During this project i chose to transcribe, Dr. William Seraile interview of his son Aden Seraile. I chose this story  because his story is relatable to me. He was born and raised in Harlem before it was an upcoming neighborhood, whereas myself I grew up in Bed-Stuy which is a popular upcoming neighborhood now but before gentrification it wasn’t an ideal neighborhood to be in. Listening to Aden’s experience, I can remember being that kid in private school near Dumbo in Brooklyn and telling kids where i lived I was judged. Also, in the interview Aden talked about how gentrification has brought the neighborhood back and gave it what it needed.

The interview was executed nicely but the audio had an echo and you could hear other things going on in the background, such as steps being taken, if something was being place down, sneezes. I had to lower down the volume in order to make it easier to listen to because audio levels I guess aren’t properly together (if that makes sense). What i did notice about the transcript was the audio timing and the timing on the transcript didn’t match the other. Also the transcript doesn’t have all the words from the interview and they are cut short.

For this weeks post i chose ” Internet of Women”. This article spoke on how the hashtag MeToo movement started on social media and created on the internet to make a “feminizing” industry. The impact that the one hashtag caused  a fundamental change in the way sexual harassment, a subject that up until now had been treated as almost taboo, could be openly discussed and brought to light. This would not have been possible without the medium of social media.

 

In “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Stephan Carrs argues that our brain is being reprogrammed to not think anymore and google has stole our thought process. Being that this article was written 10 years it resonated with me because although I was reading about how he got extremely distracted when reading long pieces of writing, I could feel myself doing the same things. I would read a paragraph of what Carr was saying and then dismiss it completely and go on my phone or search something up on another tab.

Carr does a good job of illustrating how various technologies throughout human history, like the mechanical clock, have altered the way we perceive and understand the world around us. These examples add a historical authority to his argument and demonstrate that as different technologies are incorporated into societies, they can fundamentally change how humans act and think.

For this weeks post I chose to read “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush. Bush addresses problems that he believes scientists should be paying close attention to. Almost seeing the future in technology he raised the question of how machines can help our thinking process.

For example, “it is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic.” Beyond the logic of the mathematician, lies the application of logic in everyday affairs, ”we may someday click off arguments on a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash register.”

This is the story of how my aunt “murdered” her husband.  Nobody in my  really knows the true version to her husbands disappearance but this is my favorite version.

 

My aunt was a very devoted wife and she was happy to have a husband to take care of. One day she decided to make a special dinner for him being that he would come home from work looking for a hot meal.

Anticipating the time, watching the screen door to see him walk to the roadway. Hearing footsteps on the gravel outside, the jingle of his keys, she hurried to greet her husband at the door. 

Ignoring her  he went to make himself a drink. With his back to her and sitting, he continued to drink and be silent. He couldn’t face to tell her the truth. For months now he thinks their marriage has run its course. He tried to find days and times to express his truth, the truth became harder to tell when they learned she was pregnant. 

 

So he comes out and tells her he wants a divorce and leaving her for another woman. Rumor of that story is the woman was a close friend to my aunt. Even back then who could you trust. 

 

At the moment he his continuing to talk my aunt isn’t hearing anything. Six years of marriage and he decided he wanted it to be over. What about the child they were having? How could he do this? 

 

 

Fast forward 57 years later my aunt never told a soul the real story to what happened to her husband. She would always wink and say with a smile “I’ll never tell”.

 

The visual story I chose was Hobo Lobo of Hamelin. By the far the most hysterical and realistic in a scary way. The live comic strip is a modern day remake of “The Pied Piper” with a mixture of European folktale, political satire, and internet snark in a 3D story box.

This shows the evolution of where story telling is going in the future because when I read this I was fascinated oddly of how the story came to life digitally. What was scary is that this was more engaging than an actual picture book and it shows what books can be or will be in the future. Still I think there is something to consider, would electronic comics be a good genre to include in the electronic literature world?

I was able to navigate at the top , by pressing the numbers, and that gives a floating navigation, that passes where you are going and then goes a bit back, a very nice effect that brings out the 2D depth of the visual aspect. If the numbers navigation not had this effect, you could have missed the very nice animation effects of the piece. The other way of navigation is simply using the arrow keys, you can go back and forwards as you wish.

https://goo.gl/images/xh1LUZ

 

For this weeks article I chose Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing  by  Matthew Kirschenbaum.  His concerns are with how word processing has changed the labor of writing.  By the labor of writing I mean the  physical demands and what Kirschenbaum is noticing is how literary writers have embraced, resisted and interpreted that transformation.   Kirschenbaum describes his bewilderment of various systems from programs designed to run on shared mainframe computers. “The conjoining word “word” with the word processing or processor has at various times been used to denote principles of office management. “(p.xi)

In the Preface he gives a relatable example of how word processing has changed from the time hes been introduce to technology and to now while writing this book on Microsoft word. I found that incredible.

The article i picked for this week on computers was “From Computer Lib/Dream Machine”.  Nelson gives his own views different truths and there needs more discovery in specific knowledge. Nelson also gives good insight on digital storage, which he gives some advantages to things we use like photocopying and multiple storage files.

 

Nelson , Ted. “From Computer Lib/Dream Machine .” Http://Www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/Nmr-21-Nelson.pdf, 1974.

For this weeks post I chose H.A Innis “Empire and Communications” which examines the history of media and its impact. In this case the “media” refers to the earliest time of where papyrus was used and the alphabet of developing societies. “The effective government of large areas depends to be very important extent on the efficiency of tradition” (Innis, chp.3). Focusing on how media came from oral history, to the development of traditional writing to printing press. When discussing the alphabet, he talks about the relationship between those who are at the top of civilization and those who are the bottom. He argues that multiple gain of knowledge was developed at the top only to be challenged and overthrown by new ideas that take shape for those who are considered at the bottom.

Innis, H.A. “EMPIRE AND COMMUNICATIONS.” Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada, by J. Harold Putman, www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/innis-empire/innis-empire-00-h.html#III.