A Final Reflection: My world, My country, and Me

As a final reflection for this class I first decided to make wordles of the headlines for all of posts. So here they are:

A Digital Revolution

Here is the video from our final presentation! This experience and class have been amazing. I hope you can get as much from this video as we have to give.


Watch live video from Digital Civilization on Justin.tv

Bazaar Remix: The summation of everything I've learned

Home Page for CatB Remix

For most classes as they conclude students take all of the information they have learned and spill it out onto a piece of paper in a series of A,B,C,D,None and occasional short responses.

This class has, naturally, taken a different, and in my opinion more fulfilling, route. We are sharing what we have learned in a series of presentations of various projects. Go here for a complete list of projects and more information on the night.

Not only is this event exciting for attendees because of what they can learn but this event excites us for the exact same reason. It is the ultimate showcase of the efforts of two of the most amazing professors on BYU's campus. Their students taking what they have learned and sharing with others, the ultimate goal of the entire class.

Wordles for Cathedral and Bazaar

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

The Cathedral and the Bazaar: "

3D model by Erin

This is a 3D representation of Eric Raymond's 'The Cathedral and the Bazar'.

"

Blog Nomination

The class blog that I have read most consitently throughout the semester has been Shuan's, "How did all this get here?". Always Shaun engages her reader because she brings her style and personality to the fore in every post. One of my favorite posts from her is "The Girls", a simple title for a powerful story. This post show self directed learning as Shuan looked for an event that captured the legacy of the Industrial Revolution in a single tragic event.

Shuan as does well in finding various visual resources to incorperate in her blog. For this post she found this engaging video:


Additionally Shuan's post was so interesting to some of her readers that they connected to "the Girls" and Sara Wills even mentioned Shuan's post in her blog.

New Direction

As the end approaches for the Cathedral and the Bazaar project we keep changing and editing ideas and directions. I believe we have settled on a final direction though. If you want to come and see the final edition it will progress on the internet here.

However, if you want to come and see all of the spectacular final projects yourself, the class is putting on a presentation on December 9, 2010 at 7pm. The place is the 3108 room of the Jesse Knight Building on the BYU-Provo campus. All of the projects should be great, however if you are like most of America and motivated by food, there is a promise of some of that too. I recommend that you attend for the purely intellectually insightful experience of viewing the projects and learning how they were created for the new world of Web 2.0

Here is a further taste of our project:

Bouncing Back

For those of you following our groups progress on our final project you will notice that we recently, as in 10 minutes ago, suffered a slight setback. Here is the email from our fearless leader Brad.

So fearless teaching leaders, if you are wondering about this groups progress, that is it! Hurray!

Web 2.0 and the overwhelming feeling of trying to learn it "all"

Web 2.0 is the nickname for the socially driven World Wide Web that we find flooding us with information every single day. Not only is there new information daily, but new ways to view, record, and share information with those that matter, and those that matter less.

Paul Anderson and Tim O'reilly outlined six ideas that form the basis of the driving force behind Web 2.0:


1 Individual production and User Generated Content
2 Harness the power of the crowd
3 Data on an epic scale
4 Architecture of Participation
5 Network Effects
6 Openness

Three of these held particular interest for me, as they directly relate to the final project my team and I are attempting to piece together, for a grade and the rest of the world to enjoy.
1) Individual production and User Generated Content
3) Data on an epic scale
6)Openness

From Atoms to Lasers: the Future of Energy Sources

As the world has moved through the ages, it has developed better and better sources of energy to fuel its progressive needs. First man had fire, then water, hot water (steam), coal, oil, and so on and so forth. Then you come to WWII and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the genius that provided the world with energy through the itsy bitsy atom. Now, welcome to the 21st century. We have lasers. Many believe that lasers will provide the trigger for controlled fusion. Fusion is the friend the world has long waited for to provide seemingly endless energy. And now we are closer than ever to getting it.

from LightsMakerStudios

November Reflections:Peer Review: Becoming Sarah

By no extent do I consider myself an expert in the field of blogging but as per our midterm reflections assignment I will do my best to not be overly...well...anything. I was asked to review Sarah Wills' blog.

