The end of Digi-Civ

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting when this class started. The idea of a history class centered around technology seemed somewhat of an oxymoron, but I was really surprised to see how much the digital concepts we discussed in class turned up throughout the centuries. More surprising, though, was how different the format of the class was, and how much I learned from it. Taking this class has really opened up my eyes to changes that have been going on in the world, ad I hope to change the way I learn, interact, and share because of it. But now, let's look into how I learned to meet the course requirements.

History:
The Internet Before Computers
The Motor of the Internet
Smartphones and the Digital Divide

The way we studied the historical concepts in this class was amazing. This was the first class I've taken where students were allowed to take control of the topics, do their own research, and share their knowledge with the class. I was able to learn a lot more about my century this way, because I was able to look into the areas that interested me the most and focus on that. Classmates who did the same and shared the highlights of their research made a good overview of the major themes, events, and people of those time periods, and how they related to the class. My reading for the class, "Ghost Map" was also a really interesting read into the time period. While there wasn't as much of a connection between my eBook chapter (openness) and the historical content, there were some examples we drew from, and the history played a lot into the other chapters.

Core Concepts:
Crowd Sourcing and Crime
Forced Open Source
If You Give a Business a Cookie...
Accessability

I feel these concepts made up a significant chunk of my learning this semester. Ever since I first booted up linux I've been an advocate of openness, but this class took my vision beyond the computer screen and showed me how the concepts that have become common place in the digital world can, and should, be applied in the physical as well. Not just openness, but all the concepts, including participation ( Crowd Sourcing and Crime ), information (If You Give a Business a Cookie...), and control (Accessability). I found classmates and professors posts highlighting these concepts throughout history and in modern society extremely insightful, and now I myself see them popping up everywhere. I've gained a deeper understanding of what openness really means, the deeper and further reaching effects of participation and control, and the true importance of information, both throughout time and in our ever-changing digital society.

Digital Literacy:

Henry Darger
Weaponized Media
Open Sources
Invitations

I feel like this class was a trial-by-fire in learning digital literacy. We were thrown into the deep end of connectivity with a goal and a deadline, and tried not to drown in the see of information. Honestly, though, the experience of filtering out who to follow on Google+, tracking down just the right information, keeping this blog, making presentations- it's been quite invaluable. Often in classes we're sheltered from the 'real world' in an ivory tower where we write our papers, turn them in, and pat ourselves on the back because a professor thought we wrote well. This semester, though, the leashes we had grown so used to were cut off. When I was told to go study the 18th century and present what I found, I was pretty lost. There were 100 years in there! Which ones am I supposed to research? But that's the point, I guess. I slowly realized that I was supposed to dig in and find what I liked. I bounced it off people around me, got their feedback, and shared it with the class via my blog, google+, and our presenations. Later, with the eBook, we took that model and blew it up to a larger scale, researching concepts like Openness, contacting actual professionals, and broadcasting what we made to the world. This class has really taught me how to find the right ideas, create my own, and share them in the right ways.

Self Directed Learning:
Under Your Nose

I feel this is kind of covered by the digital literacy- if you're not digitally literate, you're going to have a hard time learning on your own. The opposite is also true, if you're not learning on your own, then your digital tools are being used the wrong way. Everything we learned in this class about self-directed learning was a tool to help us learn about our time periods and digital concepts. So, if I had to point to a particular blog post about self-directed learning, I'd point to that one up there. However, the blog as a whole, as well as everything I threw up on my google+ feed, is a lot better evidence of how I grew and learned about self directed learning. I also had plenty of opportunities to try out what I'd learned here in other classes - it's amazing how much info is out there about computer science! I was completely floored.

