Cyborg Anthro Wiki - User contributions [en]

Schizophrenia

2011-12-18T21:17:07Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===

Schizophrenia is a term used to describe a mental imbalance in human beings. Baudrillard's view of the schizophrenic mindset is useful for understanding how the modern human subject might feel when faced with a reality of information and instant access. "…The schizophrenic is not, as generally claimed, characterized by his loss of touch with reality," states Baudrillard, "but by the absolute proximity to and total instantaneousness with things, this overexposure to the transparency of the world'.<ref>Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstasy of Communication. Foreign Agents Series, Brooklyn, N.Y., Autonomedia, 1988. Pg. 27.</ref>

Baudrilliard concluded that the current era was defined by a new form of schizophrenia, due to the "emergence of ʻan immanent promiscuity and the perpetual interconnection of all information and communication networksʼ leads to ʻa state of terror which is characteristic of the schizophrenicʼ, that of ʻan over-proximity of all thingsʼ<ref>Ibid.</ref>. Under this definition, the human brain when overwhelmed with information technology is similar to that of schizophrenic--an endless array of interfaces produces skitzovision, the desire to look in multiple places at the same time.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Little Brother

2011-12-18T08:05:37Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
The opposite of Big Brother, which involves a top-down observer watching many, in Little Brother, everyone watches each other. Those afflicted by little brother syndrome intentionally share and broadcast information about themselves via social networks, check-in websites, and GPS devices, often with little regard to personal privacy, or long-term consequences. Possibly a form of exhibitionism, this definition of Little Brother Syndrome may be related to, or even a consequence of another definition of Little Brother Syndrome wherein a person vies for attention to make up for feeling under-appreciated.

<blockquote>''Grover apparently doesn't care who knows all about him, as he posted his home address, salary, and cell phone number to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Wikipedia today. He's definitely suffering from Little Brother Syndrome".''<ref>Little Brother Syndome on Urbanup.com http://little-brother-syndrome.urbanup.com/5299328</ref><ref>Urban Dictionary: Little Brother Syndrome http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=little%20brother%20syndrome</ref></blockquote>

===Related Reading===
*[[Sousveillance]]

== References ==
<references />

Sharecropping

2011-12-18T07:50:34Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Sharecropping is the act of storing personal data on 3rd party servers without owning the ability to control that data.

The term comes from the 18th and 17th century concept of wealthy landowners renting our shares of their land to former slaves or the impoverished and then extracting heavy taxes on them. A tenant farmer who gives a part of each crop as rent (rephrase - citation needed)>

just as wealthy landowners would rent out parcels of land to poor farmers, creating an effective new form of slavery, companies like facebook allow us free space and social integration/capital in exchange for our pictures, marketing information, etc.

highlight the dynamic of companies preying upon date

Not only do sharecroppers trust in the livelihood of a given 3rd party website, they also make their personal data available for the use of partners of the 3rd party website, such as advertisers. Facebook's users, for example, exchange their privacy and personal data for use of the free service. This understanding of 3rd party dependence lead to Douglass Rushkoff's to point out "Ask a kid what Facebook is for and they'll answer 'it's there to help me make friends'. Facebook's boardroom isn't talking about how to make Johnny more friends. It's talking about how to monetize Johnny's social graph".<ref>Rushkoff, Douglass. Speech at the Hello Etsy conference. Berlin, Germany. 17 Sept 2011.</ref>

when you don't own your data. when you allow other site to host your data and own the data that you create. when you become reliant on third party sites. Making your data available to these services such as advertisers. Thy may disappear and take down your content. The ym ay remove your content because of their terms and considerations, and they do not have to inform you of the removal.

Example of AOL Hometown

On Nov 6th 2008 AOL removed user data from everyone who built a website using their service. There was a brief post on the front page of the Hometown website with a notification that all data would be removed in two weeks and that users should archive or backup their data in order to protect it from erasure. This post showed up on September 30th, 2008, giving users "4 weeks to figure out how to get their data off the servers, find a new place to send the data, get that arranged, and then do the transfer"<ref>Scott, Jason. Eviction, or the Coming Datapocalypse. December 21st, 2008. Accessed July 15, 2009. http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1617</ref>.

Nov 6th 2008. AOL Homesites was an easy way for the general public to create home pages without any programming ability. Pages ranged from family photos and online albums, to online memories for mourned loved ones that had passed. The unexpected erasure of personal websites from AOLs servers caused general public outcry and anguish. It was one of the first examples of 3rd party data falling prey to the shutting off of a website. Since then, protective measures have been established for some communities such as Delicious, whose users and development community rushed to provide Delicious clones<ref>http://neverusethisfont.com/blog/2010/12/how-to-build-a-multi-user-delicious-clone-with-wordpress-and-delicious-xml-exporter/</ref><ref>Delicious XML Exporter http://deliciousxml.com/</ref><ref>Delicious Bookmark Clone Site http://aaron.pk/bookmarks/about/</ref> and alternatives when a rumored threat of shutdown leaked out of Yahoo! headquarters in late mid-December 2010<ref>Is Yahoo! Shutting Down? TechCrunch.com Dec 16, 2010. Accessed April 15, 2011. http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/16/is-yahoo-shutting-down-del-icio-us/</ref>

The Indie Web Movement is a step towards owning one's data. The inaugural Indie Web Camp<ref>Indie Web Camp http://indiewebcamp.com/</ref> was held in Portland, Oregon on June 25-26, 2011.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked for Editing]]

Proxemics

2011-12-18T07:29:54Z

And.awarner:

[[Image:proxemics-maggie-nichols.jpg|center|600px]]

"Auxiliary communication devices that generally assure clarity by transmitting the same message in different ways at the same time. These include variations in tone and character of voice along with such non-verbal forms of communication as kinesics, proxemics, clothing, and makeup".<ref>[http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/cglossary.htm Palomar Community College Anthropology Department Cultural Anthropology Terms]</ref>

===Definition===
The word proxemic is used to describe the different levels of space around a person in social situations. For instance, there is inter-personal space, extra-personal space, and so on. When speaking, one's proximal space quite large. On the Internet, one's digital presence can be large or small depending on their research, presence, and the awareness of their identity by others. Proxemics are often unstated rules of culture and culture groups.

===History===
The concept of Proxemics was first introduced by Edward T. Hall in his book [[The Hidden Dimension]]<ref>Hall, Edward T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-08476-5.</ref> in 1966.
"Body spacing and posture," according to Hall, "are unintentional reactions to sensory fluctuations or shifts, such as subtle changes in the sound and pitch of a person's voice. Social distance between people is reliably correlated with physical distance, as are intimate and personal distance...".<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics Wikipedia article on Proxemics]</ref>

===Cultural Differences===
Interpersonal space differs country to country. In the United States the space between people in social situations is larger than the space between cultural groups in Latin America or the Middle East. For instance, "in much of Asia, people gravitate towards other people. For example, if you are alone in an elevator in the Philippines and another person enters, he will probably stand right next to you. That person doesn't want to speak to you; it's just the local custom. If you are sitting in an Indian movie theater surrounded by empty seats and an Indian enters, he is likely to sit next to you. And in Indonesia, if you are standing on a virtually empty escalator, an Indonesian may walk down until he is standing on the same step as you. This sort of behavior often drives North Americans to distraction, but it is considered appropriate in many parts of the world".<ref>[http://www.getcustoms.com/2004XE/Articles/iw0100.html Global Business Basics - The Problems of Proxemics] by Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Conaway, 2004.</ref>

===Paralanguage===
The concept of proxemics is a part of paralanguage. In real life, non-verbal communication such as stance, spatial distance, and non-verbal communications such as gestures and clothing make up paralanguage, contributing to 70% of a communication pattern.<ref>Engleberg, Isa N. Working in Groups: Communication Principles and Strategies. My Communication Kit Series, 2006. Pg. 133.</ref> Online, paralanguage takes the form of profile pictures, wall posts and other creations of self, as these are the non-verbal ways in which online participants build their identity online.

===References===
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]
[[Category:Traditional Anthropology]]
[[Category:Illustrated]]

__NOTOC__

Sludgeware

2011-12-18T07:24:25Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Sludgeware is a way of describing software that sludges up one's computer with either unnecessary extraneous programs, actions or takes an unnecessary amount of time to load. Collectively, the repeated install of this category of software can turn the computer into a slow unfortunate system that resembles sludge. Sludgeware is the digital equivalent of the heavy mud that sticks to boots when tromping through the wilderness.

Those who have older machines and tend to use older browsers are more susceptible to sludgeware. Indicators of sludgeware include slow response time, and many search bars from third parties on the top of the browser window. Some sludgeware is unintentionally installed during the download of another product, and some is simply poorly-written software that is the only solution to a common problem available in a given market.

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Editing notes

2011-11-30T00:30:03Z

And.awarner:

1 Introduction

1 A Cyborg Manifesto

Needs to be more nuanced. the manifesto is basically the ur-text of cyborg anthropology, and it deserves a brilliant analysis. need to mention shift to postmodern forms of organization. it would be really good to include the table (modern/postmodern) from the article, since that gives a pretty good overview of what the article is talking about. I can help clean this one up.

9 Actor Network Theory

11 Affective Computing

need to take out seal bit (the same paragraph is in animal cyborgs a few articles later and makes more sense in that article). there's some really confusing stuff going on here:

a term used to describe the process of developing computing architectures that account for human concerns such as usability, touch, access, persona, emotions and history. Those who build systems by these principles think of computing as a solution or a helper for problems or essences of human living...... Instead of teaching machines to understand humans... Her work called to question the notion that machines should always be built to understand human commands instead of simply understanding a command similar to its own native machine language.

see what I mean? these sentences seem to contradict eachother. perhaps take out whole article? has much in common with haptics and other articles.

13 Ambient Awareness

"Future Alex Soojung-Kim Pang" <- is that supposed to be that way? perhaps break up that big quote, or block quote it? confusing whne embedded in paragraph.

"Twitter basically sets new users as default "socially opted out" until they gather content to follow. When they encounter something they don't like, they're free to drop them." this needs to be reworded or deleted (ambiguous pronouns. I'm familiar with twitter and still don't get it)

These next two paragraphs are tricky, see my notes below them:

The paradox and allure of ambient awareness lies in its shape. It's not that we're always connected, but that we have always ability to connect. This is ambient intimacy, where connectivity is only a button away. Where sharing and connecting with another is not defined by geography but technosocial capability. David Weinberger called it "continual partial friendship", and Johnnie Moore pointed out that, "it's not about being poked and prodded, it's about exposing more surface area for others to connect with". Reality theorist Sheldon Renan calls it "Loosely but deeply entangled". Whatever you call it, it is a higher order of connectivity than we've ever experienced before as humans. We are beginning to see a new sense of time - the collective now.
What we're really seeing is that everything is a button away. We are mobile, and we need just-in-time information. In our mothers' wombs, all things came to us without us having to go anywhere. It is the same with the smartphone. Even though we move around in time and space, we can increasingly access social and entertainment sentience via a single device. Our devices and surroundings have become a sort of technosocial womb.

NOTES: these two paragraphs have alot of good content but the writing is sub-par (mostly staccato sentences, a serious lack of conjunctions that explain the logical relations of the individual sentences. try adding "although", "and", "however", "despite", subordinate clauses, etc. etc. The staccato sentences can be powerful as punchlines after a series of longer sentences, but if the whole paragraph is made of them they loose their rhetorical force) I've noticed this in other places as well, I'll refer to this here-on-out as "staccato".

missing alot of citations on this article.

15 Android

moved a paragraph, cleaned up some verbose language. the captain future quote doesn't have a beginning quotation mark, need to figure that out. if the entire sentence is a quote than we might need to add a sentence or two to make the paragraph more substantial.

18 Animal Cyborgs

The animal cyborg for therapy section is iffy, given that these aren't really cyborgs at all (no organic components). either give a serious qualifier about how this isn't really a cyborg or move this section of the article to a different article (affective computing, haptics?)

20 Anomie

The concept is important, but the article is iffy. this section in particular:

A social network with a high potential of connectivity does not automatically guarantee it. All life is mystery meat navigation. All clicks unwrap presents. We can’t see what is on the other side, but we want to get there. We are great unknowing youth. If we really knew what was on the other side we would never consume or love like we do. We would despair. Instead, we are kings, kings that reign for only a little while before being enslaved and tortured to death by endless lines, airport travel, traffic jams, physical and mental isolation, elevator music, and boring architecture. The only way out of this isolation is through reconnecting to culture and community via the iPod, the text message, or the phone call. There is no limitless value, or infinite reproducibility of objects, but rather a limited supply of connectivity. In his Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that connectivity equals life, and isolation equals death.[3] Being connected is a luxury.

does social networking increase or decrease anomie? you simultaneously portray this as isolating but also there is the redemption of the cell phone and the ipod. I kind of get where you're coming from, but I think it needs to be concretized more. One of the comments that came very strongly from the professors who I showed parts of the book to was to avoid "McCluenism's" (aka broad general and someone insubstantial characterizations of technology), I think this is one of these articles to which this criticism applies.

23 Antisocial Networks

Needs a major reworking. I see what is trying to be conveyed, but the concept is not the "opposite of social networking". perhaps a name change? The article seems to actually about social spaces in which feedback loops of social information are not properly functioning. you can stalk someone on facebook without them knowing anything about it, but this one of the brilliant things about facebook. I would call the article "stealth socialization" "social stalking" or something catchy like that. if this doesn't make sense I can probably explain better on skype.

26 Architecture Fiction

good concept, but need to mention science fiction and fictive worlds in the first paragraph. the science fiction part (which what it really seems to be about) doesn't show up until much later, makes the initial reading a little confusing.

27 Asynchronous communication

another paragraph on why this concept is important. we see a rise in asynchronous communication with modernity? in one sense it seems to become more of a feature of modernity, but in another sense it seems to be diminishing (think hand written letters vs. skype). what effect does this have on cohesion?

