.





Digital Concepts http://jeffreywhitlock.blogspot.com/2010/11/web-20-networking-effect.html

   - Jeff shows a great understanding of digital culture in this post when he talks about the network effect. I also really like how he is able to show how digital culture affects his own personal life. The examples he uses from his own life make it easier for me to understand the concepts and see how they are applied.

Citizen Journalism: By the People for the People

I want to put up some quick thoughts about journalism. The internet is an amazing thing and it is revolutionizing nearly every aspect of our world. Journalism is definitely at the center of that revolution and over the past years there have been considerable growing pains associated with all of it. Tradition media and news sources have been rocked by all of these changes. I am going to discuss just one of the new frontiers that has emerged because of the new technology, citizen journalism.

The basis for citizen journalism is that it is news created by the normal citizens. People that are not trained professionally in journalism but still make efforts to report on events in their area or give opinion on what is happening in their nation. This has appeared as an economical way of presenting news especially on a local level. Since many news corporations are feeling the money pinch(newspapers taking the major hit) that has come with free media available online, they have cut news that does not appeal to a wide audience. Essentially they are eliminating unprofitable news in hopes of staying alive and in the black. So citizen journalism as stepped in to fill these gaps, or at least says that is doing that.

Citizen are able to become journalists themselves because the amount and effort required to be published has be reduced to almost zero by the internet and other tools. Virtually everyone as a digital camera of some sort, whether on their cell phone or in their purse. So when news 'breaks' they can just take a picture and upload it instantly to the internet. So when a mysterious missile appears in the sky off of the California coast, why wait for the mainstream media to tell you what it is? Just snap a photo and put your own conspiracy theories online via Twitter.

The digital tools that make this possible are endless.
-Facebook-
-Twitter-
-Blogs-
-Comments-(when you comment on anything online you participate in journalism)

So at the core of citizen journalism is the conversation that goes on about the current topics. Instead of listening to everything that someone tells you is important you decide what is and then write about it. It is the dream come true of every America. We have long since thought that we control our own destinies, now we even control the media because we are the media. Its perfect, right? Maybe, maybe not.

There are definitely things that are lost without professional journalism. Citizens just do not have the same resources that a professional journalist would have. A citizen based news group cannot travel to other countries and cover news there and I don't think that we can replicate the quality of news that professionals produce. At the same time I think that professionals often overlook opinions of the people and focus too much on making money. There definitely needs to be a healthy balance between the two. It is just going to take some time to get there.

More opinion:
Leaning more in favor of citizen journalism
Leaning more in favor of professional journalism

Media Influence, The Fourth Branch of Government

The mass media's influence on America is huge. We live through media in one shape or another. We grow up on it and whether we trust it or not we are greatly affected by what is said in the media. From the time we are little the media that we watch colors our lives. I grew up on Disney movies and anything that Harrison Ford played in; I listened to NPR on the weekends with my dad and to talk radio in the mornings on the way to school with my mom. I had most songs by Cat Stevens, The Beatles, The Eagles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor and John Denver memorized by the time I was ten and I enjoyed reading Calvin and Hobbes comics. My opinions were greatly shaped by the media I took in and by the media I continue to ingest. Pandora Radio and Google News feeds direct much of my media consumption today.

I want to take a step back and make some brief observations on how media affects politics. I would say that media is the unofficial fourth branch of government. There are a branch of government in that they provide a huge check on what the government does. They do not check the other branches directly but they scrutinize almost everything that the government does and then report that to the people. Government officials are always worried about what their 'public image' is and many of their actions are dictated by how the media will interpret those actions to the public. Will it help them win approval and reelection? Or will is reveal all of the scandals they have been involved with over the years (Bill Clinton?).

This can be a too-edged sword. It can keep government official accountable for what they do but it can also cause them to become so engrossed in what their image is that they fail to do their real job or to keep the nation's best interests at the fore front of their minds. They are under a huge microscope 24/7. I do not envy them in the least.

The media also has great influence on the government because it has a great influence on what the public is interested in. Lets take the legal drinking age in the states. Did you know that every individual state has the right to establish its own legal drinking age? Then why is it that all of the states have uniformly adopted a minimum drinking age of 21? Long story short they were many studies in the late '70s and early '80s that showed an increase in auto accidents in states with lower drinking ages. Much of the public became interested in establishing a uniform drinking age in order to cut back on alcohol related accidents. The media reflected this sentiment and the government to notice. They passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act that restricted federal funds to states that had a minimum drinking age lower that 21. They couldn't actually mandate a uniform drinking age but they felt the pressure from the media and did the only thing they could do, they withheld money from the states that would not conform. And you all know that it worked.

This aspect of the media can also be good and bad. It can help focus the people on the issues that are most important but it can also distract people from the actual important issues. I would consider media that follows celebrities to be a huge distraction.

Some people say that mass media is all really just a conspiracy and that it is run by the 'man' but I would say that media, when used correctly, is a huge benefit to our society. It is up to us to decide what we will watch.

Medical Advances

So the past century has been characterized by huge advances i technology in every imaginable field. I would like to take a different approach to the discussion of how technology has affected our society. I am going to share my own story and how medical technology has affected me personally.

