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RoBoCoP

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 9 months ago

 

 

wouldn't it be cool if we all could rise like the phoenix?

 

May 10

 

In my typical prorastinating fashion, I finally finished my project on the very last day that it was due.  I didn't really have an excuse for letting it go, but alas that is how I work.  Even as I sit here writing what may be my last piece as an undergraduate, I can't bring myself to finish, say I am complete.  Graduation for many is such an exciting time, and yet also TERRIFYING!  We see it all over this wiki, concerns about getting a job, despair in leaving the bubble that is Happy Valley.  I want to attribute at least some of the blame in my failure to do my project earlier to my denial of the "g" word.  As long as I still had the project to do, I wasn't done with college, I wasn't free.  An odd sentiment to feel especially in growing up in a country that has had wars and movements up the wazoo in order to allow me to be "free."  I presume one may relate the feeling I have about graduating to the feelings, many, myself included, have towards the wiki.  This new thing, the "real" world, is too new, too real, too much freedom.  I watch another one of my girls move out and finally it is starting to hit me that I probably will never see them again.  THey are going to continue on the rollercoaster that is the PSU experience, but it is my turn to get off and go on the ferris wheel.

 

I have no idea whether or not this wiki page will continue either through Mobius, myself, or other students, but if it does my mind will certainly be baffled.  So much has been discussed, disected, explored, and revealed through the use of the wiki both in and out of the classroom.  I haven't even been able to go through everyone's pages and my mind swims with what I have read.  The wiki, while it still scares the crap out of me at times, certainly has impressed me and made my mind function not necessarily on a higher, but different level.  As anyone who has been following my page will notice, I have not been the ideal wiki participant, but I feel I have made progress, especially since my first experience over a year ago.

 

Before I discuss final projects, I wanted to mention something about A Critical Look at Music Piracy.2007-04-09-02-33-23.  I read it a week, maybe a few days-- I can't really remember, ago and was intrigued by a particular line of the text. “Music for so many people is just background noise,” he told me one day over the summer, trudging up an unair-conditioned stairwell to his apartment.  “It’s just, like, something to do something else to.  Nobody sits and actually listens to music anymore—it’s only on in the background while they work out or drink or fuck or whatever.  Nobody treats it how it should be treated.  I mean, you don’t put a movie on and then do homework, do you?  No, you sit for two hours and you watch that movie.”  This quote struck a chord with me as I revelled in the ways that I utilize music everyday.  The truth of the matter is the guy is right on the money.  I use music to keep me up while I work or entertain/highlight the television program I am watching.  Car rides seem to be the only place that I actually engage with music in that I will sing along with my friends and discuss the various songs, but the melodies are still just in the background of the immediate activity of driving.  Though, as I often like to point out, I can break from the norm in that I do sometimes put in Disney movies and then do homework.  Sophomore year I did all of my papers that way.  Originally, when I read this, I thought, "Well that is what music is supposed to be.  Background, auxillary, touching that extra sense during the experience."  Yet, thinking a bit deeper I thought of ceremonial dances of tribal peoples, the creation of Mozart's symphanies, and the Boss rocking down "Thunder Road."  All works of musical art, all not intended for the background.  How does one get the true meaning of the piece if it shlepped behind a movie scene or comercial?  The point is you don't.  The only way music works in the background is if one already has engaged with it in te foreground, thus understanding what the piece is supposed to be highlighting or facilitating as a background piece.  If that step is being forgotten, indeed I feel sorry for the music industry, but I hope that this is not the case.

 

