Blurred Absolutes: A blog about a blog

Blurred Absolutes is my favorite. I start with Jessica’s page as I begin my weekly review of my classmates work. Her posts make even the truly technical stuff interesting. For example with the creative commons assignment I just did not know where to begin. Jessica inspired me to tell a story and bring the reader in with a personal anecdote. She began her post with a gripping account of an experience she recalls from her childhood education. I wait to see what happens forgetting what the post is meant to be about. Then she ties it all together.

In her t post “A Rose colored apathy,” Jessica begins the article by making me wonder where she is going by citing LSD and Greek mythology. I remain interested and wonder if this is one of her free for all blogs or an assigned one. What follows is a starkly honest account of war blogging.

            Jessica does what she cites Achenbach as doing in her blog “Achenbach of the People.” She tackles issues that everyone is familiar with; junk mail, ect. and personalizes it in a way that the reader feels like she lives next door to them and trudges along through their day making the same casual observations that anyone might while sifting absent mindedly through junk mail. Her blogs are conversations that keep the reader wanting to talk.

            In “A dream goes on forever” Jessica shows what writers can really do. The first paragraph, though leading up to second life, makes me want to read what other imagery and power Jessica can pull forth with a keyboard. I prefer her writing to Second Life. She may guide me towards the image of a tearoom with cranberry scones and weather controlling powers. Second life may allow users to flex their imagination from other people’s chosen imagery, but reading leaves me with more free will and money in my pocket.

Decrease Voter Apathy and Win.com

I intend to create a game that will utilize 7 web 2.0 tools to draw young people age 18 – 25 to the polls this following November. The game will be entitled ‘Fight voter apathy and win.com. The web 2.0 applications that I will use are facebook, youtube, the game, an RSS feed, meetup.com, Skype and direct e-mail.

The Game: Fight Voter Apathy and Win

            There will be 3 games. One will take on the form of a virtual reality such as Second Life with the players assuming the roles of the candidates themselves. Players will become candidates such as Hilary Clinton, Barrack Obama or Rudy Giuliani and stand at the podium to debate each other. These podiums will be regional. Second life users will metro to D.C. and drive pass cornfields to the Iowa caucuses. Points will be scored on the accuracy of having mimicked recent events as close to reality as possible.

            Visual effects will include the ability to physically throw mud at another candidate when disagreement on an issue peaks. Upon slinging mud, gamers will be referred to a website such as that of Obama’s, where he chronicles every attack that Hilary has lodged against him along with a counter argument.

            Another game will be in the form of a digitalized version of the childhood classic Guess Who. This Game will be entitled ‘Guess who stands where.’ and will be interactive amongst users. The guesser will ask a question such as “what state does your candidate work in”, or how did your candidate vote on the Iraq war.”  There will be different levels available according to the players knowledge and skill, as well as how many points they have amassed.

            The beginning level will include questions such as what is the candidate’s stance on troop withdrawal from Iraq. The intermediate level may pose questions such as ‘what is the difference between Obama and Clinton’s plan for health care. The advanced level may pose questions regarding what countries the candidate will attempt to increase diplomatic relations with and by what means.  The last question may be “what candidates are the most likely to be aware of this game.”

            The truly advanced players will be challenged by interpretive events. For example when faced with the question as to why Karl Rove has made suggestions to Barack Obama on to how to beat Hilary Clinton, the gamer will have to write out their answer. One may respond that Rove wanted to weaken Obama by associating his name with that of Rove. Someone else may suggest that Rove pulled this one out of his sleeve because he feels that the Republicans can beat Hilary.  Gamers can go on Skype to discuss their different viewpoints and interpretation of events.  Players who seek to utilize the most interactive web tools to discuss the presidential elections can do so by using meet up.com.

            In the game there will be the primary presidential candidates such as Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul and John Edwards.  The player will have to match an issue and the correct answer to the candidate. Right or wrong a youtube clip will pop up displaying an online debate between the candidates showing where they stand on what issue.

The issues that will be covered in the game are as follows:

1. Health care

2. Homeland security

3. Immigration

4. Iraq

5. Iran

6. Pakistan

7. Alterative energy

8. Gay marriage

9. Lobbyists

10. Gun control

11. Social security.

Competitors and Allies

            My allies would be facebook, youtube Second Life, Skype and The New York Times online coverage. My competitors are my space and persuasive games.  The main competitor of facebook is my space. Facebook has greater potential to recruit game players because facebook is geared towards students.  My space users don’t need a student email account to join.  Many my space users are not even old enough to vote.  Most importantly my space does not offer the interactive gaming tools made possible on Facebook.

