Notes blog…

I just got an idea from something a co-worker said.  I am now interested in starting up a blog for note taking during class.  That is, using the internet during class to outline the notes from a lecture, so on and so forth.  The idea being that everyone in the class will have access to the blog, not as admin, but with the ability to comment and ask questions, creating a community of students aggregating knowledge.  Multiple responsible students will be given admin powers, and they can post their notes from their different class.  Given that the entries might end up as very miscellaneous, tags will be employed, including course number, section, topic covered, date, et cetera.  The more interest generated, the more useful the community becomes to itself.  Anyone else have any other ideas and thoughts about this?

The Justine Show?

So we’ve come to the point where I am forced to decide whether I like or dislike the fact that people do what is called “lifecasting.”  That is, people broadcast every moment of their lives and create a new internet phenomenon.  I am really torn on this.  IJustine, I’ll have to get back to you.

In the meanwhile, I have been trying hard to have my friends join twitter, but only one has joined.  If only there was a way to convince them about the awesomeness of twitter.  Any Ideas?

Something Wiki(pedia) This Way Comes

I don’t know if everyone got to see the solution for the vandalism problem that wikipedia chronically suffers from. The truth is, there are always going to be jackasses who think it’s funny when they write stupid things about things that aren’t stupid and try to pass them as fact… or something. Ryan North, comic artist, however, has come up with a brilliant solution to this problem. (Click to see all)

Yes, dudes know about chickens. Even funnier, however, is his manifesto concerning this issue. With the brilliant domain name, www.everytopicintheuniverseexceptchickens.com lays out the plan in full detail.

“Friends, this goal is within reach. I give you a new Wikipedia. A Wikipedia evolved, a Wikipedia that lives here in the real world. A Wikipedia that makes just one tiny concession to vandals, a concession for the greater good. I give you Wikipedia 2.0, otherwise known as Wikipedia: Every Topic In The Universe, Except Chickens (Dot Com).”

So to all the critics of the Web 2.0 (I’m talking to you, Andrew Keen), I say this: There are solutions to every problem on the internet. All we have to do is think less hard than we already are, because the solutions are pretty obvious. Come on guys, quit nay-saying and be creative for once.

Comics with relevance… TO THE CLASS!!!!!

Kinda… Okay, so this web 2.0 thing not only defines the internet as people, but the rise of user generated content may also be leading to content generated users, according to Jeff Rowland.

Look in your browser history at your past five Wikipedia searches and tell me that doesn’t sum up yourself in a nutshell. Chances are, your internet browser knows more about you than any other living creature, even your dog or cat! And trust me, you don’t want your dog or cat to suddenly develop typing skills and a desire for a hundred thousand dollars.

Check out the comic, however, as it is quite amusing.

Okay, so you’ve authored a work, Foucault!

And that’s a big deal, according to him, because of the function of Authorship.  Foucault speaks of how only the work is under the authorship of the Author, and only because there is a work, there is an Author.  He raises the question of what is actually the work, whether scribbles on the side of the page are part of the work or not.  Foucault points out that before there was an Author, all there was was an authoritative body of writing which was taken for granted, with no need to verify by name, such as the sciences.

Weinberger, your mom is miscellaneous!

Ah, catch up posts! Hopefully, I’ve learned enough from my inexperience to be able to pull off decent post-surgery blogging. Here we go!

Weinberger makes some very good points about the Web 2.0 that, after I read them, opened my eyes to the broad world of the miscellaneous. In the chapter “The New Order of Order,” Weinberger makes the reference to the traditional photograph depository, the Bettmann Archive. This is a place where 11 million priceless photographs are stored and archived. These, Weinberger points, are stored with a first order organization (that is, the physical object is organized according to categorical standards i.e. color, size, function, etc.). The Second order in which they are organized is by card catalog (in this order, information is taken and then stored separately). This is where Weinberger points to the digital world. For a third order of organization, a digital era needs to take place. Bits of information (tags, labels, keywords) are added to the object itself that allows it to be stored and recalled miscellaneously.

Finally understanding what that entry box meant, I went straight to work uncovering it’s power. Granted, though the rhetoric Weinberger uses does make the old systems seem like sprawling tombs, the new third order does really provide the freedom and release to the storer of things to let it all be miscellaneous. How empowering. Needless to say, this writer has started using all sorts of miscellaneous. How empowering!

The reason copyright is copyWRONG!

I think I posted about this before, but…

I do not own any idea that I have ever thought was original.  There is no character that is mine, no name I made up, no story I invented that had not been before.  This said, I cannot claim to have ownership of any idea.  Once an idea becomes art, or a story, or a comic, it now belongs to the artistic collective soul.  That is, the expounding on the human condition which was a goal, and if I was lucky enough, an accomplishment, in a piece of art is in no way meant to be, it never was meant to be, an entity to be owned for profit.  This in itself goes to worsen humanity.  If art is owned, valued, priced, and restricted, it is no longer art.  If one can’t take, mold, and renew a creation, there is little to no point in the original piece.

The copyright control wars

Something disturbing about the way the copyright laws work is that the culture created since the laws were instituted is not open to adaptation to the new culture.  Instead, the corporations who own those copyrights hold on to them and make fortunes by reusing their old creations over and over again.  They even take the culture that is now open and usurp it into their repertoire of icons.  So here’s the deal:

What will a new culture create when all creativity is stifled?

Some might say, wait, it’s not creativity if one takes something old and makes it new.  I beg to differ.  I agree with Lawrence Lessig that all culture builds upon the past.  Everything new and innovative is only in relevance to something old and outdated.  The car, the cell phone, all built upon technologies of the past.  The thing is, the past culture is fenced off by the copyright laws that perpetuate with time.  No longer are artists allowed to build upon the towers of the past, but they have to start from scratch:  tiny cardboard houses competing with towering steel fortresses.

Keen’s unkind words

I was insulted when Keen attacked me for being named the person of the year last year on Time magazine.  Not only was he upset about me being person of the year, he started yelling at me!  Not only should you not do this in person to someone in a professional setting, but when you yell at someone in a book you want them to buy, you must be pretty full of yourself.

This  same YOU! rules Wikipedia, where the knowledge consumer is also the knowledge creator.  YOU! defines YouTube, where the tens of thousands of daily videos are both produced and watched by on and the same.  YOU!

Okay, so I am the person of the year for all these reasons, and  then some, but Keen doesn’t seem to keen about that.  But here’s the real deal.  Keen isn’t too happy about this because he does indeed believe, as Colbert asserted, in elitism.  He doesn’t want a universal you to be in charge, but prefers if it was a few me’s that ran the world.  Perhaps he really misses the point of the new Web, but perhaps he gets it, and just doesn’t want to give up the spotlight.

Wiki WHAT???

When I first realized that wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, I was both curious and scared. I wondered what would happen if I gave the wrong information. Would an would a wikicop come and arrest me even if I though I was giving right information, or would wikipedia ban me forever? I was afraid I did not have the authority to inform people on this encyclopedia, because you know, it’s for the professors to tell you what’s right or incorrect.
Anyways, for this assignment I had no idea what I could add to any page that already existed. What could I have to say that someone hasn’t already mentioned? Ultimately, I started looking up things I am interested in to see if I could find something that had been missed. Luckily, I found the stubb for Booker’s, a bourbon I could write about! I expanded the initial description given and added a Tasting Notes section. Why? Because this fine bourbon whiskey belongs in the sum of all knowledge. Check it out here!