30 Automatic Production of Space

the key phrase that is missing here is "law of the conservation of energy". automatic production of space seems to fly right in the face of this basic law of physics. when you access a piece of information on the internet, a copy is saved on your computer with little to no energy expended. one can fit what used to be an entire library in a centimeter. A good word to use here might be "wormhole". an ipod is literally growing in "space" without actually growing in physical space, as if the informational wormhole is deepening. this small article explains the low of conservation in relation to information quite well http://www.jwz.org/doc/iwtbf.html

31 Avatar

32 Backspace Generation

there's a real opportunity to talk about typewriters vs. computers and the difference between forming a cohesive thought before writing it. this also touches on a much larger issue of external mind. when we had to write things without a backspace (and on materials that were expensive), we needed to have fully formulated a thought before manifesting it. WIth the backspace and modern word processor (with it's modern editing tools) we can think through writing and easily construct our thoughts visually by cutting pasting and backspacing. think "technologic" by daft punk :-)

34 Bee Dance

35 Body Optimization

article seems a bit out of place thematically. maybe take out? or qualify it with a paragraph on technologies of human enhancement as a key manifestation of our cyborg condition. focus less on specific techniques and more on why body optimization is such an integral part of our futre.

37 Boundary Maintenance

The last paragraph is iffy, especially the myspace bit. it's not that clear, I think focusing on the cyborg and the destruction of accepted boundaries is a much better avenue for this concept, since boundary maintance is ACTUALLY I just had a thought, this could be combined with cyborg security with very good results.

39 Brain-Computer Interface

40 Calm Computing

would add a paragraph about simplicity in deisign and being bombarded by advertisments

42 Celebrity as Cyborg

good article. would mention twitter and celebrities as the creation of intimacy in the digital space. one can almost feel like they are hanging out with a celeb with twiiter, a very novel turn of events in our worship of celebrities.

43 Chorded Keyboard

45 City as Software

47 Collaborative Reality

49 Companion Species

50 Compulsion Loops

51
Cyborg Security

53 Deep Hanging Out

55 Device as Memory

58 Digital Backyard

59 Digital Dark Age

61 Digital Detritus

63 Digital Downtime

64 Digital Ethnography

66 Digital Footprint

68 Digital Hoarding

69 Digital Hygiene

71 Diminished Reality

72 Distributed Cognition

74 Douglas Rushkoff

76 Email Apnea

77 Email apnea

80 Email Sabbatical

83 Equipotential Space

85 Extended Nervous System

87 External Brain

89 Feeling Obligated to stay connected

91 Flaneuring

94 Flow

95 Fractal Aesthetic

97 Fractal Self

99 Future Runoff

100 Future Self

101 Future Shock

102 Geolocation

103 Hacker-as-Hero

105 Haptics

106
Hardware

109 Heavy Modernity

110 Hertzian Space

112 Human Computer Interaction

114 Hyperlinked Memories

115 Hyperpresence

117 Hypersigil

118 Identity Production

120 Infomorph

122 Information

123 Information Society

127 Infosynaesthesia

128 Interaction Shield

129 Intermittent Reinforcement

130 Interoperability

132 Interstitial Space

134 Junk Sleep

136 Lifecasting

138 Lifelong Kindergarten

140 Lifestreaming

141 Liminal Space

142 Little Brother

144 Location Sharing

145 Low-Tech Cyborgs

146 Machine Learning

147 Macy Meetings

149 Mark Weiser

151 Marshall McLuhan

152 Mediated Reality

154 Mediology

156 Mental Fragmentation

157
Mental Real Estate

161 Micro-Singularity

163 Mild Dystopia

164 Mind Uploading

165 Minimalism

166 Multitasking

167 Mundane Science Fiction

168 Mundane Studies

172 Natural Language Processing

175 Netness

178 Node centrality

181 Non-Place

182 Non-Visual Augmented Reality

183 Ocular Convergence

186 Panic Architecture

187 Paracosmic Immersion

189 Path dependence

192 Persistent Architecture

194 Persistent Paleontology

196 Personal Space

197 Plastic Time

198 Playground as Factory

200 Presentation of Self in Digital Life

202 Pronoia

203 Prosthetic

205 Prosthetic Culture

207 Protocyborg

209 Proxemics

210 Proximal notification

213 Psyber-culture

214 Psychasthenia

216
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

218 Reality Mining

219 Ringxiety

220 Robot

221 Role Boundary Permeability

223 Rushware

225 Satisfice

226 Schizophrenia

227 Science Fiction as Future

228 Second Self

230 Second-Hand Cyborg

231 Sentient Computing

233 Service Design

234 Sharecropping

235 Sighborg

237 Simultaneous Time

238 Skeuomorph

240 Skitzovision

242 Sludgeware

243 Social Gravity

244 Social Punctuation

245 Soft Architecture

246 Software

247 Sousveillance

248 Stealth Socialization

249 Steve Mann

250 Superhuman Interaction Design

251 Supermodernity

253 Superorganism

255 Swarm Culture

256 Synchronous communication

259
Synesthesia

260 Tabaholic

262 Tamagotchi

263 Technosocial Womb

265 Technosocial Worm Hole

266 Tele-Cocooning

267 Teleoperator

270 Templated Self

271 Temporarily negotiated space

272 Territory Marking

274 The Community Cyborg

275 The Cyborg Handbook

276 Time Geography

277 Totem group

278 Ubiquitous Computing

279 Uncanny Valley

281 Unitasking

284 Virtual Companion

285 Virtual Tombstone

287 Wearable Computing

288 Whole earth catalog

294

Category:book pages

Editing notes

2011-11-17T22:45:33Z

And.awarner:

1 Introduction

1 A Cyborg Manifesto

Needs to be more nuanced. the manifesto is basically the ur-text of cyborg anthropology, and it deserves a brilliant analysis. need to mention shift to postmodern forms of organization. it would be really good to include the table (modern/postmodern) from the article, since that gives a pretty good overview of what the article is talking about. I can help clean this one up.

9 Actor Network Theory

11 Affective Computing

need to take out seal bit (the same paragraph is in animal cyborgs a few articles later and makes more sense in that article). there's some really confusing stuff going on here:

a term used to describe the process of developing computing architectures that account for human concerns such as usability, touch, access, persona, emotions and history. Those who build systems by these principles think of computing as a solution or a helper for problems or essences of human living...... Instead of teaching machines to understand humans... Her work called to question the notion that machines should always be built to understand human commands instead of simply understanding a command similar to its own native machine language.

see what I mean? these sentences seem to contradict eachother. perhaps take out whole article? has much in common with haptics and other articles.

13 Ambient Awareness

"Future Alex Soojung-Kim Pang" <- is that supposed to be that way? perhaps break up that big quote, or block quote it? confusing whne embedded in paragraph.

"Twitter basically sets new users as default "socially opted out" until they gather content to follow. When they encounter something they don't like, they're free to drop them." this needs to be reworded or deleted (ambiguous pronouns. I'm familiar with twitter and still don't get it)

These next two paragraphs are tricky, see my notes below them:

The paradox and allure of ambient awareness lies in its shape. It's not that we're always connected, but that we have always ability to connect. This is ambient intimacy, where connectivity is only a button away. Where sharing and connecting with another is not defined by geography but technosocial capability. David Weinberger called it "continual partial friendship", and Johnnie Moore pointed out that, "it's not about being poked and prodded, it's about exposing more surface area for others to connect with". Reality theorist Sheldon Renan calls it "Loosely but deeply entangled". Whatever you call it, it is a higher order of connectivity than we've ever experienced before as humans. We are beginning to see a new sense of time - the collective now.
What we're really seeing is that everything is a button away. We are mobile, and we need just-in-time information. In our mothers' wombs, all things came to us without us having to go anywhere. It is the same with the smartphone. Even though we move around in time and space, we can increasingly access social and entertainment sentience via a single device. Our devices and surroundings have become a sort of technosocial womb.

NOTES: these two paragraphs have alot of good content but the writing is sub-par (mostly staccato sentences, a serious lack of conjunctions that explain the logical relations of the individual sentences. try adding "although", "and", "however", "despite", subordinate clauses, etc. etc. The staccato sentences can be powerful as punchlines after a series of longer sentences, but if the whole paragraph is made of them they loose their rhetorical force) I've noticed this in other places as well, I'll refer to this here-on-out as "staccato".

missing alot of citations on this article.

15 Android

moved a paragraph, cleaned up some verbose language. the captain future quote doesn't have a beginning quotation mark, need to figure that out. if the entire sentence is a quote than we might need to add a sentence or two to make the paragraph more substantial.

18 Animal Cyborgs

The animal cyborg for therapy section is iffy, given that these aren't really cyborgs at all (no organic components). either give a serious qualifier about how this isn't really a cyborg or move this section of the article to a different article (affective computing, haptics?)

20 Anomie

The concept is important, but the article is iffy. this section in particular:

A social network with a high potential of connectivity does not automatically guarantee it. All life is mystery meat navigation. All clicks unwrap presents. We can’t see what is on the other side, but we want to get there. We are great unknowing youth. If we really knew what was on the other side we would never consume or love like we do. We would despair. Instead, we are kings, kings that reign for only a little while before being enslaved and tortured to death by endless lines, airport travel, traffic jams, physical and mental isolation, elevator music, and boring architecture. The only way out of this isolation is through reconnecting to culture and community via the iPod, the text message, or the phone call. There is no limitless value, or infinite reproducibility of objects, but rather a limited supply of connectivity. In his Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that connectivity equals life, and isolation equals death.[3] Being connected is a luxury.

does social networking increase or decrease anomie? you simultaneously portray this as isolating but also there is the redemption of the cell phone and the ipod. I kind of get where you're coming from, but I think it needs to be concretized more. One of the comments that came very strongly from the professors who I showed parts of the book to was to avoid "McCluenism's" (aka broad general and someone insubstantial characterizations of technology), I think this is one of these articles to which this criticism applies.

23 Antisocial Networks

Needs a major reworking. I see what is trying to be conveyed, but the concept is not the "opposite of social networking". perhaps a name change? The article seems to actually about social spaces in which feedback loops of social information are not properly functioning. you can stalk someone on facebook without them knowing anything about it, but this one of the brilliant things about facebook. I would call the article "stealth socialization" "social stalking" or something catchy like that. if this doesn't make sense I can probably explain better on skype.

26 Architecture Fiction

good concept, but need to mention science fiction and fictive worlds in the first paragraph. the science fiction part (which what it really seems to be about) doesn't show up until much later, makes the initial reading a little confusing.

27 Asynchronous communication

another paragraph on why this concept is important. we see a rise in asynchronous communication with modernity? in one sense it seems to become more of a feature of modernity, but in another sense it seems to be diminishing (think hand written letters vs. skype). what effect does this have on cohesion?

30 Automatic Production of Space

the key phrase that is missing here is "law of the conservation of energy". automatic production of space seems to fly right in the face of this basic law of physics. when you access a piece of information on the internet, a copy is saved on your computer with little to no energy expended. one can fit what used to be an entire library in a centimeter. A good word to use here might be "wormhole". an ipod is literally growing in "space" without actually growing in physical space, as if the informational wormhole is deepening. this small article explains the low of conservation in relation to information quite well http://www.jwz.org/doc/iwtbf.html

31 Avatar

32 Backspace Generation

there's a real opportunity to talk about typewriters vs. computers and the difference between forming a cohesive thought before writing it. this also touches on a much larger issue of external mind. when we had to write things without a backspace (and on materials that were expensive), we needed to have fully formulated a thought before manifesting it. WIth the backspace and modern word processor (with it's modern editing tools) we can think through writing and easily construct our thoughts visually by cutting pasting and backspacing. think "technologic" by daft punk :-)

34 Bee Dance

35 Body Optimization

article seems a bit out of place thematically. maybe take out? or qualify it with a paragraph on technologies of human enhancement as a key manifestation of our cyborg condition.

37 Boundary Maintenance

The last paragraph is iffy, especially the myspace bit. it's not that clear, I think focusing on the cyborg and the destruction of accepted boundaries is a much better avenue for this concept. ACTUALLY I just had a thought, this could be combined with cyborg security with very good results.

39 Brain-Computer Interface

40 Calm Computing

would add a paragraph about simplicity in deisign and being bombarded by advertisments

42 Celebrity as Cyborg

good article. would mention twitter and celebrities as the creation of intimacy in the digital space. one can almost feel like they are hanging out with a celeb with twiiter, a very novel turn of events in our worship of celebrities.

43 Chorded Keyboard

45 City as Software

47 Collaborative Reality

49 Companion Species

50 Compulsion Loops

51
Cyborg Security

53 Deep Hanging Out

55 Device as Memory

58 Digital Backyard

59 Digital Dark Age

61 Digital Detritus

63 Digital Downtime

64 Digital Ethnography

66 Digital Footprint

68 Digital Hoarding

69 Digital Hygiene

71 Diminished Reality

72 Distributed Cognition

74 Douglas Rushkoff

76 Email Apnea

77 Email apnea

80 Email Sabbatical

83 Equipotential Space

85 Extended Nervous System

87 External Brain

89 Feeling Obligated to stay connected

91 Flaneuring

94 Flow

95 Fractal Aesthetic

97 Fractal Self

99 Future Runoff

100 Future Self

101 Future Shock

102 Geolocation

103 Hacker-as-Hero

105 Haptics

106
Hardware

109 Heavy Modernity

110 Hertzian Space

112 Human Computer Interaction

114 Hyperlinked Memories

115 Hyperpresence

117 Hypersigil

118 Identity Production

120 Infomorph

122 Information

123 Information Society

127 Infosynaesthesia

128 Interaction Shield

129 Intermittent Reinforcement

130 Interoperability

132 Interstitial Space

134 Junk Sleep

136 Lifecasting

138 Lifelong Kindergarten

140 Lifestreaming

141 Liminal Space

142 Little Brother

144 Location Sharing

145 Low-Tech Cyborgs

146 Machine Learning

147 Macy Meetings

149 Mark Weiser

151 Marshall McLuhan

152 Mediated Reality

154 Mediology

156 Mental Fragmentation

157
Mental Real Estate

161 Micro-Singularity

163 Mild Dystopia

164 Mind Uploading

165 Minimalism

166 Multitasking

167 Mundane Science Fiction

168 Mundane Studies

172 Natural Language Processing

175 Netness

178 Node centrality

181 Non-Place

182 Non-Visual Augmented Reality

183 Ocular Convergence

186 Panic Architecture

187 Paracosmic Immersion

189 Path dependence

192 Persistent Architecture

194 Persistent Paleontology

196 Personal Space

197 Plastic Time

198 Playground as Factory

200 Presentation of Self in Digital Life

202 Pronoia

203 Prosthetic

205 Prosthetic Culture

207 Protocyborg

209 Proxemics

210 Proximal notification

213 Psyber-culture

214 Psychasthenia

216
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

218 Reality Mining

219 Ringxiety

220 Robot

221 Role Boundary Permeability

223 Rushware

225 Satisfice

226 Schizophrenia

227 Science Fiction as Future

228 Second Self

230 Second-Hand Cyborg

231 Sentient Computing

233 Service Design

234 Sharecropping

235 Sighborg

237 Simultaneous Time

238 Skeuomorph

240 Skitzovision

242 Sludgeware

243 Social Gravity

244 Social Punctuation

245 Soft Architecture

246 Software

247 Sousveillance

248 Stealth Socialization

249 Steve Mann

250 Superhuman Interaction Design

251 Supermodernity

253 Superorganism

255 Swarm Culture

256 Synchronous communication

259
Synesthesia

260 Tabaholic

262 Tamagotchi

263 Technosocial Womb

265 Technosocial Worm Hole

266 Tele-Cocooning

267 Teleoperator

270 Templated Self

271 Temporarily negotiated space

272 Territory Marking

274 The Community Cyborg

275 The Cyborg Handbook

276 Time Geography

277 Totem group

278 Ubiquitous Computing

279 Uncanny Valley

281 Unitasking

284 Virtual Companion

285 Virtual Tombstone

287 Wearable Computing

288 Whole earth catalog

294

Category:book pages

Android

2011-11-17T04:16:33Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Android is a word used to describe a machine that is designed to look like a human. Rather than taking other qualities, such as intelligence or love, as the central feature of humanity, androids are mechanic creations that attempt to look as human as possible. Android comes from the Greek andro- "human" + eides "form, shape."<ref>Etymology Online Dictionary - Entry on Android. Accessed 03 July 2011. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=android</ref>

