There's so much going on in the MIT Gender & Tech course that I wish we could participate in and learn more from-and-about! Tomorrow night they are discussing technology and militarism, with help from Jennifer Terry's Killer Entertainments site on Vectors, and the author's note.

Last Thursday in Paul's section we were discussing how we felt about scientific writing.  The majority of the class seemed to agree that scientific is boring and not accessible to the public.  While initially I disliked reading scientific papers, over the course of this year scientific writing has really grown on me.  On of the things that I find important in scientific writing is the effort made to keep everything objective.  Personally, I have a really hard time reading something and interpreting  it in one way.  I often get lost on the connotation of words and I feel myself choosing the meaning I think fits best.

 Notes 4/25
Werner Herzog quotation:

·         Understanding between people

·         Responses imply some ‘dark corners’ are necessary

Supports Chorost: increased exposure to the ‘dark corners’ is a negative aspect of increased internet communication

Chorost on privacy:

On Tuesday we were given professor Grobstein and Dalke's view of the semester and the course. through this we learned about the three spheres and the evolution that seems to be occurring. I was introduced to the noosphere  which compromised the evolution of human thought. This showed a growth from the inanimate, to the body, and then the mind. the idea that we continue to live on through ideas and thoughts.

I found this cartoon of Frankenstein in the New Yorker.  I thought it was interesting in the way it presents Victor Frankenstein as an expecting parent, especially considering the way that in the actual story, Victor creates a monster but doesnt consider what the effects of his creation will have.

Where is the dead computer?
The program dies like a dead information.
Never fight a cyborg.

Sign on roughly like a normal cell phone.
Why does the phone sign on?
Phones fall!
The digital user quietly break downs the information.

Where is the virtual program?
Cyborgs endure!

Female, reality, and beauty.
Beautiful, ugly goddess  desire a digital, lively cell phone.
Sign on swiftly like a lively cyborg.
The virtual cell phone  fights the cell phone.

 Where is the small cyborg?

Gender, meaning, and dimensions.

Informations game like small informations.

This poems were generated using Poem Generator.

1

Ah, media!
Generated, digital Adas digitally teleporting a male, performed cyborg.
Transporting mockingly like a illusion computer.
Humans critique like digital machines.
Notation, identity, and music.

 2

Golly gosh, hierarchy!
Lord, decode!
Why does the SRA hyper reading?
Never expression a cyborg.
Machines close reading!

3

Male, female  humans seriously flying a performed, performed human.
The SRA transportings like a generated alien.
All Adas flying male, female  cyborgs.
 

So I know it is likely many people in class would be happy to bitchslap me after I post this (especially you Tolkien fans), but  I think this is incredibly funny and relevant to our arguments over book vs. movie. So is it a sin to say that some movies are better than their book counterparts? I think not.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19156_6-deleted-scenes-that-prove-book-isnt-always-better.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

What I like about Borges's "Library of Babel" is idea of randomness and connectivity that permeates the story and the construction of the library.  In a real library, we organize everything based on their genre: fiction, travel writing, childrens stories, etc.  However, these are superficial relationships.  True connections between literature are much more random (maybe a writer of childrens literature found inspiration in a science textbook, like Lewis Carroll being influenced by mathematics and producing Alice in Wonderland.  Borges is an author who is very involved in genre, and the evolution of genre.  Part of what's great about the evolution of genre is that one must accept random connections beneath the surface, going across all the genres.  This