“The Machine is Using us” by Michael Walsh Sheppard

     The assistant Professor of cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Michael Walsh Sheppard, made a great movie. It’s not a usual one, that we are used to watching daily. The movie is made as if a computer user’s actions are recorded. The only task for us (people watching it) is just to be ready to read pretty fast texts that quickly change on our monitors.

     The author expresses his own opinion, and the way he does it is very good. Especially when he writes a sentence and then changes the one word’s position, which makes the whole sentence change its meaning. 

 I highlighted several phrases for myself, which support the main point of this movie: “We are the Web,”  “100 billion times per day people click on the web pages.” The thing is that the title of the movie is “The machine is us/using us.” It is our goal to make a conclusion for ourselves. The author just shows us the facts, he is not trying to prove who is more important in the modern World (people or machines).  As for me, I’m a part of this modern technology World. I communicate with parents and friends using Internet, I study with its help, but what I’m sure about is that people are able to live without all these things. The reason why they don’t do it is because it makes our life easier.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

"Free" post #1. "Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century"

     The Internet was created in 1983, since that time it became extremely popular.  Floating in cyberspace, people not only sharing information with one another, but are also creating new approaches of expanding data’s horizons. They revolutionized the way content is delivered: now people discover new without plowing through wordy sites reading long and, sometimes, boring reviews, but through visual aids – video clips. This way of displaying information has benefitted both: commercials and customers (those who watch advertisements in the Internet). People can visualize what they are offered; it helps them to avoid confusion and make a right decision, while for commercials it is easier to appeal to customers’ desires through visualizing and make them to desire offered goods or services.

     Moreover, creating advertisements is a sophisticated art that combines an ability to vividly and memorably present something, and to take into consideration psychological peculiarities of human nature and apply this knowledge while creating a video clip. I should admit that some of clip makers’ products are true masterpieces. Sometimes we think that it is extremely easy to shoot a picture. However so many people work under an advertisement and so many techniques are applied to deserve a smile, or tears of millions of views all over the world. Analyzing human nature, business people realized that it is very beneficial to play on people’s emotions, so video clips that contain emotional appeals became really popular.

"Free" post #2. "Living in a world of high technologies"

       Our world is a world of high technologies. People are surrounded by them, beginning with their bus rooms and ending up with highly technological plants. As any person of his century we take all these for granted. Everybody waking up in the mornings and making a breakfast using an oven, or coffee machine will not try to imagine how it might be living without all these comforts of life. I am definitely sure that if all technological devices disappear, people will become powerless like small children, because it is very difficult to return back to the beginning when there was nothing. 

       I don’t know, maybe it is natural for people of the 21^st century like how it was natural for people of the Middle Ages to burn witches. Maybe we should take it for granted and do not think about “ifs.” I definitely am sure that people shouldn’t forget about their roots, about nature, about being strong and independent: to use their brain more often than a flesh drive, to read books instead of playing computer games, to communicate alive instead of using artificial means of communication.

"Free" post #3. "Computer and Video Games are harmful"

     I think, that almost everybody will agree that we are living in a world that materially and intellectually has been created by high technologies. There are a lot of technological devices that help people in all spheres of life: at work, at home, etc. One of the devices is used more often than others – it is a computer. We hardly find a person who at least once a day doesn’t use a computer for a number of different reasons. 
    There are a lot of advantages in using computers for sure, but very often people do not notice how they are losing track of time sitting behind the monitors. Everybody pretends that it is natural in a century of an intellectually developed world, but actually it is already a problem of addiction. People mostly use computers for entertainment, and computer games together with video games have the most destructive effect on people’s minds.    
       Children playing computer games injure their health through lack of sleep, eyestrain, headache, lack of exercising, and cutting themselves from the live communication with other children. For grown – ups, playing computer and video games may lead to bad relationships with family and spending money in vain, because very often games require buying some special features etc. So, we can make an assumption that computer and video games can be   addictive, expensive, can hurt relationships, cut you from the real world. People should know limits in using technological devices.

Familyresource.com (2000)."Top 5 Reasons Why Video Games Can Be Bad for You". Retrieved from: http://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/mental-environment/top-5-reasons-video-games-are-bad-for-you

Bibliographic post 5. "Translating foreign languages online"

       A lot of people, nations, and ethnic groups exist in our world. There are also a lot of languages. To make communication processes easier, people decided to make one of the languages international. Officially, English is an international language. But it is not a true international language. There are a lot of people in our world who do not know even one word in English! The Internet and computers can help in solving this problem. Now there are a lot of innovations in digital language translation which can help us to be closer to each other. The AltaVista Translation can help you in translating from other languages, and it is really simple to use. The Alta Vista is one of the most powerful translators, and it is free for all users. You can also use the GlobalLink Comprende. It translates by pasting text, and also accommodates Web sites by dynamically translating the HTML and displaying it on your browser. This translator is also free for users. So, different translators can help people around the world be closer to each other, and it disposes all barriers between different people from different countries with different languages.

 

Karagiannis, K. (1998). Translating foreign languages online. Retrivied from: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=110&sid=55c90641-a5a8-494b-9fc1-f3e6f67a2191%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=606465

Bibliographic post 4. "Where Cinema and Biology Meet"

     Scientists always try to find new ways to visualize some processes in biology. Molecular animation is one of many ideas of scientists for bringing visual representations, and it gives the ability for biologists to think about things in a whole new way. It is not enough for scientists just to listen about different movements of molecules; they need to see it with their own eyes to understand it better. This modern visualization of such processes provides humanity many opportunities of learning molecules. It also can help to gather together all information and learn it deeper in a new way. So, visualization is like a key to a new feature, and it gives humanity a chance to move forward.

 

Olsen, E. (2010, November 15). Where cinema and biology meet. The New York Times. 

Retrieved from:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/science/16animate.html?ref=science

Bibliographic post 3. "Older adults talk technology: Technology usage and attitudes"

A lot of people have strong opinions that modern technologies are used by all populations in the world, except older people. The majority think that older people are afraid of computers, the Internet, and using other technologies, but this article disproves this opinion. It writes that older people use modern technologies in different spheres of life. They use it for different entertainments at home, like playing computer games and watching videos and films. It also helps them to find different useful information for their health and work, or they use it for communication with friends and their children. Older people also order different products, like medicines, using automatic medication refill telephone systems, and they do not need to go to the pharmacy. This article also describes some dislikes, but most of them appear because of some problems which older people have like lack of security and reliability, and some other inconvenient features.

 



Mitzner, T.L.(2010). “Older adults talk technology: Technology usage and attitudes”.

Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDC-50MMT38-1&_user=6861050&_coverDate=11/30/2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000055858&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=6861050&md5=9e796e8acfda16c0f462de35fa7b263a&searchtype=a