Blog 9- electronic literature

In Hayles reading Electronic Literature, explain the term electronic literature. How has electronic literature evolved? Is there a difference between “classical” and “contemporary” electronic literature? If so, what is it?

According to the text, electronic literature is literature that is digitally born. It is a “first –generation” virtual/digital object created using a computer. Most of the time this artifact is supposed to be viewed on a computer.  An example of electronic literature would be that of ESPN.COM. The articles here are created on a computer and viewed on a computer; ESPN includes videos, hyperlinks, pictures, and text.

Hayden explains that there are two periods of electronic literature. The first generation, known as the classical time, refers to pre 1995. Storyspace was the main aspect behind this era. Many different authors used Storyspace to create their work and would distribute it via CDs and floppy disks. The Internet came to rise around the end of this time, which in turn changed how electronic literature was distributed.  The advancement of technology and software led to better developments in multimedia. The combination of these two aspects led to the second generation of electronic literature, referred to as the contemporary time. This new era brought upon the utilization of better graphics, animation, colors, and sound that was distributed over the World Wide Web.  All of this advancement in technology brought upon authors utilizing videos, sound, and animation instead of just simple text. 

Blog 8-Communication circuit

The Internet and the electronic age has changed the way business works. Dartons communication node to focus on here is that of the printing/manufacturing and shipping. In the Adams and Barker article is talks about how “manufacturing is primarily a matter of technology and economics.” Technology has advanced the paper industry throughout the years. From the print revolution to the industrial revolution it was always a matter of making cheaper and faster paper. Economics is the driving force behind if something is going to get published. Electronic technology, such as the Internet, has changed how we read.  Making it possible to deliver text wirelessly over cyber space has made literature more attainable then ever before. The main aspect behind running a business is making profit. If it is possible to not have to pay shipping cost, warehouse cost, paper and binding cost, then why not reproduce text electronically and sell them as electronic books. Companies, such as Amazon, are heading in this direction and are making great profit in the progress. Accoring to The Atlantic the E-books on the Kindel reader have recently outpaced hardcover sales. Since many aspects of life are evolved around money, this change of they way literature is read will have a lasting impact on society. I’m not saying hardcover books will be extinct in our lifetime, but the electronic age has added a whole new way of purchasing and reading literature.
 

Blog 7- Alphabetizing

Aww being a little kid again. The good days of waking up and not having a stress in the world. Riding your skateboard around, playing in the park, and knowing that your the best bike rider in your neighborhood. A time where you're learning how to spell doctor and finding out who George Washington was. This is one of the most important events in a young persons schooling life is that of how language works. Language and images define how "things" will be perceived. From The republic of ABC article: "An idea is generally defined a representation of a thing in the mind; it is a representation of something that we have seen, felt, hear, &c or been conscious of." The very first ways we learn and how we learn them will forever be remembered, consciously and subconsciously.

When ever you think of a word you always have some kind of image in your head. Why is it this image? Well a lot of it has to do with what surrounds you and what culture you grew up in. People might not remember that much about being in kindergarten, but subconsciously, in america, it seems we associate A with Apple. This seems like a cliche example, but it works and it makes sense. Since A is also the first letter in the alphabet, it seems we associate it with education in general. Apple is the cliche gift you give to a teacher and has been associated with this concept for ages. In my personal experience a way of teaching language was through rhyme. I still remember how we used different good bye expressions, such as: bye bye butterfly; so along king kong; see you soon raccoon. This was important aspect of learning words and pictures. Pictures were always associated with learning new words. These rhymes and pictures are forever implanted in a child's head.

An example I want to talk about is the of god vs God, or even saying a god for the proper God. I think it is interesting when were writing a paper and we come across a point where we have to write god/God. What do we do? What is are natural instinct? It can basically come down to what religion you are affiliated with, but that is not the most important part of this discussion. People that view your paper are going to have an immediate opinion once you decide to use god or God. If your writing a paper: ...only a god can save us now"; compared to: ...only God can save us now"; it puts a different view into our heads and changes the meaning of the sentence. This just shows that even the capitalization of one letter can change the perspective of a whole sentence.

Blog 6- MAPS!

Maps have come very long way haven’t they. The digital world has forever changed how location and directions are viewed. What I want to focus on here, about digital maps and distortions, is that of Iphone navigation applications. There are many navigation applications that are available in the Apple store that focus on different aspects of directions and location. The common theme I found with these applications is how the information is portrayed. You can tell that there are certain sponsors that promote their physical location. The Where application has sponsored ads that will come up when you are looking for a place to eat. These sponsored links will show you exactly how to get to their restaurant. Another common aspect that is incorporated into many of the navigation applications are social network tools. 