Collaboration:
On the Shoulders of Giants

Most of what I learned about collaboration was learned during the eBook writing process. And during the writing process, I didn't post write many blog posts, because I constantly talked with the people who were writing it, and our work was released every monday anyways. Don't let that fool you, though, as this class's experience has been one of a kind in learning how to collaborate. I was able to look into how large projects like linux and other open software collaborate, and we applied some of their principles in our own group. I became a 'gateway' for the ebook, David for the presentation, Caleb for the social graph, and Alena for the visuals. By each of us focusing on less, we could accomplish more. I also learned the importance of collaborating with others outside your group. The input and feedback others gave us was invaluable in guiding our efforts and ideas. It was kind of a blow when my focus, the ebook, was delayed until after the class was over, but that in itself was a lesson in collaboration - just because you have a focus, doesn't mean you get to ignore everything else. Fortunately we were all still included in each others projects, and I was able to help out (albeit not as much as I would've liked) with the other projects we were working on. In short, while my experience with collaborating had its ups and downs, I learned a ton.


So that's how I met the learning requirements for this class! I learned a lot outside of those, and I'd like to write about that too, but I'm afraid that will have to wait until after finals. Best of luck everyone, and it's been a pleasure delving into the digital depths with you.

Event invitations evalutation

Unfortunately, nobody I invited came to our amazing exposition on digital society. I thought I did a pretty good job of inviting people, and I found quite a few that were pretty interested, but I guess not! I didn't see anyone on the twitter stream from my invite list, and though I didn't check the uStream or whatever it was called, I doubt anyone showed up there either. I guess people just have a lot on their plates, and an invitation to a 'digital revolution' isn't what they're looking for in on a thursday night. However, it was a good experience to reach out and spread the word. Here's some of the high-lights from my invitation efforts.

1) One of the first people I invited, I didn't actually get the name of, though I did post about him last week. I overheard him going off about a paradigm shift in education, the opening of the publishing industry, the need to educate kids in content creation - Golden! I thought he'd come for sure, but in retrospect I should've done more than show him the website and extend an oral invitation. As old-school as they are, sometimes fliers serve as a really handy reminder.

2) I emailed Dale Stephens from Uncollege.org earlier in the semester about something for a blog post, and he emailed me back! So, I emailed him again, inviting him to come check out what we've got on Open Education and the changes it could bring. In his defense, he says on his website that it takes him a while to get to new emails. Too bad 1 weeks notice isn't enough, because I think he would've had some really good input!

3) Randall Munroe, from xkcd.com - While he doesn't have any particular ties to openness specifically, he's a little bit involved in everything that's going on in the 'interwob'. It's easy to tell from his comic and blog that he's passionate and knowledgeable about copyright, open source software, and open science. Also, I went to school with his brother! Unfortunately, this small tie was not enough to illicit either a response or participation. Oh well.

4) Eric Raymond - I hold no grudges against this man for not getting back or participating, because he has already done so darn much for openness. I've followed him on Google+ for the past couple of weeks, and after referencing a lot of his work for the Openness chapter, I felt it a good idea to invite him, citing how his works had been central in my research and linking to the website. It's okay Eric. You can check it out when you're finished with your next open-source project.

5) Prof. Roper - The head of Computer Science for undergraduates here at BYU, I invited him along with the rest of his CS 124 class. He seemed kind of interested when I explained what it was to his class, and recommended everyone show up for the refreshments, but looks like brownies weren't a big enough of a draw.

6) Ping Chu, my friend's dad, is a system analyst for Capitol 1. He's an extremely intelligent man, heavily involved in computers, and even though he lives on the opposite end of the continent, I thought it highly likely he would show some interest. I did invite him via facebook, though, so he probably didn't check it in time. I did invite 100+ other people on facebook, but I haven't heard anything back from them either. Maybe facebook just isn't that great for this kind of thing?

7) I take that back, I got feedback from two people on facebook. Although, both people had already been invited by others (six degrees of seperation?) When I did get feedback on this event, the further people were from the actual locale, the less excitement they showed. I tried encouraging people to participate online via stream or twitter, but lets be realistic - most of the people I know think twitter is retarded, and I can't say I disagree entirely.

8) I also invited my roommates! They're actually nice guys, I promise, but they aren't the most technical of people. Thus, when invited to a seminar on how digital openness will change society, they looked confused, asked what digits were, and went back to playing with rocks. Honestly, though, they aren't interested in the digital world. Ironic, since they spend so much time on it...