So the Sunday before I was going to start my sophomore year in high school I got out of the shower and I passed out on the bathroom floor. I had passed out before but this time was very unexpected. My mom freaked out when my dad found me on the bathroom floor. I didn't really understand what was going on and the only thing that I was really focused on was the growing pain in my neck and head from colliding with the wall. My mom took the initiative to take me to the hospital which I did not think was necessary but ended up being the right decision.

At the hospital they ran various tests and the one that ended up being the most intriguing was the EKG. The test turned up an irregular electrical pathway in my heart, a condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White. I will not go into to much detail but this visual represents something of what the doctor would have seen when he looked at my EKG in the hospital.

So the next year of my life was spent trying to figure out how serious my condition is. The effects of the disorder differ greatly between people and the doctors were (and still are) unsure if my passing out in the bathroom was related to this condition. I spent a couple days wearing around a portable heart monitor called a Holter monitor to monitor my heart over the course of a full day. (example on left) The information that they received from these tests was apparently not enough to make any final decisions about what they should do with me so we scheduled heart catheter surgery for that March and got ready for that.

So a couple days before surgery I went to the hospital and they ran more test one of which was the echocardiogram which I thought was really interesting and fun, mostly because I could see my heart in live action on the screen. I think that most people are familiar with ultrasounds that are performed on pregnant woman so that they can see if the baby is healthy. An echocariogram uses the same technology to map out the heart. It was really sweet.

The plan for the surgery was then set that they would go up through the veins in my legs using a catheter. They would then induce my heart into an irregular rhythm and then see if they could ablate the region of my heart that is responsible for my problem to remove the irregular beat.

The day of surgery came and I was at the hospital for over 24 hours but I was able to go home early the next morning. (Pretty incredible for having heart surgery!) I was in surgery for about 8-10 hours and the medication they gave me kept me out of commission for about a week. They were not able to solve my irregular heart beat but they did found out that I am low risk for any further problems and that I can live my life normally. I share my story because it highlights many of the medical advances that affect everyone's daily lives. How many people do you know that have had some form of catheter surgery? I bet you know someone who is a ultrasound technician. More importantly, do you know someone whose life was saved because of technologies similar to these ones?

Reflection #2

Historical Content:
- I have made improvements on researching the historical topics and time periods that we are studying. I am incorporating more informations from the periods and it has helped me understand better our discussions in class. (ex1, ex2)
- I still need to improve on reading material that is not on the internet. I have been reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and I can see many correlations in that book to social issues we discuss in our class but I need to bring in more printed information.

Computing and Digital Culture:
- I understand all of the computing concepts that we have gone over. The only one that I did not fully understand was the difference between problems that are computable and those that are not but after Dr. Zappala's explanation in class I was able to grasp the concept much better.
- I am using lots of interesting digital tools that are helping me but I need to do a better job at reporting them. I have reported a few but not all of the ones that I am using. (ex) I have learned to use Google Reader, widgets on my blog, search engines other than Google, and various other ones.

Self Directed Learning:
- I think this is the area that I have improved the most on over the past months. I have really improved my reading and scanning skills so that I can process information faster. I also have made more effort to follow what other people are looking at online (mostly through Diigo) which has helped me find meaningful information faster without having to sift through a ton of material. I have found especially helpful Connexions and other similar education websites.
- I have also learned much more by asking people outside of class about the historical topics we cover. I am able to accomplish much of this through Facebook and email.

Keep Running!

Historic Content:
- Posts show an increased focus on historical content. Trending to more focus on historical content.
- Sometimes blogs only reflect historical readings that have been assigned. Might want to incorporate different sources and ideas.
- The post about the atomic age was really good about bringing in historical content from many different sources. I liked the list of movies.

Computing Concepts & Digital Culture
- Reports well on new digital tools used.(example) Would be beneficial to incorporate some of those tools into the blog. Not possible to do with all of them but some could be.
- Great job connecting with people in the class. Most posts reflect a 'conversation' with other people in the class.   Good job also with bringing in people outside of the class.(example)

Self-Directed Learning:
- Makes good connections with other material other than that covered in class. I like the post about LeBron James and how it was related to Adam Smith.
- I like how the thought process that lead up to many ideas is show. Shows the learning process.(example)

Random Stuffs:
- I like the digital tools are presented in the context that they were learned in. Gives good example of how the tools can be used and applied.
- Might consider switching up the post format more. Continuous paragraphs become monotonous.

McCarthyism: Past, Present, or Future?

So to start off a quick explanation of what McCarthyism is and when it happened.

During the Cold War there was a period of time called the Red Scare. It was a time charaterized by a wide spread of fear of communism in the Untied States. Many people were afraid that communism would take root in the United States and end the democracy that many of them supported and loved. They were afraid that communist already in the United States would use nefarious means to over throw the existing government. This fear was not necessarily inspired by any single group but was definitely fueled by many groups with in the States.

So during this period Joe McCarthy was elected to the senate. He then went on a crusade to 'exterminate' communists from the government and from prominent positions in the American public. Not all of his actions were what we would call today 'constitutionally legal' but many people went along with the witch hunt supposing it to be a necessary evil. Eventually people did come to realize that what McCarthy was doing was, to say the least, too extreme. Not everyone went right along with McCarthy though and there were many good people whose opposition put an end to his actions. Edward R. Murrow was one of those individuals. He was a famous journalist and used his influence to expose many of the inconsistencies in McCarthy's actions.
    Good Movies about this era:  The Majestic, Good Night and Good Luck

So I was thinking about this time period and I was wondering whether there were any other times like McCarthyism. I made a quick list.