The article explains how Google Earth “…uniquely engages its users, not as disembodied voyeurs, but as participants in global dialog, represented spatially on the digital map.” Google Earth allows users to pin locations with dialog that lets users communicate with each other about that location. There are many Iphone applications that have the same type of function. The Where application allows people to write reviews on the certain locations that are in the program. Writing these reviews can change the outcome of somebody’s day. A personal experience of this happened last weekend. My parents were in town and I was looking for a place to eat. I searched for restaurants in Pullman and people recommended Swilleys. We ended up going, but the wait was 45 minutes. It did look like a nice place though. Facebook also has a function that allows users to post where they are. They can “tag” themselves at these locations to let their friends know where they are. 

Physical maps can be changed/made in many different ways. The main reason why map would look different from another map would be the person who makes the map. In the article it “… Details are commonly eliminated, falsified, or distorted so as to improve a map’s efficacy toward a particular end, resulting in the misrepresentation or exclusion of information which may serve other ends or reveal inconsistencies’.” Historically empires would alter maps to fit the needs of their empire. This change effects territorial borders and how society and cultures thought of them. 

All in all, maps and navigation have come a long way with the help of the digital world. The difference between physical maps of old and digital maps is that of social networks effect and empirical distortions effect.

Blog 5- Who wrote that...?

In today’s society you can get online, search in Google, find numerous articles on what you’re looking for, and use the information at hand. There are certain questions a smart searcher should ask:  Where is this information coming from? Is it credible? Is the author being bias? The digital world has changed the way we view piracy, credibility and originality. It blows mind to even think about how much information and articles are recycled and used in different ways. Good articles will have authors, citations, sources and background. What does this all mean though? How do you know that the sources they used are even credible?  The subject at hand here is very hard to determine.

According to, the book of Nature and the Nature of the Book, piracy is something of concern even for non digitalized work. The manufacture has a big part in how a book will be processed, how many copies will be made, and how it will be distributed. There are manufactures out there that a fakes. Companies will produce unauthorized reprints of existing books and claim they are written by bestselling authors. (Johns) It may seem ridiculous that you could buy a “fake” book, but if you don’t know it’s out there they can get you. These companies can change what the author has written which interns changes the idea/perception of the book.

In the digital world you have to be careful what you read and how much you take away from it. It takes time for people to research what they are reading over the web. Nobody wants to click on every source the author has used and go through those sources in depth. This is why we have to know what websites are credible. It also helps if we know who the person is that is writing the article. People tend to follow authors that are well known, or seem to fit the reader’s personality. This aspect is also talked about in Manuscripts. Writers had to find patron (I would define patron as an entrepreneur in our times) who would distribute it. The more famous this patron (or entrepreneur/celebrity type) the more popular the piece.

The internet has changed the way we think about credibility and piracy. You have to careful what you read and what you take away from it. Digitalizing the written world has made it more accessible and easier to change. The internet is a place where anyone can post anything. We have to make sure that we don’t digest everything as truthfulness.

Hypermedia and what not... Blog 4

Hypermedia has changed the way we view literature and what is involved with it. In one of my other DTC classes we have talked about Hypermedia, Hypertext, Cybertext, etc.. These articles are reference this idea of Hypermedia and the idea behind it.

Hypermedia:

• None paper based
• Visual- graphical interface is very important
• Multimedia- animation, music, pictures, etc... <- fundamental part
• Non-linear
• Open text
• Some: Users can contribute content

These articles seem to focus on the beginning of pictures and style involved with literate. It is very interesting to see how litereature has turned from hieroglyphics to an alphabet and in a way reverting back to "images". It seems more popular for people to want to see an image with little words then to read simple text. People say a picture is worth a thousand words, but without a caption you may not know the background behind this image. This caption can even change the way you view a picture. The world wide web has even evolved this further. Not only are the there images with captions, but now you can click and find more information on the subject, you can post it on your social network with your opinion, or even distort the image and make it your own.

Hypermedia revolutionized the way we see the world now. People have the ability to change things and take other peoples work and edit it more easily than ever before. If you go on Youtube you can find different variations of the same thing. Youtube has changed how media works. Normal people around the world, that would have never been famous before the internet, are now known by millions of people. This website works in a way that promotes getting distracted and lost, but one of the most important things on this website is the comment section. You are allowed to post whatever you want regarding the movie or not. This creates  a discussion that can be hilarious or serious depending on what the video was about.