            The persuasive games that have focused on the presidential campaign are sparse competition for decrease voter apathy and win.com. The persuasive game is not difficult to overshadow because they are very simplistic and lacks any informative detail. The Persuasive game simply shows a cartoonized image of the presidential candidates with the only action being the exchange of a ping-pong ball.

            After the gamer has matched a presidential candidate’s stance on an issue, an article will scroll down to inform the player as to the right or wrong answer. Leading authorities on the presidential candidates are C-span, the BBC and the New York Times Web election 2008 web page. To keep up to date with the latest information, these sites will be regularly channeled to my game via an RSS feed.  The New York Time’s would be an ally. I would use their election 2008 site as reference to quotes on the various issues put forth by presidential candidates

            Players will be asked to match the quote with the candidate.  The New York Times website presents information into a columnized section listing the presidential candidates by name and face, the current issues and the candidates stances.  Readers can go to a column such as Immigration and read all the quotes from each candidate as to what their position is and why.

Facebook 

            Now is where the competition comes in. The game will be accessed as a facebook application available to group members. There will be new questions depending on a gamer’s status and level in the game now. Upon signing in to Facebook, players will be informed as to who has the highest score and who has just stepped down a notch.

Direct Email 

            Direct e-mails will be sent to a user once they have been beat. The e-mail will serve to inform them as to who now has a higher score and on what issue. The winner will also have the option to add a message as to the gaps in the loser’s knowledge with comments and suggestions on how to stay informed.

            At the end of every month the standing winner will win a trip to meet with the candidate.  The winner will also be allowed to host the next interactive youtube debate between candidates. This will be done by region. Upon becoming a part of this facebook group, gamers will be able to meet other gamers in their district through meetup.com.

            The visual aspect of Decrease Voter Apathy and win will depict the facebook picture of the reigning champion’s face on top of a ladder. There will be two ladders; one red one blue depending on which party the player is the most up to date with. Players will also have the option of an open discussion forum in the form of an interactive blogosphere to debate the validity of news stories, exchange online news articles and take sides.     

         Decrease voter apathy and win.com will draw young people to get involved in ways not possible in 2004 or any elections past.

Critique of Save our Bars.com

Save our Bars.com needs a pull to bring pub goers to the website. This pull could happen by means of blogging on Technorati or advertising on a website capable of promoting a similar interest. Perhaps a link could come from a website that marketed beer or made recommendations of cool places to go watch the game. One underutilized tool would be to post a memo about save our bars.com on yelp.

             Yelp is where local bloggers go to discuss their experiences about just about anywhere in their joint zip code.  Writing about bars on yelp would succeed due to its community feel and the fact that such posts could link different local bars together. If the reader were impressed by one person’s recommendation, they would be likely to follow that up by reading the next.

            Bar goers also need an incentive to go blog about their experience after leaving the bar. Independent bars could offer a free beer to those that promise to go home and blog about it. Those pubs that offer free beer would be giving consuming bloggers an extra incentive to go home and give them a nice rating.  Bars could also have laptops set up at the bar to give immediate rewards, like bloggers free before 11:00.

            It would help to use facebook to promote the bars, however this should be done by region.  Local bars should align themselves with the local universities in their surrounding area to maintain that tight nit community feeling.  When the facebook users download the save our bars widget, instead of merely describing the nightlife landscape they should include a picture of it. People can also post pictures on their friend’s page of their group experience at that bar.

            The Google campaign is not very feasible because it would be very expensive to gain ownership to such a popular search word. However if done, one of the Google ad words to draw pub goers to the site could simply be ‘beer.’

            While well intended, links to alcohol support groups would only weaken the strength of the movement to revive bars. Most importantly, the website needs to inform patrons as to what the independent pubs offer that corporate bars do not.  All in all though, if I were someone that went to local bars, I would take part in save our bars.com with the hope that my participation would preserve the remaining independent bars from less digitalized corporate giants.

Wikiscanner: Wikipedia Uncovered

Wiki scanner is a tool in Wikipedia that allows anyone to trace the edit of a post to an IP address, which identifies the location, and title of the person responsible for the edit. Wiki scanner creates an outlet for propaganda while at the same time erodes secrecy. Anyone who wishes to propagate his or her agenda can use Wikipedia as a free and easy PR outlet, but anyone can use Wiki scanner to trace edits by typing in either the organization or the page itself.