The Inquisition
Robespierre and the Reign of Terror
Salem Witch Trials
Japanese Internment Camps
Arrest of Kevin Mitnick

There are many more but I am sure that you get the idea. So the next question is whether this still goes on today. I can think of many things that might fall into this categories but I will be the first to admit that they are mostly my opinion.

The real thing that we need to do as citizens is to pay attention to the things that are going on and decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Even more than that we own it to our fellowmen to protect them if they are placed in that situation. So its up to you; is water-boarding justifiable?

PS Read 1984.

Why Politicians would make Horrible Parents

So lets talk politics. Better yet lets talk politicians. My favorite that relates these two words came from my neighbor Mike that I grew up next to. He explained the word politics very easily. The first part of the word poli (poly) means many and the second part of the word tics (ticks), which we all know are small blood sucking creatures. So politics simply means many bloodsucking creatures. Of course all of this is a little exaggerated and I am not trying to say that politicians survive by sucking the life out of their hosts but you can make your own decision on that.

So later on in life I was talking to one of my friends who is actually a politician herself. She lives in a town in Central Jersey and serves in city government. We were driving along one day and I mentioned to her a little bit about my friends joke which sparked a very interesting conversation about politics. We discussed many thing and some where along the way I asked the question what a politician's job really is. Her answer was simple and informative. She said that a politician only has to do one thing. All they have to do is be reelected. That is the primary job of a politician to make sure that they are in favor with the public so that they are reelected when their position is put up for grabs.

So what do you think that implies? My most optimistic side hopes that means that politicians do what is in the best interests of the people they serve and that the people then recognize their efforts and reelect them. Unfortunately, I am sure that you can come up with just as many less-than-ideal scenarios as I can as to how this mentality could be abused. So what does this all really mean? It means that a politician can never be the bad guy.

For all of you that have seen the movie The Dark Knight this is a perfect tie in to that point. Why was Batman the best hero for Gotham? It was because he wasn't the hero, he was the bad guy. He did what would be best for the city by taking the blame for everything. He was not the knight in shining armor. He wasn't given an award with Han Solo by Princess Leia in the closing credits. He was the bad guy. He was the dark knight.

He is a quick practical example of how politicians repeatedly fail to take on that role. Fiscal policy in government is highly influenced by Keynesian economics. This school of thinking states that government using deficit spending to stimulate the economy during times of economic down turns and that during times of economic boom the government increases taxes to pay back the debt that they incurred and create a surplus for the next down cycle. It is a little more complicated than that should suffice for the discussion. We have all seen this happen. The government spends money and gives out money to help during economic distress. But how many of us have ever heard a politician use the phrase 'we are going to raise taxes to pay off our debt and took make sure that the slump that is right around the corner is avoided'?  No one hears that because it would make the politicians the bad guys and that is a situation they cannot afford to be in or else they would be facing an 'economic slump' personally.

Now to jump topics briefly. So what makes good parents good at parenting? There are many things but I would say that one of them is that they are great at being the bad guy and in the long run it helps their kids. I never wanted to have a curfew when I was in high school  but I did have one because my dad was really good at being the bad guy. Now that I look back on it I am really grateful that he had the guts to be the bad guy. Was I grateful then? No, and I probably complained more than I choose to remember. Our parents did things that were not popular with us as kids, but they did it to help us out.

So to wrap everything up, the reason that politicians would be horrible parents is because they cannot be the bad guy. They just sit on your skin and get what they want.

Interview Q's for Class Documentary

So Jake, Maggie, and I are working together to make a documentary about the experience of the students in the Digital Civilizations class. We are going to focus most of the short film on interviews with people. So in this post I am going to put up a tentative list of questions to ask. We NEED feed back on this. Please add more questions that you think would be good to ask or comment on questions that you think would unnecessary, redundant, or in any other way just not good questions.

Questions to Ask Students:
What did you think after the first day of class?
Prior to attending the first day of class, what where your expectations?
How is this different than a normal history class?
What was the hardest thing about this class?
What has been the most useful thing you have learned?
How did you personally fufill the learning outcomes and Consume, Create, Connect?
What digital tools did you use doing the class?
What was your favorite historical content from the class?
How did you take control of your own learning?
How was keeping a blog?
       Had you done it before?
       What did you learn about blogging?
What did you find most valuable in this class?

Questions for the Professors:
What were your expectations at the onset of the course?
How did you come up with the idea?
What are your individual backgrounds?
What do you hope the students will take from this class?
What challenges did you see the students face?
What good stuff did you see the students accomplish?
What would you change if you were to do it again?
What did you learn?

These questions are meant to give an overview of the class and to help someone outside of the class see the benefits of this class. There can also be more questions that deal with the draw backs of the class but the documentary is not supposed to be a review of the class. It is meant to draw people into what we all experienced.

Thanks

Panoramic Pics

So I just wanted to put up a quick thing on a neat tool that I found the other day. Its a tool to make panoramic pictures from a series of digital shots.

I really enjoy hiking and I usually bring my camera along with me. The only thing that frustrates me about taking pictures of hikes is that I can never really capture the scenery around me. I think that it should be that way and that is one of the reasons I continue to hike because you can't get the full experience just from the pictures, but I have been looking for some way to make panoramic photos from some of the pictures that I have taken.