Self-Directed Learning: a whole different story

Let's clear this up right at the beginning. As far as the Consume, Create, Connect labs will take me in learning I think that I have sufficiently filled that aspect in this past month, completing several of the Digital Literacy Labs. It is that tiny, but very important other part, the part that basically changes the rest of my learning on the internet, the self-directed learning towards things that actually interest me.

by sean

Like this kid learning to ride a bike my self-directed learning has used "training wheels" of its own.

November Reflections

As the weather turns sour we, as a class, have been asked once more to reflect on our progress as students.

From Mike Chen

And as I look back upon the path I've taken to get here I can't help but smile.

The Televised Atom

Professor Burton said something today in class that first struck me as odd, but then I realized how different the world might have been. "Most of our understanding of the atomic age is based in video".

How odd, was my first reaction to this statement. After all don't we read about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? But after some reflection, film is what brings not only these horrific events to life, but also the destructive force created by the bombs in general. Here are a couple of short clips that illustrate my point. How different would it have been to read about these events? Could you picture what actually happened without film?

Economics: Keynesian Theory

Economic and government systems have a fundamental connection. Essentially each system needs the cooperation of the other in order to operate successfully. The varieties found in both government and economic systems stems from the amount of control or influence each system allows the other to have. Some economic systems advocate complete governmental control, such as a socialist/communist system. While the other end of the spectrum holds the free market and a democratic system of government, where the government has a small and defined sphere of influence in the economy. Somewhere in the middle is Keynesian Economics, advocating a middle ground of government control aimed at increasing employment rates. Sounds great right? Well that depends on how tight of a grip you want your government to have on your economy. 

Final Project: Initial Internet Search

For the final project of the awesome Digital Civilizations class I am working in a group of three, to remix the current online version of Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Prof. Zappala originally got us interested in this project but I am now really excited to see where it goes.

Over the weekend I have done a preliminary scooping of the internet for related works. I came up with a couple of different (and similarly boring) versions of the same text and a couple of other references from MIT's open course ware.

Here are the different online versions:

• http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
• http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
• http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/community/cathedral/whitepaper_cathedral.html

Here is the audio file that we listened (or at least we were supposed to listen to it for class):

• http://catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/linux1_d50_96kbs.mp3

Here the book is available for purchase on O'reilly:

• http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001087

Here are the links for the two PDF files from MIT:

• http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-004-principles-of-computer-system-design-an-introduction-spring-2009/online-textbook/readings_open_5_0.pdf
• http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-351-managing-the-innovation-process-fall-2002/lecture-notes/lecture2324.pdf

A Logic Named Joe

If it is your preference to listen to an old radio version of this short story here is the first Youtube video. I actually like it for a video with no moving pictures. =)

Computing: A Logic Named Joe

Yesterday's class discussion focused on one of the problems with computing, what it can and cannot do. What is or is not computable. The decide and undecidable. As explained in David Harel's book, Computers ltd., (works best with firefox) there are simply some problems that computers and humans cannot solve. For example, the tile, verification, and halting problems.

William Fitzgerald Jenkins (aka Murray Leinster) brought up another problem with nearly infinite computing power, several decades before homes had computers in them. The problem? What happens when people suddenly gain logical access to all the information in the world? What do they solve and what do they create?

Psychology: Sigmund Freud vs Sidney Freeman

Psychology: The deep, mystical, and fascinating study of the human mind. (There's a definition a mother would be proud of.)

Post World War One, the world found itself struggling to reconcile the horror it found in industrial war with the positive view of human nature left to it from the Enlightenment. Some of the world's population turned to the arts, enter Modernism. Other's of the world's population turned back to the sciences, enter Sigmund Freud.

Dr. Sidney Freeman

Sigmund Freud from mansionwb

In the 20th Century Sigmund Freud was at the fore of thinking on the human mind. Following in the footsteps of Dr. Sidney Freeman, who helped the M*A*S*H 4077th deal with the atrocities of war they faced far from home. One of Freud's interesting ideas deals with the development of civilization and brings with it many of the ideas first acknowledged in the Enlightenment.

