Erik's Domain

Discovery Writing 4.............The cyborgs are coming!

2004-06-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

We humans, have evolved into a superior race than we once were, we have incorporated our very own creations into our natural bodies. Mans rule over machine is no more; it has now become man and machine. Technology has found is way into our daily lives, improving the very essence of life, now it has found its way into our bodies, improving our quality. In today’s era, people depend on pacemakers to live, computers to function at work, and cars and other means of mobility for transportation. Technology is indeed a means for life, without it would just be too horrific to fathom. As of now, we are equals; we need technology as much as it needs us. We need the car to get to work; just as it needs us to start. Technology, like a pacemaker, regulates the heartbeat of the world, without a pulse to monitor; it is as dead as we are. Let us not underestimate this wonderful gift that makes our lives easier, but embrace it.
Technology allows us to communicate to a relative overseas with the ease of dialing a phone. It allows us to search for information in the blink of an eye. Technology allows us to not only part out machines when they go bad, but to substitute parts of ourselves with kidney transplants and heart transplants. We can improve our vision with eyeglasses, and our hearing with hearing aids. We can see through walls, travel to other planets, create and destroy life.

2004-06-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Hey its me!

2004-06-03T19:47:00.000-07:00

Hey its ME!!!!!!

White Trash by Metzger....a tv repairman

2004-06-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

In Zickman’s article the author utilizes the dialogues of many sites to provide inquiry into “cyberhate.” The targeted audience is anyone who uses the internet, and anyone who does regular research on the net. The author illustrates the deep emotion backing these white supremacist sites through conversations between the antagonist and the protagonist. Although much of the article depicts racist arguments the main idea is the availability of negative information on the web.
The abundance of negative information is evident on the web, as we have already discovered in our previous article of "Dropping the Bomb on Google." In that article we found that searching a word can result in an unwanted search result website. In an attempt to recreate that case study I searched the word "Aryan," using Google. My findings revealed a site called W.A.R, which was the first page to pop-up. This website was an anti-Semitic site that was discussed in Zickman's article. The site is called the White Aryan Resistance, or W.A.R. On the front page of the site, who else than its founder the great Tom Metzger….a television repairman. As I thumbed through the site links such as "views" were available, which clearly stated every view they had on every subject including: politics, women, blacks, Jews, gays, the government and other such topics. The site discussed up and coming events like supremacist talk shows and listed the time and dates. At the very end of the site, it included jokes of every "other" race. Many of the jokes focused on making the "other" seem sub-human; the punch lines were that of comparing African Americans to apes and Mexicans to cockroaches. This I believe was a weak attempt to subconsciously insinuate that anyone who was not white was not human.
Something I noticed in all of the conversations written, when supremacist compared why they were better that any other nationality it was because of their skin. If anyone rebutted than it was because of a religious point of view or some articulated answer, which gave me the impression that the person was somewhat educated.
The internet is an abundant source of information, but when should a line be drawn? If websites keep becoming more explicit then eventually the government will have to step in and develop some kind of censorship. Another concern regards to our previous article about Google. How come these sites keep appearing first on the page?

