GOSPEL CHOIR CONCERT

Hey Everyone! The UW gospel choir is having their annual end of the semester concert this Sunday (May 6) at 6 pm in the memorial union theater. It is always a really awesome show so you don't want to miss it! and I am in it!! So ya, be there.....its free!!!!

ANTZ

Over the weekend we were to read the second and third chapters from the book emergence. I thought that these two chapters were really interesting and I am starting to like this book even more. The second chapter talked a lot about ant colonies in general. The chapters explained that ants are very simple creatures with not a whole lot going on in their brains individually but then talked about how many of them are able to form a complex colony. Each ant acts locally but their collection produces global behavior. There are five principles in order for macro intelligence to form from local behavior. These include, 1. More is different 2. Ignorance is useful 3. Encourage random encounters 4. Look for patterns in the signs and 5. Pay attention to your neighbors. A common topic mentioned in these five is that when ants encounter other ants this informs them about the state of the colony based on the frequency of encounters and whatnot. One thing I didn't understand is how a colony can go between infant, adolescent, and mature stages because all the ants die within a year so there is never really a bunch of old "mature" ants. The difference between ants and humans is obviously that individual humans are very intelligent so the social patterns we form are much more complex.

The third chapter talked a lot about how the internet is thought of as a big brain. I agreed with most of the ideas that the author agreed with. I think the internet isn't really a true brain, it just forms relationships between sites and its not really forming new information by itself. Alexa, the website sorter thing, doesn't appreciate things and it doesn't have a specified goal in mind when searching through sites. This is like the little activity we did in class on Amazon.com where if you typed in some book you liked it would find books that other people enjoyed that had also enjoyed the books you liked. Its not really thinking about you in specific just common trends. Another question, are things like match.com emergent? because all they do is just match people who answered alike to certain questions right?

emergence...

This week we were to read the intro and first chapter of a book by Steven Johnson called Emergence. The introduction began by describing self-organizing communities using slime mold as an example. At first I was really confused as to how it was related but then it was explained that slime mold doesn't have one leader mold organism. There is not one pacemaker cell "calling all the shots". They each release something called cyclic AMP depending on their own assessment of their environment and then form to become a community based on that. One real life example that I thought of while reading this was riots. Particularly riots in Madison on Halloween. There is not one person that decides to have a riot at 2 in the morning. Everyone gets increasingly intoxicated and, based on their surroundings, senses the need to continue to drink and then all of a sudden a big mass of chaos forms all by itself! Maybe not the best example....but thats what came to my mind. I also thought that the part in the first chapter that talked about the ants was really interesting. It is weird that the ants know where exactly to put the garbage so its as far away from both the colony and the dead ants as possible. It really is curious how all the ants just do certain jobs without being told to. The queen doesn't assign them jobs like in the movie "Ants". But then again, isn't that how our world is? At least in our society we can just pick whatever we want to do based on what we are good at and what we enjoy. maybe that is how it is for ants. Or maybe the baby just picks an adult ant to follow around and ends up doing whatever their job is for the rest of their life....kind of like family businesses.

I also enjoyed reading about the formation of Manchester. The population began to explode and people basically organized themselves however they wanted. The poor ended up being confined to certain streets far away from the rich. This isn't all that strange when you think about it though. Poor people are obviously going to live near one another so they can support each other and the rich don't want to see poor people. So, wherever the first poor person decided to settle everyone followed. I wasn't quite sure how the homosexual secret clusters really tied in to emergence, other than that a guy that would go there wrote a paper on morphogenesis. I liked this reading a lot because it explained things well and didn't get too wordy like some of our past readings. I am excited to have a class discussion about it....but, class is canceled tomorrow :) because Scot is sick :( Get better!!!

Lost in Translation

We started watching Lost in Translation in class on Thursday and i am really enjoying the movie! One thing that I noticed about the movie is that there is not a whole lot of talking and the characters are kind of in a daze it seems. I feel like for them Tokyo itself was a non-place because they had no relations formed there and there was no history there for either of them. They couldn't become connected with the environment because they couldn't talk to people and the were living in a hotel which is a non-place itself. They were just there to accomplish a job and that was it. There were a lot of scenes in the beginning that took place in non-places like the elevator and their hotel room. They both seemed to be extremely lonely with this sudden sense of non-places all around them. I think this can be seen in our world today because technology seems to be creating more and more non-places and people tend to be less friendly when set into a non-place. I think Americans are especially at risk for this sense of loneliness because people are always rushing in and out to get to places.