The first use of the word "android" is difficult to trace, but the first suggested use seems to appear in Jack Williamson's The Cometeers in 1936.<ref>Williamson, Jack. The Cometeers. Astounding Science Fiction. Dell Magazines, May 1936.</ref><ref>Clute, John and Peter Nicholls. Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction. St. Martin's Press, 1995.</ref> The distinction between mechanical robots and organic androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton in his Captain Future series a few years later, and had become a feature of mainstream press discussion of SF by 1958".<ref>[http://www.catb.org/~esr/sf-words/glossary.html An SF Glossary]</ref>

In some cases, androids in cinema have been a constructed as minority figures whose main concern is to pass as human or understand the human subject. Examples of these subjects include Star Trek's Data and Blade Runner's replicants.<ref>Short, Sue. Cyborg Cinema and Contemporary Subjectivity. Faculty of Continuing Education Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. Palgrave Macmillan 2005.</ref>

Androids try to explicitly emulate the physical human form in robotics. This is a promising lead in establishing more intimate connections with robots, but not the only avenue. For example, [[Watson]], the AI that won jeopardy, looks nothing like a human but still bears strong relations to humanity, namely synthesized speech.<ref>IBM - Deep QA Project: Speech Team. IBM.com. Accessed 03 July 2011. http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/speech_team.shtml</ref> Androids are based on the premise that "human-ness" is in part physical resemblance and tries to emulate the human form, rather than taking other human qualities (intelligence, emotions, humor, etc.).

===Related Reading===
*[[Robot]]

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

__NOTOC__

Editing notes

2011-11-16T08:03:41Z

And.awarner:

Editing notes

2011-11-15T00:10:31Z

And.awarner: Created page with "1 Introduction 1 A Cyborg Manifesto 9 Actor Network Theory 11 Affective Computing 13 Ambient Awareness 15 Android 18 Animal Cyborgs 20 Anomie 23 Antisocial Networks 26 Architectu..."

1 Introduction 1 A Cyborg Manifesto 9 Actor Network Theory 11 Affective Computing 13 Ambient Awareness 15 Android 18 Animal Cyborgs 20 Anomie 23 Antisocial Networks 26 Architecture Fiction 27 Asynchronous communication 30 Automatic Production of Space 31 Avatar 32 Backspace Generation 34 Bee Dance 35 Body Optimization 37 Boundary Maintenance 39 Brain-Computer Interface 40 Calm Computing 42 Celebrity as Cyborg 43 Chorded Keyboard 45 City as Software 47 Collaborative Reality 49 Companion Species 50 Compulsion Loops 51
Cyborg Security 53 Deep Hanging Out 55 Device as Memory 58 Digital Backyard 59 Digital Dark Age 61 Digital Detritus 63 Digital Downtime 64 Digital Ethnography 66 Digital Footprint 68 Digital Hoarding 69 Digital Hygiene 71 Diminished Reality 72 Distributed Cognition 74 Douglas Rushkoff 76 Email Apnea 77 Email apnea 80 Email Sabbatical 83 Equipotential Space 85 Extended Nervous System 87 External Brain 89 Feeling Obligated to stay connected 91 Flaneuring 94 Flow 95 Fractal Aesthetic 97 Fractal Self 99 Future Runoff 100 Future Self 101 Future Shock 102 Geolocation 103 Hacker-as-Hero 105 Haptics 106
Hardware 109 Heavy Modernity 110 Hertzian Space 112 Human Computer Interaction 114 Hyperlinked Memories 115 Hyperpresence 117 Hypersigil 118 Identity Production 120 Infomorph 122 Information 123 Information Society 127 Infosynaesthesia 128 Interaction Shield 129 Intermittent Reinforcement 130 Interoperability 132 Interstitial Space 134 Junk Sleep 136 Lifecasting 138 Lifelong Kindergarten 140 Lifestreaming 141 Liminal Space 142 Little Brother 144 Location Sharing 145 Low-Tech Cyborgs 146 Machine Learning 147 Macy Meetings 149 Mark Weiser 151 Marshall McLuhan 152 Mediated Reality 154 Mediology 156 Mental Fragmentation 157
Mental Real Estate 161 Micro-Singularity 163 Mild Dystopia 164 Mind Uploading 165 Minimalism 166 Multitasking 167 Mundane Science Fiction 168 Mundane Studies 172 Natural Language Processing 175 Netness 178 Node centrality 181 Non-Place 182 Non-Visual Augmented Reality 183 Ocular Convergence 186 Panic Architecture 187 Paracosmic Immersion 189 Path dependence 192 Persistent Architecture 194 Persistent Paleontology 196 Personal Space 197 Plastic Time 198 Playground as Factory 200 Presentation of Self in Digital Life 202 Pronoia 203 Prosthetic 205 Prosthetic Culture 207 Protocyborg 209 Proxemics 210 Proximal notification 213 Psyber-culture 214 Psychasthenia 216
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis 218 Reality Mining 219 Ringxiety 220 Robot 221 Role Boundary Permeability 223 Rushware 225 Satisfice 226 Schizophrenia 227 Science Fiction as Future 228 Second Self 230 Second-Hand Cyborg 231 Sentient Computing 233 Service Design 234 Sharecropping 235 Sighborg 237 Simultaneous Time 238 Skeuomorph 240 Skitzovision 242 Sludgeware 243 Social Gravity 244 Social Punctuation 245 Soft Architecture 246 Software 247 Sousveillance 248 Stealth Socialization 249 Steve Mann 250 Superhuman Interaction Design 251 Supermodernity 253 Superorganism 255 Swarm Culture 256 Synchronous communication 259
Synesthesia 260 Tabaholic 262 Tamagotchi 263 Technosocial Womb 265 Technosocial Worm Hole 266 Tele-Cocooning 267 Teleoperator 270 Templated Self 271 Temporarily negotiated space 272 Territory Marking 274 The Community Cyborg 275 The Cyborg Handbook 276 Time Geography 277 Totem group 278 Ubiquitous Computing 279 Uncanny Valley 281 Unitasking 284 Virtual Companion 285 Virtual Tombstone 287 Wearable Computing 288 Whole earth catalog 294

Category:book pages

1 Introduction

2011-07-09T05:01:20Z

And.awarner:

FORWARD:

When I was very little, my dad would sit me down at night and say, "I'm going to teach you about time and space in the future." And I said, "Great." And he said one day, "What's the shortest distance between two points?" And I said, "Well, that's a straight line. You told me that yesterday. I thought I was very clever." He said, "No, no, no. Here's a better way." He took a piece of paper, drew A and B on one side and the other and folded them together so where A and B touched. And he said, "That is the shortest distance between two points." And I said, "Dad, dad, dad, how do you do that?" He said, "Well, you just bend time and space, it takes an awful lot of energy, and that's just how you do it."And I said, "I want to do that." And he said, "Well, okay." And so, when I went to sleep for the next 10 or 20 years, I was thinking at night, "I want to be the first person to create a wormhole, to make things accelerate faster. And I want to make a time machine." I was always sending messages to my future self using tape recorders.

When I was writing my thesis on cell phones in college, I started to realize that everyone was carrying around wormholes in their pocket. They weren't physically transporting themselves, but they were definitely mentally transporting themselves. They would click on a button, and they would be connected from A to B immediately. And I thought, "Oh, wow. I found it. This is great." I realized that these cell phones had effectively compressed space and time. You can stand on one side of the world, whisper something, and be heard on the other.

But I get ahead of myself. The reason this book is a dictionary can also be traced back to an experience from my childhood. When I was little, I was always making up strange words. My classmates would egg me on to create a dictionary of these words. The requests began in first grade, to which I responded “soon, soon - I’m not yet a writer, and I haven’t got many words in me yet!”. In true procrastinative spirit, it took me eight years to sit down and write the first dictionary of strange words. I called it The Complete Dictonary of Coolish Language. It was an oddity full of strange philosophical arguments, bizarre concepts and novel words. Curiously enough, it became an underground hit at school, and I printed out copies from my printer and sold them to classmates and teachers. My mom, who had to bear through my first tome, (presumptuously titled “A Psychology of World Peace”) liked the flow and wit of this dictionary quite a bit more than the pseudo-psychological writings of a 13 year old with nothing better to do with a summer vacation. It was a turning point. I realized that I had failed in writing before simply because I had been a bit too ambitious. I also had a fleeting and jumpy attention span, perhaps a product of our ADD-inducing technological architectures. I often couldn’t remember what I wrote only a few days ago, and restarting a paragraph, or even finishing one, was difficult.

At some point in my college career, I happened to sit in on a philosophy conference on campus. I was somewhat intrigued by the various presentations, but it was the last talk that would prove to change everything. A woman stepped up to the podium, dressed from head-to-toe in a leather motorcycling outfit, with giant leather boots, thick black-framed glasses, and bright-red hair to complete the image. She was right out of a cyberpunk comic-book or techno-thriller novel, and her name was Deborah Heath. Her talk was on a fledgling field called “Cyborg Anthropology”. It was legendary. Most of the students in the audience thought it was pretty cool, but I went ballistic. Finally there was a subject that made sense to me, a subject that married the analytical, technology-obsessed side of my brain to an understanding of humans. This was a framework with which to understand humans and technology! I should note that this speech occurred right before Facebook cast the campus into an addiction of techno-social glee and obsession.

I was a shy and anxious college student. Rather than get along with my classmates, I was a quiet and quirky conundrum. This speech was an exception. Immediatey afterward I went up to Dr. Heath and asked her more about the field of cyborg anthropology. I didn’t think it really existed. I thought she was making things up. “No”, she said, “it’s quite real. I helped found it. I even teach a class on it here. You should take it!”. I had to wait a few years before the class was offered again, but I took it. I took my thesis with Dr. Heath as well, and wrote it on “cell phones and their technosocial cites of engagement”.

When I finished school I found that other people were curious about the strange subject that I had studied in college. It began to become synonymous with my name. The methods of cyborg anthropology also became a very good tool-set for understanding a world rife with rapid technological change. There have been many requests for a book on cyborg anthropology, and I have tried many manuscripts. Because of the nature of the subject, and the nature of technological and social development today, I think that a dictionary format is a good starting point. It’s a way to get a quick look into a certain concept, as well as an overview of the discipline and ideas as a whole. This book is not meant to subscribe to a particular view, but to many. It is a set of thoughts and ideas and different ways of understanding the world.
This book is meant as an overview of concepts related to the study of cyborg anthropology. It is a definition of a universe of ideas and new developments, concepts and ways of thinking in a quickly morphing world. This is not a book of methods, but a book of ideas.

Best, Amber Case

Introduction

"To live in the world of creation – to get into it and stay in it – to frequent it and haunt it – to think intensely and fruitfully – to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation – this is the only thing.” - Henry James

This is a book is a dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology. In short, it is a guide to interface culture. What is this study called Cyborg Anthropology? Why is it important? What does it entail? Why does it exist?

Cyborg Anthropology as a formal subject of study was formally introduced in 1993 as a subset of the Anthropology of Science to address the need for a set of methods and theories to understand the increasingly-complex relationship between humans and technological objects. To understand Cyborg Anthropology, we first need to understand the two terms that make up make up the discipline, "cyborg" and "anthropology". Anthropology, from the Greek “anthopos” (human being), is the study of humanity. There are several main branches in Anthropology, but it is cultural anthropology that interests us here. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand human cultures by immersing themselves in a culture and figuring out how each custom, ritual, institution, belief, profession, practice, and technology work together to form the complex whole we call “culture”. There have been entire libraries written on how to best undertake this task, but for now lets just say that the process tends to involve writing an “ethnography”, or a description of the people based on interviews, careful observation, questionaires, etc. Historically, anthropologists would travel to exotic cultures to do this research, but today anthropologists also write about cultures and sub-cultures much closer to home.
The second major concept in Cyborg Anthropology is the cyborg. The term cyborg was originally coined in 1965 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in a paper about the advantages of human-machine couplings for surviving in space.<ref> </ref> Broadly speaking, a cyborg is defined as a system with both biological and artificial components. In one sense, the use of any tool that functions as an extension of one's abilities makes one a cyborg, but cyborgs are more narrowly understood to have physical technological prostheses. Thus in the narrowest sense, examples of cyborgs would include people with pacemakers, insulin pumps, and bionic limbs. In the broadest sense, the whole human-technological apparatus could qualify as a cyborg system (and since the border of a cyborg system has no inherent limits, the entire ecosystem could qualify as a cyborg). The narrowest sense of cyborg does not let us grasp the many synergies of human/non-human splices, while the broadest conception runs the risk of being so broad that the discipline cannot be defined. Cyborg Anthropology therefore studies the interaction of technology and humanity, with a special emphasis on technologies that operate on the border of the human.

