eXistenZ

Director, David Cronenberg, mostly created films outside the famous spectrum of the Hollywood dazzle. His films however did gather a large audience of people interested in his depiction of horror blurred by sci-fi and a mixture of thoughts related to how the human body interacts with technology. His career began with a mixture of films such as horror classics where science experiments went wrong, media theories where screen take of the world and destroy humanity and films exploring a number of other theories.

In his movie, eXistenZ, he explores the connection between technology and most particularly gaming and how it connects to the human body and the relationship with our minds. This game of eXistenZ what basically like an alternate reality. Something like today’s epidemic of second life. In eXistenZ the people were directly connected to the game pod. People actually had a plug insert in their spine called a Bio port. The movie begins with what seems to be a promotion for a young designer, Alegra, and her new game. The game is mixture of small missions where the objective is mostly unknown there is the usual killing and discovering of objects. As the game unravels it becomes confusing for the players to distinguish between reality and the game world. At the end of the movie you discovered that the players we in the game right from the very start. The whole story line of Alegra being the designer of the game and running from an organisation trying to destroy her game pod was the actually game. In the end Alegra is the killer against the games.

It was a complicated film that had to be followed carefully in order to understand exactly what was going on but it was an extremely interesting play on reality and the game world and a weird way of showing the relationship between technology and the human body.

Birth of computers and the internet

During the early evolution of the computer there were three main people that envisioned such a thing as a computer. This first computer was designed to calculated complex mathematic equations and print mathematical tables. Charles Babbage was the brains behind this Difference Engine, as it was called. He is considered the inventor of the first digital computer. Although he created parts for the Difference Engine, due to a lack of government funding it was not completed in his life time. Babbage also envisioned the Analytical Engine; a massive, steam powered, mechanical computer. Ada Byron is also another important person in the evolution of the computer. She aided Babbage with his ideas on the Analytical machine and her self conceived of a machine that could play music and produce graphics and be of everyday use. The first computer program is also credited to Ada. Alan Turing, was the man responsible for the serious work related to the mathematics and cryptography in the development of the computer.

The very first computers were large expensive machines only used for military, government and corporate work and were mass produced by IBM. However computers became smaller, quicker and less expensive at an exponential rate. In 1965 a man by the name Gordon Moore proposed the Moores law; the capacity of microchips doubles every two years. Another law conceived by Moore claims capital costs are rising faster then revenues thus leading to a limited rate of technological development.

The mouse, graphical user interface and pull down menus where concepts developed by Xerox PARC in their pursuit to make computers usable by the general public. In 1975 the first PC was released. It was an exciting revelation but it was still the beginning and these computers had one major flaw, there was no common language or set of terms to enable easy communication between the users and their computers. This is where the famous Bill Gates steps in; he wrote a language called BASIC for the Altair so that it could be used for general applications such as word processing, basic accounting and a few games. This was the start of Microsoft. Nerds, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, started their own company; Apple. The first machine they produced had a single circuit board, no case and no keyboard. It sold for $USA666.60. Their combined dream was to create small home computers that were for people interested in programs and what they could do instead of the tech and hardware side of the machines.

At this point in development IBM was still lagging a bit behind. They were still selling big computers to big businesses when they realised there was something in the sale of personal computers for the general public. IBM relied on “open architecture”, which involved the buying of shelf products form a broad variety of different companies and selling them together as a package. The hardware was not the problem now, the software was. Bill Gates was then approached by IBM and he promised them he would find an Operating System. Gates contacted a man by the name Tim Patterson who has created an Operating System that was basically a rip off of Kildalls’. IBM has also approached Kildall for an Operating System but he and his partner refused to sign a non-disclosure statement before conducting a meeting. So Gates bought the Operating System off Patterson and basically started making his money. So IBM gained more and more market shares mostly due to its relations with the software giant Microsoft.

The internet is basically a network of networks. These networks are made up of servers, mainframes, personal computers and many other devices that use computer mediated communications technology (CMC). These items are all loosely connected to the telephone system and in recent years have become connected to broad-band cable and satellite services. The US Federal Networking Council decided on this definition of internet in 1995;

• (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;
• (ii)is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and
• (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.

Some people maybe stumped when you ask them; what is the difference between the World Wide Web and the internet? They may even believe that you’re talking about the same thing. However the web is only an application of the internet.

There is also much confusion when trying to specifically define cyber space. A commonly understood definition would be that cyber space is a conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using Computer Mediated Communications technology.

Email as we all know was one of the earliest used of the internet. The direct downloading or uploading of files from you computer to another computer is called File Transfer Protocol. In the 1990’s IRC (Internet Relay Chat) became extremely popular as one of the first applications that allowed people all over the world to type a real time conversations. More recent internet applications that many people are probably familiar with are; Instant Messaging, peer-to-peer file sharing, portable audio and podcasting, VoIP and Voice chat.

Benjamin Walter

week 5

To a common audience art is colourful paint brushed onto a canvass in order to create a beautiful image. However I don’t particularly agree I think that even with out a paint brush and canvass many of us can create our own pieces of artwork. To me art is anything that you can produce that has an effect on someone. That encourages thoughts or displays a story. I’m not suggesting that professional artists don’t create pieces that are awe inspiring and quite powerful but as the world is constantly changing especially in the way we communicate such as through the internet there are more opportunities for people to express them selves through their versions of art. I think art can be defined only by those that create it. If someone digitally produces a video that they feel is art because they have constructed it to impose emotions on an audience then it is art. Art can be found in music, simple drawings or even in the editing of reality, such as photo manipulation.