Anyways.... This may seem a little off topic, but my point here is that "literature", involved with hypermedia, has evolved into a way where many people around the world are able to come together and converse on different subjects.

Blog 3-reading revolutions

The most interesting reading revolution too me would have to be the industrial revolution. This brought on a whole new idea to literature. Having the ability to print out books, newspapers and magazines in a speedy  manner changed how people read. This idea brings back the first revolution the article talked about and that was the movement from intensive reading to extensive reading. Meaning, people would re-read certain literature (i.e. The Bible) or many different texts just once. I think this plays into the way we read now especially. Having any kind of information at the tips of our fingers makes the way we read totally different then say even just thirty years ago. The internet has made, in my opinion, people more "lazy". What i mean by lazy is that we have shorter attention spans when it comes to literature. I understand there are people that still sit down and can read 1984 multiple times, but i think that this is becoming rarer and rarer. When we want to know something we google it. The more we google the faster we want answers and the less patient we become. People can view this as good and bad, but that can be a whole other topic. :)

Orality Blog 2

“The importance of ancient Greek civilization to all the world was beginning to show in an entirely new light: it marked the point in human history when deeply interiorized alphabetic literacy first clashed head-on with orality.”

Poetry was the theme throughout this text and the idea behind the quote above is that the writing down and “collaboration” of poetry has changed how poems are remembered and reversed. To sum up, in my opinion, what chapter two was about is that the epic poems of Homer are a combination of literature used by others. Homers work seemed to be made up of clichés, but as many people have said Homer was no beginner poet or a poor poet at all. In my opinion, Homer used the themes we all know and told them in a great way.

Where remediation comes into factor is how the orality of poems changed when written word came to play. The ability of the poet to change, reinvent, and reshape the oral poems became difficult. “In an oral culture, knowledge, once acquired, had to be constantly repeated or it would be lost: fixed, formulaic thought patterns were essential wisdom and effective administration.” From this quote you can also see the positive side to written language for the fact that it was permanent and can be “easily” accessed. I put easily in quotes because in the past it was more difficult to find printed work than it is in the age of internet.

Remedation Blog 1

According to Dictoinary.com remediation is “the correction of something bad or defective”, personally I don’t believe this is true. Yes, the evolution of an idea or product can help and usually does, but it doesn’t mean we should ditch the old ways for good. A great example of this is the idea of an e-book. Everything about it seems great and I am all for the idea of having a way of purchasing cheap very accessible books. The more people I talk to though, still prefer regular old fashioned books. I am trying to understand why, when it seems e-books are the future.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of both E-books and regular books. E-books portability is wonderful. Electronic text takes up virtually no room and, compared to lugging around three books or more, can be very light. Carrying around many books can be almost impossible, but an e-book device can store up to many different books which can be accessed anytime. The features of e-books depend on the company you bought it from, but being electronic the usability is endless. Being able to copy, paste, search, highlight, take notes, erase, and book mark more easily make using an e-book easy to do. Having a back ground screen also makes it able to access an e-book at anytime without some kind of light source.

Although all these great features there are always going to be cons. The most frequent complaint I have heard from people is that they don’t like staring at a computer screen. They would rather read off of paper if they are going to sit down and read for long periods of time. Some e-books can also be very expensive and having the responsibility of having all of your books on one device that can get stolen or broken can turn people away.

According to the reading “remediation is used by educators as a euphemism for the task of bringing lagging students up to an expected level of performance…” I believe this idea of remediation doesn’t describe what is happening in this situation. Once they figure out a way of making the back light better on e-reading devices and that all books are actually e-books, then we can get close to bring “lagging” ideas to new. What I think e-books do are fill and repair the fault of “regular books”. They capture the idea of having thousands of books at the disposal of a two pound device.

Me!!

Hello! My name is Brian Richardson and am currently an undergrad here at Washington State University. I will be graduating in May with a degree in Digital Technology and Culture with a minor in Management information systems. Why this major you ask? Well I kind of stumbled upon it looking for what interested me and I am very happy that I found it. The mix of art, English, and technology got my attention and I haven't looked back yet. I also work at the AML lab where i help people out with software and computer issues.  Anyways, here are a couple of things that interest me:

Music- Very into music both listening and playing. I try to play the piano and have made songs with various programs.
Outdoors- Love snowboarding! Grew up skiing and living on the snowy mountains. I like to camp and backpack in the summer time, preferably next to a lake or some kind of water source. 
Sports- Love sports! Football and basketball are my favorites, but soccer is the sport that I have played the most in my lifetime.
Movies- Who doesn't like a good flick?