English 344

Thanks for Reading

2005-05-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

English class has ended and with it so has this blog. Check me out at my personal website.

Wired on DJ Spooky

2005-05-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

Bottle Rocket

2005-05-03T11:31:00.000-05:00

Just watched Bottle Rocket, another Austin Texas film like Slacker. I found that Bottle Rocket was filmed in Texas after watching the film, I originally picked it up because it is directed by Wes Anderson.

Poetry

2005-04-25T21:09:00.000-05:00

McSweeney's on poetry. Number five is my particular favorite.

Even More Quick Links

2005-04-23T00:51:00.000-05:00

Quick Links

2005-04-19T01:02:00.000-05:00

Rhythm Science

2005-04-11T05:16:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if I can recommend Paul D Miller's book, Rhythm Science. I bought Miller's DJ Spooky album, "Riddim Warfare," a few years ago and found it difficult to listen to. While the music can be considered ambient, DJ Groovy Slug has a good point when she says that certain elements in the mix of DJ Spooky's music distracts from the listening experience, the same applies to the CD included with Rhythm Science. I also had a problem with the plethora of grammatical errors in Rhythm Science. Here's a rundown of what I found listed by page:

57, first line, "...even the direct connections you make speaking before an audiences..."
64, fourth line, "...away from the melting pot model to becomes a frequency centrifuge..."
80, 16th line, "...yet another attitude we inherit form the past century..."
85, third line, "...Man Ray's shorts explored portray human subjects..."
112, 15th line, "...so much so that things change to quickly..."

The above being said, I know that this book may interest many music fans and academics. The book can be read in one day, and I have a healthy respect for Paul D Miller's role as hip-hop historian. My personal tastes prevent me from getting behind his music or writing.

Quick Links

2005-04-07T22:55:00.000-05:00

Movie vs Comic comparisons in Sin City. Certain parts borderline worksafe.
The above link was taken from Drawn!, a consistently good blog about illustration.
Night Watch, this looks like one of the few innovative horror films out there, maybe.
Trendalicious tracks what's popular on the social bookmark site del.icio.us
Google map blog
Although IceRocket web search has a somewhat phallic quality, it has some unique search features.
Yahoo vs. Google
Wired on Blogger being bad. For the last month or so Blogger has been giving me and many other people a hard time.
Web designer Jeffrey Zeldman on the merits of Minima, the blogger template I use.

Mixing Analog and Digital

2005-04-04T17:12:00.000-05:00

I stayed up all night developing negatives and printing photos. I took a nap today and slept through Monday's class. At least it was a good nap.

Quick Links

2005-03-31T23:10:00.000-05:00

Mark Cuban, businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a blog.
Sony wants to make "iTunes for Movies." My prediction? Sony can't to do it right.
"Quick Online Tips," a blog with helpful hints for your computer

Commercial Remix

2005-03-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

I remade the page the MPAA puts up if they take down a filesharing site.

Visiting Writers Spring 2005

2005-03-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

Here's a list of all the Spring 2005 speakers. I got this list emailed to me from Stacey Remick-Simkins. For the English majors out there who get emails from her all the time, wouldn't it be convenient if she had a blog? It would make checking for events easier than rooting through old email.

Flash I

2005-03-26T00:35:00.000-05:00

This Thursday I went to a STARLab computer workshop for introductory Flash. I was afraid that the instructor was going to be intimidating, but I was relieved to find that he was very nice and well prepared. By the end of class I was able to make a simple animation. I don't know why I didn't learn Flash sooner, now I don't have an excuse not to. Here is the nautical animation I completed in class.

Writing Exercise #1, a Small Hypertext

2005-03-23T21:22:00.000-05:00

My final project is an inquiry into alternative Internets. I made some small examples of what this will involve and have posted it as my first Writing Exercise.

