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Audio Books

I’ve always been one to prefer reading actual books over audio books, but here lately I haven’t had time to read any books. My girlfriend suggested I should get some audio books and put them on my iPod so I can get some “reading” done while working. I wasn’t sure how it would be at first and I felt like I would be betraying all the books I ever read. But, I eventually adjusted to them without any problem. It makes work go by really fast. Of course, I am disappointed with some of the styles in which the books are read, especially in a series that I’ve already the first couple. I’m a fan of the Eragon series (not the movie, it was like someone ate the book and regurgitated a script) and I read the first two. Then earlier this year I bought the third book and it sat on my shelf for months. I didn’t have the free time to dedicate to reading it. That’s when my girlfriend made the suggestion about the audio books. Without waiting for an answer from me she went out and bought the book on CD so I could listen to them at work. I wasn’t sure I wanted to at first. I felt like I was taking the easy way out, being lazy. Then I adjusted to it. I wasn’t satisfied with the way some of the voices were read and the style in which it was narrated. I had a specific idea of the way the voices of the characters sounded and acted and it clashed with the readings on the CDs. It wasn’t a horrible reading; it just wasn’t what I was expecting. I finished that audio book and I’ve moved on to other books now. I still prefer reading actual books. I only listen to the audio books while I’m at work. If I’m at home, I pick up the real thing and start reading.

Digital Evolution of Literature

I found a video on youtube that goes through the evolution of digital media. Just thought I would share.

Computer-Brain Symbioses

When we were discussing Hayles the other day and we came to the part about humans being thinking machines, I couldn’t help but think of the movie Johnny Mnemonic. For those who have not seen the movie, it is about a future where humans can have their brain capacity increased by adding computers to them. The plot is about people with brain upgrades becoming data couriers for companies and private individuals. I was thinking if that would one day become possible. There is an article (not sure how credible it is) I found online that discusses the possibilities of that. There are scientists at the University of Florida who are studying the achievable concept of a computer symbiotic to implant in the human brain. It would be an adaptive piece of machinery that interacts and grows with your brain. The scientist had an experiment with their “evolving brain machine” on rats. This is an excerpt from the article:

“The rats’ brains were fitted with tiny electrodes that captured thought signals. Three rats were taught how to move a robotic arm toward a target using just their thoughts. Each time they succeeded, the rats were rewarded. The computer, on the other hand, was programmed to earn as many points as possible by figuring out how to help the rat. The closer a rat moved the arm to the target, the more points the computer received, which helped the computer determine which brain signals lead to the most rewards. The computer then knew how to streamline the process to make it more efficient and ultimately easier for the rats.” Here is a link to the website of the article.

Turing Test

I found the Turing test an interesting concept. When we first read about the test and discussed it in class, I remember thinking that it sounded very familiar to me. I couldn’t figure out why. The other day I was going through my collections of movies trying to watch something to pass some time and I came across Blade Runner. It’s a futuristic movie starring Harrison Ford where he hunts and destroys androids pretending to be humans. In the movie they have a test procedure where a person asks another person a series of questions and analysis their answers to determine if they are human or android. I think it is cool that the writers for the movie incorporated the test and applied to a movie that millions of people have seen. It would make it easier to explain the Turing test to a person who has seen Blade Runner if the person has trouble understanding the text. Here is a video of the test from the movie

or just click this link.

Typing Without Typing

The Dasher Project sounds really innovative and interesting to use. The ability to type out a document without actually typing is amazingly cool. I can see how it would be of use to any person that might have a disability or just a hard time functioning with a keyboard, but for anyone else that uses it for the sake of using cool technology seems a little lazy. I’m not sure if anyone would be that lazy to use a program that would slow their typing down to 29 wpm, but you never know. As we were watching the video in class today of the program being used, I could help but wonder about how often a person’s eyes would veer off to another letter floating by. I mean , as a person looks at the letter they want displayed, it appears to float by on the screen while the person goes on to look at the next letter, but I would probably end up glancing back at the letter floating by and misspell a bunch of words. On the website about the project there is a link about the Speech Dasher. It is a interface that uses voice recognition along with gesture movements that allow a person to have a more efficient and fun way to input text. I think that this is a really neat program to help out those individuals who might have difficulty with typing on a traditional keyboard. I wouldn’t want to use the program on a regular basis but I would like to give it a try to see how user friendly it is.

Last Minute Blogs

I’m new to blogging. I’m not into putting my thoughts and my life out there for other people to read. I don’t have a MySpace or a facebook. I have nothing against anyone that likes to social network, it’s not for me. Social networking is not that appealing to me, yet I’m in a multimedia class learning about blogging, social networking, and web text. Blogging is interesting and I can see how some people can get addicted to it, but I can’t dedicate all that time to writing arbitrary sentences that serve no purpose. Besides the TLM blog I posted a couple of months ago, I have never blogged. This is actually my second time to blog. I probably would have already made other posts before this one, but I’m a procrastinator. I have no problem admitting. I’ve always been that way and I have little hope of changing.