So I searched the web to find some type of free software to do that and this is what I found:
Panoramic Plus Starter Edition
It is free software provided by Serif. It is mainly free so that you will buy the better edition. This video is for the newest edition. The starter edition does not have this many features but it does have the same basic set up.


I shared in class how the starter edition works. It walks you through everything which is nice.
Here are some pictures that I stitched together:

The Abacus

So I am pretty sure that most of us have used or at least seen an abacus before. I had one when I was growing up and I mostly just played with it. I don't think that I even tried to make any type of calculations on it. I just used it as an imaginary prison for my little brothers or a futuristic weapon of my imagination or one of many more variations that I could come up with.

Recently the discussion we had about computing in my history class went way over my head. We were talking about Turing machines and whether problems are computable or not. I had been doing a little bit of reasearch before class and I even went to one of my friends who is a math major but none of that really seemed to help me get my mind around the concepts. Talking about it in class did help me understand the general concepts a little better but I decided that I needed to get a better foundation to be able to understand.

So that is when I thought back to the abacus. The abacus as we know it today actually originated in Asia around 1200 AD. There were many precursors to this device the first one around 2700 BC in Mesopotamia. That device was based off of a sexagesimal number system. It uses 60 as a base number as opposed to our decimal system which uses 10 as a base number. These devices aided in calculating large numbers. All though they do not compare to modern computers and calculators they helped dramatically in simple arithmetic operations.

So after I looked up some of the history of the abacus I decided that this my chance to learn how to actually use an abacus for it's intended purpose. I found this great site that explains fairly clearly how they work. It is very simple and can accomplish some very cool things. Also, check out this video


So I learned a little more about primitive computing. Maybe this is what my parents had wanted me to learn when I was a little kid. Well I guess better late than never and I think my childhood use of this intrument was probably a little more entertaining.

From Philosophy to Psychology

Psychology ids the study of the human mind and behavior and even though psychology as we know it today has not always existed the study of the mind and behavior can be traced back to many ancient civilizations and especially to the writings of the ancient Greeks. Their writings are typically thought of as philosophy but really modern day psychology is based off of philosophy. So what is the difference between the two? It is the use of empirical data. The shift form thinking about human behavior and the human mind to the actual use of empirical means to study it marks the creation of modern psychology as we know it today.

So who is the first historical person that comes to your mind when you think of psychology? I think that most would probably say Sigmund Freud; which is a perfectly fine answer. I think that most people bring him up because he had some crazy ideas that are way out in left field. I will come back to why I think he was important but first I would like to draw some attention to Wilhelm Wundt.

Wilhelm Wundt was the first person to set up a experimental laboratory in psychology. He was the man who applied the scientific method to psychology. He ran experiments that focused mainly on the conscious experiences of people and many of the modern psychological fields sprang from his research. He used introspection and asked people how certain stimuli made them feel. He recorded his observations and provided a model of testing for others to follow him.

This is a great timeline of some of the major events in psychology and this gives a great description of a few of the key players in its early development.

So now back to Sigmund Freud. What was his greatest contribution? He was the first to try to apply what had been learned in the field of psychology to help people with mental disorders. He might have been wrong about many things but he got us going.

Great Literature

I have recently been thinking about some of my favorite books and what really surprised me was that many of the books that came to mind are from the modernism era. I am not sure exactly why that is. I like the books because they are not full of fluffy words but rather each word is chosen carefully and has lots of meaning. I also like them because they are depressing. Not because I think of myself as a depressing person but I like it because it is more realistic. I also enjoying thinking about how glad I am that my life is not like the book I just read.

Here are some of those books:

The Sun Also Rises

Great example of cutting the flowery nothingness out of prose. His writing is direct and to the point so be careful you pay attention or you might miss something

Slaughter House Five

Probably one of the craziest books I have read. It is fun to read even if you can't understand what Kurt Vonnegut is trying to say. 

1984

Note* This book is super depressing. Great book but there is no hope at the end of it. There is not even a martyr. If you like happy endings this might not be the book for you.

Brave New World

Huxley also wrote The Island. I have only seen the movie version of that book. This book is great if you like science fiction but feel like you should read something with a little more substantial meaning.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Great book if you like psychology. Shows many of the horrendous things that were done in early psychiatric institutions.

Where the Red Fern Grows

I loved reading this book as a kid. I have read it multiple times and I cried every time.

To Kill a Mockingbird 

Harper Lee's only book. It is a masterpiece. Every American should read this book. I think that most do. The movie is not a good enough substitute. It is not completely true to the book. Notice how they make Miss Atkinson, a white neighbor, the kids' mother figure in the movie where as the in book Calpurnia, their African American cook, is their mother figure.

Great books. What is your favorite literature?

Let me step in your shoes.

The phrase to step inside someone else's shoes is commonly understood by most English speakers. It has many different variations but all generally mean to look at something from another person's perspective. In my experience this usually gets brought up in an argument when someone is trying to convince another person that they are right. But my question is how can you be right if it is totally based upon your perspective?

Look at this picture. Do you see a young lady or an old woman? I see a young lady. Does that mean if you see an old woman you are wrong? Maybe, it would probably depend on you perspective.

Bringing perspective into discussions seems to take the absolutes out of the solution. The entire thing becomes more subjective and right or wrong is based off of whether or not your personal perspective aligns with that viewpoint. This is called perspectivism.

