Feminism since the begining

In several of my classes we have touched upon the idea of feminism. It is something that more often than not evokes a rather negative connotation from most audiences because of the idea of the all-powerful, uterus-worshiping, man-hating feminazi's that are all-too-common in the subject matter. It is really almost disgusting to have to share any sort of environment with those people let alone be forced to have any sort of discussion with them. They're stubborn, irrational, and overly aggressive just for the sake of argument. Since the last phase of feminism has died down somewhat, we're now entered a post-modern feminism era that doesn't focus on empowering women but rather any sort of minority. They've changed focus to supporting the little man and engaging interaction with the normally-ignored, which makes me want to suggest that we remove the title of femisist and replace it with something more appropriate like civil-equality.

Regardless, i'd like to revert attention back to a woman who started it all. It was the daughter of an astronomer for the King of France in the early 1400s. Her name was Christine de Pizan. Because of her father's position, she was able to educate herself unusually well and began writing several books which were normally thought to be written under a pseudonym because it was assumed that there was no way a woman could possibly be so educated.

Her biggest accomplishment was writing a book titles The Book of the City of Ladies in which she was troubled by so many examples of men trodding on women without repercussion. She was then visited by three angels who explained to her how little the men knew of their mistakes and why there was no punishment for the naive. With the help of the angels, she would found a metaphorical fortress of a city built and maintained by strong and powerful women. After the city was built, the book went on the illustrate countless examples of how women in the past have shown great leadership and strength. It is written in a historia magistra vitae (history teaches life) format and is used for examples with which present day women should base their own behavior. For those of you interested in women studies, if you haven't read this book or perhaps excerpts, brush up on a few stories, calm down, put the castrating knife down and stop trying to rule the show. Its not about domination, but rather prowess, strategy, and diction.

Human Communication

In several of my classes I am learning about all different types of approaches to looking at human communication. These range from communication in technologies, organizations, across cultures, interpersonally and finally in regards to several theories about communication.

One idea that really interests me is the idea of how well we communicate amongst others. Is speaking to one another a way of directly transferring one's ideas to another? Is it even possible for two humans to accurately transmit messages to each other without any sort of distortion? Several of the theorist I've read about suggests that it is not. The limitations of humans simply forbid perfect communication. John Peters says (and I agree) that the human form is inherently insufficient for literal translation of messages. Language is the ultimate barrier for understand meanings. Several theorists say that meanings are in our minds and the words we use are a simple way of forcing another to understand to gist of what they are trying to say without full comprehension. It is because of our learned experiences that we associate with the words we learn that we have any meaning or a language at all. Each person has different experiences in life which means we each have a slightly different meaning for the things we say.

Peters says explains that the only true form of pure communication is through telepathy. This idea of telepathy has been toyed with in the media but also in our myths, legends, and religious beliefs for as long as time has lasted. The ideal form of this mental telepathy is best illustrated through the form of angelic communication. Angels stand for communication as if bodies didn't matter. They have the capacity for a pure coupling of the signifier and the signified. This is why we typically see angels in dreams rather than in a physical environment. We are better adapted for more direct understanding of messages when words don't distort it.

Post Graduation

What do I do after graduation? This is a question that I've found myself asking over and over again especially within the past few months. What does everyone else do? Well, in the case of most of my friends and pledge brothers, they've all managed to secure jobs ahead of time by having the aggressive initiative attitude and having previous experience with different internships and coops. I'm beginning to regret some of my previous college decisions now that I have the opportunity to reflect and wonder where the time went. Rather than following the norm, I spent several summers off the beaten path choosing more obscure jobs that more often than not were under less than ideal conditions. Now that I've begun the job hunt, I'm realizing the error of my ways. Even though I always had encouragement to explore other options from people telling me, "Its ok if you don't know what to do," I feel more challenged now than ever. They normally reassured me that things will work out naturally and everything is going to be alright in the end. From the position I'm in right now, half of me wishes I could go back in time and make those people eat their words and shake some sense into them. They all said it would be ok but none of them explained how disorienting and difficult a job search is when you've got no job experience and few directions to turn.

Why have an Avatar?

Discussions in class have really forced me to ask myself, why would people do this? Why do people invest so much time and energy into a false virtual persona. I realize that everyone is wierd in their own way and almost everyone would like to pretend to be someone else or pretend to be a better version of themselves. I get that. It makes sense. There is something innately appealing about anonymitity in our nature as humans. But what i don't get is why so many people waste innumerable hours in front of a computer screen pretending to be this fictional character. Yeah, I understand how it is a great marketing idea and can be and is used to make bank with subscriptions to different virtual worlds, but really, what is the point?