Alternative Hypertext Project

2005-03-23T15:51:00.000-05:00

I came upon Ted Nelson's deep linking simulator when I was looking for alternatives to the HTML Internet as we know it now. While I was in English 343 over a year ago, the topic of alternative Internets seemed both absurd and remarkable, but a frightening possibility and a warning for the future. My final project for English 344 was going to be a hypertext essay that explores Internet freedom. But when I considered that I couldn't improve on Lawrence Lessig's work, and that an essay might be dull. I plan now to make a simulator of what the Internet could have been. What if Tim Berners-Lee didn't help make the Internet? What if the phone company monopoly still existed? What if Microsoft was the only company authorized to give you Internet? What if the government provided the Internet? I hope to illustrate these possibilities in my final project.

Understanding Media

2005-03-22T20:52:00.000-05:00

Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media essay explores the medium of the media. I need some clarification on McLuhan's view that the medium is more influential than the message of the medium. I have questions about McLuhan's finer points. Is there ever anything that is the message, or is it only the medium that we see? Does culture ever really change, or does it just shift? What happens when technology significantly alters the human body? Will society stop shifting and become something new for the first time? Marshall McLuhan's work connects anthropology, science, media studies, and an understanding of new technologies, and it still seems modern after four decades.

Writing About Cool Ch 1-2

2005-03-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

After reading the first two chapters of Jeff Rice's Writing About Cool, I came to some conclusions about cool.

Counterculture will eventually be assimilated and sold back to later generations
There can be a book that writes about cool, but there will never be a guide to what is cool - such is the nature of cool

In the realspace world, part of being cool is belonging to an exclusive group. But because what is on the Internet is available to everyone, posting something online is a violation of cool's rule of exclusivity. Maybe the Internet's dynamic requires a rethinking of cool. Cool on the Internet is the ability to share information freely regardless of personal differences. This is reflected in projects such as Creative Commons and the Open Source movement.

The Narrative Web

2005-03-20T18:53:00.000-05:00

Mark Bernstein's A List Apart article tells explicitly what I learned as an English major. Some of Mark's good advice:

Narratives are inevitable and good.
Use an appropriate narrative style for the text.
Show, don't tell.
Be conscious of the implications of your web creation.

It is a good thing that Mark Bernstein wants the web and its hypertext form to be a fine art. Most people only look at a bad website for ten seconds before closing its window. I see all forms of hypertext as intertextual in some way to other forms of art. A good novel may purposely mislead the reader for dramatic effect, but it doesn't jerk them around. I find poor websites a pain to navigate if I even get that far. Mark Bernstein mentions credibility, and good writing is part of credibility. Mark Bernstein also mentions hypertext guru Jakob Nielson's website. While Bernstein calls Nielson's website "starkly functional minimalism," I would call it overwhelming. "Design Eye for the Usability Guy" shows ways to make it fabulous. Oh, and isn't alistapart.com a great website? I've really enjoyed it since it came out.

The Curse of Xanadu and Marc Steigler's Book

2005-03-12T13:17:00.000-05:00

I ordered Marc Stiegler's book David's Sling, which is about a hypertext machine that saves the world. Will I read the book? I don't know, I bought it because it was referenced in Gary Wolf's epic 1995 Wired peice on Xanadu and it was $1.50 used on Amazon.

Is this Kristen Keating?

2005-03-10T20:23:00.000-05:00

Is Kristen Keating on the top page of Mason's website? Looks like her.

Geeks?

2005-03-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

Jessica, a fellow class blogger, made a post in response to professor Hawk's statement that there is a group of geeks and a group of non-geeks in our class. Who me? A geek? No way, I'm a total jock. I bench 225. In other news, here is some info on the new Star Wars Episode III trailer. But what is a geek these days? Led Zeppelin makes refernces to J.R.R. Tolkien books. Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of N.E.R.D. put up Vulcan gang signs. The Beastie Boys dress up in Star Trek uniforms for their videos. Geek and cool coexist and often reinforce each other.