This idea was proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche. He lived in second half of the 19th century and wrote and proposed ideas during the Modernism era. His works cover many topics but some of the most interesting ones are in the field of morality and moral thinking. In his book On the Genealogy of Morals he explores the evolution of morals and proposes ideas of where they came from. He makes the point that moral behavior evolved from certain social situation and that it is impossible to reach any absolute moral truth because a persons morals are based off of their own situation, or in other words their own perspective.

So what do you think? Is truth really just based off someones perspective?

Animated Music

Digital technology creates some pretty incredible possibilities. It allows us to link with one another but it also allows us to link ideas an concepts that were previously separate. One of my favorite is when visuals are linked with music. I do not mean when music is placed over the top of video; I am talking about when visuals are used to add depth to audio. When both are integrated together it is really amazing.

I really think this is just the beginning. There are great things out there that combine ideas and concepts that on the surface are unrelated but when put together make for amazing works of art.

A little more ME

So I am going to try to make this blog a little more personal. I am going to continue to blog about things that I learn but I am going to bring more of my personal life into everything. I will try to be careful about whether or not the things I post are relevant to other people. I don't think that me rambling on about personal information that has nothing to do with anyone else is beneficial but I am going to try add more of my personal musing to the blog.


To start off, I would like to point out that I am a Mormon. I have added a widget to the sidebar if you would like to find out more. Also I am going to add a song from the Weeks. My brother Tal showed me this song last week. Its great and the band has many other amazing songs.

Darwin the great Puzzlist

Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, revolutionized the scientific world. His proposed method of evolution, natural selection, is the central point of modern day evolution. It did not start off that way and Darwin was definitely not the first person to propose evolution to explain the huge variety of life on our earth, but he was able to put it all together in one central idea that continues on today. The theory of natural selection and evolution as we know it today was actually the triumph of many years of research and observation by many people all of the globe. There were major and minor players. Some ideas purposed were correct some where wrong but eventually they all helped Darwin reach his conclusion.

Oliver Twist and Stephen Colbert

Most of us are familiar with the story of Oliver Twist. A poor orphan boy is passed around from person to person and seems to find himself in the worst situations. Fortunately in the end of the story he ends up happily ever after living with wealthy benefactor, Mr. Brownlow. The story has been retold over the years in almost every media form imagineable, but in many of these reproductions water down or entirely change the purpose of the original novel.

Oliver Twist was written by Charles Dickens in the 1830's during the heart of the industrial revolution in England.  It was written as a political statement against many of the government institutions in place at that time. During the industrial revolution there was a huge influx of people in to large cities and along with that many new social problems. A new middle class of people arose but along with that a very poor population that lived with in these cities. In order to deal with this large group of impoverished people the British government set up institution such as the poorhouses, workhouses, and many other places to house the people that could not make a living in the city. The irony of the entire situation was that these places were often harsher than living on the streets. Many people used them as a means of punishment to punish people for not working. So instead of extending a christian  hand the people running these institutions were corrupt and took advantage of the people they professed to be helping.

Charles Dickens was writing out against this in Oliver Twist. He was protesting the inhumane enviroments maintained in them and showing how the poor people forced to go to such places were humans just like everyone else. He accomplishes most of this through his sarcasm. He points out the corruption in the system through his sarcastic portrayal of these bureaucratic officials. His description of the feeding of the boys in the orphanage is a n excellent portrayal of this in action.
"Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher." (Oliver Twist, Ch. 2)
The rest of the book goes on in a similar writing style. He effectively uses sarcasm to make his point.


As I was reading  it reminded me of one of my favorite comedian/news reporters, Stephen Colbert. He employs a similar style when he presents his opinions. 

I am not trying to say that Colbert's motives are quite as noble, or that his purpose is as well defined as Dickens, it is merely a good example of how sarcasm is alive and well today.

Dime Novels

I always wanted to be a cowboy growing up. I am not really sure why but something about stories of the wild west caught my attention early on. There is something so luring about riding into the sunset on a noble steed. I think that all of the spaghetti westerns I watched with my dad played a big role in all of it. The tales of the American west colored my childhood dreams.

I think I have found a way to relive some of those early childhood dreams and a possible answer as to why stories of the west play such a prominent role in our national identity. It is the dime novel.

A dime novel is  short publication, roughly 100 pages, that has some story written for entertainment. They are closely related to comic books of our day and TV series. They were popular during the mid-1800's and their popularity extended into the early- 1900's. The format and look of these short novels changed over time but generally they were cheap (5 to 15 cents, usually 10), short, and available to a wide group of people.

We are indebted to these publications for many stories that we think of as classics today. Characters like Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, and many others have been immortalized through dime novel publications. Many detective stories were started through dime novels. I found a great site that contains thousands of dime novels so that anyone can read them. My favorite is a story about Jesse James.

The American West plays a huge role in our national identity. The Greeks and Romans had their epic poems. Homer lives on still. The English have stories of King Author and his round table. The Germans had the Grimm brothers entertaining the youth with stories and we have the wild west. Cowboys and other tales of the west have a huge impact on who we are. For example, stories of the pioneers create a special identity within the LDS community. I love the wild west, and I owe a huge debt to dime novels for perpetuating the stories, even if they are not all true.