Modernism: revisited

This weekend as I was checking up on my blog, and getting ready to write Tuesday's assignment I realized that I had not posted for last Thursday. I wrote it, but just forgot to post. (Incredible I know, but it is actually in my draft folder!) But now I have many more insightful ideas, so you all get to hear those instead.

While the Industrial Revolution changed many aspects of the lives of ordinary people for the better, it also managed to change them for the worse. The Industrial Revolution industrialized war, and for those that fought in World War One, a war fought with industrial weapons and Old World tactics, it made war a waking nightmare. As the war moved forward not only did hundreds of thousands of people died, but faith in science and God died right along with them. With God and science gone, Art took center stage. But not the Art of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, or even Romanticism, a whole new kind of art, one that showed the distorted world many saw all around them.

A personalization occurred. A theme of art for art's sake appeared, pushing against the Industrial revolution and all that it did to dehumanize the masses. In a word, artists of the modern age rejected all previously conceived forms and functions.

Count Your Many Blessings

Today as I went to look up the assignment for class I found a little blessing:

We've decided to put our march through history on pause for a day. This should allow some of you to catch up on your blogging. Be sure to come to class, since we plan to discuss several important components of digital culture (listed below, in case you want to do some self-directed study on them), and we will be introducing the final project assignment.

No, I won't be taking this opportunity to catch up on my blogging, I see this blessing in a different way. I see it as the opportunity to catch up on the other things pilling up around, namely a certain chemistry test that I have tomorrow.  So thanks for the break professors, and to everyone, don't forget to "Count Your Many Blessings".

Paper Topic

Professor Burton pointed out the other day that it might be helpful to know what the topic/ background was for the essay so that comments could be more helpful. So here it is, the piece is for American Heritage and the prompt is as follows: " Write an essay in which you argue for a connection between the economic system and the political system. How are the two systems connected? How does one support the other? If one is not healthy, can the other still survive? What do citizens need to know about economics and about politics for them to be able to participate fully and intelligently in civic affairs?"

Here is the link for my latest edition:https://docs0.google.com/document/d/1YDQmuRNFJTBa-Js064Lsrs2z7hy-nF8ggmpFzA1wrs0/edit?authkey=CPGu-IgN#

Prof: Zappala: I don't address China in the paper because I at least still consider it an experiment in trying to have both a socialist government and a free market economy. There are some who believe that China will eventually become democratic, but it may not.
Also, I am trying to keep coerce in the conclusion because I see it as forcing the type of happiness that we sometimes don't always see as happiness, as in temporary happiness vs. eternal happiness.


Additionally, I am turning this particular paper in on Friday the 29th of October, however there will be more to follow! (at least one and possibly two if I feel like being my overachieving self =))

Sharing my Paper: the multiple eye idea

The idea behind open source software is that the more people that look at it the easier it will be to find all of the bugs. For my first collegiate paper I have decided to apply this theory to the paper, and have as many people look at it as possible, and while some have scorned this practice I have found it to be extremely helpful.

Two ways I have done this are to 1) physically take various drafts to people around campus, my Profesor, TA, and various people in the writing centers, and 2) to post it online through Google docs. This is my paper. So everyone can feel free to go and look at it and send me any suggestions! (or make the change in a different color on the page!) 

Also, in the spirit of sharing I have created this little Wordle on my paper. Aside from being totally cool and awesome the Wordle has helped me to see which words I use most frequently to add variety to my paper!

Mormonism: a Thematic perspective

One of the most interesting aspects of this course is that not only does this course look at individual events, but is also thematically links one to another.

With Mormonism as the subject for tomorrow's class I decided to look at this familiar subject through the lenses of some of the themes found in the other events we have looked at. Including the influence of Print, Individualism, New Scientific Method and the Industrial Revolution.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

For the Create and Connect portions of this book club project I have created a comic strip posted as a video on Youtube. Please enjoy it here!

