Week Five - Copy it the RIGHT way.

You might or might not agree with me, but I think that the habit of copyrighting or not, it sort of became a cultural thing. As for example, I have been singing the 'Happy Birthday' song for almost all your life, and for people like me who just found out that the song is actually owned by the Time Warner Production, what if they demolish the song, and that no ones in existant is allow to sing it? Doesn't it feels like it's taking away part of our culture?

Eventhough it's important that before we take or copy anything from others, we should knowledge the existence of Copyright and understand the consequences of it, I think there's definitely people out there who doesn't obey the rules. Honestly, I would admit that I hardly ever paid any attention to the concept of copyright. The closest to it that I know of is Plagiarism. Which I believe is only at the slightest bit similar. The reason why I hardly paid any attention to it, is because when I 'take' somebody's idea while writing an essay, I would cite them, and make a list of references, which we're constantly told by our tutors. Unlike copyright, you might have been told about it, but the rest is up to you to do your research on it.

With copyright, sometimes it is hard for an artist to sell their music out to the public, therefore they would outsource and search for various ways for them to 'sell' their music indirectly. A common example would be free downloading from iTunes Store, Napster and etc. Although I would say that I don't really know how they would earn they money by allowing public to download their music for free, but somehow they do. I found this cool graph that shows how much artists in the UK earn online. Click Here
So do artists earn more money by allowing the public to download their music for free, or is it just a way for them to gain popularity? However, would you rather live in a world where people could take your ideas freely without permission, and face no consequences? OR would you prefer to be in a world where you can easily be caught, even if you took a bite on others' idea without having the permission from them?

Natalie

Week Four

The readings this week had mentioned a lot about being prepared with new information and to not get surprised when we encounter the situation the following day at work. As Bradwall stated, "technologies do not exist in a vacuum", therefore the flow of information is constantly being passed around. It is wide opened out there, where it's easily possible for everyone to retrieve it. Nowadays, "employees have and want more control over their work", it seems like employees are demanding for more with their employers. Besides that, they're also trying to get their work to compromise with them, rather then compromising with work. 

I have to agree with the reading written by Gregg, it is easy to relate to. The reason why, is because the people around me does it all the time, therefore it's nothing new to me that is surprising. "... flexible work practices new media devices enable increase work hours for many employees by invading personal and leisure time (cf Towers et al., 2006). Without blaming the technology, I would say that situations like these are somehow a cause-and-effect kind of thing. We build the internet, invent mobile phones, laptop, and everything else that connects us to the internet, and then with all these that we own individually, it slowly affects our daily life without even realizing it. 

It's interesting how often we're unable to distinguish how much time should we be spending as 'work time' and having the rest as leisure in the internet. I'm sure we all would at least know a person who is like that. My mum working in HSBC as an IT Executive, most of the time she brings work back home. Everytime I take a peek on her laptop screen, it's always on Outlook Express, forever checking her emails. I have always wondered why does she have endless loads of emails coming through her inbox. Sometimes she gets to work from home, but it wasn't such a big difference than working at the office. She usually gets off work at 5pm, but she would stay online at least a quarter pass 5 to make sure she gets all her email responses, and to feel like she's satisfied with the work she's done that day.  

Funny, why would people say they get distractions while working in the office? Unless, instead of working, people are fooling around? Something to be observed. It's common that employees get extra workload almost everyday, but why, and how? Even before starting the day at work, we already have a 'pre-work' to do. Is this what we call efficiency, by replying emails an hour before work starts? Or to be able to get more work done, so that we could leave the office earlier? Another thing that I find absurd is why do we email colleagues who sits 10 steps away from you with a short question? Sure, it's efficiency, but where are all the face-to-face interactions? Then, you'll get a one word reply from the other person, isn't that just increasing the number of emails you'll get everyday? It's hard to argue, because we demand people for being efficient, but then we lose physical contact and social interactions. Next generation will be anti-social people. 

Natalie  

Week Three - Cyberspace in the New Economy

After reading this week's reading on the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, I find it rather serious of how Barlow was taking this. Eventhough this letter was written 15 years ago, I find every word that he had mentioned was applicable today. Barlow states "Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." At first I thought this statement was weird, but when I come to think of it, it is somehow true. The networks that we are in, are EVERYWHERE, we ARE connected at every corner, but we just don't see it. Therefore it exist in a whole different world, just not in a world where bodies live. 

Barlow also mentioned that "We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth." I agree with Barlow that this should be a world created for people to not judge others by their race, ethnicity, and other social statues. However, I would say that some people out there do not give full respect to others, or they probably make jokes of others without any harmful intentions. Racist people would make videos of others for the fun of it.

Just like this one..

Although Barlow stated that they're trying to create a world in which people could express themselves and their beliefs with others, people tend to make videos in order to MAKE their point obvious. Nevertheless, it is certainly tough to stop people from doing that having said that we are connected everywhere we go, it is definitely hard to track down each and everyone of those who are being racist or irrational on the internet. It is only fair that we get people sharing about positive and negative views. The world's not perfect. 

Besides that, the reading by Kelly was all about the new economy, and how we want everything to be about efficiency. "We now live in a new economy created by shrinking computers and expanding communications." Look around you today, who's carrying a fat, big bulky laptop around? It would be more like carrying a monitor. It's amazing how technology can shrink the size of computers/ laptops to a size in which it fits in a handbag/ bag-pack. From laptops to smart-phones, basically the reason why we go online is for the sake of retrieving new information, finding out which celebrity is getting married, being the first to 'like' your friend's facebook status. Without being consciously aware, we have created this close relationship with the internet, and it would be disappointing once we get disconnected and aren't able to search for the things that we want.

Natalie

Week Two

Well this week, I've learn more about how the internet came about, and had a glimpse of the online gaming world. I think that it is really amazing how technologies have improved drastically over the years. For instance, we now have the leisure to enjoy wireless network connection almost everywhere we go, and no more the fuss with wiring! The network used to be for the military to give and take commands, and that was all. Later on, it had progressed to be able to send out e-mails, having your own account, retrieving news and so on. But look at us today, not only are we able to do those stuff, but even more, it has gone world wide, so googling for news at the other side of the world is as easy as ABC.

There're four things listed that we do with the Internet which are; mail, discussion groups, long-distance computing, and file transfers. These are almost like our daily routine once we switch on the computer, other than that will be online gaming, social networking, or surfing the net and etc. And it will be surprising to find someone who is NOT on any social networking sites, it is just too unreal to not be in one. 

Sterling explained why do people want to be on the Internet, and the reason was simple: FREEDOM. Who wouldn't want that? Since "there are no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors, no stockholders", basically there will be no one to boss you around, therefore it's easy to express yourself on the internet, especially on social networks. Social network is a place where people would be able to share/ express themselves, whether it be blogging or bragging about their horrible lives on Facebook, it may somehow be a comfort zone to them. 

Lastly, it would be about online gaming. Personally, I do not play any online games, and don't have much interest in it, so when you guys start talking about it, I would need subtitles. However, I am often curious why are people so interested with it, I can never understand games like WoW, NEVER! Besides that, I honest hope that people who plays these games could differentiate between reality and their second world. 

I've link a video of a boy whose WoW account got deleted by his mum, and see what happens. He literally turned into a Monster! Nuff said.

Cheers,

Nat :)