More on Media

So I have been thinking lots about the effect that media has on government and I decided to take a more political approach in this entry. I am not an expert in politics but I have a good friend who lives in Boise, ID who breathes politics so I asked for some of his perspective and opinion on how the media helps or hinders politics. My friend, Jordan Morales, is actually working on the campaign team for Keith Allred who is currently running against the incumbent governor in Idaho. He has been highly involved with local politics for the past couple of years and I think his perspective is interesting.

Most of Jordan's insights deal with how the voter is affected by the voting process and how media plays a role in that and what media can do to help people be better voters. I think is goes along well with the earlier post on civic media.

#1 - Promotes Awareness
Jordan told me that tight races between canidates and what he calls "hot button" issues, or contorversial issues, always draw out more people to vote. One example being Prop 8 a couple years ago in CA. It was very contaversial and more people than usual came out to vote for it. More people will vote if they feel that their vote will actually have sway. Jordan said this about the media's role in topics like this. "I think the media has a lot of power in covering controversial initiatives or close races and showing the people how close it is and why they need to get off their duffs and go vote." When the media covers hot topics it shows people how important their votes really are and it is another incentive to get out and vote. We all know that a democratic system does not work unless the people voice their opinions and this is done mainly through voting.


Now this was interesting to me because I really do not like this part of the media. I feel like too much time is spent on the news describing what canidate is ahead or which way the public is leaning on a topic versus actually focusing on where canidates sit on issues or what the ramifications of certain items on the ballot will be. Jordan's insight hasn't completely changed my opinion but it is nice to know that there are some benefits to things the media does.


#2 - Education on the Voting Process.
I am going to quote what Jordan said about this. He does it well and after I will comment.
The media should make it a point to inform the people the what, where, when and how of voting. Every state has different policies and procedures for how to register to vote, where to vote, setting up people for absentee voting, etc. Some states make it easier than others. In states where its harder people tend to not vote as much so here the media really has the responsibility of helping people with these kinds of things.
Fortunately digital media helps lots with this. Here is a Video as an example how it is helping.

#3 - Media's Impact on Information Cost
Information cost was a new term for me. I will try to explain it the best I can. Basically what it is, is the 'cost' in time, effort, and maybe money that it takes a person to get informed on the topics during an election. Jordan pointed out to me how this is a huge barrier to people voting. Many people are unwilling to pay the 'cost' to vote so they simply do not. This is another area where the media can make a huge contribution. They can take steps to lower the cost so that voters can get the information that they need. "The media like the newspapers and television news should actively follow candidates in an effort to give people a good un-biased shot of who these people are and would then lessen the information costs making it easier for people to go out and vote." 


Media that helps people become more involved in politics especially voting is easily classified as civic media. Media that promotes civic involvement is any form falls under that category.  

Mary Shelley is Amazing

So just to start off I would just like to say that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it a couple times and it grabs my attention every time. There is definitely something lost in the modern day depictions of the monster in modern media. They lose the amazing interactions between the monster and creator that are present in Mary Shelley's novel. Nothing is more fascinating than human interaction and how human perception colors the world. Shelley does an amazing job at portraying the relationship between Dr. Frankenstein and his creation and how that relationship evolves over time.

I will highlight a couple points that I find most interesting and try to show how Shelley develops the characters over the course of the story.

Media and Democracy

So I would like to build off one of the early posts that I had done on civic media. I had talked a little about the use of media and what I perceived civic media to be. I am going to try and refine that idea and expand a little bit on it.



So just to start of I really think that civic media's main purpose is to help inspire democratic ideals. Democracy requires an educated group of people so that they can make decisions that will benefit the society. So that is what civic media tries to do. It gives power to the people in the form of education. I think Thomas Jefferson summed it up best when he said, "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education." That is the purpose of civic media to give power to the people.

Reflection

I still feel uncertain about my Digital Civilizations class. I do not feel like I have figured out for myself how to do well in the class. I think that it comes mostly from the fact that the class is very different from any that I have taken before. It focuses more on learning a set of skills versus learning a set of information. I enjoy the fact that we are expected to use the skills we are learning to proccess information. I feel that I learn more effectively when I use skills in a real situation rather than learn about them in theory.      

I enjoy making connections to information in this class with other things that I have learned outside of class. As I learn about historical movements and events I really enjoy the parallels that can be drawn between everything. I found it very interesting how many of Eric Raymond's and Dale Carnegie's ideas matched up. I also found it very interesting how the debate over capitalism continues today and how different capitalism is in each country. Overall I really enjoy how the class encourages me to bring in information that I have acquired outside of class and apply it to the things that we are learning in class. I feel like I am making the connections that the class hopes to inspire me to make.

Now to address the part of the class that deals with digital literacy. I do not feel like I am doing as well in this area as in making connections between historical content. I am learning lots about digital tools and how to use them but I think that this area is where most of my uneasiness comes from, because I feel that I am not learning enough of the digital skills and that I am not learning enough about the digital skills. I have made progress though. Using Diigo and Evernote have really helped me organize the way I search for information and then keep track of that information. I was able to use Facebook to connect with other cycling enthusiasts and attend Critical Mass. I have tried to search more blogs for information on topics and I actually found an interesting blog on newspapers and what is happening to them because of the internet. I think that the area that I lack most in is creating my own content that is meaningful to other people. I think that I am still much more of a consumer in the digital realm. I have improved greatly in connecting with people but I don't feel like I am contributing to the conversation in any significant way. 

