Bear@Melb

DailyTech - PlayStation Home: William Gibson’s Vision Realized

This blog by Kristopher Kubicki and linked back to William Gibson’s home blog discusses the literary creator of the Internet, social networking on the Internet and virtual reality – William Gibson. While not the first to predict it, he was the first to popularize it through his fiction known as ‘cyberpunk’. His cyberpunk fiction did much to promote ideas used in such films as ‘Johnny Mnemonic’, ‘Ghost In The Shell’ and ‘The Matrix’. Kubicki blog is simple and displays a still photographic shot of Gibson’s book cover, ‘Neuromancer’. Kubrick, like Barefoot, concentrates on technology issues and it is not suprising he mentions Gibson in regard to the social and technical issues regarding the Playstation Home that promises interfaceless virtual reality in the home. Like Barefoot’s blog, Kubicki allows messages to be posted upon his blog from people who find his technological advice as interesting. The fact that Gibson has a link to Kubrick’s blog is high praise indeed from the fiction writer and would garner him many hits from the science-fiction fan and science-fact community.

Baghdad Burning

‘Baghdad Burning’ is the personal blog of a young Iraqi woman writing from her besieged capital in the Middle East. Written as classical diary entries, it scrolls down the page being separated into individual days of note. This is supplemented with colour still photographs of Iraqi government media and of daily events. It gives a fly-on-the-wall presentation of the current events of Baghdad not through the media prism that often distorts. Other links are provided to news sources such as the BBC and Al Jazzera in the right hand sidebar. This young Iraqi woman’s detailing of the war from the locale leaves a particular distaste in the mouth of Westerners who are used to having their news filtrated by their local TV networks. It is an effective communication tool in its raw and stark layout that can be updated easily from the Internet cafes of her locale.

The Dawson College Shooter’s Goth Blog | DarrenBarefoot.com

Darren Barefoot is a writer and technologist from Vancouver, Canada. His blog is made up of bland and inoffensive greens, beiges and browns and makes use of extensive black and white photographs (particularly of the author). Barefoot uses his blog as a launching pad for his company, Capulet Communications. Largely this is a vanity and opinion based blog, although Barefoot does supply screenshots of hard-to-find information such as the Dawson College Shooter’s Vampire Freaks.com page which has been removed by hosts. Barefoot’s blog provides a forum for people to leave messages concerning the topics he addresses including the Dawson College Shooter. Several people have taken the time to leave messages and analysis on Gill’s apparent disturbed state and how it may have been telegraphed on the Internet by the blogs Gill was leaving. Debate is entered into as the screen is scrolled down, as several writers contribute more than once without necessarily being solicited for their opinions (beyond being given the option of leaving messages – a common feature).

fatality666’s journal

This blog is no longer available on Myspace as it was removed from the cache due to it being the blog of the Kimveer Gill, the Dawson College shooter. Gill was heavily into the goth subculture and social networking sites. He kept a meticulous blog of his disturbed thinking on Myspace and Vampire Freaks.com, dwelling on death, darkness and pain. On Vampire Freaks.com, Gill utilized primitive animations of the gothic shock-rock singer, Marilyn Manson in a small box that consisted of three or four separate black and white clips played in quick succession to give the impression of movement. The black and white photographic clips and their jagged, edgy movement contribute to the dark, moody and post-modern feel of the blog. They are reminiscent of Max Shreck’s performance in the 1920’s horror feature, ‘Nosferatu’.. Gill uses blog journal features on Vampire Freaks.com to telegraph his disturbed thoughts and moods: under Mood he lists “Crazy” and other non-physical states such as the music he is listening to (‘80s heavy metal band that makes use of dark, disturbed music, “Megadeth”).

Gill’s blog is now only memorialized as a screenshot on Darren Barefoot’s personal blog.

