Blog 6: In a digital world

Many of the things in which Mark Wesch made a point in his web 2.0 video I believe are true for most of us who participate in this class. It was interesting to see how many people shared the same situation that I do in respect to their education. Mark said they had done a project where a blog had been edited 376 or so times to come up with some statistics about how often a certain things happen. I find that I do spend more time on the internet than doing any one other particular thing during the day besides sleeping. I don't always read my text books and sometimes find it easier to look up terms and references on the internet using sources like wikipedia and google. I read more emails in a year than I read pages in a book and spend more time watching youtube videos and other online video sources than I even do watching TV. The information age that we live in has sure changed the mediums that we use to access information. I think we are falling behind in some areas like our educaitonal institutions on how we incorporate that into our study. I would be lost without resources like the internet. A card catalog in a library just does not seem a likely place where I would venture to seek information. I would probably be in the dark on a lot of topics and issues. Because of the internet I have achieved the status of where I am in life today. I have been able to learn what others have not been able to teach me. I have been able to learn about things that would have otherwise not been available to me. I know about technology and computers systems because I have been connected to the knowledge and contributions of all others out there who have come together to share to create something bigger than themselves.

Nigger vs. Nigga

When I was a little girl my father often took my sister and I to Juneteenth, an African American celebration that lasts about a week in the middle of June that celebrates freed slaves.  On this particularly muggy Sunday that were having a talent contest on the stage during the park's festivities.  There were Sisters singing field hymns and children dancing in bright African clothes.  Then a group of boys came on the stage, both white and black, they began to rap and use the word "Nigger" and "Nigga" quite a lot and finally Rev. Davis got up there and stopped the madness.  He then went on to do a kind of sermn on how the usage of those words are damn nation a that they should be ashamed of themselves.  

My father taught me that using "Nigger or Nigga" were both bad.  When African Americans say it to other Blacks it's like setting ourselves back in history and erasing all of the progress we have gotten to this point so far.  Now I'm not one to judge those who say it, and I have a few rap albums in my collection.  I'm just saying I don't say it and I definitely don't like hearing others say it in a hateful way.  

Also, when it comes to privacy it's to each their own I say.  I feel like if people say it in their own home then they better be able to take it in public then.  

A video response to "Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing us"

Note how this video blogger imitates Mike Wesch's technique except he actually writes the text rather than typing. Also, note the critiques of Wesch's thinking.

Blogging of the Future

I was just playing around MSN today and found this topic on the new PC's of the future.  MSN broke it down to 15 items they liked and this is one of them.  Its something that folks would wear as a fashion statement that takes blogging and chatting online to a whole new level.  As a person wears this if someone in their friend group is near, that item changes colors to the mood of the friend and you can start blogging and chatting and such.  I thought this was a pretty crazy and genius idea.  

To get the whole story go to 

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=6306011

Blog # 6

i feel that thanks to video’s and other forms of communication i find we most likely like the video said we are lying to our selves though in a letter to someone you say that your taller or built great though you know you aren’t its the same with picture messages it is you don’t want to show how you really are to the world so you hide behind someone else’s face as i would say or voice. Though i also have to say that this is now a way, for people to get the fifteen minutes of fame they so desperately need in this world. this is all technology helps to accomplish the way we chat now gives us the more out stretched hand to see other cultures through first hand and not through the hand of writers who spent a year over there then come back and have to condense it in to three pages. This is how you should see the technology shapes are lives and futures. Here a video i found to show the cold truth of how people change things in are societies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89keJIQV32s ps this is graphic so please have a strong stomach for it no puns intended.

Blog #7

For me the bottom line behind the N word is respect (and lack of respect). It was the lack of respect this word showed that caused so much pain in the past, and it is the lack of respect that it continues to show that is causing problems and controversy today. Ultimately, we can't really control who uses the N word and how they use it. Like my mom used to tell me when I was a kid, I have control of myself, but my control really ends there. I can control what I say, but there's no way for me to control what anyone else says.
Wittengenstien described language as a maze, I may know what is acceptable with the N word in one part of the maze (the way my family treated the N word growing up, which was not to use it at all), but I don't know what may be acceptable in a different part of the maze (the way a black family in dominantly black neighborhood in L.A. might treat it). Ultimately, each of us has to make a decision about whether we will or will not use the N word. For me, the decision is easy: I won't use it in public or private conversation because of the lack of respect it carries. May we respect others as each of makes our decision.

Colbert interview with Jabari Asim

Here's a link to a short Stephen Colbert interview with Jabari Asim. Note how Colbert uses humor to hint at serious issues about language.