How do I think?

Well, this is my final post for my Electronic Communications class, though I don’t know if it will be my last post ever. Looking back I see a couple of trends in my blog writing. The first is that I tend to write things methodically, one thing leading to another and another. It’s also the way I look at things. I look at each piece and analyze it before even looking at the big picture. Once I put all the pieces together then I analyze the whole thing such as with Bush’s article in my first post or with the possibility of machines being capable of human thought in one of my more recent posts. In either case I tried to look at things as objectively as possible, which I know is impossible but I try. Another trend I see is that I like to compare things I’m unsure or have little knowledge about with things that I do have knowledge about. An example would be in my Cyborgs Man and /or Machine post, where I compared machines to a human, specifically my self. This helps me to grasp things better if it is something I understand, even if the two are completely different such as machine fuel and vegetarian pizza (never again will I eat the stuff). Both of these trends of mine developed over the semester in that I was starting to analyze multiple pieces at once rather then one at a time and I was now comparing new things in class to things I had learned before which probably made more sense to everyone else. Since I wasn’t even aware of these trends till I started looking for them, it’s very likely they’ll continue to evolve given time. In later entries, assuming I continue to do this, I’ll probably analyze things in groups and I’ll be referencing myself soon enough, which will be weird but it will most likely happen. Till then, who knows what’ll happen? Later.

Comic talk

I love comics. I’ve collected them for the longest time and continue to collect them. Recently I’ve gone to a presentation by Scott McCloud, one of the leading speakers and writers on comics, where they’ve been, going, and are. A lot of what he talked about was how comics had evolved over time. Originally they were pictures on walls in ancient cultures such as in Egypt and Mexico. They then evolved when they were put into print, taking on different meaning as it changed form. A lot of this was interesting to me considering I wrote a paper based on this idea. Similar to what I wrote about in my paper, McCloud talked about how comics are changing to adapt to the new media, specifically the internet and computers. He spoke of viewing comics on the computer not as slides like you do with printed comics but as a window. In this way, there were could be no breaks and the comic would become more interactive by allowing the user to choose where to go. So instead of simply moving in a set direction such as left to right and up to down, you could instead go all over, going every which way that you want, even in a three dimensional sense. While similar to the subject of my paper I went a different route, focusing more on the history of comics rather then its form. Still, his talk was well received with a number of people there. I even saw the owner of a local comic book shop, Paradox Comics, there to listen. That in itself was a surprise to me at first but not really after a moment. It is comforting to see so many people interested in comics not just as good reading material, but as something to be taken seriously just as people do with classical works of literature such as Frankenstein or Moby Dick. Who knows, one day in the future maybe people will look at comics like Spider-Man and Batman as classic works. Some may scoff at this idea but I ask, why not? In any case, we’ll all see what the future holds for comics.

Machines capable of Human thought?

I’ve just watched Tech Talk on Google and read “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” and been asked the question, Can human thought be replicated by a machine? Honestly, in my mind it will be an extremely long time before machines can replicate human thought. Machines today, even the most advanced ones can only do what we tell them and act on only the data we give them. They simply can't think for themselves or as Lady Lovelace said in the article can “never do anything really new”. I’d go a step further in saying that machines can only see things as they are and not what they could possibly be or the potential the thing might have. You give a child a box and they’ll imagine it as a boat, spaceship, or race car. They might tear it into pieces and use the pieces for a game they made up on the spot. Without previous data a machine wouldn’t be able to do anything like that. A better example would be playing a game of strategy. A human would be able to come up with a new strategy with the pieces without knowing any previous strategies other then what each piece is capable of. A machine would have a difficult time doing that or at least coming up with strategies that the pieces were never originally meant for.

A key aspect of this is logic. While machines can figure out consequences based on data through the use of logic and thus make a decision based on logic, humans do not always use logic or use it correctly. For example, some people choose to jump out of airplanes to do stunts that could get them seriously injured or even killed. Considering the risk levels I doubt any machine would LOGICALLY attempt these stunts. But these stunts aren’t about logic, their about having fun in a way that they individually like which brings me to another point, preference. Ask any human their favorite color and they’ll give you an answer. Ask a machine and, unless it’s been programmed by someone else, it won’t be able to answer. To a machine, it doesn’t logically matter to it what color most things are unless it’s some time of warning sign or something of similar importance. Similarly, a machine wouldn't care where it got its nutrition from (assuming it could eat or something similar) while humans tend to be picky about the things we eat. Machines can’t go against logic like humans can, they don’t have preferences over things like color or food, and they can’t create something completely new without previous data or information. Until machines are capable of these three things, I believe they will never be able to replicate human thought.

