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Pamela Hawks

Seeing Beyond The Mass "Consensual Hallucination." | Media Working Group - 1 views

  • Adam Curtis’ new documentary, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, gives hope that at least some of the world is waking up from the mass hallucination of disembodied information. The documentary, which is subtitled, “The Rise of the Machines,” explores how in the later part of the 20th Century, and the first decade of the 21st, much of the world became organized around the old gnostic fantasy that information or souls can be separated from the constraints of the material world, becoming free to circulate through time and space. This way of seeing the world has always unleashed powerful fantasies of power among the powerful. And it has recently led some to the ludicrous conclusion that, “information wants to be free,” or that human beings are merely meat vehicles for the transport of genetic information through time.
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    Anton... I thought of you when I saw this in the Media Working Group Blog
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    Thanks for that: Curtis really is a provoking force, his 'power of nightmares' is a tour de force. The article says its never been screened in the US, which I find astonishing. I'm about to rewatch "all surrounded..." this weekend to see what it has for my topic for this course. His criticism of the information revolution as deluding the middle class into thinking it is something that is essentially egalitarian and flattening is a good one. I think the economic downturn has done a better job of convincing us of the fact that deep inequality exists, is incresaing and is a bad thing, though. Oh, and @Pamela: I have my bronze masters sabre medal hanging in front of me: I come from a resonably notorious fencing family... you a foilist?
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    But if anyone in the US is curious, you can watch it for free here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/ and here in the Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis-AllWatchedOverByMachinesOfLovingGrace Sounds like a great rainy weekend activity! @Anton -- I actually fence epee -- although it's been a few years. I just like not having to worry about right of way :) My kids are both foilists though, so I have had to get up to scratch on directing a foil bout. Do you still fence??
Carrie Pyne

Mobile Technology and Health Care, From NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins | NIH Medli... - 0 views

  • Mobile health, or mHealth for short, uses mobile technologies for health research and healthcare delivery
  • a mobile optimized Web site, accessible from any platform, including basic flip phones, iPhones, and Androids. That's just one of the concrete ways we are trying to bring medical information to the public.
  • a microscope not much bigger than a quarter that doesn't require a lens and can be connected to a cell phone to transmit high quality images of cells—information that would normally be very hard to acquire. It comes from UCLA and is being tested for its application to assess infectious disease—HIV in this case. It transmits images to a remote computer that can automatically interpret them. It's highly valuable in following the course of infected individuals who are far from the nearest medical center.
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    Mobile technology is already bringing healthcare information to the masses via the MedlinePlus mobile site easily accessed on one's cell phone. More advances on the horizon mean more healthcare access and quicker availability of information.
Ronald Jay Gervacio

How Facebook is ruining sharing - 5 views

  • goal of the initiative is to quantify just about everything you do on Facebook
  • turning out to be really annoying in practice
  • it's killing the possibility of viral hits by generating such an overwhelming flood of mundane shares
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  • Sharing is the key to social networking
  • hurting sharing is a disaster for a social network
  • Sharing and recommendation shouldn't be passive
  • Frictionless sharing via Open Graph recasts Facebook's basic purpose
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    This article discusses about the negative impact of Facebook's Open Graph (frictionless sharing") in the world of social networking. It gets really annoying when someone would share an article/news/video etc, the user would first have to install an app into their profile!
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    RJ, this is a great article. I had noticed those 'trending articles' and spotify things on my facebook page, and I have been avoiding the opt-in's but I wasn't aware of what was going on. This article explains it well.
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    I know right.. me too! I usually have to circumvent the process in order to avoid installing the apps. I would go straight to the website where the news/article is posted instead of clicking the link directly from Facebook.
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    Yes, thank you. I was treating all those "trending articles" like spam. These types of posts have been a recent annoyance with my FB (I've been on since 2007), and I was starting to get the nagging feeling that FB was going to be slowly taken over by information not related to your chosen friends group. I was envisioning having to weed through pages of passive posts to get to your real information. Would this not be the death knell of the service?
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    I'm not a fan of the news sites social readers; most of my network uses the Washington Post one and Yahoo. At first I thought it was cool, but then I got weirded out at the thought of my network being able to "see" what I'm reading at any given time. What if someone made assumptions about me based on what I was reading at any given time? I really wish Google Plus would take off...the only reason I, and I suspect a lot of other people, are holding fast to Facebook is that our friend networks aren't making the switch...and what's the point of being in a social networking site if you're the only person there?
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    I really liked the quote "sharing is the key to social networking" and it shouldn't be passive, but not aggressive either. Oversharing becomes a problem where soon newsfeeds are clogged with a million stories and recommendations. Like others above, I'm immediately turned off when I go to read an article and have to download an app first, it's frustrating when clicking an article becomes a long-winded process. @Meaghan I was also a huge proponent of Google + at first, was one of the only people who originally had it, waited for it to catch popularity, but here it's almost a year later and I still haven't gained any new friends. I wonder what the hesitancy is behind not using Google+. It's interesting to think about the decision and thought processes social media users go through when deciding what forums to use or not use, why do some people actively use Facebook, but not Twitter? I'm guessing theories such as media richness (lean vs rich messages) and other factors come into play, as well as ease of use.
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    I have to say I've never heard of Google +, and have often thought about shutting down my facebook account for good...I wont do Twitter. What does that mean for me as a MLIS major I often thought? Should I be more "plugged in"? I'm becoming nostalgic about old means of communication (letters, books, even phone calls) This is also troubling because I feel that the new open graph is very overwhelming, have have clicked on links and then shut them right back down, because you must enable MORE links, apps, programs, all wanting to get my inforamtion. It's also scary that facebook is becoming a necessity, rather than just a fun social networking site. My old high school depends on it to contact us for reunions, my aunt uses it as her main way of contacting me, and its often the only way I'll ever see those photos my sister took at the beach! We've Created a Monster! Keeping it a simple model would be preferable.
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    Great points Amanda. On the other side, I would say forums like Facebook has allowed us to keep in contact with those we wouldn't normally have access to, or find those we wish to contact but can't find in just the yellow pages. I agree there are times when I wish someone would pick up the phone and just call instead of trying to have a text conversation or email conversation. However in terms of using Facebook and other e-vite sites/modes, sometimes it is the cheapest and easiest mode to send out a mass message i.e. school reunion invite, in as little time and for as little money as possible. Also you can get real-time RSVP, which I'm guessing from the views of the event administrator can be super helpful when trying to get an idea of attendees. I do also feel nostalgic about old means of communication and often wonder how people will communicate in the future, what communication choices they will make, etc.
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    I found Open Graph for the first time writing an report for Library School on my favourite site, Board Game Geek (boradgamegeek.com). It's kinda worrying, in the same way thrid party cookies worry me: it a use of technology that can be used for good that could be so easily subverted. That would make a good project, I reckon.
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    People shouldn't be that surprised that a company that just went public with great fanfare is looking to monetize every single possibility it can. Like Samantha says, Facebook is a great, inexpensive tool for keeping in touch with old friends as well as meeting new friends. Just like with Gmail ads that are based on the contents of the user's emails, there is a price to pay for these 'free' services. As consumers of these services, we all have to decide at what point has the commodification of our private lives gone too far.
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    Brian, I think you really sumed it up when you said "As consumers of these services, we all have to decide at what point has the commodification of our private lives gone too far." This hits home with me because I've been feeling that way lately. Ever since my son was born, and everybody wants pics of him up on facebook, I've been thinking worried, and wondering if it's worth it? How exposed do I want my newborn son to be?
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