So about these final projects...  I am amazed about how very different everyone of them are.  From Loadstool's crazy dream map to Echan's poetry to the Film Festival, to WikionWiki, the class seems to have no cohesiveness.  Especially looking on Loadstool's work and the sound remix group, I feel almost that my crazy collaboration of paper, glue, and a ball is trivial.  Yet, I had fun making it (well at least now I say so... when I was sitting there redoing all my remixes because my computer restarted without me saving my work and with glue all over me trying to put the stuff on the ball...) and I guess people think it is cool.  I again apologize for missing the "Film Festival" or entropic Film showing if I may, but I was doing my last hoorah with the ultimate frisbee team in hopes of qualifying for nationals.  Alas, my ultimate frisbee career ended with a punch to the face and taking an injury--- no we aren't going to Nationals.  In terms of the great plans of the festival not falling into place, I believe that shows the making of a typical project.  Even as I made UBI-X what I proposed and what ended up being created by my hands, had there differences.  I believe that is why science is so enthralled with PROCEDURE rather than the actual RESULTS.  While the results are the goal of the project, what one really learns from are the procedures, methods... the fuck-ups (excuse my Francais).  When I was in ninth grade I did a science fair project about the enzyme pectinase and its effects on grapes.  The results I produced were actually quite dumb and trivial because all I found out was that more of the enzyme doesn't do anything--- but if I had paid attention to Mrs. Roundtree I would have known that from her discussion of enzymes being catalysts.  Yet, I won first place in my category.  There was one crazy judge that came to me and basically told me my results were crap, but they way I did my project and the fact that I sounded like a scientist, he gave me points.  I guess in short it isn't so much what you accomplish, but the journey you take to get there that really matters.

 

Well now that three of my girls have given me an adorbale memento and card I can't really concentrate.  It is official.  I am done.  I am moving on.  Thank you all in ENGL 473 for baffling my mind.  Thank you Mobius for forcing me to expand my mind.  Thank you Penn State--- always a part of my heart.

 

Sincerely-

RoBoCoP

AKA Rebecca (Becca) Simon

Class of '07

robocop1415@hotmail.com (for when my psu accounts disappears...)

 

*****************************************************

Here are most of the images (I forgot to figure out a way to post the ads I got from the comics before I cut them up) that I used to creat my final project: Final Project OY! I am calling the physical being of my project UBI-X Ball. If you go to Old Main at 2:00pm today, you can see the UBI-X Ball and the accompanying "comic book" for comparison. The anaylsis/exigesis along with some other random wiki rambling will come by the end of the day.

 

So I stopped by Old Main today to check out RoBoCoP's UBI-X Ball, and...I didn't know where to start! I just kept spinning it around and around and each time I saw something I had missed before. Nice work! -loadstool

 

May 3

 

10:24pm according to my computer clock and I for the life of me cannot remember where or when I said "it started like 45 minutes ago and everyone was being an anarchist and not being a leader." In the Words of Wisdom Remix Ishmael Peep and Princess made, I am "tagged" so to speak to that quote and baffled that I would be smart enough to write anarchist... I am guessing it was a quote from someone else that I was refering to...

 

PS my final class at PSU was 15 minutes long and I was ten min late.

 

*****************************************************

 

I hardly can believe it, but yes my final day of classes as a Penn State student finally arrived. In general, the events of today were pretty ordinary. I got up and studied for my exam in web design (a class that I am surprising glad to be done with), did my loan exit interview, and then went over to the IM building in hopes that some of my classmates from basketball had indeed taken our teacher's offer to play for fun since we had the gym anyway. As no one was there I went back to my room and pretended to study a bit more then went to take my test. After my test I had time to get food and then read some more McCloud before entering the temporary autonomous zone. I sat on Old Main lawn and took a few pictures that are fairly random but make me feel better that these are my final days as a student. Then as I was walking to Sackett I pulled out one of the lollipops my wed design teacher gave out at the end of class. I began to ponder about how eerily I was falling into my favor UBIK quote, "This is the beginning." While my memory maybe a bit hazy, but I am sure that when I started this rollercoaster ride commonly known as EDUCATION, that I was given some sweet (probably a lollipop) as I was being "interviewed" or tested to get into a kindergarten class without participating in Pre-K or any time of nursery school. Certainly by the end of the year with the sun shining and bouncing elementary school kids everywhere, I recall sucking on a lollipop or icey-pop of some sort. Little did I know that roughly 17 years later I would also be sucking on a Tootsie Pop as my classes were ending. There really is no real beginning or ending in life, everything is interconnected.

 

 

 

 

 

May 2

 

Sorry loadstool if you were trying to edit my page. I "stole" the edit lock from you because you had been on for more than 41 min and I didn't see anything different... did someone forget to close the brower window?

 

Hmm...yeah, I guess so! I think I was going to respond to your previous post, then got distracted. But yes, I'm glad we were able to collaborate on Thursday; I definitely got something out of it, if only a shaking of my brain. To think I almost missed class! Luckily, I bumped into Echan who persuaded me to come. Oh, and thanks again for alerting me to Ceridwen's dream. -loadstool

 

So May finally showed up with a pleasant breeze in the morning, warm sun in the afternoon, and riduculous storms in the evening. Apparently spring weather must occur all in the same day, heaven forbid that each day be different, try every hour...

