lwatson's posterous http://lwatson.posterous.com Most recent posts at lwatson's posterous posterous.com Sun, 30 May 2010 03:27:00 -0700 Internet capable appliances?? http://lwatson.posterous.com/internet-capable-appliances http://lwatson.posterous.com/internet-capable-appliances

Internet_fridge_for_blog

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Sun, 30 May 2010 02:51:00 -0700 Human Cyborgs http://lwatson.posterous.com/human-cyborgs http://lwatson.posterous.com/human-cyborgs

The idea of human cyborgs actually becomming a reality and not just something in science-fiction films is really amazing. This is was definitly my favourite topic this semester in cybersocieties! In further research on Kevin Warwick I found he has his own website which has alot more information on his background and what he is done, have a look at: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/index.asp. I personally think kevin warwicks idea that people will become cyborgs in the future very exciting. There is so much that is possible, like what he was saying in that video we watched in class. Also the idea comes to mind of imortality. If we all started to become more like 'cyborgs' then life expectancy would really go up as we could stop many of the things that let our bodies down and cause death. A video I found talking about how the future could include cyborgs and the possibilities of what these cyborgs are capible of is here:

 

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Sun, 30 May 2010 02:02:00 -0700 Micro-chipping in Nightclubs http://lwatson.posterous.com/micro-chipping-in-nightclubs http://lwatson.posterous.com/micro-chipping-in-nightclubs

After talking in class about RFID chips already been used in nightclubs I did a bit of extra research on this as found it really interesting. Although some people are doing it, there are still VIPs that are very much against it. In an inteview which can been found on youtube () Heidi Montag, star off The Hills says "Over my dead body would I get one" and carries on to say that we, as humans, aren't dogs and should't be getting micro-chips implanted into our bodies. I personally think that the idea around RFID is pretty amazing and with the possiblities that are possible through chipping people is pretty exciting and will be widely popular. However it does seem very extreme for nightclubs... Do people really need a chip implanted just to enter a night club? Couldnt they just have an ID card like usual, or just be regonised by their face if they are that VIP or even a thumb print regonition. Even through i'm all for chipping humans I do think that doing it for the sole purpose of getting into a VIP nightlcub is a little ridiculous. Through researching the idea of chipping people I found out quite a bit about previous idea's that people had before they decided that the RFID chips were the way to go. They decided that the photo identification cards that we use right now just weren't enough for identifying people as they are so easy to fake and sometimes get away with usuing other peoples that look similar. One idea that was widely discussed before chiiping came into the equation was that of a tattoo. That everyone had a unique tattoo on them that identified who they were and had all their information connected to. Like say for example a barcode, if we all had barcodes tattooed on us we could use them to access our electronic information. Obviously with the amount of technology out there these days and they amount thats still being discovered they wanted something a bit more high-tech and I'm guessing this is where the chips came in.

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Sun, 30 May 2010 01:38:00 -0700 Girls and Gaming! http://lwatson.posterous.com/girls-and-gaming http://lwatson.posterous.com/girls-and-gaming

I never ever though I would consider myself a gamer untill we had the class of gaming. Before when I heard the word 'gamer' I imagined exactly what we talked about pretty much a teenage boy who sits at his computer all day. This whole idea of a 'casual gamer' completely changed my views. After the class I thought i'd actually take notice at what games i play and how much. I was really surprised, even though in no way did I think i was a gamer turns out I am a bit of a casual gamer. It's not like I go into EB games each week to check out the latest games, or even buy games for that matter. But whenever I'm bored and waiting for something, e.g. doctors waiting rooms. I can't help but bring out the tetris on my phone, its so addictive. Then there are times when I'm bored and have my laptop with me, if this ever happens where there isn't interent access I always find myself playing solitaire. So I guess I am a gamer, even though I can't imagine I'd get into World-of-Warcraft of anything that technical. I think people in general need to be more open to the spime around gaming (did i use that in the right context? like the cloud of meaning around the word 'gamer'), and I think now after looking at it if our class was asked that question again that was asked at the beginning of the class "put your handf up if your a gamer" pretty much all of us would.