Designers and the Designed

Here’s another entry about my Electronic Communications class. In regards to the mock up we’re doing for out City Blog, it does have a few things that show its relationship between those who created it and those who will view it. For one thing, having all the newest articles for each section right on the main page shows that we have a good idea of what our viewers will want to see the moment they look at the page. It also shows that we, being the creators, want to make this page easy to navigate for people and allow them to find what they’re looking for quickly. Also, having the main menu on the left side, shows that we’re taking convenience into consideration as well as knowing how our viewers will read the page. Having the different colors, pictures, and graphics also helps us draw our viewers’ attention where we want it.

In terms of what I believe we should work on is the detail work, such as colors and graphics. For one thing I believe we should have a logo of some kind, nothing too fancy but something that fits. Also considering that its name is Red River Corridor, I think we should use warmer colors rather then cooler, like a solid red in the title instead of blue. One other suggestion I have is to move the search from the right side of the title to the top of menu bar. This way if someone comes to the site specifically looking for something then the choices of searching or browsing through the pages are right next to each other. Plus I think it makes the site a little simpler overall. With the main design of the page mapped out, all that really remains is to hammer out the details of the site and refine here and there as necessary.

Did some comment posting

Well I just posted some comments on a couple members of the other class we’ll be working with. Though this by far isn’t the first time I’ve posted comments on something, it felt kind of odd that I was commenting on something school related when I had no clue of the person was that I was commenting to. Usually when I make a comment it’s either to someone I have no connections with or it’s someone I know personally or from school. In this instance it was actually rather unique to me. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8586219322485365964&postID=5693614016624377868

https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=781085894975200206&postID=4644250508587306146

My Class duties

My Electronic Communications class has just started their main project, a City Blog web site. In all honesty I have no clue as to what I’ll be doing for this project. Though we do have a basic timeline set up, our exact tasks are still unclear to me. If I had to guess as to the type of job or jobs I’d be doing, I’d say something along the lines of proofreading and or refinement. I would guess that it would be my job to go over everything in detail and make sure everything is what we want it to be. With a project like this, I consider it extremely important to watch the details. I also don’t mean just with the site but with any writing that might be done such as agreements we may need to make regarding submissions and posts. We’re going to have to be very exact and thorough with those so as to avoid any type of legal trouble. As for the design, we’ll need to test everything and run it through its paces to make sure it works like we want it to. If something doesn’t work, look, or just plain feel right then it will probably be my job to work with it till it does. This site is going to need a lot of refinement and I believe it will be part of my job to do that refinement. In a nutshell, my job as I believe it will be to go over our work and look for any mistakes, errors, and/or things that simply do not seem to be working.

In terms of time constraints and deadlines, that’s a tricky matter with this specific job. For one, many of the proof reading work I might be doing will either be of my own work or someone else’s. This very likely means one or both of two things. Either I’ll be working with others to proof read as they go and or I’ll be doing it after they completed a version. I would do my job, show it to them and ask them if there’s anything else they might want to have done, if so, repeat. This basically means that my schedule will be closely tied to others as well as limiting myself. I’d need to have time to make the corrections before the deadline. This puts pressure on others to get whatever their working on done reasonably before the deadline and send it to me for whatever corrections need to be made, if any. It also puts pressure on me to have the thing corrected and sent back in a reasonable amount of time as well. Since I tend to do things right away to get them done and out of the way, I’m not too worried about myself. Plus my schedule does give me some open time to take care of these things. However, I’m not too sure of other people’s schedules and thus I don’t know when they’d be able to send me their work. I guess that is something that me and my class will need to work out before we really get into this project otherwise it might cause some problems.

Cyborgs Man and/or Machine?

I’ve just read an article concerning Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and it got me thinking. If you think about it, living things and machines are not that different. Take me for example, an average human. Like machines I need a certain type of energy source to function, namely food. If I were to try and process something else, like mulch or something I wouldn’t be able to do much, besides get really sick. Also, like machines I need to move around otherwise I fall apart just as a little used piece of equipment falls into disrepair. However, on the flip side of that I am different from a machine. For one thing, a machine doesn’t care what kind of fuel it uses so long as it’s compatible. I on the other hand dislike strict vegetarian foods even if they are healthy. This comes from a very bad experience concerning a vegetarian pizza. In any case, organic and inorganic, man and machine, just how different are they?