Cybercelebritydom and a Website for Blogs

2005-03-08T19:27:00.000-05:00

I put a post up on this blog not too long ago and Mark Bernstein left a comment on it. If you blog it they will come. I'm still not sure how he found my site. I'm thinking it was using google alerts. The fact that someone found my post so easily is a good indication of the Internet's connectivity. And for those wishing only to search blogs, the website Technorati is a good place to start.

Thanks for Reading

2005-03-07T20:29:00.000-05:00

I have an incredible readership of ten people subscribing to by feed through bloglines. I am a celebrity (very famous).

Quick Links

2005-03-07T07:35:00.000-05:00

Slacker

2005-03-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

Slacker is Richard Linklater's hypertextual Austin Texas indie film. When I watched the film this week I began to analyze it based on the criteria discussed in English 344. If Slacker is hypertextual, then it must have some form of lexia and linking mechanism. Forms of travel, such as walking and driving, are responsible for making most of the links in Slacker. If Slacker were a webpage, the characters' conversations would be the text, physical travel would be the hyperlinks, and the mise-en-scène would be the lexia. Professor Byron Hawk is from Austin Texas and has said that Slacker is one of his favorite films. Even the bartender who talks with the English photographer near the end of the film looks fairly similar to professor Hawk. During his conversation with the English photographer, the bartender mentions the film Blowup and its mimes playing tennis scene. For those who have not seen this film, the scene in question involves a traveling pack of mimes playing tennis without a physical ball. When this imaginary ball accidentally flies over the court's fence, the mimes can't play tennis anymore until the photographer main character mimes throwing the ball back to them. Blowup was a strange and slow-moving film but it did have one amazing scene towards the very end involving The Yardbirds, a smashed guitar, and a frenzied crowd. Slacker also shares a similar style to Richard Linklater's later film Waking Life. The two film's opening scenes are almost the same. Did you know that Willey Wiggins from Waking Life and Dazed and Confused has a blog?

Hypertext Garden

2005-03-01T23:59:00.001-05:00

Mark Bernstein is the chief scientist at Eastgate Systems, Inc. and the designer of Tinderbox. Eastgate systems are responsible for developing Storyspace software, one of the premiere hypertext programs in its day. Bernstein is so connected in the hypertext world that Stuart Moulthrop wrote some of the biography on Bernstein's Eastgate website. In the history of hypertext, Bernstein is one of its important figures. Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl is still available for purchase and it appears that one can still order Storyspace software. I don't know how well older hypertexts work on newer computers.

Writing Machines Ch 5-8

2005-03-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

Although they never met, A Humument is a collaborative work by William Mallock, the author of A Human Document, and Tom Phillips, the remixer of Mallock's work. N. Katherine Hayles' sixth chapter of Writing Machines discusses the textual implications of A Humument. When reviewing Hayles' chapter, it is notable that Hayles herself uses hypertextual influence that integrates A Humument with her own text, as if (like with Ted Nelson's Xanadu) the distinction between texts dissolves into one another to form a unique document. See the first sentence on page 78 of Writing Machines for one of many examples. What are the ways that Tom Phillips constructs his hypertext?

Bubbles of text are isolated and connected by rivers.
Text not in bubbles is slightly or completely obscured.
New forms and sentences are made by eliminating text.
Lines of text are still read left to right and top to bottom.

Phillips's technique of finding new connections in existing text is a reflection of plot in Mallock's original text, which has a narrator describing attempts at deciphering two sets of letters and their relation to one another.

William Gibson DVD

2005-03-01T19:45:00.000-05:00

The Johnson Center library has a documentary featuring William Gibson called No Maps for these Territories. The call number of the DVD is PS3557.I2264 N6 2003. Besides William Gibson, the film also has U2's Bono and The Edge. I don't know why Bono and The Edge are in the film because I have not watched the film myself, I've just seen it on the shelf. Update: Mason Text and Community will be holding a screening of No Maps for these Territories on Thursday March 3rd at 7:30pm in The Eisenhower Media Room in Presidents Park. Pizza will be served.

