Lee Siegel, "Against the Machine"

On Wednesday, a group of my classmates came together to give a presentation on the undoubtedly hard to swallow book, Against the Machine: Being
human in the age of the electric mob, by Lee Siegel. The group members were Kay, Devin and Samantha.

They began by painting a picture of the author as an established critic, professor and novelist. He comes across as being very harsh, heavily opinionated, and not a mainstream type of guy.
You might guess, after noting the title of the
book, he is full on against technology and the direction it is pushing us. He seems to think the rise of the Internet and all the advances in technology it has brought us are pushing us further and further away from popular culture and closure and closer towards popularity culture.

"Culture has changed from being 'passively' to 'actively' entertained."

Siegel talks about the use of the Internet to further ourselves, and says there is "too much self interest" evolving.

Siegel goes on to bash American Idol and it's contestants, comparing them to the players of the Internet, the "easy girl" and the "class clown" included, saying they just want to be big, they just want to be liked, and they'll do whatever we say to get that from us.

What it all boils down to is Siegel's elitist opinion that people should stick to what they're good at, rather than mix and intertwine. For example, corporate professionals should socialize with other corporate professionals and other groups a like. He sees people broadening their horizons as a bad thing and calls it "watering down our culture" instead.

It was personally hard for me to understand all of Siegels points and analogies, but I think there is little next to obvious about the common opinion of this critic/ author. However, it is worth noting that he has been applauded by some for speaking out of line about something valued by so many, and for some showing inertia when it comes to the fast paced changes the Internet caters to, he taps into a glimmer of hope for those who wish it'd all just rewind and go away.

I of course am out of my seat about it. Funny thing though, I kinda wanna read the book, LOL.

Reflecting: South Sound Technology Conference, 2008

A treat it was indeed, as I attended my first of many South Sound Technology Conferences (SST Conference) this past Friday. Like a little kid after Christmas day, I was excited and enthused all day and played with the new thoughts and information I'd gained in my head all evening, dreaming and planning...

To many, it might seem nerdy or naive to be so excited, but for others who share my passion for science and technology, you know my excitement is real, and my dreams, even realer.

The conference hit the ground running strong with Andrew Fry leading the pack.

The first panel featured information on "Fostering Innovation", and included presentations from Egils Milbers, John Dimmer and Lee Cheatham. I have to share, this presentation may have been my favorite of the day. Egils Milbers, Executive Director for the Economic Development Commission of Washington State was noted as being highly prestigious and even a bit of a celebrity and he certainly lived up to his expectations. With a wonderful power point presentation, he inspired and enlightened us as he spoke on what innovative means and how to go about being innovative, along with what is needed. A quote from one of his slides that I found profound in respect to our nations correct woes follows.

"Never allow a crisis to go to waste!"

-Rahm Emanuel

Also, John Dimmer of the Tacoma Angel Network was there to encourage entrepreneurs and let them know of the resources for capital available to them as start ups, the Tacoma Angel Network included. And Lee Cheatham of the Washington Technology Center was there to close and tie everything together. The three of them provided a fantastic start to the day and some valuable prospectives for which I felt very fortunate to get to hear.

The next presentation was one I had been waiting for and had even blogged about last month. Cloud Computing, the current buzz word whizzing around the technology industry, was presented by Aaron Kimbell, and then followed up by the "Dual Prospectives Panel". Together, they were able to make very clear to me exactly what cloud computing is and means and the pros and cons of its use, as well as who it's respectable audience is or should be. The panel included Mike Manzano of Topia Technologies who focused on Cloud Computing in Software and Dr. Ankur Teredesai of the Institute of Technology, UWT, who focused on Cloud Computing in the Education. I personally was thrilled and very satisfied with the discussion! In fact, rest assured that I will be doing a follow up blog of my October blog on this subject in the very near future.

The rest of the afternoon provided an introduction to a selection of the technology based businesses we have present in the South Sound, including Prepared Response represented by Mike Brown, Serra Media represented by Mark Briggs, Avue Technology represented by Dan Creamer, NewTech represented by Jennifer Leaf and Internet Identity represented by Rod Rasmussen. All of the companies had different dynamics, all spun upon the use of technology. And besides the pleasure of having some fresh clear insight into these co existing companies, as they met one another and discussed their point of views on different subjects, as a student, it was nice to get a preview of my possible future employers.

Overall, for me, the SST conference was amazing and truly beneficial. The ideas it spurred within me and the confidence it gave me in what this industry can do, only helped to secure that this is where I need to be and this industry is what I want to be a part of.

A special thank you goes to Andrew Fry and all of those who helped plan and put on this annual event. I look forward to celebrating the conferences 10 year anniversary at the conference next year! Should be an interesting one, especially given the current state of our nation.

A Presentation in the Works....