            Alexander Litvinenko: Who To believe? The poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has captivated the imagination of many. The majority of whom reside outside of Russia. Litvinenko, a political refugee from Russia, was poisoned in Britain for speaking out against the Kremlin. That is the story you are likely to find in Britain and through out most of the uncensored world circuit. Just not in Russia. The Litvinenko story begins in Russia, but does not make it back.

            In the Litvinenko case, IP addresses can reveal whether the edits made came from England or Moscow. Formerly anonymous editors of Wikipedia may attempt to exhibit seemingly neutral perspectives by quoting sources as opposed to dictating what is true. Yet choosing whom to quote is where neutrality can truly be decided. The neutrality standard set by Wikipedia is not safe from those determined to purport their viewpoint.

            The Alexander Litvinenko chronology of events cannot rival the chronology of Wikipedia edits to follow. The separation of theories found at the top of the page from allegations at the bottom can provide insight into the political affiliation of the creator or editor of the page. In order to receive notification of any further changes made to a page, one need only click flag. Flagging is for the determined Wikipediaist. Just as alarm bells in nuclear facilities warn of intrusion, flags send the determined Wikipediast scurrying towards revision.

            There are 604 edits on the Alexander Litvinenko page. The camps of editors clamoring to Wiki edits can be divided into two camps. Those who support either the Russian or British government. The edits in the Litvinenko case range from the accessibility of plutonium, the similarity between Litvenko’s death and that of other Russian dissidents, to theories of suicide. Claims have even been made that Litvinenko was killed to weaken Putin’s reputation. Had I posted those exact words, it is quite possible that my use of the word even may no longer exist the next time I logged on.

            Yet I have a place to duke this one out. If I had clicked flag this page after my change, I would immediately be able to dispute my right to make that claim with the rivaling editor behind the change. The talk page is where Wikipedia editors can challenge each other’s ideas. They toss out allegations of relevance and unreliable sources. Accusations of pure bullshit are turned into polite little acronyms. Right or wrong Wikipedia is a double-edged sword of propaganda and loss of privacy, and Wiki scanner is an oasis for meddlers.   To see my own wikipedia edit click here 

What’s His is Mine: A Case Study in Creative Commons Theory

“All knowledge and ideas should be universal, unless of course it’s nuclear.” It was this witty anecdote that led to the following discussion between Carlo and I, which led to this subsequent blog entry, which led to — what I believe — is a perfect microcosm example of how the Creative Commons theory should work.

This conversation was born as Carlo and I sat in the library over the weekend, working on our respective blog entries — me writing my Wikiscanner entry and him drafting his semi-late copyright page.

I had chosen to write about the controversial case of former Russian KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. As the blog session dwindled on, Carlo mentioned a visit by a former co-worker to Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California, as part of a side procrastination conversation we were having over the Iranian nuclear situation.

Getting back to my Litvinenko article, I began crafting up what I felt was a clever analogy relating Wikipedia flagging and the intrusion warning system at the Lawrence Livermore testing site Carlo had mentioned during our conversation.

As I opened the Litvinenko post, writing . . . “Just as the alarm bells in Lawrence Livermore National Labs warn of intrusion”, I paused and asked Carlo how I might fold in the nuclear lab anecdote about the warning system at Lawrence Livermore into the Wikiscanner article.

After a few back and forths, and some minor stylistic tweaks, I wrapped up my Litvinenko leade with the line . . . “flags send the determined Wikipediast scurrying towards revision.”

While still oblivious that Carlo was drafting his own blog post in response to the Creative Commons – intellectual property question, I asked him just how much credit did he believe he would be entitled to, if our collaboration on my Wikiscanner blog leade had been between two journalists working on a story.

Initially, he was adamant that he should not only be credited for informing me about that little tidbit regarding the alarm at Lawrence Livermore, but also for his contribution to my work — in the way that news stories often carry either a double-byline or a “contributed to” line.

Then it clicked. What had started as a conversation over a colorful anecdote for my Wiki scanner blog post had developed into a perfect microcosm of the intellectual property debate

A little background . . .

The furor over intellecutal property, as with many of the arguements surrounding digital communications, came about after technologial advances — particularly peer-to-peer file sharing techology — surpassed people’s comprhension of such leaps in technology.

Beginning with the landmark case between the P2P filsesharing service Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the question over who owns what once it hits the world wide web remains one that is not easily answered.

Back to the conversation . . .

As we talked, Carlo made the point that I would not have had the sentence I wanted for my Wiki scanner post if it had not been for his nuclear facility factoid.

That said, I reverted back to the Creative Commons standpoint that ideas and information should not be seen as proprietary, but as a shared available resource. Carlo on the other hand, argued that such proprietary rights can and should at least be acknowledged.

