Archive for February, 2008
Real Hero?
Continuing on my previous post on exploring the game America’s Army and the way the experiences the players have in the game transfer to their real life I came upon an interesting news article:
- “AMERICA’S ARMY MEDIC TRAINING HELPS SAVE A LIFEâ€
 This article describes how a player of the game was a first responder to a car crash and used the combat medic training he received playing the game to evaluate and treat the victims of the car crash. I found this video on youtube which shows the news report and interview of the man Paxton Galvanek, who credited the game America’s Army for the help he was able to give the victims of the crash.Â
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The Project Director of America’s Army, Colonel Casey Wardynski said, “Because of the training he received in America’s Army’s virtual classroom, Mr. Galvanek had mastered the basics of first aid and had the confidence to take appropriate action when others might do nothing. He took the initiative to assess the situation, prioritize actions and apply the correct procedures. Paxton is a true hero. We are pleased to have played a role in providing the lifesaving training that he employed so successfully at the scene.”Â
- This article and video were very interesting to me because they portrayed the way the media/US Army can present things to promote the army as well as the game. The comments about the video described this controversy about how Paxton Galvanek responded to the crash. One person wrote, “When I was at CLS school at AIT they told us NOT TO USE our CLS training at a crash scene!It came down to liability on our part. Basically they said, “If you use this and screw up or hurt someone, you could be liable and they could sue you.”
To me this shows both the advantage and the danger of the ‘medical training’ the players get in the virtual classroom of America’s Army. The advantage is that Paxton was able to apply his knowledge and help, but what if he instead made the situation worse? He did not experience real life training, but he transferred what he learned in the virtual world to a real life situation. I think that this is what the US Army presumably desired from the game – the players become embedded in the environment to the point where they transfer their virtual experience to reality and try to join the US Army. Â
- I think it is interesting that a person can feel he learned as much from a virtual classroom as he would in real life and can take the virtual abilities he has online and apply them in the real world. It makes me wonder if this way of learning will replace the importance of training in real life and allow people to assume roles they have no training or abilities for outside of the virtual world.
Brief: Free Media, Free Class & the 2nd & 3rd travelogue
The Second Travelogue
As todays class was burned by ConEd (though 9 of us met and had a good class with some interesting discussion)
- For next week, finish your travelogue. If you are done, focus on the next one, if not, you have an opportunity to further investigate.
- Comment on and rate posts.
The Third Travelogue
while we’re still working on the 2nd, it’s time to start thinking of our 3rd travelogue.
This time we will go on a third travelogue and raise the ante one notch further. While the third travelogue will be similar in approach to the second one, this time you will do more than research, you will become involved, and to a large extent document your own actions within the media environment of your choice. Some of you have started your travelogue with a specific premise and have ended much further from there. This is a good process that we would like to see more in the upcoming travelogue. This time you will navigate your own path through this media environment, attempting through your action, to achieve insights otherwise unavailable to a passive outsider.
For next week:
- Choose a couple of options for a new media environment to explore through your third (more involved) travelogue. Post briefly about your ideas so we might help you decide.
* I permit working in pairs on this one, but this means the expectations from your shared travelogue will be twice as high as we would expect from you individually. - Post 3 comments (or more) to your fellow students posts.
Next Week’s Class - Free Class
Meaning - you are free from my presence but the class goes on as usual. The agenda for next week is:
- Required viewing: Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture†presentation
- Recommended reading: Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture†afterword (pp 273-306)
- Discussion of Steal This Film & Taking the You out of YouTube led by Gavriela and of Free Culture / Creative Commons reading / viewing led by Harold and Jakob.
- Selection of a default license to our blog based on discussion in class.
- The first introduction of your 2nd travelogues through the commentator > author procedure.
- Reading together of the brief for the following week which will be published on the blog
Some House Cleaning
- Go through your posts to the blog so far and make sure non of them is filed under the Uncatagorized category. Add tags to your posts for better archiving and make sure your contributions to the blog are satisfactory.
CLASS! COME TO PLESS HALL FOR CLASS
As of right now 3:46 pm, Mushon et al. are in Pless Hall, attempting to find an alternate location for class.
Please come to Pless Hall ASAP, and we will have class, as Mushon is going out of town tonight (and will not be here next week) so we really should meet!
If you get this, please come as soon as you can, and try and tell whoever you know in class!
thanks,
Mushon (via Max)
Interactive Life Installations
With my travel log I’ve tried to show how i/o boards/physical computing has altered our relationship with computers in particular environments, particularly in art environments. A microcontroller like the Make controller and a program like Max/msp enable us to interact with computers and electronic devices in new and unusual ways. The technology has changed the way we view and interact with art environments and it is also being used to change how we interact with our daily environments. Jonathan Oxer, technical director if Internet Vision Technologies, presented a tutorial called Hardware / Software Hacking: Joining Second Life to the Real World at the January Linux conference in Melbourne, Australia. In an interview with Computerworld Oxer talks about how he has developed a system of linking real world physical objects to their virtual Secondlife counterparts using an Arduino board.
