Tag Archives: technology

i dream of machine

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this weeks reading, which can be found here, is an interesting one but seems pretty fitting for our final reading as it is look towards the future of technologies and machinery and science in general really. all the work of smart people and how it can affect and assist the not so smart people. but, that first dream, “the dream of symbiosis”, is pretty much the cause of the worlds destruction every sci-fi movie to do with machines or robots or technology. and so i couldn’t really get past that. have you ever

found a book or movie about machines that can think for themselves, on the level of humans, that didn’t result in some world altering disaster? no.. because it just couldn’t happen. maybe i’m being small minded here. i don’t know i’ve probably just seen too many robot movie. but it happen, they all turn evil. and with their super robot strength, we humans don’t stand a chance. i believe that the more advanced we make our technology, the closer we are bringing ourselves to our own destruction. but, thats just me. maybe i’m overreacting a bit. lets see what those other dreams were…

so, apart from the dream of having the world taken over by robots, we have the dream of emergence. this again links back into my robots theory where with such advanced technology, intelligence must inevitably emerge. (and destroy us all. ok, maybe i’m getting a bit carried away). then there was the dream of emergence, which i only understood because it said something about virtual reality systems. which would be cool. you know, kinda like in the matrix, where the robots control us all by keeping us in a virtual reality of the world while they pretty much eat us.

next came the dream of world peace. and now you’re thinking “how is she gonna turn this one into a doomsday situation?”. well, i can’t. world peace would be great but, i don’t think it’s technology that’s going to get us there.

the dream of transparency didn’t give much definition. i guess it’s kinda just like what adrian discussed in the lecture about everything being out there. once its online, its there for anyone to read so the dream is that eventually everything will be shared equally with everyone.

on the other hand, i have no idea what the dream of flows was about, especially because i kept thinking it said dream of flowers, which i think is much nicer and less likely to lead to our destruction by robots.

next is the dream of the open work. this one also seemed kinda confusing but i understood as similar to another one of adrian’s point from earlier this semester. this was about “content is not king” but rather its the services that provide content or allow users to create their own. the reading says that one of the “Strongest shifts of emphasis in the digital age is movement from creating finished works of art to creating systems of productions of art”. this makes sense because in society today, consumers are now creators too and so a more successful technology would be one that allows for more to be created rather than one that simply is.

no idea what the dream of the other was about and i’m guessing that the dream of new art is pretty much just that, the belief that the future of technology will create more advanced technology and the hopes that that new art won’t one day rise up against us.

the final dream was “hacking the dream” which i can only imagine involves hacking into the internet and changing it to suit your needs or what you want to create, but that one was also a bit confusing. from all of this, i have learnt that i am pretty sure that machines will one day defeat the human race but hopefully i will not be around to see it. before that time happens however, we have a lot of awesome new technologies to look forward to 😀

 

 

technology, stop trying to control my life!!!

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as i sit here, trying to blog, i find myself constantly distracted by even the thought of facebook, which then somehow leads me to waste a minimum of 40 minutes on youtube before moving to play another round of scramble on my phone before finally and somewhat reluctantly finding my way back to my blog to continue this (or any other) post. i can’t help but think, is this technodeterminism? i am pretty much being ruled by the computer. however, not only would i be unable to do my work without the computer or the internet, but my computer and the internet is the very thing stopping me from doing my work. oh the paradoxes!!!! sometimes i wish it was like VCE where everything was in books. i wouldn’t get so distracted. oh, who’s kidding, of course i still would.

thats the thing with technodeterminism, it’s just there. technology is everywhere. as adrian said, there is no longer a distinct line between technology and nature, because we have changed practically everything. stupid science. technology has evolved to the point where it is an unavoidable factor of our every day lives. it is an inherent part of who we are. we think differently than we did in the period of less or no technology because it has redefined our culture. but, does this mean it is controlling us? adrian would say yes. in the lecture he discussed how everything we do or say or think is affected by our technology. you cannot do things your own way because they must remain within the constraints of the culture and of the technology. we cannot write or speak in anything other than a defined language. and a poem must follow the restraints of a poem and a movie of a certain genre must conform to the boundaries of that genre. and thus, we are controlled by the boundaries of technology.

however, i do not completely agree. yes, it can be said that what we do must fit in with the lines that are already set by technology. but we created those lines. we created the technology and the technology can only do as we have created, it can’t go beyond the bounds of what we have designed it to do. but we can extend those bounds. the english language states that i cannot type: hsif hgdos lpghs plisty, and that it will make sense. but why can’t it? why can’t t become a new language, a new technology with new contraints and restrictions? how did we even get everything we have today if we never stepped outside the restraints set by our past technologies. imagine if we had stopped at the wheel, or fire simply because it was all there was. so yes, while most of us are bound by the restraints set by our technologies, it is when we act outside these restraints that we can create new technologies and evolve our culture.

i don’t believe in technodeterminism, we control technology. we created it and we have the ability to overcome and improve it while it remains within its own boundaries.

what’s wrong with the music industry?