"Performing Self" by Erik Anderson

2004-06-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

Often you may hear someone say the occasional phrase “so and so is two faced.” What they mean is that a particular person may act one way and say certain things with one friend, but say or act a completely different way with another. This happens quite frequently in reality as well as it does in cyberspace. Is this dishonest, or is it a more complex means for survival?
This leads us into the realm of self and space. Who we are and where we are play an effective role in our “looking glass self,” or who we appear to be to others. We interpret who we are by the reactions of others; they are in a way a metaphorical mirror. It’s necessary for everyone and anyone to have different mirrors or images, rather everyone is “two faced.” We all must project different sides of our self in order to complete a goal, play, or meet an expectation.
Jan is a mother of two, by day she works at as a secretary at an important law firm, in the evening she plays the role of mother, and at night she plays the role of lover to her husband. Jan in this aspect has many “selves.” This is in no way shape or form dishonest; it is however, a means for survival. In one space she communicates as an effective adult, multitasking and trafficking information. In another space she is nurturing and caring, and in another form she becomes intimate. If these self images and spaces collided, or in some act of phenomena were allowed to be confused then maybe this might be considered dishonest, because then she would not be her “self.” With that said there are many level to a persons’ “self.” There is neither an absolute “Jan,” nor is there a multitude of “Jan’s.”
Cyberspace and our self propelled image then is anything but juggling tasks, in this world of self-made image. Here, a person can create their own persona. People can create their own image and people on the internet have no choice but to believe them, because people only believe what you tell them. Is it dishonest, maybe, it depends on the circumstances. If I am pretending to be a twelve year old boy in order to lure a little girl into a park, then yes, that’s dishonest. If I am pretending to be a single man in a singles chat room researching dialogue in cyberspace hoping to improve ways to be charming for men world wide, then it’s fine. It’s the intentions that make image of “self” honest or dishonest.
In here people live and die by the words they create, it’s a world where only the articulate get laid. This is both beautiful and tragic at the same time. If you have ever chatted in a chat room you notice that there is one called the “host.” And in this room he is god, he controls time and space, he determines who will stay and who will go. Who has this kind of power and authority in the “real world?” That is the beauty of it. There is more freedom in cyberspace than there is in any country in the real world. Here is the tragic part of it….Its not real! The internet is to the real world as a daydream is to a person, an excellent way to escape and imagine, but sooner or later you have to wake up.

Our own article precis......"ebay's notorious wedding dress"

2004-05-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Greetings all, I actually came across this article surfing the web one day on ebay, and was able to print out the article from a site that specializes in funny or out of the ordinary websites. You can go to www.fark.com and scroll all the way down, at the very bottom click "complete archives," and select May 2, 2004. This will take you to the necessary site, then you will have to scroll down until you come to ebay/wedding dress.
The wedding dress was only worn twice, "once at the wedding and once in these pictures," its like new our ebay seller explains. "It makes me feel pretty" he says as he poses for the camera, and the dress so elequently clinging to him, he tells us of his hard divorce, and how she kept the 4,000 dollar engagement ring but gave back the dress. As I read this article its apparent to me that although our author pokes fun at himself and the situation, his ultimate goal is to get rid of the dress and the memories it holds, and maybe score some money for beer and Mariners tickets on the side. The seller actually blotches out his face in order to keep his identity, so you never actually know who he is. However, since the post was so funny and got so much attention he was asked to join the "Today's Show," so the blotchy white face never actually mattered. I actually bid on the dress because of the sites popularity, but was quickly overtaken. The winning bid by the way was 3,850 dollars.
How then does this material relate to the class theme you ask? Simple really, we discussed yesterday how cyberspace and reality are actually two different places and in which we become two different people. I beg to differ. What we do and who we are carry over into reality. Cyberspace to me, then, is practice for the real world and real world events. Like our seller on ebay, his humorous take on his situation enabled all kinds of internet junkies to peak into someone elses life and discover the written humor in it. His identity was completely concealed, until of course he interviewed on national tv for his bold ebay post. Who we practice to be online enfluences us in real life.

Queer Spaces, Modem Boys And Pagan Statues

2004-05-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Woodland illustrates the gay/lesbian identity and how the internet allows for communication, because in a world of pure communication,"looks don't matter and only the best writers get laid." Woodland discusses the four examples of Bulletin Board Systems in which gay/lesbian people can interact and discuss topics in a forum of their peers. He discusses America online, Modem Boy, ISCA BBS, and Lambda MOO. His targeted audience is clearly the gay/lesbian community, however everyone can benefit from this article.
Its a perfect illustration in this day and age that even though you may live in PoDunk, USA where catholicism dominates and political conservatism is at its peak, that a person can still escape to a cyberworld of open-mindedness.

Testing my new handy dandy blogger thingy

2004-05-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

hey hot stuff!!!!!!