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Sun, 30 May 2010 01:29:00 -0700 Facebook Privacy http://lwatson.posterous.com/facebook-privacy-343 http://lwatson.posterous.com/facebook-privacy-343

Okay so we have been talking a bit in class about Facebook Privacy. Guys never leave your Facebook logged in anywhere. One of my mates had obviously used my computer at some point since I had last used it. Anyway my computer was turned off, when I turned it back on and went into Facebook my friends account was already logged in on, I was like okay, shouldnt it have logged itself out when the computer was shut down, but I didnt think muchof it, I mean being a friend of theirs on Facebook anyway meant I wasnt exactly seeing anything I couldnt already see if i was logged into my own. But then, at this point they must have been on their own computer somewhere else on Facebook, the chat window came up and from where I was sitting at my computer in my room I could see everything that the person was typing in Facebook chat to another person. This really freaked me out. These two people could have been having a really personal private convosation through this chat and everything that was typed into it came up onto my screen. This made me think why on earth doesn't it automatically log out if another computer logs in, noone is going to be on their account in two different locations at once, and the fact that facebook had actually been closed and it satyed logged in. Anyway I told my friend all about it and to start watching it, because people use that facebook chat for lots of private things and if that had happened on a public computer or one at uni then anybody could have been reading that convosation as it was happening...creepy.

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Sun, 02 May 2010 00:07:00 -0700 Cooley's looking glass self. http://lwatson.posterous.com/cooleys-looking-glass-self http://lwatson.posterous.com/cooleys-looking-glass-self

Last year I did SOCI102 and Cooley was one of the theriosts we studied and now after briefly talking about it in class I can see how relivent it is when thinking about online verus offline indentities, and wish I had known this last year and could have used it as an example! Anyway I think this whole idea of the 'looking glass self' is so relivent when looking at how people constuct themselves from how they see themselves online. From my old notes to put the idea simply the looking glass self is made up of three components:

  1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
  2. We imagine the judgement of that appearance.
  3. We develop our self through the judgments of others.

Cooley talks about how we do this in everday life right from a very young age and dont even realise we are doing it. We construct ourselves so we can seem appealing to others, or how we imagine would be appealing to others. Online your image is completely constructed there is no backstage showing, everyting online is carefully construsted. All photos have to go through a process of being uploaded in which then they are filted through. Meeting someone in real life you have to worry about how you look right then and there and imagine there judgement and try to manage how they view you which isn't always successfull. Where as online that is easy because everything has to be constructed by someone and you can view yourself (well your page) just as someone else would view it. This you cannot do in everyday life as you can't really see yourself in all situations, you have to imagine it, but online eveything you do is on a screen so you can watch yourself as if you are someone else.

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Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:57:14 -0700 The virtual world http://lwatson.posterous.com/the-virtual-world http://lwatson.posterous.com/the-virtual-world