Well, like I said, it's that time of the quarter, LOL.

Indeed, projects and presentations are in the works everywhere and deadlines are fast approaching.

I am part of a group of 7 students working on a class presentation that we have been asked to summarize our portion of here in our blogs by our professor, Andrew Fry. I'm not going to give it all away, but I'm excited to share a bit of what I've personally got in the works.

My group is reading a book, World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing, written by author, Richard Hunter, VP of GartnerG2, a division of Gartner Inc., the worlds largest technology research firm. The book, in a very small nut shell, discusses the effects of the technology based revolution that began decades and decades ago and how it is creating a transparency not known before the power of technology came about. It investigates the pros and cons of this phenomena from Hunters valued prospective.

Our group of 7 has chosen to divide the contents of this book so that as much material is presented as possible without overwhelming any one persons work load. With 14 chapters, each group member simply chose 2 chapters to cover.

I am excited and enthusiastic about the two chapters I will be presenting to the class, chapter 6 which is titled Software Without Secrets and chapter 7 titled The Rise of the Mentat. Chapter 6 gives an in depth wealth of insight into Hunters few of the "Open Source Movement" and his take on how it affected business and the marketing and growth directions of software. Hunter was actually a sceptic of the movement initially, so it was interesting to learn of his opinions of how successful open source code actually was and is. Chapter 7 is interesting as well as it talks of, as it's title might hint, the rise of the Mentat, humans trained and genius enough to act as and perform duties of computers. Hunters prospective on this fascinating rare ability is of course in depth and articulate.

I don't want to say too much more, don't want to ruin it for the actual presentation, but I'm excited and nearly done putting things together. It'll be great to really get to finally put everything together some time in the next two weeks when my group and I make our presentations to our class.

Check out another outline from one of my group members, Oksana.

It's that time of the quarter!

Today was my long day, or at least that's what I've come to calling it. My Wednesdays.... they are long and eventful from start to finish. I spend nearly the entire day on the college campus as I attend two classes and a lab. Normally, I have come to enjoy these days, as crazy as it sounds. They are focused, productive and fun! But today, as I went through my day, I noticed a bit of a different tone on campus. Everyone, and I mean everyone, seemed annoyed, tired, busy, frustrated, on edge.. whatever, you get my gist. I actually felt it somewhat amazing to witness! Like some sort of phenomenon, from the professors to the counselors, to student leaders and of course, the students themselves, I came in contact with an insane number of grumpy and anxious people. They all seemed to speak the same piece of mind....

It's that time of the quarter!

Apparently the end of the quarter has snuck up on many of us. In fact, it was only two nights ago, I myself was loosing my mind in frustration, stressed about coming deadlines while trying to plan my next quarter at the same time. Needless to say, I was relieved to realize today that I'm seemingly not alone.

Geesh, I sound like a newbie to the college life, when I'm in fact not at all. But my point here was simply to point out a phenomena I witnessed today, as my instructor snapped, my counselor frowned, people were absent, present students were tense and I myself was a bit strained!

"It's that time of the quarter", is what I was told all day. And all I could say in return was, "Yup, thank goodness for the coming holiday breaks!"

Hang in there my fellow peers! Lets finish strong! :-)

A Virtual Vacation??

My class was asked the question, "If you had to travel to a virtual world, where would it be and why?", by our professor.

Boy, that's a difficult question for me.

I'd not yet ventured into the realm of virtual realities at all before having this interesting class discussion, however, while I've not yet formed solid opinions on virtual worlds, I do have to admit that I am growing increasingly interested in their appeal and abilities to stimulate people to the extent that they apparently do.

But let me not make this question harder than it is.

Today in class we finished our discussion of virtual worlds talking about super power like abilities in virtual worlds, along with invisibility, comfort, relationships, freedom, and so on. This got me thinking.... maybe this virtual world thing wouldn't be so bad??

I don't know, but I can say if I had to visit a virtual world, I would want it to be social, all play and no work (I would have whatever career I wanted but wouldn't actually do work), and I would what to travel the virtual world meeting knew people and seeing new virtual locations.

As far as which of the existing virtual worlds would I prefer at this time, I just don't know. I am most interested in the ones that I can either create/ design myself or serve a therapeutic purpose. That said, I'm not sure if it exists or not, but a virtual world that I would love would make me feel like I was actually there (maybe I could wear one of those head/ eye goggles for 3D vision) and would be a definite paradise.... a get away and a vacation! There would be a beach, a nice bar, a personal plane... that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I've got the right idea here. Are there virtual worlds where this is possible? I suppose I'm going to need to jump feet first into one of these communities and check it out. I just find it so hard to find purpose in building things, buying things or visiting things that only exist online for my avatar and don't actually effect my real physical life. On the other had, I understand there is a potential to actually earn revenue through commerce within virtual worlds and of course build relationships . Either way, it seems I've been way out of the loop on this subject!