Donna Haraway’s essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” inaugerated the cyborg as a noteworthy object of study in the humanities and social sciences, priming the ground for Cyborg Anthropology today.

Another way to think about cyborgs is through the discipline of Cybernetics. Cybernetics was a discipline that was pioneered in 1946-1953 during the Macy Conferences. At these conferences the concepts of feedback loops, information, and systems were brought together to understand a wide range of phenomenon, from brains and computers to weapons and rats. Besides the ubiquitus prefix “cyber”, Cybernetics has seemed to slip into the cracks of historical obscurity, but it’s basic assumptions are still found in the set of disciplines now called “Informatics”. Informatics include the disciplines of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Bionics, Information Technology, Nanotechnology, Genetics, Artificial Life, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and the variety of sub-disciplines within these larger fields. The common link lies in the pervasive concepts of information, systems, and feedback loops, and their corresponding implicit metaphor of organism as machine, machine as organism, and everything as information. Every time someone says “I’m not wired for this type of work”, or “One second, my phone’s thinking”, they are propagating an extended metaphor that was incubated at the Macy Conferences. The fields that make up Informatics are at the forefront of researching and implementing the technologies that are forming our cyborg condition--technologies like genetic engineering, brain-computer interfaces, smart phones, and prosthetic limbs. By grounding the cyborg in Cybernetics we avoid studying all technology--a monumental task for any discipline, and also trace a history in an area where history is often overlooked in the excitement for future technologies.

Thus Cyborg Anthropology studies humankind and its relations with the technological systems it has built, specifically modern technological systems that have reflexively shaped notions of what it means to be humans. But this still leaves questions as to why the discipline needs to exist. If you find yourself reading this book, you probably have a good idea of why we should be thinking about how technology affects our lives. Humans and technology have co-created each other since the beginning of humanity. A hammer extended the capabilities of the fist, and a knife extended the capabilities of the tooth. More recently, however, technology began to extend the capability of not only the body, but also the brain as well. The increase in technological development went hand in hand with the logarithmic increase in population. Because technology is expanding logarithmically, we no longer have generations to integrate new technologies into culture. Anthropologists and their methods of understanding cultures can help us grapple with these changes.

From this basic understanding of Cyborg Anthropology we can start to study some of the derivative properties of
Traditionally, the central unit of analysis in anthropology is the ethnography, a snapshot of how a culture functions as a whole (often with some recourse to the notion of the "structure" of a culture, a metaphor that is steeped in connotations of unchanging stability). In this sense, anthropologists often spend less time considering how a culture has changed over time and instead try to understand how the culture functions as a synaptic whole. Cyborg Anthropology seems different in this respect. Because technology and interface are changing so fast, cyborg anthropology is much more likely to note the changes over time in culture and use this diachronic analysis to understand the ramifications of our cybernetic condition. The rhizome (a cybernetic, feedback-looping, adaptive, decentralized network) is the metaphor that replaces static structure. Insofar as Cyborg Anthropology is studying phenomena that have very little cultural precedence, it seems to be inextricably tied to historical analysis and theories of interface r/evolution.

Actor Network Theory

Actor Network

Form and Content

Amber’s previous experience with dictionaries was what originally inspired the format of this book, but as the writing progressed other reasons for the format quickly emerged. This dictionary was primarily created on a closed-wiki devoted to Cyborg Anthropology, with many a session on Skype and Google Docs to supplement. A wiki is a unique creature. Rather than a linear narrative, a wiki is a node-based creature that mutates and evolves over time. We wanted the form to follow the content, and thus have tried to have the format follow the content of the book. Rather than a linear narrative that cohesively and absolutely explains cyborg anthropology, we have chosen to create a cloud of concepts orbiting around the various nodes that make up cyborg anthropology. This book is not meant to be read linearly, but rather to be browsed at one's whims, just as one would scroll through an RSS feed. These entries are meant as small synaptic snapshots that weave together a rizomic sketch of possible futures. They are not meant to be read from cover-to-cover, although you are welcome to do this if you feel so enthralled. We don’t claim to be objective. Besides this being an impossibility, there is no way to be objective about the future. With the rise of postmodern ethics, there’s the loss of master narratives, but that doesn’t mean that we’re just stuck with purely subjective experience. The ideal compromise is to have an objectivity emerge out of a network of subjectivities, thus allowing for an emergent “postmodern objectivity”.

This introduction and the editing process was facilitated by Google Docs and Skype, seemingly appropriate mediums for a book on how technology is changing our lives.2. Most books have a linear narrative and are meant to be read from cover-cover. We didn’t feel this was the best way to explain the various threads that make up Cyborg Anthropology. Linear narratives suggest a cohesive voice that is authoritatively explaining the subject matter

One of the major reasons for writing this book is to answer the polemical visons that often colonize the futurist discourse. Historically, the first futurists were religious prophets, and too many writers, thinkers, scholars and media pundits follow in this tradition by proclaiming the imminent techno-utopia or ecological apocalypse. This dynamic is also fueled by the formidable influence of Science Fiction in helping us think about our future. Regardless of the cause, we seek to mitigate these master narratives by providing a set of concepts to think about the role of technology in the future of humanity. Following Keith Ansel-Pearson, we wish to “question, problematize, overturn, revalue, announce, renounce, advocate, interrogate, affirm, deny, celebrate, critique” technology and the role it is going to play in our future. <ref>The Transhuman Condition : A Report on Machines, Technics, and Evolution (New York: Routledge, 1997 p.1</ref> Some of the entries are very optimistic, while others express grave worry. Hopefully by

This book is partially descriptive, but it is also fundamentally evocative, and is meant to actively sow new memes for thinking about the future. Taken another way--a kind of choose your own adventure vs. a visit again into the tired old narratives of dystopianism and technopositivism.

----
Why does this need to be studied?

future shock!
changing faster than we can objectify the changes
changing EVERYTHING
Technology has always been implicated in the question of what it means to be human, but since WWII and the proliferation of informatics disciplines this question has gained whole new horizons. Technology is radically changing the way we interact--faster than any other point in history.

Humans and technology have co-created each other since the beginning of humanity. A hammer extended the capabilities of the fist, and a knife extended the capabilities of the tooth. More recently, however, technology began to extend the capability of not only the body, but also the brain as well. The increase in technological development went hand in hand with the logarithmic increase in population. Because technology is expanding logarithmically, we no longer have generations to integrate new technologies into culture. Anthropologists and their methods of understanding cultures can help us grapple with these changes.

-----

We define ourselves as what’s closest to us. Lao Tzu defined human nature as nature itself.

Themes

If we were to categorize the entries in this book into a set of overarching themes, here’s what they would be.

Central themes:
Hayle’s Notion of Technogensis. We are created through our technology. (Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman). A symbiotic co-creation.

The cyborg operates at the borders of the self. It takes the cohesive individual subject that has played such an important role throughout history and explores where the self has become permeable and elastic through technological augmentation. The adaptation of these technologies doesn’t merely effect the border of the self, it derivatively affects many other pervasive concepts that we use to organize our world. The concept of place morphs into a concept of space with the widespread application of social media. The realm of the mind expands beyond the carbon substrate to silicon chips as we integrate memory into computers. The border of private and public is thrown into chaos with the voluntary creation of intimate online identities. Sometimes strange paradoxes emerge, such as in the case of media consumption. On one hand we live in a golden age of access to movies, shows, and music, while on the other hand we mind ourselves with our tailored private iPod that mitigates the diversity of the radio or broadcast television.

In Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman describes how technology is changing the individual, work and place, space and time, the private and the public and emancipation. Technology can bring the far near, and the near far. It can make the individual a part of a larger whole or feel completely isolated. Play and work blend together.

Embodiment, transcendence (embodied and grounded in the world - vs. transcending to the realm of pure thought. And in a sense the Internet is about that pure thought - transcending space and time, and yet one of the first and enduringly popular applications of the internet is pornography, media depicting the most embodied experience we partake in.
Geography and the ability to move. Are we embodied in this particular area? Or are we able to go where ever we want?) I would argue that the former dichotomy of imagination and reality is blending into each other. There's this spectrum of human experience no matter how much technology there is. However, there is little work on sanity, cognitive expansion, and mental effects of technology. An increasing number of the populous is experiencing Future Shock.

How to take elements from this book and apply them?
Is there a normative program underlying this book?
-Are there ideals we are trying to express through these concepts (technological becoming and ecological awareness? Sanity and cognitive expansion? idealism with a dose of pragmatism?)
A nod to all the thinkers that inspired this endevour, perhaps a reading list of the best books and authors in this field
A note on how this book will not remain static and updates may be found on the wiki.

My other favorite quote is from Hayles' How We Became Posthuman, p. 5: If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend on for our continued survival.

((Douglas Adams “a nerd is someone who calls his friend up on the telephone in order to talk about telephones”. Technology doesn't just get adopted because it works; it gets adopted because people use it and it's made for humans. Keeping humanity in technology. The best interface is invisible. It gets out of the way and lets one live one’s life.))

A Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology

This book is meant as an overview of concepts related to the study of cyborg anthropology. It is a definition of a universe of ideas and new developments, concepts and ways of thinking in a quickly morphing world. This is not a book of methods, but a book of ideas.

<references/>

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked for Editing]]

__NOTOC__

1 Introduction

2011-07-08T22:56:24Z

And.awarner:

FORWARD:

When I was very little, my dad would sit me down at night and say, "I'm going to teach you about time and space in the future." And I said, "Great." And he said one day, "What's the shortest distance between two points?" And I said, "Well, that's a straight line. You told me that yesterday. I thought I was very clever." He said, "No, no, no. Here's a better way." He took a piece of paper, drew A and B on one side and the other and folded them together so where A and B touched. And he said, "That is the shortest distance between two points." And I said, "Dad, dad, dad, how do you do that?" He said, "Well, you just bend time and space, it takes an awful lot of energy, and that's just how you do it."And I said, "I want to do that." And he said, "Well, okay." And so, when I went to sleep for the next 10 or 20 years, I was thinking at night, "I want to be the first person to create a wormhole, to make things accelerate faster. And I want to make a time machine." I was always sending messages to my future self using tape recorders.

When I was writing my thesis on cell phones in college, I started to realize that everyone was carrying around wormholes in their pocket. They weren't physically transporting themselves, but they were definitely mentally transporting themselves. They would click on a button, and they would be connected from A to B immediately. And I thought, "Oh, wow. I found it. This is great." I realized that these cell phones had effectively compressed space and time. You can stand on one side of the world, whisper something, and be heard on the other.

But I get ahead of myself. The reason this book is a dictionary can also be traced back to an experience from my childhood. When I was little, I was always making up strange words. My classmates would egg me on to create a dictionary of these words. The requests began in first grade, to which I responded “soon, soon - I’m not yet a writer, and I haven’t got many words in me yet!”. In true procrastinative spirit, it took me eight years to sit down and write the first dictionary of strange words. I called it The Complete Dictonary of Coolish Language. It was an oddity full of strange philosophical arguments, bizarre concepts and novel words. Curiously enough, it became an underground hit at school, and I printed out copies from my printer and sold them to classmates and teachers. My mom, who had to bear through my first tome, (presumptuously titled “A Psychology of World Peace”) liked the flow and wit of this dictionary quite a bit more than the pseudo-psychological writings of a 13 year old with nothing better to do with a summer vacation. It was a turning point. I realized that I had failed in writing before simply because I had been a bit too ambitious. I also had a fleeting and jumpy attention span, perhaps a product of our ADD-inducing technological architectures. I often couldn’t remember what I wrote only a few days ago, and restarting a paragraph, or even finishing one, was difficult.

At some point in my college career, I happened to sit in on a philosophy conference on campus. I was somewhat intrigued by the various presentations, but it was the last talk that would prove to change everything. A woman stepped up to the podium, dressed from head-to-toe in a leather motorcycling outfit, with giant leather boots, thick black-framed glasses, and bright-red hair to complete the image. She was right out of a cyberpunk comic-book or techno-thriller novel, and her name was Deborah Heath. Her talk was on a fledgling field called “Cyborg Anthropology”. It was legendary. Most of the students in the audience thought it was pretty cool, but I went ballistic. Finally there was a subject that made sense to me, a subject that married the analytical, technology-obsessed side of my brain to an understanding of humans. This was a framework with which to understand humans and technology! I should note that this speech occurred right before Facebook cast the campus into an addiction of techno-social glee and obsession.

I was a shy and anxious college student. Rather than get along with my classmates, I was a quiet and quirky conundrum. This speech was an exception. Immediatey afterward I went up to Dr. Heath and asked her more about the field of cyborg anthropology. I didn’t think it really existed. I thought she was making things up. “No”, she said, “it’s quite real. I helped found it. I even teach a class on it here. You should take it!”. I had to wait a few years before the class was offered again, but I took it. I took my thesis with Dr. Heath as well, and wrote it on “cell phones and their technosocial cites of engagement”.

When I finished school I found that other people were curious about the strange subject that I had studied in college. It began to become synonymous with my name. The methods of cyborg anthropology also became a very good tool-set for understanding a world rife with rapid technological change. There have been many requests for a book on cyborg anthropology, and I have tried many manuscripts. Because of the nature of the subject, and the nature of technological and social development today, I think that a dictionary format is a good starting point. It’s a way to get a quick look into a certain concept, as well as an overview of the discipline and ideas as a whole. This book is not meant to subscribe to a particular view, but to many. It is a set of thoughts and ideas and different ways of understanding the world.
This book is meant as an overview of concepts related to the study of cyborg anthropology. It is a definition of a universe of ideas and new developments, concepts and ways of thinking in a quickly morphing world. This is not a book of methods, but a book of ideas.

Best, Amber Case

Introduction

"To live in the world of creation – to get into it and stay in it – to frequent it and haunt it – to think intensely and fruitfully – to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation – this is the only thing.” - Henry James

This is a book is a dictionary of cyborg anthropology. In short, it is a guide to interface culture. What is this study called Cyborg Anthropology? Why is it important? What does it entail? Why does it exist?

What is Cyborg Anthropology?
Cyborg Anthropology as a formal subject of study was formally introduced in 1993 as a subset of the Anthropology of Science to address the need for a set of methods and theories to understand the increasingly-complex relationship between humans and technological objects.