9) I invited all my friends who had technology related majors, IT, IS, CS, etc. They all though it was an interesting idea, and since they actually use twitter, I fully expected them to show up. Unfortunately, they were too busy celebrating the last day of classes to hop online and 'tweet' on into our presentation.

10) The day off, after getting little to no response to the event, I started inviting random people in desperation. I'd spent a semester working in this class, and I wanted people to hear about what we've learned, gosh darn it! I got mixed responses from strangers, ranging from confusion about what exactly 'openness' was to the more tech-savvy's excitement about connecting with anything that resembled Linux in real life. A few people gave maybes, and one or two people perked up at the word 'refreshments'. Maybe next time there's an event like this, you should put pizza on the posters instead of Uncle Sam.

So that's who I invited! I shook the dust of an old twitter account I made years ago just for the event, and tried to stir up some conversation there. I saw a few non-classmates show up in the stream, which was pretty exciting! Mostly college students, but the word was getting out there! Like I said at the beginning, I didn't see much response from those I personally invited, but it was good to see that some people did show up. I can't imagine how many invites were extended to get the number of people who showed up there, but I can imagine how hard it would've been without social media. I still would've really appreciated having a flier or two to hand out, and I don't think I saw a single poster on campus for this. Digital campaigning is great, but sometimes you just can't beat spreading the world the old fashioned way.

Openness under your nose

Let's all pretend I've been posting really awesome stuff on this blog instead of working on an e-book that's not going to be released for a while, okay? Great. Now, what I meant to write about - the event! Any and all reading this should attend, either in person or digitally. And for those of you who aren't sure that this is something that's relevant or something the average joe would be interested in, here's a little something for you.

I work as a secretary for the Honors program here at BYU. As I was working at my desk, I couldn't help but here an conversation that took place between one of the directors and a graduate student. He was trying to convince her about how the way english and writing are taught in schools now doesn't help people for the real world. Students need to learn to create early and often, releasing and getting social feedback. He also talked about how the Ivory Tower of academia needed to be more accessible to the average person, and remove copyright restrictions that limited who could view and use research. He went on and on, basically covering every single digital concept we talked about in class. As he was walking out, I did the obvious thing, and invited him to the event (although honestly, he probably could've presented as passionate about it as he is). I showed him the event website, and he seemed really excited, and said he'd tell all his friends.

So what I'm saying is that there are people out there who *actually* care about openness. Not just computer science majors, or people taking classes on openness, but real people- like English grad students. Okay, so maybe he's not a normal person per-se, but he's just one example of the few people I've bumped into this week who have expressed interest in openness. It's an important topic, folks! It affects people, and it has the potential to shape their futures! So, let's invite them all to this even and connect, collaborate, and create.

April 11, 7-8:30
Be there or be square!

Really, really open music: not actually that great?

I'm sure everyone who's looked into 'open music' for more than five minutes has found this, or at least something similar. There's quite a few open labels online that release albums royalty free, but jamendo seems to be one of the larger ones. According to their site, they have "over 346, 353 free music tracks!"

While that certainly doesn't seem like much compared to the iTunes store, or even my own music library for that matter, it represents a growing phenomena in the music industry where artists release their albums for free. A growing number of groups, such as the Indelicates, release their albums digitally, allowing buyers to set their own price ($0.00 being a legitimate choice) in hopes that fans will like them enough to support them, and even people who don't like it will be able to spread their music. Another group named, ironically enough, Bomb the Music Industry, does the same, but even goes so far as to open up their concerts, and will even allow anyone who's practiced the band's songs to some level of proficiency  up on stage to play with them. 