Directed Evolution: Applied Darwinism

When Charles Darwin set out on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, he did not intend revolutionize the way the world thought about their origins. He came back having observed an interesting world, one for which he, like all of us, wanted an explanation. In 1859 he shocked many with that explanation.

Today many have accepted and rejected Darwin's theories and ideas, but nevertheless, "selection", has become a major part of the direction of the scientific community. Especially in terms of what we humans can do when we control the reigns of selection.

The Original Computer

The early 1900s brought many radical technological changes to the world. The one that I am the most grateful for is the machine I am sitting at right now. That's right, I'm talking about my pretty little laptop.

For all of the reasons that I dislike computers, such as the amount of time they suck out of my life, they really are niffty little things. I know that the Macintosh 128K was by no means the first programmable computer, but it is the familiar face I grew up with, so here it represents the those early dinosaurs. But even before these programmable computer machines, Charles Babbage created the "difference engine", and helped begin the computer age as early as the 1850s.

Democracy: The American Experiment

The Europeans that first landed on the virgin shores of North America didn't intend to to start a country and even a whole new way of life, but over time this is what they did in the famous, American Experiment.

 For centuries American Democracy has changed the world, through example and its continuance through many national and international issues.

Alexis de Tocqueville, was a French political thinker who traveled through America in the early 1800s or 19th century, who published his observations on the American experiment in his book, Democracy in America, which looks not only at the government itself but of the affects that this form of government, and the ways of thinking that parallel it, have on the lifestyle of the people that live under it.

I would like to highlight three chapters, 8 - 10 of Volume 2, that I found particularly interesting and that relate to the class topics of American Democracy and the changes in the family in the 19th century discussed last week.

Avatar me!

A Whole New Erin! (Isn't it perfect? Boy, the complex a girl could get!)


Voki even allows you to add voices to your avatar! More from the virtual side of the interweb! (although I will have to work on being able to embed the animation!

Create: Creation online: avatars

Recent study of Romanticism began an interest in online avatars. To check out how they work I have created a few, with just the basics.

This one for example is from meez.com and only took a couple of minutes to create. Like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, this avatar was created using left-overs, or pieces created by others. And now I can participate in a whole virtual world via my avatar.

To create an avatar you can follow these simple steps:
1) Go to meez.com and create a profile. (It is attached to an email address.)
2) Begin to chose! (This was the hardest part)You can choose different body shapes, sizes, hair, eye, and skin colour as well as what clothes to wear, etc. The best part is that most of the options are free. (Note: not only does this tie to Romanticism but it also ties to our discussions of economics and how to make money off of "free". Here people are charged money for extra clothes, options and accessories for their avatars.)
3) Now you are already to go and explore the world of Meez! you can make many friends and do lots of cool things! Have Fun!


I have also begun to explore the worlds of Yahoo! Avatars and Voki, while looking into worlds such as second life and avatarist.com. 

Miniature Book Clubbing

Books to be explored by our miniature book club:

Catherine De' Medici: And The Protestant Reformation (European Queens)
by Nancy Whitelaw

This book is only 160 pages and promises to be an interesting view of a world changing event through the eyes of a key character there.  Alternatives on the same subject and book include "Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France" (464 pages) and the novel "The Confessions of Catherine de Medici: A Novel" (416 pages).

I would love to read the confessions book, because it is always interesting to see people from great historical events brought to life. Also, although we went through to Protestant Reformation in class we didn't explore much about the aftermath in the political level, especially the following clashes with Catholicism all over Europe.

Romanticism: Revisted

Romanticism has always been one of those movements that I was dimly aware of in the back of my mind, but really had never paid much attention to because some of the other changes in the world that had occurred at the same time frame, I found a wee bit more interesting, for example the founding, disunion, and subsequent union of a nation, among other things. However, exploring the movement through some of its more famous authors and works, and then connecting it to current movements of the internet has brought an interest to this subject.

