7.2: Communication...friend or foe?

For rural areas, Wi-Fi's expansion will open the world's door and offer opportunities to collaborate, educate and develop economic sustainability. However, it also welcomes the risk of dependence, culture erasure and the loss of national autonomy. It's a fine line that communication scholars are watching carefully.

One concern has been whether local communities could afford, let alone profit from, communication infrastructure. According to Best, Wi-Fi might alleviate those concerns by providing grass-root networks that directly support local areas.

It's inevitable that rural areas will eventually be connected to the rest of the world, but will it open the door to economic prosperity for the third world or be the beginning of a new age of imperialism?

For communication scholars, Wi-Fi will provide a perfect opportunity to study the effects of communication and connection in small areas previously isolated from the rest of the world.

7.1: Good Source to Study

Why wouldn't communication scholars study the open source movement? By freeing up the source code and redistribution rights, software will evolve at an unprecedented pace. According to the GNU Manifesto, open source software will avoid "wasteful duplication of system programming" and efforts will be redirected to "advancing the state of the art." The advancement and hurried evolution of software shouldn't be ignored.

If open source technology penetrates the commercial market, there will be serious implications across the board. It would be irresponsible for the academic community not to study its progress and the pro's and con's of its adoption.

6.2: Democracy, it ain't perfect!

The truth is, I don't expect democracy to be perfect but I do expect it to be somewhat reasonable. It is our right to vote and be represented but we do not have the right to be coddled through the process. If you think voting is hard, do your homework. Or better yet, let's have voter education classes. Unfortunately, no one will go because it's easier to complain after it's all said and done than to be proactive.

Do remember taking the SATs? The rules were simple: Use a No. 2 pencil to fill in the circle completely but not outside the lines. If you don't, your answer will not be recorded. The lesson, be mindful and cautious as you record your answers. Why isn't voting similar? "A hurried checkmark...or an X that is obviously intended to be in a particular box, may under these rules, be discounted!" Your vote shouldn't have to be subjective. I guess my question is this, why do we take voting less than serious; should it be something we hurry through?

6.1 Less is more

Why are we spending millions and millions of tax dollars on electronic voting when no one has proven that it's more secure or easier to use than simpler, cheaper methods? And why can't we standardize one voting method across the board?

These articles prove to me, once again, that government wastes so much time and energy that it's appalling. Instead of properly testing different factors in voting, i.e. methods, machines, ballot design, etc., politicians jump the gun and never confirm actual voting "best practices".

If we looked at voting economically, standardization across all 50 states would create a larger economy of scale lowering costs across the board. If we are willing to spend millions of dollars on faulty systems, it would seem logical that we could find the money to create a better system and properly test it. Our "chauvinism" is at risk if we continue to vote the way we do.

5.2: Machines Like Us

According to Affect and Machine Design, "Animals have developed sophisticated mechanisms for surviving in an unpredictable, dynamic world, coupling the appraisals and evaluations of affect...the result is increased robustness and error tolerance." Why would we want to create machines to act like humans? Wasn't the point to create systems complimenting our shortcomings not adding to them? Affect is the reason we are not logical, timely or accurate. I don't know that I want an anxious computer or one that has the capacity to lie to me.

5.1: Compliments of Technology

Norman's Being Analog does a great job of distinguishing between analog beings and digital technology but he offers no firm solutions to the man vs. machine dilemma. He successfully points out what is wrong with current systems, " most of today's machines...force people to use them on their terms, terms that are antithetical to the way people work and think," but he doesn't detail additional resolutions other than, "[Our difference] is useful only if the machine adapts itself to human requirements." If we adapted computers to human requirements, would technology stop being complimentary?

4.1: If you got it, let me have it.

Technostress. Is this for real? People are stressed out by having too much information? Can there be such a thing?

I believe it was Sir Frances Bacon that said, "Knowledge is Power," and I can only imagine what he would have to say about "technostress." I, too, was blown away by the amount of information that is going up on the web daily but do not find myself wading in stress trying to access it. In fact, I think we need more information, specifically focusing on ways to navigate the system to efficiently and effectively find what we need. Volume isn't the problem, it's accuracy.

Now that every amateur writer has access to global publishing, including this blog, we find the marketplace of ideas littered with garbage (my interpretation of garbage is completely subjective). Nelson offers a list of tools for better searching that, unfortunately, is outdated. I would be interested in learning what is currently available so I can become an empowered ICT user rather than being held "hostage" by the World Wide Web.

In addition, I am curious about the "Deep Web" and am hoping for more information.

Blog 3.1: The Message May Have Been Lost

After wading through McLuhan's The Medium is the Message, I am still unclear if I ever got the message. For me, the "aha" I expected early on occurred in the last paragraph of the last page, "No one can shield himself from such an influence."

McLuhan believes that all media, including the content of that media, is always another medium and that the medium is the actual message, because it "shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action." So essentially, we are a product of our media technology rather than the "content" as traditionally understood.

My basic understanding of McLuhan's point is that the United States and other societies based on typographic constructs are on the verge of a cultural clash with electric technology but remain unaware due to conventional rationale that "content" is the significant force to be reckoned with.

While I think it is important to look at the channels in which messages are being delivered, I can't quite get on board with the notion that the vehicle for the message holds the greater significance. If the electric light's message depends on what it lights, isn't the light's subject the greater influence on the message?

Blog 3.2: Creating Our Own Realities

Honestly, what I see as the greatest difference in old and new medias is their degree in flexibility. As technology advances, so does our ability to program, change, delete and crop the world around us. We can now fake giant throngs of people in movies, stimulate conversations in chat rooms and airbrush photos in a magazine. For me it begs the question, what is real anymore?

Granted, there are positive aspects of increased flexibility. We can purchase the precise car we want without stepping foot on a car lot, automatically receive updates for virus software or restore an old photo previously thought of as ruined. The list goes on and on but I really think the negative aspects of technological advancement will have a serious consequence on the social paramenters of our culture if we don't adequetly address them.