I've heard plenty of reasons why people chose to participate in these sorts of things but I'm not convinced they're all good reasons let alone ligitimate ones. I'm not surprised with the number of users considering all the weird trends in the past the revolve around the limits of human imagination. For example, there was Dungeons and Dragons that all the college nerds played in the 70s back when our parents were in college. Since then there have been a ridiculous amount of similar fads such as Magic the trading card game and others. Several friend of my more or less coerced me into a trial run of the virtual second life world. Skeptical, but open to being proven wrong, I tried to live my second life. Even after having experienced a taste of realm, the point still remains, its dumb.

I understand that it can be a very usefull tool especially in construction and design businesses but those who use it as a hobby should really do more. Seriously, stop. Think for a minute. When was the last time you had a few hours to yourself and you decided to spend it hiking alone or even with a (human) friend through the tranquill woods just listening to the sounds appreciating and taking in all the natural beauty surrounding you that you can only experience in person? Or the last time you found yourself paddling down a raging river of crashing writhing waves and gargling bubbling white foam and a face-numbing freezing spray of mountain snow melt? Have you ever found yourself sitting co-pilot to a friend who hands you the controls to a twin prop plane to fly yourself? Or experienced the magic of the ocean in its most beautiful perfect form, as you glide across the surface stuck in that slow motion sense of perfect reality where everything makes sense and nothing else matters?
None of these things can truely be done inside at a computer. I don't care what people say about virtual tours through ancient european castles, it doesn't do justice to experiencing the real thing.

Avatars as social networking tools is another of the reasons I've heard for participating. Well, save your receipt because that's bullshit. If you grew up around other humans then you should know that no computer as of now can come even remotely close to immitating real human interaction. Yeah sure, you hear what they're saying but it all comes rolling back to the same issue, the social cues. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that online character take away from one's personal interaction skills. They begin to forget to secognize the signs and gestures that say, "Yes, I like you, we should hang out again sometime," or, "No, you're uncomfortably bizzare and creep me out." For example, if you're out on a date with a girl and things are going well but you're not quite sure what she expects, there are moments in your interaction that directly tell you what the other is thinking. Sometimes there is a moment where you catch eye contact even just a glimpse where its almost awkward but deeply personal and both of you have that slight grin and you know for sure how she feels. Those moments cannot be replicated or even immitated with the best of today's technologies. So for the sake of whatever you hold valuable, get off the damn computer and go outside! Do something that makes you feel like you again. Go on a date. Go do something dangerous. Do something to make you feel alive and real!

Pop Sci's Future Of... Communication

The other night the Science Channel aired the debut episode of "Pop Sci's Future Of..." themed communications. Are these new innovations really possible for mainstream consumerism?

One of the main innovations discussed is the idea to implement ubiquitous technology imbedded into everyday objects, hook them up to the internet, and create output ports for people to interact. The example shown involved little computer rabbit shaped figures that could track your movements and behavior throughout an apartment and relay that information back to you. So for example, if you've misplaced your keys, you can simply ask the user friendly rabbit and it promtly solves the delemma with an accurate location of your keys. This idea, while functional, seems to me like an old idea implemented in new ways in which are extremely vulnerable to attack or exploitation with malicious intent. I would imagine that as is the case with any internet related technology, someone could hack into the network on which the rabbits operated and extract vital personal information such as the location of valuables. I can foresee the possiblity of this information even being sold to companies for advertising and consumer research.

The second technology I'll discuss is the tracking of one's mental computation. The same sort of thing is done with an MRI but this is done on a much lower scale. They have found a certain time of brain wave is emitted during brain function and they have discovered how to monitor the output. Similarly to an EKG, a device is attached to the user in the form of something similar to a headband to monitor the brain output in two categories of focus and meditation. Then a computer attaches a behavior to the output so that one can perform tasks through an avatar on screen. The tasks performed were simply but interesting such as levitation objects, moving them about the environment, and heating them to flash point.

The last technology covered in the episode was an animal-human translator. Scientists, veterinarians and animal behaviorists worked together to record certain identifiable growls, snarls, yelps and cries animals, specifically dogs, emit. Then the behaviorists interpreted the movements and noises to attach a meaning to each sound. After a while, enough data is collected and combined to create a fairly accurate database of general animal communication noises. Humans can now begin to easily understand the message a dog is trying to send and with the added output speaker, we can provide feedback to them in a more natural familiar language for them.