Mark Amerika

2005-02-28T01:27:00.000-05:00

The Mark Amerika piece is similar the other works we have been reviewing this class in that it challenges and explores the computer as a medium. Be sure to checkout the tragically difficult to navigate top level of his site and read his interview in 3AM magazine. Because it is relatively new and rapidly developing, artists are still exploring the media of the computer and hypertext. This exploratory process seems unlimited given the virtual and dynamic nature of computers. One of the unique features of the computer is its ability to imitate. Computers are devises that can be anything. If someone wants their computer to simulate a walk in the park or find the billionth digit in Pi it is a matter of writing a program in a computer. Computers imitate non-computer objects with their digital picture frames, digital cameras, and video games. The computer environment is a collection of metaphors for real life, the desktop, the mouse, webs, and windows. What can computers and computer art do that is unavailable in the real world? Is man projecting his preexisting objects into the computer? Can the computer step us out of the bounds of the simplest constraints of reality and show the world a new dreamscape detached from reality's archetypes? Today's methods of computer worlds are rudimentary and constrained by the necessity for programmers. The future is organic self-creating code, originally written by humans but now out of their grasp. I do believe that Wintermute and Neurmancer can exist. Will this make computers into humans? Speaking of robots, checkout McSweeney's list of banned books of the year 2191 by Brendon Llyod.

Quick Links

2005-02-23T23:01:00.000-05:00

The trailer for A Scanner Darkly, staring Keanu Reeves and directed by Richard Linklater.
Wired article about Jason Kottke who quit his job to devote his time to blogging.

Lexia to Perplexia

2005-02-23T15:06:00.000-05:00

One of the artistic principals in Lexia to Perplexia is to make the viewer aware of the computer as an independent medium. I've heard complaints about the readability of Lexia's text, but the flashing, layering, and moving of this piece is a feature. Talan Memmott has purposely chosen to display the text in a way that breaks the norms of printed text. I advise viewers of this art to avoid attempts to read the entire text of Lexia, unless they wish to torture themselves. The computer is not a book. The telephone is not an automobile; it will not drive you to work if you dial the right number. N. Katherine Hayles' approach of Media Specific Analysis is the recognition of the computer as its own entity.

CSS in class

2005-02-21T16:36:00.000-05:00

Last week, when the class was learning CSS, I was impressed with the speed people were able to learn the basics. Color and font controls can easily personalize a website (but remember to keep text readable). If you end up totally destroying your blog template you can always revert back to one of the templates that came with motime or whatever service you are using. Here are some links that will help you with CSS:

CSS Zen Garden - Selecting a new design only changes the CSS file that styles the HTML page, this illustrates the separation of form and content allowed with CSS.
Color Scheme Generator 2 - Help with finding a set of colors that look good on your website.

Using RSS

2005-02-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

I'd like to elaborate on how I use RSS feeds. Here is a list of the blogs I read:

boingboing.net - A directory of wonderful things.
joi.ito.com - Technology culture and blogging news
slashdot.org - Nerd news
gizmodo.com - New gadgets
English 344 Class blogs
Lessig blog - Stanford professor, Creative Commons chair, author...
Kottke.org - He recently left his job to became a full time blogger
Wired News Highlights - Technology culture and news
Verba Chromogenic - Photo stuff
twentysix.net - One of the first blogs I started reading
washingtonpost.com highlights
simplebits - Web Design
stopdesign - Web Design
mezzoblue - Web Design
A List Apart - Web Design
Zeldman Daily report - Web Design
Dunstan's Blog - Web Design
Adactio - Web Design
Design by Fire - Web Design
Web Standard's Project buzz - Web Design
CSS Vault Gallery - Web Design
Whateverdesire - Professor Hawk's blog
BarlowFriendz - EFF co-founder blog
Marginal Revolution - Economics
360 visits - Panorama photography
Doonesbury - Entertainment
Dilbert - Entertainment
Ranchero - Software news
MacOSX Hints - Mac help
Macslash - Mac news

Because I find only some of the articles interesting, I only read a select few of the day's total posts and ignore the rest. Out of the average total of 100 posts in one day, I end up reading maybe only five. If you wondered where I got some of the links I post in my blog entries, chances are that I found them on a blog or using google. After some expierience, RSS becomes as easy as e-mail.