When the two main characters began to develop a friendship I think that Tokyo started to become a place for both of them. There seemed to be more scenes that depicted places, like the club, karaoke bar, and game room they go to together. I am excited to see what happens in the end. I kind of want them to fall in love or something but first of all they are both married and second of all he is a bit old for her.

NON-PLACES

Like James, I too used the bus for my "non-place" observations. I ride the bus to work every few days and I was going to go today to kill two birds with one stone, but with the nasty weather I decided not to go in. Instead, I just rode the 80 to state street in the evening. As I got on the bus, I noticed most of the seats were full and I ended up sitting next to someone. I noticed that when people sit on buses they either A) Sit in a seat as far away from other people or B) If they must sit next to someone, they scoot away and try not to invade the other persons space. Everyone sat quietly unless there were friends sitting together chatting. Many people, including myself, were listening to ipods. I think that in non-places you are really not in that place at all, you either escape into a song, a book, daydreams, or a tv (at a hotel). You interact with as few people as possible and try to just slip into the background only using the space to accomplish a certain task. I suppose the bus can be a "place" for the people who work on the bus, but even then this is unclear on buses. I am not sure but, don't bus drivers switch routes every once in a while? In that case, they don't have one specific bus that can be their place of work. Plus, it is hard to consider a seat a place. From past experience on the 80 on busy days, i have noticed that people don't really seem to care about the other people on the bus. Everyone just objectifies everyone else. The passengers get mad when the people getting on move too slow, the bus driver gets mad when people don't move to the back, and those few who sneak in the back have no regard for the people patiently waiting to get in (legally) through the front door. It is a very hostile environment...where is the love?!

CALIFORNIA

Wow, I totally missed that we were supposed to do an open post for today. I think all this spring break madness has gone to my head! Whoops. So I am posting now. I am taking the bus at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning to the Chicago airport!! I called the badger cab tonight and asked for a cab for 4:30am and the guy said the latest they could pick me up was 4:15 if my bus was at 5. I think that is excessive. I mean I already bought my ticket....I am just going to be sitting outside mem. union waiting to get on the bus for 40 minutes. but I didn't want to argue with the guy. urg. I am going to bed pretty soon....its almost 10 o'clock!! geez, I haven't gone to bed this early since highschool. I am all packed and ready to roll. My dad bought me this awesome new rolling duffle suitcase a couple weeks ago when he was here and I absolutely love it! It has more pockets than I know what to do with and its the perfect size. Anyways, about the trip. Jack is flying in to LA from Kansas and his flight gets in about 1.5 hrs after mine. His friend who lives in Santa Barbara is flying into LA from Switzerland that same day so we are getting a ride with her and staying in her apt. for the weekend. Then we are taking the train to visit my Cousin, Rachel, in San Luis Obispo for a couple days. Then we are taking the bus or train up to Santa Cruz where we will meet up with my sister and my mom. We are going to take a day trip up to San Francisco with them one day. Then on the saturday before we leave we are going to visit my aunt and uncle and 2 more of my cousins for the day. It is going to be really fun! I need to go to bed.....I hope everyone has safe travels and a fun-filled spring break.

Am I a cyborg??

After reading the excerpt from Andy Clark's "Natural Born Cyborgs", I found myself debating as to whether or not I agreed with his arguments. He believes that we are all natural born cyborgs because of the fact that humans have the ability to use constructs, props, and aids. He claims that we become one with our best and most reliable tools. He feels that it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish where the world stops and where the person begins. Does this really mean that all humans are "cyborgs" though?

I found a definition for the word cyborg that states, "The term cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic organism, is used to designate a creature which is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology." I think the second half of this definition agrees with Clark in that we use technology to enhance our abilities, however, its not as though we have computers embedded into the palm of our hands. Is the fact that we use technology on occasion enough to constitute us as cyborgs. I think that the term cyborg is a little too extreme especially because of the mental images people already have when they hear that term. I thought that his term "mind-ware upgrades" was also very interesting. Does he mean that we really are increasing our mental capabilities, or are we just being able to use our preexisting abilities more effectively. I would agree with the latter. Another quote from the reading is that, "The mind is less and less in the head." I don't necessarily agree with that statement either. I mean, sure we use calculators to do long division, but that doesn't mean we are any less intelligent. We are simply being more efficient. The mind is still doing work to figure out problems.

I think that Clark's idea is one that is worth thinking about. Our world today is becoming very dependent on technology. However, humans have been using tools and aids to carry out everyday functions for thousands of years. Were we "cyborgs" then, or does it only apply to recent advances in technology? I think he has a good point when describing how different human beings are from other animals and what separates us from them, but I do not know if coining human beings with the term "cyborg" is necessarily accurate.