A Supposed "Intellectually Stimulating" Blog

English 1101

2009-12-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

Crime and the Internet

2009-11-22T22:18:00.001-08:00

The Formation of Virtual Environments

2009-11-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

Many places that we interact online that were not already built into the Internet when we first started to explore the newly created World Wide web. These websites that have forums and chat functions built in were created after the need for them. Everything created has always come as a result of someone demanding it. As in Webb's article, our website is built as a result of the need and academic value of the Georgia Tech community.

In Webb's article, "Avatar Culture", Webb describes a place of cultural value with the creation of virtual environments. "...issues of cultural value and its formation within virtual worlds. It is noticeable in a variety of critical commentaries how digital technologies are often cut by the knife of value,"(Webb 2) describes the fact that the websites that are out there today are the product of people understanding that there needed to be a place where people can meet and interact virtually, which is the basis of our final project. By combining a site like T-Square, OSCAR, Buzzport, and other Tech-related sites, we are drawing in more and more of the Tech community together in a place where they can interact on a level that is both easy and convenient for all. A lot of people in the Tech community, myself and many others in the group as well, felt that there were no places online for there to conduct meetings effectively in groups or other places easily. Thus, the creation of our final project will fulfill that need. Websites like these, like Webb said, fulfill a need and have a cultural value that is needed and used to create a virtual environment. Yes, there are a lot of sites that are part of the Tech community that provide this kind of service. However, this service is like an aggregate piece of technology that takes all of the fragmented pieces of the community and effectively attaches them to one another to form one large conglomerate of a community.

Conformity v. Individuality

2009-11-01T15:52:00.001-08:00

Hotel Rwanda

2009-10-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

The Integration of Technology into Society

2009-10-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

Technology has always had a part in shaping community. Everything from cars to telephones, to now the internet and computers have changed how society has functioned, form the individuals to the communities they act as. A proposed new technology that would have an immediate impact on the community it would be introduced it to is massive free public wi-fi internet.

In urban environments, many of the ways that divide social classes is the amount of wealth that each individual has. Now the almost everything is on the internet, there is one thing that is barring you from accessing the internet, a stable connection. The only place that anyone can access the internet is either at a public wi-fi spot, namely the library, or at home, where the other wi-fi spots are pay-as-you-go. By providing free public internet, everyone in the community, even those who may or may not have a home address or enough money to afford the skyrocketing prices of internet access by the large phone companies. This will encourage more people to use the internet for job hunting, and e-commerce, by the fact that they no longer have to spend a sizeable chunk of their paycheck on the internet access. The bar to access the internet will be much lower, and make it easier to move everything from physical media to digital media, therefore making all records online and more secure. In addition, the new introduction to the low cost netbooks, cut down versions of notebooks specifically designed for internet access, will make it even easier to integrate the internet into the community.

Free public wi-fi will make the internet seem just like the library, a wealth of knowledge easily, and basically free, to access at our own will. This will encourage many in the community to use the internet not only as a way to research, but also to communicate, because everyone will be online.

Community Service in the Community

2009-10-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sports - A Community Builder or Destroyer?

2009-09-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Sports are a common thread for many people to connect on. By going to a sporting event, you are acknowledging the fact that you like the team or sport that you are attending. Sure, there are some people who attend sporting events that are not really fans of the game or the the players. Yet, even with the people who do not invest emotional value into the game, everyone is interacting with each other, using the game as a conduit to communicate through. Attendees of sports events are part of a community, due to their close social interaction which can shed light on different social qualities that they might have.

One example of this was my attendance of the Georgia Tech v. Clemson football game. Everyone was at the game. There were a lot of people who absolutely loved the game and the players, who have season tickets, so on and so forth. In addition, there were the fans that are mildly excited normally of sports in general, and can appreciate all sports, which is the category that I fall into. Also, there were the people who have no idea what football is, and they attended the game just to be a part of the whiteout game. Right there, are a few key examples of the community aspect. People are actively trying to be in the community, by voluntarily attending the game, and the fans of all kinds eagerly accepted them. The sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves was a key concept that was prevalent in the whiteout game. Also, there was a way for all of the fans to communicate, through the football game. By the way different fans cheered displayed the level of commitment and emotional investment they made in the game, thereby showing others and connecting on different levels through the yelling and cheering and how they heckled the opposing sides. All of the fans showed a common goal, which was to beat Clemson, and this common thread, by working together and being led by cheerleaders, willed Georgia Tech to victory. These interactions by meeting people to achieve a common goal and by investing a certain amount of emotion voluntarily constitute a community.