” in the (Linux.con.au) tutorial I just finished one of the demonstrations that I did as a proof of concept was to connect an RFID reader that would typically be used for building access control or something like that. Upon reading the correct tag - in this case the one in my arm - it sends a signal into the computer, across the Internet and into the Second Life environment to trigger an event. In this case it was using a physical RFID card and reader to unlock a virtual door, and it can go the other way as well. The other demonstration that I used was to create some buttons inside Second Life. They are virtual buttons that you click while you are in the Second Life environment and that sends a signal that connects out to a Web server which was running a special little piece of code that then connected to a physical device, in this case I used a fan, and you could turn it on or off. So that means that from inside the virtual world you can turn on or off devices in the physical world, so we have this bi-directional communication.”
Oxer has also modified objects in his own home to be controlled with software. In one example he explains how he hacked his physical mailbox, using a simple magnetic switch that detects when the door has been opened, to trigger an event that notifies him by email that he has physical mail. He even went further (just to prove a point) by having the “the system trigger an event which fires an email into an object in Second Life which creates a virtual representation of an email of a mail. ”
He goes on to explain future software controlled environment modifications using a centralized device.
“Just recently I started putting together a more centralized control interface for it using a Web interface, and this partly came about because of seeing the iPod Touch from Apple. It’s basically a small device, very slim with a large display and a built-in Web browser. And it has wireless connectivity so you can connect to a standard Wi-Fi network which I thought was perfect, because what that means is all I have to do is create a Web interface to trigger these software events and I can have virtual buttons that I could control from anything with a Web browser.
That means that something like an iPod Touch can suddenly become a touch sensitive remote control for everything in your house - all you have to do is log it into your wireless network, point it at a Web server running on a machine in the house, and you can have a system that allows you, for example, to navigate to a particular room and control lights or heating, or open and close electric curtains all through one little touch interface. ”
Hardware hacking has become a lot more popular in recent years. One of the reason Oxer indicates is that toolkits (like the Make controller and the Arduino board) have become a lot more accessible and compatible open source software have made a lot more experimentation possible. The Arduino board is a good example because it is a hardware platform that is open source not just in the software but in the hardware as well. It seems that we have just touched the surface of computer mediated interaction and the implication/potentials it has to drastically influence our relationship to our environment and the objects in it. With the growing popularity of physical computing we can definitely expect to see more new and creative ways of interacting with computer controlled environments.
Uh Oh…
I just got this email, I’m sure everyone else got it too:
There was an electrical fire in our classroom building at 25 West 4th Street
this morning, and the building has been closed. All classes have been cancelled
for today and this evening. Please go to the NYU website for additional
information at http://www.nyu.edu/
What’s the deal with class today, any alternate plans?
What is a Cluebot?
If you read my last concluding post, I discovered a little thing called a Cluebot when I attempted to spam on a south park wikipedia article. Just wanted to quickly describe what a cluebot is and how it helps prevent spam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CLUEBOT
In relevence to my spamming attempt, this is what basically happened:
“Scoring system
For pages which have had a lot of text added in the last change, the bot will score the additions based on this list, and then score the removals on the inverse of that list. If the overall score is greater than -100, the bot sees the edit as constructive and does nothing, if it scores less than -100, the bot sees it as destructive, reports it and possibly reverts it.”
If you click “this list,” you will reach a page of code that contains a bunch of vulgar words that each have a set amount of points. If the score is more than 100 points, the cluebot will automatically revert the page (within a second). It’s way more complicated that what I am saying here. The page is basically a new language for only the cluebot to understand.
The cluebot, also, has the ability to report open proxies found on vandalizing IP addresses.
If a page has been vandalized more than 30 times in 48 hours, it will request an admin, who also has the option of turning the cluebot in case it malfunctions.
I tried to find a video of a similar example of something like this occuring, but here’s an article instead about Steven Colbert and the Elephant incident:
(his account named stevencolbert was banned from using Wikipedia since)
Just thought this was interesting, if you go to the elephant article today and look at its history you will also notice that people are still vandalizing it thanks to Steven Colbert.
Steal This Film & the Future of GoogTube
In the documentary Steal This Film, a variety of talking heads, mostly web 2.0 site founders and (new) media scholars, discuss the significance of file-sharing and its supposed threat to the established media industries.
WE’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE
The film begins by explaining that historically there new technologies have always provoked strong resistance from the dominant industries that stand to be undermined. When the printing press was developed and the everyman became able to produce and disseminate his thoughts, the monarchies and churches of Europe railed against it as the work of the devil because it took away their ability to control knowledge and information, and therefore, their power. Fast forward to the 1970s, when network television stations rallied against cable because they thought it too was piracy, along with the VCR.
