Author Archives: irvghady

After reading the articles, I was able to reminisce about software such as Napster. I know that its popularity was huge but it steadily declined. This brought me to check out the new Napster. I found that it has stayed alive and managed to partner with Best Buy to further its reach. The different membership options seem very attractive for the non-savy music addict. Five to seven dollars a month doesn’t seem like much right? It places the top billboard songs into a nice organizable category and has a simple functionality to listen online or to download. I can see however that they have placed a limit on direct downloads by only giving from 5 to 7 “Mp3 credits” per month.

Napster has evolved and the issues that were so big with the bands such as Metallica came to shape it. I could see the struggle between fighting for the customer but also fighting for the company’s safety.

Here’s a funny comic i found by the way.

Seeing the creation of this encyclopedia was really interesting. First off, kudos to Wales for the practicality that he added with the wiki, it was definitely the feature that made it big. REALLY BIG. (That’s what she said.. haha. sorry, It’s late and that just came to mind). As i was saying, wikipedia and its inclusiveness is really convenient, the ad free feature only adds to it. Schiff did a great job in describing the purpose of the site and reasons for creation. I liked the referral to Henry Ford and how Wikipedia, similar to Ford, would modernize the distribution of knowledge. I was also astounded to see that there are “Wikimanias” for the contributors of the encyclopedia.
All in all though, this open source tool claims fame for that sole reason. In Poe’s article, I liked the line that described Larry’s great contribution. “He built it, and he left it”.

Ahh, what a website, bravo I say.

It never occurred to me how shielded journalists or authors of published material have been. It’s true that when we find errors or something a bit off topic in a textbook we just murmur to ourselves in disbelief but we never have that instant communication with the author. Newspapers have a sort of a bureaucracy when it comes to letters to the editor that have to go through a tedious process before they are published. All in all, the authors are given criticisms but in a very sugarcoated and indirect way.
Bloggers, on the other hand, are given instant feedback. Sullivan said that the comments are often more brutal than any editor. I understand that this instant feedback can be helpful but also very hurtful if taken the wrong way.

I like what professor Fitzpatrick has done with her upcoming book Planned Obsolescence. Before being published, it has been released for readers to critique and so I can see how this dialogue between the reader and author can help in the creation of a masterpiece.

http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/plannedobsolescence/

When I read Shirky’s piece, I was a bit sad to see how the fourteen year old child tried to get his favorite author’s work out there but he was in fact hurting his business. It is very similar to our music artists of today and how when we get a really good music album we sometimes share it without thinking that we are in fact hurting our favorite group or artist.

I never realized the big limitations we face with physical space. Sure I knew that Blockbuster threw away really old films to make room for the new releases but I never thought about how it only caters to the mainstream. Netflix, just like amazon, has the recommendation system and people discover movies that they would have never discovered. It is crazy to think that we have such limits. My friend, who is into bollywood films, had explained to me that big artists in India release hundreds of films per year and yet here in the U.S. the big artists only have a few releases.

I can definitely say that thanks to Netflix, Pandora, and Amazon, I have discovered a lot of of interesting movies, music, and books that I would have not found on the shelves of the profit worrying shops and stores.

After looking at the digital form of Agrippa and reading about how it was packaged and distributed, I found it very unique. I could see why it would cost so much money and had so much value given to it, the whole handmade aspect of the tangible object adds to it’s splendor. After reading the Text Messaging passage, I had to agree that text scholars don’t study the past too much but rather worry about the present.

This is a very interesting set of questions about the internet. I thought it related well to our class.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNXWbSNDT5Q[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD8OcPGScRU[/youtube]

After  reading, “Cybertyping and the Work of Race in the Age of Digital Reproduction”, I definitely thought more in depth about the video game industry and diversity as a whole in cyberspace. I went to a retreat this weekend where we talked a lot aboout a post racial society and how by having a black president it might seem like race is no longer an issue but it IS. We now have cybertypes as well as stereotypes. I remember watching that video in class about anonymity and how at first, the internet seemed to be a place for “minds” to collaborate without “race” or “gender”. It was a nice idea, but it was soon shattered.

I could definitely tell that the afternoon text was a little older than what we are used to these days. I found it amusing to be able to expand info and read about every single word in the text itself. Right off the bat however I felt that there was just too much to click, too many paths to take. Maybe I am just used to linearity and a very structured form of reading and cannot accept change but regardless, it was still a bit confusing. I believe we had a discussion in class where we addressed this issue of having EVERYTHING be a link. Although it might seem optimum it can most definitely have some sort of confusion to it.

In Nakamura’s “Cybertying and the Work of Race in the Age of Digital Reproduction”, I found that I agree with some of the arguments concerning the role the internet plays in regards to race and society. I found it interesting to think that the internet could redress societal inequalities. I slightly disagreed however because in many ways, the best forms of communication or software on the net require some sort of payment and so it still limits access to certain aspects. Only those with certain income are able to gain access.

In response to the readings in general, I agree with many people that I sometimes judge the caliber of a person just by the way they use text. dO yU knO wuT I mEen?