Group items tagged

Everyone, in the back of his mind, wants to be a star," Hurley asserts for probably the quadrillionth time, "and we provide the audience to make it happen.

Fragmentation has decimated audiences, viewers who do watch are skipping commercials,

What has she found? That the Internet links millions of people in new spaces that are changing the way we think and the way we form our communities. That we are moving from "a modernist culture of calculation toward a postmodernist culture of simulation." That life on the screen permits us to "project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.... Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity." Turkle's own metaphor of windows serves well to introduce the following samplings from her new book. Those boxed-off areas on the screen, Turkle writes, allow us to cycle through cyberspace and real life, over and over. Windows allow us to be in several contexts at the same time - in a MUD, in a word-processing program, in a chat room, in e-mail. "Windows have become a powerful metaphor for thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system," Turkle writes. "The self is no longer simply playing different roles in different settings at different times. The life practice of windows is that of a decentered self that exists in many worlds, that plays many roles at the same time." Now real life itself may be, as one of Turkle's subjects says, "just one more window."

ender-swapping on MUDs is not a small part of the game action. By some estimates, Habitat, a Japanese MUD, has 1.5 million users. Habitat is a MUD operated for profit. Among the registered members of Habitat, there is a ratio of four real-life men to each real-life woman. But inside the MUD the ratio is only three male characters to one female character. In other words, a significant number of players, many tens of thousands of them, are virtually cross-dressing.

G ender >

As an upcoming Teacher, I will teach in the inner-city school system. My students will learn that regardless of what society labels the city they come from and how society expects them to be just another statistic of “the hood”, they are someone and they will be someone successful if they so choose. I will give them support, care, and a chance to see themselves as people and NOT just another statistic or number among the uneducated. I will share with them my willingness to help them achieve despite of the surroundings and experiences - if they were negative.

I enjoyed the article “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud. It was entertaining, funny, a little complicated, but true. I agree that “we” do program ourselves to believe that a representational symbol is the actual object or person. Take a look at how street signs have an affect on us. If the word Yield was in the red octagon with white letters, we would STOP instead of Yield. Why? Because we would associate the symbol and not read the sign. Think about it!! We are so used to seeing the red octagon as STOP that we don’t read the signs, we just see them. It would be the same as taking a minute to comprehend what we are actually seeing versus what the word says when we have to read the words red, blue, green, yellow out loud. It will be difficult. If we took more time to examine, read, and process information then our lives would be much smoother to live.