ANTHROPOLOGY

To understand Cyborg Anthropology, we first need to understand the two terms that make up make up the discipline, "cyborg" and "anthropology". Anthropology, from the Greek “anthopos” (human being), is the study of humanity. There are several main branches in Anthropology, but it is cultural anthropology that interests us here. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand human cultures by immersing themselves in a culture and figuring out how each custom, ritual, institution, belief, profession, practice, and technology work together to form the complex whole we call “culture”. There have been entire libraries written on how to best undertake this task, but for now lets just say that the process tends to involve writing an “ethnography”, or a description of the people based on interviews, careful observation, questionaires, etc. Historically, anthropologists would travel to exotic cultures to do this research, but today anthropologists also write about cultures and sub-cultures much closer to home.

CYBORG
The object of study for Cyborg Anthropology is the cyborg. The term cyborg was originally coined in 1965 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in a paper about the advantages of human-machine couplings for surviving in space. Broadly speaking, a cyborg is traditionally defined as a system with both biological and artificial components. In one sense, the use of any tool that functions as an extension of one's abilities qualifies one as a cyborg, but cyborgs are more narrowly understood to have actual, physical technological extensions or prostheses. Thus in the narrowest sense, examples of cyborgs would include people with pacemakers, insulin pumps, and bionic limbs. In the broadest sense, all of our interaction with technology could qualify as a cyborg system (and since the border of a cyborg system has no inherent limits, the entire ecosystem could qualify as a cyborg). The narrowest sense of cyborg does not let us grasp the many synergies of human/non-human splices, while the broadest conception runs the risk of being so broad that the discipline cannot be defined. Donna Haraway’s essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” inaugerated the cyborg as a noteworthy object of study in the humanities and social sciences, priming the ground for Cyborg Anthropology today.

CYBERNETICS
Another way to think about cyborgs is through the discipline of Cybernetics. Cybernetics was a discipline that was pioneered in 1946-1953 during the Macy Conferences. At these conferences the concepts of feedback loops, information, and systems were brought together to understand a wide range of phenomenon, from brains and computers to weapons and rats. Besides the ubiquitus prefix “cyber”, Cybernetics has seemed to slip into the cracks of historical obscurity, but it’s basic assumptions are still found in the set of disciplines now called “Informatics”. Informatics include the disciplines of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Bionics, Information Technology, Nanotechnology, Genetics, Artificial Life, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and the variety of sub-disciplines within these larger fields. The common link lies in the pervasive concepts of information, systems, and feedback loops, and their corresponding implicit metaphor of organism as machine, machine as organism, and everything as information. Every time someone says “I’m not wired for this type of work”, or “One second, my phone’s thinking”, they are propagating an extended metaphor that was incubated at the Macy Conferences. The fields that make up Informatics are at the forefront of researching and implementing the technologies that are forming our cyborg condition--technologies like genetic engineering, brain-computer interfaces, smart phones, and prosthetic limbs. By grounding the cyborg in Cybernetics we avoid studying all technology--a monumental task for any discipline, and also trace a history in an area where history is often overlooked in the excitement for future technologies.

Thus Cyborg Anthropology studies humankind and its relations with the technological systems it has built, specifically modern technological systems that have reflexively shaped notions of what it means to be humans. But this still leaves questions as to why the discipline needs to exist. If you find yourself reading this book, you probably have a good idea of why we should be thinking about how technology affects our lives. Things are changing fast--very fast. The long term effects of these changes are difficult to measure, and thus require careful study from a variety of disciplines.

Science, Technology, and Society (STS) is probably the closest discipline to Cyborg Anthropology.

Not sociology, less quantitative analysis, more philosophy.

From this basic understanding of Cyborg Anthropology we can start to study some of the derivative properties of
Traditionally, the central unit of analysis in anthropology is the ethnography, a snapshot of how a culture functions as a whole (often with some recourse to the notion of the "structure" of a culture, a metaphor that is steeped in connotations of unchanging stability). In this sense, anthropologists often spend less time considering how a culture has changed over time and instead try to understand how the culture functions as a synaptic whole. Cyborg Anthropology seems different in this respect. Because technology and interface are changing so fast, cyborg anthropology is much more likely to note the changes over time in culture and use this diachronic analysis to understand the ramifications of our cybernetic condition. The rhizome (a cybernetic, feedback-looping, adaptive, decentralized network) is the metaphor that replaces static structure. Insofar as Cyborg Anthropology is studying phenomena that have very little cultural precedence, it seems to be inextricably tied to historical analysis and theories of interface r/evolution.

Actor Network Theory

Actor Network

Form and Content

Amber’s previous experience with dictionaries was what originally inspired the format of this book, but as the writing progressed other reasons for the format quickly emerged. This book is the offspring of the Cyborg Anthropology Wiki, an online database for those interested in the subject. For those unfamiliar, a wiki is a platform that allows multiple users to easily create and edit pages, which can lead to brilliant projects like Wikipedia.

2. Most books have a linear narrative and are meant to be read from cover-cover. We didn’t feel this was the best way to explain the various threads that make up Cyborg Anthropology. Linear narratives suggest a cohesive voice that is authoritatively explaining the subject matter

3. The editing process was facilitated by Google Docs and Skype, seemingly appropriate mediums for a book on how technology is changing our lives.

4.

This dictionary was primarily created on a closed-wiki devoted to Cyborg Anthropology, with many a session on Skype and Google Docs to supplement. A wiki is a unique creature. Rather than a linear narrative, a wiki is a node-based creature that mutates and evolves over time. We wanted the form to follow the content, and thus have tried to have the format follow the content of the book. Rather than a linear narrative that cohesively and absolutely explains cyborg anthropology, we have chosen to create a cloud of concepts orbiting around the various nodes that make up cyborg anthropology. This has been part of the writing process from the very beginning, with all of the articles having been written on a wiki devoted to Cyborg Anthropology.

Those who are interested in the subject can are invited to comment on and grow the entries over time. We have thus have tried to create a book that reflects the changes that our world is going through.

Talk about need for interdisciplinary scholarship and coming together to think about big issues.

Many of these concepts are

(good) These entries are meant as small synaptic snapshots that weave together a rizomic sketch of possible futures. They are not meant to be read from cover-to-cover, although you are welcome to do this if you feel so enthralled. We don’t want to claim to be objective. Besides this being an impossibility, there is no way to be objective about the future. (Include?) I think one of the values of anthropology and the anthropological mindset is the ability to walk the line between subjectivity and objectivity. To be able to understand the subject at hand as well as understand the cultural constructions that led that person to manifest in that space. The objectivity allows the anthropologist to see the subject or set of culture on a longer and larger time scale. Not as one incidence, or static system of set of ideas, but as part of a

We are not here to provide a bjectivity died with modernism. With the rise of postmodern ethics, there’s the loss of master narratives, but that doesn’t mean that we’re just stuck with purely subjective experience. The ideal compromise is to have an objectivity emerge out of a network of subjectivities, thus allowing for an emergent “postmodern objectivity”.

One of the major reasons for writing this book is to answer the polemical visons that often colonize the futurist discourse. Historically, the first futurists were religious prophets, and too many writers, thinkers, scholars and media pundits follow in this tradition by proclaiming the imminent techno-utopia or ecological apocalypse. This dynamic is also fueled by the formidable influence of Science Fiction in helping us think about our future. Regardless of the cause, we seek to mitigate these master narratives by providing a set of concepts to think about the role of technology in the future of humanity. Following Keith Ansel-Pearson, we wish to “question, problematize, overturn, revalue, announce, renounce, advocate, interrogate, affirm, deny, celebrate, critique” technology and the role it is going to play in our future. <ref>The Transhuman Condition : A Report on Machines, Technics, and Evolution (New York: Routledge, 1997 p.1</ref> Some of the entries are very optimistic, while others express grave worry. Hopefully by

This book is partially descriptive, but it is also fundamentally evocative, and is meant to actively sow new memes for thinking about the future. Taken another way--a kind of choose your own adventure vs. a visit again into the tired old narratives of dystopianism and technopositivism.

----
Why does this need to be studied?

future shock!
changing faster than we can objectify the changes
changing EVERYTHING
Technology has always been implicated in the question of what it means to be human, but since WWII and the proliferation of informatics disciplines this question has gained whole new horizons. Technology is radically changing the way we interact--faster than any other point in history.

Humans and technology have co-created each other since the beginning of humanity. A hammer extended the capabilities of the fist, and a knife extended the capabilities of the tooth. More recently, however, technology began to extend the capability of not only the body, but also the brain as well. The increase in technological development went hand in hand with the logarithmic increase in population. Because technology is expanding logarithmically, we no longer have generations to integrate new technologies into culture. Anthropologists and their methods of understanding cultures can help us grapple with these changes.

-----

We define ourselves as what’s closest to us. Lao Tzu defined human nature as nature itself.

Themes

If we were to categorize the entries in this book into a set of overarching themes, here’s what they would be.

Central themes:
Hayle’s Notion of Technogensis. We are created through our technology. (Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman). A symbiotic co-creation.

The cyborg operates at the borders of the self. It takes the cohesive individual subject that has played such an important role throughout history and explores where the self has become permeable and elastic through technological augmentation. The adaptation of these technologies doesn’t merely effect the border of the self, it derivatively affects many other pervasive concepts that we use to organize our world. The concept of place morphs into a concept of space with the widespread application of social media. The realm of the mind expands beyond the carbon substrate to silicon chips as we integrate memory into computers. The border of private and public is thrown into chaos with the voluntary creation of intimate online identities. Sometimes strange paradoxes emerge, such as in the case of media consumption. On one hand we live in a golden age of access to movies, shows, and music, while on the other hand we mind ourselves with our tailored private iPod that mitigates the diversity of the radio or broadcast television.

In Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman describes how technology is changing the individual, work and place, space and time, the private and the public and emancipation. Technology can bring the far near, and the near far. It can make the individual a part of a larger whole or feel completely isolated. Play and work blend together.

Embodiment, transcendence (embodied and grounded in the world - vs. transcending to the realm of pure thought. And in a sense the Internet is about that pure thought - transcending space and time, and yet one of the first and enduringly popular applications of the internet is pornography, media depicting the most embodied experience we partake in.
Geography and the ability to move. Are we embodied in this particular area? Or are we able to go where ever we want?) I would argue that the former dichotomy of imagination and reality is blending into each other. There's this spectrum of human experience no matter how much technology there is. However, there is little work on sanity, cognitive expansion, and mental effects of technology. An increasing number of the populous is experiencing Future Shock.

How to take elements from this book and apply them?
Is there a normative program underlying this book?
-Are there ideals we are trying to express through these concepts (technological becoming and ecological awareness? Sanity and cognitive expansion? idealism with a dose of pragmatism?)
A nod to all the thinkers that inspired this endevour, perhaps a reading list of the best books and authors in this field
A note on how this book will not remain static and updates may be found on the wiki.

My other favorite quote is from Hayles' How We Became Posthuman, p. 5: If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend on for our continued survival.

((Douglas Adams “a nerd is someone who calls his friend up on the telephone in order to talk about telephones”. Technology doesn't just get adopted because it works; it gets adopted because people use it and it's made for humans. Keeping humanity in technology. The best interface is invisible. It gets out of the way and lets one live one’s life.))

A Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology

This book is meant as an overview of concepts related to the study of cyborg anthropology. It is a definition of a universe of ideas and new developments, concepts and ways of thinking in a quickly morphing world. This is not a book of methods, but a book of ideas.

<references/>

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A Cyborg Manifesto

2011-07-06T21:31:47Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" was a notable and groundbreaking essay on technology and culture written by Donna Haraway in 1986. The essay explores the concept of the cyborg and it's ramifications for the future, and effectively inaugurating the academic study of cyborgs. The manifesto uses gender as its central example in explaining the power of the cyborg. Haraway attacks the "goddess feminism" movement as "an American attempt to reject things technological and return women to nature"<ref>Theresa M. Senft's reading notes for Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto". Background Information on Haraway and her Manifesto. Accessed 02 July 2011. http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html</ref> and instead offers the model of the cybernetic woman: that of machine and human, a co-created techno-social assemblage with the capability of transcending the polarizing binary notions of gender. With technologies such as sex-change operations and virtual avatars erasing the traditional markers we use to determine gender, the binary starts to collapse and new hybrid forms of sexuality can emerge.

Haraway defines the cyborg in four different ways in her essay. The first is as a "cybernetic organism." The second is as "a hybrid of machine and organism." The third is as "a creature of lived social reality", and the fourth is as a "creature of fiction." <ref>Ibid.</ref> Haraway points out that "the border of the cyborg is an optical illusion", and that "the struggle to define and control the cyborg amounts to a border war". Ironically enough, she adds, this war is fought on a terrain that is largely an optical illusion: the space between science fiction and today's fact. Anyone who believes cyborgs are things of the future is mistaken. Modern medicine is full of cyborgs already, as is modern reproduction, manufacturing and modern warfare. In short, "we are cyborgs", whether we know it or not, if only because it is the cyborg which "is our ontology, it gives us our politics",<ref>Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York; Routledge, 1991. Pg.150.</ref> which is to say that it is wrapped into our existence as human beings. It has become us, and we are it.

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Unitasking

2011-07-01T00:08:55Z

And.awarner:

====Definition====
Unitasking describes the act of focusing on only one task at a time.

We got distracted and forgot to finish this article.

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Username

2011-07-01T00:06:42Z

And.awarner: Blanked the page

Virtual Companion

2011-06-30T23:52:27Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
A virtual companion is an interactive program accessible through web or mobile that serves as a companion or parter for the user. Most commonly this relationship is a boyfriend or girlfriend relationship, fulfilling some of the functions usually associated with these relationships. A virtual boyfriend or girlfriend program often has a variety of different reactions or prompts with which they interact and support the user. These virtual companions have become quite popular in East Asia, with some success in the West as well.

The virtual companions usually entertained and compliment users, ask how users are doing, or provide sexual enticement. Virtual companions often provide a guaranteed positive experience with a minimal amount of potential error and no rejection for the user. "Given the sometimes rocky road to love in the real world, many users find virtual partners even more desirable than the flesh-and-blood variety".<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1168315.stm Virtual love seduces Japan] Tuesday, 13 February, 2001, 19:41 GMT.</ref> Lonely individuals may often find that a virtual companion provides just the right amount of attention that they need, without the drawbacks that real relationships might have such as nagging, judging, or jealousy. A virtual boyfriend, for instance, will have his attention always available to his user, or a virtual girlfriend will ensure her user that he is strong, attractive, and of good character.

