A lot to talk about...

In Morse’s “Virtually Female: Body and Code”, she claims that is it is a ‘masculine’ arena. She refers to boys and technology and says that society tells them, “This is your place: claim it”. I guess I can see how this would be true because it is ok for guys to sit inside all day and play computer games and major in computer science but girls would be viewed as having NO life and being very masculine if they did this. Girls are told be creative, active, and interesting, not just sit in front of a computer. Our society teaches girls from a young age to stay away from math and science and concentrate on English, writing, history, art, etc. They are not encouraged like boys to stick with math and science.

A great example of this is the ‘brown eye, blue eye’ experiment. I recently watched a viedo on this. The experiment proved that if you tell someone they are not good at something, it actually decreases their chances of doing well and succeeding at it. People need support and someone to believe in you as well as intelligence and knowledge. So even in something as genderless as cyberspace, it has been dominated by masculinity. It should not matter, people should be able to write what they want and express their opinion without regards to their gender. It is the perfect arena to do this because the only way people will really know your gender is if you tell them. But it seems people are uneasy with the idea of not displaying their gender. Gender plays a large role in how we define ourselves as people.

I found the article ‘Computers as Theatre’ to be extremely interesting. I never really consciously thought of the idea that computers are just as entertaining as they are helpful to us. While we view them as a tool, or means of gaining knowledge and communicating, they are also equally an entertainment system. We are attracted to programs and websites that stimulate the senses and keep us entertained. The very lay out of a desktop is important in how you view your computer and how you approach it. Laurel refers to the computers as “magic” just like Cheshner did in his article. In a way it is a magical entertainment system. We are able to gain knowledge and learn WHILE being entertained and stimulated. Maybe this is why people spend hours on end ‘facebooking’ and surfing the net, because they are so stimulated while learning that it becomes addicting.

The article titled “ Man- Computer Symbiosis” discusses how man and computers work together to be a symbiosis. The main aim of the man-computer symbiosis is to let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution of formulated problem. Secondly, they aim to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence. They work as a trial and error system for humans. Helping us save time by riding ourselves of unnecessary attempts and failures and having computers do our dirty work for us.

Like Erika, I think the Rhizome analogy really helped to explain how technology works. It is interesting how Borges refers to books as chaotic as well as a rhizome; so there is an organization in chaos.


For the symbols from the past few weeks:

Time – For time I envision a cloud. I see a cloud because I think of dreaming and time in during our unconscious as well as when we are conscious. The movie Waking Life made me re-think my idea of time. It is completely different when we are dreaming as when we are awake. Time is there, drifting by, like a cloud. It is constantly moving although sometimes it seems as though it is not. Time can ‘fly by’ or seems to ‘stand still’.

History – My symbol for history would be a telescope. This idea was already brought up in the movie Waking Life. History can only be studied little by little, part by part. It is impossible to sum up large amounts of time. We must take time to look at each event and each step in time in order to discuss history. So a telescope zooms in on small events and places them in a timeline.