The Degradation of Real Life Communities

2009-09-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

The internet. We use it everyday, for everything from getting up to the second breaking news to searching for recipes for Thanksgiving. The near-ubiquitous nature of the internet makes the world we live in so much smaller than it physically is. Video chats and e-mail make intercontinental correspondence make what used to be day, even month, long journeys almost instantaneous. As these protocols become more and more widely accepted by society, what happens when someone decides that it is easier to call in to the office for a meeting from home, instead of driving 15 minutes to the office? What if town hall meetings were now held on online forums? The internet is slowly destroying real life communities due to the impersonal nature and, to a certain extent, the anonymity available on the internet.

Take for example the first time that class was held online instead of going to class. All of us has a working, real life relationship between each other and as a class as a whole, a real life "community" of sorts. Yet, when we met online, the conversation was dominated by a few, while others had next to no input within the discussion. Despite the fact that similar class discussion in the classroom mirror the discussion online, there was, to a certain extent, some sort of mode to keep everyone engaged in the discussion. Whereas online, there was nothing keeping some people held accountable for not engaging in the conversation. While the few who willingly participated felt like the community was growing as a whole, everyone else was either not paying attention or not even there to contribute to the discussion. This is slowly destroying the relationships that each student has with the others in the class because what was said in the online discussions could be brought into the class discussions and the ones who did not pay attention could be lost and later become lethargic upon having to go back and get up to speed in the conversation. Having everyone in class and having them participate helps the community as a whole grow, where the internet has no mechanism to push the community along as a whole.

The internet is killing off real life communities. Many people use Facebook and Myspace to keep in touch, but there is no substitute for a face to face physical meeting.

Passing Judgment on Tech

2009-08-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

What sort of qualities define a community? Is it a large group of people that unite under a single banner to achieve a goal? Or maybe it is just a circumstantial coincidence that a certain amount of people who just happen to be fighting for a more selfish end? What if a community is just a facade for others to take advantage of those not as capable in the group to use at their own disposal?

As the different discussions have progressed along, both in small groups and class discussions, as well as the commentary provided by the various readings from Graham Day and M. Scott Peck, one consensus, or at least an observation, that seems to be appearing is the fact that a community is a place where a group of people come together, under a common goal, and sacrifice parts of themselves for their participation in something larger than themselves. Sure, there are discrepancies between the size of this group, and maybe the fact that they have a like-mindedness towards the goal, and even the level of commitment that each has towards the group. But what is to say that everyone in this "community" has a benevolent mindset towards the others in the community? Who's to say that some in the group will not "throw" some less "useful" of the group "under the bus" or break some pre-existing rules in order to achieve their goals and possibly ruin everything else for their own ideals?

How does one associate a "community" versus a "group"? Are all of the freshmen at Tech a "community", when the only thing that many can relate to one another is that they have the same classes or are going to the same school, maybe passing by each other on the way to classes? What about the 200+ people who sit in on lectures of various math or chemistry or physics classes? It is pretty clear that everyone who is taking these classes want to at least pass them, if not excel. However, how many of them will stop and consider the honor code and compromise the integrity of not only their work, but also the work of the person they are copying off of during that physics test worth 20% of their grade, after a night of Red Bulls and cramming, to pass that test? Also, how many of those students will allow this to happen? In a hypothetical situation in which we are all in a community, does that mean that the other students should one another copy off of each other? As a community of freshmen, in a certain class in which our common goal is to pass the class, is this ok? What is wrong with this picture? Or even looking at this as a larger picture, does the means justify the end result? If Tech decided to not sell tickets to the UGA fans at the rivalry game, to gain the ultimate advantage, would that be ok? It would be part of the "community goal" of beating UGA that is such a large part of the Tech spirit and culture. Would anyone in the community speak up and say, "Hey, this is not right. We should do something about it." when it is in their best interest to beat UGA as well. In this light, Tech is not a community, and more like an association of students, faculty, and staff who learn and teach and push for the intellectual envelope, not a group that would do whatever it takes to push the community and its common ideals to fruition.