===Gameplay===
"Bandai Network's Mail de Koi Shite (or Falling in Love by Mail) is targeted towards men who are given the choice of seven virtual women, including a school teacher and a nurse". After the player chooses a companion, he enters into a "three-month email courtship" by which "the user must seduce his cyber-love by scoring as many points as possible by finding out as much as he can about his "girlfriend" - apparently not always an easy task".<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1168315.stm Virtual love seduces Japan] Tuesday, 13 February, 2001, 19:41 GMT.</ref> At the end of three months, the verdict of "I like you" or "We can still be friends" is given to the user.

===Use Cases===
"If you’re thinking that you don’t have any use for a virtual boyfriend or girlfriend, then you may want to consider a few things. With everyone feeling some type of stress, there is nothing wrong with getting a “pick me up” a few times a day. Often times, just hearing that you look nice or that your outfit is pretty can do wonders for your self esteem. Virtual boyfriends and girlfriends are by no means meant to replace real world relationships, but hearing something nice about yourself can put a smile on your face and help get you through your day".<ref>[http://www.theinternettimemachine.com/viewpost.php?id=virtual-boyfriend-or-girlfriend-anyone Virtual Boyfriend or Girlfriend Anyone] Posted By: The ITM Guys On: 2010-01-27 14:53:56.</ref>

===Related Reading===
*[http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-01-02/virtual_girlfriends_and_boyfriends.shtml Virtual Girlfriends and Boyfriends] Date: 01-02-2010 By Ridam
*[http://boingboing.net/2008/11/13/your-virtual-girlfri.html Your Virtual Girlfriend] Susannah Breslin. November 13, 2008. 11:32Am.
*Internet Archive of [http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20100902164338/http://yukan.dasaku.net/comics/other-comics/having-a-virtual-boyfriend-is-awesome/ Having A Virtual Boyfriend Is Awesome]. Posted by Blissmo. 11 December 2008.
*[http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/20/webkare-a-girls-only-combination-of-social-network-and-dating-game-from-japan/ Japanese Girl Sensation: Virtual Boyfriends (Webkare)]. Serkan Toto on Sep 20, 2008.
*[http://escapepod.org/2009/09/17/ep216-βoyfriend/ βoyfriend (Escape Pod Podcast EP216)] Madeline Ashby, read by Tina Connolly. September 17, 2009.

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A Cyborg Manifesto

2011-06-30T23:38:03Z

And.awarner:

<blockquote>"The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation".</blockquote>

"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" was a groundbreaking essay written by Donna Haraway in 1986. The essay explores the concept of the cyborg and it's ramifications for the future, and effectively inaugurating the academic study of cyborgs. The manifesto uses gender as its central example in explaining the power of the cyborg. Haraway attacks the "goddess feminism" movement ("an American attempt to reject things technological and return women to nature"<ref>[Background Information on Haraway and her Manifesto. Background Information on Haraway and her Manifesto - Notes for a Cyborg Manifesto]</ref>) and instead offers the model of the cybernetic woman: that of machine and human, a co-created techno-social assemblage with the capability of transcending the polarizing binary notions of gender. Technologies such as sex-change operations and virtual avatars undermine the traditional symbols by which we use to determine gender, thus destabilizing the binary by which we traditionally understand gender.

In the essay Haraway makes a table of how different concepts will shift in our cyborg future:

Representation Simulation
Bourgeois novel, realism Science fiction, postmodernism
Organism Biotic Component
Depth, integrity Surface, boundary
Heat Noise
Biology as clinical practice Biology as inscription
Physiology Communications engineering
Small group Subsystem
Perfection Optimization
Eugenics Population Control
Decadence, Magic Mountain Obsolescence, Future Shock
Hygiene Stress Management
Microbiology, tuberculosis Immunology, AIDS
Organic division of labour Ergonomics/cybernetics of labour
Functional specialization Modular construction
Reproduction Replication
Organic sex role specialization Optimal genetic strategies
Bioogical determinism Evolutionary inertia, constraints
Community ecology Ecosystem
Racial chain of being Neo-imperialism, United Nations humanism
Scientific management in home/factory Global factory/Electronic cottage
Family/Market/Factory Women in the Integrated Circuit
Family wage Comparable worth
Public/Private Cyborg citizenship
Nature/Culture fields of difference
Co-operation Communicatins enhancemenet
Freud Lacan
Sex Genetic engineering
labour Robotics
Mind Artificial Intelligence
Second World War Star Wars
White Capitalist Patriarchy Informatics of Domination

===Haraway's Definition of Cyborg===
Haraway defines the cyborg in four different ways in her essay. "The first is as a "cybernetic organism." The second is as "a hybrid of machine and organism." The third is as "a creature of lived social reality", and the fourth is as a "creature of fiction." "<ref>[http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html Definition of a Cyborg - Notes for a Cyborg Manifesto]</ref>

===Cyborg Borders===
Haraway points out that "the border of the cyborg is an optical illusion", and that "the struggle to define and control the cyborg amounts to a border war". Ironically enough, she adds, this war is fought a terrain that is largely an "optical illusion": the space between science fiction and today's fact. Anyone who believes cyborgs are things of the future is mistaken. Modern medicine is full of cyborgs already, as is modern reproduction, manufacturing and modern warfare. In short, "we are cyborgs", whether we know it or not, if only because it is the cyborg which "is our ontology, it gives us our politics".<ref>[http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html The border of the cyborg is an optical illusion. Notes on a Cyborg Manifesto.]</ref>

===Related Reading===
*[[Donna Haraway]]
*[[Full text of A Cyborg Manifesto]]

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Virtual Tombstone

2011-06-30T23:07:08Z

And.awarner:

===Facebook Profiles as Living Tombstones===
Recently when someone with a Facebook profile passes away their wall functions as a digital homage to that person. People write present-tense addresses to the deceased person in this public space, knowing full well that they have passed away and will not be looking at these messages. Given that tombstones can be difficult to reach and expensive in real life, a virtual tombstone seems to fill a natural void by allowing friends and family to browse pictures, look at their accomplishments/friends, write a homage to the person, and generally reminisce without leaving their seat. It is recommended to have someone you trust know your passwords so that they can effectively manage your virtual self in case you pass away.

"Poking" dead people is considered bad form.

===Further Reading===
*[[Second Self]]

===External Links===
*[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/07/socialnetworking.myspace There's life after death if you're online. Social networking sites are having to devise policies to deal with the death of a user - and some are getting it more right than others] Dave Lee The Guardian, Thursday 7 August 2008
*[http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2010/dec/12/death-and-social-networks/ Death and social networks] The Credit Report. Published: December 12, 2010
*[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/death-and-social-media-what-happens-to-your-life-online.ars Death and social media: what happens to your life online?]
By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated March 2010 ago

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Whole Earth Catalog

2011-06-30T22:48:10Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural publication by Stewart Brand that was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Brand started the catalog after going around the country in his van selling useful items to budding communes. The introduction of the first 1969 article explains the purpose of the catalog in all of it's grandiose glory:

<blockquote>We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. Portola Institute. 1968.</ref></blockquote>

At the core of the catalog was the idea that technology could connect us in new ways and help us be better people. The catalog has an eclectic mix of technologies, books, guides, and poems to help accomplish this task. Steve Jobs called the Whole Earth Catalog "Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along"<ref name="Jobs">Commencement address by Steve Jobs, delivered on June 12, 2005. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html</ref>, while Kevin Kelly notes that "Brand invented the blogosphere long before there was any such thing as a blog".<ref>Kevin Kelly: [http://kk.org/ct2/2008/09/the-whole-earth-blogalog.php The Whole Earth Blogalog] September 17, 2008</ref>. The Whole Earth Catalog proved to be a model and inspiration for many thinkers who later laid the foundations of the internet. The poem "All watched over by machines of loving grace", printed in the first Whole Earth Catalog, captures the ideals of the publication quite well:

====All watched over by machines of loving grace====
{{PoemColumn}}
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think (right now, pleasel)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms

I like to think (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched
over by machines of loving grace.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. Portola Institute. 1968</ref>
{{EndColumn}}
{{clear}}

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Wearable Computing

2011-06-30T22:43:30Z

And.awarner:

=== Definition ===
A wearable computer is a computer that is subsumed into the personal space of the user, controlled by the user, and has both operational and interactional constancy, i.e. is always on and always accessible. Most notably, it is a device that is always with the user, and into which the user can always enter commands and execute a set of such entered commands, and in which the user can do so while walking around or doing other activities". <ref>[http://wearcomp.org/wearcompdef.html Wearcomp.org Definition of Wearcomp.]</ref>

=== History ===
The first person to pioneer the idea of being able to compute anywhere and be connected was Steven Mann, the inventor of Wearable computing. He thought that humans should not contort to computers, but that computers should contort to humans. He wore 80 pounds of computing equipment, including a wireless uplink to an early manifestation of the Internet (MIT's local Internet) starting in 1979. As time progressed, computing became lighter, and Steve Mann’s load became less burdensome while still retaining the same functionality. Similarly, computers have jumped from gymnasiums to desktops to pockets.

Steve Mann envisioned a future in which hardware could be downloaded in as easily as software. Where one’s contact lens prescription could change during the day based on one’s needs. A future where a device morphs is the most fluid and liquid that an interface can become. Interfaces today are limited by their external structure. This limitation will dissolve when the hardware dissolves.

====WearCam: The Wearable Camera====
Dr. Mann's WearComp invention dates back to his high school days in the 1970s and early 1980s, where he was experimenting with wearable computing and personal imaging as a personal hobby <ref>http://wearcam.org/mcluhan-keynote.htm</ref>. "Unlike other wearable devices (wristwatches, regular eyeglasses, wearable radios, etc.), a WearComp is as reconfigurable as the familiar desktop or mainframe computer. Unlike other computers (including laptops and PDAs), a WearComp is inextricably intertwined with its wearer - WearComp's "always ready" characteristic leads to a new form of synergy between human and computer".<ref>http://www.eyetap.org/defs/glossary/wearcomp/</ref>

===Modern Wearable Computing===
Although the Internet is invisible and seemingly omnipresent, it is only accessible by two-dimensional interfaces on physical machines in connected fields. It has only been a recent occurrence that we’ve been able to carry around complex computational interfaces in our pockets, increasing technological capabilities into our everyday lives. Until this point, one had to be in a certain time and place in order to access computing power. This usually meant a college or university, and sometimes between the hours of 3 and 6 Am.

====Steve Mann's Formal Definition of Wearable Computing====
Steve Mann formally defined wearable computing in terms of its three basic modes of operation and its six fundamental attributes.<ref>[http://www.eyetap.org/defs/glossary/wearcomp/ EyeTap.org Glossary entry on Wearcomp]</ref><ref>Adapted from Steve Mann's address [Wearable Computing as Means for Personal Empowerment http://www.eyetap.org/wearcam/icwc98/keynote.html] Keynote Address for The First International Conference on Wearable Computing, ICWC-98, May 12-13, Fairfax, VA. Originally found at [http://www.eyetap.org/defs/glossary/wearcomp/ EyeTap Glossary]</ref>
{{LeftColumn}}
====Operational modes of wearable computing====
There are three operational modes in this new interaction between human and computer.
=====Constancy=====
The computer runs continuously, and is always ready to interact with the user. Unlike a hand-held device, laptop computer, or PDA, it does not need to be opened up and turned on prior to use. The signal flow from human to computer, and computer to human runs continuously to provide a constant user interface.

=====Augmentation=====
Traditional computing paradigms are based on the notion that computing is the primary task. Wearable computing, however, is based on the notion that computing is NOT the primary task. The assumption of wearable computing is that the user will be doing something else at the same time as doing the computing. Thus the computer should serve to augment the intellect, or augment the senses.

=====Mediation=====
Unlike hand held devices, laptop computers, and PDAs, the wearable computer can encapsulate us (Fig. 1c). It doesn't necessarily need to completely enclose us, but the concept allows for a greater degree of encapsulation than traditional portable computers. There are two aspects to this encapsulation:

=====Solitude=====
It can function as an information filter, and allow us to block out material we might not wish to experience, whether it be offensive advertising, or simply a desire to replace existing media with different media. In less severe manifestations, it may simply allow us to alter our perception of reality in a very mild sort of way.

=====Privacy=====
Mediation allows us to block or modify information leaving our encapsulated space. In the same way that ordinary clothing prevents others from seeing our naked bodies, the wearable computer may, for example, serve as an intermediary for interacting with untrusted systems, such as third party digital anonymous cash "cyberwallets".
{{EndColumn}}
{{clear}}

====Six Attributes (Signal Paths) of Wearable Computing====
There are six informational flow paths associated with this new human-machine synergy. These signal flow paths are, in fact, attributes of wearable computing, and are described, in what follows, from the human's point of view:
{{LeftColumn}}

</privacy>
{{EndColumn}}
{{clear}}

{{LeftColumn}}
=====Unmonopolizing of the user's attention=====
(The Wearable Computer) does not cut you off from the outside world like a virtual reality game or the like. You can attend to other matters while using the apparatus. It is built with the assumption that computing will be a secondary activity, rather than a primary focus of attention. In fact, ideally, it will provide enhanced sensory capabilities. It may, however, mediate (augment, alter, or deliberately diminish) the sensory capabilities.

=====Unrestrictive to the user=====
Is ambulatory, mobile, roving; "you can do other things while using it". E.g. you can type while jogging, etc.

=====Observable by the user=====
Can get your attention continuously if you want it to; within reasonable limits (e.g. that you might not see the screen while you blink or look away momentarily) the output medium is constantly perceptible by the wearer.

=====Controllable by the user=====
The system must be controllable by the user in the idea that one can grab control of it anytime they wish and can be used as a communication medium when you want it to.

=====Attentive to the environment=====
It is environmentally aware, multimodal, multisensory. (this ultimately increases the user's situational awareness).
Communicative to others: it can be used as a communications medium when you want it to.

=====Expressive=====
It allows the wearer to be expressive through the medium, whether as a direct communications medium to others, or as means of assisting the production of expressive media (artistic or otherwise).

=====Expressive=====
Allows the wearer to be expressive through the medium, whether as a direct communications medium to others, or as means of assisting the production of expressive media (artistic or otherwise).

Implied by the above six properties is that it must also be:

=====Constant=====
Always on, running, and ready. May have "sleep modes" but is never "dead" (unlike a laptop computer, which must be opened up, switched on, and booted up before use).
=====Personal=====
human and computer are inextricably intertwined.

