Shirky Chapter Nine FOAF-Style Network

Professional benefits of a FOAF Style Network? You are able to make so many more connections online than you could possibly make in person. This will provide for getting your name out there. People can become familar with your professional activity and accomplishments before they even meet you. It will connect you to many more people, giving you more opportunities for networking and professional experiences. As long as you are professional of FOAF network, the benefits will be significant!

Chapter Ten: Try and Fail

Shirky talks about how most websites that are invented or launched will ultimately fail, mostly because there are so many other websites being created that serve similar or same purposes and the competition is intense for who will come up with the best website.

The internet is a good example of where a "try and fail" theme is laced throughout the internet and its millions of websites. In middle school, I know that during Physical Education classes we were given different games or exercises that we had never done before: every student had to try whether they succeeded or failed. I specifically remember a physical education class my sophomore year of high school where we had to run a 5K around the track. EVERYONE had to participate, no matter how skinny, fat or athletically challenged you were, sitting out was not an option. It was o.k. if you had to walk, but regardless, you had to participate. I think this is a great example of "try and fail" because we werent graded on our performance but rather whether or not we started and completed the task at hand. For those of us who had never run a 5K, now we knew where we stood in the scheme of things when it came to running, stamina and speed.

Middle schools and high schools should design more classroom exercises to encourage kids to try things. Their grade should not be based on their ability but on whether or not they tried the task at hand. Dont get me wrong, there is certainly a time and a place for being graded on ability-that is inevitable. But if you want people to try more things, minimize the consequences there will be for failing, instead focus on the positives generated from trying in the first place.

Print vs. Online Media

I generally feel more inclined to trust print media more than online media. I enjoy it more as well. Most of the time, I spend so much time looking at a computer screen that the last thing I want to do is read off of the computer to recieve my news. Ironically enough, my homepage is cnn.com. I probably trust print media more just because it has always been around whereas the internet and online information is a fairly recent development. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that printing companies must pay for their product to be distributed and consumers must pay to recieve the information. Whenever there is an exchange of money involved, products just seem more valuable; whether they are or not is a different story. In the course of my day to day life with how busy I am, I do get most of my news from online...but if I had all the time in the world I would prefer to recieve most of my news through a magazine such as Newsweek or Time. I also enjoy reading the Breeze. :)

Prisoner's Dilemma

Sites like EBAY and Wikipedia are able to work because just as Shirky illustrates: "We all face the Prisoners’ Dilemma whenever we interact with people we could take advantage of, or people who could take advantage of us, yet actually manage to trust one another often enough to accomplish things in groups. The shadow of the future makes it possible for me to act on your behalf today, even at some risk or cost to me, on the expectation that you will remember and reciprocate tomorrow." The general idea behind this is that people have to trust eachother and have a some level of faith that the person they are interacting with will do what they are suppossed to. This is the case for not only websites but for day to day activities. We have to rely on eachother to get things done and in order to do so, we have to have some faith that whoever we are relying on is going to do what he or she says he will do. I think that people want to believe in eachother and I think that people want to trust eachother. To see that these websites not only function but flourish is refreshing.

Chapter 6 DRM Protected Content

I think that the issue of going after illegal downloaders is simply a matter of the law catching up with technology. I personally cannot think of a technological way to catch these people-I dont know enough about the internet or computers to make an intelligent suggestion. However, I do think that untill we find something more efficient and cost-effective, we should continue with DRM. Better to stick with something that is taking us a step in the right direction, while we look to find new alternatives. These are completely different things, but I almost feel as though the situation of the law catching up with illegal downloaders and internet technology is like trying to find fuel alternatives. We are only scratching the surface right now, but I think that over time, we will come to a more highly intelligent and effective way to deal with these issues.

DVD'S fight back Chapter 5 Abelson

Disney, Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Viacom—have filed a lawsuit against RealNetworks. Real Networks recently designed software that gives consumers the technology to create a backup copy of any DVD. The software was put on hold before the courts came to a decision, but they found evidence to support that Real Networks software was actually a way of preventing illegal copywrights of DVDs. Whether this is truth or just a very good lawyer's arguement is debatable.

Back in 1998, a legislative effort was successfull for Movie Making Companies leading to the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making the production or distribution of any device, technology, or service that went around copy protection technologies a criminal activity.

One example that I remember in particular was a commercial that came out a few years ago. This commercial pertained to illegally copying and downloading digital music, but it's along the same lines of the topic at hand. The commercial included a bunch of famous singers and performers including Madonna all stuffed into an outdoor telephone booth. The point of the commercial was to show how their talent was being abused and taken advantage of when people illegally download music. Advertisements such as this one, do catch people's attention because of all the celebrities in them. However, how much sympathy does the average person have for celebrities like Madonna? It makes you wonder how effective these commercials actually are.

Chapter 5 WEP and WPA

WEP has recently been replaced by WPA, since it is a more effective way of protecting the data stored during your wireless connection. My mom often gives me her credit card to purchase school-related items. It would be wise for her to use WPA so that her private information concerning credit card accounts will have a lower risk of being exposed and stolen.