Romanticism focused on an "appreciation of nature, creativity, individualism, imagination, and beauty" (Romanticism). While many romantic artists focused on all things bright and good in the world, such as William Wordworth and his poetry, others, like Mary Shelly, choose to explore the darker side of human potential. Similarly, the internet does many things bright and beautiful, but it too explores a darker side to life.

Communism and Socialism: a whole new world

History is a fickle thing. The problem with history is that it is written by people who are, well, human, and therefore imperfect. It was also experienced by people who will put their own lenses on things, it is entirely impossible not to convey some sort of feeling about a subject matter. But perhaps the most important thing to remember about history is that because you are human, as you study history it is not always easy to imagine a society in which you do not live or a society whose rules you do not follow.

As we have begun to look at Socialism, I am having this trouble. I was born in a time virtually with out socialism or communism. The Berlin wall had fallen four years previously, and the USSR dissolved two years previously. To me these things are ancient history, and it is difficult to imagine an actually world in which they worked. Similar to how hard it is to imagine a world where, if I had been born into it, I would not have gone to school, and it would be normal to be married with four children right now. (Ok maybe not four, but that's close right?) And so as the class begins to look at socialism I experience a whole new world.

Create: Microblogging

To continue with my posts on Digital Labs that I recently learned but didn't know it, I am going to talk about micro-blogging! At first this sounds a bit strange, how do you get smaller than the little snippets of thought I post to my blog already? Apparently through services such as Twitter and Facebook, where you again create profiles and connect with people, only your "posts" are limited to 140 characters (for Twitter). It has been fun to create these pages, and I have found that there are actually people and organizations on these sites the I love to keep track of! (The Onion, for example)

Consume: Screen Capture

So after all the interviewing last week I realized that I had not posted that many Digital Literacy Labs, but through the process of posting on my blogs and other things I had actually learned a lot more than I originally thought I would. Here I will talk about how I learned to screen capture and then share how you can do it too! I had first learned this when I wanted to put up a screen shot for Yugma, and it took me all of five seconds!

Dual Personality of the Enlightenment

The Renaissance and the following Enlightenment represent two of the greatest times in history that have produced some of the world's greatest thinkers and ideals. While most of the Enlightenment focused on the individual, and man's progress, each of the thinkers of the time had their own ideas, some of them seemingly opposites, especially in terms of government.

 John Locke a world renowned philosopher and thinker of the Enlightenment, his opposite?Jean-Jacques Rousseau, another world renowned philosopher and thinker of the Enlightenment.






These two men start ought with similar assumptions about man, and human nature, but their personalities twist these ideas into two completely different concepts of how men should act, especially in relation to one another.

Mirrored Posting: The Three Seas of Digital Civilizations

Consume, Create, Connect

 These are the three seas, err that is Cs, of Honors 202 Digital Civilizations. Through each area our class is to expand their digital savvy, or in the spirit of the Renaissance and Enlightenment improve our Digital Literacy. I believe that in this, the first month, of this class I have found success in all areas.

Mirrored Posting: What have I learned?

All standardized courses in public education begin with objectives for their students, and a teacher's performance is measured (theoretically) on how well they meet the standards set for the subject, or student group, they left in their care. Having moved past grade school, I have found that courses here have a similar pattern for much the same reason: to record a student's progress through the educational system. Although at the university level learning outcomes reflect more on the student, and what they have learned, than on the teacher and what they taught.
"Gone with the Wind" are the days when learning was a passive verb, and personally I like this action a little bit more. In direct relation to the Digital Civilizations course, that serves as the spring board for this blog, I have reviewed my progress towards the established learning objectives below.

Capitalism: On the out?

In 1776 Philosopher and early Economist, Adam Smith, helped to radically change the way that the world viewed economics, and particularly the type of system that America's founders would set up for their little country. In the 18th century, the shift was from a Mercantile system to the Capitalist system, the close parallel of a shift from Monarchy to Democracy. But now, nearly 250 years later, could Capitalism itself be on the way out in the Free World? Chris Anderson thinks so.

