I'm very proud of my all-OEM custom built PC. I think that the only thing that would be more beautiful than my PC would be a girl that understood it (for those ladies out there reading, do your best... I'm technical)! This is my Rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo 3 Ghz
2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit
Samsung T Series 400GB 7200 RPM 3.0GB/s SATA Hard Drive
Need I say more? This computer was God's gift to Mankind. The only thing it is lacking is a monitor with HD compatibility. That, and another 400 GB Hard Drive to double boot Linux would be wonderful...(insert maniacal laugh here)... Now that I have all the geeks in the audience wrapped and the "normal" people reading this, the real question...
What is the true test for such a mammoth display of technology? I need to find the perfect game to run on my system so I can marvel at its beauty. Can you tell I fell in love with this machine? Post your thoughts on such a game, as well as specs about your system - I respect ANY work of art. As for anyone who has a question about my system, feel free to ask in comments..
Building a computer from scratch is not a business for the light of heart. It's a lot of money to spend if you mess up and break something essential. This PC, if I bought it from Alienware, would have cost me upwards of 2.5gs at least. I bought this for $1300. Parts are cheaper than labor; that's the secret. Building a computer is a lot like grown-up lego. Parts and cords only have one place they fit, let alone go, so it's definitely not as hard as it looks. Everything is totally self explanatory.
If I can do it anyone can.. except probably him(too complicated)....
Youtube is the home of many types of video creations. Some contain laughs, others video blogs, and still others, like the one posted by xplanevisualthinking, contain powerful thought provoking ideas. It doesn't use action, diagrams, or people. Just statistics. What could happen in the next few years? The answers might startle you. This is totally pertinent to our generation, and our careers in IST. The perceptions held today about technology, people, and the problems of tomorrow are flawed because daily we are getting closer to new problems that will rock the foundations of our society, like the computer, AIDS, and the internet have fundamentally altered the lives of our forefathers. Let this video presentation soak into you. It is very artfully an simplistically done.
The first step necessary to set up our Flickr account was to obtain a Yahoo ID, because Flickr is interwoven with Yahoo’s already established login system. As Team Wintermute, we took this opportunity to create a team email address at istwintermute@yahoo.com. This has proved a little more reliable than the email system through Angel, which has a history of losing emails that are quintessentially important. A few of us had Yahoo accounts already, but this simplified the whole process to a universal login we would all remember. A definite benefit to Flickr’s login system is this connection with Yahoo. Yahoo’s support with its massive user base allows Yahoo users to have near instant access to Flickr’s services.
The next step in setting up a gallery was actually taking pictures that we believed visually spoke the message of the IST department. The IST building seemed to be the shining monument to our philosophy on technology. It was all too fitting that the building where we spend most of our time would be main subject of the pictures. So we set out with our camera and took photos from different angles trying to catch the IST building in “a different light”. For instance, the picture “Sunset on IST” uses light in a positive way, combined with the title and caption to illustrate a mood or a feeling in a way one couldn’t do verbally. Comparatively, “John Stuart Mill, on Liberty (1859)” does with words what a visual cannot. It verbalizes quite elegantly that there is more to technology then just the system itself; it grows through people.
Uploading photos to Flickr is a very easy process. Just as a camera is point and click, uploading photos to Flickr is browse and click. It took five minutes to get all of our photos onto our Flickr account. Once they were there, the real work began.
It is a lot harder to tag, name, and describe so many photos about the same thing. It was a design flaw in our method of getting pictures, in a way. We had to ask ourselves what was unique about each photo when compared to the others. We were successful, but it was taxing. We should have taken the time to come up with a few different picture ideas before we started taking photos, so we would have a wealth of different subjects.
We often chose to focus on the mood and aspects of the building that were prevalent in the photo when describing it and titling it, because that is what made them unique. We learned as lot about how to tag from looking at how other users tagged similar pictures of our very own IST building. The user “Opacity” has had photos from August of 2007. He tagged every photo first with Penn State, psu, and then IST, and with just cause. There is a strong German user base on Flickr and “ist” is a derivation of the verb “to be” in German. This causes a problem.
A major flaw in the search engine of Flickr lies in that it is not case sensitive, and sometimes words that are similarly written mean different things in different languages. IST is the same in the search engine as typing ist, which in some cases might put photos with tags just slightly different in the search results (ei. Photos tagged Penn State or penn state). But across different languages, this strategy causes mayhem! How many times do you need the word “is” in description? Flickr needs to differentiate between different languages, possibly by having a language selection tool in the search options. This would eliminate the search results that are obviously not pertinent.
That said, the tagging structure, when carefully used, can be a springboard for finding people that share your interests. All you had to do to upload multiple tags was separate each one with a space and put two-word tags in quotes. After that, every time you click the tag it searches for other photos from any user that were tagged the same way and places them in front of you.
The flaws in the tagging system are inherited from the natural flaws of folksonomies. Synonyms are difficult to link. Especially in a multilingual system, it becomes difficult to link photos to search terms. All in all, Team Wintermute’s assessment of Flickr is positive, but not shining. We think the tagging system is practical and well implemented, but not perfect by any means.