 

Yesterday, I unfortunately came late to class, but yes I WAS THERE... if there was any question. I am intrigued by the progess the festival has accomplished. I would love to participate, but unfortunately I will be in Edinboro participating in regional competition with the PSU Club ultimate frisbee team. Last night I took some steps into the creation of my project by getting some "play balls" from Wal-Mart. I tried to get comic books (not graphic novels) in order to get te ads that come in them, but apparently B.Dalton in the mall is not as cool as my Borders back home (yes I know there is Borders by the Walmart but I was doing errands with someone else so we didn't have time to go there) and could only find one x-men comic book. Sigh... oh well it should be enough with the remixes and the quotes from the book. As a recap, I am making a collage on a ball for the presentation of my final project. If was to be at the festival I would consider showing it off and maybe playing a game of four square with it but alas that will not be possible. I didn't really think there was anything more I could say in class but if there are any thoughts or questions, please don't hesitate to hit me up.

 

My slacker approach to the wiki this semester is not really acceptable if I want to do well in this class, but alas that is water under the bridge and I can't really go back in time to write on the wiki. Though if that guy on the show HERO who bends time and such could help me out, how awesome would that be??!!?!?! Quite appropriate I might ad with the whole X-Men Ubik Superhero thing I have going on here. I was thinking in the shower the other day, why do I have so much trouble writing on the wiki? Is my fear to let people into my true thoughts? Am I really that lazy? Did I take on too much this semester and the whole year for that matter, that people looking at my senior GPA people will say, "Dude, she totally lost it..." Then I realized that what my problem is that my mind is always working, dreaming, thinking that it forgets to tell my body and fingers to go to the computer and put those thoughts and conceptualizations in a tangible form. This realization made me think, why is it that as a species we are obsessed with the tangible. Why is it that it only counts if you can see it or touch it, smoke it... My favorite moments are those in the shower that I place myself in my favorite tv shows or I become a witch in training at Hogwarts about to help Harry defeat Voldemort or I see myself getting the "D" in the game to go to nationals. Are there other people who do the same? How does one take that moment and transform it into producing a physical piece or writing? I guess that must be the definition of a creative writer and how we get some of the best works of literature.

 

I did finally listen to the Wallace piece and was humored. I especially liked when he would make a comment and chuckle to himself but the others did not break into laighter as they had in other moments. There were a few statements that I found particullarly interesting, such as "How do you God the Gods?" "What you really want is not what you want at all." Having words for everything and yet not being able to understand to anything.... Ok so I intended to talk more intelligently but apparently I lost my tain of thought...

 

 

I also finally read Cerwiden's posting about the shootings at VT. I totally agree with her. The media definitely made me almost not care or feel immune to the whole situation. I don't really divulge in true news anymore despite growing up watching two to three newsbroadcasts in a day and having to read the paper all the time while I was a debater in highschool. I occassionally go back and read things to pick out stuff for scrap books or research, but the media inundates us so much that I never can digest the information properly if I try to keep up with it in real time. Maybe this links to my obsession with the past and archaeology but that is just being too psychoanylsist. On the day of the shooting, I thought about my friend from home that goes to VT. I hadn't spoke to him in about a year and half. Should I call him or shouldn't I? I didn't even think of the possibility that he could have been killed, I just didn't want to sound like that jerk who ignored him unless something big was going on... After persistance from my sister who was freaking out, I did call Jack. He turned out to be ok and didn't mind that I was calling, but he told me that if the guy had chosen Tues instead of Mon, then he would have been in the middle of it. I told him at the time not play those mind games because that is what messes you up in the head. I think that is the problem with the media... "they" play too many mind games and end up making everyone crazy. Whatever happened to the days when someone who had issues could hid away in the attic and write some of the most treasured yet disturbed poems of American Literature and no one get hurt?

 

 

 

April "not going to refer to day because of embarassment..."