=====Prosthetic=====
You can adapt to it so that it acts as a true extension of mind and body; after time you forget that you are wearing it.

<blockquote>
=====Assertive=====
Resists, if you wish, prohibition or requests by others for removal. This is in contrast to a laptop, in briefcase or bag, that could be separated from you by the "please leave all bags and briefcases at the counter" policy of a department store, library, or similar establishment.

=====Private=====
Others can't observe or control it unless you let them.
</blockquote>
{{EndColumn}}
{{clear}}

===Future of Wearable Computing===
The whole of the Internet is an invisible, 4th dimensional potentiality with portals of different sizes, shapes, and capabilities. The hardware determines the size of the portal, the connection determines the rate of information flow, and the software/web browser and the sites within that web browser determine the rate of information absorption into the mind. The rate of information absorption is dependant upon the format of the information presented. Wearable Computers will evaporate over time until they are no longer noticeable or are proper ubiquitous extensions of the self, as valuable and as iconic as sports cars and external transport structures for the physical body. Their interfaces will be invisible.

===Additional Reading===
*[[Thad Starner]]
*[[Diminished Reality]]

== References ==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

__NOTOC__

Machine Learning

2011-06-30T22:29:31Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===

===History===

===Examples===

==References==
<references />

Whole Earth Catalog

2011-06-30T22:29:05Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural publication by Stewart Brand that was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Brand started the catalog after going around the country in his van selling useful items to budding communes. The introduction of the first 1969 article explains the purpose of the catalog in all of it's grandiose glory:

<blockquote>We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. 1968</ref></blockquote>

At the core of the catalog was the idea that technology could connect us in new ways and help us be better people. The catalog has an eclectic mix of technologies, books, guides, and poems to help accomplish this task. Steve Jobs called the Whole Earth Catalog "Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along"<ref name="Jobs">Commencement address by Steve Jobs, delivered on June 12, 2005. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html</ref>, while Kevin Kelly notes that "Brand invented the blogosphere long before there was any such thing as a blog".<ref>Kevin Kelly: [http://kk.org/ct2/2008/09/the-whole-earth-blogalog.php The Whole Earth Blogalog] September 17, 2008</ref>. The Whole Earth Catalog proved to be a model and inspiration for many thinkers who later laid the foundations of the internet.

The poem "All watched over by machines of loving grace", printed in the first Whole Earth Catalog, captures the ideals of the publication quite well:

====All watched over by machines of loving grace====
{{PoemColumn}}
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think (right now, pleasel)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms

I like to think (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched
over by machines of loving grace.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. 1968</ref>
{{EndColumn}}
{{clear}}

==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Presentation of Self in Digital Life

2011-06-30T21:41:32Z

And.awarner:

This term references the seminal sociology study, <u>The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</u> by Erving Goffman. The book analyzes how people present themselves differently according to the situation that they encounter, showing that people often have multiple selves that they present throughout their daily life. For instance, a worker might act one way on a construction site, another way with his family, and another way at the bar.<ref>Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959.</ref> Each situation is a unique environment in which different protocols and expectations govern behavior. With the rise of virtual presentation and aggregated identity platforms (such as facebook) this dynamic becomes more troublesome. It used to be that there were many different contexts that one "acted" in, such as school, work, friends, parents. But when we construct our virtual selves we must take all of these situations into account and aggregate our identities into a cohesive and palatable whole. Thus one has to simultaneously account for prospective employers, friends, and family when creating a Facebook profile.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Whole Earth Catalog

2011-06-30T21:22:40Z

And.awarner:

The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural publication by Stewart Brand that was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Brand started the Catalog after going around the country in his van selling useful items to budding communes. The introduction of the first 1969 article explains the purpose of the catalog quite well:

We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. 1968</ref>

At the core of the catalog was the idea that technology could connect us and help us be better people. The catalog has an eclectic mix of technologies, books, guides, and poems. Steve Jobs called the Whole Earth Catalog "Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along."<ref name="Jobs">[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html Commencement address by Steve Jobs, delivered on June 12, 2005]</ref>

The poem "All watched over by machines of loving grace", printed in the first Whole Earth Catalog, captures the ideals of the publication quite well:

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think (right now, pleasel)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms

I like to think (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched
over by machines of loving grace.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. 1968</ref>

===References===
<references/>
[[Category:book pages]]
[[Category:marked for editing]]

Whole Earth Catalog

2011-06-30T21:20:31Z

And.awarner: Created page with 'The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural publication by Stewart Brand that was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Brand started the Catalog after going around the countr…'

The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural publication by Stewart Brand that was popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Brand started the Catalog after going around the country in his van selling useful items to budding communes. The introduction of the first 1969 article explains the purpose of the catalog quite well:

We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalog. 1968</ref>

At the core of the catalog was the idea that technology could connect us and help us be better people. The catalog has an eclectic mix of technologies, books, guides, and poems. Steve Jobs called the Whole Earth Catalog "Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along."<ref name="Jobs">[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html Commencement address by Steve Jobs, delivered on June 12, 2005]</ref>

The poem "All watched over by machines of loving grace", printed in the first Whole Earth Catalog, captures the ideals of the publication quite well:

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, pleasel)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched
over by machines of loving grace.

<references/>

[[Category:book pages]]
[[Category:marked for editing]]

Presentation of Self in Digital Life

2011-06-30T18:38:53Z

And.awarner:

This term references the seminal sociology study, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman. about how people present themselves differently according to the situation that they encounter. For instance, a worker might act one way on a construction site, another way with his family, and another way at the bar.<ref>Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959.</ref> Each situation provides an environment for one to act differently. In addition, a schism exists when one acts in a way that does not fit in with the environment.<ref>[http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 Paddy UX at Google: The Real Life Social Network presentation on Slideshare]</ref>

One example is how a teacher acts in front of students vs. other teachers. If a teacher acts differently from a prescribed and expected role in front of a student, then the boundaries of the presentation of self are violated and a schism occurs.

===Presentation of Self in Digital Life===
There have been related schisms online based on the fact that adults communicated in a certain way to adults than they do with children, and children act towards their peers in a different way than they do with adults. When Facebook did not respect the boundaries between these different types of people and actors, a schism formed between the groups and participants in Facebook felt as if their privacy had been violated.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

2011-06-30T18:36:17Z

And.awarner: moved Presentation of Self in Everyday Life to Presentation of Self in Digital Life over redirect

#REDIRECT [[Presentation of Self in Digital Life]]

Presentation of Self in Digital Life

2011-06-30T18:36:17Z

And.awarner: moved Presentation of Self in Everyday Life to Presentation of Self in Digital Life over redirect

===Definition===
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is a book by Erving Goffman about how people present themselves differently according to the situation that they encounter. For instance, a worker might act one way on a construction site, another way with his family, and another way at the bar.<ref>Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959.</ref> Each situation provides an environment for one to act differently. In addition, a schism exists when one acts in a way that does not fit in with the environment.<ref>[http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 Paddy UX at Google: The Real Life Social Network presentation on Slideshare]</ref>

One example is how a teacher acts in front of students vs. other teachers. If a teacher acts differently from a prescribed and expected role in front of a student, then the boundaries of the presentation of self are violated and a schism occurs.

===Presentation of Self in Digital Life===
There have been related schisms online based on the fact that adults communicated in a certain way to adults than they do with children, and children act towards their peers in a different way than they do with adults. When Facebook did not respect the boundaries between these different types of people and actors, a schism formed between the groups and participants in Facebook felt as if their privacy had been violated.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Finished]]

Presentation of Self in Digital Life

2011-06-30T18:35:50Z

And.awarner:

Superorganism

2011-06-30T01:02:02Z

And.awarner:

====Definition====

Superorganisms are hives of organisms that work together to function as a whole. The most notable cases are ants and bees, but other organisms work together as superorganisms as well. Superorganisms are fascinating due to the emergent "intelligence" that arises from the sum of unintelligent parts. We would not call one ant intelligent, yet a hive functioning together can complete remarkable feats, such as building a bridge or creating a complex social hierarchy. As Stewart Brand, paraphrasing Tim Flannery, notes:

<blockquote>The first tightly connected superorganism came 100 million years ago when cockroaches invented agriculture and the division of labor and became termites, building complex skyscrapers with air-conditioning, highways, and garbage dumps. Only 10,000 years ago, humans did the same, inventing agriculture and the division of labor in cities, becoming the most potent superorganism yet.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Analysis of Tim Flannery SALT Lecture (5/3/11), SALT mailing list</ref></blockquote>

Taking the superorganism as the unit of analysis, rather than the relatively "stupid" individual organisms, allows us to see the importance of connections and protocols in forming knowledge and completing tasks, rather than the isolated minds that function within the network. Advances in communications seem to be pushing us toward a larger globalized superorganism.

<references/>

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked for editing]]

Superorganism

2011-06-30T00:59:58Z

And.awarner:

====Definition====

Superorganisms are hives of organisms that work together to function as a whole. The most notable cases are ants and bees, but other organisms work together as superorganisms as well. Superorganisms are fascinating due to the emergent "intelligence" that arises from the sum of unintelligent parts. We would not call one ant intelligent, yet a hive functioning together can complete remarkable feats, such as building a bridge or creating a complex social hierarchy. As Stewart Brand, paraphrasing Tim Flannery, notes:

<blockquote>The first tightly connected superorganism came 100 million years ago when cockroaches invented agriculture and the division of labor and became termites, building complex skyscrapers with air-conditioning, highways, and garbage dumps. Only 10,000 years ago, humans did the same, inventing agriculture and the division of labor in cities, becoming the most potent superorganism yet.<ref>Brand, Stewart. Analysis of Tim Flannery SALT Lecture (5/3/11), SALT mailing list</ref></blockquote>

Taking the superorganism as the unit of analysis, rather than the relatively "stupid" individual organisms, allows us to see the importance of connections and protocols in forming knowledge and completing tasks, rather than the isolated minds that function within the network.

<references/>

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked for editing]]

Mind Uploading

2011-06-29T01:24:29Z

And.awarner:

Mind Uploading is a speculative process by which a brain would be completely copied and stored on a computer. The ramifications of this type of technology would be enormous: people could save back-up copies of themselves, live forever, "completely understand" a person, resurrect frozen minds, etc. The theory behind this technology is that our brain can be reduced to information patterns. With sufficiently complex computers and sensors we could copy these information patterns and re-substantiate them on hard drives. The main advocates of this technology tend to support cryogenics as well. The question of the feasibility of this technology raises important questions regarding the nature of humanity, consciousness, embodiment, and identity.
[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked For Editing]]

Gaming dynamics

2011-06-29T01:16:12Z

And.awarner:

Gaming Dynamics are incentive systems used in successful games to motivate players to keep playing the game. They are often simple feedback loops that encourage the player to strive toward certain goals, but can also involve other types of incentive systems. SKVNGR provides a set of these dynamics in their company playdeck:

<blockquote>2. Appointment Dynamic

Definition: A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take some action. Appointment dynamics are often deeply related to interval based reward schedules or avoidance dyanmics.

Example: Cafe World and Farmville where if you return at a set time to do something you get something good, and if you don’t something bad happens.

21. Free Lunch

Definition: A dynamic in which a player feels that they are getting something for free due to someone else having done work. It’s critical that work is perceived to have been done (just not by the player in question) to avoid breaching trust in the scenario. The player must feel that they’ve “lucked” into something.

Example: Groupon. By virtue of 100 other people having bought the deal, you get it for cheap. There is no sketchiness b/c you recognize work has been done (100 people are spending money) but you yourself didn’t have to do it.

33. Progression Dynamic

Definition: a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemized tasks.

Example: a progress bar, leveling up from paladin level 1 to paladin level 60.<ref>http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/scvngr-game-mechanics/</ref></blockquote>

While games tend to have the connotation of being frivolous activities, these dynamics apply on in a variety of activities to motivate people. With the proliferation of mobile devices it will become easier to embed games into all types of activities, creating a "game layer" on life.

<references/>

[[category:book pages]]
[[category: marked for editing]]

Gaming dynamics

2011-06-29T00:54:16Z

And.awarner: Created page with 'Gaming Dynamics are incentive systems used in successful games to motivate players to keep playing the game. They are often simple feedback loops that encourage the player to str…'

Gaming Dynamics are incentive systems used in successful games to motivate players to keep playing the game. They are often simple feedback loops that encourage the player to strive toward certain goals, but can also involve other types of incentive systems. SKVNGR provides a set of these dynamics in their company playdeck:

2. Appointment Dynamic

Definition: A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take some action. Appointment dynamics are often deeply related to interval based reward schedules or avoidance dyanmics.

Example: Cafe World and Farmville where if you return at a set time to do something you get something good, and if you don’t something bad happens.

21. Free Lunch

Definition: A dynamic in which a player feels that they are getting something for free due to someone else having done work. It’s critical that work is perceived to have been done (just not by the player in question) to avoid breaching trust in the scenario. The player must feel that they’ve “lucked” into something.

Example: Groupon. By virtue of 100 other people having bought the deal, you get it for cheap. There is no sketchiness b/c you recognize work has been done (100 people are spending money) but you yourself didn’t have to do it.

33. Progression Dynamic

Definition: a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemized tasks.

Example: a progress bar, leveling up from paladin level 1 to paladin level 60. <ref>http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/scvngr-game-mechanics/<ref/>

While games tend to have the connotation of being frivolous activities, these dynamics apply on in a variety of activities to motivate people. With the proliferation of mobile devices it will become easier to embed games into all types of activities, creating a "game layer" on life.

[[category:book pages]]
[[category: marked for editing]]

The Phaedrus

2011-06-27T23:25:56Z

And.awarner: Created page with 'The Phaedrus is one of Plato's dialogues that contains some of the first musings on the effects of technology on humanity. In the dialogue, Socrates tells a myth about the invent…'

The Phaedrus is one of Plato's dialogues that contains some of the first musings on the effects of technology on humanity. In the dialogue, Socrates tells a myth about the invention of writing, and in the process explores the effects of writing systems on memory:

Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

This myth is just as relevant today as it was in ~370 B.C. Writing is very established these days, but we are encountering an onslaught of new technologies that provide new frontiers of external memory storage.

