Wikipedia calls him "the bad boy of rhetoric"

For last week, we read a couple of articles written by prominent members in the field of rhetoric in composition. Each of these author writes in response to a question posed regarding their particular field of study.

Jeff Rice, who likes to write about cool, writes about what he feels college English should be. In his words, "College English should be new media." For Rice, college English needs to embrace the idea of the network culture and the new media that has become such a large part of this culture. Rice says that "we must invent a new metaphor because on its own 'writing' feels too limited in an age of total information delivery and connectivity." What he means by this is that it is foolish to continue writing in our traditional static methods when the rest of the world is so rapidly changing. Therefore, an ideal college English class for Rice would be somewhere along the lines of our English 201 class which makes use of new media technologies instead of relying on the traditional formulaic methods that have become so commonplace in the university.

In Vitanza's essay, he decides that he doesn't really want to answer any question, and instead uses his letter to try to prove a point. Despite what my initial reaction was, Vitanza's point is not simply that he is a smug bastard content with entertaining himself with his own writing. Instead, Vitanza employs a form of unique rhetoric of his own in order to make a statement. This statement is that, as students, we have become so used to conventional forms and standards of writing, that we feel completely lost and frustrated when an author deviates from this feeling of familiarity. Vitanza does make this point, as I found myself completely at a loss throughout much of his essay.

HTML 1 workshop

Earlier today I attended the software training course covering html basics. Html is the webtext that is used to create websites using coded phrases that translate to websites when viewed through a web browser such as Internet Explorer. When we use dreamweaver in class, the dreamweaver program actually takes the websites we creates, and translates our pictures and text into html text which can be sent over the internet.

In essence, html is text that can be written out normally, with the addition of special tags that tell the browser to do certain things. These tags signal that whatever falls in between them is a certain form of text. The main thing that we were reminded of in class, is to always close your tags, or else the browers will not know what you want the text to do.

We next learned how to do some simple variations with text, such as headers, creating lists, and changing the alignment, size and color of the text. We also discussed different forms of hyperlinks, such as the kind we often used in our blogs which send the user to a different site. In addition to this type of link, we also learned how to create links to different parts of the same webpage.

The last thing we covered was images. Besides simply inserting images and manipulating their size and location, we learned how to use an image as a link, which can be a useful tool when creating a user-friendly site.

And . . . Boom goes the dynamite! (make sure to watch up to 2:30)

Boom Goes the Dynamite


I'm sure than many of you have seen this video before, but for those of you that haven't, I think it's worth a look. This guy, a student at Ball State, for some reason was allowed to go on live TV to do the sport segment of a college news program. Now I don't think that many people have very high expectations for student-produced newscasts, but this guy, Mr. Dynamite, manages to lower the bar to a never before seen level. My only guess is that someone decided to put him on there as some sort of cruel joke in order to get some cheap laughs. At first it seems like maybe the guy is just nervous, but before long it becomes apparent that he just can't speak like a normal person. Look out ESPN, here comes the next Sportscenter star.

Emergence

In the introduction to Emergence, Steven Johnson introduces the reader to an organism referred to as slime mold. The reason that this organism is so interesting to scientists is because, "The slime mold oscillates between being a single creature and a swarm." Pg. 13. After witnessing this unique behavior scientists have tried to use the mold as case study in how "systems that use relatively simple components" can coaslesce into "higher-level intelligence," Pg. 12. For Johnson, the behavior of the slime mold is a perfect representation of emergent behavior of a system in which a bottom-up system with no apparent pacemakers somehow comes together to form a system in which the overall resul is greater than the sum of all of the individual parts.

The idea of Emergence is difficult for many people to understand, based on our common understanding of pacemakers. As Johnson says, "We're naturally predisposed to think in terms of pacemakers, whether we're talking about fungi, political systems, or our own bodies," pg. 14. Despite this tendency to think in terms of pacemakers directing the behavior of a group, Johnson says, that no such leader is apparent in a group of slime mold. Because of this lack of a pacemaker, it is clear that the slime mold demonstrate emergent behavior.

More real than real life...

So some of us were talking about video games before class on Wednesday and about how insane the hype is for the new Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 systems that are set to come out this month. When I went to Best Buy today, I realized that there apparently is a lot of Eric Cartman's in the world. The Best Buy next to West Town mall had more than a dozen tents lined up outside the store filled with people waiting to get PS3 the first day it comes out. Now, I like video games as much as the next guy, I've skipped classes before to play new releases with my roommates, but I can honestly say that sleeping in sub-freezing temperatures on a Best Buy sidewalk for a week just doesn't seem worth it. When I got home I even found this video where some guy admits to quitting his job and another puts off buying an engagement ring, all in the name of a little Crash Bandicoot. I guess when it comes to video games, some just have a little more determination than others.

Lost in Translation with Marc Auge

After watching Lost in Translation, it is easy to see why "The traveler's space may thus be the archetype of non-place." (Auge, pg. 86). In the film, Bob Harris (Bill Murray) experiences the symptoms of a non place during his visit to Japan. Confined to areas that we normally think of as "touristy" such as hotels and restaurants, Harris spends the duration of his stay in non-places. As Auge says, "supermodernity produces non-places, meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places," (Auge, pg. 78). Visiting a hub of progress such as Tokyo Japan, it is no surprise that Harris finds himself in a series of non-places that are symptomatic of supermodernity. Only after Harris makes his connection with Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) does Murray create a place in Japan where he can connect with another individual.

Reading

So I just finished reading a couple chapters in a book for one of my history classes, and then it dawned on me . . . I have no clue what I just read about. The funny thing is, I know I looked at every word in the book. I progressively scanned each and every line in the 242 page book and yet I don't remember a single thing I read. I'm sure that Eric Avila had some valid points about Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight I just couldn't tell you a single one of them. I know he talked a lot about Disney World and Freeways and such, however, I really don't know what his point was. I guess this phenomenon is a little bit like the distinction between hearing and listening, only in this case the difference seems to be between reading and comprehension. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that I did finish the book, even if I can't tell you what the point of it was.

Stuck in a non-place you can't get out of

In his chapter titled, From Places to Non-Places, Marc Auge discusses his concept of what constitutes a non-place in our society. In Auge's own words, "If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place," pg. 78. For Auge, "the distinction between places and non-places drives from the opposition between place and space," pg. 79. For an example of what he is talking about, Auge says, "The traveler's space may thus be the archetype of a non-place," pg. 86.

Using the example of a traveler's space, we can see the heart of Auge's argument. He says that in a non-place is a "space in which solitude is experienced as an overburdening or emptying of individuality," pg. 87. Looking at a traveler in a place like an airport, we can see what is meant by the idea of a non-place. The airport for all travelers is a place in which they share a similar experience to everyone around them, but they are actually experiencing it alone. The individual is not part of a larger shared experience that they would be in a place.

Despite the seemingly clear distinction drawn between place and non-place, Auge says of a non-place that, "It never exists in pure form; places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it," pg. 78. As we discussed in class, the nature of what constitutes a place from a non-place leads to fluidity in what we may define a particular space. As an example, our English 201 class may have been a non-place at the beginning of the semester, but as time has passed and everyone becomes more comfortable with each other, the class takes on more characteristics of a place. It seems to be a phenomenon in our post-modern society that we are spending more and more of our time in non-places as we become more isolated from other people.