So before i started taking this class I was a tad technically challenged, didnt exactly do anything too exciting on the internet. Just used it for things i needed in reallife like email, internet banking, facebooking my 'real' friends, trademe and ebay, etc. Now after every class I seem to get all excited about exploring the different possibilities in the virtual world. I was on chatroulette last night, its quite amazing the way you have the oppotunity to just openly chat to people all over the world and it's so random like who you'll get next. Since my last post talking about how I joined Second Life I spent some time with Emily who's also taking this paper showing me around all the different things and different people on Second Life (seeing as I myself still havent mastered how to work it all quite yet). Second Life seems in so many ways that if it was real it would be better than  real life. I can see how some people get stuck in it and start living through their avatar. Things like flying are possible in Second Life. It's just as easy to fly to the otherside of the room as it would be to walk, and I mean what person has never wished they could fly? Because its anonamous and you can make your avatar who ever and what ever you like we noticed there are places on their that are pretty disgusting and unethical that are pretty busy with people like themed brothels etc that maybe because of the fact that people are playing with a character thats not necesarily anything like themselves perhaps they feel that its ok to explore things they wouldn't in real life. Another thing that is popular on second life is tp which is teleporting. Second Life is so huge it would be a mission to walk/run/fly everywhere so you can just tp, you can also tp other people on there. Say you were chatting to someone and you wanted to show them something you send them a sort of tp link and the two of you are both teleported to the next location. (it was through this someone teleported us to the places mentioned above.) Back to the idea of this weeks question involving trust I'd like to add that I thort because Second Life is annominous people would chat so they could meet others and trust that they are hinding behind their Avavtar, but we tried to talk -  as in actually not just typing chat - and only one person would talk back. And even when using the 'chat' function people wouldn't even tell us where they were from. We would be like "Hey! I'm from New Zealand, where are you from?" and majority weren't even interetsed in answering that, I'm not sure why, I mean I wouldnt think your country would be considered too personal but perhaps people might want to get their Second Life seperate from their real life and i suppose with the talking thing their voices might not match their Avatars. It would be embarrising if your Avatar was a young beautiful girl with an old mans voice, so I guess thats another idea of on the interent you can be whoever you want, so people exploring and taking advantage of that and dont want to give away their real identities.

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Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:38:28 -0800 Second life http://lwatson.posterous.com/second-life-171 http://lwatson.posterous.com/second-life-171

So all this talking and thinking about virtual identities has really given me an interest as to what you can do through the interent when it comes to developing a virtual identity. I've never really explored the sites or programmes where you create a character and interact with other characters with World of Warcraft etc, so today I joined Second Life to see what its all about. I remember learning about it to an extent in one of the Level 100 MFCO papers last year and its incredibal what people are able to do through it. Its like a whole new dimension, literally a second life. You can meet people, get a job, buy things, sell things, create homes basically anything you do in 'real life' you can do through this Second Life idea. I can see how people get caught up in it and become obsessed because you are actually given the oppotunity to completely reinvent yourself as you want to be, issues that are aparent in the 'real world' don't occur when it comes to your avatar, for example things such as race, ethnicity, body image all these types of issues aren't really issues as you create your own avatar exactly how you want it to be. Say if you were really over weight and unhealthy and didnt like this about you, on Second Life you can create yourself to being the opposite if thats what you want, the whole 'image' idea is there, but there arent so much image issues as is becomming an increasing problem in society in the 'real world'. As I (or should I say my avatar, a blonde girl called Ella) wonders through Second Life its honestly like a whole world right inside my computer, theres people everywhere keen for a chat and doing normal everyday things, except through their computers. The people around are from all over the world, another great advantage of this online socialising idea, as when in 'real life' would you chat to different people from different parts of the world as if they are living next door, the possibility of creating great friendships with someone who is in say Italy is very probable. A great article I found that outlines the extent of what is possible on Second Life can be found on this link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm. So I'm looking forward to learning how to move around sucessfully and having a good look round this new 'world' Ive discovered and hopefully learn more about these types of possibilties that are now avalible to use through our computers.

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Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:52:52 -0800 Todays question? Tell me about yourself... http://lwatson.posterous.com/todays-question-tell-me-about-yourself http://lwatson.posterous.com/todays-question-tell-me-about-yourself

Okay dokay. Well This is my second year at Uni, I plan to double major in a BA majouring in Film and Media and Communication, so I'm pretty much just doing mfco. Im flatting down near the gardens and krusty corner with four lovely girls. Im orginally from...Dunedin.

And thats all about me really right now, so yeah.

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Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:42:32 -0800 Cute as video, thsi guy has talent... http://lwatson.posterous.com/cute-as-video-thsi-guy-has-talent http://lwatson.posterous.com/cute-as-video-thsi-guy-has-talent

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Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:33:43 -0800 My first Blog :D http://lwatson.posterous.com/my-first-blog-d http://lwatson.posterous.com/my-first-blog-d

Hello ello,

Heres my first blog... Not totally sure what to write but hey!  We'll see what happens...

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