Ah hell people, why DIDN'T you take the blue pill?

The Matrix changed the way that sci-fi movies were viewed in the US. Before the Matrix they were thought of as cheesy time-wasters that only appealed to pizza-faced teenagers in high school. But, withe the release of The Matrix, sci-fi movies have become more socially acceptable (like they were in the late 70s with Star Wars and Alien). The Matrix played on on the idea of virtual reality -- hence the whole people plugged into a big computer program thing -- and the irony that our conceived, virtual world(s) would eventually become our "real world."

This idea is not new to sci-fi. Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451 (published in 1953) brushed on the idea of simulated entertainment with the lead character's wife being a junkie with an entire virtual family. Subsequent movies have since made virtual reality a more believable idea. Movies and shows such as Ghost in the Shell (also a TV show), The Island, Total Recall, Star Trek (through use of the holodeck) and The Thirteenth Floor (novel and movie) all use virtual reality in some way or the other -- usually in a negative light. Games and software (like Second Life), however, appear to be accelerating the idea and social acceptance of virtual reality as a way of life.

Originally, "virtual worlds" were places were young people used avatars to fight off monsters in fantasy lands. Games like World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Guild Wars are all examples of this older form of "virtual playing." Now, a new idea is starting to sweep the online community: "virtual living." Second Life allows it users to actually manage land, businesses and to an extent, people (like the owner's of clubs who allow "dirty" dancing). Also, Second Life allows you to generate actual money from the virtual money used in the game world. This is quite a revolutionizing and exciting concept. I personally love the idea of virtual reality because it has the potential to save us from ourselves. We could potentially be uploaded into a computer network that would simulate a paradise where there is no war or environmental degradation. People could have unlimited life (so long as the hardware is maintained), land, money, etc.

The "ever-knowing" architect in The Matrix Reloaded stated that a virtual paradise would never be accepted by our flawed, mammalian brains but let's be serious here. If you can get killed in the Matrix and the damage that you experience in the "virtual world" can harm your "real body" then I would imagine that we could accept a virtual paradise.

Blogging Can Be Conducive to a Gross Example of Modernism

So I'm currently sitting here in our "stunning" and "alluring" library at AU and I've come to a few realizations. One, this library feels like some medieval fortress crossed with a government bunker mixed with a 70s style office interior. The library could probably survive a direct impact from a meteor or an asteroid. This is where the library gets its bunker heritage. As for its medieval heritage all you have to do is look at the arrow slits for windows... And this just occurred to me: the library was designed to survive a direct impact by a space rock and then server as a fortress for when civilization is blown back to the stone age! As for its interior well, can you say creepy shrinks office from 1976 complete with cheap furniture and insultingly bright fluorescents?

My second realization was how much blogging has grown on me over the last few weeks. I had always known what blogging was but I wasn't really into it. It was like that with e-mail, IM, Myspace and Facebook as well. It takes me awhile to warm up to it but once I do I can't stop using it. I have to get the latest update and learn the latest terminology.

When we first started this class I thought that blogging was going to be an exercise in repetitiveness because I assumed that even though we could talk freely we would have to do a review on our assigned readings. Needless to say I was ecstatic that we didn't have to. I was also happy to find out that I enjoyed reading blogs. I have a really bad habit of skipping and skimming through reading assignments for school and for fun but blogging is different. Maybe it's because people are "talking" when they blog so it feels more personable and intimate? That's what I think. For me, there is nothing worse then having to read a treatise on some crap that I could care less about for school.

That's why I have really taken a liking to corporate blogs mainly because it allows you a snapshot into corporate life at some of the worlds largest and most powerful companies. I think that Scoble and Israel said it right when they said that blogging allowed Microsoft to go from being an evil corporate super-power to a more humane, customer-oriented organization. I can back up the authors with firsthand experience on my part. The company that I work for has an internal blog that the CEO updates a few times a week. I think it really helped me as an employee see the direction that management wanted to take the company in and it gave a level of intimacy that I think is sorely lacking at our offices around the world.