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Does technology control our lives? do we change the way we work around technology or does technology change as we need it to? technodeterminism is a term that implies that technology controls us. it controls what we do, it controls society and suggest that changes in society only come about because of technology. but how true is this? i believe neither extreme is the correct answer. we change technology to suit us but we also adapt our techniques and ways of thinking when new technology is introduced into our lives. think about it, before the days of the cellphone, people would never even consider being able to speak to someone on the go. same with the age before the portable music player, the only way to hear music was through a cd player and before that a record player. we evolve technology to suit our needs but then we evolve ourselves to work with the technology, its part of our culture. even the word technology is part of our culture, the word itself didn’t even exist a mere few centuries ago and now it’s everywhere we look. it just goes to show how quickly things change in society and how quickly our culture adapts to this change.

this notion of culture changing along with society is similar to a point from a few weeks back that adrian made that context does not survive. everything we have today can only really be analysed within the context of today, because in the past we did not have these technologies and so everything was created with a completely different view and way of thinking, as will be everything in the future.

this leads me (kinda) into my topic of discussion today, what’s wrong with the music industry? this is all stemming from our discussions in class last week. i don’t really remember how we got onto it but it ended with us (well, mainly me) hating pretty heavily on one direction. i’ll try not to do that too much here but i’m warning you now, it might go there. first off for me is the huge difference between “pop” music that we have today and the pop music from 20-30 or so years ago. it just seems to be of a completely different calibre. to see what i mean, check out this picture which compares beyonce’s “run the world” with Queens “bohemian Rhapsody” (which is the best song ever! not to mention best karaoke song). i mean, come on!!! that song has pretty much just one line!!and it took 6 people to write it? what is happening world? but, as i’ve been mentioning, it’s difficult to compare because they were made in completely different times with different cultures and different ways of life. for some more depressing facts about music comparisons (between now and good music/artists), check out this site here. its pretty sad thinking that K$sha’s “tik tok” sold more copies than any beatles’ song but again, different times. back when the beatles were big, the music industry was different (and in my opinion, better). music broadcast wasn’t as widespread, you couldn’t download you music. music players weren’t as easily accessible. there are a whole range of excuses one can come up with. but at the end of the day, has the music changed?

i myself have never been the hugest fan of pop music. i’m more of an alternative/punk/rock kinda listener. my favourite songs off an album are very rarely the singles that are released for radio.and to me that’s because they just have that different quality, an attempt to be more marketable. the single needs to sell or no one will buy the cd.

here are some quick dot points of stuff that our class discussed in regards to the prolifity and repetition of the same crap on the radio today:

Current media songs written in metaphor, they never specify a person, its always “you”.

  • for example: Katy perry: firework or one direction: you don’t know you’re beautiful
    • These songs can be adapted to anyone/anything so that everyone can think it’s about them
    • this makes it more marketable – because its attractive to anyone, everyone will listen and buy it
    • they never makes the subject of the song specific
    • and are structured to have the broadest possible appeal
    • this is to maximise sales
    • they want to find the most efficient way of producing popular music (least amount of cost and effort for most amount of sales)
    • Thats what the music industry is: its an industry.
and this is where shows like Idol (american or australian) or the X factor or the Voice or whatever other singing competition shows are out there come in. they exemplify this, a lack of connection with music. or even a lack of real music being produced. because today, pop stars are not writing music because thats what they want, or because they love music, but because they want to make money. and their songs reveal this, they don’t have meanings, the lyrics don’t truly connect because there is nothing behind them, they have just been written to please the masses and make the sales. the winners of these competitions are given records, they are given music and are given lyrics and simply told to perform, but there is nothing behind it. what’s the different between one direction and the Beatles? well, aside from the time gap, the beatles were a band and one direction is a boy band. the beatles wrote and played their own music (granted, it got kinda razy and drug infused towards the end. and i’m not saying their song’s weren’t ambiguous and lovey) while one direction are just 5 random boys (i won’t deny that they can sing though) who were put together instead of being eliminated and have songs written for them. it just feels as though emphasis is being taken away from working hard and putting yourself into the music and placed on making as much money as you can. and so now every series of X factor is trying to create the next supergroup of random teen boys to keep that money rolling in.
sorry, it got a bit intense there. now you can see why i don’t listen to pop music. i’ll stick with my rock bands, let the world keep pumping out the same commercialised songs one after another. after all, there wouldn’t be the long tail without the part at the front.

 

oh, and back to the “does media control our lives” question. check out this article about a teenager who died from playing 2 days straight of playing video games. very sad.