YOU CAN’T STOP THE BEAT
So the current conflict over p2p technology is harldy new, but it has elicited an unprecedented reaction from the establishment, which is seeking criminal rather than civil recourse for piracy. But can they really shut down file sharing by suing a few big guns like Napster and Kazaa and going after individual users? The one speaker the doc features from the MPAA admits that they will “never” be able to stop p2p, but they hope to slow it down and find a way to return control to the producers of the material being shared online.
The doc goes on to explain that there are 2 primary reasons that p2p is unstoppable. First, with the development of network computers in the late 50s-early 60s, computers became decentralized. The internet is simply a global expansion of this decentralized network whose function is contingent on the reproduction of data, such that it’s impossible to simply go and shut down one central computer. You’d essentially have to go and cut every single wire. As one commentator put it, “in fighting file sharing, the entertainment industry is fighting the fundamental structure of the internet.” Second, sharing is a fundamental human urge. We are social beings who seek to create and partake in communities.
My Journey Through Video Chatting
I began my voyage as a means to look deeper into video chatting and how it ultimately can influence or have an emotional impact on our relationships. Through the past couple weeks I have explored different portals and outlets for people to stay ‘connected’ and talk amongst family and friends all around the world. As we plow forward into the closing decade of the new millenum the name of the game has not changed- communication is what drives this global market. More and more we are becoming a globalized, miniature world and why not reap its benifts! In order to determine how video chatting really can be emotionally charged I went ahead and asked my cousin a few questions about its appeal and advantages. When I asked my cousin shai what he thought about video chatting and its advantages- he said this: “I think it is great it keeps us in touch like we never have before, for example you and I. I think it is at a middle place where it can pick up and be big or just follow along all the other technologies in the industry.” (Although I put him in quotes I tried my best to get it word for word, + he is not American.)
I then asked my parents who are not the most computer savvy folks what they thought of video chat as a means to keep in touch. Basically, the whole idea freaked them out - they did not like the idea of people in their ‘bedrooms.’ Which is a point worth mentioning, when we video chat it is usually in a personal space of some sort, such as a bedroom or house- it can often feel intrusive when people just pop up on your screen. I read an article about a company based here in America called OoVoo that is built on the idea of video chatting as a means to increase relationships and keep in touch.
I am constantly video chatting with friends and family and I find it very appeasing. To play the devils advocate a bit, one can argue that video chat can lead to less physical interaction- or that it devalues face-to face interactions and could, potentially, threaten that how we see one another in the flesh. Although this is a bit far fetched I have heard the claim. There are hundreds of sights and services aimed at encouraging video chatting- but for now it seems instant messaging is the preferred method.
Jobx, is a new company offering clips of candidates for possible employers. just another example of how this technology is being used abroad.
My Night with Anonymous
My attempts to get to know Anonymous met with difficulty, but some small success.
Wikipedia… Free?
In my research I’ve hypothesized that it would be possible for people to potentially make money off of wikipedia by posting their own links as resources for an article. Of course, after growing use of admins controlling the content on wikipedia and of course the use of nofollow links has done a noticeable job of preventing this. After listening to several opinions I could gather some many believe that reputable sources (link) should be noted on pages since people do a job of posting them. After the nofollow link, many people were enraged that they couldn’t follow the link they wished to “promote” perhaps. This leaves the question, why do or why would people post on wikipedia? Was it because they could post their links for pageranks?
Since the idea of Wikipedia is to have a free source for everyone, then its user would understand they shouldn’t advertise their link. However, since it’s a free source, shouldn’t the people have the right to do so as they please? But then would there be a limit to how much garbage would be found in Wikipedia?
This, of course, will always remain one of few reasons why Wikipedia cannot be used as a source in a college essay.
Using that argument however, shouldn’t ALL links used in Wikipedia use nofollow? It may be impossible for all users to comply and of course admins to cover all ground and of course adding a “Did you forget to nofollow?” might violate the meaning of wikipedia.
In the case of people getting paid to contribute “accurate” information on wikipedia, yes there is evidence that shows that companies are willing to pay to defend something they believe in.
A new article I ran into about a German government agency funding accurate articles brings up the issue of experts getting paid to, well, basically deal with other Wikipedians and also sums up the argument in an interesting paradox:
“Try to make Wikipedia 100% perfect, and you’ll need to remove the “edit†button… a point at which the system becomes very far from perfect, very soon.”
I would suggest that in order to post anything on Wikipedia, you have to have an account, and if you spam, your name will be banned and if your ip address continues to spam with new names, then an IP address could be suspended for the time to prevent spam. This process is only implemented partially. You don’t need a username to edit on most articles, however for certain articles that are subject to abuse because of its editing history (say it’s info on a upcoming movie), you do need a name. I have experimented with this by purposely spamming an article….
Here’s the evidence of my erasing approximately 1/3 of the south park article and replacing it with “poop shit”
Of course, my user page got a nice little message that claimed my post was an act of vandalism and something called “Cluebot” automatically reverted it.
Sounds like Wikipedia has some new tricks up their sleeve.
I will have to do some further research on Cluebots I suppose.
