Map Showing Countries that Ban Physical Punishment of Children

Very interesting map I came across noting which countries ban hitting children as a form of punishment.

Thought it might interest some!

For more information, you can visit this site. Just know it's in Swedish! http://www.raddabarnen.se/barnaga/

A computer has passed the turing test!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/computer-becomes-first-to-pass-turing-test-in-artificial-intelligence-milestone-but-academics-warn-of-dangerous-future-9508370.html

Letter about Safety on Campus

Hey everybody! Here's the letter I started to write for to possibly send to some place in administration from our class as a whole. The middle paragraph could definitely use some more help, so please comment with other important points you think should be included! It's be awesome if we could start a change as a class, what a great way to spend our last week. :)

To whom it may concern:

We are members of a course entitled COMM146: Feminism and Technology. In our final projects, we strove to create feminist maps, maps that describe surroundings in ways to make the invisible, visible. Three groups conducted maps featuring issues of violent crime on campus, including special notes of violent crime against women. Their findings spurred discussion where we as a class became concerned when we noticed things that we felt were not addressed enough as a campus trying to protect its students.

Firstly, the crimes that were documented by the class project studies were in a large part found to happen in broad places; not in the parking lots and remote places on campus as teachings and warnings suggest. As students, we had never been told of the possibility that you might be attacked in places you are most comfortable (for example, around Price Center or in front of Geisel Library). Secondly, out of the eleven emergency blue posts on this campus, we noticed that on the west side of campus there is a significant lack of posts compared to the other comprehensive sides of campus. Additionally, the knowledge of what to do with these emergency tools is lacking, and how long would it take for an emergency service to be you.

Overall, there is a lack of emergency assault awareness, and an overall lack of proper surveillance, or knowledge of surveillance on the UC San Diego campus. We are concerned, and believe it is of special importance to start a dialogue on how to better promote safety, and awareness of safety issues on campus.

Sincerely

SP’14 Class of Comm: 146 Feminism & Technology

Passage - Indie Game

This week's topics on video/computer games reminded me of a game I came across a few years ago, called Passage. It's a short game, 5 minutes long, and is of a fairly simple design, heavily pixelated. It basically is a character going through a maze....I think the game is better experienced without much more of an explanation!

Here's the download link:
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
Watch a walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3o0HFXPfco

I've posted some of my own thoughts about it in a comment below. If you play it, let me know your thoughts!

Hashtag Feminism

http://www.hashtagfeminism.com

Wikipedia - Gypsy Robe

I thought my previous experience dabbling in HTML would help me out with the Wikipedia assignment, which didn't prove to be the case at all. I began by watching the videos that Wikipedia shows you when you sign up, which were rather confusing but somewhat helpful. I chose to edit the Gypsy Robe article because it's a subject that I felt knowledgeable in, and because I already felt the pressure on editing something on Wikipedia with such a large audience, this seemed the safe route for me.

I began by first copying Gyspy Robe wikicode and played with it on sandbox. Even though my work on sandbox was just for me, I found myself being very careful with the words I chose. After becoming a bit more familiar with wikicode, I then moved onto the actual Gypsy Robe wikipedia page to edit. The original page wasn't as detailed as I thought it could be, so I went over to the Actor's Equity Association website and did more research on the ritual, the rules, who's present, and the meaning on passing the robe and adding momentos to it.

With that information now at hand, I created a more structured page by creating a Ritual header, and explaining the ritual, and then going on to state the rules of the ritual. I pushed the original text that had the history to the bottom of the page, now with it's own header as well. 

The last thing I wanted to do was add an image of the gypsy robe at the top of the page, but that proved to be the most difficult task. Through trying to find out how I could upload an image, I learned that Wikipedia only accepts images from Wikimedia Commons, and that the image was able to be legally shared. I tried uploading an image, but I was instructed to choose what creative commons the image had, which I of course did not know. Even then I was tempted to upload it and see what happened, but I chose not to, since I'm intimidated by how large Wikipedia is, and what could have been the consequence. So next, I went to getty, wire images, and advanced search on google images to find an image of the gypsy robe that I could legally use. That proved to be a dead end as well. While I found many images, all of them asked for monetary compensation to use said images.

I think the biggest challenge of this assignment might have been myself. Throughout this entire process, I couldn't help but be aware of the large audience that Wikipedia has, and I ended up second guessing the language I used, thinking it wasn't professional enough or how it would be received by wiki users. 

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Robe

Wikipedia username: smthisisu

The original Gypsy Robe page

Editing the page

My edits live on the gypsy robe page

Ethnography Reflections

For my ethnography assignment I went to the Starbucks in the Costa Verde Plaza. I went in with the intention of observing how people interact with their technologies when they are around other people who are also interacting with technologies. This observation was inspired by events in my own life that showed me how connected to my technological devices I am, and how I have integrated the technologies into face to face communication. My roommate and I were sitting in our room together, maybe two feet apart, and we were chatting on Facebook. Then she suddenly breaks the silence in the room and asks "why are we talking to each other on Facebook when we're two feet apart?"

This made me think about just how much I interact with my cell phone and laptop, and what the technologies mean to me. To me, my technologies are communication devices, ways to express myself, and forms of protection. Of course I use my phone and laptop to keep in contact with people--through text messaging, Facebook, Twitter. Or I could turn to my friend and show her something I see on Facebook that I find funny or show her a picture of a dress that I like. But my devices are also ways for me to express myself--taking pictures with my phone and uploading them on Facebook, writing about things that I think are funny on Twitter, and more. These are all uses that are common. But I've come to discover that I also use these devices as a shield. If I see someone I recognize, but don't want to acknowledge them I hide myself behind my phone and act like I'm in the middle of a text or something extremely important, and usually it works.

I thought of how technology can help break awkward boundaries as well. In any other coffee shop I probably wouldn't approach a random stranger with as much ease as I do and have seen done at a Starbucks where many people are with their technology. People aren't afraid to sit next to people they don't know so long as there is a device that separates them. In a way, being on our laptops is like entering into a virtual world. Sitting next to someone I don't know isn't uncomfortable because it's like we aren't even next to each other. I saw a lot of this happening at Starbucks--people who don't know each other (I assumed) asking to sit down and essentially invade a person's personal space. Having the common ground of technology in a sense makes people bold. I also noticed a lot of people smiling at their devices, which I know I am also guilty of. It was just funny to see how someone could feel so connected to another person through a device that the device could actually make them smile or laugh.

Technology has become an extension of ourselves. It protects us but also puts us in danger. People think that we are on our phones and laptops too much these days, but these devices have become a part of our lifestyle and our language. This became very evident to me while observing people at Starbucks. Anyways, those are just a few musings I had post-ethnography.