[[Category:book pages]]
[[category:marked for editing]]

Hertzian Space

2011-06-27T03:30:11Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===

In Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” Hertzian space is a metaphor that is grounded in an actual phenomenon of fluctuating electro-magnetic waves. Everything that requires electricity gives off an electro-magnetic field that extends indefinitely into space. Visible lights are also part of Hertzian space, as well as radios, medical X-rays, televisions and UV tanning lamps. While we only see the discrete object, there is in fact an entire wave-field emanating from the object. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions. Dunne and Raby describe this “electro-climate,” inhabited by humans and electronic machines, as the interface between electromagnetic waves and human experiences.

"Whereas 'cyberspace' is a metaphor that spatialises what happens in computers distributed around the world, hertzian space is actual and physical, even though our senses detect only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum ... hertzian space is not isotropic but has an 'electroclimate' defined by wavelength, frequency and field strength. Interaction with the natural and artificial landscape creates a hybrid landscape of shadows, reflections, and hot points".<ref>[http://www.futurefarmers.com/trails/projects.html FutureFarmers - Projects]</ref>

<blockquote>“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. ...It is the entire system that is changed”.<ref>McLuhan 1964, pg. 70.</ref></blockquote>

Dunne and Raby believe that increased awareness of Hertzian space will assist our design practices. They think that we are only beginning to understand the effects and consequences of technological advances, and that “it is an environment that must be fully understood if it is to be made habitable’’.<ref>Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12.</ref> By thinking about technologies in terms of hertzian space, we gain a more holistic understanding of technology that goes beyond the merely visible technological object and encompasses the practices, economics, and ideologies that become encoded into technological artifacts.
===References===
<references />

[[Category:Book Pages]]
[[Category:Marked for Editing]]

Military Cyborgs

2011-06-25T20:59:18Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Military cyborgs are systems that use advanced technology to survive and kill in hostile environments. They may be manned remotely be teleoperation, or a human may fit inside them, as in the case of robotic exoskeletons.
The central ethical concern of military cyborgs is that they take the human element out of war. It is much easier to kill someone on a screen than shoot them at point-blank range. Of course this general dynamic has been progressing throughout the history of war. In ancient times, one usually had to be very close to the enemy to kill them. With the advent of artillery and bombers, the distance grew even larger. We now have robots that can be controlled thousands of miles away, making killing people as easy as playing your favorite video game.
The other major concern is on the home front. There were very few protests to the Vietnam war before the draft was instituted. Once people's lives were put into peril through the draft, widespread protests erupted. If you get machines to fight wars, it takes a lot of human elements out of wars. If you provide remote killing, it removes the human impulse to protest them in the first place. Displacing pain and the spectacle of destruction is an efficient way of increasing it's productivity. Ender's Game was a science fiction book that dove further into this concept.

===Related Reading===
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html#top PW Singer on military robots and the future of war]

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Robots.txt

2011-06-25T20:36:05Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
"Robots.txt" is a regular text file that through its name, has special meaning to the majority of "honorable" robots on the web.

===External Links===
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/robots.shtml

Synesthesia

2011-06-25T20:32:40Z

And.awarner:

Synesthesia is the property of one sensory input causing a reaction in another sensory input. Classic cases of synesthesia are people who smell colors, see smells, hear colors, feel images, etc.
The term is especially relavent to advances in digital technologies. Most things in "reality" engage us on multiple sensory levels: the experience of an orange includes the brilliant color, the feel of the soft skin, the smell of the sharp citrus, and the taste of the tangy sweetness. Indeed, the very fact that a smell can be "sharp" shows how pervasive the mixing of sensory metaphors can be. In the digital world, sight often reigns supreme, with the ocasional auditory supplement. Yet digital art often combines different senses to create art that engages us on many levels. An interactive installation piece can produce sound, stunning visuals, tactile feedback, and even smells and taste. A common example of the possibilities of computers in producing synesthesic art is the visualizer that comes standard with iTunes. The program takes the music and visually represents the music in real-time. Add a powerful subwoofer and one can literally feel the bass on one's skin, adding another sensory dimension. If the art of the past tended toward uni-sensual experience (a painting, a song, etc.), the art of the future seems to be moving in the direction of immersive multi-sensual experience.

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Discussion of Synesthesia

2011-06-18T00:02:15Z

And.awarner: moved Discussion of Synesthesia to Synesthesia over redirect

#REDIRECT [[Synesthesia]]

Synesthesia

2011-06-18T00:02:15Z

And.awarner: moved Discussion of Synesthesia to Synesthesia over redirect

Synesthesia is the property of one sensory input causing a reaction in another sensory input. Classic cases of synesthesia are people who smell colors, see smells, hear colors, feel images, etc. Many people throughout history have reported experiencing this phenomenon, including a good deal of artists and musicians.

The term is especially relavent to advances in digital technologies. Most things in "reality" engage us on multiple sensory levels: the experience of an orange includes the brilliant color, the feel of the soft skin, the smell of the sharp citrus, and the taste of the tangy sweetness. Indeed, the very fact that a smell can be "sharp" shows how pervasive the mixing of sensory metaphors can be. In the digital world, sight often reigns supreme, with the ocasional auditory supplement. Yet digital art often combines different senses to create art that engages us on many levels. An interactive installation piece can produce sound, stunning visuals, tactile feedback, and even smells and taste. A common example of the possibilities of computers in producing synesthesic art is the visualizer that comes standard with iTunes. The program takes the music and visually represents the music in real-time. Add a powerful subwoofer and one can literally feel the bass on one's skin, adding another sensory dimension. If the art of the past tended toward uni-sensual experience (a painting, a song, etc.), the art of the future seems to be moving in the direction of immersive multi-sensual experience.

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Synesthesia

2011-06-18T00:01:58Z

And.awarner:

Synesthesia is the property of one sensory input causing a reaction in another sensory input. Classic cases of synesthesia are people who smell colors, see smells, hear colors, feel images, etc. Many people throughout history have reported experiencing this phenomenon, including a good deal of artists and musicians.

The term is especially relavent to advances in digital technologies. Most things in "reality" engage us on multiple sensory levels: the experience of an orange includes the brilliant color, the feel of the soft skin, the smell of the sharp citrus, and the taste of the tangy sweetness. Indeed, the very fact that a smell can be "sharp" shows how pervasive the mixing of sensory metaphors can be. In the digital world, sight often reigns supreme, with the ocasional auditory supplement. Yet digital art often combines different senses to create art that engages us on many levels. An interactive installation piece can produce sound, stunning visuals, tactile feedback, and even smells and taste. A common example of the possibilities of computers in producing synesthesic art is the visualizer that comes standard with iTunes. The program takes the music and visually represents the music in real-time. Add a powerful subwoofer and one can literally feel the bass on one's skin, adding another sensory dimension. If the art of the past tended toward uni-sensual experience (a painting, a song, etc.), the art of the future seems to be moving in the direction of immersive multi-sensual experience.

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Flaneuring

2011-06-17T23:42:41Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city in order to experience it. Because of the term's usage and theorization by Charles Baudelaire and numerous thinkers in economic, cultural, literary and historical fields, the idea of the flâneur has accumulated significant meaning as a referent for understanding urban phenomena and modernity. The term flâneur comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll".<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaneur</ref> On the web, flaneuring is surfing the web with no specific goal in mind. Wondering from Wikipedia article to Wikipedia article at one's intellectual whim is an excellent example of flaneuring on the internet, as well as browsing one's RSS feed or meandering through aggregated content sites, such as Digg.com or StumbleUpon.com. The term captures a certain beauty to wondering for the mere sake of intellectual, social, or aesthetic pleasure, although there are dangers to this type of activity as well. Aimlessly wondering on the internet can become a digital black hole, which one awakes from to find that it is 3am and nothing has been accomplished.

==References==
<references />

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Distributed Cognition

2011-06-17T22:48:58Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Distributed Cognition is a concept that allows us to re-envision our relation with media technologies.The invention of writing allowed us to free our memory and direct the brain to other tasks. Computers have allowed us to take this process to an entirely new level by allowing us to store information in a medium that can be accessed from anywhere. All media can be understood as augmenting our basic cognitive structure, both in the concrete sense of literally re-wiring our brains and in the more figurative sense of displacing certain tasks to other forms of media. The internet combined with search platforms could be considered the collective cognition of our species, or the "noosphere".

The noosphere is a closely related concept developed by a rogue Jesuit theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard de Chardin saw the world as being comprised of the geosphere (the sphere of rocks and inorganic matter), the biosphere (the sphere of organic material), and the noosphere (the sphere of the mind). A stout believer in evolution, Teilhard de Chardin made an argument for life becoming more complex and conscious as evolution progresses, eventually culminating in maximum complexity and consciousness, which is understood as God. Teilhard formulated his theories with explicit reference to the possible cognitive abilities of computers, making his cosmology and messianism a strangely beautiful hybrid of Catholic theology and modern techno-scientific utopianism.

Source: [http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/krippendorff/ Klaus Krippendorff’s A Dictionary of Cybernetics] (unpublished, mentioned in the [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/NOOSPHERE.html Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems].

Cyborg Botany

2011-06-17T22:31:18Z

And.awarner:

While we tend to think of cyborgs as human-machine splices, any organic system combined with a mechanical system qualifies as a cyborg. Cyborg Botany refers to the complexly intertwining evolutions of human techno-culture and plant life. The concept fundamentally questions whether we control plants or plants control us. The situation is analogous to the question of the dog owner: If we own our dogs, why are we the ones paying for everything and picking up their excrement?

In the Botany of Desire, Michael Pollen uses an evolutionary framework to question the true state of modern gardening. The paradigmatic example is the case of Cannabis, a weed from East Asia that has become an international plant celebrity. Cannabis evolved a host of chemicals that caused medical and spiritual effects in humans, causing humans to bring it to all seven continents and cultivate thousands of different strains. When governments tried to eradicate its growth, gardeners met this challenge with hydroponic systems, powerful lights, and advanced cooling systems to grow the plant indoors. The cannabis of today is far more potent because of the advanced technologies utilized to grow this plant. Potent cannabis is effectively a plant cyborg, complete with computer-controlled temperature regulation, filtered water, artificial suns, perfectly concocted vitamin supplements, and humans to carefully monitor and continually research the entire process.

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Pollen, Michael. Botany of Desire

Cyborg Botany

2011-06-17T22:30:37Z

And.awarner:

Hertzian Space

2011-06-17T21:23:50Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===

In Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” Hertzian space is a metaphor that is grounded in an actual phenomenon of fluctuating electro-magnetic waves. Everything that requires electricity gives off an electro-magnetic field that extends indefinitely into space. Visible lights are also part of Hertzian space, as well as radios, medical X-rays, televisions and UV tanning lamps. While we only see the discrete object, there is in fact an entire wave field emanating from the object. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions. Dunne and Raby describe this “electro-climate,” inhabited by humans and electronic machines, as the interface between electromagnetic waves and human experiences.

"Whereas 'cyberspace' is a metaphor that spatialises what happens in computers distributed around the world, hertzian space is actual and physical, even though our senses detect only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum ... hertzian space is not isotropic but has an 'electroclimate' defined by wavelength, frequency and field strength. Interaction with the natural and artificial landscape creates a hybrid landscape of shadows, reflections, and hot points".<ref>[http://www.futurefarmers.com/trails/projects.html FutureFarmers - Projects]</ref>

<blockquote>“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. ...It is the entire system that is changed”.<ref>McLuhan 1964, pg. 70.</ref></blockquote>

Dunne and Raby believe that increased awareness of Hertzian space will assist our design practices. They believe that we are only beginning to understand its effects and consequences, and that “it is an environment that must be fully understood if it is to be made habitable’’.<ref>Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12.</ref> By understanding hertzian space, we gain a more holistic understanding of technology that goes beyond the merely visible technological object and encompasses the practices, economics, and ideologies that become encoded into technological artifacts.
===References===
<references />

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Hertzian Space

2011-06-17T21:21:28Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===

In Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” Hertzian space is a metaphor that is grounded in an actual phenomenon of fluctuating electro-magnetic waves. Everything that requires electricity gives off an electro-magnetic field that extends indefinitely into space. Visible lights are also part of Hertzian space, as are radios, medical X-rays, televisions and UV tanning lamps. While we only see the discrete object, there is in fact an entire wave field emanating from the object. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions. Dunne and Raby describe this “electro-climate,” inhabited by humans and electronic machines, as the interface between electromagnetic waves and human experiences.
This space encompasses not only the form and function of a device, but also how people react and relate to it.

"Whereas 'cyberspace' is a metaphor that spatialises what happens in computers distributed around the world, hertzian space is actual and physical, even though our senses detect only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum ... hertzian space is not isotropic but has an 'electroclimate' defined by wavelength, frequency and field strength. Interaction with the natural and artificial landscape creates a hybrid landscape of shadows, reflections, and hot points".<ref>[http://www.futurefarmers.com/trails/projects.html FutureFarmers - Projects]</ref>

<blockquote>“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. ...It is the entire system that is changed”.<ref>McLuhan 1964, pg. 70.</ref></blockquote>

Dunne and Raby believe that increased awareness of Hertzian space will assist our design practices. They believe that we are only beginning to understand its effects and consequences, and that “it is an environment that must be fully understood if it is to be made habitable’’.<ref>Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12.</ref> By understanding hertzian space, we gain a more holistic understanding of technology that goes beyond the merely visible technological object and encompasses the practices, economics, ideologies, etc., that become encoded into technological artifacts.
===References===
<references />

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Humans.txt

2011-06-17T00:29:38Z

And.awarner:

===Definition===
Humans.txt is a text file that contains information about the different people who have contributed to building the website. It is a play and variation on Robots.txt files, which are responsible for interfacing with search engine bots that index or do not index the website in search results.

===External Links===
*http://humanstxt.org/
*http://humanstxt.org/humans.txt

===Related Reading===
*[[Robots.txt]]

Automatic Production of Space

2011-06-16T23:42:34Z

And.awarner:

[[Image:automatic-production-of-space.jpg|right|300px]]

===Definition===
Every click on the web, every created document and social networking profile. Every wiki page and blog post. All of these have no imitation on space as there is in real life.

The automatic production of space is at it's best on Wikipedia, Facebook, Blogs, Farmville.

This concept refers to the fact that conservation of energy, it in fact almost defies it. Everytime it is accessed it reproduces for that current user, with little energy required for the duplication.

===Related Reading===
*[[Playground as Factory]]
*[[Digital Hoarding]]
*The Automatic Production of Space by Nigel Thrift & Shaun French

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