New Media Studies Autoblog, Summer 07

This isn’t exactly directly related to anything discussed in class, but as it is something internet-related, I’m going to claim relevance. I was going through a long, unfruitful, and highly convoluted process to track down my ancestry (namely, which physical traits originated in which countries) involving Google Image Search and came across this site. Here’s an excerpt:
“Finding a Czech wife
Every day we meet men from various parts of the world who are looking for a wife, a women for life, in the countries of Eastern Europe. They are often tired and even disgusted by the manner the women in their home country behave. That is why they have begun to search their bride in Eastern Europe. We have many times heard quite unbelievable stories and experience of men, our customers, with women from Western Europe and the USA. Stories of how women in their countries are mostly after money, their […]

Original post by arynna

I’ve been perused Newsvine. The “Leaderboard” seemed to be a good place to see what other Newsviners like to read. One particular opinional, The Revolution Will Not Be Socialized — The Homogenization of Social Media by Killfile, caught my full attention.
Some see Web 2.0 socialization as nothing but a mindless faux pas, a metropolis for the masses to win their fifteen kilobytes of fame. Killfile makes a cogent argument for the case with a powerful clinch.
In seeking to be truly democratic, these networks relegate themselves to a perpetuity of side-line status, never serious or significant enough to eclipse edited, moderated, and regimented media for more than a fleeting moment.

This is precisely the reason why it is so important to develop a new system of online communication. In its present stage, the internet nearly in anarchy. Anything is utterable. One could even get away with libel in most situations. Don’t get me wrong, though; the nature of open online socialization allows […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

Once again, another webgem has surfaced. Newsvine is a completely user-controlled news website. It encompasses many of the characteristics of a self-efficiency that I am interested in studying, especially those of bound structure social networking. Newsvine works like a blog in that users create a profile and post an entry. In this case, entries are expected to function like news articles rather than personal logging. Right now what interests me most with regard to the class is the system used for developing reputation, which focuses on how many users “follow” one another rather than how users arbitrarily “rate” one another. Very interesting stuff.
 You can follow my Newsvine activity at http://mooreblogs.newsvine.com or you can subscribe to my RSS. Alongside this, I will be exploring Urbis as well. I already own an Urbis account, but it will be interesting to study the website under a new frame of thought.

Original post by humanisticmystic

Useless Body Parts
Which body parts are useless? Go look, it’s actually pretty entertaining… well to me it is.

Original post by Amanda

“All creativity can be understood as taking in the world as a problem.”
I know we already talked this one to death, but I’m feeling the need to explore it further. We explored the nature of the statement, but not really the statement itself. We asked what was meant by “creativity”. What qualifies as creativity? What is the connotation of the word “problem” in this context? Why is it phrased as “taking in” rather than “approaching”? Is it even possible to approach these question in a way that produces answers?
I think the only way I’m going to get anywhere with this–and the only way any of us can, really–is to use whatever interpretation that is meaningful for me personally. When I create art, in whatever form it takes, am I doing it because I’m trying to address a condition that is present in my world and important to me? I […]

Original post by arynna

So as usual, my magnificent blogging ideas have sufficiently dimished since returning home from class because most of them have left my head already (which is sad so because I had such high hopes).

I guess the main points that stood out to me the most from class today, centralized around the concepts of insight, and grock. (My father always said I was coma happy, so do, not, mind, all, of, the comas, I use).  As I mentioned in class, it absolutely astonishes me how Vannevar Bush (p.s. sweet name…hold please I am going to go google the name meaning…rarrh! I can not find a name meaning behind Vannevar which makes me even more curious than my initial curiosity…I suppose I will come back to this later)  Anywayyyy back to where what I was talking about…How in this great vast world that we live on did Vannevar ( I will refer […]

Original post by Peanut!