How to be a geek:
This article talks about how we are just starting to develop and teach everyone a language that explains software and how it works. This is because software is so complex and it’s hard to teach and understand the multitude of ways that it can be “understood, experienced, (and) put into play.” These conversations about software needs to be extended beyond the private conversations between those who are proficient with tech. A geek is someone who knows almost too much about their subject – they gush about their interest in something which can make others feel awkward by overenthusiasm – they find the information “dry” and boring. Geeks rule in their companies – usually in powerful positions. I really enjoyed this fun, educational definition of a geek and how that term is looked down upon but is actually very important.
Do you think it will take a long time to develop a proficient language that explains software? “Software” is very general, so that can be narrowed down to just a specific software you know as well. Do you think a simple guidebook could be made quickly and be the answer? Or is any software too complex to define in just writing or through language?
Introduction: Software, a Supersensible Sensible Thing:
Story of 6 blind men and elephant. All were right to some extent, but were also all wrong. Comparable to the internet and software. Focuses on the idea of software becoming a metaphor for a lot of things – like “the mind, for culture, for ideology, for biology, and for the economy.” “Computers have become metaphors for all ‘effective procedures,’ that is, for anything that can be solved in a prescribed number of steps, such as gene expression and clerical work.” Software is difficult to comprehend, which encourages ignorance – but that is not the way to go. Software illuminates an unknown, and does so through unknowable software which makes it a paradox.
I feel like we are like the 6 blind men and the elephant; we each know and understand something about different softwares. So, I guess the question is should we work together to educate each other? Or is this something we should expect the professionals to do? Like, should they be sharing their knowledge with us in the sense that ‘fair is fair’, or should we just focus on working together on our own time to learn new things about new softwares?
Sad by Design:
In this podcast, they start with the idea that people have now been taught that humans are bad and technology is the savior. The two speakers are on ‘Team Human’. They further dive into how kids of today are more and more attached to media – especially social media. They feel like they need to check it every few minutes and can’t get away. It’s being built into our brains. This need is also built into how all the programs are designed. They also talk about how even though we have more connections it doesn’t release the endorphins we release in person – so it’s inherently a sad version of socialization. Also, our online selves are often meant to not reflect our real selves – which, again, sort of seems to defeat the purpose.
As people who all participate in social media, why do you think our social media personas ARE personas? I ask this because I feel it’s sort of a subconscious thing we do; so why do you feel that we respond in this way?
New way of hiding: towards metainterface realism:
This is the scary article – the one that talks about how suddenly so many devices and softwares that we use – that we CHOOSE to use – are monitoring us in ways that we can’t see or expect. The scary part is the part about, again, how we choose to use it; these metainterfaces are being built into almost everything we use. In that sense, we want to use them because they are in things that make our lives easier and that we can use every day. However, these things are gathering information on us every second of the day – tracking and mapping our location and paths and learning what we like. These are all things we don’t agree to and this makes it all the more scary.
Since these metainterfaces are in everything we use nowadays (think phones especially) do you think we can escape an age where this happens? For example, do you think laws will be put in sooner than later that protect future generations (since ours are probably too documented to escape at this point), or do you think we will secretly be monitored regardless?