 

On Thursday, Erin, loadstool and I discussed our projects despite not actually being a group doing the same project. Peer advice and crtiques... outside insight... SO EXCITING!!! As a result, I think we all got something very valuable aka progress, forward motion, etc. on our projects. For me the presentation of my UBIK X-MEN Merger adventures finally took a creative and I hope "final project worthy calliber." To go beyond my proposal's demonstration of the two pieces' connections, I am going to demonstrate cesurae and gaps of logic, explore the use of ADVERTISEMENTS, and have fun cutting and pasting... literally... with glue and scissors... "WhaaaaaaAAAAAT?" I can hear the whispers and echoes now... The physical portion of my project will be of a ball (kick ball or large bounce ball size) covered with my pages of merges comics with copies of the original ubik text and ads found in comic books today. The symbolism will not be solely found within the confines of the images I am pasting on, but the actually project also. The concept of taking a flat surface, such as a piece or paper and placing it onto a round surface, such as a ball, is a problem that has plagued globe designers and cartographers for centuries. This phenomenon or tragic dilemma will result in there being gaps all over the ball showing not only the gaps in remixture, the idea of cesurae in Cosmic Trigger, but the incomplete imagery and logic you find in the plot of UBIK. I also like the round/circle concept of using a ball because of the last line, "This is the beginning," with a ball there is no beginning or end.

 

I tried to listen to the Mp3 but couldn't get it to download properly on my computer. I am not sure if I have the wrong Media Player or what. Any suggestions???

 

Hoping to basically throwup on the wiki for the next week... oh goshes the end (or is it the beginning?) is much too near!

 

 

April 16

 

Please don't hate me! Here is my Proposal.

 

 

A few comments about the movie "Scanner Darkly"

 

While I did enjoy the movie, it's combination of sex, drugs, politics, violence, and humor was certainly a treat, I was intrigues mostly by the producers' decision to make the movie a computer generated "cartoon" rather than leaving it as a live action film. Obviously this technique allowed for the creation of the suites more feasible and probably a lot more costly, but there was something that was taken away because of it. The idea of Dick's books are that they are what the possible future may hold. If the movie was done as a live action, then possibly people would have been more freaked out by the possiblity that it could happen. Take for instance the responce to the movie "1984." While in the confines of the book, Orwell's predictions seemed to only be manifestations of his mind and those who read the book. Yet, when the screen production occured, people could physically see what Orwell was descibing in his book and that was scary. The fact that the characters were all notable and such, but they the graphics made it all "not so real" thus not that scary.

I also recognized a trend between Dick's UBIK and Scanner Darkly in that the ending isn't really an ending. They are both beginnings so to speak. "Bruce" is left in the field with the flowers contemplating seeing his friends again and "Dana" or whatever her name is, wants out of the business. We are left with no conclusion or final step simply the beginning of a new story that may never actually materialize. In UBIK we get the famous "This was just the beginning," line to end the book. In terms of movies and sequels and cliff hangers, sometimes this can be thought of as cheesy and lame. Yet, in Dick's case, this technique simply an illustration that his ideas on the future are simply "ideas of the future" and there is no real way of knowing what the conclusion is until it happens. Unless you are Steve Erkel and can make a time machine or something.

 

 

Got any cheeeese?

 

 

April 10

 

Not that it is relevant to anything, but my team is super excited!!! This weekend the Penn State Women's Club Ultimate Frisbee team won it's first tournament of the year (Yale Cup Champions!!! WOOT!!!). This is our "rebuilding" year so it is a great feeling to know we can still get the job done.

 

 

Anyway back to things related to class...

 

Arpeggi has once again intruged me with his posts. The YouTube video of Philip K Dick's interview and such according to Scanner Darkly was really interesting. The line where PKD explains who science fiction was supposed to be for really got me thinking. "science fiction is concidered for adolescents, just for high school kids, and for disturbed people to read in America... we are limited to writing books with no sex, no violence, and no deep ideas. Just something of an adventure kind of nature which we call space operas which are just westerns placed in the future." (While I tried to type out the exact quote, I only got the majority of it.) Do we still have this notion today that SciFi is only for crazy kids? While I cannnot say that I am well versed in science fiction writing beyond things such as 1984 and UBIK (which I am not even sure qualify), my comic book attraction, and The Hobbit. Then again is there a difference between SciFi and Fantacy? Is the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Fantacy or SciFi? Anyway, science fiction has certainly established itself as a more credible genre over the years. We even have entire English curriculums at "credible" institutions teaching the inner workings of the genre. I was surprised to hear Dick say that he couldn't include sex and violence and deep meanings in his work of science fiction for i feel that even if a science fiction book doesn't write it out, there are explicit undertones of these things. People all the time create deeper meanings from the images of science fiction, yet this brings us to the author vs reader argument. Who really creates the meaning of a piece of writing? Are these notions I have about science fiction writing simply the manifestation of the "crazies" reading and getting involved with the work? I seem to come up with a lot of questions... I unfortunately rarely find any answers...

