Archive for August, 2009

Natural-born cyborgs or Brain dead zombies?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

EMAC 2321 Assignment…

In the Feburary 2009 issue of Discover Magazine, Carl Zimmer tells us our minds are not under attack by the internet, but they are evolving to adapt to the mass of information to which the internet grants us access too. Zimmer argues for the extended mind concept, where using the computer to find information is equal to and equally efficient to physically remembering the information. In the article, Zimmer asks how the internet changes the way we think about the human mind, as well as how we judge what is good and bad about the emerging technologies on the internet. Zimmer argues that not only is the internet a wonderful tool to aid us in finding information, but its doing so in a natural way in which our brains naturally process information. He says that the internet is causing changes which are forcing our brains to process information in new ways, and those changes are in no way negative. Alternatively, Nicholas Carr argues in his Atlantic Monthly article, Is Google Making us Stupid?:

“And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

The contrast between Zimmer and Carr’s views on the internet influence on humans is very fascinating. On one hand, Zimmer completely embraces the new technology as a way for humans to evolve and gain information on a level never seen before, he claims we are Natural-born cyborgs, able to interface and adapt to new technology on the fly. Carr clearly does not believe this is the case. Carr believes that the internet takes away from his abilities to concentrate and contemplate, he goes on to make several other claims about skills he has lost, or believes we are loosing due to this new technology. He claims this new media will turn us all into brain dead zombies.

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First day of classes down!

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

What a day…I got up, took a shower, put my shoes on, walked out the door, and faced the music….and boy, am I glad I did!

Although it was only the first day of classes, I am very excited to see what the UTD EMAC program has in store for me.

My first class was an intro to rigging class…Its an upper level ATEC class that I got put in at the last moment to fill my schedule…Most of the students in there had taken several 3d classes there and knew Maya like their back of their hand…to be honest, I was a little intimidated, the guy next to me had an amazing portfolio.  Needless to say, I got thrown in there and had not really even used or looked at maya since it was Alias Maya 6.5…The professor had our class do some timed excorsizes to see where we are at and I did horribly! I have completely forgotten how to work in Maya! We got a class assignment to rig a pendulum by the next class, so I am going to spend all of my time this weekend getting re-acquainted with the Maya UI and try and do a bang up job on this assignment.I am really looking forward to this class. This is the first time in my college career that I have gotten to do any 3D, and it beats the heck out of anything core classes have to offer!

The 2nd class I had today was called Writing and Research for New Media…The professor I got is amazingly cool! Finally someone who sees the big picture! Although his first class was really just an introduction, telling us a little about himself and the class, I felt very good about it…I chose EMAC as my major and it seems like if the program is designed like this class is I will definitely be getting my moneys worth out of my education! Our first assignment is to set up a blog and a twitter account…I already have em, however I am thinking about setting up a blog just for school…In fact on my drive to school in the morning I was thinking it would be cool to do a day by day account of my experiance in the program…

It was kind of funny, I though I was out of luck on getting a 4th class for the semester, however my adviser stuck me in a class and forgot to tell me about it…So I got an email from the schools bursar’s office telling me I owed them another grand, got freaked out and was like ohh, I have class like right now! So it turns out I have 12 hours this semester anyway…Which is good…

I still have a lot of unfinished freelance work that I fear my interfere with my studies…I told myself I would get everything done by the first day of classes, but it snuck up on me way too fast, I still have a few hundred hours of work to do, sheesh! I am gonna have to turn down any more work I get so I can focus on school now…It’s weird saying “Nope, sorry, I can’t!” to clients.

Since I am out of time for personal projects this semester I am going to hire some contractors to finish all the coding I had planned for my companies other website (txmotocross.com)…It’s weird to realize that I cannot tackle the world, and need to to hire help! lol

I asked them to come on, so..We shall see, I have maya installing right now so I can get to work on the rigging class assignments, this year is going to be a blast!

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The end to a non-existant academic summer break…

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Wow did summer pass quickly…My transfer student orientation is Wednesday…and I am still not into enough classes….It’s kind of scary, all of these classes are full! I am down to begging my advisers to stick me into any classes that are open! Some of the classes require professor approval to get you in, but then there is no way to contact the professor…its wacky!

I’ve decided that I want to end up doing the EMAC BA after all, I figure its the best future proof possible, not to mention something I find amazingly fascinating. I hope my professors are cool and in the know, not the monotone teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!!!!

Summer is wrapping up, but things are not slowing down by any means…Got my business running, the gears are turning and I can at least cover rent…So thats good…I am moving out into a new place in McKinney…and I tend to keep myself busy…Have not gotten to fish in a while, but oh well, it is the peak of summer.

I’ve been thinking that I really want to re-design my website, I build it in 2006 and its looking old, I need to bring it up to standards, I don’t even have a twitter of facebook widget on here, GOSH! When we get 12 more hours in the day I suppose…

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