Jakobs and hypertextuality

Silly me, being the ignorant SOB that I am, I never realized that hypertextuality was studied, analyzed and pursued as early as the 60's, long before the internet was even thought of. I was really fascinated by the stories of Ted Nelson, the man who coined the term and pursued a "knowledge-management and information production system." I guess I also tend to forget that the computer was invented long before I was born and was merely beginning to become part of the new movement in technology that has affected everyone's lives today. I also tend to think that when the computer was actually fully released, they were far ahead in planning out what functions would the computer partake in the near future. I tend to forget that inventions like the internet take years of planning, development, and research before they can be fully realized. The internet did not pop up out of nowhere overnight, yet some ignorant morons such as myself easily tend to forget and take for granted that these kinds of ideas do not happen without the years of research by tons of people that want to see their works come to life. Simply just shows you how much I know.

I mean heck, I wouldn't be writing on this blog right now or finding research for my bijillion research projects due before the end of the semester, if it weren't for all the years of effort and planning that were taken to develop the internet. I guess we all owe our thanks to these brilliant minds.

Wow, that was completely off topic, but oh well.

can someone explain algorithims to me?

I'll just come out and say it. I am a fucking dumbass!! When it comes to basic math like algebra and some forms of geometry, I have fairly decent grasp on its concepts (any moron can figure out how to figure out the area of a triangle). But I suppose I don't remember algorithms (or at least don't remember them very well). Can someone at least try to give me a general sense as to what algorithms are and how they work?

In any case I guess I can safely say make lack of knowledge and understanding of algorithms defined my attitudes and feelings towards the two videos we watched. Therefore, I do have some problems with the Slavin video, as he felt (my opinion) that algorithms seemed to control and shape our lives and there is just nothing we can do about it. Whether we see and understand them or not, algorithms shape human action towards each other, both online and in general society. He seemed to reduce human interaction towards mathematics, and that appeared to be the only way to understand how we have come to understand each other and we are to act towards each other. (I could be wrong of course. Someone please enligthen me).

As for the Pariser video, I not only found that video more comprehensible, but also more realistic. He identified how algorithms and how they shape our identities online, but also found several problems with that. He understood that the online world has now reduced every action a person takes online to possible mathematical outcomes. He wants to fight that preconception that the online world has taken among its visitors and I wouldn't mind joining him in that fight. (Of course, I could be wrong. Someone please enligthen me).

Anderson's ted talk

I really enjoyed Anderson's ted talk that we had to watch for today. I found it really inspiring how his vision of web videos could lead to the next big leap in global innovation towards many feilds (whether it be entertainment, education, etc.). I especially found his ending where he showed the video of the gentleman from Africa and how his tribe was generating new agricultural and cultural ideas (inspired shockingly from TED talks) and how Anderson managed to give those people a standing ovation from the audience from TED talks, the very peopl whom inspired them in the first place. I do wish he did more by showing web videos to illustrate his point. Not that I actually had a problem with him lecturing most of the time, but I personally thought his demonstration would have been more innovated (no pun intended) if he showed more visual aspects in order to help the audience gain a full understanding of how the digital communicative world of web video could shape future minds and inspire them to undertake in future acheivements. I guess this stems from the TED talk we saw at the very beginning of class, with the conductor that managed to obtain an entire choir rehearsal online. He not only discussed certain aspects of how this goal was accomplished, but actually described and showed certain details of the people envolved and how he managed to get across to certain aspiring singers in order to create the online orchestra. It was also amazing how he managed to show the audience future projects that included the same techniques he used in the last video that still remain effective. I just that that video really took advantage of the medium TED talks has for using visual asthetics to communicate more effectively to people outside the immediate audience (e.g. people watching the video instead of those inside the video watching live) and I wish Anderson's video would've taken similar advantage to that.

Porter and Johnson-Eilola

I really enjoyed Porter's article seeing as he addressed an issue that I feel is hardly ever addressed in the reading material that many of my classes have either failed at or refused to analyze: the idea that the mind set is shaped by outside factors more so than the author realizes (which makes perfect sense to me). Very few classes I took throughout my college career have addressed that issue. And I was practically stunned when Porter introduced the idea that Thomas Jefferson, one of our very founding fathers, was not as talented and gifted a writer as so many fans of his seem to associate him with. I was introduced to this idea just two semesters ago, when I took a class on authorship and we looked at material through distinct yet different authros: Edgar Allen Poe and Louisa May Allcott. Through their works, the class found that their ideologies and backgrounds managed to shape and mold their works and how both have become respected in their fields. We know Poe as this genius that no one can top, and only Alcott as the writer of "Little Women". We found that both, while being talented writers, had to work through hardships, critics' expectations, and learning from the past in order to understand what it takes to be a successful writer while relatively being good at it. It was facinating how that class made me see two differeing writers in a very diffferent light.

I saw a lot of the same thing happening in the Jonhson-Eilola article as well. I took a Technical Writing course the following semester, and I was really surpised at how even the task of analytical/instructional writing takes so much intertextuality and hidden meanings that the author never intends, despite attempting a simple act like writing directions. It is with articles like these that I tend to wonder if Freud was right. I wonder if we will ever get the chance to know our true selves and what we truly mean when we say or act a certain way. I wonder if Freud himself ever talked about the act of writing as if that ever revealed the true self of a person or not.