Martha and Paul collaborated on the paper
Eric and Matt took the pics
Martha and Matt titled and tagged most of the pics
Paul set up the Flickr account and the yahoo mail istwintermute@yahoo.com
This quote hangs high in the center of the IST building. What does this quote mean, and where did it come from? What meaning can be found from something written in 1859 for us, those focused on technology in the 21st century? This will hopefully answer these questions..
On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. John was a major advocate of the fledgling theory of utilitarianism, as well as a political economist, civil servant, and member of Parliament. John believed that the individual held supreme power in society, and his political views reflected his beliefs.
To John, this quote was the summation of his belief that a human being had the right to find happiness, and that happiness was different to different people, and most importantly that no government that ruled over the majority of society could provide happiness to all individuals. He saw a governing body as a "well-oiled machine" that worked on rules. While this worked best for Parliament, he wishes to convey that it does not for the individual. In Great Britain at the time, etiquette and class structures still reigned. It was encouraged that you were happier as a member of the upper class than as a member of the lower class. John asserted that this theory that all of society can be contained by the same simple rules for happiness was fundamentally flawed.
Mill defines the difference between higher and lower forms of happiness on the principle that those who have experienced both tend to prefer one over the other. Mill's argument is that the 'simple pleasures' tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art or other forms of educated entertainment, and therefore prevent those people from having enough knowledge to be in a proper position to judge. For this reason, in his life Mill supported legislation that would have granted extra voting power to university graduates, on the grounds that they were in a better position to judge what would be best for society. It should be noted that Mill in no way devalued the uneducated as people, and he certainly would have advocated sending the poor but talented to universities; it was the education, and not the intrinsic nature, of the educated that Mill believed qualified them to have more influence in government.
Obviously, times have changed. We live in a country that was founded on the right of the individual to find and obtain happiness. Our government is defined, and controlled, by the people. And yet this quote is still timeless! As a University student, it empowers me to feel like I don't have to fit into a prescribed path for the rest of my life, and that it is my right to be free to find my own way. Moreover, I believe that Mill would agree with me when I say the knowledge I gain here has the power to better the world. What my generation does today will define tomorrow.
As an IST student, a brand new meaning is gleaned from this philosophical wisdom. While we study technology, there is an over-arching purpose to all we do in IST: to identify with the individual. If we learn anything from IST, it is that a technology is only as good as how useful and accessible it is to it's users. We have a tremendous responsibility to make sure that information systems, or technological systems in general, are unique and complimentary to its users, and to allow them to grow and develop naturally with its users. Just because a system works now for some people, doesn't necessarily mean it will be useful to a different group of people or even that the system will continue to be beneficial for its current users in a few years! The technology must therefore be tailored for the people.
Human Nature is not a well-oiled machine, and is not subject to finite rules. Therefore technology, which must function to benefit human nature, can't be subject to those rules either. It must be as diverse as the people using it, in a way, as diverse in purpose, design, and function, as humanity itself.
All factual information taken from various Wikipedia articles surrounding John Stuart Mill and On Liberty, and Utilitarianism
Team Wintermute- Matt M., Paul L., Eric H., Martha D.
The subject we chose for our video project was faculty member Dr. Gerry Santoro, professor in the IST/SRA departments. The reason this was chosen was because Matt and Martha have Gerry as a professor for SRA 111 and thought he would be a good choice for a faculty member biography. This was unique from the other group because no other group did a biographical type project.
In order to create a biographical-style video, we realized that we were going to need to interview him with prepared questions and a sense of what we would want to include in our video. We created a general diagram illustrating the topics we wanted to cover, and Gerry’s life in chronological order. This was made to help us figure out where necessary information and data within the video was located, in addition to helping us create a storyboard for the editing process.
We discussed the sort of video we wanted to create, and what we wanted to include. The style we were going for was modeled after a VH1 pop culture production. The interview would be cut and chopped up according to the way we wanted to present the material recorded of Gerry speaking. We would use his personal videos and images as visuals during part of the time that we spoke to illustrate exactly what he was referring to in his interview.
We weren’t sure exactly how Gerry was going to answer the questions we were going to ask him, so we asked more than we knew we’d be using, just to cover all our bases and have enough material. We asked him questions about his entire life story, his early influences, his education, work, research, teaching and personal interests. Gerry enthusiastically answered everything and provided us with an hour’s worth of material.
The Storyboard required a lot of time and energy from our group. We had so much video to get rid of, simply because we could not fit it all, that we had to be sure that what we included counted. We spent the better part of six hours in total working on the storyboard alone.
