Blog number 2: Catch up

It's week 6, I am catching up, so here goes...

This topic reminds me of "The Metropolis and Mental Life" by Georg Simmel. In fact, this whole course is very reminiscent of his essay. It discusses the the differences of living in the city versus living in rural or small town environments specifically about how residents deal with their immediate surroundings and what value is given to everyday things. For example, he writes that everything in the metropolis is subject to the value of a number, everything has a price because money controls everything in an intense urban setting. He makes a point of mentioning time and punctuality in this way also. Get the article HERE.

Anyway, he wrote that a long time ago and i believe it more than ever these days. Everything in my life is dictated by numbers. I try hard to stick to more "human" pursuits as much as i can but really is only so much time in the day. It is becoming so profound that I am starting to become more and more, to quote Simmel, "blase" about having to pay for services that save me time. It comes as no surprise to realise that there are so many things that once were free or virtually free that now cost me money. Buying that cheap coffee & muffin deal at Caffine every morning i have school is now common place in my life, do i really not have enough time to buy cereal and eat breakfast at home?! I have just discovered that my hotmail emails now have advertising at the bottom. I've been using hotmail for a long time and i'm sure these are a relatively new addition. So now i am paying for this in bandwidth, because every single one of these is on my computer and in my face before i can stop it. I'm also paying for it with my attention span, i know many of us will have grown up in a world of mass advertisement. But now it's everywhere, like at the bottom of my email.

To focus a little more on school:
I seem to remember Peter talking about this in relation to broadcast media and how it was, essentially free to all. Granted you needed a tv and you have to sit through some ads (that you can mute, or change channels) but it was just sent via the airwaves. Now, this time of new digital media costs money. I can get an album in less than a minute but in subtle ways i am paying for it yet i think it's free.

Is this off topic?

Anyway, i think there's proof that the human spirit or whatever you want to call it can live symbiotically with technology. Think about the various communities on the internet. Surely, one of the most basic elements of the intelligence of man is the formation of communities for survival, and this is shown as most prevalent today. So why can we not keep some basic things free for everyone. Are we becoming a nation planet? Are we on the cusp of absolute human brotherhood? This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Surely we can extend this to exericse what should be free and what should be traded. Surely the most valuable elements of our planet should be protected. That said, we seem to be allowing many of life's little joys to slip through our fingers.

I really don't remember to much of what was said in class in week 3 so this will be some kind of a mish mash of different ideas. The stuff i have written below i wrote about two weeks ago so it's probably a little more naiave than the class could be now, actually it could be really weird... enjoy!

There are some things I would like to say now that the school stuff is over:
1) Everyone's blogs are far more focused on the course than mine. I know in the unit outline it says something like 'although it's a blog it's still assessable university writing' but I think I'm going to see how much give I can get on this.

2) I know my La Trobe email attached to this blog is wrong, I really don't care, I don't even check it. petesaladino@hotmail.com is where I can be reached.

3) I use iGoogle at home. Every time I log into this blog I get logged out of my other iGoogle account which is linked up to my real email address (see point 2), I didn't know Google owned Blogspot and I could use the same account. This is totally annoying me. I may have noticed it when i first signed up to google but i don't remember, it was ages ago. It's worth considering at this point the possibly massive social implications of having every bit of information about you linked by a single identification profile, sure life would be easy but identity theft would be out of control, there could be chaos.

4) Taking into consideration points 3 and 4, exactly how many inboxes, user names and passwords do I actually need?! I currently use the following (feel free to comment back a competitive amount):
Hotmail (inc Ninemsn)
iGoogle x 2 (one I use and the other because of this blog)
Online banking x 2 (Different banks)
Centrelink
What.CD
GoDaddy x 2 (domain names)
Ebay (w/ inbox)
Paypal
MySpace (w/ inbox)
Facebook (w/ inbox)
University x 3 (LMS, Student Online & Student Email)
Frazy
YouTube
Amazon
Last FM
Delicious
Flickr (w/ inbox)
Mess+Noise forum (w/ inbox)
Internet connection (which is always on but still)
My modem (ok so it's just 'Admin' like everyone else BUT STILL)

Plus I play in bands so they've all got ones which I normally look after:
Myspace x 2 (w/ inbox)
GMail (which also screws with my iGoogle setup)
Mp3.com.au x 2 (w/ inbox)
APRA x 2
Online banking

= 33 and I probably have a few others I seldom use too (forums and the like). Sure I'm an avid Internet user and I try to keep the user names and passwords as uniformed as possible but it just seems excessive. Is this why I have trouble remembering people's names all the time? Because my brain is full of these necessary(?) pseudonyms I am known by on the Internet? Scary when you compare it to two bank PINs, two house keys and the combination of my bike lock.

5) Here are three interesting videos I found a few months ago that I want to share, they are all incredible:
http://www.vimeo.com/993998?pg=embed&sec=993998
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo
http://www.nikkor2d2.com/

7) I would like to take a brief moment to talk about music. My friend Timmy recently stopped working a JB, I love that guy and he will be missed. As a parting gift to everyone in the CD department he made personalised mix CDs. I believe that the mix CD (no longer on audio cassette) is a great way to give someone a special gift, I do it a lot... mainly for girls. It got me thinking, firstly that the creators of digital music players have enough vision to include a 'play list' option (I use iTunes, it may be called something else in Winamp or whatever you might be using). This makes the sometimes tiresome art of compiling music in an order of your own desire very easy and hence have transported and updated a piece of analogue culture into this digital age. Big Ups. Secondly, I started thinking about amazing amount of Internet based music sharing options. I'm not even talking about programs like Soulseek or torrent downloading... I mean the simple things that are free and easy to use. From the player on MySpace to Morpheus (before it changed) to iTunes online to Frazy to Last.FM there are so many interesting ways people can share their taste in and appreciation of music through the use of the Internet.

Check out Timmy's record label: http://www.uar.com.au
Also: http://www.frazy.com & http://www.last.fm

AND for absolutely no academic credit whatsoever here is the track listing of the return mix CD I made for Timmy:

1. "Funky Guy" Trans Am
2. "The Future, wouldn't that be nice" The Books
3. "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" The Beatles
4. "Suicide Invoice" Hot Snakes
5. "Deadly Rhythm" Refused
6. "Batman - Stage 1" The Advantage
7. "I Put A Spell On You" Screamin' Jay Hawkins
8. "White Rhino" Trans Am
9. "Transmission" Pan Sonic
10. "I Can't Go To Work" Wu-Tang Clan
11. "Mr Eddy's Theme 1" Barry Adamson
12. "Big Strong Boss" Breach
13. "Bleed" Meshuggah

I'm going to go play Mortal Kombat -out-