Audio Editing

Well, the projects are in full swing. I chose audio editing because I knew the least about it, I thought it would be a challenge, and it has been. I am learning a lot though and I still don't know all the nuts and bolts of my program. I look forward to everyone's presentations over the next 2 weeks or so. Good luck everyone!

What would Stelarc do?

I ran across this story about a Chinese baby who had a third arm removed and thought to myself, "Stelarc is probably pissed." Here, this child had a chance to be a true natural born cyborg, but the third arm was removed. While its not clear if the arm could be moved at all, it is still a baffling concept. I was adamantly against the idea of a bionic third arm (like Stelarc has tried) being at all useful when we discussed it in class, but what if you are born with one? What if it works? Should a parent keep the third arm, or risk injury by having it removed? I am kind of on the fence on this one. I think a third arm is pointless and I feel like your brain couldn't keep up with doing three things with three different arms, but at the same time, unnecessary surgery on a baby is just that, unnecessary. What do you think?

Make sure you check out the video on that link, it is pretty wicked.

Lost generation?

Isn't it funny how life works? I walked out of our discussion in English about iPod culture and how our generation seems to be lost, withholding itself from society. Instantly, I was literally seeing every bit of our discussion with my own eyes as I walked up Bascom Hill. Each student looked as though they thought the iPod they had seemingly surgically attached to their ears somehow could save them from the "treacherous" hill they were scaling, make it less grueling. Then, I sat down for my next class and the kid next to me has "We Didn't Start the Fire" blaring so loud I had flashbacks to being at Lambeau Field during an F-18 flyover. Finally, I come home to an email from my mom with the following video. Is our generation lost? Are our morals in trouble? I don't think so. I admit, I am guilty of using the iPod on the bus as a "barrier" of sorts. It is comforting and relaxing, making the bus ride less awkward. While the culture of our generation has changed, humans have not changed, they still desire to be happy and, for the most part, do what is morally right. Aristotle once said, "Different men seek happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life." Of course, he also said "The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men," so who knows how much we can take from him.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2009 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

14. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING AT YOURSELF!

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This message was recently emailed to me and I thought it pertained to our arguments of last week and this week. I have to admit. I did or have done everything on this list. However, is this such a bad thing? Is the sudden boom of technology in our lives our doom? To put it bluntly, no, it is not. As I wrote about last week, the recent trends of society in a world as advanced as ours is nothing new. Carving on stone, led to ink, which led to pencils, which eventually lead to word processing on typewriters and then computers. Technology evolves, it isn't created. This relates to the readings for today from Thomas Kuhn. Almost every invention or change in theory was the result of a crises in the old way of doing something. Copernicus' theory from Ptolemy is one example he uses. In fact, Isaac Newton once said, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." This means that all of his accomplishments were because of the work of those who preceded him. You need to look beyond your own scope of thoughts, prejudices, opinions, and beliefs. Only when embracing the findings of others will one be able to stretch the limits of all possibilities The technological advances of today are products of the hard work of many before us. But remember, these advances will undoubtedly lead to new theories and inventions.

Computers and Cell Phones: The End of Human Civilization?

In English class today, we discussed the issue of literacy and communication technologies. In "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies," Dennis Baron argues that the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies. He goes on to say that with each invention of a new technology, there are always people that believe the dependence on them will be the end of human civilization as we know it.

In the olden days, people thought that the invention of writing would be the demise of communication. Then, with the invention of the pencil, people thought the same thing. Same with the telephone and the computer. It is a recurring theme throughout the history of human civilization. Now, people worry that cell phones and texting will be our demise.

I have seen this belief in my own life. My dad refused to get our family cell phones until I got to college because he thought they weren't useful enough for how much you paid for them. Man, that seems outrageous now. I find myself to be guilty of this belief in some regard with texting. I still to this day have never texted anyone in my life. I know, I know, you are asking "How is that possible?" Well, I simply have texting blocked on my cell phone so I cannot send or receive them; my view is that if it isn't important enough for a phone conversation, then it simply isn't important. That, and I don't want to pay for it. In time, I am sure I will accept the thought of texting, much like Dr. Cox from Scrubs. I will most likely say to myself, "How did I not text? That was outrageous."

Who knows what the next invention will be, but don't be scared for society's future yet. Cell phones are not going to be the end of our society. They are not monsters, or are they.....

Here we go...

Hi all,

My name is Alex and I am creating this blog for my English class. I am a pre-pharmacy student in Madison, with a passion for helping people. So here it is, my first attempt at creating a blog. My blog experience has been limited to commenting on sports related topics on espn.com, which I do fairly frequently. I hope to write over the next few months about my English 201 class and related topics. I am very interested in the use of technology in every day life, especially in science and sports, so hopefully I can convey some interesting ideas and opinions about these topics. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my blogging.