After a general introduction of the group and our subject, Gerry Santoro, in the first and second blocks, we decided to begin the video with the lesser known facts about this well known professor. In the third block of the storyboard, Paul introduces a little background history of Gerry’s origins, and then we placed clips of our interview with Gerry in an order that brought to light his hobbies and interests, such as Astronomy, Harley Davidson bikes, guitar, and comic books. Moving toward his research, we linked his interests with the technology he works with in the fourth block. Gerry talks about recording video of his bike rides and making covers using multi-track layering software of a famous song. After "the hook", if you will, we start to show Gerry talking about his research in the fifth block, introduced formally by Eric. Gerry talks about technology and pop culture, virtual worlds, and the Web2.0 phenomenon. In the sixth block, we talk to Gerry about his teaching methods and what he thinks makes a good teacher. The seventh and final block, composed of the credits and Imagine by John Lennon, ends the presentation with a quote of Gerry's; that he enjoys dreaming of what can be.
In our video imaging project, we used different types of technological devices in order to completely finish our video. Since none of us had a video camera, we went to the Media Lab in the Willard Building and took out one of their video cameras for a week. This camera was compact and very easy to use, and had a touch screen panel. In addition, we also got a camera to help document the process. Once we had our necessary film, we needed to work on the storyboard to aid the editing.
We used iMovie as our video editing program on Martha’s MacBook Pro. Because we did all of our editing on a lap top, our project was permitted to be portable. In order to work on our movie, we needed two computers, and to exchange the information between those computers, we used Matt’s 160 GB external hard-drive, email and multiple flash drives.
Video Script (interview not scripted due to length- rather than type out entire script, we decided to use a brief summary to describe the dialogue. Narration includes typing and vocals.)
Narration: "Who is the real Gerry Santoro?"
Paul: "Since he was a child in Blanux, Pennsylvania, Gerry’s personal interests have influenced his professional research within the realm of information science and technology."
( Gerry answering question about personal life and interests )
Narration: "How Gerry relates technology to his personal interests..
( Gerry talks about using technology and his communities )
Narration: "Gerry’s research includes.."
Eric: "According to Gerry, his professional research includes social informatics, computer-mediated communication, technology policy and future policies."
( Gerry talking about his research: computer-mediated communication, Web2.0 and virtual worlds )
Narration: "What about your teaching? What makes a great teacher?"
( Gerry discusses teaching techniques and what he incorporates them into his classes )
Problems/ Issues
Initially, we didn’t know how long we would be able to take out the camera for, and our interview date wasn’t set. The indefinite dates made the beginning process difficult and frustrating because of all of our other group work.
Taping the material for our video project went smoothly, but we ended up with an hour’s worth of useful, relevant information. Many issues stemmed from this. First, we had to organize the video into clips in order to find anything in the recording. Second, choosing which clips we would use for the time limit down from the original hour took an enormous time. This was facilitated by the storyboard, but as mentioned, the storyboard took over six hours to create and perfect. Thirdly, Gerry gave us plenty of material, but a lot of it we decided wasn’t going to be relevant to our project and time frame. We spent a good deal of time mashing clips to create thought-provoking and coherent new clips from sometimes long or irrelevant material.
We started the project too close to its deadline, and because of this, we spent almost all week and everyday working as a group on it. Due to the intensity of this project, we all have a good portion of Gerry’s hour long dialogue memorized. All in all, we feel this project was worth too little credit in comparison with the amount of work we put in.
Paul had experience with windows video editing software called Nero. Although the group decided iMovie would be better for the task at hand, in retrospect it might have saved us vital editing time if we had a member of the team intimately aware of the program. Using Nero could have saved us some time, because Paul’s computer has more processing power and capability to handle large files than Martha’s laptop.
That said, there is great value in becoming part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Like our blogs, this project allowed us to explore our creativity and share it with the world using YouTube. It may have been a lot of work, but we are pleased with the final result.
Resources
Gerry Santoro. Personal Interview. 04 November 2007.
Team Wintermute decided to build a sign physically modeled after the design and structure of the Penn State IST building. But how would we present the picture? There are many types of signs, and after seeing what some other people had done, we decided that a billboard was not included in the decisions of many other groups. Team Wintermute thinks that if you were to advertise in Second Life, it would have to be visible from the flight path and travel patterns of individuals.
Matt Maisel was the best builder of the team, and he spear-headed the creation of our billboard. Martha took pictures, and started building what would be put on the poster. Paul and Eric looked for pictures that described IST accurately.
Going back to our flickr collection from a previous assignment, we used pictures of the IST building to convey our feelings about IST. Matt encountered an interesting dilemma as he tried to picture what the essential components of a billboard actually were. After looking up pictures of a billboard, he began sculpting away at several rectangular prims, making bars, a ladder, and other various components. We are glad that it came out so realistic- Matt is pretty good with that stuff! Martha finished a very professional poster, thanks to the wonders of mac computers, which left one small task... The uploading of textures.
It is 10 Lindens to upload a texture into Second Life. Good thing 10 Lindens only equates to more or less 5 cents! We had to wait more than an hour to get the confirmation that the money had been uploaded correctly, but other than the small wait, everything in this assignment went as planned.
The only thing missing from this document is a picture of the finished product. here it is!!