 

 

April 6

 

So I just finished grading loadstool's remix. I hope it works. I have a few comments to make on the wiki before I head off to a ultimate frisbee tournament at Yale University this weekend.

Happy Easter and Happy Passover to everyone celebrating!

Drat it all and my inability to make sure there is postage on the envelope before sending it out... Well Grandpap hopefully your card gets there in time!

Drat it all and the postage office taking a month to send me back a friend's birthday card...

When I was walking back from Holy Thursday services last night, I saw the saddest thing. The pretty daffodils outside of the Creamery all look like they were punished or something. The cold snap froze them all and now it is quite the depressing scene outside of a place that give so many people joy through the consumption of hot chocolate, coffee, and Creamery Ice Cream.

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

April 5

 

Ishamel recently posted an article discussing the question, \"Journalist or Activist?\"

I was curious of what this was all about so I actually read the whole thing and now I am puzzled. The author of the article was insisting that Josh Wolf, the individual just released from prison for posting a video on his website needed to decide whether or not he was an activist or a journalist. Why make the distinction? I do not see why the two can coincide. This isn't to say that all jounralists are activists and vice versa, but there certainly have been journalist-activist combos in the past. While Wolf's example was a bit off, there are certainly other figures from the American Revolution who fit the bill such as Ben Franklin. Franklin, when he wasn't getting drunk and getting laid, produced newspapers, articles, pamphlets, books, and the like. Journalist I would say... He also was a major component in the development of our country as we know it today. Activist right? Take a more recent example of journalists during the Vietnam or the Civil Rights movement, while some simply reported the news, others would take certain twists to show the story either in support or against a particular side. They are still journalists, but yet being activists at the same time. While there is a time and place to be strictly a journalist in being as objective as possible, not all journalism or printed work is objective and many times it takes a activist spin.

 

 

April 3

 

I just listened to the Arpeggi Jory mp3 and was baffled. Especially if you listen to it while watching one of those graphics things on Windows Media Player, one can easily go into some type of trance or at least get really freaked out. I think it would be cool to extend what Jory says... maybe one of his speeches to Joe Chip or something. Also, wasn't Jory supposed to be young? What if we got a kid to do the recording and then did all kinds of crazy things to his voice?

 

Also, Does anyone understand the grading thing we are supposed to do. I have tried to find what Mobius has graded but seem to be lost and confused (yeah I know that isn't all that surprising but work with me people). Are we just supposed to give our comments about another student's work?

 

 

 

 

April 1

 

Apparently it is April according to my calendar and the sweet birds sing outside of my window. Thus it is only appropriate that I wish you all a Happy April Fools' Day! I just wanted to mention that on Friday that I saw quite the scene while walking along Beaver Ave. A large group of individuals all riding bicycles, took over the road as if they were a protest or something, which I guess they were but it wasn't a fancy one with banners and police and the like. One person was carry a cardboard box side with something written on it but it was facing the other side of the road so I couldn't read it. BUT the most interesting person found in this scene was the one and only Mobius and Little Mobius in the pack on their two person bike. That's right, Doyle and his son Jackson participated in this breaking the norm biking protest for some cause I don't know. It was quite the image.

 

Hope you were successful Mobius!

 

Was it Critical Mass? I participated in one in San Francisco last summer, and it was a lot of fun. It started like 45 minutes late 'cause nearly everyone was an anarchist; no one wanted to step up and be a "leader." My bike wheels came off twice, but overall I had a good experience. If anyone gets the chance to do it, I recommend it! -loadstool

 

I honestly hav no idea... RoBoCoP

 

March 27

Finished the assignment!

UBIK XMEN MERGER

Hope all enjoy!

 

Hey Mobius-- what was the name of that book about the rhetoric of graphic novels again? I would like to use it in my final project.

 

I believe the book is Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by scott mccloud. -Houdini

 

"Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is happening

in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early

twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their

power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient,

more vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in

their plan to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."