Comment on Kitti

Here's a link to a comment I made on another one of my classmate's posts regarding how technology will be in 50 years.

https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8892920693426506688&postID=489927708018187815

As We May Think

Looking back at Vannevar Bush’s article, “As we may think,” there are a few things that I didn’t agree with or understand well. One thing that bothered me was the line, “Our present languages are not especially adapted to this sort of mechanization, it is true.” This was when he was speaking of combining different machines in order to record things easier. This bothers me for the simple fact that while languages have changed over time, such as with the induction of new words or slang, they basically remain the same. English is still English, Spanish is still Spanish, and so on. What he’s suggesting is a completely new language that everyone would have to learn in order to use the Voder and Vocoder combo effectively. While that may be possible for some people, for others I don’t think it would be possible.

Another thing that bothers me is that nowhere throughout the whole article does he mention anything about cost. Bush also seems to barely mention anything about practicality. While the memex is more or less a really old school version of a computer made from inventions of the time, Bush never seems to mention anything about how much this thing would cost. In the memex, all the information would be on microfilm and have plenty of space for it. “Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository.” I see a few problems with this. One, where would someone get all these pages and microfilm? Two, what about cost? I don’t think all that microfilm would be cheap. Lastly, any information put into the memex could easily become outdated, thus requiring the owner to replace it on almost a regular basis. I seriously doubt anyone would be able to do this. So while the functions and abilities that Bush imagined are common for today’s computers, the methods he imagined in creating and employing those abilities don’t seem quite as practical when thought out.

What this Blog does for me?

Since I’ve never had a blog before or even looked at one I must say this is a new experience for me. In all honesty I find this similar to my writer’s account at Fanfiction.net where I have posted a few of my works. In both cases it is a good idea to check up on it regularly and see what people think of you. In my case I can get feed back on my works and see how to improve them. With this blog it’s not that much different, just that people can comment on anything rather then just a specific thing. I think this blog helps me by allowing people to look at different aspects of myself and get feed back on my life. I may get help or I may get someone who’s in a similar position as me. In either case, it is interesting to see how people react to my life through the blog. I also like to think this will allow me to gain different views on things past, present, and in the future. Already since starting this I’ve become interested in other blogs and the things people write just as I did when I first signed up for Fanfiction.net. In any case, I shall continue to watch and use this blog and see what comes of it.

1st Post "How will we 'Think' in 50 years.

I really have no clue what to do with a blog, but since this is for a class of mine, I’ll try it.

For this first entry, I’d like to talk about a specific article that I had to read. “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush. Despite being written during WWII, it had a few interesting pieces in it. For one thing, many of the gadgets he described, while ridicules in their operation, performed many of the functions modern day computers do. It struck me as interesting that he visualized what he wanted, namely the information and retrieval abilities of computers, in terms of technology of the day.

Here’s my question, do people of today do the same thing, 50 years after Bush’s time? Do we imagine great things for computers in the future another 50 years from now that may be much more plausible with another method? It’s an interesting thought. We imagine spaceships, teleporters, flying cars, and other such things, all controlled and or created with computers. Are these things possible, just in a different way then what we think? When Bush wrote this article, he talked about many of the capabilities that computers have in terms of what was available at the time. Storage of large amounts of information, the ability to store, retrieve, share, and organize it, and the recording of information through simple speech. All these things can be done by computers, a technology that hadn’t even been developed yet at the time this article was written.

Will it be the same for people today? Will the things we imagine computers being capable of in the future be done instead by a new form of technology? Many would say no, but then again Bush probably would have said no as well in his time. Besides, a lot can happen in 50 years, especially with how fast technology changes. Personally I could go either way. Yes computers are powerful and have evolved far beyond just the abilities that Bush described, but how far can they evolve? I guess that’s the real question this article brings up for me. Not how we will think, because people’s thinking processes are always changing, being shaped from the past and the present. It’s how far can any one type of technology evolve? I honestly couldn’t even begin to imagine how people will think 50 years from now. True it may contain similar things to how we currently think, but as I said, a lot can happen in 50 years.