Week 15 Carr 115-224

A point that Carr brings up towards the end of the book really hit home with me. People don't memorize anything anymore. We don't have to memorize texts or poems or anything really. We can just look it up. I'm constantly looking things up on the Internet because I just can't remember. I find myself going yeah and I saw that movie with what's her name...you know the one with the giant lips and all the babies...and then I realize I can just pull out my phone or get on my computer. I go on IMDB and oh that's right, Angelina Jolie! When I was younger we had to memorize things for school, bible verses, poems...etc and it was so stressful, but I could do it and eventually became pretty good at it. Now I have found that power is waning however. As soon as I memorize anything it stays for maybe a couple of weeks if I'm lucky and then poof it's gone. 

I can hardly sit down and read a book for a long period of time. As Carr says we have an "artificial memory". We have all these machines to remember for us now. We don't just rely on our brain.

When I read about the program that Weizenbaum invented that Carr talks about it kind of creeped me out. Thinking about a computer being able to connect with someone on that level seemed weird, but then I realized we're not far from that now with things like Siri who answer your questions and respond when you tell her she's doing a good job or not trying hard enough. 

Carr says that the human brain allows us to meld with a wide variety of tools. That they become extensions of ourselves like what McLuhan said about technology becoming an extension of the central nervous system. We have the ability to blur the boundary between the internal and the external, the body and the instrument become one. (296) I find this to be true. I mostly use my computer to write papers and blogs. My thoughts are transferred on to the computer. It becomes a part of me. My computer might even know me better than my close friends do. Sometimes I put ideas and thoughts on my computer's programs that I wouldn't dare tell anyone. I have also personalized my computer. I picked what I wanted on my dock and made my background a picture that I took on a trip.

Technology is progressing very quickly and there's always something new to buy. Carr says that we are running headlong into a whirlwind of progress and that our meditative deep thinking is suffering because of it. Will we lose are ability to remember altogether?

Week 14 Carr 1-114

Carr opens his book by talking about the computer from 2001, HAL. These days we seem to be more like HAL than the astronaut who shut him down and ended his killing spree. We are on a linear mission  to get from point A to B. It's more about the destination than the journey.
When computers were first being used people had a fear of a certain kind of computing. More associated with the government, computers were cloaked in mystery and no one was completely certain of their power.
One of the parts of the reading I found interesting was the progression from clay tablets to books. I knew a little bit of history about both but I never knew the chronological progression. I also thought his comment about the original pencil was cool and that it was just basically a pointed stick that had a flat end that could be used like an eraser.
When books were first mad they were so rare and precious that they were chained to the shelf (or maybe it was because the screamed when you opened them...Harry Potter anyone?) but that's pretty intense. They were also stored with the spine facing out so you could make everyone feel uncultured with your shelves full of the great thinkers of the time.
Another point I thought was interesting was the claim that the Internet is bidirectional in that we can send and receive messages through the same network. So does this mean that texting is also bidirectional? I mean we are technically sending and receiving messages through the same network especially if we're texting someone who uses the same mobile provider.
The creation of knowledge is private. People read to themselves instead of reading aloud. We can go on the Internet and find information about anything. We can teach ourselves and not even have to go to an educational institution. We can learn things without the communal aspect. Even when we go to school we are competing against each other. We have to succeed individually, we're not just working for the good of the community.
Not only has our learning style changed but our writing and reading styles have changed too. Changes in writing style reflect changes in reading style. Now there are things like cell phone novels, fan fiction that starts in online forums, and blogs that are turned into books. The writing style is informal and there is more of a dialogue directly between the author and the audience. The paragraphs are short because we skim things. We don't deep read anymore.