Adding Peeps to My Blog

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to THANK everyone! So I'm going to post your links to my blog

Mike's Blog
Colleen's Blog
Kahled's Blog
Joe's Blog
Prof Melander's Blog
Sarah's Blog
Erin's Blog

Social Networking & The Hitcher: Failing to Maintain a Proper Social Network Could Get Your Throat Slashed

So I'm sitting here in my apartment having just finished watching The Hitcher. It's your typical slasher movie (meaning that it sucked) but, and forgive me for sounding cliche, I just started thinking about Social Networking (hah.. please). The movie takes place in New Mexico and needless to say, two young people fight for their life while fending off a crazy Sean Bean. About three-quarters of the way thorough the movie the killer gets caught. But -- and GET THIS! -- he breaks free of his cuffs and kills the cops transporting him. While people are being stabbed, shot, or burned to death it struck me that if there were a better social network in place to back up those cops then they would have lived. They were traveling down a deserted road in the middle of the desert. Just like hermits or people on the periphery, they did not have the social network in place to effectively use, say, the information broker who would have told the cops (and Hollywood execs) that shooting the guy in the head is the only way to go. Forget about Miranda and the BoR, that dude had to go down.

Anyway, another thought just struck me: if people were doing that whole peer-news reporter thing then people would have known about this crazed killer. I don't know what people think of this but this is just a perfect example of how we need more Social Networking in life. If not to help save people from crazed hitchers on the roads then to let the movie producers know that movies about a killer murdering motorists was already done by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we all know how we feel about copycats. And don't even get me started on Vacancy...

Mimicing the Master Plan?

Hey everyone!



Isn't it amazing how everything is interconnected? I was looking at the slide show "Social Network Analysis" (http://www.slideshare.net/DERIGalway/valdis-krebs-social-network-analysis-19872007) and it was fascinating to see all the different contexts that networks can be formed in. In particular interest to me was the protein and Jazz networks considering that they looked so similar to one another and yet they are completely different phenomenons formed from seemingly different circumstances - like the opposite sides of the same coin. On the one hand you have a system that has been created through billions of years of evolution crafted from countless stimuli acted upon organic compounds. And on the other hand you have a system or network that was created in far less time and was not created through evolution save for the biological need for humans to socialize. This got me to thinking about why a social network would mirror a protein network. So like an intrepid explorer (yea right! :) ) I took to the NET and eventually stumbled upon a picture that captured my imagination (for about as long as it takes me to type this blog). The link to that picture is here: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/Zhang_neural_stem_cells04.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/zhang.html&h=225&w=300&sz=1101&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=xQQxtTx-1Skc5M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dneural%2Bcells%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den.



I don't know about all of you but when I think of the human brain I think of it as some different part of me. A thinking part, but a separate entity all the same. It takes me a few moments to realize that the mass of neurons displayed in the picture on the above link is me. It contains everything makes me unique; my fears, dreams, likes, emotions, and memories are all stored within gray cells that look like weird microbes. What is truly compelling about that image is how much it looks like all the other networks that were shown in the slide show or the simplified diagram in the "Six Myths" article. I think that there is a definate correlation between our biological networks and the human networks that we design. Think about it: every network (biological or human) are contain peripherals, central connectors (and bottlenecks) and subgroups.

Could we have built our society (physically and socially) based on our evolution as a species and biological community on Earth? Maybe throughout the eons our DNA evolved to compel us to build an existence based around an apparently stable biological network. I would like to think that there is some elegance to the way the universe works; from the largest galaxies to the smallest molecules... there's something rather romantic in that, wouldn't you say?

Thanking the Man (kinda) and Mobs for Morons

Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a great Labor Day weekend. I just finished reading the Harvard Business Review article on informal network. I thought it was fascinating to read about all the different people that make up these "underground" networks. It was actually fun to read about the different people and then figure out who in my organization is like that. I work for an Internet security company (I think I mentioned it in class last Wednesday) and there was one person that really exemplifies one of the positions within the network.

The article stated that there is a central connector within the org that everyone gossips to. There is a guy in my group who fits that description perfectly. Everyone (including myself) always goes and chats with him. He and I would always talk and joke about whatever came to our minds (it helped that I used to sit directly across from him). He is a very charismatic and likable guy. He and I really developed a rapport which was helped -- I think -- buy the fact that we were the two youngest guys in our group (and row). Everyone would talk to him and he would go out of his way to events that happened in their lives. In fact, he seemed to remember everyone's name who worked in our building which is no small accomplishment since there were at least 300 people in our building and probably half of their names were difficult to pronounce.

I also read the Mobs book but I made absolutely no sense to me. I think it said that the more complicated networks get the more they fragment but that could just be my toddler-like interpretation of what seems like a very complex issue. I think it is very fascinating but I think that the book is written in a way that makes it very difficult for me to understand it. I don't know about any one else but I for one am happy that we have multiple reading options open to us...