-Free Culture

 

The idea that people are using the law to prevent progress in order to help themselves is a pretty discouraging thought. The law is supposed to protect people from harm. While using law suites to stop up and coming technologies may seem to protect them in the short run, in the long run they are hindering the ability of the human race to develop and thus not do what we do best... EVOLVE.

 

 

 

 

March 21

I told myself that when I got back from spring break that I would write something everyday. Well, being as it is Thursday, obviously that didn't work out, but I will keep on trying.

 

I am working through my UBIK project for next week which, as I said in class, is a combo of X-Men comics and text from Ubik. I haven't decided exactly which passage I am going to do, but I am thinking that the one before the bomb where the inertials and Runciter are all there would be a good one. My thoughts now are to have Runciter be Prof X. Prof X is the "almighty one" as is Runciter. Plus, there are several issues that involve Prof X but no one really knowing if he is dead. I think I can probably assign other characters to the inertials, but for sure I want to put Joe Chip to be Cyclops.

 

 

Both Cyclops are the top people in there groups but have inherent flaws that make them always thinking to themselves and being unsure to exactly they should be doing. Grant it, Cyclops's problem is beams that come out of his eyes and he can't totally control, and Joe Chip's problem is he can't hold onto money, but I assure the parallel is there.

 

March 6

So I was reading Transgenic Involution and can't get over the title of the first section. "Falling into a Whole with a Rabbit." My mind is swimming with images of the green bunny and Alice in Wonderland and things "falling in place" aka making a whole... Yet the section was so brief... I don't really know what to do with myself.

 

 

March 4

 

 

Something I stumbled upon and looked kinda cool.

 

Feb 27

"There is nothing to fear in this awareness, and once you overcome the initial feeling of strangeness associated with such an act of involution, you will learn a great deal about how to focus your attention and learn. -mobius"

 

But what about the fear of never getting over the initial feeling of strangeness...

I am a graduating senior who for the most part, has no idea what to do with my life. I have been an English major for the last four years and still can't read and write. "Rhetoric" is my emphasis, but what do I really know about rhetoric? It seems that my best work according to my current English 471 professor is done when I am lying in bed typing on my lap top at 7:30 in the morning just as I woke up. Is this ok? What does this say about my professor's standards, the university, society's standards, myself?

 

 

I just got a paper back with an "A" on it that I wrote in the computer lab a half an hour before class. It was disgusting and terrible and I'm ashamed that my name is on it, but evidently my teacher thought it was "excellent." Now, perhaps our teachers are looking for things that are so easy to regurgitate that it requires no real thought, or perhaps we really do have burst of true insight (however poorly structured) when we least expect it. I've also heard it said that an author never truly recognizes the worth of his own work...so yes, it's 'ok'. I personally can't write unless I'm pressed for time...then I spit things out that I don't even recognize and they seem to fall on the page with a skill and intelligence I'm absolutely positive I do not have. In other words, I suppose somewhere in here is this mystical phenomenal talent, but I'm clueless as to how to get to it and use it at will. Until I figure it out I'm stuck writing below my 'potential' but getting good grades anyway. (Maybe professors are just so conditioned by lackluster, ill-formed, half-hearted papers that anything above 'shitty' gets an A???) ~ Ceridwen

Hey, Coppa'. I think we were in the same 471 class last semester. Professor You, right? Or are you taking 471 again? I'm curious as to what the theme is this semester. Also, I think we're in the same boat and we're rowing ourselves in a circle. I have an emphasis in rhetoric as well and have no idea what to do after college. I used to want to go to law school, but I've been really disillusioned by it lately; the more rhetoric courses I take, the more turned off I am to law. Pretty funny, actually, considering that the reason I started studying rhetoric in the first place was to go to law school. Not having a plan for the rest of our lives is kind of cool, though--we have so much freedom. As mobius and Ceridwen mentioned in class last week, perhaps we're the type who should just get out and walk in the water. -loadstool

 

PS I like the stuff being generated on the poetry pile. I used to think that I was good at poetry, but then I lost all capabilities of truly deep intellectual thought--- and I have never done drugs.

 

Feb 22

I meant to write about this earlier, but I forgot...