We concluded that if knowledge was never shared than there would be no such thing as a Beatles remix , for example, since the remix would never have been possible with out the original.

As that remixed iteration of an original Beatles song cannot claim to be a purely original song, Carlo could not pretend that my analogy between the warning system at Lawrence Livermore and the Wikiscanner flag system was a purely original idea without contribution from an outside source.

After some debate, we agreed to recognize each of our contributions to my Wikiscanner post, acknowledging it as a collaborative effort that we would each post up on our respective blogs.

So there you have it, a collaborative blog entry. Do you agree with the approach — information use with acknowledgement? As I said before, “All knowledge and ideas should be universal, unless of course it’s nuclear.”

Post script: We also agreed on the collaborative use of the word Wikipediaest. The extent of that discussion was whether it should be spelled with an e or an a. Jimmy Wales beware. Better check those boxes.

Google’s Illusion of Options

I am a sponge. I wake up to Google. . every morning as I groggily flip open my Mac, my world registers to me through Google news. My reality is absorbed through headlines. Google covers everything I need to know with millions of options and one screen to let me know what those options are. Google tells me what is important and what to focus on.

The information superhighway is dominated today by one search engine. Need to know something? First you will type Google and likely follow that up with Wikepedia. Satisfaction right? Google gives quick answers and embraces every curious inkling a person might have with just one click.

Google masks limited options with thousands of the same stories. People feel like they have a lot of choices when they are offered what they are led to believe is a wide variety of online news sources. The Internet brings more information to more people than any form of communication ever has. Forget newspapers, online is easier. Online news may be saving the environment, but at the cost of information monopolization.

I am given little incentive to look for other online sources because Google has everything covered. After seeing the main headline regarding the election campaigns, I am offered all 1482 articles on how Hilary is surpassing Obama by a long shot. But do I scroll down to read every source’s version of this message? Of course not, I already have the fix I need to feel sufficiently up to date with world events.

When it is time for me to reflect on the world I live in, I turn to Google. It is to most, myself included considered to be the ultimate search engine. I can find the most important events taking place both home and abroad just by glancing at one categorical page of headlines. The problem is that the majority of Internet users, myself included, gage their focus through the lens of a single search engine. What I understand to be of the most primary importance in the world, I had no decision in selecting.

Google reaches the world:

In what languages and regions is Google News available? 

We have more than 40 regional editions of Google News in many different languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. Each edition is specifically tailored with news for that audience, so just scroll down and select the appropriate one from the list if the edition you are reading isn’t right for you. If we haven’t included the region or language you’re looking for, check back soon. Our goal is to offer Google News to all of our users throughout the world, so you can expect to see lots of additions over time.

Africa: South Africa
Asia: 中国版 (China) – 香港版 (Hong Kong) – भारत (Hindi) – India – 日本 (Japan) – 한국 (Korea) – 台灣版 (Taiwan) – ישראל (Israel) – العالم العربي (Arabic) – Россия (Russia)
Oceania: Australia – New Zealand
Europe: België – Belgique – Deutschland – España – France – Greece – Ireland – Italia – Nederland – Norge – Österreich – Portugal – Schweiz – Suisse – Sverige – U.K.
North America: Canada English – Canada Français – Estados Unidos – México – U.S.
South America: Argentina – Brasil – Chile – Colombia – Cuba – Perú – Venezuela

There will always be unknowns but Dylan Avery is not satisfied with that

You tube hit extraordinaire, Loose Change is a documentary based on Dylan Avery’s alternative account of 9/11. Loose Change derives it’s power to persuade a post 9/11frazzled audience by doing what a lot of conspiracies do, which is to take already acknowledged facts/half truths and use them to justify a theoretical interpretation of events. After being taught how to identify what I already know is a black box, I am meant to presume that Dylan Avery will keep on furthering my education as the film drags on.

The question I want answers to the most is not whether or not secret voice mimicking technology was used to stage phone calls from passengers on flight 93. The question I wanted to get to the bottom of while watching Loose Change is why people love conspiracy theories.

The word conspiracy alone denotes an instinctual grin and a shrug. I cannot pinpoint why I am so quick to dismiss the countless theories in opposition to the official government account of 9/11. Maybe because it is more time efficient for me to shrug my shoulders than it is to Google every little tidbit put forth on You tube as to what might have actually happened.