So, to sum everything up, I feel like I am making the connections I should within historical content, but I still feel that I have more to learn to become digitally literate.

Economics

I will be the first to admit that I do not know that much about economics. But one of the things that I have realized recently is that there are many economic systems outside of capitalism. I personally have grown up within the capitalist system and I really have not experienced anything else besides reading about it. I also think that it is one thing to learn about something in theory versus learn about something by putting it into practice. Unfortunately it is not always practical to put everything into practice just to see how it works. I imagine that it would be hard for me to write President Obama and ask him for the power to install a socialist system in the US just so that I could learn a little more about the principles of common property.

So, really the way that I have learned most about economics is from books and studying the history of other nations. I do have experience in the capitalist system. Growing up I could figure out how many lawns I had to mow before I could get enough money to buy myself a new bike. I also figured out quickly that selling lemonade on the corner was the quickest way to earn money. There just seemed to be too much supply and too little demand. I did find though that my little brother and I could make good money at the beach while he played the guitar and I played my violin. It seemed that we had a somewhat unique skill and having an audience of half drunk tourists helped out.

So I really am not sure how another system would work out. I think that most of us are uneasy with the ideas of other systems just because we have not experienced them. I am not trying to group in experts in economics in this category. I am sure they have great evidence why the system they support is the most correct. But I will say that for myself and people in a similar situation as myself that most uneasiness related to different economic systems comes from never having experienced that system themselves. It is kinda like cliff jumping. The first jump into the water below is always pretty nerve racking. But you'll never know how it is until you jump.

PS I have never been the first one to jump. Have you?

Critical Mass

So I would like to make a plug here for one of the coolest things ever. Most of you I am sure are familiar with what a flash mob is. Critical Mass is a cousin to flash mobs. It is slightly more organized and has something of a purpsoe behind it whereas flash mobs do not fall into that catigorie. I guess it is kinda like the concept of a square being a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. Anyways I will explain how it works and connects people for a great cause.

So basically what Critical Mass is when a ton of people on bicycles get together and ride the streets to improve awareness of bike riders ans their use of city streets. It really is a great cause and on top of that it is tons of fun. I love bike riding and riding with a couple hundred people and mobbing the streets make it even better.

Heres a quick video of Critical Mass in San Fransisco.



So really quick to make one more plug. None of this would be possible if it were not for the internet that connects all of us. It would be next to impossible to organize an impromptu event like Critical Mass if it were not for the internet and its ability to connect people.

I found out about Critical Mass because one of my friends invited me to the Facebook event for the Provo area. So I brought some friends and loved it. I would never have found out if it weren't for Facebook. I am not trying to say that Facebook is the end all but it is a great tool along with other social networks that connect people in ways that were not possible before.

Philosophy to Empirical Science

This will be really quick. I wanted to say that we as a society owe a huge debt to philosophy. Today I think that we really focus on scientist making the major break through and we really have laid aside philosophy. I am not trying to argue whether that is bad or good, I just want to say that most of the scientific fields today have their roots in discoveries of ancient philosophers. They made huge break through in medicine, politics, physics, and more areas than I have the time to enumerate on. Francis Bacon himself was a philosopher. Rene Descartes, who played a huge role in the transition to modern science, was a philosopher.

One of the greatest scientists that ever lived, Isaac Newton, sums up my thoughts very well when he said, "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." That is what philosophy has done for us now. Modern science was built on the giants of philosophy. 

Bazaar Software and the Business World

So after listening to a speech given by Eric Raymond about how to capitalize on open source software I couldn't help but notice some similarities between his speech and a book written by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People. So I know the name does not sound very intriguing at first but the book does a great job at highlighting and explaining characteristics and qualities in a person that make the well-liked and successful, especially in the business world. It is interesting for me to see how this Bazaar practice really is taking some of the suggestions of Carnegie and employing them on a scale that makes software like Linux extremely successful.

So just a quick background on Dale Carnegie. He lived in the first half of the 20th century and witnessed the industrial revolution and the emergence of big business and corporations in the United States. His book is meant as a self-help guide to improve a persons relationships with those around them. A majority of the book is focused around business relationship and how certain actions foster or inhibit success in business.

So the thing that I found interesting about Raymond's speech and Carnegie's book is that they revolve around one central point. They both say that success is not dependent on whether a person is a genius in their field but rather it is dependent on the way they treat the people around them. They both say that a team working together under the direction of a person with extraordinary people skills will find the greatest success and do the greatest things.

There is a quote in Carnegie's book when he refers to Charles Schwab, the first person to be paid over a million dollars as a yearly salary, that gives his secret for success. Schwab said himself the he "consider[ed] [his] ability to arouse enthusiasm among [his] people the greatest asset [he] possess[ed], and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement."  And Andrew Carnegie, the man who hired Schwab for over a million dollars, wrote an epitaph for himself that said this, "Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself."

I really think that this is what Raymond was getting at in his speech. The greatest successes are organized by people who understand how to bring the smartest people onto a project and then reward those people for the amazing things that they do. In the Bazaar scheme it is done by actually using the suggestions given by the users of the software. That is praise in one of its highest forms. I am always thrilled when working with people and they use one of my ideas in our project. It appeals to my need to feel important, which is another concept covered in Carnegie's book.