So this pass weekend was the Penn State Dance Marathon. I spent a lot of time there as my organization had dancers and I know boat loads of other people dancing and participating. I went to WalMart with my organization's Four Diamonds family, the Erbs, to get some supplies for our dancers. When we left the alarm system went off because one of the lovely RFID chips hadn't be deactivated! While normally this is a no big deal in my life, but I immediately thought about class and our discussions and couldn't believe it was all hitting me right in the face. To top it all off, Darian, the 11 year old Four Diamonds child, even asked about it and his dad and I explained about the chip and the system. While this may seem trivial... it kinda excited me.

 

Aparently Time magazine listed "Ubik" as one of the 100 best English Novels of all time

 

For my final project, I was thinking of doing something about the society and control and line dancing. Now I am not just talking about country yee ha dancing, but those organized dances that you find in all genres of music. Do these dances represent the Society of control's hold on even our social interactions? Is the fact that we are awed and inspired by those who break out in a solo away from the rest of the line a testament to our wanting to break away from this the Society? Maybe a youtube video is in order? I don't know how to use said site, but I am willing to give it a try.

Leave me your thoughts oh knowledgeable ones!

 

 

Interesting idea! I wondered about this concept before, actually. I think people are too afraid to break out in a solo, because they generally behave like sheep due to the human desire to seek cults (also know as groups of full acceptance following extreme indoctrination from the Young Jessie dictionary). Of course, some humans deviate from this sheep mentality, and are generally regarded as infidels. This idea raises the following question: When humans seek religion and other forms of organization due to this fear of not being accepted by the masses, aren't they then seeking and establishing a society of control?~Young Jessie

 

Feb 20... early morning

I was looking at the Society against the State remix and was intriguide by the flashing colors and many pictures. I don't really understand the cave woman vs amazon woman relationship. Was this a book or tv show back in the day? I also am not sure if it my lacking of sleep or the writing of the piece, but the wording also seem really weird.

 

being as I am falling asleep again in the pc lab and I am freezing... I am going to peace out..

 

Feb 16

 

So I am not that great at posting anyways, but just so you know, I have like a million friends who are dancing/captaining/moraling/overalling at THON this weekend. I will try to find the link to the streaming online footage, but I can't seem to find it right now.

Thanks to whoever posted on how to get the box.

Robocop, I think if you indent at all, that puts the box around your text.

 

Feb 15

I saw Gonzo's link to a video of him lifting and thought it was only appropriate that I put up a link to the performance of my Hip Hop final last semester.

 

Well I only made it for CAS 283 last semester, but I feel like putting up this link...

 

Can someone please tell me how to make the box thingy on the wiki? Ya know, the one that wraps around your text? I tried looking at the mark up and couldn't figure it out. I like the way it looks and would like to use it.

 

Also...

Am I the only one who hasn't seen Minority Report? Is that the key to getting something out of UBIK? I will admit I haven't gotten very far into the book, but I find it interesting how everyone seems to linking the book with the movie.

 

Feb 8

“Brother, that’s committing half-assed suicide. The way we’re going, they’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t just switch ’em off when it comes time to reanimate. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s getting a little crowded around here.”

 

I made pish-tosh sounds and wiped off my forehead with a bar-napkin—the Gazoo was beastly hot on summer nights. “Uh-huh, just like the world was getting a little crowded a hundred years ago, before Free Energy. Like it was getting too greenhousey, too nukey, too hot or too cold. We fixed it then, we’ll fix it again when the time comes. I’m gonna be here in ten thousand years, you damn betcha, but I think I’ll do it the long way around.” ---Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Are we so certain that we are going to fix all the problems of today with our advancing technology? Today's society is better than any other in terms of understanding our past. Records and history books, archaeological excavations, and class room emphasis on the past, far exceeds anything that generations before us ever experienced. If the saying that you learn from your past, and that history repeats itself are true, does that mean today's society with our better understanding of the past, has become a better predictor of the future?

 

In skimming the report on Lucille Ball I became really confused (which unfortunately is not a unusual occurance). Every so often, a portion would start with the line that such and such was NOT investigated by the Bureau, but then the Report would go on to talk about said individual. How can the report have that information without an investigation?

Lucy's report was interesting in that the investigators actually confirmed that she did vote along Communist party lines and the report came out during the Red Scare. It seems that most of these reports don't really find anything and are fifty pages of someone recording another person's life without he or she knowing it. Strange as this profession may be, I guess it can't be outsourced for slave labor in Cambodia. I would have liked to be able to better read the newpaper articles included at the end of the report to better understand the public's/media's reaction to the report.