American Flag Blog

This is a right-wing American website aimed at preserving the US flag from “left wing punks”. A punk is someone of low character. Often the US flag is under attack from flag burners and from other acts that seek to desecrate it. Really, the blog masquerades as a vent for right wing attacks against the liberal left in the US. The construct of the blog is simply and typical. It lists opinion masquerading as fact vertically which must be scrolled down. Still colour press photographs are added to illustrate text. At the bottom of the blog entries is a YouTube download (April 17, 2007) of Senator John Edwards primping during a campaign ad out-take. This plays upon a controversy of him having $100 haircuts and being superior to the American public. The use of the YouTube download format on blogs to convey political messages as streaming video has become widespread since the sensational campaign distributed by the Obama camp on the Internet (which they denied) of an authoritarian Hillary Clinton in the Apple Computer “1984” ad campaign.

jenny weight, RMIT � 2007 infinite narrative, episode 1

however, who knows.

One of the most popular and abiding on-line games currently is Sid Meier’s Civilization III. Unlike many of the latest games, CIV III is not a real time simulation (RTS) but rather a turn-based game which takes the player back to the days of early on-line games such as Chess. The similarities to Chess continue with the ability to set a timer-clock on-line to force each on-line player to make move decisions within a pre-set time such as in competition Chess. CIV III, which is similar to the board game Risk, is a geo-political game of world domination which allows on-line players from around the world to play and represent their nationality and culture of origin and actual location. This provides a real-world situation to the on-line game. CIV III provides the facility to communicate on-line with other players to allow diplomacy, parleying and negotiation that actually affects the outcome of the outline game (alliances, pacts, etc.). An online game of CIV III may have up to 30 online players representing their home nationalities of their country of origin and actual computer location.

Japan has long had a fascination with interactive technology. Due to social pressures brought about by uneven population and age distribution, increasingly young technologically-orientated Japanese people (‘Otaku’) are turning to interactive dolls for companionship and entertainment. This is also occurring with the elderly in Japan as there is a lack of grandchildren for these elderly people to interact with in their nursing homes. To react to the shrinking of their markets, Japanese toy makers are producing increasingly interactive toys and dolls that people can become involved with and interact with. Some of these dolls are like children that have a 300 sentence vocabulary and routinely ask the holder have they eaten well today and how they feel. The Japanese do not see these interactive dolls or interacting with them as unusual in the slightest. These interactive dolls fall into a sleep mode if left alone, wake up and demand attention and maintain short Eliza-like conversations with their holder.

Mobile phones have conferred a new mobility in the modern world. It is only a short time since science fiction such as ‘Star Trek’ envisaged a compact hand communicator which has occurred through the use of increasingly smaller and smaller mobile phones. However, the increased mobility and transmitting ability of mobile phones have seen them used for nefarious activities. Particularly in terrorism, the mobile phone has been increasingly adapted as a weapon of war. Cheap, disposable mobile phones are being used by terrorist organizations as both throw-away communications networks that cannot be tracked by authorities or as ad-hoc timers and detonators for bombs. Al-Qaeda have used small mobile phones as the detonators for bomb devices on several occasions, merely ringing the modified mobile phone’s telephone number to trigger the explosive from a distance. Recently in the United States a group of Arab men were detained with over 200 cheap, disposable phones that were allegedly were going to be used to detonate bombs on bridges. Also, mobile phones and satellite phones are very difficult for authorities to track and eavesdrop upon. It is believed the Osama Bin Laden is routinely switching these devices to allow him to communicate and still remain on the run undetected by the United States.

Cyberspace is a non-physical space where dissidents and protestors can assemble without surveillance from the government. It is a central place where peoples from around the world can assemble, swap ideas and build alliances to fight against increasing globalization by using its own electronic and networked weapons against it. Many indigenous groups have allied themselves in cyberspace as it allows neutral ground where different forces can meet easily and electronically without having to move in physical space. It provides a forum for these groups to exchange tactics and ideas and to lend support. Non-physical attacks and propaganda can be mounted from the safety of cyberspace against corporations and governments. Examples of this include the Seattle WTO protests where groups like the Electrohippies used cyberspace to assemble and launch electronic flooding attacks using the internet. This allowed online users from around the globe to synchronize and co-ordinate their offensive electronically and from the largely undetectable arena of cyberspace.