Kevin Freitas, Inspiring a Community

I wanna first thank my professor, Andrew Fry, of the Institute of Technology, for being so indulged into the technology industry. Time and time again, he is able to pull from his vast network of relationships, industry related, and share them with us as guest speakers. This past Monday, our class was visited by the third guest speaker so far this quarter, Mr. Kevin Freitas, and while last, he was surely not least!

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the speakers brought to our class and taken very valuable information away from each. But I have to share, I was most inspired by Kevin. Kevin is an established and successful computer scientist. He works for a company, Site Crafting, where his role is half programmer and half team manager. Kevin is also known to be one of the first, if not the first, blogger in this area. Kevin's personal web site, KevinFreitas.net, has a blog archive that goes back some 10 years! It is literally a documentary of his life, pictures and stories, the works. It's really quite fascinating. But, while that is cool, Kevin also has created a site, FeedTacoma.com, for the community of Tacoma, "for the people" he actually said :-), for which I have to make note he makes no profit off of. In all honesty, I found that last note remarkably insane, but also remarkably respectable and inspiring all at once.

The site, FeedTacoma.com, serves as a one stop shop to brows all blogs tagged Tacoma. Two unique properties of the site are one, it's ability to equalize all voices, and two, it's ability to self maintain. Because the links to the blogs tagged Tacoma are all displayed in the same manner, regardless of who they are from, my personal blog (should I choose to tag it Tacoma) would be linked up just as someone at the New Tribunes would. This enables everyone to network and get there voice out there. The site is also self maintaining. It runs on algorithms and requires no one person to continually maintain or upkeep it. Instead, Kevin chooses to revamp or add to the site whenever he pleases. Some recent and up in coming changes are a shopping area where local shops or people can post pictures and descriptions of items for sale on the site and transactions can actually be completed. Also, Kevin is recruiting volunteer artists to be a part of template making for blogs that users can start, should they choose to open an account on FeedTacoma.com.

Now, as I mentioned, Kevin is making no profit from this site and that is by his own personal choice. Certainly, this site has a tremendous potential to generate income as it gets many hits per day and requires very very little work to maintain. While the rest of us might not be able to see ourselves passing up money like that, it is truly refreshing and inspiring to see someone so down to earth and generous as Kevin. He chooses to not be greedy, but instead to be content, to give, share and grow in relationships because of it. Through this site, not only is the community of Tacoma more connected to each other, but Kevin himself has made many friendships through it.

With Tacoma being my hometown and a city that I adore, I am grateful that Kevin has made FeedTacoma.com for our community. Thanks Kevin!

E-Finance, Risk for Reward?

From email, to ecommerce, lets not forget efinance!

I am examining why we Americans, knowing the dangers and the risk factors of participating in online trading, finance management and investing, do we continue to lay trust in it?

I can't help but think of it as a rocket ship, already in orbit and free fall. The world wide web has become such a monopoly for portals. It is our portal for communication, marketing, commerce, information and finances. At this point, we can't help but to lie trust and faith into the web. We've created it and attached ourselves to it with a crutch. We can't function with out it! And if you try to, you might be considered to be "living under a rock" or in straight up denial of the technological revolution that has taken place over the past couple decades!

So, in light of our love hate relationship with the web, we gamble. We know the risks, some we can afford to take, others we really can't and shouldn't, but nonetheless we end up taking a great deal of those risks! I think our reasons are plentiful. I think it is partially due to having all our eggs in one basket. Sure, online trading requires a lot of trust that may or may not have been earned, but what else are you gonna do? I mean seriously, some of the younger generations aren't even aware of the alternatives. For example, I can honestly say I wouldn't know how to book a trip with a car, hotel, flights, etc., with out the use of the web. That said, I take the risk for the reward of that convenient, one stop shop, where from the ease of the keyboard and monitor, I can do it all! It's definitely a gamble, entrusting the lines of the Internet with my personal information, but it's something the world as a whole has invested in greatly and we'd be dumb, in a way, not to support something we've built our way of life around!

So whether it's handling all your accounts online, transferring funds, remixing your stocks and bonds, purchasing stocks, etc., we do tend to take that risk for reward time and time again! If you really wanna know why, ask someone who was around decades ago when it was an ordeal to move your money from one account to another, something that I am fortunate to be able to do in 1 minute flat from my own personal computer. Or investing, it almost seems like a right these days, to be able to invest. But that's really only thanks to the web. Before, it was so tedious and time consuming, you would spend hundreds just paying a broker to expedite the transaction for you because there was know way just any average Joe could do it.

I personally, as cautious as I know I have to be on the web, will continue to take that risk, for the reward of convenience and speed that us Americans love and value oh so much! Simply put, the risk is great, but the reward is greater.