Writing Machines

2005-02-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

N. Katherine Hayles gives a definition of media specific analysis (MSA) on page 29 of Writing Machines. Hayles's definition: "Complementing the foundational concepts of material metaphors, inscription technologies and technotexts is a kind of criticism that pays attention to the material apparatus producing the literary work as physical artifact." There is a popular saying that comes up when discussing technotexts that "the medium is the message." Marshall McLuhan parodies this saying in the title of his book The Medium is the Massage, which we are reading later in this class. I like Hayles's example of art books in chapter five and how they relate to MSA. I'd like to see some of these books, especially Maurizio Nannucci's Universum, a book bound on both sides so it can't be opened, and Fred A. Hillbruner's sphere called "What is wrong with this book?" I wonder if I can find any similar art books locally.

George Mason Referenced in GQ

2005-02-20T02:43:00.000-05:00

Page 208 of the march 2005 GQ has a reference to a George Mason University study regarding Zinc, memory, and aging. Could this be a reference to this professor's studies (found using google) by the Mason Psychology Department? For fun, I've included a scan of GQ's Mason reference.

Phony White House "Reporter" Discovered By Bloggers

2005-02-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

The political blog americablog uncovered a dangerously biased reporter in the White House press pool. This is another positive step for bloggers being received by the mainstream as true journalists. The Wednesday February 16 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has an in-depth report by Steven Colbert (aka Ted Hitler) on blogs, "Blog Cabin Republicans," and James D. Guckert as the press pool plant. The WednesdayDaily Show episode is available in BitTorrent form. In related blogging rights news, Wired has a story discussing the journalistic implications of blogging.

Bloglines RSS

2005-02-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

To put my blog into your bloglines account just copy and paste my blog's address: http://asnitzer.blogspot.com/. Or click "Subscribe With Bloglines" in the upper right column.

Internet Chomsky

2005-02-15T00:24:00.000-05:00

As the Internet matures and merges evermore into the mainstream, what steps will big business take to shape this technology in their own interests? How can this be combated without interfering with capitalism? Here is an interview with Noam Chomsky from 1998 relating to big business and Internet control. Other websites to checkout are Lawrence Lessig's blog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Creative Commons. I am thinking that I will do my final project on the Internet and big business control. On the subject of Chomsky, while searching for articles, I found the right-leaning Decision '08, which talks about Chomsky with the same rhetoric I've heard the left use against the right, specifically the "Big Lie." This similarity in rhetoric tells me that the methods of debate for the majority on both sides needs to be reevaluated.

Posthuman

2005-02-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

Here are two links relating to N. Katherine Hayles books Writing Machines and How We Became Posthuman.

Steve Mann has been wearing computers for years.
Unofficial A Humument page

Neuromancer Quick Links

2005-02-06T05:10:00.000-05:00

The Neuromancer Study Guide is somewhat helpful. The Matrix is very similar to Neuromancer, and The Matrix is very similar to Alex Proyas's Dark City. Here is a link to a French site giving a shot-by-shot comparison between the two films: Dark City vs The Matrix.

Jesus IS on Facebook!

2005-02-05T05:37:00.000-05:00

In response to another post on this blog: Jesus is on facebook, along with someone named Brett and the guy from Creed. In fact, you can find anyone from Jesus to Mr. T on the facebook. Now I can be friends with Jesus too. I'll stop responding to flamebate now.