 

Feb 6

As with all technologies and great ideas, I am reminded of something an interesting person once told me, "It isn't what you do, but how you do it." While RFID in itself a bad idea or dangerous technology, but there is hidden fear that some mad scientist might come around and use it for the utmost evil. Now, BookWorm's idea to use the technology for scientific research on animal migration, seems pretty humane as long as a safe technique for inserting the chip has been developed. Though I have to ask, is it true that difference between humans and animals is free will? What if Mother Goose doesn't want to be tracked and have the people in the National Zoo know where her and her little geeselings are? Does Mother Goose have the capabilty to have that thought process? I guess I am getting to far in lala land, let me step back.

 

RFID probably is best used for non-living things because you have less ethical issues. I think it would be really cool to put the chips in like a balloon and see where they ended up before popping. Didn't everyone want to know where that pesky balloon that slipped out of your hand as a kid went off to? Well now we can find out!

 

 

well it was supposed to be January 31... but I guess it is Feb 1

Maybe it is all the ethnographic studies I read, or the wanna be anthropologist/archaeologist in me, but this is the image I get when I see Doyle do his RFID motion.

 

With all of this talk about RFID, I wonder if the Big Brother syndrome or reaction still applies. Is Orwell and his monumental work still a reference in the intellectual and political realms? If our president finished the book do we think he would refer to it if he had objection to these techonologies? Am I not thinking out of the box enough? I read the thing in seventh grade and again as a senior in high school. Is my reference a nod towards to my juvenile intellect despite the Intent to Graduate form says I will be leaving PSU this may?

 

January 30

With the increase in crime and harmful activities that result from certain people participating in online discourse causes great concern and a need for someone to do something. In the US System of doing things, that ultimately means to make up a law saying what is allowed, what isn't, who can, who can't, and who is in charge of making sure the law is upheld. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace is another attempt at following the US system. Unfortunately, this report is almost pointless. First of all the internet (cyberspace) is not just the United States, it is the ENTIRE WORLD! So even if we had everyone in America following the rules those peeps in China may not give a damn.

In general the internet is just too big for such a report to really work. This strategy works with definitions and boundaries. Those aren't available in the world of cyberspace and unfortunately that means the gov't isn't going to be our saviors this time... if they ever were.

 

January 22 (Errr 23 at this point)

Let me preface that working with the wiki is infinitely **easier when you are not relying on computer labs. My lovely gateway laptop is currently in the Hospital and getting into the lab to search through the wiki and truly get involved with the links and information at my finger tips is a bit of a daunting task. I was so excited when I got a wireless card from my main tool through the collegiate year for I was finally going to be able to be at the HUB or somewhere with free wireless and check that last minute email without a worry. I also had the opportunity to complete this class's requirements when and where I wanted. I have never been very good at keeping a journal or diary, despite my teachers encouraging me to do so since I can remember. Thus, the daily wiki responses seemed at first a very scary thing when I took another 400 level rhetoric class with Doktor Mobius. I am not expert, despite passing the class, at the wiki. I am giving wiki writing another try in order to really understand it (as well take the write classes for my rhetoric emphasis). Unlike journal writing, the wiki does give you information to build on immediately, rather forcing one to just rely on his or her mind or daily experiences. As so elequently written in the proposal by Mobius, the wiki has a ridiculous amount of potential. Nonetheless, the convergence of ALL English rhetoric classes seems to be a long way from being a reality. While the concept of becoming wireless and having everyone doing the wiki are ones that should be pursued, I don't think we can do it all at once. Working on the foundations that will make the wiki feasible then actually changing the curricula may be a more logical approach. I also think that making all the classes use this technique would take away the NEW Medium concept that makes the wiki so intriguing. While most classes will certainly have to approach online rhetoric with the increase across the globe, I think that each instructor could potentially take the wiki and present it in a way that works for their style of teaching, comfort, or topic. Maybe I am being too narrow minded, but I hardly think that all the classes need the wiki to grow or be successful.

 

 

 

(I am not sure but I think I wrote this January 21)

So here I am giving the wonderful world of wiki a second try. I hope to redeem my self in Mobius's eyes, but we will see how that goes. I guess I should start with reading the links...

****

 

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