Researching the Past

Similar to many honors courses here at BYU, Honors 202 requires not only a willingness to work and think, but also a little initiative. Specifically for Digital Civilizations this requires outside research into topics, people and works. In the spirit of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, our esteemed teachers have asked us to use sources other than those normally used for internet searches,and have even provided us with ideas. There are however problems with rejecting established authority, the one that I have discovered, is that most other sources (non-Wikipedia/Google) tend to focus on ideas as opposed to the people, for example, that we are looking at in the class. To illustrate this I am going to perform a side-by-side comparison of results, and then let you draw your own conclusions.

Learning on the Internet

I have long been distrustful of the internet, for one overwhelming reason, anyone can put anything on it, and with this how can you ever know what is real or true? However, Prof. Burton's post on 10 Ways out of the Google or Wikipedia Rut has convinced me that I may as well give it a go and see what I can learn from the collective physic, more commonly known as the internet. Therefore, to test the research tools set I will set up a 1010 part series and systematically research a topic using the list. The topic???

Who left that door open?

Recently in class we have been looking at the free software movement and other open movements, such as open government, that have recently come about and seem to parallel the movement of the Enlightenment and Renaissance in that they challenge the long-held authorities and call for free men everywhere to think for them selves. While I am in favor of free men thinking for themselves, I believe this is how we find truth in our lives, I'm not to sure about all of these open movements.

Martin Luther and the Free Software Movement

Many people believe that the main reason to study history is to find the patterns and study them to determine the benefits of the repetition, or a way to prevent evil from coming back again. Such is the case with Martin Luther and his Protestant reformation that can be connected to the relatively recent Free Software Movement. After first the connection is hidden in the complexities of the motives and goals of each, but when looked upon with a broader perspective the patterns are surprisingly clear. Martin Luther set the stage for the rejection of authority found in the Free Software Movement.

Martin GNU

Note Taking, with the World Wide Web

The traditional system of note taking, has always been the pen (or pencil) and paper. The internet, as with most things, is changing all that. For his lab Dalton took on the challenge of exploring different Information Gathering Tools. According to him one of the best tools for online note taking is called Evernote.

A note from Evernote

Adventures in Yugma

This post is devoted entirely to the Digital Lab group assignment. So, if you were looking for something fantastic I'll have to send you to a different post. For this Lab I explored the universe of web conferencing and some of the tools that make it possible. It was quite an adventure that lead me all around the world wide web and then back home. Need a way to call, video chat, screen and file share? Learn more, For those people, mostly business types, who want a FREE way to send files, screens, messages, and interact face to face in real times across borders, Yugma is the path.
 

Yugma's Opening Screen

 Yugma is designed to connect several computers and screens to each other under the direction of the host, and then the screen each sees can be controlled by the presenter. This allows the group to stay together and be able to all see and understand even if their individual GPS coordinates put them across cities, counties, states, countries, oceans, or whole continents. There are of course other web conferencing tools, however my personal issue with these, is that as a starving-student, they have a price attached. Additionally, the tools provided for free on Yugma match with many of those that can be bought. The only thing worth paying for with these services is security.

September 11, 2001: From the eyes of an 8 year old American child...

It has been 9 years since the day that changed my world. I realize now that not everyone had the exact same experience or even feels similarly about it. But like any tragic event healing takes time and understanding takes even longer. And to aid in that process for others and myself I'd like to share my view of what happened, something that isn't as hard as I once thought it would be.

Printing and American Heritage

It is interesting to me that the topic for today's discussion should include printing and movable type, when this was just yesterday the topic for discussion in an entirely different class, American Heritage. By the 1500s Gutenberg and his movable type had washed across the European scene completely changing the availability of reading materials and the influence of the common man, provided he could read.

(Modern Technology)^(Language)

Just as with the Renaissance of ancient times, the world is now experiencing a different sort of language revolution, this time with the technological world, as the power to effectively convince and affect people through technology shifts from the few to the many. Now, as seen in recent elections, especially in the US, the masses are unlocking the power of language and combining it with technology to have their voices and opinions heard nation and world-wide. But what would happen if mastering of technology became the sole power in the world?