This principle is illustrated and applied extremely well by business authors Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick in his book The Carrot Principle. Take sometime to at least find a synopsis of it. He does a great job of showing how appreciation builds teams that can do incredible feats.

It is amazing to see how certain principles overlap time, people and all walks of life. I think open source software has the greatest potential for using this principle to its fullest. I am looking forward to see what happens in the future. And maybe in the future the currency that will be passed around is praise. That would make for an interesting society, and who knows it might be better.

Evernote - Gathering and Organizing Info on the Web

Recently I have been trying to figure out a better way to organize my thoughts, time, and especially the information that I encounter on a daily basis. I have been spending a considerable about of time on the internet lately learning how to better learn on my own. I really have not been good about using the internet as a source of new material to learn from and I think that the main reason fro that is that I do not know how to organize the information I stumble across on the internet. I always seem to find 'cool' bits of stories or different perspectives on a subject but I am not good at linking new information I find to stuff I have read earlier.

So that is where my recent discovery of Evernote comes into play. It is a service used to collect and organize information. For me it has been most helpful in putting new information that I find into a single location that I then can search and go back to that information later. It is really simple to use and easy to get started.

The first step is to sign up at their main website. You can chose whether to just have an internet account or download the program for free. Both the internet account and the program on your personal can be synced by pressing a button. All information is stored as a 'note.' You can create notebooks which are basically like folders in which different notes are stored. You then have the options of sharing these folders with other users who can then edit and add information to them. This is great for people working on a mutual project. Each can access the same notebook and add or edit notes within that notebook.

Web Conferencing

So with the help of Erin Hamson I learned a little more about Web Conferencing and some of the benefits that that has in a business setting. I used to always see video chat as just a means of communicating with friends or family but she showed me how using a program called Yugma, it also has many applications in the business world. It creates virtual meetings and brings people together without having to actually bring them all physically into one room. The person hosting the meeting can mediate a discussion and help forward progress on any project they are working on. I also found it interesting that file sharing is incorporated into Yugma so that process can be easily accessed while still using Yugma.

Innovation to Revolution

So one of the things that I have noticed is that new innovations or inventions usually lead to some type of revolution in their own particular sphere. Take modern warfare for example. All tactics in war are dictated by the weapons being used in battle. Battle tactics in the 17th and 18th century usually consisted of two armies lining up and firing muskets at each other and then charging with bayonets. This tactic was drastically changed around the turn of the 20th century because of the development of much more accurate firearms and many other weapons. In the first World War trench warfare came about as a direct effect of these changes in technology.

Now to transition to modern times. The internet has created a revolution just as have all other great inventions in the past. The Gutenberg Press revolutionized Europe and the world. The invention of the cathoeray tube by Philo Farnsworth transformed the way Americans used their time. Were these revolutions, along with many others, right? I don't think that is really matters. The same goes with the internet. Is the internet and what it has caused to happen to other media, especially newspaper, good? I guess that is a matter of opinion. The point is that the internet is here and there is no going back. Once the nuke was invented their was no going back. We just have to learn to live with what we have. And if you don't like it, invent something better.

Humanism

Okay, so the min purpose of this post is to ask a questions. As I have been reading about humanism lately I have really been impressed on the focus on the individual and empowering the individual to do great things. I have one questions though. How was the individual treated before the Humanist period? I think I would be able to understand better the significance of humanism if I knew more about the conditions that existed before. I will be trying to find more information on it, but please add your input.

Digital Literacy

So, I have been thinking about a discussion in my last class about digital literacy. I really enjoyed the entire thing. It was interesting to me to really see how each person had a different view on what it means to be literate in a digital world. For me personally I always thought of people as computer literate if they could fix a computer if it had problems. So I would not consider myself very literate, but as we discussed this topic in class I started to feel a little more comfortable with myself in that I am probably more digitally literate than I give myself credit for. I can use a computer and I am feeling more confidant about adding my voice to the 'conversation' on the web. So if I were to compare this to my writing skills; sure I may not be a world famous author and I may not be able to teach English at a college, but I think I could write a decent essay every so often.

So now I wanted to add one more thought to this. I was studying in the library a couple of days ago and something really cool happened. I was sitting there reading and I saw a group of people studying together. I overheard there conversation a little bit and it seemed that they were working together on some homework involving the internet. I am not exactly sure but I think that they were working together to master a skill involving a uploading a picture to the internet. It was more complicated than that but that was the main topic I caught. So now the thing that was really cool about this was the age of the people working together. It was two young women probably around there 20's and another woman probably around her mid-40's. The reason that this caught my attention was because we had talked about in class how in many cases the younger generation is more computer savvy than the older. It was amazing to see these people working together because I thought to myself how this is the way the world should work. The older generation has taught us many things as we have grown up that are indispensable to each of us. Maybe we need to do a better job at helping the older generation learn some of the digital literacy that we have picked up as we live in this world. I think that is really what it is about. It might be a flip flop in roles but I am sure that by the time I have grown a little older that the future 'young' generation will know some news things that I will have to learn. I just hope that I can be like that lady and have the courage to ask for some help

And maybe even now we as the younger generation could do a better job at being more literate in the areas that our parents are literate in; like knowing how to buy and advertisement in the classifieds of a newspaper. How knows? Maybe there is some skill from the past that would help us solve the problems of the future.