Quick Links

2005-02-03T01:27:00.000-05:00

I Choo Choo Choose You. The infamous Ralph Wiggum Valentine's day card in .eps and .jpg format. Via Boingboing.
How they did Amazon.com's A9 Yellow Pages. This link is in response to EPIC 2014's Googlezon theory of the future.
A blog inspired by Googlezon. I haven't read this blog, I just want people to know that it's out there.

Thanks To Everyone Who Posted In My Blog

2005-02-02T16:08:00.000-05:00

I'd like to thank everyone who posted on my blog for class. Quick Notes: Back when I was in English 505 with professor Hawk I asked if there would ever be a class on blogging. Now there is actually a class. In English 497-001 Digital Poetry we already read 107 pages in Writing Machines. It took up most of my homework time last week.

Posting Anonymously With Your Name

2005-02-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

If you're posting anonymously to my blog because it is convenient, please type your name in the post! That would rock.

Quick Links

2005-02-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

Things I Hate About My Flatmate, via Boingboing. Beware! Someone could be blogging about how much they hate you.
For all the college students out there who use facebook, I want you to know that by performing a global search you can find some notable celebrities. I put up Bill Clinton and John Kerry as my friends. I'm still waiting for confirmation from Mary-Kate Olsen and George W Bush. Based on the profiles of Clinton and Kerry, it is clear that most celebrity profiles are updated by some prankster student and not the politicians' staff. I've also read Kristen Keating's blog post mentioning facebook. I promise to not use facebook as a facade.

Class Blogs

2005-02-02T10:42:00.000-05:00

Al Salmi, Walaa – My Way
Castro, Paul – The Wonderful World of Castro
Dunn, Ryan – Technical Writer
Dwyer, Paul S. – Hail Freedonia!
Ellis, Kelsey L. – The Tango Project
Fletcher, Arlene I. – DJ Groovy Slug Spins
Gullatt, Monika S. – Hideout
Hahn, Kristin – The Family Girl
Keating, Kristen – Kristen Keating's Blog
Luque, Gustavo M. – Results May Vary
O'Donnell, Heather B. – Heather O
Ohi, Camelia – School is Cool
Robles, Patricia A. – Feisty Little Heart
Snitzer, Aaron F. – English 344
Thomas, Davida M. – Limbs Hip Place
Tuck, Jessica K. – Jessica's Blog
Ugoji, Susan K. – English 344

Posting anonymously

2005-02-01T18:22:00.000-05:00

If you want to post to my blog, blogger asks you to sign in with their site. This is only so it can display the name of who is posting. It is also possible to post anonymously on blogger. If you missed the link for posting anonymously, I have included a screen shot with an arrow below. If you post anonymously for convenience and not for anonymity, please include your name in the post.

Blogging about blogging. Round Two

2005-01-31T11:50:00.000-05:00

Today's class reading:

Use the Blog, Luke

Use the Blog Luke I found the Salon.com article "Use the Blog Luke" to be the most thought provoking of the five articles we read for this class. Writer Steven Johnson cut through the blogging hype, took a step back, and examined why and how blogs can better connect themselves. I use blogs to do the work of web surfing for me. I may not have the connections or time that some of the blogs I watch have. With the help of blogging, I can find important news stories like, "Man peed way out of avalanche," a link I found on Adactio. Blogging as Social Action The article, Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog, got me thinking about China's widespread censoring of the Internet. China's blocking of websites can be seen as an extreme example of what could happen in the United States. What has made blogs so successful in the past few years is their ability to grow freely. An outspoken advocate of a hands-off regulatory approach to communication is Stanford Professor and blogger Lawrence Lessig. I've read his book The Future of Ideas and have to agree with him that lack of regulation lets systems work themselves out more efficiently and with more innovation than under heavy bureaucracy. Any regulation of blogs in any subtle way is a form of social control. I don't know in what way blogs may be hindered in the future, hopefully no way at all.