Authentic means not false or copied. If a photo image is imported into photo shop then it is a copy of the original thus making it unauthentic. Photo shop is generally used to edited and manipulate images and if an image is changed from its original then it is no longer the authentic photo or image that was originally produced.

Walter Benjamin had a belief that art work inferred an experience of awe for those who viewed it but he also believed that mechanical reproductions destroyed this awe in art. However I personally find that his definition of art is quite cold. I think that any thing created with passion and emotion and visual appeal that infers emotions in another person is art. To me that’s art work of an aura. Also mechanical reproduction like photo shopping images can also be creating art. A photograph that has been filled with emotion and a story also has an aura and thus is a work of art.

If anyone can google you and find that information, how does that make you feel?

Yes the power of the internet can be scary. When i searched my name i was very worried that with one click on google people would be able to access my facebook account or somthing but to my releif there was nothing. It did prove to be quite the vanity search with a number of results coming up of my high school news letters all of which highlighting hockey acheivements.

Guess the Google

'Guess the Google'...

On first reading the directions of what seemed to be a simple enough game i thought this can't be so hard. The basics of the game was you would be given several images and you would have to guess one word to desribe those images, as if to say if that one word were to be typed in a search engine would those pictures shown come up as results. Quite over confident jumped straight into the game only to find some to by extremely difficult. The images almost seemed to be at random but as the site mentioned it was quite addictive.

Additional Questions

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
Search engines generally sift through all the millions of webpages looking to present you with those that match you topic. However they can sometimes get it wrong and pages unrelated can slip through into your results. This only means a little more time in finding what you looking for.
Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?
sometimes the words you search, the order and any hyphens or speach marks can add to the preciseness of your search. If you type in several specific words your results will come up in order of those most usefull. The most usefull being those documents that contain all the words or phrases in your search.

What are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?
I generally stuck to only using google as my search engine because i was previously not exposed to any other search engines that i could trust. As a result of this weeks task where we were given several different trusted search engines i hope i can extend my internet browsing with the use of those new search engines.

Old Communication Technologies

This weeks’ lecture covered old communication technologies. We discussed a timeline of communication history stretching way back to the first forms of the alphabet and rock art from many different countries around the world. The differences between the alphabets of different regions were covered slightly including the native flora and fauna found in the rock art. The works of Benjamin Walters was also brought up and the age of mechanical reproduction. The basic timeline of communication technology was outlined giving brief information about print, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, radio, cinema, television and video. Other topics included in the lecture were the love vs. fear of technology and the digital reproduction of equipment, most recently the Blue Ray vs. High Definition. Semiotics was one of the more complex and confusing subjects that was touched upon.

week 4 tasks

When choosing which facts were real or not I would use several search engines that check that at least two sites contained the same information and then finally choose the most reliable site. The reliability of a site was determined by its professional appearance and also by its previous recognition, such as any thing found on a CNN websites would definitely be the truth as it is a well known and very trusted media organisation.
>>>>>
1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus?
Onel de Guzman

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/29/philippines.lovebug.02/index.html

2. Who invented the paper clip?
William D. Middlebrook

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/paperclip.htm

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?
The Ebola virus was named after a river in Congo in Africa where it was initially recognised.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola/qa.htm

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?
The largest recorded earthquake was in valdivia in Chile.

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/largest7.html

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?
1000,000,000 kilobytes in a terabyte

http://www.cctsolutions.com/HowManyBytes.pdf

6. Who is the creator of email?
Ray Tomlinson

http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm

7. What is the storm worm, and how many computers are infected by it?
The storm worm is a computer virus that is also known as a botnet/Trojan horse/malware because of its methods of infection. It initially spread threw emails that contained the title, “230 dead as storm batters Europe,” and since has developed many other clever means to entice web browsers to click on them. Computing security experts estimates the number of machines infected by storm worms from 1 million to 10 million however this varies with different experts. Nonetheless no one can argue that many thousands of pc’s are being attacked by the worms daily as worm authors are continuously thinking up new methods of tricking web browsers.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/the_storm_worm_maelstrom_or_te.html

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly, what is the most efficient way?
By sending a letter to: The Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Prime Minister, Parliament House, CANBERRA ACT 2600. Or call 61 2 6212 3930 or email primeministers@naa.gov.au
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=83T9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?
Black Assassins

http://blog.myspace.com/danik0

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words?
Web 2.0 is basically the second stage to the development of the current world wide web. It is refers to a transition from static html to a more dynamic web that is more organised and more open with the sharing of information. Blogs and wikipedia type sites and web services are all seen as components of web 2.0.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_2_point_0.html

Alphaville

A black and white motion picture produced in 1965. To most youth this would probably seem like an odd movie to watch but it was even more interesting then I expected. Most noticeably the acting was very cold and the effects were unintentionally funny. The film was based on a theory that computers would one day rule the world. It depicted a small city called Alphaville that was under the control of a computer system. In today’s world we could say that the world is control by a computer system but the movie showed a darker side to technology. This computer system that controlled Alphaville was almost wiping out all sense of peoples thoughts, emotions and common sense. What was particularly interesting was that the town was under such oppression that certain words would be wiped from existence by the computer in the fear that the people would begin some sort of a revolt against its control. To a further extent the authorities of Alphaville who believed strongly in the computer systems would control the people by taking action against those that spoke out by means of emotions or logic. The actions against such people were death. They were simply murdered in front of an applauding audience. Computers have evolved quite rapidly since 1965 and yes it could be stated that the world is run by computers but the control still lies with the people. However it is a very interesting theory to believe that computers will soon take on a sort of personality themselves and become tyrant rulers of society. This might seem as unrealistic but in 1965 a computer running the world was only just a theory.