I have come to the conclusion that what keeps conspiracies alive is the fact that people simply like to be in on something. There is some kinda joy in rewriting history and turning fact into fiction that just might have an element of remaining fact. While both Avery’s and the U.S. government’s accounts of 9/11 should come under equal fire- its just fun to be starting the small ones.

Yet in the end, when it comes to blowing up major infrastructure and killing thousands of citizens, that many people just can’t keep a secret.

Wanna be a dissident?

You wanna be a dissident? O.k. Start saving. Find transportation to one of the few Internet cafes that are available in the capital city of Ashgabat. Now give the government-tasked guards at the door your identification before logging online. Alright its time to voice your thoughts and express yourself to the world.

Go ahead, speak your mind. Think about where you gained the knowledge, thoughts and ideas to speak of your dissatisfactions. Your local school? News that seems to have holes in it? The information available from which to rebel is what is made available. There is no independent media.

Turkmenistan is not a place to Google anything. Turkmenistan is a country where the few who are fortunate enough to have access to the internet must proceed with caution and use it carefully. For the usual reasons of- politics, power, security concerns and social norms, Internet usage is restricted to approved organizations, accredited foreign journalists and embassies.

Visitors to Turkmenistan must register with government administrators in order to log online, but even then they can only pull up websites with favorable views of the Turkmenistan government. Less than 1% of Turkmen citizens are surfing the web and those who are do so under the watchful eye of government. There is no home connection. Some argue that Turkmenistan cannot make the claim of being a country with access to the internet if the majority of the population cannot afford it.

In light of the strict monitoring of online activity, major news organizations such as The New York Times, BBC and CNN have managed to remain available in a country where access to the Internet is a scarce resource and the struggle for a true world wide web remains to be seen.

Finding your true taste- free from media intrusion is just one click away

Online marketing allows everyone to spend more (seemingly less) money, talk to less people in their local community and embrace the same unique identity alone in their room like everyone else. Retailers, unrestricted by the traditional boundaries of supply and demand are selling unique identities to the mass public, one song at a time.

Sitting at home on my computer I can find long lost obscure LP’s and movies that only I liked and that everyone else took off their shelves years ago; live Blue Oyster Cult albums, forgotten films from the eighties such as ‘The Adventures of Barron Munchausen’, the list goes on. The problem is- for reasons of time and money that the list goes on and on and on. Once satisfied with my purchase I will glance to the side or scroll down the screen to be told by savvy marketing retailers that if I liked Blue Oyster Cult than maybe I will also like the Traveling Wilburys, also out of stock at mainstream music stores. The problem is that I love the Traveling Wilburys.

The dilemma that I face, as I sit hunched over my Apple laptop (the latest one) till the wee hours of the morning, is that even though I am not being forced to drive to the store and wander the aisles until I locate an album by the band ‘In a Big Country’, a band once only familiar to those who had drivers licenses in the 80’s, and even though I will not have to lie in bed and get up to skip every song until the song I bought the album for comes on, I am still going to purchase that song online, only to spend another hour going through the 80’s ‘basic hits’ until I get to the complete collection followed by the ‘deep cuts’ that have not been on the radio in 20 years.

If you equate the time that I would have spent driving to and wandering the store versus the time I would have to spend and will spend holing up in my apartment with my I-Tunes, the equation may initially seem the same. But in the long run, my I-Tunes will be my only companion and the people that I had once exchanged the “ Hey, do you know where I can find the Electric Light Orchestra’s Time album – oh you love them too” type conversations, have now been reduced to power searches and sifting through a faceless strangers favorite songs from their Saturday night spent on My Space compilation.

Now lets talk finances. So I didn’t buy a few mistaken bad Tom Petty albums until I found the Traveling Wilburys, I still spent 30 bucks on other people’s collections of obscure, once marginalized hits.

Online mass marketing allows people, many of them, to feel unique and composed of their own special needs separate from television and radio. I-Tunes and Amazon love their bohemian hopefuls and embrace every single person’s unique identity by aiding them in their search for once obscure products which will lead them to newfound perspectives. Companies indulge consumer’s fresh identities by telling everyone who liked Peter Reich’s novel ‘Book of Dreams’, that they may also like Michael Creighton’s latest ‘unheard of’ bestseller. The consumer may then end up being led to purchase ‘Cloud busting’ a song by Kate Bush based on Reich’s novel. These links have no end.

In the end I am faced with the question of whether or not to drown in my capitalist woes, or indulge in my (expensive) bohemian outlets?

( For the record I would like to note that when running spell check through my Microsoft Word, amazon was changed to Amazon and my misspelling of Michael Creighton’s last name was also corrected for.)

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