 

Unfortunately, it sounds awful. And looking through jamendo's library, the pickings there are pretty slim as well. It has been my experience so far that quality open source songs are few and far between.  Looking through copyright free images has yielded about the same results. As far as open culture goes, I have yet to see any real, genuine success outside of professionals that establish themselves commercially and then turn open. Is it really possible to establish something openly from the very beginning? I haven't found any examples yet, but if anyone is able to find them, I'd be very curious to see how they manage to stave off initial costs. I posted about Lastwear, an opensource clothing company. They recieved their funds through kickstarter, basically by asking for donations. They got their money, but according to their website and the financial information they've posted, it still hasn't been enough and they're close to going under. So while openness might be great in industry and the scientific world, I don't see it turning out any Mozarts in the near future. 

It's a good idea guys, but you're not quite there. Maybe if you had an incentive to practice, like... making money?

Open Sources

       My research started out with a Google search. I’m not afraid to admit it, since I’m sure most of yours did as well. After getting past the initial flood of news articles, I looked into post and links other people in the class had shared. I also looked up some ‘internet celebrities’ such as Randall Munroe, Cory Doctorow, and Richard Stallman, to see who they’d been talking with and about. But again, honestly my research process was more stumbling around a few reputable sources and checking out anything and everything that linked to them. I found some interesting sources that way, but the amount of noise in the results is a big damper on the research.

                As to how these sources relate to our claim, most of them are straight forward. Predictions of the digital future are numerous and varied, but these sources make educated arguments about how openness has developed, the way it has shaped society, and how it may develop in the future based on past examples. Our argument should make use of the evidence they present, and make note of their proposals, though we obviously won’t agree with them all.

• Hasan, Ragib. (History of Linux, https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rhasan/linux/)
Provides an interesting and entertaining look into the early development of Linux and the open source movement. It’s a good introduction into the open-source movement and there’s some good insight into how an open movement grows over time. [I looked for a few run-throughs of early Linux history, and this is one of the better ones.]
• Doctorow, Cory (Creativity versus Copyright) As an openness activist, Doctorow lays some very good arguments for openness, while at the same time establishing some good boundaries to it. I plan to make use of both the pros and cons he lists in this article. [I found his essays while investigating his other works.]
• Boyle, James. The Public Domain, 2008 Yale University Press– the concept of the public domain is one of the first legal recognitions of openness, and its development over time is an important part of our argument in how openness will shape society. Examples used here about how the public domain has been used positively and negatively can be used to help establish openness guidelines. [I looked at the list of books used in class that I hadn’t read, and this one looked promising.]
• Micheal Tiemann- He’s a board member for the Open Source Initiative, GNOME foundation, and Open Source America. His work with the OSI works to clarify what precisely defines open-source and openness. Also, his blog is a good source of ideas and new implementations of openness in today’s society.
•  Cory Doctorow
– in his own words (from his blog) “Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger -- the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novels like FOR THE WIN and the bestselling LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London.” He’s very active in the creative commons movement, and looks a lot into the social and political implications of openness. Some of his articles would be good sources for the discussion of when Openness is and is not appropriate.
• Randall Munroe (xkcd.com) – A NASA roboticist, comic artist, and internet celebrity. He isn’t exactly a leading figure per se in any particular field of openness, but he is definitely an influence among the ‘internet culture’ that makes up the active user-base of most open source movements, and his work has been mentioned in discussion among most, if not all open communities. I also went to school with his brother, so I’m still holding out that he’ll respond in time for the final product.

A China on Your Desktop

Imagine if instead of open information, the whole world was open. Imagine if, instead of downloading software and articles off the internet, you could downloaded that plastic piece that keeps breaking on your laptop. You clicked a button and it materialized in your hand. If you needed a hammer, you found one online, zapped it onto your desk, and went off to start using it. This isn't Star Trek- according to some, this is the near future.

http://singularityhub.com/2009/04/09/3d-printing-and-self-replicating-machines-in-your-living-room-seriously/

Reprap is just one example of the 3D printing movement. The goal is to create a device that can take a 3d object, made in any number of modeling programs (some of which are open source!) and convert it into a physical object. The applications of this kind of machine are endless (and really cool looking), but one of the most significant ones is the printing of the machine itself - self replication.

Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did....Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750—or theprinting press in 1450, or thetransistor in 1950—it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches.  - The Economist(2011)

As amazing of an idea this is, there is another darker side to the proposed 'revolution'. Randall Monroe sums it up right here. Basically, can the common man be trusted with ownership of production? The push for openness of information has been welcomed with open arms, and the effects have been positive for the most part. However, there has yet to be any manifestations of openness in the physical world that compare to that in the digital. This could be due to the less than stellar record for attempts at 'openness of production', i.e. communism.

Karl Marx's argument for a common possession of means of production was that the 'bourgeoisie', or those who had control of production, were promoted by greed to exploit people's labor for profit. However, attempts at this model have usually resulted in dictators such as Mao and Stalin. Various smaller organizations throughout history have attempted collective ownerships, such as Shakers in early America, Essine Jews in ancient Israel, Incas, and even the LDS church practiced it with the law of consecration for a short time. However, all examples have either been in isolated communities or short-lived failures. All of the early 19th century experiments in Utopian communities had the same results. What I'm getting at is perhaps entirely open production is detrimental to society. If every blog on the internet was converted into a physical object, how many worthless pieces of plastic would there be? Although openness can generate many great ideas and encourage their proliferation, it comes at the cost of numberless amounts of useless user-generated rubbish. Perhaps society simply isn't ready for a truly open means of production. This goes to show how important the need for control is in this wave of openness. I for one don't want to open my mailbox to find tons of plastic figurines showing me how I can 'flatten my belly with these 3 simple tricks!'

Weaponized Media

    You've all seen the Kony video by now, I'm sure. You've also heard all the arguments for and against it, so I'll leave decision to praise or criticize up to you. You're a smart person, you can do your own research, and I'd highly encourage that you do, because as soon as you watched that video, read that article, or checked all your friends' updates on facebook/twitter, you became part of an 'experiment'. It might do us all a bit of good to step back and look at what exactly this experiment is before we start jumping on any trains, be they for or against the cause.

What we have here is a cohesive and well aimed movement to draw attention to a cause; invisible children. But what's that you say? the facts are distorted? IC is a scam? Kony isn't the real bad-guy? Doesn't matter. The video could've been about refugees instead of kids, or animal cruelty, or even bird-food shortages in Central Park. What I mean is that the content of the video wasn't as important as the the presentation of it all.

In an interview with Jedediah Jenkins, one of the creators of the film, he says:

"...the reality is we would work so hard, and make all these videos, and pour so much effort into them, and they would get 3,000 views. But then a video with a cat flushing a toilet gets 40 million views. That left us going, "What are we doing wrong?" .... our goal was to make a movie you could watch online, that’s entertaining, and that tells the story in a digestible way. And we had no idea how hungry the global audience was for that. "

The cause never changed in all the years they worked on it. What did change is the medium, the nature of video that they put out. They intentionally made it a tear-jerker, the kind of emotive video we all forward to our friends and post on our blogs. They spent time and money designing it to be viral. However, there are plenty of videos that get millions more views and illicit no response. The important thing they did was to accompany this with a specific hook to take people's clicks and likes, and turn them into a political and physical force. They pointed people at their representatives, and made it possible to send a message with the click of a button, be it liking their facebook page or sending an email. They stream-lined donation, made a kit  for people who did, and did their best to make the kit viral with the "cover the night" event. They made taking action in the cause as easy and fashionable as possible, and it worked. Whether or not you looked into the facts and decided to support or decry them for frauds, you are participating in exactly the discussion they wanted you to. Every mention of the campaign makes it more of a success, because the nature of  click-activism is that as long as it's been discussed, good or bad, that discussion keeps it at the top of the web and on everybody's newsfeed. The Kony campaign is a prime example of how well designed media can turn the zeitgeist into a tool. It's been a success so far, and I expect to see it reduplicated in the near future, for everything from political campaigns to marketing. Politicians and the like already 'link in' to twitter, facebook, tumblr, you name it. However, this kind of mass promotion and media designed to be viral is going to become a trend. The future of advertising is here, and it is us- or at least our status updates.