A Digital Renaissance to Pull the World from Poverty

One Laptop per Child

During the Renaissance a return to Latin helped empower the common man through rhetoric. A certain parallel can be seen to our day with the Digital Renaissance we find ourselves swept up in. The program One Laptop per Child is a great example of this empowerment in our day. The communication and educational tools that would be provided by these laptop could empower the world's children to change the world they grow up in, and the way they grow up in it.

Letters to the Past

In her blog Katherine Chipman mentioned the idea of writing letters to those in the past, and after reading Cicero's Letter One and Cicero's Letter Two I have completely fallen in love with the idea, and as Katherine said what we could gain from the experience. Petrarch's letters address a long-dead Cicero and praise him for his influence on humanism, and Roman thought, as well as report to Cicero on the state of Rome. I mentioned in Katherine's blog the idea of writing to the Founding Fathers and what they would have to say about the state of America today, but I was also thinking of ordinary people that are 20, 50, 100 or more years dead, and what sort of changes would they react to not only in America, but throughout the world as it has changed. Are we a place completely foreign to our ancestors, and, in the spirit of American Heritage here at BYU, do we care what they think, do they are their legacy matter to us, should they? Contemplate that as you microwave your oatmeal on your way to your hybrid car while talking on your cellphone and facebooking the world.

Skype and social interactions

I recently was able to develop my skills with the wonderful social networking, and phone service know as Skype. This calling system allows users to call one another via the internet and have face to face conversations. There are many applications of such a tool, including the abiltiy for military families, and others over seas from their loved ones, to communicate face to face and continue interaction on a personal level.

I have also found this to be a great tool for communicating with loved ones 8 hours away! It truly helps to keep your family close, and for everyone far from someone they'd love to see I strongly encourage this program!

Networking on the Internet...

Many of us (and certainly those reading this blog!) are familiar with the social networking sites avaliable on the internet including myspace, facebook, and even on-line dating sites, but how much of our interactions should be based solely in the internet? For example, should we "friend" people of facebook that we don't know and will never meet face to face? If you have need of humor on this subject go "online". A similar example could be found in the recent movie, Julie & Julia, where Julia develops a friendship with a woman she has never actually met. Obviously, with the internet especially, there are dangers present in anonymity, but can such relationships exist and be beneficial to all parties? I for one am not "friends" with anyone I don't already know, but I have seen the benefits of beginning a relationship online. Where do we draw the line?

Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo and the continued expansion of the Universe

I thoroughly enjoyed today's class discussion on  New Worlds, World Views, and their connection to the expanding digital world. So then I went home and was checking my yahoo account, when I came across the following story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/lf_nm_life/us_britain_hawking. After reading it I thought back to the 8th grade when a fellow student told me that there was no way I could understand the universe if I had a religious perspective, and thought that it and us had been created by a loving Heavenly Father, which we have by the way, and that I should stop thinking about it. From that I learned that many people still believe that churches in general is seeking to squash all science, which makes me sad because I don't see that as true, at least not with my faith.

Thomas More's Utopia excerpt...

I have previously read Thomas More's Utopia, but rereading this excerpt (http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/utopialearning.htm) alone, helped me to apply it directly to my life.

One of the things I hate the most about being well, human, is the limitations imposed by our bodies. I love learning, I would willingly spend just about every moment I could in a classroom, or engaged in some sort of productive conversation. But as was said Tuesday in class, "The problem with knowledge is that there is simply too much of it". And so as I read about the Utopians, I admire their thirst for knowledge, it makes me happy. Because that is the other thing that simply kills me, when people refuse to learn, to expand their world, what is there to be afraid of? But as I believe Plato once said something to the effect of "you can't force people to leave their world for yours...

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Erin...

Hello!
This is my first attempt at blog, and really a push through the door of on-line communication. As I begin this project I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite shows, Criminal Minds. In it David is reading the bog of a women and says something to the effect of who cares about this much detail of their lives? To which Derek replies, "Well, that's the running joke isn't it? We'd all like to think that someone actually cares, when no one does." So, I hope you all care enough to read my thought, as I post them for the world to see. ;D