Out of Gas

The one thing that I can think of today is the interesting parallel between the difficulty that I have beginning a paper and the difficult I had beginning the mix tape.

I think the content in the middle comes into play much easier - but starting out (and sometimes ending) has been always been a bit tougher. Perhaps this is true not just in writing, but in other forms of language and the arts.

Almost Like a New Language...

I had a lot of fun on Friday...especially when I found the Personal ads in the Isthmus and tried to mold them together. Here's a little bit of what I got...

"Assertive SWM: Fit - I'm looking for a single derstanding and considested in the finer things in about the sexual feeling, art & fine dining. I ated from an over a partner who enjoys the spanking."

"Average SWM, 51, Hair & Eyes, ISO SWM, good hearted womaalian or Jewish heritage ionship."

"Life Begins at 50! to make me their boy for a fun, energetisexy, clean serious/bi-range. iF you enjoy to serve and obey stimulating converme!"

And from two of my papers...

"Barrie immediately hits it off with the family, overburdening government regulation have an overbearing grandmother who stifles special-interest lobbying...constrains piques their interests. While out at the family's (Gilley's 245). The informal economy that he has written a play, which serves as family income of $1.00 per day."

Overall, I think these exercises continue to push the edges of "the box" and allow us to think more abstractly. Hopefully it can help me when reading something that I'm not used to.

Thinking Outside the Box

First, I would just like to make a comment that the fines for littering should be increased dramatically. I am purposing that anyone caught littering be fined $10,000. :)

On that note, I think that our exploration of "traditional" vs. "unorthodox" styles of writing in regards to instruction and composition continues to be interesting. I have to admit, this is one of the few writing classes I've taken that focuses on pushing the outside of the box. A lot of times I can just set up my outline, figure out my talking points, and go to work. It likes building a base-frame of 2x4s and pouring in the cement. But with Scot's work...it's been interesting. And I think that's a small snapshot of what's to come for good writing. For if college is to be a place where critical thinking skills are developed, then writing should also be a place where the box is pushed open. The classics and mechanics can still be taught, but more is needed to help the student become a flexible writer, able to enter the workforce with an array of writing skills.

Hippies!

I really have found the portions of Rhythm Science to be quite interesting.  It is definitely a change of pace.  DJ Spooky comments that people are very resistant towards change, and I have to admit, while I was reading his book I often found myself thinking, "What the hell is this guy talking about?"  It was almost as if I pictured him at one of those poetry sessions you always see on tv...people wearing berets, black turtlenecks, with candles and some funky jazz beat in the background.  Babes.  Beets.  Battlestar Galactica.

I think the approach to a less linear style of writing, and education, is on the rise.  I have met quite a few people that have attended a school in northern Wisconsin called "Conserve School," a place that takes different stylistic approaches when it comes to classroom instruction.  And more and more, I think that these styles, the "think outside of the box" strategies, will continue to form with the evolution of technology and culture.

Just think of how our kids will learn...it will probably be quite different than what we are experiencing today.  I think Rhythm Science is a snapshot of that.

The Free Culture

On April 1st, Google posted a feature that would allow you to go back and timestamp your posts, emails, etc, to the date you wished. Well, I wish that day was Friday, but it is not. It's Monday, but I'll still roll the rock up the hill with the ole' Blog Post.

I found the project to create something without permission to be pretty easy. I think it left open a lot of opportunity, however, to digress, and it was harder to focus your statement because you had access to everything you wanted. I felt myself asking, "Do I want to do say this, or take a shot at this?" With the permission culture piece, I found one theme and decided to stick with it, as it was hard enough to go and find the images for ONE theme, let alone multiple statements.

And perhaps that is reflective of the whole free vs. permission culture as a whole. I felt a lot more restricted with the permission culture, but I still produced something that was satisfactory to me. I just felt that I was almost led down a specific path of what to edit, crop, use, etc.

Then, when remixing a classmate's project, I found it even harder. I was lazy and used powerpoint and created a collage but to take something melded together in Photoshop and remix what has been mixed was difficult. I felt the most restricted here, and even wished I could add somethings to it to enhance my perspective, building on the original work.

This project tied in very nicely with the Free Culture/Permission Culture debate. I think it is possible to function within a Permission Culture and I don't find it as smothering as I originally thought. However, it is more difficult, and I think more people need to learn the rules as it can be quite shady.

See you all in class. :D

The Underground Media Market

A couple weeks ago I made a comment in class wondering how the relationship between the media machines and the public will change over time. If you think about it, as more and more media becomes concentrated and their power becomes greater and greater, they will most likely end up with more rights to protect their property and impose ludicrous fines on those who infringe upon it. However, I wonder if a) not if, but how the relationship between the public and the media will change, and also b) how the public will go about maintaining their free culture.

A free black market, if you will, already exists on the internet, and the more oppressive the companies become in tightening their property, the more "Robin Hood" torrent sites will pop up. iTunes struck a great compromise with this. $.99 is very reasonable. But the more they go after kids that make $10,000/year at $250,000 a pop, and the more they become money-grubbing and blood-thirsty, the less sympathy the public will have for them, and the less successful they ultimately will be.

Will there be, one day, a black market, where internet merchants distribute things for free with masked IP numbers? I don't know too much about it, but I know people who download these things, and then they have special software from keep the RIAA from pinging them. Maybe it has already begun...

Don't think of it as stealing...

So, another week in the books, and another abstract assignment which really allowed me to explore some things that I haven't had the opportunity to previously. For my plagiarism assignment, I chose to write about the lack of science and engineering graduates in the United States. It was a lot tougher than I expected.

My first plan was to find a paper that I previously wrote and touch it up by taking out a number of the citations, taking quotes out of passages, etc. However, I quickly found this to be impossible and unproductive. It was impossible because my voice and the voice of my quoted material were completely different. It would have been a dead giveaway.

Disgruntled, I decided to take a bunch of articles, and a passage from the book The World is Flat by Tom Friedman, and incorporate them into one. What was interesting about this was the effort it took to make my voice similar to theirs. My writing, because it largely citing statistics and making conclusions, was rather void of personality and flair. It blended it with theirs quite nicely. But it was harder to make my style fit theirs than if I would have written the paper on my own to begin with! Cheating should never make anything HARDER. :)

What I could have risked though, if I wrote it in my own voice, was unintentional plagiarism. Because I am not an expert on the topic, and because the research isn't my own, I would basically have to paraphrase any type of study I quoted. I don't know how much of that would equal plagiarism.

The other interesting aspect during my hunt for Courtney's work and vice versa was the plagiarism we found online. For example, Courtney took some of her work from MLB.com. However, when I found the material, it was at collegetickets.com, or something similar to that. It was a cheap knockoff of a website and they failed to quote MLB.com.

There was also specific phrase which Courtney googled from my paper, which led her an exact match in an National Science Board study. However, this exact sentence from the study also showed up word for word in Tom Friedman's book! Although it was one phrase, there was a hint of plagiarism, too. Now, perhaps it is hard to paraphrase the ENTIRE study, but he's a professional and a New York Times bestseller, and he did it.

So I guess we're all guilty, to an extent. This was difficult, more so than ghostwriting, because I had to find a different voice. And it was very interesting to see other's work in the act.

Have a great weekend guys.