Quick Links

2005-01-28T17:01:00.000-05:00

Remix: Singing in the Rain remixed for VW
The Revolution that Failed. Salon article profiling Sharon Waxman's Rebels on the Backlot, a book about '90s new filmakers and the revolution that started and ended. You have to watch a short ad to see the whole article.

Quick Links

2005-01-27T19:03:00.000-05:00

Jakob Nielsen, one of the earliest hypertext scholars, discusses Reviving Advanced Hypertext.
A collection of some of the best looking websites of 2004. Not necessarily the easiest to navigate or access.
An old Wired article about Ted Nelson's Xanadu project.

English 497

2005-01-26T21:24:00.000-05:00

My English 497-001 Digital Poetry class is in the same room right after my English 344 class. The crowd is mostly creative writing people. To my amazement, two students referenced Professor Dean Taciuch's recitation on hypertext as one of their motivations to take English 497. It felt good to know that I was a small part of that presentation. English 497 also shares two of English 344's textbooks, Writing Machines and rhythm science. I am from a more technical writing background so I have to adjust my writing technique for 497.

Quick Links

2005-01-26T13:24:00.000-05:00

Viktor Yuschenko has a blog in English and Ukraine. Update: It's not his own writing, but it helps keep the public up to date on what he is doing.
Old Matt Groening Apple comics. The Life in Hell comics were part of my early education.
Wired News article on using old Macs as art. HyperCard was an easy program to make hypertext before the wide availability of the Internet.

Response to Articles Profiling Blogging

2005-01-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

Blogging entry length I think a good word range for blog posts that are any more than just a quick mention of a link should be about 300 words. I'll try to keep my post within a set range so I don't drift to smaller and smaller posts. My Blogging experience I have been reading blogs for about five years. I track 37 blogs on my RSS newsreader. Using a newsreader to check blogs is a huge timesaver. I have a Mac so I use NetNewsWire Lite. Using Firefox The computers in the lab have Internet Explorer and Firefox installed. Both programs surf the web, Firefox does it better. Using Blogger and Firefox is a great combination because the advanced capabilities of Firefox allow additional blogging capabilities. Response to Blogging Articles

The above articles were assigned on the first day of class. Reading about the anonymous corporate blogs makes me kind of wish that I had my own anonymous blog. I would be tempted to post personal photos and blow my cover, though. One of the connective features of blogging is that it can shed light on many different kinds of people's lives. If there is someone doing something, chances are that you can google it and find out about it. The Incredible Hulk even blogs. Because it is dedicated to tracking blogs, Technorati is a good place to search for blogs. The reactionary form of blogging is a new form of writing and separate from the novel or essay form. Blogging will not destroy people's writing skills. People will still be able to write well even with blogs. Blogging is often close to speach. Recently, Apple Computer handed thinksecret.com's founder a lawsuit because of his website. I'd like to explore the social and corporate controls placed on the web by capitalist society. Something like Noam Chomsky for the Internet. SNL's Amy Poehler had a sketch from "Upright Citizen's Brigade" where she walked around a coffee shop asking people if they were trying to read her diary. Then she would read from her diary just to feel that someone was interested in her. Blogging can be a cry for attention, but I think blogging for attention is fine. If the blog is worthwhile it will get the attention it needs. Writing is an acceptable form of expression. Too bad Amy Poehler was a robot in that sketch. Has anyone seen that show? No? Ted Nelson one of hypertext's creators I checked out Ted Nelson's Literary Machines and Computer Lib from the libraries at Mason. I can't decide whether they are the creation of a genius or an eccentric, probably both. One more thing I think I got a defective copy of rhythm science, there's a hole in mine. I went over my self-imposed word limit.

First Entry

2005-01-24T16:28:00.000-05:00

This is my blog for English 344 at George Mason University. Checkout my personal blog and the old journals of English 343 and English 505. I am usually lax on my personal blogging frequency so having a blog for class helps keep me up on my posting.