Week 13 Marshall McLuhan film and 246-359

Although this film was really trippy and made me never want to read Poe's The Descent into the Maelstrom it did bring up some interesting points.
It helped me understand Marshall McLuhan's beliefs and teachings.
The 4 questions that reveal the future of technology that were addressed in the film particularly helped. At first no one believed McLuhan. (I'm not gonna lie, I was skeptical at first too.)
What will this thing enhance?
Something that made life bearable was enjoying our rich world. McLuhan studied the trivium: logic, rhetoric, and grammar. He originally trained himself as a grammarian which I never would have guessed but after hearing about his life and what he did it actually seems like a logical place to start.
What will this tool obsolesce?
What will it replace?
It was possible to create new worlds over night with electric lights. The electric world obsolesced the visual world. No more distinct dark and light. There were lights on even at night. People could go out at night, could stay out later.
One of McLuhan's main tenants was that media is an extension of the central nervous system. Understanding the media group helps you understand other disciplines because all technologies are language and technology is the center of everything. Technology gives you insight into all the languages and disciplines.
After McLuhan has an operation to remove a growth from his brain he lost 5 years worth of memory. He lost so many of his precious thoughts that had made him famous. This operation prompted him to study the hemispheres of the brain.
What will this tool retrieve from all the things you've lost?
What could McLuhan's brain retrieve from all the thoughts he'd lost? Could he get them back?
Speech retrieves old adventures and turns them into stories that are more linear and organized than the when the experience was lived. Could McLuhan get back his memories through speech? Ironically enough McLuhan's books became less and less coherent and he preferred to talk ideas out.
He was part of the "Best Club" at University of Toronto. While his fame was growing his amount of critics was growing too especially in the 70s. He became frustrated and felt like people weren't listening to him which they should have because now technology is taking over our lives and we're having trouble doing things like talking ideas out.
How will your tool reverse when it's pushed to its outer limit?
McLuhan's fame waned after he came up with the laws of media. Apparently his tool was his fame and it reversed to its outer limit. His center was closed and his papers, a tool that could have helped him retrieve his thoughts were thrown out.
At the end of the book McLuhan addresses radio, tv, and film.
McLuhan says that tv fails to tackle hot issues and calls it the "timid giant". Even though we're free from censorship. Is tv still a cool medium? HD TV, websites, blogs...etc. People can now participate directly in shows and vote for contestants. Consumers become producers.

Week 12 McLuhan 123-245 and The Machine that Made Us

We watched a documentary about a guy who is on a mission to make a replica of a Gutenberg printing press.  One of the points this film brought up that I hadn't really thought about was that Gutenberg's bible ushered in the modern era, the Renaissance. It allowed people to share their ideas with a wide audience and helped increase literacy.
The guys who were making the press ran in to a lot of problems along the way. They only had a vague sketch of what the Gutenberg press looked like. They weren't even sure if the drawing was of a Gutenberg press. They had to rely on looking at similar machines like wine presses.
Another point I found interesting was that the printing press helped eliminate errors in text. It was very easy for scribes to make mistakes and they weren't going to rewrite an entire text just because they made one error.
Contrary to popular thought the first thing to be made with a Gutenberg press was not the Bible, it was actually grammar books and indulgences. I was always taught that the Bible was printed first so this was a bit of a shock to me but it made sense.
I really liked that this documentary not only showed how they made the press but it also showed them making their own paper. I've never seen paper made before so that was pretty cool.

Even though the printing press mass produced documents errors were still made. Sometimes the paper quality was bad, there were typos...etc. Human error. It was still people that were setting the type and not machines. Even now there are still errors because in most cases it's humans that are doing the writing.
One thing we talked about that I thought was interesting was how typefaces can have nationalism like Helvetica being the Swiss typeface.  They can bring countries together or divide them.  Helvetica was used by the EU to bring the European countries together. I think that the typeface used on the Gutenberg press brought countries together and divided them at the same time. While it could be used to spread ideas and bring people with similar thoughts together it also divided people like further dividing Catholics and Protestants.
Even people who are into new media still value books because they are expensive and hard to make. Although people still value books, new media has changed many aspects of our lives like sports. Baseball is the old and football is the new. Baseball is less enjoyable to watch on tv. It's a slower game and there's less going on. Football is also entrenched in war terminology and tactics which make it more intense and exciting whereas basketball is emulates current technology. I never realized how much it did. There's posts, picks, screen...etc. Football is starting to go the way of basketball. It's becoming less of a contact sport and the players are more spread out on the field. There are also many sports video games now. Like McLuhan says, these games are extensions of ourselves. We create avatars that look like us and we control the players. What will be next? A play called a tweet?